Comments

1

Yes I have been amazed at the unending construction in Seattle, even as the downtown looks like a ghost town.
Rents? Still $1,600 per month for a tiny studio - but the 1st month is free!

2

Good Afternoon Charles,
I read your post. It was a bit difficult to understand at first but I think I get your point.

I largely disagree. First of all, CHAZ/CHOP should never have happened. Had George Floyd's killing not happened AND/OR not been recorded & gone viral, there would have been no mass demonstrations or CHAZ/CHOP. Mayor Durkan retook this "autonomous zone" because it was essentially, "mob rule". The Police precinct should never have been abandoned and Cal Anderson Park never occupied. The former is an essential city service and the latter, a public park. I haven't been to Detroit in awhile but I would imagine the "autonomous zones" there are on private property long since abandoned. Or, maybe there are "agreements" with the current title and/or deed holders (owners). Don't know for sure.

Secondly, Detroit and Seattle are very different American cities. One hundred years ago the Motor City was (beginning to be) a destination city. The draw being largely for African-Americans from the South to the then thriving auto-industry town. Detroit is now in decline due to "white flight" & the loss of that industry and Seattle since roughly 25 years ago is the destination city. Yes, largely for whites and Asians. Also, I believe I've read that Seattle doesn't have "slums" per se. Detroit definitely does.

I get your point about Seattle being a billionaire town. I would believe Detroit probably doesn't have millionaires. They probably are in Gosse Pointe, MI, a suburb. But I don't think there is much to learn from Detroit's autonomous zones. And, Durkan sending in the police "en force" was for public security not necessarily for private property (read: monied interests). To be sure, there were property owners on Capitol Hill that were aggrieved but that's because CHAZ/CHOP brought chaos to their neighborhood.

CHAZ/CHOP like its earlier version, the "Occupied Movement" (remember that from 8 years ago?) ended in failure as most utopias do. It was most unfortunate.

3

Charles, proofread that last paragraph, and ask yourself: "Is this the best I can do?"

4

I bet CHOP was wall to wall 'BIDEN 2020' campaign signs with all those democants down there!

6

@4: Bullshit. Establishment Democrats would never have had the guts to take this kind of a real stand on anything. And if you've somehow missed this, Durkan is a Biden supporter.

At some point, you're going to have to grow up and accept that the vast majority of what you disapprove of is not the result of a diabolical conspiracy.

Protest never is-protest, resistance, and uprising only happen because the people, deciding from below, want them.

Biden didn't want any of this.
Neither did Soros.
Neither did Large-C "Communism"-an ideology which is extinct and therefore incapable of wanting or causing anything,

I'll give you one thing, though-you DO sound "old, white, and scared".

The world is changing
Uptight, paranoid white "Christians", a group which never deserved to be in charge, aren't going to be in charge much longer-and nothing bad will come of that, because that group had no more to offer than anyone else.

We're going to move past this point.
We're going to get to a place where no one is oppressed, mocked, made unwelcome, held down, or in any other way disrespected.
We're going to get to a place where freedom from want is recognized as just as crucial a freedom as the right to buy a shitload of guns, if not more so, since guns free no one in this country.
We're going to get to a place where the steps are taken to deal with Covid-19 and the climate crisis, where white supremacy ends and liberating equality takes its place, where we all have a share and we all have a say.

We're going to make the world we need.

Deal with it.

7

"How much of the art does the public like or feel strongly about? What should be erased? Which works are to be relocated and preserved?"

None, all, none.

8

CHOP was never an autonomous zone. Even though those zones operate autonomously from the established system of governance in their particular area they do employ a defined structure of how the collective operates. CHOP didn’t have that. It was a potential spawning ground for the next step in the protest for equal justice and to stop the murder of young black men by extrajudicial means. Due to a lack/ void in leadership with what became CHOP it never realized its own potential let alone be able to be called a cultural or political movement. That said I don’t see it has set BLM or the quest for justice back. It was simply a missed opportunity.

It’s nothing to do with a comparison to Piketty or any sort read on the fight against capital or capitalism. It’s to do with more and more of the citizenry being pissed about how militarized the police are and racism that is still deeply ingrained in society.

9

The Heidelberg Project and Dabls Mbad African Bead Museum are about reclaiming abandoned spaces and infusing them with creative life. Chaz/Chop had an anarchist destructive energy. The Stranger is so in love with the dream of CHAZ/CHOP that they can’t admit it failed miserably. The best thing that can come out of it at this point is a memorial garden in the park for those that died.

12

The art and spirit of CHOP was democratic

The armed checkpoints and the shooting of the black kids was very "democratic". Bravo. Nearly reached DPRK levels of democracy there.

13

@#6

"just as crucial a freedom as the right to buy a shitload of guns, if not more so, since guns free no one in this country."

... and yet how long did it take for Raz to decide it was a good idea to hand out guns to kids? He sure freed those kids! If only someone had told him guns free no one. To be honest I hope you and the right-wing extremists wipe each other out, but do it somewhere far the fuck away from productive members of society.

16

I am intrigued how so many w/ zero personal experience have such contrary views to CHAZ/CHOP, and the events therein. The City let it happen, and someone may finally take credit for abandoning our East Precinct.
Please DO understand that we as a City need to win the peace, regardless of how we got snookered into the conflict.
Barriers are set up around the street mural, and Charles can remain nostalgic for urban decay as he sees fit.
SEA is not Motown, but our tax breaks for: Alcoa, Boeing, Amazon, Microsoft, Costco, Weyerhauser, etc., may make us closer cousins than many might like to admit.
Name me that ideal political eden, and I am sure as fast as monied entitled yahoos can infiltrate, jext year it will be somewhere else.
Enjoy it while you have it, like life.

17

Imagine thinking walkability is a capitalist dystopia. I guess you've never heard of the automobile industry.

18

The election should be a sure thing, but people just won't shut up:

Britney Marshall, self described teacher, scholar, social justice change agent, PhD candidate at Rutgers. She states the idea of 2+2=4 is cultural and because of western imperialism/colonization. She is behaving like George Orwell's novel 1984; where they tortured the dissidents into believing 2+2=5.
As a Black person, her sheer ignorance brings ill repute to BLM.

Defund the police.
Let Raz and his crew be the police with no training, no background checks, ...

Biden just embraced "the Green Deal", the brain fart of the clueless AOC, Bernie...

When Trump win again, you all can protest 24/7.

22

... and fascism expects nothing less.


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