John Montgomery Presents This Week's	December 4, 1999	Creep Logo by Alan Fraser
	The WTO Protesters
	Deja Zoo

Why is this long-haired hippie freak getting busted by about half a dozen riot-geared, jack-booted policemen? Was he selling drugs to grade school kids? Did he walk into an office building with an AK-47 and shoot up the place? No, it must be a picture from the 1960s. This guy was a draft dodger protesting the Vietnam war or a tree lover protesting industrial pollution or a Yankee rabble-rouser protesting segregation in the south.

Well, it was a protest all right, but one with a definite 1990s aroma. This week in Seattle, that guy and 40,000 of his pals protested a meeting of the World Trade Organization. What exactly are they concerned about? They believe the WTO, which sets regulations for global trade, favors giant multinational corporations without regard to the environment or workers' rights. About 5,000 of the pack registered their complaints by confronting police and smashing windows at a McDonald's, an FAO Schwartz toy store, a Joan and David shoe store, a bank, and Starbucks. They carried around signs with slogans like "WTO Hell No," "America Repent," "Trust Jesus" and "Green Backs Unite." They even spray painted the toy store window with "Barbie Kills".

What? Barbie Kills? Barbie Kills? Kills who? Ken, when he comes home late and she sees Skipper's lipstick on his neck? Barbie Kills! Do these mordant mutants expect anyone to take them seriously when they pull juvenile crap like that? You think Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young will write a song about this protest? Then the demonstrators acted outraged when the police took offense and started treating them like law breakers. Hey kids, here's the first rule of violent mob action, learned in the battlefields of Vietnam War protests: When you hassle cops, they get pissed off. That's how they're trained. It's in their blood. Confront an officer of the law, and he's going to respond by shooting you with rubber bullets (or worse) and spewing pepper spray (or worse) in your face.

And speaking of nasal assaults, what's that stinking stench that smells like a skunk with bad breath, rising above the clouds of tear gas? Why it's presidential candidate and nefarious Neanderthal Pat Buchanan. Pat, normally one of those strict law-and-order types, thinks the protesters are his types of guys. "The WTO should never have been created. It an embryonic monster. I don't think it has a great life expectancy," says Pat. "It takes away from the tens of thousands who are walking to demonstrate that their jobs and their security and their American dreams are being sold out." Anything about that drivel strike you as perhaps a bit hypocritical? Where do you suppose Pat was during the Vietnam War protests? He was one of Richard Nixon's winged monkeys who told everyone within earshot that the war protesters were left-wing, communist, pinko faggots who were trying to dismantle the American way of life. Pat succeeded in fanning the flames of Dick's congenital paranoia, which was eventually what brought him down.

Guess who else despised Vietnam protesters? Union members, especially the Teamsters, who greeted the anti-war demonstrators with hard hats and billy clubs. Guess where the Teamsters were this week? You guessed it, demonstrating in Seattle. Teamsters president James P. Hoffa Jr.'s ominous battle cry was, "We're going to change WTO or we're going to get rid of WTO!" If his father Jimmy Hoffa could hear that, he'd be turning over in his grave. If he had a grave.

It's enough to make me want to get out and protest. Now where the hell is my black arm band?