Brandy Williams, independent observer
Coverage of the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle in 1999 and the protests against that meeting. I worked in downtown Seattle at the time, and having once been a newspaper reporter, I grabbed my camera and ran out to cover the event.
The protests went on for a week. If you want just a summary, see the Week in Review. There is also a lot of detail here about what I saw. I have resisted the impulse to edit that material - it stands as a record of who I was at that time.
September 27, 2009
Ten years later
December 1999 - January 2000 aftermath
Wednesday, 1/19/2000: Homeless Paper Staff Members Sue City
Tuesday, 1/4/2000: Charges Dropped
Friday, 12/24/99: Alternative Media Reports
Tuesday, 12/13/99: The Stranger Reports
Thursday, 12/09/99: Investigation Begins
Wednesday, 12/08/99: Venting
Tuesday, 12/07/99: Nerve Gas?
Tuesday, 12/07/99: Cops and Protesters: The Fight Goes On
Monday, 12/06/99: Protesters Released
Sunday, 12/05/99: WTO: The Story Goes On
Week in Review
Review and analysis
Saturday, 12/04/99
Saturday, 12/04/99: WTO: Witches Still In Jail
Saturday, 12/04/99: WTO: Protesters Still In Jail While City Recovers (7:30 p.m.)
Saturday, 12/04/99: WTO: No New News
Friday, 12/03/99
Friday, 12/03/99: WTO: Late News (11:30 p.m.)
Friday, 12/03/99: WTO: Friday Night Protests (6:00 p.m.)
Friday, 12/03/99: WTO: Update (4:30 p.m.)
Friday, 12/03/99: WTO: More Protests (2:30 p.m.)
Friday, 12/03/99: WTO: Quiet Morning
Thursday, 12/02/99
12/02/99: WTO: Free the Seattle 500!
12/02/99: WTO: Bud Krogh Marches (3:00 p.m.)
12/02/99: WTO: Peaceful Protest (2:30 p.m.)
12/02/99: WTO: Witches in Jail (noon)
12/02/99: WTO: Media Links (11:30 a.m.)
12/02/99: WTO: Give Me My City Back (11 a.m.)
Wednesday, 12/01/99
12/01/99: WTO: Police Out of Control (11:30 p.m.)
12/01/99: WTO: Update (10:30 p.m.)
12/01/99: WTO: Arrests (8:30 p.m.)
12/01/99: WTO: Perspectives (7:30 p.m.)
12/01/99: WTO: Seeking Witch News (1:30 p.m.)
12/01/99: WTO: Lockdown
Tuesday, 11/30/99
11/30/99: WTO: At the End of the Day (midnight)
11/30/99: WTO: Curfew (5:30 p.m.)
11/30/99: WTO: Witches Get Good Press (2:30 p.m.)
11/30/99: WTO: On the Streets at Noon
11/30/99: WTO: This just in (10:40 a.m.)
11/30/99: WTO: Aux Barricades!
Monday, 11/29/99
11/29/99: WTO
I haven't seen Battle in Seattle. My sister saw it and said it wasn't terribly accurate. I think it's very funny that the extras they employed were people who actually did link arms with each other.
I seem to have lost the photos I took. Ten years ago digital cameras were not so affordable. I was using a film camera - I'd run out and take a photo, get it developed by a four-hour developer, scan it, and put it on the page. I remember so many images of people dressed like turtles, protestors linking arms, scared cops no older than the protesters. If I find them again I'll put them up here.
My nephew, now 14, remembers this event as traumatic, because his preschool closed due to the protests. It's strange to think that this conscious being I share the planet with had such a different experience of the protests, what was so exhilarating to me was so scary to him. On the other hand no one had the same experience of this event. My enduring memory, aside from the fact that Seattle was the town where the protests got big enough to matter, is that there was so much going on, it was impossible to cover even a fraction of it.
I'm keeping this text archive on the web because I think it is important to have eyewitness accounts of historical events.
The current print issue of the homeless newspaper Real Change reports that staff photographers George Hickey and Dana Schuerholz have filed damages against the city. Hickey was doused with pepper spray (got a good photo of it too which the issue prints). Schuerholz was arrested, although the charges were later dropped. Both showed their press creds to the police.
It may not be the most riveting story from the protests. I'm rooting for them, though. They're the little guys, without the resources of the bigger newspapers and television reporters. But they did their job for us so I'm doing my job for them: Go get 'em!
In a move that shocked no one, our city attorney Mark Sidran decided to drop the outstanding charges against 280 remaining protesters. About 200 were processed, and about 40 remain. Here's the PI story.
Anyone else curious about the feelings of the people who had their charges dropped? There was a lot of solidarity, many people were determined not to plea bargain separately but to stand together for a joint deal. Which they got, but mostly because the arrests were so badly documented that even Sidran couldn't back them any more, especially with the PI pushing for explanations. Also, anyone else curious about the remaining 40? Hopefully the Weekly and the Stranger will go talk to them. The alternative papers are being very aggressive about following these stories. Makes me want to write for them!
I'm reading this week's copies of The Stranger and our homeless newspaper Real Change. Real Change gave me the best basic information before the WTO hit town; they had a lovely FAQ with questions I was embarassed to ask, like, how does the organization actually work? Where does it get its power? This week they continue their marvelous analysis with a very simple explanation of what we can do next, now that the WTO has left town. Also, please note, the city fathers set up homeless shelters during WTO week and everybody was off the streets. As soon as the ministers left town the shelters folded. About 75 people per day are turned away from the existing shelters and pushed out into the streets, where there is no legal place for them to stay. It's no wonder two homeless activists vented their frustration by putting a newspaper stand through the McDonald's window.
The Stranger continues its excellent and disturbing coverage. Recall that there were cameras everywhere during WTO week. The cameras followed the protesters to Sand Point, reporters talked to the affinity groups which formed in the buses. They weren't allowed in the prisons, though, and neither were the legal observers, it was just the cops and the protesters. As soon as the protesters were released, though, legal observers and protest organizers set up videotapes and started documenting their stories. The Stranger did an excellent job with one representative story--they talked to a woman who said she had been slammed against the concrete floor until her nose bled; they talked to another protester who was in a cell next to her who saw her just afterwards with a bloody nose; they talked to the people who videotaped her on her release. There are many stories of people being physically brutalized--struck, beaten, slammed against walls and floors, stripped naked.
I am personally upset by this. I am not a knee-jerk activist. I was a journalist for some years, and one of the beats I covered was as a cop reporter. The cops I knew would never assault a person in jail. Period. Hell, I knew a police chief who refused to carry a gun because he wasn't willing to use it. His cops and I used to yell at him for it. I said, "Chief, you're gonna get yourself killed!" I went out on rides with these guys. I looked at the world through their eyes, and it's a rough, scary world. I didn't always agree with them but I liked how conscious they were, and how they tried to make a difference to people, to make the world safer.
Small towns aren't big cities. I knew that the urban force in Seattle was meaner than my home town softies. I even knew that this department was out of hand. But I didn't realize it was this bad. I find that I don't want to talk to cops any more, I don't want to smile at them, and I definitely don't want them anywhere near me. I hope we get some kind of departmental cleanup. I hope heads roll. I hope that makes the start of a culture change. I hope they don't get away with it.
You must check out this week's issue of The Stranger, Seattle's hometown newspaper, for its WTO coverage. With headlines like "Paul is dead" (our mayor is Paul Schell). Matthew Stadler's title story, "Love and War", was interesting coverage. I think the metaphor is strained, but he has some good points to make. Read now before it changes on Thursday!
Both papers, Times and PI, report today that the venting session last night went on for more than seven hours. The city council made arrangements for 150 people, and 400 showed up, standing in the rain to listen to the procedings through loudspeakers. The council is scheduling another session at a larger venue next week.
The general tenor of the discussion is that we are shocked that our city government was so ill-prepared when it was so clear what was going to happen. We are shocked that our police attacked citizens who were going about the business of living and working in the city. We are upset that they used violence on nonviolent protesters. There's some concern that they used military grade tear gas when they ran out of their own, and a call to disclose exactly what chemical agents were used. That part of the story scares me the most. None of the official media are reporting a hint of nerve gas--the only report I have is the forwarded email I posted here.
There are now three separate investigations conducted by the mayor, the city council, and the ACLU. There's the Capitol Hill web page where people continue to post their experiences. I don't know if the Direct Action Network people finished filming the testimony of protesters who came out of jail. The PI reports today that six people remain in jail, but not whether they are charged with felonies.
A web site called capitol-hill.com was launched last week as a place for residents to share their frustrations and concerns. It makes lively reading, with eyewitness accounts of the battle between police and protesters in the quiet residential neighborhoods on the Hill.
Today the city council was to hold the first of a series of meetings, including a general public venting session. I stopped by the library on my lunch break but didn't see anything goig on at the time. The PI doesn't have any coverage yet. It does have a lot of analysis and columns about the grief and rage many Seattle workers and residents are only beginning to process.
