COLLATERAL DAMAGE IN SEATTLE
by Portland student/reporter Jim Desyllas
Called-in from a pay phone outside Seattle. Wed., 7:30 pm Pacific
time.
(Posted at www.emperors-clothes.com 12-2-99. Feel free to distribute
in full including this note.)
I just spent 4 days in Seattle. The "information" people are getting
from the mass media is false. This was not, as Pres. Clinton claims, a
peaceful protest marred by the actions of violent protesters. This was
a massive, strong but peaceful demonstration which was attacked
repeatedly by the police with the express purpose of provoking a
violent response to provide photo opportunities for the Western media.
I know because I watched it happening. I'll tell you how they did it.
As Michel Chossudovsky says in his "Disarming the New World Order"
(See Note # 1 at end for link to that article) - the government put a
lot of effort into making sure the protesters in Seattle were a "loyal
opposition" who wanted to reform the WTO, not get rid of it. But the
people in Seattle - American steel workers, Canadian postal workers,
college kids from all over, environmentalists from Australia - you
name it - were not for reforming the WTO. They were for getting rid of
it.
And this wasn't just true of the protesters. I interviewed delegates.
None of them had anything favorable to say about the WTO. Two
delegates from the Caribbean were angry about job loss. One delegate
from Peru took a bullhorn and got up on a car and spoke to the
protestors against the World Trade Organization. He said it hurts the
workers and farmers. I interviewed a Norwegian guy from Greenpeace.
Totally against it. Even a delegate from Holland said it had hurt the
farmers there. He said though it is supposedly democratic, that's
actually a lie: the US, England and Canada and a few others get
together and decide what they want to do. Then they ask the rest of
the countries to vote and if they vote wrong they threaten,"You won't
get loans," or whatever. They get them to do what they want by
blackmailing them. The Italians we interviewed were upset too. I
couldn't find any delegates who were in favor.
So the government instigated a "riot" to discredit the movement
against the WTO because they couldn't dilute it. I am not guessing
about this. I was there. I saw it happening. And I will tell you I am
frankly shocked to see, close up, just how little our leaders care
what happens to ordinary people. Clinton can pose and speak a lot of
flowery stuff but the truth is - we are nothing to them. I saw this
with my own eyes.
Sunday and Monday, there was no violence. None. The people were
aggressively non-violent; they were self-policing. Up until Tuesday at
4pm there was one window broken in the whole city - a McDonalds
window. This compares favorably to the typical rock concert, let alone
a demonstration of people who were non-violently barring entry to the
World Trade Center!
At this point, a new group of police - tactical police - moved in and
started gassing people and shooting rubber bullets. Is it any surprise
that people got mad? Of course, the young kids hit back by breaking
some windows in retaliation for being gassed, sprayed with very
painful pepper gas, and shot with dangerous "rubber" bullets. The
police instigated these kids, plain and simple.
Sunday and Monday they had young cops, using them to block the
streets. These were trainees. But Tuesday they had the real cops; none
of them were young. They were trained to attack people. A small group,
maybe 100 people total, struck back. Then these cops herded that group
around the city, making sure there were plenty of photo ops of
"violent protesters."
A number of times they had these 100 or so protesters caught between
buildings and walls of police. They could easily have arrested and
detained this small number of people and gotten it over with. Instead
they would gas them and let them go. Then trap them again, gas them
again, and again let them go. The cops made no arrests that I know of
until late Tuesday night though the skirmishing was going on from
three till 9:30. The cops would blockade three or five blocks of an
area, give the angry kids room to operate, keep gassing them - when
you gas a person, let me tell you, it gets them fighting mad.
Tuesday night the police gassed all of downtown. This was going on
from 3 PM, till 6 PM.. Gas everywhere. The kids broke a few windows -
McD's, Starbucks - small stuff - burned a few garbage cans. The police
were using these people as extras. It was staged. I believe also the
police had their own people in there, encouraging people to break
stuff - if people think I may be exaggerating, I saw supposed
protesters - they were screaming and so on - and then later, when
everything was over, the same people tackled other protestors and put
handcuffs on them.
At 6pm they issued a State of Emergency. At that point they had pushed
the 100 people outside the city limits, so the police went outside the
limits too, and they started gassing that area too, gassing the
neighborhoods where the regular people live. I am not exaggerating.
