<nettime> Re: Lessons from Seattle

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

>Plath said:

> I don't think we should or could contain the vandalism in Seattle by
> force. There were people who tried to physically stop the vandalism, they
> tried to turn the perpetrators in to the cops, and failed to help the
> situation.

I was in Seattle, and the people I talked to were very impressed with the
non-violent protestors who tried to stop the hammer and crowbar boys from
having their way with the capitalist window panes and the fascist garbage
dumpsters.  Lots of people mentioned this to me.  I think the efforts to
stop the vandalism had a big effect, though it may not be long-lasting. And
lumping the mainstream media together just doesn't make sense. Not all the
writers are Thomas Friedman. There were some who did a good job.

I still don't think the violence (by anarchists or cops) was the real
story, the one that will endure.  If that were the case, we'd be reading a
lot more about the violence in Lagos, Nigeria, which took place at the same
time and had nothing to do with the WTO.  About 100 people died in those
confrontatons. Most people were not watching them.

Steve Cisler

#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net