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November 16, 2020 at 12:50 pm #124432waterfieldParticipant
This following article was on the front page of the L.A. Times this morning under the title “Portland anarchists spark backlash”
“Portland’s anarchists say they support racial justice. Black activists want nothing to do with them
Activists break windows at a Democratic Party office in Portland, Ore., on Nov. 8.(Brenda Griswold / For The Times)
By RICHARD READSEATTLE BUREAU CHIEF
NOV. 16, 20202 AM
PORTLAND, Ore. — The day after President-elect Joe Biden delivered his victory speech, telling the nation it was time to heal and unite, a clandestine Twitter account — @safePDXprotest — summoned Portland anarchists.
Meet at Laurelhurst Park at 8 p.m. and “Wear Bloc & Be Water,” the message said, calling for black garb and vigilance to evade police for a protest “in solidarity with BLM” — Black Lives Matter.The 50 or so people who showed up — nearly all of them white — looked like ninjas as they put on balaclavas, hoods and scarves. Some carried gas masks.
The call to action had declared “No Masters” — leaders, in the parlance of 19th century European anarchists — but the crowd huddled around one young man as he lambasted liberals for celebrating the defeat of President Trump while capitalism and the political system remained entrenched.
“They can show up to dance ’cause of Orange Man bad, but they can’t be out here fighting with us,” he said. “So that’s why we’re going. … I’m tired of liberal complacency.”
Word spread through the group that the target tonight would be the local headquarters of the Democratic Party.
Somebody started beating a drum as a chant broke out: “F— Joe Biden!”
Then the anarchists marched into the upscale neighborhood, intent on destruction.
Portland anarchists say they see no real difference between President Trump and President-elect Joe Biden.
Portland anarchists say they see no real difference between President Trump and President-elect Joe Biden.(Richard Read / Los Angeles Times)
For months, Portland has been a significant face of the Black Lives Matter movement, in part because of the national attention that self-described anarchists brought to nightly protests throughout the summer.They set fires, launched fireworks at authorities and spat in their faces to draw them into violent confrontations that made headlines around the world.
The election of Biden has only antagonized the anarchists — and exposed their differences with the Black activists they claim to support.
Black activists and community leaders, who generally view the defeat of Trump as an opportunity for change within the system, said the anarchists are hijacking the movement and undermining the push for racial justice by continuing to commit violence.
“When people set fire to a building, it really does not liberate me one bit,” said Mingus Mapps, a Black resident who won a seat on the Portland City Council this month. “It does the opposite. It fuels the political culture that makes racism possible.”
The former political science professor, who peacefully participated in several demonstrations, plans to advocate for police reform beyond budget cuts passed by the council and a measure approved by voters to create a police oversight board.
“We’re going to get out of the game of smoke bombs and rubber bullets and dressing cops up like they’re Marines as we stand outside public buildings and yell at each other,” he said.
The anarchists believe working within the system is futile and say the political order and capitalist economy must be torn down.
Biden, as head of a party supporting the free-market system and private property rights, is no better than Trump, more than a dozen said in interviews.
Distrusting the media, all refused to give their names. But pamphlets distributed at a recent rally outline their far-left philosophies.
“Abolish All Mayors” — the title of one booklet — advocates “the complete democratization and community control of all city bureaus and the abolition of the police.”
“Why We Break Windows” advocates an end to private property and invokes the Boston Tea Party to explain the point of “political vandalism” during revolts.
“Shop windows represent segregation,” it says. “To smash a shop window is to contest all the boundaries that cut through this society: black and white, rich and poor, included and excluded.”
In some ways, the anarchists have served the Black Lives Matter movement in Portland, creating a spectacle that drew attention to the cause of racial justice after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.
Some of the anarchists have also been involved in antifa, the movement that clashes with far-right groups.
But the violence has also caused problems for Black Lives Matter.
