FDChief - Was that you I saw on the local news waving an Iron Front banner at the Timbers/Sounders game last week? You Portland guys are A-OK. True to our northwestern roots. Sorry I wasn't there. My Grandma's brother Doug, the Wobbly, is undoubtedly twisting in his grave that I didn't make it.Portland better buckle up for more attempted invasions by the morons like the proud boys, the daily stormers, the base, and the other asshats. You Timbers fans are going to ignite Charlottesville #2.
Great game by the way.
The tsuris over this symbol is kind of ridiculous, given that, as you say, every wanna-be Sturmabteilung Haupttruppfuhrer plans a weekend in the Rose City on his bucket list in a time when we have actual concentration camps on the southern border and our government actually considers deporting terminally ill brown people more important than funding emergency management agencies. Truly, we are living in the End Times.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is...we didn't SEE that Eiserne Front symbol UNTIL the goddamn freikorps started showing up here and the Portland municipal authorities and the coppers did nothing.
The notion that a bunch of rightwing nuts should be privileged to strut about the People's Republic of Portland protected by the forces of Law and Order was, not surprisingly, infuriating to the people who don't like rightwing nuts. So over the past year the wingnuts and the left-side version of combative assholes - the so-called "Black Bloc" - have fought it out in the streets every time these combat tourists show up.
It's worth noting, however, that the very LAST time the SA-wannabes turned up they were met with a bizarre, perfectly-Keep-Portland-Weird mixture of ninja-dressed Black Bloc, marching bananas, inflatable unicorns, and some dude in a clown outfit carrying a teensy parasol. The faux-freikorps wandered around hot, thirsty, and lost before scurrying away. The "Pop Mob" that organized the counter-demonstration did a hell of a job mocking these idiots, but they'll be back. Like roaches, if you don't poison the food they're impossible to get rid of, and the current political climate of a certain segment of American politics is giving them a lot of sustinance.
As for the soccer...MLS and the Timbers organization has sold their product on the energy of the leftish soccer community here. That's not exactly a shock; the "Timbers Army" is explicitly modeled on European left-wing supporters groups like those that gather around clubs like St. Pauli. It shouldn't have escaped those marketers and owners that their most rabid fans were also the leftiest. The "Little Beirut" flag that flew at every match? The Timbers version of the old Communist partisan anthem Bella Ciao"? The "People's Republic of Portland" scarves and T-shirts..?
So when Joey Gibson and his crowd started showing up every weekend, and the local anti-fascists went into combat mode...it shouldn't have surprised anyone, least of all the club, that 1) that fight turned up in the stands, and 2) that coming down on the symbol of that fight and ONLY that symbol, would not turn out well.
(con't)
Let us hope they move Joey G's trial out of Portland and down to Salem, or maybe Eugene, to stop more Rose City riots by his fanboys. But Cadet Bone-Spurs and his Enabler-General won't stay out of the mix, so Oregon might lose their chance to lock his ass up in the State Pen.
DeleteMaybe the civic lawsuit can get some justice, but he probably doesn't have a dime. Can they dock any future earnings you think?
His boys have already declared victory, because every time they show up they cost the City government millions, and they say they'll be back again and again until the City "destroys" the anti-fascist resistance - as if that was possible without going Full Nazi the way the originals destroyed the original Iron Front.
DeleteThis is what sickens and angers me about what the GOP - and I'm sick of the "bothsiders" claiming that it's NOT the GOP - is doing by opening the door to this country's racist past and letting these bastards ride out into the land. The reason the Black Bloc is out in the streets of Portland is because out and proud America Firsters (in the 1940s sense), xenophobes, Neo-Gilded-Agers, and proud racists are out in the halls of Congress and in the living quarters of the White House. To get their tax cuts and return to the days when you could dump your shit into the river or pump it into the air the Republican Party has turned to these C.H.U.D.s and people who love them.
So no amount of legal action or civic virtue or newspaper op-eds is going to put these skeevy sonsofbitches back into their let's-be-ashamed-to-be-racist box. That's as dead as Jeff Davis...but his spirit is abroad in the land, and all those fights that us old fuckers thought we'd won back in the Seventies and Eighties? If we want the promise of that country back we're going to have to fight the KKKlansmen and Proud Boys and Young Republicans - in the papers, on television and the Internet, and, yes - in the streets - all over again.
And I'm just sick to think that. But I see no escape. The U.S. cannot exist half-FOX and half-free, it must become all one or all the other.
The only hope at this point is the by shooting his idiot mouth off about how the cunning plan is to bankrupt the City ol' Joey blew the gaff about how much he and his buddies' little parties are about "freedom of speech" and, in a sane world, would be solid ground for the City to deny them a parade permit.
DeleteThe City government, which has the solid spine of a chocolate pudding cup, won't do that, and the Portland coppers, who are - shockingly, in lily-white Oregon - shot-full of racists and Trumpkins, will not do anything to make the fragile Proud Boy flowers feel uncomfortable showing up in their fake-GI-battle-rattle to try and start shit.
