Cliff Mass does have a valid point that the legitimate protests against police wrongdoing were a cover for murder, property damage, and general mayhem by anarchists, thugs, and drug gang members.

“Cataclysms”

By falsely conflating protests against the police's brutal murders of people of color to Kristallnacht, Cliff Mass is really busting that clueless, loudmouth, stupid, malignant, old white asshole stereotype.

@2: What police officers were murdered by BLM protesters? I missed that news item.

Cliff goes full false equivalency in the era of cancel culture. Smart!! His shtick already played to a MAGA audience, and now he’s doubled down.

Cliff Mass really missed his calling as a geologist

Cliff Mass being cancelled by strangers for not trolling the leftist party line. How dare he say that burning books is bad and science of climate change needs further scrutiny? They weren't burning the "Das Kapital" only the "Die Bibel."

Maybe Cliff Mass was describing the SPD's activities.

Anyway, happy to see NYAG going after some major criminals!

@6: There is certainly "collateral damage":

https://abcnews.go.com/US/police-officers-killed-surge-28-year-point-civil/story?id=71773405

Natalie...you have it exactly wrong. This IS about saving lives. With police, there would be a rapid increase in violence that would preferentially hurt low income and minority people. This is not speculation...we saw it happen in CHAZ. And there has been a huge increase in violent and other crime in Seattle as the police have been pushed back...cliff mass

@15: Strangely those anti police hippies over at the Seattle Police Department don't seem to agree with you

https://www.seattle.gov/police/information-and-data/crime-dashboard

@15: "there would be a rapid increase in violence...we saw it happen in CHAZ"

Funny how you only look at several weeks of CHAZ to justify your position while ignoring other more structured changes throughout the U.S. (for example, the Camden NJ police reform).

And there will be no police reform. As usual, they've weathered the storm... and can now go back to being storm troopers with full impunity to murder subjects as they see fit. Move along. Nothing to see here. Just some government shock troops shooting protesters in the world's greatest democracy.

Freedom!!!

@15: Oh Cliff. You just love being wrong don't you.
re: the NRA, thoughts and prayers. I was a member a long time ago, but it became increasingly obvious that they were just a giant money making scheme. Every. Fucking. Day. there was at least one email screeching about how if I didn't give them money "jack booted thugs" would come for my guns. And here we are decades later and I still have my guns and the jack booted thugs are merrily kicking the shit out of people without a so much as squeak of protest from Wayne and his bunch. Fuck the NRA.

@16: Don't police prevent crimes by, say, serving and enforcing restraining orders in domestic abuse, pulling over drunk drivers, I could go on. But I suppose you think of preventing crime as something more organic.

Cliff, you're just like every other supporter of any brutal empire. Any resistance, no matter the brutality resisted against, is an opportunity to declare another enemy of the state. That's who you are. I'd say it was sad. But it's disgusting.

Btw/ I used to love you on KUOW weekly with Steve back in the day. Now... oof. No thanks!

@21:

I dunno, why don't you ask the hundreds of thousands of women who have continued to suffer violence and abuse from their spouses AFTER they'd taken out restraining orders? Well, yes of course a lot of them are dead, so you can't actually ask THEM, but hey, I'm sure the rest would be more than happy to discuss with you how effective law enforcement is when it comes to the "enforcement" part of restraining orders.

@17

Thanks for the link. Interesting that SPD has separate categories for violent crime and property crime. It's as if the SPD doesn't consider breaking a window to be a violent crime.

@9: Yeah, I wanted to give Switress some encouragement to back up that statement. Clearly that was pulled directly out of his/her ass, just like Raindrop's supporting argument @14 (where two cops were gunned down when responding to a domestic disturbance call). I expect that sort of thing from both of them, at this point. I'm pleased to see my low opinions of both proven right, this morning.

@21: Unless you happen to be keeping a cop in your pocket, no they do not generally "prevent crime" because they aren't there when crimes occur. What they have done in my experience, (having been mugged on the street, the store I worked at being robbed, being run off the road and my car wrecked by a semi, and being raped) is show up after the fact with a little note book and then disappear never to be heard from again. But ya know that's just me.

They do a lot of data collection and they do investigate serious crimes, but like I said, they can't really PREVENT anything.

@23/@26 - Yeah, safe airplane landings don't make the news.

@25

Also, one of the experts interviewed who makes the link between violence directed at police and civil unrests admits that her connection might well be full of crap.

@30

But you would support dissolving the NRA and, if any of their illegal activities are actually criminal, you would support vigorous prosecution of the persons who committed the crimes, right?

@25: I'm curious what argument you gleaned from @14, supporting or otherwise. Are you twisting "collateral damage" as being pro-police?

Cliff Mass uses double spaces.

