How does your city compare with Seattle? Is it just as stupid?

Despite its relatively small size, spectacular setting and reputation as one of America's most wholesome cities, Seattle is remarkably corrupt. In fact, I think it ranks up there with Houston and Washington, D.C., largely because of such corporate heavyweights as Boeing and Microsoft.

But I've already started a thread asking what America's most corrupt cities are. This time, I'm focusing on the muddled masses - the taxpayers, citizens, apthons.

Seattle is famous for its world-class apathy and stupidity. In fairness, it can be hard for a person to know what's going on given the extraordinary propaganda and manipulation that washes over this city like a continuous tidal wave.

Still, regardless of WHY they're out to lunch, Seattleites are. I realize that apathy and ignorance (and stupidity) are major features of contempoary America. But I wondered if other cities are really as bad as Seattle.

Obviously, it's hard to quantify, let alone compare, such an elusive quality. But the following questions take a stab at it. Please state the name of your city and answer as many as you dare!

1. Can you name ONE elected official in your city who is an honest individual and is activly fighting to help the people who elected hiim or her? Seattleites often blast me for being so critical of seemingly everyone, so I often say, "Fine - name ONE honest politician in Seattle." I've posted this question on chatboards on several questions, and no one has ever given me a serious response, except for one individual who cited a RETIRED politician.

2. Greg Nickels is a frightening gangster. He lost $1.1 billion on a transportation scam, then had the nerve to run for public office - as Seattle Mayor! For all practical purposes, Nickels had no issues. He just kept reciting his campaign slogan - "The Seattle Way." Amazingly - unbelievably - he got elected, after which he showed his true colors. Do you think the voters in your city are stupid enough to elect a crook who lost or embezzled $1.1 billion?

3. Is "civility" a major theme in your city? I mean, people across America preach the gospel of politeness, urging people to not hate (it's not healthy!), don't call names and don't be too radical. (Radical includes speaking the truth about topics that aren't politically correct.)

But Seattleites take civility to extremes. The media pardoned a Seattle Chamber of Commerce operative who pulled a gun on some youths on a school campus, yet ruthlessly blast candidates who dare to call their opponents names.

In Seattle, the muddled masses have been so thoroughly indoctrinated with the gospel of civility that it's virtually impossible to have an intelligent political discussion. Is the same true in your city?

4. Speaking of civility, Seattle has a law that forbids that candidates even MENTIONING THEIR OPPONENTS in the Voters Pamphlet! If I wanted to write, "I respect my opponent, Nancy Waldman," I would be in violation of the law. Does your city have a similar law?

5. Speaking of intelligent people, I spent sixteen years in public education and was very active as a whistle-blower for the last seven years or so. I worked at more than half a dozen schools, yet when I try to recall the number of intelligent conversations I had with teachers, I almost draw a blank. I can probably remember three or four teachers who had their heads screwed on straight, and some of them have since been driven out of education.

Do you think you could locate at least three intelligent teachers in your city?

6. The Seattle Times endorsed Gary Locke, possibly the most corrupt governor in Washington State history. It endorsed Paul Schell, possibly America's most maligned mayor. It even endorsed George W. Bush. Yet Seattleites continue to vote for candidates endorsed by the Seattle Times and other corrupt papers, including the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Seattle Weekly and The Stranger. Are the voters as gullible in your city, or do they defy the media?

7. I used to stop and chat with people who stand on sidewalks promoting political causes, gathering signatures, etc. There was just one problem - they're just as stupid as everyone else. Seriously, many are paid to hand out fliers and may not even be from Washington State. And they're generally more intelligent than native Seattleites.

Are there politically active people in your city that are easy to spot and with whom you can carry on an intelligent conversation?

I really don't know what to make of Jim McDermott. I ought to worship him for his gutsy anti-war stand; I think it's cool.

Unfortunately, I think that's the word that best describes McDermott: Cool (but superficial). He can do things like that because he has a very liberal support base that reveres those kinds of attitudes.

However, Seattle is absolutely wallowing in corruption, and I can't understand how McDermott can be so oblivious to it. I'm not aware that he's ever tackled the "Education Mafia," Microsoft and on and on.

I'm not intimately familar with his voting record, but my perception is that Jim McDermott just uses his office to jetset around the world acting cool, while ignoring real problems at home.

He does have a magnificent head of hair, though.

"I'm not intimately familar with his voting record, but my perception is that Jim McDermott just uses his office to jetset around the world acting cool, while ignoring real problems at home."

The impending Iraq war wasn't a REAL PROBLEM? Can you think of a bigger problem?

