Thursday, November 7, early afternoon

Sometime during the first week of September, I decided to spend the winter in Chicago. It has been a while since I have been in some real cold, and I guess I wanted a taste of it.  Also, of course, to me Chicago is just a great city.  So here I am.

I didn’t have to wait long for the cold, though. Winter is coming to Chicago early. For about two weeks, the high temperature has been only in the 30's.

The newspapers here have been reporting on the Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue meetings that start today, and the fact that the leftist-anarchists, anti-globalizationists and others plan major demonstrations. It’s purportedly the same groups that did so much damage in Seattle during the World Trade Organization meetings there. With the weather having been so cold for the last two weeks, though, I thought they would have to be some pretty diehard protestors to spend much time outside. But when I woke up this morning and checked the forecast, I noted that a warm front had hit. Today will be in the 50's, and it will remain that way for the remainder of the week. God must be an anarchist, I thought.

Now for those of you in Southern California or Florida, a temperature in the 50's might not seem all that great, but if you have gone through weeks of highs in the 30's and nighttime lows in the 20's, a temperature in the 50's feels like an absolute heat wave. People are outside enjoying themselves. The streets are full and, oh yeah, the police are also out in force.

I have taken one walk outside today already, and there are police everywhere. Entire city blocks around the Sheraton Hotel, where the meetings are being held, are blocked off. With police boats cruising the waters, even the Chicago River is blocked off to boat and ferry traffic! But I haven’t seen the Goon Squad yet.

Local papers are reporting that the police have formed a special unit of Chicago police officers 6'4" and taller, who will respond en masse to any hot spots. The unit is calling itself the Goon Squad. While I haven’t seen the Goons yet, I have seen just the opposite. Michigan Avenue (Chicago’s answer to New York’s Fifth Avenue and Beverly Hills’ Rodeo Drive) is filled with women cops.  I kid you not. There’s at least 50 out on the avenue and no males. Now, in cities where the police force has to be politically correct, you do see many female police officers, but mostly they are paired off with a male. You generally do a double take on the rare occasion when you do see two women officers together. But this is a some sight, all females.  I guess political correctness has gone out the window in the face of the anarchists.

The cops obviously don’t know what to expect. They obviously want the male cops, The Goons and others, to be on the front lines. They have put all the female cops just out of harm's way, patrolling the perimeter a little more north on Michigan Avenue.

Early Thursday evening

The protest  is scheduled to begin soon and I am about to head outside again to see how things develop. I’m not sure what to expect. Will it be a non-event? Will there be rocks and tear gas flying back and forth? Who knows? I don’t think the Goons know, either. So it is The Goons and me, out for an adventure.

Dark comes early as you get closer to winter in Chicago. It is 5:30 now and it is already dark. I notice most of the female cops on Michigan Avenue have now been replaced by males. I am walking south on Michigan Avenue towards Pioneer Court where the protestors are scheduled to end their march from Boeing’s headquarters (Boeing is sponsoring the Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue) and begin their speeches.

The streets are filled with shoppers and workers heading home. Every once in awhile I hear someone remark to the person they are walking with, “I wonder why all the police are around?” The other person always replies, “It’s that World Conference going on.”

There are helicopters hovering above the city, about a half-dozen of them. It’s too dark and the helicopters are too high for me to make out if they are police helicopters or news station copters. My guess is that it is both. In Los Angeles it is common to hear police helicopters hovering over the city. In Chicago, it’s not.

The copters are very high. In L.A., the police copters will fly very low with powerful spotlights scanning the streets, looking for whomever they are in pursuit of.

I am passing by 535 North Michigan Avenue. It is a luxury high-rise residential building complex that is smack in the middle of Chicago’s first class shopping district. Tonight the main Michigan Avenue entrance is closed with yellow caution tape across the doors. Residents, I guess, are using some back entrance.

The Intercontinental Hotel is next. They have locked their many side doors and are only keeping the very main entrance open.  I am only about two blocks from Pioneer Court and the police presence is starting to get even stronger. I am beginning to see some police in riot gear with helmets, face shields and the like. A businessman passes me by. He is on his cell phone saying, “I’m on Michigan Avenue and I am surrounded by police.”

There’s a street musician still out playing his horn. He’s playing the notes to a part of the Antonio Carlos Jobim song "The Girl from Ipanema." The part where the lyrics are, “tall and tan and young and lovely.”

