____________________________________________________________________ Before a larger group can see the virtue of an idea, a smaller group must first understand it. "Stranger Suns" George Zebrowski The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- -------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 12:37:11 -0600 From: owner-hell@ssz.com To: owner-hell@einstein.ssz.com Subject: BOUNCE hell@einstein.ssz.com: Non-member submission from ["Gregory G. Foster" <gregf@navigo.com>]

From owner-hell@ssz.com Fri Dec 1 12:37:06 2000 Received: from www.navigo.com ([216.30.16.18]) by einstein.ssz.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id MAA00956 for <hell@einstein.ssz.com>; Fri, 1 Dec 2000 12:37:05 -0600 Received: from navigo.com (cs2748-191.austin.rr.com [24.27.48.191]) by www.navigo.com (8.9.3/8.9.1) with ESMTP id MAA17301; Fri, 1 Dec 2000 12:28:21 -0600 Message-ID: <3A27F1C7.3CFB3B7B@navigo.com> Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2000 12:45:27 -0600 From: "Gregory G. Foster" <gregf@navigo.com> Organization: Navigo X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.73 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en,pdf MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Farmers, Navigo" <farmers@navigo.com>, The Club Inferno <hell@einstein.ssz.com>, "Russell, Debbie" <debstuff@hotmail.com>, "Davis, Christopher" <farbiger@hotmail.com>, "Horton, Jeff" <favstec99@earthlink.net>, "Goertz, Ryan" <sanguin@io.com>, "Clancy-Goertz, Donna" <donnaclancygoertz@graphic-designer.com>, "Lofgren, Chris" <flickflack26@hotmail.com>, "Hunter, Basel" <primal-america@excite.com>, "O'Hare, Sheilagh" <martini@fc.net> Subject: Follow up on N30 protests Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

To the outside observer, the celebration of the anniversary of the Seattle WTO protests seemed to transpire in relative peace during the day; but the concluding note of the evening seemed pretty sad to me. The Seattle police department seems to have created a situation in which the only possible outcome was mass arrests and a spiritually crushing exposition of state force. <<<<< Kristoff Loftgreen wrote: >>>>> im not sure how much news makes it out of here but things did get a little crazy after the sun went down last night, which in these parts is around 4:20. the police forced all the protesters out of westlake center around eight or so south west into belltown. they then started using their storm trooper tactics of intimidation wearing full riot gear and stomp marching down the street. they completely surrounded all of the protestors and then closed in on them, arrested most of them. the was some resistence. then theyre was a pretty violent beating of a man up on capital hill. dont know if this video made it out of this market. pretty disgusting. king5.com is the local NBC affiliate and has quite a bit of good coverage on last nights happenings. <<<<< >>>>> Police defend use of force against protesters - good video here http://www.king5.com/detailtopstory.html?StoryID=9631 CNN coverage - fun to deconstruct. Always the first thing mentioned in major media coverage: "A police captain suffered an eye injury when he was hit by an object thrown by someone in the crowd..." giving them justification to use force, correct? And their video caption "Watch the protest" - much safer than participating... http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/12/01/wto.anniversary.demo.02/index.html CNN has the most damning video footage I have yet encountered. This must be seen to be believed. It is an excellent 3 minute video showing the leaders of the evening protesters desperately attempting to _negotiate_ a way out of their entrapment by police. They attempt first with the cops on the east street, the most direct route to the safe harbor of the labor temple. These cops say they should go talk to the north cops. So, they go attempt to negotiate with the cops on the northern street - who are more amenable, but worry about letting the protesters out who then might "change their minds" about going to the labor temple; the cops want everyone to go home. No promises are made, but this cop is quite civil and wants to work out a solution, aware of his "dilemma." So, the protest leaders return to the now quite nervous protesters, and attempt to relay the situation. The stomping of boots from the southern or western corridor is heard and the protest leader at the end utters "I know they're behind us, right..." into the megaphone. And the arrests begin. We lack the prior context here about what happened to supposedly justify the cops marching the protesters into a trap. What were these 200 protesters doing before this time? Was the protest degenerating or was it still peaceful? Were the cops just fed up and wanting to go home? This context seems to be absent from the record. Labor organizers were offered quick release from jail by Seattle Mayor Schell early this morning. "...they refused and stayed in solidarity with the others who were arrested." http://seattle.indymedia.org/ from last year: "This is what a police state looks like." http://seattle.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=1585 g :~=~_~=/-\=~_~=~:~=~_~=\-/=~_~=~:~=~_~=\-/=~_~=~: : Gregory G. Foster gregf@navigo.com : a Navigo Farmer "we breathe in the hopes of speaking the spirit : we move in the hopes of meeting the soul" :~=~_~=\-/=~_~=~:~=~_~=\-/=~_~=~:~=~_~=\-/=~_~=~: