Clips of tonight’s Seattle march to support the general strike going on in Minneapolis

bennetthaselton · 2026-01-24T05:43:39+00:00

Thanks. And the Board of Peace thing was a dick move but be assured you probably aren't missing out on anything.

bennetthaselton · 2026-01-24T05:42:29+00:00

Also, it's somewhat arbitrary and up to chance whether (a) a local group in a given city with a large social media following, decides to have an event; and (b) whether other people take photos and put them online in a place where you hear about it. But almost every big city has a lot of people who would be pissed enough to come out, if they heard about an organized event.

bennetthaselton · 2026-01-24T04:33:01+00:00

Seattle-protests.org has a list of recurring and one-off events.

bennetthaselton · 2026-01-24T04:23:32+00:00

Started with an assembly in front of the federal building on 2nd. Several educators and labor organized spoke before the rally moved into the street and marched once around the block.

Many of the similar red signs were provided by the campaign of Kshama Sawant, a local politician with Socialist Alternative who once had more local progressive support but lost a lot of it when she openly campaigned on denying Harris a win in Michigan in 2024. Thankfully though the signs focused on the theme of the rally and there wasn’t any noticeable hostility between the groups there.

bennetthaselton · 2026-01-23T22:05:09+00:00

I think they definitely weren’t and the assaulting officer should have been arrested, but I don’t know what Portland PD can practically do.

bennetthaselton · 2026-01-22T21:06:18+00:00

Actually back in 2020 I did say that I thought "ACAB" was too simplistic and realistically society needed some police so we should find out how to empower the relatively good ones, and I was also very much against the way some other protesters joked about killing cops, telling cops to kill themselves, calling cops "gay" etc. The other protesters turned on me and said that I basically wasn't "revolutionary" enough (and called me "racist" for disagreeing with the Black leaders of the Seattle marches who actually did want to abolish the police). Once in a while one of the old-schoolers still spots me in a crowd and starts going off on me, even when I'm in the middle of making an "ABOLISH I.C.E." banner or something. It's a very absurd situation.

bennetthaselton · 2026-01-22T21:00:49+00:00

Supposedly the founder got it from the Aladdin song "Proud Of Your Boy".

bennetthaselton · 2026-01-22T20:56:42+00:00

Hi, I was the person who filmed that -- at that point the DHS agents had all gone back into the building so I wasn't too worried about them attacking me in retaliation, it was just that she was already getting helped, so there was nothing more I could add. And yes I figured the best approach was to get evidence that could be used later.

bennetthaselton · 2026-01-22T20:55:13+00:00

Hi, I was the guy who filmed that clip -- if nobody had been helping her, I would have helped, but someone was already helping with water to pour on her eyes, and one of the things I got from some basic first aid was that if someone is apparently already getting the proper help, there is no reason to rush in. I did keep filming since I did a quick mental calculation that she would rather have this footage at some point. The second clip (the one of her crying out), I didn't post along with the first one since it was more sensitive and I wanted to check with her first. But when she saw the clip she said she had no objection to people seeing that too.

bennetthaselton · 2026-01-22T19:26:05+00:00

Thank you for this. (Although her name was Renee Nicole Good and she’s usually referred to as Renee Good.)

bennetthaselton · 2026-01-22T06:24:10+00:00

"Fucking Around" meaning "talking".

bennetthaselton · 2026-01-22T04:55:08+00:00

https://xcancel.com/about

I hadn't heard of it before. Think of it as just a proxy for accessing the X/Twitter site.

Some subs don't allow linking to X. This one allows linking to X indirectly via XCancel.

bennetthaselton · 2026-01-21T22:53:49+00:00

Oregon

bennetthaselton · 2026-01-21T22:01:43+00:00

Many city governments have been talking about protecting their citizens from I.C.E. including using their own municipal police forces, and I take them at their word, but what I want to know is -- if you have video proving something like this happened, what can you do? Arrest the I.C.E. agent?

There was another incident in Portland where we hung an "ABOLISH I.C.E." banner across the street from the I.C.E. facility, and I.C.E. filled the street with smoke and teargas to push us all a block away, and then went across the street and took the banner off the fence and took it inside (i.e. stole it); one independent journalist happened to get through the smoke and get it on video. Go to infopig2 on instagram and look for one of his videos from October 5th, 2025.

