What positive changes did this “activist” bring about? It’s sad that people who are passionate about bringing about much-needed change resort to acts of violence. It is not fruitful and sets the work of real activists back.

Activist, or someone who wants an excuse to smash things?

These people are so annoying. Quit destroying things in our neighborhood.

The PI says that these people were “protesting” basically the acceptance of the LGBT lifestyle in mainstream ads. Otherwise known as another step toward complete acceptance of the LGBT lifestyle on a national level.

Just please leave our neighborhood alone. Go smash things near your house. We like being able to access local businesses.

Oh, so perfect! Then, you can give us an idea of the general area of the Hill that you live on and we can throw traffic cones everywhere and smash windows and yell and graffiti stupid little scribbles everywhere and then call it a protest.

What will be be protesting? Let’s say SPAM. Down with canned meat!

Seriously. You want to smash “the system” then go trash McMansions in the burbs and Corporate headquarters of companies buying American out from under the average citizen… but why fuck up your own neighborhood and make enemies of people who were probably on your side?

Silly little brats. Nothing will change if that is what “anarchy” is now. You’ll all end up hated by the community and in jail for petty crap. Get a message and do something positive for the community instead of just making the world an even worse place.

Life on the Sammamish Plateau is just so hard, ya know?

You aren’t tired of the senseless destruction. If you were, you wouldn’t be encouraging people to snitch.

Chase bank and the Seattle Police are the ones destroying our community, not people like Ariel. The banks have stolen billions of our tax dollars. The banks are kicking thousands of families into the streets. The police are shooting homeless people in the back and beating people of color. They are calling us faggots to our face.

We should be supporting brave people like Ariel, not condemning them.

How does smashing windows solve any of those problems?

“Fighters like Ariel”!!! So hilarious I had to respond. Why don’t stupid brats like you and “Ariel” go to Medina or the White House or wherever “the Man” actually lives and destroy his shit, instead of fucking up Cap Hill where most residents lean left and probably support the general sentiment behind your “rage” (although not the means that you express it). Fucking cowards. Why don’t you take a stand and go beat up Donald Trump or Newt Gingrich or the CEO of Chase, instead of making life difficult for middle-class Hill residents and workaday cops (some of whom may be racist or evil, but the majority of whom are just regular people trying to do their job). If you’re gonna “fight” then fight the right people, assholes.

Ha, they cant go to Bellevue/Medina as they’d get a real good ass whuppin. Would love to see what happened when “private” security got their hands on these little shits. Go ahead, take it to the man! Hunts Point even has a bus stop to help get you there right off 520!

This conversation seems to be missing one key piece of analysis – class! Of course queers are going to be pretty diverse in terms of their class composition, and so it’s no surprise to hear yuppie pieces of shit bemoaning a few broken windows and taking the side of the cops. Fuck em. Guess what fuckers – we’re not on the same side and never will be. No compromise with bourgeois apologists – the class war is coming to your front door! Go complain to your city councilman, because otherwise your whining is falling on deaf ears.

What is this – Wrestling? Roller Derby? The Sex Pistols? What’s up with the name?

If corporations like American Apparel or US Bank are robbing people, won’t they just rob everyone a little bit more to pay for their losses when someone smashes their windows or steals the cash out of an ATM? Who are you really hurting?

If you get rid of the government and legal system that allows these entities to rob the people, how will you prevent some people from just going around robbing everyone else?

If you’re going to use violence to emancipate our society from the evils of corporations, how are going to get that genie back in the bottle once it’s all over?

If you want to see what it’s like to live in a country without a functioning government, take a vacation in Somalia.

Ha, that’s a laugh – cops, working class? You do realize that most cops earn between $60-70K a year right? The old argument that cops are part of the working class no longer even applies, as if it somehow justified their role as class traitors to begin with. Look at yourself, getting all worked up to defend what? The sanctity of business? Respect for the law? Talk about foolish. People resist in the ways they see fit. The folks who took part in this should be applauded for the courage to resist in a world that tries to crush resistance and force assimilation at every turn. Haters can go fuck themselves, imho.

…that what we’re witnessing from the “anarchists” is not political action but rather performance art. They have their costumes, their monologues, and their stage names.

They’re not as cool or creative as Laurie Anderson standing on a block of ice, playing her violin while wearing her ice skates, but hey, this is Seattle, not New York. What do you expect?

