Maybe that rally is the Anticapitalist march that's been touted as starting on pike near SCCC @6pm for a few weeks now?

KING5 is having fun covering the drama. Silly string!

"All government is genocide"? I do not think that word means what he thinks it means.

Where's the Slog drone when we need it?

@5-Really! A perfect time for the Stranger drone to get some action!

Thanks for reporting on this! Be careful out there.

Sun Liquor has a wndow broken, reports KOMO's liveblog. I hope it was just an accident.

Idiots throwing pipes at police cars on the King 5 live stream.

There was also some excitement when a guy held a flare aloft for a couple minutes.

What a fucking gang of losers.

"Hard left" is not synonymous with anti-government.

What a bunch of asswipes.

@8 I'm banking that one was undercover cops trying to ramp shit.

Most anarchists and anti-capitalists respect independent companies, as opposed to corporations, like downtown companies where metal bars started getting thrown (Niketown).

4,

In his mind, it does.

All non-failed states are marked by a monopoly on violence. We authorize the state to employ violence through the military or police. The anarchist argument is that such power is inevitably corrupting in it's effects, and leads to abuses of power such as genocide. In the US, this has occurred, such as the US government's genocidal campaign against Native Americans, the internment of the Japanese during WW2, the eugenics movement, the war against Filipino independence. Here in Tacoma, we're the only city of half a million or more that lacks a Chinatown, a legacy from the genocide we committed against Chinese people in the city shortly after Tacoma was founded.

And then there's the non-genocidal horrors the state has committed that were almost as horrific, such as slavery, refusing to acknowledge women as full citizens for 130 years, the "homosexual panic" defense that essentially legalized the murder of gay men (first time that failed in court? 1998.), sodomy laws the outright theft of the Kingdom of Hawaii, the ongoing legalized harassment of Hispanics, and the death penalty. I'd go on, but you probably get the point by now.

And the US is hardly alone. Canada, long seen as a human rights beacon, has the legacy of the brutal repression of the rights of Francophones, the Residential Schools fiasco, RCMP abuses targeting First Nations peoples, and the murder of Louis Riel. Australia has a "White Australia" policy up until the 1970's, and to this day holds refugees in a special prison on Christmas Island.

In truth, no government has yet been able to restrain itself from abusing power. Hence the statement (attributed to Mikhail Bakunin) that government is violence.

Myself, I am not an anarchist. I fear the howling mob with its pitchforks and torches as much as I do the potential for the state to go mad. When I think of anarchy, I see Somalia.

But the anarchists do have a point. If you want to avoid the Hobbesian nightmare I have described on the Horn of Africa, you have to accept that the government you create to fend it off will commit horrible atrocities from time to time. As neither is preferable, I oftentimes think the only reasonable solution might be to find some deserted island with a few friends and get away from both insane governments and howling mobs. but having read Lord of the Flies, I know that not even a deserted island can protect you from the inherent violence that resides in the human mind.

Anyone know why those people were just arrested?

@13

Yes indeed, look at these devilishly clever undercover cops, trying to "ramp shit" by throwing pipes at police cars! No-one will ever suspect!

KIRO doing a decent job of coverage - arrests have started, camera crew is right in the middle of it. Reporters presenting a far more neutral stance than I would expect.

King is doing a good job as well. I really have no sympathy for people looking to start shit.

poor David Ham....he is right in the middle of all this.

amazing coverage both of protesters toting rocks and other things, and also of cops making arrests with unknown/sketchy provocation.

@16 if you noticed, chaos started downtown near corporations.

Not all the way back near Sun Liquor.

Not impressed by your amazing powers of analysis.

@21

By gum, you're right! It's corporations who are "ramping shit," not undercover police mens!

@20 I know. Wuzrobbed of Survivor

@22 meh. you did better earlier.

2/10

@25

Wrong forum, my friend; you'll want to go back to your Reddit account if you want an audience of people who find those "memes" of yours to be "pithy."

Down with the capitalism that just established 300 free rides in the form of all expenses paid tuition at SCCC?

Why?