For your enlightenment and enjoyment I reproduce the following topical report by Louis James:

CANCUN -- ADVENTURES STRANGER THAN ALICE'S IN WONDERLAND
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Observations on the WTO talks and protestors by Louis James

I've just returned from spending a week in Cancun, Mexico, observing
the 5th ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
I was there with some pro-trade activists from The Bureaucrash
Foundation. I ... words almost fail me. We witnessed some of the most
amazing, ironic, and just plain moronic things I've ever seen.

First, there's the whole concept of the WTO itself. This is not a
gathering of titans of trade -- Hank Reardens and Howard Roarks --
discussing free enterprise. This is a gathering of bureaucrats,
discussing how governments can "help" free trade.

Forgive me if I'm skeptical.

I understand that the WTO has reduced some tariffs, but I'm not sure
the full extent of the prices paid for those deals is known. National

sovereignty has certainly not been strengthened by them. It's not
that I'm a big fan of most of today's sovereign nations, but I
shudder to think of a gaggle of them running things where I live,
by committee.

One thing that really convinced me I'd fallen through the looking
glass was that a block of 3rd world countries were demanding
nothing less than that the US and EU scrap all agricultural
subsidies.

What can I say? It was breathtaking.

But, before you get all excited and think that the rulers of African
and Latin American countries have come to their senses and are
embracing the free market, I should tell you that they were not
proposing to eliminate all of their own tariffs and subsidies. They
are just the little guys, after all, and suffer disadvantages. Their
idea of a level playing field seems to be that the wealthy countries
should stop doing anything that props up prices and that the poor
countries should be given exemptions, special waivers, etc. so that
they can keep doing those same things.

Ironically, it was not over agriculture, the "big issue" of the
meeting, that talks broke down. It was over other things, like
government "transparency". According to reports I heard on site, the
third world countries didn't want to have anything to do with such
bourgeois notions, and the Mexican chair of the conference declared
an impasse and shut the whole thing down.

But this is nothing compared to the strangeness the prevailed on the
streets of Cancun. In spite of the last minute white-wash crews
covering just about every thing made of cement with new coats of
paint, the city leaders had obviously been preparing for the expected
swarms of protestors for a long time. By some estimates we heard,
they were expecting as many as 100,000 anti-capitalists, or
"globalophobicos," as they call them in Mexico.

City police were bolstered by hundreds of black and gray-clad
Federales, armed with sword-length batons and armored with plexiglass
shields, helmets, and shin guards. There were also beige-clad WTO
security troops.

Huh? When did the WTO get an army?

Well, to be honest, I don't think they did. The WTO security
personnel seemed to be a sort of Mexican rent-an-army. Their patches
were stuck on with velcro. Actually, I think they ran out of patches,
as many went around with no more mark of authority than their swagger
and a fuzzy circle of unused velcro. Why Mexico had so many security
personnel available to lend the WTO is a question I never got
answered.

But these guys were ready for trouble, and I've never been through so
many security check points per kilometer in my life. The scrutiny was
all but unbearable. There was no goose-stepping, but the constant
demand for my papers had me wishing for velcro of my own, so I could
just walk around with my passport stuck outside my clothes, ready for
inspection.

Fortunately, serious trouble never really happened. In fact, only
about 1,000 anti-capitalists descended upon Cancun (which means, by
the way of nothing in particular, "house of the snake," Kukulcan
being the great serpent-god of the Maya).

There were about 150 Korean union laborers who mysteriously found
themselves in possession of enough money to fly around the world
and spend a week on the Mayan Riviera. Some rumors had it that the
AFL-CIO gave them the money, but there was no way to know.

These people were bolstered by some 5,000 to 10,000 Mexican farmers
and other Mexicans who came to rail against US agricultural
subsidies and other injustices. The city of Cancun provided giant
tents, water, porta-potties, power, and even ambulances around parks
where the globalophobics were supposed to camp.

On September 10th, the first day of the WTO talks, the globalophobics
and the Mexican farmers marched toward the convention center where
the talks were being held. The police closed the few remaining gaps
in a three-layered, barbed wire and chain-link barrier they had
assembled across the road (the only other road to the conference
center being 15 kilometers away, out by the airport), and the
protestors were repulsed. Some managed to climb over the barriers and
clashed violently with the police line, but the barrier held and not
enough protestors managed to climb over for the march to break
through.

I'm not sure if it was at this point, or just soon thereafter that
one of the Korean activists, Mr. Lee Kyung-Hae, climbed up on the
barrier and, shouting something like "WTO KILLS FARMERS," stabbed
himself in the heart with a knife. (That this contradicted his
thesis was not noticed by the press, nor the other protesters).

There was a great deal of outrage over this, even though rumors
quickly circulated that Mr. Lee had staged such gory acts in the
past, even going so far as stabbing himself in the stomach during
a Geneva round of talks.

Bureaucrash activists interviewed some of the Koreans (see
www.bureaucrash.com), and found that this stunt was not unexpected.
Attempts had even been made to keep Mr. Lee from coming to Cancun for
fear that he would do something similar -- though they didn't think
he had meant to kill himself (rather that he had made a mistake with
the knife). This did not stop them from mounting candlelight vigils
and laying the blame on the WTO. Angry crowds even chanted vengeance
slogans. (I filmed some of this, but thought it the best not to
point out that Mr. Lee's killer was already dead.)

Apparently, such theatrics did not sit well with the Mexican farmers,
who, we were told, pulled out en masse and left the globalophobics to
stew in their own mess. The main protestor encampment was
certainly a ghost-town when we went to check it out the next day.

