Comments

1
Welcome to the turn-key police state.
2
Boo-fucking-hoo. A legally authorized and legally executed warrant connected with a criminal investigation. Are the anarchists going to avail themselves of a LAWYER? That's just part of the machinery of the State. Maaan.

Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.
3
A smoke bomb is a smoke bomb, not a bomb, dummies.
4
Also, "violence across the globe"--you mean like people rising up against authoritarian governments??? Sure they are afraid of that...
5
I thought "evidence" was stuff investigators look at in depth to see if anything suggests a link to a prosecutable offense. It doesn't have to be damning on the face of it to be worth gathering, right? Could be this is a dead end (it is SPD after all), but I was fucking outraged when some of the May Day folks physically attacked our courthouses for the benefit of the cameras of the strife-tourists they attracted that day. Damaging our courts is criminal and damn well should be investigated.
6
Could care less if anarchists are being legally hassled by the police.
7
I find it interesting that you seem to take 'L's word as the nature of the paperwork and the like. I mean L could be right, could be wrong, but not very journalisty to just assume that L is telling the truth.

Can you post the inventory? The quote does not say books.
8
What justifies a full SWAT raid a little before 6am when looking for some clothing and print materials? Did they think the occupants of the apartment were going to flush a hoodie?

Fnarf @1 - stop channeling Kinison. Who did what crime? Justify this raid to yourself beyond 'they were associated with the Occupy movement.'
9
"But police seizing books and paperwork with ideological implications as "evidence" for a crime? That seems wrong."

Nah, back in the 80s I was detained at the Yugoslavian boarder when they found Mannheim's Ideology and Utopia, Berger's The Sociology of Knowledge, and one of Weber's works (can't recall which) in my backpack. Police seizing books and paperwork with Ideological implications is common practice in Authoritarian States.
10
@9 you're absolutely right. This is classic black-baiting. They are trying to present a case in the court of public opinion for why being an anarchist should be criminal so later when they crack down on anarchists and outlaw things like wearing hoodies and masks at demonstrations, people will swallow it down with relief. But the people in Montreal aren't putting up with that shit...
11
@8 Maybe the fact that the people present were suspected of engaging in violence and assault?
12
@ 7. You are correct. Books were involved in the search events, but the quoted inventory does not say books. I've corrected the post. Slip of the fingers! Thanks for the correction.
13
@8 the warrant for assault and riot, thats pretty standard in relation to warrants served for violent crimes/any risk of danger to the officers, which considering the assault in question is assault on an officer.

@9 Seizing political material in relation to a politically motivated crime is not totally absurd.
14
Organizing a riot is a crime.

Fortunately, "Occupy Seattle" or "black bloc" or "the anarchists" or whatever the fuck they are called failed to trigger the riot they were attempting to on May Day when the SPD didn't push back against their very obvious attempt. If you really look at what happened that day, and what was leading up to that day, and have anything approaching intellectual honesty you'll admit that there were people downtown who were trying to spark something much larger than what happened.

Remember these words: Organized. Attempt. Riot.

People who try and fail at crimes are still criminals regardless of the success of their plan.

You can overintellectualize, excuse, explain, justify, whatever all you want. The SPD is looking for those people who are responsible for inciting violence on our streets. That's what they are paid to do.

They might not be doing it very well, but that's what they are doing.
15
Pick up that can, citizen!
16
@12 Ok, but it doesn't say pamphlets either.

Notebooks and paperwork could be anything from, yes pamphlets, to a plan for bombing some more courthouses.

Is there a reason you can't just post the inventory and warrant?
17
Obama would have ordered these anarchists killed for a lot less than this. Just ask Anwar al-Awkaki
18
@8

Fnarf is not channeling anyone but his own opinion on the matter. Just because it happens to be in line with my opinion, is just an odd occurance.

Face it, this group of idiots cause more problems than they attempt to solve. Someone, not happy with their plans to stir up yet another shit storm, probably tipped them off to the police as suspects in the may day chaos.

The police did ask the public for help in finding these fools, yes/no?
19
@15 Oh oh oh! Half Life 2 Intro! Half Life 2 Intro! :D

Also this is shit (not half life 2 but the "search warrant" thing) AND another way to kill man with Bakunin is forcing him to read it. Its like Marx but without the theories and the economics and the logic. Just slogans.

