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
> The media coverage of it is WILD

I live 7 blocks away from "the zone" and can confirm, I have never in my life seen anything alike in this regard. The scale of the misinformation being spread in social networks and news media reached a level I couldn't believe possible before. Seriously, it's beyond absurd.

If anyone is interested, I have been taking some pictures of the ongoing protests (including a few of the zone): https://www.flickr.com/photos/peramides

>>pera+gF1
I'm also about that far away and walked through there last night. It felt more like a summer street fair festival. I also took a few pictures. https://photos.app.goo.gl/UN8RpwWS5TYAY5Nn7

>>gabesk+WW1
But then there's also this:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EaQyClgU4AEJnWf?format=jpg&name=...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EaQyCmMUEAEn_1o?format=jpg&name=...

I've not before seen a summer street festival where armed militias wearing bulletproof vests patrol the streets.

>>thu211+Rq2
I truly don't understand the problem here. Can you tell me what it is that makes these people dangerous and scary, but the similarly armed protestors who showed up at government buildings a month ago — or, frankly, the police — fine?

>>jakela+TT2
The police follow orders from their chain of command that goes up to an elected official. You can petition the elected official, occupy their building, grill them in the media, and vote them out if you convince the other citizens. For example the knee-to-the-neck move was a part of the "orders" in that it was part of standard procedure and it is now being revised and removed. Similarly the tear gas was part of the procedure and has now been suspended by the order of the mayor. This can only be done because of the chain of command.

The people with masks and weapons on the street report to no-one we know, it's either a loose anarchic group or some sort or they report to a warlord. Can you petition the warlord? Occupy their office? Vote them out? This is a regression to the medieval model of governance.

It's all fun and games when no one really disagrees about anything important, but things change for the worse when disagreements start happening. This is how communes fall - either they fail to disagree constructively or they get subjugated by a dictator who forces an agreement.

This is why we tolerate the police for a few hundred years now - on occasion they cause violence that's predictable and can be influenced. The alternative is the violence we cannot influence and that spiral out of control when the going gets tough.

>>DenisM+Fm3
> This is why we tolerate the police for a few hundred years now - on occasion they cause violence that's predictable and can be influenced.

The point of these protests is that the violence is not occasional. It is endemic, and attempts to stop it stretch back centuries. It has persisted across the country, under both progressive and conservative politicians, despite many, many attempts to eliminate it.

If the violent system we have has successfully resisted change and accountability for hundreds of years, how is this a regression?

>>jakela+Or3
> The point of these protests is that the violence is not occasional. It is endemic, and attempts to stop it stretch back centuries.

I feel like these statements need to be qualified to be useful.

Has the level of police violence over the years gotten worse, gotten better, or stayed roughly the same?

How does the overall levels of violence compare to places without an organized police force?