This is What Democracy Looks Like (Part I)
Directed and Produced by: Jill Freidberg and Rick Rowley
An Independent Media Center and Big Noise Film
Narration: Michael Franti and Susan Sarandon
Transcript modified by Darrell Moen
(live audio): I think in ten years from now
(repeat from crowd) -
The thing that’s going to be written about Seattle (repeat
from crowd) -
Is not what tear gas bomb went off on what street corner (repeat
from crowd) -
But that the WTO in 1999 (repeat from crowd) -
Was the birth (repeat from crowd) -
Of a global citizen’s movement (repeat from crowd) -
For a democratic global economy (repeat from crowd).
In this new global economy we lose our desire, our power, and
our vision.
In any part of the world, there are men and women who choose the
path of least resistance;
who accept lives of fear and isolation.
But we will respond to death with life.
We will respond to the nightmare with the dream.
We will fight and imagine and create. And we will resist.
(on-screen text): The following film was shot by over 100 media activists
DESIRE; POWER; VISION; FIGHT; IMAGINE; CREATE - WE WILL RESIST
(interview): In my view corporate rule is dictatorship and the denial of shaping your economy is an end of democracy.
(on-screen text): IMF; WORLD BANK; NAFTA; MAI; WTO
The World Trade Organization is the latest in a series of transnational bodies and agreements designed to regulate the global economy. It can use sanctions and fines to override the labor, safety, and environmental standards of individual nations.
MEXICO; FRANCE December 1995; KOREA January 1997; MONTREAL May 1998; SEATTLE November 1999
This is What Democracy Looks Like
Nov. 30 : In November 1999, the WTO was scheduled to hold its last meeting of the millennium behind the closed doors of a convention center in downtown Seattle. Activists prepared to blockade the streets to prevent the meeting from taking place.
(live audio):
Ain’t no power like the power of the people cause the power
of the people don’t stop!
Ain’t no power like the power of the people cause the power
of the people don’t stop!
That’s right! (repeat)
(cop): This group..if nothing gets thrown at us – if we are not in danger, we have no intentions of making any moves on you.
(woman): We are all committed to nonviolence here.
We just want to make sure that we demonstrate that to you.
(cop): I haven’t hurt any body in 30 years and I don’t plan to start now.
Whose cops, our cops! (Repeat)
Ain’t no power like the power of the people cause the
power of the people don’t stop!
Say what?
Ain’t no power like the power of the people cause the power
of the people don’t stop!
Ain’t no power like the power of the people cause the power
of the people don’t stop!
(on-screen text): Washington State Convention and Trade Center (map): On Tuesday, over 30,000 protesters converged in downtown Seattle.
(live audio): This is a momentous event because we see the oppressed people of the South and the oppressed people of the North, now together here saying, down with US imperialism!
2,000 people marched from south Seattle with delegations from Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
4,000 students marched to Seattle Center from the north.
(live audio):Just when we thought we had entered the darkest night and that corporations were threatening to further erode our sovereignty and make it impossible for our children to experience true freedom – we rise up and we say no.
Separation is a device used against you to tell you who you should and should not talk with, fraternize with, be friends with. You have a choice, you have a choice to be a union, to be one voice, to be a people!
We are the anti-WTO! People before profits! and before all things... LIFE!
(Chanting) LIFE!
(music)
When all the trees are gone
whatcha gonna breathe?
YOUR MONEY?
When all the water is polluted
whatcha gonna drink?
YOUR MONEY?
When all your food is made out of plastic
whatcha gonna eat?
YOUR MONEY?
(live audio): You got people from all over. You got labor, you got environmentalists, you got teachers, you got children, you’ve coalitions between people of color and mainstream white Americans, you got middle class, you got working class, you got poor, you got everybody out here because this hurts people – this is bad for people. It’s bad for our jobs here, it’s bad for the people over there.
Its about their future being traded off by corporations who frankly don’t give a shit what happens to them. That’s what its about -- people are fed up with it – they understand that.
(voice over):: Ladies and gentlemen. A little bit of information. We are successfully blocking out delegates.
(live audio): This is a success!