I just received this in email. DAN is Direct Action Network. When I dialed this number I received the message "the Nextel subscriber you are trying to reach is unavailable", so I have not confirmed that the phone number belongs to the doctor or that he is collecting information.
"Dr. Kirk Murphy of the DAN Medic Team has issued this warning, in the hopes of compiling documentation of chemical warfare. He urges anyone who participated in the aforementioned demo who exhibits/ed the following symptoms to contact him ASAP:
"Dr. Kirk Murphy - 206-396-3983
"Please pass this message on to anyone who attended the march on the afternoon of December 1st."
Last night I walked Broadway with my three best friends. We read to each other from the flyers in many store windows. A legal observer is looking for witnesses who saw the police beat him. Several flyers post the ACLU url for filing a complaint about police treatment. Some say, "I'm proud of us. When the police chased the protesters into our neighborhood and were beating and gassing them, we came out in support, and we stayed nonviolent."
One of my friends commented that despite the excesses of the police, she thinks we'll come out of this proud of ourselves. While there were many protesters from out of town, there were also many local people who upheld Seattle's tradition of protest.
In today's news, police chief Norm Stamper resigned. He's promising to tell some tales when he's out of office in March. Meanwhile, mayor Paul Schell announced he won't resign. Well, he's an elected official, so we can always vote him out in two years. And the city council is promising to rein him in. He might be better off just calling it quits!
The PI reported this morning that the remaining protesters in jail had been released. The protesters keeping vigil outside the jail had a brief party and then went home. Direct Action Network is filming testimony from protesters who say they were mistreated in prison.
The print version of the Sunday Seattle Times (which combines with the Post Intelligencer) reports that the protesters in jail are refusing to leave. They are inventing a whole new lifestyle in there. They are giving each other workshops and practicing their bellydancing. When given paper to write requests to their jailers, they make origami. They've adopted noms de jail to refer to each other so as to avoid speaking their names at all. They're refusing to furnish their names. They report that some of them have been isolated, not fed, and physically attacked. The King County jail spokespeople consistently deny this. Of course there are no cameras filming in the jail.
Meanwhile, our mayor Paul Schell went down to the retail core and personally walked around to shopkeepers apologizing. Although that's a lovely act of accountability, it's not nearly enough for an outraged city council, which begins hearings on Wednesday. They're convening panels of protesters and merchants. They're holding an open forum so anyone who wants to can vent. There is particular attention to the activities of the police. We have not yet begun to process.
The Times also reports the jokes that stand-up commedians are making about us. They are focused on the idea that we were too nice. We thought we could just sip lattes with the protesters and everyone would be civil. Seattle citizens are feeling very ashamed of a city which was shown in a bad light to both the ministers, who couldn't get their work done, and the protesters, who were bludgeoned and gassed.
While the conference collapsed indecisively and went home, and the protesters vanished for the most part (surely the people having protest parties at the county jail will eventually go home?), the graffiti and broken windows have been cleaned up and the shoppers have come back downtown, Seattle will be dealing with the effects for some time to come. Our self-image has changed. Everyone is mad at everyone else. The reporters try to tally the damages in dollars and cents, but we also are aware that everyone who lived or worked here has paid, not just in money, but in a sense of loss. If nothing else, the loss of peaceful civic discourse. The world held a battle in our home town and we all suffered for it.
Nobody died. Everyone here is very proud of that.
I don't know if anyone who has been following this column while the WTO was in town is going to continue to follow the aftermath. But I'm going to spin this page off into its own column and continue to report as long as Seattle continues to process what just happened. I'll be returning my regular column to its usual topics on Monday.
Here's a quick recap of what just happened. Some of this I saw physically on the scene, some I saw in television footage, some I read about in the newspapers, and some was eyewitness reports from other people on the scene.
Sunday: Very few people knew what the WTO was. Seattle residents had been warned by the Seattle Weekly that we were going to get inundated in protesters. The groups organizing the protesters were surprised at the turnouts they got for their basic nonviolent protest classes in the week prior to the event. They knew the storm was going to be even worse than anyone suspected.
Monday: A group of anarchists from Eugene moved into a vacant building and turned it into a squat. They were identified as just protesters, they hadn't yet made their mark on the city. The day was fairly quiet. I got my first look at Flo, the big blue inflatable whale, and people in turtle suits. Monday night a march organized by religious groups walked peacefully down to the Exhibition Hall calling for a forgiveness of world debt. Inside, WTO ministers had a meet-and-greet social session. They didn't physically hear the people outside.
Tuesday: The ministers did hear the people on Tuesday. As the day dawned, police surrounded the Paramount Theater and the Sheraton Hotel with Metro buses. The hotel was where delegates were staying, and the theater was where the opening session was scheduled to occur. The buses were successful in keeping protesters out of those venues. However, the police made a tactical error: they failed to provide for a clear corridor between the hotel and the theater.
There were two major protests planned with permits, one a very large gathering of organized labor. Mayor Paul Schell, who appoints the police chief, now Norm Stamper, directed Stamper to treat protesters gently, and refused offers for additional police, including offers from Governor Locke and offers of national guard reinforcements. He had a dream that the protesters and the ministers could peacefully co-exist. He wanted both the meeting and the marches to occur in our city. He's come under a lot of flak for that. Both Schell and Stamper are the kinds of public officials Seattle favors: nice but ineffective.
Protesters began to fill the streets before dawn, intending to shut the WTO meeting down. As ministers tried to enter the theater they found themselves surrounded by people earnestly explaining various points of view. People quickly filled the streets, eventually numbering 30,000. The meeting was completely halted.
Police made a couple of half-hearted attempts to clear the streets by lobbing teargas at protesters. However, they had been instructed to leave the protesters alone. They held lines around various streetcorners, silently facing huge crowds of people, some of whom linked arms to form a similar barrier right in front of them.
I walked the perimeter on Tuesday. At the time I was on the street there was no teargas. The scene was tense but very quiet. The police were clearly outnumbered. It was impossible for me to move beyond the police lines, of course--they were protecting an area by keeping me out of it. On the other hand, I could move through the streets filled with protesters. It was an amazing scene, a street party. No cars, just people, in costumes, beating drums, dancing, holding signs. One reporter said "I can't tell you everyone who is in this crowd, it's just not possible". I took photos of the signs I was most interested in, I didn't see any other photos of those.
There was also a group of anarchists, about two dozen, dressed in black clothes, with black ski masks, watch caps, and bandannas. Some of them hail from Eugene, acolytes of the writer John Zervan. They engaged in a violent protest. They broke windows, spray painted the anarchist A in red on buildings, turned over dumpsters and set them on fire. (Currently they are selling a videotape of the stuff they did.) Other protesters tried to stop them. Some people wondered where the police were. Police later said they felt betrayed; the nonviolent protesters were locking arms in front of them, while behind the protest lines, anarchists were trashing businesses.
At night in the empty city several stores were looted. This most serious crime does not appear to have been organized by the anarchists. KIRO, amazingly, has footage of this too.
Mayor Schell imposed a state of emergency and a curfew in the entire downtown area beginning at 7 p.m. Police cleared the streets. Protesters marched up to Capitol Hill, Broadway in particular, where they clashed with police.
Wednesday: The President flew into town in the wee hours of the morning. Police changed their tactics. When the protesters arrived the next morning, arrests began. About 500 people were arrested that day (another 60 had been arrested the day before, including 3 identified by police as anarchists). People were cuffed with plastic wire and tossed into Metro buses to be taken to Sand Point, an ex-naval station, to be processed. Once there, many refused to leave the buses for many hours. They report that some people were pepper sprayed to get them to leave the buses.
Police teargassed any gathering of people at all. During the day this included a lot of people who work downtown. They also fired rubber bullets at people, even when they were running away. If the President was driving down a particular street they cleared it with batons, teargas and rubber bullets, sometimes without warning. They attacked medics and confiscated medical supplies. One motorcyle cop ran over a guy lying on the ground.
At night, after the curfew, it actually got worse. Protesters were forced back up on Broadway, where they blocked traffic. They were joined there by residents, who sometimes block Broadway just for fun. It's that kind of place. The police reported they thought there were two anarchists in the crowd (they dress in almost identical black clothing and bandanas over their faces) with Molotov cocktails. They began to teargas the crowd. They continued to do this throughout the night. They also arrested people, including one reporter, despite the fact that he identified himself and had credentials. People who live on Capitol Hill and were entering or leaving their homes or going out to dinner found themselves teargassed and arrested. Many reporters were repeatedly sprayed or teargassed. They kept filming and talking.
Meanwhile, back in the curfew zone downtown, several social events for the ministers were underway. A black city council member, Richard McIver, was trying to attend one of those functions. He was stopped twice. The second time he was pulled from his car, roughed up, and almost arrested, even though he had a business card identifying him as a councilmember, was accompanied by a partner in a law firm, and a US congressmember was watching. You just gotta think those are the stupidest cops in Seattle.