So, Cliff Mass took a walk around downtown for a couple of hours, and recorded his subjective impressions.
I agree the Kristallnacht analogy is cringe-worthy, both as an insult to the real Kristallnacht and to what actually occurred in the streets of downtown Seattle.
but I'm willing to overlook a bit of hyperbole anymore, really both sides do it. It is intellectually dishonest, but basic literary standards have fallen so far that taking tortured metaphors to task is hopeless.
My criticism of 'average citizen takes a Sunday stroll through empty city streets' is that Mr Mass is neither a poet nor a philosopher. What he seems intent on depicting as a dystopian hell-scape could be characterized as easily by a more astute observer as idyllic.
Just look at the pictures that accompany his essay. You can sense the quiet, almost hear the seagulls, smell the salt-sea air instead of diesel fumes.
He relents at one point in his fear mongering to notice the still beating heart of the city at the Market.
Yes. Life goes on.
Seattle is not Regal Cinemas and the Cheesecake Factory.
And why does a passed-out drunk inspire such dread in Mr Mass? Why such alarm at a little unpoliced drug trafficking, for goodness sakes, this has been an aspect of urbanism since humans first came together in cities. A willing buyer , a willing seller, an agreed-upon price and if you don't want to witness it then don't go looking for it.
The cops will be back soon enough, be patient little grasshopper.
Enjoy this moment.
Enjoy this respite from the visual and aural clutter, from the constant barrage of relentless, aggressive capitalistic hustling, the lurid provocations which usually prevail behind all those boarded-up windows.

I read Cliff Mass' actual blog post. It's embarrassing. I guess the guy knowns something about meteorology, but he's a complete dumbass about everything else I've seen him talk about. It seems like his heart is in the right place, he's just ignorant and sounds like someone who watches too much Fox News.

@41 Fox News isn't what's poisoning Cliff's brain.

As he reminds his readers constantly, his work is government-funded no matter who's in power, and it's at risk of being shut down with every new budget. So to sustain support for the various programs he's involved with, someone has to lobby legislatures, and for a long time that person has been Cliff Mass.

The budget sausage-making is a lot more convoluted than a party-line vote, so Mass often has to lobby across party lines, and doing that effectively means either becoming an elite-level con artist or at least to some degree internalizing the mindset of the people you're lobbying. Learning the art of the con isn't easy, and other people's values can displace your own pretty readily when you've spent your career squashing your own beliefs in the interest of being a values-neutral Man of Science.

He's just been at it too long without ever taking that break to step back and ask himself who's doing the influencing, and who's being influenced.

39

We are all scared of a government weilding that kind of power. That's why so many people have been out in the streets fighting actual federal government jack booted thugs. Where you been?

40

I took a nice stroll downtown past the Market earlier this week. It was absolutely idyllic. There's a calm and quiet I've never experienced in Seattle before. It's really a lovely place.

Kristallnacht: Purposeful targeting and destroying of jewish homes, synagoges and business on the anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch. Objective: Remove the remaining jews not expelled the weeks prior from the German Reich.
BLM Protest: March against police brutality in the wake of the death of George Floyd. Objective: End the purposeful targeting and murders of black people.
There's no actual comparison to be made here. Kristalnacht's core intention was destruction of a people and their community. BLM is fighting to keep that from happening to them. Did destruciton happen along the way? Yes. If you'd like to draw an accurate comparison, ,92 L.A.Riots, '64 & '68 Chicago riots etc. The "riots" are all linked by a common factor which is racism and injustice against black Americans. It's a reaction to racism where Kristalnacht is a tool of racism.

@46 There are ongoing criminal investigations of the NRA being conducted by the Attorneys General of both New York State and the District of Columbia.

For some reason, the US DOJ under Donald Trump's appointee William Barr hasn't opened its own investigation despite strong recommendations from Congress, not sure what could possibly explain that.

@54 The people who grab the guns from the gun-fondlers are invariably their children and grandchildren.

It doesn't usually take more than one senescent cognitive break for the kids to clean out the gun case, and then get rid of the case, too. Sometimes they'll do it even before they take the car keys away.

@26- So, are you suggesting that if there were no police whatsoever, if they were completely abolished (I know that's not what defunding is), that the amount of criminal offenses committed would remain steady, with no subsequent increase? I find it hard to believe that any rational person would actually believe that.

@26 Lissa: I'm really sorry that happened to you. Nobody deserves that.
@30 & @34 Doofy and @53 & @54 Downfall: Is that why you and all hopeless MAGAs like you keep sniffing hydroxychloroquine? To serve and protect your Free Dumbs? Check your blood sugar before your next FOX TeeVee binge.
@61 Morty: I appreciate your feedback here, as you are a retired cop.

@59 It doesn't matter who you are, you're still going to grow old and die, and you can't take your gun with you when you do.

And come on little buddy, "fudds?" Really? If that's the level you want to engage on, you might as well just post that pic of your finger on the trigger of your dick pointing at your gun.

The Stranger needs to get on this story: someone, somewhere is forcing people to read Cliff Mass. Investigate this very important issue as soon as you can.