So we're stuck with them.
There is some thought that the Stumptown police lieutenant that is so chummy with Joey G is a shirttail cousin. Niiya sounds a bit Nisei, and Joey G is reportedly Irish/Japanese.
DeleteHas there been any resolution on Niiya's investigation?
Actually, that story always seemed less about the Boys infiltrating PPB than the coppers' trying to get an inside track with the fash to figure out how to place themselves for riot control.
DeleteThe worse is stuff like this: https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2019/08/portland-cops-past-membership-in-extremist-facebook-groups-raises-questions-about-how-to-track-offensive-social-media-use.html
Portland and Oregon have a long, dirty history of racism and racist cops. When I moved here in '90 the "possum thing" (a couple of Portland cops hucked a dead possum in the doorway of a black-owned burger joint) was still news. And only two years earlier racist skinheads beat a man to death in SE Portland (https://www.wweek.com/news/2018/10/31/racist-skinheads-beat-mulugeta-seraw-to-death-on-a-portland-street-thirty-years-later-the-crime-still-echoes/) and the white power skinheads and so-called "SHARP 'skins" - antiracist skinhead yobs were still fighting it out in the streets.
Having a former friend who was with PPB it's not shocking that there are a LOT of Trumpkins and out-and-proud-racists on the Portland force. That they have a lot more in common with the Proud Boys than the Black Bloc comes as absolutely NO surprise to me.
Here's my favorite Portland police Nazi: CPT Mark Kruger, who nailed up a "Tree of Honor" to five Nazis in a park in NE Portland (https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2010/11/portland_police_chief_suspends_1.html)
Delete"Why did I take such an action? I did so as an expression of my interest in military history; many military historians have erected similar remembrances all over the world," Kruger wrote. "What I didn't think about was the misperception that could occur if this action became publicly known. I deeply regret this action and apologize for the poor reflection this has caused for the Portland Police Bureau, the City of Portland and my community.""
"Fascist and stupid is no way to go through life, son"...
(con't)
ReplyDeleteHere's a link to the local coverage of the last demonstration that gives you a good sense of the difference in "Antifa" between the Black Bloc and everyone else; https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2019/08/portland-protests-to-feature-banana-costumes-poop-emojis-and-fundraisers-for-immigrants.html
So when the club came down hard on the idea that being against fascism was "political" - instead of sort of what the whole idea of the American Experiment was supposed to be (and often wasn't and isn't, but, there...) you could pretty much see this coming.
Duh.
What is most frustrating to me about this is the contingent of "Waaaanh! Your shitty protest spoiled my soccer and made Seattle win!" dudebros. They're all OVER the match thread at "Stumptown Footy" (https://www.stumptownfooty.com/), the local soccer blog.
First, because the whole point is that we, the fans, are the heart of the club. If we didn't show up, there would be 22 people playing a game in an empty space. And if we're inconvenient and irascible and contrary and troublesome...well, then you shouldn't use us to market your product. Make it a nice, sweet, family-friendly little rec-league thing, and see how well that sells your eleven-dollar beers.
That there is a hell of a lot of anger here in the Time of Trump should have come as no surprise to anyone. That that anger should be directed at the ownership when it appears to be siding with Trump and his white-pride pals shouldn't have surprised anyone, either.
And, last, because the Goddamn Sounders won because Zarek Valentin can be timed with a fucking sundial and our center backs took the evening off, plus Brian Fernandez is a winger, not a center-forward, and Gio better figure that out most quick smart because our opponents already have.
And that pisses me off almost as much as Joey Fucking Gibson and every one of his little dancing Nazis.
Thanks for that link. And for bringing my attention to CAUSA the immigrant rights group. I'll be donating a small amount to them - as a f**k you to Donaldo-the-birthright-baby whose Mom and wife are both illegals.
DeleteIf I can find a way to do it anonymously that is. I don't care if my name is public, but I'm already on too many mailing lists and call centers. NoMoRoBo helps a bit, they need a version for email, text, and snail-mail.
I think this quote from one of the former Stumptown Timbers beat writers sums things up pretty well:
ReplyDelete"Anyway. Congratulations to MLS and PTFC for transforming the Iron Front stuff from a couple little-noticed and even less-understood flags into a league-wide controversy with a firestorm of supporter and player activism."
"Ready! Fire! Aim!"
Your Mark Kruger character is a real piece of work. What does it take to make someone what Kruger has turned out to be? - or the Proud Boys? - or any of the other outright fascists? - or the ones who agree with the Peanut that putting kids behind the wire is fine?
ReplyDeleteThere is an old (1941) Harper's article touching on that subject. Written by Dorothy Thompson, who interviewed Hitler in 1931 and was ordered out of Germany by an enraged Adolph when he later came to power. Not sure I agree with all her conclusions. But certainly worth a read:
https://harpers.org/archive/1941/08/who-goes-nazi/
https://exhibitions.ushmm.org/americans-and-the-holocaust/personal-story/dorothy-thompson