Showdown in Seattle: Five Days That Shook the WTO & RIP WTO N30

RIP WTO N30 (PickAxe Productions, 1430 Willamette #506, Eugene, OR 97401-4073, 1999) 20 minute video, $10.00 1st copy, $5.00 each additional copy for individuals, $25.00 libraries/institutions.

Showdown in Seattle: Five Days That Shook the WTO (Produced by the Independent Media Center and Big Noise Productions, Changing America, Headwaters Action Video Collective, Paper Tiger TV, VideoActive and Whispered Media; available from: Whispered Media, POB 40130, San Francisco, CA 94140, 1999) 150 minute video, $50.00 + $3p&h for individuals, $25 + $3p&h low income, $250 + $3p&h for libraries/institutions.

The explosion of alternative outlets in electronic media has dwarfed the growth of alternative print media in the last couple years, even considering the torrent of new zines being constantly launched. The proliferation of pirate (or low-power) radio stations, radical web sites, and—most recently—internet video sites has finally reached the point where even most Luddites have probably seen or heard about them. So it’s not surprising that one of the more effective innovations of the Seattle WTO protests last November was the creation of an Independent Media Center that encouraged and coordinated the daily documentation of the protests and massive dissemination of alternative media information by all available means, including the production of videos like RIP WTO N30 and Showdown in Seattle: Five Days That Shook the WTO. Both RIP WTO N30 and Showdown in Seattle include protester’s-eye-views of the blockades, marches, festivities and police attacks that collectively made history—and in the process helped derail the WTO and serve notice that capitalist globalization will be hotly contested in the new millennium. Both are obviously indebted to the same group of protest-zone camera activists who managed to capture some amazing scenes of youthful exhilaration, face-to-face protester-to-delegate confrontations, and brutal police violence.

RIP WTO N30, at a tightly edited twenty minutes, is the more engaging and higher impact of the two. Showdown in Seattle, at 150 minutes, is obviously the more comprehensive in most ways, although this is obtained at the cost of including some repetitive and occasionally boring footage (partly the result of its structure as a series of five separate segments).

Both videos eschew any significant background development or narration in favor of letting a multitude of protesters have their say (in brief sound bytes, at least). In the case of Showdown, the focus is too often on official organizers, labor leaders and spokespeople, most of whom are just as shallow in their portrayals of the social and political implications of the protest as the rank-and-file protesters, but much less interesting. Unfortunately, the divisions between anticapitalist and reformist demonstrators are barely hinted at in either, although RIP is obviously in sympathy with the revolutionaries, while Showdown is much more sympathetic with the legions of pro-capitalist reformists like Teamsters President James Hoffa, AFL-CIO honchos George Meany & Linda Chavez, wannabe populist Jim Hightower, Ralph Nader and Public Citizen’s Lori Wallach.

At times Showdown even becomes painful to watch due to the naivete exhibited by both rank-and-file protesters and the parade of leaders who show a consistently pathetic faith in “democracy,” the “Constitution” and the ultimate good of the mainstream institutions which are destroying our world. While watching RIP, with its greater focus on images and action, and its inclusion of more radical voices, is like a breath of fresh air in comparison. Both videos obviously capture important aspects of the whole picture, which obviously neither are able to show in 20 or even 150 minutes.

For readers who are interested enough in the Seattle protests to read this review and haven’t yet seen either of these videos, I’d highly recommend picking up at least RIP WTO N30, which is well worth the $10 for all that you’ll get out of it. If you can afford it, and if you’re interested in a bigger, if overall less compelling or radical picture, Showdown is also an important documentation of primarily the larger, more reformist side of the Seattle protests. For a taste of Showdown, you can even download portions of the video from web sites like Whispered Media’s and the Independent Media Center’s: www.whisperedmedia.org & www.indymedia.org (go to the Seattle link). Ultimately, everyone in North America, if not the world, should be able to see both of these groundbreaking videos—tastes of what will be coming out of every important social contestation from this point on.

— Jason McQuinn

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Updated: 6/26/2000