Mechanical Freak

Greg, Brian, and Colin discuss patriotism, a great barbecue boycott debate at Jack’s featuring Spek, the Hoffather, and Jason Rantz, great developments in race science and the prospect of stolen elections from Safe Seattle, and a new piece in the Picayune, “Seattle and Its Discontents.”

Concern about property values, pearl clutching about crime, and vicious hatred of the poor did not arrive in Seattle with right wing grifters like Christopher Rufo and Eric Johnson. Follow Seattle Sucks co-host Brian Platt on a journey through time as he explores moral panics over urban poverty and “crime.” In Seattle, the defenders of order have burned homeless encampments, have bulldozed them, and yet the problem of homelessness and urban poverty has never gone away. Will Seattle’s pearl clutching owning class be able to resolve this contradiction through mass internment on a prison island today?