The police were relentless.
This was in an area from the city limits for about 10 blocks to the
Seattle Central Community College. If you were alive, the police
gassed you. People coming back from work, kids, women, everyone.
People would go out of their houses to see what was happening because
these tear gas guns sound like a cannon - and they would get gassed. A
block away there was a Texaco gas station - they threw tear gas at gas
pumps, believe it or not - they were like vandals. They gassed a bus.
I saw it with my own eyes. A bus. The driver, the riders, the people
just abandoned it .
I was sitting in a little coffee shop called Rauhaus, [the spelling
may be wrong.] They were shooting "rubber" bullets at the glass. I
picked up a dozen of the things in a few square feet. They were also
shooting this paint that you can only see with a florescent light.
They would paint anyone and everyone and then go hunting them.
Anyway, because they were gassing everybody, the local people got mad
too and they joined the 100 who had been herded out of the city. So
soon there were 500 including the neighborhood people and all very
angry. Naturally. Because they had been gassed and hit with pepper
spray, that stuff does a number on you. And shot with these damn
bullets. Then people set up barricades at Seattle Central Community
College. The cops organized themselves for about an hour and then
moved in and gassed that area.
Today they started mass arrests. That was because Clinton - the Greeks
call him the Planitarchis, Ruler of the World - was coming. Weeping
crocodile tears about how he just LOVES peaceful protest, which of
course you'd have to be two years old to believe he had nothing to do
with the police action. This whole thing, this police attack, this was
US foreign policy, not some action decided by some bureaucrat in
Seattle. This was the State Department. They wanted to discredit the
people.
When things started on Sunday, there was a protest rally of
solidarity involving people from different walks of life. Monday it
got even bigger. Tuesday there was a big sort of carnival where people
were doing different things, a band was playing music and people were
blocking the World Trade Center. And about 3 PM the cops started
throwing tear gas.
The thing that drove Clinton crazy was that on Tuesday the protesters
had succeeded in making nonviolent human chains and had therefore
stopped everyone from going into the World Trade Center. Only maybe 27
delegates got through, mostly US and British. There were what seemed
like tens of thousands of protesters involved. So the police did their
gassing number against these nonviolent people to break up the human
chains and make the protesters look violent.
Today (Wednesday) I followed the union protest put together by the
Longshoremen's Union. They went down to the docks and had a rally then
marched to Third Avenue. As soon as they got there the cops started
gassing them. There was an old lady there. She had gone downtown by
bus to buy something. This lady was in her 70's and I saw her trying
to run, but she couldn't breathe. She was in shock. I carried her to a
building entryway. She was gasping, terrified. She had been in
Germany, and it was like she was having flashbacks. The tear gas
sounds like gunfire and there were helicopters overhead, sirens, cops
on horses, everything.
They had clearly made a decision to destroy this movement.
So anyway there I was with her in this building and she wanted to go
to the hospital but there was tear gas everywhere and I was afraid if
I tried to move her she'd be gassed again. I went to this line of cops
and begged - I mean begged - these riot police to help her. They
ignored me. A girl told me later that a one year old had been gassed.
And I myself saw a girl no more than 18 - a cop had busted her lip
wide open - she was bleeding - and then they gassed everyone including
her. After that she was kneeling on the ground crying like a baby and
praying for 15 minutes, Hail Mary, Hail Mary. Over and over. She was
in a state of shock. They just gassed these people who were sitting
down non-violently and doing nothing. Nothing.
At one point the Seattle Mayor said his boys were not using rubber
bullets. Miraculously, by then I had ten in my pocket. I could open a
little market, sell the things. They are everywhere. I and other
people started giving them to delegates and stuff. "See what they're
doing? They're shooting "rubber" bullets and lying about it." We
showed them to the media. I guess enough people and the media got the
information because the Mayor made a new statement then that they were
using them. As if he hadn't known.
They shot rubber bullets from four feet away into the face of a guy
next to me, broke all his front teeth. When that happened I lost it. I
forgot I was supposed to be getting the news for all of you and I
started yelling at the cops, "What the hell is wrong with you? Are you
sick, man?" So this cop aimed his gun right at me. That was his
answer. So I first put my hands in front of my face because I didn't
want to lose my teeth. And then I thought, to hell with it. I was
wearing my target shirt that said "Collateral Damage", you know? With
a bullseye target, like they wore during the bombing in Yugoslavia.