Thursday: The President left town. Just as if the rain cleared up and the sun came out, peace broke out all over town. One woman interviewed on TV said she was appalled at the images of young people being gassed. She said, "You want to teargas the kids? Now you'll have to teargas the grandmothers too. We're down here." Mayor Paul Schell apologized to all non-protesting citizens who had been bludgeoned, gassed or pepper sprayed by police. He and police chief Stamper came off as unprepared, overwhelmed and ineffective.
A very large march supporting family farms was joined by many other protest groups, including some of the labor organizations. By nightfall the protest focus had shifted from WTO content issues to civil rights issues. Protesters were not just protesting the WTO but defending the right to protest itself. They converged on the King County jail, one of two facilities where prisoners were being held. The prisoners had not been allowed to see attorneys. The protesters successfully negotiated that attorneys would be allowed into the building, and then went home.
Friday: Another peaceful day. There was another unscheduled march, this one organized by labor. At the end of the day protesters staged sit-down demonstrations in two locations, vowing to stay until the nonviolent protesters in prison were released. (The three anarchists the police say they have are on their own). The King County sheriff criticsed the mayor for apologizing to the citizens, saying he should try wearing a uniform and standing in front of 30,000 screaming people. Schell went back on camera to say he was not criticising the police.
The city struggled to return to normal, with shoppers heading for the stores. Pike Place Market re-opened. Protests did occur: a labor march moved around town. At the end of the night two groups protested the continuing detainment of arrested protesters. One group occupied an entrance of the Westin Hotel, the other camped in front of King County jail. Attorneys negotiated with city officials for the release of the non-violent protesters.
The night ended with the announcement that the WTO had closed without coming to consensus. Smaller countries refused to be pressured into making decisions by the larger countries. They were partly encouraged both by non-governmental organizations and by the protesters.
WTO has got to go?
I was late to work Friday because Alex was arguing passionately and convincingly that I did not fully understand what was going on. He's a security supervisor and has been on the side of the battle lines I have not been permitted to cross, the side with the ministers and the police.
Alex points out that I have not yet visited the WTO web site. He is the only person in my environment who is explaining the WTO to me. There is some press coverage of the meetings, but I've been shorting it and concentrating on the protests.
He believes it is an error to call for the complete abolishment of the organization. He says it is specifically constructed to give poorer governments a tool to counter the rapacious affects of trans-national corporations. The ministers spent years preparing for this meeting and were trying to prepare an agenda here for another three years of work until the next meeting. The WTO specifically includes 700 non-governmental organizations, among whom are several American environmental groups. So their voices are being heard. I'm interested in why the organizations that are marching are not NGOs. Or not also NGOs.
I'm a process wonk, not a policy wonk. I'm less concerned about any of the issues than the process in general. One thing that has been clear to me all along is that something about the WTO process was fundamentally broken if it has attracted this much grass-roots opposition.
I don't know enough about that process to tell exactly how. I do know that I've seen this kind of process before. These countries are attempting to reach consensus. They represent such divergent interests and are meeting in so short a period of time that there must be some pressure to conform. I am hearing today that the smaller countries have been refusing to be pressured this time. Environmental NGOs are urging representatives not to sign anything they haven't read or don't understand or don't agree with. This process is not allowing enough time or space for all the representatives to feel heard, let alone the NGOs and the people outside the meetings.
As a former reporter I also think the process is inappropriately closed. Reporters are interviewing ministers, but they are not allowed into the sessions to see the debate for themselves. Ministers are saying "we are making decisions" but the meetings are closed. Since these decisions affect the world, the decisions should be made in the open. Through the miracle of modern technology I watch governmental deliberations in the US, in England, in Indonesia, in Russia. I don't get to watch the WTO.
I'm glad now that I didn't chant "WTO must go". I didn't understand enough about what was happening to sign on to that point of view. Most of what I've done has been to observe and report on what I was observing. I did join some protests. I walked in the crowd on Tuesday, the greatest street party I ever went to. It was one of the most exciting moments of my life. I felt that the people really could make a difference. I deliberately sought out the family farm protest because I am a peasant and am deeply concerned about the decline in food quality and the destruction of family farmer livelihood. I joined the protests about the prisoners because I believe the nonviolent protesters should be released. But like the small countries who refused to be pressured, I refused to join protests that I did not understand. I do my own thinking.
Apparently the WTO has halted. What happens next? This was a nexus point for people to talk about how decisions are being made that govern the economic interactions of the countries of the world. If the WTO vanishes, what will take its place? Will those decisions difuse again to the member countries and trans-national corporations? It'll be much harder to follow. But maybe that decentralization of power was the point of the protests all along.
Media:
A few people have criticized the media to me. Disclosure: I am a former weekly newspaper reporter, a community journalist. That said: there is a criticism that media represents established interests. That's generally true in the administrative offices. Editorial policies reflect business interests. I often disliked the spindoctoring and boosterism by anchorpeople, and very much disliked some station policies, especially KOMO, which refused to cover the protests on Wednesday and looked very foolish.But the reporters in the field did what reporters are supposed to do. They acted as witnesses to the events and documented on film almost everything I recounting. Especially KIRO, which had so many camera people in the field I kept tripping on them. Kevin McCarty is a new star: he kept calm and clearheaded even when being teargassed and firmly but politely fending off physical hecklers. Also, the Seattle Post Intelligencer print reporters dogged the story, updating their web page whenever anything major happened. What they reported reflected what I was seeing, and more--they went places I was frightened to go. They gave me a very real physical eye on what was happening.
They gave the world a real eye on what was happening. I believe this is why the police violence stopped. While the police were denying reports from protesters, KIRO was showing footage of police hitting and spraying people who were on the ground, firing rubber bullets at people running away, putting feet on heads of people lying on the ground. When the police calmed down KIRO reported that too. It was a positive feedback loop.
If you're looking for heroes in this process, they're my candidates.
This just in: the local Reclaiming hotline hasn't been updated since Thursday at 4 p.m., but I get in private email that two of the eight Witches arrested on Wednesday have been released and were met by their jail support. Two women have gone on a hunger strike. They are asking for workings for physical strength, particularly protection for the lungs.
TV returned to normal coverage. By noon today the PI hadn't updated its page since yesterday at 2 a.m. Alex, Ted and I went out to brunch and read both papers in print form. They didn't have any new news.
They did have interviews with local cops, who are incensed with our mayor, Paul Schell. Everyone knew how many people were coming to town months in advance. They knew there would be violent protest, they even knew about the anarchists. Consultants told them how to handle it. Schell refused to buy the supplies they needed or to accept backups.
So the cops were out on the streets Tuesday feeling very outgunned. They didn't have good places to sleep, didn't get much sleep, didn't get much or any food, didn't get their uniforms cleaned of tear gas. They were looking at huge crowds and the only friends they had were the other people in uniform. I've worked with cops and what I saw in their eyes on Tuesday was fear. When they were unleased on Wednesday they overreacted. So did Schell, imposing the curfew and no protest areas. This is what happens when you're unprepared--you get underreaction and then overreaction.
The papers also explained what was happening to the people arrested. They're being processed through the system. About 60 were let out on Friday because their paperwork was lost. The rest are posting bail, $150 if they give their names, $250 if they don't and get logged as Jane and John Doe. They expect to do the last of them on Monday. But the attorneys are still negotiating for the immediate release of those left.
Everyone's pretty upset with our mayor and police chief and the woman whose bright idea it was to bring the WTO to town, Pat Davis. The debate is whether we will ever host an international convention again. It's not going to be an automatic sale, let me put it that way. Questions will be asked.
I told my guys I was surprised at the extent of the positive response I've gotten to this page. Alex said that nationally people are getting 30 seconds on CNN and that's pretty much it, we're only getting the detail locally.
After brunch Ted and I drove through downtown Seattle. We saw protesters at the King County jail at 2:30 p.m. They were not blocking the street. We saw no one at two entrances of the Westin, I wonder if that group merged with the one at the jail. As we drove through the heart of the protest area, I pointed out the boarded up windows on the stores. I told him, "It looked much worse than it was last week because merchants boarded their windows to protect them. The ones you're seeing now are the ones that were really broken." Damage had been done, but the town was by no means trashed. On Wednesday and Thursday many protesters and Seattle residents had scrubbed the graffiti from the walls and windows and we didn't see any remaining.
We went to Seattle Center to the International Gem and Jewelry show. If you want an example of world trade, this is it. This is the oldest bazaar in the world. People were trading obsidian and amber before anything else. (I bought some amber in fact). Traditionally, off-duty police officers work this show as security guards. Hey, when you can slip a thousand bucks in your pocket indetectibly, thefts are bound to occur. All that money glittering on the tables. I saw a cop drag by with his eyes barely open. "Hey," I said. "You look tired. Did you work downtown?" "All week," he said sleepily. I said, "At least this is a calmer place. "Oh yeah," he said. "Nothing's happening here." Shellshocked.
Next we jumped on the monorail, which is free today, and rode it into Westlake Center. We walked out onto the balcony there and stepped into Christmas. The big star of lights on the Bon Marche has gone colors this year, the usual white, and for the first time also yellow and orange and red. The trees at the Westlake Center are done in red and orange lights. The trees in Westlake Park are outlined in white. The carousel was open for the first time this year, free today. It was crammed with kids, spinning with red and green lights. Horsedrawn carriages mixed with the traffic. A sax player filled the air with some mellow jazz. People crowded the sidewalks.
