It doesnt help either that the destination shown of the front of the SLUT is a large cancer research nonprofit. D'OH!

charles, you are a fool. that train line was built by paul allen to attract wealthy tenants like Amazon. now its a neat little train line for techies to get lunch.

anyway, found this digging up stuff:

http://tidesofflame.wordpress.com/2014/0…

It's also somewhat feasible to drive around that shit if you're in a car. Especially if you're on fixed rail, you're stuck or you're walking.

But I think, Charles, you're underestimating how self-defeating and entitled these protesters are. They don't care that they're fucking over mass transit users.

Smart tech workers are going to all start driving their Jags to work. Who needs the grief?

When I worked at Fred Hutch, I'd use the trolley on a semi-regular basis to get downtown. Knowing that someone was messing with my commute (either way) to make a wide, badly aimed point about another company I had not personal dealings with beyond the occasional book or MP3 wouldn't do much to win my sympathy.

Make your point!

but quietly. over there. without bothering anybody.

Oh, Chaz. What form of protest would you prefer?

Here's a wild idea - how about a HOV/Busway through the Arboretum?

The Microsoft shuttles are not a "public" form of transportation. I can't hop on a shuttle and get a ride to Redmond unless I have a Microsoft badge.

Is the SLUT actually public transportation?
I'm sure someone I know has used it once, probably.

By the same logic, then, it stands to reason that citizens who favor cars would be justified in fucking over cyclists, and cyclists justified in fucking over pedestrians, and twin stroller moms fucking over single-stroller moms, and cabbies fucking over lyfters, and vice versa, just to fuck with them.

At least these assholes are getting press.

There was an anti-TPP protest at Westlake Plaza on Jan 31, which, after the obligatory tedious folk song intro, had a bunch of good speakers. Media coverage? Crickets.

Fuck the Super Bowl, but I doubt that was the whole reason for the blackout. If there are no stupid incidents, it's not news, apparently.

Can someone clue me into why there is so much hate for tech workers?

I mean, they have valuable skills that people pay a premium for, and they get to choose to live wherever they fuck they want if they can afford it, just like everyone else. No one has the right to tell them where they can live just because they do not want a certain "type" of individual in their special little neighborhood.

The workers are not the ones responsible for rent costs and gentrification. They are working and living just like everyone else, and have the same right as everyone else to live and work where they choose. It is time to stop vilifying actual workers because they make more than others, or their wages are "too high" on some arbitrary and imaginary scale.

Blame local governments and their weakness in the face of developers for out of control rent and gentrification concerns. At least that is how it seems to me.

Where's the sign on the trolley that says "Paul Allen's Private Train - Rich Techies Only" ?

Oh, that's right -- there isn't one! Because it's fucking PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION. You know, for the people? Like fucking cancer patients riding to their appointments at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, and every single waiter and waitress working at all those restaurants on Westlake.

You call yourselves anarchists while you fuck up the day for ordinary working stiffs. Fucking tools.

@14 the perception that tech workers are the 1% (false), that they and their companies are "changing the character" of Seattle (false--Microsoft in the 90s and 80s; Boeing before that).

@14 Because they want everyone to be poor like them.

This is the logical progression of Marxism. Look it up, Charles. Good thing they don't have any real power or the SLUT isn't all that would be getting fucked.

I think they have made their point as clear as day: if the SLUT was a bus it would be able to turn left or right and detour around these dickbags. And it would have cost a fuck of a lot less to build.

From the Tides of Comedy page. http://tidesofflame.wordpress.com/2014/0…

"The upper class of programmers and engineers will be served by the impoverished lower classes while the slave class extracts the gold, platinum, and other precious metals that allow this new technology to exist. Commercial drones will deliver commodities to consumers while military drones incinerate rebels in the periphery. Both commodities and death can be delivered with the click of a button. "

My patent search yielded no results for "one click death button". Must not be public yet.

Can people buy drone hits on Amazon? Can people put it on their credit card? Maybe drone hit gift cards, to be used whenever.

@22 Yes, but you have to be a Prime account holder.

