国际英语角第二期 || Ghosts of Seattle’s Rebel Past 翡翠城已逝的革命魂
编者引：
本文选自《新左翼评论》（New Left Review) 112期 （2018年7-8月刊），原题为 Company Town? (公司之城？），作者为 UC Berkeley 的 Cal Winslow 。
文章主要讲述了20世纪初以来美国西雅图码头工人、伐木工人、流动农民等无产阶级的生存状况和斗争史，揭露了资产阶级暴力机器对于反抗的工人的肮脏行径。作者在文末写道：
“The workers of 1919 who took control of their city were at least as brazen and courageous. They didn’t shy away from conflict, even in the face of the cruellest measures taken against them—mass incarceration, deportation, murder. If their rule over Seattle only lasted five days, they were five days that mattered.”
本文选自文章第一节，题为 “Ghosts of Seattle’s Rebel Past” ，我们译作——“翡翠城已逝的革命魂”。
Seattle gleams under the grey skies that characterize its climate. Container ships from China wait in Elliott Bay to unload, while tour boats head out to Alaska’s shrinking glaciers. A visitor attraction, the Great Wheel, towers over Pier 57, and there are tourists everywhere. Two gigantic sports arenas dominate the southern end of the waterfront, where in times past seamen used to brawl and the longshoremen struck the great ships—losing in 1916, winning at last in 1934. The football stadium is the prize of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who obtained the public funding for its construction. The best seats in the house sell for more than $1,000 and the approaches are lined with upscale bistros and bars. In the South Lake Union district[1], Allen’s Vulcan real-estate company is building a head-office complex for another tech firm, Amazon, complete with interlinked spherical glasshouses enclosing a miniature rainforest. Facebook and Google are also moving in. Powered by these new developments, the Emerald City[2] has the fastest growing population of any major urban area in the US. The world’s two richest men, Jeff Bezos[3] and Bill Gates, both reside here.
西雅图在灰暗的天空下熹微着，“黑云压城” 是对这座城市气候的典型描绘。从中国驶来的集装箱货船在艾略特湾准备卸货，游轮则正前往阿拉斯加日渐萎缩的冰川地带。摩天巨轮耸立在57号码头，这个旅游景点内遍布着游客。两个巨型体育场盘踞海滨的南端，那是曾经海员动乱的地方：码头工人在这里发动对航运巨头的罢工（他们在1916年失败了，终于在1934年赢得胜利）。足球场是由微软联合创始人保罗·艾伦用他得到的那笔公共资金捐建的，其中最好的座位票价超过1000美元，上档次的餐厅和酒吧在通往球场的道路两边营业待客。在南湖联合区，艾伦的Vulcan房地产公司正在为一家科技企业——亚马逊，建造总部大楼。大楼里建有相互连接的球形温室，里面培养着微型热带雨林。Facebook和Google也正在筹备入驻。在这些崭新开发项目的驱动下，翡翠城（西雅图）的人口增长速度在美国所有主要城市中位居榜首。全世界最富有的两个人——杰夫·贝索斯和比尔·盖茨都住在这里。
Seattle flourishes, then—is an important place. But can we ask: what sort of place? A stage set, perhaps, for the new Gilded Age[1], in which corporate wealth and ‘vibrant’ street life can distract the eye from all manner of social contradictions. Seattleites don’t mind the rain; in fact they love the outdoors. However, public space is at a premium and access to the sea severely restricted. Tech workers take great pride in Seattle’s high rating for ‘liveability’, yet the cost of housing is rising even quicker than in the Bay Area[2] and the traffic is often unbearable. Hundreds of the unemployed sleep on the street each night in Pioneer Square[3]. Tent cities appear, reminiscent of the 1930s ‘Hooverville[4]’ shanty town erected in the mud flats south of the business district, and just as unwelcome to the authorities. Meanwhile elsewhere in the city, second homes abound.
西雅图的蓬勃发展，使其成为众星捧月之地。但是我们是否可以质问：这是什么样的地方？或许，是一个为迎接新的镀金时代布置的舞台。在这里，企业的财富和“生机勃勃”的市井生活可以把人们的注意力从各种形式的社会矛盾中转移开来。西雅图人不介意雨天；事实上，他们酷爱户外活动。然而，公共空间是非常珍贵的，出海的机会更是被严格限制起来。科技工作者对西雅图在“宜居度排行榜”上的高位引以为傲，事实上，这里住房成本的上升速度甚至快过了旧金山湾区，交通状况更是常常令人难以忍受，每个晚上都有数百名失业者在拓荒者广场的街头过夜。“帐篷城”现象的浮现令人联想起二十世纪三十年代的“胡佛村”，在商业区以南的泥滩上遍布着棚户区，它们同样象征着对当局的不满。与此同时，在城市的其他地方还存有大量的二手房。
There are many ghosts dwelling here: old memories—dimly held, to be sure. Here is Yesler Way, once better known as Skid Road because of the logs rolled downhill along its course to Henry Yesler’s sawmill on the shore. Nowadays a nondescript thoroughfare dotted with cafes frequented by tourists, including a branch of the city’s ubiquitous Starbucks chain, it used to heave with disreputable saloons, brothels and flophouses, making Skid Road synonymous with any district where the down-and-out may gather: places that are rough, sometimes radical. The Industrial Workers of the World[1] put down roots in this quarter among loggers, itinerant farmworkers and miners bound for the Yukon, as well as the shipyard workers who led the Seattle General Strike of 6–10 February 1919, the only true general strike in US history and the one occasion when American workers have actually taken over the running of a city—the sort of endeavor which earned this state, now given over to the billionaires of the new economy, the appellation ‘the Soviet of Washington’.
许多幽魂游荡于此：那些古老的记忆被模糊地维持着。这里有Yesler Way，一度以“木材滑道”被熟知，原木从这里滚下山，一路通向Henry Yesler在海边的锯木厂。如今，这里已经变成一条平淡无奇的大道，街边点缀着游客常常光顾的咖啡厅，其中也包括一家在市中处处可见的星巴克连锁分店。这里曾经遍布着破旧不堪的酒肆，妓院和廉价旅馆，使得“木材滑道”同所有无家可归之人的聚集处没有什么区别。这是一个混乱之地，也是一隅激进之所。世界产业公会的工人深深扎根于此，活动于那些伐木工人、流动农业工人、开赴Yukon的矿工和那些领导了1919年2月6日-10日西雅图大罢工的船坞工人之间。西雅图大罢工是美国历史上唯一一次真正的大罢工，标志着美国工人第一次真正意义上通过斗争得到一座城市的掌控权——正是这种努力赢得了“华盛顿（州）苏维埃”的称号。然而现在这个权力已经落入新经济造就的亿万富翁手中。
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