<<Tuesday's massive labor march was the keystone event.>>
If the Labor Parade would have been the only event, WTO would not have been shut down for a few hours, the cops wouldn't have rioted and all the nation would have seen on TV would have been a 15-second clip of the parade.
<<But people started arriving for the kick off event, scheduled for 10am, as early as eight.>>
The real people who shut down WTO were in the streets before dawn; before the Labor crowd got out of bed.
<<Everyone started congratulating each other. "We did it. We're shutting them down!" By this time probably 15 to 20,000 were already at the stadium, and the word spread quickly.>>
They did it? By assembling a mile away in a stadium provided by the mayor? Yeah, sure. The "word spread quickly," but somehow no one left to join the real "keystone event?"
<<Sweeney and company, at the head of the march, proceeded to the central area where the civil disobedience was taking place. They sat-in symbolically in a major intersection for a few minutes. This was in solidarity with the protesters who were blocking the WTO meeting and being arrested.>>
Gimme a break. The beatdown was in full swing before the Labor wimps ever left the officially-approved stadium site. All the "major intersections" were under siege. Sweeney did not do this at any intersection that counted. It's a myth.
<<At its height, the Associated Press estimated that between 50 and 60,000 people were taking part in the Tuesday protests. Many of us in that sea of humanity, felt like it was more.>>
No more than 25,000 max, even including "ninja Anarchists." And, in reality, it was about 3000 hard-core non-violent demonstrators who really shut it down while labor was off in the stadium where "Everyone started congratulating each other."
<<A little later Monday evening, there was a People's Gala held in the Key Arena, a large city auditorium. Michael Moore was the Master of Ceremony. He was identified as "our, or the good Michael Moore." This was the Michael Moore of "TV Nation" and "The Awful Truth" fame.>>
This is entirely false. Moore never was MC. He was billed as the MC on thousands of flyers that Mike Dolan spread about town announcing this Roger Milliken-funded diversionary event. (4000 Jubilee 2000 folks were simultaneously surrounding the Paul Allen Expo Center where the WTO delegates were holding their Opening Gala). Dolan also had NW icon Ken Kesey on the bill - the better to draw folks away from the real Gala. Kesey wasn't there at all and Moore only arrived hours late in the program, which was MC'd by none other than frenetic "Field Marshal" Dolan himself.
It's time to quit the "Labor Revived" myth-making and take Labor and its corrupt leadership to task for its refusal to come to the aid of the peaceful folks who were beaten down. If those 20, 30, 50, 60,000 labor ralliers had really been there, do you think the cops would have been able to get away with the brutal beatdown? And, in the end, it was precisely the police riot and beatdown that elevated the issue to the front pages.
Michael Donnelly