@20,

No, not really. I've been stuck on a bus that was being blocked by something or other. Drivers either can't or won't divert the route if it means missing a stop up ahead.

The targets are Microsoft and Amazon, not mass transit, it is clear that the class war is beginning.

Some Anonymous guys in Guy Fawkes masks were riding the Portland light rail last week talking to people about the TTP, getting their pictures taken and posted on Reddit, and actually convincing people. Public transit and activism can work together.

Entitled privileged white protestors preventing a largely POC workforce from getting to work

@14 I come from a tech background. Where I worked we had a chef, a gym, full-sized b-ball court; a two story day-care; our laundry was picked up at the office; my car was detailed in the parking lot; and my dentist came in an RV to the building. The truth is that sometimes we're arrogant. We know our value and our worth and have expectations that our wants and needs will be met immediately. I didn't realize until I left how bad it was. And I wasn't the only one.

Gentrification sounds pretty and good doesn't it? But in reality what it often is is displacement which doesn't sound as pretty. If you take SF as an example of a city further on the continuum from where Seattle seems to be headed, you might see why people are disquieted. SF has lost almost all of its African American community (forgive if that isn't Current PC Correct terminology) and is losing it's predominantly Hispanic neighborhood by displacing existing people (sometimes people who have lived in their homes for decades) in designated "hip" neighborhoods. Then they go on social media and complain about how "dirty the city is" or how there are "too many homeless" or how the city "doesn't stay up late enough" to suit them. My personal disgust was complete when someone suggested that the homeless be rounded up and placed in interment camps. The irony of a woman of Asian descent saying that in California was not lost on me. I can only hope she wasn't of Japanese descent, but it wouldn't surprise me if she was. (See CA history in WW2 if you don't understand the reference).

Many times the companies they work for aren't even in the city. Their company's shuttle buses disrupt regular buses and pay not a penny to use those bus stops. Their companies use the threat of leaving to get tax breaks many cities can still ill afford as we climb out of the Great Recession. Landlords evict long-time residents so developers can build new housing nobody but new tech can afford and the buildings are ugly to boot.

Now you can say that SFs problems are not yours. I say, "not yet." Tech workers are somewhat transitory and my little piggies could be your little piggies tomorrow. Because Austin isn't hip anymore and Brooklyn is fading. That leaves you, dear Seattle, in their crosshairs. Your best hope is that someplace else becomes hipper sooner rather than later.

Good Afternoon Charles,
Agree wholeheartedly with you on this one. This is bullshit. This protest is entirely misdirected.

Damn fools.

It doesn't take much bravery to protest in the most liberal city in the state, on public property. If they tried to do this on the Redmond campus, their personal security would detain and hold them long enough for the police to show up.

To suggest this is a false flag is hilarious. Theres only been a few examples of this and they mostly originated in Canada.

@28, nicely put, thanks,

@7, are you laboring under the impression that a point is being made?

@5, the tech workers *are* driving their Jags to work. Haven't you experienced the goat-fuck that is Fairview Avenue during evening rush?

And the SLUT is free public transit. I have yet to see anyone do fare enforcement on it in the years it's been running. The only people buying tickets are the tourists.

@28: Thanks for the inside info. They detailed your car while you were at work? Shit.

Anyway, I did not mean to suggest that gentrification was a good thing, but simply that tech workers choosing where they want to live, an option we think people should have, is not the driving force behind gentrification, and even if it was, are we just going to tell people they can't live certain areas because we don't like "their type?"

@35 when they realized that people were taking time to walk across the street to the Starbucks, they built one in the building. ..in case you wonder why your EA games cost so much (innocent look).

The slut may as well be free transit. I've been riding it daily since it opened and have never needed to even show my ORCA card.

@30, Microsoft handed over property rights to the roads on their campus to the city of Redmond so tax payers can pay for maintenance. Microsoft might be the largest property tax payer in the city, but still. Public roads might allow public protest.

