Seattle activists have established a 6-block autonomous zone around an abandoned police station

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/06/12/seattle-activists-commandeered.html

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The irony in the right’s response to this is so rich it’s giving me atherosclerosis. Could it be more clear that the only “freedom” you love is your own, to be an ignorant shithead?

The Right: The left hates freedom

The Left: creates an autonomous space free from coercion

The Right: The state must put an end to this insurrection!

The Left: giphy

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Unsurprisingly, KOMO is the local Sinclair outlet, with all of the attached horribleness.

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I think this is as dumb as the cccupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

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And why do you think that?

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The world is looking more and more like a William Gibson novel every day.

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If I were the police and I was serious about breaking this enclave, you know what I’d do? I’d get a drum circle going right in its heart.

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For an “autonomous” zone, they sure are making a lot of demands on the governments they are dependent on. It’s almost like they believe they are holding this territory hostage, rather than being something allowed to exist temporarily in the spirit of protest whimsy.

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I am getting a sense of “Oh No, Anarchists!” from some people here.


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Or it’s one tactic of many in a push to create a better city, while simultaneously building a model for what that might look like? YMMV I suppose.

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There will still be crime in the autonomous zone. But at least taxpayers won’t have to pay a professional to commit it.

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Haven’t we seen this tactic again and again?

Step 1: The oligarchs’ thugs pull out and let their critics all gather in one small space.

Step 2: The oligarch’s thugs return and beat, kill, and/or round up everyone in that concentrated zone.

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They tear gassed the ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOOD. We live outside of Seattle but we have a couple friends who live or next to the Zone. People asleep in their homes were being gassed because they filled the streets with it.

Last night my husband was playing a game online with his friend who lives there. He said it was really pretty quiet considering that there was basically a huge street party happening outside. He definitely preferred it to the tear gas and gunshots he’d been hearing before the East Precinct closed up.

And let me point out that Cap Hill is more or less the gay neighborhood. The rainbow crosswalks you see in some pictures aren’t new street art; they’ve been there for years. They gassed a gay neighborhood, during Pride month. They cannot possibly be surprised at the reaction they got.

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That is a really strange thing to say. I probably am thinking about a different cccupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge?

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Because the risk reward is too great for a few blocks.

Obama didn’t have the viperous people backing him that Trump does. And I don’t want to see Capitol Hill become a war-zone more than it has already become so due to real estate development.

Tienanmen Square anyone?

The push back I’ve seen is that “Suddenly the left is for walls, check points, and open carry.”

Personally it reminds me of the time a group of Native activists took over the abandoned Alcatraz.

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The Left have always been for arming the citizens.

Democrats aren’t Left. They’re so far right of center they’re barely show up as contrast to the right at all.

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Karl Marx made speeches that wouldn’t have been out of place at an NRA rally.

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I would agree, but that is the propaganda about the Democrats.

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