I can't say that the demonstration was perceived as "against capitalism" by the majority of the people on it. But so far as people see the World Trade Organisation as a symbol of a new capitalism, a new period of particularly brutal capitalism, yes, it was against that.

For most of the trade unionists, the protest was a rejection of the new situation they have found themselves in for the last 20 years. There is also the example of the West Coast longshoremen. They have a more militant tradition, and their slogan was, "Stop Corporate Globalism" - a more clearly anti-capitalist message.

Among the rebel youth, there was a strong anti-corporate sentiment - anti-capitalist in a sense, but without any widespread support for a clear alternative.

The alternative in the minds of most of the demonstrators, I think, was global solidarity in struggle. They didn't have a definite idea of an alternative system of social relations, but they saw this as a struggle to defend and expand democracy on a world scale, and against greed. The organised socialist left was not very visible. We were there, but for the most part integrated into other organisations. The high profile was taken by union banners, and by the banners of environmental organisations and anti-sweatshop campaigns.

People took socialist leaflets. There was a tremendous sense of solidarity. People were listening to each other. There were many meetings - every night, maybe seven well-advertised meetings. These were mainly meetings called by unions, or environmental alliances. There were no high-visibility meetings called by revolutionary socialist organisations. Most everything was being done in coalition.

The Labor Party meeting went surprisingly well. It was hardly advertised, but perhaps 200 people showed up.

The Labor Party, however, is not really focused on the WTO events. All its resources are being put into a campaign for universal health care. That said, the Labor Party's message was strong and well-received.

The consensus that existed in this country between the labour bureaucracy and the Democratic Party over free trade right up until NAFTA [the North American Free Trade Agreement] has broken down, and that seems to the issue, more than any other, which is pushing labour towards forming alliances with other groups. It's not a coincidence that it was at this time that the Labor Party was born.

The Labor Party has no plans for the presidential elections. With the defeat of the reform wing of the Teamsters, hopes that we had of a couple of major unions coming on board and putting significant resources into the Labor Party have been put on hold. Activity is focused almost entirely on trying to move the grassroots campaign about health care. There could be a few Labor Party candidates in localities next year, but there will not be a presidential campaign. Green activists and others will probably get behind another Ralph Nader candidacy, but it will not have any significant impact on the unions.

The great majority of the trade unionists there were people who were new to political protest. They may have been shop stewards or activists within their union, but they hadn't been on political demonstrations before.

For the US, it was a very diverse turnout. It was predominantly white, but there was a significant number of black activist, Asians and Latinos, and certainly good numbers of women, and it was all different ages. It was more diverse than any other demonstration I've seen over the last 40 years. The labour movement in Seattle had made a conscious attempt to build links to black churches over several months prior to the demonstration, and some black church congregations did turn out.

The other demonstrators, apart from the trade unionists, were a new generation, mostly under the age of 25. There were a lot of people from direct-action environmental movements, but also from United Students Against Sweatshops and other campus-based groups. Some of these were people who began to develop an orientation in the Union Summer projects sponsored by the AFL-CIO. Even if this is not an explicitly anti-capitalist movement, it is an anti-corporate movement, with many different shades.

The Seattle high schools insisted that parents would be prosecuted if students went on the demonstration, so there were not a lot of high school students there. But there were some.

The environmentalists who were in Seattle are people who see themselves as grassroots organisers and direct-action activists - probably not very interested in the attempts to form Green Parties here. There is a strong sentiment of opposition to parties of any sort - a sort of soft anarchism. There has probably been more discussion about the events around the WTO than any other issue I can remember in many, many years. Across the country, people are showing videos and holding discussion groups. Most of this is not union-based, though where there are activists in the unions with some authority, we were able to return to our home locals and do slide-shows and screen videos and hold discussions.

A very murky discussion is going on about whether we're for reforming the WTO or abolishing it, with different unions taking different positions. It's linked to the debate in AFL-CIO unions about whether it was a good thing to endorse Al Gore for president.

Another important debate is about whether we, as a union movement, want to be associated with rebel youth who engaged in massive non-violent civil disobedience in the streets of Seattle, or do we want a more respectable image? A very strong anti-corporate sentiment is running through this, and it's something new in the labour movement in this country.

When the labour movement here was first dealing with NAFTA, the response was predominantly a protectionist, "Buy American", stance. Now people, both in the leadership and among the members, are talking about the need for a new internationalism. It's not clear what that means. But it is definitely a shift in the discussion away from the "America First" talk which played into the hands of demagogues like Pat Buchanan.

In every large community and every city there are coalitions - people coming together to talk about, "what next after Seattle?" Ideas are being floated about a demonstration against the World Bank meeting in Washington DC in April, an anti-capitalist demonstration on May Day following an Earth Day on 30 April, and so on. Radical activists are also talking about the need for links with labour, which is something entirely new.