Comments

1

Even Nixon stepped outside to speak to protestors.

2

Thank you so much for that car video! It made my morning. :)

3

@1 - The difference is those protesters were united behind a common goal with a clear message and behaved enough to have a conversation. They weren't trashing the Lincoln memorial with graffiti either.

4

@1: They calmly marched three miles to Pedersen's neighborhood with a giant banner reading "DEFUND SPD 50%." How much clearer and well-behaved would you like them to be?

6

@4: They vandalized his house.

9

@6: I heard someone left a Post-It note on his door. Got more?

11

@5 As a practical strategy, it makes sense as a base-mobilizing move. Trump's fanbase gets off on imagery like that. He'd demoralized them a bit recently with some talk about immigration reforms so this pointless brutality is a genuine tonic.

Its the only strategy he knows how to do.

12

Stopping the war in Vietnam was a very much a united and common goal.

13

So we're still caring more about property than life. Got it.

16

@raindrop as someone who was around during the Vietnam protest I can say firsthand that it was more like the BLM protests than you admit. While there was a unity there were just as many splintered factions protesting other things related or not to the war. Your schtick about defining what an organized protest should be isn’t based on what actually happens at a protest. Perhaps if you were to attend one you’d have a more informed perspective than that of a keyboard conservative. In the real world there is nuance and variations and to see that one must get off the couch and go out and experience it firsthand.

17

@13: As if they aren't connected:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/21/us/minneapolis-protest-body-found/index.html

18

Reluctantly have to agree with Raindrop. Nixon could talk to protesters because the White House is a public building, with a fence and some guards and fancy security devices. Having protesters show up at your private house would feel threatening - and it is threatening. Imagine if it was the wack-a-doo Qanon militia instead of BLM protesters - it would be terrifying. I don't think it's appropriate, even through I think their goals are clear and I support them.

19

@16: I was around at the time too. There were the civil right protests (yes 'BLM' is an apt description) and the anti-war protests. You can always argue the tangential factors to make your case.

"Hey hey LBJ - how many kids did you kill today" , hour after hour, was not typically interspersed with other chants and signs for other causes.

20

@15: At this point, it's pointless.

21

@19: Oh sweetheart. Even the Women's March was full of any number of groups with their own agendas.
Just stop.

22

Protestors: "Defund the police by 50%!"

Government: "I understand what you are saying, but defunding the police won't save lives and there would be several other consequences, lets look into other options"

Protestors: "This guy wants people to die! Burn his house down!"

Everyone else: "wtf dont do that"

13: "I guess you value property more than human lives"

27

I don't think there's anything morally wrong with going to an official's house but I do think its an ineffective tactic. In the words of, I think it was Napoleon? - its worse than a crime, its a mistake.

You can't coerce the state with force unless you're ready to undertake an insurrection or revolution. But you can compel an otherwise unresponsive democracy with demonstrations by daring the state to respond with violence and then marshaling the liberal sentiments of the bouge to your cause. That's how Ghandi did it in India and that's how MLK did it in the 1960s. Nothing else will work.

28

@23: Unlike Vietnam, protests about police brutality cannot be resolved over a conference table in Paris. Unlike police brutality, protests over Vietnam were not calling for arbitrary reduction in municipal expenditures that are inherently controversial because they affect public safety.

Yes, we are comparing apples and oranges. Nevertheless, today's protesting is much more asymmetrical in tactics and expected results and, unfortunately, are far harder to peacefully resolve.

29

Sorry @25

Protestors: "Defund the police by 50%!"

Government: "I understand what you are saying, but defunding the police won't save lives and there would be several other consequences, lets look into other options"

Protestors: "This guy wants people to die! Vandalize their home!"

Everyone else: "wtf dont do that"

13: "I guess you value property more than human lives"

31

@5:

I think we're only a very short distance from him donning some camo, stepping out onto 5th Avenue with an AR-15 surrounded by his most loyal brownshirts in CBP and indiscriminately firing away - after all, that's really the only goal he set for himself and he's just itching to accomplish it before his term is up.

@10:

But, what happened to the doughnut? Was it entered into evidence - or has it mysteriously disappeared? THIS IS IMPORTANT INFORMATION!

@11: No doubt his sudden masked appearance has confused and frightened his base - sending a few squads of CPB goons to bash the heads of some busybody females in Hippytown is sure to bring them back to their calm center...

@24:

The flaw in your argument is simply that there has never been an example in the long history of law enforcement in this country where a police officer has ever construed the profferment of a sugar-frosted lump of deep-fried bread as "unwanted".