In June, Black community leaders denounced an arson attack by protesters on a building that houses a police station and Black-owned businesses on Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
“When I hear about somebody burning something down, I think about that as an act that’s always been used against Black people,” Ron Herndon, a longtime Black activist, said at a news conference the morning after police used tear gas to disperse protesters firing paintballs. “You are not helping us.”
The Trump administration soon deployed federal agents to the city. Their tactics — which included secret detentions of activists and the wholesale use of tear gas and flash-bang grenades against growing crowds — were widely seen as excessive and drew more protesters into the streets.
Video of street battles became fodder for Trump, who chastised city and state politicians as part of his campaign theme calling for law and order.
The anarchists reveled in the limelight. Each night they would provoke authorities, who would eventually declare a riot or illegal assembly and start making arrests as protesters fled.
The protests grew less frequent by the fall as demonstrators tired, nearby wildfires shrouded the city with smoke and the presidential election — with its possibility of ousting Trump — drew nearer.
For the anarchists, the election was no time to let up as they sought to make their point that a change of power was meaningless. The night of Nov. 4 — the day after voters went to the polls — anarchists rallied in a park, then marched into downtown.
They briefly intersected with a peaceful demonstration calling for all votes to be counted — a cause that meant nothing to them. Proceeding with their march, some smashed windows at downtown businesses and a church that provides food and services to homeless people.
Kristin Van Buskirk, whose gift shop window was shattered, said the incident did not diminish her support for the Black Lives Matter movement and did not blame it for the damage she suffered.
“Black lives matter more than my business,” she said.
The next day, about 60 people marched to the home of Dan Ryan, a City Council member who had voted that day against police budget cuts.
They chanted “Black lives matter,” shattered a window and chucked eggs and a paint-filled balloon at the house.
“I don’t know what their goal is other than just destruction,” said Officer Derek Carmon, a Portland Police Bureau spokesman. “My hope is that we’ll see less of this, but it’s difficult when you’re dealing with a group of people who don’t want to engage the police in a conversation about change.”
Shirley Jackson, a Portland State University professor of Black studies, said the violence seems senseless.
“With the BLM protests there were clear demands, but it’s very difficult to see an end to something when it’s not clear what the demands are,” she said.
In interviews, several Black community leaders who had marched in protests over the summer said that it was crucial to condemn the violence and dissociate Black Lives Matter from the anarchists.
“Clearly it’s not Black folks going to Commissioner Ryan’s house and busting out his windows,” said Rukaiyah Adams, chief investment officer for Meyer Memorial Trust, a foundation funding a $25-million racial justice initiative.
“I don’t think those windows were smashed because they were thinking about my life and the lives of my children,” said Toya Fick, Oregon executive director of Stand for Children, a nonprofit that advocates for equal opportunity in education.
It took the anarchists 20 minutes to make their way through the Laurelhurst neighborhood Nov. 8 and arrive at the county Democratic Party headquarters.
Tall plate-glass windows lined the former car dealership on two sides, festooned with campaign posters for Biden and other candidates.
Two activists approached the building, one holding an umbrella to conceal the other, who spray-painted an anti-Biden epithet on a wall, adding an anarchist symbol. In red, he wrote “ACAB” — short for “all cops are bastards.”
Six more protesters pounded on the windows, shattering 13 of them before rejoining the group keeping watch in the parking lot.
“Stay together, stay tight, we do this every night,” the group chanted before marching back across the avenue and dispersing into the neighborhood.
Police in riot gear arrived, riding troop trucks and bicycles to search for suspects. Scouring the neighborhood, they arrested three white men in their early 20s and 30s on accusations of criminal mischief.
The next day, Rachelle Dixon, who heads Portland’s Black Lives Matter chapter, called a reporter to say that the activists had nothing to do with the social justice movement.
She said that in the minds of the public, anarchists have “melded with Black Lives Matter, but they’re 90% white and they don’t reach out to Black organizations.”
Dixon also serves as a vice chair of the Multnomah County Democrats.
“I didn’t destroy my own building,” she said.
Rachelle Dixon, who heads Black Lives Matter in Portland, says her volunteers are giving out food, not smashing windows.
