Kansas City.
The media spin cycle leading up to major anti-globalization protests has become so predictable that activists have been forced to come up with better media strategies to keep up with the lies and disinformation. The mainstream media starts the cycle several months in advance with articles and coverage about the upcoming summit and accompanying protests. This coverage always includes an obligatory interview with the local authorities who claim that they will be “ready” for the protests. These early articles will include space devoted to the issues on the table, but as the event nears, the coverage focuses more and more on the expected clash between protesters and police. Activists have tried many different ways to change this narrative, to force the media coverage back to the issues and reasons for protest, without much success. Since these summit meetings never allow dissenters inside, people are forced to take to the streets in protest, thus reinforcing the spin that these events are mostly about protesters confronting the police. At some point in the media spin cycle, the media repeat some new police propaganda about anarchists and “outside agitators.” The police plant fabulous stories in the media, ranging from alarmist stories about activist scavenger hunts to claims that protesters will throw “urine-filled bottles” at the police. When the police claim that activists are using plastic bottles to make Molotov cocktails, the mainstream media dutifully publishes the police disinformation with nary an attempt to investigate the police claims, or point out the fact that Molotov cocktails are made with GLASS bottles.
The cycle is the same every time. It’s no wonder that more and more activists have given up talking to the media, if they aren’t simply hostile to the media and efforts by activists to work with them.
Sadly, the independent media has reflected this framing of the protests-Indymedia websites are dominated by pictures of conflicts with the police. More troubling is an attack last week by the liberal, so-called “alternative” newsweekly, the Seattle Weekly, on the anti-globalization movement and its accomplishments since the 1999 anti-World Trade Organization (WTO) protests in Seattle. In the leadoff article, prominent Seattle activist, Geov Parrish, analyzes the accomplishments and state of the post-Seattle movement. Philip Dawdy looks at the police angle and argues that police departments transformed into a more effective force against activists. Knute Berger pens a rather shocking right-wing conflation of the anti-globalization movement with the fundamentalist terror movement led by Osama bin Laden. The language of these pieces is hostile towards activists and the anti-globalization movement, while at the same time pointing out the many successes and achievements of the 1999 Seattle protests (N30) and the North American anti-globalization movement.
The media spin machine in recent years has added a new component to coverage of the anti-globalization movement-questions about the state of the movement and whether or not the movement is “dead.” This shallow and superficial measure of dissent and movement strength relies on old myths that dissent is best judged by how much coverage it gets on the television news. In other words, if the movement isn’t rioting, then it is “declining” or “beginning to sputter,” to use Geov Parrish’s words. In reality, contemporary anti-systemic movements can’t be judged solely by the amount of press clippings they get. There is more going on that doesn’t lend itself to the sensational gaze of the TV news camera. But there have also been some historic reasons why the North American anti-globalization movement disappeared from the public eye. One significant reason was the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent wars launched by the Bush administration.
What 9/11 Really Did to the Post-Seattle Movement
In order to understand why the North American anti-globalization movement disappeared from the media spectacle in 2001 it is important to know that large anti-globalization protests had been organized for the Fall meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, which were scheduled to meet in Washington, DC in late September 2001. There was a six month gap between the March 2001 anti-G8 protests in Quebec City and the scheduled protests in Washington, DC. After 9/11 happened, some protest groups cancelled their plans while others simply changed theirs. The media characterization of the movement as petering out was understandable given the lack of another “Seattle” in late 2001, but it was unfair given the circumstances that activists had to deal with after 9/11.
The 9/11 attacks would dramatically interrupt not just the anti-globalization movement’s plans for the September protests, but they would throw a monkeywrench into the plans by activists to add a new dimension to the American anti-globalization movement. One group of anarchists had been working for over a month on a secret plan with other activists to stage an occupation of an abandoned building on the D.C. General Hospital campus. While other activists were working on logistics for the protests and plans to attack the fence that was going to be erected around the World Bank and IMF meetings, this group of activists was hoping to organize a direct action that would tie together globalization and the local agents of neoliberalism who were planning to shut down D.C.’s only public hospital.
