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The CHAZ Has Become America's Fascination
The Stranger describes it as an "anti-capitalist police-free Vatican City inside Capitol Hill." The New York Times deems it "part street festival, part commune." President Donald Trump alludes to it, via tweet, as a bastion for "anarchists" who "must be stooped [sic]."
Seemingly overnight, the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone—or, "the CHAZ," as everyone's calling it—has become a local and national fascination. It was only Monday that the Seattle Police Department loaded up trucks and ditched the East Precinct at 12th and Pine, the site of tear gas-clouded confrontations between officers and Black Lives Matter-inspired protesters in the days after the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd. Protesters have since barricaded and transformed a cluster of city blocks into a mostly peaceful enclave of free food, face coverings, resistance art, educational town halls, and even some live music. Seattle Police Department chief Carmen Best says she's heard of armed people patrolling the area and businesses having to pay "protection" fees, but as of this writing, no formal police reports related to either situation have been filed.
At a time when cities are mulling the defunding and, in a few cases, abolition of their police departments, some people might be looking at Seattle's police-free movement with a mix of amusement and genuine curiosity: Is this communal version of the American experiment a blip, or is it a preview of what's to come in other population hubs this summer? For many, however, the questions are more fundamental: How long will the CHAZ (or the People's Republic of Capitol Hill, or Free Cap Hill, depending on your sign preference) stick around? And what are its aims?
Raz Simone, a local rapper, has apparently taken a leading role in declaring a several-block area of a residential Seattle neighborhood to be an independent revolutionary state called the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (The CHAZ). Simone and a few friends, armed with several guns and a megaphone, have declared themselves the new police. He came to national attention on Wednesday when a video of him assaulting someone over graffiti came to light online.
[...] The president tweeted Wednesday and Thursday morning that the area has been taken over by a "Terrorist Warlord" and "Domestic Terrorists."
See also: The Future of Capitol Hill's New Autonomous Zone Is Predictable
Businesses Extorted? Armed Checkpoints on Capitol Hill? Yes, and Also Mercer Island Is for Sale
An Exceedingly Chill Day at the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 12 2020, @05:39PM (2 children)
Can't wait for the South Park episodes about this clusterfuck of a circus.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 12 2020, @09:58PM (1 child)
There will be many cheering, and there will be some who fear.
Both these emotions are useful, but not too much of either.
We are undertaking the most tremendous move ever made by LABOR in this country, a move which will lead
- NO ONE KNOWS WHERE!
We do not need hysteria.
We need the iron march of labor.
LABOR WILL FEED THE PEOPLE.
Twelve great kitchens have been offered, and from them food will be distributed by the provision trades at low cost to all.
LABOR WILL CARE FOR THE BABIES AND THE SICK.
The milk-wagon drivers and the laundry drivers are arranging plans for supplying milk to babies, invalids and hospitals, and taking care of the cleaning of linen for hospitals.
LABOR WILL PRESERVE ORDER.
The strike committee is arranging for guards, and it is expected that the stopping of the cars will keep people at home.
A few hot-headed enthusiasts have complained that strikers only should be fed, and the general public left to endure severe discomfort. Aside from the inhumanitarian character of such suggestions, let them get this straight -
NOT THE WITHDRAWAL OF LABOR POWER, BUT THE POWER OF THE WORKERS TO MANAGE WILL WIN THIS STRIKE.
What does Mr. Piez of the Shipping Board care about the closing down of Seattle’s shipyards, or even of all the industries of the northwest. Will it not merely strengthen the yards at Hog Island, in which he is more interested?
When the shipyard owners of Seattle were on the point of agreeing with the workers, it was Mr. Piez who wired them that, if they so agreed -
HE WOULD NOT LET THEM HAVE STEEL.
Whether this is camouflage we have no means of knowing. But we do know that the great eastern combinations of capitalists COULD AFFORD to offer privately to Mr. Skinner, Mr. Ames and Mr. Duthie a few millions apiece in eastern shipyard stock,
RATHER THAN LET THE WORKERS WIN.
The closing down of Seattle’s industries, as a MERE SHUTDOWN, will not affect these eastern gentlemen much. They could let the whole northwest go to pieces, as far as money alone is concerned.
BUT, the closing down of the capitalistically controlled industries of Seattle, while the WORKERS ORGANIZE to feed the people, to care for the babies and the sick, to preserve order - THIS will move them, for this looks too much like the taking over of POWER by the workers.
Labor will not only SHUT DOWN the industries, but Labor will REOPEN; under the management of the appropriate trades, such activities as are needed to preserve public heath and public peace. If the strike continues, Labor may feel led to avoid public suffering by reopening more and more activities,
UNDER ITS OWN MANAGEMENT.
And that is why we say that we are starting on a road that leads - NO ONE KNOWS WHERE!
(Anna Louise Strong, February 4th, 1919 [marxists.org])
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by khallow on Saturday June 13 2020, @04:41AM