Comments

211
American Apparel is only slightly less evil than Nike (seriously, Dov Charney and Phil Knight both have a special seat reserved at Hell's bottle service booth). That said, neither one of them deserves to have their windows smashed out by a bunch of unfocused folks who have no relevant means of discourse aside from violence.
212
@209

It does not lead "one" to ask, it leads you to ask. If you want to tell us you think the Seattle police are using plainclothes officers to incite violence, then just say so directly, don't hide behind semantic tomfoolerly like that.

@210

Just what it sounds like. It's like a tear gas grenade or canister, except it releases aerosolised capsaicin, the active ingredient in pepper spray.
213
208 -- Police are allowed to approach people and ask questions, especially in an area where anarchist riots and vandalism are expected to break out. They are also permitted to use their own discretion in identifying which people to approach -- these are both basic aspects of their job. It's possible to ask a question or engage people in conversation without gunning anyone down, George Zimmerman-style. You're probably right though. It's better that the police hung back and didn't try to talk to anyone wearing a ski mask around their neck. That could have led to someone feeling that their civil liberties were being violated. What happened instead was way better.
214
@213

...and any person so approached has the right to refuse to answer questions. The police in the US can't even demand identification without "reasonable and articulable" suspicion that the person is already involved in criminal activity. The police here in Washington State can't even ask for ID based on such suspicion, as WAia doesn't have a Stop and Identify Law.
215
@213

Sure, police may approach people and ask them questions. And those people are are free to walk away without consequence if they are not being lawfully detained*. (In practice you should probably inquire if you are "free to leave" first.)

In fact police are bound by specific rules when making a "Terry stop", that is detaining someone without placing them under arrest:


In the United States, a Terry stop is a brief detention of a person by police[1] on reasonable suspicion of involvement in criminal activity but short of probable cause to arrest.

The name derives from Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968),[2] in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that police may briefly detain a person who they reasonably suspect is involved in criminal activity;[3] the Court also held that police may do a limited search of the suspect’s outer garments for weapons if they have a reasonable and articulable suspicion that the person detained may be “armed and dangerous”.[4] When a search for weapons is authorized, the procedure is known as a “stop and frisk”.

To have reasonable suspicion that would justify a stop, police must be able to point to “specific and articulable facts” that would indicate to a reasonable person that a crime has been, is being, or is about to be committed.[5] Reasonable suspicion depends on the “totality of the circumstances”,[6] and can result from a combination of facts, each of which is by itself innocuous.[7]


Choice of fashion accessories does not indicate "that a crime has been, is being, or is about to be committed". Not even during a protest. (Lot's of people wear black clothing and scarves -- even those who have no interest in anarchy or black bloc. And you might even find black-clad, self-avowed anarchists who -- just imagine! -- don't commit vandalism.)

As someone who has been stopped and frisked on multiple occasions while minding my own business, I can tell you it is a deeply degrading and intimidating experience.

Even with the requisites imposed by the Terry stop rules, we still see tremendous numbers of questionable or outright wrongful stop and frisk procedures.

Protection of civil liberties is essential to maintaining a healthy society and respecting the dignity and rights of all individuals.

P.S. How does someone wear a ski mask "around their neck"?

*I'm not a lawyer, do your own research.
216
@214

Sadly police don't always follow their own regulations (whoda thunk it, eh?).

Once, while walking along a road, a cop stopped me, frisked me (more like a sudden, violent groping), and demanded ID.

I refused at first. The cop declared if I didn't provide my license he would call for a K9 unit to sniff search me (for what, who knows?).

I eventually complied because it seemed like the easiest way to end the encounter.
217
@216

And you were convicted of..?

When a cop doesn't follow procedure, and if you actually get arrested (you didn't!) then any public defender will be able to get you acquitted easily. And if they call in the dogs, you'll probably be able to take them to civil court for damages, too.

There's a reason it's called a justice system. Try thinking for a few minutes about what contemporary anarchists want to replace it with: no cops, no laws, no fixed penalties, restorative justice for grievous harm administered solely by General Assembly.
218
It was a good show. Nobody died. A blip on the arc of inevitable human sel-destruction by means of greed, ego. We show ourselves to be absurd and irrational animals by accepting the paternal scolding of the administrative and media arms of the same system that brings us hundreds of thousands of dead iraqi and afghan civilians and trillions of worthless credit default swaps created out of thin air by ivy league educated bored fat cat wall street cokeheads. This is another sad commentary on theincreasingly obvious conclusion that in the absence of God in a chaotic universe, the only rational act of the will is for sisyphus to continue rolling the rock up the hill, or better yet to shoot himself like kurt cobain.
219
Maybe this will finally get senators out of the pocket of Big Coffee and Big American Apparel.
220
"A Contingency of Unicorns".

