From a march.. to a protest.. to a riot

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lattiboy

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Well, it's May 1st, so Seattle gets to go through "Anarchists breaking shit" day. Basically 300-400 cops get a bunch of overtime for babysitting would be revolutionaries.

It starts out as a peaceful march through the city and always (ALWAYS!) ends with these folks doing some petty mayhem and being arrested. This year they ended up being lead into a Costco parking lot before arresting them.

I didn't stick around through the whole thing (they marched for hours and over many miles), but I got some shots I really liked.

All taken with the Sony RX10 mkii and the Sigma DP2 Quattro.


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Interesting, and a good reportage essay. What are the people protesting against? The police look completely OTT to British eyes, like they have come to the day fully expecting to try out their nice new, depersonalising body armour. I wonder who gets what out of a day like this.

I write, incidentally, as someone who has seen far too much abuse of power to take one side or the other. I was at the PHNAT demo a few years ago and those cops are very reminiscent of what was happening (and being lampooned) at that time.
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PHNAT1 par Lightmancer, on ipernity
 
Well done. I lived in Seattle before it was a major protest city. Seems like ever since the place exploded during some world bank or similar event several years ago, there's now a proud tradition. I'm fully in favor of the RIGHT to protest, but I hate to see people who I fundamentally agree with acting in ways that make me wish I didn't. I guess that's just the difference between being laid back in middle age and semi-crazy as a yout back in the day...

-Ray
 
Lightmancer said:
Interesting, and a good reportage essay. What are the people protesting against? The police look completely OTT to British eyes, like they have come to the day fully expecting to try out their nice new, depersonalising body armour. I wonder who gets what out of a day like this.

I write, incidentally, as someone who has seen far too much abuse of power to take one side or the other. I was at the PHNAT demo a few years ago and those cops are very reminiscent of what was happening (and being lampooned) at that time.
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It's Anarchists. They've been around Seattle since the WTO stuff way back when. Mostly just anti government stuff.

There's a real protest all day which is mostly peaceful, then these guys come out and raise a little hell.
 
Lightmancer said:
Interesting, and a good reportage essay. What are the people protesting against? The police look completely OTT to British eyes, like they have come to the day fully expecting to try out their nice new, depersonalising body armour. I wonder who gets what out of a day like this.

I write, incidentally, as someone who has seen far too much abuse of power to take one side or the other. I was at the PHNAT demo a few years ago and those cops are very reminiscent of what was happening (and being lampooned) at that time.
18908877.d1389205.1600.jpg

PHNAT1 par Lightmancer, on ipernity
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Some people are concerned about the so-called federalization of local police in big cities. Some of the concern is because federally-hired police who have the big letters on their uniforms are guarding civil rights events in many major cities, and nobody seems to know who actually controls them. Lawsuits against local police and sheriffs for abuse have been pretty successful in the major cities - Los Angeles especially in my experience, but lawsuits against federal police are rarely if ever settled in favor of the plaintiffs. A lot of this will probably come to the fore in the next administration after Jan 20 2017.
 
An excellent series of photos, especially that first shot.

Some people feel that the days of peaceful protest being able to produce tangible results, are over. Maybe the anarchists overreact? Maybe not.
 
Rick Waldroup said:
An excellent series of photos, especially that first shot.

Some people feel that the days of peaceful protest being able to produce tangible results, are over. Maybe the anarchists overreact? Maybe not.
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None of this is static. The economic trends pushes workers and executives/CEOs further and further apart. Used to be the average CEO made a hundred times more than the average worker, but now it's a thousand or more. The CEO of Yahoo, not exactly a winner for inventiveness and progress, got *only* $38 million or so last year due to poor performance. Eisner at Disney was collecting $350 million or so per year at the end of his tour. It isn't just the money, it's the roles - they rarely create anything, especially jobs, as Gordon Gekko (Douglas) stated so eloquently in Wall Street. What they do is create a social class above the president and congress, who then make deals that screw the people they're supposed to serve, which in turn raises the heat in these protests. As long as enough economy keeps hanging on to keep the 10000-per-day semis full of food rolling into Los Angeles, and whatever other cities have millions of people trapped if the trucks were to stop rolling, things will drag along as usual. But the system is very fragile, and Americans are heavily armed, as Adm. Kirk said so eloquently in ST-IV as they were leaving the ship and going into San Francisco. I see the Seattle protests not so much as a phenomenon unto itself as it is a heads-up on the possible instabilities in the system.
 
I'm going to give this thread a very short leash as a moderator.

The photos are great. And I understand it is hard to discuss the photos without discussing the underlying political and economic vagaries that bring about these photo opportunities.

And I understand that my earlier post in the thread seems to be more about the "politics" and not the photos.
 
dalethorn said:
None of this is static. The economic trends pushes workers and executives/CEOs further and further apart. Used to be the average CEO made a hundred times more than the average worker, but now it's a thousand or more. The CEO of Yahoo, not exactly a winner for inventiveness and progress, got *only* $38 million or so last year due to poor performance. Eisner at Disney was collecting $350 million or so per year at the end of his tour. It isn't just the money, it's the roles - they rarely create anything, especially jobs, as Gordon Gekko (Douglas) stated so eloquently in Wall Street. What they do is create a social class above the president and congress, who then make deals that screw the people they're supposed to serve, which in turn raises the heat in these protests. As long as enough economy keeps hanging on to keep the 10000-per-day semis full of food rolling into Los Angeles, and whatever other cities have millions of people trapped if the trucks were to stop rolling, things will drag along as usual. But the system is very fragile, and Americans are heavily armed, as Adm. Kirk said so eloquently in ST-IV as they were leaving the ship and going into San Francisco. I see the Seattle protests not so much as a phenomenon unto itself as it is a heads-up on the possible instabilities in the system.
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An excellent analysis of the situation. One of my favorite video clips during the Occupy Movement back in 2011. It illustrates beautifully the enormous gap between the haves and the have-nots.
 
why is this happening, just a mad world that seems to just be accepted - just glad I live in rural France

the human race is evolving into a bigger mess every day .. it deserves all it gets

a world full of "nutters"

Maybe it's fun to turn life into a Hollywood movie and that's what the rest of the world sees, just not real
 
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BillN said:
why is this happening, just a mad world that seems to just be accepted - just glad I live in rural France

the human race is evolving into a bigger mess every day .. it deserves all it gets

a world full of "nutters"

Maybe it's fun to turn life into a Hollywood movie and that's what the rest of the world sees, just not real
Click to expand...

The U.S. was founded, er - re-founded on a revolt against the King, by our resident Freemason founding fathers. Those founders believed in liberty, equality, etc. - you know the rest I'm sure. But what slips most people's minds is the concept of Balance of Power, Checks and Balances - all that stuff that keeps one faction from taking too big a share from other factions. We've done extremely well over 240 years now, but the economy is becoming very unbalanced, and whether the protestors are consciously aware of it or not, that's exactly what they're protesting.
 
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