Some of the Raging Grannies and I crashed the Go Green Conference March 16.
With the support of several groups in this city, some of us got into the Go Green Conference and tried to talk with King County Executive Dow Constantine about the militarization of our city.
The conference was advertised to assist local businesses and government to “green” their companies with profitability in mind.
It seemed like the perfect place to discuss the dangers of building a $210 million dollar cage for our children on a toxic waste site.
Many of the groups — such as Greenpeace, Got Green and Black Lives Matter — had been very frustrated because it had been impossible to get Constantine to listen to our concerns.
So several us from Greenpeace and the Raging Grannies infiltrated the conference room. As soon as Constantine started speaking, I got up and began my two-minute spiel. I have to say that he was not very hospitable to our speaking. As soon as I started talking, his microphone got progressively louder, preventing the room from hearing what I had to say.
The guards were quickly in front of me, trying to move me out, without touching me of course. I said, “Be careful, I’m a lawyer.”
I didn’t get to say much of my prepared notes, but he did hear me say that we were ready to chain ourselves to the bulldozers if it came to that.
After I left, several of the Raging Grannies got up and sang a song against the juvenile jail before they too were ushered out.
So here’s what I would have said had I been allowed:
Mr. Constantine,
I was happy to learn that the city will not be building that militarized police bunker next year. Y’all got it. We don’t want it.
We do not want our police officers training to use assault weapons and tanks in a structure deep underground and far from the eyes of this community. That is not proper community policing. That is, in fact, more like government control.
The crimes in this city, mostly as a result of scarcity, pale in comparison with the crimes of the banks and other big businesses.
Militarized policing is the wrong response to our problems, and we won’t allow it.
And we don’t want that juvenile jail that you’re planning to build on a toxic waste site either. You are not going to cage our children.
You must look into the causes of criminal behavior in the young and do what is needed to correct the problems: scarcity, lack of opportunity, poor schools, poor housing — I could go on and on. And we believe so strongly about this that many of us are ready to chain ourselves to the bull dozers if it comes to that.
I don’t have to tell you what a strong activist community we have here in Seattle, Dow. Remember ShellNo? We come out for things like this.
For someone who professes to believe in green communities, our city excavating a toxic waste site to build a $210 million dollar cage for our children seems altogether incongruous.
Our country has already become militarized.
Hundreds of militia groups, training regularly, are just waiting for the opportunity to “help” in times of catastrophes with such things as looting.
And a massive system of private security services (armies actually) that are now protecting banks, pipelines, airports, even your neighborhood watches, have now become a $350 billion dollar a year business and growing rapidly. This city has grown exponentially at the expense of those who live here and many are hurting. The answer cannot be a militarized one if we are to survive as a country.
As I was going out, I yelled, “No New Youth Jail!”
Let’s hope he got the message.
Cynthia Linet is an attorney, political activist and artist of “The Gun Show by Cynthia Linet” on YouTube and Facebook.