On one hand inconveniencing shoppers is hardly a big deal, but on the other I fail to see how this actually accomplishes anything.

Minds are not being changed, nor are laws. We aren't running any candidates or even an initiative. There seems to be no real strategy or goal aside from protest protest protest with the occasional downtown campout. Featuring the exact same people and groups doing the exact same things they did last time.

Meanwhile the Teabaggers, in four short years, have achieved more than the far left has in four decades.

We need a new fucking strategy.

It's the SPD that have scared me away from shopping in downtown Seattle, not protesters.

@1: inconveniencing shoppers is hardly a big deal

You'd feel differently if the protesters were driving customers away from your business.

But otherwise, yes, time for a new strategy that doesn't involve acting like a douchebag and undermining your own cause.

what a bunch of pussies.

Ah the classic "oh no you're driving allies away" uh no you dick those allies were never there. Clearly being civil has done nothing to solve a deadly problem.



Were you aware of or active on the issue before the protests? No. Did you care? No. With so many people claiming they're being driven away you would think there's a mass of people ready to act. There's not. Just the aggrieved and folks who are always there to protest.



People wonder why these murders happen but somehow lack perspective to note that the notion of "your vocal disagreement with the killing of black people is keeping me from shopping and makes people in the cause look violent" comes tumbling out of their mouths with little effort.

If Christmas shoppers are scared or bummed out by protesters shouting about police brutality, wait til they find out how much of their shopping bags are filled with products made by slave labor in poisonous factories. Happy Holidays!

I would never take my kids to Westlake nowadays. And who says the city needs commerce, anyway?

@6: I think more of the frustration is a result of protests happening, but then no one attached to the protest or swayed by it wants to do anything but protest more. Without a unified message or strategy, there is no next step to take.

@6 Oh please. People have been protesting about police misconduct for years and have accomplished little to nothing. Same with almost every issue people protest about.

It's a goddamn waste of time and energy.

@1, you have a good point about the lack of initiatives and other avenues within the establishment being pursued, as the TEA Party has done (although the grass roots aspect of that movement is questionable). I can only assume that the lack of initiatives and such displays the lack of faith in our government establishment.

I have to admit I quit reading the letter when they compared the police inaction on petty street crime in the retail core with the lack of action against the protesters.

Lets face it, the downtown business establishment has been part of the greater injustice in our city. They see homeless people and think the solution is to encourage the police to harass them, then they turn around and lobby against social services.

I did skim through some of the rest of the letter. Enough to tell the writer that yes, if the shit on the streets scares you, please move back to the fucking suburbs. People like this moving here have destroyed the best of our city's culture while failing to deal properly and respectfully with what was wrong when they moved here.

If you are more outraged by the disruption created
By protests than you are py police injustice, you are part of the problem.

Cities don't need commerce! May all these businesses fail. Then we'll thrive.

Reservations for PF Chang's?

To those who feel unsafe because of the protests downtown, I have two questions:



How many people have been assaulted, injured or killed by these protesters?



And...



How many people have been assaulted, injured or killed by the police?

These protests actually do need to move to Downtown Bellevue, Bel Square, Lincoln Square and Alderwood mall.... let's inconvenience the people who are most likely to be pro-police and conservative Republicans.

@15, the malcontents are an element in every protest movement. It's the media that highlights the malcontents and makes them look like a more significant driving force than they are. Where this becomes a problem is when the powers that be see their actions as a cause to attack the whole group instead of singling out the individual perps.

BTW, this country was founded by malcontents. What do you think the Boston Tea Party was?

This was a good insight into the mind of the 95%+ of the population that doesn't read or comment on Slog. Your Eastsider that sees news reports of burning and looting in Ferguson then sees angry people on the street here and equates them. Of course they're not the same, but if you don't know that are you going to take that chance and get mixed up in it? Who wants to get tear gassed or trampled for shopping downtown instead of Bellevue Suare?
I don't agree with them, but I get where they're coming from. I also don't think that these same people complaining about the impacts of the protests are automatically ok with police brutality or racism.
I don't know what the solution here is, short of changing the law to require all police misconduct claims to automatically go before a state AG or other independent prosecutor, but I do question the value of letting the "anarchists" get away with co-opting someone else's movement. The more legitimate protests do serve a purpose and their business impact is probably about as much as having a sea of pink clad middle aged women jog walk through downtown for a "cure".

