according to reddit you protesters are ruining childrens lives!

Well, if by "ruined" one means, "reminded of atrocities committed against citizens not like my by a law enforcement establishment controlled by the corporate interests to whom I'm about to hand over my hard-earned money," then yeah, I guess so.

The protesters are in league with the Liberal War on Christmas. CONSPIRACY! Someone get Kirk Cameron on the case.

I was under the impression that Christmas was on December 25th. That's three weeks from now, right?

@5:

I take it you mean the un-retouched photographic evidence...

If the target of your protest is the Xmas tree lighting ceremony then you aren't targeting local business, you are targeting locals. Most of whom are white, yes, but also liberal and probably already sympathetic to your cause. Same with blocking traffic on the highway. Who did you really target? A bunch of working class saps just trying to get home after a long day.



It reeks of collective punishment. It's the same mentality that terrorists use to justify their actions and it is not going to sway anyone to your cause.

Good to hear the Seattle Times is on the wrong side, as usual. It creeps me out when those stiff old suburbanites agree me about anything.

"Eh? Killer cops? Who cares? Get off my lawn!"

@7- So when and where are people supposed to protest? Somewhere nicely out of sight and out of the way?

As a working class stiff I can assure you I don't mind these protesters at all.

I fully support the protests against the Mike Brown & Eric Garner grand jury decisions.

What I don't support is the same old crowd of local anarchists trying to take over protests and make them all about them and their causes.

Now I feel as if joining the protest would be a bad idea for me, since I'm white. Tarred by skin color association with the anarchists & communists.

Ironic, isn't it?

Advent is ruined. Advent is in shreds and tatters.

(kinda like my respect for the US justice system.)

@10- "Now I feel as if joining the protest would be a bad idea for me, since I'm white."

There are a lot of white people in those photos and most of them aren't cops.

Walking around downtown with my kids last night to do Santa pictures, with gaggles of cops everywhere, was definitely strange. But I understand and support the need for activists to disrupt the norm in order to get people to pay attention. Sadly, the media won't even cover a protest unless there is a serious disruption of some kind. Disrupting our fucked up need to buy more and more shit is an excellent tactic, because this issue is about human dignity and that is much more important than consumption. The Season of Giving TM. How about giving everyone equal treatment under the law this year, Santa?

I don't think they're ruining Christmas. Wanting to improve the fellowship of mankind should probably trump holiday shopping if we're splitting hairs here for the religious reason for the season.



The reporting doesn't say what they want to see happen though. Do they want the mayor to write a strongly worded letter to the Ferguson or Staten Island PD or DOJ? Get the City Counsel/State to restructure WA State Grand Jury proceedings/standards? Get a trial going for Ian Birk? Accelerate SPD's body-cam adoption? I don't think I'm alone in wondering what it is the protestors want those in power of the City of Seattle (or the Feds?) to actually do that would get the protestors to stop shutting down parts of the city.



Also, if they haven't/don't progress to that point then no one should be surprised that they would get 'co-opted' by other potentially more organized factions.

I do nearly all my shopping on line anyway so I don't really care how this all plays out.

damn. i was expecting a Legally Binding SLOG Poll.

I know it's unpopular to say, but if at this time you're more worried about business more than you are civil rights please, obtain a handgun, load it, put it in your mouth and pull the trigger.





Nothing ruins Christmas more than growing up to find out that it's just a front for consumerism and labor exploitation and is still somehow more important than the lives of black people. America's promise has yet to be realized and it never will be so long as white Americans insist that the facade is preferable to justice.

You know what really ruins Christmas? Getting a phone call telling you your son was just murdered in the street by racist cops.

If that hasn't happened to you today, STFU about your Christmas being "ruined".

YES. THEY ARE.
Because these idiots don't understand that the LAWMAKERS are down in OLYMPIA, not in downtown Seattle.

They're just lemminger joiners looking for attention.
If they ACTUALLY wanted to enact change, they'd put down the damn signs and pick up a pen, a phone or use a mouse/keyboard and CONTACT THEIR REPRESENTATIVE.

@18 - in the case of Michael Brown and Eric Garner everyone agrees that a cop did indeed kill someone. Given the video evidence of what happened, I think far, far more people would be willing to refer to the latter incident as "murder". The facts/evidence in Brown's case make that a bit more murky, but let's grant you that anyway.

But, given all of that, what evidence do you have that the cops were racist? Could it not just be that they were bad cops? I don't want to hear statistics about deaths-by-cop-by-race -- in these _specific_ cases what facts exist in support of your "racist cop" claim?

@12 yes, but a great number of them are the professional shit-stirrers & co-opters. I'm not one of them.

?

@9

How about protesting in front of a police station or courthouse?

I'd turn that question right around:

Is Christmas ruining the protests?

