I’ve been seeing more and more of the future, and it scares the shit out of me. Last night, Ashley and I attended a screening of ‘This Is What Democracy Looks Like‘ put on by the local IndyMedia chapter. The film depicts the famous protest in Seattle during the World Trade Organization (WTO) conference. Like anyone who saw the media coverage, I thought I knew the large part of the story; I was wrong. People who did nothing more than dust off their often-unused right to free, peaceful assembly were being brutally gassed, pepper-sprayed, and even beaten.
One of the most dramatic moments is when a Seattle police officer warns the crowd that they are authorized to move the crowd using ‘pain enforcement’, and that if the crowd doesn’t move, then they will be the subject of that pain. This scene is shown just after a scene of the same officer talking to the protesters, stating that he’s never had to hurt anyone in 30 years, and as long as the protesters remain peaceful, he doesn’t intend to start now. So what happened?
The part that disturbs me is how eerily similar this is to the APEC incidents in Vancouver; similar peaceful protesters, similar abuses of basic rights. It’s four years since APEC, and the police inquiry just wrapped up with minimal public interest; the suspected involvement of the Prime Minister’s Office didn’t even make an appearance during the federal elections.
It’s all of the events, coupled with the numerous brutal applications of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) in the US, that should be serving as a wake up call for us all. Here I am in Chapters, a national book chain, ordering a drink from Starbucks even though they’re “the enemy”, global corporations bending governments to their will. During the WTO riots the CEO of Starbucks described the destruction of a few Starbucks windows as a travesty of justice; this is ironic, seeing as the riots only started because peaceful protesters were denied their constitutional rights. And yet here I am ordering coffee from this jerk. Why? Because I have no choice; if it’s not Starbucks, it’s Blendz, or Cuppa Java, or 7-Eleven.
So much choice, yet none at all at the same time.