<nettime> Fwd: NEGATIVLAND: Notes on the "Battle in Seattle"

[Keith Sanborn <mrzero@panix.com>]

>X-From_: dr_land@negativland.com  Sun Dec 26 17:14:53 1999
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>Date: Sun, 26 Dec 1999 16:48:26 -0500
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>From: Negativland <dr_land@negativland.com>
>Subject: NEGATIVLAND: Notes on the "Battle in Seattle"
>
>Notes on the "Battle in Seattle" from someone who was there.
>by Mark Hosler
>
>On Tuesday, November 30th, 1999 (and shortly before moving from Olympia,
>Washington to Santa Fe, New Mexico), I was part of the march and direct
>action protest against the WTO that was organized by the DIRECT ACTION
>NETWORK in Seattle. Personally I have never been comfortable with huge
>protests and chanting simplistic slogans, preferring to deal with political
>and anti-corporate issues through the music/performance group I am a part
>of (Negativland). But the issues surrounding the WTO are so compelling and
>frightening that I felt I had to be there. I was willing to risk arrest,
>but was unprepared for how violent  and aggressive the police would be
>towards peaceful protesters.
>
>The DIRECT ACTION NETWORK itself was incredibly well organized, totally
>committed to nonviolent protest,  and the group organized thousand's into
>an action that successfully blocked every single street surrounding  the
>WTO convention building. No one could get in or out!
>
>The organizational structure and plans of the DIRECT ACTION NETWORK  for
>this day were very cool ......there were  small affinity groups (5 to 15
>people at most), larger clusters of affinity groups,  and finally huge
>wedges made of the clusters. Each "wedge" was assigned a specific street to
>block. There was nothing random about how this action happened!  The DIRECT
>ACTION NETWORK itself, the wedges, clusters, and affinity groups were all
>decentralized and made decisions by consensus. Their were no "leaders".
>
>  We were out there by 7 a.m.  and arrived in downtown by 8 p.m.. I had
>assumed that the police would have had undercover folks at many of the
>planning meetings of the DIRECT ACTION NETWORK so that they would know
>exactly what was planned and have a way to head it off.  These meetings
>were open to the public and for months D.A.N. had been making it very clear
>to Seattle police and officials what they planned to do. To my surprise,
>the various wedges spun off from the main march and got into position
>exactly as planned! There were D.A.N. volunteer medics, lawyers, legal
>observers and action co-ordinators with each wedge at their respective
>locked down intersections. Communicators on bikes moved from wedge to wedge
>to keep everyone informed, and they also would pull folks from overly
>crowded areas to help  the blockades at the weaker links.  And of course
>EVERYONE seemed to have a cel phone or was taping the events with their
>video camera. About 20 streets were blocked in all.
>
>  It was  all very peaceful until I guess the cops got freaked out about
>being completely surrounded and closed in by the action. It was as if they
>were caught off guard by how successful the whole thing was and how many
>people came (what we later heard from the Mayor of Seattle was that the
>Secret Service was also freaking out and that  about 10:30 a.m. they
>ordered the police to clear the "take control" of the streets). So many
>delegates were kept out that the entire day was basically a loss for the
>WTO. Some meetings went on, but had so few major players in attendance
>that,  for all effective purposes, the WTO WAS successfully shut down for
>the day.  Even Madeline Albright, UN Secretary Kofi Annan and U.S. Trade
>Rep Catherine Barshefsky were trapped in their hotels (and tear gas got
>sucked into the air systems of the Sheraton Hotel, so they go gassed as
>well!)
>
>There was a LOT of completely unprovoked firing of rubber bullets,
>concussion grenades, tear gas and pepper spray in the eyes of protesters who
>were peacefully sitting or standing in rows with their arms linked
>together. I never heard ANY warnings whatsoever before they did this.  My
>friend witnessed a police officer lean down to a seated protester, pull her
>goggles from her eyes, pull her head back, force her eyes open and spray
>pepper spray directly into her eyes. This happened many times. I got tear
>gassed and had concussion grenades tossed at me and rubber bullets were
>being fired at us. You may have read that the police only became violent
>after the protesters did. But the opposite is true. The police were firing
>on us for FOUR HOURS before any windows were broken by protesters.
