Beyond the Myths of Seattle

...But writing off labor and religious groups seems premature at best, and skeptics among us wonder how far to trust "gut instinct" as a basis for mass protest...

...3 That question has scarcely been addressed by the media...

...Fueled by images of Seattle violence, the abuse of First Amendment rights in the context of mass protests has become routine...

...Prisoners were pepper-sprayed while in close confinement, beaten, denied food, water, and medication, and kept in handcuffs for forty-eight hours or longer before even being informed of the charges...

...Or at least the version painted in the U.S...

...If city officials around the country are repressing political dissent, then it is more than a local problem...

...First, the 40,000 to 50,000 demonstrators who gathered November 30, 1999, were overwhelmingly peaceful...

...What does it mean that other cities followed its example...

...The problem has no easy solution...

...1. Los Angeles police were the most obvious exception...

...DISSENT / Summer 2001 n 43...

...it has been avoided rather than resolved...

...Second, it is clear that "Seattle" never happened...

...For all these reasons, and because the expectation of "Seattle-like" violence has inured the public to routine violations of civil liberties, recent efforts in Seattle to figure out what happened a year and a half ago are particularly welcome...

...But this is just one example...

...If large demonstrations are going to preserve their nonviolent character, then the organizational process has to achieve more clarity around the issue of self-policing...

...Third, the civil rights of the protesters were violated—First Amendment rights most obviously, but also Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights, concerning search and seizure, and due process...

...In response to television coverage of Seattle police rampaging out of control, law officers elsewhere waited for provocation,' even as rubber bullets, tear gas, and pepper spray became the standard approach to crowd control...

...What is to prevent future large nonviolent demonstrations from being hijacked—or "parasitized," as some in the movement call it' —by Black Bloc anarchists, Revolutionary Communist Party activists, and others who, either programmatically or opportunistically, engage in destruction of property or violence...

...A third report, issued by an ad hoc citizens' group known as the Committee for Local Government Accountability (available on-line at http ://ourworld.c s . conrd_ht_a/Johns4peace/ clga_report.htm), criticizes the ARC for not going far enough and questions the degree of involvement by city officials in what was supposed to be an independent citizens' review...

...Joiner's comment set the tone for the months that followed...

...Nonviolent protesters are going to have to be militant enough to confront, physically if necessary, those at the fringes who want to throw stones...

...Philadelphia police set up a display of photographs and objects supposedly used by demonstrators in Seattle...

...An obviously rattled assistant police chief, Ed Joiner, declared at a press conference, "These were not peaceful protesters...

...5. Telephone interview, April 25, 2001...

...and later, over time, by the media themselves...

...And if the militarized police response is being encouraged tacitly by an increasingly monolithic media, then the "press" as it is now constituted serves not to guarantee free speech, but to suppress it...

...What does it mean that Seattle— virtual flagship of the Internet economy, company town of Bill Gates, frontrunner in global trade, a city renowned for the yuppie wealth that percolates through its coffee houses— lapsed so easily into a militarized response that abrogates the rule of law...

...3. The new, less-lethal weapons available to police, as well as militarized tactics coupled with coordination with National DAVID MORSE is a journalist and author of a novel, The Iron Bridge...

...In reaction to Seattle police complaints about the thinness of their forces, police elsewhere were mustered in massive numbers...

...Box 95242, Seattle, WA 98145...

...That authority is compromised once individuals engage in unpredictable hit-and-run tactics...

...Looking back on Seattle, we can see that the 1999 anti-WTO protest was in some sense hijacked not once, but twice, by proponents of violence: once by the tiny group of anarchists and vandals whose window-breaking grabbed the attention of the news media...

...The charges were later thrown out...

...When the Seattle Police Department refused to turn over certain documents to the ARC, the committee did not exercise its power of subpoena, nor did it disclose to the public which documents were withheld...

...This is 42 n DISSENT / Summer 2001 BEYOND THE MYTHS OF SEATTLE a movement that prides itself on the absence of charismatic leaders or top-down organization...

...And by April 2001, the number had nearly doubled, to 31,400...

...Councilmember Jim Compton, who led the ARC investigation, also heads the committee that oversees the Seattle Police Department...

...media and exported abroad is so different from what actually took place as to provide quite another benchmark, one that measures the capacity of the media monopolies to create a virtual reality with little attention to the facts...

...Two months later, in February 2001, the number of references in response to "Seattle riots" had jumped to 16,500...

