Commentary and Observations:

Kendall is here at The Portland Alliance with a piece about People Power...
http://www.ThePortlandAlliance.org/Kendall

Kendall Reminds Ted Wheeler that values DO matter!

Kendall Kendall

Memo to Mayor Ted Wheeler:

This is Ted Wheeler's statement
after voting against Portland, Oregon's
withdrawal from the JTTF intrusions.

“As the police commissioner, I cannot support a policy that appears
to favor politics or ideology over the safety and well-being of
Portlanders. While values are extremely important, values alone
cannot protect the safety of the community.”—Ted Wheeler.

To: Ted

From: Kendall

Your idea of safety applies only to white people of privilege. Our values ARE our safety.
Our safety is solidarity. Our values tell us families should not be ripped apart, parents
kept in detention for being Muslim; our Black children should not be killed by the police;
our Brown children should not be caged so that private prisons can make $775 a day for
each child, and our Brown relatives begging asylum should not be detained, tortured,
and sent back to die in the midst of suffering our country created; our house-less family
should not be swept aside and left to die in the elements; our mentally ill family should
not be dumped on the street; the war economy and the corporate state should not exist
at all. Poverty is immoral.

This State is built on stolen indigenous land. Black lives do matter. ICE is an abomination.
These are our values, and our safety and integrity arises in these values. You discount and
ignore the testimony of those who have been made unsafe by policing, and then you preach to us about safety. Whose safety?

By kendallishere

Malcolm Chaddock

Thursday night Malcolm Chaddock risked his life to prevent a blood-bath. A right-wing Trump supporter came to the Black Lives Matter march with a semi-automatic pistol and six clips of ammunition, enough to kill a hundred people in the time it takes to draw a few breaths. When Michael Strickland pulled out his gun and began waving it at the crowd, Malcolm walked toward him, arms raised in peace, attempting to draw Strickland’s attention away from the marchers. One of Malcolm’s housemates posted this terrifying photoof Malcolm and the gunman. Malcolm is a long-time peace activist, a member of Veterans for Peace and a meditator with the Buddhist Peace Fellowship (he appears on the right in an earlier blip I posted of one of our meditation vigils). He and I have been friends since we met in Occupy Portland.

Today as Sue and I were leaving the museum where we saw William Eggleston’s brilliant photographs, we heard my name being called. It was Malcolm. We sat down with him and one of his friends to ask how he felt about his encounter with the shooter. He said he could tell Strickland was panicky, and he wanted to calm him down. He didn’t pause to think, just wanted to calm him, distract him, and steer him away from the crowd. It was only after Strickland was arrested that Malcolm learned Strickland had come to the march with enough ammunition to kill a great many people.

What were Strickland’s thoughts, as he set out to attend the march with his Glock and many rounds of bullets? What made him decide not to shoot people? Malcolm’s calm, gentle voice and manner helped to avert disaster. I am deeply grateful to Malcolm and a few other bystanders who kept Strickland occupied until a SWAT team of police in riot gear arrived and took him into custody. The full story, along with a photo of the gunman taken by Diego G. Diaz, is here.

http://www.ThePortlandAlliance.org/

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Inequality for All

Published on October 8th, 2013

At the heart of the film is a simple proposition: what is a good society, and what role does the widening income gap play in the deterioration of our nation’s economic health? We are endeavoring for Inequality for All to be a paradigm-shifting, eye-opening experience for

perspective why extreme income inequality is such an important topic for our citizens today and for the future of America.

Starts Friday October 11th

- See more at: http://hollywoodtheatre.org/inequality-for-all/#sthash.MLjShSBy.ZqntgYHh.dpuf

Inequality for All

n perspective why extreme income inequality is such an important topic for our citizens today and for the future of America.

Starts Friday October 11th

- See more at: http://hollywoodtheatre.org/inequality-for-all/#sthash.MLjShSBy.ZqntgYHh.dpuf

"People have only as much liberty as they have t
he intelligence to want and the courage to take.”
Emma Goldman

The right to rebellion is the right to seek a higher rule... GEORGE ELIOT

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