IMC: If you are inclined, please provide some background information about yourself.

Ryan: I have been active in the global justice movement for about 4 years I suppose, becoming educated about many issues shortly after the protests in Seattle. I was into animal rights in my early teens and started organizing rallies, which lead me to investigate the WTO and it's partners in crime. I attended A16 in 2000 I DC, which solidified my beliefs and confirmed that I was taking a step toward a solution. I dropped out of high school after 10th grade to pursue organizing and in protest of the education system. I felt as though it was a waste of time to stay in a crappy school while there was so much going on outside that I could be a part of and maybe lend a hand in.

IMC: What group(s) do you affiliate yourself with? Explain the mission of these groups.

Ryan: I have taken part in organizing with the Grassroots Organization for Animal Liberation, Global Toxin, the old Baltimore Animal Rights Coalition, the Towson Anti-war Coalition (TAWC), No FTAA Towson, and many others. TAWC was a main organizer for the street protest that shut down Towson on March 20, 2003 when the first bombs of the war fell on Iraq. This brought 300 people into the streets from local colleges, high schools, and communities. No FTAA Towson raised money, held teach-ins, benefit shows, and training sessions in preparation for the protests against the FTAA November 20-21 2003 in Miami. We sent 2 15-passenger vans to Miami and did a lot of outreach before hand.

IMC: When did you first get involved with the anti-globalization movement?

Ryan: At about the time I dropped out of high school, the spirit in the air following Seattle and leading up to Quebec was so immense and promising, I was swept up in it. I began organizing with a group some friends and I started called Global Toxin in Towson. Global Toxin concentrated at first on the World Bank/IMF and WTO, as well as related issues, but quickly expanded its focus as the political atmosphere changed. We organized for the inauguration protest, sending a few carloads down to DC. We organized affinity groups to go down to DC on September 29th to shut down the World Bank/IMF meetings in 2001, but these meetings were cancelled due to the events on 9/11. After this, we organized weekly protests (sometimes twice a week) against the war in Afghanistan for it's entire duration, and organized protests and events against it. GT also organized an annual fur protest at Kent Fisher Furs in Towson, which different groups have organized since GT broke up in the summer of 2002.

IMC: How does the activist group No FTAA Towson fit into the movement’s framework?

Ryan: No FTAA Towson has now expanded into a broader global justice group, with a name change coming soon! No FTAA Towson took part in so much local organizing that it nearly burned everyone out for a time period. We did outreach, wrote leaflets and posters, organized teach-ins, benefit shows, social events, protests, and ran an informative website and email list. We organized an event in Baltimore that brought 100 people out in the pouring rain to walk a "tour of shame" through downtown and hold different corporate and government targets accountable for injustices worldwide. We also sent over 30 people to Miami and took part in the mass-organizing process behind Miami, attending large regional meetings throughout the country.

IMC: As an activist, how important is education and outreach to you?

Ryan: I think that education and outreach are some of the most important things in activism and social change and should be concentrated on more and more all the time. I don't think there can be enough outreach. In Miami, we went around to local businesses with leaflets, and it showed us that they were on our side. The police and local governments, along with a few businesses were scaring the hell out of local merchants and communities with talk of blind riots and looting, so we took in upon ourselves to challenge their tactics and meet them with face-to-face outreach. So many workers in downtown Miami were on our side and an overwhelming amount took leaflets. Some merchants even asked or already had large posters against the FTAA or handed out leaflets themselves! Unfortunately, the police told them it was illegal and often seized their posters or leaflets, create a police state climate that I had never seen. In light of this, we did even more outreach, and that was one of Miami's huge victories.

Outreach has been the main tool of most of the groups I've worked in. Id' say the best example I can see of good outreach was TAWC's role in coordinating the M20 march in Towson. We just handed out leaflets that said there would be a walkout when the war started and left the rest up in the air. When the day came, 300 people were out from area schools and neighborhoods, and the march went really well. I think the march went well because everyone in it knew what was going on knew about the war and had been informed, and so we all felt the same emotions and took similar actions. No one really led the march, people kind of just went with the flow and empowered themselves to keep moving.

Education, understanding, and action are the 3 greatest assets we have, but they must all come together. Without a common understanding of our goals and of each other, action is meaningless, and without educating ourselves about the realities behind our struggle and behind the political structure, we are bound to repeat past mistakes.

IMC: The anti-globalization movement has been built by individuals from a variety of backgrounds and with a variety of motivations, values and ideologies. Considering this, is it important to have cohesion and unity within the movement?

Ryan: Certainly. Our greatest strength as a movement is our solidarity across lines that we never saw connected before. In Seattle, you had hard-hat workers in the same marches as tree-sitters, and that's significant. It is important for us to come together in our opposition, and through that, find our alternative. I think that if there is enough cohesion, discussion, solidarity, and understanding, we will all realize what we want. Lots of folks are in the movement for different reasons, which is fine, but we need to become a movement for something, instead of a movement against something.

In Miami, lots of the AFL-CIO banners and signs, including the main banner above the stage at the amphitheater, read "Stop Bush's FTAA". It was Clinton's FTAA before, and every corporate politician's FTAA. Some high-ups wanted to make it democrat/republican issues, when it is clearly not. This is an example of interests getting in the way of a new alternative. Democrats are not alternatives to Republicans. However, the AFL-CIO and some direct action organizers tried hard to work together and did a pretty good job of it, which is a huge step toward a common understanding of principles and goals, if they are sought out.

IMC: What would you say is the movement’s biggest victory to date?

