No Fear, No Compromise, & No Surrender! We continue Speaking Truth to Power and distressing Portland's elites.
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“Our nation – and our world – face a “perfect storm” of economic and environmental crises that threaten not only the global economy, but life on Earth as we know it. The dire, existential threats of climate change, wars for oil, and a stagnating, crisis-ridden economic system require bold and visionary solutions if we are to leave a livable world to the next generation and beyond. …
… These looming crises mean that the question facing us in upcoming elections is historically unique. The fate of humanity is in our hands. It is not just a question of what kind of world we want, but whether we will have a world where we can survive.”
Founded in 1979, Sisters of the Road has always been more than a cafe. We have been a test kitchen for ideas, systems, and programs that work to alleviate both the material and emotional challenges faced in the day-to-day life of people experiencing the violence of poverty.
An Update from Sisters of the Road’s Acting Executive Director
Uncommon Thought Editor's Note: This is an essay that I just wanted to curl up with. It centers around a book review (that is now on my reading list) and wanders off into an analysis of power, patriarchy, oppression, and … a new path that humanity could take.
My state representative sharing her perspective on recent events in Portland (that will soon appear in a city near you):
Friends and family outside of Oregon have asked me what's going on in Portland. Is it really under siege? Millions of dollars of damage done in rioting and looting? My short answer is absolutely not. Here's my longer answer, and hold tight for a ton of links and information. Content warning: this is alarming, unconstitutional behavior from our federal government and the Portland police who have been reported by multiple local reporters as assisting them. Several links contain photos or video of protester injuries.
Last night, for the second night in a row, unidentified federal agents tear gassed a peaceful #wallofmoms who were using their white privilege to protect other protesters (who have repeatedly been gassed and shot at with rubber bullets especially since federal agents arrived). This escalation of violence against protesters and even journalists has been growing over the last weeks. You can find an OPB timeline of events here:https://www.opb.org/.../police-violence-portland-protest.../
City Commissioner Hardesty is calling on Portland Mayor Wheeler to hand over control of the Portland Police Bureau to her, after weeks of reporters, peaceful protesters, and others being harmed. I support her call unequivocally: https://www.wweek.com/.../hardesty-to-wheeler-control.../
4. This is a photo of Donovan La Bella, a peaceful protester who is in the hospital recovering after being shot by an agent in the middle of his forehead with an impact munition. https://www.oregonlive.com/.../donavan-la-bella-making...
5. Someone I work with was snatched off of a Portland sidewalk by unidentified federal officers, put in an unmarked rental vehicle, detained, not provided with any charges, Miranda warnings, or any indication why they'd been grabbed from the street. Their service dog was manhandled and not allowed to assist them. They're not the only person who's reported being grabbed and taken away by unidentified federal agents.
While major news outlets have recently come to Portland, I want to highlight our local reporters who have been heroically continuously reporting every night, despite suffering injuries themselves.
Let me be absolutely clear about where I stand: if I were not five weeks away from my second baby's due date, I would be joining that mom wall tonight. |
There is no place for state-sanctioned violence against peaceful protesters in a democratic America.
In my capacity as a leading state environmental legislator, I've asked the Department of Environmental Quality whether Portland is violating any air or water quality pollution permits and/or should have obtained a pollution permit after 40+ nights of deploying significant amounts of tear gas around the city.
Attorney General Rosenblum has filed a lawsuit to bring federal agents to account for the injuries they are inflicting on Portlanders.
Our federal delegation is working to get answers from the Trump Administration but I have little faith if these agents are willing to gas hundreds of peaceful protesters downtown every night. In the meantime, the actions of these agents are physically violent and if it continues unabated, more Portlanders are going to get seriously injured, or worse. Mayor Wheeler needs to be completely transparent about how, where, and to what extent the Portland Police are supporting and coordinating with these federal agents. And the Trump Administration needs to withdraw their federal agents from Portland.
A Primer on Expanding American Wars: These 53 unprovoked but expanding wars for extraction, exploitation and extortion are not featured on the Front Pages of Mainstream Media, but this does not make them disappear.
