People in law enforcement who have seen globalization protests said the demonstrators were organized and in some cases used diversions to enable them to cause disruptions or mar property elsewhere.
At the earlier globalization protests, participants who formally profess to be anarchists made up a large segment of those arrested on charges of vandalism or in violent confrontations with police.
Norm Stamper, who resigned as Seattle's police chief after the city's chaotic globalization protests in 1999, which included the use of tear gas and rubber bullets against demonstrators, said the behavior of officers in Oakland was symptomatic of the highly authoritarian style of policing common in U.S. cities.
On the 10th anniversary of the Seattle globalization protests, today's actions also took place on the heels of a new study by the Physicians for Social Responsibility that coal "contributes to four of the top five causes of mortality in the U.S. and is responsible for increasing the incidence of major diseases already affecting large portions of the U.S. population".
A Texas company's attempt to patent a type of basmati rice became a touchstone for anti-globalization protest in the 1990's.
As for decentralization's effect on politics, Mr. Johnson points out that the anti-globalization protest movement (made up of smaller affinity groups representing specific causes) has already adopted a fragmented, leaderless form reminiscent of ant colonies.
I marched with 15,000 activists at the A16 anti-globalization protest in 2000.
Fox appeared on-stage during the conference and recounted participating in an anti-globalization protest in Seattle in 1999.
She had gotten a taste for informant work after infiltrating an anti-globalization protest group for a paper for her community college class.
Even in its early days, many aspects of the movement would have been recognizable to anyone who had been to an anti-globalization protest in the late 90s, or an anti-war gathering a generation before.
In Seattle, protesters used the Internet and cellphone messaging to help organize anti-globalization protests.
