By Jason Mattera
Seattle's Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) "autonomous" area was established in early June after protestors, vandals, looters, and loiterers-with- intent clashed with police officers in the wake of George Floyd's death. Attempting to appease the unruly mob, Seattle's mayor ordered cops to abandon the East Precinct. The mob interpreted the mayor's directive as a sign of weakness – quickly walling off six city blocks using street barricades and other makeshift blockades. Outsiders were warned that by entering CHOP, they were now leaving the United States.
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As it turns out, the CHOP occupants energy would’ve better been spent protecting their food stash. A self-described “lesbian anarchist” who touted abolishing both “capitalism” and “whiteness” on her Twitter profile bemoaned that ungrateful vagrants welcomed into the encampment were pilfering the meal supply: “The homeless people we invited took away all the food at the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. We need more food to keep the area operational.” Not just any food can nourish the revolution, however. “Please if possible bring vegan meat substitutes, fruits, oats, soy products, etc. – anything to help us eat,” she pleaded on social media.
The “No Cop Co-Op,” as it was billed, was in full operation. I live in Seattle near this social justice experiment, and the jokes, as we say, were writing themselves. For starters, the territory where you went when you were “leaving the United States” couldn’t figure out what to call itself. CHOP originally went by the name of CHAZ, the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. But days later – for no known reason (maybe it happened autonomously) – CHAZ was renamed CHOP, the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest zone. And even that acronym was uncertain. There was a tedious internal debate on whether the “O” stood for “Occupied” or “Organized.”
American Consequences
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