The idea to ban cars from Capitol Hill’s E. Barbara Bailey street, which encounters constant foot traffic from Cal Anderson Park, Capitol Hill Station, and the Capitol Hill Station Plaza, is a no-brainer. Cars should not be there. And an organization, Central Seattle Streets for All, is now pressing for the formal pedestrianization of the street, which is already closed on Sundays for the popular Capitol Hill Farmers Market. Community organizers, according to Capitol Hill Seattle Blog, are turning to the Ave for inspiration. However, the full transformation of that block in the University District—which has banned cars in the past and will do so again on May 30 and June 6—faces enormous challenges because the advantages or pedestrianization are not flat out apparent. The exact opposite is true for E. Barbara Bailey. On this “short stretch of road between Broadway and 11th Ave E” the irrationality of car traffic is plain to see.
The rain. This morning. So lovely, so soothing, so unexpected. I was in fact prepared to repeat, upon waking, this line by the metaphysical poet John Donne: “Sun, Why dost thou thus, Through windowes, and through curtaines call on us?” But the sun didn’t call. It’s not there at all. Just clouds and some rain. Expect none of this horrible 80s business today. The high will be a reasonable 61.
This Is No Surprise: A rich person hates socialism, or what they perceive as socialism, which always turns out to be anything that gets in the way of accumulating, to use the words of the Sugarhill Gang, “more money than a sucker could ever spend.” The rich person in this instance happens to be the one who sold an iconic Seattle institution, the Supersonics, to Oklahoma City and laughed all the way to the bank: Howard Schultz. He recently moved to Miami and is now going around putting the bad mouth on Seattle for reasons that do not amount to a hill of beans. Seattle Times: “Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has taken a jab at Seattle’s mayor and its business climate for what he called ‘hostile’ and ‘socialist rhetoric.’” Upon hearing nonsense of this kind, keep in mind that Miami did not make this character a billionaire, and nor did Nashville make Starbucks a global corporation. Socialist Seattle can say with great confidence: I did that.
Say it like it is:
But, of course, Seattle is by no means a socialist paradise. Indeed, one of the reasons prices are rising faster here than elsewhere—an astonishing 29 percent increase between February and April for gas; a 7 percent increase for restaurant grub; and so on—is found in the vast gap between the city’s rich and the rest. Yes, Trump plays a role in all of this. But his war and economic policies have been exacerbated by our obscene wealth disparity. Seattle Times: “Business owners have seen their costs increase, ‘but what they’re seeing is the customer keeps coming. So they keep raising prices…’” What does this mean? The number of those who have the luxury to be indifferent to price movements is large enough to keep the local economy humming along. The consequence? Squeezed businesses will continue to raise prices because demand has not slackened. The result? Seattle becoming (if not already) a gated community, the very opposite of a commie city.
Here we go again: Rich people are spending their easy-earned money to overturn our state’s new millionaires tax. Let’s Go Washington, an organization representing deep pockets, has started gathering signatures for an initiative that hopes to overturn the tax, which begins in 2028 and targets households or persons banking more $1 million a year. And here is the problem with capitalists. They can only see what benefits them as individuals. When it comes to mentally grasping the inherent social character of wealth accumulation, their thinking crashes into a wall that has, for them, the appearance of being impenetrable. The upside? Polling shows they don’t have the votes.
How did Zorhran Mamdani, the socialist mayor of the greatest city on earth, NYC, fill the $12 billion deficit left by his predecessor? Largely, by taxing non-primary homes with a value of more $5 million. No need to raise property taxes, to layoff workers, and other conventional ways that balance budgets by making life miserable for all but the well-to-do. Who benefits from Mamdani’s 2027 $124.7 billion budget? Schools, parks, libraries, and other social institutions that make a city truly livable, meaningful for most. This “pied-à-terre” tax, as it’s called, does the balancing budget trick with the ease Samantha of Bewitched twitched her nose to make magic.
Meanwhile. Trump to US consumers: Drop Dead. Yep, he said exactly just before leaving to China yesterday. A reporter asked if the rising cost of living was on his mind when considering the costly war with Iran. His response: “Not even a little bit. I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation.” At least he told the truth this time. By the way, our sorry-ass Trumpy times always recall this famous line from Christorpher Marlow’s play Doctor Faustus: “Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it.”
Before closing, I want to think about the word “hypopsia.” It’s taken from ancient Greek and appears in Jacques Rancière’s book On the Shores of Politics. The word means “to look underneath,” meaning, to check and see if there’s something underneath, say, your bed. You are checking because you are suspicious that the bed you are on is not safe or is not all there is. Hypopsia is the condition of being suspicious about the way things appear to be. And philosophy as a project, as a mode of thought begins with hypopsia, suspicion, and not, as some thinkers have argued, with “thaumazein,” which means “the wonder at that which is as it is.” “As far as philosophy is concerned, if it is true it begins with wonder,” wrote Hanna Arendt in Introduction to Politics. On the other hand, the English philosopher Simon Critchley believes philosophy “begins with disappointment,” which, of course, is very English of him.
If Marxism is about looking under the bed, then socialism must be what the 80s R&B group Shalamar described as “Dancing in the Sheets.” Let’s end AM with that tune.