Good that you feel comfortable in mocking him without much of a clue as to his voting record. And using RW nicknames, yet!

Does he deserve one of your RPG greetings?

Im from Seattle and have lived here many years.

It is not viewed as "wholesome" at all.

It has one of the most educted populaces in America, and has the highest literacy rate.

There are thousands of Seattleites who know more about computers, medical science or architecture than I do. But when it comes to politics or common sense, they're STUPID.

What frightens me most is the utter lack of LOGICAL THINKING SKILLS. I can understand how people can be brainwashed into believing something; I've been there myself. But when I use logic to present the truth, I usually feel like I'm talking to an ashtray or a fence post.

What kind of future does this country have if the basic building blocks of democracy are too apathetic to vote or too stupid to make intelligent choices?

In Honolulu, our Mayor is totally corrupt. He doles out huge public works contracts to private companies that have donated to him. He had to drop out of the governors race because of his scandals.

Our governor, although she is a Republican, is not really corrupt. At times, she can be intelectually dishonest, but I don't think she would actually cook the books or anything.

Our Democratic party has been taking some hits here lately. Four Democrats in office, two city councilmembers, a state senator, and some junior city officials have gone to jail ranging from campaign finance violations and conflict of interests. Our Democratic party is LUCKY that they have a strong backbone of support from the people on the issues.

Although our governor is not really corrupt, the people who support her are. They are anti-environment and anti-Hawaiian culture here. Like other regions in the nation, Hawaii has its own culture really. They are mostly rich white people from Orange County and Texas who want to change the status-quo here, which is not good at all. They build their large multi-million dollar houses on the beach and use up all the water for their waterfalls. So our governor is not corrupt, it is the people that support her that are.

About how many credible reform websites represent your city?

I realize the terms "credible" and "reform" cover a lot of ground, and there are many operatives who can create activist websites that appear credible at first glance.

However, operatives are generally like politicians in that they're reluctant to say too much - because the more they say, the more they may give away.

Butit boggles my mind that a high-tech city like Seattle is a virtual desert when it comes to online activism. When it's time to vote, and I want to research the candidates and issues, I have little alternative but visit official sources and try to filter out the propaganda.

The Internet could be our most powerful weapon, yet it's going to waste. What a shame!

I am famous for braggin up Vancouver.

Super left wing municpal government (granted it was recent) even though their stupidity pisses me off sometimes.

Awsome scenery
Nooks and crannies all over town
Pot (even though I don't smoke it)
SOOOOOO Multi Cultural - you cna get authentic anything here
Great Chinese food
Three ski hills within 25 minutes of downtown. (yeha they do suck though)
Bears, dear, cougars, salmon
Trees trees trees
Olympics coming
Voted best city in the world two years in a row
it goes on and on.

Vancouver. One of the best examples if billionaire Paul Allen's Experience Me Jamming Museum. It has to be the ugliest building in Washington State, and he plopped it down right next to the Space Needle, Seattle's most sacred icon!

Allen's museum is actually a museum to Allen's arrogance. Bill Gates almost seems like a nice guy compared to Paul Allen.

Another benefit, out of the reach of Asscroft.

Beautiful city.

:evilgrin:

I wouldn't have thought Seattle to be as bad as you say. Try Dallas for instance. Or Phoenix.

Portland city council seems OK except for the big push for a baseball stadium (no team yet) duh, more corporate welfare. At least they're smart enough to sucker the State into backing the bonds. ;) One thing they're doing is pushing to take over the electric utility PGE (subsidiary of Enron), if they succeed we can keep ourselves from being further screwed. Pretty bold thing for a city council to take on.

I used to live in Tucson, a pretty liberal burg, but still had mostly idiots on the City Council. Portland is better at least in the beer category. Leftist activists pretty good in both places. You gotta realize that real politically aware people are generally less than one percent of the population.

Here I know a lot of liberal people, very intelligent. My poker gang is very left-wing overall. These are engineers! Portland has street fairs, farmers markets, arts district, a lot of grassroots politics and economics.

Average people just don't pay any attention if my neighbors are any indication.

However we have thousands of people at the Dean meetups in the Portland metro area.

I think moving to Portland is viewed as traveling back in time in Seattle, perhaps 20 years or more. It's a lot smaller and presumably far less corrupt. However, I note that Paul Allen owns a sports team in Portland, too - though he apparently hasn't made residents buy a billion-dollar stadium for them - yet.

I can take or leave basketball.

Problem with Seattle is too many really rich people I think. At least one problem. And the undue influence of Boeing and Microsoft.

