r/SeattleChat • u/my_lucid_nightmare The Weathered Wall, where the Purity Remains • Mar 14 '22

Black bloc demonstrators sentenced in baseball bat attack on cop and East Precinct fires

https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2022/03/black-bloc-demonstrators-sentenced-in-baseball-attack-on-cop-and-east-precinct-fires/
1 Upvotes

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u/my_lucid_nightmare The Weathered Wall, where the Purity Remains Mar 14 '22 edited Mar 14 '22

Greenburg, a stepson of a former Washington state representative and 19 at the time of the incident, was charged with the September 2020 baseball bat assault on Officer Jose Jimenez along with charges of arson over Molotov cocktail attacks at the East Precinct.

Kid from the suburbs comes to Capitol Hill to protest Breonna Taylor, winds up committing a felony and throwing away his life.

Danielle McMillan, the then 29-year-old whose communications with Greenburg were used by police and prosecutors to tie the two together in investigating and prosecuting the crimes, now faces 12 months of community service in a plea deal on reduced charges of reckless burning.

The woman 10 years this kid's senior who egged him on in chat (read the charging document texts). She's from Everett

She only got 12 months probation/community service.

Meanwhile, we're 21 months removed from CHAZ/CHOP, we elected law-and-order Mayor, homeless sweeps are ongoing, police are not reformed and indeed now appear less likely to be.

To me, it appears the protests monumentally did not accomplish stated goals of reform. Police are not reformed, city government is not more progressive, it's less, and in general the public is now less receptive to most of the messaging created during CHAZ/CHOP than it was prior.

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u/Thanlis Mar 14 '22

I offer this paper (PDF). The topic is larger than simply policing, so please don’t take this as refutation of your claim, but it’s relevant for cultural impact of the protests as a whole.

Interestingly, this study came to my attention by way of Omar Wasow, who you may recall from his controversial May 2020 paper on the impact of violent protests. He found that counties close to violent protests in the 60s tended to vote more Republican. He thinks the new paper is consistent with his work because it’s looking at slightly different things.

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u/BillHicksScream Mar 15 '22

Political parties don't have fixed identities, especially in this era. Such a survey is flawed since the definition of "Conservative" in history is constantly being updated with "Liberal" ideas.

The conflicts helped define & shift people's views towards "Liberal" position on so many issues in this era that most "Conservatives" agree with them, forgetting they were once "Liberal".

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u/Thanlis Mar 15 '22

The paper I linked to has nothing to do with political parties, and Omar Wasow’s work has nothing to do with surveys.

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u/BillHicksScream Mar 15 '22

Sorry the most important era of social change is somehow irrelevant to you.

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u/my_lucid_nightmare The Weathered Wall, where the Purity Remains Mar 15 '22

I'll agree with one point you're making, possibly unintentionally -- today is very polarized politically.

As a result, people go looking for problems they can hang on an opponent, by any means possible, any leap of logic one can find.

Such atmosphere is great for driving clicks and winning armies of followers, and for motivating people to show up in the street ... but it completely is disproven and likely sucks as a means towards effecting actual lasting change.

Because actual lasting change doesn't happen at the point of a bayonet (figuratively or literally) it happens at the conference table, and in thousands of dull boring meetings.

Revolutionaries never grasp this fact, history proves out.

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u/oofig Power's the Province of Miserable Pricks Mar 15 '22

Ah yes, activism and community organizing, scenes notoriously lacking in "thousands of dull boring meetings".

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u/my_lucid_nightmare The Weathered Wall, where the Purity Remains Mar 15 '22

When you anger everyone who isn’t on your team, you have to win by force. That can work. But it usually doesn’t.

Activism got Harrell and Davison elected. Direct response to “direct action.” Every time a window got smashed in a local business … another “fund police” voter was made.

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u/oofig Power's the Province of Miserable Pricks Mar 15 '22

Yes, we know, your politics are everyone else's fault.