Hmmm, one the one hand, protesting police brutality, on the other hand, people can't Ride the Ducks. Which one is more important? Gosh, so hard to say...

@17, thumbs up to that. Well, sort of. Let the discontented locals stir the shit up there. Sadly , the discontented there at best are living in a state of denial, and most commonly lack the articulation to do this. I come from suburbia (Edmonds/Lynnwood), and that is relevant to why I left and came to the big bad city.

There's no better way to win people to pick up an issue and support a cause, than to stage a Portlandian protest that causes 99% of the non-racist people subjected to it to collectively roll their eyes out of their sockets and promptly flee the scene.

Told you not to take all our cops from the neighborhoods to overdo it Downtown, Ed, but you just get all angry and refuse to think.

@17 has a point but it needs to be the mansions and yacht club parties if you want actual change - fairly easy to shut down exits

It's really pathetic that American Culture has devolved to the point where people believe buying a bunch of crap - in large part made by slave-laborers, political prisoners, and what amounts to permanently indentured servants - for other people who probably don't really need it in the first place is somehow more important than citizens engaging in their Constitutionally-protected right to free speech, expressing their frustration and outrage at rampant, unchecked police brutality, and redressing their government for grievances. This is why our country is rolling ever more swiftly into dumpster of historical irrelevance.

Yet, these same people will unquestioningly sit in gridlocked traffic - which is ALWAYS gridlocked downtown this time of year, protests or no (consumers have such SHORT memories, to go along with their equally short attention spans I suppose) - who will stand in line for days on-end outside retail stores to cash in on those "Black Friday" discounts, who will literally fight each other to wrest said discounted items out of each other's furtively clutched hands, and who in general make a mockery of the entire POINT of what (according to the ancient religious texts to which many of them CLAIM to adhere) this time of year is supposed to represent.

And really? People are getting bent out of shape because the FUCKING DUCKS, those lumbering, gas-spewing, double-lane taking, noisy monstrosities that annoy the hell out of us during the summer, can't navigate through the streets? Those are considered more important than people's outrage that unarmed citizens are being executed repeatedly by an out-of-control law enforcement establishment?

As for the Tea-baggers having their shit together, if it weren't for the significant financial backing of the Koch Brothers and their ilk, they'd all be just a bunch of disgruntled old white suburbanites or racist southern rednecks hell-bent on re-fighting the Civil War, slumped into booths at their local Denny's pissing-and-moaning into their Moon Over My Hammies.

I took my 3 & 1 year old to the Christmas tree lighting. It's true that the protest ruined the event. I also couldn't help but feel sad for the kid's choir who was in tears. They really didn't understand what was going on. Unfortunately, the actions of the protestors was framed (by them) in an "us" against "them" capacity. Many of the people in the crowd support the actual message of the protests, but we also wanted to see our kids light up by a silly tradition.



Hindsight is 20-20, but I am imaging a more powerful experience of a minute of silence and a candle lighting. I don't think a powerful illustration of solidarity and mutual compassion, respect, and love towards one another would have been powerful.



I left the event pretty sad. I'm bummed that the protest was angry and made a ton of assumptions about the random families there. We support your message by the vast majority and I'm hopeful there's ways we can come together in a way that illustrates a positive and loving human spirit.

Well said Comte.

@1 A new strategy? The tea party had a major cable network (FOX) promoting their events and they were bankrolled by anti-regulation billionaires. While real grassroots groups (e.g Occupy Wall Street) get vilified by the media. Wake up and smell the pro-corporate propaganda.

@18,

A tantrum by the colonies' bourgeoisie. Were you under the impression that it was a popular movement? The vast majority of American colonists were loyalists.

