Re: RAT Hello Seattle, i must be going...

[Chris Jeffries <cjeffries@seanet.com>]

One more thought on punks.  The "Stonewall Riots" in June of '69 were the 
work of a ragtag assortment of street trash taunting the cops, throwing 
garbage cans through windows, and setting things on fire including their 
own bar, which was a dump even by 60s sleazy-drag-bar standards.  
Apparently the reaction in (relatively) more upscale gay bars that night 
was condescension and contempt for whatever those "punks" might be up to. 
 The irony, of course, is that we now honor those events in countless 
Pride Marches every year during that same week in June, with mayors and 
such waving from convertibles; and that the entire history of the gay 
rights movement has been divided into "before" and "after" Stonewall.

Anyway:

This afternoon I attended the rally outside the Labor Temple.  A festive, 
funky, all-ages crowd of people in very high spirits.  Native American 
chanting, lots of drumming, and records like "Dancing in the Street" were 
the soundtrack.  It was lovely, and I doubt you'll see much of it on TV 
because looting and tear gas weren't involved.  In fact I didn't notice 
_any_ major media presence.  If I'm right, it's too bad because I was 
deeply moved by the experience.

During the week I've been somewhat leery of the rosy picture being 
painted (mainly on the Internet) of an unprecedented coalition of labor 
unions and other activists.  Yes, all kinds of groups are here to 
protest, but that in itself is not evidence of some big united front.  

On the flip side, I've been annoyed by the endless drone of carefully 
worded language (mainly on TV) that takes pains to separate the "planned 
and peaceful" protests that "came off successfully" to the more 
amorphous, less defined demonstrations that "got out of hand."  In 
particular, newscasters, city officials, and the President have all gone 
out of their way to distance the AFL-CIO (labor) demonstrators from what, 
by implication, were more unsavory elements (and treated as such by 
police). 

So I was very surprised and heartened as speaker after speaker testified 
to a new and exciting solidarity between some very diverse interest 
groups.   The real mind-blowing moment was a speech by one of the main 
AFL-CIO organizers (an African American woman whose name I did not catch 
-- Sherry, I think?) which included these strongly inclusive words [taken 
from my scribbled notes and possibly not verbatim]:

"We have achieved a victory this week... we have taken back our streets.  
We have showed the WTO and the world that our voices will not be 
silenced.  They hit us with tear gas, and they could not silence us.  
They shot at us with rubber bullets, and they could not silence us.  They 
set up curfews and zones, and we broke right through 'em!"

That is the last thing I was led to expect a labor union spokesperson to 
say.  I hope I'm conveying something of what a powerful statement that 
was for her to make today.

It all might sound old hat to some of you, but I started to feel, for the 
first time, as if those old Bob Dylan songs might actually refer to 
something real and possible.  If only for a moment, grass-roots Americans 
of many agendas have united to show the world a vibrant spectacle of 
resistance.  If only for a moment, all kinds of people are stopping to 
think about things long unexamined.  If only for a moment, shows like 
"Greed" and "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire" seem a little bit less 
interesting, while things like current events and decisions being made 
that affect the world's future seem a little bit more interesting.  
Naturally that moment is already starting to slip away but I hope it 
doesn't all just stop there.