Voices from the Seattle protests

Rocky Caldwell and Alan Cute

Shirley Morrison and the Raging Grannies

Charlie Kimber interviewed participants for Socialist Worker during the original protest

‘I came here to protest about the killing of turtles. I’m going home determined to turn the whole world upside down.’
Amber Pattison, who travelled 1,000 miles to Seattle

‘We came here to demand that people get heard, rather than corporations. I work at the Boeing factory in Seattle. It’s a huge plant with 80,000 workers. I do not trust the people who treat us badly in the plant to run the world.

If we want a decent environment, a future for all human beings on the planet, then we had better start taking back our lives. Today has been a great start.’
Rocky Caldwell

‘I used to think these kids talking about the environment were just wingnuts. Now I think they are part of the big “us”, the us that’s going to have to change the world.

We need a new coalition to take on the corporations and win.

Every time I turn on the television and hear more about the way the world is going, the spookier it seems. There are all these unaccountable governments and firms and international bodies that are trying to override all human concerns. It’s time to fight.’
Doug Sabin

‘We closed the port of Seattle today in protest at the WTO. Our lives are utterly dependent on trade, but we ask, “What sort of trade?” The ordinary people of the world should benefit from trade, not the wealthy elite.’
Longshoreman Alan Cute

‘I’m from the Seattle Raging Grannies. We want a better future for our children and our grandchildren – and better times now for us.

We have to learn the lessons of the past. Protest is always derided, always smeared, but in the end it is the only way to get progress.

At last today we have labour activists and young people on the same march.’
Shirley Morrison

‘Nothing moves across the globe without people like us.

When I look round this stadium I can see an alternative to the global governance of the corporations.’
Truck driver Bud Brusa

The following should be read alongside this article:

The battle of Seattle

The 1999 Seattle protests gave birth to a global movement

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