And I told this guy, "Go ahead, shoot! Here! Here's the target!" He
didn't shoot me.
I want to emphasize, these protesters were NOT violent people. They
were the most non-violent people I have ever seen. Even when I was
screaming at the cop, this girl came up to me and said, "Do not
scream. This is non-violent." These people were too much to believe.
They must meditate all the time, Idon't know.
Clinton said he supports nonviolent protest. That is baloney. Today
(Wed.) the protesters were causing absolutely no "trouble". In
downtown the cops had people running who weren't even protesters -
like that old lady or just people going to work or shopping - everyone
was getting gassed. The busses weren't running because of the gas. I
was lucky to catch one with a driver who could still see. I begged him
to drive the old lady home - the driver changed his route especially
for her. If you want to find human decency, stay away from the
Planitarchis. Go to the to regular people. They have some. The
Planitarchis lost all his years ago. Now he wouldn't know human
decency if it came up and bit him.
So now I have made personal acquaintance with the people who run this
country, and they are quite simply scum. There were people at work,
people with babies, they were all getting gassed because the
government would not allow an assembly of people speaking their minds.
It is the same as what happened in Athens. Clinton's requirements on
the Greek government created the riot and he did the same thing here.
And then he says he supports nonviolent protest? How? By shooting
rubber bullets? And today they outlawed gas masks. They want to make
sure everyone gets his money's worth.
Today, just like yesterday night, the police were in the residential
neighborhoods. People in cafHs were getting gassed and shot at, you
could hear it on the windows, bang, bang, bang. A guy trying to cross
the street to go to his house got gassed. First a drunk guy outside a
bar yelled at the cops "Get out of here!" so they gassed him. And then
this other guys was just crossing the street to go home so the cops
figured, might as well gas him too. People got gassed for coming out
of restaruants and bars and coffeeeshops. I'm amazed that nobody died
who had asthma or something.
Or maybe somebody did die and they didn't talk about it. I mean after
all, it's just collateral damage..
--
Kort E Patterson http://www.hevanet.com/kort
by Portland student/reporter Jim Desyllas
Called-in from a pay phone outside Seattle. Wed., 7:30 pm Pacific
time.
(Posted at www.emperors-clothes.com 12-2-99. Feel free to distribute
in full including this note.)
I just spent 4 days in Seattle. The "information" people are getting
from the mass media is false. This was not, as Pres. Clinton claims, a
peaceful protest marred by the actions of violent protesters. This was
a massive, strong but peaceful demonstration which was attacked
repeatedly by the police with the express purpose of provoking a
violent response to provide photo opportunities for the Western media.
I know because I watched it happening. I'll tell you how they did it.
As Michel Chossudovsky says in his "Disarming the New World Order"
(See Note # 1 at end for link to that article) - the government put a
lot of effort into making sure the protesters in Seattle were a "loyal
opposition" who wanted to reform the WTO, not get rid of it. But the
people in Seattle - American steel workers, Canadian postal workers,
college kids from all over, environmentalists from Australia - you
name it - were not for reforming the WTO. They were for getting rid of
it.
And this wasn't just true of the protesters. I interviewed delegates.
None of them had anything favorable to say about the WTO. Two
delegates from the Caribbean were angry about job loss. One delegate
from Peru took a bullhorn and got up on a car and spoke to the
protestors against the World Trade Organization. He said it hurts the
workers and farmers. I interviewed a Norwegian guy from Greenpeace.
Totally against it. Even a delegate from Holland said it had hurt the
farmers there. He said though it is supposedly democratic, that's
actually a lie: the US, England and Canada and a few others get
together and decide what they want to do. Then they ask the rest of
the countries to vote and if they vote wrong they threaten,"You won't
get loans," or whatever. They get them to do what they want by
blackmailing them. The Italians we interviewed were upset too. I
couldn't find any delegates who were in favor.
So the government instigated a "riot" to discredit the movement
against the WTO because they couldn't dilute it. I am not guessing
about this. I was there. I saw it happening. And I will tell you I am
frankly shocked to see, close up, just how little our leaders care
what happens to ordinary people. Clinton can pose and speak a lot of
flowery stuff but the truth is - we are nothing to them. I saw this
with my own eyes.