...Police, media, and vandals—including any agents provocateurs and terrorists, real or imagined—can be expected to collude in this self-perpetuating cycle...

...First, Seattle is the international benchmark by which protests against corporately managed global trade are now judged...

...Seattle police sent videotapes of their city's chaos to frighten authorities in Detroit prior to the June 2000 meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS) across the river in Windsor, Ontario...

...No such devices were reported in Seattle...

...The ARC report, which took nine months and cost the city $190,000, concluded that the city government "failed its citizens through careless and naive planning, poor communication of its plans and procedures, confused and indecisive police leadership, and imposition of civil emergency measures in questionable ways" (on-line at www.ci.seattle.wa.us/ seattle/wtocommittee/currentdocs.htm...

...The American viewing public opened its eyes a little to issues of global trade...

...Police on two occasions invaded the Capitol Hill residential neighborhood, attacking protesters and residents indiscriminately with batons, tear gas, pepper spray and CS gas, concussion grenades, and assorted "less-lethal" weapons...

...Bankrolled by Pittsburgh billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, the Maldon Institute provided intelligence about the demonstrators that included "scurrilous, McCarthyite allegations," according to Chip Berlet, who monitors the Institute's activities...

...In short, the facts solidly refute the myth of "violent protests" in Seattle...

...Seattle" has become a code word by which civil discourse can be polarized and the argument against unrestricted global trade "delegitimatized"— to use a term bandied about by corporate nongovernmental organizations...

...These remarks appeared in an interview with Craig R. McCoy and Linda K. Harris in the Philadelphia Inquirer, September 10, 2000...

...From Davos, Switzerland, to Prague and Quebec— even in the dusty market town of Millau, France, where peasant activist Jose Bove was brought to trial for trashing a McDonald's—authorities expressed relief that their cities had not turned into "another Seattle...

...Yes, of course, the corporate media are complicit...

...We're all eating toxic food and breathing the same toxic air...

...Ruckus Society leader John Sellers, who trains protesters to engage in flamboyant but physically harmless acts such as unfurling giant banners from buildings, was jailed for possessing such "instruments of crime" as a cell phone and a hand-held computer and held for several days on a million-dollar bail...

...The question must be addressed by protesters, as well as by civil authorities...

...Second, police attacks began before the incidents of vandalism and were aimed not at vandals but at nonviolent protesters...

...Even to achieve clarity on the issue of self-policing is anathema to the loose, quasi-consensual, Internet-supported process that brought 350 organizations to Seattle and that continues to organize on the model of interlocking "hubs" and "spokes...

...To what extent is police violence warranted, in the eyes of the public...

...The immediate impact—obvious to demonstrators, but not so obvious to television viewers, and hugely important in shaping public perceptions—is to curtail the ability of nonviolent protesters to make their voices heard at a particular demonstration...

...The charge of conflict of interest appears well founded...

...SO WHAT DID happen...

...What are the implications of the new police tactics in terms of constitutional rights...

...The Times issued a correction...

...Ultimate responsibility lies with elected officials...

...The vandals who seized headlines numbered fewer than two hundred, less than one-half of one percent of the total crowd...

...This was a complete fabrication...

...And as a strategic matter, the likelihood of violence reduces the participation of moderate groups such as labor unions–and also individuals who are physically vulnerable...

...Four separate reports released since July 2000 attempt to ascertain the facts, assign blame, and offer recommendations...

...Predictability is part of transparency...

...In the early euphoria, activists made much of the "lessons" learned from Seattle...

...But as the "spirit of Seattle" came up against hardened police responses in Washington D.C...

...Police misbehavior is a manifestation of a broader failure of civil society...

...Finally, the Eighth Amendment right, prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment, was violated...

...But she also wants to keep the dialogue open with Black Bloc and others who want to use property destruction as a form of protest...

...Basically the city was investigating itself," observes Mark Taylor-Canfield, a founding member of CLGA...

...Organizers learned, and are still learning, the tactical limitations as well as the strengths of large-scale nonviolent demonstrations and decentralized decisionmaking...

...The reports confirm that there were no "riots" in SeDISSENT / Summer 2001 n 4 BEYOND THE MYTHS OF SEATTLE attle, apart from what may reasonably be described as police riots...

...From numerous accounts by those arrested, it is clear that the Sixth Amendment— guaranteeing the right of the accused to be informed of charges, confront witnesses, and have legal counsel—was violated as well...

