RE: RAT Hello Seattle

["Sylvain, John" <jsylvain@station.sony.com>]

I want to say that I think that World Trade COULD be a vehicle of social
change. Its just so damned INCONVINENT to think about human rights and clean
air and stuff when there is so much money to be made RIGHT NOW.

The goal is not violent revolution, the goal is nonviolent evolution. We
(the people of the world) can use this momentum to influence the future of
our planet. We are fighting against the unbridled influence of Capital which
has been recently (post American Civil War) released from the bonds of
morality and human responsibility through the invention of the corporation.
It will be hard but we must prevail. We will prevail because if we don't we
are all doomed sooner rather than later. All that Capital has on its side is
blind greed. We have everything else (good and bad).

Don't get hurt and don't hurt others. 

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	chris mac [SMTP:cmacdona@adobe.com]
> Sent:	Thursday, December 02, 1999 4:22 PM
> To:	rat-list@whirl-i-gig.com
> Subject:	Re: RAT Hello Seattle
> 
> Hey Seattle RATS:
> 
> It seems there will indeed be a protest against the police tonight. This
> will probably be a mixture of neighborhood people and anti-WTO people. I
> have been avoiding the 'non-official' protests, but I think I will go to
> this one. I kind of lost it when I saw the police using pepper spray and
> tear gas in my neighborhood.
> 
> I'm sure of the exact location, but I think it will occur @ 7PM near
> Seattle
> Central Community College.
> 
> If you do go, please be careful, and be prepared for some kind of police
> response.
> 
> It is interesting to read how the situation here is being perceived by
> others in the media and on this list.
> 
> Where do you stand?
> 
> ...ChrisMac
> 
> 
> ----------
> >From: Mathew Bretz <mabretz@cbomedia.com>
> >To: rat-list@whirl-i-gig.com
> >Subject: Re: RAT Hello Seattle
> >Date: Fri, Dec 3, 1999, 1:06 AM
> >
> 
> > i agree with john sylvain.  this entire turn events is terrifying,
> > surprising to me (perhps because i am now only a sporadic activist) and
> > ultimately, inevitable.  many friends here who are from seattle have
> > expressed cynicism that those rioting are a bunch of wake and baking,
> got
> > nothing better to do, hey free stuff, what are we protesting again local
> > seattlites who are as familiar to them as the space needle.  others say
> > this was a well organized protest by people coming from all over the
> world
> > to say "enough" for a variety of reasons.  i suggest that it is probably
> > both.  welcome to the tip of the revolutionary iceberg.  as capital
> becomes
> > increasingly concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the outcry demanding
> > self determination will spread.  some will be articulate.  some will
> not.
> > some will lead.  some will follow.  i ,personally, still think the big
> flip
> > is a long way off (this is why i was surprised by this week's events)
> and i
> > don't think the decades on either side o!
> > f it
> > are going to be very much fun for anyone, anywhere.  but as i wrote, i
> > suggest it is inevitable and those of us (for the moment) lucky enough
> to
> > have teargas free back yards should prick up our ears.  my sincere
> > sympathies to all those in seattle who are injured, frightened,
> > inconvenienced and annoyed by the protests.   you have a perspective i
> > would never presume to share.  but i hope you will also ask yourselves
> if
> > your resentment and reprisal ought to be best directed at the
> provocateurs
> > who are, in my opinion, well represented by the WTO.  in other words,
> while
> > you may question the motives and tactics of some involved, i believe it
> is
> > part of a movement which will ultimately demand that we all stand to one
> > side or the other.
> >
> > matthew
> >
> > Chris Jeffries wrote:
> >
> >> Here's an article from the online magazine Salon which I consider
> mostly
> > reliable (though it, too, avoids discussing the actual issues
> surrounding
> > the WTO summit, per the article Rebecca posted).  Let me point out, too,
> > that not everyone "with scarves over their faces" was a "hardcore
> > anarchist" or rioter.  Only a few of the people doing the shop-looting
> in
> > front of TV cameras looked like that; plus face scarves are suddenly
> real
> > popular due to the tear gas which is being deployed not only within the
> "no
> > protest" and "curfew" zones, but at several locations elsewhere,
> including
> > residential neighborhoods many blocks from the WTO conference.  Please
> note
> > that fewer than 25 arrests were made on Tuesday, a day which saw many
> acts
