Indymedia Presents #373-Showdown in Seattle part4

It was the moment when a great coalition of the future, the people of the world, united together, first became visible. American labor had seen its factories closed down, jobs exported to more exploitative regions of the world. The third world had felt its own pains, and WTO delegates from those countries knew they were committing their homelands to perpetual poverty if they willingly locked on the shackles of the WTO agreements. Farmers of India were committing mass suicide. Environmentalists had recognized the signs of ecological collapse. Nowhere was safe from the reach of global capital and a bleak future of corporate monoculture, all in the name of free trade.

The crack-down intensified, the jails filled up, but demonstrations continued. In the swirling clouds of teargas, the American public got a glimpse of the crossroads of the future: one way was the road of repression and a corporate-dominated race to hell. The other road raised the possibility of world unity and a fight to lift us all, symbolized by the coalition of Teamsters and Turtles. At the least, people the world over, wondering what the fuss was all about, got a quick political education, fulfilling one of the goals of the protests.

This is episode 4 of the 5-part series Showdown in Seattle, 5 days that shook theWTO, produced by the Seattle Indymedia Center during the week of meetings and protests in late 1999. Looking back we know that the Millennium Round of the WTO collapsed that week, but when this episode was produced, the collapse had not yet happened. Like the Berlin Wall, which fell without warning, the demonstrators rage against the machine, not knowing how close to total success they were getting. Students of political process could study these videos and learn profound lessons about going up against the corporate state.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Police
• brutality
• arrest
• NGO
• Frankenfood
• clearcut
• pepperspray
• demonstration
• WTO
• Indymedia
• IMC
• millennium
• GMO
• food trade
• globalization