SUCCESS IN SEATTLE & the WTO

We are doing a slide show and video presentation in Missoula this Friday night to continue spreading the word about what happened on the streets of Seattle and how the police repression of the massive non-violent protest is an indicator of how corporate America responds to attempts by the common people to regain control of our democracy and our constitution.

There is little question now, as independent media continues to spread images and stories of what has happened, that the police of Seattle and the security structure of our nation reacted not to protect peoples safety but to protect the corporate and political elite of our nation and planet, an elite that depends on the apathy of the citizenry to continue with their exploitation of people and our environment. The corporate media was complicit in this.

There was zero coverage of the daily forums and panel discussions with speakers from around the planet discussing the threats that globalization without representation presents to communities and landscapes. The protest movement was one slice of a very large pie that mobilized to stall the liberalization of trade.

Previously, without public knowledge, international laws were passed that would be enforced by the tribunals of the World Trade Organization, a court where appeals are not allowed and the people have no voice. Never again!

The media refused to investigate the real dynamic of the street, where non-violent protestors encountered street kids and gang members and disaffected populations who have withstood police abuses for decades, and with non-violence prevented even more large scale rioting form occuring.

The media refused to recognize as well that the people truly did SHUT DOWN THE WTO by mobilizing in the pre-dawn hours of Tuesday WTO 30 and blockading the convention site and all streets leading to downtown Seattle with massive non-violent civil-disobedience.

I have photos of people sitting down in the streets of downtown Seattle where not one window is broken, not one grafitti is splayed on the walls, where not one newspaper vending machine is pulled into the streets, and where these same people are attacked by police in armor, gas masks, and waging biological warfare on people with toxic gases and pepper spray, and inflicting injury by firing rubber bullets into crowds of sitting people at point blank range.

This is corporate America, this is the mask ripped off the monster, this is the timber giants and the arms manufacturers and corporate agriculture and international investment banks showing their true face, attacking the people of the planet.

THE PEOPLE RESISTED AND WE WON!!

The true international nature of this movement is being celebrated and we are heading into a new millenium. The ramifications for positive change are huge!! NO NEW ROUND!! This is the biggest setback for free trade in over twenty years, and it is definitely a setback for those who continue to negotiate behind closed doors in an attempt to forward their corporate agenda.

I can only encourage people to continue to take action. *Write letters to the editor, to congressional representatives, to friends and relatives and demand that the World Trade Organization be investigated completely, and if not dismantled completely at the very least reorganized rewritten to allow for public participation.

Spread the word and continue to educate yourselves, examine the independent press and cruise the web. (www.fair.org and www.indymedia.org are two great examples)

*Dispel the myths of corporate media, examine who owns the big media companies and question their "objectivity." Compare the facts that we are learning now with what the media were telling the nation during the week of the event. *Study the history and philosophy of civil disobedience, from Ghandi to Martin Luther King, Jr. (have you heard that a jury in Memphis ruled that his assasination was a conspiracy involving members of the fedral government?) to Tiananmen Square to Seattle 99.

Participate in a training, learn how to make your voice heard. *Celebrate! It is a new year and a new millenium. A new generation is ready to responsibly manage our planet. THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING!!!

Peace and please feel free to respond,

Gary Graham Hughes
EVST Jeanette Rankin Hall
U of Montana
Missoula MT 59812
ghughes@wildrockies.org