http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/battleinseattle/

I've been alternately looking forward to/dreading the release of the movie the "Battle in Seattle" since I first heard they were making it. I was even more worried when I heard my boy Jared Leto wouldn't be in the starring role. I hope to God they do the story RIGHT, because for me personally it was a watershed moment in my political life, living and working at the time a mere two blocks from the meeting place of the WTO, and it being the first real uprising against the global corporatist agenda here in the U.S. to gain national attention.

No matter what, it was not even remotely as simplistic as a lot of the media make it out to be. Many of the police officers involved didn't like what they were being asked to do and were DEEPLY conflicted, it wasn't just a bunch of kids throwing rocks at a Niketown window but rather the largest show of solidarity on AFL-CIO history, and it wasn't just limited to Americans rather it was activists from the Third World joining with American workers and students and even the African and South American WTO representatives to complain that in discussions of trade and global economy none of their voices were being heard, only the voices of the wealthy and the powerful were.

This was principally about advocating for one simple thing: FAIRNESS.

There is an in-depth article about the film and the actual events up at Alternet:

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/99880?page=entire

However, no matter how the movie dramatizes the events, or if it is successful in accurately portraying them, if you go to see that movie, I would ask that everyone here also see a REALLY GOOD documentary about those days, called "This Is What Democracy Looks Like".

It is perhaps the most accurate accounting of that series of protests, and what they accomplished.

http://www.thisisdemocracy.org/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmgEfvyP93Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j2h3EZcfro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVzuDMb4yxA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UyP9OIJR0o