We arrived at our designated meeting site in Seattle Center at 10:00am with the PLG banner. Although the banner attracted many librarians who spoke with us and expressed their support, our contingent did not grow as a result.
By noon, we entered Memorial Stadium to join the last hour of the AFL-CIO rally and line up to march. An excruciating hour-long wait followed as the marchers assembled on 5th Avenue to head south toward downtown. We stood next to a news truck for part of this time. One of us heard a reporter indicate somewhat vaguely what was happening (violence . . . pepper spray .
. . tear gas . . . one policeman down, heart attack . . .); hence the delay. He wished us «good luck, you’ll need it.» It was a huge rally; at no time could we see either front or back.
RESPONSES TO THE BANNER
The Progressive Librarians’ Guild banner elicited quite a few comments. Mostly surprise-all positive. We were quite a novelty. People first looked at the banner, then read it again (just to make sure) and looked us up and down as if to assess what librarians look like outside a library. Finally, they would look one of us in the eye, smile or pat us on the shoulder and express their joy over our participation. Several people took pictures of the banner, and one or two posed with us for a picture. Most people, including librarians, asked how they could contact PLG and what issues we are involved in. We referred most of these people to the PLG web page. One child asked his mother who we are and she explained, «These are the people who make sure Harry Potter stays in the library.» She looked at us, grinned, and added, «Among other activities, I’m sure.» At one point, we found ourselves marching with ousted BC premier Glen Clark, who commented that his wife is a school librarian. One man stopped and exclaimed, «Aren’t all librarians progressive?»
GOING IN CIRCLES
Meanwhile, an «illegal» mass nonviolent direct action march had begun at 7:00am in downtown Seattle. They had blocked intersections and access to buildings where the WTO dignitaries planned to meet. Ultimately they succeeded in their final goal: they shut down the WTO meeting for the day!
The «legal» AFL-CIO march, in which we were participating, had originally planned to merge with the direct action people on 5th Avenue before turning around and heading back to Seattle Center via 6th Avenue.
Our direct action comrades had spent the morning at the convention center being pepper sprayed, bombed with tear gas, and shot with rubber bullets. They desperately needed the reinforcements the AFL-CIO march would bring.
However, in a decision that we consider a betrayal of our front-line comrades, the AFL-CIO organizers detoured the march route so that it turned around two blocks before the location of the direct action rally! (For an interesting discussion of the different approaches of the AFL-CIO and the direct action people, see Doug Henwood’s reports in the Left Business Observer here: http://www.panix.com/ dhenwood/Seattle.html, http://www.panix.com/ dhenwood/Seattle.html .
We were marching with the AFL-CIO, and therefore were ignorant of the morning’s events and the success of the direct action group. Fortunately, people in front of us were in radio contact with the direct action activists. They informed everyone within earshot that the AFL-CIO march was being diverted from its original course to avoid the «trouble» downtown. They asked us to continue marching straight down 5th Avenue to aid the others downtown.
THE PEOPLE, UNITED, STILL HAVE DECISIONS TO MAKE
Decision time came when we arrived at the next intersection. AFL-CIO marshals were directing the crowd to turn, while it was clear that there was action directly ahead. Particularly frustrating was the lack of honesty from the AFL-CIO marshals in explaining to us what was happening. They seemed to want to keep us ignorant of the direct action events. One marshal refused to show us a map of the march and insisted that if we turned now, we would be keeping on course with the original legal route. This was untrue – we had seen a map of the route just minutes earlier, which showed that it was supposed to continue and join the downtown protest. Finally, a group of AFL-CIO marshals stood in front of the street to block our path toward the direct action protesters. We decided to join the direct action group and continued straight through the AFL-CIO marshals.
We found ourselves in a war-zone. As we made our way to 5th and Union we passed overturned garbage dumpsters forming a barricade in the middle of each intersection. Yellow tape hung from the dumpsters that read «Unseen Crime» – mocking police crime scene tape. A crowd of people milled about behind a large group facing off a line of police clad in black riot gear. It was then that we heard about the tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets and the magnificent accomplishment of these young activists in shutting down the WTO meeting for the day.
A tense calm characterized the atmosphere in that part of downtown when we marched up, still displaying our PLG banner, still receiving a positive response to the banner (a cyclist rode by and yelled «Way to go Progressive Librarians! Wooo!»). Everyone seemed to be peacefully waiting for something to happen. Great chants filled the air: «Whose streets? OUR STREETS!» and «You go back» (in response to a police order to clear the intersection).
After a few minutes, we saw the police shoving the front liners back. We witnessed the police holding people’s heads and spraying their eyes for several seconds with large cans of pepper spray. Tear gas canisters were launched into the air and approximately 200 people started retreating. This was around 3:00pm. Initially, we were angry with the police tactics, which we believed constituted excessive force. But soon we became used to it and even grew to expect it and predict when it was coming. For the next three and a half hours, this pattern was repeated at each intersection.
