Viva la Chaz! Seattle's Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ)

[Washington Resistance Army]

Why would I provide proof of something you obviously already know to be true? You're clearly reading this thread, you can clearly see the violent sentiments various right wingers hold towards the CHAZ, you cannot possibly be unaware of right wing terrorism in the United States. If you want me to waste my time then I'll have to ask you to find something more entertaining for me to waste it on.

This is an exceptionally weak excuse. If you want to claim the violence in the CHAZ is from right wingers then you need to be prepared to demonstrate that with actual evidence.

No, the far more likely answer is that without police people are a lot more willing to break societal norms and laws. Hence why in the single month of CHAZ the area had the same number of murders as all of 2019.

[Ifreann]

Why would I provide proof of something you obviously already know to be true? You're clearly reading this thread, you can clearly see the violent sentiments various right wingers hold towards the CHAZ, you cannot possibly be unaware of right wing terrorism in the United States. If you want me to waste my time then I'll have to ask you to find something more entertaining for me to waste it on.

This is an exceptionally weak excuse. If you want to claim the violence in the CHAZ is from right wingers then you need to be prepared to demonstrate that with actual evidence.

No, the far more likely answer is that without police people are a lot more willing to break societal norms and laws. Hence why in the single month of CHAZ the area had the same number of murders as all of 2019.

I don't see any proof here.

[Galloism]

Why would I provide proof of something you obviously already know to be true? You're clearly reading this thread, you can clearly see the violent sentiments various right wingers hold towards the CHAZ, you cannot possibly be unaware of right wing terrorism in the United States. If you want me to waste my time then I'll have to ask you to find something more entertaining for me to waste it on.

This is an exceptionally weak excuse. If you want to claim the violence in the CHAZ is from right wingers then you need to be prepared to demonstrate that with actual evidence.

No, the far more likely answer is that without police people are a lot more willing to break societal norms and laws. Hence why in the single month of CHAZ the area had the same number of murders as all of 2019.

The right wing extremists are living rent free in a lot of peoples' heads these days.

[Grand Hellenic Republic]

But you were arguing that the CHAZ, and I don't know why you're now adopting scare quotes, is the most violent country on Earth in terms of murder rate. Surely if that's meaningfully true then the people there must know violence better than any of us.

No scare quotes my guy, I just found "the CHAZ" mildly amusing as a phrase. I knew you would fall into this logical trap. The people killing in CHAZ were not protesters but outsiders most likely, and in the last case, the security force of the area, aka the most capable fighters. The vast majority were weak little kids and thats one of the many reasons it ended up like it did.

Sorry, I stopped reading when you stopped talking about the situation at hand and veered off into yelling about imaginary people you don't like.

Wow, didn't know this issue was isolated in a vacuum! I am sure that the only reason people tried this whole experiment was just because they woke up one day and thought to themselves "hey! let's create an anarchist commune just for the lolz!", it had nothing to do with actual political convictions that some people hold, which have to do with anarchist communes being some sort of ultimate evolution of human governance! Noooo thats just those silly imaginary people in my head! I guess the founder of this thread and all of his posts are also figments of my imagination!

Here's the thing. You're looking at a spontaneously created little anarchist community that happened to spring up when protesters threw up some barricades to keep cops from re-taking a precinct building they abandoned and deciding that since that place was not a perfect utopia that spurred a global revolution to overthrow capitalism then anarchy can never work in any conceivable way and everyone involved is a stupid sheltered kid and also it was the most violent place on Earth.

Here's where you are wrong. I am not looking for a utopia, I am looking for something functional. For all the gripes I might have with marxist-leninists or maoists, or any other form of vanguardism, I cannot deny that they created functional states that lasted for many years and actually applied their ideology. The closest the anarchists have come to that was their little state-within-a-state in the Spanish civil war, and that fell flat on its face pretty quickly. Every other attempt at applying anarchism has failed much more spectacularly.

And then you look at policing, you look at the cops all across America who night after night are brutalising people who ask them to stop with the brutality, you look at all the crimes and corruption and abuses of power they were getting up to before the murder that kicked off these protests, you look at capitalism as it knowingly continues to poison the world, as it funnels ever greater wealth away from those who already have the least and into the pockets of those who already have the most, as it funds forever wars that turn a profit for a handful while ending the lives of thousands upon thousands of people, and you wave these things off. "They're flawed, sure, but anarchism isn't perfect. Checkmate, leftos."

Yeah, because that is a completely fair assessment of police and capitalism!

We are talking about the place where the voluntary security force shot 2 people for simply driving a car, thinking that they were some sort of threat. If given the choice, I will take trained, professional cops over that shit any day.

As had been stated in another post a few pages ago, "for people who hate the police, it didnt take them long to adopt their most horrific excesses".

