this_is_america unhinged https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYOjWnS4cMY brutal truth the right side of the divide howls DISRESPECT ask any minimum wage worker how much respect they get but i should just bow down quietly and shut my fucking mouth cause venezuela rats chaos there is no alternative shut up and take your crumbs 180521 ... unhinged i was walking to lunch and there was a group of antifascists with anti trump and peace signs marching and chanting in front of the abercrombie. there had been a small clique of bike cops in the park earlier that day, a little ominous in their seriousness. but it was basically a small band of hippies chanting about human rights. in the scheme of protests in seattle it was pretty mainstream. the cops seemed...over the top for the message. on the way back from lunch i noticed people in green 'legal observer' hats and my brain started whirring. legal observers only showed up to protests where they thought there would be a problem...these weren't black bloc anarchists. they WERE antifascists but didn't seem of the punch a nazi variety. what did these people need legal observers for? i didn't realize what was planned later for the day. when i left work there were even more cops in the park facing the hippies who were still out there chanting over an hour later. it seemed like a ridiculous response and the spd have been known to react ridiculously. as i crossed the street i noticed a huge police escort with another group of people marching a couple blocks away. i decided i needed to watch and stopped on the corner of fourth and pine to wait. there were a few people filming and obviously waiting too. a guy ran up next to me with the head of a bunny costume in his arms and an arrow shaped sign that said 'looks like i found the snowflakes and they are pretty white' and he popped the head to the costume on and started running around with his sign. some of the protestors had antiKKK signs so i assumed it was a white supremacist rally of some kind with the police escort. they were moving slowly to stay in pace with the group of marchers. i was texting a friend 'there is a white supremacist protest dwntwn lots of police and counterprotestors' she texted 'OK maybe just go home? shopping can wait' and my feet and my mind dug in; i was gonna stand on that corner and watch whatever happened. ( observer )i had never actually marched in any of the myriad protests about shit i cared about since i had moved to seattle. i had not put my feet where my mouth always was flapping away loudly, annoying half the people that know me. something serious was about to happen. there were too many cops for some hippies with peace signs. i had to see...i honestly am not sure what i had to see. then a whole battalion (no other word for it) of bike cops rolled up in formation and formed a wall of police in front of the counterprotestors. everyone in the crowd got hushed and nervous. then the marchers crossed pike and i saw the second amendment signs. gun nuts blazingly white and militarized vests stacked with guns automatic rifles machine punish walking down the street in my fucking city making my fucking city a war zone a young black girl with a stroller scanned the street looking for the fastest clearest way out they stopped to face off with the antifascists and the tension became tangible. the walls of cops on both sides of the street kept the street clear. the second amendment people outscreamed the antifascists and waved their signs 'let us protect our children' that they had with them. parading their guns and their kids down the street in my fucking city. the cops let them chant down the hippies for literally a minute and then pushed them on down the road. i saw people carrying guns that looked like weapons soldiers carry in iraq ten feet away from me. i wanted to spit but my heart was trembling. carrying weapons like that in public isn't about protection. it's about intimidation. they cleared out pretty fast; the back end of the police escort crawled after them. a commanding officer smiled out of the back of an SUV. a bike cop gave his subordinates a hand signal and they followed after the second amendment marchers in formation. on one hand, i was relieved, happy to see the police for the first time in a long time. something fundamental was left in tact when nothing violent broke out. sadly, these days people are so busy shouting at each other, shooting each other that it seemed like anything could happen (the antifa crowd here likes to antagonize cops) but we held it together. on the other hand, today, i'm totally fucking freaked out at the level of militarization of the police. even of society. no, private citizens do not need automatic rifles that look like weapons of war (even if they technically aren't the exact same fucking models that soldiers use in afghanistan). we don't need to be at war america 180521 ... unhinged let me revise that: we don't need to be at war with each_other america 180521 ... unhinged https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg0byaqVaXo 180521 ... unhinged after the tax cuts that were supposed to make america great again i paid MORE taxes and i still don't have healthcare. i work my ass off to make $35k per year and i get to pay MORE than amazon did last year even though their profits doubled. the city i live in is crawling with addicts and the homeless because no one can afford housing anymore because it is all owned by or built for foreign investors but when i say american housing should be for americans (read the ninth amendment to the constitution bitches) i am deemed a racist. and people wonder why i never want to grow my own children 190513 ... dafremen Why do you think I "lost my mind" in 2001? I'm so glad you're here do0d, but miserable for your misery. It was just lonely being the crazy person all by myself..that's all. Amen 190513 what's it to you? who go blather from