I am finally at Pioneer Court. Now there are plenty of police in riot gear everywhere. But you can still mill about freely, as many people are doing.  The protesters aren’t here yet and everyone seems to have rushed out and bought one of those instant cameras. They are taking pictures of the police and some are even posing with the police.

I notice most of the police in riot gear are older.  I’m talking 60 and up. Not the types you regularly see on the beat. These will be the front line guys, so I am guessing the police thinking is that the older cops will have cooler heads and will not bash some protestor over the head with a nightstick if the protestor starts mouthing off a bit.

I don’t think I’ve seen the Goon Squad yet. There’s one group of cops over to the side that look a little tougher that could be the Goons. They are in riot gear and they also have Mercedes-Benz bikes, so I guess they can get to any hot spot quickly. But if these guys are all 6'4'’ and taller, like the Goons are supposed to be, then I’m Wilt Chamberlain. 

The traffic on Michigan Avenue has now stopped.  That means the protestors must have turned the corner onto Michigan. I decide to cross the Michigan Avenue bridge to get closer. As I cross the bridge, I see lots of police lights slowly moving north.

I find a vantage point at the corner of Michigan and Wacker Drive that looks like an ideal spot from which to observe the protestors as they march by.

I see about 100 riot police across the street blocking off Wacker Drive on that side. Now about 100 riot police at kind of a jogger's pace come running, in a two-column formation, on my side of Wacker. Someone yells "Stop!" and the police stop. The same voice yells “Three rows.” The police fall into three rows. The voice yells, “Sticks up front.” I notice that some police are carrying night sticks, while others carry those big shields. Those with the night sticks move into the first row. The police look older here also. There are definitely no new recruits on the front lines.

I can hear the protestors now. They are very loud. An older woman behind me with a strong Irish accent asks, “What is going on? Is it a parade?” Someone explains to her what is going on. She says, to what looks like her young granddaughter, “Oh, this could be very important. We are going to see something interesting.”

Here come the protestors. I see someone carrying a sign that says, “Labor Creates Wealth, Why Do CEO’s Control It.” Another sign says, “No Blood For Oil.”

There is a blonde woman next to me, pouting because the police won’t let her cross the street to get to her hotel.

This is definitely a group with many different agendas. There are a lot of very professionally made “Wal-Mart Is A Bad Neighbor” signs. Now I see a “Fight Terrorism with Terrorism” sign. Another says “Transatlantic Bloodsucker Monologue.” Then it’s “Boeing Profits on War” and “Give Us Clean Energy.”

It takes about 20 minutes before all the protestors pass. I estimate there were about a thousand, mostly of college age.

Now I am going to head back to Pioneer Court to hear the speeches.

The protestors are all in a cordoned off area. Someone is giving a speech over a bull horn, but it is too noisy to make out most of what is being said.

What surprises me most is the number of onlookers on the other side of the police lines. The protestors definitely got the curiosity going of a lot of people. A Japanese tourist-type looking gentlemen comes up to me and asks me what is going on. I fill him in.

I am now right behind the police line. On the other side of the line, is a protestor yelling and screaming right into the face of the police in front of me. Two different women each with a video camera, who are in with the protestors, have come by to record him. This guy is really wired and the presence of the video cameras seems to egg him on.

He is yelling something about technology. He has a bike with him and with one hand in a quick jerky motion he lifts the bike way over his head. It startles me. My eyes blink. This is tense. You can see it on the police officers’ faces. The bike is now back down and then he does it again. It’s over his head, he is shaking it and yelling something like “This is technology!” 

He is holding the bike up high by the bike seat.  You can see the fire in his eyes.  Then he takes the bike seat and sticks it in his mouth. He is not balancing the bike on his chin. He is staring at the police and he is intensely biting the bicycle seat and holding the entire bike up with his mouth.

This strikes one of the cops as funny. He starts to laugh. It breaks the tension. The other cops smile. The video cameras are still rolling. The protestor looks embarrassed and moves into the middle of the crowd.

Overall, the crowd is almost in a festive mood.

I turn around and see a dark UPS-type colored truck/van. It is being guarded not by the police but by about a dozen guys in jeans and sweatshirts. They all have riot helmets, face shields, billy clubs and sidearms, but they are not Chicago police.

The van has one of those tall poles sticking out of it. You know, the type you see on television vans when they extend their mobile antennas. This pole is different, though. It seems to be extended much higher, and instead of an antenna, there is a camera at the top.  However, there is a shaded round bubble at the top, which would appear to be an attempt to hide the fact that it is a camera and hide which direction the camera is pointing.

