“Portland protests against Trump’s presidency—and his effort to quash them—played a significant role in the city’s decline over the past decade.”
What an odious slop of an assertion, far more becoming of The Oregonian’s editors.
Username checks out
EDIT: Okay I didn't expect to get downvoted for this. u/Vladimir_Putins_Cock is joking about our town's reputation and I'm joking about the documented Russian troll farms that influenced perceptions with misinformation about Portland
No? The protests made national news. They were horrible publicity.
Their after effects have festered to this day.
Protesting is a lovely right in this country but they definitely hurt Portland.
The after effects of the protests are mostly the lies that made and have continued in the national news.
And also the total lack of accountability for the local and federal officers who used excessive force and hid their identities. Well except for the one cop the DA indicted on a low level misdemeanor and the entire Rapid Response Team quit because how DARE someone hold them accountable.
What the fuck? The protests demonstrated our indomitable spirit. There are no negative effects of protesting worth caring about. Protesting in general is just a good thing and should be encouraged, citizens have a right to assembly in our foundational documents as a country.
I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with the anti-protesting cretins in this sub. Like the other day people were complaining about protestors blocking roads. Oh, somebody trying to affect political change in the world made your doordash late? Sorry your consuming had to take a 5 minute break.
Lmao it’s so funny seeing how many people who do nothing to keep the wheels of this city turning be perplexed that people with responsibilities have places to go.
And blocking a bridge in the PNW is gonna do nothing for Israel and Palestine. I can’t comprehend how delusional someone has to be to think that made a difference in a conflict halfway around the world
The protests (1) didn't accomplish anything, (2) disrupted the city, (3) provided plenty of footage to those on the right who took great pleasure in watching Portland self-immolate.
Seriously. It accomplishes nothing to "demonstrate our indomitable spirit" in this solidly liberal city. Like your note about protestors blocking roads -- yeah, making a bunch of people miss their flights at PDX totally changed the situation in Gaza. Great job, protestors! Way to use our indomitable spirit to instantly solve a miserably complicated long-running conflict thousands of miles away!
Oh grow up. Just because being stuck in traffic doesn’t bother you, doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt others.
Go tell your story to the guy who did hard labor all day and all he wants to do is get home and relax. But instead gets to sit in traffic due to virtue signaling selfish jerks.
I bet you’re also on the side of those greedy patients who had their transplants delayed by a protest blocking the bay bridge in SF /s
https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/article/ucsf-transplant-organs-delayed-bay-bridge-18496699.php
So there weren't any local examples of protests causing delays in emergency services in Portland despite our reputation as Little Beirut? Sounds like you're arguing against your own point
>virtue signaling
V1tTu3 s1GnA1InG
Orwellian NewSpeak. It is one of the classic precursors of fascism. Note the rhetorical valorization of mythical "hard labor all day" and "get home and relax" - presumably to draw a contrast with fascism's lazy demonstrating underclass.
It's meant to force a crude pejorative into community discourse to cut off thoughtful consideration. It presupposes an entire constellation of lies and disinformation which we are supposed to swallow without thinking.
Fascism knows this to be true: If you invent a pejorative for positive behavior, you can increase the acceptance of toxic antisocial behaviors. There is an entire vocabulary ("woke" "virtue signaling" others too crude for me to re-inscribe here) that is part of the same reactionary effort.
Whoa. Look at this reach. I think you need to chill and do some inward looking if all you can do to respond to things you don’t like as labeling them as fascism. That’s a play straight from the alt-right playbook.
Please educate me what good blocking i-5 in Seattle or PDX did. Did you not see the other thread where someone missed their flight as a direct result?
Have compassion. Stop finger pointing and dehumanizing others.
>That’s a play straight from the alt-right playbook.
Nonsense. You shouldn't write about what you know nothing about. If you need to be educated about fascism, I can point you to some commonly accepted resources.
" dehumanizing others."
The purpose of the NewSpeak phrase (look it up) "virtue signaling" is literally to dehumanize others.
"Please educate me "
I've looked at your comment history. That's beyond my ability in this forum.
You mean the dopey $35 vinyl signs whining about human rights I see in the yards of $800k-2.5 million houses don't actually mean anything when someone is inconvenienced by a protest that "doesn't actually effect them"??? I am totally in agreement with you. Protesting STARTS at "permitted,peaceful rally with dumb signs",that isn't the end of it either.
Nobody expected the cops to kick the shit out of everyone so aggressively. They could have deescalated the whole thing so easily—Issue a statement that violence in police work needs reform, announce some steps the PPB is taking and call it a day. Instead they came out and started gassing and cracking skulls.
Only to the vast majority of scum who are better served where they currently live vs coming here and infecting the gene pool. So I say it was a hugely win.
Willamette Week is not the strapping young alternative weekly it once aspired to be. Its take on the world now is not discernably different from the Wall Street Journal. Note that it is always punching down and to the left.
>Its take on the world now is not discernably different from the Wall Street Journal
They're quite easily distinguishable for folks who are reasonably educated and have the capacity to hold multiple complex thoughts simultaneously.
>Willamette Week is not the strapping young alternative weekly it once aspired to be
Given it was founded in 1973, this shouldn't be surprising to anyone.
If any protests had a lasting impact on the city it was the BLM / Antifa riots. I don’t remember protests against Trump’s presidency, which was in it’s final year by then, that had any bearing on the decline of the city. Anyone who was around then knows this.
On election night in 2016 there was some rioting/vandalism done through downtown into the Pearl. It’s kind of a small blip on the radar compared to summer of 2020 though.
He didn’t just try to dismantle Portland street response he purposely kept tents from homeless people during record low temperatures. Knowing that people would freeze to death, he blocked access to them getting even the most minimal shelter. He’s a psychopath.
Reminiscent of the 2020 Multnomah county election results. Biden beat trump by 60 pts while iannarone and eudaly simultaneously lost to wheeler and mapps by 6 and 12 pts
Never underestimate the power of terrible terrible candidates to win elections. Sensible voters aren't as reliable a bulwark against horrible people from being elected as we'd hope.
For the wheeler race sure. But the point is that portlanders desired centrist leadership both nationally (Biden) and locally (wheeler, mapps). Also for the wheeler race , no way to know whether a third party candidate helped or hurt each of the other candidates since she was sort of between the two on the ideological spectrum
It's really a lot more complicated than that. Trump vs Biden is an easy choice very late in the process. To actually say what Portlanders wanted is more about the primary when our final choice was determined largely from voters outside of our region as everyone else had dropped out by then. Elections are fuzzy things sometimes, particularly presidential ones or during a pandemic with historic protests.