Sunday and Monday, there was no violence. None. The people were
aggressively non-violent; they were self-policing. Up until Tuesday at
4pm there was one window broken in the whole city - a McDonalds
window. This compares favorably to the typical rock concert, let alone
a demonstration of people who were non-violently barring entry to the
World Trade Center!
At this point, a new group of police - tactical police - moved in and
started gassing people and shooting rubber bullets. Is it any surprise
that people got mad? Of course, the young kids hit back by breaking
some windows in retaliation for being gassed, sprayed with very
painful pepper gas, and shot with dangerous "rubber" bullets. The
police instigated these kids, plain and simple.
Sunday and Monday they had young cops, using them to block the
streets. These were trainees. But Tuesday they had the real cops; none
of them were young. They were trained to attack people. A small group,
maybe 100 people total, struck back. Then these cops herded that group
around the city, making sure there were plenty of photo ops of
"violent protesters."
A number of times they had these 100 or so protesters caught between
buildings and walls of police. They could easily have arrested and
detained this small number of people and gotten it over with. Instead
they would gas them and let them go. Then trap them again, gas them
again, and again let them go. The cops made no arrests that I know of
until late Tuesday night though the skirmishing was going on from
three till 9:30. The cops would blockade three or five blocks of an
area, give the angry kids room to operate, keep gassing them - when
you gas a person, let me tell you, it gets them fighting mad.
Tuesday night the police gassed all of downtown. This was going on
from 3 PM, till 6 PM.. Gas everywhere. The kids broke a few windows -
McD's, Starbucks - small stuff - burned a few garbage cans. The police
were using these people as extras. It was staged. I believe also the
police had their own people in there, encouraging people to break
stuff - if people think I may be exaggerating, I saw supposed
protesters - they were screaming and so on - and then later, when
everything was over, the same people tackled other protestors and put
handcuffs on them.
At 6pm they issued a State of Emergency. At that point they had pushed
the 100 people outside the city limits, so the police went outside the
limits too, and they started gassing that area too, gassing the
neighborhoods where the regular people live. I am not exaggerating.
The police were relentless.
This was in an area from the city limits for about 10 blocks to the
Seattle Central Community College. If you were alive, the police
gassed you. People coming back from work, kids, women, everyone.
People would go out of their houses to see what was happening because
these tear gas guns sound like a cannon - and they would get gassed. A
block away there was a Texaco gas station - they threw tear gas at gas
pumps, believe it or not - they were like vandals. They gassed a bus.
I saw it with my own eyes. A bus. The driver, the riders, the people
just abandoned it .
I was sitting in a little coffee shop called Rauhaus, [the spelling
may be wrong.] They were shooting "rubber" bullets at the glass. I
picked up a dozen of the things in a few square feet. They were also
shooting this paint that you can only see with a florescent light.
They would paint anyone and everyone and then go hunting them.
Anyway, because they were gassing everybody, the local people got mad
too and they joined the 100 who had been herded out of the city. So
soon there were 500 including the neighborhood people and all very
angry. Naturally. Because they had been gassed and hit with pepper
spray, that stuff does a number on you. And shot with these damn
bullets. Then people set up barricades at Seattle Central Community
College. The cops organized themselves for about an hour and then
moved in and gassed that area.
Today they started mass arrests. That was because Clinton - the Greeks
call him the Planitarchis, Ruler of the World - was coming. Weeping
crocodile tears about how he just LOVES peaceful protest, which of
course you'd have to be two years old to believe he had nothing to do
with the police action. This whole thing, this police attack, this was
US foreign policy, not some action decided by some bureaucrat in
Seattle. This was the State Department. They wanted to discredit the
people.
When things started on Sunday, there was a protest rally of
solidarity involving people from different walks of life. Monday it
got even bigger. Tuesday there was a big sort of carnival where people
were doing different things, a band was playing music and people were
blocking the World Trade Center. And about 3 PM the cops started
throwing tear gas.
The thing that drove Clinton crazy was that on Tuesday the protesters
had succeeded in making nonviolent human chains and had therefore
stopped everyone from going into the World Trade Center. Only maybe 27
delegates got through, mostly US and British. There were what seemed
like tens of thousands of protesters involved. So the police did their
gassing number against these nonviolent people to break up the human
chains and make the protesters look violent.
