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A daily report from the World Trade Organization summit, Seattle
by LBO editor Doug Henwood
Tuesday, November 30
Back in the late 1980s, the World Bank and IMF held one of their annual meetings in Germany (two out of every three years they're held in Washington, but in the third the conventioneers visit the hinterlands). The bankers were met by spirited riots. The next year in Washington, about 10 people held a demo in the back of the Washington Sheraton, annual meeting HQ, and were promptly arrested with no press attention aside from LBO, which means no press attention. I was always embarrassed by the inability of Americans to kick up a good fuss.
That fuss gap was closed today. Early
in the morning, thousands of people descended on downtown Seattle
and prevented the WTO 
delegates from meeting.
A group of black-clad anarchists chanted the slogan of immense
ideological power and clarity: "Capitalism? No thanks!/We
will burn your fucking banks!" As the day progressed, the
cops - more reticent than most of their breed, outright softies
to someone used to Giuliani's NYPD - broke out the pepper spray
and rubber bullets. But downtown remained largely shut - keeping
the folks in the black helicopters busy. Late in the afternoon,
the mayor declared a curfew and the governor activated the National
Guard. The streets were cleared, but word is that the activists
had already left their posts, saying "see you tomorrow."
Since Bill Clinton is supposed to speak to the meeting tomorrow,
officialdom is no doubt determined to clear the way. We'll see.
Aside from the declaration of martial
law, the highlight of the day was a massive labor rally
and march, sponsored by the AFL-CIO. The change in U.S. union
rhetoric over the last 5 years has been 
amazing.
The nationalist rhetoric is largely - though not wholly - gone,
largely replaced by a rhetoric of international labor solidarity.
Unionists from all over the world spoke, some of them quite heatedly.
A Mexican unionist cheered the Zapatistas, and a South African
mineworker quoted Marx by name, urging the workers of the
world to unite - to a great cheer from the crowd. George Becker,
president of the United Steelworkers of America did complain that
"imports were inundating our borders," and Teamsters
unfurled a banner urging the border be closed to the threat of
Mexican trucks, and AFL-CIO building trades chief evoked his specialty's
long history of "skilled craft labor," but these offenses
to solidarity were refreshingly minimal.
And quite a few of the American speakers sounded downright militant. The president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union proudly announced that his people had shut down West Coast ports from Seattle down to San Pedro, and recalled his union's history of support for Salvadorean workers and the Liverpool dockers. Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees went so far as urging us to "name the system" that was oppressing us, the system that "commodifies everything from a forest in Brazil to a library in New Jersy," that subjects us to the logic of profit - that system being "corporate capitalism." Jay Mazur, president of the far-from-angelic clothing and textile workers union UNITE! declaimed that "we are one," environmentalists and workers around the world. While U.S. labor has never been known for making common cause with outside groups, the (admittedly mild) Sierra Club president Carl Pope made an appearance, as did the head of the Citizens Trade Watch, Lori Wallach.
Togetherness was the theme of the labor rally, not only solidarity among workers of the world, but of organized labor with everyone else. There were the incredible sights of Teamster president James Hoffa sharing a stage with student anti-sweatshop activists, of Earth First!ers marching with Sierra Clubbers, and a chain of bare-breasted BGH-free Lesbian Avengers weaving through a crowd of machinists.
There were a few who protested the protesters - bands of reactionary Christians who seemed to find Biblical support for the WTO and perverts among its opponents.
As this is written (the last few hours of Tuesday), the city is quiet and the streets are clear of human chains. Today is an extremely tough act to follow. But for a skeptic and a pessimist, the last two days' events - and the large, varied, imaginative, and spirited movement behind it - are inspiring. I know I used that word yesterday too, but it really fits.
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