Free Republic

New Seattle Clashes, Curfew Reimposed By Chris Stetkiewicz Reuters SEATTLE (Dec. 2) - Seattle streets were transformed from a battle zone to a near-police state Wednesday a day after broken glass and booming tear gas volleys shattered the peace and disrupted history's biggest trade meeting. The normally placid city at the northwest corner of the United States lurched from chaos Tuesday night to a police-imposed calm for most of Wednesday and back to clashes as dusk fell. Holiday lights shone on stores with boarded-up windows as the city struggled to scrub itself clean for World Trade Organization delegates meeting here ...

Planning for Democratic National Convention behind schedule LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Local planning for the Democratic National Convention is months behind schedule because of conflicts among organizers -- a problem considered so serious that President Clinton has been asked to call and nudge them along, it was reported Wednesday. Planning for the convention is six to 10 months behind where organizers of the 1996 Democratic convention in Chicago were at this point in their efforts, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing some officials involved in planning that it did not identify. Other organizers denied the claim. "Let me say ...

The Court of Appeals of the Armed Forces, the military's highest court, has granted a petition for review to Army Specialist Michael New, who was acourt-martialed in 1996 after refusing to obey an order to wear a "United Nations uniform." The designated uniform was essentialy the regular American uniform, modified with U.N. insignias on the headgear and sleeve. The CAAF has three alternatives, according to New's attorneys: (1) They can overturn the court-martial and rule that New was right in his protest. (2) They can uphold the court-martial and free New to pursue an appeal in Article III civilian courts. ...

Provincial Proverbs 2/15/98 ACE © 1998 Provincial Proverbs PROVINCIAL PROVERBS HUSHED VOICES FROM OCCUPIED REGIONS Shame and Fate Merely One More Opinion ACE © 1998 Provincial Proverbs Speaking of Draft Dodgers, I in fact, am one. In 1967, one of my best friends was shipped off to Vietnam. And I, a child of the 60’s, stayed behind and protested. But today I repent. God how I repent. I am not a liberal, by God, not! At least not any more. The first born son of a hard core New Deal Democrat, factually descended from a family who fought in the ...

Enough already! Here's the skinny: 1. Some whacky irrelevant global bunch of Poobahs named the WTO come to Seattle. 2. Union members and leaders that are afraid of losing power and influence organize to rally against the meeting. 3. Environmental freaks and anti-capitalists that smell like urine, and look like homeless people, buy designer turtle costumes for the show. 4. Every opportunist, anarchist and scam artist blend in to the crowd, waiting for just the right time to pounce. 5. A liberal city with a left wing local government are unprepared to deal with the crowd. 6. The US citizens ...

If a king should fall under such contempt or envy, that he could not keep his subjects in their duty, but by oppression and ill-usage, and by rendering them poor and miserable, it were certainly better for him to quit his kingdom, than to retain it by such methods, as makes him while he keeps the name of authority, lose the majesty due to it... He is an unskilful physician, that cannot cure one disease without casting his patient into another: so he that can find no other way for correcting the errors of his people, but by taking ...

The politically tuned-in have waited months for Texas Gov. George W. Bush to face his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination in a debate. But when the event finally occurs tonight, it won't be that easy to tune in. The debate from Manchester, N.H., will be carried live nationally only on the Fox News Channel, a relatively small all-news network available only on cable and offered by most -- but not all -- cable systems in the Twin Cities. The debate airs 7-8:30 p.m. Political scientist Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington called it "astonishing" that ...

December 2, 1999 THE BLAME: Clenched Fists in Seattle Lead to Pointed Fingers By TIMOTHY EGAN SEATTLE -- It took only a few minutes for the people in the monarch butterfly costumes and union jackets to realize that what was planned as the biggest American demonstration yet against global trade here Tuesday had turned into an burst of window-breaking and looting in the late afternoon light. A surge of violence that ended in a civil emergency began when a knot of people clad in black broke away from the main demonstration and started overturning Dumpsters, stoking fires and smashing windows ...

December 2, 1999 THE OVERVIEW In Stormy Seattle, Clinton Criticizes World Trade Body By DAVID E. SANGER SEATTLE -- With Seattle's streets locked down by the police and National Guard, President Clinton delivered two impassioned pleas Wednesday for nations of the world to use trade agreements to protect the rights of laborers and the environment, and delivered a pointed attack on the World Trade Organization for the secrecy of its operations. In several appearances here that took him past the shattered windows and closed shops of a normally vibrant downtown, Clinton sided with the cause of many of the peaceful ...

Here's some WTO/Seattle live links. I didn't try them because the computer I'm on now is too old for video and audio.KIRO News in Seattle http://www.kiro710.com/RealAudio/kirolive.ram   Seattle Police scanner http://www.apbnews.com/scanner/seascanner.html   Dep't of Transportation - JPEG towercam on Pine St. http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/PugetSoundTraffic/cameras/imagehtml/cctv117a.htm   SeattleInsider - JPEG towercam http://www.seattleinsider.com/news/cameras.html   HistoryLink.org - JPEG towercam, Westlake Park http://www.historylink.org/gazette/gazette.htm   another webcam showing wto stuff by gluechunk http://images.wsdot.wa.gov/nwflow/cctv117.jpg

After reading through a number of WTO threads, I noticed a few people drawing historical comparisons between the events in Seattle and events shortly before the Revolutionary War in America. Most have heard of both the Boston Massacre (l770) or the Boston Tea Party (1773) and most regard these as important turning points in the direction the new colonies would take with regard to forming an independent new nation. The purpose of this post is to solicit the comments of all interested in comparing and contrasting the events prior to and during the riots in Seattle and the events prior ...