@29:

I perceive a tone of facetiousness in your comment, so I won't belabor the point, but one has to ask: exactly what "rights" held by the silent majority are being violated here?

@30, thanks for the fact check, but sometimes it's better to go with the myth than rarely acknowledged truths. While those upper-crusters don't fit what most visualize the word malcontent, they sort of were, and what they did inconvenienced many for a few years, and they were heavily demonized by their opponents as brats. Fair enough comparisons IMO.

Now to pump myself up thinking about how America didn't give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor.

If protests aren't disrupting people's lives they aren't being effective. That's the goal of civil disobedience.

If you want your cause to not disrupt people's daily lives in any way you might as well just pay for advertisements on the radio.

I'm not saying that these protests will certainly be effective, but I find it ironic that our culture lauds violent and disobedient protests of the past while categorically denouncing any of the present. When Nelson Mandela died all these same media outlets bitching about Seattle protesters were lauding his legacy. The ANC was bombing buildings left and right under Mandela. I think that was more disruptive to people's lives than reducing Ride the Ducks ridership.

@29, the "silent majority" are only silent until business as usual gets disrupted. Their silence is consent to the greater violations of other people's rights.

Like COMTE said, what rights of theirs are being violated, and how do those compare to the violations committed against others?

@14 posted by NopeNope on December 11, 2014 at 11:59 AM
"To those who feel unsafe because of the protests downtown, I have two questions:
How many people have been assaulted, injured or killed by these protesters?
And...
How many people have been assaulted, injured or killed by the police?"

NO! FUCKING NO.
DO NOT _EVER_ presume that violence is EVER a justified response to violence (let alone ANYTHING, in general).
DON'T EVEN IMPLY IT with such an ignorant comment.

VIOLENCE is an IMMATURE IRRATIONAL RESPONSE, by a WEAK MIND to a situation that CAN ALWAYS be resolved PEACEFULLY.
VIOLENCE IS NEVER JUSTIFIED.

FURTHERMORE...
Shoppers and other citizens ARE NOT THE PROBLEM, but shortsighted protesters obtusely fail to realise that. Pissing off the people they should be trying to convince WILL NOT BRING ABOUT CHANGE, it will just ALIENATE.

The VAST MAJORITY of the protests downtown are mere SELFRITEOUS INDIGNATION.

If protesters wanted to incite change, they'd put down the DAMN SIGNS, stop trying to BLOCK TRAFFIC, and PETITION OLYMPIA (where the ACTUAL LAWS are made).

@30:

I challenge that assertion. At the time of the American Revolutionary War, the colonial population (not including African slaves) was estimated at around 2.5mm, of which approximately 470,000, or about 1/5th, were considered loyalists to the Crown. So, even granting some generous leeway with the numbers, it is highly unlikely that "the vast majority of American colonists were loyalists" as you state. If you can provide documentation supporting your claim, I would be more than happy to take it into consideration.

Both @1 and @6 are right. These businesses aren't allies and aren't deserving of sympathy. These are the same businesses who have spent the last 5+ years calling for police repression of people of color, the homeless, and the mentally ill in downtown. Those businesses are perfectly legitimate targets. But it's also true that these protests are not producing change. Either the protests need to focus their tactics and articulate clear goals, or we all need to look at other strategies for producing change.

sorry you couldn't buy stuff. some of us think injustice in america is far more important.



Red Square UW

Saturday, December 13th 11am

Rally and march to DOWNTOWN

Do they also consider racist and law-breaking mall cops intimidating and unfortunate?

Maybe "Downtown" should tell Murray to reform the cops in this town. That would help downtown far more than anything else they could do. When Murray canned the interim chief for "thin blue line" Bailey, that was a green light to continue beating the mexican piss out of citizens. Hardly conducive to business.

I love how none of this considers perhaps scaling back SPD's behavior might help.

In Richmond, CA, police and protesters stood together.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/12/we-ge…

kljj

This is definitely an issue that demands visible anger and protest.

But like Occupy if it keeps just being bodies in the street yelling, it eventually just collapses into a back-patting masturbatory outrage-fest.