(police officer): We are making [the time] available for you to leave now! There are protesters at the end of 6th Avenue and to the end of our block, so you’d be let out right in the middle if the protest – [well,] I recommend that you stay here if you can.
(WTO spokesperson): The opening session is still postponed. I have not... I called and asked for an immediate update. They said to relax, put your feet up, go to your hotel room, relax, have lunch until the situation is safer out there. You can not get to the Paramount.
(music): Feel the music...
(interview)::Dr. Vandana Shiva (International Forum on Globalization): I think the beautiful thing about it was there was no mastermind. What there was was an invitation to join hands and the joining of hands happened because everyone knew you had to hold your hands and hold each others hands-otherwise we’re not going to make a difference.
Each of us is too tiny. Each of us is only addressing a tiny piece of this giant problem. Until we join hands, we’re not even going to begin to address it, but if we join hands we can totally surround it – and that physically, literally, as well as symbolically is what happened in Seattle.
(interview): War Cry: We changed the landscape physically, but also mentally. Life is very restrictive and boxed in. It’s hard to break out and be free. So that was one of the magnificent things about being in Seattle… that day people didn’t feel helpless -- that was a moment not to be helpless.
(live audio): (police officer): We will forcefully remove you from this intersection. I would like not to hurt anyone. However, we will clear this intersection.
(crowd chanting): COURAGE - COURAGE
(police officer): We will clear it with chemical and pain compliance. If you do not move, you will be the subject of pain Think about if you agree with it and what you are being told to do.
(crowd chanting): COURAGE - COURAGE
Your are shooting poison at people! How can you do this!?! STOP!
Look into your hearts.
(on-screen text): On Tuesday, Seattle police used OC Spray on peaceful protesters. OC Spray has been linked to over 100 fatalities in the US.
(live audio): Hey hey ho ho – WTO has got to go!
(police officer): Please clear the intersection. This is the Seattle Police Department. We will be issuing chemical irritants. Please disperse.
(on-screen text): CS Gas was first used by the US military in the Vietnam War. Exposure to CS Gas has been associated with miscarriages, chromosomal mutations, and heart failure.
(live audio): Hold the line! Come back, hold the line!
(interview):: Leroy Trotman (Barbados Workers Union) Brothers and sisters – keep the struggle going! Make sure that the leaders of the governments around the world will never forget this day - The Thirtieth of November Nineteen Hundred and Ninety Nine.
(on-screen text): 50,000 people gathered in Memorial Stadium to rally with workers from around the world. The largest show of international solidarity in the history of the AFL-CIO.
(continued interview w/ Leroy Trotman): This demonstration is not a demonstration of the United States. It is a demonstration of all working class people all over the world - rich country, poor country, white country, black country, ALL countries!
(interview): Juan Bocanegra (NW Legal Employment and Law Office): You know it’s difficult, because a lot of working class in this country don’t make the link that they are linked directly with people in Brazil, and that they are linked directly with people in Mexico City, and what happens to those folks happens to them – not immediately, but damn it will happen!
(interview): Leroy Trotman: They say to us in countries like mine, Barbados, if you want jobs you have to forget trade union rights, if you want jobs you have to forget labor laws, if you want jobs you have to forget decent wages. And we have said, to hell with you!
(interview) Ron Judd (King County Labor Council): We weren’t just talking about Seattle, we weren’t just talking about Washington State, we weren’t just talking about America...
(chanting) (also in Spanish): The people united will never be divided!
(interview): Ron Judd: It was a world coming together in Seattle, saying this is what we want, this is what we deserve, this is what we are going to damn demand!
(interview): Leroy Trotman: We believe that all people everywhere should share in the fruits of their labor, and this is why we congratulate you, we join you, and we want to fight with you – to say no to the behavior of the WTO!
(voice over): Dr. Vandana Shiva: While
American business prospers, American workers don’t.
WORKERS DON’T
While American Agribusiness prospers, American farmers
don’t.
FARMERS DON’T
(voice over): It’s a stealth
government.
STEALTH GOVERNMENT
It’s creating a global constitution protecting property and
the interest of big investors over everything else, and
especially over the needs of the people and their rights
(interview): Dr. Vandana Shiva: The economies of local communities and national systems are handed over to global corporations through the coercive rules of the World Bank, IMF, and the World Trade Organization
(on-screen text): LOCAL; NATIONAL; GLOBAL CORPORATIONS
(voice over): All the victories we have won with the struggle with the Civil Rights movement of the working class struggles have finally been hacked away
(on-screen text): Since its creation, the WTO has determined every environmental, labor, or safety policy it has reviewed to be an illegal trade barrier.
(banner): An injury to one is an injury to all
(banner): ILWU
(banner): Many Faces, One Voice
(chanting)
Hey hey ho ho – WTO has got to go!
(voice over): You are the people! You are the power! And we are going to show it today when we march! There will be no business as usual today! We live under an economic system that wants to divide us, but we will not today be divided.
(banner): For Sale If you are interested in joining the 50,000 person labor march, it has left the Seattle Center. It is now coming southbound on 4th Avenue. If you would like to join the march, you need to go to 2nd avenue from 4th and Olive and join the march at 4th and Olive. The march will not be coming down here.
(interview): Bob Hasegawa (Teamsters Local 174): Labor was content with just trying to put on a rally here at the Memorial Stadium and then march downtown and march back. But the real war, the real point of impact, was downtown. (banner): Resist Corporate Tyranny, No to WTO, The people have spoken(interview): David Solnit (Direct Action Network): There was a line of marshals that the national leadership of the AFL had, I believe, set up. There’s some effort, some elements in the labor movement to do whatever they could to keep people away from the front lines and from supporting those people who were being assaulted by the police. A huge number of rank and file trade unionist and some of the gutsier unions, they walked right through the Marshals and joined us on the front lines to hold the police lines back
(truck banner): Teamsters Say No to WTO
(interview): War Cry: You kind of have to embrace a diversity of people as well as a diversity of tactics. If you’re forty-five and you are working in a factory and you have a family of four to feed, your tactics are going to be different than if your 17 or 18 or 19. Our differences are our strengths. I don’t think anyone wants to live in an homogenous culture.
(banner): We demand Fair Trade!
(banner): STOP NAFTA
(chant) Hey hey ho ho WTO has got to go!
(banner): University Washington
At the Wellco Factory in China, workers are paid $.16 an hour
They work 77-84 hours a week.
They are subjected to humiliation, verbal abuse, and corporal
punishment.
They are fined for talking.
They are arbitrarily fined for being pregnant or over 25.
They make shoes for Nike.
(live audio): Quit breaking shit!
Why are you guys breaking shit?
(sign): STARBUCKS
(graffiti): CORPORATE GREED SUX
(interview): War Cry: I think it would probably be of benefit, because we have such a diversity of tactics, to have a little bit more dialogue between the people prepared to do civil disobedience, which means they are locked down in a certain position or what have you. They are very vulnerable to force by the authorities, so you can’t put them in danger by choosing a tactic that is going to bring down the wrath of the state on people who sort of put themselves in a higher risk situation. So for that reason there has to be a little bit more awareness of who might be doing what. Not that a statement didn’t have to--need to be made…
(interview): Sabine King, Eyewitness News, KIRO Penny, it is so sad to see all the destruction.
(interview): Yolanda Sinde, Community Coalition for Environmental Justice: To me it was a perfect example as to why we need to fight because this city got up in arms about them breaking Starbucks windows. You know they didn’t go out and hurt anybody.
(interview): Howard Schultz, Starbucks CEO: For us to have to close our stores during the peak season -- the holiday Christmas season just beginning- really is an injustice.
(interview): Yolanda Sinde, Community Coalitions for Environmental Justice: Everyone- because of the property downtown, Christmas shopping- was up in arms, and to me that exemplifies that we’re fighting against capitalism, and they’ll go to any lengths to protect capitalism!
Late Tuesday, the mayor declared a state of civil emergency and called in the National Guard.
Part of the legal team people just came up to us over here and said that the curfew has actually been moved to 5:00, not 7:30. The cops were blocking us trying to move us out of the downtown area at 5pm shooting teargas.
A 25-block “no-protest zone” was created in which it was illegal to carry signs, wear buttons, or express an opinion about WTO.
(police officer): It’s just been a, a really unbelievable display of unruliness and, and, and a very difficult day for police. I think all officers are exercising remarkable restraint It was the actions of the protesters, the demonstrators, that led them to take the actions they did. There is not one corner of this downtown area that has not fallen victim to this destruction. Protestors vow to bring anarchy to downtown Seattle for another day but the National Guard will be…
(interview): Verlene Wilder, King County Labor Council: We understood why we were out there and we understood what was going on, so when you went home and you looked at TV, you know that what was being portrayed there was not what really happened if you were out there on the street.
Pam McCammon, Police spokesperson: We have not used tear gas and we will not be using tear gas. Labor leaders make the decision to steer their march out of downtown, trying to keep their parade nonviolent.
(interview): Yalonda Sinde: They characterized the labor march as the peaceful march and everybody else got lumped in with the violence or the other stuff they were so up in arms about. It’s an extremely tense situation in downtown Seattle. Violent protestors threatening demonstrators.
(interview): Yalonda Sinde: And the way they characterize youth really hurts. When they saw black youth in the streets during WTO they called them gang members! So I felt that they just played a role in just reinforcing all the isms that already exist.
(Media comments): Left over protestors were even fighting among themselves. No one here blames labor or environmentalists or even Seattle.
Protestors turn on one another
(interview): War Cry: Our coming together is where our power is, so it makes sense that they would focus on our differences and divisions.
The mayor urging protestors not to repeat this tomorrow, but no one quite sure what could happen with WTO and protestors still in town…
(voice over):While corporations build empires across borders, we are fenced in. We are taught to fear each other and isolation leaves us powerless. Corporate power can only build it’s global networks by dividing us. In the new global marketplace we are cut off from each other and from what we might ourselves become.
(voice over): We shut down the World Trade Organization!
(cheering): We are going to keep it shut down to the best of our abilities acting nonviolently and directly! We’re not going to be intimidated by rubber bullets, by wooden bullets, by tear gas, by Martial Law…..
Dec. 1
(interview): Rice Baker-Yeboah, Musician/Community Organizer: There was so much fear coming out of Tuesday, uh, I mean, we had been shot at, we had been gassed, people had been beaten and shot, and people didn’t expect that going into Tuesday. People had to recommit themselves and reaffirm their position
(interview): Hop Hopkins, Brown Collective: That night we ended up meeting up on the corner of Broadway and John, and decided about what we were going to do the next day. We’d meet up at 6:30 at Denny Park and then we’d try to take back the city. We started to weave our way through the road blocks that they had set up. I looked around and I could see that people were afraid and at that point I said that’s not fear in your gut or your throat - that’s really your first taste of freedom!
People were coming out of nowhere! It was like a scene from the Michael Jackson video, Thriller, people were coming out of manholes, people were coming out of cars - so we went from like 50 people to 100 people to like 150 people and then to like 300 - the number just kept growing, I don’t know where all these people came from and I think the cops were totally surprised by that.
We’re standing up for the environment, for community, for our kids future. We’re calling on everybody from Seattle - these are your streets, this is your town. If you care about your kids future, we want to join us today in the streets of Seattle.
(interview):Ron Judd: People had come off of Tuesday night and it was pretty rebellious and people were unclear about why the sudden, the very negative and aggressive response by police and that sort of thing. So like Wednesday was the defining day about how people were going to respond
We are ready. We are ready. Lets give the steelworks a good name this time around!
Wednesday morning while some protesters marched into the "no-protest zone", Steelworkers prepared for a sanctioned rally at the docks.
Our voices are going to be heard again and heard on the streets of Seattle today.
(chanting): Power to the people! Power to the people!
(live audio): As far as the AFL-CIO, the protesting has gone very well. The police cooperated with us, they informed us and gave us the opportunity to get our people out, and we got our people out and our signs out. The media was pretty fair at explaining that it was clearly not an AFL-CIO protest.
(chanting): People power – it’s stronger by the hour!
(interview): Bob Hasegawa: There’s fear by a lot of union officials about just the word direct action – it makes it sound too militant. Unfortunately, big labor these days has a big fat history of really writing itself right out of people’s movements.
