I
actions
This section includes my writings from the last two years of activism and organizing. Most of the articles were originally written for the Internet or for small publications; they tend to be short, urgent expressions of whatever I felt the movement most needed to know at the time. I have left them relatively unedited to serve as a record both of my development and of the movementâs progress.
SEATTLE
In November of 1999, the WTO met in Seattle for its high level Ministerial to attempt to launch a new Millenial Round of trade negotiations. Upwards of sixty thousand people gathered to stop the meeting in the first of the large summit demonstrations. I helped do trainings for the action and took part in the blockade on November 30, which succeeded in shutting down the conference for the first day of meetings. Demonstrators were met with an unprecedented level of police violence: tear gas, beatings, pepper spray, and rubber bullets. A small number of demonstrators, organized into a black bloc, broke the windows of targeted global corporations, setting off a great deal of controversy within the movement about violence, nonviolence, and tactics. (The âblack blocâ is not an organization, but a tactic adopted in street protests where groups of demonstrators wear black and cover their faces for protection against surveillance and to demonstrate solidarity. The black bloc sometimes, but not always, engages in principled destruction of corporate property.) The Mayor of Seattle declared downtown Seattle a no-protest zone. On November 31, thousands challenged what we saw as an unconstitutional abridgment of our freedom of speech, and went downtown to protest. I was arrested and spent five days in jail.
Seattle was a once-in-a-lifetime, world-changing event. It energized a whole new movement, radicalized thousands of new activists, and opened a whole new chapter in the history of resistance to corporate globalization.
How We Really Shut down the WTO
ITâS BEEN TWO WEEKS NOW SINCE the morning when I awoke before dawn to join the blockade that shut down the opening meeting of the WTO. Since getting out of jail, Iâve been reading the media coverage and trying to make sense out of the divergence between what I know happened and what has been reported.
For once in a political protest, when we chanted âThe whole world is watching!â we were telling the truth. Iâve never seen so much media attention on a political action. However, most of what has been written is so inaccurate that I canât decide if the reporters in question should be charged with conspiracy or simply incompetence. The reports have pontificated endlessly about a few broken windows and mostly ignored the Direct Action Network (DAN), the group that successfully organized the nonviolent direct action that ultimately involved thousands of people. The true story of what made the action a success is not being told.
The police, in defending their brutal and stupid mishandling of the situation, have said they were ânot prepared for the violence.â In reality, they were unprepared for the nonviolence and the numbers and commitment of the nonviolent activists â even though the blockade was organized in open, public meetings and there was nothing secret about our strategy. My suspicion is that our model of organization and decision-making was so foreign to their picture of what constitutes leadership that they literally could not see what was going on in front of them.
When authoritarians think about leadership, the picture in their minds is of one person, usually a guy, or a small group standing up and telling other people what to do. Power is centralized and requires obedience.
In contrast, our model of power was decentralized, and leadership was invested in the group as a whole. People were empowered to make their own decisions, and the centralized structures were for co-ordination, not control. As a result, we had great flexibility and resilience, and many people were inspired to acts of courage they could never have been ordered to do.
Here are some of the key aspects of our model of organizing:
TRAINING AND PREPARATION
In the weeks and days before the blockade, thousands of people were given nonviolence training â a three-hour course that combined the history and philosophy of nonviolence with real life practice through role-plays in staying calm in tense situations, using nonviolent tactics, responding to brutality, and making decisions together. Thousand also went through a second-level training in jail preparation, solidarity strategies, and tactics and legal aspects. As well, there were trainings in first aid, blockade tactics, street theater, meeting facilitation, and other skills. While many more thousands of people took part in the blockade who had not attended any of these trainings, a nucleus of groups existed who were prepared to face police brutality and who could provide a core of resistance and strength. And in jail, I saw many situations that played out just like the role-plays. Activists were able to protect members of their group from being singled out or removed by using tactics introduced in the trainings. The solidarity tactics we had prepared became a real block to the functioning of the system.
COMMON AGREEMENTS
Each participant in the action was asked to agree to the nonviolence guidelines: to refrain from violence (physical or verbal), not to carry weapons, not to bring or use illegal drugs or alcohol, and not to destroy property. We were asked to agree only for the purpose of the 11/30 action â not to sign on to any of these as a life philosophy. The group acknowledged that there is much diversity of opinion around some of these guidelines.
AFFINITY GROUPS, CLUSTERS, AND SPOKESCOUNCILS
The participants in the action were organized into small groups called âaffinity groups.â Each group was empowered to make its own decisions around how it would participate in the blockade. There were groups doing street theater, others preparing to lock themselves to structures, groups with banners and giant puppets, others simply prepared to link arms and to nonviolently block delegates. Within each group, there were generally some people prepared to risk arrest and others who would be their support people in jail, as well as a first aid person.
Affinity groups were organized into clusters. The area around the Convention Center was broken down into thirteen sections, and affinity groups and clusters committed to hold particular sections. As well, some groups were âflying squadsâ â free to move to wherever they were most needed. All of this was co-ordinated at spokescouncil meetings, where affinity groups each sent a representative who was empowered to speak for the group.
In practice, this form of organization meant that groups could move and react with great flexibility during the blockade. If a call went out for more people at a certain location, an affinity group could assess the numbers holding the line where they were and choose whether or not to move. When faced with tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, and horses, groups and individuals could assess their own ability to withstand the brutality. As a result, blockade lines held in the face of incredible police violence. When one group of people was finally swept away by gas and clubs, another would move in to take their place. Yet there was also room for those of us in the middle-aged, bad lungs/bad backs affinity group to hold lines in areas that were relatively peaceful, to interact and dialogue with the delegates we turned back, and to support the labor march that brought tens of thousands through the area at midday. No centralized leader could have co-ordinated the scene in the midst of the chaos, and none was needed â the organic, autonomous organization we had proved far more powerful and effective. No authoritarian figure could have compelled people to hold a blockade line while being tear gassed â but empowered people free to make their own decisions did choose to do that.
