the Seattle protest was not the start of anything. There was a protest in London months before Seattle, the European horizontal left had been very active during all the Thatcher years; Roads, Reclaim the Streets, Animal Rights, environmentalism generally, Poll Tax etc. Via the Indymedia and other internet based networks there was a global culture. In the early days, it was all about a few big indy media sites.
within Europe, the Jul 2001 Genoa G8 set the pattern for totalitarian oppression of anti-globalization movements. See Berlusconi's Mousetrap, or the Super-Diaz Trial or the story of Mark Covell http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/17/italy.g8 Nick Davies Guardian journalist behind phone hacking and wikileaks http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4229777.stm http://www.indymedia.ie/article/75401
for anyone who thinks that's just a conspiracy, you've obviously never heard of the mafia or spent much time in Italy anyway, the G8 summit in Genoa was the great successful counter-revolution, which was finally put to sleep with 911
I am told that in Europe, and globally?, the Genoa G8 is considered by the security state to be the "high-water mark" in oppression, cooption and manipulation.
In 2008-2009 there was a global wave of Climate Camps, with a few years of very large Climate Camps in the UK, with the London Climate Camp in 2009 more like a mini activism Glastonberry, with civil disobedience and media stunts. in 2008 the UK police accidentally beat to death a street vendor, which was filmed by a US banker on his mobile phone, and that ended more brutal policing and in 2009 they switched to surveilance, counter-intelligence etc etc
Certainly at Copenhagen in 2009 at the COP15, the police was heavily oppressive - concetration camps for activists, steel cages, sensory deprivation, pre-crime arrests, mass arrests etc etc - but no deaths. The prevalence of video cameras i.e. every mobile phone, makes mass violence easily recorded. Film it with the mobile phone and post it direct to YouTube. No need even to leave the demo.
There has been a huge scandal in the UK with under-cover police - who heavily infiltrated the climate justice movement - being exposed and even potentially going native, i.e becoming activists. Millions of pounds, entrapping vegetarians and hippies. In Europe, except in some reactionary right wing outposts like Spain and Middle England, climate justice and environmentalism is highly regarded and its not been positively received...
The global precariat is a convergance of highly educated, internet-connected formerly middle class unemployed young adults with the poor and working class. The radical direct democracy that has grown up in all of these hundreds of thousands of camps, events, summits, rallies and groups has been spread by international travel - cheap flights, newly integrated Europe allowing study and work withiin Europe - and of course, the internet
as Chomsky keeps on saying, there is way more activism now then there ever has been, you just have to look, and get involved. Way more then in the high and crazy points of the late 60s and early 70s. Also, as Noam also says, this is Obama's Army, but its gone feral. Its broken ranks, gone AWOL, gone bush, and its never gone be the same.
I also think the lesson from Copenhagen, which had a lot of European black bloc smash things up nonsense, was, that, in these big tent events, that stuff is counter productive. Security is way too tight. Surveillance all pervasive, and there is way too much spillover to civilians. The system is so oppressive, that you have to be pretty smart to survive as an activist and I think that the complete open planning via the general assembly brings authenticity and legitimacy that secret affinity group style radical stuff cannot buy. Also, from the UK, how do you know that the most radical activists advocating property damage and serious disruption arent cops ? In fact, they probably are.
I heard from KPFA that the Oakland cops are actually sympathetic to the protesters. They've been losing jobs too.
-- Nicholas Roberts US 510-684-8264 http://Permaculture.TV http://permaculture.coop