zlacker

>>obilgi+(OP)
A friend lives in Seattle and texted me today about his visit last night:

> I was there last night and it's such a cool pseudo utopian place

> The media coverage of it is WILD

> People on the internet are convinced it's protected by armed guards and people are dying of hunger and instead its...like a music festival campground

> There are speakers, musicians, art walls. I took a group pic for a bunch of black guys last night and they were so proud of what was built because they felt like they fought for it, which in a sense, they did.

>>conroy+fz1
"they were so proud of what was built"

Curious, since I can't trust news media to not sensationalize this:

What has been built, according to your friend? Have they set up infrastructure of some sort for housing people? Kitchens, latrines, etc?

>>JPKab+MC1
They put up a cardboard sign that said "you are now leaving the USA" and graffitied some surfaces.

https://i.imgur.com/f6VHPJ0.jpg

>>missed+JF1
I wonder what the end game is. The police is not going to disband. People asking for that don't understand how States work. You cannot have a State without a monopoly on violence. America disbanded police once, in 2003, in a city called Baghdad. That turned out wonderfully.

I suspect they'll all just get bored at some point.

>>djsumd+w13
They apparently also did it in Camden, NJ, and that turned out quite well.

I think the real issue here is: the police want to show that without them, things turn to chaos. Instead, they show that with them, things turn to chaos. Meanwhile, the protesters want to show that without the police, things are peaceful, and they seem to be succeeding.

That's not a great story for people who believe in police brutality, of course.

And yes, if the entire police department believes that they need to use force to dominate the American people, they refuse to stop when ordered to by the civilian government, and resist change, then disbanding the police and starting over with a better organised police force might not be such a bad idea at all.

It's not easy, and it's important to quickly have some alternative to fall back on, but when it's the police itself that's part of the problem, something needs to be done about that.