Clinton Calls For Open Trade: 400 Arrested as Response Toughens By Charles Babington and John Burgess Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, December 2, 1999; Page A01 SEATTLE, Dec. 1—President Clinton today condemned the violence that greeted a major trade meeting here but devoted most of his energy to defending the open-trade policies that triggered the outbursts, saying they will benefit the average person in America and elsewhere in the long run. As hundreds of Seattle police in riot gear restored order by sharply restricting protesters' movements and arresting 400 demonstrators, the World Trade Organization got down to business. Clinton vigorously ...

Direct Action Network (DAN) Legal Team arrested by Mary Travers 1:20pm Wed Dec 1 '99 The legal team of the Direct Action Network, a colation of non-violent protesters, was arrested by Seattle Police. Early this morning, the legal team of the Direct Action Network (DAN) was arrested and all notes confiscated by the Seattle Police, according to Kelly Quirke of the Rainforest Action Network. The arrest was confirmed by a member of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG). Protesters, including the legal team, met at Denny Park, which is outside the mile-and-a-half area that was declared "off limits" for any protest ...

Surprised? I'm Not By Linda A. Prussen-Razzano Featured Rightgrrl April 1999 December 1, 1999 Despite our significant financial, military, and personal outlays during the Serbian engagement, our involvement in several military "peace-keeping" operations world-wide, and the gratis perks we afford members of the United Nations on American soil, the United Nations bookkeepers insisted that America owed $1 Billion in dues. Presidential candidate Dr. Alan Keyes, during recent candidate debate, urged America to demand a second look at the books. It didn't happen. Congress acquiesced and made allowances for the dues, with one minor caveat; it disallowed a portion of funding ...

Protest's Architect 'Gratified' D.C.-Based Activist Brought Diverse Groups Together By Steven Pearlstein Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, December 2, 1999; Page A01 SEATTLE, Dec. 1—In this week's Battle for Seattle, the field marshal for the global anti-establishment has been an intense, rumpled lawyer who grew up in an admiral's house in Chevy Chase and spent the past nine months building a grass-roots campaign to disrupt the meeting of the World Trade Organization. Mike Dolan feels his efforts largely have been rewarded so far, from the 30,000 union demonstrators who paraded peacefully through the streets of Seattle on Tuesday to the ...

Boys Will Be Boys Or you can just drug them. By George F. Will Thursday, December 2, 1999 A reaction is underway against drugging children because they are behaving like children, especially boy children. Colorado's elected school board recently voted to discourage what looks like drug abuse in the service of an ideological agenda. The board urged teachers and other school personnel to be more restrained about recommending drugs such as Ritalin for behavior modification of children, and to rely more on discipline and instruction.  One reason for the vote is that some school violence has been committed by ...

Bush’s Gag Rule Candidate Previews Tax Plan— With a Catch By Ann Compton ABCNEWS.com W A S H I N G T O N, Dec. 1 — Why is George W. Bush unveiling his $485 billion tax cut just one day before the big debate in New Hampshire, where his rivals get their first face-to-face shot at him? Bush was already expected to dominate centerstage. But the tax cut favoring low-income families puts red meat on the table. ABCNEWS’ John Berman, traveling with Bush, reports that in return for early leaks about the tax plan, the campaign pressured reporters to ...

W. to Other Candidates: Read My Lips...... low new taxes. But can we afford it? On the eve of Thursday's New Hampshire debate, George W. Bush has a message for his opponents: Get ready for the coming of a kinder, gentler Ronald Reagan. The evidence: a bold tax plan that puts his money where his "compassionate conservatism" sound bite is, tempering supply-side Reaganomics with aid to the working poor. It includes a $1.3 trillion tax cut over 10 years, with extra relief to poor families. The plan received a conservative blessing Wednesday in the form of a Wall Street Journal ...

Actions Without Class Thursday, December 2, 1999 BARELY HAD THE ink dried on Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's findings of fact in the Microsoft antitrust trial when plaintiff's lawyers began filing class actions against the software giant. One could hardly ask for a better portrait of everything that is predatory about class-action plaintiff's lawyers. Cases such as these have next to nothing to do with the interests of consumers but are essentially commercial ventures within the judiciary. The purported clients are little more than fictions designed to legitimize the enrichment of their self-appointed representatives.  The Microsoft cases claim to be ...

Enemies of the WTO Bogus arguments against the World Trade Organization. By Paul Krugman Paul Krugman is a professor of economics at MIT and the author, most recently, of The Return of Depression Economics (click here to buy the book). His home page contains links to many of his other articles and essays. Posted Tuesday, Nov. 23, 1999, at 4:30 p.m. PT E-Mail This Article Sign Up for Free E-Mail Auto-Delivery        If a picture is worth a thousand words, a two-page spread in the New York Times, featuring more than a dozen pictures, can speak volumes. ...