Category: PDX Protests

Oregon Legislature Proposes Rolling Back Police Restraints

F.I. GoldhaberLeave a comment

First published on The Big Smoke.
February 23, 2022

In 2020, I watched hours and hours of live stream video showing the protests in Portland from various points of view. Every single time, the protesters (most of them very young people) were at the worst mischievous (moving fences around, painting court and police buildings with graffiti, throwing dildos, pig food, and water bottles at cops). Most of the time, they listened to speeches and music, marched, chanted, ate, and danced.

Photograph of the Oregon State Capitol building with gold man on top and cherry trees in front of the building's wingsBut regardless of how peaceful the protests against police brutality were, they were almost always met with police violence. Police would charge out of their precinct buildings and attack: shooting so-called “less than lethal” weapons directly at protesters (including at their heads), pulling their masks down and spraying pepper in their eyes and mouths, beating them with batons and fists, throwing them onto concrete curbs, including people following their specific orders to disperse, with enough force to break bones including spines and skulls; sending many to the hospital.

The cops filled the streets of Portland with tear gas (a weapon banned for use against civilians of other countries) and other chemical weapons, making people cough (during a pandemic of a virus spread by respiratory emissions), cry, vomit, etc. Many of the victims of tear gas exposure, including nearby residents in their own homes, people who happened to be driving by, children, and babies in their cribs, are still experiencing long-term major physical and mental health problems to this day. The trees in downtown Portland have yet to recover from the environmental damage caused by caustic chemicals filling the air.

The Portland Police used tear gas even when ordered not to do so by the mayor/police commissioner, the U.S. Department of Justice, courts of law, and the state legislature. When told they could only use tear gas to control rioting, they simply declared a riot and/or “unlawful assembly” every single night.

Police refused to say who declared those assemblies unlawful and for what reason. Often during those “declarations” there was no illegal activity of any kind in progress and it was only too obvious to objective observers that “unlawful assembly” was being used as an excuse to attack protesters.

Oregon House Bill 4131 includes an egregious rollback of the little protection offered by previous legislation, sponsored, at the urging of Portland Police, by Republican legislators representing rural areas that have no experience with the harm that these chemicals and weapons cause and a Republican gubernatorial candidate looking to score political points.

There is no excuse, ever, to use these weapons of war against citizens of the U.S., Oregon, and Portland. Police have other resources, including just staying inside and avoiding confrontations. (It’s important to note that on those few nights the police stayed inside there was no violence, because the only rioting that’s been done in Portland has been police and federal agents brutally attacking protesters who were practicing their First Amendment right “to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” and white supremacists from out of state assaulting local citizens standing up against fascism.)

The state legislature, to quote Martin Luther King Jr., “…must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. And in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard.”

Giving police more weapons, funding, and the ability to kill, hospitalize, and arrest more people will not quell any riots. Those actions just ensure authoritarian rule and eliminate any pretense that we live in a free society. If the legislature wants to stop people who live in Portland from rioting, listen to what they are saying. Take action to address their very real concerns about police brutality, housing inequality, wage theft, food insecurity, etc.

Cozcacuauhtli: Protester Facing Prison for Dancing

F.I. GoldhaberLeave a comment

First published on The Big Smoke.
January 19, 2022

An Aztec Jaguar Warrior running a traditional dance; photo by Jonata Oregón (CC BY-SA 4.0). The photo shows the head and shoulders of an Indigenous person wearing an Aztec headdress with many black feathers emerging from a jaguar head and a dozen longer black and white feathers coming from the center.

Born in California, Cozcacuauhtli moved to very rural Oregon with her family when she was five and grew up among the Native communities of Warm Springs, Yakama, and Siletz.

Both of Cozcacuauhtli’s grandfathers served in World War II and her father in Vietnam. She joined the U.S. Navy in 1990, serving two years active duty, including during Operation Desert Storm, and six years in the naval reserves. Her service left her disabled with a partially paralyzed right leg and a fractured L-4. Since leaving the Navy, Cozcacuauhtli obtained a bachelor’s degree from Oregon State University and a master’s degree in social work from Eastern Washington University.

A Mestiza (a woman of mixed European and Native American ancestry), her paternal grandparents were born in California of Mexican heritage. Through them, she has ties to Nahuatl peoples which included the Aztecs. In the mid ’90s while at OSU, Cozcacuauhtli learned Danza Azteca and was a member of an OSU MEChA, the first Aztec Dance group in Oregon.

The group, “Mexica Tiahui” danced on Mexican holidays and at protests. In addition, they brought supplies to farm workers, advocated for them, and backed them on marches for justice.

Mexica Tiahui shared their knowledge of Danza Azteca and taught hundreds of dancers all over Oregon. For more than 10 years, Cozcacuauhtli volunteered in schools in the Yakima Valley teaching Danza Azteca to students. She also continued attending farm worker rallies and marches.

In addition, Cozcacuauhtli stood up to Canadian Mounties in defense of water protectors; supported successful protests against the Jordan Cove pipeline that threatened waterways and wildlife habitat in the Oregon Coast Range and on the Southern Oregon Coast; and supported the Atsa Koodakuh wyh Nuwu defending Thacker Pass/Peehee mu’huh in Nevada from lithium mining that will destroy sacred sites and burial grounds of Paiute and Shoshone tribes and threatens water, air, and endangered wildlife in that area.

In Portland for the last two years, Cozcacuauhtli has filmed and supported those protesting ICE atrocities against Indigenous peoples including those who died in Oregon and Washington jails and prisons, the more than 1,000 Indigenous children dragged from their parents’ arms at the border who still haven’t been returned to their families, and missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIW).

