Comments

2
Without enforcement, a resolution is meaningless; it is an empty pose. It becomes yet another social issue cover used by centrist Democrats like Ed Murray to disguise their fealty to developers, realtors and other corporate interests.

Where I live, in Olympia, we have a conservadem mayor, Cheryl Selby (who is actually a closet Republican with cosy ties to Sam Reed and Kim Wyman), who pulls the same disingenuous garbage. She touts her liberal positions on social issues in the hope that her constituents won't notice she's a right-winger on almost every economic issue. She donned a pussy hat for a selfie and posted it to her Twitter account, no doubt thinking herself very clever for doing so. (The current Stranger cover really lands one home against this sort of thing.)
3
Ms. Sawant thinks she can mix and match agencies and their roles like tupperware.
4
Yea, gotta side with the mayor on this one. You can't ask law enforcement to at any level to conflict with other law enforcement.
5
I don't understand what she's so worked up about. This is what Donald Trump promised to do. She heard his promises, and decided the best use of her political influence was to try to clear a path for him to ascend to the Presidency. Her hard work paid off, and she got her wish. Now he's doing exactly what he said he would.
6
I mean, I'm sure she's not the only Trump supporter with buyer's remorse right now, but perhaps she should reflect on her own role in this, rather than trying to foment violence between law enforcement agencies.
7
@3

Haw haw, that's really funny, because girls are experts with Tupperware.
8
Did the Mayor say anything about the call for SPD not to repress peaceful anti-Trump protesters? Is that also irresponsible and dangerous?
9
Well, the City can do it if it decides to. If not, what was all that flowery talk a couple of weeks ago about how Seattle was going to stand up for folks? Just more of Hizzoner's duplicitousness? If SPD WERE to do this, it would help build community relations instead of that pretend bullshit community he likes to pretend we have. I'm with Sawant. Standing up for your rights is sometimes hard, snowflake. Get used to it or get lost.

Someone else should be mayor if you’re not going to stand up for city residents. Someone else should be mayor anyway.
10
Does blocking ICE, which apparently is willing to falsify evidence, necessarily mean physical confrontation? Is there some way for a local police agency to declare custody of someone without actually arresting them, or legally taking over a piece of property and prohibiting ICE agents from entering?
11
Idiot Sawant has nerve indeed considering her role in electing Trump.
12
CM Sawant shouldn't have rallied against Clinton if she really cared about these issues. Everyone knew that if trump got elected women, minorities and immigrants would get hurt. CM Sawant didn't care enough then to support Clinton or at least just sit this election out.

CM Sawant actively campaigned against Clinton despite that being against the best interests of this city and the minotof this city. Why anyone still litto CM Sawant confuses the hell out of me.
13
The mayor is right.

It is good to tell SPD not to ask people about their citizenship, not to arrest people solely based on citizenship, not to assist or be coopted by ICE, not to harass protesters. It's a good thing to provide legal advice and assistance to undocumented immigrants.

But telling SPD to actively block ICE is nuts. Are city cops supposed to attempt to arrest federal agents for doing their job? I find Cheeto Mussolini repugnant and I despise ICE raids, but they aren't doing anything illegal as far as I know. On what legal basis does Sawant expect SPD to "block" ICE? What does she even mean by that?
14
@7: Actually, there's no such stereotype.
15
Murray the progressive. 🤔
16
@2, I live in Olympia too.

I'm curious to hear your case that Cheryl Selby is actually a closet Republican.
17
Just a quick reminder to everyone who's pointing fingers at Kshama: the people responsible for Trump's election are those who supported Hillary in the primaries -- you. If the DNC and the superdelegates hadn't cheated Bernie out of the nomination with your indulgence and help, he would have mopped the floor with Trump. I'm remembering a post by one of the Stranger's resident myna birds, Sean Nelson, where he whined about Bernie and Jill Stein supporters engaging in "victim shaming." No, Sean, we were engaging in perp shaming.
19
Cops are paramilitary creatures. You really think they'd do anything other than submit to the Feds if confronted on anything? They're not our private military force in a civil war, they enforce LAW. This is completely nuts.
20
@13: She has no idea what she means by that, just like all the rest of us. I am sure in her head she sees people and the cops holding hands (with her dead center in front of the cameras, I am sure) physically blocking ICE from getting to a huddled, crying family, maybe some fighting.

However, the reality is much more boring and with no place for self-aggrandizement. Basically, the SPD just needs to not answer the phone when ICE calls, and not give them any helpful information. Although being a federal law enforcement agency themselves, I am unsure how much assistance ICE really needs from local PDs.
21
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 required local law enforcement officers to detain and arrest anyone suspected of being a slave. Any law enforcement officer failing to do so was fined $1000 ($29,000 in today's terms, adjusted for inflation) per offense. Law-enforcement officials everywhere were required to arrest people suspected of being a runaway slave on as little as a claimant's sworn testimony of ownership. The suspected slave could not ask for a jury trial or testify on his or her own behalf.