And if so, how did that happen? Could it have something to do with the white leftist radicals who attach themselves like barnacles to every racial issue they can find, co-opting outrage and steering protests to serve their anticapitalist agenda?

Apparently protesters have free speech rights and free assembly rights under the 1st amendment of the constitution. Rights of children, specifically there to express themselves in song at the tree lighting ceremony don't have 1st Amendment rights to be protected from the mob demanding the microphone. Non-Ferguson protesters don't have 1st Amendment rights to assemble, speak to one another, and shop. Merchants that lease, and their landlords that own, don't have 1st Amendment rights to control who they assemble and associate with by deciding who come and goes on their own property.

The 1st Amendment does not guarantee freedom of association and freedom of speech just to those who want to use their speech and association to protest. It guarantees it to all citizen's expression and association rights be it over something controversial or mundane. Someone else's 1st Amendment rights extend only to the point that they are not infringing other citizen's 1st Amendment rights.

@27, George wrote, "protesters have free speech rights and free assembly rights under the 1st amendment of the constitution."

No, protesters and everyone else were born with the right to freedom of speech and assembly. Period. Under the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, our government is prohibited from infringing upon those rights. The 1st Amendment doesn't guarantee any rights. It constrains government actions.

@28 Those civil rights enshrined in the Bill or Rights are worthless and illusory without the protection of the government, using force.



Without a military, some foreign dictator can come in and suppress them.



Without the military, the Little Rock Nine, would never have been integrated into a previously segregated Arkansas High School.



Without the FBI, The Freedom Riders would not have made it across the South.



The Voting Rights Act is meaningless, unless the Federal Government, could, by force if necessary, enforce on those states, counties, and municipalities, blacks getting access to the polls.



If there is mob rule and no law and order, then might makes right. If who has the microphone at Westlake Center depends on who can force their way to the microphone because their group is bigger, more intimidating, or more forceful, then those who come to speak of holiday merriment and good cheer, have no 1st amendment speech right.



A court order to stop the government from doing something to infringe a right is worthless if an Officer of the Court won't physically stop the government acts that do that infringing.



It is a paradox, but for the guarantees of the Bill of Rights to be exercised, there must be a government, with police powers, to keep order in the public square, or only the mob and their leader have free speech and assembly rights. That mob then becomes the de-facto government and they only represent their members.

@29 If it weren't for the US military in the Middle East or the NSA spying on me, I'd have no rights at all! Whew! Thanks to all of the members of the military and police for preserving my rights... to shop? Fill up my car?

Wouldn't it be great if there could be a protest that uses tactics that are effective in today's culture? The Bible screamers that protest so much were effective so many years ago but are now a viewed as crazy. One of the most effective protests that I can think of in recent years was the Occupy Wall Street movement. They were not disruptive in a negative way but they were still effective. As far as the riot gear, Seattle has a history (at least since I've lived here) of violence. If I was an officer, I would definitely wear my gear as well.

@30, "Who watches the watchers?" has been, and always will be, a problem. The founding fathers, Madison in particular, tried to address this by dividing centers of power apart into states v. federal, executive v. legislative v. judicial, private power v. public power, etc., etc., etc. The Progressive Party reformers of the early 20th Century added one more: popular initiatives (which Eyman has now co-opted). It works to a degree, particularly over time, which is cold comfort to individuals or groups deprived of civil rights over years or decades, while those checks and balances play out. It has the unfortunate consequence of encouraging gridlock when there is not a clear consensus and relative unanimity among the electorate about fiscal, social, and other values. We are seeing that now.

@31

The only thing standing in the way of effective of nonviolent protests is the lack of participation.

Radical leftists aren't going to get more liberals joining their protests unless they find the will to disallow smashist black bloc tactics at their marches.

Black and Latino organizers have found that radicals will always join their protests, bringing smashist black bloc tactics and signs for the rest of the radical agenda along with them.

Radicals are behaving as though vanguardism is still a credible strategy, that is, as if eventually the proletariat, energized by the constant provocation of the radicals, will accept and join in violent protests, thereby accomplishing revolution on behalf of those radicals. It seems quite unlikely that they'll disallow smashist black bloc tactics any time soon.

And liberals, for their part, seem to have left the organizing to the radicals.

These protests are absolutely the best thing to happen to Christmas in a long, long time. Though let's hope we don't have to make it an annual tradition.

"...I must stop Christmas from coming!"

Maybe he should have shopped with his hands in the air.



Maybe we should all shop with our hands in the air, just to make a point.

Well, no one likes to be reminded that police brutality happens. Some folks prefer ignorance than than the truth.

Should I point out that Christmas celebrates the life of a man unjustly killed by government officials?

@38 Touché. Fictitious man. Touché nonetheless.