User banned (1 month): inflammatory generalisation
Scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds.
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Seattle police are retaking CHAZ
- Thread starter fluffydelusions
- Start date
Scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds.
I was under the impression that the local violence situation got objectively worse in that area, no?
This is a BIG issue lately. Some other topic had sources from some shithead that had a tweet pinned up about trans folk being mental. Choose better sources folks.
Why does it take a few confrontations in the CHAZ for people to yell "this will never work"? Doesn't the police confront people all the time?
And it didn't seem like people were itching for a fight in there. Fights broke out because someone was either acting out of line or started attacking others first. This Thought Slime video shows an actual, and not sensationalized, tour of the zone:
And it didn't seem like people were itching for a fight in there. Fights broke out because someone was either acting out of line or started attacking others first. This Thought Slime video shows an actual, and not sensationalized, tour of the zone:
There were also objectively far more people than there are normally. Seattle generally has 250-400 reported shooting incidents a year as is; they just rarely attract national attention
Exactly... people need to click the twitter profile and scan thru the tweets before sharing it. Or, just wait 5minutes for another major news organization to post the story. Maybe someone else beats you to the thread in that time, but big deal.
In the KY Senate thread, someone posted some random person allegeding election fraud, saying "This looks sketchy as fuck," until you click to that person's feed and realize they are literally a crazy person on the internet posting crazy things every day.
Be happy when Resetera takes off its mask once in awhile to appeal that "no, we really DO need the police to bash some heads"
sad that it failed.
I think if it were planned better it could have worked. It seemed like it was an idea thrown together in the heat of a moment with hefty ideals but little actual planning.
Would love to see something like this again in the future that was thoughtfully planned out.
I think if it were planned better it could have worked. It seemed like it was an idea thrown together in the heat of a moment with hefty ideals but little actual planning.
Would love to see something like this again in the future that was thoughtfully planned out.
I'm surprised by the response here. I feel like given everything that's going on it shoudln't have to be said that pigs marching around cracking skulls is not a good thing, no matter how much you dislike the situation in the CHAZ.
As for some of the criticisims of the CHAZ... it is good to be critical. But I feel like some people are missing the point. I don't think many people in the zone were labouring under the illusion that it would become a permanent feature of the American political geography. It was a sustained protest. Having a group that large willing to defy political authority and demonstrate that they were willing to live in a hastily erected social project rather than under the "protection" of the Seattle city's authority was making a huge statement. It is really disheartening to see so many people have such a negative opinion of the protesters.
All that said, I'm not American, and I'm not living in the States, so this is an outsiders opinion. But I feel like projects like the CHAZ do more social good than Nike releasing a BLM statement on Instagram, you know?
As for some of the criticisims of the CHAZ... it is good to be critical. But I feel like some people are missing the point. I don't think many people in the zone were labouring under the illusion that it would become a permanent feature of the American political geography. It was a sustained protest. Having a group that large willing to defy political authority and demonstrate that they were willing to live in a hastily erected social project rather than under the "protection" of the Seattle city's authority was making a huge statement. It is really disheartening to see so many people have such a negative opinion of the protesters.
All that said, I'm not American, and I'm not living in the States, so this is an outsiders opinion. But I feel like projects like the CHAZ do more social good than Nike releasing a BLM statement on Instagram, you know?
The narrative the protests are trying to create is that lack of confrontational policing and particularly police brutality have no effective downsides.
The narrative CHOP creates is that as soon as you tell the police they can't beat people up you get a gaggle of fucking morons creating The Seattle Jungle 2.0 on your front lawn overnight. And that you cannot, in practical terms, solve the problem it creates without violently confrontational police presence.
Needless to say, this is not the look anyone wants for the protests.
Yeah, it's just unfortunate that some people had to die over this.
I thought this was dumb from the start, but I didn't think anyone would die over it.
I support the sentiment, but when you have the state's boot on your neck they will pounce eventually. That's my issue with it. It's tactics, not strategy.