That which is legal is not always ethical. That which is ethical is not always legal. On should never confuse civil law with morality. A thing is not merely "right" simply because the law requires it. Frequently, that which the law requires is morally evil.

It is impossible to legislate morality or ethics into being, as the law is nothing more than a momentary and transient consensus. This is why fetishizing the law (including the Constitution, which has been elevated to a civil religion in the US) is so dangerous. When the state performs hideous acts of moral evil on our fellow citizens, should we shrug our shoulder the way Socrates did, doing nothing to prevent it? This makes moral cowards of us all.

The conundrum is that each individual views morality differently. That's why anarchy is something that is so feared. I view abortion as morally neutral, and have no ill will for providers who perform that procedure. There are those who feel rather differently, and find moral justification for the murder of those same providers. We cannot both be right, however, we are both convinced that we as individuals hold the only correct interpretation of the act's meaning. Some argue that laws allow us to coexist in the world, each with our operate views and yet constrained by a common expression of what one may or may not do.

History judges you only in retrospect. I am deeply, passionately ashamed of my family, who are to a one (including my brother, whom I have a deep and close relationship with) racist, sexist homophobic, religious conservatives- possessant of every moral evil the human soul is capable of harboring. When as a small child I opened a copy of Life magazine to find images of protestors at an Arkansas school, their lips curled back to spit out their poisonous wrath at a small child who was guilty of no other crime than being Black and wanting to attend classes with students of multiple skin tones, I asked my mother if these photos were from a hundred years ago. When she told me they were taken not that long prior to my birth, I immediately felt a rush of emotion- rage, shame, confusion, shock. I may be the only member of my family to have greeted those images in this fashion. Something primordial told me this was immoral. I needed no instruction from teacher, priest or parent on the matter. Today, members of the Millenial generation express those same sentiments toward their forebears when they see how LGBT people are treated in tis country. Say what you want about their dietary habits and fashion sense, but the fact is, no generation has been instinctively, inherently supportive of LGBT equality in this country's history. I a Generation X'er) am grateful for their advocacy, and feel older generations could learn much from them, if only the damn Boomers could shut up long enough to hear them out.

I see Trump's order as akin to the Fugitive Slave Act. Both laws require a great evil of our law enforcement officers. To buck it will require courage and sacrifice. However, if today's law enforcement officers want to be able to look their children in the eye in another ten years without crumbling with shame, they have to defy it.
22
@16 I talk to a handful of local conservatives who talk to people like Sam Reed. They know the score.

Observe Selby's stances on the various economic issues that have come before her: housing subsidies, income tax, proposed sprawl developments, etc . She's taken the conservative position on each one without exception.

When she opposed the local income tax last year (which would've provided Olympia highschool graduates with a year of tuition at a community college) she claimed that she did so on pragmatic grounds, ie because there was no practical way of collecting the tax. She was probably correct, but only incidentally. When pressed further, she insisted that she supported the statewide income tax initiative in 2010. My sources (one of whom lobbies the state legislature on behalf of a very conservative interest group) all tell me the odds of her actually favoring an income tax are the same as Donald Trump seeking psychiatric help.

Selby's latest foray against the local progressive zeitgeist has been to shill for a Trump supporting developer's proposal to remodel the large ugly building that sits across the lake from the Capitol campus. Ask local Democrats where they sit on this matter, then ask local Republicans. You'll get a pretty good idea of what Cheryl Selby's true political leanings are.

24
Kshama Sawant was a fool to support Jill Stein for President, but her endorsement of Stein had absolutely no bearing on the election's outcome. HRC won this state by sixteen percentage points.

Moreover, the only state that Hillary lost that might have flipped minus Stein is Michigan, and even with the Wolverine State in her column Clinton still would lost in the EC. The people blaming Sawant for Trump's election are at odds with verifiable facts.
25
Sawant just likes to throw big bunches of crazy against the wall to see what sticks. It's a dumb idea that the cops would never go along with, no matter how many rallies she throws. In any event, this is a problem that needs to be fixed at the federal level.
26
@25,

If appreciating the rare sight of a politician exhibiting moral courage to stake out a moral position in opposition to Donald Trump makes me crazy in your eyes, then call me batshit for Sawant.

Oh wait. Most of you already think I am batshit anyway. Well, fuck it, then. To the barricades, comrades!
27
Poor Kshama is getting less and less relevant as the old Council warhorses retire and there's nobody for her to harass.
29
Saw
30
Sawant isn't wrong. By far the biggest threat to democracy is a federal agency allowed to operate with disregard to to judicial rulings.
32
According to the ICE's own statistics, under in the 8 years of the Obama administration, ICE "removed" (i.e. deported) 3,239,707 individuals, or an average of 404,963 persons per year. I would be curious to know why Sawant wasn't organizing demonstrations all that time.
33
Larry Kramer has a big mouth.

Back in the 1980's, the White House press secretary made jokes about gay men dying of HIV. Ed Koch was less abrasive than the Reagan Administration, however, still determined to do absolutely nothing to save even one gay life from the disease.

