freeway to the future

blog of writer/reporter/musician Peter Johnson formal work at http://www.peterjohnson.biz

[freewaytothefuture]

Chris Hansen’s new Sonics SoDo arena proposal is free to the public

As it should be. His SoDo arena would be entirely privately financed. As all Big 4/major league sports arenas should be. The public should not pay for stadiums. Not here, not anywhere. Period.

Seattle should pat itself on the back. We did it.

That’s despite the efforts of a certain segment of Sonics fans argued that any critique of Hansen’s group was tantamount to hating basketball/sports/working class people/whatever. Some of that group also contributed to a disturbing, misogynist backlash against the members of the Seattle City Council who voted against the last street vacation proposal.

Here’s the thing: they were wrong the whole time. The so-called obstructionist, sports-hating buzzkills/liberals/hippies/elitists were right, and we got what we wanted: a privately funded arena. 

I love sports, especially the Sonics and the NBA (did you see LeBron’s shot against the Wizards on Monday? HOLY SHIT, GUYS!), and I got into it with more than a few pro-SoDo arena folks for bringing up any non-basketball concerns I had with the arena. I heard that I wasn’t a “real fan” or that I “hated sports” or “didn’t get it” (this from people who aren’t local politics reporters) over and over. 

Sodo Arena supporters—many of whom live outside the city—were incredibly dismissive of legitimate budgetary, land use, and transportation concerns raised by Seattle residents, organized labor, city officials, and others. Supporters brushed off those concerns by dismissing critics’ fandom or condescendingly saying that the Hansen-McGinn deal was the best we could get—which was never true. This proposal proves that those supporters were letting Hansen and his ilk off the hook.

This proposal is a victory for civically engaged sports fans. The choice between pro-sports and good public policy is false. There is no reason, apart from their own enrichment, that team owners should expect the public to pay for arenas and stadiums. 

If more big market cities can follow the example of Seattle and San Diego, (which just told Dean Spanos to fuck off and move the Bolts to LA instead of paying for a giant, stupid football stadium) the blackmail will end and owners will pay for their own damn stadiums. 

More on the Sonics arena, and the relocation/blackmail business, to come.

[freewaytothefuture]

Seahawks sign Blair Walsh

Why?

Are the Hawks trying to troll someone? If so, who and how?

Hauschka forever. 

[freewaytothefuture]

Direct Action Does Work, Actually

aka Concern-Trolling the Resistance Part 1

credit: Ted Eytan

Public protests lead to all sorts of hand wringing and concern trolling. So I’m not surprised that there’s no shortage of that sort of thing with the widespread direct actions taking place against the Trump Administration.

There were a lot of silly takes about coups and hopeless activist naiveté when the travel ban went down. Take it away, noted activist/organizer Jake Fuentes:

…Stop believing that protests alone do much good. Protests [are] not sufficient. Not only are they relatively ineffective at changing policy, they’re also falsely cathartic to those protesting.

…Even if protestors [sic] gain mild, symbolic concessions, the fact that their anger has an outlet is useful to the other side.

Oh, wait. Jake Fuentes is a banking executive. No matter, I’m sure he’s been out in these streets for a long time. After all, his employer, Capital One, is a great corporate citizen that shows constant, touching concern for its customers.

Sarcasm aside, let’s assume that his Medium post blew up because of his clickbaity premise and this site’s curators, not his expertise. He is clearly new to this subject area, and does not know what he is talking about. After all, everything Fuentes says above is wrong.

Still, it’s worth digging into his premise and explaining why he is wrong, because Fuentes articulates a few common misconceptions about how direct action functions and what it has achieved.

Fuentes’s claims that protests are, writ large, can’t change policy. I’ll make the obligatory mention of the Indian independence movement and the US civil rights, LGBTQ liberation, and organized labor movements as historical proof against that idea.

I’ll also point out that Standing Rock activists and the 15 Now movement have proven that examples of effective protest are not limited to history.

Fuentes shows through his statement that he does not understand how direct action actually works. He has not paid attention to or heard of successful, contemporary activist campaigns like Standing Rock or 15 Now. Fuentes seems to think that if you show up to a protest or two, elected officials (or executives like him) will all of a sudden decide to change their minds about whatever wack shit they’ve been up to.

He also implies that direct action results in 100% success and the best possible outcome every time. No political action is like that. That is a silly way of looking at the world.

Here is how direct action actually works, in shorthand:

Galvanize lots of people around a common cause.

Generate an ideal outcome, articulated in a list of demands.

Stage demonstrations and actions.

Generate sympathetic publicity.

From those actions, develop a core of committed activists who can and will participate in lots of actions and represent the cause well.

Keep up the pressure. Keep staging actions even when the story is old news. Make it news again. Make your opponents come to the table.

Negotiate as far towards the ideal outcome as you can. If negotiations break down, or your opposition is not serious, repeat steps 3–6 as necessary.

Showing up at one demonstration does not solve anything. One and done protesters are common at the start of any sustained action, and eventually lose resolve and motivation. Many folks don’t have the social and financial capital and health capacity to participate often in a movement, which is all well and good.

