They cannot understand the poor. They hate the rich corporations that deliver wealth to the poor. But whatever they imagine their goals might be or whatever self-image of innate nobility they possess, they are living in a dream world. Technological development will have its way no matter how many Luddites lay down in front of the steamroller. And a lot of people, even the romantics of revolution who so frequently inhabit the world's newsrooms, are getting wise to their scare politics.
Privatization is unstoppable.
Increasing numbers of people are beginning to recognize privatization is unstoppable. What the Seattle commandos probably don't understand is that they are serving interests they profess to hate - Third World oligarchies, for example. National poverty is not ordained by heaven. Such oligarchical classes sit on top of any number of impoverished Third World countries. Some of them initially sold themselves to their followers as Marxist populists but learned that power and wealth have their psychic rewards even if the ideology didn't work out.