Gay Men's Health Crisis (now just GMHC- since they never really served the interests of gay men anymore than KFC ever served actual chicken) fired him for calling the Mayor of New York City out for his silence while 100,000 of us died. Everyone hated Larry, and they said the same things you lot are saying about Sawant. He was dangerous and irresponsible, and the city shouldn't antagonize the federal government. People who weren't gay couldn't understand what he was so worked up about. Larry fomented conflict with City Hall. GMHC feared losing "access" to Koch more than they feared dying rapidly and horrifically.

Some said Koch was right, that it was not the City's place to do DC's job. Others said it was a dumb idea, and Larry just threw crazy at the wall to see what would stick.

But all of these now nameless naysayers are forgotten to history. Nobody remembers who these whiners were. But everyone remembers Larry. Because in the end, its not the fucking cowards who make history. Its the obnoxious bastards who won't shut up or get out of the way when people whose lives are in danger need their help.

Someday, your kids are going to tell you about how they read in school that Kshama Sawant was this great CM who stood up for people when nobody else would. They'll ask you if you remember her.

I personally owe Larry Kramer my life. I had my first sexual encounters when he was battling the government to get people to find out what was causing the epidemic and how to protect ourselves. If Larry Kramer had just meekly shut his mouth the way you want Sawant to shut hers, the government would never have funded HIV research. It would have been decades later that anyone knew that using condoms or avoiding anal sex could prevent the disease. Many more gay men would have died, probably me with them.

Thank you, Larry Kramer.

And thank you, Kshama Sawant for fighting to protect the lives of immigrants from the disease of hatred and racism.
34
@17 Maybe Bernie should have run for president in his own party. As it was, he carpetbagged as a democrat and LOST TO HILLARY by 3.7 million votes (http://graphics.wsj.com/elections/2016/h…). Your continued whining about so called cheating is sad and pathetic.
35
@33: - "It would have been decades later that anyone knew that using condoms or avoiding anal sex could prevent the disease."

Really? That's not how I recall those years. In the earliest stages of the epidemic it became apparent it was spreading through anal (and/or oral) sex long before they isolated the virus - and this was quickly followed by advocating condoms and safe sex.
36
Someday, your kids are going to tell you about how they read in school that Wandering Stars was this obnoxious and relentlessly self-important blog commenter who composed verbose, god-awful shill posts for people when nobody else would. They'll ask you if you remember him.
37
@35,

I was a teenage boy at the time, so you'll have to forgive me if you enjoy the benefit of age. There are very specific risk ratios associated with each form of sexual contact vis-a-vis HIV. Unprotected receptive anal intercourse (ARI) carries the greatest risk, followed by insertive anal. Receptive vaginal comes next, followed by insert vaginal. Oral receptive and then insertive follows, with a very low risk of transmission, second only to manual, for which there is virtually no risk.

However, this information was not communicate din that way to me in my youth by anyone in the medical or pubic health field. The messaging I received suggested that any sexual contact carried roughly equivalent risk, and I was therefore to use condoms when participating in oral sex. I was told very specifically that small cuts inside the mouth were a route of infection and that even oral was not really safe. Never having liked condoms (my cock shrivels as soon as I get it over the head) this created an unrealistic expectation. I was either to be celibate, or to experience her terror for the two week period between the blood draw and when I came back for the results. That persisted from the time the test became available until the development of ore rapid tests, and more discrete ones.

Perhaps as a compensating mechanism, I developed various kinks that did not require oral or anal contact. Some might say that this practice limits you sexually. That is also a myth, so long as you make an effort to fetishize everything imaginable. I won't go into too much detail, however there was at least one 'back to nature' episode involving a liaison between myself and a pine tree. Rub two sticks to start a fire, indeed.

I digress. The point i that the exact epidemiological profile of the disease we enjoy today was not known to me in my youth, nor were the relative risks. I imagine they weren't known to many, since there were so many myths associated with the disease. Some believed you got it from poppers, that it was some kind of chemical exposure. Others thought you could get it from even kissing or touching an HIV+ person. My first regular boyfriend (at age 20) was HIV+, and the fact that this did not bother me both impressed and frightened him. He pushed me away, because he thought he might endanger me, even though we now know that by simply avoiding anal, the risk was not significant.

There was also confusion in those days as to who had the disease, and how one could know who was safe and who was not. My personal strategy was to develop a liking for chubs, since they clearly didnt have the wasting disease. That in itself is as reliable a method of death control as the rhythm method is for birth control, but its what I had to work with at the time. Besides, fat guys tended to appreciate it more when a cute twink took an interest in them, anyway.
38
As a rejoinder, did you know that the acronym for receptive anal intercourse in English is the same as the word for heaven in the Romanian language?
39
Ah, yes, I remember the day after the election all the articles about how a single city council member from a blue state, a bluer county, and one of the bluest cities toppled the Hillary campaign. If only Hillary had won Washington and Sawant not have undermined her campaign to the point that our state went red, we would not be in this situation. Surely Sawant's grand influence over the hearts and minds of Americans is so powerful that, if she wanted to, she could get every person in Ohio to never vote Democrat again.

