In a bit of a shock to those of us who normally visualize Davos to just be that thing full of genial Lefties and Bill Clinton that Jay Nordlinger goes to every year, it’s been revealed that the event’s apparently somewhat of an abomination to the anti-globalization crowd. Go figure:
CHUR, Switzerland – Around 2,000 opponents of the World Economic Forum (news – web sites) marched in this Swiss Alpine town Saturday to protest the meeting, which they say is elitist and does nothing for ordinary people.
Local authorities gave the demonstrators a green light for their protest. But fearing a repeat of previous years’ trouble, Graubuenden state police said they had sealed off the center of Chur, 35 miles from Davos, where demonstrations are banned.
Wow. 35 miles: that’s one heck of a free-speech zone. At least Bush lets protesters stick around within the same city as him*. Although, to be fair, about 20 people were apparently able to come into Davos itself and peacefully burn effigies of Bush, Blair, Berlusconi and Schroeder. Much nicer than the main group with their stone throwing, blockading of railroads, breaking of windows… for such a small group, these guys were all pretty busy… well, active. ‘Busy’ sort of implies doing something meaningful, after all.
Moe
*Why, yes, I am that brazen.
Bursusconi AND Schroeder? But NOT Chirac? WTF?
Free-speech Zones. I’m really too depressed about the Orwellian implications of that to come up with any witty observations…
Every square inch of the planet should be a Free-speech zone…why the hell else are we in Iraq?
The current Secretary of State won my admiration when being heckled at a commencment ceremony he said (paraphrasing here) “I’ve worked my whole life to ensure their right to do just that.”
It was classy, it was brave, it was American.
The current Secretary of State won my admiration when being heckled at a commencment ceremony he said (paraphrasing here) “I’ve worked my whole life to ensure their right to do just that.”
Yeah, it’s a good comeback; but it sort of allies itself to all those people who were saying, “Well, all I’m going to say is, if you were an Iraqi, you wouldn’t be allowed free speech to protest against invading Iraq” – it’s the “you shouldn’t use free speech to attack promoting free speech” tortology.
It’s also, a little, “Yeah, I’m going to point out how lucky you are to have free speech instead of actually caring about anything you say”.
Mind you, free speech doesn’t mean you have to be listened to…
“Around 2,000 opponents of the World Economic Forum (news – web sites) marched in this Swiss Alpine town Saturday to protest the meeting, which they say is elitist and does nothing for ordinary people.”
Moe, you later suggest that maybe the attendees are not particularly leftist. You should remember that being elitist and doing nothing for ordinary people can be an excellent description of many leftists. 😉