New Radical Seattle

AT LEAST IT WASN'T RAINING

In the middle of strip-mall hell, on a patch of grass outside the Overlake Park and Ride lot in Redmond, about 50 protesters gathered for the Direct Action Network's first major action since setting local, national, and international politics on its ear during the World Trade Organization's Seattle meeting.

On November 30, DAN had eschewed the tactics of more traditional groups, like labor's big march, and instead mobilized thousands to blockade the Convention Center with the express purpose of shutting the WTO down; they succeeded beyond their wildest expectations, and took the city—and the world—by surprise.

In the heady weeks that followed, DAN scouted around for a new rallying point and in January declared it would celebrate the anniversary of Seattle's 1919 general strike by shutting down Microsoft.

But the Microsoft protest was scaled back from blockade to street theater when labor withdrew its support. DAN's curly-haired David Solnit, a key organizer of the protest, promised, "We're shutting [Microsoft] down with puppets and theater." Solnit argued the power of the art would make up for the lack of numbers.

But when February 7 arrived, Solnit didn't even have anyone to carry DAN's giant puppet of Bill Gates, much less a coherent street-theater act. A puppeteer volunteered from among the assembled, and the group set off down the suburban sidewalk carrying colorful banners and anarchist black flags. One man played the saxophone, another pounded out a rhythm on a plastic tub, and most everyone chanted or sang.

About halfway to the Microsoft campus, the protesters had a showdown with three cops over marching in the streets. The police insisted the group stay on the sidewalk. A few ignored their orders, and the police nabbed David Call, an anarchist with a kerchief over his face and a glass pipe—allegedly "drug paraphernalia"—in his pocket. The protesters were furious over the bust. "Let him go!" they screamed from the sidewalk. Suddenly an ambulance and nine more squad cars tore onto the scene and out tumbled 24 robocops in heavy black body armor, some of who began loading projectile guns.

By this time, the media and the cops nearly outnumbered the protesters, and the demonstration evoked more the ennui of an absurdist play than the electrifying power of November 30.

Eventually Call was taken off to the King County Jail, and the protest continued. Despite the arrest, the demonstrators created a festive atmosphere after they arrived on the Microsoft campus: A revolutionary pep squad ran through their numbers, including a human pyramid; a banjo-playing Earth Firster named Desert Rat banged out a tuneful song, "Dancing on the ruins of multi.national corporations"; and numerous people made speeches. The protesters were having a good time while trying to change the world, but as their small numbers made painfully obvious, it ain't going to be easy.

THAT DOESN'T MEAN people aren't trying. Radicals and revolutionaries throughout Seattle recognize that if some of the energy of even a few hundred of the people who turned out to "shut down Seattle" could be directed toward ongoing, long-term local struggles, our city's neat, quiet political life might get messy and noisy.

This effort is very much in its infancy, but after surveying it by interviewing over 30 of its participants, here are a few general observations. Seattle's post-WTO movement is mostly made up of many small circles of friends working together in affinity groups. These leaderless, autonomous groups are bound together very loosely. "It's all word of mouth," comments DAN organizer Erika Kay. "We don't necessarily even know how to get in touch with one another." (DAN itself is just a network of affinity groups without a central core.) The movement favors direct action that challenges the hammerlock corporations have on our economic, political, and cultural lives. "The changes will be made by focusing directly on the corporations—not by going to government," says UW sophomore Ingrid Chapman.

With its emphasis on bold action by in.dependent affinity groups, the movement embodies the spirit of anarchism. The affinity groups "come together when they need to. They are guerrilla-based. It is a lifestyle of collective actions, doing things that bring the group together and challenge the system. That's what anarchism really means," argues veteran organizer John Fox of the Seattle Displacement Coalition.

In general, however, the activists avoid political labels and ideological debates. "I don't want to get pigeonholed," explains DAN's Kay, sounding a theme heard repeatedly. "I integrate many different philosophies. I'm constantly evolving."

Most members of the movement are college educated and white. This lack of diversity is on many people's minds, and possible solutions are being hotly debated.

And most no-to-WTO rowdies are young. "Historically it is the youth who fuel these movements. The old fogies either give up or go work for Microsoft—except for a few of us old, hardcore stick-in-the-muds," laughs John Reese, an anarchist who has long been active in local environmental circles.

Veteran organizers differ sharply in their view of this movement's prospects.

Cindy Domingo of the Northwest Labor and Employment Law Office isn't sanguine. She notes that social movements have ebbs and flows. "Now comes the hard work after a really big flow like [November 30]." She's not sure the post-WTO movement is up to it. "There is really a big schism between communities of color and the white left," she notes. Domingo, who is Filipino American, believes, "The left will never have the power they need until a real multi.racial character is built."