For this, she has been beaten, pepper-sprayed, tear-gassed, tackled, punched, and repeatedly arrested. She has sustained multiple traumatic brain injuries, additional nerve damage to her injured leg, contusions, abrasions, and other serious injuries. City, county, and federal law enforcement caged her in a filthy Multnomah County jail (walls and floors covered in feces) and ICE holding cells where she was deprived of medical care, food, water, clothing, and sanitary facilities. She witnessed sexual assaults on minors.

On May 31, 2021, Cozcacuauhtli and other Native American protesters hung piñatas and said prayers for Indigenous people murdered and disappeared by ICE. When the federal officers destroyed the sacred prayer altar, Cozcacuauhtli spontaneously began Danza Azteca. In protest. In prayer.

In retribution, after pepper spraying the protesters, ICE officials “tackled me very hard.” One “injured my knee and slammed my head into the road. I was still gagging and coughing from the pepper spray. It made the fed angry so he elbowed the back of my head and then he punched me in the temple and my head hit the asphalt again. He was angry because when I coughed it made it difficult to lock the cuffs.”

Cozcacuauhtli was carried past the gate onto ICE property. Although ICE called an ambulance, her injuries made it difficult for her to communicate with the Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs). An ICE supervisor dismissed the EMTs, claiming Cozcacuauhtli had been drinking and smoking, neither of which was true. “After spending two days in jail with no medical treatment or evaluation I went to the hospital from jail. A CT scan showed a hematoma under my cheekbone. I had a black eye and injuries all over. My knee hurt so bad I thought it was broken but an X-ray showed the screw in the knee from a previous surgery was aggravated by the federal officer’s tackle.”

A federal officer claimed that Cozcacuauhtli “grabbed my baton and took me to the ground.”

She laughs. “I’m 5’4”, 145-pound, 50-year-old, disabled grandma who doesn’t work out. There is no way I took a strong, young, tall dude down! It’s all on video camera, but I’m sure the judge will excuse this Fed’s lie as a mistake and not fraud.”

On February 8, 2022, Cozcacuauhtli is scheduled to appear in federal court on charges of having eyebrows similar to someone, wearing a mask, who was captured on video spray-painting a security camera. All other charges stemming from the May 31, 2021, protest have been dropped because the video evidence didn’t support them.

U.S. Attorney for Oregon, Scott Erik Asphaug, dropped charges of assaulting a federal officer against Cozcacuauhtli “after he saw the fed attacking me for nothing.” Those charges were the sole reason for her arrest and the two days she spent in federal custody. “He dropped the charges, but in order to keep their hooks in me they needed something to replace it with. They went back six months to find video of someone who looks similar to me masked up except eyes and eyebrows spray painting a security camera. It is not me. I have evidence and witnesses it’s not me. I was elsewhere.”

CozcacuauhtliEven though Cozcacuauhtli is a fourth-generation U.S. Citizen, she has been accused by numerous white supremacists and fascists of being an illegal immigrant. “You can’t be any shade of Brown while protesting ICE without your citizenship status publicly questioned,” she stated.

Every time Cozcacuauhtli is charged with a crime, the false accusations are repeatedly broadcast by right-wing media and Mayor Edward Tevis “Ted” Wheeler who objects to the fact that she has never been convicted in the city of Portland. So far, almost all of the charges have been dropped. Many were based on false statements by police officers who are known liars including Ken Le, one of three Portland Police Bureau officers accused of spreading lies about City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty in retaliation for her attempts to hold the PPB accountable for racial injustice and out-of-control use of force. Le has been accused by numerous protesters, and other victims of his lies, of falsifying police reports. In Cozcacuauhtli’s case, she had multiple cameras angles proving Le was lying in order to arrest her. Despite that, Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt persecuted her for more than a year over Le’s false charges.

One week after the president [at the time] retweeted Cozcacuauhtli’s full legal name with her video covering the protests stating “lock these animals up” she was arrested by federal law enforcement for the first time. They have arrested her five times since. She doubts this is a coincidence.

“Hundreds of J6-ers are facing no charges while I sit here going on trial next month for piñatas, candles, balloons, and (MMIW) red dresses. No charges for Shane Kohfield, who stood outside Wheeler’s house with an AR-15 threatening to slaughter us all. And Louis Garrick Fernbaugh was filmed leaving the pipe bomb scene by the protesters he threw bombs at.

“How many right wingers did an armed takeover of [Malheur National Wildlife Refuge] federal property for weeks and they never got charged or successfully prosecuted?” Cozcacuauhtli asks. “The FBI knows who every Indigenous water protector and their cousin is, but they are still searching for hundreds of white males on film assaulting capitol police.”

You. Can. Not. Reform. This.

F.I. GoldhaberLeave a comment

First published on The Big Smoke.
April 19, 2021

On Friday, Portland, Oregon, police murdered an unarmed man who had no home, had expressed a long-time (unfortunately validated) fear of cops, and who may have been experiencing a mental health crisis. They were responding to a call about a different man possibly experiencing a mental health crisis in Lents Park. The cops fired impact munitions at Robert Douglas Delgado’s body and prevented anyone from offering medical attention until seven and a half minutes after police shot him (four minutes after arriving at the scene) almost five full minutes after he finally stopped moving, attacked with chemical weapons those who gathered to mourn the victim and protest his murder, and ate pizza over the corpse which they left lying in the grass for hours while they tried to “find” the gun they claimed was in his hand when they shot him. (Some reports before the fact that they had shot the “wrong” man was released, included the existence of a replica handgun, but cops are known to carry those to drop at a scene when they’ve murdered yet another unarmed person. Three days after the shooting, police produced a photograph of a toy handgun with an orange tip identifying it as fake that they allegedly found at the scene. Audio released at the same time “does not indicate that Delgado had a gun — or replica gun — in his hand at the time he was shot. … none of the officers on the ground say they see a gun in Delgado’s hand before” shooting him.)

