Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ)

There has been some blog and reddit posts about Antifa taking over part of the Capitol Hill area in Seattle:

There are a few conventional media stories but not many:

As I reported some of the links people have been sending me and what I have read on the blogs Barb kind of rolled her eyes.

25+ years ago Barb lived on Capital Hill. For another 20 years she worked not far from there. She describes the people who live there as “in transition”. “They’re mostly young and trying to figure out who they are.” That some people moved some barricades isn’t all that much out of character for that demographic. They think of themselves as revolutionaries but it’s more of an extended teenager rebellious phase they are going through.

Today I visited CHAZ. It’s kind of a nothing burger. I half expected checkpoints with masked armed people and snipers in windows and on the rooftops. I brought my telephoto lens and planned to take pictures from a block or more away. I worried about someone seeing me, multiple people flanking me, taking my camera, and/or hurting me. I hid my camera under my loose fitting flannel shirt.

I parked a couple blocks away and cautiously approached. Other people walking the same direction seemed very relaxed and that helped put me at ease some.

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That’s fairly typical Capital Hill attire.

There are some barricades but some people (probably businesses) are driving around some of them. There aren’t any people manning the barricades. I would bet a couple of guys could park a truck in front of one, load everything up and drive off without anyone trying to stop them. Maybe they’d get some attention by the time they got to the second one but I didn’t see anyone paying much attention to anything.

There are lots of people walking through the area and except for the barricades and some odd signs everything is pretty normal. Although I kept looking I no longer had serious concerns about snipers or being accosted because of my camera.

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Cropped version of the previous picture.

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On the left it says, “My Dick Itches”.

IMG_2905On the right it says, “KILL THE POLICE”.

The next four pictures are of the intersection of 12th and Pine. This address gets mentioned in various reports.

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I hadn’t told Barb I was going as I didn’t want her to worry about me. After I got back I told her where I had been and why I hadn’t told her ahead of time. She laughed. I’m paraphrasing some here but she explained it as, “It’s Capital Hill and everyone is making a big deal out of the silly stuff they do there.”

I think the police are probably doing the right thing by letting “the kids” have their way for a while. After being essentially ignored for a while reality will set in and they will figure out throwing a tantrum doesn’t accomplish anything and wander off. At least that is my best guess.

Update June 11, 12:27 PM PDT:

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33 thoughts on “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ)

  1. Good. Plus all the mad social media they are getting as clowns, I don’t think they will ever get treated with any respect.

  2. Tim Pool said that they were just kids role-playing. We’ll see, but Trump wants something done and done now or he is threatening to send in the Feds.

    What I think we should do is to treat them like a country and start trade negotiations for things they need. If they can’t pay for their needs then let them stew a while.

    • It makes good sense for Trump to jump on this. Politics: make the Democrat bigwigs choose between supporting this madness or denouncing it, both of which will cause them pain. The near-silence up to now was the Dem’s friend.

  3. they want to be separate? Cool, cut the power, water and don’t let anyone in or out until they send ambassadors to make agreements with the USA for what trade they want. . . . Let’s see how that works for them.

  4. Thank you fro some in person reporting. Everybody has a narrative to tell. For some it is “Antifa is showing the world how to make a police free place.” For others it has been “Antifa is showing their true colors, wait for the fist of reality to meet their noses.”

    Your narrative and Barb’s is “Bratty teenagers doing bratty teenager stuff. The other narratives are not telling you the whole truth.”

    I’m much more willing to believe your narrative but do think those spoiled brats need a dose of cold cold reality thrown in their faces.

    • Great stuff. On the ground just the facts report. Of course you aren’t trying to gin up discord. Thank you.

      • Agreed. Many thanks! I can’t feasibly visit myself or I would. This is an excellent second-best. I trust you maybe not completely, but worlds more than the propaganda I get from both sides.

  5. There was a rumor that they were going to sack Amazon HQ. Didn’t happen but one can always hope.

  6. Joe, thanks for posting this. Based on what I was seeing from other sources I was afraid that the National Guard or regular military would have to be sent in. I note the rhetoric from the BLM/ANTIFA “spokespersons” seems to invite a violent confrontation. I hope the adults in the room can just wait this out rather than burning everything to the ground. Yes, if the city and state had reacted earlier and with more resolution, the whole mess may have been avoided, but for the situation as it now exists, I think your approach is a good one.

  7. Gov Jay Inslee is either a moron or lying. He’s got open insurrection in his largest city and its “news to [him]”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SyLjm-53qU&feature=emb_title (I think there is a camera problem with the sign-guy; he’s not really riding a galloping pony)

    speaking of, the last time someone said they are leaving the US, they called themselves “the Confederacy,” and it went rather badly for them as I recall.
    Publicly ignore them or mock them. Call them the useful idiots they are.
    But don’t turn your back or forget about them for real.
    Oh, and depending on where you live, update your range cards. 🙂

  8. On the other hand, your dismissiveness reminds me a great deal of what the Jews in Europe were saying in the 1930s. I paraphrase;
    “They just like to talk big”
    “Let them have their silly parades; they’ll get over it”
    “They’d never actually DO any of the stuff they’re talking about”
    “The whole world’s watching; they’d never get away with it”
    And within a few short years;
    “Oh my God; they were serious all along! Run!”
    But by then of course it’s usually too late.