I interviewed one Mexican couple, both of whom had jobs made
possible by the global tourist trade that flows through Cancun.
These people were highly outraged that, in addition to Mr. Lee's
stunt, some protesters had apparently gone to a Mexican
department store after being repulsed from the barrier and
burned a Mexican flag.

I should say that the young couple, who were very conscious of
Mexico's millions of poverty-stricken people, were sympathetic to the
cries of "injustice" shouted by the protestors. However, they thought
it terrible that Mexico had welcomed the protestors with open arms,
provided for their needs, etc., and that the protestors had ignored
the Wal-Mart, a perceived vanguard of globalization, and attacked a
Mexican store instead. Desecrating their national symbol added
insult to injury, and then protestors went out defacing historical
monuments (one, I was told, was erected to honor a famous
socialist), and causing problems for the local working people.

This was something I heard from many Mexicans. Thanks to the
globalophobics, whose ideals they had thought so noble, many now had
to go a half-hour out of their way to get to their jobs, and the rich
tourists out in the hotel zone by the convention center were blocked
from coming into town and spending their money on local products and
services.

The anti-trade activists had indeed created new barriers to trade,
albeit temporary ones.

In another Wonderland twist, the Koreans bought hundreds of yards of
1/2-inch rope, and, with the practiced skill of a military review
squad, pulled it, braided it, and braided it again into thigh-thick
hawsers. With these, one layer at a time, they pulled down the very
trade barrier their actions had caused to be erected.

Even more strangely, rather than storm through and engage the police
line behind the tumbled wall, they then all sat down and held some
sort of vigil. Maybe they knew they now lacked the numbers to take
the police on, but it was still a bizarre turn of events.

Even more bizarre, however, were the number of people who had
traveled so far ... for nothing. At least nothing they could
articulate.

Many people refused to be interviewed, not because they knew I
disagreed with them (at least, not at first, though they did seem
to catch on by the end of the week), but because they could not
answer my questions.

These were not hard questions, like, "How would you calculate the
correct cost of goods without the price system?" but easy ones, like
"Why are you here? What do you think of all this? What motivates
you?" And even when I could get them to agree to an interview, their
answers were often contradictory, if not outright incoherent.

One fellow, when I told him an interview would only take a minute of
his time, turned around and slapped his sleeping buddy's leg and
said, "Hey, man this guy wants to interview you." The awakening
friend picked up his guitar and played me a song rather than answer
any questions.

A pair of German girls told me they had just arrived, and would be
able to answer my questions after they had been there a while.

Others, hunkered down in spaces cleared in the trash piling up
between their dome tents (made from petroleum products and a few
traces of materials extracted from the earth via heavy mining
processes), simply refused any comment.

Weren't they there to get press? To bring attention to the plight of
the world's "victims of globalization?" What the heck?

And then there was the violence.

When my companions expressed any pro-trade opinions, instead of
passively collecting opinions about so-called fair trade, we were
threatened with violence. This happened more than once. So much for
peace and love.

I am no fan of riot police or the Mexican government, but I have to
admit that the authorities in Cancun bent over backwards to avoid
conflict with the protestors. They did not enter the protestor
encampments and made no effort to clear them from the avenues and
traffic circles they pitched their tents and posted their banners
on. To my knowledge, the police never made any aggressive moves;
they simply resisted when the protesters tried to march on the
convention center and arrested some of the vandals when caught in
acts of destruction.

Most notably, I saw *no* officials with guns, not even with "rubber"
bullets such as those used by the Seattle police. With their bodies,
the police held back the protestors, some of whom had homemade armor
(football helmets and pads, motorcycle helmets and lacrosse
gauntlets, etc.). And some of the police paid the price for this
restraint with broken bones.

However, not all the protestors were violent and/or incoherent.
I met a South African gentleman with an NGO circulating "Africa
Is Not For Sale" T-shirts, who admitted that real free trade might
work. His objection was that trade as practiced today, planned
and restricted by the worlds' governments, especially the most
powerful ones, was hardly real free trade. He had a point.

My Bureaucrash friends met a small band of Mexican farmers from
Oaxaca who had stayed after the other farmers left. These people said
they had no beef with free trade, per se. It was unfair trade
masquerading as free trade -- specifically and particularly, massive
US and EU agricultural subsidies -- they had a problem with.

Farm subsidies might seem like a domestic issue to most Americans,
but when the borders are opened and Mexican farmers find themselves
competing with US farmers backed by billions of dollars of subsidies
... I can certainly see why the Mexican farmers might complain.
These folks were so reasonable, that in spite of their communitarian
leanings, Bureaucrash activists were able to persuade them to hand
out pro-trade literature to their fellow protestors.

Unfortunately, not all were so reasonable. Nor clean. The smell of
literally unwashed pseudo-intellectuals, demanding that the WTO and
the world take them seriously -- or at least obey their wishes -- was
repulsive. The mental chaos of their thoughts was worse.

It was an amazing experience. The crying need for economic education,
eco-sanity, and simple logic struck me with redoubled force.

It was a moving experience. I found myself more motivated than ever
to fight the forces of unreason, to do my best to boost the efforts
of pro-market and pro-freedom advocates around the world.

I hope you are too.

If you're already in the fight, healing ignorance and opposing
unreason, more power to you. Please let me know if and how I
can help. If not, please consider supporting FMN/ISIL's work
promoting freedom around the world, it's what we're all about:

http://www.isil.org/store/membership.html#donate

Whatever way you chose, I thank you for caring.