More Censored News Stories of Dissent and Activism
Vol 6 Issue 66

by Mark Taylor-Canfield

Hollywood Comes to Town For “The Battle In Seattle”

Although you wouldn’t know it if you read the Stranger or the Seattle Weekly, some major star power, including Academy Award winners, came to town on May 22 to premier a feature film version of the demonstrations in Seattle in 1999 that shut down the World Trade Organization. Woody Harrelson, Charlize Theron, Stuart Townsend, Michelle Rodriguez and Andre 3000 from the group Outkast are all involved in what amounts to a big budget independent film about the legendary protests that sent shock waves around the world.

The central issue throughout the film screening, including the Q & A periods and various press events, was: “Will Seattle accept a Hollywood version of itself, or will it demand a more truthful re-telling of the WTO protest story?”

The cast and director (Stuart Townsend) were obviously trying to be very sensitive about these important considerations. No one in Seattle wants to have the wool pulled over their eyes, so to speak, when it comes to a theatrical depiction of the events surrounding the turmoil of the 1999 WTO ministerial conference.

The cast of the movie knew they were in a sophisticated “anti-rock star” city that never fails to piss off film industry types. Stuart Townsend kept appealing to the audience to understand that this is a labor of love for the cast and crew. He claims that they were motivated by the spirit of resistance during the event and its significance to the history of the world. Most of the discussion throughout the night’s events concerned global politics, environmental destruction and international trade policy. It became immediately clear to everyone that the folks from Hollywood were not going to be given a free, easy ride in Seattle.

After I took off my press pass, they managed to help me acquire VIP status from the Seattle Independent Film Festival staff. Soon it was time to get down with the stars. Much of what I experienced that night will never be reported, but suffice it to say that Theron and crew make a wild party. There was the premier gala at Seattle Center and several other more private affairs that went on all night. 

I’ll never forget the way actress Michelle Rodriguez dealt with a slightly insulting question directed to Charlize Theron from an entertainment industry reporter.

He said, “Ms. Theron, most Oscar winning actresses go on to bigger and better things, but you have been in mostly small budget indy films that don’t make much money or get any publicity. What happened to you? Aren’t you afraid that you might be wasting your talents and our time?”

Rodriguez lost her temper and shouted at the reporter, “Hey, you little jerk, that’s totally rude. You better back off right now!”

At that point, the reporter cowered in his seat and said nothing. I think he realized that Michelle Rodriguez was prepared to kick his proverbial ass. Theron seemed unruffled by his remarks, but from that time on, I knew I was going to love hanging out with Michelle. Before the night was over, I’m sure she had threatened to beat up two or three more deserving men who were completely out of line because everyone got so drunk.

My sense is that this girl isn’t really used to being pampered. Why do I suspect this? 

Because she’s street tough. Her successful audition for the TV show “Lost” was a surprise to her and her family. She’s not the Sunset Strip glam queen type at all. She could knock Paris Hilton out cold with one hand tied behind her back. Michelle Rodriguez is beautiful, that is certainly true, but my advice to anyone who encounters her is: Whatever you do, keep on her good side. I heard one guy tried to grab her ass so she poured red wine all over him and then took a swing at his head with the bottle. That is just a rumor, you understand. It could have been another young actress named Michelle…

Charlize Theron, on the other hand, oozes star-like charisma. She is all grace and charm. Every head turns when she walks into the room and she definitely knows how to use it to her advantage. She likes being a famous actress, but unlike many of her colleagues in the biz, she comes from a tough background as well and she has seen much tragedy in her past.  Her past sexual ambiguity has been documented in the press. Theron was also a breakout star who really didn’t expect to win an Oscar for her completely atypical performance as a psychotic maniac. Her participation in this particular independent film project about the WTO demonstrations seems natural somehow, despite her high profile as an actress. Personally, she is known to be an experimentalist.

It seems that coming to Seattle - where folks are not impressed by name dropping or celebrity status – helped liberate the cast so they could relax, and forget about the glitz element for a while. What Andre 3000 and the others really wanted was to get away from their handlers. I did what I could to assist them in that stealthy endeavor.

Soon copious quantities of alcohol were flowing and people’s personalities were becoming lubricated with spirited intoxication. Other nice amenities were being offered to us by our gracious SIFF hosts, but the real action was happening back at the hotel room. Sorry, I promised several people I would not publish those details…

Even after getting their party on and loosening up a bit, the cast still kept trying to convince me of their sincerity in participating in the film project. And after a few more glasses of good scotch I began to believe them.

Don’t worry, dear readers, your intrepid reporter has not lost his edge. Even a big bag of haute couture swag couldn’t turn this former street organizer into a lap dog for the rich and famous. I didn’t want any autographs or photos – I wanted the scoop, pure and simple. So, we spent most of our time dissing the US film and music industries with Andre 3000. I gave him a copy of the Galaxy Machine CD and talked with him about our band. He had the DJ at the party play the first track, “Burning Throne,” and we all danced to it.