That's the title of the Great American Novel I am about to commence writing.
221
Thw Indians weren't massacred non-violently. Blacks were not brought over to build the empire without bloodshed. Nazis wouldn't have listened to polite, reasoned arguments. Why must the left apologize for showing one bit of red faced temper at the obscene excesses of the western right? Prefuckingposterous. The windows will be replaced in a week. The lives of dead iraqis and afghans sacrificed for Big Oil will not. Starbucks and textile stylists could not exist without cheap energy safeguarded by the military industrial complex. The debt incurred by offering tax cuts to the wealthy will not go away as quickly as this mess will. You people are mostly zombie citizens of the latest empire to occupy the dubious honor of top dog on the shit pile of human civilization. Good day to you!
222
@182 Canadians are swine for thinking they are more European than Americans. Clearly Northern Europe has chosen the USA to carry out its Imperialist activities. You simply werent "the chosen". BTW, thanks for the coming supply of toxic waste you are sending me:

http://www.newmainetimes.org/articles/20…

I have a black hoodie myself. I am not sure why they are criminalized. Black is a warm color, and a hood keeps neck and head warm.
223
@217: Right...because cops never falsify police reports, do they?
224
@216 if you don't want people to misinterpreted your comments try posting more then a 4 word sentence as a follow up. People that respond with one sentence then follow it up with a paragraph about how their comment was misinterpreted are douchy trolls.

Also a police office has the right/responsibility to talk to people they think are suspicious. If there are known thugs that conceal black goodies under normal cloths and masks around their neck, the cops aren't doing anything wrong by talking to them. There is such a thing as prevent a crime before it happens, and despite what you think this can be done constitutionally.

Also to equant the travyon case to this is a strawman and a douche argument. In one there was no reason to suspect travyon and the use of force was uncalled for. Honestly just tossing out travyon martin to win an argument is douchy and disrespectful.
225
@223 -- Is your point that not having police would be better?
226
You apologists for the police and the existing power structure might want to check out "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander. Just a suggestion...

I personally have spent 45 days in jail and found the food to be quite nutritious, the showers hot, the beds warm and comfy. I got a lot of reading done, and met some interesting people.

The police state does not change minds through enforcement of unjust laws implemented by the power structure to protect the wealth and status of the elites.

Smashing windows calls attention more effectively than polite protest marches down State-sanctioned parade routes.

Fight the Power!
227
Society
Jerry Hannan
Performed by Eddie Vedder

It's a mystery to me
We have a greed with which we have agreed
And you think you have to want more than you need
Until you have it all, you won't be free

Society, you're a crazy breed
I hope you're not lonely without me

When you want more than you have, you think you need
And when you think more than you want, your thoughts begin to bleed
I think I need to find a bigger place
Cause when you have more than you think, you need more space

Society, you're a crazy breed
I hope you're not lonely without me
Society, crazy indeed
Hope you're not lonely without me

There's those thinking more or less, less is more
But if less is more, how you keepin score?
Means for every point you make your level drops
Kinda like you're startin' from the top
And you can't do that

Society, you're a crazy breed
I hope you're not lonely without me
Society, crazy indeed
I hope you're not lonely without me
Society, have mercy on me
I hope you're not angry if I disagree
Society, you're crazy indeed
I hope you're not lonely without me
228
@226

And all the buttsex you wanted and then some. Those inmates should have fucked you harder.
229
@226 Good one! Hardy-har-har. You should take that comedy shit on the road! "Is this an audience or an oil painting (tapping mic)...? Good night, Ladies and Germs..."
230
Jim m67itchell's of the world, unite and smear your feces on your face, pick your nose and drool.
231
I don't follow your line of reasoning, Lew, buddy - because I speak truth to power, and you suck its cock, you resort to ad hominem jr. high school taunts?

You should let Dick Cheney use you as his boytoy. Or worse, Condy Rice's loveslave.

