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NORTH COAST TIMES E A G L E, WINTER 2000
BILL LOGAN
hat, broadcast two hours of radio every morning from the church
basement. As the tear-gassed protesters arrived during the
afternoon, we congregated there and formed many alliances
We realized even more how all our issues meshed, and felt our
solidarity.
The steelworkers have formed an alliance with the tree
sitters in northern California, and they invited everyone to a free
party at the church. David Brower, president of the Steelworkers,
and David Foster of Earth Island Institute spoke of their alliance
and their hope of bringing union members and environmentalists
together in a massive movement.There was a wonderful alliance
of foods — everything from turkey, baked potatoes and hearty
soup for the steelworkers to hummus, tabouli, veggies, fruit and
chips for the vegetarians Everyone feasted, picked up literature,
shared stories from the streets. Charlie King, Jim Page, Sweet
Honey in the Rock, and African drumming entertained us. The
sanctuary was rocking! By the time Ruth and I left, the curfew
was on, many streets barricaded, and the buses not running.
'The Raging Grannies' tore up sheets to make armbands for us
to show we were peaceful protesters. Fortunately, we were able
to sneak out of the church, circumvent the barricades, and walk
up over First Hill to where we were staying with encountering
tear-gas.
Ruth is a member of the Women's International League
for Peace & Freedom (WILPF), and they were one of the NGOs
(non-govemment non-profit organizations) who had been invited
to attend the WTO meetings. We went to debriefings every
evening to learn what was going on. These powerful, informed
women, one from the U.S. and one from Canada, had attended
other international meetings where they also met in women's
caucuses to decide strategy, and lobbied their own country's
delegates. But at this WTO they felt completely marginalized,
more like window dressing than players. They were given abbre
viated packets that did not even include agendas or locations of
meetings. They were served elaborate lunches and given a box
of chocolates, but had no access to delegates. They reported
that the delegates of the smaller nations felt equally marginal
ized and powerless. The Golden Rule of the WTO seems to be
"The ones with the gold make the rules."
Thursday's session at the church was on Food & Agri
culture, again with powerful speakers from around the globe,
including India, Bangladesh, France, Uruguay, Korea and China.
They told us how the WTO requirement for exports is pushing
hundreds of thousands of small farmers off the land and into
cities, and of problems wth genetically engineered crops. At
noon we marched down to the Pike Street Market for a rally in
support of family farmers.
As we were returning to the church, we ran across the
protest at the jail demanding the release of the 'Seattle 400'. The
DAN was so disciplined! One guy juggled, another hula-hooped.
The crowd chanting but calm. Some of the chants were call and
response. I was across the street and couldn't understand the
words, but it sounded like a church service. The police surround
ed the block but did not interfere. One man threw a bottle. Other
protesters immediately picked up the broken glass. A man
behind me yelled, "Agent Povocateur! Will somebody please
escort that gentleman away?" He split. The DAN protesters had
had too much nonviolence training to be incited into mob action.
That evening after our debriefing with WILPF we walked
up Capitol Hill to the Community College, where a video of
police violence was scheduled. However, the college was closed
because during the previous evening students had been tear-
gassed as they left their classes The students and neighbors
were irate and were forming an impromptu march, as much to
protest the police action as the WTO We marched with them
for awhile, then turned off to go home to bed
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Friday's session was at the Lutheran Church and was
on corporate accountability. We broke up a little early to join
a march from the Labor Temple sponsored by Seattle's labor,
environmental, religious, civic, community and student groups
This was a huge march, larger than anyone expected and was
joined by many Seattleites protesting the police actions. "This
is what democracy looks like! " and "Free the Seattle 400! " we
chanted.One man had a large sign stating the First Amendment.
Another said "My taxes paid for your tear-gas." Again, people
were talking and networking all along the route.Two underground
newspapers with news of the WTO protests not found in the
local mainstream media were distributed The ACLU passed out
fliers asking for reports of police misconduct. The 'Wobblies'
(Industrial Workers of the World) called for a general strike
Everyone was talking about 'where do we go from here'? How
can we expand these alliances and how can the movement
grow? How can we spread the word about this powerful event in
the face of the mainstream media's obsession with the violence?
I wish I could have attended the Friday session on Fish
eries, Aquaculture & the WTO, where family fishers from around
the world discussed the impact of globalization and corporate
consolidation on their lives, environment and community, but
Ruth and I left on the 5:00 train after six very powerful and
energizing days
THE LONG ROAD
BY ARTHUR MORGAN
For perhaps the next half century or more the burden
of our attention and of our loyalties, and the full drive of our
aspirations, should be given to bringing about a revolution in
the personal character of the American people When I use
the word "character" I have in mind three elements.First its
purposefulness, or the pattern of desire — the vision of the life
it would be well to lead, of the kind of world which so far as
wisdom, judgment, and good will can determine it would be
well to live in.
