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Buchanan speak wto protests Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/e1503.htmhttp://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/e1503.htm
04/11/00- Updated 12:01 AM ET
Buchanan to speak at WTO protests
By Susan Page, USA TODAY
McLEAN, Va. - Reform Party presidential contender Pat Buchanan says he'll speak at rallies and encourage demonstrators who plan to protest next week's International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washington. However, he's concerned that a repeat of the street violence in Seattle last year could undercut their message against globalization.
"I'm afraid if they turn violent and ugly, that in effect will taint the whole movement," Buchanan said in an interview Monday. Violent protests could "discredit the idea of resistance to globalization."
Buchanan will address a Teamsters rally in Washington on Wednesday to oppose congressional approval next month of a trade deal with China. Sitting in the living room of his home in suburban Washington, he jokes that he's ready for demonstrations like those at the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle, which featured people dressed as endangered species: "I've got my sea turtle costume out in the kitchen."
Actually, Buchanan says, he's more likely to be found supporting the cause in a TV studio than on the streets.
"I was on the other side in the 1960s," the days when he was blasting Vietnam War protests, he says. "We prefer to be in the limousines with the rocks thrown at us rather than throwing the rocks. We'll speak out ... but I'm too old to carry a sandwich board."
The conservative commentator notes that he disagrees with the protesters -- labor leaders, environmental activists, anarchists and others -- on some issues. The call for debt forgiveness for developing countries is "a euphemism for debt transfer onto the backs of the American taxpayers," he complains.
"Where I agree with the sea turtles and the porpoises and (consumer activist) Ralph Nader and (conservative) Howard Phillips and the union guys is, when you make a law in the United States of America, no international organization should have the right to tell us that we've got to alter or change our laws. I do believe in the full restoration of America's lost sovereignty and independence. And I do not believe in surrendering authority to a World Trade Organization," he says.
The increasingly integrated world economy and the move toward open markets threaten the livelihoods of U.S. manufacturing workers, he says. It's an issue he focused on in bids for the Republican presidential nomination in 1992 and 1996. The major party candidates now take "virtually identical" positions on issues of globalization, trade and foreign policy, he says. "They're two wings of the same bird of prey."
Buchanan discussed globalization, presidential politics and his efforts to participate in debates with the Republican and Democratic contenders this fall for more than an hour.
He predicts that he could gain an unlikely ally in his quest to join the debates: Vice President Gore, the Democratic candidate.
"I wouldn't be surprised to see Gore say, 'He belongs in the debate, too," Buchanan says, "and that would put terrible pressure on (Republican George W.) Bush." Buchanan says Gore would be acting on the assumption that Buchanan's candidacy hurts the GOP candidate more.
That calculation could be a mistake, Buchanan adds. He is at 4% in a new USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll. He says he'll campaign hard in a series of states that Bush is likely to write off -- Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Vermont and California among them. "Those are states that Bush isn't going to win anyhow," he says. "I think it's simplistic to say we hurt Bush."
The Gore campaign had little to say about Buchanan's prediction of support on the debate issue. "I don't think we have a position on that," spokesman Doug Hattaway said. He added, "It's anybody's guess how another Buchanan candidacy would impact the race."
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