Monday 16 May 2011

AUTONOMIA SQUAT info

 
Autonomia is a volunteer-run, not-for-profit social center in the Central District of Seattle. The space is managed collectively, and all decisions are made by group consensus. We strive to create a space that embodies the principles of equality, anti-oppression, and social justice, and we wish to empower the Seattle grassroots community by giving it access to a public space for community organizing. The Autonomia collective aims to support the diverse multitude of anti-authoritarian and working-class struggles in the Seattle area and around the world. We believe that a well-organized community is able to solve its own problems and better meet the needs of its community members when it practices group decision making and direct democracy.
Autonomia offers:
-Free coffee
-Free literature
-Free computer and internet access
-Free clothes
-A space for artists to showcase their work
-A space for grassroots organizations to meet
-Events such as benefit concerts, film screenings, open-mics, workshops, and Seattle Free School classes 
 
Autonomia Social Center is an example of creating radical infrastructure in the Seattle community. It's a place to meet comrades in struggle, a place for educating yourself and others, a place to hang out, laugh, eat, inspire and conspire together. As a result of Seattle's passionate struggle against oppression in the last few months, many are looking at radicals and asking "Well if not capitalism, if not police, if not hierarchy, exploitation, and environmental degradation, then what?" Autonomia strives to offer answers, to create a microcosm of alternatives to oppression as we tear this macrocosm of injustice down, to serve as a reminder of what we are for while we fight the relentless oppression of the state we are so passionately against.
 
contact: autonomiaseattle@riseup.net or 600 24th Ave. South Seattle, WA 98144

3 comments:

Julia Riber Pitt said...

Squatting is the best way, in my opinion, for comrades to fight against the system. As Proudhon pointed out, property relations are the basis of tyranny, so eroding the system of private property and the exploitation which comes out of it should be the first thing on our agenda. Fuck landlords and paying rent. I applaud the Seattle squatters and I hope their squat works out.

(A)

..crucified freedom.. said...

yes, I was always interested in squatting movement and was admiring to the people who lives on that way.. especially in those completely autonomous squats, which are very rare today..
and yes, it's a good way to fight against the system, but unfortunately it is also very hard to be persistent in squatting because of frequent evictions, 'cause it doesn't matter how much there are squatters and how long they occupy some space 'cause system is still stronger then they.. (the best example is Netherlands nowadays..) if the authorities or the owner of the space wants to evict some squat they can do it without of any bigger problems.. so at the end you begin to wonder if all that effort you put in have any sense.. I think that all that is worth while it lasts..
there are just few squats out there which constantly resists attempts by authorities to evict them, already for ages..

Julia Riber Pitt said...

If we can build large enough networks we can fight against evictions the same way comrades fight against firings by bosses. Just imagine a giant rally of 100 people to protest a landlord and police evicting squatters. In occupied Palestine, there are groups which fight against Israeli soldiers throwing Palestinians out of their homes. I was thinking about doing the same thing.

(And by the way, this is my name in Greek. I thought I'd avoid the stalkers.)