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Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

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Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#281

Post by uoaei »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #191
0x262d wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A handful of incidents like these are being distorted and blown up by media that treats cop lies uncritically. In comparison, just a few nights ago, cops were beating people and filling the area with tear gas (banned under geneva convention) and it was seeping into residential homes so badly that even nextdoor is anti-police in that area now.

> media that treats cop lies uncritically Which media is that?

There is a very strong correlation between: local news stations with sizeable real estate interests (i.e., aligned with the interests of property owners, speculative real estate investors, and yuppies interested in moving to "safe, updated neighborhoods" that have been recently cleared out of the poors) and local news stations that print police press releases almost verbatim with absolutely no journalism actually being performed.

For more info: https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/episode-54-local-crime-re...

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#282

Post by xenocyon »

VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #229

I lived in Seattle Capitol Hill (Harvard Ave by SCCC) area for 10 years and left the state in 2010. I went back a few years ago for a visit and it looked like the homeless population had doubled in the time since. All of King and Pierce counties are completely overrun by homelessness and drug addiction. I remember it was a big deal when they would go sweep out "The Jungle" tent city under I-5 at Beacon Hill. Now they…

You are correct that Seattle has a tremendous amount of homelessness. The rest of your comment doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Sweeps - which you seem to be advocating - do nothing to solve the problem; meanwhile you ironically criticize tent cities in residential neighborhoods without seeming to understand that a tent city is a residential neighborhood and it is precisely the periodic shutdowns and relocations of tent cities and similar instabilities that exacerbate the homeless problem by blowing folks from place to place.

I wouldn't call Seattle's government "useless", but their effectiveness is certainly diminished by reactionary voters whose moral/punitive emotions get weighed more than evidence-based science on homelessness.

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#283

Post by deathgrips »

nikkwong wrote: post #197
deathgrips wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 ba…

Homelessness is a complex problem which I believe namely stems from psychological and substance abuse disorders. I think there is likely a relationship between the amount of income inequality in a society and the amount of homelessness. I do believe that we should support the homeless populations of our cities; but if you're familiar with Seattle's homelessness problems in particular, you'll know that the city has es…

>Homelessness is a complex problem which I believe namely stems from psychological and substance abuse disorders

I think this is about as useful as saying "homelessness is caused by loitering". We're confusing cause and effect. Try living on the streets for a few years where people treat you worse than shit without developing some mental illness or abusing drugs to deal with the stress and loneliness. If you think that the cause is mental illness and drugs and throwing money at it mostly does nothing, why do you think San Francisco has by a long shot the highest rate of homelessness in America?

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#284

Post by cma »

colllectorof wrote: post #214
conroy wrote: post #84

A friend lives in Seattle and texted me today about his visit last night: > I was there last night and it's such a cool pseudo utopian place > The media coverage of it is WILD > People on the internet are convinced it's protected by armed guards and people are dying of hunger and instead its...like a music festival campground > There are speakers, musicians, art walls. I took a group pic for a bunch of black guys las…

> The media coverage of it is WILD > People on the internet are convinced it's protected by armed guards and people are dying of hunger and instead its...like a music festival campground This seems like propaganda in its own right. With the exception of Fox and Sky, most news coverage I see on YouTube is neutral or positive: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=capitol+hill+au... Most mainstream coverage of p…

Fox is by far the most popular news channel in the US and pretty close to bigger than the rest combined.

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#285

Post by Aeolun »

salawat wrote: post #265
kempbellt wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people start policing the police force, don't they become....the police (by definition, not legality)? And therefore susceptible to becoming just like the "idiots/assholes" they were empowered to deal with. Certainly an interesting recursion problem.

The solution to that is not having an "empowered" caste, and leaving it to a community to police themselves. Everyone tends to get nervous about that though.

Something about witch hunts and lynching perhaps?

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#286

Post by daenz »

I live nearby but I haven't visited. I've been staying up on different livestreams however. I would say it's a naive waste of time, but clearly it is an outlet for people to feel creative and free, and there is some value in that. I think the long term is that people who support it are going to look back at it and cringe at some of the fantasies being played out.

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#287

Post by aazaa »

The first (of several) demands reads:

> 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. At an equal level of priority we also demand that the city disallow the operations of ICE in the city of Seattle.

https://capitolhillautonomous.zone/demands.html

This is a fascinating experiment that seems to channel a number of forces bubbling just below the surface for decades. The futile, never-ending war on drugs. Police violence. Lack of police accountability. Institutional racism.

What will be more fascinating is what new political parties develop. These demands are well outside the mainstream, but given recent events, not impossible to see being implemented to one degree or another.

But neither party has the alignment of interests for this kind of reform.

Without a political party, it's hard to imagine how anything changes after the banners and barricades come down.

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#288

Post by superfrank »

Oh, Jesus Christ... I live about 3/4s of a mile from the "Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone". The way people are talking about this is ridiculous.

It's basically a bunch of wannabe Marxists LARPing.

They call the area "self-governed" and "abandoned", but the city had workers mowing the grass at Cal Anderson Park, two days after it was "established". There are cops sitting like 10 blocks away in case things get out of hand.

CHAZ is basically a block party at this point that the cops letting exist while tensions cool down a bit. If anything started to get of hand, you can be certain the police would be on the scene any moment. It's autonomous in the same way my house is autonomous. The police will let me do my thing until they get wind that I'm doing something decently illegal.

If you want to see a real "Autonomous Zone" in Seattle, 3rd and Pike is your spot. The cops let pretty much anything go there and it's a crap hole.

Edit: I'd like to add, I'm not trying to take anything away from their message. I think these protests need to be happening. I just think it's stupid that people are acting like some outside of the government people first commune has been created when really, it's basically the same as when people set up a bunch of tents in the park during the Occupy movement.

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#290

Post by gonational »

solarkraft wrote: post #66
ciarannolan wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the OP of that post: >tl;dw: Man was tagging over someone else's art, Raz and group approach and separate him from crowd, chasing him for two blocks. He begins to film them with his phone, they take it from him. He tries to get it back and they attack him, kicking him in the head and breaking his glasses. At one point, Raz threatens to shoot the man. They then begin to gaslight him that it was all his fault. Aud…

> So it took about 3 days for this anarchist utopia to demonstrate exactly why police exist. Yes, but not current american police. What is demonstrated here is that unchecked power is bad, which is pretty close to what the american police currently seems to have, leading to crimes like the one that started the whole protest.

> unchecked power is bad

Are you pro individual gun ownership?

The second amendment exists in the US Constitution, first and foremost to balance the power between a populous and would-be tyrants.

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