Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1999 09:49:50 -0500
From: Chuck0 <chuck-AT-tao.ca>
Subject: Fwd: Without 'Bad Apples,' WTO Protests Wouldn't Have Worked - The 



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Without 'Bad Apples,' WTO Protests Wouldn't Have Worked - The
Stranger
Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1999 00:44:29 -0500

BOARDING UP BOOMTOWN
Without 'Bad Apples,' WTO Protests Wouldn't Have Worked
by Josh Feit

SEATTLE'S MOST EMBARRASSING moment during last week's WTO upheaval
didn't
come when cops started shooting tear gas and firing plastic bullets at
peaceful protesters. Nor did it have anything to do with Seattle Mayor
Paul
Schell's constitutionally questionable "No-Protest Zone." It didn't even
come when drunken "protesters" started smashing the windows out of an
abandoned Metro bus on Broadway and Pike. Seattle's darkest moment came
on
Wednesday morning, December 1, when protesters returned downtown to
scrub
graffiti off the walls of Niketown and Starbucks.

"Only Seattle would have protesters coming back downtown to clean up the
graffiti," proclaimed Mayor Paul Schell, sounding every bit the proud
father. Seattle plays host to one of the most successful examples of
political agitation since the 1960s, and Schell gloats to the world
about
how contrite our activists are toward Seattle's downtown businesses.
Talk
about missing the point.

"That was not Seattle," Schell assured the media, referring to the
rambunctious WTO protests. "Seattle is a gentle city where we agree to
disagree."

Huh? If the city had "agreed to disagree," the WTO would have met
without a
hitch; the politics of unaccountable corporate power wouldn't have
landed in
the pages of The New York Times; and President Clinton wouldn't have had
to
backtrack on years of pro-WTO rhetoric by dedicating his Port of Seattle
speech to the protesters' "legitimate" gripes.

However, even as the stakes ratcheted up and police were shooting tear
gas
in the streets, Schell's Pollyanna press spin persisted: By allowing
30,000
WTO protesters to get their message out, Schell intoned, Seattle proved
to
be a beacon for freedom of assembly and free speech. The disturbances
were
caused by outside anarchist agitators, he added, not the type of
mild-mannered protesters we've come to know and love in Seattle. In
other
words, we gave anti-WTO forces their shot; they blew it; now they should
shut up or go home.

Unfortunately, Schell's speaking points seemed to resonate with
Seattleites.
The media, finding a new Trenchcoat Mafia to scapegoat, circled
obsessively
around the black-clad anarchists (or "crow-bar wielding rebels against
private property," as Friday's Seattle Times editorial page called
them).
Meanwhile, downtown shoppers and business leaders repeated Schell's
mantra
verbatim: "They got to say their peace. What do they want?" noted a
gray-suited man on Thursday, December 2, who was crossing the
intersection
at Fifth and Cherry carrying a cell phone.

What they wanted, and got -- thanks to all the fires, window-smashings,
and
tear gas lobbing -- was a time-out from the unfettered practices of
global
corporations; corporations that are looking to trump national labor,
environmental safety, and market regulations through the WTO.

Schell, of course, argues that the window-smashing and graffiti only
hurt
the protesters' cause, and if demonstrators had been polite Seattleites
and
simply played their prescripted roles -- congregating in SPD-designated
protest areas and cooperating with the police in mass arrests -- the
message
would have been heard. Schell is dead wrong. Seattle's familiar,
comfortable
style of protest would not have had any impact at all. In fact, it was
the
destruction and closing of downtown that garnered international
attention
for the protesters' cause.

The fact that activists zoomed in on companies like Nike, Starbucks, and
Planet Hollywood upped the ante; and it was certainly no accident that
they
smashed the windows of and scribbled graffiti on these particular
companies.
According to economist and Left Business Observer publisher Doug
Henwood,
high-profile corporations like Nike have specialized in hijacking youth
culture. (It's ironic, he points out, that young protesters targeted
companies that have been targeting them for years with marketing
campaigns.)
By taking such targeted actions, "anarchists" sent a richer message
about
the new economy than a bunch of peaceful people in sea-turtle suits ever
could have. Indeed, there's something powerful about showing up at your
bank
and finding all the windows boarded over. And it's particularly
compelling
to watch businesses -- whose cycles are rarely, if ever, interrupted --
close early or not open at all for fear of being ransacked.

Thanks to the volatile protests last week, there's a new undercurrent --
call it a nervousness -- in boomtown Seattle. This is a good thing.
Seattle's runaway economy has made some people who live here pretty
comfortable, and maybe a little forgetful. The WTO protests, like the
indelible graffiti on downtown shops, have brought local and national
class
issues into stark relief. Heck, even Dick's on Broadway closed on
Wednesday
night. A darkened Dick's? Global capitalism is surely in trouble.