Occupied...

Did you know that there is a psychological phenomenon that happens when you try to get someone to change their beliefs by force? Not like physical force but that forceful YOU'RE AN IDIOT HOW DARE YOU? argument style. It will take someone who might have been persuaded otherwise, or someone who had some nuance in their argument and harden their beliefs like a rock.

We have a Federal Force occupying Portland right now pulling people off of the streets in covert arrests. Lobbing tear gas at people and shooting them with "less lethal" munitions. In the head.

Let me say it again. Occupied. Like we are a foreign country at war with the United States and they have moved in to take over.

The city of Portland.

In the State of Oregon.

Occupied.

These federal forces weren't asked for by our local mayor or governor. They were sent by the president to try and feed red meat to his base. And that's what they are doing. Fox News and OAN are showing the tear gassed protesters on loop. Like this is a good thing.

And I get it. The spray paint on the buildings and broken glass is not attractive but police brutality and extrajudicial killings are a bit beyond that don't you think?

I view it like I view the mask debate that we shouldn't even be having. Yes, sure, wearing a mask is uncomfortable and inconvenient but my mother-in-law is still dead so...

Sure, the protests have been large and traffic has been blocked and there is graffiti and broken glass but George Floyd is still dead.

And yes, the first couple of nights there were groups of people who used the protests as a cover to loot downtown but Breonna Taylor is still dead, and nobody has faced any sort of punishment for that.

And sure, it was a bummer to watch them take down the elk statue in the middle of downtown because it was being damaged by the bonfires being set but Tamir Rice would have graduated from high school this year if he weren't, you know, dead.

And I could go on and on about this. You know the list of names is long.

So Trump has decided to make Portland his focus on protests. Instead of the brutality. Instead of the imbalance in our justice system. What has been decided is that the protests are the issue. And what better way to meet protests about police brutality than with more brutality?

If you read the statement that Acting DHS Secretary Wolf put out about why they are here and what they are doing it's either terrifying or ridiculous or a mixture of both but in different ways depending on who is doing the reading. He lists all of the (clutch your pearls) horrible things that have been done in Portland since the protests start. Most of it is graffiti. Violent anarchists graffitied the Hatfield Courthouse Get that? Violent anarchists did that! People with spray paint tagged the courthouse. But I guess with a lot of attitude so.... violently? There are also a lot of other dubious claims in his list. The number of people attacking officers, for instance. Not really. Not unless you count yelling, "STOP THAT!" or "NO JUSTICE NO PEACE!" as an attack. Which, apparently he does.

There was also this little gem in the release: "A federal courthouse is a symbol of justice - to attack it is to attack America." No it's not. And no it isn't. A federal courthouse is a building. And to be perfectly fair right now it's as much a symbol of injustice as it is justice. And to attack a building (again, spraying it with paint) is not attacking America. Protest is our language of change. The whole fucking country was founded on protest. Though, if you study it the Boston Tea Party was as organic as the Tea Party movement hundreds of years later...but I digress.

And then again we see the dubious nature of the claims. The whole thing has been live-streamed every single night. It's no longer the official word of the police is the only one we get. We get the videos. We see what is actually happening. The feds shot a man in the head this last weekend. Their official stance is that he threw an incendiary device at them. Ohhhkay...except what he did was move the tear gas canister (or smoke, I wasn't there I couldn't smell it, only see it) away from him that THEY threw at him. Then they shot him in the head. He was holding a boom box over his head at the time. Both hands full. You tell me how this was justified?

And again, the canister they said he threw at them? THEY FUCKING BROUGHT IT AND TOSSED IT. It's amazing to me to watch. They throw the things at the protesters and if the protesters send them back THEN it's a riot and all hell breaks loose. But see, the cops are the ones in gas masks and riot gear so aren't they prepared for it?

Look at who is dressing for a riot to see where the rioting is starting.

And read the articles. We watched one last month evolve from the reports of people tossing firecrackers to the police saying they were being bombarded with IEDS. IEDS. Shut the fuck up. You are trying to make people envision roadside bombs in Iraq when you got a string of blackcats tossed at you. There was a report yesterday when ACTING Secretary Chad Wolf decided to come to town and they said that some officers had their clothing singed from firecrackers. Oh my. Singed clothing. Meanwhile, Philando Castile is still dead.

They've moved on from reporting having water bottles thrown at them as justification for tear gas and batons to FROZEN water bottles. Because people like me kept pointing out they were awfully scared of water.

(Sorry this is so long but goddamn it I'm just so tired of this bullshit)

And now there have been reports of police being shot. And that's horrible. It always is. Being a police officer is a dangerous job. But here is the thing, when you post a story about a cop being shot as a response to why protests against police brutality are happening you are saying something really bad. You are enforcing the us against them narrative. That cops are separate from us. That they are somehow on one side of battle. And they aren't supposed to be. That's what all of this is fucking about. They are supposed to be part of us. They are supposed to be a protective force for actual justice. Because there are bad guys out there. But when you reply to a Black Lives Matter post with a Blue Lives Matter answer you are saying that Black and Blue lives are in opposition to each other and that is EXACTLY what we need to fix.

First off blue isn't a life it's a fucking job. If you can take off the color at the end of the day and blend back into the crowd then it's a choice not a whole life. Secondly, stating that you think blue is more important (which is what you are doing) is super problematic. And third, when a police officer is shot and killed the vast majority of the time an arrest is made and the guilty party is sentenced. Meanwhile the cops that killed Breonna Taylor are still on the job, save one.

Being a police officer is a dangerous job. Being a citizen shouldn't be.

Defund the police (for those of you with stubborn brains, you can think of this as re-fund or right fund, whatever you need; don't be an asshole you know what it means). Take some of those out sized budgets and redistribute them to other programs that might actually be helpful. Mental health. Job training. Housing. Community based resources that fix issues at the root.

Demilitarize our local law enforcement. You are seeing right now in real time what happens when you arm police like a military force. They treat AMERICAN citizens as enemy combatants. There is a theory that part of why concussions got worse in football is because the equipment got bigger. It provided a sense of invincibility. Why have big helmets and shoulder pads if you aren't doing bigger hits? Why have a tank and gas masks and full body armor if you aren't going to use extra force and tear gas?

Stop thinking that a few diversity training classes are a fix. They aren't. I mean, come on, ANYONE who has ever had a job and had to do training courses they didn't want to knows how seriously they are taken. Even if you don't have a problem with the message you generally view it as a waste of your time when you really need to be working. They are an ass covering mechanism at best and completely ineffectual or reinforcing the We are Better message at worst. Seriously.

So you know that psychological phenomenon I mentioned at the beginning? We live in the suburbs. The protesting doesn't really reach out here. We see parts of downtown boarded up and painted on the weekends when we drive through after picking up breakfast. (And it's really only a core of downtown, the videos and reports would have you believe it's a much bigger area than it is) My take on it has been it's a mess and I hope that we see some real change come of it. Now? Now that the feds are here and shooting people in the fucking head as well as pulling people off the streets in covert arrests? Well let's say that the nuance in my argument is fading into a rock solid belief.

Get the fuck out of the city. You weren't asked for. You don't belong here. You are making it worse. YOU are the violent fascists the anarchists warned us about.

Vote in November. Get Trump out of the White House. Get these thugs off of our streets.

Defund the police.
Justice for all.

For. All.