[*BCM*] Seattle CM turns ugly

[Anne Wolfe]

What's to be enlightened about?  The guy in the car was wrong, very wrong.
The people mobbing around him were wrong, very wrong.  Neither side comes
off looking well.   Drivers will sympathise with the driver as soon as they
hear that CM blocked off lanes of traffic, held up other cars and then wound
up clocking the guy and smashing things when he panicked at being surrounded
by a mob baying for his blood.  Cyclists will sympathise that yet another
lunatic doesn't know how to handle cycles on the road went berserk and tried
to use his car to get the cyclists out of the way, causing mayhem.  Quite
frankly,. I think that incident would have had the same comments had it
occurred anywhere else in the nation.

It is classic human behaviour.  Cyclists don't tend to care too much on a
day to day basis about cars so long as they don't interfere with their
cycling. For every driver that nearly cuts them off, hundreds go by without
incident or notice. Drivers don't tend to care too much on a day to day
basis about bikes so long as they don't interfere with their driving.  For
every CM that opts to slow cars down by blocking both lanes of traffic with
slow moving traffic, hundreds of cyclists go by without notice or incident,
even more so now that gas is $4 a gallon.  Pedestrians don't care about
either so long as they don't mount the sidewalk and interfere with walking.
But as soon as boundaries get crossed, conflict ensues and people get
reactionary and all over the place as soon as they have to defend a position
they may not have thought anything about previously, and are now on the spot
to articulate.  Plus, being controversial gets press and attention paid.

If you want to enlighten people, generally antagonising them isn't the best
way to go.  And retaliation is never the way to go.  Why did civil
disobedience work?  Because when these people were beaten, etc etc etc, they
let themselves get carted off to jail or wherever without retaliating.  That
keeps the focus on the issue, and not permitting a "they deserved it, look
how they fought back" mentality.  This tends to apply across the board.  I
see it a lot in the sports I play.  One side may be playing sneaky, but as
soon as the other side retaliates, measures come down harder for retaliation
as we're supposed to be big boys and girls and run the set channels, not
take matters into our own hands.

I am in no way supporting what the driver did.  He took a hunk of metal,
panicked and harmed people.  But you better believe that if what had
happened was that CM took one lane of traffic (thus permitting another lane
for faster traffic whatever number of wheels it had), thus not antagonising,
and then had dealt with the incident had it still happened by photographing
it, calling the police, ambulance and safety services and so on, public
opinion would be well on CMs side, and thus be looking at enlightenment.  As
it stands now, people who might never have heard of CM and would support it
will now think, correctly or not, that it is nothing but a thuggish mob.
And it will take a lot longer to fix that perception than it has to create
it.

2008/7/28 <tsmith4918 at aol.com>

> thanks for posting...the bulletin board messages are pretty amazing...so
> much for the enlightened pacific northwest.
>
> Injured riders, broken bikes, broken car windows, hospital visits and
> arrests ahoy:
> http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/07/last_nights_critical_mass_melee
>
> ..j
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jamie Wilson <jamie at goatforce5.org>
> To: Boston Critical Mass <list at bostoncriticalmass.org>
> Sent: Sat, 26 Jul 2008 10:49 pm
> Subject: [*BCM*] Seattle CM turns ugly
>
>  Injured riders, broken bikes, broken car windows, hospital visits and
> arrests ahoy:
> http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/07/last_nights_critical_mass_melee
>
> ..j
> _______________________________________________
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-- 
Anne M. Wolfe, LL.M.
Mobile: ( 07805) 456901
"If Happy Fun Ball begins to smoke, get away immediately. Seek shelter and
cover head. Please do not taunt Happy Fun Ball."
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