Other international events had prompted this group of anarchists to plan a direct action that would spotlight local issues of globalization in Washington, D.C. In July 2001, the protests against the G8 summit in Genoa, Italy had ended violently, with one activist being brutally murdered by the police. There was a feeling among American activists that the Genoa protests would play a significant factor in how the Washington protests would be framed. From past protests it was known that the police would make up propaganda about “violent anarchists” and “outside agitators.” The action planned for D.C. General was seen as a way out of the stereotypes about anarchists promoted by media and police disinformation. There were other ongoing efforts by activists to make connections between the anti-globalization movement and local D.C. residents, such as the organizing work that the Anti-Capitalist Convergence was doing with the residents of the Arthur-Capper neighborhood in southeast D.C.
The September protests in Washington were shaping up to be pretty huge. The ACC, the Mobilization for Global Justice, and other groups had been organizing for six months for the protests. The activists planning street strategy had to deal with the World Bank and IMF changing the venue for the summit several times. The police were estimating that around 100,000 protesters would descend on Washington. The word on the streets was that the September protests would be “Seattle II.” A perfect storm of dissent was brewing that involved organized labor, the anti-globalization movement, religious activists, anarchists, NGOs, anti-capitalists and the Latin America solidarity movement.
The media wasn’t doing stories on the “decline” of the movement, in fact, they were fighting over access to the protesters. In one comic example, a group of anarchists involved with the black bloc were invited to a meeting with the national editors of the Washington Times. The Times wanted to embed reporters and a photographer in the black bloc and other groups. The bemused anarchists agreed to work with the Times and let them “embed” the photographer in any “interesting” protests that were being planned.
The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 changed everything. While protesters always understood that events had a way of eclipsing media coverage of protests, the 9/11 attacks were something beyond anything that American activists had ever experienced. Like everybody else, activists were shocked by the attacks. The 9/11 attacks had an immediate effect on plans for the protests. A meeting scheduled that afternoon between the black bloc anarchists, the religious activists, and the AFL-CIO was attended only by the organizer, Lisa Fithian. Within days, the Mobilization for Global Justice-under pressure from nervous NGOs and large unions-cancelled their protests over the objections of the grassroots activists in the MGJ coalition. Members of the Anti-Capitalist Convergence agreed to continue the protests, but the public cancellation announcement by the “Mobe” effectively disrupted the national mobilization that was building. The ACC eventually decided to scale back their protest to a national anti-war march. The anarchists involved with the plan to take over the hospital had to change their plans.
The 9/11 events had an effect in derailing one of the largest anti-globalization protests that had been planned to that date in the United States. The cancelled September 2001 protests disrupted the rhythm of the North American anti-globalization movement. Not only did 9/11 take the anti-globalization movement off the global stage, but also months of organizing ended up with little to show for all of that work. Anti-globalization protests were hastily organized for the rescheduled World Bank meetings that were moved to Canada, but they weren’t very large. Three months later the movement started to pick up the pieces with protests in New York City against the World Economic Forum, but by that point the movement was under pressure from several new factors.
Into the Breach
While most activists were distracted by the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, one little authoritarian sect was busy making plans. The International Action Center, a New York-based front group for the Workers World Party–which was widely known for its famous spokesperson, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark–had been trying to become a player in the planning of the September anti-globalization protests. After being rebuffed by both the Anti-Capitalist Convergence and the Mobilization for Global Justice, the IAC resorted to one of their favorite tactics and in June 2001 announced that they were sponsoring a generic anti-Bush mobilization for the same weekend in September. Their plan was to compete with the coalitions organizing the anti-globalization protests with their fake coalition, hoping along the way that the police would deny them parade permits so that a court battle would establish the IAC as the primary coalition for the Fall protests.
Within hours of the 9/11 attacks, the IAC and the WWP had plans in place to create a national anti-war coalition that they would call Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (International A.N.S.W.E.R.). They decided to morph their September anti-Bush protest into one that would be against the war that everybody expected the Bush administration to implement. The leaders of the IAC and WWP also understood an important thing about the American left, which would play an important factor in the eclipse of the anti-globalization movement: American leftists have short attention spans. The IAC/WWP gambled that the American Left would follow form and abandon the anti-globalization movement for anti-war activism.
The jump by many activists from anti-globalization activism to anti-war activism was one of several factors that led to changes in the American anti-globalization movement. The cancellation of the September 2001 protests after the 9/11 attacks made it look like the movement had lost gas, despite the feisty March 2001 protests in Quebec City. In the progression of large anti-globalization protests in North America, there is a big hole where “Seattle II” should have occurred in September 2001. The 9/11 attacks and the rise in patriotism and jingoism afterwards scared some activists into withdrawing from visible activism. Many core movement organizers were burned out from two and three years of organizing summit protests. There was vocal interest among many movement participants that organizing locally was something that needed more attention.
