Seattle, 23:30 Thursday 2 Dec 1999

[Donald Galt]

I managed to get downtown today for the first time this week. It was strange.

Getting there was difficult enough. Because of yet another protest march, 
buses were turned around at the edge of the city. From my north end home 
I got to Capitol Hill, expecting to head down Madison Street on one of the 
several trolley lines re-routed that way. But instead, my 7 headed south 
toward Rainier Valley as if it were a 9, so I changed to a likewise re-routed 3 
which got me as far as 5th and Jackson at the south end of town. At least 
the tunnel was in operation, so I walked across the street to International 
District station and caught a duobus north to Westlake.

Emerging into the sunlight (we do have that occasionally, even in November) 
I was greeted by modest crowds, windows still boarded up (some of them 
precautionary, not replacing broken glass) and a subdued atmosphere in 
what should have been a bustling square. And police everywhere.

Seattle has been held hostage not only by the window-smashing anarchists 
- that was only Tuesday night - but by well-financed, tightly-trained, slickly-
spoken non-violent activist groups like the Ruckus Society, adept at 
creating incidents and provoking reaction. Protest groups were given ample 
opportunity to make their point on Tuesday, but some of them came here to 
make a splash, shouting "constitutional rights" with little regard for my right 
to go about my city. They have certainly found willing allies among the 
locals, but the continuing unrest has not been entirely spontaneous. If the 
police have made mistakes, they will be held accountable. But it's a 
perversion to blame all this, as they have largely managed to do, on the 
cops. And blaming it on WTO (what do these flat-earthers think is going to 
be accomplished by destroying world trade talks?) is like blaming a woman 
with a certain reputation for all the rapes that are happening around town.

Go home. Give us back our city.

Don