Twenty years ago a movement of movements came together in the streets of the largest city of the U.S. Pacific Northwest and defeated the WTO, the central state building project of global capitalism. The “Battle in Seattle” was an...
#82 - March 2020
The Meanings of Seattle
Introduction
I almost attended the WTO protests in Seattle. A few days before N30, I had been part of a Reclaim the Streets protest against the World Trade Organization (WTO) in New York’s Times...
“This is what democracy looks like!” - that was but one of the many chants heard among the 250,000 people on the streets of New York City for the recent September 20th 2019 Global Climate Strike – a protest chant that originated on...
This paper is a personal testimonial of the Battle of Seattle and the sense of political possibility it opened up. I was born and raised in Seattle, in pre-gentrification Ballard. This was before the walls of condos on the...
All historical knowledge can be represented in the image of balanced scales, one tray of which is weighted with...
Studies and Essays
Preface/Standpoint
The following account of the global justice movement is shaped by my social position, experiences, and analyses I’ve been able to develop through engagement with other participants, observers, and...
The global justice movement has been among the most important social movements of the neoliberal era. It represented a model and provided a training ground for future movements and challenged the hegemony of neoliberal...
“Occupy has entered our DNA. It is in our ways of relating, organizing, and being. And, just as during replication DNA unwinds so it can be copied, so too, Occupy has retained its essence while it has multiplied and changed form.”...
Interviews
Hillary: This special issue reflects on the significance of Seattle and how that catalytic moment and period during the alter-globalization mobilizing have informed the last two decades of struggle. You were in...
Ben Manski: Let us begin by talking about your political origins, your childhood, and young adulthood. What's your story? What brought you to the work you ended up doing in the 1990s?
Norm...
Suren Moodliar: I’d to reflect on your understanding of the meaning and import of Seattle both for that particular political moment and for our current one. In order to get there, can you tell us how you...
Ben Manski: You’ve been at the center of two movement building projects critical to the struggles of the 1990s-2010s – the renewal and reconstruction of labor, and the deepening and and then transitioning of the...
Hillary Lazar: This special issue intends to provide space for reflecting on where we are today, and where have we come in the last couple of decades since the heyday of global justice movement and what some of the...
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