CONSENSUS DECISION-MAKING
The affinity groups, clusters, spokescouncils, and working groups involved with DAN made decisions by consensus â a process that allows every voice to be heard and that stresses respect for minority opinions. Consensus was part of the nonviolence and jail trainings, and we made a small attempt to also offer some special training in meeting facilitation. We did not interpret consensus to mean unanimity. The only mandatory agreement was to act within the nonviolent guidelines. Beyond that, the DAN organizers set a tone that valued autonomy and freedom over conformity and stressed co-ordination rather than pressure to conform. So, for example, our jail solidarity stategy involved staying in jail where we could use the pressure of our numbers to protect individuals from being singled out for heavier charges or more brutal treatment. But no one was pressured to stay in jail or made to feel guilty for bailing out before the others. We recognized that each person has his or her own needs and life situation, and that what was important was to have taken action at whatever level we each could. Had we pressured people to stay in jail, many would have resisted and felt resentful and misused. Because we didnât, because people felt empowered, not manipulated, the vast majority decided for themselves to remain in, and many people pushed themselves far beyond the boundaries of what they had expected to do.
VISION AND SPIRIT
The action included art, dance, celebration, song, ritual, and magic. It was more than a protest; it was an uprising of a vision of true abundance, a celebration of life and creativity and connection that remained joyful in the face of brutality and brought alive the creative forces that can truly counter those of injustice and control. Many people brought the strength of their personal spiritual practice to the action. I saw Buddhists turn away angry delegates with loving kindness. We Witches led rituals before the action and in jail and called on the elements of nature to sustain us. In jail, I was given Reiki when sick and we celebrated Hanukah with no candles, but only the blessings and the story of the struggle for religious freedom. We found the spirit to sing in our cells, to dance a spiral dance in the holding cell, to laugh at the hundred petty humiliations the jail inflicts, to comfort each other and listen to each other in tense moments, to use our time together to continue teaching and organizing and envisioning the flourishing of this movement. For me, it was one of the most profound spiritual experiences of my life.
Iâm writing this for two reasons. First, I want to give credit to the DAN organizers who did a brilliant and difficult job, who learned and applied the lessons of the last twenty years of nonviolent direct action, and who created a powerful, successful, and life-changing action in the face of enormous odds, an action that has changed the global political landscape and radicalized a new generation. And secondly, because the true story of how this action was organized provides a powerful model that activists can learn from. Seattle was only a beginning. We have before us the task of building a global movement to overthrow corporate control and to create a new economy based on fairness and justice, on a sound ecology and a healthy environment, one that protects human rights and serves freedom. We have many campaigns ahead of us, and we deserve to learn the true lessons of our successes.
Whatâs Wrong with the WTO
AT THE HEIGHT OF THE RECENT protests in Seattle, when tear gas filled the streets and many of us filled the jails, California State Senator Tom Hayden was quoted as saying, âA week ago, nobody knew what the WTO was. Now â they still donât know what it is, but they know itâs bad.â
Aside from its association with tear gas, police brutality, and incarceration, what is so bad about the WTO?
The World Trade Organization was set up by the Uruguay round of GATT â the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the international body that is negotiating so-called âfree tradeâ agreements worldwide. The WTO, in a sense, is the executive and judicial arm of GATT: it judges a countryâs compliance with the rules, enforces the rules by way of trade sanctions and monetary judgments, and expands the rules.
All of this sounds somewhat innocuous and boring. Personally, when I hear the word âtariffâ I go back to half-forgotten history lessons about the War of 1812 and start to snooze. But what it means is something much more sinister. In effect, the WTO has become an agency of global corporate rule with the power to override our laws.
Huh? How? It seems inconceivable. Where does a trade organization get that kind of power? It stems from a clause in the agreement signed by our government that states: âEach member shall ensure the conformity of its laws, regulations, and administrative procedures with its obligations as provided in the annexed agreement.â By joining the WTO and signing GATT, our legislators agreed for us, without a public vote or a debate, that we would make our laws conform to the rulings of the WTO tribunals.
Those rulings are made by an unelected group of bureaucrats who meet in closed-door proceedings in Geneva and who are not accountable to any citizensâ organization. Their procedures are required to be secret, and their documents are confidential. Unlike at a U.S. Court proceeding, there are no public records of the arguments or evidence submitted. No citizens and no media can observe the proceedings, and there is no appeal or outside review process. Nor is there any mechanism for labor, environmental, health, or human rights considerations to have a voice in the proceedings.
All this would be frightening enough if the issues under consideration were simply arcane financial matters. But WTO rulings affect major labor, human rights, and environmental considerations. The WTO has prevented the U.S. from banning gas that contains unsafe additives and from stopping the import of shrimp caught with nets that kill endangered sea turtles. It has prevented the European Union from banning hormones in beef and stopped African governments from procuring less expensive AIDS drugs to supply to their people. Under its âintellectual propertyâ protections, corporations can patent life forms, including seeds, plants, and even human cell lines. Corporations can prevent farmers from saving or trading seeds and can charge a âroyaltyâ on resources that traditional cultures have used for thousands of years.
These are just some of the abuses that inspired me to go to Seattle. I donât have room or time in this forum to outline all the wrongs, but I suggest you check out the websites and books (those old-fashioned things) in the endnotes and the bibliography.1
Of course, if you go to the WTO website, they will tell you that all of these problems are just misunderstandings and misinformation. Their opening preamble is full of nice phrases about sustaina...