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Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

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Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#601

Post by jakelazaroff »

DenisM wrote: post #568
jakelazaroff wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I truly don't understand the problem here. Can you tell me what it is that makes these people dangerous and scary, but the similarly armed protestors who showed up at government buildings a month ago — or, frankly, the police — fine?

The police follow orders from their chain of command that goes up to an elected official. You can petition the elected official, occupy their building, grill them in the media, and vote them out if you convince the other citizens. For example the knee-to-the-neck move was a part of the "orders" in that it was part of standard procedure and it is now being revised and removed. Similarly the tear gas was part of the pr…

> This is why we tolerate the police for a few hundred years now - on occasion they cause violence that's predictable and can be influenced.

The point of these protests is that the violence is not occasional. It is endemic, and attempts to stop it stretch back centuries. It has persisted across the country, under both progressive and conservative politicians, despite many, many attempts to eliminate it.

If the violent system we have has successfully resisted change and accountability for hundreds of years, how is this a regression?

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#602

Post by headcanon »

growlist wrote: post #586

Does anyone think this would not have been crushed without mercy if the protestors were 'white supremacists'? Serious question. The irony is that if these AZs were permitted it could give said segregationists exactly what they had been after for decades.

well this thing did happen in Charlottesville a couple years ago, and resulted in massive counterprotests by the left. I would imagine the same would happen here.

In terms of declaring themselves "autonomous", I'm thinking (and I imagine others in power are thinking as well) that this is simply done as a statement of protest, rather than an actual serious attempt to form a sovereign government. So crushing this without mercy is politically infeasable, especially given that the whole protest is about police and justice reform. I don't think this sets any kind of legal precedent. Better let them make the statement and let it run its course on its own.

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#603

Post by alex_young »

undefined1 wrote: post #549
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…

Portraying it as some mad max wasteland is absurd, but so is referring to it as even pseudo utopian. It's not sustainable in any way and there wasn't exactly a democratic process by which the residents of Seattle agreed to having a section of their city turned into an autonomous zone. Though it could be an interesting experiment to do this somewhere, I think it'd have to go through a vote.

> Portraying it as some mad max wasteland is absurd, but so is referring to it as anything remotely utopian.

Why couldn't it be positive? I think it's fair to say that these are early days and there is a general lack of data about what's going on, but most of what I've seen has been pretty positive.

Here's a video I watched from inside: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=610393902995230

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#604

Post by plokiju21 »

at_a_remove wrote: post #381
spoopyskelly wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You thinking 4chan is "alt-right" and they have a consensus is just as ridiculous as facebook boomer/media reactions to CHAZ and it being Mad Max style postapocalyptic.

4chan sort of has a consensus in that it is contrarian by default. If the right was in power (Congress, media, and so forth), they would be left. The contrarian stance extends within itself in a fractal manner, so of course you have people inside objecting to that . However, the image I cannot stop smiling at is an elongated figure with an FBI cap, glowing green and using a stick to poke at a small ball with the 4cha…

> If the right was in power (Congress, media, and so forth), they would be left.

How much power does the right need before they're considered "in power"? They controlled both branches of congress and the presidency until 2018, and have a majority on the supreme court. Fox news is the most popular media platform, and have tremendous (but not full) control over the mainstream narrative.

This as "in control" as a single party gets in the US.

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#605

Post by jwilber »

growlist wrote: post #586

Does anyone think this would not have been crushed without mercy if the protestors were 'white supremacists'? Serious question. The irony is that if these AZs were permitted it could give said segregationists exactly what they had been after for decades.

Serious answer. Hoping for an actual reply but if feels like you’re just baiting given your “white supremacist” line in quotes (???).

If you mean to ask what would happen if white people took it over? Having been through chaz a few times, the population is overwhelming white (Seattle itself is only ~7% black). Capitol Hill is itself a white, gentrified area.

Or do you mean actual white supremacists? Charleston went down fine without a hitch. I seem to recall our President call them some, “very fine people.” [1] I also don’t recall any police response to the recent armed Michigan courthouse takeover.