Since I actually have a tiny part in the film, you would think that I should lean towards a quiet bias in favor of Stuart Townsend’s vision of the events of 1999. In reality, however, I am just as critical of the film as anyone else. Unfortunately, my readers will not have the chance to see the movie until its official theatrical release in September. The rep for the film distributor told me they are not even making it available to reporters for press screenings. In fact, I suspect that there may be some changes to the final cut before it’s actually sent to the theaters. I hope they decide to keep my part in the film.

In September you can look forward to seeing cheesy film promo commercials on television telling you that it’s a “must see” according to some film critic you’ve never heard of before. There will be an all out attempt to draw major audiences in Seattle when the movie is finally released. The producers want it to be successful in the Seattle market for publicity reasons. However, if it’s not popular with the activist crowd, the film’s backers may have to face major protests against the movie. They are quite worried about bad publicity, I am told.

I have no idea why both of the two main weeklies in town decided to boycott coverage of the film premier or the parties. I know they paid reporters to attend the screening and the media events, so what’s the deal? It’s difficult for me to imagine that their editors were saying, “No, I think we’ll go with the cover story this week about the beautiful young woman who became famous by writing a book about her brother who murdered people,” or “You know, we should really cover that guy making the film in Nigeria. No one really cares what happens in Seattle, anyway.”

Perhaps the weekly writers were slighted in some way and were not allowed to attend the VIP festivities. In any case, they seem to have passed the film premier over as if it were nothing but a small-town grange hall dance – nothing really worth mentioning to their busy readers. Either that, or both rags have finally become completely irrelevant when it comes to covering local news and culture…

Granted, there are several issues that usually get left out during any discussion of the events of November 30 and early December 1999. First of all, there had been hundreds of thousands of inspired people demonstrating against corporate globalization before Seattle in places like India and Bolivia. What surprised the world was the fact that, for once, it was middle class white folks in the US getting beat up and gassed by the police.

Another issue that is never fully explained involves the so-called “no-protest zone” that was established by city officials, including Mayor Paul Schell. Despite dozens of major lawsuits brought against the city of Seattle, including class action suits representing hundreds of people, the designation by government authorities of a “no first amendment zone” has never really been challenged. No court or legal authority has ever ruled it illegal.

Also, the Seattle Police Department has continued to serve in a consulting capacity for police in major cities like New York and Miami before major protests. People’s rights were violated on a mass scale again during the Republican National Convention and the anti-FTAA protests. This has become known as the “Seattle model” of crowd control: establish a no-protest zone and then sweep folks up indiscriminately with mass arrests.

In addition, nothing was ever done to address witness testimony of the abuse of prisoners inside the King County Jail. After occupying the entrance to the jail for days, we listened to many disturbing stories told by activists who had been incarcerated in that facility. Although Amnesty International sent a team of human rights activists to brief the city council on abuses in the jails, no city politician ever lifted a finger, as far as I know, to address any of the complaints about human rights abuses in that facility.

This subject, along with the mass illegal arrests of protesters, should have been investigated by the United Nations or some other international body. Unfortunately, no one was ever held accountable for any of these violations of our basic civil and human rights. It’s a sad truth that government and law enforcement authorities were able to institute harsh forms of police state fascism without ever having to answer to anyone for their illegal actions.

Sure, millions were paid out in legal settlements to protesters who were abused, but neither the city nor the feds ever had to admit to any guilt due to the many non-disclosure statements, etc. that were signed as part of those settlements. I helped form a public interest group, the Committee For Government Accountability, which sat in on the city’s investigation into the 1999 WTO conference. We documented many instances of widespread violations of people’s civil rights by police during the protests. Our report was forwarded to the Center For Constitutional Rights at Rutgers University, but no actions to address our complaints were ever taken by any government official. No one was ever held accountable for these offenses.

I tried my best to get these facts out there for the film audience, other journalists and the actors to grapple with, but the pure spectacle of the film screening event was a bit daunting. SIFF staffers also did their best to bring a little bit of flash and glamour to our isolated town but most of us were too busy being typical Seattle grumpy social critics to care much about the glitz. The red carpets and limos were wasted on us because we were all trying to come up with uncomfortable questions with which to grill the cast. Unlike the Hollywood press, no one in Seattle was interested in trying to find out who had designed Ms. Theron’s dress. Instead, they wanted to know if she supports fair trade policies, and what her opinions are about the IMF and World Bank. This kind of thinking is just too deep for Hollywood, but Theron and company held their own in the Emerald City despite the best efforts of activists to throw them off balance.