Right now you have a bunch of dumbshit anarchists and moon-eyed leftists that have hijacked the protest to just keep screaming empty slogans at each other and at shoppers. If that continues it will never congeal into meaningful action. Just like Occupy.

Did one protestor register a single person to vote? Did a single protestor offer any meaningful legislation?

Meanwhile the teabaggers took over congress.

@45: let's give occupy the same free media and funding as the Fox et al gave the Tea Party, and see what happens. it would be an interesting experiment.

@8/12/22 sockpuppeting works better if you use different screen names.

@8, and @46

At some point we need to stop whining and actually start doing things to counter their power and build our own.

They do the work to win. We don't.

@47: Wouldn't that, by definition, NOT be sockpuppeting?

@42: I think the point is that these directionless, redundant protests will have zero effect on police actions. Most people are OK with the occasional one-hour delay getting home on the bus, or finding the stores closed when they go to shop. Keep it up night after night and you're losing support.

Putting "verbatim comments" in scare quotes is sort of like calling what Ansel does "journalism."

@50:

Losing support from whom? Aside from the protesters themselves, how many of the people shopping or working downtown express more than a vaguely mild concern for the issues over which the protesters are demonstrating? How many of them have attended a rally, spoken out, written a letter to the editor or to their elected officials, expressed anything beyond a limp "tsk, tsk" in response to the atrocities being committed against people of color before the glib, perfectly coiffed news anchor passes on to the box scores and the 3 day forecast, pushing the uncomfortable thoughts out of their precious little heads just as quickly as possible?

I keep hearing the words, "fear" and "intimidation" thrown about; but my guess is that for many of those complaining, it's a fear of being forced to confront the ugly underbelly of our society, intimidation by way of recognizing deep down inside themselves that, no they really don't care all that much about dead black people, not if it means actually having to take a stand, to confront the problem head on, and actually do something to change it. These protests are a visceral reminder of their apathy and lack of engagement with a problem they don't see as having any relevance to their world. That's not going to change, no matter how polite (or disruptive) the protesters are, because they don't want to change, they just want to be left alone and not be constantly barraged with the message that for some people, people mostly unlike themselves, the world is a shitty place where bad things happen, where injustice, prejudice, hate and violence are daily occurrences.

It's just so, so upsetting to have to see that, isn't it?

@46 Who's "let's?"

The Stranger and many outlets gave nothing but free media support to occupy. How many billionaire leftists do you know that own media empires? Occupy didn't fall apart due to lack of media attention. It fell apart because it got co-opted by stupid people with no staying power, too much to lose, and no ability to organize politically.

Maybe if far left did the actual WORK to get coherent media campaigns together and organized voters you'd attract the kind of power base/money you need for sustained media campaigns.

IOW if these protestors formed a message that was actionable - rather than open-ended platitudes like "END RACSIM!" or, the laughably stupid shit like "SMASH THE STATE!" or "DOWN WITH KKKKAPATALISM!" you'd get traction and momentum to build concrete action.

In the internet age of "choose your own facts" enclaves of hive-minded information silos how do you break through with media messages alone? You basically all just preach to each other.

You don't. You organize for POLITICAL, not just media, battles. That's what the Tea-baggers did. They didn't merely agitate. They ORGANIZED.

@52 Well you'd get lot's of support for action from those people if some sort of action was presented coherently. But it's not. That shit starts out legitimately focused onto an issue like police brutality and then descends into a rabble of dip shits.

What do you want shoppers to do when they see that? Throw down their bags and join the throng of balaclava clad dumb shits? To what end? Do really expect that?

I notice all these desktop "activists" on Slog talking about joining the marches.

Yet you're ALL HERE typing on the internet during nearly every one of these marches. Most of you guys don't do shit and you know it. But you expect other people to do it.

When I and hundreds of democratic party volunteers were out canvassing during the last election, when I and hundreds of democratic party volunteers were out door to door registering voters and making phone calls - what the fuck were all these screaming anarchists doing?

Not a god damned thing. And you know it.