UH, dear protestors, I don’t want the facts to get in the way of your unique cognitive abilities, BUT, the uses of Meta data for drone strikes, as well as the Amazon CIA cloud build are certainly not dark secrets just now coming to light. For instance, there was an epic and widely reported battle between Big Blue (IBM) and AWS (Amazon Web Services) for the 600 million dollar spy agency deal. AWS was awarded the contract in February 2013. Big Blue filed a complaint with the GAO (Government Accountability Office). The GAO sided with IBM, and recommended that the CIA reopen the bidding process because it had “failed to sufficiently evaluate price.” Big Blue’s bid was cheaper.
The rebid request prompted Amazon to file suit in the US Court of Federal Claims. In October 2013, Judge Thomas Wheeler sided with Amazon and shut down the rebidding process, and IBM capitulated: “In light of the government’s recent submissions emphasizing its need to move forward on the contract, IBM has withdrawn its motion,” reads a statement provided by IBM. “IBM maintains its position that the [Government Accountability Office's] findings were appropriate.” The PDF of the ruling is readily available:
http://regmedia.co.uk/2013/11/08/amazon_…
The deal was significant, also, because it represented a break between Big Blue and the Feds. In the past, it was sort of an assumption that IBM always snagged these types of Military/Industrial Complex builds. Amazon has emerged as a new heavyweight player in this lucrative field.
As far as Meta data being used to target drone strikes, check out Rachel Maddow’s brilliant 2012 book, Drift, The Unmooring of the American Military. She outlines how “the CIA has turned into a branch of the military that does not report to the Armed Services Committee.” She carefully details the two drone programs that we run, that of the Air Force and that of the CIA. Meta data is widely used by the CIA in their drone program.
I don’t know if these public transportation stopping protestors think that they have stumbled onto a hidden truth, or if they are simply trying to bring well documented facts to light. In either case, perhaps they should research more thoroughly just what exactly they are up against, and change tactics if they have any hope of getting their message (?) out in a cohesive fashion. After all, they are tangling with The Complex. Good luck with that.

@35 re your comment about letting people live where they want...SF is a city that welcomes and it has since its inception. If you come to a community to be part of the community, to add your color to that community, to enrich it I think you'll always be welcome.

But these are not people who want to join a community. These are people who want to be in a hip, urban city in a hip, urban zip code without losing the "niceness" of suburbia. If all they wanted was to live in SF, then they wouldn't be just be choosing specific neighborhoods in which to settle. Here's an example: the complaint about SF closing down to early. SF closes down mostly around 2 am (not completely, mostly). But they start drinking in the afternoon, so by 2, they're done. If you pay attention you know that.

But they don't notice because they aren't settling -- they're perching. Because, as I said above, they're going to leave. They're going to go perch in another city or their company is going to IPO and they'll move to Mountainview or Marin. And they will happily leave their wreckage for someone else to live with and pick up. Is that okay? Not to me, but I actually LIVE here.

@39 they do it for that reason partly. They also do it because they want the best coming to their company and the best want that stuff where they work. If all it was about was the bottom line, they would be in Kansas City or Sheboygen, not the Bay area or Seattle. And don't kid yourself, they don't have to chain people to their desks. People stay there willingly, because they want to work for that company. They want the cachet and the money.

Asking them to put a little more thought into their civic interventions is like asking the sun to not rise tomorrow.

you blocked my trip to amazon this morning! fuck yemeni families, and the cia metadatacenter! i needed to get to work, and just because of that i will now put my full backing behind the metadatacenter, and all of amazons cooperation with the US intelligence agencies.

"i would have totally been with the whole "why are us corporate interests, and US government colluding?" but you made me 5 minutes late, and i missed our morning stretches!!!"

how dare you inconvenience me!?

/sarcasm

Protests, like transportation, work much better when they are massed.

i think too often protesters are more concerned with impressing and gaining the approval of their fellow protesters than they are with truly communicating their messages at the margins of opinion on their subject matter.

> Can someone clue me into why there is so much hate for tech workers?

GENTRIFICATION. You come into the area, you raise the rents by what feels like at least double and now everything is out of my price range. Whaaaaaaa