The 2004 U.S. presidential campaign has also proven to be a huge distraction for many activists. Not only were resources and money from progressives poured into the election, but some activists found themselves working on campaigns instead of grassroots activism. Much of the alternative media was effectively detoured to provide mountains of shallow coverage of the elections. Many activists involved with the anti-globalization movements focused this year on the Republican National Convention, instead of anti-globalization protests such as the poorly attended one against the G8 Summit held on Sea Island, Georgia.
While there are several reasons why the anti-globalization movement “started to sputter” after 9/11, the reality and scope of the September 2001 mobilization belies Geov Parrish’s argument that “the flame of Seattle-inspired protest was already beginning to sputter.” Parrish also repeats the canard that the movement was alienating “the sort of middle-class, family-oriented attendees who made more recent antiwar protests larger and, in the public’s eye, more credible.” On the contrary, up until 9/11 the movement had been growing rapidly and had been drawing more interest, support, and participation from mainstream people. Even one of the undercover police officers who had infiltrated the ACC and MGJ admitted to activists after she was outed that she had come to agree with the activists’ arguments about globalization.
Accomplishments
In Geov Parrish’s look at the legacy of the Seattle protests, “Is This What Failure Looks Like?”, it’s unclear if he wants to bury the movement or give it credit for its many accomplishments. The subtitle is negative enough with its use of the word “failure.” Parrish admits that the 1999 protests were a “critical event” and that they “inspired hundreds of millions around the globe.” On the standard activist scorecard, any protest that “inspires millions” is not going to get a checkmark in the “failure” column. Parrish attempts to boil down the movement’s “failure” to its inability to change government policies. Perhaps Parrish really wants to argue here that the movement hasn’t stopped the WTO in its tracks, but he settles for dissing the movement on its policy record. Later in his piece, he does mention successes like the Indymedia network, but tempers that with an aside about the Seattle IMC closing its storefront space.
So what are the accomplishments of the anti-globalization movement, especially the North American wing? The accomplishments are many and include:
* The international Indymedia network was hatched in the heat of the Seattle protests and the international “N30” day of actions against capitalism. The network grew from one Independent Media Center (IMC) in November 1999 to 153 IMCs around the world today. The Indymedia network runs on anarchist principles, software, and servers. The success and growth of Indymedia is such that a capitalist media corporation with millions of dollars would have a tough time of replicating Indymedia. There are dozens of physical Independent Media Centers. Many IMCs print their own newspapers, including a biweekly full color newspaper published currently by the New York City IMC. When the Indymedia network is attacked by some government, such as the recent shutdown of servers by the FBI and European authorities, it makes international news.
* The direct action, confrontational style of the anti-globalization and anti-capitalist movements made the police, governments, and the rich respect the power of grassroots activism again. As Noam Chomsky would describe it, the global elites once again feared the “crisis of democracy.” The global elites were forced to hold summit meetings in obscure places like Cancun, Mexico, Sea Island, Georgia, Alberta, Canada and other venues that could easily be defended by a small army. Miles of fencing and legions of robocops surrounded summits in Washington, Miami, and Quebec City. It’s hard to argue that a movement is a “failure” when the police still spend millions to keep working people from attending global economic summits.
* The World Bank, IMF, other neoliberal institutions, and national governments have been forced to play a defensive public relations game. After Seattle, the World Bank morphed into an institution that claimed its biggest priority was fighting global poverty. More importantly, the street protests focused public attention on these institutions and global trade policy. Quasi-secret trade negotiations such as the WTO and the FTAA now have to be conducted fully in the public gaze.
* As Parrish points out in his article, the Seattle protests inspired millions around the world. After years of asking North American activists to get involved in the fight, we finally took the fight against globalization and neoliberalism to the back yards of the institutions responsible for global misery. Millions of Americans learned about the WTO, the FTAA, CAFTA, and institutions such as the World Bank. More importantly, they saw that Americans opposed these things, often in large numbers.
* The movements provided an opportunity for activists to explore, discuss, and challenge each other on issues of anti-oppression, racism, sexism, homophobia and other alienating and oppressive behaviors within the movements themselves.
* The Post-Seattle movements provided practical experience and knowledge to every generation of activists. After years of being marginalized, to the point where the cops wouldn’t even take the Seattle mobilization seriously, the movements scored some huge mobilizations. They reaped media attention that still benefit the movements today. Tens of thousands of activists learned new things, built relationships with each other, and gained wisdom about what works and what doesn’t work.