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/06/27/today-i

@oiseau:

FWIW, based on what I read today I think there are good reasons to take Spam down:

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/06/hormel-spam-pig-brai

….and replace it with what?

Have fun doing away with 310 million people.

Isn’t the median income in King County something like $70-80K a year? This would mean that those cops are working for wages below the median.

I’d also like to see a teenage ‘anarchist’ talk to a Beat about bourgeois, or you know, a French person for that matter. At least the student revolts in the mid-20th century in France were for a reason. Did you know that there were student revolts in France, or is the extent of your radical knowledge only confined to the borders of the United States?

“Chase bank and the Seattle Police are the ones destroying our community, not people like Ariel.”

Nah, I’m pretty sure you both are.

Beneath the paving stones, the beach. This march was détournement in action, redefining people’s relationship to commodification. It also didn’t lend itself to recuperation, as media and liberals can’t frame it as anything but what it was – an uncompromising attack on capital and the police. Guy Debord would be spinning in his grave if he knew you were invoking May ’68 to condemn this action.

So yeah, stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

Where did they ever say they want positive change? You can’t just smash shit and claim to be an activist. If that was all it took then the soccer houligans of the ’80s would = MLK.

while i’m not going to comment on anarchists tactics right now i will say that your dismissal of ariel’s chosen name is an attack on ALL transgender people. we trans people choose our names because we do not identify with the genders we have been forcefully and coercively assigned at birth. what you are doing is invalidating all transgender people’s self-identity. this is an attack on all LGBT people. fuck you.

ooooh… “domestic terrorists”… great. it’s the new red scare. use the label of “terrorism” to repress the people. the real terrorists are the US government which has massacred over 1 million iraqis. now THAT’s fucking terrorism.

gimmie a fuckin break.

People who smash windows to make a point can’t be taken seriously. Here’s a tip: If you don’t like Chase (and who does??) or US Bank, Safeway, BP, or the giant corporatocracy that is stealing your soul then don’t do business with them. Pay in cash, buy food at a farmers market, walk or bike, and then convince other people to do the same.

People remember Rosa Parks, they wont remember Ariel Attack.

and furthermore…. if you’re such an “anarchist”, why are you telling somebody to follow a manual? Seems like anarchy would be everyone reporting everything however the fuck they want, right? You stupid douchebag, you can’t even get your own schtick consistent.

a ‘mob’ of 100 people doing this much damage and one arrest? one??? something rings untrue; picture the scene, and then picture only one person being booked. just saying…..doesn’t add up.

Yeah, we’ll see how tough you are when it comes time to take on a crowd of 200 angry anarchists. For your own safety, I hope you’re just an internet blowhard. Although, it is revealing that the folks threatening physical violence are also the ones rushing to defend banks and cops. No surprise there – the world you hold so dear relies on daily violence to perpetuate it.

The banks and the government have brain washed us dude. We all work for Jamie Dimon and we all take your money, cook it, and eat it. It’s a good life.

In all seriousness though, why do these kids automatically assume that people who are pissed off about senseless violence/destruction are all millionaires? I HAD to dumpster for 5 months because I couldn’t afford to eat. Guess what? That motivated me to fix that problem, and I didn’t even have to smash anything.

Also, this is the most densely populated neighborhood in the city of Seattle. 30,000+ people is a lot more than 200.

Who are you really angry at? I am sure that mom and dad didn’t pay enough attention to you, but that gives no excuse to take it out on a completely arbitrary set of people. You are as guilty of feeding the machine as anyone else, mon amis. Get some therapy, turn 21, and quit throwing tantrums when you do not get your way. THAT (tantrum throwing) is more American than anything any one of us in the neighborhood has said or done to you.

this is for tranarchy, which btw is so overplayed – figure out a new name.

My bet is that Maurice is his “chosen” name as the person looks to be on the ftm genderqueer spectrum and “Ariel Attack” is a bullshit anarchist moniker. I get it. It’s supposed to be like aerial attack, like warfare. so clever. or not at all. get over yourselves – you are not affecting change. breaking a few windows in a couple of neighborhoods is not going to make a damn difference you idiots.

see above, “tranarchy”. do not speak for me. “ariel” is clearly their chosen anarchist name. you cannot tell me that person was born male and maurice is their birth name. give it a rest. the trans community sees through this bullshit. yes, this is a diverse community and, unfortunately, we are both a part of it, but again, DO NOT dare say it is transphobic to not use that stupid name you jackass.

