This week, KOMO-TV in Seattle released a documentary entitled Fight for the Soul of Seattle.

Anyone living in or near Seattle should see this.  Broadcaster Eric Johnson takes a tour of downtown Seattle, going over all the changes that have affected the city and its people over the past few years.  Some of the video is heartbreaking, especially if you are a Seattle native over the age of about 30.  Mr. Johnson talks to city officials, academics, and those who have suffered from the neglect Seattle has been bestowing upon the homeless, drug addicts, and mentally ill who engage in various illegal and destructive behaviors.  He speaks to activists, and to small business owners who have been forced to leave the city by the meteoric rise in crime, not only in the central core of the city, but in its previously leafy, pleasant neighborhoods north and south of downtown.

I believe that Mr. Johnson lays the blame for Seattle’s deteriorating condition directly where it belongs: on the City Council which basically approves of and encourages such decay, right outside their own doorstep.  I saw only two areas that could have received additional mention.  One would have been to interview Seattle residents from many neighborhoods, and asking them how they think of the officials that they themselves elected to run their city.  Did they expect this to happen?  Would they vote for the same council members again?  The other issue is that, of all the repeat offenders they profiled, not one was black.  I’d like to know why, when a plurality of crime most everywhere is committed by black people, why they did not profile a black criminal.

I urge all Pacific Northwesterners to watch this documentary.  Comments are, of course, welcome!