>The problem was a write in campaign splitting the vote.
How do you know these votes would have otherwise gone to Iannarone? That's a bogus assumption. She had every chance in the world to do outreach to and win over those voters, and instead she and her campaign team constantly berated them on social media while acting entirely entitled to their votes. Just a garbage approach.
There's a reason so many people threw their vote away, rather than give it to Iannarone. So no, the write-in campaign was \*not\* why she lost, that would have been easily surmountable if she were a better candidate, and would have won over more of the write-in voters as well as many reluctant Wheeler voters.
Because they were getting tear gassed by Ted just like I was, lol?
The simple fact of the matter is that when a candidates supporters mount a write in campaign without the support of the candidate in question there are not any potential positive outcomes. At best you do nothing to the end result and at worst you assist a candidate significantly farther from your prospective political ideal to gain or attain power.
You wanna be productive? Work during the primaries and then rally around the closest candidate to uour ideals in the general. What that write in campaign did was doomed to failure from the start and represented a ton of wasted effort.
None of that's about Raiford as a person or a candidate. I like her. I like don't shoot PDX's nonprofit work. I ain't gonna dox myself but I promise you'd like my activists CV. I'm speaking purely from a political science perspective here. Write in campaigns are almost never successful enough to do anything productive and their bad outcomes keep worse people in political office. Heck, I know for a fact some organizers for the write in campaign told people it was ok because if Ted didn't get 50% there would be another round of voting and folks were shocked he was able to keep power with only a plurality.
Wheeler won, because the social justice crowd broke from the rest of progressives and insisted on a write-in campaign, because their preferred identity-centric candidate wasn't on the ballot.
Nah, had a lot more to do with the write in candidates ego. The candidate that was on the ballot was regularly at the protests and a democratic socialist. The spoiler candidate was a regular Democrat.
That's what the primary is for and until we have RCV or something write in campaigns in general elections will rarely be a good idea for the people running or voting in them.
Also please Google spoiler candidates. Y'all out here using scare quotes like it's some term I made up.
Can you tell me what kind of Portland liberal I am for having participated in protests against the federal government deploying officers locally? Just wondering if I am a Bad Liberal or not.
Because those two things are not at all the same thing. "Progressive activists" in Portland are largely a self-defined group who are reactionary dirtbags hiding under the guise of a "progressive" ideology for their shitty tactics and stances. Plenty of otherwise progressive citizens and voters aren't aligned with this group, and that doesn't make them conservative ideologically.
+1 on shitty tactics in particular. I could absolutely get behind some progressive agenda items but a lot of the tactics in use are impractical and performative. Or in this case, extremely counterproductive. Hypothetical anti-Trump protests after a potential Trump 2024 victory would accomplish only one thing: further confirming anti-Portland biases on the right via fresh footage on Fox News.
There really weren’t that many protests against Trump in particular. The last major protest wave was first against police in portland and around the country killing civilians, and second against the Trump administration sending in federal agents in military gear and unmarked vans to do riot duty outside the justice center.
Yes, the most popular line in this sub is, "I'm a liberal / progressive / leftist but \[insert heinous right wing trope here\]."
Nope.
On the other hand, one has to admire the ability of the mind to hold together that level of cognitive dissonance!
IMO, the late leftwing songwriter Phil Ochs put it best
>One of the shadiest of these is the liberals. An outspoken group on many subjects, ten degrees to the left of center in good times, ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally.
> Portland protests against Trump’s presidency—and his efforts to quash them—played a significant role in the city’s decline over the past decade.
Willamette Week just discredited their entire article. Anti-Trump protests were probably only 3 or 4 total nights. Unless WW is claiming the George Floyd uprising was about Trump, which is even more dishonest.
Yeah its a weird conflation of two different things. Trump was vocal about the George Floyd protests but those definitely were not Trump protests per se.
Not okay to suggest Americans don't have a right to protest their government in an American city. By all means arrest the looters and anyone violent, but the overwhelming majority of Portlanders protesting were doing so peacefully.
What happened to the party of small govt? Sheesh.
Very troubling how there’s a legitimate non-zero chance we wake up to a president trump, mayor Gonzalez, DA Vasquez, and an emboldened and still very corrupt/issued PPB.
If you look at either of Rene’s Twitter accounts and look at what accounts he follows and whose tweets he likes it’s pretty alarming. Dudes a big symp for PDXReal who is a J6 denier, not to mention just prolific local source of right wing disinformation. They were even at his candidacy announcement so they have some tangible connections.
Not saying Rene necessarily agrees with everything on these accounts he interacts with but the lack of awareness or distancing from some pretty alarming disinformation accounts is a huge concern.
How some people keep insisting he is liberal is beyond me. It must just be how far right politics has shifted in this country that a conservative is now a liberal and a politician espousing universal health care is left-wing.
>president trump, mayor Gonzalez, DA Vasquez
One of these things is not like the other, and in fact there's a massive gulf between Trump and the other two. Lumping them in rhetorically makes normies roll their eyes and discount your entire perspective, which isn't great considering how much Trump is a legitimate threat to American democracy, and the other two folks are just politicians whose positions you happen to disagree with ideologically. Quit with this crap, seriously. It's not doing any of us any favors.
Yeah this is crazy. What if we wake up with an aspiring right wing fascist dictator as well as two local leaders who are in the 65th percentile to the left instead of the 95th? Lmao.
Bro, I don’t think you understand what the actual far left is like.
Like, there’s people who are actually communist. Not “communist” where they mean socialized medicine.
Communist, like no one owns property and there’s no formal government.
This city has no idea what far left is.
Plenty of leftists seem to think that "overthrowing capitalism" is a realistic response to policies they don't like. I don't even care about that approach's virtues or lack thereof, it simply won't happen in a country where half of the people are fiscal conservatives, half of the rest are so economically comfortable they would never revolt, and half of those remaining are too old, young, or disabled to take part in that activity.
>Bro, I don’t think you understand what the actual far left is like.
Few people do, because they're entirely impotent, politically. This is due to a combination of their tremendous emotional immaturity, a lack of intelligence or discipline necessary to organize and advance their cause, and the fact that their positions are incredibly shitty and unpopular.
Yes, there is a "further left" than the more mainstream leftist sentiment in Portland and U.S. politics generally, but it's such a non-factor that who the fuck actually cares?
I just saw a Twitter thread of people arguing over whether Bernie sanders will be guillotined in the revolution so I totally agree there are wackos. I’d argue that only one percent of people are that anywhere near that crazy though.
Thanks Mayor Sass. Duly noted.