I'm not saying the laws are fair obviously. The laws are corrupt and enforced corruptly.
Sure and it utterly failed at proving they don't need law enforcement.
They failed to maintaining a safe space. Frankly that was always going to be too difficult but they at minimum needed to build confidence they can create their own form of humane law enforcement within their zone.
That's not the narrative CHOP creates, that's the narrative you have created, and have decided to share on this forum.
It shouldn't be surprising that medium-term activist projects aren't perfect, are exploited at all times by media groups to be sensationalised, as well as being high stress situations due to the threat of state violence at all times. Which, turns out, was a correct fear, as it seems that as soon as the police decide to do something about it, supposedly progressive spaces cheer on the police.
I understand the spirit and intention behind CHOP/CHAZ, but it degenerated into a shit show. The reality is that situation isn't all that compatible with human nature.
Yeah, it's remarkable for the Occupy protests to look organized & moderated in retrospect - but CHOP pulled it off.
I live and work in Seattle as an essential worker. Everyone is sick of this. The fire department is sick of it. The EMTs and hospitals are sick of it. The residents of the neighborhood are sick of it. Everyone on both sides of the issue is sick to death of the mayor's handling of it.
At best it was Seattle's hipster-protesters and homeless population wresting the reigns of the protest away from the groups that started it. At worst it's an easy example for anyone who wants to point at as to why the police can't be abolished here. In reality, it's an ugly blight that never produced anything of value to the actual BLM movement that it effectively supplanted here in the city.
what is the point of hot takes like this?
Do you seriously believe the liberals on this forum are fascists?
Glad to see that some people here are willing to throw these protesters under the bus because they're already "tired of everything". No shit, black people have been tired of dealing with systemic oppression for decades and want actual deep-level change, not just "black lives matter" signs painted into roads and media companies covering their asses.
Sounds like tone-policing then.
Not you, but the sentiment you outlined.
No that's absolutely the narrative CHOP creates. I live next to it and it's so fucking horrible waking up at 2 AM to the sound of gun shots. I've lived here for years and never heard them before. Do you live near it?
My understanding is that these clearly contradictory contentions aren't emanating from the same block of individuals.
And that the folks in that latter group speak from a position of privilege that most of the folks who've actually been out walking those streets since May do not enjoy.
You can be tired of it, but you just suggested that systemic police violence is acceptable in order to prevent a CHOP from occuring. I get that YOU don't necessarily agree with that view, but then why give it oxygen?
This place was plastered all over right wing media and social media, had people flocking in from all over to come to it, had tons of right wing agitators constantly demagoguing about it and showing up there. The city essentially abandoned it, removing the police presence and purposefully not replacing that presence with anything else, intentionally abdicating responsibility for the citizens. They did that specifically so when things devolved (which was inevitable under these conditions) the city could send in law enforcement to just do the same shit they always do.
Seattle doesn't give a shit what the rest of the US thinks about it or what narrative they want to push with it. Seattlites respect the protesting but soured on CHOP pretty quickly. Now you can argue that's just NIMBYism (and there is some of that as Capital Hill is a gentrified area) and discomfort confronting societal problems at close range, but it's not a police/no police conversation here, it's about people feeling unsafe with it existing and demanding anybody do something about it.
We're also tired of having movements co-opted and manipulated into bullshit where black teenagers are getting murdered in the zone that was supposed to be created because of a black man getting murdered and claiming to have the moral high ground. At that point what are you? You think we're gonna applaud the effort after your self-appointed force straight up executes a black teen? Of course we're gonna turn their asses over to the cops. They were no better than cops.
This ain't even the first attempt of white people jumping in and fucking it all up. I've been watching instances of that go down THIS ENTIRE TIME. This is just the most severe case. You don't get an A for effort when your self appointed force tells the teens they just riddled with bullets "oh, you're not dead?"