You know, because logic.
40
BJIB,

There is a battle taking place for the soul of the Democratic Party. Two major factions have emerged. One, the establishment, is lead by Donna Brazille. You may recall her as the former CNN correspondent who leaked debate questions to Hillary during he primaries deliberately to boost her chances of success. An email to John Podesta from her states that, although she is supposed to remain officially neutral in terms of her preference for a democratic candidate, she is anything but neutral and completely in the tank for Hillary. She is supported by Nancy Pelosi, who wants to find common ground with the Republicans.

The other is Bernie Sanders, the same individual Brazille worked so hard to undermine. He and his supporters urge the party to move to the Left, adopting planks ranging from a higher minimum wage to the abolition of student loan debt. He believes that replacing Brazille with Keith Ellison is the key to securing power within the Democratic Party.

Now, the establishment made it's best case in November and lost. Their argument during the primary had been that Bernie could not possibly win, and Hillary was a sure thing. Her defeat is a profound embarrassment , particularly in light of the emails which exposed just few ethical boundaries they weren't willing to cross.Its one thing to lose a clean fight. Its another thing to fight dirty and still lose.

This is so humiliating that they will do everything possible to deny they actually lost. To cover up for their own ditty tricks, they accuse Jill Stein and Kshama Sawant of playing even dirtier ones. You'd think from all the heat and light their post-election friction with Stein has generated that the Greens must have taken some huge chunk of the vote. Less than 1%, folks. That's what you're blaming your loss on.

Further, they need to distract us in every way from their loss. To that end, willing compatriots such as Dan Savage and Rachel Maddow will punch the Left even harder than they will the Republicans. This is because the Republicans arent battling them for control of the Democratic Party- the Left is. These Establishment Democrats (including Dan) will burn the House down before they let the Left take the reigns. And if they succeed, their candidate will lose to Trump AGAIN in 2020. Don't expect much change in tone at that point, either. Their post-election blame game is the same they tried to pin on Nader, too.

The fact is, the voters REJECTED neoliberalism in November. And they ill REJECT it again in 2018, 2020, and 2024. If you really cared about getting rid of Trump (listen up, Dan) you'd listen to what the voters are telling you. They want something other than centrist corporate wall street bullshit.

You have a choice. A solid eight years- and maybe more if our democracy doesn't survive that long- of Trump-style fascism, or socialism. You cannot have neoliberalism any more. That economic theory is dead, dead, dead. Running a corpse for a candidate isnt the path to victory. Give the people what they want.

Give us socialism.
41
Personally, I feel it has less to do with wanting socialism as just having someone who you believe they say what they believe. Obama, despite being a neoliberal, would have most likely beat Trump had he been able to run for a third term. Again, because people believe that he means what he says, much like Trump. People simply didn't when it came to Hillary. They felt like she spoke from both sides of her mouth and clearly didn't care to interact with the average person. Instead, she chose small venues for her special friends.

I also feel there's also a growing resentment towards the idea that since she was a white woman 1) she was inherently underprivileged, 2) she was owed the presidency, and 3) that women should vote for her because she was a woman too. Certainly, white women are underprivileged compared to, say, white men but there's a contingency that behave like they're worse off or equal to actually underprivileged minority groups. People like Lindy West, Lena Dunham, or Samantha Bee. It's not to say they haven't had hardships, and they sure as hell have, but it *feels* as though they make themselves to be more of social martyrs than they actually are. And it's obvious that Hillary utilized that kind of sentiment with her campaign.

Additionally, liberals hate to give people who feel like they deserve outright or are owed something due to their sheer will. That kind of thing is better suited for the right who are happy to give their masters anything they want. Obama at least acted like he didn't want to run for president back in 2008 and only "jumped in" when the people forced him to. The idea not that someone is owed but they have to become president out of the importance of the will of the people is a winning political story line in the left.

Lastly, people like Dan voted in the primary out of fear and then people like me voted out of fear in the general. Again, this isn't a tactic that works on the left. If it did, we'd all be Republicans. Fear, whether you like it or not, isn't a strong motivator for progressives and liberals. But that's not a bad thing because, when we do have a winning candidate, we have someone who gives hope and pushes the boundaries farther than anyone has over the last 40/50 years. The difficult thing is to continue that. It's hard but not impossible.
43
Sawant told people who valued her opinion that it didn't make any difference if Clinton or Trump won.

Trump is her baby any time he does something we know Clinton wouldn't have done.

Trump is her guy. It's all about the "disaster socialism" for Sawant. The worse things get under Trump, the more she and her supporters will be blaming the Democrats, and saying only Sawant and the SA can save America.

