« The Bolton publishing fracas is a swamp game that needs to end | Obama holdouts finally dislodged at Voice of America »
June 17, 2020

CHAZ devolves into a Fyre festival, a really bad band camp that didn't quite get the Porta-Potties up

By Monica Showalter

The Capital Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ), is now being rebranded as the Capital Hill Organized Protest (CHOP), and still disgusting as ever. That's a sign of a public relations problem and the pictures are clear enough from journalist Andy Ngo:

 

Besides unsightliness, this "block party" and "summer of love" as it was rapturously called just a few days ago, is also a haven for thugs. 

Though the CHOP appears relatively peaceful during the day, Ngo said the “criminal elements come out” at night.

“Unfortunately, last night that was made very clear, when one person on a microphone and a loudspeaker was able to sic a mob of probably more than 100 people to chase down this business that was several blocks away. They just all descended on it. It was pure anarchy,” Ngo told Fox News, referring to CHOP’s dual nature.

“They pushed up against the fence and all rushed in. It could have been extremely violent,” he continued. “Fortunately it wasn’t, according to what I heard from the owner and staff. They had detained one of the comrades of this camp for alleged arson and theft. And, because of that, all [of] his comrades came to help get him out.”

But most contemptible of all, it's crying for momma. It's got a 'beg' culture that belies its claims to revolutionary autonomy.

Tony Francois, my old classmate from the University of San Francisco, explains in a Facebook post precisely why:

You know the character of a revolution by what happens on days 5-7. #CHAZ is not a revolution, it is a campus sit-in without a campus. They are not terrorists, although the conditions in place leave people very vulnerable to violence. They are not harmless, either. Evil can still flow from their decisions and actions.
 
But the constant stream of needy demands being sent out from #CHAZ to their provisioners reads more like an ill-prepared band camp than an armed revolutionary camp. News reports breathlessly emphasizing the parts of it that look like an armed terrorist microstate have headfaked us into mistaking the real nature of it. The ongoing provision of garbage service and portapotties by the City of Seattle is the more important detail.
Seattle should not be negotiating with the #CHAZ "leaders." They should respect the decision to establish an autonomous zone, without regarding it as permanent. It is a good teaching moment. The teaching will come, if it does, from the city removing the portapotties and discontinuing garbage collection.
 
So much for its promise of revolutionary self-sufficiency, this claim holds about as much water as the luxury and decadence promises of the 2008 Fyre Festival.
 
Remember that one? Some huckster reached out to the rich hippies in his midst and got them to shell out $10,000 a head for a luxury bacchanal out in the Bahamas. But when the hippies went, all they found were moldy sandwiches, Porta-potties and FEMA tents for accommodation. The sneaky way it was promoted was part of the problem:
 

The event was promoted on Instagram by "social media influencers" including Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, Hailey Baldwin and Emily Ratajkowski, many of whom did not initially disclose they had been paid to do so.[1] During the Fyre Festival's inaugural weekend, the event experienced problems related to security, food, accommodation, medical services and artist relations, resulting in the festival being postponed indefinitely. Instead of the luxury villas and gourmet meals for which festival attendees paid thousands of dollars, they received prepackaged sandwiches and FEMA tents as their accommodation.[2]

But I like the band camp comparison even more.

Because far from being pioneers of any sort, people creating something new out of the raw wilderness, these Antifa-led denizens are infantilized babies, begging others to provide their food and diaper changes for them. They don't build or produce anything of value, so they just beg. Their only 'autonomy' is in their toddler-like tantrums demanding to get whatever they want. The authorities play momma, as do their more productive peers on the outside with cash or commodities to donate to their upkeep. But they themselves are perpetual dependents, and Momma Government can shut them down any time were she not so adoring of them. They exist by the leave of others.

It's startlingly contrary to the real pioneers who actually first built Seattle, the ultimate rugged individualists. Robert D. Kaplan, in his wonderful book "Winning the Rockies," which described the significance of the Rocky Mountain states in the formation of the U.S., wrote that the most rugged of the rugged pioneers cut through the wilderness through the Oregon Trail in the mid-19th century. I gave my book away to my brother in law who lives in Idaho so I don't have it with me. But I recall that Kaplan described one pivotal fork in the road that the pioneers reached at one point - where they could either take the path to Portland, Oregon, or take the path to Seattle. The pioneers who longed for niceties and drinking tea out of cups went to Portland. The pioneers who wore buckskin and shot their dinner each night headed for Seattle.

From there, Seattle great as a great city famous for its rugged individualism. How did it descend into such a bawling playpen for leftists? Was it grunge rock? Good grunge rock actually does have a certain robustness, but on the other hand.... it's full of saps. Was it Starbucks? Starbucks makes a great robust blend of coffee, but then ... more saps.

Now it's pure saps in this wretched band camp begging for supplies and calling for its momma. Somehow, the protest clowns hollering for their momma in this and claiming they're autonomous are a devolving last piece from a once-impressive culture. It's pathetic.

Image credit: Twitter screen shot

 
If you experience technical problems, please write to helpdesk@americanthinker.com