"What we do know is that Washington officials have completely lost control of the CHAZ, and they won’t get it back without exerting force. Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan has tried to negotiate with these protesters without success, and the protesters haven’t shown signs of budging. Peaceful or not, this is anarchy. And the only reason Seattle protesters have gotten away with it is that law enforcement hasn’t been able to challenge them.
This is what happens when you remove policing from the picture. If we do not have a way to enforce our laws, then any number of citizens could do what these protesters are doing and create their own autonomous zones, make up its rules, and force other citizens to obey them. Last I checked, we considered such behavior unacceptable.
And it is, which is why Democrats and other activists should think twice before supporting “defund the police,” a movement that would ultimately like to see law enforcement abolished or at least crippled. If this movement has its way, the lawlessness will not stay in Seattle. It will spread, and it will lead to violence." Washington Examiner
—————
The mayor of Seattle says that the seizure and occupation of a portion of downtown Seattle is OK by her. She predicts that Seattle may now experience a "summer of love" and that Trump should stay in his besieged bunker in Washington and mind his own business.
The "Capital Hill Autonomous Zone" (CHAZ) has defined its present borders, installed border guards and is taxing (extorting) business and people within its territory. The mayor of Seattle and the governor of Washington State (soon to be renamed) are notorious leftists as are many citizens resident in the city and state.
What is being affected in Seattle is de facto secession from the United States. This differs from the secession of the Confederate States in 1861 in that it is the states that are the contracting parties in the US constitutional union and not cities or parts of states.
The US Congress some years ago created US Northern Command with headquarters in Colorado for the purpose of defending the US against threats both external and internal. It is one of the Unified Commands that are subordinate to POTUS and below him to SECDEF. Like the other Unified commands it has no troops of its own but has numerous contingency plans under which troops will be made available to it on order. Nearby at Tacoma there is Ft. Lewis which has most of the 2nd Infantry Division in garrison. when Trump says that he could take action against the CHAZ rebellion, he has the means. The question arises as to whether the chain of command would obey him considering that General Milley has expressed the tenderness of his feelings with regard to the use of troops to suppress disturbances. I have pointed out that federal troops (not the NG) have been used 14 times since the end of the Indian Wars to suppress unrest but, this is evidently of no concern to Milley or Fightin' Jack Keane who supports Milley.
I ask you pilgrims, if secession is allowed in Seattle, why would various discontented groups not attempt it elsewhere? pl
The mayor (herrronner?) and the governor are trying to look the other way and deny that the occupiers have guns, have established borders, checkpoints, are demanding money from citizens caught in CHAZ, etc. No problem, they say, just citizens exercising their constitutional rights peacefully. To paraphrase Groucho Marx, who are we to believe, the mayor/governor or our own eyes?
Political scientists define government as the institution with the monopoly on the use of force. CHAZ is a defacto government competing with the city, state and federal governments.
Colonel, your comments are spot on. What is to prevent this from happening elsewhere where local authorities will not exercise their lawful authority?
This makes me yearn for leaders like Frank Rizzo again.
Not quite the Euromaidan yet, but getting there. Things can get out of control so quickly and so drastically. Sad.
Washington State has no state income tax. The Federal Government has a lot of power.
Reasonable people– on either side of the aisle– can agree that we cannot allow parts of our cities to be handed over to the rabble. Jenny Durkin is letting her personal ideology cloud her judgement. The crisis needs to be addressed swiftly and with as much force as needed. Seizing public land and private property has nothing to do with BLM or racial justice, it’s a flagrant powergrab by criminals and opportunists who should be held accountable for their actions.
The lack of clearsightedness seems to have overtaken the entire democratic party which seems to think there is some “gray area” in this matter. But there isn’t. It’s cut and dry for anyone with half a brain.
I live just north of Seattle, and I’ll tell you, there are alot of people who can’t wait to vote these goofballs out of office.
Why would they not? They most certainly will in any jurisdiction where they feel the authorities are either compliant or lack the will to resist. This situation has been planned by the anarchists for a long time and can now only be resolved by force. Trump had better fire Milley and move on this very quickly. There is presidential precedent for this going back to Sheay’s rebellion.
