Analysis
It’s 3 a.m. on Nov. 30 in San Francisco. Riot cops just raided Occupy Philly and Occupy Los Angeles tonight and the live streams are running on my laptop. We are preparing for a possible raid of Occupy San Francisco tonight or tomorrow. I’m talking back and forth with other occupiers and labor, community and faith allies, deciding whether to call for a mass mobilization tonight and to prepare for mass civil disobedience.
Eleven years ago yesterday, on November 30, 1999, a public uprising shut down the World Trade Organizationand occupied downtown Seattle.
That same week in 1999, three thousand miles away in Immokalee, Florida, farmworkers carried out a five-day general strike against abusive growers paying starvation wages. Two weeks ago, on November 16, 2010 those same growers -- the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange representing 90% of the industry -- publicly agreed to every one of the farmworkers "Fair Food" demands.
Ten years ago tonight, I was sitting in a spokescouncil in a warehouse in downtown Seattle, surrounded by a sea of dreadlocked youth, preparing to rise at dawn and hit the streets the next morning. Was it that night or the next I went with my friends Margo Adair and Bill Aall with whom I was staying, to the late-night grocery store for some emergency vinegar to soak our bandannas in case of tear gas?
An article written for the Project South Fall Newsletter
It was still pitch dark outside and a thin, cold mist was in the air when the affinity groups charged with blockading Sixth Avenue and Union Street met for the last time. Scouts reported that the coast was clear. Sitting in the wooden pews of an old downtown Seattle church we reviewed our target once more. After days of nervewracking preparation, we were ready to do our part to shut down the World Trade Organization (WTO).
November 30, 2008
What lessons can we learn from the shutdown of the 1999 WTO
Ministerial in Seattle 9 years ago today and from the last decade and
a half of global justice organizing as we face today's major crises
under an Obama Administration? This was the question a group of
organizers from different parts of the last decades of global justice
organizing responded to last week at a forum in New York City put
together by Deep Dish TV, an independent video/media pioneer. Here are
my thoughts.Nine years ago today:
Mark Engler, a writer based in New York City, is a senior analyst with
Foreign Policy In Focus and author of How to Rule the World: The Coming
Battle Over the Global Economy (Nation Books, 2008). He can be reached via the Web site http://www.DemocracyUprising.comThe Impact of the “Battle In Seattle”
The 1999 protests against the WTO were dramatic enough to inspire a new feature film, but did they actually make a difference?
by Mark Engler
What I Learned At The WTO Protests In Seattle...
by Pete Tridish,A Ruckus I Couldn't Miss:
What I Learned At The WTO Protests In Seattle...
by Pete Tridish,A Ruckus I Couldn't Miss
My name is Storm, i am 47 years old, and i identify as Revolutionary Ecologist, eco-anarchist, and a radikal scientist. I work principally under the auspices of Earth First! and Rising Tide North America. I was born white, male, rather hetero-oriented, working class amerikan...i would not consider myself "well-adjusted."
