John Marks

John Marks described himself in the summer of 2000 as "an 82-year-old, retired psychologist. Since my wife died a couple of years ago I have found political activism a vivifying pursuit." His account of the protests is below.

Dear Friends,

I'm just now back from Seattle and some of the counter-WTO events and protests accompanying their big meeting in the last few days. Since you have probably heard and seen some of the sensational media coverage I'd like to tell you what it was like at ground level. I was there only two and a half days but I think I saw and heard enough to have some feeling for what was going on.

The reason I went in the first place was simple. I had become convinced that there are powerful forces dividing up the world to international wealth in the name of a blind faith in neoliberalism, the belief that if the governments would just get out of the way international investment and international trade would increase worldwide prosperity, wealth, and a wide assortment of other neat things. The fact that these trade policies have increased the gap between rich and poor within countries worldwide and the evidence they have increased the gap between the rich countries of the First World and the poor countries of the Third, seem in no way to have affected these true believers. They assembled blithely in Seattle to propose just more of the same. So a loud peal from the alarm clock seemed indicated.

Some of my friends went up to Seattle before last weekend to take part in a lot of the teach-ins, seminars and other whizbang intellectual events, but, I wanted to stay here for a breakfast appearance of William Daley (son of my old hero, Boss Daley of Chicago) the Secretary of Commerce, before he went on his way to open things in Seattle. Daley put out the Clinton Administration line that we had to listen to these folks who were about to protest in Seattle but the listening seemed to be only so we could then convince them that dropping trade and investment barriers was going to create a lot of better jobs than the ones that were being exported. When I asked him how we could get those concerned with working people and the environment at the bargaining table he countered that this would produce a situation where recalcitrant governments could hide behind environmental excuses. He didn't mention it but one example is US negotiators' impatience at having to deal with the entirely understandable Europeans' reluctance to accept our hormone-enhanced beef which might interfere with their sex lives and their reluctance to accept genetically modified seeds that would keep them ever dependent upon Monsanto for pest control and for further seedings.

Anyway I headed out after the breakfast, registered in with my old friends I was staying with on Bainbridge Island and took the ferry over to Seattle on Monday afternoon. I managed to take in a few seminars, one quite good on how international investment rules impacted the environment, and one so-so on health care “liberalization”, before going down in the rain to the First United Methodist Church where seminars and pep rallies were going on inside while outside drums were beating, slogans were being shouted and girls in bikinis were dancing in the cool rain. After watching all this outside for a while and getting wet, I managed to slither inside and met some of my Portland people.

After what seemed like interminable greetings from all faiths and from all over the world we finally got underway in the march which was headed for the Exhibition Hall behind the Kingdome. We were to encircle it in a candlelight ceremony of support for Jubilee 2000, the Leviticus-inspired campaign to cancel the burden of Third World debt. The march was pleasant, full of songs, drumbeats, and shouted slogans. I marched with Thomas, a young fellow who had become convinced that he was Buddhist in a Thailand monastery and another young fellow who came from a Mennonite background. We discussed spiritual matters most of the way.

As we neared the end of our march we learned that the police had blocked us off, since apparently Al Gore was arriving with blue lights flashing at the Exhibition Center, and so we consoled ourselves by linking arms and halfway surrounding the Kingdome as we sang We Shall Overcome. In a few moments I was on my way down to the ferry dock and back to Bainbridge Island where a supper had been kept warm for me.

Tuesday morning Lucille, my hostess, decided she wanted to take part in the big march sponsored by Labor and so we arrived at the packed Stadium at Seattle Center a little after eleven. We sat alongside a young woman who had been a marine engineer and an operating engineer for a number of years after graduating in Botany from Pacific Union College but now had been studying theology at an Eastern Orthodox seminary in NYC before deciding to come back to Seattle to take part in this movement that united so many of her interests and commitments.

The program was way down at the stadium end but it was amplified and projected for us upon two immense TV screens. Greetings from Labor people all over the country and the world, inspiring shouts, applause and chanted slogans. Finally, as the program continued, the march contingents were forming on the floor of the stadium and we went down when we saw a banner carried by the Portland Jobs with Justice people. Lucille and I joined Margaret and Brad and another young woman whom I knew from home holding on to the street-wide banner. Brad had situated us between the purple people, the Service Employees International Union in their purple jackets and the Farm Workers Union who were complete with pheasant feathered Aztec dancers and a group swinging censers of incense, really a great place to be.

The march was slow since the dancers had to stop and dance every once in a while but there were drums, flutes, songs and slogans. It seemed as though half the time we were dancing rather than marching, all very good-natured and friendly. When finally we arrived downtown at Fourth and Pine there were crowds all around. The parade marshals were directing us left on Pine but we knew there were some who were continuing on Fourth because they wanted to make a symbolic sit-down protest in the street in front of the big old Westin down at University. At this point our Jobs with Justice group decided to fold the banner and split up since the young people wanted to continue south on Fourth while Lucille and I were going on with the Labor parade.