@61: No I'm saying they can't be everywhere. They don't control time and space. And I do agree with @65 that at the very least locking up a criminal prevents them from offending for the time they are incarcerated.
I'm not interested in abolishing the police by any means. I'd like to see them not be forced into roles for which they are not trained, and put in situations which they often only make worse. Welfare checks, dealing with the homeless and mentally ill, interviewing sexual assault victims, the endless calls from pearl clutchers on Nextdoor reporting people walking/jogging/sitting in their car/bird watching/getting the mail while Black; things like that. And to be honest, someone else could probably handle the showing up after the fact with a little notebook part as well. Certainly for many property crimes.
But yeah, like I said, most of the time they can't prevent crime because they aren't there when it happens. I mean it certainly wasn't like a cop followed my rapist from behind my shoe rack when he popped out of the closet knife in hand. Or sprang up from behind the futon display when the store I worked at was robbed.
There is, and always will be, a role for police to play. But the "thin blue line" is a mythos that doesn't do anybody any favors including the police. It both asks too much and expects too little from law enforcement.
I would also like to say that I appreciate your comments and perspective.

@65: I agree the way we police in this country needs top to bottom reform and in particular the culture of law enforcement. Many of the thing we ask of them they shouldn't be doing.

@64 - First, I'm really sorry about the crimes you endured, especially the rape. The entire reason I liked being a cop was having the opportunity to prevent crimes such as those, or failing that, apprehending the suspects who committed them. I saw the latter as getting at least some measure of justice for victims.

I have actually prevented at least one rape, and the suspect in that particular case admitted he intended to murder the victim later; it was probably the one arrest I'm most proud of in my career. I've seen other cops prevent other specific crimes, and have done so at other times myself, but it's not nearly often enough, that's true. You're right, cops cannot be everywhere at all times. But they can be at the right place at the right time on occasion, and studies indicate that even that remote possibility deters crime...up to a point.

I agree about not doing social welfare kinds of tasks. The only reason cops do those type of things is because we as a society have collectively decided over the years that we don't want to fund specialists and/or programs to do them. So, the cops are now all that's left to do them. I'm totally down with diverting more money back into those type of programs and specialists. Maybe defunding, smart defunding, will do that.

Hopefully, that will also mean the cops can spend more time doing what they were actually intended to do, preventing crime as they're able and obtaining justice for those people unfortunate enough to have been the victims of crimes they weren't able to prevent.

When I started in '84, there were less than 2,000 cops with Dallas PD at a time of very high crime. When I left in 2011, there were 4,000 cops at a time when crime was down 60ish percent from its peak in the early 90's. Yet cops are still very busy, maybe busier now than then. If all the duties they've adopted over the last 25 years or so were returned to those better equipped to perform them, I suspect reducing police manpower won't mean reducing effectiveness at their intended role.

And get rid of the military crap.

@71 I think the basic idea about crime prevention is not that police officers will spring from behind the nearest potted plant whenever crime is about to happen, but rather that people might be less likely to try some crime if they believe police officers with little notebooks full of notes could eventually knock on their doors and take them to jail for it.

@33: I was not addressing the "collateral damage" argument, because one could argue - if one really wanted to be so disingenuous - that something as minor as graffiti could be considered "collateral damage." Swiftress said (while employing a good many dog-whistle phrases) the BLM protests were being used as cover to murder cops. I asked for justification of that statement.

You chimed in to say that there's "collateral damage" with an article about the deaths of police offers being on the rise. I specifically mentioned the domestic disturbance killing because a) it was at the top, and b) it seemed a great example of how sensationalized that article is, using leading correlations instead of direct causations. As seatackled said, it's an argument full of crap. Here's the key bit from that article you provided:

“'As somebody who studies social science and does research in social science, you cannot be very definitive about this because the data is a little bit problematic,' [Maria "Maki" Haberfeld, a professor of police science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York] said. 'If somebody has mental issues and decides to take it out on law enforcement because this is what he or she hears on the news that they are the enemy, it’s not necessarily something targeted, per se.'"

Do you see now how the path diverged there?

@74 - Yeah, probably, but plenty of studies have found that mere presence has a deterring effect also. People can sincerely debate to what degree, but it is definitely there to at least some degree.

If we had an area experiencing unusually high crime suddenly, we would move additional elements into the area, often from Mounted and Tactical (they did preventive patrol where needed between training demands and SWAT call-outs). It always worked at shutting down offenses.

Now, it is true that those engaged in criminality would just lay low until the added resources left or travel further afield to commit offenses...but the added presence did reduce offenses where it was.

@77 "resulted"? Nah.

@55 "The people who grab the guns from the gun-fondlers are invariably their children and grandchildren."

The increasing ownership of guns by younger people aside, you do realize that emptying out mom and dad's gun safe is a crime? And it's one that will put you on a sad road to a lifetime of rejection and lost opportunities due to your state and federal criminal record. It's also one of those things in this state that will get you an additional smack if you are under 21. Dad might be able to take you to the range and hand you the pistol. But any other time you take possession of said weapon, you are a criminal. And you kids voted for this in many states as well.

If you are 18 or 19 and upset about your parents' gun collection, there is one thing you can do right now. Move out.

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