TPA Vol. XXXV, Number 6 June 2015 http://www.ThePortlandAlliance.org/2015/June
Speaking Truth to Power Since 1981
Previous Issues: May April March, February, January 2014 Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, June, July, Aug, Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec 2013 Dec Nov Oct Older Issues
Scroll Down: Healthcare, War & Peace, Mayday, Wal-mart, Postal, News Bytes, Immigration, Street Roots, Music, Tom Engelhardt
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Homeless in America:
ThePortlandAlliance.org/homeless
ThePortlandAlliance.org/bookreview
Poetics:
http://www.theportlandalliance.org/poetry
Walidah Imarisha
Two Poems by Walidah
ThePortlandAlliance.org/hastie
Obey
Living in America,
sometimes makes me think
I live in a luxurious concentration camp. I can have anything I want as long as I obey certain rules.
Accepting Submissions!
http://wordsmithcollection.blogspot.com/2013/06/accepting-submissions.html
Breaking News
Active Community,
Cartoons, Cartoons by Shannon Wheeler, Clyde List, & Steve Amy
Commentary, Critiques,
Letters, and more!
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Arts & Culture
Visual Arts, Music,
Theatre,
Cartoons, Movies,
Books, Writing
Community Calendar
Local actions, events, rallies, etc.
Eyes Wide Shut!
by Yugen Fardan Rashad
By Norman Solomon
Picture of Michael Munk Tribune Photo L. E. Baskow
Peter C. Little: Alliance Photographer
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Republicans work for the Fortune 500 and brag about it. Democrats work for the Fortune 500 and lie about it.
The "Justice for All" annual dinner/fundraiser for JOBS WITH JUSTICE was a great success and fully attended by several hundred people.
Greg Margolis (at left) a Portland activist with deep roots in this and other organizations, was fondly remembered for his too brief life of 66 years.
*************************************************************************************
(Above Picture courtesy of JWJ)
Activists associated with partner organizations
were also honored -- with the collective positive
energy of the gathering serving to boost my spirit
and encourage many others who are seeking to
make this world a better place.
by
Michael Sonnleitner who took this picture:
Register Now »
Event at a Glance
Date
May 30, 2015, 9:00 am
Registration
$10
Location
20210 SW Teton Ave. Tualatin, OR
Calling all troublemakers! From teachers to bus drivers, retail workers to government employees, farm workers to nurses, we are rebuilding solidarity while fighting for a better world for working people.
The Labor Notes Troublemakers School is a place for troublemakers of all kinds—community organizers, union shop stewards, and labor activists—to come together for a day of skill-building workshops and strategy discussions to create a stronger workers’ movement in Portland.
Saturday, May 30, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
UA 290 Hall, 20210 SW Teton Ave, Tualatin, OR
(It's closer than you think! Five minutes from I-5, and just 20 minutes from downtown Portland. Click here for directions.)
- See more at: http://labornotes.org/pdx#sthash.06z0SksG.dpuf
“What happens to a dream deferred?”
asked the poet Langston Hughes over
sixty years ago in a poem simply entitled: “Harlem.”
More than a half century later the dream is still deferred, the site is Baltimore and the prophetic voice of the poet still asks what happens when another generation of dreams becomes deferred, “does it sag like a heavy load” or “does it explode?” These are extreme times during which the growing disparity in terms of wealth and opportunity adds fuel to the fires of despair every day.
Laws and rules may tell us how to live; but a person must have a why to live. In the soul of America, the why to live has best been imagined as a dream. Not the simple “American dream” of blind materialism; but the wild complexity of dreams trying to live through the great diversity of souls that makes up the America that has not been yet.
Read all:
at the Mosaic Multicultural Foundation Portland Alliance Portal!
http://www.ThePortlandAlliance.org/mosaic
June Vigil for Keaton Otis
June Vigil for Keaton Otis
Friday, June 12, 2015, 6:00pm - 7:00pm in PDT
Keaton Otis was a young Black man murdered by the Portland police almost five years ago, May 12, 2010. The polic...
