Because You Never Asked

THE SEATTLE RIOTS OF '99

            I quote from the essay "The Revolution and Capitalism": "The next revolution will not be class warfare, but rather, an uprising against the Tyranny of Business".
            I seem to remember saying somewhere in this mass of dubious philosophical patter that one of the great joys of a chicken soup philosopher is the moment when he or she can say, "I told you so". With regard to this chicken soup philosopher, I can't claim the Seattle Riots of '99 have given me the right to say just that, but there does seem to be some relevance here.
            Undoubtedly, the most surprising aspect of the Seattle Riots was that they ever happened to begin with. As long as I'm quoting from previous essays, allow me this one from "Unemployment". " . the broad picture can only be seen with pessimism. The Thatcher-Clinton-free-market-cowboy-adventurers are currently a gang of headless chickens running loose in the world without any obvious predators to keep them in check. There is very little to stop them from infesting our minds with their Fox Networks, their CNN's, and their horrifying World Wrestling Federation bluster."

            At a time in history where The Wall has come down and the threat of an alternative economic system has been erased; at a time where the masses seem to have been completely pacified and turned into a docile herd of knee jerk consumer-sheep, contentedly forking over their hard earned cash for the chance to sprinkle themselves in Nike logos; at a time when the Thatcher-Clinton cowboys (which is just another way to say the World Trade Organization, or the International Monetary Fund) could only be riding a tidal wave of smug self confidence, the fact that such an unruly mob of tens of thousands actually existed, can be considered one of the most surprising sucker punches ever delivered. Even for one such as I, who is hyper-attentive to the ebbs and flows of contemporary life, such insurrection was as unexpected as a downpour in the desert. These were scenes that hearkened back to the glory days of the Civil Rights Movement and the mayhem caused by the American middle class's refusal to go to war in Vietnam. As I sat before my TV screen and took in the tear gas panorama of well equipped police wielding billy clubs and using the latest in Gucci police shield fashion to ward off the waves of John and Yoko-like freaks, I thought . my God, this country still has a pulse. The Nintendo-Nasdaq lobotomy has not been a universal success. There are still pockets of resistance.

           I thought, "unbelievable!"

            It is not surprising that the global economy pundits of our news industry did not look too favorably upon the Seattle Riots of '99. They have a big stake in all this WTO gobble-dee-gook, what with Nike-Toyota and such making all the stuff and paying them lots of money to push it for them on TV. Everybody's palm gets "greezed" . we can't have all these snot nosed mobsters making life miserable for the honorable, average citizens of Seattle, such a model, global economy city.
            Before getting into the appropriateness of the destruction that took place, it's important to note that the City of Seattle is not an innocent bystander here. The honchos in charge of the signature city of our great northwest did not gratuitously donate the use of their infrastructure to the Thatcher-Clinton cowboys. Like almost all politicians, they are Chamber of Commerce types above all else, and the "k'ching" of occupied hotel rooms, overflowing restaurants, and the delegates' wives and siliconed whores throwing plastic around all over town, was a soothing lullaby that put them to sleep. Couple this with the prestige and free advertising associated with hosting such a high rolling event, and the City of Seattle cannot be seen as being caught randomly in the crossfire. They signed on with the "cowboys" and were as surprised as the rest of us when the mob took over their streets. They bet on the wrong horse.
           Much of the previous paragraph was the result of something I heard from the conservative pundit, Bill O'Reilly, on his daily Fox News show. O'Reilly is a master at choosing less articulate ideological opponents to debate, but he has a kind of respectable panache that is more effective than the Rodman-like buffoonery of Rush Limbaugh. One night during the uprising, O'Reilly, while magnanimously recognizing the protesters' right to be heard, was upset by the fact that they were making life miserable for the average citizens of Seattle, who's daily lives were being upset by all this.
            Somebody ought to ask O'Reilly if the lives of any average citizens were disrupted by the more than a week of protests during the Tiannamen Square insurrection? Shame on all those Chinese hooligans!
            The "objective news swindlers", not just at Fox, but at all commercial media outlets everywhere, have their own interests to protect. For us Americans, who are incessantly fed the pabulum of our "free press", the realization that our news sources serve a purpose not much different than Pravda did in the Soviet Union, is a pill most of us are still not ready to swallow. Whereas the State was responsible for the news in Russia, in the western style "democracies" the State and the media disguise themselves as separate entities, but they work for the same interests. They are really just separate branches of the same enterprise. As a result, the police in Seattle were earnest professionals going about their business impeccably, while the insurrectionists were a bunch of lawless fanatics trampling the rights of everyone else. In Belgrade, the Milosevic police were a bunch of thugs, terrorizing the heroic demonstrators . etc., etc. "Good guys" and "bad guys" are easily manufactured, whether you be Milosevic or Murdoch, and the improvement of the human condition is generally not the focus of these promulgations.
            If we can somehow see through the tear gas and begin to realize that the governments of almost all nations, along with the representatives of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF, which is the tentacle of the octopus responsible for economic blackmail), and the mass media are all the same people, is there really any other mode of dissent than insurrection?
            Let's gnaw through the pulp and get to the seed of it all. This gets me back to my reference to the "Tyranny of Business", which opened this essay. The Seattle Riots of '99 could very well be seen as the first popular uprising against this dictatorship. Someday, if my generally pessimistic feelings for our future might be proven wrong, it might be looked upon as a modern day Boston Tea Party. It was an insurrection that has finally zeroed in on the new tyrant. Although everything is eventually tied together in the ecosystem of life, the Seattle Riots had less to do with such traditional catalysts as rich and poor, exploiters and exploited, and more to do with who decides what we should be. It had to do with who decides what we want, what we need, what we should aspire to, how we should relate to each other, and how to use the resources of this planet. It was not a Bastille-like uprising of the poor against the monopolization of wealth, but of people demanding an end to the cultural dictates of the Business Tyranny. It was an uprising against the never-ending assault of 10-10-321 commercials. It was an uprising against the hyper-commercialization that spawns the Springer-Hulk Hogan "dumbing down" of society. It was a fervent cry for something uplifting in a vast swamp of degradation. It was the coagulating realization that in order to get to our wallets, they must first get to our souls.
            It was an attempt to redeem our souls.
            Only time will tell if it is a dieing last gasp, or a rebirth of life.

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Email: JerryG@postcman.info