This isn't Bernie Sanders socialism folks. This is "increased suffering improves the effectiveness of our message" socialism - "Disaster Socialism." This is what Sawant and the SA wanted - exactly what is happening right now. (And for the record, I really don't like Murray) Sawant is loving the Trump administration!
44
Cracked, you have chosen an appropriate moniker.
45
@40 Americans haven't got the slightest idea what you are talking about. You have not built a party with an effective messaging arm. And you haven't done the grunt work to engage and do real things at the local level, so you have no concrete results to legitimize you or your message, even if people were informed enough to understand the concepts you purport to espouse. So, you are just "Disaster Socialists", propping up the right by undercutting the mainstream "left", hoping somehow to pick up the pieces and lead the disgruntled Americans on to socialism. But like I said, that is a pure fantasy on your part, because Americans haven't got the slightest idea what you are talking about.
46
@44 I think you have a very misguided self-referential or self-serving idea what "people" want or what they think, which is why you've done such a shitty job promoting socialism.
47
Bravo, Cracked.
48
@22, Well, your examples did nothing to win me over to your suggestion that Cheryl Selby is a closet Republican.

Obviously, I can't counter gossip heard in hallways here and there, although I did have coffee with the lady herself, the summer before she became mayor, to ask her where she stood on several city issues. As for your examples, that income tax proposal was ridiculous on multiple fronts. Her opposing it doesn't make her a Republican. Hell, I voted against it, and I voted for Bernie last spring. And her supporting the renovation of the "mistake by the lake" building is in line with a sound progressive stance: encouraging urban in-fill, rather than edge of the city sprawl. If you're thinking, "But a real progressive would support knocking that building down and turning that spot into a park," well, I'm a real progressive and I don't support that. There's already a large public park across the street, and plenty more throughout the city. Downtown needs to be revitalized. The mayor's championing that. Big surprise.
49
Sawant's tactics are those of her party -- she's a supreme party official. But the results are very good; she's been out in front on every issue that concerns actual human beings in Seattle. With her, you can't have one without the other.
50
I agree with Cracked and now Sarah91
(I know that some of you care)
51
@38
Cerul? Never heard of that word in English. Curious what you're thinking of.
52
Yes, because law enforcement officers have a long, honorable and proven tradition when it comes to valiantly standing up in order to serve and protect minorities, the poor, indigenous peoples, workers, unions, the mentally ill, addicts, etc.
53
@ 37 - Your data is wrong. Receptive vaginal intercourse is more risky than insertive anal intercourse. And there is no data to support your claim about the relative risks of insertive and receptive oral. You can read more here:

http://www.catie.ca/en/pif/summer-2012/p…
54
Cracked,

Allow me to clarify some points which I believe may have led to some confusion. Firstly, while I do support Socialist Alternative and am a proud fan of Kshama Sawant, I am not affiliated with the party in any direct way. I understand that you are using the pronoun you in a generic sense, however, in the specific, I can hardly be held to account for any perceived deficits in how the party has been managed or run by it's administrators.

That said, I do support the party's aims. I have observed this country's pronator drift. Today's centrists would have been equivalent to Barry Goldwater Republicans in the 1964 election. While I was not alive yet at that time of history, I have read the GOP platform and speeches from that era delivered by their proponents, and I vehemently disagree. Just as I think it was insanity 50 years ago to stand for militarization, nationalism, capitalism in general and supplier-side economics in specific, and approaches to crime reduction based not in addressingt he root causes but rather in reactionary, "Lock em all up" terms, I oppose those same measures today. Those ideas were as bad then as they are now. The fact that mainline Democrats have seized upon those ideas and claimed them as their own in no way justifies them. A bad idea is a bad idea, no matter which party supports it.

Further, the Democratic Party and the GOP appear to have signed a suicide pact, whereby both entities have accelerated their rightward drift. Every presidential nominee they've put forth since 1980 has been in bed with Wall Street, and I fear the party may have contracted syphilis as a result. Gone is the New Deal coalition that relied so heavily on the support of organized labor. To those so quick to declare unions a spent force, I would counter that you have quite possibly not spent as much time campaigning across the rural Midwest as I have. USW is very strong in Indiana, for example. That being the case, the Democrats are so weak as to be virtually nonexistent in that state. Why? Primarily because the union rank-and-file feel that the DNC has failed to offer them a reason to support the Democratic candidate in elections. Free trade has been a disaster to that region, and people living there do in fact realize this. It is their number one complaint when you mention Bill Clinton's name.

Now, you claim Americans don't know what I'm talking about. This may be because you do not consider these steelworkers to be American. They do know what I'm talking about, as I'm sure you would quickly realize if you even bothered to have a conversation with them. You won't though, because your approach to electoral politics has consistently been to teat everyone who doesn't live in a large coastal city as if they have no vlid opinions on anything at all.

This is why you lost.

For all your rhetoric, for all your claims to be the "sane and rational middle", you sure do lose a lot of elections. You love your echo chambers- if Nate Silver tells you "don't worry, we've got this one in the bag" you pour your acidic scorn on everyone in the very states you need to win a general election. When this predictably backfires, you declare it a conspiracy. In that sense, you're little different than the John Birch Society. They too would lead you to believe there's a Russian spy lurking under every rock and behind every tree.