This all took place:

  • after police in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, murdered 20-year-old Daunte Wright in front of his girlfriend during a traffic stop and then brutally attacked those who rallied to protest his death and the reporters who covered those protests;
  • before a “trigger happy” cop placed on administrative leave for sexually abusing a child murdered three people in Austin, Texas;
  • during the same week that Chicago police finally released the video showing how many times and how many ways they lied about their murder of 13-year-old Adam Toledo;
  • while Derek Chauvin’s defense attorneys did their best to put his victim, George Floyd, on trial for Floyd’s own murder including smearing him with false overdose theories and other lies.

Image of a black sign with "Defund Brutality" written in white block print over three red fists and the outlines in white of two raised hands.For reference, Brooklyn Center police — who shot at protesters from tanks and continued using tear gas and other “crowd control munitions” after the Brooklyn Center’s city council passed a resolution “banning dangerous crowd-control tactics including the use of rubber bullets, tear gas, and protester kettling” – gained national recognition as a “police reform model” last summer.

In Portland, a federal judge found in February of 2020 that the police department was in “substantial compliance” with a settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice reached after DOJ found officers often used excessive force on people who were experiencing a mental health crisis. Portland recently launched a pilot program in Lents — the Portland Street Response team — which is supposed to answer calls for anyone experiencing a mental health crisis rather than police. The Portland Street Response was not sent to the scene because the caller (possibly a member of a group notorious in Lents for attacking the houseless and which organized a “back the blue” rally the day after the murder) claimed that a man “acting erratically” had a gun. It also should be noted that the murderer, Zachary Delong, has expressed support for Michael Brown’s killer Darren Wilson and that Delong’s boss, East Precinct Commander Erica Hurley, is under investigation by the Secretary of State for violating Oregon law last month. In addition, Portland Police are currently under investigation by the DOJ for brutal attacks on protesters, failing to file use of force reports, and using flawed, possibly unconstitutional logic to clear themselves of alleged misconduct.

All of the above represents just a few of the incidents that occurred in less than a week of egregious police malfeasance and murder in the United States of America.

Over and over again, politicians at federal, state, and municipal levels play the “reform” game. They pass laws, enact codes, and implement policies which police then ignore, fight in court, and/or claim are in violation of their contracts. Most of the time, even if the police obeyed them, the laws/code/policies changes touted by reform politicians won’t even prevent the most egregious violence and brutality that police inflict. The U.S. House of Representatives’ so-called “Floyd Act”, passed March 3rd, “could not have even saved George Floyd’s life” or all those police have murdered since Floyd died, begging for his life, on May 25th, 2020.

Portland is preparing to revive, yet again, the racially biased, ever name changing Gang Enforcement Team (GET) Gun Violence Reduction Team (GVRT) Focused Intervention Team without ever discussing with those who experience and understand the causes of gun violence whether or not this program offers any solutions. “Adding more police is like putting sugar on shit. It makes it taste a little better, but it’s not really changing anything. You may prevent murders, but you won’t stop the problem. You’re just going to have a lot more guys in jail… a lot more families without fathers. Then what?” asks Mike “Bretto” Jackson, former gang member who’s now a hip hop artist and youth mentor.

Meanwhile, using gun violence as an excuse, the agencies that claimed deputizing local law enforcement as federal officers last year was only temporary have announced a “gun violence collaboration” that includes Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt, who ran for office as a progressive reformer. Collaborating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), Portland and Gresham police and the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office “entered into a voluntary agreement … to “deputize a small contingent of local law enforcement officers”.

Because Portland public officials don’t understand, or refuse to acknowledge, that correlation does not equal causation. In reality, gun violence spiked across the country during the pandemic, resulting in overall gun homicides at the highest rate in more than 20 years. “The COVID-19 pandemic worsened many of the underlying conditions that contribute to community gun violence risk — poverty, unemployment, food and housing insecurity, ” according to Nicole Kravitz-Wirtz, who researches violence prevention at the University of California.

One of the centerpieces of reform is the call to require police to wear body cameras. But there has been no reduction in police violence as more and more departments spend millions of dollars incorporating this requirement and citizens with smart phones fill the Internet with videos of egregious police conduct. And we have a multitude of video evidence of police brutally attacking and maiming the thousands of people who gather to protest police behavior, no matter how peaceful.

“Rather than thinking that they ought to be chastened by being caught on tape beating, tear-gassing, and pepper-spraying protesters, perhaps doing all this in full view of the public is the point. They’re not afraid of being filmed, because being filmed simply reinforces the central theme: If you come to protest, an action that explicitly challenges the order and my place in it, this is the consequence,” Patrick Wyman wrote last June. It’s “about sending a message: Try to hold us accountable, and we’ll find you. Whether the violence is real or merely threatened, the goal is public acknowledgement of this order, rooted in racial inequality and the protection of property.”

Mass arrests of protesters across the country are “all about intimidation” of people who vocally oppose police brutality, said Detroit Will Breathe organizer Tristan Taylor. “It says something about the nature of policing when that’s a uniform tactic.” The vast majority of citations and charges against protesters were ultimately dropped, dismissed, or otherwise not filed, but “police response created this whole additional public health crisis that wasn’t something people talked about much, but, in the moment, that was one of the biggest issues we were concerned about,” said Tyler Crawford, the National Lawyers Guild director of mass defense.

