How Liberal Portland Became America’s Most Politically Violent City . . . it's a Portlandia thing, don't try and understand it, it's not possible. More below. "The fact that Portland erupted as the epicenter in Trump-era political violence in the U.S. is, in a certain sense, surprising. A liberal nirvana, a crunchy, weed-and-hops city where Republicans and plastic bags alike have been all but evicted, Portland has embodied and outpaced many of the urban trends of the early 21st century: gentrification and co-ops, food trucks and footbridges, transitions to a bike-and-pedestrian economy. It is, as a conspicuous show has encapsulated, a progressive paradise.
And yet, as many within and without the city have begun realizing, Portland is a town leavened with a history of rampant racial strife. As the whitest major American city, Portland blossomed in the lone state that constitutionally barred blacks from living there through the 19th century, that acted as one of the primary concentration centers for incarcerating American citizens of Japanese ancestry during World War II, that redlined as severely as any major metropolis elsewhere. That in 1922 saw its chief of police posing alongside hooded Ku Klux Klan members. That brought Jim Crow to the Pacific shoreline." In Portlandia, the mindset is puritanical true belief in the social cult du jour. And odd as it sounds, the people here will change social cults like they change their pants. A big part of the problem is that Oregon has been the least religious state for a very long time. People do not do well without things to believe in, it is a requirement for mental health. What happened in Portlandia is the beliefs became secular, today environmentalism, and the myriad other progressive, green weenie religions. "Locals began pushing back. In 2007, a group called Rose City Antifa took form, borrowing the shortened form of “antifascist” for its name. The crew pointed to similar European movements, which had, in places like Germany and Italy, arisen in response to the fascist movements that would eventually crater Europe in World War II. It also tapped into regional currents of anarchism and latent communism. These were the political strains that had sparked, among other things, the 1999 “Battle of Seattle” protests against the World Trade Organization, which resulted in millions of dollars’ worth of property damage in the city. From its inception, Portland’s antifa contingent cloaked itself in anonymity; as a 2009 story in Portland’s Willamette Week noted, “Little is known publicly about Rose City Antifa.'" Right, antifascist, sure, but only in the same vein that Stalinist socialists were antifascist (fascists and socialist are sister beliefs, which is why they hate each other so vehemently). These are fascists, or socialist plain and simple, they want to control others, they want government to pay them to live (hey, they came to Portlandia in their early 20s to retire, not work). They want all to bow to their beliefs, and demands, and violence follows for those who do not. They are most violent to other socialist, and fascist who disagree with them on some minor point of their secular theology. But they also hate the middle class, deeply. This is a key reason Portlandians need to conceal carry, these hatreds constantly simmer just below the surface. "But now, for antifa, it’s not enough to simply outscream their opposition; rather, those far-right forces must, in a bizarre nod to the Bush Doctrine, be preemptively denied a voice from the outset. “We are unapologetic about the reality that fighting fascism at points requires physical militancy,” Rose City Antifa’s Facebook page reads. “Anti-fascism is, by nature, a form of self-defense: the goal of fascism is to exterminate the vast majority of human beings.” The group does not specify what physical militancy means, but their page makes clear that the definition includes “any means necessary.” “We’re seeing more people be like, ‘What’s antifa actually about? … Do you just like going and smashing Starbucks windows?’” David says. “And no, we don’t smash Starbucks windows—most of the time.” Or as one of the Rose City Antifa’s Facebook profile pictures read, “Set phasers to kill.'" What angers them more then anything are the Tea Partiers, the middle class, you know, the people who politely attend rallies, then clean up the park when they leave. The people who do not scream, or rant, or threaten violence. It is these people the antifa want to act violently against; middle class Americans, who pay their taxes, and who are a bit tired of the layabout deadbeats at antifa leaching off them. This frames the real issues quite nicely. "'It just makes [antifa] feel good—they think they made a point,” the ADL’s Pitcavage said. “But their tactics are counterproductive. They haven’t made any dent over the years with those tactics. … And it gives the white supremacists an unbelievable amount of publicity.” After all, a lack of anti-Nazi brawl-and-bash protests weren’t the reasons fascists rose to the fore in Germany and Italy—and there’s little reason to think that depriving neo-Nazis of their First Amendment rights will prove any more successful than the myriad pre-WWII street brawls that failed to slow the rise of fascism in Europe." Sigh, Pitcavage misses the point, this is not fascist versus fascist, this is antifa fascist versus the middle class. Starbucks, 82nd Avenue of Roses Parade, and the World Trade Organization are not nefarious skinhead, or KKK groups, they are middle class businesses, and organizations, and the rioting that occurs when the antifa throw a tantrum does not affect the KKK, skinheads, or neoNazis, it affects the middle class. The middle class is the intended target, antifa just cloaks its dirty deeds in antiKKK language. It's a ruse. This is entirely obvious, yet continues to be unfathomable to the likes to Pitcavage. Yes, the KKK groups come down to rumble but that's only because it is the only thing which shows they have any life at all. These KKK groups are all but dead. "One week after the murders, antifa and far-right actors clashed once more, this time at a “Trump Free Speech” rally. Epithets soon transformed into the kind of physical violence antifa had advocated earlier: Portland police said counterprotesters at the alt-right rally sparked the violence by slingshotting bricks, rocks and feces alike, forcing officers to unleash pepper spray on the crowd. As Portland Police Bureau spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson told the local Willamette Week in late May, “It's never been as vocal as it has been in recent months. … While they're not street gangs, the threat of violence is there.” Or as Kyle Chapman, one of the alt-right spokesmen at the rally, said about the possibility of advocating violence, “It’s not such a bad idea, is it?” This, after Chapman tweeted that it was “open season on antifa.'" This paragraph holds the key to understanding the violence in Portlandia today. The antifa went to an alt-right rally, and used huge slingshots to fire bricks, rock, and feces at the rally goers. The police pepper sprayed the rally goers. Using the slingshot was deadly force, and the police should immediately resort to counter deadly force just as they would if anyone but antifa had been using a slingshot, or trebuchet to fire missiles at innocent people. The police would not have pepper sprayed a mother-daughter rally like they did the alt-right group. I will probably have to eat those words, this is Portlandia, and the police in the city are capable of anything. The police could change this dynamic in a minute. Broad arrests, pressing charges for the most serous crimes, no plea bargains, seeking long prison sentences would have an effect, after all this is one of the key techniques which worked to gut the violent crime wave of the 1960s-1990s. But because the antifa include a number of the children of the well connected, this will not happen, instead the powder will continue to be stacked until one day it goes off and we get our own Greensboro on the Willamette. Won't that be wonderful? "Meanwhile, the next round of protest is scheduled for Friday in downtown Portland. The right-wing Patriot Prayer group has organized a “freedom march” that is expected to attract white nationalists, neo-Nazis, militia and white supremacists. The antifa have pledged to block them. The Rose City Antifa wrote on its Facebook page, that, this time, “enough is enough.'" The antifa is really going to attack a prayer group? These people are deadeners out of ideas, and left with only violence to assuage their frustrations. Good luck, and when the people finally turn on you don't be shocked when they do so with a vengeance. Most fascist groups end in a violent spasm. I would hope we can avoid that, but antifa seems intent on self immolation.
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