* The Seattle protests, as well as “N30,” “J18” and subsequent anti-globalization protests, vindicated anarchist methods of organizing and dissent. Activism went from pointless permitted marches around the White House that everybody ignored, to a movement that was democratic, transparent, empowering, inspiring, and attention getting. Hierarchical organizing was finally consigned to the dustbin of history and a more beautiful flower of dissent unfolded. The strength of the flat, networked model of organizing was again demonstrated on February 15, 2003, when the huge global protests against the U.S. invasion of Iraq were organized using the methods of the anti-globalization movement.
* The North American anti-globalization movement threw up numerous hurdles into the process of globalization. Our protests threw sand into the gears of free trade and opened up more space for dissent against globalization around the world. Several prominent people associated with neoliberalism started expressing their reservations more publicly, including prominent economists such as Joseph Stiglitz.
* New organizations and movements within the movements were started, such as the street medic and medicine movement, which has grown in numbers and organizations (BALM, Black Cross, DC Action Medical Network, etc.).
* The movement continues activism on other issues such as biotechnology, human rights and media reform, often demonstrating its wide-reaching influence on policy issues..
* The Internet has become an important tool for the organization of activism and dissent. There are now thousands of activist websites, email lists, and discussion boards, many of them connected to the anti-globalization movement. Activists continue to expand the use of new technology, such as the use of text messaging at the recent RNC protests in New York City.
* A network of radical internet service providers (ISPs) has sprung up, including Riseup, Mutualaid, resist.ca, Interactivist, OAT, and others. Radical geeks brought together by anti-globalization protests and the Indymedia network have developed their own international network of mutual aid, support, skills-sharing, free software and solidarity.
* Nonsense about the “end of history” and the triumph of capitalism were debunked. Decades of work by the ruling class and American conservatives to marginalize protesters and activists were undone in the short space of one week. Americans rediscovered dissent and the right wing started obsessing again about the “Vietnam Syndrome.” It also became clear to the global elites that a new bogeyman was needed to marginalize dissenters now that the Soviet Union had disappeared into history.
The More Cops Change, the More They Remain the Same
Parts of Geov Parrish’s article and all of Philip Dawdy’s article are devoted to an analysis of what the police learned after Seattle. Parrish continues his past liberal condemnation of radical protestors:
“More forceful police (and army) tactics led to escalating, ever-more-ugly confrontations that encouraged street-battling young radicals but which discouraged the sort of middle-class, family-oriented attendees who made more recent antiwar protests larger and, in the public’s eye, more credible.”
Parrish provides no concrete evidence that militant street protestsdiscouraged middle-class attendees. In fact, the numbers attending anti-globalizations protests after Seattle continued to increase and included more and more middle and working class people. Trade unionists complained that the union march in Quebec City didn’t hook up with the militants who were fighting the police. The September 2001 protests in Washington had scheduled numerous permitted events for families. Parrish blames the radicals for an imagined image problem, echoing liberal attacks on radicals that have become common.
Parrish continues:
“The window breaking perpetrated by a few dozen anarchists in Seattle became justification in the American public’s mind for violent law-enforcement measures that in turn further limited the public’s sympathy for future demonstrations.”
This is one of the uglier accusations that liberals have lobbed at anarchists and other radicals, that we are responsible for our own victimization and the increase of police repression against other activists. Instead of attacking the police who come to demonstrations with all kinds of weaponry, the fury of the liberal activist is turned on radicals who are somehow responsible for the police repression.
Philp Dawdy’s article, “What the Cops Learned,” purports to explain how American authorities changed their policing tactics after the police fiasco during the 1999 Seattle protests. While this article has some interesting information about policing of activism, it gives the police far too much credit in “learning” how to deal with protesters. If the police have learned anything since Seattle, it’s that they can’t take activists and protesters for granted. The police actions during the Seattle protests stemmed from a general attitude among American authorities that activists weren’t to be taken seriously. The police had been lulled into complacency towards activists after decades of predictable protests. In Washington, for example, there was an unofficial protocol between police and protesters about how one went about getting arrested in front of the White House. The police were responsible for this status quo of predictable protests, having turned to a new concept called “community policing” that was developed in the wake of bad publicity generated in the late 60s and early 70s from pictures of police beating protesters.