Progress was slow as we headed East with the main parade and presently there was a girl at the side of the route, almost weeping as she implored us to come south to help the protesters who were “being attacked.” “We need you,” she kept saying.

So Lucille and I turned off the main route and started south to see what was happening. We went by some people who were performing hip hop from atop a trash bin turned on its side. Presently we met our Jobs with Justice companions who were coming back. They said the police had stopped the people going down that way and that they had seen some people starting to vandalize. We decided to keep on going because we were looking for some place to eat and besides we wanted to see what was going on. Presently on Fourth we saw clouds of white smoke coming up ahead of us and people running back clutching handkerchiefs to their faces. At Fourth and Pike we stopped where we could see the police lines down the street. People were shouting and there was a great deal of running about. We stood against the building where we could see but not be run over. I still couldn't smell tear gas and in fact never smelled it during all the time when we could see it rolling toward us down the street.

As the police and the gas kept moving in people were getting angry. There was profane shouting. We saw a young fellow pick up a two by four and head toward a window. “No, no,” we shouted and another young fellow led him away. Then besides the gas there were loud explosions; they sounded as though they might be firecrackers. Then we saw some things flying through the air and flashing as they exploded. Stun grenades I guess. It seemed like time to get out of there. As we left we saw a gas canister flying through the air and some one at the intersection picked it up and threw it back with a shout. We walked away. Some people who were watching saw us. “I can't believe how calm you are,” they said.

We stopped at a place down by Pike Place Market that Lucille knew, Wild Ginger, and Lucille had tea while I had bourbon and both of us munched on satays and rice. As we left one of the waiters came and thanked us for demonstrating. On the ferry back people Lucille knew discussed events with us. They were curious and open-minded. On the ferry we heard that a curfew had been called in Seattle downtown and people boarding the ferry in Bainbridge were told they might face arrest as they left the ferry.

By the time we got back home the media had started with the official version of events. They estimated millions of dollars of damage downtown, a clear exaggeration so far as I could see. They talked of masked Anarchists from Eugene. I had seen one or two individuals in balaclavas looking like Zapatistas but certainly no groups of them organized or disorganized (what do organized Anarchists look like?). I kept wondering why the police could not have surrounded the groups sitting in the streets and waited for them to move on after they had finished their protest. I suspect that the riot police were heavily armed and those arms itched to be used. The sensational and alarming media accounts impelled my son Chris and his wife Amy to call my hosts Jim and Lucille to ask if I was safe. They could assure him that all had gone well and rather more calmly than in the news reports and that I seemed to be asleep in my bed.

The next day there were police and embarrassed-looking National Guardsmen at intersections downtown. They courteously let me through to Plymouth Congregational where I was going to seminars and gave me helpful instructions later when I was looking for a place to eat lunch - after I found that the scheduled noon outdoor concert by the Raging Grannies had to be cancelled (Rain? Police?). Later I found that the police had been going after protesters well out of the downtown area, up in a residential area on Capitol Hill. I'm told that people up there had sent up the shout “We live here.” Police also broke up another totally unrelated Capitol Hill demonstration that called for freedom for Mumia Abu Jamal. Going home on the ferry that night I heard one woman recounting how she had been pepper sprayed coming out of her office building. Her eyes and skin still hurt. Another woman told about how indignant a Nicaraguan delegation was at being delayed in leaving their hotel. “If this is how the US treats us I don't think I want to listen to what they have to say about the environment,” one of them said. This comment reminded me that the WTO is not nations talking to nations but elites talking to elites

There were many informative seminars in the Protest and many interesting people. Although the slogans frequently were about nixing the WTO, many of the discussants were obviously internationalist. The attempt to paint the protesters as isolationists and Luddites is just as mistaken as attempts to paint them as anarchists. Many want to preserve local autonomy and local cultures. This was part of the burden of the discussions I heard about services and “intellectual property”. The question is not whether we shall have international trade or not but rather whether only traders should dictate the terms. Ralph Nader gave a mellow and thoughtful talk praising local autonomy - among other things - and the French for their irrepressible Gallicism.

This is already too long but I wanted to give you some idea of the feel of Seattle. I finish this two days after I started it and already the news media have corrected some of the misapprehensions about the events.

But, best of all, the meeting ended without new agreements. The WTO's imperial progress has been checked. I think the protests helped in that. The way is clear now for some thoughtful assessment of what is happening in world trade. I think we protesters have set the agenda for factors that demand consideration

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