Fnarf: Shut up ffs. Or atleast make an attempt at being something else than just a random sad cliché-machine. Have you read to much Bakunin? Is that where your sad sad heart went? Do you envy Nechayev? Did some anarchist push you when you where a kid? What?
20
I wonder how much tax money this boondoggle that will result in nothing cost?
21
With every retaliation made by SPD staff for people's expression of political dissent, I become more likely to cover my face and to dress anonymously when expressing political dissent in public.
22
Maybe Occupy should renounce violence instead of doing stupid things like throwing money away. I'm with Fnarf.
23
@Fnarf,

"Boo-fucking-hoo. A legally authorized and legally executed warrant connected with a criminal investigation."

Really? Do you think that the mere issuance of a warrant, on the basis of an affidavit which could have been written in birdshit on the back of a napkin for all we know, makes these kinds of searches and tactics legal? Or do I need to remind you of the time when SPD got a warrant and sent a SWAT team to kick down the door of that guy growing medical marijuana for himself?

24
@8, crimes were committed during the May Day protests. The police are investigating those crimes. Smash 'em up anarchist idiots should be able to take a little heat for their antics. Despite these jokers' burning desire to be oppressed, that is not what is happening here or there.

@19, Bakunin is impossible to read. I tried, once. .People who claim to have read any quantity of anarchist thought are suffering from a mental illness as a result, one that persuades them that they are thinking and understanding when they are, to everyone else, clearly not doing either of those things.

But hey, if you want to smash shit up, go for it. The rest of the city will applaud when the cops come knocking on your door, though. YOU ASKED FOR IT.
25
@22: they voted against that at least once already.
26
@25: Doceb, I already corrected you on that. Please stop spreading misinformation.

@35, Doceb wrote, "Occupy Seattle voted against being a non-violent organization back in December." That is incorrect. I was there. I took the minutes (transcript, really) that you referenced. Part of the proposal was to use non-violent civil disobedience at all OS demonstrations. I voted against it. I didn't think that every demonstration needed to involve civil disobedience.
27
FYI the folks raided are communists, not anarchists.
28
I think it's telling that people are so willing to disregard people they disagree with politically as subhuman. Reading comments on the Stranger always reminds me that many Seattleites would rather see people they disagree with locked in cages or dead than allow those people free speech. Good job at supporting a police state.
29
Yeah, crimes. So fucking what? You want to know what other sorts of things have been/is are crimes?
- abortion
- any body other than white dudes voting
- marriage between people of different races/ethnicities
- homosexuality
- labor strikes

So guess what? Law is shit.

Things like pedophilia, rape, psycho murder... these happen because people are sick. Laws don't usually prevent crimes of this type. The fact that sexual assault is so common is PROOF of this. (Predators: On Rape and the State - why state strategies of dealing with sexual assault do not work)

IN A HEALTHY COMMUNITY FOUNDED ON PRINCIPLES OF EGALITARIANISM AND COOPERATION AND FREEDOM YOU DO NOT NEED TO CODIFY UNHEALTHY ACTIONS IN LAWS BECAUSE IT IS OBVIOUS WHEN SOMEONE FUCKS UP. What to do about that is then the responsibility of the community and the goal is reducing harm and preventing the fucked up thing from happening again Current rates of recidivism show that the justice system does neither.

Most nonviolent "crimes" (which make up the vast majority of prosecuted offenses) can be traced, in one way or another, back to poverty and poverty is created by capitalism. That doesn't mean that I don't have a problem with poor folks preying on other poor folks because I DO, I just know that the justice system will never stop it and that only a rupture in normalcy that leads to a social revolution can even come close to addressing these issues on a large scale.

Please, people, get your heads out of your asses!
30
Clearly any victim of police action is guilty and deserved it.

Pretty distressing to hear commenters questioning the validity of L's side of the story while at the same time automatically accepting the SPD's accounts as the unbiased truth. And gee, why would anyone have any reason to question the honesty and transparency of such an upstanding organization as our own local police force?
31
@22: The money-throwing is a splinter group with different goals than the May Day protests.
32
@26: I read your post, and responded with a slightly more polite way of saying "you're full of shit." People can read the minutes for themselves. It clearly was about being non-violent, and it got voted down.

http://occupyseattle.org/document/ga-min…

"proposal: Commit to using methods of non-violent civil disobedience at all of our demonstrations and define violence as unprovoked physical aggression."

"Maria - Understands that proposal is to make OS a strictly nonviolent movement. This puts way too much authority over her personal actions. Rule will only alienate those in the movement who want to use a diversity of tactics."

"Kathleen - Opposes this proposal. Reminds people of something that happened at beginning of Iraq war. When anti-war movement was at high point, was a proposal from pacifist, liberal, anti-war coalition that unless you accepted vow of nonviolence, could not be in coalition. That was really bad. It was very divisive. Was attempt to shut up radicals, socialists, and anarchists. If people want to be nonviolent, they can be nonviolent. Disagrees with having movement take that position for many of the reasons stated earlier."

