by David Postman Seattle Times Olympia bureau
NEAR ARLINGTON, Snohomish County - Early-morning fog off the South Fork of the Stillaguamish rolled over an encampment of 150 sleeping trainees yesterday, when a woman's voice broke the quiet with a melodic chant over a bullhorn.
"Love, love; cuddle, cuddle; love," she sang as she walked through the 20-acre Pragtri Farm, founded in the 1970s by the People's Revolutionary Action Group of Seattle.
It was day four of the weeklong Globalize This! Action Camp. A coalition of groups opposed to the World Trade Organization and the global free trade it promotes have come here to plan and train for massive demonstrations at the WTO's November meeting in Seattle.
They oppose the WTO, a group of trade ministers from 135 countries. They see the organization as a threat to environmental protections and labor standards because it allows countries to protest U.S. laws they claim create unfair trade barriers.
The protesters' goal is to disrupt activity enough on Nov. 30, the opening day of the WTO talks, to make it impossible for the trade ministers to do business. While the opening day, called "N30" by some protesters, is the centerpiece of the planned demonstrations, there will be events throughout the WTO meeting, through Dec. 3.
About 5,000 trade delegates, journalists and other official guests are expected at what is considered to be the largest trade meeting ever held in the U.S. Estimates on the number of protesters range from 10,000 to 50,000.
The Seattle Police Department has begun training in crowd and traffic management, first aid and handling of hazardous materials. So far, the only head of state expected is President Clinton. Officials from Cuba were in Seattle recently scouting out the possibility of an appearance by leader Fidel Castro.
Many of those attending the camp are environmentalists from the United States and Canada. There are also human-rights activists, a few union workers from Spokane, an environmentalist from Nicaragua, two women from a group called "Raging Grannies" from Seattle and a guest star from England. The British activist, John Jordan, was at the heart of a riot that broke out during an anti-free-trade protest in London June 18. He is helping to plan overseas demonstrations on Nov. 30.
"This is the most scary collection of people I've ever talked to," Jordan joked.
What they're learning
The camp was designed to teach skills for mass, nonviolent protests. The workshops included theoretical and philosophical discussions on the history of nonviolent protests and the workings of the WTO. There were also practical sessions on how to climb buildings for "banner-drops," conduct surveillance, calm angry protesters, deal with nervous police and deliver meaningful sound bites.
It made for an eclectic mix of talk about Iberian anarchists, French situationists, pre-figurative politics, iconic images, Marshall McLuhan, fishermen's knots, radio frequencies, 128-bit encrypted e-mail and Clinton administration trade policy.
Closed to the media was a planning session for Nov. 30 in which a group huddled around huge maps of downtown Seattle.
"Because there is going to be so much going on, there has to be more planning," said Michael Sowle, a climber from Oakland. "You don't want to go up on a building and find somebody else about to drop a banner."
Know your knots
Climbers who scale buildings, bridges and smokestacks are the stars of the protest world. Among the climbers here were people who have scaled the Sears Tower, hung from the Aurora Bridge to protest factory trawlers or draped a banner on the California capitol dome. Several were involved in the first successful climbing expedition and banner drop from the Golden Gate Bridge.
Would-be climbers were drilled on knots and subjected to tough questions and detailed inspections of their climbing gear.
A few who said they were ready to be roped up were sent back to basic knot-tying class when their skills didn't match their teacher's standards.
"A few come and they are really gung-ho, and they want to skip all the safety stuff. They're crazy, basically," said Sowle. "Most have more respect for danger."
A few near-disasters on climbs in the early 1990s pointed out the need for better training, said John Picone, 33, founder of the Action Resource Center in Los Angeles and a veteran climber.
A protest `ethic of excellence'
John Sellers, director of the Ruckus Society, said the goal is to make protests safer and ensure they are nonviolent while not reducing their effectiveness. He says the group is pushing for an "ethic of excellence" in civil disobedience.
This week's WTO camp is co-sponsored by the San Francisco-based Rainforest Action Network. The group recently ended a two-year campaign against Home Depot when the building-supply giant agreed to stop selling lumber made from old-growth timber.
The group's executive director, Kelly Quirke, said the Home Depot campaign included protests targeted at stores, stockholders, customers and suppliers. The company, however, said the protests did not influence its decision.
Quirke said there is still an important role for massive demonstrations and high-profile "actions" that grab media attention.
"People are outraged. They know they are basically enslaved," he said. "Our job is to find a way to trigger that outrage.
"There are a lot of people with bones to pick with the WTO, and they have different goals. We're not going to change that. We're going to give them better tools to accomplish those goals, safely and peacefully."
Labor unions interested
The protests are expected to include organized labor, and three members of the steelworkers union locked in a yearlong battle with Spokane's Kaiser Aluminum were attentive students.
David Reid, Robert Kenyon and Ron Hansen have been out of work for nearly a year. They crossed the Cascades to learn about the WTO protest but also to learn techniques they can bring back to Spokane.
Hansen hopes that if the steelworkers union makes a show of force on Nov. 30, some of the groups organizing the demonstration will go to Spokane to help put the pressure on Kaiser to end its fight with the union.
For Kenyon, the training camp was part of a recently developed interest in politics. He said he had never registered to vote until a few years ago.
"I never knew anything about the WTO," he said. "I only suspected the way the corporations run the world."
Now Kenyon, 51, wants to get active.
"I like the banners and hanging things from buildings," he said. He attended several climbing classes and diligently learned knots.
Jordan, the British activist, says high-tech events like climbing buildings are designed to attract the attention of the mainstream media, for which he has little use.
"The problem with the media is it's a corporation like any other," he said.
There was much suspicion at the camp about the "corporate media." But the largest donation the group ever got came from media magnate Ted Turner.
"He appreciates strategic trouble-making," Sellers said.
Pleasure in politics
Rather than play to the media, Jordan said protests should focus on getting as many people on the street as possible.
"For us, it's injecting pleasure into the gray world of politics," he said. "For us, the revolutionary model is the carnival."
Shirley Morrison understands that model. She is a member of the Raging Grannies.
"It's just some little old ladies who said, `The world's in trouble,' " said the longtime peace activist.
Morrison is 77 and lives in Seattle. While she says one doesn't have to be a grandma to join, she proudly announces she recently became a great-grandmother.
The women dress up in "little old lady" hats and dresses and sing protest songs to the tune of old standards.
Some in the movement don't take the Grannies seriously. But they stood in front of logging trucks as part of the Home Depot protests.
Morrison came with her friend Hinda Kipnis, 68. Kipnis heard about the training camp from a friend in her Seattle Yiddish class, 22-year-old Earth First! activist Miszka Evans. Both say they will take part in the Nov. 30 protests.
"We're not going to be hanging from any buildings, though," Morrison said.