[Washington Resistance Army]

This is an exceptionally weak excuse. If you want to claim the violence in the CHAZ is from right wingers then you need to be prepared to demonstrate that with actual evidence.

No, the far more likely answer is that without police people are a lot more willing to break societal norms and laws. Hence why in the single month of CHAZ the area had the same number of murders as all of 2019.

I don't see any proof here.

Check out Mayor Durkan's order to shut the area down if that's what you're after. Crime (not just shootings in particular) skyrocketed in the area and in a one month period nearly doubled all of the 2019 offenses. A woman was raped, a car was stolen, 4 people were shot and 2 died (by none other than CHAZ security in the last one!), there were a crazy amount of assaults, robbery and theft were commonly reported, businesses have been harassed and vandalized etc etc.

Now, do you really think it's more believable that the right wing is so all powerful they can do all this without leaving any evidence, or are people just assholes who were exploiting the lack of law enforcement?

[Bear Stearns]

Was anyone really shocked when this place descended into a crime-ridden shithole?

[Washington Resistance Army]

We are talking about the place where the voluntary security force shot 2 people for simply driving a car, thinking that they were some sort of threat. If given the choice, I will take trained, professional cops over that shit any day.

As had been stated in another post a few pages ago, "for people who hate the police, it didnt take them long to adopt their most horrific excesses".

Not only did they shoot the people in the car but I'm pretty sure they were racially profiled too because iirc in some livestreams from the night you can hear them looking for two black men in a vehicle.

[Exalted Inquellian State]

Was anyone really shocked when this place descended into a crime-ridden shithole?

No, not really.

[WayNeacTia]

Its dissolution was inevitable, but I would’ve preferred that the SPD didn’t...y’know, assault people while dismantling this...protest.

How exactly did SPD assault people? They held their bikes up as a barricade. If you are idiotic enough to attack the police, your ass deserves to be in jail.

I think the next poll should be "How will CHAZ be remembered?".

Much like Somalia I suppose.

Was anyone really shocked when this place descended into a crime-ridden shithole?

They conducted their "experiment with no police" and people died. No real surprises here.

[Hakons]

I'm glad this is finally over. I really can't comprehend why city government thought this was a good idea, and it came at the cost of lives. At least it is done.

The End of Chaz

For more than three weeks, Durkan insisted that the CHAZ was a “block party” or a “Summer of Love,” and entered negotiations with activists and armed gangsters attempting to capitalize on the cultural cachet of BLM. In the coming weeks, when the barricades are cleared and the graffiti is washed away, the true legacy of the CHAZ will be the memory of two black men who died under the false promise of utopia: Lorenzo Anderson Jr., 19, and Antonio Mays Jr., 16. When the television cameras disappear and the bourgeois-radicals go home, who will remember them? Who will say their names?

[Exalted Inquellian State]

Its dissolution was inevitable, but I would’ve preferred that the SPD didn’t...y’know, assault people while dismantling this...protest.

How exactly did SPD assault people? They held their bikes up as a barricade. If you are idiotic enough to attack the police, your ass deserves to be in jail.

I think the next poll should be "How will CHAZ be remembered?".

Much like Somalia I suppose.

Was anyone really shocked when this place descended into a crime-ridden shithole?

They conducted their "experiment with no police" and people died. No real surprises here.

No, it's memory will likely be and should be worse than Somalia- and that is barely any at all. The Kingdom of Hungary ended in 1918, but Horthy came to power in 1920. I'm pretty sure almost no foreigner and little Hungarians will be able to tell you what happened in those two years.

[Ifreann]

But you were arguing that the CHAZ, and I don't know why you're now adopting scare quotes, is the most violent country on Earth in terms of murder rate. Surely if that's meaningfully true then the people there must know violence better than any of us.

No scare quotes my guy, I just found "the CHAZ" mildly amusing as a phrase. I knew you would fall into this logical trap. The people killing in CHAZ were not protesters but outsiders most likely, and in the last case, the security force of the area, aka the most capable fighters. The vast majority were weak little kids and thats one of the many reasons it ended up like it did.

Because the protesters were ordinary people?

Sorry, I stopped reading when you stopped talking about the situation at hand and veered off into yelling about imaginary people you don't like.

Wow, didn't know this issue was isolated in a vacuum!

I'm just not interested in engaging with your imaginings about people not learning any lessons from this series of events.

Here's the thing. You're looking at a spontaneously created little anarchist community that happened to spring up when protesters threw up some barricades to keep cops from re-taking a precinct building they abandoned and deciding that since that place was not a perfect utopia that spurred a global revolution to overthrow capitalism then anarchy can never work in any conceivable way and everyone involved is a stupid sheltered kid and also it was the most violent place on Earth.