Date/Time
Friday, June 12, 2013 at 6:00 PM
Location
NE 6th and Halsey
Portland, Oregon
Event Information:
Keaton Otis was a young Black man murdered by the Portland police three years ago. The police admitted they stopped him for “looking like a gangster.” His father, Fred Bryant, held a monthly vigil every month on the 12th since his son’s murder. The vigil took place in a struggle for justice for three years, on the spot where Keaton’s life was needlessly taken.
And we continue the struggle.
Please join us with that struggle this month and help to spread the word: blacklivesmatter
at
6:00pm -
8:00pm
BV Foto
A Portal to PortlandSolidarity.org:
http://www.ThePortlandAlliance.org/portlandsolidarity
United organizations against violence
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.
A Portland Policeman's Memoir
"Behind the Badge in River City" by Don Dupay.
Depicting the aura of the Police department
from the early 60's to the late 70'...
Published on Jun 1, 2015 Checkout this interview
http://www.ThePortlandAlliance.org/dupay
Navigation: http://www.ThePortlandAlliance.org/navigation
Who Are the Nuclear Scofflaws?
By Lawrence S. Wittner
Given all the frothing by hawkish U.S. Senators about Iran’s possible development of nuclear weapons, one might think that Iran was violating the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
But it’s not.
Beyond the Drone Debate: Should US Military and CIA Be Judge, Jury and Executioner?
Adam Hudson, Truthout: After it was revealed that two Western hostages held by al-Qaeda were killed in a US drone strike in January, public debate centered on the method of targeted killing - drone strikes - rather than whether assassination was legal, moral or effective policy.
Read the Article
MORE INFO: The Alliance Truthout Portal http://www.theportlandalliance.org/truthout
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.
"Riding a wave of demands for police reform, we may sacrifice
good governance and civil rights."
______________________________________________________________________________________
On 10 December 2014, Consult Hardesty partners derailed an attempt by the Portland Police Bureau to slip a nearly million-dollar spending proposal past our City Council. Pretending to merely solicit information, PPB intended to commit to purchasing body-worn cameras. We provided the above screen shot of the proposed bid, scheduled to drop five days following the close of the meeting.
Voting to table the police proposal, Commissioner Dan Saltzman observed, “It does seem to me we’re putting the cart before the horse. We have not received any legislative protections for what can be released to the public or to the media.”
He followed fear-of-exposure with political analysis: “I’m not so sure when the legislature is going to provide us those protections, because I know how powerful the Oregon newspaper association can be.”
Saltzman was well aware that police agencies throughout Washington State had put their body-worn camera programs on hold. Silicon Forest software geeks had exercised their legal right to see the public record. Eric Rachner won more than $60,000 in settlements after suing Seattle PD for lying, and withholding video of his bogus arrest for playing Frisbee. He reinvested the money, formed the Center for Open Policing (SEACOP), and the nonprofit won $23,000 after Washington State Patrol lied about dashcam video of an aberrant traffic stop. “Through their shrewd use of Washington’s Public Records Act, the two Seattle residents are now the closest thing the city has to a civilian police-oversight board,” reported the Washington Post.
The idea of police oversight is anathema to Portland City Council. They fear it. The City paused in its desire to grab a share of Obama’s $75,000,000 for body-worn cameras … to lend its lobbyists to those of the immensely profitable Taser and law enforcement proponents, and carve loopholes in Oregon’s vaunted open records laws. …Taser isn’t just targeting Oregon: “Lawmakers in at least fifteen states have introduced bills to exempt video recordings of police encounters with citizens from state public records laws, or to limit what can be made public,” reports the Guardian.
The plan is not to improve transparency in policing.
Find out more at:
www.ThePortlandAlliance.org/consulthardesty
A Portal to Consult Hardesty
Keaton Otis Portal Honor Keaton June 12!
http://www.ThePortlandAlliance.org/otis
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