Paul Allen's money, in last week's election, created an alternate reality: one where a pro soccer league likely to fold before the stadium is built will bring new levels of excitement to Seattle; where taxpayers will save money over the costs incurred if the stadium isn't built (and the Kingdome kept); and where Paul did it all for civic pride (immense profitability being just an accidental side effect).

Two court cases, resolved last week, also showed the ability of money to define truth.

In England, the longest-running libel case in history found that two activists libelled McDonald's Corp. in the late 1980's by passing out flyers claiming the company (among other things) was anti-union, harmed the environment, mistreated animals, and pawned unhealthy food on kids. In a move similar to SLAPP suits in this country, the chain sued the activists--Dave Morris and Helen Steel.

British libel law is explicitly friendly to power; it requires defendants to prove a statement is true (rather than the burden being on accusers to prove it's false). A guilty ruling was virtually inevitable; all it required was one misstatement in a long text whose very format, activists handing out flyers, lends itself to hyperbole. The irony is that corporations themselves are never held to this standard; McDonald's routinely lies dozens of times in an average 30-second commercial. (Honestly, when was the last time you had a rapturous experience eating a cheeseburger?) Truth--as in the stadium campaign--becomes a function of money.

Steel and Morris, acting in their own defense and with no funds whatsoever to combat the corporate giant, turned the proof requirement of the case into a PR nightmare for McDonald's by subpeonaing experts--180 testified--and introducing thousands of pages of testimony in an effort to prove each of their claims. They largely succeeded. The guilty renderings were, predictably, semantic contortions by corporate-friendly justice (one of our favorites: "although McDonald's managers don't like unions, it was un fair for the activists to claim the company had an anti-union policy.")

McDonald's venal practices received far more publicity than if they had never sued. Nonetheless, for the crime of an essentially truthful flyer two people were dragged through years of hell and fined $94,000. The chilling effect on anyone who dareth question corporate practices is huge.

Closer to home, justice took another hit in the resolution of the police melee during a January Critical Mass demonstration in Seattle. The attack resulted in lurid (and fictitious) media reports of vicious, unprovoked assaults against officers (see ETS # 23, Feb. 11 97) and charges against five demonstrators who attacked cops' boots with their faces.

Contrary to earlier reports (and common sense), charges were not dropped when the police/media hyperbole became evident. Instead, four bicyclists wound up pleading to lesser charges because they could not risk convictions; a fifth was acquitted of misdemeanor assault but convicted of three other misdemeanors.

In this case, dozens of eyewitnesses and clear video footage of what actually happened were no match for a handful of lying policemen and a court system stacked against the poor. The city prosecuted a clearly false case with full confidence that defendants either couldn't risk the time and cost of fighting it (hence the pleading out) or wouldn't be believed if it went to trial. Hence, the city's version of truth--one contradicted by all the physical evidence and most of the witnesses--prevails.

In recent years, the city has taken an increasingly hard line against demonstrators accused of petty or entirely fictitious crimes. Yet another example: the June 16 arrest of ten labor activists for sitting in at the Exchange Building's lobby downtown, in support of organizing janitors. The protestors were charged with criminal trespassing and --amazingly-- "reckless endangerment." (If sitting constitutes reckless endangerment, every politician in Seattle is a felon.) Clamping down on free speech seems to be one of those "quality of life" things Mark Sidran, Margaret Pageler, Jane Noland, and friends so adore. Speech, it turns out, isn't free at all; it requires money.