Angry about the Portland street violence

     "The violence must stop, period. . . . And this must happen immediately."

       Oregon Governor Kate Brown

     "We are at the mercy of the American people, god help us."

       Observer of the situation in Portland

     

Meanwhile, this weekend continued the 101st and 102nd nights of conflict between citizens and police. 

Under the cover of peaceful protesters, some people provoked a police response by throwing things and interfering with police, and got themselves arrested. The participants had a mix of goals. For some, it is to bear witness to the need for justice, hoping that being there does some good. For some, it is to show that the police are brutal and unjust by provoking them to do something that will be seen as brutal and unjust on cell phone videos. For some, it is an opportunity to be part of the action. Some are counter protesters and provocateurs looking for a fight with the protesters.

My era in college in the late 1960's saw turmoil on campuses. I was less a participant than observer. I bought and wore the red fist "Strike!" tee shirt, but did not strike. I liked my classes.

Besides, meetings of groups planning action met at night and then went late. I got sleepy at 9 p.m., then as now. The craziest and most extreme people were the ones still there at the end of the meetings, when votes were taken on what to do. A classmate who has gone on to a distinguished career as an observer of technology and politics offered me and this blog this observation about why the situation in Portland is intractable.

     "Fringes always corrupt movements. Other than explicitly disavowing them, which the BLM leaders and Democrats do repeatedly, all you can do is hope the judges, the voters, see what is going on. They don't listen, except, some, to leaders like King and Gandhi.

     You can maintain discipline at large daytime demonstrations. My preference is for those who oppose violence to not show up at night or in confrontive situations, "to prevent violence." But those people won't listen either.

     Boys love war games, and so do some girls. For the anarchists, ANTIFA, and militias, this is just real rugby. They claim political positions, but that's bullshit. What they do works against the politics they espouse, so they're in it for the adrenaline rush.

     The last group, also unreachable, are the oppressed who use the opportunity to act out their rage. Their rage and indeed their destruction of property is completely understandable, but counterproductive. They won't listen either, but at least one can
sympathize.

     As to the police and "government agents" who provoke violence, they're obviously not listening to BLM and Democrats.

Trigoboff,  before

     We are at the mercy of the American people, god help us."

     

                   --- --- ---

Another voice offered me a perspective. Michael Trigoboff, who has written Guest Posts in the past, shares his thoughts below.

He used to look like a long haired hippy radical, according to the web page he shows the public to describe his career as a computer sciences expert. He teaches at Portland Community College, after a career in the software industry. He is dismayed by the discord and destruction taking place in Portland. He says protesters for racial justice let their cause be hijacked, perverted, and turned against themselves, he says. The people in charge in Portland let it happen.

Guest Post by Michael Trigoboff

I grew up in New York City. During the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s, New York City was spiraling down into the depths of crime and social disorder. The subways and many streets were covered in graffiti. Petty and major crime was rampant.

 

New York City is famously liberal. Despite this spiral, New Yorkers elected the a very liberal mayor (the city's first black mayor), David Dinkins, in 1989. Dinkins failed to act against the social disorder in many significant ways.

Trigoboff, now

In 1991 in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, there was an accident in which a car driven by a Jew killed a black child. This led to black riots that turned into a pogrom against the Jews living in that neighborhood. A rabbinical student was killed by a black mob. Racial demagogue Al Sharpton consistently poured gasoline on that fire. Mayor Dinkins did nothing effective to stop the antisemitic violence.

 

Meanwhile, on the Upper West side of Manhattan, a famously liberal and significantly Jewish neighborhood, a large guy with mental health issues was sneaking up behind people standing at the curb and pushing them off in front of buses.

 

Things in New York felt totally out of control. They were so out of control that even liberal New York City voted Dinkins out and elected conservative Rudi Giuliani as mayor. Giuliani instituted tough reforms like "broken windows policing" and "stop and frisk," and got the city back under control.

 

Which brings us to Portland. Violent protests are out of control. The federal courthouse, police precincts, and random government buildings are being torched and covered with graffiti. Portland's mayor has been driven from his home because a mob attacked it, breaking windows and lighting a fire inside it. Mobs are shining green lasers into the eyes of the police, attempting to cause serious retinal damage. They lob mortar-sized commercial fireworks, capable of causing serious injury, at the police.

 

Mobs are marching through residential neighborhoods shouting threats at the residents and shining blindingly bright flashlights into the windows of their homes.

 

The mayor and city council are preventing the police from doing anything to stop the violence. They have also "defunded" the police and shut down the gun violence task force, which has led to a significant increase in shootings.

 

Meanwhile, downtown Portland has not recovered from the wave of vandalism and looting associated with the demonstrations. Many businesses are boarded up. There is graffiti all over. Garbage cans are not being emptied and the streets are full of dirt and broken glass. Homeless camps are everywhere. Commerce is dying and businesses are making plans to leave.

 

The downtown branch of the Multnomah County Library, a beautiful building, has been turned into a facility for the homeless and mentally ill. My wife grew up in Portland and used to walk to downtown to that library by herself to do schoolwork. I would not send unaccompanied child into that environment the way things are now.

 

Many of my friends and acquaintances who live in Portland tell me that they are getting totally fed up with what life is currently like in Portland. It seems to me that Portland is following the same path that New York City did.

 

There will be an election for mayor this fall in Portland. The two candidates are the current mayor, Ted Wheeler, and Sarah Iannarone – in other words, an ineffective liberal vs a far left Antifa supporter  – Spineless Ted vs Antifa Girl. So there's no chance that it will happen this time, but I suspect that sometime soon the liberal voters of Portland will have had enough and will elect candidates who support law enforcement and social order.

 

My wife and I got very lucky when we found a house we liked that inadvertently happened to be a couple of blocks beyond the Portland boundary. We are not conventionally religious, but we thank God every day that we live in the suburbs where police are supported by the city government and our tax dollars do not get spent on far left nonsense.

 

To put it mildly, people in Portland do not want Trump to be reelected. They seem not to realize that they are handing an issue to Trump that could potentially lead to his reelection.