> > of property damage and a few lootings, while over 400 were made on
> > Wednesday, a day for which local news reported no further vandalism.  A
> few
> > looters were apprehended, but most got away with it; nearly all arrests
> in
> > Seattle have resulted from nonviole!
> > nt!
> >>  direct action.  Meanwhile, so far no one has been critically injured,
> > which is remarkable.
> >>
> >> Online, you can find the article below at:
> >>
> >> http://www.salonmagazine.com/news/feature/1999/12/02/riots/index.html
> >>
> >> A no-win situation
> >>
> >> Nonviolent protesters get hit from both sides at the WTO conference in
> Seattle.
> >>
> >>  - - - - - - - - - - - -
> >>  By L.A. Kauffman
> >>
> >>  Dec. 2, 1999 | SEATTLE --
> >>
> >> Tuesday's World Trade Organization riot can be summed up by the story
> of
> > Craig Webster, a friend I know from activist circles in New York. First
> he
> > was shot with rubber bullets when police opened fire on peaceful
> > demonstrators at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Union Street, and he has
> > nasty welts to show for it. Then later in the day, he was slugged in the
> > jaw by a rioter, while he and some other nonviolent activists tried to
> > prevent the Niketown store from being looted.
> >>
> >> Craig's bad luck encapsulated the experience of nonviolent protesters
> who
> > came to Seattle to focus world attention on WTO -- they got upstaged by
> > violent anarchists and attacked by police, who did nothing until late in
> > the day to stop the rioting. While peaceful protesters vastly
> outnumbered
> > the hooligans, there were 300 to 400 hardcore anarchists intent on
> clashing
> > with police, most with scarves over their faces, some carrying hammers,
> > crowbars and spray paint in their bags.
> >>
> >> On Wednesday, police arrested more than 300 people, most of them
> > non-violent demonstrators, in a change of tactics designed to clear the
> > streets for President Clinton's visit. Wednesday night, police used tear
> > gas again, to disperse a crowd that began to gather downtown.
> >>
> >> But on Tuesday, police allowed the so-called revolutionaries bent on
> > violence to gain the upper hand.  Early Tuesday morning,  a few blocks
> away
> > from the nonviolent blockade, small roving groups of violent protesters
> > began tossing newspaper boxes into an intersection, dragging trash bins
> > into the street and trying -- without success at that point -- to smash
> the
> > windows of downtown stores.
> >>
> >> The police pretty much let them do as they pleased. One squad of about
> a
> > dozen officers in riot gear briefly marched into the crowd at the
> > intersection of Fourth Avenue and Pike Street, but retreated almost
> > immediately, when it became clear that the protesters wouldn't disperse.
> A
> > little after 9 a.m., I saw two cops grab a demonstrator who was tipping
> > over a trash bin on Pike Street. But they didn't hold him for long: 20
> of
> > the rioters rushed the police and brawled with them until they got their
> > comrade free.
> >>
> >> But later, I watched as thousands of people blocked the western
> entrance
> > to the convention center and marveled at their defiant yet peaceful
> > demeanor. Linked arm-in-arm in a huge perimeter around the meeting site,
> or
> > sitting cross-legged in key intersections, the protesters were achieving
> > their goal of preventing the trade body's meeting, and in a spirit of
> > complete nonviolence. Soon, with no provocation, they were
> pepper-sprayed
> > by police.
> >>
> >> It was no secret -- not to me, and certainly not to the Seattle police
> --
> > that this conference would be met with violence in the streets. Rioting
> had
> > broken out at a "Reclaim the Streets" protest in Eugene, Ore., in June,
> and
> > in the intervening five months, anarchist militants had been circulating
> > apocalyptic manifestos promising more fights to come. A pre-WTO article
> in
> > a Eugene 'zine called the Black-Clad Messenger warned, "Tilting at the
> > excesses of the system never gets down to the rotten, death-culture
> > foundations of the system ... Anarchy says it is time to face reality
> and
> > destroy the global (and local) machine. Phony half-measures and
> > pseudo-critiques and submissive demos are no advance at all. SEE YOU IN
> >> SEATTLE!"
> >>
> >> And indeed, in Seattle, at a huge public meeting of people planning to
> > blockade the convention center, a young woman announced that 100 gas
> masks
> > had been ordered in preparation for Tuesday's protest and were available
> at
> > cost. (Tuesday, Seattle Mayor Paul Schell banned possession or use of
> gas
> masks.)
> >>
> >> But the police took no action to contain the mayhem that was obviously
> on
