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Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

capitolhillautonomous.zone

181–190 of 920 posts

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#181
I love CHAZ so much, I hope it becomes a national trend.

If city councils would defund the police and use the money for actual good things then we wouldn’t have this problem of police brutality and police being above the law. But no, the police need to buy tanks ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those asks seem pretty incompatible with property law and the legislative process. You can't just unilaterally demand something like rent control and de-gentrification measures. The city government shouldn't even have (and probably doesn't have) the power to meet such demands.

Degentrification could trivially be achieved by eminent domain, condemning existing residential property for public housing for which eligibility would be governed on rules which are incompatible with gentrification. It might be expensive, even prohibitively so, to do on a broad scale, but in terms of legal authority it's well within the scope of powers that local governments usually have. Note that rent control, eve…

There is legal precedent to use imminent domain to transfer wealth from one individual to another. Usually it’s stealing from the poor, and giving to real estate developers.

There’d be a certain amount of deferred justice in doing that, but I’d rather the practice simply be banned.

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first line of the CHAZ demands: > The Seattle Police Department and attached court system are beyond reform. We do not request reform, we demand abolition. We demand that the Seattle Council and the Mayor defund and abolish the Seattle Police Department and the attached Criminal Justice Apparatus. This means 100% of funding, including existing pensions for Seattle Police Also, I would look at the Baltimore police…

With regular assholes you have the right to self-defense. With the police you don't.

Without police or “criminal justice apparatus” your rights are merely theoretical.

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#184

It is plainly illegal. A bunch of criminals have barricaded several city blocks that do not belong to them and barricaded shared public infrastructure (roads). These are crimes. They should be apprehended, charged, and sentenced. This is very straightforward. Either the laws exist and they are enforced equally upon everyone or we do not have a functioning society.

You break the law many times per day, we all do. Enforcement of law is always discretionary and thus political.

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#185

Seattle doesn't want to be beaten by Minneapolis to becoming the next Detroit

Yes, I'm personally very worried about this as someone who is heavily invested in the real estate market here. The issue of how to deal with the rapid growth in the city is multifaceted and it's difficult to pitch a stance on. At the very least, you could easily make an argument that a rising tide does not lift all boats; i.e. many people are personally not benefiting much from the tech-boom in the area. On the other…

>Should people really be entitled to live in an expensive city that they cannot afford? Cities like Manhattan or SF have sort of taken a stance on that and it favors the prosperous.

I find it eerie that you're excluding from the equation the tens of thousands of homeless people in those cities. The right question is "to what lengths should we go to give people the ability to live with a roof over their heads?" The bay area has answered with "very little", where most people are barely offering human empathy to the homeless.

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#186

It is plainly illegal. A bunch of criminals have barricaded several city blocks that do not belong to them and barricaded shared public infrastructure (roads). These are crimes. They should be apprehended, charged, and sentenced. This is very straightforward. Either the laws exist and they are enforced equally upon everyone or we do not have a functioning society.

You break the law many times per day, we all do. Enforcement of law is always discretionary and thus political.

Do you mind if I put up a barricade around your house so cops can't come near us? :)

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Seattle, went over yesterday with no preconceived notions of what must be there. I had seen some posts that it was pretty lawless, but really took them with a grain of salt. Nothing I had heard about it was true. I didn't see any guns, no violence, or anything, no checkpoints (just barricades stopping actual cars from coming in, but not stopping people/bicycles). Just a bunch of people kind of hanging out l…

There you have it folks, eyewitness testimony. And yet somehow I suspect the people that believe the rapper warlord Orwellian dystopia narrative won’t change their mind one bit.

Stories are all over the place. How an area looks at 10 AM and how it looks at 10PM can be completely different. Some very nice and safe towns are anything but after a few hours pass.

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those asks seem pretty incompatible with property law and the legislative process. You can't just unilaterally demand something like rent control and de-gentrification measures. The city government shouldn't even have (and probably doesn't have) the power to meet such demands.

Degentrification could trivially be achieved by eminent domain, condemning existing residential property for public housing for which eligibility would be governed on rules which are incompatible with gentrification. It might be expensive, even prohibitively so, to do on a broad scale, but in terms of legal authority it's well within the scope of powers that local governments usually have. Note that rent control, eve…

IANAL but I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to use eminent domain to confiscate the homes of citizens based on their race. The law doesn’t make provisions for unpopular races as far as I know.

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#189
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those asks seem pretty incompatible with property law and the legislative process. You can't just unilaterally demand something like rent control and de-gentrification measures. The city government shouldn't even have (and probably doesn't have) the power to meet such demands.

But they should try something. Maybe degentrification could include a city requirement not to displace people when building new housing. The developer puts the previous occupant up and then guarantees them their same rent for, say, a decade going forward

The problem with imposing restrictions on real estate developers is that it reduces the amount of housing, which increases the cost. (Look at California, for example.)

I’d rather they force commercial developers to put in two bedrooms worth of housing for each full time employee worth of office space they add.

If the developers are short-sighted and only add high end McMansions and condos, that’s fine.

The housing market will eventually oversaturate, and those properties will end up selling at a loss to people that couldn’t afford them at the original price.

The Microsofts and Amazons of the world will end up paying eye watering premiums for open space floor plans, or luxury real estate developers will take a bath. Either way, not a tear will be shed.

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#190
post #87
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

many of the fears those protesters had were realized over the next two decades Is there a list of these fears somewhere? Ideally as presented at the time.

well, globalization on neoliberal terms has continued to hollow out living standards in advanced countries while turning neocolonial countries into large sweatshops. the life expectancy in the US has fallen for 2 or 3 years in a row now largely as a downstream result of this. that is my understanding of one major concern from that.

What does “neoliberal” mean in this context?
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