Ten years ago this week, hundreds of Wisconsin workers, farmers and human rights activists joined the thousands of people from around the world who trekked to Seattle to challenge trade policies that benefited speculators and corporate CEOs rather than citizens and communities.

The target of their protest was the World Trade Organization meeting, which was set to restructure international trade so that it would strengthen the hand of corporations and undermine democracy. The protests succeeded in preventing the WTO from launching a new round of trade rule changes.

The late Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone saw the protests as a turning point in the struggle to achieve the sort of economic democracy championed by one of his political heroes, Wisconsin Sen. Robert M. La Follette.

“A lot of what was captured in Seattle — the questions about the changing face of the global economy — is not going away. These are issues that are going to have to be addressed. They can’t be avoided forever,” Wellstone told me a few weeks later, at a point when even President Bill Clinton was acknowledging that the rigid free-trade policies he had embraced were expanding the gap between rich and poor.

“A hundred years ago, the challenge was to civilize the national economy,” Wellstone continued. “There were powerful interests working to maintain the status quo — as there are today. But a great populist and progressive movement sprang up, and that movement gave us antitrust laws and safe food regulations, child labor laws, the 40-hour workweek and so many of the other policies we take for granted today. Now what you have is another transformation — a transition to a global economy. Now, the demand is to civilize the global economy. And, just as it was at the start of the last century, that demand is coming from the people. It is only a matter of time before the political leaders have to respond.”

Now 128 members of the U.S. House have stepped up to say that another world is possible. They are co-sponsoring the Trade Reform, Accountability, Development and Employment Act of 2009, introduced earlier this year by Rep. Mike Michaud, D-Maine. The measure calls for a review of existing trade agreements to determine if they respect labor rights and human rights, protect intellectual property rights and enforce environmental laws. Where trade deals fail, the act calls for their renegotiation, and it would require new agreements to do right by citizens of the U.S. and its trading partners.

Wisconsin House members Tammy Baldwin, Gwen Moore and Steve Kagen, all Democrats, are co-sponsors. They’re on the right side of history. The other members of the delegation — Democrat Ron Kind and Republicans Paul Ryan, James Sensenbrenner and Tom Petri — are not. They are stuck in the past, and in the pockets of the multinational corporations that care more about their bottom lines than workers and communities in Wisconsin.

John Nichols is associate editor of The Capital Times, Wisconsin’s progressive daily online news source, where his column appears regularly. jnichols@madison.com

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