Don’t spread this “liberation” around geographically – concentrate it all in Seattle. Let it be the magnet city for all those who want a totally free, autonomous lifestyle, but NO foreign aid from the US allowed.
I do support “space” dedicated for those who chose not to participate in productive activity and provide for their own food and shelter. But confine his location to one dedicated “freedom area” only; not spread it a around.
One way bus tickets to Seattle provided by non-profits should do the trick and clean up this “homeless” mess once and for all. Thank you Seattle for drawing the short straw. You’re it.
From WTO to the nation’s LOO, there could not be a more deserving city. You gave us Starbucks, Amazon, Microsoft and now finally the answer to vagrancy and lawlessness. A grateful nation thanks you.
Seeds of Seattle anarchy well planted and cultivated by its non-response to its recent invasion of vagrant camps. How was this any different than being taken over by radical separatists?
A must see documentary, produced well before this current insurrection that the mayor insists will breathe new life into this already fractious town. “Seattle is Dying”: https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/seattle-dying/
The federal government let the Bundys and their armed followers hold the Malheur Wildlife Refuge HQ for 40 days before taking them into custody. There were armed standoffs with the Bundys on and off for several years preceding that. The nation endured those challenges. We’ll endure CHAZ which looks more like a hippie commune/street party than an armed standoff.
CHAZ is not autonomous at all. It still has city water and power. The concrete barriers were removed to all emergency services to enter CHAZ. This removal was done with the mutual agreement between CHAZ and the Seattle government. Residents and businesses deny they are being taxed. Some have said they prefer this to the police gassing of the area. This AZ will either melt away or morph into some kind of equilibrium with the city. It can’t sustain itself as is. This is another instance where we should not fall prey to hysteria.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ9-fBPjdG0&feature=share
https://medium.com/@emilypothast/what-the-f-ck-is-going-on-in-seattle-48efbe6214f8.
The local perspective.
……”Personally, I’m excited for Chaz. And I can’t wait to see the utopia bloom.
But the name’s a bit of a short-changer. As the territory evolves, I recommend “Seattle Haven for Idealistic Triumph.”
It’s a different acronym, but something about it feels right.”
(From: RedState)
Seattle
Haven for
Idealistic
Triumph
Why haven’t we heard from the 500 or so private property owning residents who got trapped in this Seattle city council enabled miasma? If they are all good with this, then let them be.
But why are US based public utilities still serving this newly autonomous area when there are no cross-border agreements. Their neighbor Vancouver and the rest of Canada has effectively created a travel and tourism wall around their entire country.
Why is newly independent CHAZ still allowed to feed off the US? Of course, this new status means they are no longer US registered voters for any upcoming US elections
zed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws3LT598bL4
TTG
As I recall the Bundy problem, they did not claim to have detached the reserve from the US. They were upset about what they saw as misuse of the property. They believed that certain lands should be returned by the YSG to the states. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Malheur_National_Wildlife_Refuge
Their fledgling garden reminds me of an old Beavis and Butthead show, the boys were asked by their teacher what they would like to grow as part of a class project, they decided upon nachos.
There is no principle or ideology involved in the state declining to break up that “protest” takeover. There is simply a lack of the courage required to do so.
pl,
Bundy did not recognize federal police power or federal courts. He views were in line with the Sovereign Citizen Movement. More specifically, he wanted federal lands transferred to private ownership. His ranching operation was dependent on unfettered and free use of federal grazing land.
@ Deap | 12 June 2020 at 11:54 AM
They tried something similar in Copenhagen in 1971, with mixed results … but their anarchist collective, ‘Freetown Christiania’, still exists, albeit a little worse for the wear:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania
Zed, thank you for the local video which does give far more credence to the overall “block party” description, but the over all impression is also “Seattle So White”. I hope you do have a summer of love in your city drawing in the world’s disaffected, and they all ….. wear flowers in their hair.
As I mentioned in Harper’s thread the Seattle police are pulling the chair, a basketball reference, on the protesters. It will be interesting to see how that plays out but it’s currently “so far so good.”
The protesters became obsessed on the east side precinct HQ for whatever reason, now they “have” it. We all must be careful what we wish for. Next night the protesters were down to a couple dozen hard core and the local residents are now the ones giving them grief, not the cops.
