Seattle Has Fallen...

As someone who has generally supported its existence, I've cooled on it. It is a fine place while the sun is shining, but at night it has turned a bit of a shit show, unfortunately. There are 3 reasons why my support for CHAZ/CHOP has waned: 1) Lawlessness and assholes come out of the woodwork at night; 2) Confused and mixed messages, lack of clarity, multiple "leaders" and no leadership, inability to communicate a message in a coherent way, inability to unify and stick to agreements or negotiate responsibly; 3) the people in the autonomous zone have alienated all of the actual BLM and African American organizations who have existed and have been working with the city. So CHAZ/CHOP doesn't really represent the movement they purport to as far as I can tell. It looks like mostly white punks with some brown and black sprinkled in co-opting the BLM movement to me. There are some African Americans there, but it is a pretty white bunch of folks on the whole. I'm all for counter-culture, but I think they're really pushing it now. The neighborhoods around the area were generally supportive initially but now are done with them. I know a few people who live right there, and they've had it. Noise, partying and stupidity from sundown to sun-up. People are afraid to walk in their neighborhoods after dark. They had just negotiated re-opening a lane of traffic on a  thoroughfare for cars and emergency services. The Fire Chief had worked with the group to negotiate that, but 1 day later, other elements or new "leaders" decided from 10pm - 6pm they would block the street. So that group doesn't have any ability to negotiate or agree on anything, even among themselves. 

To give you an idea of the shit heads that are keeping watch at CHOP, here is some raw video footage from Brandi Kruse, a local TV reporter. Brandi is one of the more intelligent reporters in Seattle, and is one of the least biased I've seen. She does a show called The Divide where she attempts to have differing viewpoints come together to find common ground. She'll bash left and right stupidity when it is warranted. Unfortunately, the station she works at was purchased this past year by Fox Network, but her time here pre-dates her Fox affiliation. Anyway, here is a link to some raw footage where she was mobbed and nearly assaulted by those assholes. So instead of having a shred of intellect, and attempting to get their message across through a news reporter, they harass and nearly assault her and her crew. BTW, her body guard in the green hoodie is the same guy who disarmed 2 of the shit-stirrers downtown a couple of weeks ago during the riots after the idiots stole AR-15s from cop cars. He's a bad-ass ex-Marine who could twist their pencil necks and snap them in two. Here's the footage. If the word fuck offends, you may want to pass, as that's probably heard >300 times in the 15 minute video. I highly recommend people watch this to get a picture of life after dark in CHOP:

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=600727890649078

So at this point I stand with BLM, I support black leadership in the city, and stand against CHOP. They lost my support, the support of a lot of the neighborhood, the support of many established community organizers, and they're rapidly losing support of others who would normally align with their ideals but for their idiocy.  I know I supported CHAZ/CHOP initially, but they've demonstrated a remarkable inability to accomplish anything at all except chaos and confusion. If they get their shit together, I could see changing my mind about them yet again but for now I consider this a failed social experiment. BTW, yesterday the real AA community advocate organizations were able to get the Seattle Police Officers Guild kicked out of the King County Labor Council. The labor council is a group of various unions (about 150 of them) representing ~100k workers in Seattle. They have no desire to be associated with SPOG going forward. So they are still making change and accomplishing things. Can't say the same for CHOP. Sorry for the 180 on this one but it has become stupid. Anarchy is not practicable. At least not for people with limited intellectual ability as CHOP is currently demonstrating.

jeffbr said:

