Friday News

Economic growth developed in Seattle from World War II to 1970. The economy was bombing and Boeing hired many human beings. There was no massive regional planning, but the city didn’t grow large enough to feel the strain. William Boeing made his airplane company out of his boat company. He always had a fascination with flying and aircraft. During World War I, Boeing grew to employ "about four thousand people, with sales just under ten million dollars a year, it was a good if unspectacular business for Seattle." The company struggled through the period between the wars, and "began to build dressers, counters and furniture for a corset company and a confectioner's shop, as well as flat-bottomed boats called sea sleds.” When World War II begins, the government desired tens of thousands of planes a year. Boeing was positioned to provide them. Many human beings worked under fixed fee contracts. So, Boeing churned out aircraft and became the largest employer in Seattle. When the war ended, “the military canceled its bomber orders; Boeing factories shut down and 70,000 people lost their jobs," and initially it appeared that Seattle had little to show for the wartime Boeing boom. However, this period of stagnation soon ended with the rise of the jet aircraft and Boeing's reincarnation as the world's leading producer of commercial passenger planes. At the same time, the freeways were being built to compensate for all this new growth. Most of the Eastside (east of Lake Washington) and northern suburbs came into being during the Boeing boom. Also, the Interstate Highways I-5 and I-90 grew. I-5 cut off Downtown Seattle from Capitol Hill and First Hill. Part of the historic downtown, including the Tony Sorrento Hotel, was left stranded on the "wrong" side of the freeway. Freeway Park was eventually built over I-5 in 1976, restoring something of a link between Downtown and First Hill. With all this postwar growth came growing pollution of the lakes and rivers. These rivers and lakes provided much of beauty that had been Seattle's appeal to its recent immigrants. Also, the sprawl constantly demanded more roads, since the ones already built had terrible traffic. Jim Ellis and other Seattle natives, anxious to preserve the city in which they grew up, came together to institute the Metropolitan Problems Committee, or METRO, intended to manage and plan the metropolitan area. The original, comprehensive METRO regional plan was defeated in a vote by the suburbanites; METRO came back, scaled down to a sewage treatment and transport organization; METRO was eventually merged into the King County government. During this time, Seattle wanted to counter the decline of its downtown and the area immediately to the north by hosting the Century 21 Exposition, the 1962 World’s Fair. The fair, given a futuristic science theme, was designed to leave behind a civic center, now known as Seattle Center, including arts buildings, the Pacific Science Center and the Space Needle, and serving also a fairground. There was a demonstration monorail line was that constructed at no cost to the city and paid for out of ticket sales and then turned over to the city for $600,000 (according to the Seattle Center Monorail). It is now mostly a tourist attraction. The World’s Fair arguably reenergized the downtown of Seattle and it was a success, even finished with a profit. After World War II, the University of Washington took a step forward. Back then, its university president was Charles Odegaard.


The Boeing Bust existed because of many factors. They are the decline in the Vietnam War military spending, the slowing of the space program (as Project Apollo was near completion), and the recession of 1969-1970. Boeing’s $2 billion in debt existed as it built the 747 airliner. The company and the Seattle area suffered. Commercial Airplane Group or the largest unit of Boeing went from 83,700 employees in 1968 to 20,750 in 1971. Each unemployed Boeing employee cost at least one other job. Unemployment increased to 14%, which was the highest in America during that time. Housing vacancy rates rose to 16% from 1% in 1967. U-Haul dealerships ran out of trailers because so many people moved out. A billboard appeared near the airport: “Will the last person leaving SEATTLE- Turn out the lights.” After 1973, Seattle was in good company for its recession. The rest of the nation suffered the energy crisis too. The Pike Place Market (or arguably Seattle’s most important tourist attraction) gained its modern form in the aftermath of the Boeing crash. The internment of Japanese Americans from Seattle during World War II had hit the market hard too. 80 percent of its vendors were ethnically Japanese. A “Keep the Market” initiative was led by architect Victor Steinbrueck. It passed in 1971. He pushed for an adaptive reuse. The project was very successful in spite of intense opposition by the Seattle political establishment. Today, the Pike Place Market pulls nine million visitors every year. Pioneer Square has a similar story. It was an old neighborhood. It was built after the Fire of 1889. It had fallen into derelict status after the war of WWII. Yet, Seattle’s downtown became reenergized. Businesses started to look for buildings that could be acquired cheaply. Offices moved into renovated buildings. Therefore, there was a market for facilities to service them, leading to a “flood of other restaurants, galleries, boutiques.” Seattle was definitely recovering from the blow dealt by the Boeing recession, refilling areas that had threatened to become slums. From the late 1950’s, Seattle was one of the centers of the emergence of the American counter-culture and the culture of protest. Before grunge there were beats, fringies (a local Seattle term), hippies, and batcavers.

