Continued from Page 1
I was remembering being on these same streets
during the protests against' ' ,f,t Nam, and I had read
about the General Strike oi l9V>, when the
Wobblies shut the city down for six days The
Wobblies were back again 1 uesday morning. 1 ve
heard a story about when Woodrow Wilson visited
Seattle after he had broken the strike with
Government Troops, and the streets were lined with
Wobblies and their families and they stared at him in
silence as he drove past. He had a stroke shortly
thereafter. Yes, the power of the people is mighty
and the power of organized people is awesome. A
speaker told the crowd that all of Ports on the West
Coast were shut down. That hasn’t happened since
the thirties. Since there are so many stories out
there about Seattle, we have posted some o f the e-
mails we recieved on our web site and encourage you
to read them if you can, but since most folks can t,
we will include parts of other folk s stories in the
paper paper as well.
So, here’s part of Ja c k ’s story...
“Seattle, November 30th 1999 1:30PM”
I stood on the sidewalk as a rainbow
river of people flowed by. Led by Teamsters
on Harleys and Tibetan exiles, one affinity
group after another marched down the street
as I looked for a good spot to join the fun.
Even though the rain had stopped folks wore
their union sponsored ponchos proudly, eddies
of blue machinists, red steelworkers and
yellow longshoremen swirled with a
patchwork of Gortex. Signs, banners and flags
waved announcing affiliations and concerns.
“WTO: If it doesn’t work for your family, it
doesn’t work!”, “WTO: Don’t leave us out in
the cold!”, “We demand a voice!” Shouts,
chants and music echoed off the buildings.
The street was packed as far as I could see
back down to the Seattle Center and the Space
Needle. Celebration was afoot!
Sea Turtles have become a symbol of
the WTO’s anti-environmentalbia as the
organization has deemed a U.S. law insisting
on turtle-friendly shrimp nets a ‘trade
barrier’. Someone had developed an ingenious
cardboard turtle suit and encouraged
hundreds of people to wear them. The
ubiquitious sea-turtles were especially
impressive marching together with a giant
inflatable turtle mascot.
At this point the march entered what
television would later portray as the battle
zone. We passed some broken windows, saw
plumes of tear gas a few blocks off the parade
route and were encouraged to join the Direct
Action Network in its civil disobedience. I had
wandered up here earlier and witnessed some
of the vandalism. Masked furtive boys,
mostly, maybe 30 of them, dressed all in black
moved quickly and quietly down the sidewalk
randomly smashing windows and overturning
paperboxes. There was no air of celebration
about them. Only anger and adrenaline.
Another local person who was there, Hank,
was involved in the civil disobedience and followed
Thoreau’s footsteps to jail. This is part o f Hank’s
story.....
WEDNESDAY
I was arrested around seven thirty in
the morning; I think it was close to Eighth
and Lenora. My affinity group had overslept
and we were late for the protest, the meeting
place was empty so we kept walking toward
downtown, we knew they had headed for the
Westin. A National Guard unit denied us entry
at one intersection but helpfully suggested
trying further on, so we did and it worked.
We came upon a group of people and police
and cameras and buses and other signs of a
good old fashioned conflict. A bunch of
protesters were lined up on the sidewalk,
already cuffed and waiting to be loaded onto
two waiting metro buses. I got a little pissed
off, as I’m prone to do at the sight of police
abusing their power. I have no idea why, but
I ducked into the used car lot that bordered
the melee and came out on the up side of the
roundup, but in the street. Ignoring the "sir,
sir," of some cop, I just walked over to the
front of the already full bus and attached
myself, as best I could, to the bike rack. I was
soon joined in this endeavor b y ----- .
I’m not sure what good it did besides
slowing things down a bit and causing the
police to illegally apply pain compliance
holds to my head, elbows, and back. Their
holds didn’t actually work, but they got me off
"Black holes are where God divided by zero."
- Steven Wright
u?rw uh
s t t a t i o 2.000
just by pulling harder than I could hold on
(five to one, hey, no fair). Once I was on the
ground I was afraid they would pepper spray
me so I covered my face with my arms, but
they pulled my arms away and threatened to
start spraying. I peeked my eyes open and
the cannister was inches from my face. I
decided not to be temporarily blinded and in
agonizing pain, and gave up. They rolled me
on my stomach and cuffed me, a process
complicated by the fact that there were at
least four of them. As one would scream for
me to put my arm behind my back, the
corresponding appendage wasn’t always
released. They got it sorted out eventually and
I was hoisted into the air. I had a frightening
view of their legs, covered in body armor,
clicking in unison. I was being carried by
the robotic insects of global-capital, but to
where?
JAIL
I think the complete effectiveness of
jail (assuming the goal of which is to
dehumanize, demoralize, and force
conformity) is due to information control.
Access to the outside world and other inmates
is strictly and deliberately controlled.