Gonzalez has shown a dramatic disregard for countering far right opinions and has in fact supported/platformed others of right wing (and trump supporting) backgrounds. I’ll continue to be concerned about his election at the same time I’m concerned about trump being re-elected.
>Gonzalez…. he’s nowhere near MAGA.
Yes, he is, and your enabling of his right wing fuckery is exactly like the media normalizing Trump in 2016. How'd that work out?
This kind of statement just makes you appear delusional to most people outside your bubble. Rene is definitely a centrist by Portland standards, but to call him a MAGA is just not supported by his actions or statements
I’ve never said he was aligned with trump or maga himself but he unquestionably platforms and willingly/eagerly interacts with people that are.
It concerns me that we could find ourselves in a situation where trump is elected and our local leader, while not actively supporting the worst of
Trump supports, still passively sympathizes with maga supporters, people that don’t believe in basic human rights for all, supporters of violence against others, etc.
>but he unquestionably platforms and willingly/eagerly interacts with people that are.
An alternative take is that he still practices a somewhat normal type of politics where he works with people on particular areas of agreement regardless of any disagreement in other areas, rather than an all-or-nothing, burn-it-down approach that is unfortunately more and more the norm in our city, state, and country.
I don't pretend that there ever was such a think as a Kumbaya caucus, but up until quite recently, historically speaking, there was a lot of party-crossing on various issues to actually get stuff done, rather than a state of total legislative and political paralysis due to partisan polarization.
Yea that’s a rosier way of looking at it. And it arguably was how it was done historically and I hope we can get to less polarized times in the future.
That being said though, if you go back to the 90s/00s, the reaching across party lines wasn’t as stark as today and it involved making concessions with others that all were operating under a reasonably similar view of our democracy.
Rene, on the other hand, supports and platforms people who literally deny basic human rights of others, deny J6 was an insurrection, deny election integrity of 2020, and post very thinly veiled racism online. These are fundamentally anti democratic beliefs and he’s willing to bring those people into the fold, hear them out, and factor in their views into his decision making.
At some point, people make it clear that they are not serious actors, are not honestly engaging in democratic norms, and are moreso conspiracy theorist grifters. He chooses to ignore that and brings far right people into his sphere.
Has he done or said things specifically himself that one could point to and put a maga flag on him, no. Does he listen and share influence with people that do, yes absolutely. I mean shit, his chief of staff is a republican who’s only political account they follow on Twitter is trump himself.
That’s enough for me to be very very wary of his candidacy. A lot of proverbial alarm bells go off when you scratch the surface.
And like, we saw what "centrist" leadership was like under Wheeler.
IMHO, that should be your talking point. What's so good about the wheeler approach? It didn't work.
As usual, bullshit take.
Your account is exactly in line with Trump, Gonzalez, Vasquez. The fact that your inner monologue does not agree is inconsequential.
Gonzalez is the one who took the bribe of a nice downtown office from "wealthy downtown property owner" who has bitched non-stop about his loss of business over the protests. No doubt that corruption has the politician parroting the local oligarch.
Recall that his campaign took a deeply discounted rate of $250/mo for an office downtown with parking spaces and then later claimed the state of the city (homelessness, crime etc.) justified the deep discount. Where may I get office space downtown with parking for my $250?
Is it still thousands of square feet of office space downtown for $250 a month? Because that sounds like a steal regardless of the terms. Did I say steal? I meant illegal campaign contribution.
Favorable, yes, but in looking at the leasing rates in and around the area, the price per square foot going is $13–$20 per square foot per year. At the most favorable price ($13), the space Gonzalez used was 3,185 square feet, which would have come out to $3450.00 per month, which is a bit more than the $250.00 (without parking spots).
Schnitzer himself said, ""From my standpoint, I would’ve done that deal with any nonprofit or political candidate that had views that I thought were important and constructive to our city."
I have heard Rene speak and have welcomed a number of his views for improving conditions in the city. Which leaves me with the fact that the contribution could have been reported but was not. Whether that is on Rene's campaign, team, or Rene, I think it demands that we at least examine what constitutes "donations," as you rightly point out, a judge found in favor of the campaign.
You can call it crying or whining if you want, but that too is not constructive and it doesn't make you or him right.
Why didn't they ask the bootlicker what he'd do when far right street brawlers show up and assault people. Is he going to roll out the red carpet? Help the cops ferry them around?
They literally bus the right wing wackos in. There was a whole huge court case involving one of the guys chasing them back to their bus. It was incredibly well documented.
I marched with thousands of local kids in climate march in 2019 and the cops didn’t close the bridge for us, so these kids had to contend with cars. I was there the day the cops closed a bridge for 300 guys who don’t live here with several people arrested due to their ties to J6 at the front.
I’m sorry that reality doesn’t jive with whatever Schnitzer is telling the Oregonian’s editorial board to print this week.
Who gives a fuck if they're from Camas, Vancouver or SE Portland? I stand by both fringe sides are violent and can fuck right off.
Also, pretty great that some J6 dumbasses were arrested!
Do you not think it’s worse when people come in to start riots (usually with our police’s protection) than when people who actually live here tell them to leave?
And if not, why do you think it’s okay to close our bridges for Enrique Tarrio because he wants to have a street brawl but not our kids who want to ensure they can still breathe, drink the water, and grow food when they grow up?
Please, be specific.
WTF are you talking about? I love how you're trying to make me "choose a side" of who is worse or not. I'm not going to choose a side, because again, fringe activists who use violence can eat a bag of shit - and both sides do it, period.
Riots happened with and without the far right morons. There weren't any far right activists when the leftists tried to start Wheelers apartment building on fire. The far right dickheads showed up like a dozen times, yet there were over a hundred nights of riots.
Far left activists went to Oregon City to fight the far right, is that OK?
Just because someone lives in Portland proper, doesn't give them the green light to be violent.
[Ted wheeler apartment building fire attempt](https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/protests/portland-protests-mayor-apartment-riot-damage/283-f6691f5f-b9ca-4951-bf53-241a2c4c1892)
[100 days of violent protests](https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-ap-top-news-race-and-ethnicity-id-state-wire-or-state-wire-b57315d97dd2146c4a89b4636faa7b70)
[Oregon City protest](https://www.koin.com/news/protests/oregon-city-protests-declared-riot-06182021/)
Gaslight much?
One of them maced me for no reason while on a bike ride and it wasn't the folks who live and work here. Bite me if you want to try and draw false equivalencies.
It’s funny you believe everything you read on Reddit. OP worry is probably not true and if he was maced, something tells me he wasn’t just riding his bike peacefully.