Piece of shit losers. Go back to Nazi Germany where you'd feel right at home gassing jews, or the Roman Empire crucifying Christ, or, well, you don't get the point, do you, you pansy ass piece of shit.
232
Did anyone finish off the Urban Outfitters window? Just sayin, half the work is done.
233
@224 (the numbskull) says:


Also to equant the travyon case to this is a strawman and a douche argument.


Hmm, false. (And an embarrassing misuse of the word "strawman".) I did not "equant the travyon case to this".

In fact, I made an appropriate and correct application of germane real-world events to a discussion on the practice of appearance-based profiling and its consequences.

Also a police office has the right/responsibility to talk to people they think are suspicious.


What exactly are you having difficulty with here? The English language?

To repeat the requirements of a Terry stop:

To have reasonable suspicion that would justify a stop, police must be able to point to “specific and articulable facts” that would indicate to a reasonable person that a crime has been, is being, or is about to be committed.


"He looked suspicious" and "he was wearing a 'black bloc scarf'" are not "specific and articulable facts" that a crime has been, is being, or is about to be committed.

There is such a thing as prevent a crime before it happens, and despite what you think this can be done constitutionally.


Sorry, I deal in verifiable assertions and valid logical arguments, not unsubstantiated proclamations.

But if you feel strongly about this you might be keen on the precrime policing of Minority Report and the "pre-emptive war" doctrine of George W. Bush against Iraq (and potentially Obama and Isreal against Iran).
234
"This is another sad commentary on theincreasingly obvious conclusion that in the absence of God in a chaotic universe, the only rational act of the will is for sisyphus to continue rolling the rock up the hill, or better yet to shoot himself like kurt cobain."

Or you could grow up and get a job son.
235
@Ipso Facto

People walking around in what appears to be black bloc clothing -- in an area where black bloc riots are expected to break out -- would absolutely meet the requirement of "specific and articulable facts" as outlined by the Terry stop law. All the police need is reasonable suspicion. Again, no one has said these people should have been gunned down like Trayvon Martin. You're digging your heels in and being ridiculous.
236
@234. My income is about $125k this year. Is that enough, or should I grow up some more, Daddy? You fucking TOOL.

237
@Jim's Dad: Your suggestion that your son "grow-up and get a job" is already incorporated in his first option to "continue rolling the rock up the hill". That you appended the word "Or" to the beginning of your redundant proposal reveals that you haven't been listening to him, or perhaps that you are unfamiliar with Greek mythology or existentialists.
238
@235

Please read what I posted in @215:


Choice of fashion accessories does not indicate "that a crime has been, is being, or is about to be committed". Not even during a protest. (Lot's of people wear black clothing and scarves -- even those who have no interest in anarchy or black bloc. And you might even find black-clad, self-avowed anarchists who -- just imagine! -- don't commit vandalism.)


The condition that you and j2patter keep citing -- your subjective notion of "black bloc clothing" -- is NOT SUFFICIENT grounds for detention by police.

In the absence of “specific and articulable facts that a crime has been, is being, or is about to be committed", there would be no justification for a Terry stop of someone wearing black clothing at a protest.
239
@223: Uh, no. Yours is an odd conclusion to make. My point to the naive poster @217 was that the justice system is rigged toward the police, unless you have the money and/or time to pose a defense.
240
@239

And yet it's a justice system. Falsified police evidence can be, and is, successfully fought. And often not, true enough. The present system is, I'd agree, far too biased in favor of "one innocent man convicted" rather than "one guilty man goes free." And that really sucks.

Now please (please!) convince me how that particular problem wouldn't be (much!) worse under a system of no-fixed-law, no-fixed-penalty justice administered solely by borderless, antirepresentational, supermajority consensus-process direct-democracy gatherings of autonomous, interested individuals: e.g. Occupy's system of General Assembly.