Here's where you are wrong. I am not looking for a utopia, I am looking for something functional. For all the gripes I might have with marxist-leninists or maoists, or any other form of vanguardism, I cannot deny that they created functional states that lasted for many years and actually applied their ideology. The closest the anarchists have come to that was their little state-within-a-state in the Spanish civil war, and that fell flat on its face pretty quickly. Every other attempt at applying anarchism has failed much more spectacularly.

This doesn't really change anything about my point.

And then you look at policing, you look at the cops all across America who night after night are brutalising people who ask them to stop with the brutality, you look at all the crimes and corruption and abuses of power they were getting up to before the murder that kicked off these protests, you look at capitalism as it knowingly continues to poison the world, as it funnels ever greater wealth away from those who already have the least and into the pockets of those who already have the most, as it funds forever wars that turn a profit for a handful while ending the lives of thousands upon thousands of people, and you wave these things off. "They're flawed, sure, but anarchism isn't perfect. Checkmate, leftos."

Yeah, because that is a completely fair assessment of police and capitalism!

No, that's a small sample of the flaws you're brushing off. And that's ridiculous. A small anarchist community spontaneously comes into existence and doesn't manage to conquer part of America, something I don't think they were even trying to do, and you treat that as discrediting anarchism. Modern policing in America is seemingly primarily concerned with violently oppressing Americans who want reform and capitalism is actively destroying the world, but apparently those are just flaws. Do the enormous and on-going harms of the dominant ideologies not discredit them?

We are talking about the place where the voluntary security force shot 2 people for simply driving a car, thinking that they were some sort of threat. If given the choice, I will take trained, professional cops over that shit any day.

As had been stated in another post a few pages ago, "for people who hate the police, it didnt take them long to adopt their most horrific excesses".

It seems like you're saying here that you prefer trained, professional cops over armed volunteers, because armed volunteers are too much like trained, professional cops, who will kill people for no good reason.

---

I don't see any proof here.

Check out Mayor Durkan's order to shut the area down if that's what you're after. Crime (not just shootings in particular) skyrocketed in the area and in a one month period nearly doubled all of the 2019 offenses. A woman was raped, a car was stolen, 4 people were shot and 2 died (by none other than CHAZ security in the last one!), there were a crazy amount of assaults, robbery and theft were commonly reported, businesses have been harassed and vandalized etc etc.

Now, do you really think it's more believable that the right wing is so all powerful they can do all this without leaving any evidence, or are people just assholes who were exploiting the lack of law enforcement?

That's not proof, you're just repeating your claim that any crimes that happened happened because people just do crime when there are no cops and not any other reason.

[The Reformed American Republic]

That's not proof, you're just repeating your claim that any crimes that happened happened because people just do crime when there are no cops and not any other reason.

Back at you. Prove that these crimes were done as a far-right conspiracy.

[Grand Hellenic Republic]

Because the protesters were ordinary people?

Ordinary people would have stepped in to prevent the permissive attitude and weakness that allowed these shootings and other crimes.

This doesn't really change anything about my point.

You misrepresented my stance as me seeking some utopia and not accepting anything less, my point was that I wanted to see something functional. It is entirely on you to provide that example.

No, that's a small sample of the flaws you're brushing off. And that's ridiculous. A small anarchist community spontaneously comes into existence and doesn't manage to conquer part of America, something I don't think they were even trying to do, and you treat that as discrediting anarchism. Modern policing in America is seemingly primarily concerned with violently oppressing Americans who want reform and capitalism is actively destroying the world, but apparently those are just flaws. Do the enormous and on-going harms of the dominant ideologies not discredit them?

You can trace both capitalism and modern policing to the 18th-19th century. In these 200+ years of existence both have been rather functional systems with occasional hiccups and sometimes gross injustices. It falls on you to find me systems that work better than these two. I have already admitted that they have big flaws, find me functional alternatives and I will agree to change our systems to these better ones. As it stands now, There are no better alternatives, so we fix and reform these as best as we can and move on with our lives.

It seems like you're saying here that you prefer trained, professional cops over armed volunteers, because armed volunteers are too much like trained, professional cops, who will kill people for no good reason.

You have a problem with your ability to read and comprehend. They resemble cops in their worst aspects, which I accept are a real problem, without any of the advantages of a police force. I have been pointing this out from the start.

[Mexar]

Why didn't they send social workers to deal with the Chaz crimes?

[Ifreann]

That's not proof, you're just repeating your claim that any crimes that happened happened because people just do crime when there are no cops and not any other reason.

Back at you. Prove that these crimes were done as a far-right conspiracy.

I've never argued that every crime that happened in the CHAZ was done as a far-right conspiracy.

---

Because the protesters were ordinary people?

Ordinary people would have stepped in to prevent the permissive attitude and weakness that allowed these shootings and other crimes.