"Circus - This won't pass. Doesn't matter how you word it. When you include "nonviolence" people will oppose it."

"Chris - Proposal is unprovoked physical aggression. People say the whole capitalist system is violent. Agrees, but thinks this is because it is able to hide violence. Ignoring that this PR fact is fact will doom us to failure. Consider different between direct violence and systemic violence."

etc.

So yeah, you're full of shit - the proposal absolutely was about using non-violent tactics, and not about requiring civil disobedience at every protest.
33
@29, Uh-huh. You can keep your social revolution. I trust the cops and the courts a hell of a lot more than your 'community' or some hippy nonsense about how people will magically just get along if only your preferred social order were realized.

@30 Blindly trusting either is stupid.
34
@29, comedy gold.

I'm not blindly accepting either version; I'm suggesting that maybe these fine individuals should move into a courtroom and try to persuade a jury of their peers that they didn't do it (if they are ever charged with anything). The cops did what they're supposed to do. Now "L" and his lawyer get to do what they're supposed to do. This is how it works.

"A HEALTHY COMMUNITY FOUNDED ON PRINCIPLES OF EGALITARIANISM AND COOPERATION AND FREEDOM", though -- that's SO adorable. So is "social revolution". You're obviously fourteen, so you don't know anything, but the rest of us, we've seen your social revolution pamphlets before and we're still not interested.
35
This is disturbing enough to get me off my ass and into the street. Thanks for the report.
36
No, giffy, I never said that everyone will just magically get along. The communities that I'm talking about will come together based on shared affinity, meaning they already get along to a certain extent and shared similar ideas and goals. Networks of friends operate in much the same way.

In moments of rupture, when lots of people are rapidly radicalized and come to see the state and capital as the enemies of freedom and the people around them as fellow insurgents and potential comrades, these bonds of affinity multiply. This is what happens during insurrections and revolutions. This shit actually happens, and is happening.
37
@32: Read the rest of the discussion however you like. The proposal to which you referred included a requirement to use civil disobedience at every demonstration, and it failed to pass.
38
@16 "bombing some more courthouses":

Kindly indicate who "bombed" any "courthouse" to begin with. Otherwise, while you're pestering someone about whether or it it's accurate to say books were stolen, please produce evidence you're not a panicked, foaming at the mouth reactionary who's calling for attack drones on dissenters, because that sure is what you sound like.
39
So the SPD's official statements on this are now tantamount to the Word of God because STUPID ANARCHISTS? Let's see:
- Storming a man's apartment who was growing a bit of medical pot for himself = BAD
- Stomping on a prone suspect's head while uttering a racial slur = BAD
- Murdering a homeless man in cold blood on a bridge over the freeway = BAD
- Conducting a full SWAT raid for a couple articles of clothing because a person may or may not have had some association with someone who broke a window or threw paint on something = GOOD

I just love how you guys fall in line with the status quo as soon as the target is someone you feel comfortable scapegoating. I swear, some of you have all the ideological consistency of the shit I took this morning.
40
The raids themselves are a form of punishment and intimidation for the May Day protests. The cops are sending a message that they can fuck you up and there's nothing you can do. The cops can raid anyone for any reason, all they need is a search warrant and no judge will deny the cops that piece of paper. What are you gonna do, sue them? Let me know how that works out.
41
@37: nowhere in the discussion that followed was that stated to be a reason that anyone voted against it. It was clearly stated by several people in the discussion that the vote was about defining Occupy Seattle as a non-violent movement.
42
@39, not Word of God, just conditional benefit of the doubt. An actual crime was committed on May Day, against the court system I cherish rather super a lot, so I'd like to see them prosecute someone if they can make a good collar. (Again, it's SPD so not holding my breath). Have a sense of scale here. Do you really find all those things you list alike?
43
first they came for the communists...
44
@39, the difference being that none of these people were shot, stabbed, stomped, or in any way had their civil liberties violated. They are likely suspects in a crime, which is being investigated appropriately.

Personally, I think it's a waste of time, because these loons' threat to overthrow the state is an obvious load of old horse bollocks, as they would have difficulty overthrowing a basket of dirty clothes, but the city sees it differently. I guess they have to. The reality is, these people could in fact go all Weatherman on us at any minute.
45
@44: "The reality is, these people could in fact go all Weatherman on us at any minute."