The Copenhagen “autonomous” community is on an island (peninsula?) and far removed from their downtown. You can view it on a canal boat tour. I believe it was the site of a former industrial or public utilities plant. Mixed reviews locally, but does not intrude on surrounding metropolitan area.
Key West has a similar nearby offshore island that is a free for all described by some as either pure heaven or pure hell, depending on their perspective. Not sure what its current state is today – waste management was its biggest concern.
Zurich tried its “needle park” free drug use zone, but that also failed. One may need to include strict isolation as a criteria for autonomous zones, before giving them any social credibility. Either they is or they ain’t. And if they ain’t they must live within the confines of polite society. Unless of course they are truly not asking for “freedom” and only want to be in your face contrarians.
TTG,
Which city is that NWR located in and how many civilians were barricaded inside with the Bundy’s?
I disagree with @plantman’s assessment that the Dems’ reaction to this results from a lack of clearsightedness. They know exactly what they are doing in their silence or tacit support; it is yet another futile attempt at entrapment. The same people who defend the war on the constitutionally defensible secession of the states of the Confederacy will cry foul them moment force is used against the utterly unconstitutional Seattle Commune.
Trump knows this and his threats are, as usual, bluster. He can let CHAZ wither on the vine and simultaneously use it as an opportunity to show what happens when Fukuyamism-Lennonism (thank you DH) is left unchallenged.
Already libertarian maximalists are coming out of the woodwork to defend people’s right to declare autonomous zones anywhere they like. I saw Hans-Hermann Hoppe cited somewhere. This fellow believes in the “..rights of property owners to establish private covenant communities.” with the ability to exclude and eject people based on religion, sexual orientation and so on (wiki). To me this seems a sure recipe for the collapse of any sort of cohesive state. It is surely a short journey from Hoppe to Hobbes.
You are absolutely right to differentiate between the secession of a state (let Washington try it if they wish) and the anarchic takeover of part of a city, which is simple lawlessness. Hysterical hatred of Trump fomented and encouraged by the left and by the media has led to this. All the more grist to Trump’s mill, roll on November.
It’s a slow simmering Tahrir or Maidan. Just wait until they turn the rioter/protesters back on, in force, in November. I am planning a trip out of the country.
Funny thing is I lived adjacent to the to the 11th precinct for 10 years, and participated in the 1999 protests. My old apt is in the CHAZ. However, then, we were protesting for the government to FOLLOW the rule of law, rather than abandon us to corporate run globalist institutions. Which is now now Trumps position.
Let’s see how it rolls. Walk softly and carry a big stick. If it go’s south, document it and expose it for what it is. Then smack it.
Deap and TTG,
Private property owners are OK with it? ‘Morph into equilibrium?’
Do you think business guys who have this happen to them would throw away the opportunity of a lifetime? There are going to be a lot of million dollar lawsuits against the city of Seattle over this, I will bet you. The suits will go on for years, and there will be big settlements. Ever heard of the Stockholm Syndrome?
Spot on Twisted Genius!
Seattle? it’s angst-theater… let ‘em make their molehill west of the mountains, the kids will get tired. & Amazon, Boeing, Microsoft, Costco, T-Mobile, Starbucks… they’ll keep things under control easier & cheaper than sending in the 2nd ID.
TTG
But he did not try to take these lands in dispute out of the US.
pl,
True, Bundy was not aiming for secession. He just wanted the land for his own use and profit. Sounds like a looter to me. The talk about CHAZ seceding is just talk. Talk and a few hand written cardboard signs declaring you are leaving the US and entering CHAZ. City services are continuously coordinating with people in the CHAZ for continued services. Residents and visitors can come and go as they please.
The police chief visited her precinct as a prelude to bringing her police back. That went down without incident. That’s not the sign of secession. Earlier today around 30 police officers showed up to enter the precinct. Protesters moved the fences to let them in. For some reason one or more cops decided to pepper spray the protesters. One called out, “Hey, we said no pepper spray!” The crowd started yelling and the cops went back to their vehicles. CHAZ remains a cop free zone, but 911 and other city service personnel are still given free access.
