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Script for Boston WTeaO Party Los Angeles, November 11, 1999 Setting: Speaker at podium or holding megaphone stands at center. American flags blowing in the wind behind. Other speakers and two posters of "marching patriots" flank speakers. Stacked in front of podium to one side are boxes marked "WTO" in big black letters. The boxes contain "dirty products" to be dumped. Behind boxes is a garbage can or tub of water to dump things into. Crowd stands facing the speakers. Lead Speaker: Thank you all for coming today. We’re here today to protest the unaccountable power of the World Trade Organization to undermine our hard-won health, environment and labor standards. We’re here today to tell the President "either fix the WTO or get out." We’re here today to tell the Clinton Administration "Make Trade Clean, Green, and Fair." President Clinton has sent Commerce Secretary Bill Daley to Los Angles to sell us a bill of goods. Daley says he wants to put a "human face" on trade. Let’s talk about the human face of trade: The human face of trade is kids getting sick with asthma because the WTO ordered us to import dirty gasoline that pollutes our air. The human face of trade is schoolchildren sick with hepatitis because under NAFTA we imported tainted fruit. The human face of trade is the working men and women struggling to make ends meet because they’re forced to compete with workers abroad earning less than a dollar a day. The human face of trade is the Mom or Dad who will some day have to explain to their children why the only sea turtles left are in zoos -- because the WTO forced us to gut our sea turtle protections. The human face of trade is the shocked expression when people learn that a trade agreement allowed a foreign corporation to sue taxpayers for $1 billion after California banned a toxic gasoline additive that is polluting our water. Mr. Daley, we are the human face of trade. Angry. Frustrated. Fed up. For too long, politicians in Washington, DC have let big business run the show on trade behind closed doors. Hidden from public view, big business is doing what you’d expect them to do: they are creating a world economy through the WTO that values only the bottom line, not our environment, not working families, not democratic rights. That is all going to change. On November 30, President Clinton will host thousands of international trade officials at the biggest trade summit ever held on American soil. The World Trade Organization’s Third Ministerial Meeting. Big business will be there. Why not? They actually paid for this Summit fair and square. And citizen groups will be there too. Environmentalists. Workers. Students. Are you coming to Seattle? The Sierra Club’s goal in Seattle is not to disrupt, but to hold the public debate we should have held before Congress approved the WTO in 1994. We will go to Seattle to challenge President Clinton to use all of his executive powers to make trade clean, green, and fair. Thank you. [Introduce other speakers] Boston WTeaO Party Action Lead speaker: In 1776, American patriots protested "taxation without representation." We will conclude our rally today by protesting "globalization without representation" -- the unaccountable power of the WTO to undermine our health, environmental, and labor standards in the name of "free trade." Two hundred years ago, patriots held one of the greatest acts of political theater in American history -- the Boston Tea Party -- to protest the British Empire’s arrogant power. Today, we will hold a Boston WTeaO Party to protest the Clinton Administration’s arrogant and undemocratic trade policy. Instead of tossing out tea, my helpers here will toss out traded products that compromise our environmental, health, and labor values. [NAME OF SECOND HELPER] will help me by leading a chant. [First helper holds up box containing "dirty gas"] We don’t want the WTO to force us to use dirty gasoline that pollutes our air. [First helper holds up box, pulls out "dirty gas" can, and dumps it in garbage can.] [Second helper starts chant:] "No globalization without representation." We don’t want a WTO that kills sea turtles. [First helper holds up box, pulls out "shrimp" and dumps it in garbage can.] [Second person leads chant:] "No globalization without representation." We don’t want trade deals that allow corporations to sue us for our clean water laws. [First helper holds up box, pulls out jar of "dirty water" and pours it on ground.] [Second person leads chant:] "No globalization without representation." [Other organizations can dump out other traded goods that hurt labor and other values.] We want to make trade clean, green, and fair! Thank you all for coming. Up to Top HOME | Email Signup | About Us | Contact Us | Terms of Use | © 2008 Sierra Club |
