In 1999, there was broad grassroots support allying the biggest labor unions with the biggest environmental groups, with libertarians, Naderites, Pat Buchanan conservatives, and anarchists.
The 1999 protests against the World Trade Organization were so huge, and were based on such an extensive grassroots coalition, that many people thought the movement would make the Vietnam War protests look like child’s play.
In particular, the alliance between Greenpeace and the AFL-CIO was incomprehensible before then, as labor unions and environmentalists are usually at loggerheads.
Then, 9/11 happened.
The protests disappeared.
Everyone lived in fear.
The beginning of the end of equality before the law began, starting with “suspected terrorists.”
The massive surveillance state was constructed in secret, all in the name of countering terrorism.
Then Obama took office and the militarization of federal agencies began in earnest.
Public health was used to justify armed raids against the people at the margins of health that most people didn’t know about.
Armed raids against raw food coops.
Confiscation and destruction of milk.
It got so bad numerous towns declared food sovereignty.
That is, they wrote declarations of independence from all federal regulation of food production.
David Gumpert wrote a book about this, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Food Rights.
In the name of fighting infectious disease, the USDA established the National Animal Identification System, which would require all farm animals to be tagged with radiofrequency ID.
During swine flu, Massachusetts passed forced quarantining laws.
Verachip made implantable microchips that could detect swine flu infection or vaccination.
Farmers fought back over NAIS.
Food sovereignty fought back the armed raids.
Swine flu wasn’t deadly enough for anyone to want to get chipped.
So they rolled back their attack.
Then we spent four years talking about nothing but Trump.
Then something much scarier than swine flu hit.
This was 9/11, but infectious. It allowed regular people to be treated with the suspicion of “suspected terrorists.”
The surveillance state built in response to 9/11 could now be expanded to contact tracing.
It could now be integrated with the censorship powers of Big Tech.
In 1999, the globalist plan that had the AFL-CIO, Greenpeace, Naderites, Buchananites, libertarians, and anarchists cooperating was trade agreements that privileged transnational corporations over everyone else.
Now the globalist plan is “by 2030, you’ll own nothing and be happy.”
The stakes are insanely higher, but where is the coalition?
The next stop after COVID is ESG. Environmentally sustainable growth.
The environmentalists are on the side of the globalists now.
The unions can’t even agree on whether to support the right of their own workers to go to work regardless of what injections they have taken, because they have us looking upon each other with such suspicion and such fear.
In 1999, the anti-globalist movement had such credibility that it was on the news every night for a year. Even 60 Minutes did a special on the anarchoprimitivists who participated in the movement.
Now, if you mention the globalists, you are a “conspiracy theorist.”
In essence, they took twenty years to figure out how to destroy the coalition, destroy the credibility of anyone who criticizes them, and then go in for the kill.
It’s time to reawaken the coalition.
