WTO Quotes from some who were there:

 "The amazing outcome that resulted from the cooperation and peaceful
intentions of all that participated in last week's events has opened my
heart and mind immensely.  It is so inspirational to see how my actions have
directly affected a global issue."  Christi Keaveny,  Campus Greens.

"I am totally inspired by young people, they have taken me to a new level of
hope.  Their sophisticated strategizing and use of direct action was
extremely effective."  Duane Jager, ReUse Industries.

"The WTO is a secretive agency with the ability to overturn sovereign laws
that govern labor, the environment, and consumer safety.  It prioritizes
trade over environmental and social considerations.  The failure of trade
talks in Seattle is a victory for those who value democracy, labor rights,
and ecological protections."  Jason Tockman,  Buckeye Forest Council.

 "Standing in the rain with union and environmental activists side-by-side
with human rights and economic justice advocates, I was renewed in my
resolve to fight ever harder against the local manifestations of the
globalization of our region's economy. The tear gas and pepper spray could
not blind us to the need for a sustainable, locally reliant economy that
enhances and protects the quality of life and the environment, not one that
undermines and further fragments our community's local sovereignty."  Matt
Peters, US Route 33 Citizens' Advisory Committee.

"My experience in Seattle was amazing.  I saw how violence can be applied to
non-violent people in an effort to discredit their movement.  I know how it
feels to be frustrated by this tactic, but we can not succumb to the
pressure put on us to be violent. The WTO protesters never used violence
against people as a replacement for communication, legitimate actions,
thinking and having new ideas.  I believe that violence is mindless and
uncreative, and that we as a movement are stronger than that." Lisa O'Keefe,
Free Student Press.

"In Seattle I saw that when we as ordinary people are informed, organized,
and dedicated to social justice we can change history and the world.  I left
Seattle more hopeful than ever before.  Whether it was sea turtles or
sweatshops, hormone treated beef or dirtier air that brought environmental,
labor, small farm, religious, and student activists to Seattle, the cause
that united all of us was democracy- the right of people to have a say in
the decisions that affect their lives.  The WTO undermines democracy because
everyone that does not represent the profit motive of major corporations is
shut out of the decision- making process.  But in Seattle we shut them out
and refused to let corporations determine our lives.  We were successful.
In the end it was democracy that undermined the WTO, but the struggle for
collective control of our lives is ongoing."  Damon Krane
 

"The people spoke in such an organized and direct way that the world
couldn't help but to listen to us.  I stood in front of delegates and said,
"I'm sorry but you can't go to work today.  Your work undermines the
environmental and labor laws that the American people have worked so hard to
put on the books.  Your desire to lift trade barriers and make more money
can't discredit our need for clean air and the safety of endangered species.
Today you can't go to work.  Today is our day, the day the world stops its
consumption cyclone and listens to us!"  It felt so incredible to stand up
to something that we thought was so big and to find out that the monster
wasn't really that scary, it was just a bunch of upper-class men in business
suits.  I finally felt listened to.  It was magic; pure, unadulterated
magic."  Mara Giglio, Appalachian Peace and Justice Network

"The world no longer glosses over the letters WTO.  In Seattle, whenever
violence was used, it empowered the other side."  Mara Giglio, APJN

"I never thought that I'd see another time when young people parted the
waters that were meant to drown their idealism."  Tom Hayden, California
State senator

"Seattle provided a multitude of people the opportunity to voice their
concerns and frustrations about the destructive aspects of free trade and
the primary organization, which heralds its benefits, namely the World Trade
Organization. In Seattle we saw peoples uprising, albeit on a small scale,
to the growing global tyranny of economic enslavement. State control and
domination of our daily lives, including the enforcement of those means, was
well demonstrated in Seattle by the media and law enforcement. Not only was
the message of those protesting there glazed over, the media tried to
marginalize and discredit our message. By focusing on small acts of
destruction by a handful of people the media was able to demonize protestors
and turn average working class people against us. This destruction was then
used as a justification for the blatant show of police brutality and
justified accordingly. This country is progressively moving towards a police
state in which personal freedoms are secondary to corporate profit and
greed. If the people do not rise up now and resist it, as we did in Seattle,
the struggle will be much more violent and difficult in the future. It is
time people in the US woke up to the fact that our freedom is no longer
guaranteed. We must struggle daily to ensure it is retained.  -Chris Crews,
Community organizer

"People asked me if I was scared.  I replied "not really" but if they had
asked me what disturbed me the most I would tell them that Seattle, as a
test case for democracy and our rights, has failed."  Dina Rudick, Dysart
Defenders

"We have recognized the WTO as an instrument of our common oppressor, and
will no longer allow the elite to keep us separate and complacent with false
divisions which pit struggling peoples against one another.  The WTO is
trying to replace democracy with corporatacracy, to make money into God, and
to replace community with alienation.  Our very survival, to say nothing of
liberty, freedom, and dignity, depends on stopping them in their tracks as
they unthinkingly destroy the Earth and her creatures in the reckless
pursuit of profit."  Tina Jaggers, United Students Against Sweatshops.