The requirement that everyone ought to be well informed may itself lead many people to apathy. By the same token, the pull toward apathy is matched by a pull toward purely confrontational engagement. In some societies, and at moments in U.S. history, this may be necessary, but in relatively normal times public engagement is most effective if it can be constructive, sustained, and fairly civil. And perhaps it is acceptable to rekindle the spirit of public concern even if it was self indulgent to have fun at the discomfort of people trying to do very serious work. But there were also strong undercurrents of cynicism toward both the officials of these organizations and of the governments involved, including the United States, and the trends of globalization.
Globalization is an extraordinarily complicated trend, with good aspects as well as bad.
Among the good aspects are the increasing standards of human rights and environmental protection around the world, and the spread of certain technologies and investments that can make the world's poor far more productive. The risks include the dilution of cultures and greater opportunities for environmental dumping. So the problem is not skepticism toward the claims of globalization and its side effects, but rather it is the blanket condemnation of globalization without much by way of analysis or efforts to understand both sides of the issue. It presumes that leaders are not to be trusted and that these institutions only serve the interests of the rich and the powerful. They regard themselves as being motivated by altruism, but reject that anyone on the other side may be similarly motivated.