Still Seattle's cool. I like the ferries, Pike St. market, downtown, Puget Sound, Wooden Boat society. Coffee and Beer.

"Problem with Seattle is too many really rich people I think. . . . And the undue influence of Boeing and Microsoft."

Absolutely. And there's virtually no resistance. The average Seattleite would allow himself to be driven into utter poverty - along with his children - before he'd think of fighting back.

"Still Seattle's cool. I like the ferries, Pike St. market, downtown, Puget Sound, Wooden Boat society. Coffee and Beer."

When I first moved to Seattle, I generally liked it, except that it was a little big for me. I moved down from Bellingham, which is a truly beautiful city. Seattle still have a nice features. It's just hard to feel the same about it when you're aware of what's happening behind the scenes. Seattle is an extremely creepy city covered with a magnificent facade.

And it seems like a pretty cool place...but all you've been saying is making me nervous.

What makes it "extremely creepy" - most people I've met here seem really nice.

What am I missing, and how have you been able to peek behind the facade?

JailBush makes it out to be:). Every city has similar problems, Seattle's no different. I'm a transplant from seven years ago; the west coast is more friendly than back east.

thanks for allying my fears there. Another question. I've heard it said that Seattle and the NW in general is socially kind of stand offish, you know that people are kinda cool towards eachother, etc...

I just moved from MN where everyone was so "minnesota nice" - so is Seattle kinda standoffish, and not friendly..?

Sorry, don't know much about MN. Ballard has a large Scandinavian population; for some reason 'Fargo' popped into my head.

Sahalearm wrote, "It's not as bad as JailBush makes it out to be:). Every city has similar problems, Seattle's no different."

That's the typical Seattle attitude. The city's motto could be "Whatever" or "Deal with it."

If other cities have similar problems, then other cities are seriously screwed. But I think Seattle IS different; we're stuck with the world's richest jerk, the world's most expensive sports stadium (paid for by tax payers) and on and on.

I'm not certain how or why Seattle came to be so screwed up, but I'm working on a theory that I'll put on my website soon.

Again, you need to differentiate between superfical and substance. Superficially, Seattle IS a very friendly place. I've also met some extraordinary monsters who were very nice - superficially.

A good example is the WTO protest. Remember the scenes of police beating innocent passersby, reporters and holiday shoppers? The Seattle media insisted this was out of the ordinary. Baloney; it was the REAL Seattle peeking through the facade the media work so hard to maintain.

Of course, police brutality isn't unique to Seattle, and I don't know if Seattle's police are worse than cops in other cities. But I do know they're FAR worse than a superficial glance would indicate. Do a little research on police beatings, women raped by police, etc., then try to guess how many similar problems are unreported, and you begin to get an idea of the true extent of the problem.

The Seattle School District is an absolute horror - yet it's even more invisible than the Seattle police. That's partly because teachers are so stupid. No matter how bad things are, they always put on a brave face, either because they're afraid to speak the truth or because they think it's unprofessional to complain. There are some very frightening things happening in the school district, yet few of Seattle's liberals are even aware of them - and even fewer care.

It wallows in it's own political juices; just look at public transportation (etc.). I'm just not willing to be quite so fatalistic about the future prospects of the city. I'm also not an entrenched insider as far as local politics.

How can anything get done when no one cares?

Whether or not you're fatalistic about "the future prospects" of Seattle is irrelevant. I'm optimistic enough to believe things CAN be fixed - something many Seattleites don't agree with. At this point, I wouldn't be money that they WILL be fixed, though I'm doing my part to fix them.

I couldn't get a read off your earlier posting so I assumed fatalism. Yep, we need change from the inside of the political machine.

> something many Seattleites don't agree with

This is like voter apathy, it'll be tough to change.

"And it seems like a pretty cool place..."

Seattle IS a cool place, superficially.

"but all you've been saying is making me nervous."

If you live in Seattle, you should be a little bit nervous.

"What makes it 'extremely creepy' - most people I've met here seem really nice."

Of course; Seattle is a very friendly city - superficially. Even the city's biggest crooks are friendly.

"What am I missing, and how have you been able to peek behind the facade?"

What makes Seattle creepy is the stuff that goes on behind the scenes, and peeking behind the facade requires little more than curiosity.

In a nutshell, I was politically ignorant when I began working for the Seattle School District more than fifteen years ago. I loved working with children, but I was appalled by the disorganization and even more so by the tyranny. After years of abuse, I decided to try to figure out what made the school district tick.

I eventually discovered that I wasn't just dealing with a dysfunctional school district - it's organized crime. I then discovered that the school district is tightly linked to the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, the media and the Mayor's office.