I did, however, see multiple beatings and tear gas used against protestors for no reason at peaceful, unarmed protest events.

Maybe you can explain why you out “white supremacists” in quotes? Maybe you could list some recent examples of protestors being “crushed without mercy”? (I can list plenty, but none that are white movements. Please inform me!)

[1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/tru...

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#606

Post by devalgo »

hopfscotch2 wrote: post #583
devalgo wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah unaccountable armed guards blocking residents from entering and a warlord that assaults journalists is so cool man, what a utopia!

"unaccountable armed guards" Just like the police you love so much? What's the problem again?

Probably not wise to put words in my mouth. I have no love for the police but the kumbaya bs people are spouting about the CHAZ is ludicrous.

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#607

Post by shadowgovt »

Fellshard wrote: post #579
iron0013 wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How, after all the events of the last two weeks, is anyone still willing to take a police-person’s word as truth?

Because some people are still rational enough to treat individuals on an individual basis.

If that means people are taking the SPC's word as truth because they have priors she's generally truthful, that's sensible.

If people are taking the SPC's word as truth because they have priors that cops are truthful, that's an invalid prior based on how much general lying recent events have demonstrated cops do.

If people are taking SPC's word as truth because they have no priors, that's bias to authority and people should probably employ more skepticism.

Do we have any evidence that the Seattle police chief is generally truthful?

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#608

Post by Pfhreak »

DenisM wrote: post #142
free_rms wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More relevantly, they were specifically ordered by their city council not to use tear gas and then went ahead and did it anyways, all over the city. I'd like to think, regardless of anyone's politics, we could all agree that the elected government should have authority over the police.

Can you clarify the timeline? AFAIK the police used tear-gas, then they were ordered to stop by the mayor, then they stopped and switched to other means like mace. Do you know differently?

The Mayor ordered them to stop using one specific type of tear gas -- CS gas -- last Friday. For one day, the police used alternatives including mace, pepper balls, steel cored rubber bullets, flashbangs, and smoke with irritating agents.

However, by Sunday (or maybe early, early Monday morning), the police were using CS gas again at the order of the police chief, Carmen Best.

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#609

Post by pera »

drevil-v2 wrote: post #375
pera wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The media coverage of it is WILD I live 7 blocks away from "the zone" and can confirm, I have never in my life seen anything alike in this regard. The scale of the misinformation being spread in social networks and news media reached a level I couldn't believe possible before. Seriously, it's beyond absurd. If anyone is interested, I have been taking some pictures of the ongoing protests (including a few of the zon…

Seattle police chief said on TV [1] that "Rapes, robberies and all sorts of violent acts have been occurring in the area and we're not able to get to [them]." Doesn’t sound very utopian [1] https://twitter.com/mrandyngo/status/1271291958296604675?s=2...

FYI the Seattle Police Department retracted previous claims yesterday:

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/seattle-area-prote...

This is not the first time Chief Best and the SPD made things up during these events, and in fact they have a long history of misbehavior:

https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/crt/legacy/2011/...

Note that in your video Best is not being too explicit on where exactly those crime reports happened, she just says "in the area" while talking about their response times (CHAZ is a relatively important intersection of Capitol Hill and it is causing some traffic). Note also that this video was filmed in the East Precinct itself (i.e. inside CHAZ).

After everything that happened over the last few weeks it is now my belief that they are being dishonest, which is why two days ago I submitted my first FOIA request to learn more about some events connected to the Seattle Police Department.

By the way, I don't think many people here in Seattle believes this is an "utopia" nor anything close to that, in fact I think that CHAZ may be moving away attention from BLM.

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#610

Post by [deleted] »

undefined1 wrote: post #549
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…

Portraying it as some mad max wasteland is absurd, but so is referring to it as even pseudo utopian. It's not sustainable in any way and there wasn't exactly a democratic process by which the residents of Seattle agreed to having a section of their city turned into an autonomous zone. Though it could be an interesting experiment to do this somewhere, I think it'd have to go through a vote.

[deleted]
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