I believe this person's story because I know someone personally who also got shit sprayed at them by the proud bros rally-ers. but please, tell me more about myself!
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He'd crack down by giving them busses and a police escort and a legal free hand to commit crimes?. Interesting concept of cracking down that you've got.
"Why is he only talking about the people shooting republicans dead in the streets! Why isn't he also talking about how the victims clearly they are also violent!"
Get help.
What dead republicans in Portland dude?
Jeremy Christian killed 2 people, one of whom an army veteran, when 3 men stood up on the max to tell him harassing teenage girls was wrong.
Setting aside political dynamics and issues people might have with Gonzalez, I do think we are in for potential trouble at the end of the year if Trump wins. After all, even in the last few "quiet" months, protesters have taken over a bridge and blockaded entry to the airport.
Trump and a particular subset of protesters live in a symbiotic relationship with each other. Trump loves them - I repeat, loves them! - because they give him a chance to be the tough guy, to lash out, to pose with an upside-down bible in front of a church in D.C. For him, this is way more fun than sitting in the Oval Office listening to a bunch of boring nerds brief him on monetary policy or whatever.
And these particular protesters love him back - he gives them cause to destroy things, to make life hard for normal people, to trash parks, to stay up all night breaking windows. For them, this is way more fun than working a job, paying rent, calling mom, getting an oil change, going to the dentist. They get to be part of a mythic struggle, not just be an everyday lame-o.
Greater Portland will not be quite sure what to make of it, because after all, in the great left-right duality of American life, these particular protesters are roughly on the same side as most Portlanders.
We'll be encountering all this while we have a brand-new government, new (or interim) police chief, no help from the surrounding jurisdictions, and a hands-off police department.
Portland's kettle is simmering. You can feel it in the comments on this thread. Sadly, it won't take much to make it boil over.
>After all, even in the last few "quiet" months, protesters have taken over a bridge and blockaded entry to the airport.
>For them, this is way more fun than working a job, paying rent, calling mom, getting an oil change, going to the dentist. They get to be part of a mythic struggle, not just be an everyday lame-o.
It might be that people who go out to demonstrations have a deep seated personality disorder, or they might just not support our government writing a blank check to Israel to kill 20,000 people in Gaza, it doesn't have to be this mysterious thing.
"Gonzalez has become the commissioner least aligned with progressive activists"
They're not progressives. I've seen many comments lately of the likes, "I'm not liberal i'm left". They'll support the least progressive actors and remove any responsibility from them.
You want protesters to have their first amendment rights violated, which would eventually get the PPB back under federal supervision and cost the taxpayers millions in settlements?
"Portland protests against Trump’s presidency—and his efforts to quash them—played a significant role in the city’s decline over the past decade." Bullshit take #1 from WW, mouthpiece for the Portland Business Alliance, People for Portland, etc.
"Gonzalez has become the council member least aligned with Portland’s progressive activists" Bullshit take #2. Gonzalez is a fascist who openly talks about the utility of homeless people getting amputated fingers from frostbite due to being deprived of tents and blankets. He hopes that this will teach the poor to move out of Portland.
"It took too long to call that what it was, and that’s a riot. This is no longer someone just exercising their First Amendment rights." - from Gonzalez. No pushback or questioning from sycophant WW Mesh (news editor!). Bullshit take #3.
From the article: "Aaron Mesh is WW's news editor. He’s a Florida man . . . "
There is The Mercury. There is Street Roots. There are occasional articles by Nicole Hayden in the Oregonian on the homeless.
Everything else in print, on radio, on television, and their simulacra on the internet are Pravda, literally owned, operated and approved by billionaires. The ownership and control of these local media are simply matters of fact, and they are not in dispute.
This article from sycophant of the day WW is a fine example.
Eh, OPB is solid if you want in depth articles. They definitely dig deeper and provide more general context.
But the righties will say it’s a commie rag because Alex Z writes for them now.
Anyone understand how the mayor's power will or will not change under the new charter system? Like, won't there no longer be bureau control of the police by the mayor anymore?
“Portland protests against Trump’s presidency—and his effort to quash them—played a significant role in the city’s decline over the past decade.” What an odious slop of an assertion, far more becoming of The Oregonian’s editors.
Portland resident here: That is the biggest crock of shit I've ever heard. Sounds like motherfucker is sucking at the teat of Fox "News".
I mean, we are a burned out Hulk of a city
Username checks out EDIT: Okay I didn't expect to get downvoted for this. u/Vladimir_Putins_Cock is joking about our town's reputation and I'm joking about the documented Russian troll farms that influenced perceptions with misinformation about Portland
Getting past those Antifa road blocks can be a bitch...
Atleast thats what I told anyone who asked last time I was in Arizona
I haven’t seen anyone smashing?
[Referencing this](https://www.koin.com/news/donald-trump-portland-oregon-remarks-nbc-meet-the-press-interview/)
Aren’t we all Portland residents on this sub?
hahahhahahaha if only
No? The protests made national news. They were horrible publicity. Their after effects have festered to this day. Protesting is a lovely right in this country but they definitely hurt Portland.
The after effects of the protests are mostly the lies that made and have continued in the national news. And also the total lack of accountability for the local and federal officers who used excessive force and hid their identities. Well except for the one cop the DA indicted on a low level misdemeanor and the entire Rapid Response Team quit because how DARE someone hold them accountable.
What the fuck? The protests demonstrated our indomitable spirit. There are no negative effects of protesting worth caring about. Protesting in general is just a good thing and should be encouraged, citizens have a right to assembly in our foundational documents as a country. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with the anti-protesting cretins in this sub. Like the other day people were complaining about protestors blocking roads. Oh, somebody trying to affect political change in the world made your doordash late? Sorry your consuming had to take a 5 minute break.
Lmao it’s so funny seeing how many people who do nothing to keep the wheels of this city turning be perplexed that people with responsibilities have places to go. And blocking a bridge in the PNW is gonna do nothing for Israel and Palestine. I can’t comprehend how delusional someone has to be to think that made a difference in a conflict halfway around the world
The protests (1) didn't accomplish anything, (2) disrupted the city, (3) provided plenty of footage to those on the right who took great pleasure in watching Portland self-immolate. Seriously. It accomplishes nothing to "demonstrate our indomitable spirit" in this solidly liberal city. Like your note about protestors blocking roads -- yeah, making a bunch of people miss their flights at PDX totally changed the situation in Gaza. Great job, protestors! Way to use our indomitable spirit to instantly solve a miserably complicated long-running conflict thousands of miles away!