And if you don't think one of those adjectives applies, please do object; My perception is that each is a bedrock principle for some securely large voting block of core Occupy participants.
241
@240: You're so caught up in the minutiae of a system you think you know something about by reading more about it than some, but nevercan any individual's ego-based intellectual pursuit be sufficient sans humility and audacious creativity. Laws are written by politicians. Constitutions are written by empowered groups based on the latest advances insocio-economic political philosophy. Society is organized by groups of intelligent animals, still balancing their lizard brainstems against their emotional hippocampus. As human beings, we do not live solely in the cerebal cortex as your handle tips us you would find preferable to a humanistic existence that we in fact are resigned to occupy. You are conservative at core, and rooted in the world you see, not the dynamic chaotic supra-human universe that is and will always be. Godless Christian! Spiritless, pessimistic head in the sand police-state supporting sad person! Throwing a few stones is a work of symbolic performance art, necessary to stir the imagination of a media soaked and ultra-jaded mass culture. Reacting in a hysterical, uncool,pathetically humorless way that mayou mcginn did, a fucking 'environmentalist' is sickening. But, what the fuck, nobody died. Admit it was a good show. Never support the status qou. It's boring, unsatisfying, and cruelly ignorant.
242
Jim, my gun is is still in my drawer if you need it. Mom is tired of your rants over the Cocopuffs every morning.
243
@239: I don't believe in anarachy. Or a police state. Crazy, I know.
244
April 29, 1992

I don't know if you can,
but can you get an owner for Ons,
that's O-N-S,Junior Market,
the address is 1934 East Aneheim,
all the windows are busted out,
and it's like a free-for-all in here
and uh the owner shouldat least come
down here and see if he can secure his business,
if he wants to...

April 26th, 1992,
there was a riot on the streets,
tell me where were you?
You were sittin' home watchin' your TV,
while I was paticipatin' in some anarchy.

First spot we hit it was my liqour store.
I finally got all that alcohol I can't afford.
With red lights flashin' time to retire,
And then we turned that liquor store into a structure fire.

Next stop we hit it was the music shop,
It only took one brick to make that window drop.
Finally we got our own p.a.
Where do you think I got this guitar that you're hearing today?
Hey!

(call fire, respond mobil station.
alamidos in Anahiem,
its uhh flamin up good.
10-4 Alamidos in Anaheim)

Never doin no time

When we returned to the pad to unload everything,
It dawned on me that I need new home furnishings.
So once again we filled the van until it was full,
since that day my livin' room's been more comfortable.

Cause everybody in the hood has had it up to here,
It's getting harder and harder and harder each and every year.

Some kids went in a store with thier mother,
I saw her when she came out she was gettin some pampers.

They said it was for the black man,
they said it was for the mexican,
and not for the white man.

But if you look at the streets it wasn't about Rodney King,
It's bout this fucked up situation and these fucked up police.
It's about coming up and staying on top
and screamin' 187 on a mother fuckin' cop.
It's not written on the paper it's on the wall.
National guard??!
Smoke from all around,

bo! bo! bo!

(units, units be advised there is an attempt 211 to arrest now at 938 temple,
938 temple... 30 subjects with bags.. tryin to get inside the cb's house)

(as long as I'm alive, I'mma live illegal)

Let it burn, wanna let it burn,
wanna let it burn, wanna wanna let it burn

(I'm feelin' Sad and Blue)

Riots on the streets of Miami,
oh, Riots on the streets of Chicago,
oh, on the streets of Long Beach,
mmm, and San Francisco (Boise Idaho),
Riots on the streets of Kansas City
(Salt Lake, Hunnington Beach, CA),
Tuscaloosa Alabama (Arcada Clarkston Michigan),
Cleveland Ohio,
Fountain Valley (Texas, Barstow - Let's do this every year),
Bear Mountain, Vista View (Twice a Year),
Eugene OR, Eureka CA (Let it burn, let it burn),
Hesperia (Oh, ya let it burn, wont'cha wont'cha let it burn),
Santa Barbara,Cuyamca, Nevada, (let it burn)
Phoenix Arizona,
San Diego, Lakewood Florida, (let it burn)
fuckin...Dreadnaught punks!(wontcha let it burn)

any units assist 334 willow,
structure fire, and numerous subjects looting

10-15 to get rid of this looter..

10-4
245
By the way, it's a false dichotomy between anarchy and police state. Don't label a few spirited protesters as "anarchists" in order to demonize them. Those are George W Bush's Republican Party tactics - label and demonize the opposition as "terrorists", "socialists", "wimps", "fags", "losers", etc...

Nobody was violently attacked. Windows are ensured. A little disruption is good for the education of the citizenry to larger issues than the day to day maintenance of a system that is fundamentally flawed and headed off the cliff of climate change, nuclear holocaust, or just plain old fashioned greed and ego at the expense of beauty and sympathy.

It's a balancing act. A little spontaneous performance art created out of whole cloth by some vital young people is necessary to offset the complacency of the anti-depressant drugged Soccer Mom led middle classes.