As someone who has generally supported its existence, I've cooled on it. It is a fine place while the sun is shining, but at night it has turned a bit of a shit show, unfortunately. There are 3 reasons why my support for CHAZ/CHOP has waned: 1) Lawlessness and assholes come out of the woodwork at night; 2) Confused and mixed messages, lack of clarity, multiple "leaders" and no leadership, inability to communicate a message in a coherent way, inability to unify and stick to agreements or negotiate responsibly; 3) the people in the autonomous zone have alienated all of the actual BLM and African American organizations who have existed and have been working with the city. So CHAZ/CHOP doesn't really represent the movement they purport to as far as I can tell. It looks like mostly white punks with some brown and black sprinkled in co-opting the BLM movement to me. There are some African Americans there, but it is a pretty white bunch of folks on the whole. I'm all for counter-culture, but I think they're really pushing it now. The neighborhoods around the area were generally supportive initially but now are done with them. I know a few people who live right there, and they've had it. Noise, partying and stupidity from sundown to sun-up. People are afraid to walk in their neighborhoods after dark. They had just negotiated re-opening a lane of traffic on a  thoroughfare for cars and emergency services. The Fire Chief had worked with the group to negotiate that, but 1 day later, other elements or new "leaders" decided from 10pm - 6pm they would block the street. So that group doesn't have any ability to negotiate or agree on anything, even among themselves. 

To give you an idea of the shit heads that are keeping watch at CHOP, here is some raw video footage from Brandi Kruse, a local TV reporter. Brandi is one of the more intelligent reporters in Seattle, and is one of the least biased I've seen. She does a show called The Divide where she attempts to have differing viewpoints come together to find common ground. She'll bash left and right stupidity when it is warranted. Unfortunately, the station she works at was purchased this past year by Fox Network, but her time here pre-dates her Fox affiliation. Anyway, here is a link to some raw footage where she was mobbed and nearly assaulted by those assholes. So instead of having a shred of intellect, and attempting to get their message across through a news reporter, they harass and nearly assault her and her crew. BTW, her body guard in the green hoodie is the same guy who disarmed 2 of the shit-stirrers downtown a couple of weeks ago during the riots after the idiots stole AR-15s from cop cars. He's a bad-ass ex-Marine who could twist their pencil necks and snap them in two. Here's the footage. If the word fuck offends, you may want to pass, as that's probably heard >300 times in the 15 minute video. I highly recommend people watch this to get a picture of life after dark in CHOP:

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=600727890649078

So at this point I stand with BLM, I support black leadership in the city, and stand against CHOP. They lost my support, the support of a lot of the neighborhood, the support of many established community organizers, and they're rapidly losing support of others who would normally align with their ideals but for their idiocy.  I know I supported CHAZ/CHOP initially, but they've demonstrated a remarkable inability to accomplish anything at all except chaos and confusion. If they get their shit together, I could see changing my mind about them yet again but for now I consider this a failed social experiment. BTW, yesterday the real AA community advocate organizations were able to get the Seattle Police Officers Guild kicked out of the King County Labor Council. The labor council is a group of various unions (about 150 of them) representing ~100k workers in Seattle. They have no desire to be associated with SPOG going forward. So they are still making change and accomplishing things. Can't say the same for CHOP. Sorry for the 180 on this one but it has become stupid. Anarchy is not practicable. At least not for people with limited intellectual ability as CHOP is currently demonstrating.

Thank you fir the insight. Unfortunately I always had a strong feeling that humans aren’t civilized enough fir something like this. There will always be bad people To ruin positive situations. My only hope is that this ends in a peaceful way. 

jeffbr said:

As someone who has generally supported its existence, I've cooled on it. It is a fine place while the sun is shining, but at night it has turned a bit of a shit show, unfortunately. There are 3 reasons why my support for CHAZ/CHOP has waned: 1) Lawlessness and assholes come out of the woodwork at night; 2) Confused and mixed messages, lack of clarity, multiple "leaders" and no leadership, inability to communicate a message in a coherent way, inability to unify and stick to agreements or negotiate responsibly; 3) the people in the autonomous zone have alienated all of the actual BLM and African American organizations who have existed and have been working with the city. So CHAZ/CHOP doesn't really represent the movement they purport to as far as I can tell. It looks like mostly white punks with some brown and black sprinkled in co-opting the BLM movement to me. There are some African Americans there, but it is a pretty white bunch of folks on the whole. I'm all for counter-culture, but I think they're really pushing it now. The neighborhoods around the area were generally supportive initially but now are done with them. I know a few people who live right there, and they've had it. Noise, partying and stupidity from sundown to sun-up. People are afraid to walk in their neighborhoods after dark. They had just negotiated re-opening a lane of traffic on a  thoroughfare for cars and emergency services. The Fire Chief had worked with the group to negotiate that, but 1 day later, other elements or new "leaders" decided from 10pm - 6pm they would block the street. So that group doesn't have any ability to negotiate or agree on anything, even among themselves. 

