The Tuesday break is over. The regular rules now apply.
Brain ipsa loquitur
Pervert Justice
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The Tuesday break is over. The regular rules now apply.
So, as had been reported in mainstream media in a few places (here, for instance), and as I alluded to last night during comments elsewhere (“there are still stories to tell and information to pass on”) the BLM organizers have called for deemphasizing the federal courthouse protests after the BLM rallies next door at the Justice Center. At least one asked for people to simply go home, and skip any post-rally protest focussed specifically on the Mark O. Hatfield courthouse.
Honestly, the audio system is pretty deficient (as I’ve also noted before, though I will admit it was better last night – July 27th – than on most other nights) so i can’t hear anything clearly and can’t be sure I got everything, but they did clearly ask people to simply go home at the end of the main BLM rally, rather than refocus the protest on the Hatfield courthouse as the crowd typically does around 10 or 10:30pm. This request is different than simply asking people not to set off fireworks or start the small fires (on concrete, they don’t spread, but they are plenty large enough to hurt someone badly if they fell into it). They have been consistently asking people to stop setting fires and setting off fireworks, which I consider the worst behavior during these demos, every night I’ve been there. This request goes much further in simply asking people to return home.
ETA: Read the comments below. Although no one has questioned that I and other protestors are correct that we’re getting low doses of tear gas throughout the evening, commenters much more knowledgeable than I am about this stuff have a much better hypothesis for how this is happening: without rain in Portland, the toxic powder that is called tear gas settles on surfaces, but remains potentially active. When kicked up by activity, it can be breathed in with no more difficulty than it is during initial pyrotechnic dispersal. Because so much tear gas powder has been released into the environment and because summer is a very dry season in Portland, the normal human activities associated with walking around the area, sitting on benches, etc., are kicking up a lot of still active tear gas. This makes the ongoing, low-dose toxicity and associated persistent hellishness almost certainly unintended by the Feds. Of course, I don’t think they regret it at all either. In any case, don’t skip the comments. I am lucky enough to have better quality commenters than most.
Okay, what’s up with the tear gas, Feds?
We know you release whole canisters of the stuff, and sometimes drop 20 canisters at a time (yes, I know it’s hard to tell exactly how many, but 20 seems roughly accurate during larger offensives). We know you do it to punish people rather than to aid in crowd dispersal because, look! You drive people away for less than 5 minutes before they’re back at the fence!
Did I mention that on Saturday people brought flowers to decorate on the Courthouse fencing? When we arrived that night we were treated to a beautiful display:
Flowers inserted into the holes in the fence spell out one letter per panel. In this photo we can see “K,” “F,” and “E”.
You can’t see it here (you couldn’t get a picture of the whole thing, it’s too big and it’s hard to even get this much without people in the way), but due to a pixelation accident, when all the flowers were inserted into their individual holes in the fencing, it looked exactly like the flowers spelled out
#FUCKFEDS!
I know! So weird! Much coincidence!
Much more to come later. Got home at 1;30 am and set some water heating for tea. Desperately needed to take a shower and get the tear gas off my skin.
It was a mostly safe night, though I got knocked down in a panic from a nearby flash-bang and several tear gas grenades/ canisters/ thingies going off at once. I honestly don’t know who knocked me down, but there were several people that bumped into me nearly simultaneously and one kicked one of my crutches out from under me. The other crutch went as soon as my weight was no longer directly over it and a different person bumped into the now-unstable crutch. I actually fell onto the backpack of someone in front of me and they slowed my fall (fortunately they also didn’t hit the ground). On the way down I got kneed in the left side, more or less. It was right next to the kidney right where my side meets my back. While on my knees I couldn’t gather my crutches and someone stepped on my heel. As my toes were pointed it couldn’t drive them into the ground, so I felt lucky not to break a toe. Almost immediately 3-4 generous people were helping to pick me up. I think one of them was the person who stepped on my heel, but I don’t really know for sure.
So, the Portland protests aren’t mine to lead, but I am a ConLaw nerd and so they do feel personal in their own way and have since the first day I heard cops had used their powers to murder George Floyd.
That has lead me to fantasize about what I would do if I were to run these protests and I came up with …
Man, tonight was just lots and lots of tear gas. They did so many small gassings, many of which were down the block from me and hardly affected me at all. The more I experience tear gas from even a small distance away, the more I realize that how incredibly fucked up I was on Tuesday night was because I was clearly sucking in a super-heavy dose. On Tuesday I remember 3 tear gas canisters around me, all very close, none farther than 5 meters away for sure, and I don’t think any of them were even 3 meters, but I was in shock from the flash bang, so I’m saying less than 5 meters just to be safe. But here’s the thing, I had my eyes mostly closed after that until I was just over a block away, but when I would open them for a moment to try to plan a safe path to walk with my eyes closed, I was still in a fog of tear gas for a good 3/4 of the way through the park. I had previously reported that they had kept the tear gas close to the courthouse on Tuesday night’s 1st offensive, but tonight I was upwind of the tear gas and could remain longer and watch more closely. The tear gas from a single canister just isn’t that dense 30 feet/ 8-9 meters away from the canister. It’s a very, very light mist . except sometimes when the wind moves the cloud more or less intact. It’s still only maybe a 3 meter diameter of intense smoke, but sometimes that 3 meter bunch moves more-or-less intact on the wind instead of being stretched and thinned.
Obviously I have Opinions™ on what needs to be said about the protests in Portland. I think they’re important and I couldn’t have come to that conclusion without thinking that certain specific things about the protests were important.
But honestly, these protests aren’t important at all unless they’re communicating something to people. Now, just photos of tear gas can inform us about the state of authoritarianism in US government, but there’s so much more to say, especially since general authoritarianism doesn’t tell us anything about the original goals of the movement: ending racism and racist violence in policing.
So of course I’ll continue to report, but I want y’all to get the information that is most meaningful to you. I genuinely care about what you want to know.
So, if you were going to the Portland protests, what would you investigate? What would you be trying to learn? What would you be looking to see?
in short, what can I tell you that you aren’t getting anyplace else?
Most requested/upvoted will get the highest priority, but I’m really going to try to get people everything on the list, if it’s in my power to do so.
Some previous suggestions from Wonkette’s comments where I’ve also been posting about the protests:
You can suggest something totally new, or use these ideas as a take-off point, or just comment to give your +1 to one or more of them without adding your own creations.
So, I’m sure the people reading along have been wondering about my take on Ted Wheeler. This is part of it.
As we all know, the protests in Portland are important. They’re about Black lives. They’re organized with absolutely the best of intentions. So there couldn’t be any racism right there at the protests, right? Right????
Aw, fuck. You know the answer.