If Fuentes had said that protest can’t be successful if it’s only done by dilettantes or fair weather fans, he would be right. Instead, he argued that protest is never effective, which is patently untrue.

Fuentes also says that protesters play to the “other side.” We will get into that tomorrow. At the same time, I’ll also dig into the respectability politics of direct action with an assist from noted activist/organizer/Iraq War booster/conservative hack David Frum.

By the way, the airport protests worked—for now. Better keep the pressure up.

[freewaytothefuture]

NFL misogyny and my cognitive dissonance

Seahawks Defensive end Frank Clark, who allegedly beat up his girlfriend

The Seahawks won their tenth game of the year on Sunday. That’s something they’ve done for five years in a row, which is a first in franchise history. Pete Carroll has coached the Hawks to the playoffs in all but one season out of the seven that he’s been in charge.

Few franchises have been as successful for as long in the contemporary NFL. Still, the 2016 season feels like a major letdown. Sunday’s game was a squeaker. At no point did the Hawks have control of the game. They had to rally from a 12 point deficit before the half.

Poor little rich fan. We only have a #3 seed. Waaaah waah waah.

It’s an unfortunate outcome for the Seahawks Super Bowl odds. What’s more troubling to me is that the recent run of mediocrity has made fandom of this troublesome sport harder to justify.

I’ll get to that. First, the game. After all, it’s what I have to say to myself when someone is immobilized on the injury cart.

The game would have been embarrassing enough against a mediocre team like the Rams or Eagles. But the Niners are the worst team in the league. (The Browns don’t get to be NFL members again until they show up for consecutive games—sorry, Bolts. For everything.) Chip Kelly is a shell of his Eugene self, the Niners don’t have any talent, and Kaepernick hadn’t been able pass well against the Seahawks since ever.

So, for the Niners to have any chance in this game, the Hawks had to let them in. Which Seattle obligingly did. The defense was rickety. The run game was nonexistent, in no small part because the offensive line may as well have actually been playing basketball in another building. (Did You Know That George Fant Played Basketball In College? Wow Gee Golly Gosh! This, along with remarks on Russell Wilson’s big hands, are the “interesting” biographical “insights” most frequently mentioned about Seahawks during broadcasts.)

Each of those issues has flared up several times throughout the season. The Seahawks played in two consecutive Super Bowls because they had the most complete team in the league both years. That, along with no small amount of Russell Wilson Bullshit, was enough.

In 2016, the Seahawks were not nearly as complete as their 2013-15 iterations. The offense was absurdly inconsistent. Any team with a good pass rush made them look like chumps. As a result, Wilson never came on this year. His numbers were closer to his rookie performance than last year, when he ate the world. This year, by contrast, Wilson probably lost a few years of his life from being pounded in the mud so often. At the very least, he was hobbled all season long.

Though Wilson took a lot of shots this year, the NFL has taken even more. The league’s disregard for its players, its naked venality, and its complicity in violence against women—shoutouts to Ezekiel Elliott, Ben Roethlisberger, Frank Clark, Darren Sharpe, Ray Rice, Josh Brown, Jameis Winston, and Tyreek Hill, all alleged (at least) rapists and/or woman beaters—have all made fandom, even viewership, morally dubious. (The NFL doesn’t exactly seek out violent misogynists. But the league has made clear that, unless a player been caught on camera assaulting a woman, it doesn’t care all that much about it.)

I wonder how much longer I’ll be able to keep up with the cognitive dissonance. Watching the big national games on Sunday and Monday nights used to be a regular pleasure for me. Monday Night Football was a welcome respite from the start of the school week when I started paying attention during high school.

It was then, when the Seahawks made their first Super Bowl run, that I first followed the league. When I was a little kid, I ignored the NFL. Instead, I followed the Sonics and the Mariners. They were the coolest, most exciting teams in their sports during the ‘90s. The Seahawks, meanwhile, were awful.

Those polarities flipped as I entered my adolescence. So did my rooting interest. Mostly, that was because I wanted to root for a good team at least one season out of the year. Hardcore Mariners fandom became depressing during the Bush administration.

In retrospect, some of the attraction was also in answer to my questions about manhood. I was a nerd (still am) with social anxiety and major insecurities. I came to realize that if I could riff on Lofa Tatupu’s latest bad ass shot on a running back, someone might invite me to their house party. I would fit in at the gym. I’d get to talk shit about fantasy football and laugh about goofy sack dances. I’d also keep my mouth shut about what the president elect has charmingly called “locker room talk”, because that’s what you do with the dudes.

I also signed up to ignore the awful shit that goes on every season in the NFL. Football is fundamentally violent. Its destroys people on the field. History has proven that its violent conditioning kills people, especially women, off it.

I’ve been fortunate to follow the Seahawks. They are the league’s good guys... since Carroll has taken over. Mostly. They also form a good team.

If they’re no good any more, it will become extremely difficult to ignore the bad in the sport. And Super Bowl contenders don’t beat this year’s Niners by two points.