Yes, they’re doing something, in the sense that masturbating is doing something.

Wait a minute, shouldn’t we be more angry at the banks for stealing from us, and from the corporations for perpetuating an economy of false value driven by poverty, and at the police for holding it all together, than at a few kids who seem to bee the only ones around here acting out their discontent? I say put down the rocks and pick up a rifle, maybe then they’ll stop dismissing you as a silly teenage riot.

Transphobic? That’s a new one for me to use. Lighten up.
Love Always, Tranny.

I can be mad at the banks for the shit they’ve done, without supporting the childish destruction these unfocused babies have perpetrated. “Jus doing something, anything” is NOT better than doing nothing. In this case, it’s worse. It’s nothing more than petty self-indulgence by frustrated people who can’t find any other way to channel their unfocused, disjointed anger.

Only in Capital Hill would anyone refer to this punk as an ‘activist’.

Only in Capital hill would words like brave, courageous, and principled be used to describe the destruction of private property as a means of making a political statment.

Seriously? Do you think the business owners of Capital Hill are a bunch of corporate fat cats out to screw the working class?

I guess the problem with living in an area that is largely progressive and ‘tollerent’ is that you get too many people that cross the line from progressive to destructive and enough of these people get together in groups you have riots pretty much every third thursday of the month.

Some of us just want to work and live and love and could care less if our neighbors are straight or gay but God sakes be respectful of others and limit your right of free speech to the senseless dribble that comes out of your mouth and leave my property alone.

yeah, actually Ariel is their name. They are a great person who I have enjoyed knowing for quite a time.
Direct action of any type is tricky, because people will sum you up by however the media spins what you did. In this case, most of what has been said about Ariel is unjust and juvenile. Ariel is a great person. They are an important part of the community who frankly does not see value in middle class values, is not afraid of the police state, is quite comfortable with their identity including their chosen name, sees clearly the devastation of the capitalist system and is willing to take actions and to be judged by hate filled individuals who have now had a moment of discomfort and who seem quite new to discourse.
If people disagree with strategy, fine. At the least, Ariel has created space for dialog. I commend those who are attempting to use it well and shake my head with disgust at those who are showing just how hateful part of this community is.
Anarchism is quite misunderstood in general. What has been written by many makes that quite clear. I believe that many would be surprised by the politics of their neighbors. I, too, identify greatly with Anarchism. Many people who have afforded the rights that we do have in this country were also. Not all people who identify with Anarchism, which envelopes a broad scope of strategy and thoughtful analysis, choose the same way of acting and being. The idea that there is a place for many ways of being is fundamental to Anarchism. To understand those who identify this way, it is necessary to not put a box around them and think you have it figured out.
Direct action, including that which is destructive, does make positive change. It is a necessary part of all the work that many take daily to change the very nature of how our community functions. I hope, for those of us who seek to deconstruct the system as is while developing a more functioning one, that we will respect the actions of others who take on a different role and understand the importance of their contribution.
While I cannot speak for Ariel, I will say I understand anger and frustration with the general state of our communities. I hope that you, Ariel, reads this thread. In solidarity friend. Be well.

Pick up a rifle and you’ll get shot. Which, from my perspective, is a completely justifiable outcome to your completely non-justifiable reaction?

Do you really expect a warm welcome when you come in to a neighborhood where people and their families, friends and loved ones live and work and smash shit up?

The only awareness you’re elevating is the public’s need for protection from you people. You’re PROMOTING POLICE PRESENCE. How can we get this to sink in with you? The public may share your same feelings of injustice, but they’re 100% every time going to side with the people that don’t make them feel unsafe, and don’t cause chaos outside their front doors.

“But the police should make you feel unsafe” you’ll parrot back – for the vast, VAST majority of people, it’s a rare occasion that we even have to deal with the police. We certainly feel safe knowing they’re keeping people like you from smashing our windows (at least more than you already have).

You REALLY need to rethink your strategy. You’re behaving like children. I don’t mean than in a snarky way. You’re not addressing the problem, you’re just throwing tantrums. You. are. acting. like. children.