The Seattle protests were a wake-up call for the American authorities. The Battle of Seattle had caught them with their pants down. Their disrespect for protesters had created a “perfect storm” of events that played right into the hands of the Seattle protesters. The police “learned” that they had to go back to the traditional techniques of crowd control, political propaganda, and the tested tactic of brute force. The American police were also in a good position to police dissent thanks to the militarization of police departments during the Clinton administration. One of the shocking things about the Seattle protests was the sight of Robocops wandering around pepper-spraying activists while wearing the new military gear.
Dawdy’s piece includes several errors. He writes that there was “no precedent in recent American history for creating a fortress around conference sites.” Perhaps not fences around trade summits, but the police in Washington, DC had erected a fortress around the NATO summit held there in 1999. Dawdy writes that,
“The other fatal error in Seattle was to make mass arrests. Pugel advises against that. ‘It requires an incredible amount of police resources to do that, and it put a huge burden on prosecutors and the criminal-justice system,’ he says. ‘Go after the instigators instead.'”
In fact, the Seattle police attempted to make mass arrests on November 30th, but gave up because they were overwhelmed by activists. The Direct Action Network had hoped for mass arrests on N30, but the police opted to start attacking nonviolent protesters. (Contrary to the myth promoted by liberal activists, the black bloc march happened hours after the police started attacking protesters with pepper spray). Thousands of protesters were attacked with poison gas and weapons. Most protesters were never warned, they were simply attacked brutally. By the end of the day the Seattle police had pissed off thousands with their use of violence, setting the stage for riots that continued into the night.
The most effective thing that the police learned to do after Seattle was to sharpen their propaganda skills. The police understand that the media will uncritically report anything said by the police about protesters. Thus, cooking supplies for the April 2000 protests in Washington became “bomb making materials.” The police learned to provide the divide and conquer game, telling the media that the “good protesters” were going to be disrupted by “anarchists” and “outside agitators.” The mainstream media doesn’t challenge these lies and doesn’t point out, for example, that anarchists are deeply involved in the planning of summit protests. The police learned that propaganda was useful not just in demonizing protesters, but in scaring away protesters. Propaganda also covered up the fact that the police were still pretty incompetent when it came to dealing with protesters.
Dawdy’s article gives the impression that despite a few mistakes in Seattle, the police are now prepared to deal with protesters effectively. Dawdy points out that the use of “non-lethal weapons” sometimes goes wrong, such as the recent case of the white woman killed in Boston during a Red Sox victory celebration. In fact, the police use these weapons daily against poor working people and arbitrarily against protesters. Policing of summit protests after Seattle showed that the cops were willing to use violence against any kind of protester. The police not only saw any protester dressed in black as an “instigator,” they acted like every protester was target for police violence. Police motorcycles attacked protesters at peace marches. The police arrested everybody in a park in Washington, DC, leading to a huge embarrassment for that police department. And contrary to police department PR, rank-and-file police are poorly trained in crowd control tactics and lack experience in handling militant protests.
Since Seattle, the police have relied on propaganda to demonize protesters, scare tactics and sheer numbers to keep more people from joining protests, and violence to bully and terrorize protesters. The police haven’t really “learned” anything in so much as they have fallen back on traditional violent tactics to stop dissent. Some of this has kept people away from protests. Many rank-and-file radicals take the police seriously, but don’t let the hype deter them from planning radical actions. Much was made about the “Miami Model” of policing during the FTAA protests last year. This new model was actually more of the same thing: lots of cops, threats of violence, and a geographical location that was difficult to reach for working class activists.
Increasingly these days, more protesters are deciding to take their ball and play elsewhere. Instead of facing off against the police at summit protests, more folks are organizing local protests and direct actions. There has been an increase in illegal actions, such as last week’s stunt in Lafayette, Louisiana, where unknown people glued locks on the doors of dozens of businesses. The police may succeed in preventing the rabble from bringing democracy to trade summits, but more people are deciding to take their dissent directly to the physical manifestations of capitalism. This is a growing trend, but mass protests at trade summits will still happen for the foreseeable future.
