As I drove into Seattle I was greeted by a welcome surprise. Climbers from the Direct Action Network had climbed to the top of a huge crane visible from both lanes of I-5 and hung a banner that read "WTO OUT, DEMOCRACY IN"! I could see the two activist who had hung the banner still up in the scaffolding, and the police below trying to get them down.

I spent the morning at a rally and march for environmental and social activists. We started at the United Methodist Church ("NGO Headquarters", the sign on the door proclaimed - NGO = Non-Governmental Organizations) and wove our way through the city streets. Organizers had obtained a parade permit, and police were on duty to close the streets around the official route. There were about 20,000 people in attendance on the streets at it's height, many of them, I believe, people who worked downtown and agreed with our stand (The Seattle newspapers had been building up the WTO meeting and associated protests for a month, so everyone knew what was happening). WE ended at a rally. Unfortunately, the loudspeaker made hearing the speakers difficult. Then we paraded back to the Church, where many people were headquartered through the day. This was an entirely peaceful demonstration, though it was a little tense when everyone stopped in front of a McDonalds and began dancing to the drum circle in the streets. Tense for the people in McDonald's, that is. Not for us. We were just having fun. Banners were hung, and I think I saw an impromptu press conference.

Unfortunately I was unable to attend the Jubilee 2000 demonstration. Jubilee 2000 is an activist group attempting to get the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and others to forgive third world debt. The demonstration consisted of 14,000 - 17,000 people holding hands in a human chain around the convention center where the WTO was to meet. Jubilee 2000 has performed this demonstration all over the world.

I arrived in Seattle fully committed to peaceful, non-violent demonstration. I had no plans to be arrested (I needed to be back home by Thursday, to get back to work). I did, however, come with the hope that there would be enough people to shut down the WTO!

I started my morning at a rally organized by the Sierra Club. There were several speakers, including a Native American elder from New Mexico who gave us a song for support. California State Senator Tom Hayden (a sixties activist, who was arrested as one of the Chicago Seven - a group who helped to organize the protests outside the democratic national convention in 1968) spoke, and he commented on the differences between the 60's and the WTO protest. He stated that, while in the sixties "we had a few issues, the WTO is about everything." No other statement about the WTO Demonstration says it better. This demonstration really is about EVERYTHING, our entire democracy, our entire way of living. That is why so many groups, from the far right-wing (Pat Buchanan), to labor (AFL-CIO, Teamsters, Longshoreman, and MANY MORE!), to Christians (United Methodist Church), to animal rights activists (Animal Liberation Front), to environmentalists (Sierra Club, GreenPeace, Me, and MANY MORE!), consumer rights groups (Ralph Nader) and social rights activists (Global Exchange), were in Seattle. Historically, resistance to the WTO represents the largest coalition of progressives seen in the United States since the 1960s civil rights movement, possibly even the 1930s labor movement when there was an active and successful Progressive Party.

The environmentalists then marched to join the labor rally. Although the morning started with drizzle and showers, the sun was threatening to break out. There were at least 40,000 people in attendance at the stadium in Seattle center, many of them bused in specifically to attend the march. Speakers representing labor unions in the United States and around the world spoke, all of them inspiring us with the knowledge that, as we marched in the streets of Seattle, millions of people all around the world would be watching and cheering us on. I wish that I could remember even half of the union's I saw represented at the rally. Of particular note were the longshoremen. I think that most of the ones in attendance at the rally were from Seattle, however, longshoremen across the west coast staged a demonstration in support of their brothers and sisters around the world, and so shipping was shut down for several hours up and down the coast.

At around noon, the crowd left the stadium and we began our historic march through the streets of Seattle. By this time the sun shone on us and I saw a rainbow in the sky. Besides the 40,000 in the stadium, there must have been another 10,000 around the stadium waiting for the march to start. We filled the streets of Seattle for at least 10 blocks. Signs, floats, costumes, and puppets were in abundance as people paraded through the streets, chanting and singing. I have never attended such a large rally before. The sensations of solidarity and community that I felt with everyone around me made me, for one of the first times in my life, proud to be in this country, to have this freedom. I chanted environmental slogans and labor slogans, I chanted in English and Spanish. And I utilized my right to free speech by carrying a sign that read, on one side "Don't Patent My Genes" and "Politicians Take Note When You Vote" on the other. Other signs I remember were "Resist Corporate Monoculture"; "We All depend on Ecosystems"; Santa carrying a sign that said "Buy" on one side and "Bye" over a picture of the earth on the other; "Who's Taking Over"; "World Takeover Organization"; "Fair Trade, not Free Trade"; and "Pro-environment Pro-labor Pro-social justice Pro-small farmer Anti-WTO". Greenpeace had a giant green float shaped like a condom that said "Safe Trade".

