I am in 100% agreement that we need systemic changes to how we train the police, and how the police operate. But I don't think using the tree lighting event as a stage for protest was a very good idea. Scaring children is a poor way to try and get their parents to support your cause, even if it is just.

I think the protesters would have made more of an impact if they had sent a message stating that they were choosing not to protest at the event in deference to the safety of children and families.

And the cause will not move forward if violence and property damage keep happening.

Thank you for this article. Much needed this week.

Protesting Lost Lake and The Comet will do precisely Jack and Shit for racial anything. Not to mention it's lazy as fuck.

You want change? Vote. You ant change get people to vote. Canvas. Register voters. Do the HARD work. Not all this bullshit yelling at shoppers. It won't do a god damned thing.

You know who DIDN'T vote this last election cycle? That's right the very people most disenfranchised and most effected by shitty law enforcement policies.

And look what happened? An electoral disaster that is sure to usher in more of the same shitty policies.

Good job anarchists!

Eli writes that:

"It's impossible to conduct a complete census in the midst of roving protests involving hundreds of people. But it does appear, at least to me, that Seattle's response to Ferguson has become an ideological battleground, and that some of its ideological divisions track racial lines."

Street resistance is not an act of coherent body politic. It is a free association of people that may well be rallied under the auspices of an event or a demand, but you can bet your last five bucks that if your rally has any traction, seven Maoists and thirty Anarchist will be there. They bear little resemblance to each other and certainly have little use for liberals, progressives, social democrats, or the social justice crowd.... except for a few fleeting moments.

Eli, as always, is a great reporter.



Chalk this episode up as yet another example of entirely reasonable and incremental center-left demands discredited thanks to a handful of revolutionaries. This is part of why the right wins so often.

This could be a good article if it had acknowledge that many of the people of color involved in these actions are also anarchists and/or communists. Sure a couple of loud mouth white men were screaming nonsense at westlake. And a couple of other people, anarchists, told them to shut up. And they did. As for people screaming, "Anarchy." If that did happen, it must have only been a couple of people who were not very loud. Out of the many dozens of anarchists who were present on Friday none of them heard the supposed "Anarchy" screaming on the balcony. I did hear a lot of people screaming "Black Lives Matter" "Shut it down" and "Racist" (at the rich white people who were trying to get physical with the protesters). This article, and the people it cites are making many assumptions about people who get rowdy at protests.

@6: I see a whole lot of reporting, and not a lot of assuming.

@7 God, yes. Isn't it refreshing?

Always ironic that what the anarchists want is the most unfair and unequal of societies.

@9, In the anarchists' defense, the most unfair and unequal of societies in American history have been built and defended by government. Slavery, genocide of Native Americans, police brutality, you name it.

@10

Don't ever study archeology. Some of it is really going to bum you out.

Once again the Mao apologist / Bob Avakian cult worshippers fuck up a perfectly good movement. This is exactly what they did with A Day Without A Mexican movement, then the anti-war/Bush protests in 2006, and on and on.



Hmmm, kinda makes you wonder if the RCP is maybe a half-dozen ... plants?



Something to think about.



Oh, and they've ratted out the Olympia and Vashon anarchist kids to the SPD multiple times.

These people do know that "hands up, don't shoot" is based on a lie, right?