Protesters burned draft cards in the Vietnam War era (left) and today, demonstrators in Seattle protest the WTO

December 2, 1999
Web posted at: 3:33 p.m. EST (2033 GMT)

In this story: 'Willingness to take risks' 'People feel that their ways of life are threatened' 'Young people now have an issue' 'I can't go back to watching my television' RELATED STORIES, SITES

SEATTLE (CNN) -- This week's Seattle demonstrations and police crackdown are reminiscent of the sometimes violent protests that gripped the United States during the Vietnam War. But for young people caught up in the Seattle disturbances, it's all new -- the social unrest of 30 years ago is history, and not part of their personal past.

VIDEO Demonstrators come from various walks of life, as CNN's Don Knapp reports. (December 2) Windows Media 28K 80K Correspondent Charles Feldman compares protests of the past with the anti-WTO demonstrations in Seattle (December 1) QuickTime Play Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K To view the latest video streams on the WTO conference and protests, use the arrow buttons below to scroll through the video gallery.    Windows Media Real    28 K 80 K     RESOURCES What's the big deal about the WTO? CNNfn Special Report: WTO meeting     Image Gallery WTO protesters and police clash in Seattle     QUICK VOTE Vote on the U.S. actions regarding the WTO How do you think the violence in Seattle will affect the cause of the WTO protesters?     ALSO Troops sent to Seattle as part of terrorism contingency plan Editorials: Chaos at WTO talks reflects public mistrust     MESSAGE BOARD WTO

Carmen Nogales, who says World Trade Organization policies harm her friends in South America, is new to protesting and witnessing the consequences.

The 23-year-old temp worker and actress from Los Angeles seems to have been politicized after seeing police arrest people who, like her, had come to Seattle to have their say -- peacefully.

"I came out here with no intention of getting arrested, now I'm not so sure," Nogales told CNN.

Her words recall a time back in the 1960s and early 1970s when the streets of the United States became virtual battlefields for those protesting the Vietnam War, social and racial injustice, or that most amorphous of perceived enemies, "big government."

Tom Hayden, 59, lived through and helped shape that time.

"There is a power to the street that's part of the democratic process when all else has failed," Hayden says. A state lawmaker in California for 17 years, Hayden is a former student activist who was a member of the Chicago Seven that disrupted the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

Journalist and author Margot Adler has written about her personal journey through those turbulent times. "There was a sense of infinite possibility and that was partly fueled by a great prosperity so that people felt a willingness to take risks," she said.

But the risk-taking stopped, it has been argued, when the Vietnam War ended -- and prosperity eventually turned into recession. Students, who led the protest movement in the 1960s and 1970s, found themselves in competition with one another for good jobs in the 1980s and '90s.

While free trade is hardly the subject of dinner-table shouting matches as the Vietnam War was three decades ago, experts say there are genuine passions that led to the unusual alliance that gathered in Seattle -- groups as diverse as anarchists, union laborers, animal rights activists, environmentalists and senior citizens.

"We are in the midst of a tremendous global revolution, ... and the consequences are on a scale that are hitherto unprecedented," said Todd Gitlin, a New York University sociologist who studies protest movements.

Much like the 1968 Democratic Party convention in Chicago, the WTO meeting has become a magnet for all manner of protests.

"People who feel that their ways of life are threatened or feel generally anxious or confused about the way things are going are disposed to look for causes," Gitlin said.

It's not as though the type of civil unrest seen in Seattle is unknown in post-Vietnam America. Race riots stemming from the beating of Rodney King erupted in Los Angeles in 1992.

The grape boycott of the late 1960s and early '70s sought to improve labor conditions for migrant farm workers

Still, most large demonstrations in recent years -- such as 1995's Million Man March in Washington -- have become controlled, predictable events, permitted and monitored by authorities.

But none has ignited the kind of passion -- and violence -- that has been seen in Seattle. Why?

"Young people -- Generation X or whatever you call them -- haven't had an issue. Now they have an issue," said Christopher Krohn, 41, a city council member from Santa Cruz, California, who came to Seattle to protest peacefully.

He said many youth see hard-won environmental safeguards being threatened by a WTO focus on free trade above all other values.

"That's why a lot of people are angry," Krohn said.

The Seattle protest differed from recent controlled demonstrations

Hayden agrees. "I got a legal analysis that shows that 95 California laws are at risk of being repealed or revised because of the WTO and some of it has started," he told CNN. "It's this feeling of the loss of control over your own life or your job that ignites so many people."

Dennis Hayes, an environmentalist who coordinated the first Earth Day in 1970, sees the new activism stemming from a feeling of powerlessness in the 1990s. "There is this sense of a lack of access (because) the World Trade Organization holds its meetings in private," he said.

The WTO "reflects an enormously narrow ideology," Hayes told CNN. "People who favor trade, who would really like the world to become closely integrated, have been frustrated in their efforts to have that done in a way that is environmentally responsible and that will raise the standard of living around the world."

As for Carmen Nogales, her newfound activism has taken hold. What she has experienced in Seattle this week "is definitely changing my life. I can't go back to watching my television and to normalcy."

Correspondents Charles Feldman, Don Knapp, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.