>STARBUCKS,  NIKETOWN, BANANA REPUBLIC, WARNER BROTHERS,  THE GAP, BANK OF
>AMERICA  and NORDSTROM'S were all smashed up and spray painted. No local
>business's were targeted, only huge corporate chains and banks.  A very
>small minority did this -- and I guess it looks bad in the press as that is
>what they will focus on, but it was fun  to see PLANET HOLLYWOOD completely
>covered with anarchy symbols, eggs and spray paint all over NIKETOWN, all
>of STARBUCKS windows smashed, etc.
>
>As I saw with my own eyes, the police provoked almost everything. It was so
>incredibly stupid. Its approaching winter here in the U.S., so they could
>have sprayed us with water and let us be wet and miserable. They could have
>just maintained a stand off until all the protesters got tired and went
>home. But they chose violent response. And if you don't already know, a
>civil emergency  and curfew was declared and the National Guard came in.
>
>The violence is unfortunate, but since there were 3,000 (!!!!) media people
>in the city, I have to assume that if the average person doesn't know about
>the WTO and that, for *some * darn reason,  people are against it, they do
>now!!  I had some amazing and thoughtful conversations with delegates and
>NGO's that we were blocking from getting in. Most of the NGO's  feel that
>they are on "our" side. They want the same things we do and wanted us to
>let them in so they could make their voice heard at the WTO meeting. They
>are the "liberal" voice inside the WTO. I responded  that though I honored
>their good intentions and wished them no ill will,  that the very nature of
>the WTO is so un-democratic, that it cannot be "fixed" and that today was a
>vote of  NO CONFIDENCE in the WTO. As sorry as I was to inconvenience them,
>in order to make the statement the action was meant to make, no one could
>be let in or out.
>
>A police officer tried to ram our line with his police car, smashing into
>the metal trash barrels we had placed in front of us.  He leapt out,
>furious and  screaming at us. The line I was in at that time was pretty
>thin, so we got out of his way. He grabbed one of the trash barrels and
>tossed it out of his way, spilling all the discarded bottles inside it onto
>the ground in front of his vehicle. He then drove forward, driving over the
>bottles and giving himself four flat tires!
>
>At one point I was standing near a TV news reporter named Jim Foreman was
>doing live coverage of the events. As I heard him tell what amounted to
>outright LIES about what was happening only 150 feet away from him (that
>the protesters provoked everything), I could not resist shouting over his
>shoulder into his microphone "You aren't telling people what is really
>going on here! The police started all this violence! You're lying!" Soon
>after, a small group started chanting "Hey hey, ho ho, Jim Foreman has got
>to go!" and I overheard a plan being made to cut the cable going from his
>camera to their remote truck. (this particular reporter later physically
>attacked someone who would not get out of his way and called her a "hippie
>bitch").
>
>Despite what  the media is showing you,  there was very  little real
>violence coming from the protesters. All it amounted to was a lot of broken
>windows and some graffiti. We did not hurt the police, the downtown was not
>set on fire. ...nothing extreme like that happened....the $$ amount of
>destruction really amounts to very little. Considering how huge the whole
>thing was,  I think that the incredible emphasis of D.A.N. on NON-VIOLENCE
>NO MATTER  *WHAT * HAPPENS was a big success. The mood of the street was
>mostly wonderful and quite magical. Everyone was looking out for everyone
>else, helping each other, trying to block the few window smashers from
>doing more harm, finding medical assistance for those that were gassed or
>pepper sprayed. When we were sprayed and shot at,  everyone was yelling
>"WALK!! WALK!!" to make sure no one ran and got trampled. The more people
>got gassed and attacked, the more determined and resolved they were to not
>give up!! People would be temporal;y dispersed by the crowd and then come
>right back to sit down again. It was like something I have only read about
>in  biographies of Gandhi and it was intense and inspiring to see how
>amazingly caring and compassionate people could be under such extreme
>circumstances.
>
>As lines of non-violent protesters sitting with their arms linked got
>sprayed and shot at and forced out of the way, a whole new line would take
>there place. People who were gassed would leave the area and come back once
>they had recovered ( some of the things used actually wear off in about 20
>minutes) The determination shown to simply NOT GIVE UP was extraordinary.
