The Imperial Messenger. B. Fernandez

the power of trade, the power of the Internet and the power of consumers to persuade, or embarrass, global corporations and nations to upgrade their standards. You change the world when you get the big players to do the right things for the wrong reasons.238

      This particular strategy has already been test-driven in Brazil, where Friedman discovers in 1998 a “global triple threat” to the Pantanal region from “external forces of globalization,” such as international energy companies.239 Ford Motors’ financing of various initiatives in the region by Conservation International is cast as being based on the calculation that “they can sell a lot more Jaguar cars if they are seen as saving the jaguars of the Pantanal,” and Friedman concludes that “if that’s what it takes to save this incredibly beautiful ecosystem and way of life, then God bless Henry Ford and the Internet.”240 There is no detectable concern for the fact that the initiatives do not reverse any of the listed threats or Ford’s contributions to global pollution.241

      “Senseless in Seattle II” is meanwhile penned as a follow-up to the original article, which elicits a response from his “environmentalist allies” regarding its depiction of the WTO protests as wholly unserious.242 In the sequel, Friedman permits that “there were some serious groups there raising serious points” but still maintains that it is wrong to oppose the WTO when serious activism can be accomplished by simply ignoring the organization in order to save Flipper and make the Mexicans save him too: