These police forces were mobilized against tens of thousands of people who came to Seattle to protest the meeting of the World Trade Organization. They attacked protesters with tear gas, pepper spray, batons, and rubber bullets. Armored personal carriers continue to patrol the streets and helicopters circle the skies. As of December 2, police have arrested several hundred people.

The police and the rulers in this city were caught off guard by the large-scale disruptive actions that began November 29 and grew significantly during the large union-organized protests the next day. Hundreds of demonstrators chained themselves near the venue of the planned WTO conference. These and similar actions tied up many police and effectively forced a one-day postponement of the opening of the ministerial summit. These protesters chanted nationalist slogans, while the repressive forces in state and city prepared to close down political space in the center of the city.

A smaller group of black-clad activists who identified themselves as anarchists smashed shop windows and doors in the central shopping area, providing police with the excuse to attack. A number of passersby were beaten up by the cops as well. Among those arrested were some who called out, "I love America," as they were driven away. Some of the protesters not involved in the violence yelled "Shame!" at those breaking windows. They themselves came under attack by the police.

Authorities organized buses to take those arrested to the former Sand Point naval station, which they are using as a temporary prison. Seattle police chief Norman Stamper declared it a crime to be in possession of a gas mask in the restricted zone. Even some areas outside the officially cordoned zone were affected.

The police actions have sparked outrage among the many who have come to Seattle to take part in the protests. United Steelworkers of America (USWA) president George Becker raised a cheer when he denounced the crackdown on December 1. Becker was speaking at a reactionary rally in which steel produced outside the United States was dumped into the harbor. The previous evening, at a fund-raiser for locked-out USWA members at Kaiser Aluminum, he had received a less enthusiastic response when he said that he had "mixed feelings" about the police violence.

At a Militant Labor Forum held November 30, Young Socialists leader Jason Alessio stated that the YS "is completely against the police attack on the protesters." Using an opportunity handed to them by some of the protesters, "The cops and city officials have imposed a curfew that is an attack on youth and workers' rights and will be used even more in the future to push back the fights of workers and farmers."  
 

Talks highlight capitalist rivalry

The protests outside the meeting of the World Trade Organization, originally slated for November 30 to December 3, have been matched by the conflicts among the participating governments.

More than 130 governments are represented at the talks. The imperialist powers—the governments of the United States, Canada, Japan, and the European Union (EU)—wield decisive weight in the negotiations. Divisions among these powers are a feature of the summit. The governments of EU member states and Japan are particularly resisting Washington's demand that they slash subsidies on agriculture. At a meeting in Tokyo a month ago, French and Japanese government ministers demanded "special treatment of the sector."

U.S. trade representative Charlene Barshefsky stated, "We want to open up agricultural markets globally.... The United States views agriculture as the most central element of the new Seattle round." Agricultural productivity in the United States, which is the largest exporter of agricultural products in the world, is much higher than in France, which is the number two exporter.

These powerful imperialist governments use such trade negotiations not only to register their positions in relation to each other, but to increase their opportunities to make superprofits off the labor of farmers and workers in the Third World. The semicolonial nations' much lower level of economic development, fostered by imperialist domination, puts them at a profound disadvantage in international trade relations. Patteson Oti, the minister of foreign affairs of the Solomon Islands, pointed to the phony "equality" that supposedly prevails in such talks. "It's like boxing," he said. "You can level the ring. But if you put Mike Tyson in as an opponent, you know what the outcome will be."  
 

Protests push economic nationalism

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets on November 30 for the main anti-WTO protest, organized by the AFL-CIO and various liberal and radical groups. The action included feeder marches of various union locals and student and environmental groups. The Seattle Times estimated a crowd of 35,000 at the height of the action. Over the week many smaller actions took place, including some involving farmers from a number of countries and religious groups.

Whether they called for its reform or abolition, these protests laid the blame for many evils on the WTO that are in fact the results of the lawful workings of capitalism and imperialist exploitation. Most of the protest organizers claim the WTO violates "national sovereignty," including of the mightiest and most brutal imperialist power, Washington.

Officials from various industrial unions have played a major part in organizing and leading the anti-WTO protests. They have helped to give the actions their sharply nationalist character. The officials call for protection of "American jobs." They center their campaign for jobs on opposing investment by U.S. companies overseas. They call for trade policies that penalize the products produced in capitalist factories by the toilers of the Third World.

At times they have cloaked these policies with rhetoric expressing horror at the low wages and bad working conditions endured by workers in Latin America or Asia.

USWA president Becker addressed a rally of USWA members at a benefit for the Kaiser workers, who have been resisting a lockout for over a year. At that event he said, "Who will stand up for workers around the world? You do! It sure as hell isn't their governments, it sure as hell isn't the WTO, it sure as hell isn't the corporate structure. You do! You're the only hope they've got!"

But in many of their speeches in Seattle, Becker and other union bureaucrats dropped this "white man's burden" phrase-mongering, and spoke in more straightforward nationalist terms. At the USWA-organized "Seattle Steel Party" protest—which claimed the mantle of the 1776 Boston Tea Party, a key event in the American revolution against the British crown—participants marched to the waterfront and heaved a series of steel I-beams into the Puget Sound to symbolize supposed "dumping" of "foreign steel" on the U.S. market. One of the beams was tagged with the slogan "American Steel = American Strength." Participants from environmental groups also threw hormone-treated beef from the pier as part of this action.

A banner carried by a Teamsters contingent in the AFL-CIO–organized march read, "Keep the borders closed to unsafe NAFTA trucks." Teamsters union publicity blames unsafe roads on vehicles "driven by low-wage, unlicensed Mexican drivers." But according to the U.S. Congress's reports, the 5,000 truck accident deaths that occur each year are due mostly to the fact that governmental regulatory agencies have too cozy a relationship with U.S. trucking companies.

Many taking part in the protests also expressed concerns about environmental damage. The demands raised by these activists have, like those focusing on child labor, sweatshops, and other abuses, pointed the finger of blame at governments of Third World countries.

Protesters who demand that Washington impose trade restrictions on countries in the Third World that allegedly violate labor and environmental standards play into the imperialists' hands. "How Clinton will use protests in talks," ran a headline in the November 29 Seattle Times. According to the article U.S. president Clinton says he wants "a common ground on which business and workers and environmentalists and farmers and government can stand together."

"Instead of ignoring the protesters outside," commented the reporter, "Clinton will try to use them as leverage in the talks going on inside the meeting halls."

Many of those who came to Seattle to protest in the last days of November did not share the strong nationalism of the protest leaders. Among the hundreds of steelworkers who were bused to the demonstrations were many who were looking for new supporters for the Kaiser Aluminum workers' struggle. A number of these labor militants stopped at tables organized by the Young Socialists and the Socialist Workers Party, and bought a Militant or a copy of Capitalism's World Disorder. Like these unionists, many students saw the actions as a way to protest against the injustices they see around them.  
 

Buchanan campaigns in Seattle

Other participants saw the nationalism of the protests much more clearly, and celebrated it. Patrick Buchanan, the rightist figure and contender for the Reform Party presidential nomination, arrived in Seattle November 29. He planned to appear on an anti-WTO platform with members of Congress and the European Parliament. Buchanan was the featured guest on a talk show hosted by Geraldo Rivera. They were joined by telephone by Teamsters union president James Hoffa.

"Pat Buchanan is the only candidate that is speaking out about the issues of world trade, of China and the fact that China is ... almost a rogue state that is threatening Taiwan, that is persecuting people in Tibet, that is persecuting Christians," said Hoffa.

The AFL-CIO officials are campaigning against Congressional approval of the U.S. China trade pact concluded on November 15. In the agreement, Beijing granted a number of concessions to the desire of U.S. capitalists to penetrate the Chinese economy more deeply. In exchange, the U.S. government has agreed to support Beijing's application for membership in the WTO. Through trade and investment, the rulers hope to undermine the gains of the Chinese revolution, now 50 years old. With that reactionary objective in mind, they mount campaigns targeting the abuses of human and labor rights by the Stalinist regime that rules China.

Buchanan paid tribute to the Teamsters leader on the Rivera show, saying, "Jim Hoffa's done a magnificent job as head of the Teamsters. He's waged the good fight against ... these Mexican trucks, which are overweight and unsafe with bad tires and brakes—to prevent them from coming into this country. They're rolling time bombs. He's protected the jobs of his ... union guys."

"Buchanan on same side as liberals," read a headline in the Seattle Times of Monday 29. "[His] arrival... today showcases the uneasy alliance of the political left and right in opposing the World Trade Organization," reported the article. "Members of the Reform, Libertarian and ultraconservative American Heritage parties will join environmentalists, labor unions, animal protectionists and anarchists in a march through Seattle tomorrow."

Militant reporters did not see any organized members of the Buchanan brigades. But Socialist Workers Party and Young Socialists members did bump into three individuals who said they support him. One brandished his own book, How to Buy American. Another said that "socialism is fine—with national borders."  
 

Campaigning for communism

A large team of Socialist Workers Party and Young Socialists members and supporters have had a busy week selling socialist literature to workers and young people in Seattle, including protesters. They have explained that the Buy American, America First, defend-our-sovereignty politics of the protest leaders form a bridge to the politics of the ultraright, who are beginning to assemble forces that will ultimately be used in violent combat against workers organizations.

The socialists explain that the labor movement needs to focus its fire on the policies of Washington, including when it assumes a "democratic" and "pro-labor" posture to score points against trade rivals and victims. They proposed demands like the cancellation of the Third World debt; jobs for all—for a shorter work week with no loss in pay; and defend affirmative action as a program for the labor movement to organize around. And they campaigned in solidarity with important struggles going on today, such as the union battles being waged by the Kaiser workers and Overnite truckers, and by the people of Puerto Rico against the use of the Vieques island as a live firing range.

The socialists have found that the atmosphere around the protests allows for many political discussions.

The sales team members are finding that Capitalism's World Disorder: Working-Class Politics at the Millennium and Making History: Interviews with Four Generals of Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces, the newest titles off the presses of Pathfinder, are essential to helping to address the key questions that the protests pose. These are not just the dead-end politics of nationalism, but the dead-end political methods of individual "radical action"—the type of anti-working-class methods that characterize anarchist groups.

In the process of disciplined, mass, revolutionary action, individuals step forward who take on leadership responsibility—often surprising themselves. The four Cuban generals whose personal and political histories are the subject of the interviews in Making History give a powerful example of the power of workers and peasants to transform society and to transform themselves in the process. Making History has been on sale for less than two weeks. Team members are finding it of immense value in learning about and discussing the role of workers and farmers in revolutionary change.  
 
 
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