Second, I include good wll and the skilled and disci
plined drive of desire vtfiich presses toward the realization of
aims and purposes. Great insight into what would constitute
a good life for one's self and for society has value only as
expressed in well-considered action, though under the term
"action" I should include the disciplined and carefully expressed
thinking of the student, and the work of the artist, as well as the
more obvious activity of the laborer or the businessman.
Great vigor of action by itself, however, may have no
more social value than the capricious force of the tornado,
unless it is directed by a vision of what is desirable...
The third factor is ethical or moral quality, the habitual
choice of means that are wholesome in their own effects. Even
when the desired end is good and the disciplined energy great,
it is important that the methods used shall be in themselves
ethical or moral.
My definition of ethical or moral action is as easy to
state as it is difficult to apply That is an ethical act which is
good when judged by its total consequences — which is good
for the future as well as the present, for society as a whole as
well as for ourselves..
There is scarcely any more effective means for bnnging
about social change than the "apostolic succession" that results
from inanimate association of persons of clear purpose and
great commitment with small groups of young people
We must begin far back, in the slow, thorough building
of character which will be tried out in the realities of everyday
living, and which by aspiration, disciplined by open-minded,
critical inquiry, will mature a philosophy of life reasonably
adequate to the present day. As that quality of character is
matured, it will result in leadership that will apply itself to the
issues of the time It will give concrete expression in everyday
life to a new vision of the quality that life may have When that
vision is clearly expressed and clearly defined the people will
gradually receive it as their own. The long way round of build
ing character, in the end will prove to have been the short way
home to a good social order
Arthur Morgan was once head of the Tennessee Valley
Authority during the FDR administration, and was considered the
USA's leading flood control engineer. Earlier, in 1921, he made
Ohio’s ailing Antioch College one of the best undergraduate
schools in the country. Later focusing his energies on the
restoration of small community life, he organized in 1940 the
foundation known as Community Service, Inc During that time
he wrote "a rather wonderful little book," The Long Road, from
vtfuch this excerpt has been repnnted from MANAS, a 'journal
of independent inquiry', which unfortunately ceased publication
in 1986
I have been thinking about that week ever since, and
I do have some observations and questions to throwout:
~1. The protest I saw and experienced was nothing like
what TV reported. Is this because TV news is increasingly
controlled and censored by big corporations? What can we do
about it? Could we broadcast the church sessions, the peaceful
marches on TV or the Internet?
~2. I was overjoyed to observe the young people in this
protest; in their numbers, their friendliness, their discipline, and
their practice of nonviolence and use of consensus One young
man asked me if this is what it was like in the '60s, or were we a
lot more organized I had to laugh
~3. The police were protecting the WTO, not the citizens
or businesses of Seattle Their orders were to maintain their
perimeters, and they did nothing to stop the window breakers,
even though they were right there. They were much less organ
ized than the protesters.
~4 It was wonderful to share the protest with the unions,
and the developing alliance between them, the environmentalists
and the church is portentous. We all felt it.
~5 Unlike dunng the Vietnam War protests, there was
little opposition to our views Many people were frustrated by the
shut-down of the city and the tear-gas, but most thanked us for
our work and said they agreed with us 100%.
-6. What should we do about the rock throwers? Some
of us thought we should control them ourselves, as they comple
tely destroyed our message. Others said no, we are peaceful
protesters, it's up to the police to control the violence. What did
the mass, nonviolent movements of Gandhi and Martin Luther
King do about rock-throwers. Does anybody know?
All four of my children have told me they are proud
I was protesting in Seattle, and my teenaged granddaughter
asked me to take her with me if I ever went to another protest.
It was difficult for her 5 year old sister, watching TV and knowing
her grandma was there, to figure out who were the good guys
and who were the bad guys. Their mother suggested that part of
the fervor was millennium fever, and she's probably right, as the
corporations have been overly-greedy for a long time. But I say,
let's build on it! This week felt like the beginning of a new, mass
international social movement, folks. I think a question in the
future will be 'Were you in Seattle in 1999?" I am so happy that
I was.
Lois Morford has been called an "International Activist.”
She lives in Astoria and has written many articles on human
rights in Central America, where she has actively worked for
those rights for many years.
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