With the World Trade Organization in retreat globally, do we remember the seeds of the anti-capitalist movements that blossomed and, on November 30, 1999, brought Seattle to a standstill? Released just in time for the 10th anniversary of the Seattle WTO protests, this collection confronts the challenges of historical memory, and suggests just how much we have to learn from (and about) the past decade of activism against globalization.
David Solnit recounts the story of his consultation with Battle In Seattle: The Movie and tells how a group of Seattle activists intervened in the Hollywood star-studded docudrama to challenge and change the story. He dispels damaging movement myths by highlighting the organizing, strategy, and dynamics that sparked the retreat of corporate globalization.
Rebecca Solnit tells of her battle with the New York Times, challenging their repeated misinformation about the Seattle protests—including her written exchanges with the editors—and reflects on how corporate media's twisting of history impacts our future.
Chris Dixon gives a view of Seattle "from the ground," offering an intimate look at N30 and the days surrounding it through the eyes of one of the event's core organizers.
Includes an introduction by veteran activist Anuradha Mittal, as well as the "Come to Seattle: Call to Action," and key articles by Stephanie Guilloud and Chris Borte, from the original Direct Action Network broadsheet that encouraged activists worldwide to join the fray. Profusely illustrated with photos and artwork from Seattle '99.
Anuradha Mittal is the founder and executive director of the Oakland Institute, a leading think-tank on global social, economic, and environmental rights issues, which works with a grassroots constituency to strengthen popular struggles nationally and internationally. A native of India, Anuradha is an expert on trade, development, human rights and agriculture issues. She is the author and editor of numerous publications, including her most recent book Voices From Africa: African Farmers & Environmentalists Speak Out Against a New Green Revolution in Africa (Oakland Institute, 2009).
David Solnit lived and organized in Seattle in 1999 with the Direct Action Network, which the Art and Revolution Collective he was part of co-initiated. He has been a mass direct action organizer since the early '80s, and in the '90s became a puppeteer and arts organizer. He is the editor of Globalize Liberation: How to Uproot the System and Build a Better World and co-author, with Aimee Allison, of Army of None: Strategies to Counter Military Recruitment, End War and Build a Better World. He currently works as a carpenter in Oakland, California and organizes with Courage to Resist, supporting GI resisters, and with the Mobilization for Climate Justice West.
Rebecca Solnit is an activist, historian and writer who lives in San Francisco. Her twelfth book, A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster, came out this fall. Her previous books include Storming the Gates of Paradise; A Field Guide to Getting Lost; Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities; Wanderlust: A History of Walking; As Eve Said to the Serpent: On Landscape, Gender and Art; and River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West (for which she received a Guggenheim, the National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism, and the Lannan Literary Award). A contributing editor to Harper's, she frequently writes for the political site Tomdispatch.com. She has worked on antinuclear, antiwar, environmental, indigenous land rights and human rights campaigns and movements over the years.
Chris Dixon, originally from Alaska, is a longtime anarchist organizer, writer, and educator, and a PhD candidate in the History of Consciousness program at the University of California at Santa Cruz. During the late 1990s, he was a student activist at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. In 1999, Dixon helped launch the Direct Action Network and was deeply involved in organizing for the protests against the Seattle WTO ministerial. He is currently completing a book based on interviews with radical organizers across the U.S. and Canada focusing on anti-authoritarian politics in broader-based movements. Dixon serves on the advisory board for the activist journal Upping the Anti and lives in Sudbury, Ontario, Atikameksheng Anishnawbek Territory, where he is involved with anti-war and Indigenous solidarity organizing.
Stephanie Guilloud was a key organizer of the Seattle WTO shutdown with the Direct Action Network. She edited an anthology of first-hand accounts called Voices from the WTO. Currently Stephanie is an organizer with Project South in Atlanta, and works closely with Southerners On New Ground (SONG). She worked on local, regional, and national planning committees to organize the 2007 United States Social Forum.
Chris Borte organized with the Direct Action Network and Portland Jobs With Justice. He mobilized Portland folks to the WTO protests and participated in the shutdown of the WTO with the Key Lime Cluster. He co-founded Portland Art and Revolution, and has been a tenant and community organizer. He still hates capitalism, loves democracy, and supports his partner Amy in her work as co-director of Rural Organizing Project doing rural, radical statewide organizing using a small group democracy model.