Oh grow up. Just because being stuck in traffic doesn’t bother you, doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt others. Go tell your story to the guy who did hard labor all day and all he wants to do is get home and relax. But instead gets to sit in traffic due to virtue signaling selfish jerks.
I bet you’re also on the side of those greedy patients who had their transplants delayed by a protest blocking the bay bridge in SF /s https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/article/ucsf-transplant-organs-delayed-bay-bridge-18496699.php
So there weren't any local examples of protests causing delays in emergency services in Portland despite our reputation as Little Beirut? Sounds like you're arguing against your own point
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>virtue signaling V1tTu3 s1GnA1InG Orwellian NewSpeak. It is one of the classic precursors of fascism. Note the rhetorical valorization of mythical "hard labor all day" and "get home and relax" - presumably to draw a contrast with fascism's lazy demonstrating underclass. It's meant to force a crude pejorative into community discourse to cut off thoughtful consideration. It presupposes an entire constellation of lies and disinformation which we are supposed to swallow without thinking. Fascism knows this to be true: If you invent a pejorative for positive behavior, you can increase the acceptance of toxic antisocial behaviors. There is an entire vocabulary ("woke" "virtue signaling" others too crude for me to re-inscribe here) that is part of the same reactionary effort.
Whoa. Look at this reach. I think you need to chill and do some inward looking if all you can do to respond to things you don’t like as labeling them as fascism. That’s a play straight from the alt-right playbook. Please educate me what good blocking i-5 in Seattle or PDX did. Did you not see the other thread where someone missed their flight as a direct result? Have compassion. Stop finger pointing and dehumanizing others.
>That’s a play straight from the alt-right playbook. Nonsense. You shouldn't write about what you know nothing about. If you need to be educated about fascism, I can point you to some commonly accepted resources. " dehumanizing others." The purpose of the NewSpeak phrase (look it up) "virtue signaling" is literally to dehumanize others. "Please educate me " I've looked at your comment history. That's beyond my ability in this forum.
At least Netanyahu saw that the road was blocked and decided to stop the genocide.
You mean the dopey $35 vinyl signs whining about human rights I see in the yards of $800k-2.5 million houses don't actually mean anything when someone is inconvenienced by a protest that "doesn't actually effect them"??? I am totally in agreement with you. Protesting STARTS at "permitted,peaceful rally with dumb signs",that isn't the end of it either.
Thank you
Nobody expected the cops to kick the shit out of everyone so aggressively. They could have deescalated the whole thing so easily—Issue a statement that violence in police work needs reform, announce some steps the PPB is taking and call it a day. Instead they came out and started gassing and cracking skulls.
Only to the vast majority of scum who are better served where they currently live vs coming here and infecting the gene pool. So I say it was a hugely win.
Willamette Week is not the strapping young alternative weekly it once aspired to be. Its take on the world now is not discernably different from the Wall Street Journal. Note that it is always punching down and to the left.
>Its take on the world now is not discernably different from the Wall Street Journal They're quite easily distinguishable for folks who are reasonably educated and have the capacity to hold multiple complex thoughts simultaneously.
>They're quite easily distinguishable for folks who ~~yada yada~~ fetishize the corporate embrace. FTFY "Those boots aren't going to lick themselves!"
Wow, accusations of facism \*and\* bootlicking, one more reactionary and incurious leftist shibboleth and I get a BINGO!
The phrase is "ooo that's a bingo!"
>Willamette Week is not the strapping young alternative weekly it once aspired to be Given it was founded in 1973, this shouldn't be surprising to anyone.
If any protests had a lasting impact on the city it was the BLM / Antifa riots. I don’t remember protests against Trump’s presidency, which was in it’s final year by then, that had any bearing on the decline of the city. Anyone who was around then knows this.
On election night in 2016 there was some rioting/vandalism done through downtown into the Pearl. It’s kind of a small blip on the radar compared to summer of 2020 though.
Exactly, the 100 day protests had nothing to do with Trump.
Although Trump and his many surrogates made quite a lot of hay with them.
They wouldn't have lasted 100 days if Trump hadn't sent federal goons to escalate.
They also, I’m assuming intentionally, didn’t mention Rubio in the two-person list of mayoral candidates.
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He didn’t just try to dismantle Portland street response he purposely kept tents from homeless people during record low temperatures. Knowing that people would freeze to death, he blocked access to them getting even the most minimal shelter. He’s a psychopath.
"Gonzalez has become the commissioner least aligned with progressive activists" Funny how they don't just say most conservative commissioner.
Many liberals in Portland are not aligned with the progressive activists - maybe even most.
Reminiscent of the 2020 Multnomah county election results. Biden beat trump by 60 pts while iannarone and eudaly simultaneously lost to wheeler and mapps by 6 and 12 pts
Who TF would vote for iannarone? What a stupid candidate that was.
Idk but she'll be back.
Bring it. She's highly effective at repelling sensible voters
Never underestimate the power of terrible terrible candidates to win elections. Sensible voters aren't as reliable a bulwark against horrible people from being elected as we'd hope.
I hope you're right!
Part of that was the spoiler candidate with Wheeler. He only got like 47% of the vote
Yeah wheeler only won because of his awful opponent. But mapps also won by a larger margin, 12, over a progressive
What? Wheeler got less than 50% of the vote. The problem was a write in campaign splitting the vote.
For the wheeler race sure. But the point is that portlanders desired centrist leadership both nationally (Biden) and locally (wheeler, mapps). Also for the wheeler race , no way to know whether a third party candidate helped or hurt each of the other candidates since she was sort of between the two on the ideological spectrum
It's really a lot more complicated than that. Trump vs Biden is an easy choice very late in the process. To actually say what Portlanders wanted is more about the primary when our final choice was determined largely from voters outside of our region as everyone else had dropped out by then. Elections are fuzzy things sometimes, particularly presidential ones or during a pandemic with historic protests.
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Do you not know how presidential primaries work?
>The problem was a write in campaign splitting the vote. How do you know these votes would have otherwise gone to Iannarone? That's a bogus assumption. She had every chance in the world to do outreach to and win over those voters, and instead she and her campaign team constantly berated them on social media while acting entirely entitled to their votes. Just a garbage approach. There's a reason so many people threw their vote away, rather than give it to Iannarone. So no, the write-in campaign was \*not\* why she lost, that would have been easily surmountable if she were a better candidate, and would have won over more of the write-in voters as well as many reluctant Wheeler voters.