And as incredibly unlikely as that is, imagine what the coverage over at The Seattle Times would look like if the city mostly ignored it up until that point.
46
@36 No, its not happening. Occupy withered and died with most people not giving a shit. Maybe you have more demands of ideological purity for your friends, but I sure don't. I got friends with whom I have varying degrees of 'affinity'. And I certainly don't want to have to move to some mythical community where I will agree with my neighbors on everything from social services to noise. No, we need a system to handle that. Like government.

@38 Molotov cocktail thrown at the Courthouse. A failure to bomb is still an attempt.
47
@24 Or maybe you just can't read, bro.
Also, not every anarchist reads or agrees with Bakunin or cares if someone else has (but go ahead and misinterpret Brendan's sufficient example as necessary canon...).

Also, way to REPEATEDLY assume that the cops are 100% accurate in saying that the people who do x are the same people getting their homes raided and flashbang-grenaded and their arms ziptied. Just like the person who kicked an officer and then "heel-clicked and stood at attention" in the street in front of him (i.e., got pepper-sprayed in the face on the sidewalk and then dragged in the street), or the Occupy Seattle photojournalist who "assaulted" an officer while holding a camera in one hand and attempting to support himself in a crowd with the other -- both of which were caught on film doing their nefarious, nefarious deeds.

Authority, Fnarf and I salute you!
48
@42 That's fair. At the very least, including the Williams shooting was severely out of scale. These days I have a hard time giving SPD even the conditional benefit of the doubt, given their extensive and very well-documented use of excessive force and intimidation.

@44 "Likely" may or may not pan out to be the case. No arrests were made and the end result was apparently no more productive than the haphazard seizure of some literature and clothing items. A waste of time? I completely agree with that.
49
@46: Is that what the voices tell you? There hasn't been a Molotov cocktail thrown during a large demonstration in the United States in probably a decade. Certainly not in Seattle, and certainly not on May Day. Keep digging yourself a hole in Ignorantville, though.
50
@40: Thank you. It seems there are many who don't understand what's really going on here. This was an act of intimidation, plain and simple.

@44: "...or in any way had their civil liberties violated." If the search warrant were to be overturned as having been overly broad/vague, would that not make the search illegal? At that point, wouldn't the police action have been a violation of their civil liberties? Do you REALLY think a SWAT raid was justified regardless of whether or not the warrant was legal?

The extension of SWAT teams into normal use is just another example of the militarization of our nation's police forces, and you should find it troubling regardless of whether you approve/disapprove of those on the receiving end.

Here's a great article on the topic from Norm Stamper, you might remember him from such exciting roles as chief of Seattle police during the WTO protests: http://www.thenation.com/article/164501/…
51
Fascism plain and simple. Nice to see that the comment section has open room for cryptos and other supporters.

Just say no to the Police.
52
What @47 said. Fnarf, why are you so certain that these are the people who did anything illegal on May Day? Your glee at the militarization of police and unnecessary use of force on people you don't agree with is sickening. Cut it the fuck out.
53
I would be less mistrustful of politicians and courts if they weren't prone to corruption by corporations and the wealthy elite. However, they are open to that and police force has been abused to repress minorities and unpopular opinions. And the civil rights record of the SPD is not stellar, should we say.

It shouldn't be a crime to be a commie, or a socialist, or an anarchist, and it shouldn't be a crime to read about and engage in unpopular discussions. But I'm here to tell you that commies and socialists in America are considered to be roughly on the same level as child molesters. It startles me how worked up people get when you mention socialism or communism. It's like you've stabbed at the core of their being. Commies and socialists are persecuted, in present-day America, even though the multinational corporations funding the bosses waging the persecution are infinitely greater threats to our freedoms and civil righs than some scruffy young adults tangling themselves in theoretical discussions in a dingy attic somewhere. I worry a hell of a lot more about the groups paying to write the laws, selling everything, and running the show than I do about communists and anarchists.

Smashing cars and windows is a crime. It's also a humongous aggravation if it's your car getting smashed. Attending a rally should not be, under freedom of assembly. Reading an impenetrable book about communism (or trying to) should not be treated as a crime, and there was no reason to confiscate them. And I'm no lawyer, but it seems to me that withholding warrants from citizens directly affected by those warrants is a violation of some sort. I'm all for legal searches to investigate or prevent crimes (that impinge on others' civil rights, that is; I mean, who decides what's a crime, and who pays him the most?), but this description of the search makes it look like it was as motivated by ideology as it was by criminal investigation.
54
VOTE SAWANT CAMPAIGN & SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE CONDEMN POLICE REPRESSION OF SEATTLE ACTIVISTS
http://votesawant.org/?q=node/12

