My name is Storm, i am 47 years old, and i identify as Revolutionary Ecologist, eco-anarchist, and a radikal scientist. I work principally under the auspices of Earth First! and Rising Tide North America. I was born white, male, rather hetero-oriented, working class amerikan...i would not consider myself "well-adjusted."

(This article was originally published in the December 1999 issue of UltraViolet, newsletter of LAGAI Queer Insurrection. More recent issues of UV are online at www.lagai.org.)

This article was originally published in the December 1999 issue of UltraViolet, the newsletter of LAGAI - Queer Insurrection (more recent issues are online at www.lagai.org).

Showdown in Seattle, the WTO, the Protest of the Century… Well, it’s been more than a month since the exciting events in Seattle. Many of us who wre there are still energized by it, but there’s no mistaking the sense that it’s all fading away. What seemed so remarkable and so unprecedented on November 30, the physical stopping of the WTO meeting by thousands of protesters clogging the streets of Seattle, has been reported, discussed, analyzed, argued, categorized, marginalized, and subjected to the self-serving spin of everyone from network pundits to leftist militants.

Between the protests of the WTO in Seattle (Winter 99) and the protests of the World Bank and IMF that following Spring - Whispered Media produced this short, informative, recruitment piece - SHUT EM DOWN! Enjoy

Shut Em Down - on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq9YFfLof4w

Remember the major news themes that began to emerge on around the third day of Seattle events? One was really great. It was focussed on the fact that third-world delegates were breaking ranks with the rest of the WTO and giving press conferences stating that the whole WTO was a sham ... that there was no democracy or transparency in the process. These delegates basically said that the protesters on the streets, and not the trade ministers inside, were right. ... we cheered before going off to do interviews or cover events outside the jail.

New Rage is Good Rage

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Rage Against the Machine

The Battle of Los Angeles
(1999)
Sony Records
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I was not in Seattle...

I was 15 and was not clued in to the Global Justice movement. I was active in some small animal rights groups in the punk rock scene in the suburbs of Baltimore.

It was November 29, 1999, and three friends and I were speeding up Interstate 5 on the way to Seattle for the big protest against the WTO. We had left San Francisco at dawn, hoping to make it before midnight. We had no idea what to expect, but we all had the feeling something big was about to happen, that we were somehow making history. We had not taken part in the previous weeks of direct-action training, but we were eager to join the fray. Shortly after passing through Eugene, I turned to my friend at the wheel, a longtime environmental activist, and asked him why he was going to Seattle.

Over the course of the year leading up to the Seattle WTO Protests in November/December 1999, I was involved in five different groups, each of which had its own founding principles, strategic guidelines and organizational narratives assisting the writing of their respective members into the common story of the unfolding events: mine were the Industrial Workers of the World, Direct Action Network, Workers and Students For a Walkout Network, Seattle Tenant's Union and Seattle Anarchist Response.