To no one’s surprise, both the coal industry and its political waterboys were ready with a calculated response when a federal court ruling was issued last month, forbidding new permits for mountaintop removal mines that dump waste material into perennial and intermittent streams.

Since other articles in this issue of the Voice will no doubt be covering the specifics of this ruling, I won’t go into details about it here. But I do want to discuss some of the political and industry reaction, as it provides a local illustration of the theme for this month’s column—namely, the massive transfer of political power from "we, the people" to corporations, and from our constitutional republic to the World Trade Organization.

Although—according to a recent bipartisan poll—54 percent of Americans now believe that "this is no longer a government of, by and for the people," it is nonetheless rare to see such a transparent exercise of raw power as we have witnessed in the political reaction to this ruling. It reminded me of a scene from a horror movie, where the pleasant-faced next-door neighbor suddenly turns into the slimy, sharp-toothed alien who actually inhabits the neighbor’s body.

This is not to suggest that our governor’s avuncular persona has ever disguised the fact that his primary constituency is out-of-state coal corporations, not West Virginia citizens; nor is there any secret that—mainly out of force of habit—our all-Democratic congressional delegation answers to the United Mine Workers (UMW). But it is the remarkable degree of open collusion between industry and politicians in this case, without regard for appearances, which strikes me as unusual.

Within days after the ruling, the Underwood administration essentially ordered a shutdown of West Virginia coal mining; the congressmen (mimicking the anti-environ- mental tactics of Republicans) were talking about attaching a "rider" to a pending budget bill to change the 1977 Surface Mine Control and Reclamation Act; and Arch Coal was threatening to lay off over 600 workers. The timing and ferocity of this instantaneous overreaction suggest that this was a coord- inated strategy, planned in anticipation of the most likely court decision.

Perhaps the strategy wasn’t coord- inated enough. Judging by their public statements, it looks like the miners were not privy to the governor’s plans to declare the court ruling an emergency. In fact, their position on the West Virginia Division of Environmental Protection’s order to shut down current operations is, at this writing, closer to the Highlands Conservancy’s than to Underwood’s. Maybe the realization is dawning on them that they are being used as pawns in the coal industry’s game of environmental extortion. If so, it would represent a split in the alliance between business and labor on this issue, which could open up the debate on coal’s future in West Virginia.

The willingness of miners to act as coal company foot soldiers throughout this legal challenge to coal’s dominance of West Virginia law and politics is a measure of the declining status of labor in today’s global economy. There can be no other explanation for the fact that the UMW can be so solidly in support of a mining technique that is respon- sible for the loss of more union jobs than all the environmental regulations combined. UMW President Cecil Roberts himself is on record as having previously opposed mountaintop removal mining.

Of course, it is not just labor in decline in the post-Cold War world. It is also political parties, and even the nation-state. All traditional institutions, in fact, are finding themselves in an increasingly subservient position vis-à-vis the global market economy. This is why unions and Democrats are holding onto each other for dear life, no matter how many of their principles they have to compromise. This is why the president of the world’s most powerful nation talks about how we have to surrender to the "imperatives" of the marketplace. This is why, out of the world’s 100 largest economies, more than half are not countries, but multinational corporations.

The most visible symbol of growing corporate hegemony is the World Trade Organization (WTO), which will be meeting this month in Seattle. The WTO was established three years ago with the passage of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), an international treaty signed by 132 nations. The watchdog group Public Citizen describes the WTO as "a powerful global bureaucracy where unelected trade bureaucrats are empowered to decide the fate of democratically achieved laws. If any local, state or federal law of a WTO member country is found to violate the organization’s trade rules, the law must be changed, or that nation could face economic sanctions."

WTO decisions are made in secret sessions. The threat to US environmental laws became obvious with the very first ruling, where Venezuela challenged a 1993 Environmental Protection Agency rule on gasoline contaminants. The Venezuelan position was exactly the same one taken by the US oil industry—that the rule was too stringent—and lo and behold, WTO decided against the US law. The Clinton admini- stration filed an appeal, but it was rejected. (No WTO rulings have been overturned on appeal.) Faced with a fine of $150 million in annual trade sanctions, EPA repealed the rule.

A coalition of environmental, consumer, labor and farm organizations is planning to be in Seattle when the WTO representatives meet there this month. This coalition, which includes the AFL-CIO, has planned demonstrations to protest the anti-democratic side effects of globalization. Yet John Sweeney, the AFL-CIO president, has signed a letter to President Clinton from the President’s Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations--of which he is one of 35 members, most of whom are heads of corporations and industry groups—endorsing Clinton’s free trade agenda at the WTO meeting.

According to the "Washington Post," Sweeney "gave his okay on the basis of White House pledges to propose formation of a WTO working group that would consider the effect that international trade has on labor." Could this be why free trade advocate Al Gore got the earliest presidential endorsement in AFL-CIO history? For a promise at least four steps removed from having any actual benefit for working people? Is this what "Big Labor" has come to?

Welcome to the new world order.

Michael Hasty marches to a different drummer way out in Hampshire County. You can depend on him, however, to eschew those corporate cadences.