32

The largest and most widespread riots in post-civil-war US history took place in the week following MLK's assassination, but since raindrop's middle-school history book sort of skipped over that, what we need to be doing here is comparing present-day protesters to a carefully curated sample of unfailingly polite marchers in their starched Sunday best scrupulously sticking to the sidewalks, lest an errant touch of polished patent leather on asphalt sully their single and clearly stated cause with a charge of jaywalking.

Breonna Taylor's door was broken down while she was asleep by officers Mattingly, Hankison, and Cosgrove of the LMPD, who shot her at least 8 times and then stood by without calling an ambulance or administering first aid while she coughed and gasped and bled to death over at least five minutes. To date, none of the three men have been charged with a crime. So it should be clear to everyone that the central and most important issue here, the one we need to consider before all others, is the comportment of people who are upset about this.

33

Why not project a picture and have sound on Lake Union and Green Lake - and have people use kayaks and canoes? Boats lead to parties and spreading.

34

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce1L8AHSFqo

35

@12,

"Stopping the war in Vietnam was a very much a united and common goal."

No it wasn't. Even at the height of the war's unpopularity (around the time of the Kent State shootings and the release of the Pentagon papers) more people still supported it than not. Plus you had some peaceful groups protesting whereas others, like the Weathermen, were notoriously violent.

36

re: the story about the Duvall kid taunting the cops, eliciting an overreaction-
just an observation, but the Everett Herald is actually a pretty good paper for what it is, deserves more eyes.

37

RE: The lady peeing in the verizon store

Back in the 70's, when Papa Vel-DuRay was still alive and working, an associate at the company he worked for (Mutual of Omaha) expressed her displeasure at being disciplined by taking a poo-poo on her supervisor's desk. Mutual was such a straight-laced company that the entire corporate headquarters - 3000 employees - had a collective pearl grasp AND panty twist, but Papa secretly thought it was hilarious (because the supervisor was a total prig who everyone hated).

38

@32 for the win. anyone insisting protesters behave a certain way is not interested at all in why people are protesting. they're just another trump like personality that wants protests ended by any means necessary. protesting the vietnam war included the murder of students at kent state, the infiltration of student groups by the fbi, veterans who served and realized they had been lied to and used, people who blamed the soldiers as collaborators, people who refused to serve (like muhommad ali, because he would not fight a war for a country that did not treat him like human being and like trump who got his daddy and doctor to lie about it so he could go about his life sexually assaulting people and refer to dodging std's as his personal vietnam).

but by all means, the people protesting the violent murder of black people by cops should behave and anyone and everyone else protesting the violence being wrought upon the protesters (like in portland, by trump's fake soldiers - border patrol agents playing dress up with weapons) needs to get in line and focus. just idiotic blathering by a keyboard cowboy with a big mouth and nothing to say. being alive at the time does not mean you have any more knowledge of what happened during that time (as proven by your ignorant and ill informed and at times blatantly untrue statements) but hey, keep on making demands of people who are out there putting their skin in the game while you type up chastisements of how inappropriately they are carrying out their protests.

39

@35: Yes, but I was referring to among the protest itself - Vietnam wasn't (mostly) an umbrella for fractionalized protests (e.g. defund police) and tactics (e.g. CHOP) within it like BLM has become. I wasn't referring to national opinions.

40

DHS actions in Portland are making things worse, by design

The 54 nights of protest in Portland haven’t been conducted purely by angels with the purest of purposes. There have been genuine incidents of violence. There have been genuine efforts to engage in destruction. There have been people, including numerous members of the far-right, on hand with the intention of hijacking protests that began with concerns about police violence toward Black people, and turning them into chaos that justified further violence.

But the presence of unaccountable, illegal federal forces in the city has made every single aspect of that worse. These men in camo aren’t fighting the lawlessness. They’re the official endorsement of chaos and clear signals that it’s open season on the rule of law. What they’re doing to the city of Portland, and the nation, is a wound on the whole system of justice.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/7/22/1962859/-DHS-forces-in-Portland-drive-increase-in-violence-as-they-proactively-grab-people-off-the-streets#read-more

41

No need to be so coy xina. We're in good company here.

42

@35 dude, I may be a parody but you're the joke.

43

@39 dude, I may be a parody but you're the joke.

45

@37: Remind me of that Wanda Sykes clip:

https://youtu.be/aY5Ex4B5dNI

46

@43: Hmm, I'm only two of those three.

