Despite differences, groups on both sides of the Atlantic are remarkably coordinated - almost entirely through the Internet. E-mail and Web postings are vital to networking and sharing information. Most groups operate on shoestrings, so can't "summit-hop" outside their region.

But Klein brings the same irreverence to her own ranks. Recently in The Nation, she questioned the ongoing quest for "the next Seattle" by summit-hopping protesters: "Is this really what we want — a movement of meeting-stalkers, following the trade bureaucrats as if they were the Grateful Dead?"

'Summit Hopping' — the process by which all the energies of the activist groups go into organising one summit protest after another, leaving them little time for grass-root work — is now under attack from within. The summit protests attract media attention but that they have no other impact is the substance of this critique.