24 hours after the fire (without victims) of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame located in Paris (France) the donations for its reconstruction already surpass the sum of R $ 2.6 billion. Meanwhile, Unicef is still trying for weeks to raise 122 million to help the thousands of victims (children, elderly and women) of the cyclone and floods in Zimbabwe and Mozambique. This discrepancy of resources, media coverage, and collective sensibility is the most explicit naturalization of the modern-capitalist colonial [racist] colonial project as well as the process of marginalization of peoples who are not part of the Western world. It is evident that notions like fraternity, equality, solidarity and humanism are selective and valid only for a "human type". In general, Western, white, European Christian.
Text by Jonathan Marcelino
Mimi German is a wonder... "Had a talk with one of our SJ church pastors about why more churches weren’t available as shelters for our SJ houseless. He said a few of them were considering opening... "
On February 7th, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie accepted the 2019 Everett M. Rogers Award from the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism in Los Angeles, California. (plus more stories)
Open Letter by Over 70 Scholars and Experts
Condemns US-Backed Coup Attempt in Venezuela
"For the sake of the Venezuelan people, the region, and for the principle of
national sovereignty, these international actors should instead support
negotiations between the Venezuelan government and its opponents."
"... Audio evidence has Keaton Otis screaming, his are hands up.
An officer shouts, “Let’s do it!”
and three members of Portland's anti-gang HEAT Team open fire..."
I may be (wrongly) denounced as a Trumpist for posting this,
but I wouldn't mind hearing some leading Dem political leaders express similar emotions
--though more coherently -- to a national audience-mm
Thursday, February 25, 2016
by
TomDispatch
War, What Is It Good For? Absolutely Nothing.
And no kidding, that’s the literal truth when it comes to war, American-style
A fight now underway over newly-designed U.S. nuclear weapons highlights how far the
Obama administration has strayed from its commitment to build a nuclear-free world.
Update on the Sandra Bland Murder: Nobody is held accountable for
the death of Sandra Bland: And we all lose!
Cannon Lambert, a lawyer for the Bland family, called the grand jury proceedings a “sham of a process,” Family members first learned there was no indictment through news reports.
“We would like very much to know what in the heck they’re doing, who they’re targeting and if it has anything to do with Sandy and her circumstances,” Lambert told The New York Times Monday night.
Peace Journalism is the Answer for Writers and for Nations
At this time in history, war rages in numerous countries across the globe.
Many people wonder what they can do to create any kind of positive difference to change the war machine that wastes so many resources and takes so many lives. How can we spread peace, when so much of war is reconstituted propaganda and stereotypes instead of truth? When the war machine rages with energy and fervor, we need an alternative that can produce a more positive effect. That alternative is peace journalism.
In the name of Allah, the …beneficent, the merciful…
For 40 years, or was it longer, I can’t remember, I did all I could to give people houses, hospitals, schools, and when they were hungry, I gave them food. I even made Benghazi into farmland from the desert, I stood up to attacks from that cowboy Ronald Reagan, when he killed my adopted orphaned daughter, he was trying to kill me, instead he killed that poor innocent child. Then I helped my brothers and sisters from Africa with money for the African Union.
Gaddafi captured and tortured to death by US-assisted jihadists
"I did all I could to help people Understand the concept of real democracy, where people’s committees ran our country. But that was never enough, as some told me, even people who had 10 room homes, new suits and furniture, were never satisfied, as selfish as they were they wanted more. They told Americans and other visitors, that they needed “democracy” and “freedom” never realizing it was a cut throat system, where the biggest dog eats the rest, but they were enchanted with those words, never realizing that in America, there was no free medicine, no free hospitals, no free housing, no free education and no free food, except when people had to beg or go to long lines to get soup.
No, no matter what I did, it was never enough for some, but for others, they knew I was the son of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the only true Arab and Muslim leader we’ve had since Salah-al-Deen, when he claimed the Suez Canal for his people, as I claimed Libya, for my people, it was his footsteps I tried to follow, to keep my people free from colonial domination – from thieves who would steal from us."
the latest! Birmingham Civil Rights Institute capitulates to Israel First nutcakes
The Art of Misdirection
Oregon AFL-CIO President Tom Chamberlain wrote an article featured in The Oregonian this week which explains how the art of misdirection is being used by those who oppose raising Oregon’s minimum wage:
“When you know you don't have logic or public opinion on your side, you try to divert the audience's attention. As the 2016 legislative session quickly approaches, this is exactly the tactic that opponents of raising the minimum wage are relying on. Instead of making an honest defense why it's okay for full-time workers to live in poverty, they're attempting to change the subject by conjuring confusing claims about inflation and poverty reduction.”
