"Some of the proud nonviolent protesters spent yesterday cleaning up the damage done by the smashers and distancing themselves from them philosophically. Among them was Medea Bejamin of Global Exchange, who, along with some of her colleagues, actually tried to defend Niketown's windows against breakage. Benjamin also - incredibly - suggested that the cops should have arrested the people who blocked the streets on Tuesday, making it impossible for the WTO to meet. Sober reformists are incapable of understanding that they need immoderates to help make their case; without crazies to which they can appear like moderate alternatives, no one would ever listen to them." -- Doug Henwood

"Yesterday's Seattle Times had an article on the delegation of anarchists from Eugene, Oregon, who are being blamed for most of the violence. The Eugenians - playing the always-useful role of outside agitators - published a manifesto denouncing the unions and NGOs protesting the WTO as "part of the glue holding a rotting order together. It's time to create a new world from the ashes after the ruined one. Fight back and don't get caught." And they didn't; almost all the arrestees were doing nothing violent, while the window-smashers seem to have skipped town unhindered. Before leaving, though, the Eugene anarchists amazingly flattened the tires of eight police cars and spray-painted them with the circled A that symbolizes anarchism. Doing that takes amazing nerve; getting away with it is stunning." -- Doug Henwood