Plantman:
“I live just north of Seattle, and I’ll tell you, there are alot of people who can’t wait to vote these goofballs out of office.”
The same people who voted these goofballs into office?
Not very likely
Places like western Wash. (as opposed to eastern Wash.) or NYC and suburbs (as opposed to upstate NY) are never going to vote like grownups.
They’ve been hard left (neo-socialist, anti-American, white guilt) for too long.
TTG, in my opinion, there is a difference between college kids acting out their fantasies and real anarchy. The first is conducted as a version, if you like, of the great American self government experiment.
The second leads to the equivalent of a Favela, complete with crime. I do not know which Seattle has chosen.
I used to visit Boeing twice a year when I worked in the airline industry forty years ago and have fond memories of that beautiful place. It’s a pity to see Seattle and the State of Washington trashed by these leftist morons.
TTG,
It’s been a while since I agreed with you on matters internal to the US, but when it comes to CHAZ, I do.
It sure does look like a street fair/block party atmosphere and, as you say, it’s only autonomous in name; otherwise totally dependent on Seattle for basic needs. Yes, they took over a police station, but they would not have had the police, under the Mayor’s orders, not handed it to them. Basically, it appears to be a bunch of young, stoned, recent products of the liberal public school system live action role playing revolutionary. I’m not even convinced that they fully understand what they are doing is wrong in any way. Sending infy in after them would be overdoing things in a huge way and a terrible optic; more harm than good in the long run. I don’t see how CHAZ is any more dysfunctional than Washington DC as of late. Both are utterly dependent on tax payer money for existance and CHAZ seems a lot less autonomous in action and more connected to its citizens than Washington DC.
As for the concept spreading, The West coast cities have been in defiance of the federal government for a few years with sanctuary cities, legal cannabis, etc. The Mayors and Governors seem to be of a similar mindset to the CHAZites anyhow. I don’t see how more CHAZ situations arising would really change the picture.
IMO CAZ will burn out shortly. In the meanwhile, I’m kind of enjoying the show.
turcopolier: If we do not have a way to enforce our laws, then any number of citizens could do what these protesters are doing and create their own autonomous zones, make up its rules, and force other citizens to obey them. Last I checked, we considered such behavior unacceptable.
To be autonomous is to make one’s own rules. Modern civilized countries implicitly allow considerable scope for some types of autonomy but strictly forbid other types of autonomy. If a gay bar makes up its own rules about condom use, in most of the civilized world, the authorities turn a blind eye. But if a piece of land claims the authority to issue passports, governments suddenly pay attention.
The most autonomous people I have ever met have all been farmers. They have insisted on making their own rules in order to be highly productive. They have not been libertines or egalitarians. The members of their communities who appeared to be competent held authority in their communities.
TTG:
The federal government let the Bundys and their armed followers hold the Malheur Wildlife Refuge HQ for 40 days before taking them into custody. There were armed standoffs with the Bundys on and off for several years preceding that. The nation endured those challenges. We’ll endure CHAZ which looks more like a hippie commune/street party than an armed standoff.
I may lack objectivity, but from my perspective the Bundy group seemed to be a bunch of sober, hard-working farmers who wanted to do a necessary job for a small profit to themselves; the community in general would be able to extract most of the value of their efforts by eating the food that they wanted to produce. The Bundy group seemed to be seeking self-sufficiency by dint of hard work and scrupulous observation of traditional customs; some of their supporters seem to have sent donations. The Bundy group appeared to be composed of competent farmers so far as I could tell.
The CHAZ people appear to have no interest in producing or scavenging; they appear to be pure consumers intent on pillaging. None of them appear to be competent at anything so far as I can tell.
CHAZ is not autonomous at all. It still has city water and power. The concrete barriers were removed to all emergency services to enter CHAZ. This removal was done with the mutual agreement between CHAZ and the Seattle government. Residents and businesses deny they are being taxed. Some have said they prefer this to the police gassing of the area.
