Damnit Luke stop making sense and let me rage at centralization of wealth pls.

You make a really valid and reasoned point man, but honestly, if it was me and I made a backroom deal to purchase a controlling stake in something that I don't control with the intent of taking it over and steering it wherever I wanted, I'd be damn ready for the other stake holders to kick up a storm, and I'd expect them to fight back. I'd honestly even assume that at some point the crazy bastards might just use the nuclear option fork me out. If you throw a sucker punch you better expect to get hit. When you start any fight, especially in a sneaky an underhanded way, you have to assume that you might lose. Justin should know that people who are invested in the crypto space take decentralisation seriously, and if he didn't expect it to come to something similar to this, he actually is a fool. I'm not trying to start a fight or anything here, I honestly agree with your points, but I also think that he didn't simply do something the community disagreed with, he tried to take over and become the de-facto controller of the community.

Exchanges did that per request of Steemic Inc. To the outside world (including  exchanges) Steem looks like a proprietary blockchain, owned by Steemic Inc, no matter how many times you tell them that Steem is not Steemit. 

Just fork Steemit out, give it a new name. Steemit and it's stake have always been a source of discussion since day 1. But it has been tolerated long enough. They have had 4 years to prove been able to do something useful for the Steem community. They failed to do so. Instead the owners bailed, selling the company for some money. 

The new owner has shown his intentions and hostility towards the eco-system. If I was responsible for the team of HQ decs quitting, for iniatiating a governance take-over by lying to my friends, for attacking long standing and appreciated members and more.. 

I vote for you as witness, because I believe you have the best interest for the chain at heart. I expect you to mitigate attacks on our community and security with swift but responsible measures. 

Who decides? The community decides in the long term by voting witnesses. In the short term the top20 decide. Choose your decisions carefully.

Personally, at the moment it seems like the @blocktrades project is something I would be behind.

This. Forking out users is a bad precedent. Forking out the community to an alternative sphere is the best option.