This is Big Big Brother, The Federales, recording and monitoring the scene, I conclude.

The crowd is dispersing from the scene, so I head home. I want to drop a quick email to Rob M. at Strike The Root. We have been in contact. He knows I am in Chicago and has asked me to write a report on the protest.

When I open my email box, I notice an email from Rob. He has sent me a link from The Chicago Sun-Times, which says “Chicago police are expected to videotape anti-globalization demonstrators today under intelligence-gathering powers they have regained from the courts after a two-decade ban . . . . Department rules that took effect . . . also permit officers to pose as members of groups . . . .”

Well that explains the videotaping frenzy around the bike-wielding protestor.

I drop Rob a line and tell him I have enough stuff for a solid report but that I want to bounce it around in my head for awhile. With protestors carrying anti-Wal Mart signs next to "Clean Energy" signs, it is going to take a little thinking to present clearly the libertarian, anarcho-capitalist viewpoint on this story.  

Friday afternoon

I’m headed out to check the scene. I wasn’t out this morning because I had quite a bit of regular business work to do, and I also figure that protestors probably are the type to sleep-in mornings. Protesting seems to be an afternoon to nighttime event.    

The streets are filled with people, but people just going about their daily routines. There are still a lot of police around. And then finally, all of a sudden, I spot the Goons!

The Goons are all out on Michigan Avenue today. You can spot them because they are definitely all 6'4" and taller and they have their very own uniforms. No police blue for the Goons. They are in black uniforms from head to toe.

Other than finally spotting the Goons, it is an uneventful afternoon. The night will prove to be much the same. The Big Brother UPS-type van was operating at night in front of the Federal Building, but there were only scattered pockets of protestors in The Loop, which is Chicago’s business district.

So it is now time for the Goons to go home and collect their overtime checks like the rest of the Chicago police force, the Feds to analyze their videotapes and for me to analyze this whole event from a libertarian, anarcho-capitalist point of view.

The Perspective

The first question that has to be answered is, “What exactly was going on inside the Sheraton?”

And the answer has to be, “Big time scams.”  All the Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue press releases pay homage to free trade and call for business-government cooperation, but other than that, the releases are extremely broad generalities stating not much of anything.  In other words, they don’t want us to know what is going on.

Who are they?

Well, the TABD was the brainchild of the now deceased former Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown. The 1998 TABD conference keynote speaker was Al Gore, and this year the keynote speech was delivered by the obnoxious World Bank head, James Wolfensohn.

This year's conference was sponsored by Boeing, which is, among other things, your friendly military aircraft and military systems manufacturer. In other words, this meeting was a meeting of The Club.   

The Club meets under many different guises. Today it's the TABD, tomorrow it’s the World Trade Organization and the next day it's the International Monetary Fund. But you can always spot a meeting of The Club, because they're always talking about Free Trade, and then in the next breath about “government-industry cooperation.”

These guys are as much interested in Free Trade as I am interested in sponsoring a Karl Marx “Labor Theory of Value” Festival. For these guys, Free Trade is a code word for “Keep it in The Club.”

Who knows what scams they were cooking up inside the Sheraton? The meetings certainly should have been protested.

Now as for the protesters, well, they must be credited with bringing to the average person on the street awareness that a meeting of The Club was taking place. From the businessman on his cell phone, to the Irish woman with the young child, to the Japanese tourist and to the average passerby, they all couldn’t help but notice the goings on and those protesting the “World Conference.”

So there was one small blip of information put in the average passerby’s memory about some type of global meeting. It is important to build up in the collective masses these little bits of information about what is going on.

You see, the masses aren’t out there reading Mises, Hayek and Rothbard. They aren’t surfing STR. Their world is the world of bite-sized impressions. And now they have in their memory banks that a “World Conference” was going on. And they probably have a small sense that a bunch of men holding meetings in a hotel during a “World Conference” are probably trying to carve up the world and that there is no chance that they, the masses, are going to be any part of it. It ain’t a bad impression for the masses to have.

So kudos to the protesters for making it happen.

As for the protesters' individual agendas, well, the only polite thing to say is that I believe most still have some thinking to do.

Why would anyone take the time and effort to walk around with a “Wal-Mart Is Not A Good Neighbor” sign?

I have lived in various cities across the United States, yet to this day, I have never been inside a Wal-Mart. It’s real easy to ignore Wal-Mart if you want. As a potential business partner, a potential employee or a potential customer,  you don’t ever have think about, deal with or consider the company, if you don’t want to.