CHAZ does indeed appear to be “autonomous” in the sense of “making up its own rules.” CHAZ does not appear to be self-sufficient; for reasons I do not understand, it is so popular that people are voluntarily giving it donations that it requires for day-to-day operations. However, as TTG insightfully noted, the Seattle government appears to be complicit in its criminality, and the Seattle government is giving it valuable resources such as electrical service. Therefore, perhaps the Seattle government is secretly talking to the warlords and conspiring with them – if that is the case, then the CHAZ is not truly autonomous – they are puppets of local politicians. The “mutual agreement” to remove barriers suggests that the CHAZ is simply the radical paramilitary wing of the Seattle politicians. Some of the residents deny that they are being extorted; others apparently claimed that extortion had been happening. Different news websites are reporting different anecdotes; none of the reporting seems reliable to me.
Deap
So, Freedonia could be realized in the form of an archipelago of cities, hamlets, and neighborhoods.
Borders could be controlled both ways.
What a wonderful concept.
I say we should figure out a way to officially name Chaz as a foreign government. We can authorize emigration from the U.S. to Chaz on the condition that it is permanent and for the sake of changing one’s citizenship.
Then we make it impossible for Chaz’s citizens to emmigrate from Chaz to the U.S. Give those citizens there now the chance to leave Chaz and re-establish their U.S. citizenship; but they must do that soon. And ban all residents of Chaz of Boarding any flight out of Sea Tac airport.
We should also make sure the mommies and daddies of these children cannot send trust fund payments to citizens of Chas.
Our nation will be better off without them.
All we would have to do after that is make sure no one in Congress decides to send foreign aid to Chaz ever.
I’m pretty sure all those sociology and gender studies majors leading the nation of Chaz will be able to figure out how to run the economics of a nation without us. Let them try.
One cannot have both, the CHAZ and the U.S. sovereign. One has to choose. Anarchy and liberty cannot exist side by side. If the German government had given in to ANTIFA’s kissin-cuzzin Red Army Faction, one would not have Germany or Europe today for that matter. Of the 14 times that Federal Troops were used up to the present, the only one I had some heartburn with was the way in which the Federal Troops were used against the Bonus Army. Those were war veterans whom they and their families had been promised, but were getting screwed instead.
IMHO Milley needs to be court-martialed, busted down to slick-sleeve and dishonorably discharged. Sad to say but POTUS is going to have to take a stand against rouge behavior within our Military Chain-of=-Command. Remember all those dining-outs that one had to endure with all of its toasts through one’s military career. They had that ‘institution’ as you will for a reason, comradeship. Milley has abandoned his fellow soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines in their fox-hole time of need. He has sent a wrong message and set a bad example that will haunt the Chain-of-Command structure like an expanding cancer if not rectified. The longer the cancer is allowed to endure, the more it will spread causing irreparable damage in it’s wake. What is going on is not a Bundy situation, it is a Marxist-Leninist Assault against our Constitutional Republic known as the United States of America.
Now I’ll get off my little soap-box and go have a cup-o-joe with a shot of bourbon.
We need to look at the bright side here. Maybe if Capitol Hill expands it’s reach maybe Amazon will have to pay it’s fair share of property taxes. They have 45,000 employees and pay minimal state and city taxes. The black bloc will make them pay.
Colonel, the Amazon bandit (owner of the beloved WaPo) is taking you and other the taxpayers of Virginia for $750M ride for HQ2. Thankfully AOC helped trash Cuomo’s plan to give them $3 billion welfare in NYC. Locally, our central NYS Republican county is giving them $75M for a monster warehouse that will have 1000 minimum wage jobs.
Unfortunately President Trump squandered his political capital on a huge corporate tax cut, with peanuts for his working class base. His efforts should have been spent shutting down the 7 or more hot wars he inherited and avoiding ratcheting up conflict with Russia.
We reap what we sew. Looks like a bitter harvest.
Deap
It’s not really my city anymore.Seattle should be renamed Amazonia. 100,000 people have moved to king and Snohomish counties over the last 7 years chasing 40,000 tech jobs. The character of downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods has changed dramatically The cost of living is ridiculous and so are the politics. I would note, the Snohomish County sheriff publicly refused to enforce the stay at home order. That’s the PNW attitude I know and love.
Our co-op in Berkeley tried this once, but we never got around to sending in any announcement to the government, as it was signed in blood and wine at a pretty good party we held for the purpose, and the secretary lost it. Someone had found some instructions for some type of legal secession somewhere, which we were going by.