Rachelle Dixon, who heads Black Lives Matter in Portland, says her volunteers are giving out food, not smashing windows.(Richard Read / Los Angeles Times) ”November 16, 2020 at 8:40 pm #124448znModeratorThis was all commented on a while back. There’s actually article after article on this. The Portland faction that routinely engaged in violence was routinely used by national news to give the perception that BLM protests regularly collapsed into rioting. Of course that was nonsense–out of the thousands of BLM protests, a small percentage ever turned that way, and in Portland, which was kind of the poster child of “see it’s all riots” mass media narratives, BLM leaders were routinely disavowing the violent faction. This was so prevalent that even the Portland chief of Police pointed it out (ie. that BLM had nothing to do with the one faction’s violence).
That came up over and over during late summer discussion.
Lots to read from this forum on all that:
There’s this: http://theramshuddle.com/search/Portland/And here’s an article from another thread: http://theramshuddle.com/topic/the-nation-w-leaked-document-on-the-oregon-secret-policing/
==
from July 30‘White as hell’: Portland protesters face off with Trump but are they eclipsing Black Lives Matter?
On another night of confrontation with federal agents, activists said their message was in danger of being forgottenTeal Lindseth surveyed the sea of mothers she was about to lead into the firing line.
“I look at this crowd and I don’t see many black people,” lamented the 21-year-old African American activist. “Oregon is white as hell. Whitewashed.”
Lindseth has been a stalwart of the Black Lives Matter protests that have continued for nearly 60 days without interruption in a city that was derided as “Little Beirut” over the intensity of its demonstrations against a visit by George HW Bush four decades ago.
Portland has cemented that reputation in the Trump era, as the protests evolved into nightly showdowns with federal paramilitaries sent by the president to end what he described as anarchy.
But Portland has another reputation alongside its radical image. That of the whitest large city in America in a state with a constitution that once barred African Americans from living there. An 1850s law required black people to be “lashed” once a year to encourage them to leave Oregon, and members of the Ku Klux Klan largely controlled Portland city council between the world wars. Housing was effectively segregated in large parts of the city.
Many of today’s protesters say their support for racial justice in a city where the police department has a history of disproportionately killing African Americans is driven at least in part by an attempt to atone for Oregon’s racist past. But as Portland’s battles play out on the national stage, and Donald Trump stokes unrest for political advantage, some black leaders are asking whose interests the televised nightly confrontations really serve – and whether they are a continuation of white domination at the expense of black interests.
The president of the Portland branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), ED Mondainé, warned that the Black Lives Matter movement in the city is being coopted by “privileged white people” with other agendas. He said the confrontations with the federal officers sent by the president are little more than a “spectacle and a distraction that do nothing for the cause of black equality”.
Mondainé accused groups of young white people at the forefront of confronting federal officers of rising to Trump’s bait and using the campaign against racial injustice to provoke a fight in pursuit of other causes, such as anti-capitalism.
“The children of the privileged are dancing on the stages of those that gave their lives for this movement,” he told the Guardian.
Trump’s dispatch of a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) taskforce reinvigorated the protests in Portland as federal agents in camouflage snatched protesters off the streets in unmarked vans and severely beat others.
Outrage in the city, and nationally, at what smacked of police state tactics only fuelled the demonstrations, which did not displease the president. Trump presented the pictures of protesters in helmets and gas masks confronting federal agents as evidence of a city overrun by anarchists and antifa, and the Democrats as either helpless or complicit in the chaos.
Trump raised the ante by vowing to send a “surge” of federal forces to other Democratic-run cities such as Chicago, ostensibly to quell gun killings. He said Operation Legend, named after a four year-old boy shot dead in Kansas City, would see thousands of agents from the FBI, US Marshals Service and other agencies deployed to end a “rampage of violence”.
The mayors of Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta and 11 other cities wrote to the administration on Tuesday, accusing the president of an abuse of power and alleging that “federal law enforcement is being deployed for political purposes” amid suspicions that Trump is more interested in creating conflict than ending it in the run-up to the election.
