<nettime> Anti WTO planning

["cisler" <cisler@pobox.com>]

September 25, 1999

Welcome to Camp Take-a-Stand

Protesters rehearse `revolutionary model' to stir up world trade summit in
Seattle

BY DAVID POSTMAN Seattle Times

ARLINGTON, WASH.

EARLY MORNING fog off the South Fork of the Stillaguamish River rolled
over an encampment of 150 sleeping trainees recently, when a woman's voice
broke the quiet with a melodic chant over a bullhorn. 

``Love, love; cuddle, cuddle; love,'' she sang as she walked through the
20-acre Pragtri Farm, founded in the 1970s by the People's Revolutionary
Action Group of Seattle. 

So began day four of the weeklong Globalize This! Action Camp. Groups
opposed to the World Trade Organization and the global free trade it
promotes have come here to plan and train for massive demonstrations at
the WTO's November meeting in Seattle. 

They oppose the WTO, a group of trade ministers from 135 countries. They
see the organization as a threat to environmental protections and labor
standards because it allows countries to protest U.S. laws they claim
create unfair trade barriers. 

The protesters' goal is to disrupt activity enough Nov. 30, the opening
day of the WTO talks, to make it impossible for the trade ministers to do
business. While the opening day, called ``N30'' by some protesters, is the
centerpiece of the planned demonstrations, there will be events throughout
the WTO meeting, through Dec. 3. 

About 5,000 trade delegates, journalists and other official guests are
expected at what is considered to be the largest trade meeting ever held
in the United States. Estimates on the number of protesters range from
10,000 to 50,000. 

The Seattle Police Department has begun training in crowd and traffic
management, first aid and handling of hazardous materials. So far, the
only head of state expected is President Clinton. Officials from Cuba were
in Seattle recently scouting out the possibility of an appearance by
leader Fidel Castro. 

Many of those attending the camp are environmentalists from the United
States and Canada. There are also human rights activists, a few union
workers from Spokane, an environmentalist from Nicaragua, two women from a
group called ``Raging Grannies'' from Seattle and a guest star from
England. The British activist, John Jordan, was at the heart of a riot
that broke out during an anti-free-trade protest in London on June 18. He
is helping to plan overseas demonstrations Nov. 30. 

``This is the most scary collection of people I've ever talked to,''
Jordan joked. 

The camp was designed to teach skills for mass, non-violent protests. The
workshops included theoretical and philosophical discussions on the
history of non-violent protests and the workings of the WTO. There were
also practical sessions on how to climb buildings for ``banner-drops,''
conduct surveillance, calm angry protesters, deal with nervous police
officers and deliver meaningful sound bites. 

It made for an eclectic mix of talk about Iberian anarchists, French
situationists, pre-figurative politics, iconic images, Marshall McLuhan,
fishermen's knots, radio frequencies, 128-bit encrypted e-mail and Clinton
administration trade policy. 

Closed to the media was a planning session for Nov. 30 in which a group
huddled around huge maps of downtown Seattle. 

``Because there is going to be so much going on, there has to be more
planning,'' said Michael Sowle, a climber from Oakland. ``You don't want
to go up on a building and find somebody else about to drop a banner.''

Climbers who scale buildings, bridges and smokestacks are the stars of the
protest world. Among the climbers here were people who have scaled the
Sears Tower, hung from the Aurora Bridge to protest factory trawlers or
draped a banner on the California Capitol dome. Several were involved in
the first successful climbing expedition and banner drop from the Golden
Gate Bridge. 

Would-be climbers were drilled on knots and subjected to tough questions
and detailed inspections of their climbing gear. 

A few who said they were ready to be roped up were sent back to basic
knot-tying class when their skills didn't match their teacher's standards. 

``A few come and they are really gung-ho, and they want to skip all the
safety stuff. They're crazy, basically,'' said Sowle. ``Most have more
respect for danger.''

A few near-disasters on climbs in the early 1990s pointed out the need for
better training, said John Picone, 33, founder of the Action Resource
Center in Los Angeles and a veteran climber. 

John Sellers, director of the Ruckus Society, said the goal is to make
protests safer and ensure they are non-violent while not reducing their
effectiveness. He says the group is pushing for an ``ethic of excellence''
in civil disobedience. 

This week's WTO camp is co-sponsored by the San Francisco-based Rainforest
Action Network. The group recently ended a two-year campaign against Home
Depot when the building-supply giant agreed to stop selling lumber made
from old-growth timber. 

The group's executive director, Kelly Quirke, said the Home Depot campaign
included protests targeted at stores, stockholders, customers and
suppliers. The company, however, said the protests did not influence its
decision. 

Quirke said there is still an important role for massive demonstrations
and high-profile ``actions'' that grab media attention. 

``People are outraged. They know they are basically enslaved,'' he said. 
``Our job is to find a way to trigger that outrage. 

``There are a lot of people with bones to pick with the WTO, and they have
different goals. We're not going to change that. We're going to give them
better tools to accomplish those goals, safely and peacefully.''

The protests are expected to include organized labor, and three members of
the steelworkers union locked in a yearlong battle with Spokane's Kaiser
Aluminum were attentive students. 

David Reid, Robert Kenyon and Ron Hansen have been out of work for nearly
a year. They crossed the Cascades not only to learn about the WTO protest
but also to learn techniques they can bring back to Spokane. 

Hansen hopes that if the steelworkers union makes a show of force Nov. 30,
some of the groups organizing the demonstration will go to Spokane to help
put the pressure on Kaiser to end its fight with the union. 

For Kenyon, the training camp was part of a recently developed interest in
politics. He said he had never registered to vote until a few years ago. 

``I never knew anything about the WTO,'' he said. ``I only suspected the
way the corporations run the world.''

Now Kenyon, 51, wants to get active. 

``I like the banners and hanging things from buildings,'' he said. He
attended several climbing classes and diligently learned knots. 

Jordan, the British activist, says high-tech events like climbing
buildings are designed to attract the attention of the mainstream media,
for which he has little use. 

``The problem with the media is it's a corporation like any other,'' he
said. 

There was much suspicion at the camp about the ``corporate media.'' But
the largest donation the group ever got came from media magnate Ted
Turner. 

``He appreciates strategic troublemaking,'' Sellers said. 

Rather than play to the media, Jordan said protests should focus on
getting as many people on the street as possible. 

``For us, it's injecting pleasure into the gray world of politics,'' he
said. ``For us, the revolutionary model is the carnival.''

Shirley Morrison understands that model. She is a member of the Raging
Grannies. 

``It's just some little old ladies who said, `The world's in trouble,' ''
said the longtime peace activist. 

The women dress up in ``little old lady'' hats and dresses and sing
protest songs to the tune of old standards. 

Some in the movement don't take the Grannies seriously. But they stood in
front of logging trucks as part of the Home Depot protests. 

Morrison, 77, came with her friend Hinda Kipnis, 68. Kipnis heard about
the training camp from a friend in her Seattle Yiddish class, 22-year-old
Earth First activist Miszka Evans. Both say they will take part in the
Nov. 30 protests. 

``We're not going to be hanging from any buildings, though,'' Morrison
said. 

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