Hey Mike.
So, I took a couple weeks to move into a new apartment: same building, same floor of said building, but on the other side - so my windows now face the Sound and Smith tower, and not just overlook PSQ's bus tunnel entrance and the non-stop parade of humanity that exists in spite of all efforts to eradicate it here in downtown. Seattle's protests are three days behind Minneapolis' but you know, it's rainy and cold here, and the kids have to put down their Animal Crossing to get in on the action. Protest is a young person's game (mostly).
Anyway. So, remember when I said I was waiting for the action to start? Well, it turns out that when you keep a nation penned up in their homes, delete their jobs, and then continue on with the same racist and classist bullshit, people will be driven to action, and that action was chaotic, and yet, sort of encouraging? Look. Remember the WTO stuff? Remember feeling like the people who were rioting probably didn't have much of a clue as to what they were really pissed about? The G7 and WTO are pretty arcane issues - I mean, they are great fodder for master's thesis and stuff, but for kids to be pissed at cops and looting? It seemed opportunistic, at best.
However - people taking to the streets because AGAIN another black man was killed for no reason than the inability of a police officer to know how to do his job. The abuse of power is not new, but you give people time (25% of people are unemployed currently - I mean if you take those who already were, add those who have been forced out because of the pandemic and add all the students who have been shut out of school), and desperation (see above: with no guidelines or idea of when things will be secure again) and then the rage (people in the suburbs seem to forget, as usual, that SPD has had it's own share of shitty police murders, and that people are sick of it) - and boom, what was supposed to be a few non-violent protests ended up with a bunch of police vehicles burned (yep, burned, it was like Beruit up in Pike/Pine last night) and stores looted (chain stores by the way - all the little guys had boarded their shit up because of the pandemic closures). Other than worried that an idiot would fuck up and set fire to my building (leave the semi-affordable housing alone Chad) I was oddly happy to watch Seattle get pissed off. Property is for rich people, and the divide in this town is so abundantly clear that personally, it'd be helpful if it all got burned down. People need to get over their materialistic bullshit. I am bummed that there will always just be people torching shit for the adrenaline kick, but really the cops have to stop indiscriminately killing unarmed black men in this country. I mean, they should stop killing people in general, but they could start with not killing black men all the time. That's for a start. The media, as per usual, is missing the point and wringing their damn hands about "violence" but as I have known since you introduced me to Direct Action via the Vancouver 5, and then with my own study and activity around anti-apartheid and Native American solidarity - when you have nothing else to lose, that's when the violence starts. When the non-violent protest on the football field devolves into a bullshit narrative about what is "appropriate protest" you are gonna end up here. Again, the cultural anthro model: the goddamn peasants are up to their noses in water, and the politicians/corporate overlords/royalty aren't fucking getting it. And the internet is making shit travel quick and is a not-perfect accelerator of anger, grief, and action.
I watched a clip of Mandela this morning and his patient response to a pundit giving him shit about supporting Castro, Arafat and Gaddafi was soothing. I miss leaders who have real-world experience, who have morals and guiding principles. Currently, the moral leader in the world appears to be the 30-something PM of New fucking Zealand. That's where we are. On the plus side: it appears Kropotkin might be getting a second look, and with that, I assume Bakunin and Goldman will be close behind.
Man, the sirens have been going for 3 days now - it's 7:30am on a Sunday, I haven't been to work in 3 months and don't know what is gonna happen next. And not in that great way of when you are 32, and everything is possible. Nope - now I'm 53 and everything is potentially just gonna get more fucked up. Unemployment is about to get worse - the Federal Jackasses are about to nullify all aid that has been given to normal folks - only businesses (as usual) and landholders will get breaks.
And, once again, I'm tired of writing this. I've just been thinking about all those hours we spent up all night listening to Ray on KGO, all the discussions of politics and potential. I wish you were around still, because I just don't have anyone in my life to talk to about this - about how it felt then, and how it feels now. Also. SpaceX and NASA sent a rocket with two guys into space yesterday -first manned flight in a decade. It is not lost on me that in 1968, there were killings of black leaders/unarmed citizens, riots in the streets and moon launches. The more things change, the more they stay the same, huh? I miss Mandela, and I miss you buddy. Hope there really is something better after all this.
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