“Unilaterally deploying these paramilitary-type forces into our cities is wholly inconsistent with our system of democracy and our most basic values,” they wrote.
The mayors also said they were disturbed at the actions of federal agents in Portland, calling their failure to wear proper identification and the snatching of protesters off the streets “chilling”.
“These are tactics we expect from an authoritarian regime – not our democracy,” the letter said.
Mondainé, who led a rally on Thursday evening to “bring back the focus” on to Black Lives Matter, said “empty battles” were serving Trump’s agenda because the president creates political theatre for electoral advantage. He said Trump is baiting protesters in Portland to light the fuse on a racist backlash across the country before the presidential election.
“We have to change that narrative. We cannot let teargas and rubber bullets define the moment that we’re in now. We must seize the moment and assure the world that this time racism will no longer live,” he said.
A dark stain
Mondainé and other black leaders want to shift the focus of protests in Portland back to one of the enduring legacies of Oregon’s racist past – reform of a police department with a long history of violence against the supposedly liberal city’s relatively small black population, and which has seen a sharp rise in the killing of African American men since Trump came to power.
African Americans make up just 6% of Portland’s 650,000 residents but accounted for 30% of shootings by police over the past three years. Black people were also several times more times likely to be arrested or stopped. The police department has proved so trigger happy that the Obama administration placed it under federal court oversight, although it sidestepped the issue of race in doing so.
But African Americans in Portland remain sceptical that the city or the police department are committed to change, particularly when officers are accused of siding with far-right groups such as the Proud Boys who regularly use the city as a platform for protests knowing it will create a backlash.
Accusations that the force tolerates neo-fascist sympathies are not new. Critics regard the case of Mark Kruger as a particularly dark stain on the police department and city government.
In about 2000, the then Portland police sergeant built a shrine in a public park to five Nazi soldiers including a member of Hitler’s SS and a war criminal. Kruger nailed plaques with their names to what he called an “Ehrenbaum” or honour tree. They were positioned so he could see them from the road when driving to work as a police officer, and he kept them polished.
The shrine remained in the park for several years until Kruger removed it when he was the target of federal lawsuits for use of excessive force against anti-Iraq war protestors. Portland attorney’s office stored the plaques until they were discovered years later by an internal affairs investigator.
That led to an investigation which concluded Kruger brought “discredit and disgrace” upon Portland police and the city. But he kept his job after a brief unpaid suspension for illegally posting the plaques on public property, and was later promoted to captain and head of the vice squad.
Kruger admitted wearing Nazi uniforms but said it was because of his interest in history. He said the plaques were to honour the Germans’ military prowess not their crimes against humanity.
“Many military historians have erected similar remembrances all over the world,” he claimed at the time.
He remained a captain in the police department until his recent retirement.
People pressing for police reform saw Kruger’s continued employment and promotion as a reflection of the values of a police department with a reputation for brutality. The Obama justice department finally intervened over the level of police shootings in Portland, prompted by the case of Aaron Campbell in 2010.
The young black man’s brother had died earlier in the day. Campbell’s family feared he might be suicidal and called the police. The officers who went to check on him quickly established that he was not a threat to himself or anyone else, and even exchanged a lighthearted text message that put everyone at ease. But a second police unit arrived as Campbell emerged from a building. They shot him with a bean bag.
When he instinctively reached for where he had been hit, officers said he was going for a gun and shot him dead. Campbell was unarmed.
The civil rights leader Jesse Jackson called Campbell’s killing “an execution”. A Portland grand jury said the officer who shot him acted within the law but that did not mean he was innocent.
“This was very difficult for us as a grand jury, as our sympathies lie with the Campbell family and the mood of the community. As a group, we are outraged at what happened,” the grand jury said in a letter to the district attorney. The city paid Campbell’s family $1.2m.
The Obama administration demanded reforms and placed the police department under federal court oversight in 2014. But in a move some critics suspected was to save Portland’s Democratic leadership from embarrassment, the justice department said Campbell had been shot because the police had a pattern of using excessive force against people with mental health problems, not because he was black. Campbell’s family disagreed.