We stood there for a long time, sighing deeply. The email had circulated spontaneously on Friday: come downtown. The papers were saying, come downtown, bring a ribbon for the merchants. It struck me that what we were doing was deliberately filling the air with positive energy. Seattle is a town filled with nice people. Sometimes nice isn't what you need--we could have used more cynicism in our mayor this week for sure--but nice is easy to live with in the long run. I smiled at Ted. "Kind of washes away the week, doesn't it?" I said. He thought so too.
We walked into a store to play with the toys. It was wall to wall people. I looked at the smiling clerk and said, "It's good to see everyone back dowtown, isn't it?" "It sure is," he said.
On our way back to the monorail we passed three kids carrying signs that said "Free our 570". I fell into step with them and said, "Hey! You still got people at the jail?" The nodded wearily, as shellshocked as the cops. "You bet," they said. We smiled and gave them the thumbs up. "Way to go!"
Yes, I'm going to smile at cops and clerks and kids. Positive energy to all.
All the reporters in town must have slept in like me. The PI website was last updated at 2:30 a.m. The only report I have is an eyewitness, Alex drove by King County jail on his way home from work at midnight and saw a group at the jail.
The city is refusing to release the prisoners. The attorneys for the protesters are negotiating for a reduction of charges from a misdemeanor to an infraction, no fines, no restitution, and immediate release, on the grounds that their arrest was unconstitutional. The protesters are still at both the King County jail and the Westin Hotel. How this developed was, the protesters at Fourth and Union were escorted to the jail by the motorcycle cops I saw. The ones at the Westin were headed that way but decided to stop at the Westin instead.
The WTO announced its process has collapsed. The 135 representatives must achieve consensus, and they did not. KIRO interviewed the representative for the Phillipines who said the smaller countries felt they were being pressured by the handful of developed countries. They might have caved in but the protests strengthened their resolve--if even the American people were angry about the process, they were not alone.
(Was that a cheer I heard?)
Mayor Schell cancelled a press conference scheduled for the carousel at Westlake Park. He was going to declare the crisis over and invite the town to come Christmas shopping. Metro is offering free rides all week; Starbucks is offering free coffee all week. However, city officials warn Saturday shoppers that they may run into instant street closures if the demonstrators move. I'm reasonably reassured that the police are not going to be lobbing tear gas any more as they haven't done it in two days and they're not doing it now.
I went dancing tonight as I do most Friday nights. I ran into my favorite 80 year old, Chris. She's been handing out flyers for the last two weeks, papering her neighborhood with invitations to join Direct Action's training sessions. She's pretty small, doesn't even come up to my shoulder, and grabs my shoulder to pull me down when she wants my ear. I spent half the night dancing and the other half the night getting a policy briefing from her. She wanted to give me a reading list. She went to see Ralph Nader speak--her eyes got dreamy, "He's a wonderful speaker". She tells me, firmly, that it is stimulating to be involved, and these are important issues. "You might have to sit a job out if you get tired, but you should still go." Her hero is a 101 year old woman marching in the protests. I told her I thought she had at least 20 years of activism ahead of her!
I said "I'm glad to see you're not in jail!" and she told me "yesterday I had to go get my son out." She told me her son had gotten off work downtown at night and was walking through the park near Pike Place Market (in the curfew zone) when two men in suits approached him to say "What are you doing?" He thought they were businessmen so he didn't answer them. They turned out to be plain clothes police officers who immediately arrested him. She said they didn't identify themselves. This was on Wednesday.
She told me she'd gotten tear gassed on Tuesday. "Not much," she said. She showed me how she pulled her turtleneck up over her nose to protect herself.
Her best story was the most charming one I've heard yet. On Wednesday she approached a group blocking an intersection. A row of cops stood on a stair. She sidled up to the cops and said "What's going on?" One of them looked down at this smiling 80 year old and told her, "Come on up and get behind me, there's about to be some action." So she stood behind them on the stairs. Another cop spotted her there and said "Take that off," she was wearing a WTO protest cap, "and take the escalator upstairs." She found herself in one of the hotels for the delegates. So she pulled up a chair and watched the ministerial meetings on closed circuit TV. I think she's very cool.
I left work and headed down Third, where traffic was very nearly at a standstill. I gently mention that in normal circumstances rush hour traffic can gridlock in this city. I didn't know if there was anything related to a protest worsening it. I noticed that people were streaming through the locked down limited curfew area, the normal workday crowd of people in raincoats carrying briefcases parting around the cops at the intersections like water parting around stone. When I hit the Post Office I stumbled onto a group of people blocking the intersection at Fourth and Union. (What is it about the energy at Fourth and Union?) Enough people sitting down to fill the intersection, and a ring of people around that. Some cops on one side. A woman in the center, presumably a member of Direct Action Network, was saying, "Okay, we're voting on two proposals. The first is to sit here until the police move us out. The second is to accept an offer to be escorted down Fourth by the police."
I stood on a lamp post, took a photo of them, and walked back toward the Post Office. Just as I hit the corner a whole bunch of motorcycle cops roared up with lights and sirens flashing and turned to take up position at Third and Union. I didn't know whether they were cordoning off the protesters to gas them, arrest them, or protect them, since they've done all of those things this week. Yesterday and today they've been benign, but Wednesday's responses were virulent enough that I'm not trusting them to hold to it. I was very glad I had already made the corner. I took a photo of them, slipped down into the bus tunnel and took the bus home.
KIRO TV reporters, those faithful souls, are covering two sit-down demonstrations, both peaceful, and both so far unmolested. One is about 200 people at the Westin Hotel, the other about 500 people holding a candlelight vigil at King County jail. They're negotiating for the release of the people who were arrested. Oh--the KIRO reporter just did an interview with the Direct Action organizer of the Westin Hotel sit-in, she said negotiations with the cops have broken down and the protesters plan to stay where they are until their comrades are released or they are arrested. That's another 200 so on top of the almost 600 in jail.
The county spokesperson said they are planning to process the arrests normally, even though protesters are refusing to give their names in an effort to overwhelm the process and force the release of all the nonviolent protesters.
Boy, I'm glad to see that. I was hoping that everyone wouldn't just go home and forget the people in prison! I was gonna say--hey, did you forget something? The Direct Action Network people really know what they're doing. I can't find a web page for them, if anyone knows a URL can you send it to me?
Alex called at 2:30 and said the afternoon protest had been peaceful and not tear gassed. Horay!
Email reports: I reported earlier I'd seen television footage of a motorcycle cop threatening to run over a man lying on the ground. A medic tells me he was on the site and that the cop actually ran over the guy's groin. The medic gave him care. That's nauseauting. Also, the detainees are reporting the jail had been in lockdown and they were denied the right to see attorneys before the demonstrators surrounded the building. So that demonstration did a lot of good when it ended in attorneys being let into the building.
I saw a bunch of cop cars at what I think is Third and Pike. I'm going to go down and see what's going on before I head home. Oh, and I have new photos from Thursday.
There were no scheduled marches today. I just walked across downtown to see if I could find any. I didn't, but a coworker did--she said she walked out of the Gap (I told her "brave soul") right in front of a wall of people. As she zipped out of their way she saw several rows of riot police head toward them. There is a rumor spreading through the building that once again office towers are locking down, and that the confrontation is expected to get violent. It's not over yet.
Last night's protest ended peacefully. The police did not move in on the protesters with tear gas. Instead, volunteers with Direct Action Network negotiated with city officials. Lawyers were allowed to enter the building to begin to work with the people arrested. The protesters went home. I have one eyewitness account from a local Pagan who was there. He said he left at the time that the Direct Action organizers were separating out the people willing to be arrested from the people who weren't. He also said he'd have engaged in more protest if there had been an organized Pagan presence.
In other Pagan news, two members of the Covenant of the Goddess local council Northern Dawn participated in the protests and got home safely. The local Reclaiming hotline hasn't been updated since yesterday at 4 p.m. and I haven't heard anything privately about the eight people in jail.
The limited curfew zone was changed today. It's smaller, but also it's shaped differently. I'm glad I keep looking at the web papers, because the places where it is not guaranteed safe to walk change frequently. The night curfew was also lifted last night.
There's a "go away" mood among the people I encounter in my office, in the elevators, and on the streets in downtown Seattle. Whatever our politics, we're all ready for it to end. There's also a wave of feeling that we'd like to get our city back to normal. We were ready for some holiday stuff when this started happening. There are emails circulating urging people to come downtown to shop, eat, meet friends, and have parties. I expect we'll get a bangup turnout for the Figgy Pudding singing contest.
Personally, I want to get back to my regular column. I had a date last night and I haven't gotten to write in my other diaries about it. I am way behind on my ongoing conversation email with my friends and lovers. This has been very interesting, don't get me wrong. It's been the chance of a lifetime to be on site when something really significant happened. But my political activism is more centered on the sex positive movement these days, and my writing is centered less on global questions than the consideration of private politics: how hearts can open to each other, and the nature of love.