Reform is not possible when, as Colin Kaepernick stated in his introduction to a 30-part series demanding abolition, “The central intent of policing is to surveil, terrorize, capture, and kill marginalized populations, specifically Black folks.” He echoes the words of Huey P. Newton, Black Panther Party co-founder, “The police are in our community not to promote our welfare or for our security or our safety, but they are there to contain us, to brutalize us, and murder us.”

Organizations with roots in capturing and punishing Africans who attempted to escape carceral slavery, whose members ignore the law themselves while using it to capture, incarcerate, and kill those who are not white, cis, straight, able-bodied, males — or otherwise do not fit in what their limited worldview defines as citizen — cannot be reformed. They must be abolished.

Legislators Fail at Police Reform

F.I. GoldhaberLeave a comment

First published on The Big Smoke.
January 28, 2021

In response to the massive protests against police brutality and cops murdering BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color), the Oregon State House of Representatives, along with many other jurisdictions, have proposed more than half a dozen bills intended to address the egregiously violent behavior by so-called “peace” officers.

The biggest problem with these types of legislation and/or policies is that they’re built on the false premises that law enforcement officers obey the law and that if they just get more training their innate brutality and already criminal behavior will end. But police officers only enforce laws. They do not obey them.

  • Portland Police Bureau officers repeatedly violated a court order forbidding them from shooting impact munitions at nonviolent protesters. They are still shooting impact munitions at nonviolent protesters. They were instructed by Mayor Edward Tevis “Ted” Wheeler, who is also the Portland Police Commissioner, not to use tear gas. They continue to use tear gas.
  • Seattle Police violated a court order limiting the department’s use of pepper spray and blast balls during Black Lives Matter protests again and again and again.
  • Lethal chokeholds are still used, repeatedly, to kill and incapacitate Black people, including teenagers, even when states pass legislation forbidding them, even when police departments adopt policies prohibiting their use.
  • Police routinely violate department policies to kill and maim civilians, especially BIPOC, and often face minimal, if any, penalties.

Photo shows police in body armor, carrying shields, spraying protesters with chemical weapons.And, these are just a few examples. You cannot reform a historically white supremacist institution by requiring that the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training adopt rules (House Bill 2932) prohibiting police and reserve officers from participating in white supremacist and militant groups and demonstrating overt and explicit expressions of racism. This still allows for surreptitious and cryptic expressions of racism, including racial profiling. Plus, there’s nothing in that bill to keep bullies, domestic violence perpetrators, sexual offenders, murderers, etc. off the police forces where they now serve. Legislation to require psychological screening creates no meaningful change if it does not specify any traits, besides racism, that would prevent someone from being certified as a police officer.

In addition, each and every single one of the bills before the Oregon House Judiciary Subcommittee On Equitable Policing include the words “except” or “unless” (with the exception of HB 2936, which only directs rules to be written and I guarantee those rules will include enough “except” and “unless” to make them toothless).

Cops lie. They are trained to lie. They are legally allowed to lie under some circumstances. And they do so by default. They enjoy lying. They will lie to justify their violations of any legislation passed that includes an “except” or an “unless.” They will memorize those exceptions and will always have their justifications ready, the same way they now claim that children with toy guns, young men with cell phones, and protesters with umbrellas and shields are threatening them. Civilians with no weapons are so menacing, according to police that, despite body armor and guns, cops are always in fear for their lives.

Some of the bills under consideration in Oregon only give lip service to reform. For example, if House Bill 2932 passes “The Oregon Criminal Justice Commission shall establish a statewide database of reports of the use of physical force by peace officers and corrections officers. The database must be searchable and available to the public. The commission shall substitute an individual randomized number for an officer’s certification number” [emphasis mine].

Portland Police discovered this type of freedom from accountability last summer when they removed their badge numbers and names from their uniforms so they could not be identified in the videos showing them beating, shooting, and gassing protesters, throwing them onto the ground, and piling on top of them. What is the point of collecting information about violent officers if they cannot be identified?

Despite the ineffectiveness of the proposed legislation, the Oregon Coalition of Police and Sheriffs and the Portland Police Association (PPA)—the organization representing rank-and-file officers with the Portland Police Bureua (PPB)—opposed the bills, calling them “anti-police” and raising concerns that a database, which does not identify offending officers, could “dangerously” help the public obtain their personal information. Although police routinely invade and/or fire guns into civilians’ homes, often under false pretenses or using erroneous information, there are no documented cases of civilians attacking police in their own homes unless they were already known to each other. Moreover, police routinely plaster photos of those who are arrested but have been neither tried nor convicted of a crime all over the Internet and social media and often list those individual’s birthdates, ages, and sometimes even addresses.

And then, of course, there is House Bill 2943 which will make it even more difficult to discipline repeat offenders, police officers who even prosecutors do not trust to give unbiased or honest testimony. By not allowing departments to use evidence that law enforcement officers cannot be trusted, HB 2943 protects those offending officers from disciplinary actions when they kill, maim, and otherwise brutalize civilians.

Even though they won’t acknowledge it, legislators know the police are murderous bullies and abusers. Otherwise, there would be no need for House Bill 2931 which requires that someone who arrests another person “ensure arrested person receives medical assessment”. If cops had any morals, if they cared one whit about the people they claim to “serve and protect” that bill would be considered a waste of paper and time. But it is necessary. Because the same police who run crying to seek medical attention when they bruise their knuckles beating up a “suspect” or pull a muscle dragging someone across the pavement, routinely keep those they have critically injured in handcuffs, block medics from helping police brutality victims, and book people into jail with broken bones, severe contusions, concussions, cuts, and more serious injuries.

As someone who has studied and written about police brutality and the militarization of police across the country for decades, I maintain that abolishing police departments as they currently exist is the only way to “reform” the police. There is no way to reform a culture that finds mowing people down with Sports Utility Vehicles,* running bicycles* over people in the street, shooting men in the back,* slamming teenagers* onto concrete, etc. acceptable. [*Content Warning: extreme police violence.]