‘An often tense relationship’
A justice department report found “a pattern of dangerous uses of force against persons who posed little or no threat” but who had mental illness. These include the case of a 42-year-old local musician with schizophrenia, James Chasse, who was shot multiple times with a taser and beaten so badly by the police he had a punctured lung, 16 fractured ribs and 26 broken bones in all. He died in custody.
In another case, Portland police repeatedly tasered a naked and unarmed man who was acting oddly because he was suffering a diabetic emergency.
Although the justice department sidestepped a full investigation of racism by the Portland police, it did note “the often tense relationship” between the force and the African American community. It said there was a widespread perception among black people of racial profiling and that the police “protect the white folk and police the black folk”.
Dan Handelman of Portland Copwatch, which monitors police killings, said eight years of justice department oversight has not fundamentally changed how the Portland police act because, while the agreement between the city and the federal government requires new policies and training, it does not measure whether they are successful.
“If the Portland police continue to use violence against the general public, they’re still in compliance with that agreement. Have some changes have been made? Yes. But does it did it get at the root problems and the issues that people were worried about the first place? Not at all,” he said.
Handelman said that if anything, the situation has worsened.
“We had not actually had a shooting death of an African American Portlander by the police between early 2010 and February of 2017, which is rather remarkable. A seven-year stretch with no black man being killed. Since then, there have been at least five shootings of African Americans, and four of them died,” he said.
“For me, part of that is the national situation that we’re in. That the election of President Trump kind of ripped the Band-Aid off of the racism that was bubbling under the surface of the country for a very long time.”
The police response to protests in Portland after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May reinforced the perception that the force was resistant to change and raised questions about accountability.
In recent days, Portland’s mayor, Ted Wheeler, has made a show on national television of denouncing Trump’s deployment of federal forces, accusing the president of conducting “urban warfare” in his city. But when Wheeler turned out to speak at a protest on Wednesday, he faced hostility from demonstrators who accused him of hypocrisy.
The mayor is also the city’s police commissioner. In May, Wheeler declared a state of emergency amid escalating protests over Floyd’s death which saw storefronts smashed and some looted. Critics accused the police of overreacting by being too quick to fire teargas to break up demonstrations until a federal judge barred its use except where the police declare a riot.
When Wheeler arrived at Wednesday’s demonstration, a protester emptied a bag of spent teargas canisters at his feet as others peppered him with questions and accusations about his oversight of the police. Later, the mayor faced a barrage of derision after he denounced federal agents for an unprovoked firing of teargas that left him gasping for breath.
Teressa Raiford, the African American founder of Don’t Shoot Portland, accused the mayor of using the presence of the federal agents as cover for his own failure to address police reform.
“Our leaders now say: ‘Donald Trump’s attacking you and we care about you’. But the people on the front line realise we were being attacked by them before Donald Trump started attacking us,” he said. “They’re trying to claim that they stand as allies with the protesters. It is political. What you’re seeing with the mayor being sprayed with teargas, that is political propaganda.”
Raiford said Portland’s political leadership did not care to substantially change the system of policing because much of the city was comfortable with policies that, as the justice department noted, protect whites and police blacks.
‘All these liberal cities have extreme inequality’
The failure of so many American cities run by Democrats to address reform of racially biased policing hangs over Democratic political leaderships that claim to support the Black Lives Matters campaign.
Hyung Nam, who has been closely observing police reform as a member of a city committee that advises on how the police budget is spent, said the lack of political will reflects economic realities.
“All these liberal cities have extreme inequality, economic inequality, and there’s a major racial dimension to that. As long as we have that kind of economic inequality we’re going to see some form of policing like this,” he said.
Nam said there is a pattern of more prosperous whites gentrifying black Portland neighbourhoods and then demanding increased policing which often makes the remaining African American residents feel insecure.