It's very quiet this morning but it's not over yet. I have some conclusions that I'm going to post later today. I'm also going to put up some photos I took yesterday.
I had been congratulating myself that my office building was far enough away from the main protests that it was safe. That changed with a shift in the protest wind. Bud told me at about 3:00 p.m. that some of the protesters were saying "Free the Seattle 500!" I said cool, Chicago only had seven! Bud reported that they had surrounded the King County Jail just outside my building.
At 3:30 I heard a rumour that our building was locked down. Like a good little reporter I immediately went downstairs (stopping to take a photo of the jail from the 40th floor) and checked with the security guards and found that we could leave the building but not re-enter. There were unconfirmed rumors that the bus tunnel had closed. I reported this to my boss who responded by closing the office.
At about 4 I hit the street. I walked next door and took a photo and raised a fist. The protesters are agitating for the release of the almost 600 people who have been arrested. I did not linger here; this seemed to me like a situation that would evoke tear gas sooner or later. I have a commitment to protest and support protesters, but that commitment does not include being gassed or arrested.
There are eight Reclaiming Witches who do have that commitment, though. The hotline says tonight that they stayed on the Metro buses which took them to Sand Point for about 14 hours without bathrooms, food or drink, although they did have a good time. They welcome and are grateful for magic to help them:
What I did, though, was to jump on the first bus out of town; fortunately the bus tunnel was still open, but the buses were crammed. Came home to watch the protest on the television. I have the greatest respect for these reporters who continue to report despite being clubbed, gassed, pepper sprayed, and arrested.
The reporters are talking to the protesters. There are several thousand people, and the ones giving interviews say they're willing to be arrested. They're negotiating for release or at least some kind of rights for the people arrested. The prisoners are reporting that they were pepper sprayed to get them off the buses. Some are being denied access to phones. They're crammed into cells with nowhere to sit. Remember that some of the people detained were swept up in police sweeps when they were trying to get dinner or go home.
Anyone remember Bud Krogh? One of Nixon's plumbers? He rents the office next door to mine. I don't usually name names in this column, but this is too wonderful. He just came in from marching with the protesters. He went with the United Methodist crowd. I asked him what it was about and he said "Oh, a little of everything: Free Tibet before Free Trade; Free Mumia; something about rocquefort cheese?" He's been marching every day and got himself teargassed on Tuesday. You wouldn't have expected it, would you? He's a very cool guy.
At noon I went out to join the family farm protest. This is one cause I understand. My family on both sides was composed entirely of farmers until the generation before me. I'm a gardener. And I've travelled Greece and eaten food caught, killed, and picked that day within a mile from the cook. I don't need background on this issue, I just need to be brought up to speed on the recent details. So I really wanted to join this particular parade.
Before I left I made sure that all my personal possessions were put away, that the tape backups were ready to go, and in general that if I didn't come back today it would be okay. I was a little apprehensive just walking out onto the streets.
As I left my building I ran into a protest, just spilling out from the United Methodist Church and apparently getting ready to march somewhere. I haven't yet been able to locate information on what it was about. In general the churches have been calling for a forgiveness of world debt in developing countries, but the specific march could have been about anything.
I had printed out a map of what they're calling the limited curfew boundary where no one can go but people connected with the WTO, or people who work and live there. I had an idea I'd get a photo of the perimeter. I had just rounded the corner, approaching it cautiously, when the cell phone rang. I jumped five feet. I answered it and said "This is Brandy". Alex's voice in my ear said, "Where are you?" "Um, Sixth and Seneca," I said. "That's what I thought," he said grimly. Busted! He said, "What's happening?" I told him I didn't think it was a good photo op, there were just cops clearing the street, making sure traffic went another direction, and it was very quiet. He suggested that the farm protest was peaceful and protected by police.
Prodded by Alex's concern and a general jumpiness around cops, I gave up on trying to photograph the perimeter and headed down the street to Pike Place Market. This is our ongoing farmer's market. It's the heart of downtown, a raucous collection of local farmers, fish vendors, crafters and T-shirt vendors. There's a park immediately adjacent that is ideal for gatherings like this.
I headed for Pike and First. I heard the crowd before I saw it. When I turned the corner I found I was just ahead of the march. I got caught up in taking photos of it, jostling with other photographers, both media photographers and personal ones, for good shots. Often two or more of us would see the same angle. It's been a decade since I was a paid reporter, but the skills were right at my fingertips, as if I'd just done it yesterday.
Parades are hard to photograph. The conditions were worse because, for a rare change of pace, we're having a sunny day, and the marchers were often half in shadow and half in bright sun. I shot most of two rolls of film on the parade.
Walking with the protesters I felt some of the same feeling I had gotten on Tuesday, the thrill of democratic protest, and the excitement of seeing so many people massed in one place. It was bigger than anything I'd ever seen except for the People's Street Party on Tuesday. The feeling of being part of a crowd was overwhelming at times. I found I couldn't join in on the chanting. "Hey hey, ho ho, the WTO has got to go." Partly, the chant just seems silly. Partly, it seemed that chanting would open me up to the energy of the crowd without leaving me any boundaries. I wasn't ready to do that. I needed to hold part of myself back, to be ready to move away if I needed to--I had taken precautions in case I was arrested, but I am actively choosing to avoid that if I can. And the energy of the crowd is so random and loud, and at times this week it's been very angry.
This crowd though was a very peaceful and creative one. Banners draped the hill. People carried handmade puppet signs. A pyramid of canvas, a replica of the pyramid on the dollar bill, anchored one corner. Many signs criticized the mayor and the police, calling for Schell's and Stamper's resignations.
Interestingly, all the daystall vendors have closed up shop. While protesters are marching to support family farms, the market itself is shut down.
I left the rally and toured the business district which has sustained damage. It's limited to a small area, basically Pike and Pine from Second to Sixth. The McDonald's that Jose Bove (darling of the French media) targeted is completely closed. Lots of windows are boarded, but many have been boarded up by the business owners as a precaution. (I talked with Alex about how he thought it compared to the Rodney King riots. He said the night of the riots was tense, but it was over quickly. The violence there was random, though, not pointed as it is now.)
I walked up Pike and found myself following a man carrying a handmade sign that said "Freedom to Assemble". He walked past clusters of cops (a friend of mine says "an ego of cops") on the streetcorners. I had my camera out and was looking for a good angle on him when a cop stopped him and said, "I'm afraid I'm going to have to take that from you." He'd passed a dozen before one stopped him, and the cop who stopped him was standing in a cluster. It seemed like an individual decision to me. Although the other cops instantly backed him of course. The protester and the cop negotiated, and the protester got to keep his sign, giving up the post to which it was attached. I noticed that what made the difference is that he was polite to the police, he stopped immediately and smiled, made no threatening gestures, and cooperated.
I hope that's how the day is going all over town. Local media coverage has slacked off. I guess all the people got arrested who wanted to get arrested yesterday. That noon demonstration seemed to suck up all the stray protesters in town, I didn't see any other groups out on the streets.
I dropped my film off to be developed and came back to the office. Called Alex to tell him I hadn't been gassed or arrested. Then I went out on the web to look at national and international coverage. While there's a lot of concern about the anarchists hogging the attention, the coverage I'm seeing is pretty uniform: the New York Times, the Washington Post, the BBC news, are all reporting the big pieces: 1. the WTO is overshadowed by the protests; 2. the protests are peaceful although there has been some vandalism and police violence; 3. there's a curfew and Seattle residents are feeling under siege.
I wasn't aware until I started reading international news that Europe thinks of the WTO as an American thing. The European nations trade with each other as a matter of course. The WTO is a way for America to get in on the action. So the protests are strengthening the European position, which essentially resists the WTO's authority.
It's very weird for my beloved city to be basically the theater set for a global conflict. Apparently the world doesn't seem to hold us responsible for the conflict itself, although there's widespread criticism of Norm Stamper and Paul Schell--on the one hand, that they should have controlled the crowds on Tuesday; on the other, that since then they've overreacted. Poor guys. If you've seen them on television, they look like your kindly uncles--surprised and a little hurt that you've behaved so badly, but willing to rap your knuckles now that you have.
This just in, there are still 8 Reclaiming Witches in jail. They do have a support team, but the support team reports they're not having an easy time. Read the PI story for an example of what they might be experiencing. They're asking for people to send them energy in support.
CNN has a nice analysis which includes quotes from Margot Adler. It's the streaming video report from Charles Feldman.
Here's some information about John Zerzan, the Eugene anarchist responsible for inspiring the black-clad window smashers:
Here's a fine photo page. The shots were made by a professional studio photographer, and it shows. I like the Falun Gong photos in particular.
We seem to be settling into this thing. My office re-opened for work this morning. The normal television schedule has returned, no more round-the-clock news. It's a little scary to adjust around a lockdown. It's like healing around a broken bone; it feels good temporarily, but you know you're going to pay for it later when you have to rebreak the bone to set it properly.