Around 6:00 A.M. on Tuesday, July 10th, a house where local activists from Occupy Seattle and the Red Spark group live was raided by a Seattle Police Department SWAT team. According to reports, police broke through the front door armed with automatic weaponry and used “flashbang” grenades. The police have said they were searching for “Anarchist materials” and clothing allegedly connected to the Seattle May 1st demonstrations. No arrests were made; only clothing was taken from the apartment. (http://kasamaproject.org/2012/07/10/swat…)

This raid is clearly an act of political repression of left-wing activists and an attempt to intimidate activists who are fighting against the richest 1% and big business. There is absolutely nothing illegal about possessing anarchist or other radical literature. Socialist Alternative and the Vote Sawant campaign stand in solidarity with those affected by today’s raid, and strongly condemn the actions of the Seattle Police Department. We urge all activists, students, unions, and working people generally, to join the solidarity march today (Tuesday, July 10) at 7pm, beginning at Westlake Park.

This is not an isolated incident. This act of state repression continues a long tradition of police brutality and political repression by the SPD and police forces across the country. The Occupy Wall Street movement suffered police violence where demonstrations faced attacks, pepper spray, brutality, mass arrests, and the demolition of protest encampments. Here in Seattle in recent years we have seen an out-of-control police department carrying out an almost unending number of acts of police brutality, including killings, which have gone so far that even the Federal Department of Justice has been forced to investigate and try to reign in the SPD.

It is crucial that Occupy, unions, and left-wing activists generally respond to this provocation by mobilizing for public protests to shine a spotlight on the undemocratic actions of the SPD and rally to defend our democratic rights. If the SPD is allowed to get away with this type of undemocratic repression of political activity, it will be used in the future against other movements challenging the political and corporate establishment, including the labor movement and workers’ struggles.

While the SPD and Mayor McGinn carried out this raid with the intention of intimidating activists, in reality, it will only serve to expose the true nature of the police in our so-called democracy as tools of the richest 1% who use undemocratic and violent measures to protect the interests of big business and their system of capitalism.

Democratic Mayor of Seattle Mike McGinn is ultimately responsible for the activities of the SPD. This political repression highlights the need to break with the Democratic Party and begin building a left-wing, working-class political alternative. To this end, Kshama Sawant, a member of Socialist Alternative and Occupy Seattle activist, is running as an independent candidate for the 99% in the 43rd District of Seattle (position 1). The Sawant campaign and Socialist Alternative call for the creation of an elected civilian review board with full powers over the police. We also demand investment in rehabilitation, job-training, and living-wage jobs, not prisons or detention centers, and abolition of the death penalty (which is still on the books in Washington state) as elementary first steps to begin to fight the police brutality and institutional racism of the criminal justice system.

The SPD has stated that this raid was connected to investigating incidents which took place around the May 1 protests in Seattle. It is true that some property destruction was carried out by a few people around the May 1 protest. Socialist Alternative and the Vote Sawant campaign did not support such acts and view them as counter-productive to building mass movements of the working class that can challenge capitalism. However, police repression will in no way stop such acts from occurring and will actually make them more likely. In reality, today’s events highlight how the real criminality and violence in our society stem from the police and the corporate aristocracy that rules this country.
We need to stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters who suffered this raid and build massive movements of working people to defend our democratic rights and fight for our interests. We urge as many people as possible will attend the protest tonight at 7 pm beginning at Westlake park, Tuesday, July 10.

www.SocialistAlternative.org
www.VoteSawant.org
55
@12: Jesus, it doesn't say pamphlets, it doesn't say books. It says PAPERWORK, which could be anything, including something possibly incriminating. Nowhere (that you have provided) is there anything about political writings.

Be at least a little bit honest, will you?
56
Really creepy to see all of these people justifying police repression of people based on their political ideology. It's starting to sound a lot like Nazi germany around here. I think one of the poster's earlier hit the nail on the head, with their comment "First they came for the communists ..."

You people really need to consider what you're supporting when you promote SWAT teams kicking down the doors of people because of their beliefs.
57
The Seattle International Socialist Organization stands in solidarity with Seattle activists raided by the Seattle Police Department (SPD) Tuesday morning, July 10, 2012. Police attacks on the physical safety and civil liberties of political activists are shameful and indefensible.

Witnesses report that police forcibly entered the apartment of several activists associated with the Red Spark Collective and Decolonize/Occupy Seattle. Police threw flash grenades before ransacking the apartment and searching the activists’ books and belongings. Paperwork handed to the activists by SPD detectives asserted that police were looking for “anarchist materials” and items related to May 1st actions. The activists were held while the apartment was searched and then released without charges.

