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.com

The 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

Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1999 22:53:26 -0500 (EST)
From: ****
Subject: Re: The end of the story from Seattle..

Warning -- this is possibly the longest email I have ever written.

I've been in Seattle since Friday before the big day, leaving tonight... Here are some more parts of the story. I haven't had much chance to follow the media outside Seattle and I would love to know what came across and what didn't. I'm going to get on the internet and check it all out soon.
lw

--

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

(This article was originally published in the December 1999 issue of UltraViolet, newsletter of LAGAI Queer Insurrection. More recent issues of UV are online at www.lagai.org.)

This article was originally published in the December 1999 issue of UltraViolet, the newsletter of LAGAI - Queer Insurrection (more recent issues are online at www.lagai.org).

The Shocking and Awful series is the document of the events that came out of that first Indymedia center. Over 100 Videographers contributed footage, and 30 minutes of programming was produced daily, uplinked to satellite, and rebroadcast by approximately 75 public access stations around the country, as well as on Free Speech TV. You can check out all the programs at deepdishtv.org. Search the catalogue for Showdown in Seattle, and "view program details."

It was one of the most incredible weeks of my life, in all honestly. It changed me forever.

[published/posted Dec, 2, 1999 in Raptorial 'zine]

LIVE! From Seattle!

The Martial Art of Martial Law

Where is Bruce Lee when You Need Him?
Residents Locked Out Of Seattle for Third Day Running
(from tear gas and rubber bullets)
Oh Ma Can This Really Be the End of the Millennium?
To be Locked out of the ArtBar and Von's House of Martinis and Manhattans Again???

-further notes from Seattle-

WTO Day 3: Return of the Good Side of the (Police) Force

[published/posted Dec 2, 1999, in Raptorial 'zine]

Continuing with the coverage from Seattle...

THURSDAY (12/2):

A combination of President Clinton departing Seattle and thousands of e-mails, phone calls, and faxes sent to every public official in the state seems to have ended the violence of the past 36 hours.*

I went to the WTO protests in Seattle in November, 1999 somewhat reluctantly. I had many commitments at home, my stepdaughter was in town that weekend for Thanksgiving, and I had lots of leftover pie to finish. But I knew some of the organizers, old friends from many years of nonviolent direct action campaigns against nuclear weapons, militarism, and other forms of injustice. And I had a posse of friends coming from up and down the West Coast—many of us veterans of those same campaigns going back to the Diablo Canyon blockade in 1981.