#Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

[dailyanarchistposts]

A friend of mine, a Trump supporter, recently sent me a social media post from an anonymous Seattle police officer about the “organized protest” zone, or autonomous zone, established by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in the city’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. The officer argues, in part, that “there is a part of our country that is no longer under our control,” and that “we [the police] have been castrated.” The post is mostly filed with misinformation, that the protest space has its own currency, ID system, and that the former police precinct, abandoned by the mayor and the city at the height of the protests, is being used as a BLM headquarters – no doubt a kind of black witches coven in their imagination. Indeed, in the language used in the post, “terrorists” and “anarchists” are stock piling “ammo and chemical weapons,” and are headed by a “warlord” who “drives a tesla and has been arrested for drugs, guns, pimping and crimes against children.” The officer concludes that “this is real,” and that “you can’t make this up.” These developments they call “unthinkable.”

The police are not the only ones hysterical at the loss of their station. Right wing media have also chimed in, exacerbating and stoking the fears of the Right. Fox media personality, Tucker Carlson, for example, bloviates on his nightly show that the founders of the Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP) are “just like the conquistadors” because they’ve seized and occupied already established land and are extorting local businesses. Not to be outdone, President Trump, searching for an election year issue, called on the city of Seattle to attack and retake the space. He tweeted angerly, “Take back your city NOW. If you don’t do it, I will. This is not a game. These ugly Anarchists must be stopped IMMEDIATELY.”

What is unthinkable, or was at the beginning of the month, is the power of the Black Lives Matter movement in the streets. The emergence of the autonomous zone is a pinnacle of that power, a significant victory. It demonstrates the ability of popular power to win the impossible from structures of white supremacy – the state and the propertied interests they represent. That victory, and the subsequent diminution of state violence, is a major step forward for community self-control and autonomy. It shows that ending anti-Black violence is the first and most basic step to honoring Black life.

But it is just the beginning. Honoring Black life means constructing a society where Black autonomy and Black power are the cornerstones of community, and one where Black freedom is the foundation for broader, collective liberation. The advent of the movement’s autonomous zone was a step in that direction. Taking the city’s east police precinct demonstrates not only that our movements can win, but we can win previously unimaginable victories for Black lives.

There is another legacy now that must be dealt with from the CHOP. Much uglier, it is about the violence that took one life and left several in critical condition in a series of recent shootings. The shootings and the lack of direction for the space sadly demonstrate that our movements are not yet mature enough to know what to do with victory. As I write, the Seattle police are threatening to retake the building in the wake of the violence.

The shootings happened as the movement languished. With no clear direction, political, strategic, and tactical infighting broke out, reminiscent of Occupy Wall Street’s failures. Questions emerged over whether the encampment was for abolition or reform, taking the police station or not, “autonomy” or remaking existing institutions, marching or occupying, and others. This infighting was rooted in a lack of decision-making process that made even the most basic agreements impossible to gain collective consent.

In the autonomous zone, a diverse flowering of self-activity emerged, a variegated patchwork of mutual aid projects, support, care, and action that reflected the full diversity of the movement’s politics and people. That beautiful moment must not be lost in its downfall, but now with violence in the space, it must also be held within a more complex picture of the movement’s failures as well.

[theculturedmarxist]

I think people need to be a lot more critical of calling January 6th a "terrorist attack" or "insurrection," and especially of baying for blood of Trump and everyone involved in it. Really it's the weakest shit, barely even a riot, and every precedent that's set with it is going to be turned against regular people and especially leftists.

The riot on Jan 6th lasted a single day, in one location, involved no real clashes with the police, some minor property damage, and 3 deaths of which only 1 was intentional. The cops let a bunch of people into the capitol building, where they milled around for several hours, committed acts of petty theft and vandalism, and then went home. College football games have been more disruptive.

The George Floyd riots lasted multiple weeks, all across the country, involved direct confrontations with the police, acts of looting, organized protest marches and disruptions of state and local governments, and in the instance of the Capital Hill Autonomous Zone people actually establishing organizations in direct defiance of the US government.