This is obviously nothing but an attempt at intimidation of activists—both those directly attacked and anyone else organizing against the 1%. The right to possess “anarchist materials” or any other political literature is theoretically protected by the First Amendment to the State and U.S. Constitutions. Possession of such materials is not a crime, nor is it proof of commission of a crime. There is no reasonable excuse for police to be investigating political opinions and physically attacking people and personal property.

The police claim that this is related to May 1. Yet on May 1, when some windows were broken downtown, police for the most part stood back and made few arrests. Instead they are using a few easily replaced windows as an excuse to destroy the irreplaceable civil liberties of activists over two months later. This should make it even more clear that the police are defenders of the power and wealth of the 1% against the rights and freedom of the 99%.

All the civil liberties we have today were fought for and won over decades of struggle against the 1% and their agents . Activists in the 60’s and 70’s forced the police in Seattle and across the U.S. to formally dismantle their political spying operations. The post-9/11 era has given police an excuse for renewed repression. Attacks against Arabs and Muslims and other supposedly potential “terrorists” have become common place. Under Obama , the pace has quickened, with U.S. citizens now subject to imprisonment without trial. Anti-war activists in Minneapolis and Chicago have been recent victims of raids, police entrapment, and Grand Jury investigations.

It is in the interest of all activists of any political persuasion and all people who care about freedom of speech, press and association to quickly and strongly condemn this raid and any subsequent arrests or trials.

This is a blatant attack on activists and organizers in Seattle and an aggressive display of political repression. It will not stand! Solidarity with all political activists
58
@56: Beliefs are one thing, smashing windows and vandalizing cars is another.

That said, the SWAT team (if that's actually what it was) certainly seemed to be overkill. Glad to see that everyone in the house was unharmed.
59
@ 56, let's be fair here. The Nazis didn't harass the communists and other dissidents, they MURDERED them. They were killing them before they even came into power (and vice versa).

These May Day protesters are not being taken in the middle of the night. They aren't being taken away in unmarked vans to undisclosed locations with no ability to contact their friends. Their neighbors aren't looking the other way and saying nothing for fear the same fate befalls them. They're not going before kangaroo courts and receiving summary death sentences, they're not being shot, and they're not being buried in unmarked mass graves.

Whatever overkill the SPD might have engaged in here, it isn't fucking Nazi Germany. You disrespect not only the millions murdered by that regime, but the millions living under such oppression today when you make these comparisons.

The reason why OWS is a failure is encapsulated in your post. They go out and knowingly break the law but have no courage to face the inevitable arrests and jail sentences that come with it. Can you imagine the Civil Rights movement operating this way? We'd still be living with Jim Crow if they did.
60
@59 (Matt from Denver) -- The Nazis didn't start out sending everyone to death camps. First it was harassment and verbul abuse of people based on their ideology/race, then beatings and attacks, then criminalization, then death camps. At every step of the way, the media and the state worked hard to whip up hatred of communists by "Good Germans", and that's exactly what's going on here. We're now past the verbal abuse stage, and past the beatings stage, and getting to the stage where people are SUPPORTING SWAT TEAMS KICKING DOWN PEOPLES DOORS AT 5AM BECAUSE THEY ARE ANARCHISTS.

Once you start equating an entire group of people with "criminals", "scum", "maniacs", "terrorists" etc. and start justifying morningtime SWAT raids, based on reasoning like "They're anarchists, so we can assume they did something wrong, and are getting what they deserve.", it becomes more easy to get increasingly brutal towards them. They're already talking about anarchists as terrorists within DHS and FBI ... and you know what Obama does with terrorists.
61
verbul-->verbal
62
@60

Please continue to ignore the difference between a search conducted "because they were anarchists," and a search conducted in an investigation of a crime clearly committed by anarchists; it fits so nicely with ignoring the difference between brownshirts and non-radical leftist Seattlites on a chat-board.
63
@62 -- By your reasoning, since some Democrats have committed crimes, it's reasonable to start randomly kicking down any Democrat's door, because this is proof that they are all criminals. See the problem here?
64
@62 -- And I didn't compare you fascist cheerleaders to brownshirts. I compared you to the Good Germans who supported what the brownshirts were doing.
65
I just hope you "non-radical leftist Seattlites" (as you called yourself) are aware that the far-right is already talking about you in the same way you're talking about the anarchists -- as a plague on society that needs to be cleansed. You're next.
66
Working a double shift at the tin foil factory Jessie?
67
Welcome to the police state. The officers are too scared to be identified? If a police officer can't be proud of his work, he's probably not worth the money we pay him.
68
@63

Gosh yes, you're totally not distorting anything there. You've got it exactly.
69
@53, so let me get this straight. While not illegal you find it problematic that this community of people discriminates against anarchists, when the whole idea of that philosophy is that communities of people should be able to do just as the primary means of sanctioning behavior? Sorry but this community has judged anarchy as silly and detrimental to good social order and I wonder how much violence it might take to change that.