Terrorism-baiting the Anti-Globalization Movement
The Seattle Weekly’s retrospective continues with a right wing attack on the movement in an essay by Knute Berger titled “How 9/11 Trumped N30.” Berger’s piece addresses a legitimate point about how the 9/11 attacks and George W. Bush have affected both the anti-globalization movement and globalization. The 9/11 attacks gave George Bush and his supporters an opportunity to pursue unilateralist foreign and economic policies. Berger writes:
“Their interests have been dramatically, if dangerously, advanced by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and by the open embrace of unilateral and pre-emptive international actions-on behalf of not just “democracy,” but free markets and lower marginal tax rates. By cloaking itself in an endless War on Terrorism, by asserting the American way at gunpoint, by allowing George W. Bush to increase the size, scope, and power of government in favor of the big guys and at the expense of the little guys, the imperium has released its inner beast. The so-called neoconservatives have tapped into a strain of American arrogance that is feeding the angels of our worst nature, but in the guise of advancing our better ones. We are now beginning to see what an enormous, global government based on greed looks like.”
While Berger is correct in pointing out how the current world situation benefits some capitalists, the new American imperialism flies in the face of the hyper-libertarian ideas of free market capitalism. The Bush administration’s response to 9/11 has thrown a wrench into globalization and derailed free market ideologues, but globalization proceeds today. Just look at all of the outsourcing that is going on, or last week’s WTO decision that went against the United States.
Berger’s article is more troubling because it repeats insane right wing arguments that Osama bin Laden is part of the anti-globalization movement, or allied with it in some way:
“The dark side of the anti-globalization movement is outright terrorism. The Al Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were monstrous atrocities.”
Osama bin Laden has never been part of the anti-globalization movement, which is an international movement of concerned and committed grassroots activists. Osama bin Laden is a fundamentalist religious fanatic who is waging jihad against the U.S. and other governments. Arguing that the 9/11 attacks were in synch with the anti-globalization movement is like the illogical argument that vegetarians are closet fascists because Adolf Hitler happened to be a vegetarian. The 9/11 attacks may have been effective attacks on the symbols of American capitalism and militarism, but the anti-globalization movement has nothing in common with the religious jihadists led by Osama bin Laden.
Lastly, Berger repeats another liberal myth about Seattle, that most protesters denounced the anarchists: “many in the anti-globalization movement criticized the anarchists for giving the Seattle protests a bad name, for tainting a global message that would have been more powerful without all the broken windows.” In fact, a few people denounced the anarchists, most famously Medea “peace activists should vote for war criminals” Benjamin, but many in the movement understood the importance of the actions undertaken by the Seattle black bloc. After all, what’s a revolution without its tea party?
Has It Really Been Five Years?
The Seattle Weekly retrospective on the 1999 anti-WTO protests recognizes the historical importance of that explosive week in Seattle. At the same time, it repeats myths about the protests and the movements while giving the authorities a virtual free pass for continued violence and terrorism against dissenters. The anti-globalization and anti-capitalist movements have seen many successes and a few defeats, but it may be too soon to judge the long-term influence of the movements. Globalization continues, but with more widespread resistance around the globe. The North American anti-globalization movement may not dominate the front page, but it continues to mobilize people for protests. The most important lesson learned from the Battle for Seattle is that average working people can come together to dramatically challenge the rich and powerful and make history in the process.
CHUCK MUNSON writes for the Infoshop, where this essay originally appeared. He can be reached at: chuck@mutualaid.org
Sources
This Is What Failure Looks Like By Geov Parrish
What Cops Learned By Philip Dawdy
Mossback – How 9/11 trumped N30 By Knute Berger
FURTHER READING
Five Days That Shook the World: Seattle and Beyond by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair
Confronting Capitalism: Dispatches from a Global Movement by Eddie Yuen, Daniel Burton-Rose, George Katsiaficas. (Soft Skull Press, 2004)
Globalize Liberation: How to Uproot the System and Build a Better World by David Solnit. (City Lights Publishers, 2004)
Infoshop.org’s Coverage of the 1999 Seattle Protests http://www.infoshop.org/no2wto.html
No Logo http://www.nologo.org
Reader’s Guide to Anti-Capitalism http://www.infoshop.org/octo/anticap_biblio.html
We are everywhere: the Irresistible Rise of Global Anti-Capitalism by Notes from Nowhere. (Verso, 2003)
GROUPS
Anarchist People of Color http://www.illegalvoices.org/
Anti-Capitalist Convergence http://www.abolishthebank.org
Indymedia http://www.indymedia.org/
Mobilization for Global Justice http://www.globalizethis.org/
Ontario Coalition Against Poverty http://www.ocap..ca
Seattle Indymedia http://seattle.indymedia.org/
Props to Kirsten Anderberg for providing some of the information that went into this article.