And even now, you've got protestors trying to stop things like Cop City or put pressure on the government to stop its support of Israel's assault on Palestinians. The very last thing anyone should want is the expansion of the already loosely defined "terrorism" and all the state repression which that implies, even if it's to Trump and his MAGA supporters, because none of that state repression is going to fall exclusively or predominantly onto them.

[fipindustries]

one thing that you need to know in order to understand me, and the way i think and the way i feel is that i am the kind of person who would be really interested in a movie that is like, the purge, just more realistic and grounded. i dont think we would have like, crazy wicked fucked up psychos in masks going around acting all cult like just killing random people, you would probably just get standard boring riots, you would see people looting, fighting on the streets, a couple of really wild parties, a couple shootings, and stuff like that.

the other thing that would happen is that there would be a lot of infrastructural damage, broken windows, burnt buildings, crashed cars, everything covered in trash and graffittis. my main point is that it would look like a warzone, maybe some sections would look like that one capitol hill autonomous zone, or like really risque bad neighborhood favelas where cops dont bother to go to, not like a creepy zombie/cult horror movie with roving bands of mad max-esque killers going around or whatever.

and i think that would be a much more interesting movie to watch, frankly

[nickgiles]

WEEK 2 -> Brief History on Photography

In a post-truth era of photography, the article reconciles with past viewpoints on the art form — that is images having an authentic and factual truth to them. But in fact, that is entirely untrue. 

Imagery is so important in this day and age, that they’re used in legal, political and personal matters, photos are everywhere. In the summer of 2020, during the Black Lives Matter protests that were sweeping across America and the globe, Fox News was accused, and rightfully so, of manipulating the imagery surrounding the protests, including that of the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ.) The photos manipulated by the news giant were misrepresentative, unethical, and failed to comply with the truth-telling expected and required out of documentative photography. People saw this as a step in the wrong direction morally, additionally, this has led more and more people to question the practices of the media form. 

As someone who is taking journalism as a minor, and is learning about ethics and law, I think it was such a misstep for Fox News, as one of the only right-wing news outlets, to alter photos to create a false narrative to promote it to the public and further devalue their genuineness as a news agency. Personally, I think Fox News shouldn’t even be credited as a news agency and more so a propaganda organization, as they falsely report and are biased towards the republican party. News agencies should work for the public, and report with the public in mind.

Photos have been touched and altered since its inception, but really took off in the 1990s when Photoshop was invented. ‘Photoshopping’ has become so embedded into our modern and contemporary ways yet images are still defined as a way to validate ourselves, a great saying said in the article, “pics or it didn’t happen.”

As someone who is chronically online and deeply into pop culture, and is up-to-date on current world affairs. I cross a line where I think manipulated imagery can be really funny, in the right context, but I am fully aware of the manipulation at hand. A great example of this recently is the ‘BRAT Summer’ and Kamala Harris’s presidency, or what has now been deemed the ‘Coconut BRAT Summer’ by chronically online people like myself. BRAT is an electro-pop club album produced by British singer-songwriter Charli XCX, who went on X (formerly Twitter) to endorse Kamala Harris’s democrat nomination and with all things spawning from that platform (also a place that spreads misinformation and disinformation), X went into overdrive and funny videos of Kamala dancing to songs on the BRAT Album. This has partly contributed to Harris’s popularity within Gen Z.

[oliviagardnerardn632]

WEEK 2: BRIEF HISTORY IN PHOTOGRAPHY

PART ONE:

Following this article, the blurred line between the authentic truth and the altered truth in photography lies within the birth of Adobe Photoshop in 1990. In history, photography has always been viewed as a ‘factual representation of the truth’ so much so that images can be used in legal matters, and to prove pretty much anything. The phrase known to most is ‘the camera never lies’ but in recent years, the altered truth of imagery has turned that phrase into ‘pics or it didn’t happen’ - the new modern extension.  

People have grown to be questioning the practice of photography especially in more recent times where prominent coverage of faked imagery has been making the media. An example of this is in mid-June 2020, Fox News was accused of manipulating photographs of the protests during the uprise of the Black Lives Matter movement which included the formation of the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) in Seattle. People saw this as unethical and morally incorrect.  