Unlike how they are portrayed in television and movies, real life cops do not prevent or solve crimes. They show up after a “crime” has been committed, ask for the public’s help and/or tap into your business/personal surveillance video to figure out who did it, and then lie to get confessions/convictions. And, much of what they consider “crime” (except that involving bodily harm) was created by laws written to continue slavery based on the wording of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (and have precedence in imprisoning uppity peasantry).

We must start over from the ground up with organizations that are actually designed to protect the safety of all–including BIPOC, LBGTQ+, immigrants, people with disabilities and/or mental illness, those who do not speak English, etc.–rather than brutalize them. Anything less is just an adhesive bandage on a gaping, hemorrhaging, pus-filled wound.

Protesters, Press, Police

F.I. GoldhaberLeave a comment

First published on The Big Smoke.
December 16, 2020

In 1983 — when USA Today began changing the way, and what, newspapers covered as “news”, when Reagan’s deregulation started enabling the consolidation that would become mega media mergers, eventually leaving the U.S. with almost no locally-owned newspapers and television stations — I walked away from newspaper reporting as a career after only six years.

In that short time, I exposed discrepancies in federal loan subsidy application handling, local political manipulation of the federal bidding process, the impact of the Reagan administration’s first major union busting move, a medical clinic’s prescription misuse and inappropriate use of federal funds, a local coal baron’s questionable financial dealings and tax avoidance, and a local agency’s conflict of interest — all while reporting for very small newspapers. My stories resulted in state and federal investigations, tens of thousands of dollars in back taxes paid, contracts terminated, and Flight Service Station siting changes.

But, after a year of watching major metropolitan newspapers, including my own employer, remake themselves in McPaper‘s image, I walked away when my boss demanded I go out and cover a non-event (except on the police scanner), that required invading someone’s privacy. If didn’t, he said he would fire me. I quit.

The story I refused to report is one you have read dozens of times since. One that, instead of condemning the system that created the problems, merely makes you feel sympathy for the victim, or treats them as a hero, or vilifies them for crumbling under the weight of a society that deliberately breaks people.

Over the years, my decision was repeatedly validated as television and newspapers became worse about disrespecting everyone’s privacy, more and more mistakes appeared in print and on the air, and entertainment and celebrity coverage drowned out actual news. Bigger and bigger media conglomerates gobbled up local newspapers and television stations, and most media now is owned by a handful of mega corporations. [see two examples at the end of this article]

Now, we have so-called journalists who believe they’re empowered to invade other people’s lives and private property for their clickbait and sixty seconds of infotainment spotlight. They work for companies with right-wing, racist, misogynist, anti-LGBTQ, anti-immigrant agendas and do not care whose lives they destroy to get their “stories.”

When activists politely ask them not to take a photograph or collect video of an event, they scream about freedom of the press and their First Amendment rights. Except most of them have never, apparently, actually read the First Amendment. Because it doesn’t give them any rights at all to invade other people’s lives and steal their stories. It states that:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press” [emphasis mine]

Nothing requiring anyone talk to the press; no mention of allowing the press to invade private property in order to report on an event. Case law, specifically libel and sunshine laws, allow the press to write about public figures and celebrities without worrying about being sued and require government officials, both elected and appointed, to produce information to the press as representatives of their constituents.

But, if a broadcast “journalist” sticks a microphone in your face or points a camera at you, they are invading your privacy without your consent and if you don’t want to enrich them by sharing your information and/or photograph for their broadcast, you have the right to insist they stop and/or walk away. I have done both. As an author and a business owner, I also have been interviewed more than once by a reporter who took the facts I gave them and inadvertently misinterpreted or deliberately twisted them to meet their own narrative, rather than reporting mine.

Too often, people who have watched television footage of victims sobbing, witnesses sharing details, and families wailing their grief, believe they’re obligated to answer questions in front of a camera. But, footage like that is lazy reporting and rarely includes factual information.

Moreover, police view that footage and use it to target activists who protest police brutality and demand their elected officials stop funding military police forces in urban areas; who fight gentrification and sweeping houseless camps during a pandemic; who stand up against armed Nazis marching in our streets.

White Supremacist terrorist groups like the Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer use video and photographs posted by media to doxx and menace anti-fascist activists and their families with violence, including rape and death threats.

Right-wing “journalists” edit video to remove any mitigating circumstances, such as self defense. Edited video, claiming a “random lone protester fights with multiple proud boys” led to the arrest of a local Black man who defended himself with a knife in Washington D.C., when dozens of out-of-town white Proud Boys surrounded, trapped, and attacked him. It should be noted, that the Proud Boys, who were openly carrying hand and long guns in violation of D.C. laws, had already vandalized black churches, and roaming mobs of them attacked multiple counter-protesters, reporters, and random passersby with fists, chemical spray, weighted gloves, flag poles, and other weapons. But police arrested the Black man and they will use the edited video against him in court.

Those at home, scrutinizing photographs and video on television, websites, and social media, forget that U.S. law requires a presumption of innocence. With broadcast and print media frantically regurgitating inaccurate, deceptive, and outright deceitful police reports, viewers judge someone guilty before they’re tried, sometimes before they’re even charged with a crime, based on seeing often-doctored video.

Invasively filming and photographing people involved, sometimes only peripherally, in news events puts lives in danger. “Any journalist who has embedded with military forces knows there are times you DO NOT take photos,” investigative journalist Robert Evans tweeted recently. “A picture is not worth life.”

When I was a reporter, I was the first to report a national story from a small town newspaper because I worked to develop relationships with sources and to protect them. But, even back then, one of my sources lost his job because his superiors were able to determine, based on our locations and history, that he had to be the person I had spoken with. Today, with all the surveillance tech available to authorities, those who protest police brutality, evictions during winter and a global pandemic, stolen land, and other forms of capitalistic-enforced inequality are in even more danger from an authoritarian government.

At a recent active eviction defense in Portland, The Oregonian complained about being denied access making “it difficult to provide the public with a full account of the ongoing occupation“. This was after the newspaper printed false information, including calling the event an “occupation”. The only other “journalist” quotes routinely endangers protesters by deliberately filming their faces.

In addition to endorsing Portland’s much-hated Mayor Edward Tevis “Ted” Wheeler, The Oregonian, owned by Advance 1, is run by John Maher who also chairs the Portland Business Alliance which heavily funded Wheeler’s election campaign. Urban Housing Development, which purchased the Red House at a foreclosure sale, belongs to the Home Builders Association of Metropolitan Portland (HBA) which is affiliated with the Portland Business Alliance (PBA). HBA and PBA, along with Realtors and developers, also were among the entities behind United for Portland, created in the final months of the mayoral campaign to spend money targeting male voters to discredit Wheeler’s female opponent.

The Oregonian continuously uses language such as “become known as the ‘red house'”. Well, it’s a house. And, it’s red. So people call it the red house — hardly worthy of repeatedly wasting words. The Oregonian also deliberately contrasted the $260,000 the current owner paid at auction in 2018 with the more than $308,000 raised to buy it back via GoFundMe without acknowledging the $20,000 in property taxes also required as part of the proposed agreement, possible legal fees, and the costs of major repairs to the house required after law enforcement deliberately trashed it, including destroying the plumbing fixtures. It faulted the family for failing to pay the mortgage for nearly a year and half without mentioning that they paid the mortgage until it was sold and two different companies demanded payments. Although the family has made it clear how they want to be contacted, The Oregonian called one of the individuals on the phone and then made a big deal about reporting that he hung up, despite the fact that they had specifically asked not to receive phone calls.

Meanwhile, a reporter with KATU, owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, 2 refused to leave the property when asked and kept filming people despite their repeated requests that she not do so. Her camera was knocked from her hand and stomped on to prevent her from further filming. She was injured slightly (although she tried to make it appear worse than it was, including erroneously claiming her hand was broken) when she tried to pull it out from under someone’s foot.

“By treating this like a regular news story you are, inadvertently or not, antagonizing the participants”, an activist who uses the handle @imlaceyimfine, posted in response. “You, and especially your camera, are a threat, whether you believe that to be true or not. The fear your camera inspires in people who have been brutalized and arrested all summer, is very real and in my opinion incredibly valid. Not only are the protesters rightly afraid of retribution, they are also traumatized. Many of them may be triggered by your presence. If you want the story, right or wrong, you need to make allowances for that fact.”

The “reporter” cried (literally) “crocodile tears” on Twitter and demanded the right to invade people’s privacy on private property with signage clearly stating filming was not allowed.

“If you have been following KATU’s limited coverage at the protests or the press conferences, you know they are not capable of telling the entire story,” TeamRaccoonPDX, volunteers who cleans up trash at protest events, noted.

Many of KATU’s reports about the Red House Eviction Defense were inaccurate and/or just a series of quotes from Portland Police Bureau, Multnomah County Sherriff’s Office, and Wheeler. The station played down Wheeler’s and Police Chief Charles Lovell‘s threats against and lies about the family and activists that resulted in racist death threats and attacks by fascists. KATU was among the media breathlessly reporting that the four generations of family fighting to retain ownership of the “infamous ‘Red House'” also own another home.

When an agreement was reached with the city and the barricades protecting the house from police raids were removed Monday, December 14, KATU claimed “those who live in North Portland” — an area that encompasses more than fort-five square miles, 25,883 households, and the University of Portland — were “still concerned” about the few blocks surrounding the house. Sources for this included an “anonymous person” who allegedly lives in “the area” (already defined as North Portland, so, not necessarily anywhere near the Red House) and the Coalition to Save Portland (another entity formed to push Wheeler’s reelection) were still upset about the “occupation”.

During its “coverage”, the station also interviewed another person who doesn’t even live in “the area”, who was upset because some activists legally carried firearms. (This person also complained in that article he was unable to get “the city’s help to get his concealed handgun license”.  Licenses to carry concealed handguns are issued by the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office not the city of Portland.)

These few “complaints” ignored numerous neighbors, including businesses, who supported efforts to fight the gentrification that has driven almost all Black homeowners out of a traditionally (redlined) Black neighborhood as well as efforts by activists protecting the eviction defense area to provide food, clothing, and medical supplies to those in need and to help remove graffiti from local businesses.

Other reporters — who respect their sources and do not film them without consent and/or who edit their video to remove information that can be used to identify, arrest, and doxx someone — had no difficulty providing accurate coverage of the events.

“This Oregonian article is nonsense. I’ve been at Red House nearly everyday since Tuesday. I’ve taken pictures & interviewed people without issue,” tweeted Garrison Davis a young, dedicated, and effective journalist who has covered protests in Portland since they started in May. “You don’t need to film 24/7 to “accurately” report. Write, take notes, it’s in the name, ‘Journal(ism)’.” Unlike reporters who pretend to be objective while working for right-wing media owned by oligarchs, Davis makes no effort to hide which side he sympathizes with.

“It’s not a matter of being objective, it’s really about being transparent,” Andrew DeVigal, chair in journalism innovation and civic engagement at the University of Oregon, told Portland Monthly.

