The Battle of Seattle and Indymedia, Five Years On

The Battle of Seattle and Indymedia, Five Years On

In politics, five years is a long time. And on the internet, where self appointed gurus proclaim a new media "revolution" eveny few months, five years can feel like fifty.

Five years ago today, tens of thousands of anti-WTO activists across a broad spectrum of the American left jammed the streets of Seattle in protests that sent the trade organization running for cover [Pictures]. Five years ago also saw the birth of the Indymedia movement. [First Ever Post]

The following five years would see the energy of the "anti-globalization" movement (as it would wrongly be called) wax and wane. Hundreds of Independent Media Centers would join the global network, and a few would leave. Locally, activists would create an Indymedia U.S. Hardware, old and usually donated, would often fail. Government repression would become commonplace.

Santa Cruz IMC writes: "At the WTO protests in Seattle, we had a collective vision. We saw beyond the borders that divide us. We saw people come together across every kind of political and cultural difference and stand up in a way that we had not seen in this country for decades. We saw peaceful protests shut down one of the most powerful institutions in the world and we saw a system dazed and frightened by the sound of our voices."

NYC IMC Reporter John Tarleton's Seattle Reports

Santa Cruz IMC Audio Links:
A Look Back to the Historic Anti-WTO Protests of Five Years Ago
This is What Democracy Looks Like

"Five Years After" (Geov Parish)
Seattle Weekly Coverage: Lies and Omissions
"Hollow-Point Democracy: Five Years After the Battle, on Color and Seattle." (Anarchist People of Color)
"Five Years After the Battle For Seattle." (Chuck Munson)
"Battle of Seattle Architect Still Seeks to Uproot the System" (John Tarleton)