We're going to try to have a normal Christmas season next week. It's hard to concentrate right now. I notice but do not enjoy the smell of pine trees, the banners in the stores, the twinkling lights in the trees. Someone spraypainted our holiday carousel, which doesn't seem to me to make any kind of point at all.
I've posted a new photo. The people in black with knit caps and ski masks are the anarchists that caused so much damage. Alex is a security guard who works at night in Seattle. He was coordinating with police yesterday, and they were tracking the movements of these guys. Some of them were with the crowd that marched to Capitol Hill, and the police said they were carrying molotov cocktails. This is quite likely. So that explains, if not excuses, why the cops were so jumpy on Broadway last night. Alex, who is working with both delegates and police, says they are all under tremendous pressure. Especially the police. Facing an angry crowd with just a baton is terrifying.
On the other hand, the police seem to be in a shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later frame of mind that's getting a lot of innocent people hurt. Today's print version of the PI has a story by a reporter about being arrested. Here's his story. He was slammed to the ground and handcuffed even though he kept telling the officers that he was a reporter. He had credentials on him. He rode to Sand Point with a couple of guys who went to Dicks to get a hamburger, got tear gassed, ran the wrong way, and got thrown into the bus to the brig. All their stuff was confiscated, including their food. The reporter had an editor and a newspaper lawyer to spring him on a PR. The kids weren't as lucky.
This morning a friend called me on my cell phone. I said "I'm on a bus" and he said "On your way to Sand Point?" I laughed, but as he pointed out, you can end up on a bus just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Nonetheless I want to tour the city today. I have a need to see for myself what the camera has been mediating for me. I want to look at the stores and see how much damage there is. I've heard $1.5 million. People keep saying the city is devastated. I'm wondering if that's the right word to use for one looted Starbucks, one looted cell phone store, broken windows and graffiti.
I'm a privileged American and have never before been frightened just to walk my city's streets in the daylight. Seattle has been occupied by foreign interests who are here to 1. make decisions 2. make a point. They're all supposed to finish up today. The President is leaving this morning which hopefully will help calm everything down. Will someone tell the anarchists not to blow anything up? Will someone tell the cops not to kill anyone? Will everyone go home and let us have our city back?
Okay, I'm crying again. This time I'm discouraged and frightened. Our best TV station, KIRO, showed footage of a confrontation at Third and Pine at the end of the workday. They wanted to clear the street for a presidential motorcade, so they came through without warning and sprayed tear gas and pepper spray and swung batons. They hit protesters, people leaving work, business people in front of their businesses, and the KIRO reporter and camera person. They finally stopped and told people what they wanted so the people who just wanted to get out of the way knew what the cops wanted them to do.
The people on Capitol Hill tonight weren't part of the vigil at Seattle Community College. They were protesters who had been pushed out of downtown. Once on Broadway they were joined by residents. See, the people who live on Broadway sometimes just congregate and stop traffic just for fun. Police presence generally makes this worse, if they're left alone they'll disperse. Tonight the police are not leaving them alone, they're throwing tear gas at them. The residents are saying, hey, this is my home. "This is our hill."
Also the police are in fact targeting people who are providing medical care on the street for people hit with tear gas. They're confiscating supplies and pushing them around. They've made it illegal for anyone to sell a gas mask. This is so protesters can't wear them; they just pick up the tear gas cannisters and lob those back. But, I've also seen bicycle messengers wearing them. If you have to move around downtown it's starting to be essential gear.
As of tonight also we don't just have a night curfew and a no protest zone; we have a zone around the Convention Center that is permanently off limits to anyone who doesn't work there or have business with the WTO. I don't get to walk to the park tomorrow.
And if I am in the wrong place at the wrong time, I'm gonna get hit, even if I'm only trying to get to my bank, let alone when I go to shoot another roll of film. I'm hearing the reporters get angrier and angrier as they talk. It's not nearly over yet.
From various news media: protests continued all day. The labor unions marched again today on the waterfront. Arrests are up to 500. The story does not end with the protesters neatly carted off to the processing point, though; they are refusing to get off the buses or give their names. They're chanting and laughing. I confess that my first thought was I'd never last, I'd need a bathroom.
I know there was a demonstration planned on Capitol Hill tonight, I saw a flyer for it. Late television news shows cops on Broadway clearing the street. I don't know if this crowd is connected to the planned demonstration or not. One angry reporter said she saw a person with a Red Cross armband being hit by police. She said, these are not protesters, these are residents.
The City Council seems pretty unhappy with Norm Stamper, our police chief, right now. They don't yet have passes to walk around downtown. The ACLU questions whether citizens can be kept off their own streets while foreign nationals walk around freely.
Wow. I have a mailbox full of email. I guess everyone got home. Okay, on the Reclaiming Witches, yes there were arrests, including Starhawk. I get this from private email. There is a Reclaiming information hotline, (206) 781-3943, but it doesn't name names. The hotline says tonight that there were observers to the arrests, the arrests went calmly and the people arrested are doing well, and they have jail support organized. Also there are no other planned events this week, although Reclaiming people will continue to participate in protests. They welcome positive energy sent their way. Good job they're doing!
Locally, I've heard back from half a dozen organizers, including the guy who runs the local web page Pagan events calendar. I haven't located any local Pagan who has organized any protests (one asked me if I was volunteering and I quickly declined). I actually haven't met anyone who joined the protests except me. However, everyone who has contacted me is working privately for peace; there are others who remember Kent State.
There's a curfew on again tonight, same curfew--7 p.m. to dawn, about 7 a.m., and in the same locations. Alex is working downtown tonight, it's my turn to worry about him.
I've been offline for a few hours, long enough to start to assimilate some of the events that have been rushing past. In a few minutes I'll log back in to all the media, email, television, web, and find out what's been going on. I want to cling to this moment of calm and get some thoughts down.
Someone lobbed a politics bomb into my city. I think the Seattle Organizing Commitee people are saying they thought the WTO would be good for business and raise money for the town. Way to do that. Instead we became a flash point for political debate. In the blast we've all been stripped of our social masks. I now know the politics of all the people around me, coworkers, lovers, friends, and they aren't necessarily what I thought they were. I almost got into a fight with one of my lovers about the WTO. And people who work in my office I thought were hopelessly straight were heading for the elevators to join the protests.
There's one thing that's very clear to me. I didn't know much about the WTO a few months ago, but I do now. This is a quasi-governmental body staffed with representatives, mostly appointed, of world governments, who are meeting to decide rules about how the world is going to work. The point of those rules is to move things from one part of the world to another. There are a lot of people who are scared of the semi-secret process. There are a lot more people who are scared about the consequences of their decisions. And there was no way to give input to this group of decision makers. I mean no way. Literally, people had to march in the streets to make their points. It is clear to me that there is a process here which is broken, and everything that has happened in the past three days is a direct result of that broken process.
That's one lonely beacon in a sea of information. There are so many people talking at once, giving so many perspectives on a variety of issues. They are offering this information in a physical way; the Seattle Times says tonight that one group of women stripped and wrote their analyses on their bodies. I guess that's one way to make sure your words get read! Yesterday morning a television reporter said in passing, "I'm sorry I can't tell you all the groups marching in the parade, I don't have time to list them all." I have photographs of signs representing groups I haven't heard interviewed at all.
Information overload. Here's another example. There was a taxi protest yesterday. I know about it because a taxi driver told me about it. All the people I've met who heard about the protest heard about it from a taxi driver. No one reported it at all. They're upset because the city wants to pass an ordinance that they have to wear a uniform. The driver who told me about it made the point that he is an independent business owner, he owns his own cab, and no one tells shopkeepers what they have to wear. A taxi strike became irrelevant yesterday as nothing was moving downtown anyway, but I did think about it when the buses stopped moving--I had no fallback position, I had to know someone who owned their own car to get out of town.
It's a full time job monitoring the media. I watch television, buy the print papers, monitor their web sites. I know one Pagan in town who's watching the live satellite feeds, another who's monitoring the police channels through an internet connection.
Everyone is eager that their point of view get heard. Everyone is vying to be the official source of information. At this point people are reducing analyses to one sentence chants and sound bites. People were screaming at the news reporters today. The mayor and police chief and reporters are all desperately explaining why the police took the actions they did, why everyone made the decisions they made. Interpretations of their actions vary widely: constitutional analysts think the no protest zone is too big; foreign ministers sniff "This wouldn't happen in my country"; protesters are amazed that the police would use teargas and rubber bullets.
There has been violence on both sides. That's taken all the fun out of it for everyone. I don't know anyone who is happy about that except the 30 Eugene anarchists who did the window breaking and spray painting. It certainly took the fun out of it for me. I went from excited and thrilled, to anxious (on the empty streets just before curfew) and numb, to kind of sick. You want to know my personal chant? "No one has died, no one has died." I remember Kent State.
A lot of other groups organizing for this event were aware that the Eugene activitists might show up and do some property damage. There's an effort by some people talking about these events to separate them from the other protesters. They are at the extreme edge. I mean, even other protesters tried to stop their protests. The move is on to call them vandals and say that their actions were not authentic. I hate what they did and think it's stupid. But I am also aware of the dynamics of marginalization. Take the group on the end, cut it out from the crowd, and say "This is not real" fill in the blank. I live on the margins of religion and sexuality and recognize delegitimization when I see it.