Personally, I think that this is one of the poorest things to do as a publisher. Using your power over an image to lie creates a hostile and bad reputation for the wider media/journalism industry. Everyone knows the saying a picture speaks 1000 words so by publishing this, the readers were only provided with false information and the words spoken from the image were full of misrepresentation and created a false sense of fear amongst a wider community.  

Entering this post-truth era in journalism, conversations about altered photography are all based around the blurred line between truth and misrepresentation as I talked about in the paragraph above. In my own experience, seeing the photoshopped images of Trump have made me laugh. I’ve always known that they are fake but because he uploaded the one of him looking like Rocky to Twitter, that could have older or easily convinced users thinking that Trump has a 6 pack of abs and is ready to fight his way (literally) back to the White House. Even the photo on the right could be altered too because it looks slightly unnatural to me, as he doesn't look like this on TV during presidential broadcasts.

I think this form of photo manipulation is very comical, I am always going to support making someone so awfully powerful look silly on the internet, but I can also understand how it can stray from the truth and how photoshopped images can alter the authenticity of people's opinions and sway people between fact and fiction.

Bullet Points surrounding photo manipulation in the 19th Century. These techniques and examples highlight the early use of retouching, manipulation and editing techniques in photography's foundational years.

Talbot's invention laid the foundations for the salted paper print and calotype, introducing the photographic negative and positive.

The medium's restrictions prevented it from capturing reality as shown in nature.

The 1850s saw technological advancements increasing photography's capacity for accurate rendering.

The albumen print complemented the wet collodion glass plate, invented by Frederick Scott Archer (1813-57) in 1851. The wet collodion negative limited exposure times to mere seconds, allowing sharp and defined images.

Multiple prints could be made from a negative, but wet collodion negatives required on-site development with a portable darkroom.

The technique's insensitivity to blue light meant skies and seas couldn't be captured accurately together, forcing photographers to adapt.

PART TWO

The release of the kodak brownie cameras in 1900 was the first accessible camera known to be so flexible and accessible the world had seen thus far. The camera was $1 USD and was marketed towards children and adults emphasising the easy use and accessibility of it. Kodak offered to process, print photos, and reload the camera at their factory. In 1917, two cousins from Yorkshire, Iris and Alice, took photographs on these Brownie cameras depicting themselves as fairies. In 1919, the photographs reached the public and gained interest from spiritualist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and he requested more images from the girls to test their authenticity. After the second lot of images, any doubts he had were overcome – he believed the images. Early photo staging and manipulation was underway! The girls used cardboard cutouts and hatpins for the images, spirit photography was now very well-known and was also known to be staged. During the World War and the Civil War, spirit photography gained a massive following as people needed a belief to hold onto tho that their loved ones had actually lived on. By the 1920s photographs were deemed essential in daily lives and households, recording family memories and experiences. The Kodak Brownie introduced a movement of ‘snapshot’ images, and they were seen as less formal due to the spontaneous nature of the image and the portability of the Brownie Cameras. It over looked controlled compositions and subjects we can still see snap shot style of photography today through the likes of casual posting on social media! 

Snapshot albums were black and white images framed and placed onto a black page. Although colour photography was already in motion, this was probably more financially accessible for the Kodak Brownie users. When people bring up the topic of altered photography, the use of black and white imagery is debated around realism and how reliable the image is because staged images are so much easier to get away with as I learn’t about the cousins with the fairy images.  The absence of colour photography led to the popularity of hand-coloring and tinting, but many h images often appeared garish and unnatural, contrary to the desired effect of colored photography. Airbrushing was seen as an early form of manipulation and there was a strong desire to make areality of colour photography for greater realism. 

The introduction of coloured photography was introduced through the Lumèire Autochrome that was released in 1907. In 1935, Kodachrome was released and replaced Lumèire. Over time, the advancements in colour photography grew significantly over time and the small advancements each film made were highly praised as it was so fast-moving. The changing colours and fading of color's over time always had skeptical viewers questioning if the image was real and if it was manipulated but that is just the nature of coloured ink versus the sun! 