246
"Nobody was violently attacked. Windows are ensured."

No Jimmy, your grandma is Ensured, those windows had humans standing behind them working.

Btw Gran wants to know if you got your birthday check.
247
"plain old fashioned greed"

Now jimmy, as your mom and I have repeatedly told you, you're free to give away part or all of that upper middle class income of $125,000 a year you told everyone you make at last years Thanksgiving (btw mom told you not to open that 2nd Beaujolais).

I mean, if you're in the top 15% of income earners, why not give it to the poor?

See u at the summer house?
248
@241, @244 ("jim m67mitchell")

I can't say you've swayed me on the justification of vandalism, but you do offer some stimulating ideas.

I've sung those very Sublime lyrics countless times when I was younger. I honestly never recognized their political significance until this moment. I guess I took it more as a vicarious "wilin' out" song.

Thank you for that!

Bradley Nowell was a brilliant artist of the people. We lost an enormous talent when he passed. Suddenly I have to wonder how natural his death was.

Kurt Cobain, Bradley Nowell, Tupac, Biggie... wow. What might the world have been if they were still with us?
249
@243

Well then, what do you believe in? There's plenty of middle ground there; which part of it do you stand on? How would your ideal justice system avoid being "rigged toward the police?"
250
@93 Oregon seems "geil" as they say in Germany.
251
Wait, so its illegal to have flags if they;re attached to wooden posts? how do I let people know what i think? my arms are too small to raise my message above the masses :(

grrr.....angryyy....SMASHY SMASH....>!!!!!!!!!

Martial Law is here
252
Dear Jim,

I am so sorry that your father is a no good, two-timing, abusive, alcoholic creep. (...But even I never realized that he might be ...a Republican.)

I hope you can forgive me for leaving as I did, and that you understand that he would have killed me if I stayed, and if I had take you with me, he would have followed us and killed us both.

If it's any consolation, I want you to know that he is not your real father. By the time you were conceived, he had been shooting blanks for years (when he was able to shoot at all). The booze and syphilis ravaged his genitals long before it inevitably rotted his brain.

Your real father was a good man, a REAL man, a man who didn't need to use facile cynicism to compensate for a tiny, shriveled, useless prick. (...and believe me, he wasn't no damned Republican!)

With all my love,
Mom
253
Actually, Mom, it was far wors than you imagine. My 'Dad' abused me from the time I was 4 or 5. He would return from his pathetic job at the factory where he, as you remember, was a low level supervisor, and he was so humilated he would dress in stockings and then parade around with a big buttplug in his ass. He would drink and start singing the fight song of his wsu fraternity, the last 'good' times he ever remembers, sleeping with the freshmen brothers secretly when the other guys were out partying. He loved the comraderie of the military, but he hated that he had to hide his cocksucking of the officers. Poor guy, he tried so hard to fit into the paternal hierarchy at ibm, but they just ridiculed him for his girly mannerisms. Finally he wound up becoming addicted to meth, walking aurora at night, and working in the factory. Even the republicans at the caucus laughed at him and refused to elect him their delegate.
254
Like father, like son, Little Jimmy. Like father, like son. 

By the way, if your mama hadn't been suckling your cock since age 4, you might have turned out as half a man instead of what you are today.

Don't forget to thank Grannie for the $25 birthday check and let us know how much of your fabulous $125,000 a year income you give to the po', as you like to call them. That one always give mom and I a REALLY good laugh.

By the way, why do you hate homosexuals so much? I thought people like you embraced my lifestyle.
255
@251

Under everyday law, it is of course perfectly legal to carry around bats, truncheons, clubs, smoke bombs, and other skull-cracking and property-burning paraphernalia. All perfectly legal! You can even drape flags over them, totally legally!

But yeah, the Evil Mayor did issue a Martial Law injunction saying it was OK for the police to confiscate smashist equipment away from the Neo-Smashists.

So, like, that's totally oppressive! Neo-nazis totally have the right to burn crosses when they march! Government oppression! Rally to us the clear and unquestionable sympathies of the proletariat! MAY DAY VICTORY!!!!

Or, alternately...
256
It was a necessary display. It 'helped' to the extent anything is or can be helpful. To the idiot whocalls himself my 'dad', whatever, man, it's all an absurd joke, and thanks for the laugh. It's alright, pa, I'm only bleeding...

    Please wait...

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