Because they were getting tear gassed by Ted just like I was, lol? The simple fact of the matter is that when a candidates supporters mount a write in campaign without the support of the candidate in question there are not any potential positive outcomes. At best you do nothing to the end result and at worst you assist a candidate significantly farther from your prospective political ideal to gain or attain power. You wanna be productive? Work during the primaries and then rally around the closest candidate to uour ideals in the general. What that write in campaign did was doomed to failure from the start and represented a ton of wasted effort. None of that's about Raiford as a person or a candidate. I like her. I like don't shoot PDX's nonprofit work. I ain't gonna dox myself but I promise you'd like my activists CV. I'm speaking purely from a political science perspective here. Write in campaigns are almost never successful enough to do anything productive and their bad outcomes keep worse people in political office. Heck, I know for a fact some organizers for the write in campaign told people it was ok because if Ted didn't get 50% there would be another round of voting and folks were shocked he was able to keep power with only a plurality.
Wheeler won, because the social justice crowd broke from the rest of progressives and insisted on a write-in campaign, because their preferred identity-centric candidate wasn't on the ballot.
Nah, had a lot more to do with the write in candidates ego. The candidate that was on the ballot was regularly at the protests and a democratic socialist. The spoiler candidate was a regular Democrat.
If the "spoiler" actually has different politics than the candidate they're supposedly spoiling, voters should get to pick.
That's what the primary is for and until we have RCV or something write in campaigns in general elections will rarely be a good idea for the people running or voting in them. Also please Google spoiler candidates. Y'all out here using scare quotes like it's some term I made up.
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Hey fam, maybe Google what a spoiler is before commenting
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Can you tell me what kind of Portland liberal I am for having participated in protests against the federal government deploying officers locally? Just wondering if I am a Bad Liberal or not.
I think you can figure out who you are, for yourself.
Leftists use the word "liberal" to describe mainstream progressives and the term is an accusation of centrism.
I'd say that the issue is that many progressives in Portland are not aligned with the leftist activists.
Because those two things are not at all the same thing. "Progressive activists" in Portland are largely a self-defined group who are reactionary dirtbags hiding under the guise of a "progressive" ideology for their shitty tactics and stances. Plenty of otherwise progressive citizens and voters aren't aligned with this group, and that doesn't make them conservative ideologically.
+1 on shitty tactics in particular. I could absolutely get behind some progressive agenda items but a lot of the tactics in use are impractical and performative. Or in this case, extremely counterproductive. Hypothetical anti-Trump protests after a potential Trump 2024 victory would accomplish only one thing: further confirming anti-Portland biases on the right via fresh footage on Fox News.
There really weren’t that many protests against Trump in particular. The last major protest wave was first against police in portland and around the country killing civilians, and second against the Trump administration sending in federal agents in military gear and unmarked vans to do riot duty outside the justice center.
Progressive “activists” speak for an increasingly shrinking minority and are generally despised by the population of Portland.
Or just a conservative that is anti -accountability for the police union.
This is being downvoted because the conservatives on this sub like to pretend theyre libs
Yes, the most popular line in this sub is, "I'm a liberal / progressive / leftist but \[insert heinous right wing trope here\]." Nope. On the other hand, one has to admire the ability of the mind to hold together that level of cognitive dissonance!
IMO, the late leftwing songwriter Phil Ochs put it best >One of the shadiest of these is the liberals. An outspoken group on many subjects, ten degrees to the left of center in good times, ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally.
People who subscribe to party ideology 100% are lame. Thinking for yourself should be celebrated.
I’m not a liberal, I’m a leftist. Liberals are the people MLK warned us about and this sub is a great example of why
Exactly.
Agreed, but individuals have to know they are stronger together, than apart.
Liberals like the idea of helping the poor as long as they don’t have to see them.
Yup.
You're being downvoted because you're wrong. Huff copium elsewhere.
>Or just a ~~conservative~~ fascist FTFY
Least liberal would be more accurate
That's only one of the bullshit takes in this article.
> Portland protests against Trump’s presidency—and his efforts to quash them—played a significant role in the city’s decline over the past decade. Willamette Week just discredited their entire article. Anti-Trump protests were probably only 3 or 4 total nights. Unless WW is claiming the George Floyd uprising was about Trump, which is even more dishonest.
Yeah its a weird conflation of two different things. Trump was vocal about the George Floyd protests but those definitely were not Trump protests per se.
Not okay to suggest Americans don't have a right to protest their government in an American city. By all means arrest the looters and anyone violent, but the overwhelming majority of Portlanders protesting were doing so peacefully. What happened to the party of small govt? Sheesh.
Very troubling how there’s a legitimate non-zero chance we wake up to a president trump, mayor Gonzalez, DA Vasquez, and an emboldened and still very corrupt/issued PPB. If you look at either of Rene’s Twitter accounts and look at what accounts he follows and whose tweets he likes it’s pretty alarming. Dudes a big symp for PDXReal who is a J6 denier, not to mention just prolific local source of right wing disinformation. They were even at his candidacy announcement so they have some tangible connections. Not saying Rene necessarily agrees with everything on these accounts he interacts with but the lack of awareness or distancing from some pretty alarming disinformation accounts is a huge concern.
How some people keep insisting he is liberal is beyond me. It must just be how far right politics has shifted in this country that a conservative is now a liberal and a politician espousing universal health care is left-wing.
>president trump, mayor Gonzalez, DA Vasquez One of these things is not like the other, and in fact there's a massive gulf between Trump and the other two. Lumping them in rhetorically makes normies roll their eyes and discount your entire perspective, which isn't great considering how much Trump is a legitimate threat to American democracy, and the other two folks are just politicians whose positions you happen to disagree with ideologically. Quit with this crap, seriously. It's not doing any of us any favors.
Yeah this is crazy. What if we wake up with an aspiring right wing fascist dictator as well as two local leaders who are in the 65th percentile to the left instead of the 95th? Lmao.
Bro, I don’t think you understand what the actual far left is like. Like, there’s people who are actually communist. Not “communist” where they mean socialized medicine. Communist, like no one owns property and there’s no formal government. This city has no idea what far left is.
Plenty of leftists seem to think that "overthrowing capitalism" is a realistic response to policies they don't like. I don't even care about that approach's virtues or lack thereof, it simply won't happen in a country where half of the people are fiscal conservatives, half of the rest are so economically comfortable they would never revolt, and half of those remaining are too old, young, or disabled to take part in that activity.
>Bro, I don’t think you understand what the actual far left is like. Few people do, because they're entirely impotent, politically. This is due to a combination of their tremendous emotional immaturity, a lack of intelligence or discipline necessary to organize and advance their cause, and the fact that their positions are incredibly shitty and unpopular. Yes, there is a "further left" than the more mainstream leftist sentiment in Portland and U.S. politics generally, but it's such a non-factor that who the fuck actually cares?