>
>Of all things, BORDERS BOOKS (a corporate chain of bookstores that has put
>many small local book sellers out of business all over the U.S.),  was
>letting people in to sit down or use their bathroom to wash off the tear
>gas!! BORDERS was only one half block from some pretty crazy police
>violence, and I was amazed to see this happening. The manager was so
>distraught about what he was seeing in the streets he decided to do this
>(though almost all downtown businesses were closed, and this is THE major
>Xmas shopping area of Seattle.) I witnessed the surreal sight of seeing
>screaming and crying tear gassed demonstrators streaming into the store,
>while through the window I could see someone at BORDERS front counter
>actually buying a book!
>
>Seeing 50,000 to 85,000 people from labor, working class folks,
>environmental groups,  health issues folks, farmers, etc.  all together was
>great. The range of ages crossed four generations, including lots of high
>school kids. Opposition to the WTO brought us all together.
>
>---------------------------------------------------
>POSTSCRIPT-  one week later....  Seeing the difference between what I saw
>with my own eyes, and what the media says  "really" happened, has been an
>incredible experience. And as more video and testimony is surfacing, the
>true extent of police violence is becoming clear.  Things were MUCH worse
>than anything I witnessed. Police spraying hundreds of innocent bystanders
>in residential neighborhoods and cafes in the face, using nerve agents (
>biological weapons)  on the protesters on the second day of protests,
>running over protesters with motor cycles, a woman who was four months
>pregnant and had nothing to do with the protests was thrown down and kicked
>in the abdomen and miscarried,  police chasing protesters so they could
>kick them or strike them in the groin, people being  thrown face down into
>the pavement and having their teeth broken,  a person crawling on the
>ground from being so incapacitated from repeated gassing and having a
>police officer ram his baton up their ass and gassing them again, police
>attacking the Independent Media Center, police knocking on the car window
>of a woman video taping and, when she rolled down her window to speak to
>the officer, spraying her right in the face and yelling "Tape that, bitch!"
>....it goes on and on..... In fact a Seattle City Council member is
>bringing in Amnesty International to look at the human rights abuses that
>occurred during the protests.
>
>
>My tips for the WTO for the next time they meet-
>
>Never hold a meeting in the most liberal part of the USA ( stay away from
>Seattle, Olympia, Vancouver, Bellingham, Portland, Eugene, Berkeley and San
>Francisco).
>Never hold your meeting in the USA (try Singapore or China).
>Never hold your meeting in the downtown shopping center of a major US city
>(because Niketown and The Gap are easy targets.)
>Never hold your meeting after Thanksgiving. (everyone wants to shop, not
>protest you! C'mon!).
>Never hold your meeting on the eve of a new millennium (it's too symbolic).
>Never hold your meeting in a city with a mayor who was a free
>speech/anti-war protester in the 60's. (he wont be prepared and may be too
>"soft" on the protesters).
>Never underestimate how disorganized and stupid the police and the Secret
>Service can be.
>Never underestimate how well organized and determined your opposition will be.
>Never underestimate how many people will be video taping everything that
>happens to them.
>Never do anything to hurt sea turtles (they are too cute and kids like them
>and it looks bad in the press).
>And finally-
>
>Never name your organization with letters that rhyme with "NO" and "GO" (It
>gives the protesters too many easy things to chant).
>_________________________________________________
>
>
>An amazing video is now available from the INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTER :
>
>"SHOWDOWN IN SEATTLE: FIVE DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WTO"
>
>This is the video footage that the WTO, mainstream media and the Seattle
>Police don't want you to see.... an hour long video compilation of the
>five-part series produced by the Independent Media Center during the WTO
>meeting.  Produced in collaboration with Paper Tiger TV, Deep Dish TV, Big
>Noise Films, Changing America, Whispered Media, HAVC, Amazon Watch, and
>hundreds of local, national and international videographers.
>
>_________________________________________________
>
>Check out
>http://www.democracynow.org
>http://www.indymedia.org
>for alternative grass roots media coverage of what really happened at the
>protests. Indymedia.org has lots of amazing photos, video (see a cop run
>over a protester with his motorcycle!), and audio. Democracy Now has a lot
>of great archived live radio broadcasts.
>
>Check out
>http://www.seattlewto.org
>http://www.wtowatch.org/
>for more critical info about the WTO, what it is and how it works.
>
>Check out
>http://www.seattlep-i.com/wto
>for fairly decent mainstream media coverage and lots of photos.
>
>||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
>http://incomplete.net
>If it's not here, it's incomplete!
>jland@incomplete.net
>||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
>


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