Every election cycle, we see fewer and fewer people turning up at the polls. In November, fully 52% of eligible voters did not bother to vote at all in the general election. For all the media saturation on both sides, for all the constant portrayals of that election as an apocalyptic event, you could not get even half of those eligible to vote to chose either candidate. That in itself is an indictment. Your option, and your opponent party's were both so bad, nobody wanted either one. The only person people hate more than Donald Trump in this country is Hillary Clinton.

Yet, you refuse to budge. And for this, you will continue to lose.

Now, the Bernie Sanders wing wants to correct for this rightward drift by pulling the Party back in the direction of the New Deal and the Great Society coalitions. There are many on the Left who think the Democratic Party is so corrupted by your neoliberal bullshit that it cannot be reformed and maybe isn't worth the effort it would take to reform it even if it could. Many advocate for a new party or for reforming the electoral system itself so as to remove the duopoly on power enjoyed by the RNC and the DNC.

Like it or not, these people are your countrymen. They are Americans too. And, so am I.

Who the fuck do you think you are to claim that you and only you know what Americans think about anything? Or to claim that you are an American and I or we are not?
55
Kind of hard to serve multiple masters these days, isn't it? Who could have predicted such issues from arising, I do wonder?
56
It's sad that wanting our own police to share our values makes you some kind of extremist.
57
@56 It's not wanting our police to share our values, it's wanting our police to illegally confront federal law enforcement. Sawant's idea is as crazy as the conservative "constitutional sheriff". ICE when arresting and deporting is acting under federal authority which is supreme to state authority, per the constitution. Additionally, ICE is an armed police agency, and the SPD is an armed police agency.

Sawant is arguing that SPD become the local equivalent of the Malheur refuge occupiers.
58
@57,

Our police are supposed to be under local, not federal control.

SPD does not enforce federal laws regarding marijuana, because state law has legalized its possession and use here.

The Malheur Refuge occupiers were not police officers, so your comparison is inaccurate.
60
Whoa whoa whoa ph'nglui. Speak for yourself. "Our" values are not breaking the law to enter the USA illegally. Lawbreaking might be your values, but not ours. Our values, or at least most American's values involve immigrating legally as to not short-change the people who have been going through the proper steps and waiting their turn in line.
61
@60,

Maybe you should both just hut the hell up. I can speak for myself, but I don't want to hear any bullshit about how you or Cracked or anyone else speaks for the whole fucking country. You don't.

Listen up, peckerhead. Borders are bullshit. They couldnt exist if people didnt enforce them. There's no basis in nature for restricting the movement of anyone.

I certainly don't consider them legitimate. Human beings, just like every other animal, are free to go wherever the fuck they please.

Oh yeah, your laws are total bullshit too.

Fuck your walls
Fuck your borders.
We won't take
Your fucking orders.
65
@61

I'd love to observe the mental gymnastics you employ when I ask you to extend that argument as to why people can't just walk into your home and stay there for as long they like. After all, doors are but cousins of the oppressive and insidious wall...
66
@61: You need a computer break. Nobody's speaking for the "whole country". You have interesting opinions and views, but not when you so vehemently trash someone who takes exception to your utopia.
67
Yea, that's nuts. The Mayor is correct. Its highly analogous to various poorly thought through and dangerous actions or suggestions by the Trump administration.

It has occurred to me recently, however, that the 'sanctuary city' rhetoric has always been too grandiose. Being a 'sanctuary' would actually mean doing things like this.
68
@54 Sure neoliberalism has fucked over the workers in Indiana, but because they are ignorant of socialist or Marxist analysis of what has caused them to be fucked over, it has been possible to convince many of them that it is in fact socialism that has fucked them over - to even convince significant numbers of rank and file that Clinton and Obama are socialists!

C'mon man. Union membership and representation has fallen by half since 1989, and fallen almost 6% between 2014 and 2015 alone, coinciding with the "right to work" law passed by the legislators who Hoosiers put in place to represent them. If the approach of you and Sawant were correct, the Democratic Party being "virtually nonexistant" in Indiana, as you say, would create a vacuum into which the socialist workers you suggest are so strong there would be stepping in to fill the void. But they aren't, because, like I said, their thinking is not grounded in socialist principles or understanding. And I'm talking about lacking conscious grasp the most basic concepts - not the more utopian no borders stuff you've laid on the table today.

"Disaster Socialism" isn't going to triumph, because there is no critical mass of engaged constructive experienced socialists to step into the void. Meanwhile, I find the suffering and collateral damage to flesh and blood people, positive functioning institutions, and the environment waaaaaay too much of a price to pay in order to indulge Sawant's fantasies. If she hadn't abandoned practical constructive political activity in favor of whatever the fuck she is doing now, there might at least be some basis, maybe, for discussion about how much suffering of "other people" is acceptable or unavoidable in the process of making things better.
69
@68 to be clearer: "..'fallen by half in Indiana..."
70
"Primarily because the union rank-and-file feel that the DNC has failed to offer them a reason to support the Democratic candidate in elections. "

As someone who is actually in a union, I can tell you that most of my fellow "Brothers and Sisters" are of the I've-got-mine school, and many vote Republican because they think it's either "manly" or what they think Jesus would want them to do.
71
You guys assuming our police can't possibly "block ICE from seizing human beings" without breaking the law are the same ones who thought $15/hr was impossible, and that rent control was a dead letter because it's "illegal" in Washington. If Richard Conlin had stayed in Sawant's seat, nothing would have happened: today would look no different than 2005.