THE PATTERN
A core group of protesters occupied each intersection by sitting down in front of the line of riot police and sometimes chaining themselves to concrete blocks. They were in radio contact with each intersection throughout downtown. Surrounding them were hundreds, sometimes thousands of people. By this time, the numbers had swollen downtown as more unionists and participants in the AFL-CIO march joined us.
The police seemed to wait patiently until either the crowd had grown to a certain size, or the exuberance of the crowd (which was something to experience) had reached a certain level. We were mostly sitting down, chanting no-to-WTO slogans, banging drums, standing around…and then suddenly a flash-bang grenade would go off and tear gas filled the air. Loud and frightening concussion grenades were detonated, pepper spray was discharged, and rubber bullets and paint pellets (which were used to tag activists for later apprehension or assault) were fired directly at protesters. Our contingent was never directly gassed, but no one could entirely avoid it. Even far away from detonation areas, where no tear gas was apparent, we suddenly would catch some gas – our eyes would tear up, our nostrils and throats would burn, and we’d have a difficult time trying to speak.
The police pulled out all their sub-lethal toys for this protest, including armored personnel carriers and an attack helicopter. They even put on a show of videotaping faces of protesters.
Activists also had toys: technology really helped with organization. Many people kept in contact with cell phones and several were recording the entire event, including police reaction, with camcorders. On Wednesday, police confiscated all these items, plus gas masks, and piled it in the middle of the street. But the activists had low-tech toys too; besides the cell phones, there also was a network of cyclists running messages.
Some images: When we first arrived, we saw an injured man and a woman who was screaming for water to save him from the effects of a direct hit of pepper spray . . . a young guy, a woman cradling his head while another person tried to clean his eyes; he was in so much pain that he was clawing the street . . . at the first skirmish we witnessed, someone was trying to help his injured friend away from the tear gas; someone in a shoe store opened the door, pulled the two in, then locked it; a bunch of people were hiding inside . . . a spectacular moment when an anarchist marching band marched up to the intersection in tight and disciplined formation, playing as they approached. Everyone stopped and looked at the spectacle then erupted into enthusiastic cheers-morale improved . . . a couple of blocks behind one of the police barricades: another police barricade with a mirror-image group of protesters. It provided an odd sense of unity to see we had comrades in the same situation but separated from us.
PROPERTY DAMAGE
A few people ran around smashing windows and spray painting buildings. This distracted attention from the non-violent aspect of 99% of the protesters. Our contingent later debated about the nature of the property damage and the crowd’s response to it. Some in our contingent confessed they got a charge out of seeing Niketown trashed, another expressed disgust over the vandalism.
In news coverage, some reporters characterized the «violent» property damage as the typical feature of the protests. One police spokesperson even made the absurd claim that vandalism was a planned act by the protesters and that the activists purposely put the peaceful protesters up front as a kind of barrier to the police to prevent them from apprehending the vandals. Other reporters tried to carefully separate the property damage from the peaceful protests. In reality, it’s more complex. It is clear that most of the protesters were very upset at the property damage. Plus, the vandalism wasn’t random. The targets of vandalism were fairly major corporate symbols: Nike, Starbucks, and the WB store. One shop had a sign announcing that it was a small, privately owned business: it was untouched.
There was a lot of self-policing during the protest. For almost every outbreak of property damage or hot-headedness, demonstrators moved immediately to quell damage and break up conflicts. The chant, «nonviolent protest! Nonviolent protest!» filled the air whenever someone tried to cause vandalism. The effect was to put the rowdier elements on notice that the vast majority of those present did not appreciate their tactics. It was common to see lines of demonstrators linking arms to successfully protect storefront windows. One protester who was protecting a store, and who was perched on the entrance canopy, told another person that yes, he could come and sit up there with him for a better view, but he couldn’t damage anything. And, in the midst of all, there was a very high level of regard for others. In a caf’ we went to (one of the very few businesses open: and, significantly, a small business) no one butted in line and everyone had correct change.
A cell phone store was looted, but as far as we could see that was the only example of «opportunistic» theft. The only real violence we saw, as distinct from property damage, was on the part of the police with their sub-lethal toys.
We participated until about 6:30pm and were at one of the last large intersection gatherings before we left (at 6th and Pine). When the police decided to clear this one, they fired tear gas behind the crowd, so as we retreated we walked directly into exploding gas canisters. As we drove away from Seattle, we listened to radio reports of the day’s action and watched state patrollers whiz by us southbound. The city was now under a 7:00pm curfew and a State of Civil Emergency had been declared, enforced by the National Guard.
HEROES OF THE DAY
The young activists who pulled-off this action were committed, creative, smart, and funny. They took the city, WTO and the police by surprise when they succeeded in their stated goal. The event was as beautiful as it was terrifying. They organized legal aid, legal observers, and medical aid – all wearing shirts or armbands to clearly identify their position. They proved the old Wobbly statement: «direct action gets the goods.» Hopefully this broad coalition between labor, anarchists, environmentalists, and the left will stick – we certainly hope to involve ourselves with this direct action group again so that the energy created on November 30th will be carried forward.
We shall leave you with our favorite chant of the day: «Bad cop – no donut!»
Shawna Hellenius
Jeff Purdue
