Comments

1

Even though it vexes people when I say it, I'll just quietly murmur that cutting the SPD budget by 50% will require both time and tedious work in areas like legislation, procurement, contracts, labor relations, and budgeting. It should have already begun, but the council is twiddling their thumbs and mouthing platitudes, hoping no one will call them out.

I know some people get touchy when I suggest that BLM should be stepping up on the bureaucratic side, but BLM should be stepping up on the bureaucratic side.

Now is their moment.

7

"We have to be true to ourselves and acknowledge that Biden is a mediocre, milquetoast, neoliberal centrist that we’ve been fighting against in the Democratic establishment," West said.

Huh. I wonder if Cornell West and Nina Turner voted against Obama -- in the primaries or the general election. Because Obama certainly ran as a "mediocre, milquetoast, neoliberal centrist". More so than Biden is running now. I don't remember Obama having a "Green New Deal" program anywhere close to what Biden is proposing, although I do remember him saying something about hope ... and change.

8

@1:

The difficulty with your suggestion Mrs. Vel-DuRay is simply that BLM doesn't have the sort of organizational structure to even begin to "step up on the bureaucratic side", as you suggest. That's one of the (dis)advantages of a leaderless, non-hierarchical movement.

9

@1 - At least BLM could form a 501c3.

10

@1 There are usually years to decades of claim-staking and soapboxing before people get to the table and start hammering out the details of completely overhauling a broken yet entrenched social institution.

You're going to have to wait a little while longer before you get a chance to do your fussing and clucking over the weekly minutes of the commission tasked with removing legal protections police have been abusing, demilitarizing their equipment, uniforms, and tactics, cutting their payroll in two and using the other half to establish new first-responder institutions to handle mental health crises and domestic disputes, maybe split off traffic enforcement into its own bureau while you're at it, etc etc.

11

@8 -- I don't know about that. In terms of particulars, definitely. But in terms of a vague blueprint, I think BLM is quite capable. The focus should really be more about what we will spend money on, not the fact that we are spending less on the police. BLM is a large organization, and certainly capable of that.

13

@9 I'm guessing a 501(c)(4) wouldn't be enough to turn that particular page in Raindrop's Unabridged Comportment Requirements for Protest Legitimacy, Volume 7.

https://blacklivesseattle.org/about/

14

And, atop all of our Council’s tedious displays of outrage, some of them don’t even know what their words mean:

“...our police department again using crowd control weapons in ways that were blatantly indiscriminate. In the video footage I saw it’s clear that reporters are being targeted...”

If force is used in a way that is “blantantly indiscriminate,” then, by definition, that use of force was not “targeted.”

(Although it is nice to see blatant harassment, of the type visited upon Mayor Durkan’s family home, finally getting some criticism from our Council. We just had to wait for that bullying and inexcusable behavior to be visited upon Council Members’ homes.)

15

@14 that's the spirit - leave no hair unsplit

16

@14 The sentence you're laboring over is saying that reporters were not treated differently from plastic-bottle-throwers or graffiti-writers or trash-fire-starters. The sentence implies that all present were targeted; that the targeting was, in a word, indiscriminate.

17

The correction is appreciated, robotslave.

18

@16: I referred to two consecutive sentences, separated by a full stop in my quote. I then noted they flatly contradicted each other.

The sole sentence you're laboring over has no mention of crowd members throwing objects, crowd members tagging, or crowd members starting trash fires. All of the property destruction mentioned in the article is entirely absent from CM Morales' account. While it's entirely possible for the SPD to attack protesters on Capitol Hill without the protesters first becoming destructive, that did not happen this time. (The irony, it burns like pepper spray, it does...)

It's just verbal posturing from some attention-seeking politician, and (most of) our community sees through her word games.

19

@18 On March 13, officers Mattingly, Hankison, and Cosgrove of the LMPD broke down EMT Breonna Taylor's door while she was asleep, shot her 8 times, and stood idly by while she gasped for air and bled to death over five minutes.

To date, none of the three men have been charged with a crime.

22

With all due respect to Mrs Vel-DuRay and the rest of the usual gang of commenters of the SLOG the bureaucracy is well under way although not under the banner of BLM. Both Decriminalize Seattle and King County Equity Now have been provided a large presence at the table by the local pols and have a long list of demands/suggestions for cutting the police budget and funding community efforts. If you take a moment to look at what has changed in the last 30 days it's remarkable in the both magnitude and speed. A veto proof majority of the city council has committed to cutting the police budget by 50%, the largest tax increase on business in the history of the city was passed, the city and county prosecutor have committed to not filing charges against anyone arrested protesting, the mayor and council has committed to removing 911 services from the SPD, the county executive committed to closing both the youth and adult jails by 2025 and a group of county prosecutors has recommended no longer charging anyone arrested for crimes of poverty and lessoning charges for anyone who assaults a police officer citing the fact the police officer probably escalated the situation. Taken in their entirely these efforts represent a massive change in the scope and mission of law enforcement. Many will no doubt cheer these actions on and even say they don't go far enough (in fact King County Equity Now also wants a $1B slush fund to use for anti-gentrification efforts as part of their demands) however I remain skeptical. It is easy to tear down institutions but building something new and better out of the wreckage is where the hard work comes in and I have little faith in either the current council or the community activists leading these efforts to follow through. I have yet to see any proposals of who and what replaces the police when they are gone and what will be done to ensure they are any better. I also have concern about turning over public safety to outside organizations who will have no accountability to voters like we have done with Share/Wheel and the homeless crisis. The good news always remains that we the voters will have an opportunity to weigh in on the progress next year when the inevitable Durkan vs Mosqueda battle for mayor takes place and the at large council positions are also up for grabs.