Many people struggle to make ends meet back then and in our time. As others have stated, we have a problem where numerous human beings have to struggle in massive ways just to get above the poverty line. This is why some folks have a fear of going back into poverty, so anxiety sets in among some exist. Also, many try to use every precaution humanly possible to maintain a livelihood conducive to survival. The current, imperfect financial reality wasn't created by the masses of the people. It was created by an oligarchy whose methods, laws, and other policies have exploited the poor and working class people. This is why not only do we realize that poverty exists, but movements have been established to fight poverty from the labor movement to the civil rights movement. We must have an increased knowledge of financial literary. We realize that money is not to be deified. It is tool that can be used for good and for evil. Numerous people are very honest in outlining their own experiences, so those who are very poor don't have been placed in shame of their own predicaments. Being poor shouldn't be a used as an excuse to curse those who are. It should be used as an opportunity to help the poor and to realize that they are not alone. They have worth just like anyone else and the current system needs restructuring, so human beings can live in the realm of their full potentials without oppression. That is the quintessential point that we cherish. We want folks to get busy living. For long years, decades, and centuries, the super wealthy has exploited the current economic system to benefit themselves from not just stocks and bonds. They have spread wealth around to create a situation where there is socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor as Dr. King has said in 1967. Rent is high in many places of America. High rent does exist, but also there are unique, slick means of how some gain a massive amount of wealth in Western society. Sometimes, wealth is created via cut throat acts not through the genuine development of assets. Gentrification is a reality and many people struggle to make ends meet as evident in the massive economic inequality in D.C. (and in places worldwide). We should learn about generational wealth, investments, and other aspects of financial concepts, but without solving systematic poverty, nothing massive changes. That's a fact. In other words, we have to find solutions to poverty and end the way on how the system causes the 1% to receive record capital at the expense of everyone else.

I listened to the whole video of Chili and T-Boz on political issues. Here are my thoughts. If all lives were valued equally in American society and true justice existed in the globe, there wouldn't even be a need for protests in opposing police brutality. Studies and sociological research document the disproportionate killings of black people, the unfair sentencing practices against black people, and the unfair, excessive suspensions of many black people involving the educational system. Economic inequality, xenophobia, classism, racial discrimination, and sexism are realities in America. Therefore, Chili is right that police brutality is wrong no matter who the victim is. She is wrong is trying to minimize black oppression into the mantra of "all lives matter." The all lives matter movement wasn't created by progressives originally. It was created by mostly whites who wanted to express a backlash against the legitimate grievances from the Black Lives Matter movement. We have to keep it real. We have a crisis of police terrorism in America and in the world. Police tyrants who terrorize human beings deserve prison. We face massive poverty and oppression against many groups of human beings. Black Lives Matter is never about promoting racism. It is about promoting the dignity and the humanity of black people. It is about ending capitalist exploitation and forming progressive economies that enrich communities and societies.

Yes, black people have worked hard to promote education, STEM skills, and solutions for a long time. No, we don't need the respect of others as we can respect ourselves regardless if people like us or not. Yes, many BLM members have helped a white victim of a police killing before. His name was Dylan Noble. So, we never forget the names of Aiyana Jones, Michael Brown, Jessica Williams, Kisha Michael, and other black Brothers and Sisters who have died. Many of the same ones who lecture black people on "all lives matter" lecture black people on "black on black crime" (in other words, they hypocritically believe in colorblindness, but they don't view crime as colorblind. I reject colorblindess. I believe in being color respectful and having color awareness in a positive way) when most crime in America is intraracial (and crime is caused mostly in close proximity, it deals heavily with socioeconomic factors, and it has nothing to do with inborn genetics. In other words, no one talks about "white on white" crime in a massive level since many view white people who do crime in more complex terms from that person has mental illness to that person has drug addiction. Black people are demonized more in society relating to many issues). T-Boz kept it real about Trump. Non-blacks (like the Asians, the Irish, the Greeks, etc. That is why there are Asian museums, Irish museums, and Greek festivals nationwide) are free to talk about their heritage, their culture, and their identity from history to poetry and they are praised by society. When black people want to express unapologetic blackness in public and advance black interests, then we're demonized by the haters unfairly as being "intolerant." That is wrong. I will not compromise. So, we are going to speak our Blackness regardless.


By Timothy