So...ordinary people do experience a lot of violence in their lives? And this is in the US? But the CHAZ was a failure because of all the non-violent people.

This doesn't really change anything about my point.

You misrepresented my stance as me seeking some utopia and not accepting anything less, my point was that I wanted to see something functional. It is entirely on you to provide that example.

My point is that you are treating the CHAZ as if the problems there discredit anarchism but not apply the same standard to other ideologies.

No, that's a small sample of the flaws you're brushing off. And that's ridiculous. A small anarchist community spontaneously comes into existence and doesn't manage to conquer part of America, something I don't think they were even trying to do, and you treat that as discrediting anarchism. Modern policing in America is seemingly primarily concerned with violently oppressing Americans who want reform and capitalism is actively destroying the world, but apparently those are just flaws. Do the enormous and on-going harms of the dominant ideologies not discredit them?

You can trace both capitalism and modern policing to the 18th-19th century. In these 200+ years of existence both have been rather functional systems with occasional hiccups and sometimes gross injustices. It falls on you to find me systems that work better than these two. I have already admitted that they have big flaws, find me functional alternatives and I will agree to change our systems to these better ones. As it stands now, There are no better alternatives, so we fix and reform these as best as we can and move on with our lives.

The status quo doesn't justify itself by being the status quo, and the violent suppression of any alternative system doesn't mean that they can't work.

It seems like you're saying here that you prefer trained, professional cops over armed volunteers, because armed volunteers are too much like trained, professional cops, who will kill people for no good reason.

You have a problem with your ability to read and comprehend. They resemble cops in their worst aspects, which I accept are a real problem, without any of the advantages of a police force. I have been pointing this out from the start.

So like I said, you're saying they bad because they're like cops.

[Neuer Deutsches Reich]

Chaz is full of idiots and anarchism is ani-human race

[Ethel mermania]

Back at you. Prove that these crimes were done as a far-right conspiracy.

I've never argued that every crime that happened in the CHAZ was done as a far-right conspiracy.

---

Ordinary people would have stepped in to prevent the permissive attitude and weakness that allowed these shootings and other crimes.

So...ordinary people do experience a lot of violence in their lives? And this is in the US? But the CHAZ was a failure because of all the non-violent people.

You misrepresented my stance as me seeking some utopia and not accepting anything less, my point was that I wanted to see something functional. It is entirely on you to provide that example.

My point is that you are treating the CHAZ as if the problems there discredit anarchism but not apply the same standard to other ideologies.

You can trace both capitalism and modern policing to the 18th-19th century. In these 200+ years of existence both have been rather functional systems with occasional hiccups and sometimes gross injustices. It falls on you to find me systems that work better than these two. I have already admitted that they have big flaws, find me functional alternatives and I will agree to change our systems to these better ones. As it stands now, There are no better alternatives, so we fix and reform these as best as we can and move on with our lives.

The status quo doesn't justify itself by being the status quo, and the violent suppression of any alternative system doesn't mean that they can't work.

You have a problem with your ability to read and comprehend. They resemble cops in their worst aspects, which I accept are a real problem, without any of the advantages of a police force. I have been pointing this out from the start.

So like I said, you're saying they bad because they're like cops.

Chauvin got arrested for murder for his actions. There is no accountability in the CHAZ

[The Greater Ohio Valley]

Chaz is full of idiots and anarchism is ani-human race

Anarchism is anti-state, not anti-human race.

[Ifreann]

I've never argued that every crime that happened in the CHAZ was done as a far-right conspiracy.

---

So...ordinary people do experience a lot of violence in their lives? And this is in the US? But the CHAZ was a failure because of all the non-violent people.



My point is that you are treating the CHAZ as if the problems there discredit anarchism but not apply the same standard to other ideologies.


The status quo doesn't justify itself by being the status quo, and the violent suppression of any alternative system doesn't mean that they can't work.


So like I said, you're saying they bad because they're like cops.

Chauvin got arrested for murder for his actions. There is no accountability in the CHAZ

Clearly not, it doesn't exist any more.

[Hakons]

Chauvin got arrested for murder for his actions. There is no accountability in the CHAZ

Clearly not, it doesn't exist any more.

And is that for, or against, your hopes and wishes?

[Ifreann]

Clearly not, it doesn't exist any more.

And is that for, or against, your hopes and wishes?

What?

[Northern Davincia]

And is that for, or against, your hopes and wishes?

What?

Do you wish for the CHAZ to still exist?

[Ifreann]

What?

Do you wish for the CHAZ to still exist?

It'd be nice for people to get more practice at not having cops around before the police are abolished.

[Ethel mermania]

Chauvin got arrested for murder for his actions. There is no accountability in the CHAZ

Clearly not, it doesn't exist any more.

Yet that 16 year old is still dead.