“Not choosing a side, when one side is oppressed, means choosing, through inaction, the side of the oppressor”, freelance journalist Lady Rosie G. Riddle points out. “if you’re not an anti-fascist FIRST and press SECOND, then chances are, you’re helping fascists.” As she and numerous other BIPOC journalists and pundits state repeatedly, “objective journalism upholds white supremacy.”

If you do not believe that statement, compare any mainstream coverage of Portland BIPOC protesters in trying to prevent a local family from losing its home in winter, in the middle of a pandemic, while providing food, clothing, and PPE supplies to any in need, to the coverage a few years ago when heavily armed, out-of-state, anti-government white men took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, threatened local residents and law enforcement, and did major damage, including removing fences and plowing roads in defense of two men who had pleaded guilty to arson further.

1The Oregonian/OregonLive is owned by S.I. Newhouse-founded Advance which also owns Condé Nast (Architectural Digest, Allure,  Ars Technica,  Bon Appétit,  Epicurious, Glamour,  GQ, House & Garden, Teen Vogue, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Vogue, Wired, and more), American City Business Journals (BizEquity, The Business Journals, Bizwomen, etc.), among others and is also among the largest shareholders in Charter Communications, Discovery (HGTV, Food Network, TLC, Animal Planet, Cooking Channel, American Heroes Channel, Now This, Thrillist, to name a few) and Reddit.

2KATU is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group which owns 190 television stations in 88 markets that are affiliated with all major broadcast networks plus 23 regional sports network brands. In May, 2020, it paid the largest civil penalty by a broadcaster, $48 million, to the Federal Communications Commission for violating the FCC’s sponsorship identification rules as part of its attempt to acquire Tribune Media. In addition to slanting its reporting to the right, Sinclair requires talent at its subsidiary stations to spout pro-Trump propaganda and right-wing opinions such as “comparing removal of Confederate statues to destruction of archaeological treasures“.  The Guardian calls it ” the most dangerous US company you’ve never heard of”.

Protests, Politics, Possibilities

F.I. GoldhaberLeave a comment

First published on The Big Smoke.
October 6, 2020

Two-thirds of Portland voters agree Edward Tevis Wheeler is bad for Portland. Businesses blame him for disruptions caused by ongoing protests piled on top of coronavirus closures. Protesters, criticizing him for refusing to control the cops who beat and gas them every night, call for his resignation.  His mayoral campaign appears to be in shambles with his second campaign manager leaving, disclosure and financial rule violations, and a probably illegal $150,000 loan to himself.

Many are convinced there is no way for him to get elected to a second term.

Unless the two remaining candidates split the vote.

Left to right: Teressa Raiford, Sarah Iannarone, Edward Tevis Wheeler
Left to right: Teressa Raiford, Sarah Iannarone, Edward Tevis Wheeler

Although Sarah Iannarone, the only other name appearing on the ballot, won almost three times as many votes as Teressa Raiford in the May primary — enough votes to prevent Wheeler who received one and half times their combined total from winning outright — the world has changed drastically and irrevocably since then

Many activists and voters do not believe any white person is equipped to lead Portland under the current paradigm of police violently attacking protesters against police brutality, and targeting primarily BIPOC for arrest, while the mayor and city commissioners ignore activists‘ demands (even though implementing them could have stopped the nightly demonstrations months ago).

Worse, Iannarone and Raiford could split opposition to Wheeler and give him four more years, which would be a complete and utter disaster for the city.

White people in Portland, including Iannarone, do not understand just how tenuous life in Portland is for Black, Indigenous, and other people of color and how much risk they continue to face as long as the police department is allowed to exist in its current form.

Iannarone loves to tell people she’s antifa and she regularly attends protests. But, she proves she does not understand how deadly life is for people with dark skin and/or who are neurodivergent, not gender conforming, mentally distressed, Queer in public, houseless, etc. by still calling for police reform, reform that

  • has repeatedly been tried and failed
  • cannot work if the city continues to support the outrageous police budgets while cutting funds from every other department
  • allows violent, abusive cops to continue responding to protests (when cops and other racists don’t appear there’s no violence, no one gets hurt)
  • allows reinstatement of cops (if they’re removed at all) after they murder someone
  • still has the city shelling out millions of dollars in civil penalties and for the many lawsuits resulting from police rioting and abuse of citizens over more than four months, while nothing comes out of cops’ pockets
  • allows racist bullies who live elsewhere and have no connection to the community to remain on the force
  • means nothing when there’s always an “unless” that gives police an out for killing people.

Iannarone’s “Comprehensive Plan” for “Rethinking Public Safety” includes such tired tropes as “Portland Police will be required to undergo more de-escalation, implicit bias, and equity training than combat training. … Chokeholds and shooting at moving cars should be immediately banned.”

De-escalation training has been proven not to work. It has been required for police departments across the country to absolutely no effect. The activist who trained San Jose police on diversity and de-escalation, for example, unsuccessfully tried to de-escalate a situation after watching the police shoot rubber bullets directly at the chest of a young girl and at an older woman in close range. They shot him in the testicles in retribution.

Chokeholds have been banned in New York City since 1993, but Eric Garner (among others) is still dead. Chicago banned chokeholds in 2012, but Mia Wright endured one on June 3. New York state lawmakers criminalized the use of chokeholds in June and days later another Black man was choked into unconsciousness.

Minneapolis police were banned from attending “killology” training, where they’re taught pseudoscience about killing people without negative psychological impact. But, the police “union” keeps offering it.

“Portland must cease employing the practices and tools designed for foreign warfare.”

Many of the tactics used by the Portland Police would be considered war crimes if they were used in  a conflict against citizens of another countr. I’m not sure why Iannarone believes that statement addresses outrageous police brutality.