Trusting a rat: The Police and the Dilemma of Confidential Informants
Snitch, rat, and cheese-eater. These are all words that describe people who have betrayed a confidence. The police call these folks “confidential reliable informants” which has always seemed like an oxymoron to me. Informants are people who are looking for a favor from the police, a shorter sentence, or a pass on prosecution for a serious offense that might earn them a long stint in prison. Or they’re just looking to get revenge on a former criminal companion they feel did them wrong. The idea with many informants is, “if you let me off this time officer I’ll tell you what you want to know, for that case you’re working on. I’ll snitch on John/Jane/Joe and tell you what they may or may not have told me.” Then the cop can go and happily arrest them, claiming the “pinch”for themselves.
Published on Tuesday, September 08, 2015 by Tom Dispatch
Mantra for 9/11:
Exceptional Pain Dispensed
by the Indispensable Nation
Fourteen Years Later, Improbable World... by Tom Engelhardt
Fourteen years later, the 9/11 attacks and the thousands of innocents killed represent international criminality and immorality of the first order. On that, Americans are clear, but -- most improbable of all -- no one in Washington has yet taken the slightest responsibility for blowing a hole through the Middle East, loosing mayhem across significant swathes of the planet, or helping release the forces that would create the first true terrorist state of modern history; nor has anyone in any official capacity taken responsibility for creating the conditions that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, possibly a million or more people...
here is the rest of the story. at The Portland Alliance Tom Engelhardt Portal
"When we talk about rebuilding the middle class, we’re talking about economic mobility. The dream for so many hardworking parents is to be able to give their children a prosperous future, but in today’s economy where recovery has not been a certainty, that dream can be all too elusive.
A study released today from the Center for American Policy dug deep into the issue of economic mobility, showing that the dream of children finding prosperity is hard to reach for many in our country. “A U.S. child born in the bottom 20 percent of the income distribution, for example, has a 7.5 percent probability of reaching the top 20 percent as an adult, compared to 11.7 percent in Denmark and 13.4 percent in Canada.”
"Nothing better illustrates the bankruptcy of the Obama administration's foreign policy than funding
groups that turn on the U.S. again and again, a neo-con fueled cycle of profits for war makers and destruction of ever-shifting "enemies."
The fact can't be refuted:
ISIS was born of Western intervention in Iraq and covert action in Syria.
This Frankenstein-like experiment of arming the alleged freedom-seeking Syrian opposition created the monster that roams the region. ISIS and the U.S. have a curious relationship -- mortal enemies that, at the same time, benefit from some of the same events:
a) Ousting former Iraqi President Nouri al Maliki for his refusal to consent to the continued presence of U.S. troops in his country.
b) Regime change in Syria.
c) Arming the Kurds so they can separate from Iraq, a preliminary move to partitioning Iraq.
What a coincidence for war-profiteering neo-cons and the war industry, which has seen its stock rise since last week's congressional vote to fund the rapid expansion of war. We have met the enemy and he isn't only ISIS, he is us.
Phase two of the war against Syria is the introduction of 5,000 "moderate" mercenaries (as opposed to immoderate ones), who were trained in Saudi Arabia, the hotbed of Wahhabism, at an initial installment cost of $15 billion. These new "moderates" will replace the old "moderates," who became ISIS, just in time for Halloween.
The administration, in the belief that you can buy, rent, or lease friends where they otherwise do not exist, labor under the vain assumption that our newfound comrades-in-arms will remain in place during their three-year employment period, ignoring the inevitability that those "friends" you hire today could be firing at you tomorrow.
One wonders if Saudi training of these moderate mercenaries will include methods of beheading which were popularized by the Saudi government long before their ISIS progeny took up the grisly practice.
checkout this list! It is a list of people (most people of color, many unarmed and some mentally ill) who werekilled by copsin 2014.