47

When insisting on ‘peaceful’ protest misses the point

...too often, the underlying sentiment behind the demand for “peaceful” protesters is a sense that protesters should be – well, less protesting. Sure, they should march in the streets, but they should not block traffic. They should be organized, and go home when told. They should be well-behaved, even respectable.

The idea that people should forego such disruption in order to “peacefully” make claims and “work through the system” are not, as many well-intentioned observers think, reasonable correctives to irrationally angry people.

This kind of respectable politics has been dismissed, not because it isn’t preferred but because it simply has not worked.

https://www.virginiamercury.com/2020/06/24/when-insisting-on-peaceful-protest-misses-the-point/

48

@40: "with the intention of hijacking protests"

Exactly. Reinforces what I've been saying that the protesting messaging has become splintered and unfocused. These are observations, not demanding how protesters should behave.

49

Catalina @ 37: Ha! I’m surprised they didn’t make the employee go out with Jim Fowler as a “helper” (bait) on a show about the Serengeti on “Wild Kingdom”.

49

@47: "This kind of respectable politics has been dismissed, not because it isn’t preferred but because it simply has not worked."

Actually it has to a significant degree. Up to the point where there's no alternative. But too many are unwilling to do the hard work before the last resort is needed - or want their adrenaline rushes now.

50

I've seen some ridiculous assault 4 charges filed, but waving a donut is outside even the State's ludicrous definition of "assault." Unless it was on a pointed stick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwrCnrJOm-A

51

@42,

wut?

52

@raindrop you’re dismissing the protests because of how you think they should behave. During the late 60s or early 70s the protests were indeed mixed. Either you were too young to remember or so old now you can’t remember. There was a great amount of angst during that time not only about the war but civil rights and voting rights as well. The narrative you’re trying to create about the war protests being some sort of unified, cohesive front simply did not happen.

53

@48 Maybe the reason the protests seem so nebulous and unfocussed to you is that whenever the issue comes up, you find any flimsy excuse you can to deflect the discussion away from police officers with no accountability killing Breonna Taylor. And George Floyd.

And Ahmaud Arbery, Philando Castille, Alton Sterling, Freddie Gray, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Charleena Lyles, Trayvon Martin... and hundreds of others in this young century alone.

54

It occurs to me that the world has changed utterly and irrevocably in the past 50 years.
So the models for what passed for effective protest from that era really might not be applicable- let each generation find what works for them.
The line of moms and the naked woman are a couple of examples of an organic process underway of a movement finding new tactics. Much as the Hong Kong protesters evolved their tactics.
A few eternal verities, though, such as peaceful protest is best practice and numbers are important- quantity is its own quality. 500 people protesting for 100 nights might not be as effective as 50,000 people protesting at once.

55

Russel Honoré On Feds in Portland: 'What Kind Of Bullsh-t Is This!?'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6t7AMbbQUHw&feature=youtu.be

56

@54 Keeping a protest going night after night with smaller numbers of participants might just be one of them newfangled approaches you mention. Seems like it provides a pretty handy nucleus for larger crowds to gather, when new outrages inevitably arise as the underlying issue of unaccountable police killing defenseless Black people remains unaddressed.

Those couple-dozen weird-looking kids chanting "we do this every night" might make you cringe a little, but they might be onto something, too, you know?

59

Nixon? As best I recall, he turned up at a protestors' camp on the Mall pre-dawn and tried to engage them on the subject of college football.

60

@52: Vietnam was indeed a unifying and cohesive force behind these protests, and arguably the paramount objective at the time because as there was a draft going on at the time. Remember?

61

Of course the rabid bat died. The test for rabies involves taking the brain out.

62

I have contacted various current city council members by email, and most respond, if only to send a standardized message acknowledging receipt of the message. Now, I live in his district, but I want to note: Alex Pedersen is remarkably courteous and responsive, and he responds in a way that shows he genuinely reads and considers a message. He is not indifferent to his critics' concerns about police funding, and a crowd visiting his home to harass him into ideological submission will not and should not make him capitulate. This "visit" was not meant simply to meet Pedersen; it was meant to intimidate him. It was meant to scare and rattle and shame him, as if to suggest he lives in a wealthy enclave, hiding out from the suffering of the poor, and he needs to be sensitized to their suffering at last. And this kind of sanctimonious shaming is now typical of Seattle politics.