The parade route had been approved by the city of Seattle. All of the permits were in order. However, the official published route didn't actually march in front of the convention center, where the meeting was being held. Instead, it turned parallel two blocks before the center, headed down about four blocks, and then turned back towards the stadium. As I approached the line of parade marshals (not police, union volunteers with an orange hat identifying them as "MARSHAL") I became confused, because it seemed that the parade was breaking up. Many people were walking past or around the marshals, heading closer towards the conference center. I could see that there were thousands of people in the street outside of the parade route. I stopped and consulted with my two friends I was marching with. I said that I thought the real demonstration was going on down the street, where people were trying to shut down the WTO. As we debated following the parade or going into the unknown, someone from Direct Action Network arrived and described the situation to us. "Everyone, starting at 7:00 this morning activists took to the streets and began surrounding the major hotels and the convention center. We were successful at keeping the delegates in their hotels, however at 10:15 police cleared a street by shooting rubber bullets and tear gas canisters into the crowd. We need as many human bodies as we can get to join us so that we can keep the delegates from getting to their meeting."

At this point, our course was decided. We followed the crowd that was leaving the parade.

The streets were a surreal scene of chaos mixed with the commercial symbols of Christmas. By this time, most of the vandalism had already occurred. Newspaper racks and dumpsters littered the streets, turned on their sides, they acted as platforms for people to see over the crowd. There were shattered windows exposing delicate Christmas window displays to the cold winter air. Graffiti covered the walls, most of it tags that said little. There were a few political slogans, and several anarchy symbols (an "A" with a circle around it). There were also several banners hung from walls by activists, declaring the end of the WTO. And there were so many people in the streets, no cars, no buses, just people milling around. I watched as one young woman tried to rinse pepper spray from her eyes. A line of police stood in a row in the street, but in front of them were hundreds of citizens who blocked them from moving into the street. As we moved parallel to the police line we could see that, over the police and demonstrators' heads and across a street, which the police kept clear, there was another row of police blocked by another mass of people.

I spoke with a man from Virginia who was there in the morning. He said that most of the window breaking had occurred early in the day by a group of thugs dressed in black and wearing black masks. He said he saw 15 or 20 of them moving through the streets, breaking windows and spray-painting the walls. He described to me how the non-violent demonstrators tried to stop them. The thugs turned on the demonstrators, calling them "Pussys and fucking hippys!" and threatening people with clubs. So the non-violent demonstrators backed off. The vandals stopped destroying things when there were so many people in the streets that they couldn't get away with it anymore.

I walked along, through the crowd, bemused by it all. I did not feel threatened by any of the protestors, only by the police. I kept my head up, and watched very closely what was happening around me. I remained calm, but wary. I didn't want to be arrested or hurt, but I knew that in a crowd like this, anything could happen. We were no longer marchers in a parade; we were standing on the front line of democracy as it faced the multinational corporate oligarchy. This is not the easiest or safest place to be. One of my friends decided to leave, so I gave her directions back to her car. Then my other friend and I headed into the thick of it.

I spent most of the day in front of the Sheraton Hotel. This was about a block from the convention center, so several delegates and representatives of the international press were staying there. The Sheraton is on a corner, and two of the four streets leading to the intersection were blocked by rows of police. Another row blocked the entrance to the hotel. Facing the police were hundreds of non-violent protestors. At the entrance, a line of people stood with their arms locked, a human wall. It was an interesting standoff. Anyone that the demonstrators might be willing to let through, the police would never let through; anyone the police might let through, the demonstrators would never let through. A few times, some altercation broke out between the police and the demonstrators. When this would occur, the people would chant "non-violent protest" or "no violence". At one point, someone broke a window, and the people shouted "Shame" until he slunk away. Several young activists had set down a platform in the middle of the street to which they chained and locked themselves. The platform acted as a stage from which issued singing, dancing, and the passing of information which was critical to the solidarity of the people. People chanted to the police and to other demonstrators to be careful because there were people who couldn't move in the middle of the street.