I'm not an anarchist, and I don't support their protest, but I do think we ought to resist the effort to recontextualize their actions. I think we should recognize what they did as a protest. Their actions were illegal, damaging to property, and not welcomed by anyone. Their protest was violent. They were making the point that they believed talking is not an adequate response to the breakdown in process between the people making the decisions and the people affected by them. They proved the point that violence is enormously attractive to our culture. We zoom in on it like bees to honey. This is where the cameras were pointing.
When I studied what happened at Kent State some years back I was struck by the comment that the rioters didn't do nearly as much damage as a football crowd after their team lost. There were a lot of broken windows downtown, but I remember a lot of broken windows during the Rodney King riots; department store displays were boarded up; every doorman in town seemed to have a story the day after about talking someone out of breaking something. Yesterday's property damage was spectacular on the surface but not deep. It's just scarier when it's anarchists making a point.
The violence of these protestors offered the city officials a covering reason for the curfew and lockdown. The police also engaged in acts of violence, and not in response to the anarchists or provocation. I saw television footage of a motorcycle cop threatening to run over a guy lying on the pavement. There wasn't any real point to yesterday's tear gas, it didn't gain any ground. Cops fired rubber bullets at the backs of people who were running away--hey, even if you can find a justification, it leaves a sour taste.
I think it's important here to separate out policy from individual action. Yesterday's general policy was, let the protests happen. Individual cops behaved violently. I resist generalization, "The pigs pushed us around". This masks the role of individual fear, anger, initiative.
Today the police were carrying live ammo in some of those guns. No one has died yet, please let no one die in all this.
I need to go plug back in. I haven't heard anything more about the Reclaiming people up here but a friend tells me that my phone number is out there where they can reach me if they need to.
A local Witch called me on my cell phone to ask if I knew if any of the Reclaiming Witches had been arrested. She knew several had been planning to make the 7:30 a.m. demonstrations. I told her I only know what I see on television and read in print and on the web: 250 or so protesters have been arrested and taken to Sand Point.
I only have the name that was printed in Monday's Seattle Times, Deborah Cooper. If anyone has names they want to give me, drop me a line at bwilliam@speakeasy.org. I'll let you know here or by private email or phone if I find anything out. I have to warn you that it is unlikely. The police haven't had time to process the paperwork on the people they arrested today. We're relying on eyewitness reports. Note to organizers: try to arrange to leave one person behind who is not arrested who can get the word out, arrange bail, that sort of thing.
The Witch who called me was planning to get a group together to do private magic. I expect that's most of what's happening all around town, not a lot of public stuff, but people working like I am, privately, for protection for our friends, and for general peace.
City, county, state, and national police are patrolling a no protest zone with batons, rubber bullets, and live ammunition. They are arresting protesters who try to enter the zone and putting them in the brig at the old Sand Point Naval Station. Some protesters are sitting in front of the barricades marking off the no protest zone and they are being arrested too. A lot of businesses have boarded up windows this morning. I'm getting all this from the web newspapers and the television; I haven't gone downtown myself.
The core people involved in vandalism were semi-organized anarchists, most very young. They provided the justification for the lockdown. The labor unions are pretty miffed that they're getting all the attention. The conflict though is that the protests actually shut the meeting down yesterday. Our police chief, Norm Stamper, is upset that his police faced lines of peaceful protesters while vandals worked behind the lines. They're taking it as an embarassing defeat.
The mayor's coming under fire for not moving more decisively earlier. But our council has people who marched in the 60s. And the world may have forgotten that the IWW was centered in Seattle. That's the union that called the general strike in 1919, and the one that was busted when its members were murdered. We have our roots in intractible anarchy.
I'm looking for any Witches who plan to do protests or workings who are interested in being reported. I've got the day off and I'll come out and take photos if I can get there. I put out an email message locally and nationally. I dunno if I'll get any response--people who are doing things are out doing things, and it's very short notice.
The atmosphere yesterday was jubilant and cheerful. Even the people who had been gassed were excitedly describing the effects. I saw one young man turn to another and say, "Wanna go get a rubber bullet?" Today the reporters are much grimmer and the cops are a lot more cheerful. The protesters seem to be more a dedicated trained core.
I'm feeling numb. I knew intellectually that established power structures will move to protect their power with violence. It's another thing to see the troops patrolling my city streets.
When I finally left the office at 6 p.m. the streets were eerily quiet. Police had pushed barricades well out from the center of the protests. There wasn't much to see on the ground an hour before curfew.
The action was all on the television. I watched the news off and on all night. When the police cleared the streets of protesters at 7, they stripped the city down to pavement and looters. The same people in black hats and ski masks who had been breaking windows and spraying graffiti all day broke into a Starbucks and a cell phone store. That got a lot of coverage, of course.
For some reason the police followed the protesters up to Capitol Hill and cleared Broadway, too. I don't get that. Broadway is our counterculture street, like Telegraph in Berkeley or the Haight in San Francisco. Why bother to clear it? Cede it to the protesters, trade 'em for downtown!
I watched ITN news from London, and we made the news there. Apparently there are matching riots all over the world. Locally, one of our news stations refused to cover the protests on the grounds they were illegal, drawing hoots of derision from their colleagues. KIRO, on the other hand, covered the protests from four streetcorners, and two of their reporters got teargassed. That's real reporting. I haven't missed my press badge so badly in years.
Speaking of which, at dinner tonight I showed Ted and Alex the photos I took today. Unfortunately Alex recognized one of the streetcorners in the background as the same Fourth and Union he had been telling me to avoid all day. He whooped at me loudly in the restaurant. Something about having to tie down even a former reporter if you want her to stay out of harm's way. I said, "Hey, I had a camera!"
Tonight the delegates are dining with our governor and Bill Gates and other notables at the Museum of History and Industry. They looked pretty shellshocked. KIRO showed footage of their conversations earlier today with the protesters who prevented them from getting into the Paramount for their morning opening session. Some of them were saying, "You're right, we agree with you." Some of them were livid that such goings on could be permitted, it would never be tolerated in their country!
Tomorrow our president comes to town. 1 a.m. to be precise. 300 National Guard troops have been called in to reinforce our city and state police. The mayor is promising we'll be able to do business as usual downtown. The curfew lifts at dawn (7:36 a.m.) Some protesters were saying "I work and I only took one day off", so they won't be back. We have a lot of people in from elsewhere who have nothing else to do, though, and some of them were saying they fully intend to shut the meetings down again tomorrow.
I got a call from a coworker that the office is officially closed. I don't know if I'm going to go shoot another roll of film downtown tomorrow. I wouldn't have gotten out tonight if Ted hadn't happened to be coming through town in a car. The buses were hopeless. I'll watch the television and see if it's safe to go down there. I'm afraid the police will be a lot more forceful with the president watching.
And to close the night: Tom Hayden, one of the Chicago Seven, got himself teargassed today. A link with history. Someone started the chant "the whole world is watching". It's true.
I didn't go join the protest. When I got my photos and saw they had come out I got so excited I came back to work and put some up on this page. Once a reporter, always a reporter.
I'm waiting for a ride to come get me at 6 p.m.--the buses are all stopped, it's pointless to try to get home that way. The protesters stopped the meeting from happening. Alex just called to tell me to stay away from Union and Fourth because there's tear gas there. He's called to tell me that several times today. We can't tell if it's because there's something valuable on that corner, or if the protesters are a particularly cranky lot there. He also told me there's a state of emergency, Mayor Schell called a curfew from Denny to Yesler and waterfront to freeway starting at 7 p.m. National Guard are coming in. The president is due to arrive tonight.
Two pieces of really bad news. Tomorrow the police will become more aggressive. And, they've extended the meeting for an extra day to make up for the day they lost today. I'm scared that there will be a lot more violence. I just told the boss I'm calling in before I try to come in tomorrow. I also told him to go home.
Wait a minute, how come it's just Bay Area Witches getting interviewed by the media? We have local Witches who are protesting too! I am SO miffed! :-) See the CNN story "Of World Trade and Witches". It's fairly positive.
Seriously, I think we get attention because we still represent an extreme in public debate, a marginalized and slightly comical religion. We've got a ways to go. But at least they're not calling us Satanists any more.
My office just closed because bus service has come to a complete halt. I'm going to go down to the street and join the protests.
I shot a roll of film but I'm not sure I got a single picture worth keeping because my hands were shaking so much. I was crying. I went down to the street and walked across town. This was no mean feat because the riot police have blocked off access from Union north on Sixth, Fifth and Fourth. The protesters have Third, though. All the buses that usually run down that critical arterial are stopped in the street.
Stopped by who? By people. Lots are carrying banners: Radical Women, Freedom Socialist Party, homemade banners that say NO TO WTO. One elderly Asian woman carried a sign that said "Agribusiness costs jobs". There are old people and young people. Lawyers in T shirts that say "Legal Observer". People drumming, people singing, people chanting.
