From: maximusheadroom@gmx.com   
      
   Things Are Actually Worse Now in Seattle Than During the COVID Lockdowns   
   Stephen Green   
      
   "The small businesses we love are struggling to survive" is the conclusion of a   
   new Intentionalist survey of conditions in the greater Seattle area, with   
   two-thirds (!!!) saying that they're "under more financial stress today than   
   during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic."   
      
   Well, that's an unexpected achievement - for certain and entirely ironic values   
   of "unexpected."   
      
   Half of small businesses reported that "public safety issues - such as theft,   
   vandalism, or break-ins - are impacting their operations," and that recovering   
   to pre-lockdown levels requires "city fee or tax relief."   
   Seattle being Seattle, even a report friendly to small business complains that   
   "the emergency-era programs that helped businesses survive have largely ended,   
   even as the need for support remains urgent."   
      
   If you still require COVID support years after the lockdowns ended, the problem   
   isn't COVID or lockdowns - or support from Washington. The problem lies closer   
   to home.   
      
   Like, in City Hall.   
      
   Seattle's new mayor, Katie B. Wilson, sits even further to the left than the   
   last mayor, Bruce Harrell - himself a progressive. A self-described Democratic   
   Socialist, Wilson's campaign promised aggressive "solutions" to the city's   
   affordability crisis via progressive taxation that would pay for rent   
   stabilization, expanded public housing, universal childcare, and more mass   
   transit.   
      
   Nothing says "affordability" like tax hikes to pay for more big government. All   
   those taxes, regulations, and spending put a real crimp on business activity -   
   perhaps even more than Harrell's toleration (celebration?) of open-air drug   
   markets, aggressive panhandling, and open rebellions like the Capitol Hill   
   Autonomous Zone (CHAZ).   
      
   So, of course, small businesses suffer.   
      
   But to progressives, Democratic Socialists, and other lefties, that's a   
   feature,   
   not a bug.   
      
   Left-wing pseudo-documentary filmmaker Michael Moore let the cat out of the bag   
   many years ago, during a press availability following an appearance at my old   
   stomping grounds in Arcata, Calif., deep behind the Redwood Curtain.   
      
   This story is so old I have only a cached version of a Free Republic repost of   
   a   
   2002-ish Arcata Eye story, which, for whatever reason, disappeared from the   
   Eye's   
   servers. But here you go:   
      
     Asked about Arcata's pending cap on pattern [ie, franchise] restaurant   
   expansion, Moore - widely recognized as a corporate antagonist - again   
   confounded expectations. "Where will you eat?" he asked. "Can't you have at   
   least one Jamba Juice?"   
      
   Jamba Juice is one of those upscale food chains and has more than 700 locations   
   nationwide. But Moore would rather give his money to a giant corporation than   
   to   
   the Mom & Pop restaurant struggling to survive against them:   
      
     You know in my town the small businesses that everyone wanted to protect?   
   They   
   were the people that supported all the right-wing groups. They were the   
   Republicans in the town, they were in the Kiwanas, the Chamber of Commerce -   
   people that kept the town all white. The small hardware salesman, the small   
   clothing store salespersons, Jesse the Barber who signed his name three   
   different times on three different petitions to recall me from the school   
   board.   
   F**k all these small businesses - f**k 'em all! Bring in the chains. The small   
   businesspeople are the rednecks that run the town and suppress the people. F**k   
   'em all. That's how I feel."   
      
   Nobody I can think of since Moore has been forthright or foolhardy enough to   
   announce his outright opposition to small business, but you can see it in   
   practice - even in cities like Seattle, where the small business owners likely   
   voted for Wilson.   
      
   "If only all of Rome had one neck," the Emperor Caligula is supposed to have   
   said, so that he could cut it off. But we've evolved so much in the last 2,000   
   years that today's would-be emperors want one neck to squeeze for cash. And in   
   exchange, big business gets protection in the form of small-business-killing   
   regulations and mandates.   
      
   Big Government and Big Business love to get into bed together, and the   
   offspring   
   is always, always, always Authoritarianism. The best the small business owner   
   can hope for is the occasional handout, but if Michael Moore got his way, they   
   wouldn't even get that.   
      
   https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2026/01/22/things-are-worse-now-   
   n-seattle-than-during-the-covid-lockdowns-n4948609   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)