...A second report was issued in September 2000 by the city's official fact-finding committee, the WTO Accountability Review Committee...

...A fourth report, entitled "Waging War on Dissent," published by the Seattle National Lawyers Guild WTO Legal Group, was released in July and later updated (available online at www.nlgseattle.org or by mail at P.O...

...The problem is both local and pandemic...

...a handful of vandals can bring camera eyes swiveling to attention...

...First, however, we should examine the origins of the widespread public perception of the Seattle protest as violent, despite a solid body of facts to the contrary...

...If we have learned anything from the recent presidential election it is that civic culture must be revitalized from the ground up, beginning with voting rights and proceeding to campaign finance reform and to legislative measures to break the power of the media monopolies...

...it is an attack on the larger structure of democracy...

...The militarized responses of civil authorities effectively criminalize political protest in the form of mass demonstrations...

...Perhaps what we have learned from Seattle, most ironically, is the need for transparency—not just in global institutions and in government, both national and local, but in our own structures of dissent...

...And as Naomi Klein observed, following the Quebec protest, "the traditional institutions that once organized citizens into neat, structured groups are all in decline: unions, religions, political parties...

...To cite a flagrant example: in a June 4, 2000 New York Times article about the preparations in Detroit for the OAS demonstrators, reporter Nichole M. Christian presented as fact the following statement about Seattle: "In that protest demonstrators, some wearing gas masks, hurled Molotov cocktails, rocks, and excrement at delegates and police officers...

...4. This term actually seems more accurate, because the smaller groups advocating violence do not take over leadership or direction of the larger group but depend on the nonviolent commitment of their hosts and draw sustenance from them to promote their own agendas...

...How pervasive this demonization is can be seen in results of a Google search keyed to "Seattle riots...

...2. Berlet is senior analyst for Political Research Associates, based in Massachusetts...

...Historically, nonviolent protest involving civil disobedience on the scale mounted by Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., has depended on spiritual unity and a coherent leadership...

...No comparable excuse can be offered for the misinformation circulated by police elsewhere...

...The facts are particularly useful, considering the extent to which the media have disregarded them...

...Although the media distorted the original event almost beyond recognition, it is also true that they were fed inflammatory and largely unfounded statements by the badly outnumbered and disorganized Seattle police while the event was still unfolding...

...He writes about global issues and human rights, and may be contacted at his Web site (www.david-rnorse.com ). Guard forces and intelligence agencies, arguably have the further effect of distancing police from civil society and weakening the protections contained in the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 designed to prevent federal troops from being used to police civil society...

...Only 40 n DISSENT / Summer 2001 BEYOND THE MYTHS OF SEATTLE the part about the gas masks was true...

...She goes on to say that "something propelled tens of thousands of individuals to the streets anyway, an intuition, a gut instinct—perhaps just the profoundly human desire to be part of something larger than oneself" (Toronto Globe and Mail, April 24, 2001...

...Juliette Beck, who organizes for Global Exchange, sees the smaller gatherings as more conducive to forging alliances between local concerns and global issues...

...police, who, in concert with federal law enforcement agencies, adopted a more sophisticated version of Seattle's "no protest zone...

...Police claimed it was "similar to the ones used by protesters in Seattle to light on fire and fling over a large crowd...

...The questions raised for the future are national and international in scope...

...In December 2000, the search turned up 10,400 references (by contrast, "Seattle police riot," arguably a more accurate description, produced only 445 references...

...But the confrontation has not yet happened intellectually, at the organizational level, in the present movement...

...Organizers of the Quebec demonstrations skirted the issue by designating "safe" and "risky" zones...

...By the time the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) held its summit this past April, no one was surprised when Quebec authorities used "Seattle" as justification for sealing off the entire old section of the city with a four-meter-high chain-link fence and requiring residents to show special IDs...

...What recourse remains open to demonstrators, when their photogenic giant puppets have been confiscated and they are prevented from getting anywhere near the targets of their protest...

...Imposition of martial law within designated zones has become commonplace, beginning with D.C...

...Another alternative is to abandon largescale demonstrations in favor of smaller, more local gatherings—as happened with Quebec, when scores of smaller demonstrations took place simultaneously in other cities and at border crossings...

...In reaction to the initial slowness of Seattle police to make arrests, Washington, D.C., police in April 2000 launched preemptive strikes against organizers' headquarters, seizing giant puppets and thereby denying protesters one of their most potent visual tools...

