For the first time, I find myself deeply disappointed by one of these posts. The author in his effort to identify the (real) issue of disorganized violence on the left - as opposed to mass organized and condoned violence on the right - both overstates his thesis, and muddily misrepresents it. He seems to be conflating "random assholes" w…
For the first time, I find myself deeply disappointed by one of these posts. The author in his effort to identify the (real) issue of disorganized violence on the left - as opposed to mass organized and condoned violence on the right - both overstates his thesis, and muddily misrepresents it. He seems to be conflating "random assholes" with the thing we call antifa; then acknowledges that antifa isn't actually an organization or entity, but is "more than an idea"...
If we want to have an honest discussion about leftwing tendencies to violence, let's at least put it in perspective. We can go back to 1999 for an inflection point, and consider "The Battle of Seattle" and the WTO riots, for instance. Has the level of violent action (or the percent of fringe who support it) increased? Decreased? Stayed level?
You can't talk about the current situation on the left without at least some longer view of how we got here. I hope this community and this author are ready for more rigorous thinking on this topic, and a more honest investigation of what is a concerning, but relatively minor and reactionary cultural challenge.
I can only speak from the perspective of a lone Seattle resident, but I participated peacefully in both the WTO protests and in the early protests after George Floyd's death. The respective atmospheres of the two could hardly have been more different.
At the outset, WTO was rather calm; at times and in places it was borderline festive. In contrast, from the beginning the Floyd protests were characterized by a high level of righteous anger and some people were clearly spoiling for a fight. WTO didn't start out as a violent protest, but became one, whereas clashes with police were a feature of the Floyd protests from the beginning (as the police were the target, this was hardly surprising).
In addition, the reaction of city authorities and locals' view of that reaction varied dramatically. While there was a residual undercurrent of support for the WTO protests amongst the citizenry, much of that evaporated once store windows started getting smashed. In contrast, the city government didn't just give verbal support to the Floyd protests, they aided and abetted the establishment and maintenance of the "autonomous zone" on Capitol Hill, including the abandonment of the local police precinct.
So since the reasons for the protests were so different and since the political culture in Seattle has changed so dramatically, I'm not at all sure that comparing the level of violence in Seattle during WTO with that of this year is useful in determining whether leftist violence is more or less of a threat now than it was two decades ago.
For the first time, I find myself deeply disappointed by one of these posts. The author in his effort to identify the (real) issue of disorganized violence on the left - as opposed to mass organized and condoned violence on the right - both overstates his thesis, and muddily misrepresents it. He seems to be conflating "random assholes" with the thing we call antifa; then acknowledges that antifa isn't actually an organization or entity, but is "more than an idea"...
If we want to have an honest discussion about leftwing tendencies to violence, let's at least put it in perspective. We can go back to 1999 for an inflection point, and consider "The Battle of Seattle" and the WTO riots, for instance. Has the level of violent action (or the percent of fringe who support it) increased? Decreased? Stayed level?
You can't talk about the current situation on the left without at least some longer view of how we got here. I hope this community and this author are ready for more rigorous thinking on this topic, and a more honest investigation of what is a concerning, but relatively minor and reactionary cultural challenge.
I can only speak from the perspective of a lone Seattle resident, but I participated peacefully in both the WTO protests and in the early protests after George Floyd's death. The respective atmospheres of the two could hardly have been more different.
At the outset, WTO was rather calm; at times and in places it was borderline festive. In contrast, from the beginning the Floyd protests were characterized by a high level of righteous anger and some people were clearly spoiling for a fight. WTO didn't start out as a violent protest, but became one, whereas clashes with police were a feature of the Floyd protests from the beginning (as the police were the target, this was hardly surprising).
In addition, the reaction of city authorities and locals' view of that reaction varied dramatically. While there was a residual undercurrent of support for the WTO protests amongst the citizenry, much of that evaporated once store windows started getting smashed. In contrast, the city government didn't just give verbal support to the Floyd protests, they aided and abetted the establishment and maintenance of the "autonomous zone" on Capitol Hill, including the abandonment of the local police precinct.
So since the reasons for the protests were so different and since the political culture in Seattle has changed so dramatically, I'm not at all sure that comparing the level of violence in Seattle during WTO with that of this year is useful in determining whether leftist violence is more or less of a threat now than it was two decades ago.