(interview): Ron Judd: We had some unions that absolutely wanted to be in the street and wanted to be as, as aggressive as anybody, and then we had others that thought it was absolutely ridiculous that we were out there!
(interview): Jeff Engels, ILWU/IBU: There was an intentional focus to split the coalition. It wasn’t just labor doing it on itself. It was police pressure, the news media -- everyone wanted to do that.
Power, power to the people! (repeat) All right! You’re beautiful!
Downtown police chased protesters into Westlake Center.
If we could just focus for one moment. We have the right to assemble, gather peacefully on our streets, in our city, on our planet. We are encouraging people to remain clam, this would be a good time to put on masks and goggles.
The whole world is watching (repeat)
(sign): Strike Fast, Kick Ass I am not struggling. I am peaceful. Remove your knee from my neck!The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching! (repeat)
(live audio): Police were stopping buses and going on and searching, identifying people they thought were demonstrators and pulling them off. They were searching people on the way downtown, and if they found anything that they thought might be a demonstrator- leaflets- which is supposed to be freedom of speech in this country… people were arrested. When we were trying to walk downtown, they stopped us and arrested 30 people in the street. They followed us around Seattle. Now they have corralled us into this square and this is actually supposed to be one of the designated demonstration areas for the whole WTO thing… we are supposed to have that right--it’s guaranteed in the constitution. Again, the mayor does not have the right to supercede the constitution, but that’s been done here today.
(interview): Hop Hopkins: I think at that point all the national media and the international media were probably showing things and the city just wanted to get rid of us. We were put on buses and taken to the Sandpoint naval base.
We can’t win this fight alone. If we’re gonna be successful in taking on the power brokers, the multinational corporations and all that money… the only way you can take on global capitalism is with a global movement of people.
(interview): Dr. Vandana Shiva: While there was this chorus that we are about the same issues, but we’re not about identical issues. The rubric is the same and the umbrella is the same, but within each of our movements we can shape and articulate our freedom while just being fully aware of other people.
(interview): Ron Judd: And we all have things in common, but that doesn’t mean we are always going to agree on everything. But we can’t let those little things we don’t agree on to get in way of the ultimate goal and the goal is to take back democracy on this planet…
(live audio): David Foster, United Steelworkers of America: I’d like to introduce to you David Taylor from Direct Action Network, the people who helped with us to shut down the WTO in the streets of Seattle:
(live audio): David Taylor, Direct Action Network: Well I’d like to say that - all of us from Direct Action Network, that are still out of jail, came down today to support you guys and show them what coalitions are: when labor and students and environmentalists and human rights activists stand together we can and did shutdown the WTO! We love you guys! We want to keep this coalition strong and we want to show the WTO that if we stand together in solidarity we cannot be stopped! Thank you!
(music): Anne Feeney: I know if you got a credit card you’re welcome as hell downtown, but if you want to bring your first amendment rights [to peacefully protest] with you you’re on your way to the pokey [jail]. I want to sing about a time honored American tradition - and that’s civil disobedience.
(Singing):
Now was it Cesar Chavez? Maybe it
was Dorothy Day, some will say Doctor King and Ghandi set them on
their way...
No matter who your mentors are it’s pretty plain to see -
if you’ve been to jail for justice your in good company!
Have you been to jail for justice? I want to shake your hand.
Oh, sitting in and laying down are ways to take a stand!
Have you sung a song for freedom or marched that picket line?
Have you been to jail for justice, have you been to jail for
justice?
Well, you’re a friend of mine.
You law abiding citizens, listen to my song.
Laws were made by people and people can be wrong!
Once unions were against the law, but slavery was fine.
Women were denied the vote and children worked the mines!
Yeah, the more you study history the less you can deny it,
a rotten laws stays on the books till folks with guts defy
it!
Have you been to jail for justice? I want to shake your hand.
Oh, sitting in and laying down are ways to take a stand!
Have you sung a song for freedom or marched that picket line?
Have you been to jail for justice, have you been to jail for
justice,
will you go to jail for justice? Then, your a friend of mine!
Thank you! Thank you!
[END OF PART ONE: 37.40]
Go on to Part II
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