I walked by the section of Pine Street between 10th Ave & 11the Ave today, called the Capitol Hill ‘Autonomous Zone’ by the protesters. (How long it will remain ‘autonomous’ — occupying the city streets, unchallenged by the Seattle Police Department— is unclear).
Three intersections on Pine street are blocked off, and a little ‘protest village’ of sorts have sprung up all around it. There are tents, stalls that sell water and food, and other trinkets to protesters.
Around 4 pm, on the corner of 10th Ave & Pine St, and looking east towards 12th Ave. In the distance a person with a loudspeaker is talking to a crowd of 50 or so people.Here is an impromptu memorial with candles and flowers for victims of police brutality, set up at the corner of 11th and Pine.Graffiti on the boarded-up shop fronts further down on 11th Ave. BLM = Black Lives Matter, and Defund SPD = Defund Seattle Police Department. Critics (I’m one of them) would say ‘Defund’ is not the best word for the slogan. Most activists explain that it means among other things to ‘take SOME, BUT NOT ALL funds given to the police, and add it to the budgets for social services, healthcare, education and training’. Other things should happen that is not captured by ‘defund’. For example, the police need to be demilitarized (don’t deploy weapons of war against civilians). Already, Democratic 2020 Presidential Candidate Joe Biden has said he does not support ‘defunding’ the Police.Trump must have seen coverage of Seattle on Fox News (far-right propaganda news network). Bet he did not pick up the phone to call our Governor, just tweets an insult with the usual stupid spelling errors. The ‘President’ of the United States, stooping down to the stupid joke that he is.
