That the failure of Seattle was a good thing and led to an improved TRIPS is true and I have no argument with the importance of Seattle. The question is whether it was the militancy of 40,00 unionists and community activists generally that led to those results, or whether a small number of window breakers deserve credit for bringing it down.
And the reason Seattle failed and the more recent round succeeded had everything to do with the US pressing for labor and environmental standards at Seattle and refusing to do so at the more recent meeting. Clinton was under pressure by labor unions and others in the streets to strongly raise the issue and the refusal of many third world countries to accept such discussions was a key reason for the talks derailing.
Part of militant protest has to be to analyze latent tensions between opponents, divide them based on pressure, and achieve strategic results. It was the tension between the need to push forward trade talks and the need to appease his labor/environmental constituency that led to Clinton asking for inclusion of those issues which was unacceptable, especially within the consensus structure of the WTO.
Those who like to paint the GOP and Dems as being the same don't like that analysis, but the fact is that Fast Track and new WTO talks both failed under Clinton, while both have been pushed through under Bush. The difference is not that Clinton-style Dems are everything we want, but that they can be pressured for results based on their need for our continued electoral support, while the GOP doesn't have to care at all. Of course, that implies that progressives need to credibly be able to threaten to withhold support but they equally have to be able to promise electoral victory if their demands are met.
Seattle was a militant credible threat to withhold that support; the result was Clinton's attempt to square his free trade corporate alliances with his need for labor./enviro support and it was an unbridable contradiction. SO the Seattle talks failed on the contradiction.
The idea that a few broken windows so intimidated the corporate types as to make them throw away trillions in profits from neoliberal trade is silly.
-- Nathan Newman