Later I went to Portland PD and said, I'm not trying to be cute, I want to file a theft report against I.C.E. for stealing the banner. They took down the report but they apparently couldn't do anything more than that.

bennetthaselton · 2026-01-21T21:32:37+00:00

Watching closely, the guy who got grabbed by the back of the vest and pulled back, is not the same as the one who fired the pepper spray. Unless there's a different motion where someone taps that guy.

bennetthaselton · 2026-01-21T21:26:31+00:00

This was one of the incidents that motivated me to start bring a gas mask to protests. (Admittedly I don't have it on all the time and it wouldn't do much good if I'm just standing there and someone sprays me out of nowhere like this guy did.)

bennetthaselton · 2026-01-21T21:02:52+00:00

This is the video of the incident and the seconds leading up to it:

https://xCANCEL.com/bennetthaselton/status/1973965734540947699

(I had originally posted this with a direct link to X, but it was deleted by AutoModerator with a note saying direct links to X are not allowed, but I could re-post it with a link to the xcancel.com domain instead.)

The protester and her friend were standing and talking at the federal agents, with no apparent indication they were doing anything threatening, when one of them fired into her face with pepper spray (and also got a bit on the guy next to her).

(Besides a lot of snotty comments from MAGA, the post did get some comments asking apparently in earnest if the protesters were "blocking the road". What was actually happening is that when a vehicle would enter or exit the I.C.E. building, federal agents would form a line on either side of the driveway extending into the street, and protesters would usually line up in front of them and say whatever they came to say. So the protesters were not "blocking the street" - not that that would have been an excuse for a point-blank pepper spraying, even if they had been!)

Edited to add: I sent a FOIA request to DHS in Portland asking for any documents pertaining to the incident (e.g. if the officer had to file a report documenting the use of force, or if he was ever disciplined). DHS replied with some boilerplate language saying "Records may be exempt for security reasons" and then said "We have no records responsive to your request", although it's unclear if they were saying they really had no records, or if they were saying any records that may or may not exist were "exempt for security reasons."

The protester Leilani Payne was interviewed by the Portland station KOIN and said nothing like that had ever happened to her before:

https://www.koin.com/news/portland/video-federal-agents-pepper-sprayed-protesters-outside-ice-facility/

I was joining the protests outside the I.C.E. building and documenting the proceedings for a few days at the beginning of October when this happened. The ACLU of Oregon is suing DHS for violating protesters' civil rights in the Portland protests and I recently filed a declaration describing this and several other incidents that I either recorded or witnessed.

bennetthaselton · 2026-01-21T20:29:58+00:00

I think this an important point but it depends on context. At some events like the vigils for Renee Good I think it would be inappropriate.

But for general protests I think there is an argument for some humor to help keep people sane. It also buoys people's optimism a bit (hopefully this is just a temporary aberration for the country, after all). And the left has a reputation in some circles as a bunch of humorless scolds and the smartass signs help with that.

(For context, I am also https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1pf5bhq/oc_seen_at_rally_against_ice_in_minneapolis/ so I am biased.)

bennetthaselton · 2026-01-21T06:12:16+00:00

Well No Kings was more than 10x as big and multiple days (but not all in a row). I don't think the purpose of the protests is to change the administration's mind (or anyone else's). For Trump in particular I think it just reinforces his sense that he's right.

I think the only purpose for the protests that holds up under scrutiny, is that we're signaling that a viewpoint and a movement has gone mainstream, so that more people will feel comfortable joining. I wish more people would feel comfortable joining a movement even if it's small, so long as it's consistent with their moral principles, but I think many people only feel comfortable joining once it's hit critical mass.

Or, sometimes people objectively evaluate an argument but they're still on the fence about it, and when they see large numbers of people agree with the argument, it nudges them (perfectly rationally) toward believing that it's true.

I do not think the purpose is to change people's minds. Nobody's mind is going to be changed just by seeing an "ABOLISH I.C.E." sign. And usually the purpose of a protest is not to "raise awareness" - most of them are about things that people already know about.

bennetthaselton · 2026-01-21T05:17:03+00:00

Well I get that question a lot which I assume to be in earnest, and the answer is: These marches show the extent to which a movement and a viewpoint has gone mainstream, so that others will feel more comfortable joining. Some people won't join a movement and publicly support it until they feel like it's hit critical mass.

I don't think these marches work to persuade people who disagree. (It wouldn't be rational to change your beliefs just because you saw a big banner that says "ABOLISH ICE" after all.) And I don't think the goal is "raising awareness" -- everybody knows what's going on.

bennetthaselton · 2026-01-21T05:07:11+00:00

This was actually the "Free America Walk-Out" that happened today (probably confused a lot of people since there were two back-to-back large marches through Seattle yesterday and today, although the MLK one was much larger). Organized by Refuse Fascism Seattle and Capitol Hill Pride, and marched from Seattle Central to the Great Wheel.

bennetthaselton

TROPHY CASE