There are two competing claims in this thread:

1. Blocking some traffic and inconveniencing some shoppers is not terribly disruptive, and

2. Only sufficiently disruptive actions can achieve change

If our local lefty radicals believe both of these things, and I see no reason to assume they don't, then it logically follows that the purpose of these protests is not to achieve change, but to accomplish something else.

It has been pointed by others that the lefty radicals keep doing the same thing over and over again, without achieving change. Given the well-worn definition of insanity, and the fact that the lefty radicals don't appear to me to be insane, then we can conclude that they are not expecting different results every time they repeat this by now formulaic "meet at Westlake, march to capitol hill, march back" direct action.

What, then, are they getting out of it? What is so satisfying that they keep coming back for more?

The only obvious answer I can think of is "confrontation with the police." This seems to be a reward in an of itself, with no relation to the cause du jour.

The most effective police response to this might be to get rid of not just the riot gear, but also the side arms and standard issue equipment, and train a unit to manage this sort of protest with a completely unarmed response-- and lots of video cameras.

@54

Er, if you're yelling at anarchists for not trying hard enough to put politicians in office, then you're sort of being an idiiot. For all the criticism I have of contemporary anarchism, and I have quite a lot, I can at least recognize that non-participation in elections is an entirely logical application of their ideology.

The communist faction of our local lefty radicals, though... well, they were out there putting up signs and posters for Sawant, weren't they?

@54:

If that were really true, one would think there would be a tremendous surge of support expressed at the very beginning of these kinds of protests, particularly when most of the participants DO have a direct, vested interest in effecting some sort of concrete, positive change, but I don't really see that happening. Like I said, the response from most (not all assuredly) people who DON'T have a vested interest, who don't have stakes and aren't affected by the conditions being protested are just tepid, rote, perfunctory; they put in the absolute minimal amount of engagement they can in order to just get away and not have to deal with it. Doesn't matter if it's Martin Luther King, Jr., the families of slain victims, concerned allies, or self-serving proles with their own agenda on the streets - most people have been and continue to be completely disengaged, because they don't see what's being protested against as having any impact on THEIR lives, so why jump into the fray? That's how social engagement and protest has been co-modified: if it's not about YOU, it's not worth the effort.

And so why not show that kind of support, IF it's something they really believe? But they don't, that's the point. They don't believe, and they don't want to be reminded of the fact they don't believe.

Yeah, some of us have jobs that require us to be at them during normal business hours. That's why I tend to go to events in the evenings and on weekends. Fortunately, I belong to several action networks that alert me to when marches, demonstrations, rallies, strikes, protests what-have-you, will be happening and where, so I can attend those I CAN attend. We all can't do EVERYTHING, so we have to prioritize, nothing wrong with that.

You do the good work, good on you. Bragging about it, and conversely acting all victimy because other people aren't shouldering some of the burden just comes off as insufferable moral high-handedness. Are you doing it because you want the credit and accolades - or because it's the right thing to do?

You're not a fucking martyr, you're not going to lay down your life for the cause, and you know THAT. By copping a holier-than-thou attitude you come off as just as much of an ideological poseur as those you're criticizing, which makes you no better than them in my book.

@55:

Or maybe it's just because some people are sick and tired of having the same racist, classist, authoritarian shit sandwiches handed to them over and over again, and a little shouting and marching feels like a good way expunge some of the bad taste it leaves in their collective mouths.

I wonder how all these trite "protest" gatherings of professional malcontents, adolescent revolutionaries, and straight up fucking losers will affect 2016 elections?

@58

It's possible to chant and march and raise placards and wave your fists in the air and all that in plazas and parks and on sidewalk, so I think it's reasonable to assume that our lefty radicals want and are getting more out of their kabuki than the emotional release of shouting at the public.

@57 you make absolutely no sense.



So you only want change when it's convenient for you ... a couple of nights and weekends. I doubt you even do that.



But still you want everybody else to inconvenience themselves to join what are in the end mostly useless protests?



Then you go on a defensive tirade about people who encourage you to do things that work - like canvass and organize - actions that actually make change )But are a lot harder that shouting at traffic).



