Contrary to popular belief, the Seattle WTO was mainly dominated by peaceful protesters. It was only after the police moved in that things got violent. The police moved in to stop the people doing violent and bad things but in reality they had already caught and released many of the so called "anarchists".
This kind of stuff is scary and should never just be thrown away as "the protesters went too far" because when the police crack down, they go straight for the peaceful folk.
Sevehn, aka "I live in Seattle and that was some shit"
The main problem facing Linux in schools is Microsoft's control over school districts. I am a senior in the Seattle Public Schools and attend some of the schools' technology meetings. I have brought up the idea of putting Linux on computers because of the long term gain from such an action, but I was put down because the school district had already refused to support such an action. This is probably because we are at such a close proximity to the Evil Empire, but I have a feeling that this is what they try for all over the country if I remember their move to establish themselves as the main server environment in colleges. Anyways, Linux has more to overcome than just availability of software and ease of use (actually, in X-only mode, it is extremely good for internet/word-processing use), it has to overcome the politics inside schools, which, if you ask any school employee, is gonna be pretty hard...
Hey. I'm from Seattle and I thought that I'd share a little on the situation here. I was at the center of things for a while Tuesday morning before all the violence broke out at 12 (I left because I sensed that it was going to get bad). I've seen and heard some very wrong stuff both on my local TV stations and in the press. Basically what happened was that there were two types of protestors: actual protestors and people who were there to break stuff. The actual protestors were fine. They protested and were legal and were nice people - more on them later. The bad part was the "Anarchist" folks. They were not there to protest at all. They were not even real anarchists. They were there to f*ck up whatever they could, be it protestors or buildings. They were probably the most organized groups of protestors outside of the labor unions. They had thought out tactics on their violence long before the WTO thingy started. Anyways, they went around breaking things and used the protestors by hiding behind the human walls and breaking stuff so that the cops were forced to attack the human walls in order to stop the violence. I am not even going to talk about all the police brutality around here... Anyways, the actual protestors were good people. I liked them. For the most part, they knew what they were talking about and did a good job. Unfortunately because of the violent folks, all protesting was banned on wednesday, so all the real non-violent protestors are now rotting in jail while the a$$holes who were there to make trouble are laughing about it. Okay, this is a bit long, but one more point: Seattle is not the yuppie capitol of the world. Seattle is where normal people live and the rich upper/middle class come to work. They take all our money and polute our town with their SUVs and then go back to live in Bellevue or Issaqua or Redmond...basically the Eastside suburbs of Seattle where all the rich white folk live.
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Contrary to popular belief, the Seattle WTO was mainly dominated by peaceful protesters. It was only after the police moved in that things got violent. The police moved in to stop the people doing violent and bad things but in reality they had already caught and released many of the so called "anarchists".
This kind of stuff is scary and should never just be thrown away as "the protesters went too far" because when the police crack down, they go straight for the peaceful folk.
Sevehn, aka "I live in Seattle and that was some shit"
The main problem facing Linux in schools is Microsoft's control over school districts. I am a senior in the Seattle Public Schools and attend some of the schools' technology meetings. I have brought up the idea of putting Linux on computers because of the long term gain from such an action, but I was put down because the school district had already refused to support such an action. This is probably because we are at such a close proximity to the Evil Empire, but I have a feeling that this is what they try for all over the country if I remember their move to establish themselves as the main server environment in colleges. Anyways, Linux has more to overcome than just availability of software and ease of use (actually, in X-only mode, it is extremely good for internet/word-processing use), it has to overcome the politics inside schools, which, if you ask any school employee, is gonna be pretty hard...
Hey. I'm from Seattle and I thought that I'd share a little on the situation here. I was at the center of things for a while Tuesday morning before all the violence broke out at 12 (I left because I sensed that it was going to get bad). I've seen and heard some very wrong stuff both on my local TV stations and in the press. Basically what happened was that there were two types of protestors: actual protestors and people who were there to break stuff. The actual protestors were fine. They protested and were legal and were nice people - more on them later. The bad part was the "Anarchist" folks. They were not there to protest at all. They were not even real anarchists. They were there to f*ck up whatever they could, be it protestors or buildings. They were probably the most organized groups of protestors outside of the labor unions. They had thought out tactics on their violence long before the WTO thingy started. Anyways, they went around breaking things and used the protestors by hiding behind the human walls and breaking stuff so that the cops were forced to attack the human walls in order to stop the violence. I am not even going to talk about all the police brutality around here... Anyways, the actual protestors were good people. I liked them. For the most part, they knew what they were talking about and did a good job. Unfortunately because of the violent folks, all protesting was banned on wednesday, so all the real non-violent protestors are now rotting in jail while the a$$holes who were there to make trouble are laughing about it.
Okay, this is a bit long, but one more point: Seattle is not the yuppie capitol of the world. Seattle is where normal people live and the rich upper/middle class come to work. They take all our money and polute our town with their SUVs and then go back to live in Bellevue or Issaqua or Redmond...basically the Eastside suburbs of Seattle where all the rich white folk live.