SEATTLE, Nov 30th - Dec 4, 1999
I crawled up off of the floor of the IMC (the Independent Media Center) in Seattle, then a loose collaboration of video activists, print, micro-radio and webcasting folks who had assembled in Seattle to make sure that the event got the coverage it deserved. I emerged to a still dark city that was shiny with misty rain and tense from the anticipation and the plans. Our little collective, Whispered Media, had talked about coordinating carefully to maximize our coverage of this historic day. In the end, we hit the streets with our cameras and sort of followed our noses as best we could - no coordination at all, more of an intuitive following of events. A sort of 'scan the scene for what is not being documented by many of the other cameras out there,' kind of day.

I saw a 'lockdown' forming and hurried to tell the people there, 'My name is Jeff, I'm with Whispered Media ... I'd like to tape some of what is going on here, I won't get your faces, but I would like to get some shots of this set-up.'

'Whispered, who?' ... I got some skeptical looks ... then I said, 'We covered the pie people ... and Earth First! ... perhaps you've seen something of ours ...' Someone there had seen our work and nodded that it was cool to tape. So, I hung out with these folks as they formed their elaborate intersection blockade.

They started singing, 'Cascadia, Cascadia ...' as soon as their lockdown was in place. After interviewing some of those in the lockdown and taping their festive dances ... I spied a wall by the Seattle Hilton (a contested entrance way into the WTO's ill-fated meeting) and climbed up.

It was on this wall that I was able to see the blockades working. Delegates would approach and people would tighten up around that portion of the line. 'No one in, no one out ... that's what a line is all about.'

One delegate was particularly determined and pushed at the line. I was fortunate to tape the standoff between him and a red-bearded gentleman whose sign read, 'WTO Go To Hell!" This went on for some time. I checked my batteries and then I noticed the approaching 'peacekeeper' and what I call the turtle cops. 'Peacekeepers' are small amored vehicles that were used to patrol areas along the borders of the Gulf War. They were subsequently turned over to domestic police agencies for use in policing U.S. citizens.

I decided to forfeit my good view from atop the wall and join the unfolding scene in the streets. The crowd at this intersection had gotten very huge, very diverse, very creative, and rather vocal. Any time the mainstream press raised a camera, activists surrounded it quickly chanting real loud, 'Don't believe the hype!' ... 'The environment and jobs - that's what matters' ... and so forth. From among the activists and rebuffed delegates themselves, I was happy to experience the fruition of our collective efforts and visions. The many-faceted blockade was actually blocking delegates and we kept hearing that they were indeed unable to start their meeting. People were dancing and talking and having some success together. I remember a woman, who so much had the look of a late-20's non-violence action trainer, which she actually turned out to be. She stood up and the reports started going out - shouted from key locations amidst the blockade, 'Do not move in this direction' ... the crowd would sort of stop their own doings and repeat, 'Do not move in this direction' ... 'We are committed to non-violence' ... 'And we shut down the WTO today!' ... 'whoo ...wheee ...' And indeed we had. Day one was a victory for us!

It was humbling to take on the task of covering such a great event as the shutdown of the WTO meetings and to feel like you had done the subject any justice. With your manual focus, your microphone, your headphones and your hand-held camera - you did the best you could. Some were more focussed on witnessing what the police were doing for legal purposes. Some were gathering footage for their own projects. We in Whispered Media were trying to do both. So, I had a cheap camera (expecting trouble with the police,) a police scanner and lots of batteries in the zip-accessible pockets of my black rain jacket.

The hour of confrontation arrives ... 'This is the Seattle police department ... move peacefully and voluntarily 50 feet to the north or you will be subject to chemical weapons' ... HISSSSSSSSSSS ... gas clouds fill the streets and seemingly from within these phantasms of toxic pain, there emerged the club-wielding cops in light chemical suits and gas masks - wired-up super-cops in total protection gear. They were armed with a variety of 'non-lethal' weopons: chemical gasses from gun-launched canisters and hand-held spraying devices, guns that shot wood chips and rubber bullets and other such expensive trappings of modern crowd control. They approached me in a swift line shouting, 'Move On! ... Get Back!,' and swinging clubs (one of which hit my camera before I managed to pull out of the hardwood's path.)

