Don't Expect Any Liberal Resistance When the War Against Iran Starts: My Impression of a Saturday Rally and March for Affordable Housing

There is resolution to Seattle's effort to build affordable and fund homeless services by taxing large corporate employers. Yesterday a reduced proposal was passed 9-0 by the city council. As The Stranger reports, "Seattle City Council Passes $45 Million Head Tax Compromise":

The tax, which passed unanimously, is nearly half the size that four city council members originally proposed in April. Under the plan, Seattle would collect $275 per employee from businesses grossing more than $20 million in annual revenue, or about three percent of the businesses in the city.

The tax is projected to bring the city about $45 million of new annual revenue in its first year, according to a spending plan prepared by council staff. Under the legislation, council members would have the option of renewing the tax after five years.

Now the bill heads to Mayor Jenny Durkan’s desk. In a statement, she says she plans to sign the legislation. "This legislation will help us address our homelessness crisis without jeopardizing critical jobs," Durkan said.

The tax proposal represents a compromise between city council members who aimed much higher—$500 per employee to raise $75 million—and their colleagues who believed the initially proposed rate would be too costly for businesses. Mayor Durkan fell in the latter camp. Late last week, she put her support behind a $250 per employee tax.

The Seattle Times reports, "Seattle City Council votes 9-0 for scaled-down head tax on large employers," that Amazon, though unhappy with the reduced tax, will resume construction planning on the large downtown location, Block 18, that was paused:

The city declared a homelessness state of emergency in late 2015. A point-in-time count last year tallied more than 11,600 homeless people in King County and one in 16 Seattle Public Schools students is homeless.

“We have community members who are dying,” Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda said before the 9-0 vote. “They are dying on our streets today because there is not enough shelter” and affordable housing.

In a statement after the vote and weeks of fierce debate, demonstrations and denunciations, she said the tax “will have a meaningful impact on addressing our homelessness crisis by building housing and providing health services.”

Having paused construction planning on an office tower over the larger proposal, Amazon now will move ahead with it, a spokesman said after the vote. But the company’s plans to occupy a skyscraper under construction are still up the air, he said.

“We are disappointed by today’s City Council decision to introduce a tax on jobs,” spokesman Drew Herdener said in a statement.

“While we have resumed construction planning for Block 18, we remain very apprehensive about the future created by the council’s hostile approach and rhetoric toward larger businesses, which forces us to question our growth here.”

I attended a rally and march Saturday for the full $500 per employee head tax. Despite the homeless crisis in the city, despite the national attention and Amazon's high-stakes extortion, despite the golden opportunity to build some affordable housing, which the Chamber of Commerce's own study says is desperately needed, the people who showed up were mostly socialists -- Freedom Socialists, Socialist Alternative, Democratic Socialists of America, Workers World Party, and probably some other socialist splinters that I'm leaving out.

Nowhere did I see any Democrats, whether politicians or precinct-level people. Nor did I see any organized labor presence other than rank'n'file AFSCME members who were socialists.

It was a good group. Probably 100 strong. We made a lot of noise as we marched through downtown to Amazon's new headquarters. It's just that there were no liberals among us.

So here you have a slam dunk: Tax Amazon, a global behemoth, to build some units of affordable housing and put some more resources into dealing with the homeless state of emergency. But the liberals are missing.

My immediate takeaway is that liberals have lost all connection to decency. The Democratic Party, including its rank'n'file, is neoliberal. False consciousness is its only consciousness. Don't expect any protest when the war with Iran starts.