“Just the other day when I was testifying at the city council, there were people from the Irvington neighbourhood complaining to the council about homeless people that were engaged in illicit activities and basically calling for the cops to do something, which means criminalise them and sweep them somewhere.
“This is what’s happening in all these Democratic liberal cities. Inequality has grown enormously and the way we’re dealing with that is through tougher policing.”
However, Nam thinks that the scale of popular protest over Floyd’s death may finally have pushed the administration to get serious about reform including “significant” cuts to the police budget for its paramilitary teams and enforcing proper civilian oversight.
For now though, attention in and on Portland remains focused on the nightly theatre outside the federal courthouse – and where Trump will target next.
November 16, 2020 at 9:02 pm #124452wvParticipantThis following article was on the front page of the L.A. Times this morning under the title “Portland anarchists spark backlash”
“Portland’s anarchists say they support racial justice. Black activists want nothing to do with them….
==================
I have many layers of thoughts/feelings about ‘anarchist’ direct-action campaigns like this. Too many to list.
…On the one hand, i think most-if-not-all of the young-anarchists have a higher Political-IQ than 90 percent of the American population. I think they understand what capitalism is doing to the nation, and to the biosphere.
So, they are smart, informed, passionate, critical-thinkers, for the most part.
(at least the ones who are legit anarchist, and not proud-boy-types doing false-flag games)But, being young, and passionate the anarchists are utterly stupid when it comes to strategy, tactics, etc. Many are impatient, and reckless and selfish. And they are young, so there is no getting thru to them.
And to just shoot from the hip…I have noticed in my life, that Anarchists tend to be giant pains-in-the-Ass. To everyone. Including other Anarchists.
Switching to another layer….when i put it in a wider context, Corporate-capitalism is causing mass extinctions, fracking poisoning of children, pollution, Climate Change, Mass Incarceration, Ungodly-Inequality which leads to massive suffering and death, Imperialism, Massive Lie-Campaigns, Coups, Torture, etc etc etc.
So you have THAT on one hand. Meanwhile the LA Times focuses on a small group of anarchists breaking windows.
That is corporate media. Perfect example of corporate media. What they cover. How they cover it. And what they dont cover.
w
vNovember 16, 2020 at 11:18 pm #124460ZooeyModerator==================
I have many layers of thoughts/feelings about ‘anarchist’ direct-action campaigns like this. Too many to list.
…On the one hand, i think most-if-not-all of the young-anarchists have a higher Political-IQ than 90 percent of the American population. I think they understand what capitalism is doing to the nation, and to the biosphere.
So, they are smart, informed, passionate, critical-thinkers, for the most part.
(at least the ones who are legit anarchist, and not proud-boy-types doing false-flag games)But, being young, and passionate the anarchists are utterly stupid when it comes to strategy, tactics, etc. Many are impatient, and reckless and selfish. And they are young, so there is no getting thru to them.
And to just shoot from the hip…I have noticed in my life, that Anarchists tend to be giant pains-in-the-Ass. To everyone. Including other Anarchists.
Switching to another layer….when i put it in a wider context, Corporate-capitalism is causing mass extinctions, fracking poisoning of children, pollution, Climate Change, Mass Incarceration, Ungodly-Inequality which leads to massive suffering and death, Imperialism, Massive Lie-Campaigns, Coups, Torture, etc etc etc.
So you have THAT on one hand. Meanwhile the LA Times focuses on a small group of anarchists breaking windows.
That is corporate media. Perfect example of corporate media. What they cover. How they cover it. And what they dont cover.
w
vYep. ^^^^This^^^^
November 16, 2020 at 11:44 pm #124462waterfieldParticipantThis following article was on the front page of the L.A. Times this morning under the title “Portland anarchists spark backlash”
“Portland’s anarchists say they support racial justice. Black activists want nothing to do with them….
==================
I have many layers of thoughts/feelings about ‘anarchist’ direct-action campaigns like this. Too many to list.
…On the one hand, i think most-if-not-all of the young-anarchists have a higher Political-IQ than 90 percent of the American population. I think they understand what capitalism is doing to the nation, and to the biosphere.