Ryan: Hmmmm. I was not in Seattle, Prague, or Cancun where some large victories were won. I'd say our largest single victory, in one-day terms, was Seattle. Seattle vibrated the entire world and was as historic as a protest can be. I think in 100 years, if the government does not erase everything, folks will look at Seattle as a turning point in our history. Seattle got me into the movement, because I read papers, reports, and talked to folks about it, thus educating myself about the WTO and free trade, which helped form a better world-view for myself. Seattle for me was a beginning, but for many, it was the sum of lots of hard work and outreach. Next to Seattle alone, I would say our biggest victory has been the constant pressure and huge presence we've had since Seattle. We have been everywhere, and you cannot talk about free trade or conduct secret exploitation anymore without a bunch of good people crashing the party or raising a well-needed fuss. When the WTO meets or a newspaper article mentions a trade agreement, you hear about us. This constant presence creates an opening for opposition to the status quo, and allows people to look into the alternatives we are suggesting and promoting.

IMC: What is the movement’s biggest failure to date?

Ryan: Ouch. I don't know exactly how to measure this one, because there have been many small failures in the organizing structure as well as in street tactics and planning. Miami was pretty bad as far as police repression and overall intimidation, and our mass-organizing structure got pretty confusing leading up to the actions. The Black Bloc and Padded Bloc we're not connected the way they wanted to be, and they both kind of fell apart as the actions began. The police were good at totally scaring the shit out of everyone and making it hard to get to point B. The Padded Bloc totally dissolved before it even happened, due to police, logistics, and numbers, among other things. The Black Bloc was targeted from step 1 and was beaten down before they could mobilize enough numbers to be real effective. The police smacked the direct action march from government center and most affinity groups balked on their action plans. We could not march the route we wanted to march either because of the police and poor scouting/route making, and we settled for a straight shot to the fence. The police also fucked up the AFL-CIO march and rally, as well as any other attempt at a peaceful or legal gathering.

There was no major success in Miami, however, we did not fail. The police were to blame for most of the shit that happened, the failure on our part was very small. There is always going to be something that goes a little wrong at every action, Miami was no different.

I think our biggest failure has been general education of a local level. We have not worked hard enough at connecting local struggle and issues to global ones, or to bring people to an understanding of why the free market is criminal, myself included. If there is going to be any change, it will come from a majority of the people rising up and reclaiming what is theirs, so we need to work to promote that. We should concentrate less on the mass protest and more on the mass uprising.

IMC: You were in Quebec and Miami and have done your homework on pertinent events like Seattle and Cancun. How do these events all add up?

Ryan: Seattle was the explosion that ruptured the skin and brought the whole movement together. Quebec was more of the climax of the Canadian and US movements. Quebec was like a victory celebration, it didn't matter that the meetings weren't shut down, we just arrived and won. The whole atmosphere was so festive, even amidst the tear gas, fire hoses, and Molotov cocktails. There was something in the air that let us all know that we we're in charge and winning, and there wasn't much that could stop us. Then September 11th came and we lost all our momentum. 9/11, to the global justice movement, was like a foot stepping on your head. We just couldn't mobilize, the country went insane, people feared us, the media painted us as terrorists, the government clamped down on our groups and the feds started snooping more, and outreach became extremely hard. We tried to regain the spirit of the years before in NY at WEF and a few times in DC, and failed. No one wanted to hear it it seemed. A lot of organizers from the movement started working against the wars, and this also led to a decrease in movement activity. It was not until the beginning of the occupation of Iraq that the movement peaked again, and Cancun and Miami were there.

Cancun was a physical victory and a political victory. There were not mass numbers in Cancun, but it was enough to tip things over a bit. The internal structure of the WTO started unraveling and the meetings collapsed, bringing a huge burst of momentum and optimism to the movement.

Miami was a pick-me-up for US organizers and protest participants, and hopefully for folks who were burned out from the post-9/11 organizing world. We organized a mass permit-less rally in the face of a horrible police state and a difficult geographic and political terrain. If the FTAA meetings had been held in Chicago or NY or on the west coast somewhere, you would have had like 50,000 people instead of 10,000. We did the best we could and the organizing was a learning experience. The consult process, along with conference calls, a great email list, and a huge amount of local organizing, made Miami a great mobilization. We have now taken note and will continue the consultas, email lists, and local organizing efforts. Cancun and Miami were, in my hope, the start of the next round of true resistance to the current state.

IMC: People involved in direct action were hoping that there would be accomplishments in Miami similar to those seen in Seattle, Quebec and Cancun: a dismantling of the fence and meeting disruption. Unfortunately this was not the case. In light of this, is there a need to re-evaluate tactics, objectives and goals?

Ryan: We definitely hoped for large-scaled direct actions in Miami, but it was really hard to pull anything off because of the police and city officials. We had good plans, though they were perhaps a bit far-fetched. I think we have thought too much theoretically and not enough realistically. While direct confrontation may be needed eventually or soon and I am morally not opposed to it, I think we need to shy away from it for now. I think we need more numbers, more outreach, and some creative action. This must be discussed over and over again so we can come to an understanding, because there are folks who want to march and there are folks who want to push against the line. We tried to have both in Miami and it put a lot of people at risk that did not want to be at risk.

The consulta process also tried to figure out exact tactics and goals and came to nothing. We decided we wanted the meetings shut down and people took different routes on how to do it. The 7am march came out of this process, and as I said before, several things led to the marches turnout. Discussion, discussion, discussion. That is how we will figure this all out. Meetings, consultas, articles, anything. Just get your views out there and let's try to understand where we are all coming from.