The truth is, no one who was there on the streets in 1999 will ever be able to accept a fictionalized version of the events that took place during the World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference. Even with the best of intentions, and working with the most sincere and talented actors and writers, the reality of those fateful days will never be fully captured on film or in literature by folks who were not actually there. We all carry the memory of those times in our hearts and minds because they are seared into our consciousness in a way that can never be erased or replaced by glamorized Hollywood visions of our city and its history. Nothing brings people together like the smell of tear gas and the sting of rubber bullets. Solidarity was born of necessity. The film version will always pale by comparison.

This film was not created under the control of any major studio. It has been the personal project of Stuart Townsend and Charlize Theron.

Woody Harrelson loves Seattle, having appeared as a speaker at Hempfest several years ago. His participation does lend some authenticity, but none of the actors were actually here in 1999. Townsend is best known for his acting role in “Queen of the Damned”. “Battle In Seattle” is his first effort at writing and directing. Most of the cast had never visited Seattle until they came here to shoot the film.

In the end, anti-corporate globalization activists, film critics and celebrity worshipers will differ on the significance, authenticity and social relevance of this movie version of the historic Seattle WTO demonstrations.

But to be honest, we must all admit that we knew pop culture would eventually claim those events in a romanticized presentation complete with Oscar wining movie stars. The demonstrations have been re-enacted over and over again in the media and in our conversations during the last eight years. After so many retellings of those inspiring stories from that momentous occasion, our obsession has become a part of the Hollywood film industry. Now we have finally culture jammed ourselves. In the future, we may be asking ourselves, “Which one was the real event? Was it the movie, the documentary or the TV mini-series?”

Sit-In and Student Occupation At The Evergreen State College

Anyone who confidently proclaims that today’s college campuses are full of apathetic conformists who are afraid to stage opposition to the establishment in the US should take a closer look. Folks making that claim have obviously failed to investigate student activism at the alternative school I attended as an undergraduate – The Evergreen State College. May 30 marked the tenth day of a student sit-in currently taking place in one of the administration buildings on that campus. Students are occupying part of the building to protest the banning of a political student organization.

Nestled in the heart of a verdant forest near Mud Bay in the state capitol of Olympia (“City of the Gods”), TESC has always generated controversy with its time warp 1968 summer of love ethics. Some of the faculty members are famous for being more radical than their students. Birkenstocks, tie-dye and radical vegetarianism still rule the day at this shamanistic, Jungian institution of higher learning. And I mean very high… Psychedelics have been a mainstay at this liberal arts college since its inception in the early 1970s.

A popular postcard sold in the Evergreen State College library bookstore depicts a large billboard, which is situated next to Interstate Five near Centralia, Washington. Owned by former fervent anti-communist John Birch Society conservative fanatics, the huge sign has served as a public placard for right-wing causes for the last three decades. The infamous postcard sold in the gift shop is an actual photo of the billboard containing the following message:  “The Evergreen State College – Home of Faggots and Environmental Terrorists.” Everyone at the school is very proud of that postcard because it represents the kind of idiotic bigotry and irrational paranoia that Evergreeners have to deal with every time they venture outside of their small, protected community.

But open-minded sexual attitudes, a public nude beach and psychedelic drug-induced revelations are not the only phenomena that have attracted national attention to this unique post-hippie communal state run school. Besides providing powerful hallucinogenic mushrooms and liquid LSD, TESC has the reputation of being a very good school for some more traditional academic fields of study, including oceanography, environmental studies and public administration. In fact, it was named “best small liberal arts college west of the Mississippi” by Newsweek magazine. Cartoonist Matt Groenig, creator of “The Simpsons” and humorist Lynda Barry are among its most recognized graduates.

Another thing most folks aren’t aware of is the resurgence of that bastion of student activism from the 1960s movement – Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Local chapters of SDS can be found on many U.S. college campuses. The Chicago Eight conspirator Tom Hayden told me that he has very little involvement with the current upsurge in membership for the group. Although Hayden is given credit for helping to found the organization in the 1960s, he claims that the new SDS is an organic movement developed by young students without adult leadership in progressive communities all across the nation. Hayden’s “Port Huron Statement,” the manifesto of the SDS movement written during the height of the Vietnam War protests, is being republished and the document is enjoying a new round of popularity among student organizers. The Evergreen State College chapter of SDS was formed in May 2006.

Most folks don’t realize that The Evergreen State College was actually created as a “magnet” school to attract the most radical students away from major state universities during a time of widespread campus unrest. Built outside the city of Olympia, it became an isolated oasis for truth seekers and experimentalists. Its location, surrounded by rural farmland and Evergreen trees, would make the school an easy compound to surround and control in case of major student uprisings. Republican governor Dan Evans was the college’s first president.

