<< In all my contacts with the organizers of the events -- Global Exchange,
Rainforest Action Network, Direct Action Network organizers -- I haven't
heard a single complaint about liberal armchair types "swiping credit" for
Seattle. Certainly there was no such talk at the DC report-from-Seattle we
organized on Wed. night >>
Since Ambrose seems to have accepted as dogma "Field Marshal" Dolan's inflated 70,000 person figure when, in reality, less than 20,000 were at the Labor diversion and less than 4000 shut down the streets, it makes me question his entire analysis.
I was in the Seattle streets and have talked to dozens of Direct Action folks since the event and I assure you there has been plenty of "such talk" out here in the Northwest.
"Organizers," even those of GX, RAN and DAN, all depend on milking the grant teat and their reports at DC soirees are suspect. Word has come down from the funders that the "coalition" myth is to by upheld at threat of loss of funding. (In fact, it came down even before the Seattle beatdown.) As with Big Labor, it's the rank-and-file that will tell the real, no foundation strings attached, story.
The bottom line is: had there really been a real coalition, then members of that coalition would not have sat idly by for three hours listening to self-congratulatory speeches, without ever a mention of Billy's Beatdown of other "Coalition" members 20 blocks away.
Cockburn and St. Clair are correct, You can't buld a movement (coalition) based on myths.
Michael Donnelly