The idea/name of the “Temporary Autonomous Zone” is based on a book by Hakim Bey (pseudonym) which was extremely popular amongst the “anarchism” set in the 90s at least.
He said “… the real genesis was my connection to the communal movement in America, my experiences in the 1960s in places like Timothy Leary’s commune in Millbrook … Usually only the religious ones last longer than a generation—and usually at the expense of becoming quite authoritarian, and probably dismal and boring as well. I’ve noticed that the exciting ones tend to disappear, and as I began to further study this phenomenon, I found that they tend to disappear in a year or a year and a half.”
Excepts above and below are from Wikipedia:
“Robert Helms has criticised Wilson for pedophilia, writing that Wilson “uses anarchism in an ethically warped, opportunistic way by pretending that adult-child sex is a natural freedom. It isn’t, and not only would almost any anarchist disagree with him, but they’d also dispute a child-rapist’s right to a non-violent remedy in many cases.”[19] Helms accuses Wilson of using the concept of Temporary Autonomous Zones to advocate for pedophilia, citing a previous zine he had created named Wild Children “for contributors 17 and under”, and criticises him as a misogynist for his stance against abortion in “Communique #9” of TAZ, stating, “the ethical idiocy of both [Wilson’s pedophilic advocacy and misogyny] are self-evident, and neither is part of anything that should be considered an anarchist idea.”[19] Helms has also criticised the broader anarchist community for its silence on the subject, writing: “I am left with the impression that they are not taking responsibility for what they know. This does not speak well of the anarchists of the United States. I feel that with anarchism becoming ever more popular, the greater portion of new anarchists are just consumers of anarchist stuff. Since such people can’t deal with a new ethical problem, they probably would not know what to do with that new, real revolutionary opportunity for which they pine so passionately.””
Sums it up.
They actually are at the stage of thought w/r/t violence that “war is peace.” Callow youth.
I guess my point is that the moral underpinnings of the “rebel anarchism” culture are dumb, and “the people’s vanguard” doesn’t even have the brains to avoid choosing a pimp as their “people’s police chief.”
It’s a group/scene which is so dumb, so overweening in its self-pride, that they really could probably be manipulated pretty easily. But they also pride themselves on ‘consensus decision-making’ (everyone in group has to agree, or at least not-disagree) so it may just peter out…
That black lady police chief seems like she could be effective at getting rid of them, maybe in exchange for six blocks of freedom somewhere else?
Mr. Porcupine
TTG,
“…Bundy was not aiming for secession. He just wanted the land for his own use and profit”
The circumstances are not comparable at all. The issue with BLM – Bureau of Land Management – was more than two decades long and involved grazing fees and an endangered species declaration and closure of what is very marginal land to grazing. Looting? With what, cattle eating scattered grasses in the NWR – when they don’t stomp to death the poor desert tortoise?
“Hey, we said no pepper spray!” Right, “for some reason”, not yet explained, a Seattle police officer let loose with pepper spary. Did they disarm all the people in CHAZ or shoot and kill anybody, which happened to Robert Fincum? I don’t recall any nationwide ACAB/Antifa/BAMN/protests or congressional meetings on police brutality when he was shot and kiiled by the police.
https://www.sltrib.com/news/nation-world/2018/01/27/family-of-rancher-killed-in-bundy-standoff-sues-the-us-oregon-police/
Babak
Archipelago was exactly the word and image I had in mind – each enclave a gulag refuge with a unique set of intolerances tailored to its occupants. The Federated States of Microamerica. I take it from your sardonic response to Deap that we share a similarly dim view of the workability of libertarian maximalism within a state.
Fourth and Long — Kirkland, location of the nursing home where, according to Miles O’Brien in a PBS special, the first outbreak occurred, is only 11 miles from CHAZ.
(The Kirkland nursing home is 10 miles from headquarters of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.)
So are the citizens of CHAZ taking precautions against spreading pandemic? Are the the CHAZen ones wearing masks and social distancing, “not to protect me but to protect YOU, because that is what a good citizen duz!” Are all non-essential businesses locked down to protect the elderly? Has the CHAZ established a relationship with neighboring USA’s CDC? Do CHAZenites get Medicaid or Obamacare?