Now, personally, I believe public officials' homes should be respected as their private space. We don't know the toll their public life takes on their private life. Gonzalez and Mosqueda have newborn babies; Pedersen has a family; Herbold has children and, I believe, grandchildren; Sawant--who helped popularize these visitations--likely has her safety threatened more frequently than we know. Let them have their home as a place to which they can retreat. And Alex Pedersen in particular shows great concern for constituents' messages. He frequently meets with constituents and all manner of local folks, and he often sends an email newsletter encouraging constituents and concerned citizens to contact him. He is not some stereotypical rich, conservative, evil man hiding in a wealthy enclave. He engages with his constituents and, really, with anyone who genuinely wants to listen to him, not simply lecture him about the evil of his not being on the lockstep left. Again: we don't know the toll their jobs take on city council members. I suspect it's far worse than we know. I sharply disagree with many of them, and sometimes that includes Alex Pedersen. But I don't need to violate their domestic privacy to express that disagreement. But I understand basic courtesy is widely regarded as old-school and ineffective. Blaming, shouting, dogmatizing, hollering four-letter expletives, harassing, and stereotyping anyone who isn't lockstep as a traitor to a movement or group: this is now the way of things. I might be a minority of one, but I think this is regrettable.

63

@60 And yet somehow you're unable to see unaccountable police killings of Black people as a unifying and cohesive force behind our present-day Black Lives Matter protests.

You're a real piece of work, buddy.

64

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Alcatraz

67

@62 Your elaborate objections to the comportment of people who are upset about unaccountable police killings of Black people -- objections that rather remarkably never once mention unaccountable police killings of Black people -- are duly noted.

68

well that's a valid point, and I concede it - that keeping a protest going night after night could be an effective, somewhat novel approach.
But we do have a fairly recent example of the Occupy protests, which also tried for a 24/7 approach. Initially seemed to gain some headway, but then became more of an unsightly annoyance to a majority of people even sympathetic to their original aims.
So I dunno, I don't like listening to myself lecture to the people on the street how they should be going about it... like I said, our experiences from 50 years ago have only limited relevance to today.

69

@67: Your obsession with misconstruing other peoples' viewpoints diminishes your arguments.

70

@69 Kind of impressed at how fast you flipped from claiming people who are upset about unaccountable police killings of Black people are "unfocused" to smearing them as "obsessed."

71

@70: What specifically did I write that led you to misconsrue that?

72

@71 Would you like to talk about unaccountable police killings of Black people?

73

@7: Of course.

74

@73 OK, great, let's start with Breonna Taylor then. That's an easy one, right? You can type the name "Breonna Taylor," can't you?

75

Trump And Barr Expand Surge In Federal Officers To Chicago, Albuquerque
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-expands-federal-surge-chicago_n_5f189cd4c5b6128e68202876

76

Operation Waffen

77

We are in dangerous territory, rhetorically.

I say this with full awareness of what I just wrote on impulse.

But this much must be said. Americans are American for the simple fact that none of us look alike. None of us are from the exact same place as anyone else. That goes for people from any country. We are a blended world, and we cannot be so small minded as to dehumanize each other with masks of blindness to what is happening here.

Americans must accept and choose to transcend through individual action their history and rise to the challenge of demanding the very most just world and nation and standards for others as we would demand for ourselves under the law and as much as possible in the spirit. This is foolhardy and self destructive puppeting; once we hurt ourselves, we are easy pickings for the wolves at the door. Our government is twisted against us and seeks to contain us.

This is America, God Damnit, and I know we all grew up knowing what that means. It is not a cop out to betray the collective struggle of your history to fall in the same pits. History is extra lives and continues, falling into the same traps is lives lost and game over. Except we can actually wipe ourselves out.

We must have the courage in such times to recognize the necessity of united common defense through principal and deterrent of the arms of good ideas and the love for truth and healthy competition, as the Olympics and its myriad manifestations embodies wholeheartedly.

The churches should be used to serve the community. Bring meaning to your words through acts. We need each other to show what we can do with what we have. There are so many in need. Is loving thy neighbor as yourself and doing unto others as you would have them do unto you so difficult as civil strife and rebellion? I say HELL NO!!

To the feds, the methed out shivering corpses with a pulse under the Portland bridges, the sex workers taking Plan B contraceptives in the hidden park clearing, all who suffer in silence and great profundity, may you find peace and healing in the name of all that was ever correct and balancing. WE ARE MORE ALIKE THAN UNALIKE.

78

https://youtu.be/VUP7TDn0kA4

79

@65:

Stereotypes are based on real life. But, in the interest of civil discourse, if you can show me a cop who: 1.) Is patently afraid of doughnuts; 2.) would consider the proffering of a doughnut to constitute a clear and present threat to their personal safety, and; 3.) would refuse a doughnut for any reason other than perhaps being gluten-intolerant, then by golly I'll eat that deadly, terror-inducing doughnut myself.


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