The real reason behind the absurd Seattle protests

Perhaps the anti-capitalism Seattle protesters should hire a publicity firm to help their strategy and messaging because as of right now, not only do they hurt their cause, they hurt the people they also claim they want to help.

Since Black Friday, these protesters have been pretending to take to the streets over the death of Michael Brown. The truth is, however, many of them are simply anti-capitalism protesters just looking for a reason to destroy the community they say they care about.

They actively try to damage businesses – which includes throwing rocks at a car dealership, closing Westlake several hours early, surrounding cars trying to get into malls, and preventing customers from shopping at Pacific Place on the busiest shopping day of the year. All in the name of… Michael Brown? Not so much. All their actions indicate these folks are anti-capitalism. Check out this senseless comment at the Facebook event page for one of the protests:

That comment doesn’t actually mean anything. It’s just a series of keywords from some ‘social justice’ pamphlet he downloaded off the Internet formed into a barely comprehensible sentence. (Perhaps now is also a time to acknowledge the irony in hating capitalism but utilizing a company valued at around $200,000,000,000.)

Now, if you go to any of these protests, you’ll see a number of repeat protesters who show up to occupy their evenings. They don’t actually have a grasp of the issues, they just want some cause to get behind. It’s why the same folks who showed up at the $15 an hour rallies don’t understand that when they show up to these Ferguson protests, they do a disservice to those employees who now don’t have customers to serve because the shopping has been disrupted (either by shouting and intimidation, rock throwing, or chaining doors to keep a mall shut).

The real reason behind the latest slate of protesters to come out of the woodwork (aside from their obvious anti-cop sentiment) is that they don’t like capitalism. They’re going after businesses during a busy shopping season on purpose. They’ll say it’s to bring attention to Michael Brown, but we know that’s a farce – do you know anyone who hasn’t heard about what happened in Ferguson? Do they think this actually helps their cause? Do you think someone, having been prevented from buying their kid a toy for Christmas, suddenly says, “Hey, these protesters have a great point!” Of course not. These protesters don’t truly care about winning the hearts and minds of people; they care about disrupting an economic system they don’t like (nor understand).

The next question is why the Seattle Police Department isn’t actually doing what they can to prevent this unrest and, you know, actually arrest the law breakers. But that’s for another blog.