The WTO protest idiots exposed:

Fairness was the overriding concern for the folks marching to the barricades, but no one really knew how to define or achieve it. So we decided to set up a "fair trade soda stand" along the parade route on Saturday. We offered Coke, Sprite, and water to the hot and bothered activists. The catch was that they could choose from two options: the free trade and the fair trade price. The sign for the fair price (20 pesos) explained that the price included the true cost of the drink plus: health care, environmental protections, taxes and other welfareish provisions; while the free trade price (5 pesos) included only the true cost of the beverage.

At first, this enterprise drew a lot of very confused looks and some yelling. But a few customers finally grew thirsty enough to brave the looks the others were shooting at them. We made seven sales -- two at the fair trade price and five at the free trade rate. Just as business was picking up, however, a young lady approached us, read the sign, and promptly threw a hissy fit.

"You can’t be here; you’re misrepresenting what fair trade is! It doesn’t involve products from multi-national corporations; you have to have local diversity!" she seethed, while clutching her Sony Handycam.

And of course, what is a good protest without a mistaken suicide:


Granted, the reason option was a long shot from the start. To get an idea of how cra-a-azy some of these people were, consider: The day before I arrived, South Korean farmer and union leader Lee Kyung-Hae had climbed on top of a barricade with a sign that said, "The WTO kills farmers" slung around his neck. Once he got the crowd's attention by brandishing a pocket knife, Lee stabbed himself through the heart and bled and died not long thereafter in the hospital. It was a publicity stunt gone badly wrong; one member of Lee's group told us, on camera, that he hadn't intended to kill himself and had done sort of thing before with only a flesh wound to show for it. Maybe he got caught up in the moment.

The self-inflicted nature of Lee's demise, however, did not stop the protesters from claiming him as a martyr. His name became a chant ("Lee! Lee! Lee!") and his death an act of heroism for the demonstrators who remained. They constructed an impromptu shrine, complete with flowers and candles, to him at the edge of a traffic circle just down from the barricades, and memorialized his name in graffiti.

Not to speak ill of the dead, but Lee accidentally offed himself in defense of a subsidy and tariff regime that is particularly heinous. Korean rice farmers are both subsidized and sheltered from foreign competition, with the end result of a local price of rice four times as much as in the U.S., for a food that is a staple of Asian cuisine. The farmers are made rich at the expense of everyone else.

Nice group. They don't need a reason to be anarchists, any occasion will do.