Let's see, Rush Limbaugh and President William Clinton are on the same side. Ok. Buchanan and all those protestors are on the same side. Ok. There are people there protesting Gap clothes and people protesting who are wearing Gap clothes. The same goes for Old Navy and Nike. Quite a few of the people don't really know what the WTO is even about. Deja vu from the sixties!

I also prefer the WTO because at least they are talking to each other, even though they don't agree on much either. They all want free trade, on their own terms. How many of the protesters talked with their delgate? How many have really considered what would happen to all those people who work at all those jobs with all those companies, that the protesters hate and would like to put out of business? They say they just want to improve working conditions, but if they get everything they want they will put the companies out of business.

It seems to me that even protesters have trouble keeping up with change. Companies are responding to humanitarian issues that are brought up but the protesters are still working on grievances from a few years ago. When did any of the protesters congratulate any company or country on improvements in work conditions? I don't want to wear clothes made with child slave labor, but often those children are the only source of income for their families. We need to save jobs while improving working conditions.

I don't know how to do this but I don't think that retreating into ourselves and turning our back on the world, like Buchanan wants, is the solution, nor is destroying the companies, like so many of the protesters want, nor is pretending that there is a simple solution, like the politicians so desperately want to believe. I don't know the answers but talking to each other is the only way to get the answers and in the mean time I'm enjoying the show in Seattle.