Despite Brendan's dramatic reporting, we do not know at this point what notebooks or paperwork means. Let's save the histrionics until we know for sure what they took and why.
70
@ 55. Jaysus, you're suspicious. It's a quality I normally endorse, but you're on disparaging a tear here. Believe it or not, I *am* honest. Exhibit A: I'm sitting on my living-room chair, rifling through notes at 11:25 pm, just to reassure your questioning mind. I hope you appreciate this, ingrate! And let this stand as a testament to you, personally, of my work ethic.

Anyway: In my interview with L this morning (I'm transcribing it directly from my notes now), he stated that the officers rifled through many books, making note of ones that dealt with "anarchism" and the "green scare," and eventually took a small collection of "handouts" and "pamphlets" about the May Day protests and "any handout with the word 'anarchist' on them, including fliers for a book-release event." The book had something to do with anarchism and the Occupy movement.

That was the "paperwork—anarchists in the Occupy movement" item hastily hand-written on the post-search inventory by the detective.

Satisfied?
71
@70 I am not sure that asking for a rather important detail to be substantiated is all that crazy.

It makes a difference whether the claim that political material was taken comes from L vs. say the inventory list.
72
Jesse - You're right bro. The center right and hard right and, increasingly, moderates do view us lefties as radicals, American-hating rioters in Che Guevara t-shirts. I've experienced this treatment first hand. And the Nazi horrors did develop in increments. If you remember, or have read The Nazi Seizure of Power, Hitler's big selling point wasn't that he was going to wipe out the Jews or, certainly, that he was going to start a war with everybody. Rather, his pitch was that he was going to protect Germany from the great, imminent threat: Communists and radicals in the U.S.S.R. and, specially, those supposedly causing havoc right within the Fatherland, such as, for example, those commie bastards that burned down the Reichstag (right...). Let's kick down their doors at five a.m. and take them away somewhere to straighten them out! Herr Hitler for Chancellor and Fuhrer!

Most Germans viewed the Nazis as thugs, but they were even more afraid about this Communist threat they kept hearing about. (And what's Communism a threat to, really? Capitalism? Our one great, global, ruling religion, the religion of selling you stuff? The religion of social inequality? We can't have that be challenged. Nothing yells out "Freedom!" like a credit card.)

And giffy: My deal is that people are letting their fear, aversion, and ignorance of other perspectives, of things they don't know, to justify the sacrifice of basic civil rights. Once you allow the majority to dissipate the civil rights of the minority, you set the precedence that those rights are not, after all, inalienable, and you basically set yourself up to be at the mercy of whoever happens to have greater wealth and greater numbers.

And one more thing, giffy: Power is pretty sticky in the hands of whoever has it and sharing it doesn't come naturally or easily. That's why we have balance of power between our branches of government, a constitution with codified rights, and elected officials accountable to the people through the democratic vote. Well, ideally, anyway.
73
@ 60, you're a hysterical drama queen if you believe there's even the tiniest parallel between the situations. And your jump straight to death camps demonstrates your hysteria and lack of rational thinking - I wasn't talking about death camps, I was talking about what they were doing in 1933-35 to political dissidents, most of whom were more "pure" German in ethnicity than Adolf was. Because the SPD weren't looking for Jews to round up.

You are a pathetic attention-seeking spoiled brat, and YOU are spitting on everyone rotting in jail (if not an unmarked grave) for their political beliefs.
74
#72 thanks for injecting a little sanity in this discussion. The balance of power in our community rests solidly in the hands of the police and the judicial system that writes search warrants like we just saw served yesterday AM. Despite the insistence by Sean Wiggs that the use of incendiary devices prompts this level of ham handed police investigation, I feel the SPD is kicking the hornets nest in an attempt to draw out more act of vandalism for them to investigate.http://www.facebook.com/events/166899386767934/ and they're gonna get it.
This regime of police, like the Dave Reichart generation of cops, have a political ax to grind and feel no constraint by community or the Mayor's office or the DOJ, or any other entity that would put a check or balance to their power. They have to have an enemy to justify a SWAT team, a gang unit, a counter terrorism consultant, a budget from Homeland security. Violent crime is at a 40 year low, gangs are disparate and mercurial in this town, political extremists are all talk and spontaneous vandalism, what to do?
Kick in a few doors, hold a few press conferences, pray for another shooting spree that can unleash a citywide manhunt and show the flag, go to a lot of public forums and whip up fear of crime and lawlessness. I have gone to my neighborhood public safety council meetings and watched Chief Diez peddle this meme while a dozen fully armed uniforms prowled the room trying to look grim and foreboding. They brought this circus act to the Town Hall forum held by Danny Westnet, they came to my blockwatch picnic with the same. go to your local Night Out http://www.seattle.gov/spd/nightout/ Aug 11th and find out for yourself how much your neighbors fear this anarchist menace or the "crime wave" the cops are warning us about.
75
@72 No, see this is not about politics. I could give two fucks if some kids want to set up a little commune in their apartment or march around every now and then. Anarchism is far to nonsensical a philosophy to ever gain much traction. The police and the state are not afraid of these kids politics as they know as well as the 99% that it's going nowhere beyond college coffee shops and the occasional commune.

