Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I am devastated. I know many here are gleeful as the municipal government runs over the barricades and destroy all the work of the organizers, but I want everyone to stop and think for a second.
What does this say for the future of our country?
The supposed 'normal' neighborhoods are zoned as residential or commercial, and each segment is dependent on the wider metropolitan area for labor and basic subsistence.
Most of the early interviews in CHOP show yuppies and over paid immigrants complaining about the loss of big capital and zoning laws as producers and residents melded together to provide water and fresh food to all citizens.
These immigrants and yuppies have no connection to the land and are used to fill population centers at random to keep a community dispersed and working/buying from the same big financial speculators and their companies.
While CHOP was pooling together labor to clean up the trash, provide fresh water, and grow communal gardens, the commuter economy that relies on people being dependent and devoid of control over their own land worked to actively destroy any chance CHOP had at a future.
The organizers made mistakes and there was some crime (relatively little) but it was a free and independent form of society that if given time rather than opposed would have developed and had better capacity to shelter, feed, and educate its residents.
Most of these 'small business' owners people mourn about are just glorified distributors for big capital. Their goods are often mass produced by outside companies invested in by global capital, and their foods are sourced from industrial farms once again funded by financial speculators.
These are not the producer guilds of 15th century Japan, the German Empire, or modern day China.
The latter examples were built by a connection of guilds which incubated small business owners to produce craft goods, foods, and arts. These same methods made industrialization easier, and created a producer society.
These 'small-business' don't make a producer society, they cultivate a consumer economy where locals are reliant on foriegn capital and government zoning, and more than anything staffed by overpaid yuppies and immigrants who don't care about the community but rather about making money for themselves.
In the past neighbors pooled together capital and labor because what benefited one benefited all. CHOP wasn't a fringe movement that belonged in the outskirts of a valley or abandoned field, but a free form of organization that could reform mainstream society and how capital is distributed. Rather than people being isolated and stressed it would have helped people to come together and feel as if they were part of a shared culture.
But now that CHOP is destroyed I am afraid that alternative is as well, and most Americans will scorn it rather than morn what CHOP could have been, not just for itself but for the whole country.
The Mayor of Seattle should be arrested for criminal obstruction of justice, illegal deprivation of rights, and negligent homicide
That's a REALLY good idea. In many areas, property is dirt cheap, for those who want to inhabit it and form neighborhoods of like-minded people and fix up the place.
People WOULD take notice if they were able to inhabit the once middle class neighborhoods that are now abandoned, and make them livable again.
Yep, you already have the built environment in these neglected cities. It would just take a collective effort to rehabilitate these areas. I'm sure in these cities there are probably programs in place to incentivize development or rehabilitation in these neglected neighborhoods.
It could have spread to districts across the country and shared ideas with one another.
Then once enough zones are captured and capital liberalized, it would force city governments to reform in order to sustain their economic system.
The real small businesses would form guilds, a producer economy would grow throughout communities as more labor is localized, and districts would no longer be crudely divided by commercial or residential needs.
Off-shoring would be reduced, people would have a shared identity and much of the isolation Americans feel would be minimized.
Hatred would recede and many of the problems Americans face today would be resolved. Instead we have chosen to go down a much darker path. I pray for this country.
If it tried to spread to my neighborhood it would have been stopped instantly. With weapons.
Comrade! CHAZ/CHOP got a dose of reality. That reality is human nature. The irony of CHAZ/CHOP is that it needed the police to have a snowball's chance in hell to succeed at what you described. Go get a bunch of like-minded people, buy a huge building in some derelict city, and you can have your artisan/producer small business utopia. You could probably buy up a chunk of Detroit for practically pennies. Don't forget Comrade Winterfall, you can also buy a tract of land in the boonies and build up your utopia from practically scratch using the glorious power of the people. The main problem for the long term viability of this project is that people have the option to leave and not stick out adversity. There's also the option of armed revolution, closing off the borders, and molding society into whatever you deem fit. I don't think this has ever been tried before. Naive 20-somethings of the world, unite! Godspeed... err... fair winds, Comrade Winterfall.
I hear Detroit is yearning for people to return to that city. They could go to a city like that and reform it, if it does work, people will take notice. Why not put in the hard work and build up something that is struggling, instead of squatting in an area that is highly desirable and leaching off of others who put in the work to make the area desirable. If this model succeeds in a struggling city, trust me, people will start to take notice.
I actually rather like this idea.
If the CHOP people are such pillars of virtue, lets give them a couple of square miles of what is now vacant land, maybe even with a few vacant buildings left for them to renovate.
Let's see if they can actually govern themselves, and draw a population of like minded individuals, and turn their "dream" into a reality.
If they fail miserably (my bet), nothing is lost. If they succeed, perhaps they can show the rest of the world a better way forward. (Again, I can't possibly see how). But what have we got to lose?
And it might be good for Detroit? (Doubtful, but what is there to lose? Detroit is the closest thing to Mars we have readily available)
I am devastated. I know many here are gleeful as the municipal government runs over the barricades and destroy all the work of the organizers, but I want everyone to stop and think for a second.
Think about what? The illegality of unlawfully occupying private property and enabling multiple murders to take place?
Liberals are perfectly free to go buy up some property for sale in the middle of nowhere to re-create their Utopian nightmare
From CHAZ , which sounds like the name of some basement dwelling scrawny White kid that thinks he looks cool with dreadlocks to CHOP which makes the whole thing sound more militant to satisfy the looting rioting arson bunch and neither was anything good.
It baffles me that Seattle put up with it for so long. I haven't read any reports from media sources about the takedown yet. I'm sure CNN and MSNBC are gushing at the "protesters" being peaceful artists and activists suffering at the hands of police.
Personally I cant bring a single wisp of lamentation up for those freakazoids. Had the decision been mine to make I would have gone in long before they became entrenched.
I sure not misty eyed that they were finally taken dow.
if you were smart enough to realize the lunacy of the OP, but didn't get enough rep for your salient post(s), it;'s because I'm getting messages that say I can't rep you 2x, or I've repped too much in 24 hours.
from the other CHOP topic, that I'm glad the OP started this new one so folks could see the lunacy that actually exists among some ...
Quote:
How many CHOP occupants were residents of Capitol Hill? Nearby neighborhoods?
Cannot the CHOP occupants move somewhere within WA, or the US, and have their ideal community?
Here's 3,900 acres for $7.5MM - what has been donated to #BLM in the last 30 days? At a density of 20,000/sqmi (dense and transportation friendly), that's a nice 120,000 person self-sustaining city you've got there. Get a 23,000 tract somewhere - you could even get your own US House Rep.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