So, they are smart, informed, passionate, critical-thinkers, for the most part.
(at least the ones who are legit anarchist, and not proud-boy-types doing false-flag games)But, being young, and passionate the anarchists are utterly stupid when it comes to strategy, tactics, etc. Many are impatient, and reckless and selfish. And they are young, so there is no getting thru to them.
And to just shoot from the hip…I have noticed in my life, that Anarchists tend to be giant pains-in-the-Ass. To everyone. Including other Anarchists.
Switching to another layer….when i put it in a wider context, Corporate-capitalism is causing mass extinctions, fracking poisoning of children, pollution, Climate Change, Mass Incarceration, Ungodly-Inequality which leads to massive suffering and death, Imperialism, Massive Lie-Campaigns, Coups, Torture, etc etc etc.
So you have THAT on one hand. Meanwhile the LA Times focuses on a small group of anarchists breaking windows.
That is corporate media. Perfect example of corporate media. What they cover. How they cover it. And what they dont cover.
w
vWell-the L.A. Times has published many articles about Portland that run the spectrum. So I don’t subscribe to the notion that they “focus on a small group of anarchists breaking windows”. I also don’t accept the idea that the anarchists were simply breaking windows. I don’t live there and was not there at the time but my childhood and long lasting friend lives outside Portland and said it wasn’t just “windows”. Also my son and his family were visiting Portland after picking up my grandson after a ski camp at Mt. Hood. He said also that it was scary and he is not afraid of broken windows.
As far as anarchists having a higher IQ than 90% of the US population. That’s simply an outburst. Me? I think most “anarchists” love anarchy. Doesn’t matter what the issue is. They love causing unrest. Not because of political issues. They simply love causing unrest. These are not college post grads going back to coffee houses and discussing Marx and Keynesian economics. No these are simple souls saying “hey look at me. Rage against the machine. You don’t like it-fuck you . Ha,Ha,Ha !” That’s my outburst.
November 17, 2020 at 2:15 am #124467znModeratorWell-the L.A. Times has published many articles about Portland that run the spectrum
And that’s just the LA Times. WV was referring to far more than just one newspaper. And yes there was a mass media broadcast news effort to make it seem as if BLM protests devolved into rioting. In spite of the enormous numbers making it absolutely clear that was not true. The “it’s all riots” thing had an effect on election, in fact, though a small one.
November 17, 2020 at 8:51 am #124474Billy_TParticipantI’m not worried about a handful of window breakers in Portland. I am worried about the continued lies coming from the MSM regarding “anarchists,” where they literally get everything wrong about the philosophy possible, and just aid and abet Trump and his fellow fascists
I’m appalled that so many Americans fall for these lies, and ignore the fact that far-right groups overwhelm them in number, and are protected by the police.
Here’s an article about a photographer for the MAGA rallies talking about how the police never arrest the Proud Boys, and they and their fellow fascists may now be half the crowd at Trump rallies:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/11/donald-trump-rally-photographer-interview.html
“Anarchists” get arrested for just existing. They’ve even been executed under Trump’s orders. No trial. Just executed. Proud Boys and company get a wink and a nod and are increasingly emboldened to commit violence in the streets and send death threats to health officials, people counting election votes, etc. etc.
The focus on “anarchists” is bullshit.
- This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by Billy_T.
November 17, 2020 at 12:24 pm #124485wvParticipantDid you see this, W ? Different subject, but something you might be interested in:
Law:https://www.courthousenews.com/justice-department-asserts-unreviewable-discretion-to-kill-us-citizens/“…WASHINGTON (CN) — Drawing alarm at the D.C. Circuit, a lawyer for the United States argued Monday that the government has the power to kill its citizens without judicial oversight when state secrets are involved.
“Do you appreciate how extraordinary that proposition is?” U.S. Circuit Judge Patricia Millett asked Justice Department attorney Bradley Hinshelwood, paraphrasing his claim as giving the government the ability to “unilaterally decide to kill U.S. citizens.”
