"Jeffrey St. Clair" wrote:
>
> Choice quotes from the Sierra Club on WTO protests:
>
> "The Sierra Club's actions in Seattle were peaceful, legal, and fully
> coordinated with the Seattle Police Department. Contrary to some
> published reports, the Club did not participate in, organize, or condone
>
> either the violence or the civil disobedience."
>
> "Despite the deplorable violence, the message of the peaceful
> demonstrators came through loud and clear."
>
> ---------------- Begin Forwarded Message ----------------
> Sierra Club Action Daily
> Dec. 15, 1999
>
> "If Seattle proved anything, it is that nongovernmental
> organizations -- such groups as the Sierra Club and Public Citizen --
> have become permanent players on the global trade scene."
>
> Bruce Stokes, National Journal, Dec. 4,
> 1999
>
> THE BATTLE IN SEATTLE
>
> [See Draft Letter to Editor Below]
>
> 70,000 protestors brought the mighty World Trade Organization (WTO) to
> its knees at the "Battle in Seattle" from Tuesday, Nov. 30 - Dec. 3.
> The
> Sierra Club joined nearly 50,000 labor, environmental, human rights, and
>
> church activists in a peaceful and legal People's Rally and March for
> Fair Trade on Tuesday, Nov. 30.
>
> Simultaneously, tens of thousands of protestors organized by the Direct
> Action Network linked arms and sat down in the streets surrounding the
> Washington Trade and Convention Center, site of the summit. Their
> peaceful civil disobedience stopped the WTO from meeting on its first
> day. Unfortunately, this demonstration was marred by about 100
> self-described anarchists who rampaged through downtown Seattle,
> smashing
> windows with hammers concealed in their coats. Later that afternoon,
> the
> police moved in with tear gas and rubber bullets to clear the streets of
>
> the sit-in.
>
> A combination of pressure from the protestors outside and internal
> dissension forced the talks to collapse on Friday night, without so much
>
> as a formal communique.
>
> The Sierra Club's actions in Seattle were peaceful, legal, and fully
> coordinated with the Seattle Police Department. Contrary to some
> published reports, the Club did not participate in, organize, or condone
>
> either the violence or the civil disobedience. We are proud to say,
> however, that our message cut through the media clutter to reach the
> largest public ever to learn about how the WTO undermines health and
> environmental standards.
>
> As Dan Seligman told the New York Times, "The creation of the WTO was an
>
> act of pure hubris -- to promote trade by micro managing policies of
> every government on earth. It was only a matter of time before that
> over-ambitious agenda reached a point at which it could go no further."
> (New York Times, Dec. 4, 1999)
>
> Meanwhile, the demonstrators helped forged a new populist coalition that
>
> could permanently shift the politics of trade policy in America and
> around the world. For instance, Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa, Jr.
> made frequent appeals to protect the world's environment in trade
> policy.
> The Sierra Club's Executive Director Carl Pope reciprocated during the
> big Fair Trade rally on Tuesday, Nov. 30. Following Steelworkers
> President George Becker to the speakers' microphone, Pope gave a ringing
>
> endorsement to trade unionism, telling the crowd, "If America didn't
> have
> a steel industry, it would have to invent one just so we could have the
> United Steelworkers of America."
>
> On the streets, a spontaneous call and response chant arose between the
> Teamsters and dozens of activists who were dressed as sea turtles to
> protest a WTO ruling against US sea turtle protections.
>
> "Turtles love Teamsters!" the chant began.
>
> "Teamsters love turtles," the truckdrivers answered.
>
> It doesn't get any better than that.
>
> NEXT STEPS
>
> Over the next year, we must mobilize our new coalition to "fix or nix"
> the WTO. We must also turn the corner on bad trade policies and begin
> advocating positive alternatives of our own. Stay posted for further
> action alerts.
>
> In the meantime, defenders of the free trade status quo have mounted a
> campaign to pin the blame for the Seattle debacle on Clinton and the
> protestors in the streets -- everyone but those who developed the
> hair-brained notion of the WTO in the first place.
>
> Lets fight back with letters to the editor explaining the truth about
> Seattle.
-- Chuck0
Mid-Atlantic Infoshop http://www.infoshop.org/
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"A society is a healthy society only to the degree that it exhibits anarchistic traits."
- Jens Bjørneboe