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The thing is, Seattle isn't tired of BLM. The city took the rioting in stride; the protest movement grew after Westlake got trashed.
The momentum stalled when CHAZ formed. There were maybe two or three days afterwards where people tried to keep the spirit up; they marched on city hall and the West Precinct, they organized more protests in Tacoma and Bellevue, things were happening. After a few days, though, it became clear that most of the "protesters" in CHAZ were actually just sedentary, and anyone who wasn't interested in being an urban camper of no particular purpose may as well go home. Aside from a handful of hope-springs-eternal types trying to whip the camp up into doing something, it basically just became a sort of combination block party and homeless encampment.
We aren't tired of BLM; we want BLM to come back. We're sick of CHOP, which whether anyone likes to admit it or not has basically been a replacement and has been an utter failure.
This is a bit confusing to me because isn't that supposed to be the point of the zone?
Change, or rather the implementation of it, isn't objectively good.
Sounds like there are serious concerns about this (including from locals posting in this thread).
Doesn't mean they're against the overall aims or don't have solidarity with people who urgently want improvements to society.
Pretty hard to determine what the 'point' of the zone is given its nature, but yes removal of police presence was the main thing. However, removal of police presence doesn't necessitate that city government abandons the place entirely. People who advocate for police abolition are not advocating for a bunch of CHOPs, where the seats of power with resources just abandon segments of a city and leave it to random citizens with no resources to 'figure it out'. It's not good municipal governance to essentially say "I'm taking my toys and going home".
You can be a fan of the idea of CHOP and be for it being shut down. It became a mess. Even leftists have been calling for it to be disbanded and for efforts to be focused elsewhere. It had some really bright moments and ideas but lacked the vision/organization. Dismantle CHOP, let that block get back to normal, and keep up the pressure for police reform/defunding.
Starbucks' open-mic night was filled up?
Not every lazy, unorganized idea some trustifarian comes up with is worth being put into practice.
If you're going to propose a re-imagining of American Life, you gotta do better than masked vigilante gun-men getting into gun fights on random street corners in your communes. That's just the same old Wednesday in America, otherwise
I don't disagree with folks saying that it was co-opted by different movements and the feeling of it stalling momentum (and the frustrations that brings) but I'm also not a fan of telling people how to protest and the [seemingly] implicit celebration of state violence that clearing the CHOP/CHAZ will bring.
Just feels like that ire is better spent on SPD and the mayor.
But I'm not an essential worker so I've been working from home for months, and while I live relatively close to where it's happening, it's not close enough to impact my day-to-day, so I also acknowledge that I'm speaking from a position of privilege in that regard and I feel for my fellow Seattleites who *are* negatively impacted by this.
Just feels like that ire is better spent on SPD and the mayor.
But I'm not an essential worker so I've been working from home for months, and while I live relatively close to where it's happening, it's not close enough to impact my day-to-day, so I also acknowledge that I'm speaking from a position of privilege in that regard and I feel for my fellow Seattleites who *are* negatively impacted by this.
Eh, the city government didn't abandon it entirely. They still had ambulance, fire services, and were still supplying electricity and water. The only difference was literally in their being no police presence.
this more or less ultimately speaks of what would happen with community security. You just end up with even less qualified people in power.
And the overwhelming narrative of this thread, to me, is that the point isn't to go back, but that there is a vast gulf between status-quo and CHAZ.
Well, if there's one thing I think basically everyone involved with this on any level can agree with, it's that Durkan's done a poor job handling it.
Yep.
1) have a hard cap overtime allowance. Not only does it bloat budgets, lack of rest has a tremendous impact on one's psyche
2) split functions. Wellness checks should be done by social workers most of the time aside from situations where there's probable cause that violence might erupt. Such incidents should be done with independent civilian oversight.
3) Demilitarize police. No more military grade gear. Such things should rest solely on National Guard and require strict elected official / civilian approval.