Some cases are more clear-cut than others, but all of them raise questions about the use of force — like shooting to kill — in policing. They also prompt scrutiny of how cops confront people with mental illnesses:
1. Darrien Hunt; Saratoga Springs, UT:Hunt wasshot six timesand killed after someone reported a man with a suspicious sword. Hunt, who had a fascination with Japanese anime characters, was carrying a toy sword. A recent autopsy report found the shots hit him in the back, suggesting he was running away from police on the scene.
"But Black girls are never deemed feminine enough for their sexual and adolescent vulnerability to register for white people. They are frequently viewed as aggressors by both police and regular citizens alike, even for doing very adolescent things like mouthing off to those in authority. This is the reason why education scholars suggest that Black girls are suspended from school six times as often as white girls, because even simple adolescent forms of testing boundaries are perceived as far more aggressive based on race."
get the whole story:
Edward Snowden has been charged by the Justice Department with communicating national-defense information without authorization, and revealing classified information -- under the World War I Espionage Act.
If he came back now, that is, he would be tried as a spy -- though if he was a spy, it's clear who he was spying for: us, the American people.
Police Body Cameras: A Tool for or against the People
Oregon legislators to put video evidence from body-worn cameras SOLELY in the hands of police. Were this a police accountability tool, you’d expect broad access to the evidence. Broadcasters and the press are the only voices in opposition. Please consider this information and contact your representatives, senators and community leaders.
Find out more... It's getting tougher to ignore the numbers:
Morris Dees says, "Victims are piling up around us." "African Americans are incarcerated at six times the rate of white people … cities have revived debtors’ prisons that punish and exploit the poorest, most vulnerable among us. While perhaps its most visible and horrifying signpost, the criminal justice system is merely one part of a larger, structural problem." the whole story: www.ThePortlandAlliance.org/consulthardestyA Portal to Consult Hardesty
Northwest Writers & Publishers Association
Every time we pick up our pens, we’re haunted by our teachers and editors and colleagues and supposed friends, regaling us with countless rules designed to keep our writing in check and prose on the straight and narrow. But literature is chock-full of examples that subvert the laws of writing to bring the printed word to life and in the process force those ghosts to eat their thesaurus-thumping words. Join author and editor R. H. Sheldon as he takes us down the forbidden path to discover why writers break the rules when they do and what they hope to achieve by doing so. rest of story- http://www.ThePortlandAlliance.org/nwpa
We come to mark it on our calendar every year. It comes as the annual chance to bring issues together, meet and greet and have an action that is often more about getting re-energized than about getting something done.
This has gotten many May Day actions locally criticized for taking a huge amount of time, energy, and money, yet not resulting in movements that are any stronger. However, the last two years have really started to buck this trend, with last year really drawing issues of immigration together with the high profile fight between the ILWU and United Grain. This year Portland joined with cities around the country in identifying an overarching theme that effectively dominated the messaging: Black Lives Matter.
"Behind the Badge in River City:A Police Memoir, is a revealing, unique and important book."
Most days, most people just take cops for granted. They assume the police are more or less like everyone else, putting in their hours and doing their jobs. At one level this is true.
Some of us may say hello to officers we happen across or we might encounter them briefly when getting a ticket or asking for directions. Regardless of these brief glimpses, few of us know a great deal about the men and women who serve as peace officers with The Portland Police Bureau. Perhaps it's time we found out.
Don Dupay served with the bureau from 1961-1978 as an officer and detective. After resigning from his position in 1978, Mr. Dupay worked as Director of Security for a well-known hotel in Portland, co-hosted a cable access TV show, "Cannibus Common Sense," and he still lives and writes in Portland, Oregon.
Analysis: Five common misperceptions on the metric that has dominated debate over a nuclear deal with Tehran Bill Beeman Portal: http://www.ThePortlandAlliance.org/beeman
Working families across Oregon and throughout America share some common goals. We want to protect advances in worker health and safety, environmental protection and tackle major issues like low wages and economic inequality. The looming Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement threatens to move every one of those priorities in the wrong direction. By Karly Edwardsmore info: http://www.ThePortlandAlliance.org/workingfamilies