It wasn't an Agent Provocateur

[suffragette]

72. This very much reminds me of Seattle WTO 12/2/99

At that point, WTO protests had been going on for a few days and numerous community groups and the general public were expressing outrage at the police tactics, particularly their attacks on peaceful protestors and their nightly forcing protestors up on to Capitol Hill (a residential neighborhood) and gassing of the protestors which also gassed workers and residents of that neighborhood.

That day the police de-escalated their show of force and the protests were conducted peacefully (funny how that works -eh?).

I attended the rally at the market mentioned here and listened to speakers about corporate farming and GMO, all new info to me at the time:
http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=2140

As noted in the article above, many of the protestors then gathered at the King County jail to demand the release of those who had been arrested previously. I did not attend that, but at this point, with this being history now, you can see the description focuses on that action and the negotiation that ensued.

However, at the time, that was not the prominent image displayed on the news stations that night. Instead, and I recall this vividly, the news stations played and replayed one moment from that day over and over. That was the video of a person who had attempted to burn the flag outside the jail. They focused on this to the exclusion of the many events held that day, of the speakers from around the world, of the issues involved.

Now, those issues are still being discussed and OWS is at the forefront of doing so. The history of that time does not even mention the image that the media tried so hard to make the prominent image of that day and focal point.