Post-Quarantine: Day 92

After two weeks, the protests are still going strong.

We’ve (mostly) moved on from torching fast food restaurants and throwing bricks though Verizon windows, to pulling down any statue that even vaguely resembles a person. Thus far, most have been confederate statues, but we’re already on the cusp of losing the plot.

A bunch of statues have already been defaced that somewhat undermine the point of the protests, including these two abolitionists:

This is why aimless destruction for the sake of mob justice usually isn’t the best policy. There’s always plenty of people willing to jump though hoops to justify this kind of thing though, because the ends justify the means, or some such platitude.

25 actual confederate statues have been removed by state governments thus far, with Virginia and Alabama leading the pack, and many more are slated to be removed on the horizon. It’s also worth noting that despite it making for a rad photo op, it’s probably better to pressure the government into removing statues, otherwise something like this could happen:

On a more whimsical note, a bunch of kids in Seattle have taken advantage of the almost non-existent police presence in the area to create a utopia of sorts. They call it the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, or CHAZ for short.

For the most part, it seems to be kids hanging out, watching movies, eating pizza, and living out their Lord of the Flies fantasies. The people within the community who are taking it a little too seriously are providing an unlimited source of memes however.

As is the scenario in every Communist utopia that has ever existed since the dawning of time, inevitably someone steps up to install themselves as the de facto leader, and immediately starts abusing their authority. In the CHAZ, this someone is called Raz, and he’s evidently a soundcloud rapper. A mere 24 hours after the CHAZ was founded, it’s already embroiled in a power struggle.

Another problem in the CHAZ is that absolutely nobody has any discernible life skills, outside of spray painting, rolling blunts, and setting things on fire. This is a substantial hurdle when attempting to create a new society. Their reddit page is full of comedic gold including pictures of a “garden” that was planted.

Yes, that’s just dirt poured on top of cardboard, with plants that were no doubt yoinked from a nursery somewhere planted in that two inches of dirt. Unfortunately you can’t just plant HotPockets™ trees.

Overall, it seems pretty harmless though. As long as the revolutionary LARPers trying to live out their Che Guevara fantasies are kept at bay, it might remain chill. There are quite a few dubious types with guns within the CHAZ.

Finally, Minneapolis has decided to “abolish the police”.

That’s quite a bold move. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out. I keep seeing people using Camden, New Jersey as a model for police reform, but evidently that city isn’t necessarily the success story it’s being propped up as.

Good luck Minneapolis.

Here’s one final nugget before I leave: