Re: Violent Protesters put up to it?

In response to the query below, see the message below that.
Roz

At 09:39 AM 12/3/99 -0500, Andrew Wayne Austin wrote:
>WSN,
>
>Protests and marches in the US in the 1960s were disrupted by elements
>paid by the state to act like protesters and marchers. Leaders like King
>were forced to come before the nation and condemn those violent elements
>and distance the peaceful groups from the violent groups. I am wondering
>whether anybody has considered or if there is any evidence to suggest
>that those violent protesters at the WTO meetings were put up to it.
>
>Andy Austin
>
>From: lmel@pipeline.com
Date: Fri, 03 Dec 1999 13:09:17 -0500
To: glocker@mindspring.com
Subject: Fwd: COLLATERAL DAMAGE IN SEATTLE

 
JaredI@aol.com wrote:
> COLLATERAL DAMAGE IN SEATTLEby Portland student/reporter Jim Desyllas

Called-in from a pay phone outside Seattle. Wed., 7:30 pm Pacific time. 

(Posted at www.emperors-clothes.com  12-2-99.  Feel free to distribute in 
full including this note.)

I just spent 4 days in Seattle. The "information" people are getting from 
the 
mass media is false. This was not, as Pres. Clinton claims, a peaceful 
protest marred by the actions of violent protesters. This was a massive, 
strong but peaceful demonstration which was attacked repeatedly by the 
police 
with the express purpose of provoking a violent response to provide photo 
opportunities for the Western media. I know because I watched it happening. 
I'll tell you how they did it.

As Michel Chossudovsky says in his "Disarming the New World Order" (See 
Note 
# 1 at end for link to that article) - the government put a lot of effort 
into making sure the protesters in Seattle were a "loyal opposition" who 
wanted to reform the WTO, not get rid of it. But the people in Seattle - 
American steel workers, Canadian postal workers, college kids from all 
over, 
environmentalists from Australia - you name it - were not for reforming the 
WTO. They were for getting rid of it. 

And this wasn't just true of the protesters. I interviewed delegates. None 
of 
them had anything favorable to say about the WTO. Two delegates from the 
Caribbean were angry about job loss. One delegate from Peru took a bullhorn 
and got up on a car and spoke to the protestors against the World Trade 
Organization. He said it hurts the workers and farmers. I interviewed a 
Norwegian guy from Greenpeace. Totally against it. Even a delegate from 
Holland said it had hurt the farmers there. He said though it is supposedly 
democratic, that's actually a lie: the US, England and Canada and a few 
others get together and decide what they want to do. Then they ask the rest 
of the countries to vote and if they vote wrong they threaten,"You won't 
get 
loans," or whatever. They get them to do what they want by blackmailing 
them. 
The Italians we interviewed were upset too. I couldn't find any delegates 
who 
were in favor. 

So the government instigated a "riot" to discredit the movement against the 
WTO because they couldn't dilute it. I am not guessing about this. I was 
there. I saw it happening. And I will tell you I am frankly shocked to see, 
close up, just how little our leaders care what happens to ordinary people. 
Clinton can pose and speak a lot of flowery stuff but the truth is - we are 
nothing to them. I saw this with my own eyes.

Sunday and Monday, there was no violence. None. The people were 
aggressively 
non-violent; they were self-policing. Up until Tuesday at 4pm there was one 
window broken in the whole city - a McDonalds window. This compares 
favorably 
to the typical rock concert, let alone a demonstration of people who were 
non-violently barring entry to the World Trade Center!

At this point, a new group of police - tactical police - moved in and 
started 
gassing people and shooting rubber bullets. Is it any surprise that people 
got mad? Of course, the young kids hit back by breaking some windows in 
retaliation for being gassed, sprayed with very painful pepper gas, and 
shot 
with dangerous "rubber" bullets. The police instigated these kids, plain 
and 
simple. 

Sunday and Monday they had young cops, using them to block the streets. 
These 
were trainees. But Tuesday they had the real cops; none of them were young. 
They were trained to attack people. A small group, maybe 100 people total, 
struck back. Then these cops herded that group around the city, making sure 
there were plenty of photo ops of "violent protesters." 