4) better training (ideally Police training should be 3-4 years not a few weeks as it currently is), strict review of use of force, and mandatory recurring psyche evaluations.
Weren't ambulance services not actually entering the zone and relying on private citizens to bring patients to an agreed upon location to pick them up from? I get why they would do that, worried about EMT safety and everything, but that still makes a difference in the quality of service if you are relying on random citizens to bring someone to a certain place before an ambulance can actually get to them. I've read some reporting to that effect. Ik they didn't turn the water or power off (pretty sure that would've been illegal for them to do regardless).
I guess my issue is that the mayor withdrew the police, and replaced them with nothing and didn't really use city resources to provide any kind of alternative or structure to prevent this sort of thing from occurring. The insistence that the response is either an extremely corrupt and racist police force, or nothing, is kind of the core problem motivating the protests in general.
At the end of the day this just resulted in more black teenagers being killed. To me that's a complete failure on the city government.
CHOP doesn't prove anything about community security or much of anything other than what happens if a city just leaves a neighborhood without essential services or any alternative to those services and no resources. And we already know what that looks like, because there are tons of inner city black neighborhoods, Native American reservations, etc. that already exist in that way in the status quo.
I'd throw in the holy grail of gun control (at least abolition/restriction of public carry) if only because:
A) At the moment "weapon on scene" is the main thing that short-circuits first response to police rather than community services/EMTs, and
B) It removes a lot of the excuses for police to skip steps in the use of force continuum.
I know that's always pie-in-the-fucking-sky here in America, though, especially the PNW.
A) At the moment "weapon on scene" is the main thing that short-circuits first response to police rather than community services/EMTs, and
B) It removes a lot of the excuses for police to skip steps in the use of force continuum.
I know that's always pie-in-the-fucking-sky here in America, though, especially the PNW.
Would need to be significantly larger to be sustainable and at some size you get into "too small to be a nation, too big to be a mental institution" territory.
The city isn't chartered to support and help sustain autonomous zones. What some folks seem to be asking for is an ad-hoc annexation of the area by a non-governmental entity.
Did the commune not attract competent urban planners or land use attorneys?
I think a lot of liberals, and the sort on this forum especially, are only liberal up until the point when they are actually impacted.
This thread is a great example, as an organized community tried to come together without the need for the fascist police, having to organize their own security while dealing with Proud Boys and other neo-nazis, and it took 2 weeks before they were cheering on the cops to go bust some skulls.
When push comes to shove, the liberal mask comes off, and what's underneath that civility fetish is pretty goddamn sinister.
Just been there.
So the police came around 530 I think (my friends who live nearby told me the helicopter woke them up) set up a police tape across the whole zone and park, AFAIK without any resistance (I don't think there is anyone out in the street in 530) and now city workers are dismantling the whole thing.
There are small crowds forming next to the police line, but outside one dude that shout some incoherent things at the cops no one was even trying to start a chant.
I have not seen them removing any tents, but there are way less tents there now, I suspect a lot of people just bolted when they saw the cops.
I hope no one gets hurt in the process of clearing it up, but good fucking riddance.
So the police came around 530 I think (my friends who live nearby told me the helicopter woke them up) set up a police tape across the whole zone and park, AFAIK without any resistance (I don't think there is anyone out in the street in 530) and now city workers are dismantling the whole thing.
There are small crowds forming next to the police line, but outside one dude that shout some incoherent things at the cops no one was even trying to start a chant.
I have not seen them removing any tents, but there are way less tents there now, I suspect a lot of people just bolted when they saw the cops.
I have no idea why it was established and I think the net result of doing that shit was nothing but negative.
I hope no one gets hurt in the process of clearing it up, but good fucking riddance.
You say this like the 'autonomous zone' is some force of nature that exists independent of the city. The city IS chartered to provide services for that neighborhood, the city is still taking tax revenue from those residents. Their power and water bills weren't canceled. You are being intentionally obtuse and disingenuous about this.