To give you an idea of the shit heads that are keeping watch at CHOP, here is some raw video footage from Brandi Kruse, a local TV reporter. Brandi is one of the more intelligent reporters in Seattle, and is one of the least biased I've seen. She does a show called The Divide where she attempts to have differing viewpoints come together to find common ground. She'll bash left and right stupidity when it is warranted. Unfortunately, the station she works at was purchased this past year by Fox Network, but her time here pre-dates her Fox affiliation. Anyway, here is a link to some raw footage where she was mobbed and nearly assaulted by those assholes. So instead of having a shred of intellect, and attempting to get their message across through a news reporter, they harass and nearly assault her and her crew. BTW, her body guard in the green hoodie is the same guy who disarmed 2 of the shit-stirrers downtown a couple of weeks ago during the riots after the idiots stole AR-15s from cop cars. He's a bad-ass ex-Marine who could twist their pencil necks and snap them in two. Here's the footage. If the word fuck offends, you may want to pass, as that's probably heard >300 times in the 15 minute video. I highly recommend people watch this to get a picture of life after dark in CHOP:

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=600727890649078

So at this point I stand with BLM, I support black leadership in the city, and stand against CHOP. They lost my support, the support of a lot of the neighborhood, the support of many established community organizers, and they're rapidly losing support of others who would normally align with their ideals but for their idiocy.  I know I supported CHAZ/CHOP initially, but they've demonstrated a remarkable inability to accomplish anything at all except chaos and confusion. If they get their shit together, I could see changing my mind about them yet again but for now I consider this a failed social experiment. BTW, yesterday the real AA community advocate organizations were able to get the Seattle Police Officers Guild kicked out of the King County Labor Council. The labor council is a group of various unions (about 150 of them) representing ~100k workers in Seattle. They have no desire to be associated with SPOG going forward. So they are still making change and accomplishing things. Can't say the same for CHOP. Sorry for the 180 on this one but it has become stupid. Anarchy is not practicable. At least not for people with limited intellectual ability as CHOP is currently demonstrating.

Great perspective. And that video is what I figured CHOP is like at night, but it’s probably worse than that out of the view of cameras. I’ll definitely follow that reporter on Facebook to keep up on the various whathaveyous of the Nation of CHOP. 

Has The Walking Dead taught us nothing? Of course we aren’t civilized enough.

brianlux said:

Thanks here also, Jeff, for close at hand insights. 

I'm sorry to see this thing breaking down so quickly.  Ideally, I'd like to think people can get together and work for a common cause.  My parent's G.I. generation were really good at doing that sort of thing.  My own boomer generation were sometimes good at uniting for a cause- sometime not at all.  I guess that ability is slowly being weakened in our DNA or something. 

I hope some day a new generation wise arise from the ashes and do marvelous things once again.

Me, too. I guess that's why I was so supportive of CHAZ from the start. My optimism and hope is that the younger generation can unite and affect change. I think some change for the better is still to come from this event and this moment, but not from CHOP specifically, unfortunately. I hope to be proven wrong, and am fully able to accept being wrong and having my mind changed. I may be old, but not stuck in my ways.