Wal-Mart a real big problem ? Yeah, right.

Now I'll give you a real problem: the IRS. There isn’t a year that the IRS doesn’t think I owe them money. Now that’s a problem. I can’t ignore them, even though I want to. I’ll take Wal-Mart as a “problem” over the IRS any day.

“Give Us Clean Energy” is about as perceptive a sign as a “Ban Body Odor” sign would be.  No one wants body odor and no one wants to walk around in smog. The real problem is that the smog problem is being dealt with by governments, where individual property rights to clean air are usurped by government control and decrees.

“Labor Creates Wealth, Why Do CEO’s Control It?” The person carrying around this sign obviously has never read Israel Kirzner’s Competition and Entrepreneurship. Yeah, labor creates wealth, so do entrepreneurs and so do savers.

Of course, there were other signs that no libertarian would object to, such as, “No Blood for Oil” and “Boeing Profits From War.”

Most in the protest seemed to jeer the police standing around them, but then when looking at some of these protesters' comments, in actuality all they want to do is control the Goons and other police for their own agenda.

The Chicago Tribune’s new tabloid Red Eye quoted Direct Action Group member and protester Allyson Kennis as saying, “We need a true democratic system where labor and working class people and people all across races can have a voice.” Allyson, freedom gives you that, not democracy. Just assume for a moment a true democracy where 51% of the people vote for something that the other 49% totally detest. Would you use the Goons and other police to enforce the rule against the 49%?    

Protester Robert Ebright of the leftist-anarchist group "The Autonomous Zone" is quoted as calling for a: “. . . dismantl(ing) of the wage slavery system where people are forced to work in order to get health care, food and a place to stay.”  Oh sure Robert, let’s start today. Let’s all not work and  let’s just go outside and sit around waiting for the food, health care and place to stay to fall from the sky.

Dorian Warren from the University of Chicago Student Labor Action Project was protesting, “. . . skyrocketing tuition costs, making college education unaffordable and unattainable for all but the most privileged.” Somehow, Dorian, I think the problem is too much government involvement in education, but it sounds like your implication is that you want to use the Goon squad to force down college tuition or to use the Goon squad to force others through taxation to pay your tuition. Hmm, University of Chicago? Say, haven’t you ever heard of a professor by the name of Milton Friedman and his favorite saying, “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch”?  

So what are libertarians to do with this ragtag bunch of protesters?

Encourage them!

Let’s take a couple of chapters right out of George W’s terrorist fighting handbook.

In Afghanistan, George W.  didn’t use U.S. troops to do the heavy fighting. He used various Afghan tribes. We can do the same.

Let’s send the anti-globalizationists, leftist anarchists and the like out to do the battles against the Goons, if they want. Let’s let them take one over the head for the cause, if they want. Let them get photographed, arrested and videotaped.

We can continue to educate those who are educable about true Liberty, but let’s help all of them when we can.

We can show them, for instance, that George W. has a good plan when he is going after the terrorists' money and that they should implement a similar plan here. You see, there ain’t going to be no war in Iraq or anywhere else if the United States can’t finance it.

We can teach the protesters that the government is financed in only one of three ways: taxes, borrowing and the Fed’s printing of money. If you shut this down (admittedly a very tall order), then the game is over. So while we should continue to support their protests against The Club, we should also suggest to them that it would be a helluva an idea to throw one big protest on Tax Day, April 15th. We should suggest that they go down to Wall Street and raise hell every time the Treasury comes out with a new major debt offering. We should teach them about how the Fed “prints” money to support government activities (see, for example, William Anderson’s recent column Salvation by Printing Press), and we should encourage them to throw a major protest every time the Fed announces it is cutting interest rates.

Postscript

It is Saturday evening about 5:00 p.m.  I have just returned home after being out since about 11:00 a.m. The streets are overflowing with shoppers, but I didn’t see one cop the entire afternoon. Not even one cop directing traffic. In the city of Chicago, on a Saturday like this, I imagine I would normally have passed anywhere from a half dozen to a dozen cops at a minimum. Zero today.

A ragtag bunch of about a thousand protesters, having danced the Chicago police force, in their full riot gear, all around the city for a day and a half, have clearly exhausted the entire force.

They are all at home sleeping. Wow!  “Power to the people,” I say. It won’t last, but for tonight, there is total freedom in Chicago. The Goons are asleep.