'I am with the press. I will be exercising my right to observe peacefully observe from a distance ... I will not interfere.' To my amazement, sometimes this actually works - especially if you have a press badge. On this particular day however, my requests fell on deaf ears or were just lost in the hiss of gas, the shouts of cops and in the crackle of 'non-lethal' gun fire. The policeman (pictured top/right) hit a young man in his kidney as was trying to escape. I tried to help the young man get up, asking "Are you allright?" The policeman was unrelenting. He kept pushing at me and swinging his club around my dodging head and camera. Eventually I did slip through their line and followed them into the intersection - the contested corner that they were trying to open up in order to let the unelected despots of so-called 'free trade' through to their secretive meetings.

HISSSSSSSSSS ... 'This is the Seattle Police Department ... if you do not leave this intersection we will be forced to use chemical weapons." ... to which activist David Solnit replied through his bullhorn, 'Attention police ... do not use gas ... do not use weapons ... the people in the intersection cannot move ...' HISSSSSSSSS ... David was standing right in front of the 'peacekeeper.' It had advanced right up to the intersection like a menacing mini-tank approaching the locked-down activists and their many blockading supporters. The armored police vehicle was also flanked by lines of the padded-up turtle cops and one stood on its hood with a big gun of some sort. David spoke loud and clear, standing his ground right in front of them, 'Attention police ... the people in the intersection cannot move ... please, we ask you, put down your guns, put down your weapons ... stop backing up a bunch of millionaires ... the people in the intersection cannot move ...' They replied with a concert of hissing gas and gun blasts. Then, they started spraying pepper-spray from fire-extinguisher-type dispensers - directly into the faces of those seated before them. Many protesters were forced back, but the blockade somehow remained. Some sides of the blockaded corner were opened up by the police, but then were quickly retaken by determined activists. A portable sound system pumped out steady dance music and people were actually dancing amidst the grey gas as if nothing else was happening - ravers with red, tearing eyes, dancing against the police state.

My life went like this for the next three days and then was filled with other events. On day three, the WTO announced that the meetings had been cancelled. Delegates from 'third-world' nations started giving statements to the press. They were saying that the activists were right, that there was no transparrency in the WTO meetings and that their process for negotiating trade agreements was deeply flawed. I had been doing interviews and going to the jail where a massive jail solidarity protest was underway - night and day. The Seattle police had been joined by Sheriffs (some of whom were carrying weapons with live, lethal rounds: shotguns and semi-automatics with big clips,) by the National Guard (wearing full camoflage and armed with M-16's) and by President Clinton's secretive police forces. Most of downtown Seattle was then being blockaded by the various police and federal agencies - except for the malls and shopping strips which were 'open for business' ... as the obedient lapdogs of the press were happy to report over and over again as they ignored any details of what the WTO was actually trying to accomplish.

For us (Whispered Media) and the other video activist collectives (Big Noise, Changing America, Headwaters Action Video Collective and Paper Tiger TV to name a few) - our nights were filled with editing and technical problems. Our days were a surreal stream of police actions, interviews and the exciting victories of the activists. We were charged with getting our new segments together (one per night) for the next day's satellite broadcast. It is hard to imagine that we pulled it off ... for five days in a row, a one-hour broadcast - Showdown in Seattle: Five Days That Shook the WTO. This was all later collected together as a home video tape, served up on the web and re-edited in several individual projects.

In many ways, Seattle became exactly what I had hoped for ... success, beautiful imagery, people united in struggle. In some ways, I feel like I am still recovering. Anybody who was out there will tell you that they probably saw more than they had hoped to.

Many thanks to all who made the effort to take it to the streets, to confront the WTO and to hang in there as Seattle was turned into an urban battle zone. And, thank you to all the video activists and story tellers who have come before us and given us something to work from.