At one point, the police began to grab someone, and as the crowd surged towards that person, pepper spray began to rain in the air, a steady stream. At another point I watched an armored personnel carrier drive along the street that had been cleared earlier in the day by the police. A few minutes later I heard the sound of gunshots and tear gas canisters. Crowds of people came running towards us, their eyes red and watered. I felt the sting of tear gas in my eyes and throat. I felt tense, and I wondered if the police were going to start pushing forward towards me. But the police held their position as more and more people crowded the intersection where I stood holding my sign.

Some delegates and international reporters had made it out of their hotel, but they could not get back in. The delegates seemed perturbed by the fact that they were stuck on the streets with the people who are the most affected by their policies. I helped to block their way, stating politely, "I'm sorry sir, but the Sheraton has been closed for the ministerial meeting." There were no overt attacks on delegates that I saw. They were allowed free movement in the streets. (This is in direct contrast to how they treat us, who are not even allowed near the building where their meeting is held let alone free movement among them.)

I spoke with several representatives of the international press, including Canada, Spain, and India. It was a woman from a Canadian newspaper that informed us that the rumor we had heard was true: We had successfully blocked the WTO meeting! I was elated with pride in the power of a united people! I was amazed that, despite the mantra of all the politicians and business people, corporate globalization might not be inevitable at all.

As the light of the sun began to fade in the streets, I could feel the tension level starting to rise. At around 5 p.m. I saw police begin to line up in more rows, and I could hear the voice of a police officer on a megaphone coming through the crowd. I couldn't hear what he said, but I knew that something was happening. Many people who had been there for hours began leaving, so my friend and I did the same. As we left the Sheraton, we passed crowds of people gathering in the streets in front of the police line. People played drums and people played dumpsters and newspaper racks like they were drums. People were preparing themselves for the night.

My friend and I wove our way out of the crowd, and we approached a street that had been opened to traffic. Cars moved smoothly in either direction. There were still many groups of people in the street, but there weren't huge crowds here. We began to look for a restaurant. Some were open and some were closed. Suddenly we passed a group of youth, kids in their mid- to late- teens. We could tell by their talk that they had come downtown just to break things and clash with the police. Possibly, they saw what was happening on the television, and felt that they needed to get involved. They appeared to have an understanding of the politics behind the protest. They did not randomly destroy property, but discussed if a particular window was "the right one" to break. I watched as one member of the group grabbed a man who held a tape recorder. Another said, "No, he's neutral, he's neutral." The man was wearing a press pass.

I turned to my friend and said, "Let's get out of here; there is going to be a riot." Unfortunately, we had parked between the demonstration zone and our car. As I walked, I could hear the sound of the tear gas canisters and running feet. People ran by us saying, "You're going the wrong way." We came within a block of the police line, a relentless march punctuated by a fog of tear gas that filled the streets. I couldn't breathe or see as I struggled away. Others staggered beside us, victims of the fog. But many demonstrators had come prepared for a harsh police response. They donned gas masks and acted as witnesses to the brutal police response to the demonstration. We made it out of the gas zone, and began walking towards the car. Everyone was talking at once around us, asking what was happening or describing what was coming. People moved in groups that thinned out as we neared the car. 

We became a little lighter as we got into the car and realized we were almost out. We were still hungry, so we drove to a section of the city above the downtown called "Capital Hill". There are a lot of restaurants there, and it felt like we could get something there. There were people massing on one street outside of the Direct Action Network Headquarters (it was a few blocks below Broadway, on the side of Capital Hill that overlooks downtown Seattle. As we ate, the television showed the downtown streets where I had just been. Police lines had secured themselves to the edge of the freeway at the base of Capitol Hill. I still wore my NO WTO sticker, to generate conversation. The owner expressed his fear that the police were pushing the masses towards Capital Hill. He remembered vividly when rioting that broke out in downtown Seattle after the Rodney King verdict, when his restaurant windows had been broken. (Most people outside of Seattle don't know that an uprising broke out in there on that historic day. Property destruction was not as widespread in Seattle as in Los Angeles). Then a police officer came by who recommended that he close his store.