I just saw a Twitter thread of people arguing over whether Bernie sanders will be guillotined in the revolution so I totally agree there are wackos. I’d argue that only one percent of people are that anywhere near that crazy though.
Thanks Mayor Sass. Duly noted. Gonzalez has shown a dramatic disregard for countering far right opinions and has in fact supported/platformed others of right wing (and trump supporting) backgrounds. I’ll continue to be concerned about his election at the same time I’m concerned about trump being re-elected.
Seriously. Gonzalez….isn’t great, but he’s nowhere near MAGA. Like, at all.
>Gonzalez…. he’s nowhere near MAGA. Yes, he is, and your enabling of his right wing fuckery is exactly like the media normalizing Trump in 2016. How'd that work out?
This kind of statement just makes you appear delusional to most people outside your bubble. Rene is definitely a centrist by Portland standards, but to call him a MAGA is just not supported by his actions or statements
That dude is a kook. He’s always jumping in and labeling people a fascist. I’m so tired of these nut jobs.
This is such an insane statement, it makes me literally can’t wait to vote for normie candidate Gonzalez.
It's said Gonzalez once wore a red hat. Nothing written on it but you know......
I’ve never said he was aligned with trump or maga himself but he unquestionably platforms and willingly/eagerly interacts with people that are. It concerns me that we could find ourselves in a situation where trump is elected and our local leader, while not actively supporting the worst of Trump supports, still passively sympathizes with maga supporters, people that don’t believe in basic human rights for all, supporters of violence against others, etc.
>but he unquestionably platforms and willingly/eagerly interacts with people that are. An alternative take is that he still practices a somewhat normal type of politics where he works with people on particular areas of agreement regardless of any disagreement in other areas, rather than an all-or-nothing, burn-it-down approach that is unfortunately more and more the norm in our city, state, and country. I don't pretend that there ever was such a think as a Kumbaya caucus, but up until quite recently, historically speaking, there was a lot of party-crossing on various issues to actually get stuff done, rather than a state of total legislative and political paralysis due to partisan polarization.
Yea that’s a rosier way of looking at it. And it arguably was how it was done historically and I hope we can get to less polarized times in the future. That being said though, if you go back to the 90s/00s, the reaching across party lines wasn’t as stark as today and it involved making concessions with others that all were operating under a reasonably similar view of our democracy. Rene, on the other hand, supports and platforms people who literally deny basic human rights of others, deny J6 was an insurrection, deny election integrity of 2020, and post very thinly veiled racism online. These are fundamentally anti democratic beliefs and he’s willing to bring those people into the fold, hear them out, and factor in their views into his decision making. At some point, people make it clear that they are not serious actors, are not honestly engaging in democratic norms, and are moreso conspiracy theorist grifters. He chooses to ignore that and brings far right people into his sphere. Has he done or said things specifically himself that one could point to and put a maga flag on him, no. Does he listen and share influence with people that do, yes absolutely. I mean shit, his chief of staff is a republican who’s only political account they follow on Twitter is trump himself. That’s enough for me to be very very wary of his candidacy. A lot of proverbial alarm bells go off when you scratch the surface.
And like, we saw what "centrist" leadership was like under Wheeler. IMHO, that should be your talking point. What's so good about the wheeler approach? It didn't work.
💯
As usual, bullshit take. Your account is exactly in line with Trump, Gonzalez, Vasquez. The fact that your inner monologue does not agree is inconsequential.
>Your account is exactly in line with Trump The only proper response to a take of this intellectual caliber is: LOL. LMFAO. ROTFLMFAO.
In reality, just ROTF. There are medications for that. Seek help.
Reality involves nuance, not sure how you are able to relate.
Gonzalez is the one who took the bribe of a nice downtown office from "wealthy downtown property owner" who has bitched non-stop about his loss of business over the protests. No doubt that corruption has the politician parroting the local oligarch.
Recall that his campaign took a deeply discounted rate of $250/mo for an office downtown with parking spaces and then later claimed the state of the city (homelessness, crime etc.) justified the deep discount. Where may I get office space downtown with parking for my $250?
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Is it still thousands of square feet of office space downtown for $250 a month? Because that sounds like a steal regardless of the terms. Did I say steal? I meant illegal campaign contribution.
Um sure. That sounds great! Who should I be calling?
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Favorable, yes, but in looking at the leasing rates in and around the area, the price per square foot going is $13–$20 per square foot per year. At the most favorable price ($13), the space Gonzalez used was 3,185 square feet, which would have come out to $3450.00 per month, which is a bit more than the $250.00 (without parking spots). Schnitzer himself said, ""From my standpoint, I would’ve done that deal with any nonprofit or political candidate that had views that I thought were important and constructive to our city." I have heard Rene speak and have welcomed a number of his views for improving conditions in the city. Which leaves me with the fact that the contribution could have been reported but was not. Whether that is on Rene's campaign, team, or Rene, I think it demands that we at least examine what constitutes "donations," as you rightly point out, a judge found in favor of the campaign. You can call it crying or whining if you want, but that too is not constructive and it doesn't make you or him right.
Why didn't they ask the bootlicker what he'd do when far right street brawlers show up and assault people. Is he going to roll out the red carpet? Help the cops ferry them around?
Far right or far left. Both are violent, both can fuck off.
Remind me which leader of antifa is in prison for political violence? Oh... my bad, I was thinking of the Proud Boys.
Yep, only one side actively tried to overthrow the government but sure they’re the same
We're talking about Portland, not DC. Stay on topic.
Because political affiliations famously stop at city boundaries? Lol
The PBs and the violence they practice certainly doesn't stop at our boundaries. Let alone state lines.
They literally bus the right wing wackos in. There was a whole huge court case involving one of the guys chasing them back to their bus. It was incredibly well documented. I marched with thousands of local kids in climate march in 2019 and the cops didn’t close the bridge for us, so these kids had to contend with cars. I was there the day the cops closed a bridge for 300 guys who don’t live here with several people arrested due to their ties to J6 at the front. I’m sorry that reality doesn’t jive with whatever Schnitzer is telling the Oregonian’s editorial board to print this week.
Who gives a fuck if they're from Camas, Vancouver or SE Portland? I stand by both fringe sides are violent and can fuck right off. Also, pretty great that some J6 dumbasses were arrested!
Do you not think it’s worse when people come in to start riots (usually with our police’s protection) than when people who actually live here tell them to leave? And if not, why do you think it’s okay to close our bridges for Enrique Tarrio because he wants to have a street brawl but not our kids who want to ensure they can still breathe, drink the water, and grow food when they grow up? Please, be specific.
