We are right around the corner from the tenth anniversary of the street protests that erupted on
the streets of Seattle. To commemorate this anniversary, there are a slew of talks, screening, and events around the country. In NYC on
Sunday at the Change You Want to See there will be a double movie screening and on Monday at CUNY graduate center there will be a panel discussion.
There are a few pieces that have also come out marking this anniversary, all of them worth a read. One of the most interesting pieces is by Josh Fiet who writes about the clampdown on civil liberties following the heels of the protests, which I see, among other things, as a testament to the effectiveness and weaknesses of these protests. In other words, they were, at some level, threatening engendering repressive state action but also were unable to respond in a timely manner to these tactics, in part, because of the unforeseen turn of events following the 9/11 attacks. Finally, here are a series of podcasts/programs on kbcs.
I look forward to reflections on this topic at these panels and hope we have a discussion on how activists might respond preemptively to crackdowns that follow from successful campaigns.