Is CHAZ even on friendly terms with USA? Will it seek to establish trade relations? How about mutual defense — an attack on CHAZ is an attack on USA, and all allies will come to the aid —
Goshes, this business of autonomy is complicated.
How did the Italian city-states go about breaking away from the Roman Empire/republic?
Longarch
I believe the native people of North America that inhabited the Great Plains had been the most autonomous people on Earth, likely a vestige of human life in Pleistocene.
Theirs was a form of Pesonal Liberty that no longer exists on Earth.
Fourth and Long
That was how it looked to me as well, “Rich White kids having fun.”
Upstater,
“Thankfully AOC helped trash Cuomo’s plan to give them $3 billion welfare in NYC.”
Thanks to Cuomo’s executive orders thousand of New Yorkers in nursing homes are dead. Tens of thousands of businessess, many owned by black Americans, are out of business. Amazon and delivery services it relies upon were declared “essential”. New Yorkers responded by rewarding them with tens of millions of dollars of orders, which once went to independent businesses competing with AOC’s alleged economic nemesis.
“We reap what we sew. Looks like a bitter harvest.”
True for those who vote themselves into socialism. Ms. Neiman Marxist is doing quite nicely, $180,000 a year, a million dollar staff budget, sovereign immunity as a Representative in Congress and international acclaim. Socialism’s working just fine for her. Sorry ’bout those dead people and destroyed businesses, but rest assured she will blame capitalism.
Babak,
It’s the opposite. In Seattle rents and property values skyrocketed, which, in combination with increasingly few well-paying jobs for entry level workers, has created a very large homelessness problem for young adults. I would guess nearly half of those white protesters have either been homeless or had been forced to contemplate that being their condition very soon at some point. It’s likely the massive unemployment to that demographic from the COVID lockdowns has been a sort of final straw.
This isn’t about Floyd, not really. People are gathering around a rallying point, yes, but viewing that point as the sole cause is a mistake.
Mark Logan
Thank you.
Reminiscent of the spread of socialist ideas during the Great Depression.
Where is an FDR, when one is urgently needed?
Barbara Ann
I wondered, if it were discovered, through some means, that for Human Beings to be Really, Abundantly, and Thoroughly Happy, they must live as their ancestors did during pleistocene era, in small familial bands, and living in a manner best described as short brutish, and dull, would there be any takers among Western Diocletians?
Small bands, at the mercy of elements and food supply, living in harmony with nature by practicing infanticide: all the while enjoying all the benefits of any psychotropic substances available, and practicing various kinds of magic that they had discovered, in perpetual war with other bands, yet enjoying great personal libert, like the Plains Indians.
The Seattle CHAZ warlord make an interesting proposition to his gathered, mainly white, elite revolutionaries: every white person gathered was to hand a $10 bill to a black person. He chastised if this makes you uncomfortable, you are not ready for the road ahead.
Camera cut away after showing a few virtue signalers handing bills to the very few black persons present. No accounting for the final outcome of that direct exercise in their brand of “social justice”.
Props to the WarLord for making the struggle real to this gathered crowd, and to test what these white liberal “revolutionaries” would really do when asked to actually make a personal sacrifice, instead of just making a lot of crowd noise.
Babak,
My gut tells me the COVID/lockdown crises will pass soon. People are starting to go back to work and that should snowball. Everybody knows that isn’t sustainable. The underlying issues? Not so much. An FDR will take some time. Trump was elected in the hope he could create a big change so The People are already looking. The search will continue. But what will a Messiah do?
I see no easy fixes. It brings to mind Kurt Vonnegut’s first book, “Player Piano”, in which he foresees the problem automation causes in figuring a way to have a consumer economy. Reeks and Wrecks are hopefully not the answer. Yet some answer must be found or we are in for “interesting times.”
Best wishes.
Mark Logan
All over the world, we need to create fake or inefficient or make-work kinds of jobs for the reasons of the demands that psycholigical health of the public puts on us.
Japanese have understood this and have internal restrictions on both automation as well as on concentration of services.
Chaz proves walls work. Trump out to bring that up.