It’s funny too, because this is about as welcoming a neighborhood as you could get for the ideas you’re supposedly promoting. Go check the comments on the story about big box stores, for example. I bet you can’t find more than one or two positive comments about SPD either – though they’re experts at generating bad press (seen this yet? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43567848/ns/local_news-seattle_w).

There seem to be a lot of false associations being presented here. For one, that this damage is being done to “us” “our neighborhood” blah blah blah. No one is going and smashing up personal property – this was corporate property and was targeted for reasons clearly articulated by those responsible – the fliers are available online if you care to look for them. The only way this can be interpreted as an attack on “us” is if you identify with those being targeted. I’d venture a guess that most working class people could give a fuck about some windows getting broken, it probably even brings them a small amount of joy inside. Speaking as a working class adult over 30, I only wish I could have been there to join in. This action may not have brought down capitalism and the State, but it did help to shatter the illusion of social peace. Your peace is bought through violence, intimidation, and coercion. It’s bought at the end of the gun, from threats of harm. It’s bought through prison bars. But at the end of the day, like everywhere else, people will resist. This action was also beneficial in that it’s helping to draw lines, to bring out the true colors of the polite middle. If you side with the banks and the cops, then we really have nothing more to discuss. You’re on one side, and I’m on the other – we’ll see how things shake out. I always have taken the side of the underdog.

Who are you speaking for? Who finds the cops and the banks sympathetic in this case? The media? Of course. Hand wringing liberals and yuppies? Not surprising. Guess what? None of those are the people who are trying to be reached with these actions. You speak for yourself, just as I speak for myself. Don’t pretend to speak for some mythical majority. Resistance takes many forms – if you think you’re capable of something more effective, then by all means do it. But this action definitely had a symbolic impact, and it’s one that was communicated clearly and widely. So in that respect it was a success. If you don’t like the message, it probably has more to do with a defence of your own privilege rather than a real critique of the action. If the argument is that breaking windows is wrong, well, that’s a laugh. I wonder where people like you were in Egypt – probably online complaining about people being destructive. Fuck off.

jerking off is sex with someone i love.
THE INSURRECTION IS CUUUUUUUUUU-U-U-U-U-MMING……
!!!!!
8====>>>@@@@@@@

comment from the other thread on this incident:
http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2011/06/26/police-bust-up-

“Your peace is bought through violence, intimidation, and coercion.”

Your publicity is bought through violence, intimidation, and coercion! By “anarchists.”

The big problem for you kids is that to change the world, you need to understand it. You clearly do not have a clue.

The best example of your cluelessness is that you think Anarchism is progressive when it’s the ultimate in reaction. One of the principal philosophical foundations of the ongoing, devastating capitalist pillaging of the world and its peoples is the book “Anarchy, State, and Utopia,” by Robert Nozick, then a philosophy professor at Harvard when he wrote it in 1974. Do us all a favor and put some facts in that breathtakingly empty head of yours, anon anok. Read this:

http://www.slate.com/id/2297019/pagenum/all/

You other anarchists might want to give it little look see too.

yo that shit is lame anarchists don’t even read that

Well, “Emma,” actually the cop cars are “ours” because they are paid for by taxpayer dollars..and I am only too glad to contribute, to counteract immature, angry, nihilist people like yourself.

And another thing…I don’t think that banks are all-evil. They provide a very needed service in our society, and some are even socially conscious. To paint them all with the brush of evil is just not accurate. And to blame the banks entirely for the housing crisis is also not fair…the issue is much more complicated.

Peaceful protest to prove a point, yes. Going around and smashing shit, leaving the streets of the community you claim to care about dirty and broken, not so much. Someone’s just in it for the attention :/
…which is lame.

I hope she gets some Seattle Justice, and is required to do at least 500 hours of community service, and pay for the damages SHE insighted.

Ariel Attack……what a dumb fucking dyke. I bet her Mom and Dad are really proud of her.

so the vast majority of you really think that its a big deal that a couple criminal enterprises, ie corporate banks and a Ferrari shop got smashed? and thats “trashing” your neighborhood? fucking pathetic.

Its fucking pathetic that the unemployment rate is as high as it is yet Ferrari can still sell 100,000 dollar cars. It fucking pathetic that Chase bank, which has done so much indirectly and in pursuit of profit to ruin the lives of Americans everywhere, pays little to no consequences. Their shit deserves to get smashed.