A number of times they had these 100 or so protesters caught between 
buildings and walls of police. They could easily have arrested and detained 
this small number of people and gotten it over with. Instead they would gas 
them and let them go. Then trap them again, gas them again, and again let 
them go. The cops made no arrests that I know of until late Tuesday night 
though the skirmishing was going on from three till 9:30. The cops would 
blockade three or five blocks of an area, give the angry kids room to 
operate, keep gassing them - when you gas a person, let me tell you, it 
gets 
them fighting mad.

Tuesday night the police gassed all of downtown. This was going on from 3 
PM, 
till 6 PM.. Gas everywhere. The kids broke a few windows - McD's, Starbucks 
- 
small stuff - burned a few garbage cans. The police were using these people 
as extras. It was staged. I believe also the police had their own people in 
there, encouraging people to break stuff - if people think I may be 
exaggerating, I saw supposed protesters - they were screaming and so on - 
and 
then later, when everything was over, the same people tackled other 
protestors and put handcuffs on them.

At 6pm they issued a State of Emergency. At that point they had pushed the 
100 people outside the city limits, so the police went outside the limits 
too, and they started gassing that area too, gassing the neighborhoods 
where 
the regular people live. I am not exaggerating. The police were relentless.

This was in an area from the city limits for about 10 blocks to the Seattle 
Central Community College. If you were alive, the police gassed you. People 
coming back from work, kids, women, everyone. People would go out of their 
houses to see what was happening because these tear gas guns sound like a 
cannon - and they would get gassed. A block away there was a Texaco gas 
station - they threw tear gas at gas pumps, believe it or not - they were 
like vandals. They gassed a bus. I saw it with my own eyes. A bus. The 
driver, the riders, the people just abandoned it .

I was sitting in a little coffee shop called Rauhaus, [Jim did not spell 
this 
- the spelling may be wrong.] They were shooting "rubber" bullets at the 
glass. I picked up a dozen of the things in a few square feet. They were 
also 
shooting this paint that you can only see with a florescent light. They 
would 
paint anyone and everyone and then go hunting them.

Anyway, because they were gassing everybody, the local people got mad too 
and 
they joined the 100 who had been herded out of the city. So soon there were 
500 including the neighborhood people and all very angry. Naturally. 
Because 
they had been gassed and hit with pepper spray, that stuff does a number on 
you. And shot with these damn bullets. Then people set up barricades at 
Seattle Central Community College. The cops organized themselves for about 
an 
hour and then moved in and gassed that area. 

Today they started mass arrests. That was because Clinton - the Greeks call 
him the Planitarchis, Ruler of the World - was coming. Weeping crocodile 
tears about how he just LOVES peaceful protest, which of course you'd have 
to 
be two years old to believe he had nothing to do with the police action. 
This 
whole thing, this police attack, this was US foreign policy, not some 
action 
decided by some bureaucrat in Seattle. This was the State Department. They 
wanted to discredit the people.

When things started on Sunday,  there was a protest rally of solidarity 
involving people from different walks of life. Monday it got even bigger. 
Tuesday there was a big sort of carnival where people were doing different 
things, a band was playing music and people were blocking the World Trade 
Center. And about 3 PM the cops started throwing tear gas. 

The thing that drove Clinton crazy was that on Tuesday the protesters had 
succeeded in making nonviolent human chains and had therefore stopped 
everyone from going into the World Trade Center. Only maybe 27 delegates 
got 
through, mostly US and British. There were what seemed like tens of 
thousands 
of protesters involved. So the police did their gassing number against 
these 
nonviolent people to break up the human chains and make the protesters look 
violent. 

Today (Wednesday) I followed the union protest put together by the 
Longshoremen's Union. They went down to the docks and had a rally then 
marched to Third Avenue. As soon as they got there the cops started gassing 
them. There was an old lady there. She had gone downtown by bus to buy 
something. This lady was in her 70's and I saw her trying to run, but she 
couldn't breathe. She was in shock. I carried her to a building entryway. 
She 
was gasping, terrified. She had been in Germany, and it was like she was 
having flashbacks. The tear gas sounds like gunfire and there were 
helicopters overhead, sirens, cops on horses, everything. 