In retrospect, it appears that the WTO demonstrations in Seattle were more successful than anyone could have hoped for. Two weeks ago, no one in the United States had heard of the WTO. A week ago it was front page news in every city in the country. We showed the world that the only way an undemocratic, closed-door institution like the WTO could meet to do business in the United States was by instituting martial law. And that's exactly what happened.

Despite the early attempts by the press to paint this as a VIOLENT action, it seems that most people understand that there was a small group of well-organized people who did most of the property damage. What is interesting is that the police didn't try to stop this. In fact the first police response to the crowds of people in the street came several hours later when they used tear gas and rubber bullets to clear a street to the convention center. Another interesting consideration is the fact of the president's arrival. EVERYONE knew that the big day was going to be Tuesday. It was well advertised, and the Seattle press had been discussing the upcoming protests for at least a month. So the President was not scheduled to speak until Wednesday. I don't believe that the final police response (the imposition of martial law) was a result of violence. I believe it was directly related to the need for security during the president's visit. One thing is for certain: the only violence committed by ANY free citizen in the streets that day was violence against property. The police perpetrated the only violence I saw against people that day.

PAY CAREFUL ATTENTION TO WHAT YOU READ IN THE NEWS OR SEE ON TELEVISION!!!!!!

Remember that over 90% of the media outlets in this country are owned or funded (through foundations) by mega-corporations.

The media is starting to frame the parameters within which the debate over the WTO will be framed. The media describes the thugs who broke windows early in the day as "self-described anarchists." Yet, no-one has actually talked to them, so no one knows if they really are anarchists, or fascists, or communists, or paid by the corporations. All we know for sure is that they were well organized. It is interesting that the media would raise the specter of "anarchists" in 1999. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, anyone who the government wanted to persecute was labeled an "anarchist". Several people were even executed as anarchists. It wasn't until the 1930s and 1950s that communists took the place of anarchists. (In the 1940s, it was Nazis) Now, with communism "dead", we see the old forms rising again. This is in step with other attempts to whittle away the living standard to that of the late 1800s.

The media has barraged us with experts who claim that our best course is to "work within the existing structure" of the WTO, or that "Globalization is here, now we have to deal with it." In fact, global trade has occurred through the entire history of humanity on this planet. And it will continue. We can move things faster and farther, but essentially trading of this nature occurred in the 1700s, just as it does today.

The issue is NOT how we should work within the structure of the WTO. Rather, we need to discuss the fundamental nature of the WTO - how it effects the environment, our people, our culture, and the world. If in the course of this discussion we find that we do not like the direction of this institution, it must either change or it must be destroyed.

The facts are 1) By having the authority to levy tariffs (fines), the WTO has effected a lowering of the living standards of our country. This has occurred without the consent of the people. In fact, prior to the demonstrations in Seattle, no-one had even heard of the WTO, let alone understand what it meant to them and their rights. Several laws that took years of consensus building are being rewritten because of WTO decisions. 2) The WTO judicial system, which decides cases concerning the effects of national, state, and local law on free trade, is made up entirely of trade representatives. The proceedings of these decisions are not available to the public. The public is not allowed to witness or participate in the process. Only trade representatives can represent countries. 3) After 5 years of existence, every single environmental, social justice, or labor standard brought before the WTO has been declared a "non-tariff barrier to free trade."

THE WTO IS ANTI-DEMOCRATIC, AND IT MUST BE STOPPED.

We must put pressure on our politicians. Letters, phone calls, faxes, and emails need to be sent. Ask your local, state, and national representatives where they stand on the anti-democratic nature of the WTO. So many of them are bought by the corporate donations that keep their political machines running that they are now under tremendous pressure to keep going, full steam ahead. THE WTO MUST BECOME A CAMPAIGN ISSUE.

It is my hope that, as the debate over the existence of the WTO continues we will see an expansion on the question, "What are the alternatives to this system of corporate dominance in everyone's day to day economic lives?" One suggestion has been, "Sustainable Localization." What a community can produce it produces. But there will still need to be trade because some products are not efficient to produce at the community level. But we, as communities need to decide what we can produce and what we should import or export. Local economies should not be forced to bend to the whim of multi-national corporations.