“Hey Dad, what’s the WTO?”
As the copy editor at the Western Producer, I spend a lot of time reading and talking about the World Trade Organization, but the question from my 11-year-old daughter on a recent wintry Sunday morning took me by surprise.
I told her what the letters stood for, explained what the organization does and, just before she completely lost interest, asked the obvious question: “Where on earth did you hear about the WTO?”
Well, it turns out she had been checking out a rock band that had caught her fancy and was on the computer looking at the list of song titles on its new album. One of them was The WTO Kills Farmers.
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That caught my attention.
My daughters listen to a lot of music and I’ve grown accustomed to the typical adolescent fare: woe is me, my life sucks, why was I ever born? But a song about
the WTO? Nope. Never heard that one before.
I decided to take a look.
For those of you who don’t already know, Anti-Flag is a punk-influenced hard rock band from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, that doesn’t hide its opposition to the war in Iraq and its distaste for U.S. president George Bush.
Its website is chock full of anti-establishment rantings that cover pretty much what you would expect from a band that is thundering away on the far left of American politics: the war is bad, anti-gay bigots are bad, George Bush is bad, oil companies are bad, eating meat is bad, and oh yeah, did we already mention that George Bush is bad?
The list of song titles was just as predictable: The Press Corpse; Confessions of an Economic Hit Man; Depleted Uranium is a War Crime; War Sucks, Let’s Party; and, oh yeah, The WTO Kills Farmers.
Here’s what to expect if you rush out and buy the album:
Monsanto are killers, k-k-k-k-killers.
Stand up! Resist!
Syngenta are killers, k-k-k-k-killers.
Stand up! Resist!
The World Bank are killers, k-k-k-k-killers.
Stand up! Resist!
The WTO are killers, k-k-k-k-killers.
Stand up! Resist!
Heavy stuff, but before we get too excited about agriculture hitting the big time, I must point out that alas, the lovely little ditty had nothing to say about the Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization program, the Canadian Wheat Board or excessive demurrage charges on the West Coast.
I guess we’ll have to wait for the next album.
![Protesters crowd a street carrying signs that read, "Global warming real. In other news, water is wet," and "Stop denying the [blue painted pic of the Earth] is dying."](https://static.producer.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/29145152/158171_web1_2019-10-18T222818Z_1221762151_RC14C26A65A0_RTRMADP_3_CLIMATE-CHANGE-THUNBERG-1200-220x165.jpg)
