boddhisatva wrote:
> Actually, there was a link between the two. The change in budgets in the
> Puget Sound region due to broad underfunding of services during the 90's led
> to the deployment of too many overstressed police officers. Anybody who
> lives out here can tell you that those police officers put the Seattle
> protests on the map. Their over-reaction to what was basically a harmless
> crowd with a few agitators in it put the protests on the news. Moreover,
> the Internet economy was pumping money into hippiedom as never before,
> leaving people with plenty of free time.
Overstressed police officers? This is the first time I've heard this theory! In fact, the police over-reaction was caused by an inexperienced police force which, like many police forces across the country at that time, didn't take activists seriously. The police had enjoyed a long period where activists actively cooperated with them, or simply organized protests so tame and predictable that the police didn't take them seriously. Seattle was a culmination of those factors, plus the militarization of police forces which had been happening throughout the Clinton years.
> I believe also that the coming adoption of the euro had something to do
> with the WTO protests. The anti-globalization protest movement is really a
> European phenomenon, by and large, and the European protests were a model
> for the Americans in Seattle.
What a bunch of nonsense. The EU may be a motivator in protests since N30, but the J18/N30 protests of 1999 came out of several national struggles, most importantly the anti-roads campaign that spawned Reclaim the Streets.
Chuck0