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You and I remember Budapest very differently.

In Portland Oregon, BLM spray painted buildings, burnt many things in the middle of the road and sidewalks, destroyed property, physically assaulted, broke windows, and ripped down bus stops and statues. They formulated an incursion into a state building putting the lives of Oregon's law officers in jeopardy (Molotov cocktails throw at them).

Depending on your persuasion, you might argue some justification occurred in Minneapolis Minnesota. But there are clearly limits when destruction of property and looting fall far outside of any tenuous reflection of social unrest. (Target?)

Seattle Washington was worse. Much much worse. The city directed their police force to yield a central block of the city to armed rebellion. People, one as I recall completely innocent, were shot and killed.

There was not the immediacy nor the widespread arrests to match the level of violence and destruction in these three locations. In terms of accuracy and spirit I believe you have missed the mark in your description of action and response.

There have been some good points in this thread otherwise and I'm still thinking about them. But you would be better served by re-evaluating your position on this topic.



That description of what happened in Seattle is inaccurate. See https://kuow.org/stories/we-know-who-made-the-call-to-seattl...

Mid-level police commanders unilaterally decided to abandon the precinct, which allowed CHAZ to form. Not “the city,” and not in the face of “armed rebellion.”

(Yes, there were guns and unfortunate violence later: after the police left. Their job is maintaining public order; they failed.)


The police job in the history of modern republics was never to maintain "public order", unless by that you mean preventing disruption of existing systems of privilege. I can only recommend reading Michel Foucault "Discipline and Punish" about the society of control, and the roles of the police and judicial system.


If you do so, I recommend keeping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault#Views_on_under... in mind


Hello, that's a good point! We should always point out pedophilia where it's hiding. However, from previous readings and from following the linked sources of that Wikipedia article, i don't think that Foucault was a pedophile. He did (like many other thinkers of the time) sign a petition defending someone who didn't deserve it, but it's easy to judge in retrospect as the precise context of the case was not publicly known at the time of the petition. But nowhere could i read him arguing for pedophilia or suggesting he himself engaged in such abhorrent behavior.


Here is a not-terribly-biased source:

https://theoryreader.org/2021/03/30/french-philosopher-miche...

Here is a more conservative one (yet still, the essay is very good), which also brings up how he knowingly spread HIV to young men in San Francisco:

https://newcriterion.com/issues/1993/3/the-perversions-of-m-...


Thank you gammarator, you are correct, that is how it initiated. I believe what I'm recalling, and I apologize for not remembering specifics as clearly, was a couple different events after CHAZ was...let's say "established". I believe there was more than one armed stand off, one in particular a organized force (but was it national guard or city police?) and the mayor (in my previous comment referred to as "the city") directed officers to yield the area. The occupiers formed an armed militia and the city ceded control of the block to them. I unfortunately misremembered the timeline and characterized it by stating it the way that I did. Thanks for pointing that out.




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