bogleech:

cliff-snowpeak:

furbearingbrick:

bogleech:

I can verify this because I like, live out here and stuff, it’s pretty weird to watch the news call it a burning warzone every day

this is how propaganda works

Ah yes, because everyone knows, absolutely no ones’ lives or property are in danger until the entire city has been reduced to rubble.

• It’s literally like one block of downtown that it’s all focused in.
  
• Few things have sustained more than a broken window or some graffiti.
  
• Photos and videos of completely trashed buildings are including those that have been that way for years.
• Stats on closures and financial losses are being confused with those related to covid-19.
  
• The news keeps mentioning the same two or three little “family owned” businesses that got hurt in outbreaks of panic but can’t seem to come up with any more than that.
  
• That’s because downtown is dominated by places Starbuck’s, Rite-Aid, Target, Apple, Microsoft, Nordstrom Rack, Whole Foods, Men’s Warehouse, Payless, AT&T, Sprint, Doc Marten’s and other big chain brands.
  
• Brands which themselves cost hundreds of people their livelihoods or homes when they came here, which people were already angry about before any of this happened.
• This is in fact one of the fastest gentrified cities in America.
  
• Oops, I forgot the scientology building got vandalized too. Poor babies.
• And STILL, the most that’s happened to the majority is a little graffiti.

Vandalism of business was already commonplace in a city where so much business was lost to gentrification, and the relationship between several major companies and its citizens already strained for very good reason. In fact, this isn’t even a downtown location, but a beloved bowling alley people were hoping to see reopen a couple years ago:

And here it is now:

Damage to inanimate things such as property is an inevitability when large numbers of people are angry together. It’s also undeniable that American law enforcement violates people’s rights every single day, people have protested that for generations without seeing it get better, and outrage over that is justifiable no matter whose bricks or plaster or linoleum gets caught in the crossfire. All media attention to “damaged businesses” is a distraction from what actually matters, on top of being ridiculously overblown.