Growing more into colored photographic practices, people then started touching up old black and white images and wanting to ‘humanize’ the past. But some critics then argued that this goes against the truth of the origin of the black and white image and alters the initial photograph and the context in which it was taken in.  

In the twentieth century when documentary photography become a key method of recording worldwide events, there were still manipulation practices despite the understanding that documentative work should be untouched and natural. The use of manipulation and postproduction editing techniques was becoming more comfortable and accessible to the world.  

Some examples of these images are the Lunch Atop a Skyscarper (1932), presented as a candid shot of construction workers having lunch 300 meters above New York City in the New York Herald Tribune, it was later revealed to be orchestrated to advertise the Rockefeller Center, with workers encouraged to pose. 

World War II Photography (1939-45), photography captured critical moments, essential for understanding conflict. One image (Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima 1945) depicted six U.S. marines raising the flag on Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima. It became a defining image of the war, winning the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Photography. It also faced claims of staging, though Rosenthal denied them. The photograph shows a second flag raising, not the original capture, adding to the distrust surrounding photography. 

Distrust in Photography because of manipulation techniques existed to alter impressions and aesthetics which then completely altered the context of the image. It came to a rise after Yevgeny Khaldei’s (1917-97) photograph, ‘Raising a Flag over the Reichstag’ (1945) was staged to symbolize Soviet victory over Nazis during the Battle of Berlin. The image utilized soldiers to re-enact the action of raising the Soviet flag. This was done by manipulation in the darkroom to add smoke for dramatic effect using another negative. Following on from this, photographers used editing to create aesthetically pleasing compositions enhancing their work visually but this could also raise the argument of taking the context out of the image. Personally, I am a big advocate for making work that you love and want to look at and be proud of for a long time so I understand enhancing the image to become more of what you were looking for but on the flip side, using manipulation to create almost a completely new and different image for the professional use/publishing is quite immoral and unethical to me.  

Interpretation in photography is all up to the opinion of the viewer. It is all subjective and the subjective nature of the photographer influences how a photograph is framed and interpreted. Overall photography involves a selection and an interpretation of the world Frank webster said this happens in 2 aspects. The photographer's role is choosing to display an image and the second role, the viewers role, interprets (reads) the photograph, decoding its meaning through the photographer's use of context.  

Adobe Photoshop Release (1990): 

Basic compared to today's standards, but enabled easy manipulation of photos. 

Features included cloning, removing sections, and adjusting opaqueness, hue, and saturation. 

Affordable and accessible, encouraging wider use. 

Photography's status as a truthful medium became questionable post-Photoshop. 

Numerous pre-Photoshop examples already demonstrated the potential for manipulation and editing. 

Photoshop could be used as propaganda both commercially and colonially to implement a new truth. Commercially, it could be used to influence consumer perceptions and colonially they used Photoshop to sway support to dominant narratives. And some spiritual people used it to convince others that magic eg. Fairies, witches etc were real. 

[anarchytecture]

OCCUPY TAIWAN LEGISLATURE, TW

JANUARY 6 CAPITAL ATTACK, US

Occupy Central with Love and Peace, HK

Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

[megashadowdragon]

Seattle Pays BLM Rioters MILLIONS

youtube comments

Who knew destroying things in the name of a criminal who OD'ed would grant you millions.

The property owners in the “Chaz” district should find and sue all of the recipients of this money for damages and emotional distress.

In 2020, cities across the U.S. experienced the “Summer of Love”, a.k.a. the “George Floyd riots”, which resulted in 26 deaths, thousands of injuries, and $2.2 billion in property damage.