Man, I couldn’t even watch it all.

jeffbr said:

As someone who has generally supported its existence, I've cooled on it. It is a fine place while the sun is shining, but at night it has turned a bit of a shit show, unfortunately. There are 3 reasons why my support for CHAZ/CHOP has waned: 1) Lawlessness and assholes come out of the woodwork at night; 2) Confused and mixed messages, lack of clarity, multiple "leaders" and no leadership, inability to communicate a message in a coherent way, inability to unify and stick to agreements or negotiate responsibly; 3) the people in the autonomous zone have alienated all of the actual BLM and African American organizations who have existed and have been working with the city. So CHAZ/CHOP doesn't really represent the movement they purport to as far as I can tell. It looks like mostly white punks with some brown and black sprinkled in co-opting the BLM movement to me. There are some African Americans there, but it is a pretty white bunch of folks on the whole. I'm all for counter-culture, but I think they're really pushing it now. The neighborhoods around the area were generally supportive initially but now are done with them. I know a few people who live right there, and they've had it. Noise, partying and stupidity from sundown to sun-up. People are afraid to walk in their neighborhoods after dark. They had just negotiated re-opening a lane of traffic on a  thoroughfare for cars and emergency services. The Fire Chief had worked with the group to negotiate that, but 1 day later, other elements or new "leaders" decided from 10pm - 6pm they would block the street. So that group doesn't have any ability to negotiate or agree on anything, even among themselves. 

To give you an idea of the shit heads that are keeping watch at CHOP, here is some raw video footage from Brandi Kruse, a local TV reporter. Brandi is one of the more intelligent reporters in Seattle, and is one of the least biased I've seen. She does a show called The Divide where she attempts to have differing viewpoints come together to find common ground. She'll bash left and right stupidity when it is warranted. Unfortunately, the station she works at was purchased this past year by Fox Network, but her time here pre-dates her Fox affiliation. Anyway, here is a link to some raw footage where she was mobbed and nearly assaulted by those assholes. So instead of having a shred of intellect, and attempting to get their message across through a news reporter, they harass and nearly assault her and her crew. BTW, her body guard in the green hoodie is the same guy who disarmed 2 of the shit-stirrers downtown a couple of weeks ago during the riots after the idiots stole AR-15s from cop cars. He's a bad-ass ex-Marine who could twist their pencil necks and snap them in two. Here's the footage. If the word fuck offends, you may want to pass, as that's probably heard >300 times in the 15 minute video. I highly recommend people watch this to get a picture of life after dark in CHOP:

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=600727890649078

So at this point I stand with BLM, I support black leadership in the city, and stand against CHOP. They lost my support, the support of a lot of the neighborhood, the support of many established community organizers, and they're rapidly losing support of others who would normally align with their ideals but for their idiocy.  I know I supported CHAZ/CHOP initially, but they've demonstrated a remarkable inability to accomplish anything at all except chaos and confusion. If they get their shit together, I could see changing my mind about them yet again but for now I consider this a failed social experiment. BTW, yesterday the real AA community advocate organizations were able to get the Seattle Police Officers Guild kicked out of the King County Labor Council. The labor council is a group of various unions (about 150 of them) representing ~100k workers in Seattle. They have no desire to be associated with SPOG going forward. So they are still making change and accomplishing things. Can't say the same for CHOP. Sorry for the 180 on this one but it has become stupid. Anarchy is not practicable. At least not for people with limited intellectual ability as CHOP is currently demonstrating.

I guess Portland stuff can go in this thread too since it's a similar situation. Here's the toppling of a George Washington statue last night, along with burning the flag on top of it.

https://twitter.com/hungrybowtie/status/1273837979954380800?s=20

https://twitter.com/hungrybowtie/status/1273859657447006208?s=20

https://twitter.com/hungrybowtie/status/1273861638832054272?s=20

PJPOWER said:

Yikes, I did read that the Portland mayor is not near as supportive of a “CHOP” or whatever it’s being called today.  I’m just waiting for a push to change the name of Washington state, ha. 

It looks like once protesters showed up at his home (because he didn't cut enough of the police's budget to their liking), that's when he began speaking out against this sort of thing...

https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/protests/pearl-district-protest-cleared-by-police-declared-an-unlawful-assembly/283-7b54a736-b5b7-4607-8ad7-92bdc5b0b5cc

Daytime footage of the toppled Washington statue....

https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1273969935497084930?s=20