    The target population sometimes never fully realizes what’s going on until the shower doors are locked and the Zyklon B starts coming in. The reason for that is because they’ve trained themselves to be dismissive of what their enemies have been telling them all along. They’ve convinced themselves, in the face of much evidence to the contrary, that common sense, right and justice will prevail. In this world the opposite is true. Liberty and justice are relatively rare.

    I think that if it were your street that was barricaded and your livelihood at stake, you’d have different thoughts.

    One step always leads to the next. The first step is designed to be mostly tolerable, the next will follow, building on the president, etc. We’re several steps into the process already. It’s the inexorable shifting of the Overton Window. If they get away with this, it will have been proven to them that they can get away with more next time.

    The “kids” you speak of (who are acting at the behest of older planners and organizers) will eventually run for office or become lawyers and thus build their Community Organizing experience. We’ll be paying their salaries and benefits before you know it, and they’ll be making and enforcing the laws.

    • Thanks Lyle. One only has to watch congress,(Pelosi), trying to get off it’s knees to understand what this will become. Silly displays become legislation. But reacting to them is exactly what they want.
      What should be done is to charter bus loads of homeless junkies to their zone. Give them our poor huddled masses, yearning to be free!
      It was mentioned that we are paying for all this. We should stop. Feeding people that couldn’t survive a normal winter on their own is the problem.

      • I’m reminded of the signs in national parks that read “Don’t Feed The Bears.” It’s not that they hate bears. In fact, they love them. But free food makes bears dependent, lazy, and seek handouts as an expectation. It will allow overpopulation above carrying capacity in the short run, disease and devastation in the long run.

        Don’t Feed The Bears!

    • Yep. They already have done a lot of damage, created a police cancel culture, and keep asking for more. Even if they are ‘peaceful’, their example is likely to cause others to follow.

    • I added an update to the bottom of my post. It is a video interview with the “warlord” by Ari Hoffman.

      I stand by my original assessment.

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    • My guess is no. Most people will be in their normal homes. Some within “the zone”. Some outside it. There are a few tents but if they start feeling unsafe they can easily move outside the zone. And, I would bet, that if a serious crime occurs they would get a clue and allow police investigators to do their job.

      I don’t think they are incredibly stupid people. Just incredibly naïve and mind bogglingly idealistic.

      • Joe, if serious crime occurs and 911 is called, do you expect SPD to do something about it? From what I’ve seen and heard from their bosses, I would not expect it.

        • I don’t know. I sort of expect that is how the issue will evaporate. The “children” will realize they can’t handle more and more things and eventually things will revert to “Capital Hill normal”.

  10. See #chazseattle. It is currently trending on twitter.

    I’m leaning towards Joe’s view. Not much to be concerned about.

    Words matter and presenting this community as an autonomous zone can easily convey the wrong impression. Still, it could become a problem.

    I still am outraged that the protesters were allowed to protest during a pandemic stay home order. Not only were they allowed to protest, our local and state officials even supported their protests. This action could cost us many lives.

    • What’s worse, “Medical Experts” have supported the demonstrations, rioting and looting as allowed during the pandemic because they combat the greater evil of racism. Other mass gatherings, of course, like church services, weddings, funerals, sporting events, fathers present at hospital births of children, etc., are still Streng Verboten.

      • The supposed medical experts certainly have that to explain, which of course they can’t. (There’s a good article on this at https://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/5055-left-wing-lockdown)

        But there’s more than that and it’s a whole lot worse.
        A few days ago I was thinking about the infamous Cuomo order requiring nursing homes to accept infected people. When they complained, the answer was “shut up, you VILL obey”. And Cuomo was not the only D politician to inflict this; some other states like PA did likewise.
        The point: did any of the well known medical talking heads speak up against this at the time? To the best of my knowledge, they did not. Nothing from Fauci. Nothing from Birx. Or the Surgeon General. Or the head of CDC.
        Am I wrong here?

        • Not that I’ve been able to discover.
          Cuomo might have said, “Credere Obbidere, Combattore”, but that would give the whole game away.

  11. Well, if the FBI don’t start shooting people. Their going to have to apologize to everyone from Ruby Ridge to the Bundy’s! Where’s Lon Horiuchi when you need him? Oh, that’s right. We have a republican president in office. We can’t shoot commies!
    And that’s all this is. a George Soro purchased communist takedown.
    If I were Trump I would surround the place and not let them out.

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