It turns out if you at least TRY, things happen. Empty suit Democrats like Conlin and Ed Murray tell you before you've even started No We Can't. Useless fuckers. (If I had $1 for eveery time I've said here on Slog that Ed Murray is a useless fucker I'd have AT LEAST SEVERAL dollars. Tens of dollars possibly.)

Remember when Trump ordered the government to do everything within their discretion to hinder and rollback Obmacare? Short of breaking the law? He can do that. There's a lot of room between complying with the strict letter of the law and actually enforcing its intent. Red states undermine Federal laws every day. Look how easy it is for the Seattle Police to act as if the Civil Rights Act never happened.

Short of physically interfering with Federal officers, the SPD could, if they worked for us, the ones paying them, if they did what we would want them to do, block ICE in all sorts of ways.

And even beyond toeing the legal line to trip up ICE enforcement, a police force that shared Seattle's values (instead of the foreign occupiers we have) would include cops who would choose to put themselves on the line and defy Trump in acts of civil disobedience. If 80% of the SPD voted for Hillary the way that 80% of Seattle did, we'd have a few cops who would do that.

Instead, we pay these cops to do the opposite of what we would do. That's all I'm saying. It's fucked up. Bad enough Washington D.C doesn't represent us, but our weak Mayor can't even give us a police force that believes what we believe. And there is no plan to ever have a police force that looks like Seattle or represents Seattle. Ever.

72
I think your a bit projecting, if I may Catalina....

Republicans vote, or anyone for that matter, the way they do because that's the candidate whom they really want to vote for. It's really that simple.

But you are not alone to ascribe voting behaviors with demographics. It probably started with Nixon's "Silent Majority". Since then this inherently erroneous extrapolation has metastasised as a cancer on progressive thinking.

It has nothing to do with testosterone or the good Lord, but all to do with their economic and social decisions, just as your decisions on such matters are yours. I trust that you'd be annoyed if characterized as a left wing loony athiest who wants to meditate in a commune all day.

It may be because they think that Republicans can still offer a better deal, even in the age of Trump. You don't know their checkbook and back statements. You only know your own.

Everyone's voting decision is over equal merit. Everyone's.

73
@72 LOL Now I'm thinking its y o u who hasn't talked with many Trump voters.

This would all be funny if read in a modern novel about things that didn't really happen.
75
@73: Your snarky LOL indicates you're not getting the subtle dissection that's very important to my point and that well, what Michael Moore alludes to. Your evaluation of the factors of why they vote (socioeconomics, culture, prejudice) may well indeed be correct - what I'm saying is that voters will vote over passions and interests of their own which are not seen from your point of view.

This is reflected by the best seller Hillbilly Elegy.
76
@75 Oh, now I understand. Voters vote the way they do for the reasons they vote the way they do. Yes, I misunderstood that this subtle dissection was your point.
77
@74 See, if you had left the racism and misogyny out of your offering to the discussion, it would have been genuinely funny in its absurdity. But I think perhaps the racism and the misogyny is what makes it funny to you.
78
@77 God, please strike me down before I comment again on this thread! (Now, it may be some time before you or I know whether I have been able to resist the temptation to comment again, or whether I am just dead, although I guess maybe I won't know if I'm dead...)
79
@56 "It's sad that wanting our own police to share our values makes you some kind of extremist."

This grossly mischaracterizes the objections to Sawant's proposal. To state the obvious, there's nothing extreme I very much do want police to share my values and if some of them decide to engage in civil disobedience (either through their jobs or privately) to protect Seattle residents and refugees generally against ICE actions, that would make me happy and I would welcome it.

One of my core political values--a central reason I situate myself on the left--is I believe in the rights of labor and workers. In addition to its political inefficacy, my central objection stems from Sawant's casual disregard for the workers for whom she, the mayor, and the council collectively bosses. Here's a value I hold dear: "Bosses shouldn't be allowed to order their employees to break the law, and do so in a way that might place them in some real danger, in the service of political objectives those bosses (but not necessarily those employees) hold." It's her casual disregard for labor rights, coming from someone who calls herself a socialist, that offends me the most.
80
Every election cycle, we see fewer and fewer people turning up at the polls. In November, fully 52% of eligible voters did not bother to vote at all in the general election.

