Is that satire?
So-called “President Donald Trump and his administration hinted Sunday that federal agents may be deployed to Chicago as soon as this week to crack down on protests and gun violence in a military-style response similar to Portland, Oregon.”
This won’t begin, middle or end well.
Satire is when you make fun of reality.
Unfortunately, our reality has become such that it outdoes any attempt at satire.
…the police unions have everything to do with the police, which should have been obvious to my reference to both the police and the feds, the fact that apart from the “black bagging” protestors have described the behaviour of both the police and the feds as practically indistinguishable, that the relevant part of the quote was the part that I bolded, and the rest of the quote was used to simply provide context for the quote.
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We also really, really need to get firearms off the street.
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This! I can understand how the police might be edgy given how easily everyone from casually aggressive to bat-shit nuts can acquire an arsenal. It’s certainly not an excuse for the disproportionate targeting of POC, but if it were less likely that you (meaning someone in law enforcement) were about to be shot, your own trigger finger might ease back a bit.
Well, I did intend to write “cordoning”, but auto-correct changed it to “condoning”, which does not fit at all. Otherwise, I would be interested to hear what part of it you think resembles satire.
The local police in Portland are not the problem here. The Local police are not “black bagging” anyone.
The Federal agents that are causing the problems and are black bagging people are not part of any police union.
…I literally just said “the police are not black bagging” anyone. But that doesn’t mean the police are not a problem. In the context of the protests the behaviour of the police (outside of the black bagging) has been described by the protestors as indistinguishable to the feds.
Well no shit sherlock. I’ve just finished telling you that I know that and I agree with that, and that the mention of the union was to provide context for what was bolded, and its as if you didn’t read what I wrote at all.
The local police are causing the riots, which becomes an excuse for the black-baggers to come in and try to disappear them ter’ist AntiFantasms.
I’m not sure about riots but they’re definitely a target of the protesters.
On the same day that the Mayor of Portland declared that tear gas wasn’t to be used unless it was absolutely necessary, the police decided that it was absolutely necessary in just about any situation they were in.
The month after Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Yale historian Timothy Snyder published the best-selling book “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century.” It was part of a small flood of titles meant to help Americans find their bearings as the new president laid siege to liberal democracy.
One of Snyder’s lessons was, “Be wary of paramilitaries.” He wrote, “When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the end has come.” In 2017, the idea of unidentified agents in camouflage snatching leftists off the streets without warrants might have seemed like a febrile Resistance fantasy. Now it’s happening.
According to a lawsuit filed by Oregon’s attorney general, Ellen Rosenblum, on Friday, federal agents “have been using unmarked vehicles to drive around downtown Portland, detain protesters, and place them into the officers’ unmarked vehicles” since at least last Tuesday. The protesters are neither arrested nor told why they’re being held.
There’s no way to know the affiliation of all the agents — they’ve been wearing military fatigues with patches that just say “Police” — but The Times reported that some of them are part of a specialized Border Patrol group “that normally is tasked with investigating drug smuggling organizations.”
…
Interesting development–Portland Fire and Rescue has issued a statement that NO cops, not even local ones, will be allowed to use their stations to stage personnel or launch operations. They know who they work for–and there’s a reason there are no songs about “Fuck the Fire Department.”
Those shitbirds tear gassed and rubber bulleted the “Mom Bloc,” including a Multnomah County Commissioner. JFC, that means they’re deliberately attacking pregnant women and completely nonviolent protesters. I’m not sure how you could get MORE nonviolent than a bunch of moms, FFS.
Did you watch the video and listen to the news report you just linked to?
The protesters (many male, not primarily moms) tore down the fence and lit a fire at the building triggering the tear gas response.
It seems like you may have trusted the headline and not actually watched the video. Even if you disagree with the usage of tear gas, the implication that it was a line of mom’s peacefully protesting just isn’t accurate.
So these highly train federal troops were unable to select the correct targets? The moms were wearing bright yellow shirts. Maybe the color drew the eye of the feds and they just let loose in that direction.
Maybe when they saw the fence being torn down, they should have put on their big boy pants and done their job properly.
The moms did NOTHING to warrant being teargassed and shot at. And that fence is a few panels of temporary chainlink that’s been a sore spot for the entire protest. Might wanna get that boot out of your mouth, I hear the polish is carcinogenic.
The Mark O. Hatfield Building is a public courthouse with a primarily stone-like carapace, which comes all the way to the inner edge of the sidewalk. So, it needs a fence around it because … ?
Hence why it’s a bone of contention. That is OUR building in OUR city and nobody gets to just fence things off and tell us we can’t walk by on the sidewalk. We got equally exercised over the chainlink the ICE goons put up around their HQ on Macadam a few years ago. Portland does not like its federal cop presence for many reasons, most of them having to do with offenses committed by federal agents against us citizens. ICE especially hates us because we’re a sanctuary city and absolutely refuse to assist them in any way with their bullshit operations against the undocumented. We even got them to leave for a while, this probably has a lot to do with why federal LE has so much of a hardon for Portland. Heck, historically even PPB has been on our side with regards to federal goons, so it sucks to see them so fully assimilated into the asshole culture.
Portland has a rich history of protest and a dislike of interventionist federal presence in our sphere of influence–it’s something that up until recently was the glue that bound the hipsters and the rednecks together. Sucks to see all this bootlicking going on from the same contingent that cheered when the Bundy Brats were shitting all over the nature preserve because they didn’t like BLM telling them what to do. You’d think they’d be all over this but of course they have too much steel toe in their mouths to be able to talk.
Oh, and a bunch more cities are slated for the Goon Squad National Tour. Wonder if all the apologists will still feel as sanguine when it’s THEIR pregnant women getting kidnapped into vans.
Altho most of your rant here has some good points, note that is not “your building” which is exactly the point. It is on Federal land and it belongs to the Feds, not portland.