Today (Wednesday) I followed the union protest put together by the
Longshoremen's Union. They went down to the docks and had a rally then
marched to Third Avenue. As soon as they got there the cops started
gassing them. There was an old lady there. She had gone downtown by
bus to buy something. This lady was in her 70's and I saw her trying
to run, but she couldn't breathe. She was in shock. I carried her to a
building entryway. She was gasping, terrified. She had been in
Germany, and it was like she was having flashbacks. The tear gas
sounds like gunfire and there were helicopters overhead, sirens, cops
on horses, everything.
They had clearly made a decision to destroy this movement.
So anyway there I was with her in this building and she wanted to go
to the hospital but there was tear gas everywhere and I was afraid if
I tried to move her she'd be gassed again. I went to this line of cops
and begged - I mean begged - these riot police to help her. They
ignored me. A girl told me later that a one year old had been gassed.
And I myself saw a girl no more than 18 - a cop had busted her lip
wide open - she was bleeding - and then they gassed everyone including
her. After that she was kneeling on the ground crying like a baby and
praying for 15 minutes, Hail Mary, Hail Mary. Over and over. She was
in a state of shock. They just gassed these people who were sitting
down non-violently and doing nothing. Nothing.
At one point the Seattle Mayor said his boys were not using rubber
bullets. Miraculously, by then I had ten in my pocket. I could open a
little market, sell the things. They are everywhere. I and other
people started giving them to delegates and stuff. "See what they're
doing? They're shooting "rubber" bullets and lying about it." We
showed them to the media. I guess enough people and the media got the
information because the Mayor made a new statement then that they were
using them. As if he hadn't known.
They shot rubber bullets from four feet away into the face of a guy
next to me, broke all his front teeth. When that happened I lost it. I
forgot I was supposed to be getting the news for all of you and I
started yelling at the cops, "What the hell is wrong with you? Are you
sick, man?" So this cop aimed his gun right at me. That was his
answer. So I first put my hands in front of my face because I didn't
want to lose my teeth. And then I thought, to hell with it. I was
wearing my target shirt that said "Collateral Damage", you know? With
a bullseye target, like they wore during the bombing in Yugoslavia.
And I told this guy, "Go ahead, shoot! Here! Here's the target!" He
didn't shoot me.
I want to emphasize, these protesters were NOT violent people. They
were the most non-violent people I have ever seen. Even when I was
screaming at the cop, this girl came up to me and said, "Do not
scream. This is non-violent." These people were too much to believe.
They must meditate all the time, Idon't know.
Clinton said he supports nonviolent protest. That is baloney. Today
(Wed.) the protesters were causing absolutely no "trouble". In
downtown the cops had people running who weren't even protesters -
like that old lady or just people going to work or shopping - everyone
was getting gassed. The busses weren't running because of the gas. I
was lucky to catch one with a driver who could still see. I begged him
to drive the old lady home - the driver changed his route especially
for her. If you want to find human decency, stay away from the
Planitarchis. Go to the to regular people. They have some. The
Planitarchis lost all his years ago. Now he wouldn't know human
decency if it came up and bit him.
So now I have made personal acquaintance with the people who run this
country, and they are quite simply scum. There were people at work,
people with babies, they were all getting gassed because the
government would not allow an assembly of people speaking their minds.
It is the same as what happened in Athens. Clinton's requirements on
the Greek government created the riot and he did the same thing here.
And then he says he supports nonviolent protest? How? By shooting
rubber bullets? And today they outlawed gas masks. They want to make
sure everyone gets his money's worth.
Today, just like yesterday night, the police were in the residential
neighborhoods. People in cafHs were getting gassed and shot at, you
could hear it on the windows, bang, bang, bang. A guy trying to cross
the street to go to his house got gassed. First a drunk guy outside a
bar yelled at the cops "Get out of here!" so they gassed him. And then
this other guys was just crossing the street to go home so the cops
figured, might as well gas him too. People got gassed for coming out
of restaruants and bars and coffeeeshops. I'm amazed that nobody died
who had asthma or something.
Or maybe somebody did die and they didn't talk about it. I mean after
all, it's just collateral damage..
--
Kort E Patterson http://www.hevanet.com/kort