They declared capitol hill an autonomous zone and get paid by the state Granny in DC walked through open doors and between the velvet ropes and she's still in solitary

[graymanbriefing]

Civil Unrest / Societal Collapse / Citizen Actions Brief: National Summary 》In Seattle, WA; the city has settled a lawsuit and agreed to pay Black Lives Matter and Antifa rioters (including those who seized city property [Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone]) $10 million. The rioters agreed not to hold the city liable and requested only money after claiming law enforcement used "excessive force" by deploying "less lethal" crowd control implements. The city cited "significant drain" on resources as cause for the settlement. Separately in Sea...(CLASSIFIED) 》In NYC, NY on January 25th; a group pro-Palestinian activists harassed and assaulted pedestrians and Jewish people attending a memorial service for Henry Kissinger. Separately, in Brooklyn, pro-Palestinians protested alongside allegedly "fake Jews" (dressed in attire to appear Jewish while opposing Israel). Also in NYC, pr...(CLASSIFIED) 》The "Take Our Border Back" convoy/protest is set to begin today. The pro-border-security protest...(CLASSIFIED, get coverage on planned protests, updates on civil disobedience, and riot warnings by joining at www.graymanbriefing.com)

[michaelcosio]

WANTED:

FOR LOOTING THE PEOPLE

GREEDY CAPITALIST JEFF BEZOS HAS LOOTED $153 BILLION FROM YOU AND YOUR COMMUNITY.

IT IS TIME TO TAKE BACK WHAT IS OURS

Seattle's Chaz police-free zone in US - 20 Jun 2020

A "Wanted" poster displays the name and portrait of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in the Seattle's so-called Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, or CHAZ - an area protesters have taken over after police withdrew on June 7. Civil government has been effectively suspended in less than two weeks, six blocks in Seattle have come to reflect the divisive American political landscape.

[dailyanarchistposts]

What is CHAZ?

The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) will most likely be a short lived communal project of local socialists and anarchists in Seattle. But it’s fascinating lesson in how to build communal societies and what benefits they can provide to a large group of people. After a week of tough protesting against the Seattle PD, local anarchists began to create roadblocks in and around the Capitol Hill area of Seattle once the department retreated from their East Precinct. CHAZ was established only after the Seattle PD abandoned that precinct. Capitol Hill is a posh, LGBTQ community where a lot of younger urban professionals already lived. On June 8th, they officially declared a six block radius under their complete control and gave it a new name, The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ), aka “Free Capitol Hill.” Anarchists used the moniker “Free Capitol Hill” in homage to the “Free Derry” sign erected in the Bogside neighborhood of the Northern Ireland city of Derry, which became an embattled city during the Troubles. These developments are amazing when you consider that in just two weeks, three different police precincts were either abandoned or burned down (2 in Minneapolis, 1 in Seattle). We’ve never seen this before in America and it does signal what can be possible through numbers and sheer determination. Now, obviously the goal is not to take over police stations, but to defund departments and attempt to rebuild policing from the ground up. Some may toe the line of “reform” but anarchists and socialists in this country know that much more than that is needed. CHAZ is a local experiment, but one worth taking lessons from and it’s a breath of fresh air during a time of inhumanity.

[chubbycaucasianchristiancloseted]

The article tries to separate 25 deaths during “protests” and 14 linked “to political unrest”.

The article tries to separate 25 deaths during “protests” and 14 linked “to political unrest”. So the number of deaths during the 2020 “Summer of Love”, BLM riots, at the time of this article, is 39.

The young man in Seattle’s “Autonomous Zone” was not counted in any of these numbers. I’m assuming it was a wrong place, wrong time kinda deal? He was bleeding out in the Autonomous Zone and violent protesters did not allow 1st responders to treat him. Will any Democrat denounce this behavior and violence?

Direct Quotes:

At least 11 Americans have been killed while participating in political demonstrations this year and another 14 have died in other incidents linked to political unrest, according to new data from a non-profit monitoring political unrest in the United States.

Nine of the people killed during protests were demonstrators taking part in Black Lives Matter protests. Two were conservatives killed after pro-Trump “patriot rallies”. All but one were killed by fellow citizens.

News reports at the height of demonstrations over Floyd’s killing cited dozens of deaths in connection with protests, but many of those turned out to be examples of deadly crimes carried out in the vicinity of protests, rather than directly related to the demonstrations themselves, the researchers concluded. ACLED’s dataset only focuses on political violence.