...The situation invites protesters to push the envelope— overturning cars in Prague, crashing through the fence at Quebec—which in turn is used by the authorities to justify police crackdowns...

...Not only have these issues gone unexamined by the national press, but considering the impact of the original protest in Seattle, the media have shown little interest in discerning what actually took place...

...At the outset he set strict limits on the ARC inquiry, ruling out any criminal investigation and promising "closure" rather than a "quagmire...

...Among the lessons was a familiar one: the media are attracted to violence...

...police as a pretext for seizing protesters' headquarters turned out to be bogus—a plastic bottle containing paint thinner for puppet-making, just as the alleged "pepper-spray factory" turned out to be a communal kitchen...

...She acknowledges she is walking a fine line.' This is a delicate moment, a time when creative leadership may give rise to something completely unexpected...

...The police, meanwhile, were learning a different set of lessons...

...But Seattle was a prescription for future violence...

...Although many questions remain unanswered, the following facts are clear...

...during the National Democratic Convention in June 2000, they used rubber bullets and tear gas to attack a crowd of outdoorconcert attendees outside the convention hall, apparently on the grounds that they looked unruly...

...The ACLU report sketches the timeline of events, cites specific police abuses, reveals the extent to which the demonstrators' constitutional rights were violated, and proposes remedies for the future...

...and in a string of other cities last year, the lessons became more complicated...

...One solution seems painfully obvious to those of us who battled police in the pre-Internet sixties and seventies...

...2 Acting largely on these allegations, Philadelphia police crushed giant puppets in trash compactors, and prosecutors authorized preemptive arrests on the patently illegal grounds that leaders of nonviolent actions could be held responsible for vandalism committed by others...

...Seattle was invoked repeatedly to justify unconstitutional crackdowns on protesters outside the Republican National Convention a month later in Philadelphia...

...But the indirect impact goes further...

...The "Molotov cocktail" cited by D.C...

...These were rioters trying to take over the streets of Seattle...

...The images that erupted from Seattle "worked" in the short run, insofar as they elicited some sympathy for the protesters and their cause...

...A core of 3,500 to 4,000 protesters engaged in classic civil disobedience...

...This lack of clarity, typical of the anarchist style that prevailed in Seattle and elsewhere, remains a stumbling block to attempts to make common cause with unions and other groups who want to be comfortable with their allies...

...But as long as municipal authorities work in secret, deny responsibility, withhold documents—as they did and continue to do in Seattle—there can be no transparency or accountability...

...The studies reveal quite a different Seattle from the one that has blossomed in the public imagination...

...FINALLY THE question comes around to the organizers of nonviolent demonstrations...

...Detroit and Philadelphia followed suit with their own militarized zones...

...Compton, quoted in the Seattle Times in January 2000, assured Seattleites that "If an investigation means Watergate, this is not an investigation...

...It succeeds on the strength of its moral authority...

...Although this may speak to skewed feedback in the Internet, it also reflects the mythology that has grown up around Seattle...

...It's a longterm process of trust-building," she says, emphasizing the need to build links with the working class and people of color...

...A catalyst in the police overreaction was the Washington, D.C.-based Maldon Institute, a little-known but well-funded right-wing group with FBI connections and pipelines into many police departments...

...Now, more than a year after Seattle's shattered windows have been replaced, the residue of graffiti power-washed from storefronts, and the last rubber bullets carried down the storm sewers into Puget Sound, it is time to take a fresh look at the way the original event was distorted, and with what effects, on both sides of the political divide...

...Particularly helpful is an eight-three-page report released last July by the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington state, entitled Out of Control: Seattle's Flawed Response to Protests Against the World Trade Organization (available on-line at www.aclu-wa.org...

...Paul Richmond and colleagues pursue a more radical thesis, arguing that the Seattle debacle stemmed directly from "attempting to create a world where the corporations have unlimited powers . . . where the most basic protections on health, safety, environment, workers rights, quality of life, can be removed as 'barriers to free trade.' " Whatever gaps remain in the factual record, all four reports, representing a diverse range of views—together with an investigative article in the Seattle Weekly published August 3-9, 2000—agree on some basics...

...DISSENT / Summer 2001 • 39 BEYOND THE MYTHS OF SEATTLE To what extent are these repressive steps warranted by actual or probable acts of violence...

...The most bizarre item was a chain said to have been tied with gasolinesoaked rags...

...All assign blame to the city's administration and its international trade boosters in the business community...