Seattle 'Autonomous' Zone Gains UN Seat (PreOccupied Territory)

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New York, June 11 - An area of Washington state's largest city that the local government allowed protesters to take over has now achieved membership in the United Nations General Assembly, the group announced today.

The "Seattle Autonomous Zone" took shape earlier this month after police abandoned their efforts to prevent Black Lives Matter and Antifa demonstrators from overwhelming the Capitol Hill neighborhood in large numbers, and have made no attempt to dislodge the activists from the public facilities and other establishments they now occupy. The Zone has since applied for UN membership, which a majority of member nations approved, in keeping with longstanding UN policy to welcome as many irresponsible actors as possible into its ranks.

BLM activists told reporters of their gratification and some surprise at the speed with which the process unfolded. "We thought this could take months, even years," admitted Raz Simone, a rapper who has taken to patrolling the Zone with an AK-47 assault rifle and imposing his authority. "But I guess the UN has a fast-track for entities such as min- I mean ours, who display all the qualities that UN members by and large cherish: suppression of dissent; avoidance or violation of democratic norms; neglect or outright dismissal of human rights concerns. We're basically the next Cuba."

"We hope to inspire other places to follow a similar path," added Simone's colleague Tohuva Vohu. "They of course might make better preparations than we did regarding food and other essentials, since we've run out and need to be supplied by sympathetic folks on the outside, but we're free! Those other places will probably also get UN membership quickly, and we can all strut on the world stage and talk about how evil and racist America and her allies are, and how awful it is to live there. Send vegan food, by the way. Please? Anything."

BLM and Antifa activists involved in the application and diplomacy process with the other UN members who approved the request have now set their sights on the next level of legitimacy on a global level: Security Council membership, with which the Seattle Autonomous Zone can introduce resolutions to shame the US and its allies. "That's where the action is," explained Ambassador to the UN of Pakistan, Munir Akram. "It's one thing to try distracting a single country's population with distorted focus on certain pathologies or problems, as a means of gaining power or protecting political interests; it's another magnitude entirely when you get to focus on Israel as the ultimate evil, just to divert attention from the authoritarian abuse your own regime perpetrates."

Photo credit: ThatGamingSheep et al via Wikimedia Commons