Boots made by walkin' all over you; Nike, Starbucks, Borders,

0 Comments | Sunday Herald, The, Jan 28, 2001 | by Joanna Blythman

TWO massive white banners dominate the south side of Glasgow's George Square, covering the faade of the city's derelict Post Office. There's nothing on them - yet - just an awful lot of white space and a picture of Nike trainers. If Glasgow was Seattle, such an image would be provocative to say the least. Since the anti-capitalist demonstrations at the World Trade Organisation summit there in 1999, the company's carefully-tended corporate image has been hi-jacked by another: Niketown, under siege from angry demonstrators held at bay by riot police.

Until now, Nike and other global brands were safe in Scotland, a country which has embraced the "American Century" with open arms. At times it has seemed as though we yearn to be American. A trip to Florida's Disneyland has become a life goal for thousands of families. We have swallowed the American consumerist mantra that shopping is the new sex and thrill at the prospect of holidays in New York dedicated to combing designer outlets for knock-down Nike trainers and Gap khakis. We are suckers for the phoney egalitaranism that the baseball cap represents, as opposed to what we perceive as the class-ridden, Etonian elitism of English culture, forgetting that in the US any man can be president, but only it is said, if he toes the line fed to him by powerful corporations.

If we can't quite make it to the USA, we can console ourselves with our increasingly US-dominated high streets. We go a bundle on the saccharine chumminess of those Disney, Gap and in the near future Wal-Mart "greeters". And don't we just love those big, brash US- owned Borders book stores even if it means curtains for the local opposition. They were too small, too familiar, too Old World. We know, from following seven series of Friends, that corner coffee shops are only cool if they have comfy sofas. So we flock into Starbucks, the US-owned global chain that has colonised legions of indigenous neighbourhood banks, shops and snack bars like a virulent strain of flu, an indifferent mochaccino "to-go" being infinitely more fashionable than a Scottish "carry-out" or English "takeaway".

The creeping Americanisation of our language is rife. That now familiar "like" of the middle-America high school prom queen (think Alicia Silverstone in Clueless) has become a standard way to emphasise the word following it. "My parents went like crazy." "That is like weird." Children and teenagers are saturated by US television and branding for global consumer "names" such as Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein. The logos of US-owned soft drinks brands shout out from school vending machines and cafeterias.

Cash-strapped schools are now handing out jotters donated free to the school (with the approval of the National Confederation of Parent Teachers Association and the National Association of Head Teachers) emblazoned with the caption "Young Americans". On their covers? shiny, pictures of the cast of Dawson's Creek. The minute we switch on our PC or Mac, there's no escaping Microsoft, the mighty US corporation that has made Bill Gates one of the wealthiest men in the world.

But since the demonstrations in Seattle which saw global players protected from thousands of anticapitalist protesters only by a wall of security, and the subsequent protests in Prague and Nice, US global is no longer automatically cool. During the Seattle protests, those familiar US brands such as McDonalds, Starbucks and Nike became targets for disaffection with the power wielded by global corporations and the hitherto unaccountable institutions that represent them, such as the WTO, World Bank and the IMF.

Next weekend, a conference in Glasgow is looking at how resistance to the power of the big corporations can be built globally and locally. On the platform, a panel of activists, most notably Kevin Danaher, organiser of the Seattle protests; whistle-blowing journalist George Monbiot whose book Captive State records the corporate takeover of Britain; and John Watson of the World Development Movement, an expert on the sweatshop economy and the effect that trade liberalisation has had on human rights.

Thereafter, there's an eclectic mix of workshops looking at issues as diverse as GM foods, Third World debt and ethical foreign policy. Science fiction writer Ken McLeod and novelist Iain Banks are to lead a discussion on "imagining futures", both global and alternative. Robbie the Pict will recount his ongoing struggle against the #5.70 each-way toll levied on the Skye Bridge and explain why, as a consequence of a private finance initiative, that fee now goes to the Bank of America even though most of the bridge's construction costs were met by the taxpayer.

What the conference represents is an increasingly familiar alliance of the old Left, greens, North-South development organisations and in the UK, those disaffected with New Labour's hand- in-glove relationship with global corporations. Its organisers are convinced there is the momentum for a broad-based anti-capitalist movement in Scotland. '"Trainers culture is pretty superficial", says organiser Jimmy Ross. "Under that surface satisfaction with consumer things is a deep fear and anger about low wages and job insecurity - the idea that a good job just means being able to afford a larger portion of fries - plus wider environmental concerns."