They had clearly made a decision to destroy this movement. 

So anyway there I was with her in this building and she wanted to go to the 
hospital but there was tear gas everywhere and I was afraid if I tried to 
move her she'd be gassed again. I went to this line of cops and begged - I 
mean begged - these riot police to help her. They ignored me. A girl told 
me 
later that a one year old had been gassed. And I myself saw a girl no more 
than 18 - a cop had busted her lip wide open - she was bleeding - and then 
they gassed everyone including her. After that she was kneeling on the 
ground 
crying like a baby and praying for 15 minutes, Hail Mary, Hail Mary. Over 
and 
over. She was in a state of shock. They just gassed these people who were 
sitting down non-violently and doing nothing. Nothing. 

At one point the Seattle Mayor said his boys were not using rubber bullets. 
Miraculously, by then I had ten in my pocket. I could open a little market, 
sell the things. They are everywhere. I and other people started giving 
them 
to delegates and stuff. "See what they're doing? They're shooting "rubber" 
bullets and lying about it." We showed them to the media. I guess enough 
people and the media got the information because the Mayor made a new 
statement then that they were using them. As if he hadn't known. 

They shot rubber bullets from four feet away into the face of a guy next to 
me, broke all his front teeth. When that happened I lost it. I forgot I was 
supposed to be getting the news for all of you and I started yelling at the 
cops, "What the hell is wrong with you? Are you sick, man?" So this cop 
aimed 
his gun right at me. That was his answer. So I first put my hands in front 
of 
my face because I didn't want to lose my teeth. And then I thought, to hell 
with it. I was wearing my target shirt that said "Collateral Damage", you 
know? With a bullseye target, like they wore during the bombing in 
Yugoslavia. And I told this guy, "Go ahead, shoot! Here! Here's the 
target!" 
He didn't shoot me.

I want to emphasize, these protesters were NOT violent people. They were 
the 
most non-violent people I have ever seen. Even when I was screaming at the 
cop, this girl came up to me and said, "Do not scream. This is 
non-violent." 
These people were too much to believe. They must meditate all the time, I 
don't know. 

Clinton said he supports nonviolent protest. That is baloney. Today (Wed.) 
the protesters were causing absolutely no "trouble". In downtown the cops 
had 
people running who weren't even protesters - like that old lady or just 
people going to work or shopping - everyone was getting gassed. The busses 
weren't running because of the gas. I was lucky to catch one with a driver 
who could still see. I begged him to drive the old lady home - the driver 
changed his route especially for her. If you want to find human decency, 
stay 
away from the Planitarchis. Go to the to regular people. They have some. 
The 
Planitarchis lost all his years ago. Now he wouldn't know human decency if 
it 
came up and bit him.

So now I have made personal acquaintance with the people who run this 
country, and they are quite simply scum. There were people at work, people 
with babies, they were all getting gassed because the government would not 
allow an assembly of people speaking their minds. It is the same as what 
happened in Athens. Clinton's requirements on the Greek government created 
the riot and he did the same thing here. And then he says he supports 
nonviolent protest? How? By shooting rubber bullets? And today they 
outlawed 
gas masks. They want to make sure everyone gets his money's worth.

Today, just like yesterday night, the police were in the residential 
neighborhoods. People in cafés were getting gassed and shot at, you could 
hear it on the windows, bang, bang, bang. A guy trying to cross the street 
to 
go to his house got gassed. First a drunk guy outside a bar yelled at the 
cops "Get out of here!" so they gassed him. And then this other guys was 
just 
crossing the street to go home so the cops figured, might as well gas him 
too. People got gassed for coming out of restaruants and bars and coffeee 
shops. I'm amazed that nobody died who had asthma or something. 

Or maybe somebody did die and they didn't talk about it. I mean after all, 
it's just collateral damage.. 

***

Note # 1 - For a critical look at the World Trade Organization, click on 
SEATTLE AND BEYOND: DISARMING THE NEW WORLD ORDER or go to 
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