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Definitely anti-Trump here, but I'm sorry.. this CHAZ thing was an idiotic stunt with zero serious potential.
As much as I find fault in capitalism, I am too educated to put serious faith in a commune formed by ****-for-brains radical young activists.
If anything, this stunt validated the need for police since crime surged and 911 response time tripled, which is what you'd expect when you pull back the cops and let a bunch of kids run free.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BOS2IAD
"Communal gardens"? Seriously?
OP---How could you not have noticed the sign at the "communal garden" that said the garden was only to be used by blacks and Native American Indians?
And you support segregation and exclusion?
They made mistakes as I said, and I called the gardens divisive because of the racial slant.
But it had the underlying philosophy of a producer economy just like 19th century Germany or 21st century China.
Rather than dividing communities based off of residential or commercial needs and forcing a consumer economy, producers would be decentralized and a network of guilds would grow.
It didn't happen and the kids were irresponsible, but CHOP could have evolved into something better. It was a step in the right direction, but now that it was destroyed without a second thought, its potential is wasted.
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.
Do you have any assets? If so, why? You should give them all up. If not, I understand how you would support this crap because you have nothing to lose and want everyone else to be miserable
I have to wonder how the OP wrote that post with a straight face.
They had "labor to clean up trash"? You've got to be joking. Didn't you notice all the graffiti and vandalism? Didn't you notice the graffiti that said "F*** the SPD" and "The SPD is an STD"?
No one cleaned up trash. Get real.
You also show no concern for the actual residents. You know---the ones in their condos and apartments? Nor did you show concern for business owners who were forced to pay extortion if they wanted to stay in business.
Do you have a home and a yard? If so, you can invite them to create a new CHOP in your backyard.
CHOP was a lawless place where murders and other nasty crimes occurred unpunished. It was a pure regression, and not an alternative to anything.
This society is the best that you get. It is the best in history.
It is so good that, in fact, its worst most dystopian elements are the concessions made to the immoral mob types that insisted on the CHOP experiment that took lives.
The largest injustice was that CHOP was allowed to exist at all.
I hope that anyone that lost anything because of CHOP sues Seattle's mayor and the City of Seattle into the Stone Age for allowing it to exist past the first day.
They had collectives to clean up trash, produce art, and grow communal gardens.
Granted the programs were divisive, but there was an attempt. Mistakes were made and CHOP had problems, but they could have been improved rather than dismantled.
You talk about police, firefighters, and municipal services, but you ignore the fact that metropolitan areas create taxable wealth by dividing districts with zoning laws and necessitate financial speculators to stock and populate the varied communities.
CHOP was a collection of every type of resident, not just immigrants and transplant yuppies strategically placed to divide a location and promote commuter culture and a consumer economy.
CHOP was becoming productive, just like the producer guilds in Bismark Germany or modern day China. Both sustained their wealth from have small suppliers and craft guilds spread throughout their countries.
If CHOP's political organization had spread, labor would be pooled together creating a large producer base and freeing our national dependency on foriegn capital. And public services can be handled collectively, just as it was in every town across the country before 1920.
But the alternative choice for mainstream society was destroyed.
Your "alternative" consists of some artists making stuff, which is nice and all, businesses operating off the capital/ investment they made before, new armed "police" rising to the top of the heap, copious amounts of drug use and spray painting, and a spike of crime after dark. And people behind it not exactly the brightest of the bunch, either drifters with no real professional experience or naive, idealistic 20-something "Conflict Studies" majors.
You really thought this was going to develop into a viable model of an orderly, productive, safe society? Please.
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.
Phffftt.
All while suckling on the teat of actual productive American taxpayers.
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.
Until I joined City-Data (and I was in my 50s at that point) I never realized how many people had been dropped on their heads as infants.
This group was trespassing on public and private property and land.
If Chop/Chaz wanted to fight for it, then they should've engaged in a bloody battle with the US military to win and claim rights to that portion of the United States, as a country.
It just illustrates how completely ignorant and child-like the whole stand-off was. They didn't even understand what they were doing (and how completely unwise), nor were they prepared for longer than a week.
Ultimately they proved they were children playing an adult game.
Like I said the Clara, the actually 'property' in modern day Seattle is formed by strict zoning laws that determine who and how someone invests in the land, and populated deliberately by transplants and immigrants to create a bedroom community of commuters and open to distribution centers for global capital disguised as 'small businesses'.
There was a grey area in setting up CHOP, and they should have fought for it, but Capitol Hill wasn't a community like what Americans considered a community in the old days.
Even back then a real community was made up of local who both had residential and commercial interests in their zone and pooled together capital since everyone in the community had shared value. It created a shared culture, not the isolated one that is created today by the consumer based model.
Again shades of grey, but nothing in this world is black and white.
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