I was locked in cell F037 almost the
whole time I was in the King County Regional
Justice Center in Kent. I got out to make a
phone call once and another time to meet
with a lawyer. When we were moved our
ankles were cuffed together and our hands
cuffed to a chain around our waists. Single
file right side of the hall no noise. Shut the
fuck up you’ll do what I say you’re on the
inside.
Inside is different, I felt I had no
power. Almost upon arrival I was carried (out
of a peaceful attempt to stay in a holding cell
until our lawyer arrived) and slammed into a
rolling lockdown chair. Restrained by my
ankles and waist, cuffed behind my back, a
strap around my chest and hair firmly pulled.
I had just seen another prisoner in the same
position get pepper sprayed as punishment.
From that moment I gave up a little, gave up
my naïve belief that I could do anything to
affect my situation. A reverse lesson from the
empowering protests on the outside. Shut up
and wait became my strategy, don’t let them
beat your mind. Any outcry or dissent by a
prisoner was turned into a personal issue by
the guards. Who’s going to win a power
struggle in a jail?
The whole time I was inside I wanted to
scream and run away, indulge a fantasy that I
could just get out and away. As I white male
in this county the loss of power came as quite
a shock, I wanted to hit my door and scream,
swing my arms wide and disappear. But I
knew that if I did, that I wouldn’t have that
fantasy anymore, that I would have lost.
I saw the man next to me in booking
get attacked by at least four guards for not
consenting to give up his glasses. I could
hear his hair being pulled out and the noise
his joints made as his shoulders and wrists
were used as pain compliance devices. I saw
prisoners simply taken away to isolation for
asking for their phone call too much (these
men never got a call).
There is no dialogue inside, you know
what they want you to know, go where they
want you to go. But solidarity is inside one’s
mind and they couldn’t take that away from
us. Solidarity is what filled the experience
with joy and hope, choosing to go back to jail*
when they wanted to release us, knowing that
protesters were ringing the jail, chanting for
our release.
And we got this story from Terry....
Here is what I saw in person:
a march of between 40 and 50,000
people of every possible skin hue,
every conceivable race, ages between
early 20s and late 60s, fat, thin,
and in between, from all over the
U.S. I saw Women of Steel — women
steelworkers from Boulder, CO next
to the association of airline
pilots. I saw tool and die workers
walking next to the association of
professional engineers; well, you
get the picture.
Thousands of diverse people
together in good fellowship, wanting
to have a voice in an organization
(WTO) that is trying to exclude
them. Being in the middle of this
group was simply amazing. While
many of these people feel strongly
enough about the issue to have come
by bus from far away to be heard, I
saw no anger expressed. No hint of
violent behavior. I saw positive
statements: "If it doesn't work for
working families, it doesn't work,"
was the most common placard being
held. I saw smiling faces and
camaraderie.
If you think, as I do, that
this group is a true cross section
of the people in this country, you
must be as impressed as I am. It
was beyond words inspiring. Imagine
my amazement when I went home,
hoping to see pictures of the march
on television, when this march was
not shown on any of the local
television stations I I switched
channels and followed the news for
some time. I heard one 2 second
reference to it. How can this
immense show of people not be news?
I eagerly opened the Seattle Times
hoping for some pictures of this
incredible event. Not a one! It
simply boggled my mind.
What was being shown? Tear
gas, people blocking intersections,
and looters who had no connection to
the protest at all. However, it was
when I saw the news broadcasts this
morning that I really knew I had to
write this.
According to all the Seattle TV
news stations, police presence had
become more aggressive because of
the "looting and violence of some of
the protesters last night."
Absolutely unbelievable — and I
mean that literally! Here are a
couple of scenes that were shown on
TV, given to you raw, before the
news people started rewriting
history — and this involves now not
the union protesters, but the people
who were on the street getting up
close and personal:
A scene from early on in the
day, at an intersection a couple of
blocks from the session location was
shown. The intersection was at the
bottom of a hill, with heavy police
presence, and many protesters at
both top and bottom. Some
protesters on top of the hill had
started rolling barrels down the
hill. Another protester went up the
hill and talked to those people, and
asked them to stop. They did. No
tear gas was needed, no police
action — the peaceful protesters
were keeping their own people in
line. No matter how hard the press
tried, they were unable to show
violence of any kind instituted by
the protesters. The delegates joined
arms, and formed a cordon, and some
got up on top of busses that had
been ringed around the Paramount
Theater, but no one had a weapon of
any sort, and the only punches
thrown were by a delegate! Also,
another delegate brandished a gun at
the protesters. Whether you think
the protesters were right or wrong
in general, it's important to know
that they did behave nonviolently.
Another scene shown live on
local TV, which was later narrated
in a very different way: A small
group of young men dressed in black,
with hoods and masks, began breaking
windows and spraying graffiti.
There was one newswoman, from KIRO,
on the scene with a cameraman, and
she reported on this and followed
them as the action was happening.
She reported that the protesters
were actually yelling at the vandals
and trying to get them to stop. At
one place the protesters formed a
Continued on Page 4
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