The 1999 Seattle World Trade Organization Protests

Near the end of 1999, the international economic regulation group known as the World Trade Organization (WTO) planned to meet in Seattle in order to make negotiations regarding future policy reforms and promote economic collaboration between individual nations, which would bolster economic unity throughout the world to a great extent. However, controversies regarding globalism were rampant within the US at the time, as many people believed that corporations throughout the world were abusing individual nations and intervening within America's domestic politics in order to gain political and financial power. For those who don't know, globalism is the concept of planning and operating economic policy on a global basis in order to make trading easier between different countries and ensure financial unity. Although the idea of creating a global economy regulated internationally might seem like a good idea on the surface, there are a lot of individual problems with the intricacies of managing worldwide trade in a fair and just way, especially considering how much corporations can intervene within this process -- business elites can choose to create certain trade policies that give them unwarranted influence on international economies, corporations can reform trade to benefit themselves, and international free markets can be skewed by corruption. Of course, these beliefs aren't inherently true or reflect the actual nature of the WTO, since they are mostly based on political skepticism and conspiracies regarding the topic (as well as sheer distrust for capitalist establishments). Nonetheless, anti-globalist sentiments were still able to become extremely popular amongst young, anti-establishment voters who were enraged by corporate influence on American politics and economics. Thus, when the WTO was trying to go through with its Seattle meeting in November, tens of thousands of Americans began violently protesting in the city calling for an end to globalism and corporate corruption, causing substantial chaos within the city. Protestors committed civil disobedience, vandalized property near the meeting location of the WTO, and worked fervently to prevent the organization from meeting whatsoever. The protests escalated to the point where eventually, the Seattle Police Department began violently reacting towards non-complacent rioters and city leadership became focused on disrupting protestors in the hopes of preventing them from causing further disorder. In the end, the National Guard got involved in stopping the protests and on December 1st, 1999, they were able to successfully disperse the protestors using tear gas and pepper spray to put an end to the "Battle of Seattle." The impacts of this event were extremely significant to domestic politics throughout the 21st century, as they contributed to the growth of a major domestic anti-globalist movement (which wasn't too large before these protests) and caused mass controversy between individuals involved in the event and the media (as the media reacted with horror and astonishment towards the protesters who felt that they were fighting for just politics), making the 1999 Seattle World Trade Organization Protests a significant precedent for future political tensions regarding globalism and corporate corruption.