But what I do care about is organized mobs causing trouble downtown. Not going to overthrow the state, but they are going to hurt businesses, be they big or small, scare people, and otherwise cause trouble. So once someone goes down that path then the police should investigated and arrest their dumb asses.

This isn't Nazi Germany and there is no grand conspiracy to make Occupy look bad or violent. This is exactly what it looks like, some self righteous assholes who have broken very reasonable laws and should pay the consequences via the justice system with all the rights that entails.
76
@75 -- How can you claim it's not about politics when the warrant specifically sought anarchist "paperwork", and when these people are being targetted specifically because they are anarchists and cops believe that some anarchists broke windows on Mayday? (Again, I'll point out how creepy it is that you all are supporting police raids on anarchists, by saying that because a few anarchists broke some windows on Mayday, it's OK to start having SWAT teams kicking down OTHER anarchists doors, based on the fact that they have the same political views as the people who you believe committed the crime)
77
@ 76, I can answer that. "Anarchist materials" are likely evidence of motive for the crimes committed by the May Day protestors. Nothing political in looking for evidence of motive, any more than looking for love letters between a cheating husband and mistress in an investigation into the disappearance of the wife means that the police are snoopy perverts.
78
@76 How do you know these are 'OTHER anarchists"? How do you know there is not relevant information in there?

@77 Exactly.
79
@76

As Brendan helpfully clarified, the phrase "anarchist paperwork" is from the inventory of items seized, not from the warrant. And if the pig-cops really wanted to harass-raid some anarchists just to meet their weekly Oppress-Anarchism quota, then searching a Marxist household seems like an oddly circuitous way to go about it.

You're really, really not helping your cause in this little debate when you distort, elide, or simply ignore the details of what actually happened.
80
Are you fucking kidding me? Dear SPD; the Feds are watching, and yet you keep stepping deeper into the doo-doo of your own making. Please stop. You're really stinking up my town.
81
Help! Help! I'm being oppressed!
82
@2, What's with these assumptions that these people committed a crime? The only evidence I can see that the police are going on is "Occupy" members, "anarchist" paperwork, and bandanas and black. The truth is, the police have NO evidence to go on, to make arrests, so they're trying to push as many pressure points in the Occupy movement as they can to see where it takes them. Calling this a valid warrant is laughable, if it was a valid warrant, he could have showed it to them, and let them read it, before coming in (also to execute a valid warrant, the police must knock and announce themselves at the door). The simple example of how they executed this warrant, leads one to question the validity of this warrant, while the execution was outright a constitutional violation. They're only defense? Domestic Terrorism, watch for it, United States of America: the best damn police state since the U.S.S.R. The goddamned truth. WAKE UP!
83
@15 A Half-life 2 reference? Niiiiice.
84
I very much doubt there will ever be criminal charges in relation to this case. Why charge someone with a crime when you can just break into their house every couple months looking for evidence?
85
@82

The police are investigating the crimes clearly committed by anarchists on May 1, 2012.

Since they didn't have any arrest warrants, and didn't arrest anyone in the house, it seems they were looking for evidence, not culprits, and did not assume the people they found in the house had committed any crime.
86
@85- The police are investigating crimes committed on May 1st by people who are supposedly anarchists.

They raided a communist house.

It's like I was looking for Jews so I went to the Vaticanl.

Or like the cops just want to harass Leftists.
87
"Let's save the histrionics until we know for sure what they took and why. "
-Says giffy, the one who speculates the cops left with "a plan for bombing some more [sic] courthouses."
88
>L spoke with me before speaking to an attorney, so I've agreed to leave his name out of it until he consults one.

Has L consulted a lawyer so the writer can release he real name as promised? Would like to see if he actually gets arrested

Please wait...

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