The hearing before the federal appeals court came as the government fights to hold off allegations by two journalists who say it wrongly targeted them as terrorists in Syria.
One of the journalists, U.S. citizen Bilal Abdul Kareem, says his interviews with al-Qaida-linked militants landed him on the U.S. kill list. Just in June and August 2016, Kareem says, the U.S. government targeted him five times, including one drone strike involving a U.S.-made Hellfire missile….see link”
November 17, 2020 at 12:39 pm #124487wvParticipantI’m not worried about a handful of window breakers in Portland. I am worried about the continued lies coming from the MSM regarding “anarchists,” where they literally get everything wrong about the philosophy possible, and just aid and abet Trump and his fellow fascists
I’m appalled that so many Americans fall for these lies, and ignore the fact that far-right groups overwhelm them in number, and are protected by the police.
Here’s an article about a photographer for the MAGA rallies talking about how the police never arrest the Proud Boys, and they and their fellow fascists may now be half the crowd at Trump rallies:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/11/donald-trump-rally-photographer-interview.html
“Anarchists” get arrested for just existing. They’ve even been executed under Trump’s orders. No trial. Just executed. Proud Boys and company get a wink and a nod and are increasingly emboldened to commit violence in the streets and send death threats to health officials, people counting election votes, etc. etc.
The focus on “anarchists” is bullshit.
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BT, this was an article posted on twitter. I havent read it yet, but i might skim it.
Violent-Anarchism:https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/luigi-fabbri-bourgeois-influences-on-anarchism?v=1602051374
Bourgeois influences on anarchismTitle: Bourgeois influences on anarchism
Topics: anarcho-communism, Bourgeois ideology, language, the media, violence
Author: Luigi Fabbri
Date: 1914
Source: Retrieved on 1/2/2020 from https://libcom.org/library/bourgeois-influences-anarchism
Notes: Text by Italian anarchist communist Luigi Fabbri written around the time of the First World War, addressing problems arising from the stereotyping of anarchism in popular culture and the negative effect this had on actual anarchist movement. The original in Italian is available in: https://www.liberliber.it/online/autori/autori-f/luigi-fabbri/influenze-borghesi-sullanarchismo/w
vNovember 17, 2020 at 5:48 pm #124501Billy_TParticipantThanks, WV.
I’ve bookmarked it and will read it shortly.
November 18, 2020 at 10:07 pm #124532waterfieldParticipantDid you see this, W ? Different subject, but something you might be interested in:
Law:https://www.courthousenews.com/justice-department-asserts-unreviewable-discretion-to-kill-us-citizens/“…WASHINGTON (CN) — Drawing alarm at the D.C. Circuit, a lawyer for the United States argued Monday that the government has the power to kill its citizens without judicial oversight when state secrets are involved.
“Do you appreciate how extraordinary that proposition is?” U.S. Circuit Judge Patricia Millett asked Justice Department attorney Bradley Hinshelwood, paraphrasing his claim as giving the government the ability to “unilaterally decide to kill U.S. citizens.”
The hearing before the federal appeals court came as the government fights to hold off allegations by two journalists who say it wrongly targeted them as terrorists in Syria.
One of the journalists, U.S. citizen Bilal Abdul Kareem, says his interviews with al-Qaida-linked militants landed him on the U.S. kill list. Just in June and August 2016, Kareem says, the U.S. government targeted him five times, including one drone strike involving a U.S.-made Hellfire missile….see link”
I don’t think the government’s argument can be taken seriously. What is alarming is that they made it! The States Secrets Privilege is essentially an evidentiary common law adopted by the U.S. Supreme Court in the early 50s. It’s origin and purpose was in litigation where one party requested information held by the government which refused to produce under the notion that to do so would harm national security interests. How that translates to the right to kill someone because state secrets are in play is beyond me. As the article points out the case involved a suit brought by journalists who were wrongly targeted as terrorists in Syria. The government refused to produce documents under the states secrets privilege arguing to do so would do great harm to our national security.
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