If you’re learning about what’s been going on in Portland, Oregon (or elsewhere in the U.S.) from the mainstream media, you have absolutely no idea.

On Twitter, someone asked if this is how the national media always operates? “Swoops in, gets the story wrong, pats itself on the back, leaves the city upset, and the national audience polarized?”

My response was, TBH, yes.

I worked for small local papers across U.S. in the late ’70s and early ’80s and repeatedly saw the same thing happen, then.

I still remember standing next to a UPI reporter at a press conference outside a coal mine where miners had died because of company negligence.

When I returned to the newsroom and saw what that reporter written come over the wire, I wondered where the hell he’d been. I saw him standing next to me, but what he wrote bore no resemblance to what I saw or heard.

The same thing is happening today, only now we have multiple video records that repute the mainstream media narrative (and in that I include the “local” television stations and newspaper that are owned by mega corps and have no actual stake here).

If you watch the videos produced by the independent journalists and the reporters for the Portland Mercury, Willamette Week, villageportland.com, Street Roots, etc. you will see a completely different story than you’ll find in the mainstream media. The latter parrots police lies and lets the mayor stage a campaign stunt about how awful the federal troops invading the city are while ignoring the local media attempts to get him to answer for the fact the there is nothing those troops have done (so far) that local cops weren’t already doing (and still do occasionally).

So before you draw any conclusions about the protesters, watch a few minutes of videos showing soldiers firing tear gas canisters, flash bang grenades, and various impact weapons at a line of Moms linking arms, standing in the street, chanting “Black Lives Matter”. And, remember that the mainstream media (and the administration) are editing that video to show you what they want you to see.

The people in the street are fighting for your right to not live in a fascist state. Why aren’t you out there with them (or at least sending money and supplies to support them)?