> > the agenda. Instead, they let the rioters run wild while assaulting
> > peaceful protesters with pepper spray, tear gas and rubber bullets.
> >>
> >> I was at the intersection of Sixth Avenue and Union Street when the
> > pepper spraying began, and neither I nor three other witnesses I
> > interviewed saw any kind of provocation from the demonstrators. I've
> been
> > told that some in the crowd started throwing sticks at the police after
> the
> > gassing started, but I didn't see it.  My eyes were burning so badly I
> > couldn't keep them open.
> >>
> >> The police could have used a different method to clear the area, by
> > simply arresting all of the blockaders. That's what most protesters
> > expected to happen, and they had undergone extensive training by the
> > nonviolent Direct Action Network to prepare themselves for jail.
> >>
> >> But mass arrests of peaceful protesters are time-consuming and
> expensive,
> > and often bad for public relations. Gassing a crowd is a quick and
> > uncomplicated way to make it disperse. Of course, it's a controversial
> > method, but not if the police and media make it seem like a response to
> rioting.
> >>
> >> The splits on the streets in Seattle mirror divisions in direct action
> > groups throughout the Northwest.
> >>
> >> In Seattle, some activists from Humboldt County, Calif. -- mostly
> young,
> > many women -- engaged in what's called a "lock-down action," in which
> > protesters use bicycle locks or other devices to create a human
> blockade.
> > Lock-downs have been widely used by direct action movements throughout
> the
> > 1990s, especially by Earth First and animal-rights groups. The devices
> > allow protesters to hold a space -- an intersection, a logging road, an
> > opponent's office -- for much longer than they otherwise could, because
> it
> > takes considerable time and effort to cut them apart.
> >>
> >> Two years ago in Humboldt County, police developed a new way of
> handling
> > lock-downs: pepper spray. In the most widely publicized incident, four
> > Earth First activists who were blockading Rep. Frank Riggs' office in
> > Eureka had pepper spray applied directly to their eyes with cotton
> swabs.  
> >>
> >> At Tuesday's WTO protest, 20 demonstrators from Humboldt County used
> lock
> > boxes to link themselves in a circle. As supporters gathered around
> them,
> > you could see thick clouds of tear gas at the next intersection down the
> > hill, where police were dispersing a crowd. Calls went up for vinegar
> and
> > rags to cover the faces of the blockaders, who calmly sat and waited.
> >>
> >> An hour or so later, the police arrived and asked the blockaders to
> > leave. When they refused, cops went around the circle, pepper-spraying
> the
> > activists in the face. They didn't unlock. The police sprayed again.
> Still
> > the blockaders stayed firm. After two more attempts, the police finally
> > gave up, ceding the intersection to the protesters.
> >>
> >> Obviously it takes extraordinary endurance and dedication to take that
> > kind of punishment, and it's not clear that the gains exceed the costs.
> In
> > Humboldt County, Earth First has been moving away from lock-downs and
> > toward traditional Gandhi-style civil disobedience: sit-ins, human
> chains
> > and the like.
> >>
> >> But in the Eugene area, the advent of pepper spray has had a
> radicalizing
> > effect.  For about a year, activists have been questioning and
> abandoning
> > nonviolence. I think the property-destroying tactics used on Tuesday
> were
> > stupid and ineffective. It's not just testosterone-charged yahoos who
> are
> > rejecting nonviolent styles of protest, some are seasoned activists who
> > have several years of direct-action campaigning under their belts.
> >>
> >> Among them are two young women I've had contact with in the past. I met
> > one in connection with the direct-action campaign to preserve New York's
> > community gardens, which I worked on for two years. I met the other at
> an
> > Earth First forest encampment while doing research for a book. I didn't
> see
> > either of them on Tuesday, but I thought about a manifesto that one
> passed
> > on to me last week.
> >>
> >> It read, "Let's not train the thousands of people who gather in Seattle
> > to do no more than be herded by the police, hold signs and offer
> themselves
> > up as sacrificial lock-down lambs. I'm not advocating a riot. The ground
> > between violence and pacifism is wide, much larger than the ivory tower
> of
> > either. Meet me there."
> >>
> >> salon.com | Dec. 2, 1999
> >>
> >> - - - - - - - - - - - -
> >>
> >> About the writer
> >> L.A. Kauffman is completing a history of American radicalism since the
> 1960s.
> >
> >