Of course, this is old news to people who have been involved in politics longer than I have. But the degree of the corruption in Seattle is truly frightening - and it can be dangerous. Remember the Garfield High School teacher who committed suicide a few years ago? Remember the arson attack on his classroom? I think he was framed. I don't know how big a conspiracy it was, but, at the very least, the media were CRIMINAL in tarring and feathering him the way they did.

Even alternative newspapers like the Seattle Weekly are corrupt. However, the Seattle Weekly has printed some good stuff over the years. Visit them online and do a search for two of my favorite articles. The first is "The Olchefske Files." See if yo can count the scandals mentioned in that article, from a bizarre 4th of July burglarly (still not solved and never even mentioned by the Seattle Times and Seattle P-I) to embezzling to lying. (As a bonus, my name is mentioned - David Blomstrom!)

The other is "Who REALLY Runs Seattle?" That is a classic, and every Seattleite should have a copy of it. (I kept several copies of that issues.) Here are a couple interesting points:

1. The original article includes two photo sections with brief bios of some major movers and shakers. The online article has forms for linking to the bios - except there are no links. It's as if someone very powerful said, "We don't want this information online."

2. The author told me he was working on an even more daring article, focusing on Seattle's corrupt lawfirms. I couldn't wait to read it, so I was shocked when I received an e-mail from him one day that read, "I'm outta here!"

That was the last I ever heard from him, and the article never appeared. Go figure.

Another AMAZING story concerns Judge Gary Little. The best article is on my website, though I'm not sure if you can access it right now; my website is being revised and is in disarray. But do a search and you might find it. Then check http://www.historylink.org, run by corporate historian Walt Crowley. That jackass scarcely even mentions Little, even though he was one of Seattle's most powerful individuals.

Gary Little is just one of several frightening phenomena that converge on Garfield High School, thus the term "Garfield High School Conspiracy of 1970." I could go on and on, yet I've barely scratched the surface.

I wish there were ten more people in this city with a desire to learn the truth and the willingess to do a little research. The stories we could tell!

There's very little quality material about the Seattle Mafia online. But here are three articles every Seattleite should copy and read every few weeks:

1. "Who REALLY Runs Seattle?" Mark Worth (The Seattle Weekly)

2. "The Olchefske Files" James Bush (The Seattle Weekly)

3. "The Cattle of Seattle" Michelle Malkin (The Seattle Times)

4. "A Few Parting Questions; Thanks For The Memories" Michelle Malkin (The Seattle Times)
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=2973958&date=19990727&query=Michelle+Malkin

James Bush is possibly Seattle's best political columnist. I can't tell if he's corrupt or not, but I have the perception he may be a good guy at heart. I certainly wouldn't compare him to his left-wing colleague, Geov Parrish, who's a monumental prick.

Mark Worth was a rising star; it's too bad he left Seattle.

Michelle Malkin was a conservative columnist with the Seattle Times. I wasn't crazy about her writing style, but I liked her because she was one of Seattle's gutsiest columnists. She used terms like "corporate pimp" and wasn't afraid to criticize St. John Stanford.

Malkin wrote two columns that I revere. "The Cattle of Seattle" focused on the WTO protest, which she summed up in the very first sentence; what a gem!

The Times canned her, apparently because she was too outspoken. "A Few Parting Questions" was her last regular column, and it's a treasure trove of wit.

Unfortuantely, Malkin went to pot after she became a syndicated columnist. She's now a cheerleader for George W. Bush, and she's so obviously biased her writing has become a joke. It was painful to watch her destroy herself.

Our local elections are total popularity contests. Name recognition matters more than anything. The local media bears most of the responsibility. They cover campaigns like they are social events. Substantive issues and policy proposals are ignored.

It took a local citizen to discover that members of the airport board owned property around the airport as they considered its expansion. Although it was something the board members should have revealed on their own, second best would have been for the local media to check into who would benefit. Alas, they did not. Instead, when the information was revealed, one local paper wrote an editorial suggesting that we should "not question each others good inentions." Sickening.

In NC, candidates for state office are required to complete an Economic Interest Disclosure. It reveals all business and real estate envolvements of candidates. We tried to get a council candidate elected in the last election who wanted to require the same of local elected officials. He lost. But you may find the details of his proposal helpful. Maybe, if the people of Seattle knew ahead of time whose interests a candidate represents, they'd do a better job.

Check this link, scoll down to the second news item for details of the Economic Interest Disclosure:

http://www.wirecom.com/david/News.htm