I was crying because I was a 70s radical. I missed the 60s. My feminist friends and I used to dream of massive protests in the streets. I've always wanted to be there when it happened. Every time I looked at one of the young women enthusiastically chanting, it hit my heart. I've wanted to be here since I was your age!
I was crying because all these people are so passionate. When it comes to politics, global or Pagan or interpersonal, I am much less concerned about content than about process. I'm not commited to a single cause that I will carry a banner for. I care deeply about many. But what gets to me is that so many people care about something that they're willing to march for it. They're willing to face riot police and tear gas for it.
The PI website hasn't caught up--wait, yes they have. They're hearing the same reports that I am, but I don't think any reporter saw it. Protesters are saying the police also used rubber bullets. I saw people with gas masks, people with bandanas, people with very red faces who looked like they'd gotten hit.
I saw people in black with black bandannas in a group planning their next move. The PI reports vandalism carried out by groups of people in black; other protesters tried to stop them. I took photos of broken windows, spray paint. Most buildings in the area were closed, including all branches of my bank, and the post office. I saw people communicating with each other by cell phone; whole masses of people would move off in response to a hidden command. One businessman on the street commented wryly to another, "They're coordinating by cell phones made in China."
One young woman with a bullhorn was saying, "It's time for us to take back the street. The labor unions will be here soon to help us." There is a largish parade of labor union supporters heading toward the Convention Center. One kid commented to another, "Oh, we'll hear them when they get here."
At the heart of the confrontation it was very, very quiet. Riot police, some mounted on horses, stood at attention facing the crowd. I notice one young woman in particular, shorter than me, as grim-faced as the rest. I imagined that they must have been nervous as well as determined. Facing them, lines of protestors linking arms. They didn't have batons or horses, but they were just as determined, and just as scared.
I hope they don't hurt each other.
The police got confrontational. A coworker told me he saw tear gas go off down the street. I checked the PI and the reporters had actually updated the web page immediately. Apparently riot police cleared the barricades of protesters so delegates could get through.
The rain cleared up for a few minutes. From my window there is a huge rainbow arching over downtown, delegates and protesters alike. I wish for peace.
I tried to get in a door yesterday and found it locked. All the side doors of Columbia Tower across the street from my building were locked yesterday, only the two main entrances remained open, staffed by security guards; many downtown buildings reacted that way, the towers sealing themselves up like medieval fortresses.
Last night when I left work I passed in front of the start of the parade: cop cars and a line of riot police, then banners, a lot of people jumping up and down in the dark, and the sound of drumbeats. This was the big opening protest parade where 3,500 people marched to the first WTO meeting site to encourage the organization to write off world debt. I didn't know that at the time, I read it in the PI this morning. In the dark, in the rain, with the squad car lights flashing and the drums pounding, the protest was less cerebral, more visceral, exciting and frightening. It seemed like a tremendous force coiled and ready to snap.
The First United Methodist Church is across the street from my building and my office window looks down on it. This was protestor central yesterday during the day. I got to see them blow up the whale, an intersection-long blue plastic fish. (The intersection-long measurement is relevant in that it is being used today to block cars from moving along city streets.) I also got to see several hundred people dressed in snappy little green turtle suits assemble briefly like a swarm of bees and then all march off.
Protesting, as I have been observing it for the past two days, seems to involve wearing some kind of visual aid, hanging around for a while, and then getting bored and going somewhere else, in the hopes that someone will notice, preferably a reporter.
Last night's PI had a picture of some Reclaiming Witches. I first thought I was looking at people praying and then read the cutline that these were Witches "casting a spell". Young, earnest women in jeans and sweaters with smiles on their faces--they looked like the kids next door. Made me proud to share a religion with them.
I turned on the TV as I was dressing this morning. This is the big day for protests. The delegates are trying to get into the Convention Center; the protesters are trying to keep them out. So the police have buses surrounding the Paramount Theater, where the first session is scheduled to be held, and fences around each of the intersections surrounded the Convention Center. Then in front of the fences are clots of protesters, some of whom got up pretty darned early to stand in the rain and try to keep traffic from moving. Air space is cleared and only police helicopters are allowed overhead, they were circling and trying to see if there was a clear route.
My favorite move sounded like it came out of a Neal Stephenson novel (Zodiac, to be precise). Some environmentalists made 30 pound cement blocks with pipes in the middle. They are laying on the pavement and linking hands through the pipes. They'll be much harder to move that way. Isn't that a cool idea?
The bus I rode to work was crammed with people who don't usually ride the bus, divided into two camps: office workers who are leaving their cars at home and trying to sneak through town on the mass transit (this worked), and protesters. An earnest young man next to me asked me what I was reading and then asked me to explain NeoPaganism. He in turn was reading a book on Mexican revolutionaries; he has spent the last month addressing high school classes and educating them on the issues.
So far the protests have been nonviolent. There were a couple of incidents. Someone tried to break a Nike window. When the French farmer Jose Bove had his press conference in front of a McDonald's, someone broke a window. Interestingly, a lot more protesters were standing in front of the windows trying to prevent the breakage.
The main tenor of the town is mellow. The cops are trying to be low key; their instructions to local security people are: if someone tries to climb something, let them. They didn't roust the squatters out of the empty apartment building although they did turn off power and water. There's a sense of power, but the power is almost entirely the power of the voice and theatrics and numbers, not the power of fists and rage.
Out my window at 10 a.m. the convention center intersections are blocked. The highways are very clear as many people are staying out of town; the sound of sirens floats over the town. It's a great moment to be in Seattle. I'm going to go down at noon and take some photos and add my fist to the masses for a minute. Vive la revolution!
For those of us who work in downtown Seattle, the World Trade Organization meeting this week is like a snowstorm we scheduled in advance. We've been talking about it for months. Having 150 foreign ministers in town is bad enough; having Clinton and Castro hit town simultaneously worsens the mix; having tens of thousands of protesters show up to join the party is the icing on the cake. My office window looks down on the Convention Center where many of the meetings will take place, and for some weeks I've been looking down on it and thinking, that is ground zero for the protest of the century.
Seattle has an inferiority complex. We're always doing macho (muscular but ill-advised) things to prove we really are a World Class City. If we got a little more civic self-esteem going we might be able to avoid this kind of ruckus again. It doesn't help traffic in the third most congested city in the country to have foreign ministers gadding about, closing streets and freeways. Particularly not the week after Thanksgiving, when merchants are attempting to attract people to come spend money in their stores.
For the past week or so the newspapers have been earnestly reporting on the issues. Backgrounds to the negotiations. What the protesters are protesting. These protesters are a hugely diverse lot. Labor unions, environmental groups, ethnic groups, all of whom feel cut out of the decision making process. We don't have a place at the table, they say, so we're taking to the streets. There are so many separate issues that I can't possibly hope to understand all of them. Famers, fishers, loggers, labor reps, all have something to say about how trade policies will affect the people actually doing the work.
Today the delegates are checking into the Sheraton hotel, which is being surrounded by Metro (our own city) buses as barricades. They get boxes of salmon and aplets and a free umbrella when they check in. Meanwhile a group of protesters moved into an abandoned building to set up a squatter's camp for the protesters who don't have a place to stay. The class difference is clear.
Interestingly, this is turning into a bonanza for our homeless population. They didn't believe police assurances that they wouldn't be swept out of town, so they started moving out into the surrounding areas, like Capitol Hill, where churches are setting up temporary tent cities. Seattle's establishment has quashed tent cities when they got started in the past, but homeless advocates are hoping that if these tent cities prove workable, a permanent site can be found.
This morning I bought the WTO issue of Real Change, our homeless newspaper, from a street vendor. I read the mag regularly, it reports on issues and events that the dailies miss or gloss over. The vendor who sold me my copy said it was one of his last. He's pretty happy--the issue is going like hotcakes, selling to the protesters!
The big deal for us downtown workers today and tomorrow are two major scheduled marches. (We've already had one minor unscheduled march and there are bound to be more as bored people mill about). There's one that starts today at 6 p.m., supposed to be 10,000 people. Another one tomorrow is expected to mass 50,000 people. That's enough people on the move to close downtown. Even if we don't get one person each hanging from the five bridges leading out from the downtown peninsula to stop traffic movement altogether. Yikes!
There's one aspect to all of this that I haven't seen any of our media cover. There is in all the protesting a certain amount of (looking around, dropping voice): glee. Hey, we can close the town! Let the Lord of Misrule reign! I confess that I'm rooting for the underdog. There's a twinkle of mischief in all of this. Hopefully it won't go over the top, and no one will actually be hurt, because so far the protests have all been harmless and fun. Burning denim in front of Old Navy. Hanging banners from the freeway. Dressing up like genetically engineered corn. It's a huge populist party. If we don't get to do the canapes and caviar with the bigshots, we'll roast hot dogs on the sidewalk. Secretly I hope the protests are wildly successful and we close my office so I get a day off tomorrow. Who knows, maybe I'll even go join in the march!
copyright © 1999, 2000 Brandy Williams