Twenty-five years ago today, a broad progressive coalition of protesters blocked and eventually shut down the Seattle World Trade Organization meetings. A longtime activist-journalist reflects on the long twists and shifts made by the American left since then.
Interesting article. The author touches on this but both Seattle WTO and Occupy Wall Street seem kind of goal less and “protesting for the sake of protesting” to me
That’s a common and accurate criticism of the Occupy Wall Street movement. All of that momentum, and nowhere to direct it. It’s a shame really.
I’m old. I attended this protest when I was 15. I had no idea what it was really about and used it as an excuse to skip school. I can see the parallels here on the comparison. It felt in the moment like there was going to be change , but unless you have organizers and a common vision it can easily fizzle out.
Occupy had something of a goal at least. WTO was libertarians from Oregon driving up to Seattle to break shit and the was the end of it.