The power of solidarity and the lengths the state will go to squash it
On WTO/99
Today Joey Scott writes about the new documentary WTO/99 and the similarities between the so-called "Battle of Seattle" and the police violence people throughout the country are experiencing today.
Scott most recently wrote for Hell World about the wild fires in California last January.
Luke O’Neil
Previously he wrote for Hell World about his effort to get the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department to release footage of themselves killing a 15-year-old girl.
Luke O’Neil
He also reported from UCLA as police and Zionist agitators attacked an anti-genocide encampment.
Luke O’Neil
On WTO/99
by Joey Scott
It was November of 1999 and Will Smith’s new album had just dropped to help usher us into the Willennium. End-of-the-world preppers were certain that Y2K would validate their paranoia about the world ending, and for the first time in its history, the World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference was being held on American soil. The Seattle event brought together representatives from 153 countries who all mingled with rich bureaucrats and their corporate hangers-on. They were there to hash out trade deals behind closed doors that would further expand capitalism's insatiable need for profit and the consumption of resources until the wells run dry. What was supposed to be handshakes and dinner parties devolved into 40,000 people, including anarchists, union members, farmers, and literal clowns, defending themselves for three days against an overwhelmed but well-armed Seattle Police Department in what would later be called the “Battle of Seattle.”
Police said protesters started things by throwing Molotov cocktails and breaking windows, which necessitated an over-the-top response to restore order. In reality, and unsurprisingly, as it almost always is, it was police provocation that drove things out of control on the morning of November 30. At 10:02am, the police, on orders from above, began dousing the crowds of seated demonstrators and interpretive dancers in pepper spray, scarcely taking their fingers off the trigger. Then came the tear gas and barrage of “less lethal” rounds. It wasn't until later in the day that the fragile windows of the Gaps and Starbucks stores were shattered by the swinging of hammers. At 4:30pm, Mayor Paul Schnell declared a state of emergency, called in the National Guard, and put downtown Seattle under a curfew.
Sounds pretty familiar, right?