Well. Why, that's just bragging and seeking accolades.



Jesus. Hypocritical AND lazy.

@61:

Please do try to keep up. What is convenient for me personally is irrelevant; if I could do more, go to more actions, I would, but I can't so I go to the ones I CAN. Otherwise, I guess I'll just have to continue spending 50-plus hours a week at a job where - and this may be a shock to your delicate sensibilities - organizing is a significant part of my daily activities. Or should I drop all that and hit the streets instead? Which would meet with your personal approval?

You sound like those types that faithfully show up at every monthly district party organization meeting and who completely disenchanted me with precinct-level politics: little fish who want to be bigger fish and who constantly engage in insufferable pissing matches with each other over who's more loyal to the cause, who works hardest, who deserves more recognition from the executive committee; all the while imposing arbitrary, impossible-to-achieve litmus tests for ideological purity where if you only toe 95% of the party line compared to their 95.1% you're worse than Mussolini drowning a litter of puppies at a child's birthday party.

Frankly, I'd rather chew on razor blades than have to listen to your ilk kvetch and moan about how HARD you work. You know what sparky? EVERYBODY involved in activism works hard, day in, day out, year after year, INCLUDING the people you so blithely dismiss from your position of privilege and security. Only THEY aren't doing it in hopes of a pat on the back or a a convention delegate slot. They're doing it because they're fucking sick and tired of being treated like shit, and their outrage is the ONLY avenue they have to express it.

And I seriously doubt they care one way or the other whether their demands to no longer be treated like shit meet with your approval or not.

@62

I'm curious about who, exactly, you're talking about when you speak of people who have no outlet other than public displays of outrage.

You can't simply be talking about poor people, because plenty of poor people try to improve the way they're treated via the exiting political apparatus, or religious-affiliated projects and programs, or via non-profits. A lot of them also happen to also be members of disadvantaged minority groups of one sort or another.

Are you referring perhaps to people with specific, anti-establishment, anti-religious beliefs?

Dinner reservations at PF Chang's? Fucking come on.

@54 Just had to stop by and mention that neither have the Democratic Party or its elected officials issued any kind of vocal condemnation of the trampling of the rights of people in St. Louis, Berkeley, New York, and the other cities where the police have met them with tear gas, less-than-lethal firearms, and violence. The Democrats are cowards. It's no wonder that no one showed up to support them in the last election - they don't stand for anything. You and your ilk are Republican-lite.

I don't understand the somewhat underhanded comment of Seattle achieving international status in an "interesting way". Such a strongly-voiced population is, in my mind, highly indicative of a city with international influence. I can't think of a city with international status that doesn't experience protest and political tumult. Population centers are the ground zero for political change and Seattle has been ahead of the power curve on so many progressive issues for the past decade. The proposal that political leaders quell this behavior suggests a silencing of a strong voice to which the entire world is listening.

It's the crowds of shoppers that have driven me away from downtown. I use this internet thingy for shopping now.

Cop on the left looks cold and afraid.

Throwing the homeless, poor, poor workers, people of color, women, the elderly, disadvantaged youth and children, alcoholics and drug addicts dying from neglect under the bus has been just ok with the 1% in this city.







So their answer is more cops and continued violence towards those groups and their allies.







We're not going away 1% and your allies.

@63: "EVERYBODY involved in activism works hard, day in, day out, year after year, INCLUDING the people you so blithely dismiss from your position of privilege and security."
Whats your privelege, Mr Beacon of Light? What's your security, Mr First World? Look, screw the Ride the Ducks complainers. But linking downtown shopping to police killings in other cities is a stretch at best-- the kids in the protests, er...the ACtivists on the Stranger Messageboards-- don't disprove it. And your sanctimonious ramblings are tiresome to anyone interested in facts. Those facts show police kill blacks at a higher rate than whites, for the same crimes. Those facts also belie major class (not race) problems. Complicated, isn't it? Some of us have an interest in the truth and aren't self proclaimed "activists", but vote and have influence in our circles....and are tired of your proud blather.