23

@21 I'm imagining you reciting that over the second movement of Beethoven's third symphony. Played on kazoo.

25

Stop bitching about Biden, the dude may not be exciting, but he will be effective. He was as VP, as a Senator, and he brings with him the best of the best of our former cabinet and seats at the table for Sanders Progressives. We can work with this coalition and we need to, and we need to find common cause with those across the aisle who can be reasoned with on the issues that matter, and can sort out the dust and grit on the other shit later. But we can unite on a fully staffed cabinet and federal agencies that aren't consuming themselves. Trump's people, like Stephen Miller (a man my age, can you imagine ME dictating our border policy?), basically living the wet dream of this travesty of history locking up the people I grew up with in the orphanage my parents ran and now snatching them cruelly from their parents and tossing them into cages, now with Covid running rampant doing the gas chambers work for us. I swear this is the most aberrant betrayal of all that is holy and good in the name of the American Dream to reduce ourselves to this sham, this farce of trash and scum, despicable shitbags running the show with impunity. Get these fucking assclowns out of the White House and work with what we have, IT'S STILL A HELL OF A LOT.

27

Trump endorses and pals around with child rapists like Ghislaine and Epstein. His border patrol sexually assaults their female detainees regularly and then deports them, I've sat in the mediation and seen their eyes. Have you?

Biden smells people and doesn't know how to take a hint. I'll take Biden.

28

DHS, the Geo Group and for-profit plantation prison system is the planet's greatest human trafficking agency. I will not apologize to this slime.

29

Where are the condemnations of Council? They are good at throwing matches then retreating and pointing fingers when it unravels. What is their plan to address systemic racism in policing? “Defund the police by 50%” is not a plan. This is among the worst run cities in the country. In hindsight it will be obvious that “Defund the police!” was pushed by the Russians and Trump as part of an election strategy. Even worse, it may be aimed at weakening local law enforcement to make way for federal occupation to undermine voting or take control after Trump refuses to leave.

30

Im reasoning emotionally, so I am sure there are flaws to my reasoning. Good ideas need calm and focus.

31

@22,

If you want your unhinged rants to be read and addressed, I's recommend occasional paragraph breaks.

32

*I'd, ugh.

33

Indeed, this city council is boring AF.

35

On June 29, armed occupants of CHOP murdered a black teen (Antonio Mays, Jr - in case protesters wanted to say his name) who may have stolen a white Jeep.

To date, none of the shooters have been identified by other members of CHOP or the police, they have not been caught (or even come forward to defend their actions), nor have they been charged with a crime. The Stranger has been silent on the issue other than to point to an article written in the Seattle Times about the incident. And the council shrank away from the killing like a penis in an ice cold pond.

But let's get a complete rundown of our city leaders' weekly bloviations. That's fine journalism!

39

I don't care if Biden is a perv. That's none of my business. I'll vote for competence.

Biden is competent and he'll surround himself with competent people.

Trump is incompetent, incontinent, and corrupt.

If, God willing, Biden wins, I think we need to have a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate trump. Step one should be to suspend all of his judicial appointments.

42

Violence and property damage is the best way not to get what you want and to turn otherwise sympathetic people against your movement.

46

Bellevue loves you. Keep up the good work.

47

You can't demand critical thinking about the nuanced makeup of the police force and federal troops while ignoring the nuances between peaceful protestors and coopting opportunists, nearly all of whom are white and have nothing to do with the marching millions worldwide advocating BLM's policy demands.

48

If you are against arresting, charging and jailing people who burn, smash and loot other people's property, then you are not against that conduct.
To be honest, the protesters were smart to stay away from Federal Buildings this weekend. The poor saps in Portland that have now been charged with Federal crimes will not have the catch and release treatment they get from the locals. Their lives are f'd.

50

@22: Good points all, but our divine Mrs. Vel-DuRay was merely describing what you also mention: "defund 50%" makes for a nifty slogan, but the devil remains in the details. We should take this opportunity to re-envision what public safety work entails and how it is done. Police, fire, and EMT are not our only options; we can add others, like rapid-response teams for re-housing efforts.

As you noted, this last would require us to avoid the mistake we made with SHARE/WHEEL. Since our current Council does not see our homeless-industrial complex as a problem to be reformed, but rather as a constituency to be subsidized, we could have a lot of trouble implementing an effective re-housing response force.


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