Aaron “Jay” Danielson, a far-right Trump supporter, was shot after a rally in Portland in August. Danielson’s suspected killer, Michael Reinoehl, was a leftwing protester who called himself an “anti-fascist”

In addition to the people killed while demonstrating, at least 14 more Americans have been killed in other incidents linked to political unrest this summer, including seven people shot during alleged looting of businesses

One of two fatal shootings of young black men in Seattle’s self-declared “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone” was not politically motivated

[tache-noire]

seattle's gonna riot and re-establish the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone if Swerve loses this match, i swear to god

[seattlereddit]

The Capitol Hill Autonomous Vehicle Zone — More driverless robotaxi testing comes to Seattle

https://www.reddit.com/r/SeattleWA/comments/165en1e/the_capitol_hill_autonomous_vehicle_zone_more/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr

[matthewrimamateardn632]

Brief History of Photography and Truth Reflection:

This article/website talks about the history of photography and how it can be portrayed as being the truth or being a lie in a manipulative way. It also really digs deep into the rich history behind photographic practice as well as how photographers have manipulated the countless photos over the centuries.

There is a brief discussion about how the photographic practices and the photography community has been reminded that photography's complicated relationship with the 'truth' is not a new condition. It has been viewed as being authentic, factual and a representation of truth. Recent years have covered stating the belief and questioned the ideation revolving around manipulated and fake photographs.

There were many historic moments to do with fake photography and manipulation to do with photographs. An example of this would be a recent occurrence in mid-June with the BLM ( Black Lives Matter Protest) Fox News were accused of manipulating photographs relating to/ depicting the events surrounding the protest, Including the manipulation of formation involving the capitol hill autonomous zone (CHAZ) in Seattle. The photo was later viewed as Unethical, Unauthentic and unrepresentative.

Based on reading this article, I found out that photography can sometimes be the truth or a lie. The main idea/concept that revolved around this article was the view and use of manipulation through the lens. I feel like there are many stories that revolve around the manipulation of photography and how it can portray stories/photos. the stories can also be portrayed as being the truth or a lie.

[megbits]

Starting a new series over at Unsettling. Excerpts from the first post:

The protests after George Floyd are often characterized as rebellions. While they helped popularize calls for abolitionism and forms of restorative justice—ideas that have restoration, repair, and healing at their center—it hasn’t seemed, at least not to me, that these two concepts are paired together very often. We don’t talk about rebellion as related to repair. Did efforts for reparations get a boost, post-rebellion? Yes. Do we yet talk easily about rebellion as a call for repair or for reparations? Not so much. I’m curious about this, and if there is a greater connection between acts of rebellion, which act as a kind of rupture, and the opening up of possibilities for true repair. This flies in the face of how rebellion and protest are often read; popular narratives often see them as nonsensical, attention-seeking enactments of additional harm. My own experience tells me they’re much more than that.

While protests happened worldwide after Floyd’s death, it was here in Seattle that a very particular kind, the Capitol Hill Organized Protest (or CHOP, and at times also known as either the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest or the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone) took place, with calls to defund police—calls that took on a new urgency for many experiencing the impacts of police violence for the first time, as tear gas seeped into local residences. The latter fact is probably why the CHOP holds a more prominent place in popular memory than some other important Seattle occupations—both the Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center and El Centro de la Raza are longstanding community hubs that were won using the tactic of occupation. These are direct actions that didn’t simply flash and fizzle, but very clearly won actual physical territory, and they’re worth learning more about. Though it’s possible that the effects of the CHOP are still playing out in ways that aren’t so easy to see, as most of us who were involved in Occupy are likely to argue is true for that movement.

But all these examples raise another set of questions: why is occupation so often the tactic of rebellion these days? What is gained by it? And when is it likely to be actually effective, and when is it more likely to fail? Do occupations—which are inherently place-based, necessitating the physical maintenance of a specific location—offer us any better opportunity for place-based healing? Do they increase or lessen the possibility for rebellion to turn to repair?

Sign up for the list at Unsettling to read future posts about my experience in various actions that hold space, and reflect on what has been gained (or not) by many other such actions in a wide array of social movements in recent times. We'll of course do a little breakdown of the notion of 'occupation' as well given that most of us live on occupied land or unceded territory.

[pllcy]

Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone and the revolutionary potential of communal living // The Rattlecap, 2020