Comments

1

Tr666p's hurricane of lies over the past four years have revealed the truth:
We live in a brutal, fascist society that celebrates cruelty, suffering, and mass death.
We also have ~80% of the meanest, dumbest, most spiteful assholes on the planet.

2

To have fallen under the evil spell of anarchy, urban centers somehow manage to do a great job of subsidizing rural shitholes full of people who claim to hate welfare and taxes.

5

@CM, "The difference between them and, say, Black Americans, is the latter understand that they have failed because America has deliberately failed them. This pill is too hard to swallow for many white Americans..."

I don't recall seeing this connection articulated in that way before, but I think that really nails it.

Good article.

6

@5: So happy you're enjoying Charles's offerings of articulated connections.

9

Contrary to the explanation given here, Seattle's economy recovered well from the economic crash of 2008. The unemployment rate in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue area dropped from 10% in early 2010 to 3.1% in early 2020, just before COVID-19 hit. The decline was continuous over that time. (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SEAT653UR) Over that very same decade, the number of homeless persons in Seattle rose. So, our homeless population didn't get that way from loss of jobs here.

During that long economic expansion, Seattle's homeless population rapidly expanded: "In Seattle, the unsheltered population grew by 44 percent over two years [2015-2017] to nearly 5,500." (https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/homeless/seattles-homeless-population-grows-more-than-40-percent-in-two-years/281-497511264)

The city of Seattle surveyed this growing homeless population. (http://coshumaninterests-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/City-of-Seattle-Report-FINAL-with-4.11.17-additions.pdf) In this survey, 68.7% of the homeless said they were not from Seattle, a majority said Seattle was not the place they most recently became homeless, and a majority reported using alcohol or other drugs. Seattle's excellent economy attracted a large population of already-homeless, drifting drug users.

But these are facts, data. They are not emotions, raw. And raw emotions, not facts, not data, are the basis of homeless policy by our City Council. Raw hatred of Mayor Durkan for vetoing the best they could do. Raw hatred of global capitalism. Raw hatred of the voters who elected them. These are how our policy is made, and why our policy has failed.

10

'it might be well for the Democrats to move to the center-"

That's been happening since at least the Clinton administration, and to what avail? I'm voting for Biden out of sheer pragmatism, but this "dems need to be more centrist" BS is insane. The "center" has been destroyed. Read up on the Overton Window.

11

@10 - However you wouldn't object for the Republicans to move towards the center. Right? So then the democrats should extend the courtesy and do the same.

13

@11 it's almost like you are unwilling or unable to comprehend what I said.

14

dems ALWAYS extend the courtesy
Repubs NEVER do the same

so yeah, obviously
Dems gotta appease
the insidiously Intransigent

which is precisely
how
we got to Fascism.

Rugged Individualists bearing WMDs
brownshirts without masks

trumpfy Barr Moscow Mitch
Kavanaughtiest Maximus

15

@9 tensor,
Very good points. Indeed, I recall a contentious discussion I had with my then GF, decades ago. "Why was Seattle such a draw for the homeless?" I argued that being from Chicago, a four season city vs. Seattle, a two season one and relatively temperate made at least one difference. I believed then as I do now that the 'element' is a factor. Sure Chicago & Buffalo have homeless populations but Seattle and San Francisco are far more known for there populations than the former.

To be sure, there are other reasons for the homeless rate soaring in Seattle between 2015-2017. But, that survey was fairly accurate. I agree with you. Since, that period, a mere 4 to 5 years ago my neighbors, acquaintances and friends have noticed the conspicuous rise in the homeless population in our fair city. Alas, it is quite obvious.

17

@11, the problem with that is that for the Democratic Establishment to move to the actual center, they need to move left too. Decades ago, as the GOP was taking it's radical right turn, because the people Barry Goldwater had warned against were taking over the party, the center here in Washington had Governor Dixie Lee Ray slightly to the left, and Governor Dan Evans slightly to the right. Today, Dan Evans would be to the left of Hillary Clinton, and to the right of only the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. A "moderate" Republican now is a wealthy conservative like Mitt Romney who at least occasionally pays lip-service to the rule of law.

18

@11 You never cease to amaze me with these utterly brainless takes.

"Democrats, an already right wing party in a country that is skewed to the right, should extend the courtesy to Republicans, who elected a far right loon and criminal to the White House, by moving even further to the right.

20

Grim.

21

"...the Anarchist City of Seattle."

Well, I hadn't expected that! I'd thought we were an an anarcho-syndicalist commune! ;-)

@19: Thank you very much, but I don't think Charles is lying; he actually believes The Stranger's party line is valid, and his facts are not incorrect. For me, it's just a huge stretch (to put it mildly) between housing-project reform begun decades ago, and suddenly a large influx of drug-using, already-homeless drifters into Seattle over the last five years.

The Stranger's party line on homelessness has held for quite a long time now, despite the mounting piles of evidence (and garbage) on our streets to contradict it. For all of The Stranger's front-page posts on homelessness in Seattle, I cannot recall any mention of dirty needles in parks, the non-native majority of 'our' homeless, or any explanation other than housing affordability. The Stranger's chronic and complete dedication to their chosen fictional reality rivals that of any Trump-eting right-wing AM radio station.

22

Pull your head out @3.

https://www.self.inc/blog/rent-or-buy

23

What is the center? That is the question.

24

@23: The center is rock solid in those areas where democrats and republicans express almost total bipartisan support, and frankly they agree on far more than the disagree on:
1. Mass Surveillance
2. Mass Incarceration
3. Endless war
4. Welfare for rich companies at the expense of the poor.
5. An enormous police force designed from the ground up to crush the poor and marginalized and to insert enough race, class and political warfare among them that they're never able to represent a collective threat to those in power.
5. A double standard where the 3 branches of government: Those in the criminal punishment system, the politicians and the business elite are never held accountable while the poor and marginalized are held to an unobtainable level of super, super accountability.
6. Promoting whatever panic allows insecure Americans they need to turn over all their checks and constitutional rights to the 3 branches of government if they ever hope to survive whatever silly "stranger danger" fantasy keeps them imagining a monster behind every tree, such as the war on drugs, the war on terrorism and now the war on human trafficking. Pretty much every war that is not an actual war has bipartisan support.
7. An enormous and innumerable number of always growing and expanding laws that can be enforced arbitrarily against some of the people some of the time (guess who!) to suppress any peaceful threat to their power.

As you can see, we have a large, deeply bipartisan center regardless of the headlines tell you.

Rejoice!

25

@24: You left out, "keeping a huge standing army active in dozens of countries around the globe, with little to nothing in the way of external threats to justify this." (This is actually separate from your item #3.)


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