Citing safety concerns
A man was taken into custody after five people were stabbed in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District Friday afternoon.
The stabbings happened near the intersection of 12th Avenue South and South Jackson Street around 2 p.m. Friday.
That intersection is a bus stop. I was at that stop a week or two ago, on an outing to I forget where, and it was off the charts horrible. It’s always horrible, and has been for years, but that day it was extra horrible, with too many ruined people performing their ruin in full public view. Have I mentioned that Seattle’s a mess? I have. It’s incredibly beautiful, and it’s a mess.
The Seattle Police Department confirmed four victims were transported to Harborview Medical Center for treatment and one other person was released at the scene. A Harborview spokesperson said the four victims were in “critical” condition as of 4:45 p.m. Friday.
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Witnesses to Friday’s attack said the suspect walked up and stabbed the victims with no provocation or interaction.
Yes see that’s what I can’t be doing with. No random knife attacks at bus stops please.
So, that was November 8. An hour ago:
King County Metro has announced the immediate closure of the bus stops at the intersection of 12th Avenue and Jackson Street, citing illegal activity and safety concerns for riders and bus drivers.
The intersection has been a trouble spot for years and is known for open drug use, stolen goods sales, and recently was the scene of a mass stabbing.
It is, at the same time, a very busy bus stop, used by a lot of people with not much money, not much power, not much in the way of alternative transportation. It’s a sort of crossroads between two ghettos. Is there an approved euphemism for ghetto? If there is I don’t know it. 12th and Jackson is at the core of what’s called Chinatown/International District; part of CID is called Little Saigon. South of there is Rainier Valley which is where all those people who weren’t white enough were directed. It’s a vital bus stop – that’s why I was there: it’s the only way to get to vast swathes of the city. It’s vital but it’s a disaster zone.
I’ve been wondering for years why the people who run Seattle can’t make it safe.
End of today’s jeremiad on life in the big city.
Two big parts of the problem in a city like Seattle dominated by “progressive” politics are:
First, all of the people who are making things bad for everyone else are “victims”; therefore they are sacred, and one may not blame them for how things are, nor criticize them or hold them accountable.
Second, the default “progressive” method of dealing with that sort of problem is to fund an NGO to be responsible for it. But any such NGO is not incentivised to solve the problem, because that would mean they are no longer needed and no longer funded. Instead, their incentive is for the problem to worsen, because that increases the importance of their NGO, and so increases the funding levels, and thus the number of people they can employ on high salaries.
And, of course, the primary job of the head of any such NGO is not to address the problem for which the NGO is responsible, their primary job is to look after the NGO and the people in their team.
The above is how one can end up with San Francisco spending $100,000 per homeless person per year on “solving” (aka “facilitating”) homelessness, and yet the number of homeless and the problems that causes only get worse.
And the number of well-meaning white progressives employed by NGOs on taxpayer-funded fat salaries, all with degrees in Judith Butler Studies and pronouns in their bios, only increases.
And, of course, they’ll then assign all the blame to “billionaires” and “capitalism”.
Have to admit you got me with “degrees in Judith Butler Studies”
Except…crime rates in red states often tend to be worse?
Exactly… if you want to point out which state is an American Singapore, I’d like to take a closer look. I’ve got a pretty good guess as to why it doesn’t exist: permissive (which is to say basically non-existent) gun laws. I’m sure there’s other ones as well, such as the state’s best and brightest often leaving for places with greater opportunities, but the guns are a thing that stand out.
Americans just don’t do white spires and togas very well; a general grubbiness is more our style.
Coel is the perfect surrogate for the American Far Far Right. He has a remarkable ability to point out the speck in everyone else’s eyes, ignoring that he has the means to help remove that speck, once he removes his own mote.
It is so, so easy to find fault with existing systems, but far harder to find solutions. Which is why the Right is populated by loud shouters, the ranters and ravers, and has so few problem solvers.
Coel thinks the problem is too much money is being expended with not change in outcome so prescribes the only thing he knows – a cut in spending, because less money means mumble mumble mumble.
Anyone looking in from the outside can see the USA needs a lot less Capitalism and a lot more Socialism. It needs tax funded Universal Healthcare. It needs to tighten control on prescribing opiates. It needs to spend less on weapons and more on education. It needs legislation to define the first 13 words of the Second Amendment, the ones the gun lobby pretend don’t exist. It needs a lot less religion and a lot more humanism (and humanity).
Coel is right that sometimes too much money is thrown around without a better return, but the answer is better targeting of expenditure and the removal of NGOs who simply clip the ticket and move on. NGOs are just one more way the Capitalist Cult captures public money for private profit. So yes, Coel, most of the problems are caused by Billionaires and Capitalism. Billionaires like the Sacklers who were permitted to profit enormously from a harmful drug and who were permitted to rearrange their business and money to avoid paying reparations for the harm they caused. Billionaires like the Waltons who have driven wages and working conditions so low that people with jobs still end up homeless. And all the other Billionaires for whom too much is never enough while stomping their hob nailed Gucci boots all over the faces of the working poor.
Workers of America, Unite! You have everything to gain and nothing to lose.
Like the Sacklers. I think of them (not in a friendly way) every time I see the Fentanyl fold, which is pretty much every day.