The plan was to attract troublemakers away from the University of Washington and Washington State University to a location where they could be safely contained in one small geographic area. By isolating these students at Evergreen, the authorities hoped to quell the insurgence of their movement and protect the state’s sacred educational institutions from the dangerous virus of non-conformity and political dissent. In short, the educational bureaucrats wanted desperately to stop the movement for change from infecting all the of the state’s schools.

In large part, the government power brokers succeeded in disarming the student movement in Washington State. But today there are some indications that their plans to inhibit political opposition may be backfiring because a major confrontation has been brewing between the student body and school administrators and it doesn’t look like it’s going to be resolved.

The ruckus began on Valentine’s Day earlier this year when police cracked down on students at a music concert. Clashes between students and police left several people injured, a squad car was overturned and dozens of arrests were made. The student groups say that police overreacted to a few kids who were causing trouble and instead turned against the entire crowd of mostly peaceful students.

In the past, security guards at the school were not allowed to carry firearms on campus and the enforcement of drug laws was lax to say the least. In Bush and Cheney’s post 9/11 world, however, these policies have changed, to the chagrin of all free loving, free thinking students.

Of course, the regional corporate news media proceeded to exploit the confrontation as much as possible for their ratings. The local press presented the incident as a brutal riot caused by violent out of control delinquents.

Most student witnesses say that law enforcement officers actually incited the confrontation by escalating their use of physical force against innocent participants in the crowd. Conservative leaders in the state capitol used the February 14 clash with police as evidence of what they have been claiming all along – that Evergreen State College students are dangerous radicals who are bent on violence with the intention of disrupting the community and eliminating law and order.

In the old days, redneck loggers would assault “Greeners,” calling them dirty hippies and tree huggers. In the post logging industry era, this kind of attack on students is more likely to come from neo-con Christians who are Bush supporters. The college is known among conservatives as a safe haven for adherents to paganism and esoteric occult practices. The average Greener is well versed in astrology and Wiccan rituals. This creates tension in the community for those who are not so open-minded. The conflict in February is used to reinforce the prejudicial views of many folks in the community who see Evergreen as an unwelcome anomaly that they wish to eliminate forever.

The confrontation between student body and school began in earnest when college administrators decided to call a moratorium on selected student events after the Valentine’s Day clash with police. In defiance of the administrative ruling, the Students for a Democratic Society group held a panel discussion and a music concert on May 7. The panel included the “San Francisco Eight,” who have been investigated and put under surveillance by the U.S. government for their political activities.

Topics for discussion included the U.S. government’s use of torture, police and government repression, the FBI’s COINTELPRO program, the history of the Black Panther Party, and political prisoners.

Although school administrators tried to cancel the SDS student sponsored activities two days prior to the discussion panel and concert, the events were held anyway and proved quite successful, attracting a large audience. Musicians David Rovics, Danny Kelly and Mark Eckert performed political protest songs to an appreciative crowd. Student organizers see the events as a first amendment issue and they refused to compromise.

As a result of the students’ act of civil disobedience, the school administration has suspended the Students for a Democratic Society as a “registered student organization” at the Evergreen State College. The SDS has lost access to the school’s equipment, resources and facilities. The group’s financing has also been eliminated, effectively killing the group as a force for effective student organizing. SDS has appealed the administration’s decision, but so far there has been no move to reinstate the group.

In response, student activists have been occupying the hallway leading to administrator Art Constantino’s office. At a previous protest march, other Evergreen administrators were also confronted by demonstrators but representatives from the school have refused to open up a dialogue with student organizers.

SDS accuses TESC officials of perpetrating an increasingly aggressive program to suppress student dissent. They claim that school administrators assisted law enforcement agencies in arresting students. They also say the school has handed over students’ personal records to police investigators. SDS student leaders say Evergreen State College administrators are punishing students for their political beliefs and activities. The students’ charges against school authorities include selective enforcement of the “concert moratorium,” and mistreatment of student organizers who were never charged or convicted for any unlawful activity associated with the February 14 incident.

According to SDS spokespersons, the students have designated the
occupied area inside the administration building as a “People’s University.”

In scenes reminiscent of sit-ins and occupations during the student uprisings of the 1960s era, Evergreen students have declared themselves an open university. They are holding their own classes, film screenings and workshops on various political and social issues. Student led instructional courses include: history of the queer movement, radical labor history, and class warfare taking place in New Orleans in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina.  

Youth organizers say the sit-ins and student run classes will continue through graduation ceremonies in June. Whoever said that students today are disorganized and apathetic forgot to visit the campus of the Evergreen State College. I suggest interested parties “stay tuned for further developments.” The stand off isn’t likely to end until students feel their demands have been adequately met, but the school administration seems to be digging in for a long fight that will probably stretch into next year.