Obviously pretty much any sane readers can see Wandering Stars is a bit of a crackpot, with a very silly version of the pundit's fallacy guiding his politics, but this needs to be singled out for being such a straightforward and easily refuted lie. One could argue that turnout is down since 2008, but that was a historic year. The last four presidential elections have seen higher eligible voter turnout than most of the late 20th century presidential election--the highest turnout since 1968. Contrary to a great deal of reporting, turnout wasn't down in 2016 compared to 2012, in any meaningful sense--just a fraction of a percentage. Still way higher than 1996 or 2000, or either of Reagan's elections. There is emphatically not a downward trend in turnout. I don't know why this poster thinks it'll work to lie about something so easily exposed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turn…
81
@71 There's a lot of room between complying with the strict letter of the law and actually enforcing its intent. Red states undermine Federal laws every day. Look how easy it is for the Seattle Police to act as if the Civil Rights Act never happened.


Look, Seattle already does this. It's a sanctuary city. That's what the designation means--comply/cooperate with federal immigration enforcement officials only to the extent that the law unambiguously requires, and no more. I suppose not being ignorant of this fact would make your Manichean worldview where "mainstream Democrats" are always wicked traitors and Sawant is the stalwart hero more difficult to sustain, so I can understand your choice to remain in a state of blissful ignorance.
82
Raindrop dear, I know a lot of Republicans (I am from Iowa, after all) and I can tell you that a lot of them vote Republican because that's what they do. A generation or two ago, they would have voted Democratic because that's what they do. A lot of Americans are not as analytical as you think they are.

Case in point: Mr. Vel-DuRay has two brothers. One drives a garbage truck down in Arizona and the other sells cars in Chicago. They both voted for Trump, based largely on what their buddies told them and what they heard on the radio. They both called up on election night, sort of freaked out that Trump had actually won.
83
@77 he he it's all just comedy to me
84
@82 Really appreciate your posts on this topic.

@83 "Save a pretzel for the gas jets"

Now Dog is going to strike me down. Shit.
85
shes anticipating the future Socialist Republic of Cascadia and wants to be our george washington when the time comes. When it gets bad enough we'll seceed and have the gdp of switzerland. cant wait
86
"This grossly mischaracterizes the objections to Sawant's proposal"!!!

And what exactly is Sawant's proposal? Gosh I hope nobody grossly mischaracterizes it.
87
It is irresponsible and morally reprehensible not to stand against the kidnapping of people from their homes and communities. It was dangerous to be an abolitionist then as it is now.

This land was stolen to begin with and there were no borders. Many migrant workers are of native blood. When did white people immigrate? Much of this economy was built on slavery and close to it. And greedy, selfish rich people continue to suffocate the rest of us and create poverty including homelessness. The bankers and wall street are the ones who are illegitimate if we look at it morally.
88
Party like its 1945.
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@80 The devil is in the details because overall turnout numbers aren't very meaningful when the electoral college unfortunately decides who won. National turnouts in 2012 and 2016 were similar except in key blue-collar counties especially in Wisconsin and Ohio where voter numbers were significantly down in 2016 compared to 2012, 2008 and 2004. Overall, Clinton scored 15% less than 2012 Obama in suburban/rural blue collar counties whereas she increased her numbers among educated urban voters.
90
"Party like its 1945" only in terms of the DEFEAT OF THE THIRD REICH which certain parties want to repeat again. (The bombing of Japan was a terrible, terrible tragedy). This is an answer to the "party like its 1933" white supremacists. Who will be defeated again! And standing up against ICE (a modern gestapo) is part of this new defeat of white supremacists that the mayor et al apparently choose to protect. Actions speak louder than words my mother used to say.

Changing the subject: A lot of people voted for Trump because they are brainwashed and because he promised jobs but he lied although he will hire more border patrol as if other nationalities are the problem. In the midwest etc. many former busy towns have changed to - a swamp and a bunch of poor people-. There are more desperate poor people than ever which many wealthy choose to pretend don’t exist or believe don’t exist because its convenient for those in power to believe so or they just choose to ignore this terrible poverty. Myth: "the poor will always be with us” how convenient for those who benefit from that. Can’t keep the people down forever history shows us. The police protect the wealthy from the rest of us and attack the poor see- the prison industrial complex- etc.. Thank you.
91
There's no actual definition of a "sanctuary city", because it's not a legal designation. There has been a thousands-of-years definition of "sanctuary" as far as shielding those who have broken a community's law: a religious institution. But that's not enshrined in law, and that concept doesn't cover a whole city. And if the Trump administration means what it said several days ago -- that it will demand that local law enforcement assist ICE agents -- I'd bet the SPD will be not be empowered by Murray/O'Toole to refuse to do so. For people sitting at their computers bravely huffing and puffing at the Beast in DC to expect that to happen is unrealistic, to say the least. You won't be the ones fired/imprisoned.

We're in serious territory here. We'll be lucky if we can get halfway truthful news from now on, let alone being able to protect anything or anyone in this town.

92
The Duty of the Police can CHANGE in time of Revolution. If this is the demand of the People then these Cops need to Protect the Undocumented People! Kshama Sawant is 100 RIGHT on this but Seattle's Bicycle Helmet LAW is still STUPID! Remember REAL MEXICANS are a mix of Africa Native American White- this IS THEIR LAND All European Borders on Turtle Island MUST come down!

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