Also, I would hardly consider this “trashing” a neighborhood.. obviously small businesses never get targeted by these folks. and obviously no one is setting fire to things.. If anything, the fact that these fucked up and essentially evil corporations can exist in your “neighborhood” should be questioned far more than a few broken windows.

-a 9 year capital hill resident and single parent who supports window smashing of shitty corporations that should be run out anyways.

Okay, let’s throw this down. Chase directly DIRECTLY changed my life negatively (low-level low-pay not-involved-in-banking-operations-in-any-way at WaMu), but guess what! I didn’t feel the need to break retail branch windows. I am part of a cooperative. Yes, a credit union. It’s owned by it’s members. That is how you bring down banks.

These are the faces of corporations that make lots of money, but you have to realize that the people that work at these places aren’t Chase or Ferari or American Apparel. They aren’t the man. They are our neighbors. These are people that might have to miss work because of you.

I pity you, because your view of the world is so dim. Pay attention to world events. You will realize that this faux-revolution doesn’t even come close to holding a candle to actual revolutions taking place all over the world.

When people vandalize businesses in our community, small or large, it affects the community. It affects our neighbors. It affects our hyper-local economy. The problem is that these kids think in strokes so broad that they overlook the individuals that are affected by this sort of senseless destruction.

I hope these people grow their own food in the woods on their own island in the middle of a lake and make clothes from cotton that they have grown and barter and read books with hand-made ink printed by themselves on paper that has been made by themselves. Otherwise, they cannot try to preach to us about supporting something so evil.

That paper that the fliers were printed on comes from a corporation. That ink comes from a corporation. That printer that is used to print these things comes from a corporation.

Get over yourselves.

Wow. So there’s too much idiocy to respond to here, so I’ll finish with a couple of points for anyone observing this conversation and then leave the rest of you to get back to the important work of sticking up for Ferrari dealerships and the murderous thugs with guns and badges who protect them.

First of all – I just had to respond to the idiot who said that Robert Nozick was somehow representative of anarchist theory. He was a Libertarian – you know why libertarians aren’t called anarchists? Because they’re not anarchists!!! While there’s a lot of diversity in the anarchist movement, nearly all anarchists are anti-capitalist. If you knew the first thing about anarchism, you’d know this. Instead you just look like a complete moron. Or you’re purposefully trying to misrepresent anarchism, which is probably equally likely.

Second – while this is a discussion that has long been put to bed within anarchist circles, I’ll engage the legitimacy of property damage as a tool of resistance for those of you who perhaps have never really considered the issue. The point being made about Egypt is that it was clearly both destructive and righteous. No one can argue that property damage is universally wrong, regardless of context. To use an easy example, what of the nuns who took hammers to nuclear warheads? What of slaves who burned down their plantations? What of the suffragettes who broke windows during cover of night? What of the civil rights riots? It has been argued that militancy did more for those movements than electoral politics or polite pleading ever could. It was only when the State feared a loss of legitimacy did it offer concessions. As Frederick Douglass said, power concedes nothing without a demand. It’s also been argued that there’s only one language that capitalists understand and that’s money. The only way to change their behavior is to negatively impact their bottom line. Again, this is hard to argue with. Of course anarchists don’t act because they’re looking for concessions, I’m merely making the point that concessions are rarely achieved without militant resistance.

So in closing, this march followed in a long tradition of resistance, and these reactionary diatribes do as well. There will always be people, whether because they’re too stupid, or too complicit, who will always side against resistance. The people who lash out at anyone who dare step out of line because it reveals their own weakness. These people are to be pitied, not feared, because they’re impotent. We find ourselves in the streets – see you there!

@Jim98122x– good for you, youre a big ol fag. i’m glad you’ve been doing what you do. sure, i’m not part of the “LGBT community” because the “LGBT community” is a fucking lie. it is run by cisgender gay people who tokenize trans people and don’t give a shit about the shit that actually affects us. disagree with Ariel’s tactics, sure. but if you disrepect her gender identity, refer to her by a name she doesn’t identify as, use the wrong pronoun, then that is an attack on all trans people.

even if you disagree with someone, or don’t like them, or hate them, if you disrepect their pronoun preference or chosen name, then that is saying that it is fair game to attack the trans identity of trans people you don’t like. that is an attack on all trans people.