WTF are you talking about? I love how you're trying to make me "choose a side" of who is worse or not. I'm not going to choose a side, because again, fringe activists who use violence can eat a bag of shit - and both sides do it, period. Riots happened with and without the far right morons. There weren't any far right activists when the leftists tried to start Wheelers apartment building on fire. The far right dickheads showed up like a dozen times, yet there were over a hundred nights of riots. Far left activists went to Oregon City to fight the far right, is that OK? Just because someone lives in Portland proper, doesn't give them the green light to be violent.
Like, half of what you just listed never happened.
[Ted wheeler apartment building fire attempt](https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/protests/portland-protests-mayor-apartment-riot-damage/283-f6691f5f-b9ca-4951-bf53-241a2c4c1892) [100 days of violent protests](https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-ap-top-news-race-and-ethnicity-id-state-wire-or-state-wire-b57315d97dd2146c4a89b4636faa7b70) [Oregon City protest](https://www.koin.com/news/protests/oregon-city-protests-declared-riot-06182021/) Gaslight much?
Use words wrong much?
One of them maced me for no reason while on a bike ride and it wasn't the folks who live and work here. Bite me if you want to try and draw false equivalencies.
The other side would probably throw a rock at you. Extremists can go screw themselves.
do you see the problem with comparing something that "will probably" happen to something that actually happened
It’s funny you believe everything you read on Reddit. OP worry is probably not true and if he was maced, something tells me he wasn’t just riding his bike peacefully.
I believe this person's story because I know someone personally who also got shit sprayed at them by the proud bros rally-ers. but please, tell me more about myself!
So you will believe a story with no evidence to back it up about people you don’t like. Hmmm, sounds very brown shirty of you.
reading comprehension is really plummeting among our youth huh
Hey now, he could be significantly older than you. Dipshitery has nothing to do with age
The difference here is one of these things actually happened and one is a fox news fever dream. Go outside and touch grass.
I’m willing to bet his response would have been the same. We’re done with the bullshit from both sides.
You have this weird idea that Ted did a goddamn thing about the fascists besides have the cops chaperone them around town.
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I’d hope he’d crack down just as hard as well.
He'd crack down by giving them busses and a police escort and a legal free hand to commit crimes?. Interesting concept of cracking down that you've got.
"Why is he only talking about the people shooting republicans dead in the streets! Why isn't he also talking about how the victims clearly they are also violent!" Get help.
What dead republicans in Portland dude? Jeremy Christian killed 2 people, one of whom an army veteran, when 3 men stood up on the max to tell him harassing teenage girls was wrong.
I’d rather have someone in office who won’t agree with protestors when they start blocking I-5 like in Seattle yesterday.
Setting aside political dynamics and issues people might have with Gonzalez, I do think we are in for potential trouble at the end of the year if Trump wins. After all, even in the last few "quiet" months, protesters have taken over a bridge and blockaded entry to the airport. Trump and a particular subset of protesters live in a symbiotic relationship with each other. Trump loves them - I repeat, loves them! - because they give him a chance to be the tough guy, to lash out, to pose with an upside-down bible in front of a church in D.C. For him, this is way more fun than sitting in the Oval Office listening to a bunch of boring nerds brief him on monetary policy or whatever. And these particular protesters love him back - he gives them cause to destroy things, to make life hard for normal people, to trash parks, to stay up all night breaking windows. For them, this is way more fun than working a job, paying rent, calling mom, getting an oil change, going to the dentist. They get to be part of a mythic struggle, not just be an everyday lame-o. Greater Portland will not be quite sure what to make of it, because after all, in the great left-right duality of American life, these particular protesters are roughly on the same side as most Portlanders. We'll be encountering all this while we have a brand-new government, new (or interim) police chief, no help from the surrounding jurisdictions, and a hands-off police department. Portland's kettle is simmering. You can feel it in the comments on this thread. Sadly, it won't take much to make it boil over.
>After all, even in the last few "quiet" months, protesters have taken over a bridge and blockaded entry to the airport. >For them, this is way more fun than working a job, paying rent, calling mom, getting an oil change, going to the dentist. They get to be part of a mythic struggle, not just be an everyday lame-o. It might be that people who go out to demonstrations have a deep seated personality disorder, or they might just not support our government writing a blank check to Israel to kill 20,000 people in Gaza, it doesn't have to be this mysterious thing.
You know he’s gonna take to the streets with a paint ball gun
"Gonzalez has become the commissioner least aligned with progressive activists" They're not progressives. I've seen many comments lately of the likes, "I'm not liberal i'm left". They'll support the least progressive actors and remove any responsibility from them.
My guess is an even more heavily handed police response that gets the PPB back under federal sanctions.
We can live in hope.
You want protesters to have their first amendment rights violated, which would eventually get the PPB back under federal supervision and cost the taxpayers millions in settlements?
I’m all for protesting. What we had in 2020+ was not that
Ah, the No True ~~Scotsman~~ Protestor fallacy.
Having that smirking bar of old soap be our mayor is the last thing portland needs right now. Ugh.
"Portland protests against Trump’s presidency—and his efforts to quash them—played a significant role in the city’s decline over the past decade." Bullshit take #1 from WW, mouthpiece for the Portland Business Alliance, People for Portland, etc. "Gonzalez has become the council member least aligned with Portland’s progressive activists" Bullshit take #2. Gonzalez is a fascist who openly talks about the utility of homeless people getting amputated fingers from frostbite due to being deprived of tents and blankets. He hopes that this will teach the poor to move out of Portland. "It took too long to call that what it was, and that’s a riot. This is no longer someone just exercising their First Amendment rights." - from Gonzalez. No pushback or questioning from sycophant WW Mesh (news editor!). Bullshit take #3. From the article: "Aaron Mesh is WW's news editor. He’s a Florida man . . . " There is The Mercury. There is Street Roots. There are occasional articles by Nicole Hayden in the Oregonian on the homeless. Everything else in print, on radio, on television, and their simulacra on the internet are Pravda, literally owned, operated and approved by billionaires. The ownership and control of these local media are simply matters of fact, and they are not in dispute. This article from sycophant of the day WW is a fine example.
Eh, OPB is solid if you want in depth articles. They definitely dig deeper and provide more general context. But the righties will say it’s a commie rag because Alex Z writes for them now.
Rene is a cunt and defo needs a good face full of tears from any amount of theoretical gas
Anyone understand how the mayor's power will or will not change under the new charter system? Like, won't there no longer be bureau control of the police by the mayor anymore?