“When police rely on riot control agents, it can affect everyone in a crowd…”

A judge has issued a restraining order against Portland police use of tear gas. They still use it. The mayor ordered them to stop using one kind of tear gas (CS). Portland Police used other chemical agents and worked with federal, state, and county law enforcement so CS gas could be deployed during protests by those agencies.

“Demilitarize the police by ending the bureau’s investment and proliferation of military-style weapons and tactics.”

Defunding police militarization is not enough. The problem is not the riot gear, the gas and pepper spray, or the “less-than-lethal” weapons as much as it is the people wearing/wielding them, people who beat protesters with billy clubs — a traditional weapon dating back to the Pinkerton Detectives hired to break up strikes by busting skulls — because they can and do get away with it. Portland Police vindictively drag people to jail in the middle of a pandemic, on charges the District Attorney has said he will not prosecute, just to punish protesters. Removing their riot gear, or talking away their weapons, would not change that.

A Twitter thread compiled by T. Greg Doucette, a conservative, criminal defense lawyer licensed in North Carolina and Texas, documents more than 950 events of police brutality in the United States over the past four-plus months. It started as a Top Ten list from the first 36 hours of protests after George Floyd’s death. But as police continued to brutally attack protesters against police violence, as people shared what they witnessed and video they recorded with Doucette, the list grew. (The numbers refer to events — he only assigns one number to multiple videos including updates from the same event, that have taken place only in the U.S. and only since May 27. And, he doesn’t post nearly as many as he’s sent. A spreadsheet with all the data collected has more than 2,000 entries as of this writing.)

The thread gives an extensive overview of the wanton, vicious, almost always unprovoked, violence perpetuated across the nation by so-called “officers of the law” on people exercising their First Amendment rights. It makes it clear that cops are bullies. That they enjoy hurting people. That they have absolutely no regard for the law, for their “training”,  or for orders given them by the elected officials, to whom they supposedly report, and the judiciary.

The thread regularly features Portland Police

  • attacking peaceful protesters
  • shooting at people with military-grade weapons, aiming for their heads to cause life-threatening injuries
  • targeting journalists and legal observers despite court orders against doing so
  • harassing, gassing, and shooting at people in their own homes and neighborhoods or people who just happen to be driving/walking/biking in the vicinity of a protest.

You cannot train people like this out of behavior that includes routinely getting away with murdering BIPOC and people suffering from mental illness. You can’t reform organizations (including police “unions“) that condone this behavior and fight any attempts at reform.

Portland is at a crossroads and only an experienced and dedicated BIPOC leader can see the city to the other side.

Black activists do not need or want someone with a white savior complex. They have produced detailed plans to defund the Portland Police Bureau and create actual public safety programs that address long-term, neglected BIPOC needs.

Raiford, who began challenging Wheeler during his first year in office, has actively worked against police brutality and overreach for more than a decade. As a fourth-generation Black Portlander, she is only too familiar with police abuse and has fought for police accountability for much of her life. She founded Don’t Shoot PDX, a non-profit which researched the threats that riot control agents pose to health and the environment and filed the class-action lawsuit which resulted in the court ordering police not to use tear gas. Don’t Shoot PDX, whose website was selected for inclusion in the Library of Congress collection of materials related to anti-racism work in the U.S., also addresses housing issues, provides mutual aid, and implements art, education, and civic participation to create social change, and more.

But back in May, before Floyd’s murder triggered nightly protests throughout the city of Portland, Raiford finished third in a field of 19 candidates. And now, she is so busy doing the work on the streets that should be a mayor’s job, she spends no time stumping. The write-in campaign is managed by her staff who speak and advocate for her. The activists who risk injury, arrest, and death from Portland Police, Multnomah County Sheriff Deputies, Oregon State Police, and agents of various federal agencies every night support her, especially those who are BIPOC, abolitionists, and/or anti-capitalists. Iannarone is a white liberal. Like Raiford, the activists are radicals and unlikely to respond to polls, especially ones conducted by Wheeler’s owners supporters, the Portland Business Alliance who hired Amy Rathfelder, his former campaign manager, as Government Affairs Director and consistently endorses him.

Iannarone’s refusal to set her own ego aside and transfer her support to Raiford’s candidacy by encouraging voters to write-in Teressa Raiford for mayor, could tip the balance away from removal of a corrupt administration more concerned with property than people. Instead of electing someone with the courage to eliminate the police and re-allocate those funds into social services, by continuing her campaign Iannarone provides Wheeler his one opportunity to stay in office.

If Wheeler is re-elected, or even if by some miracle Iannarone beats him, Portland will be destroyed. Between killer cops; the Proud Boys macing the streets, shooting paintballs, pointing loaded pistols at BIPOC, and firing pistols out of vehicles; boogaloo boys determined to start a race war; and other white supremacists itching for an excuse to murder people of color; (and let’s not forget a global pandemic and massive wildfires caused by climate change that came very close to the city and made it impossible to breathe for a week) Portland will be ripped apart and destroyed. The casualty rate will be horrific.

But if Iannarone helps elect Raiford, she will be seen as a true ally, one who Black voters could support for future office. It won’t stymie her political career, but instead will give her an opportunity to help end systemic racism in this city and maybe even the state and beyond.

DISCLOSURE: I have absolutely no connection to Teressa Raiford or her campaign. I have not been asked to write this piece nor has anyone contributed to the language above. I write as a concerned citizen who has been terrified and terrorized by the path taken by Portland and the U.S. I’m not sure the country is savable. But with the right mayor, Portland might be.

Oregon LEO Favor Racism Over Reform, Again

F.I. GoldhaberLeave a comment

First published on The Big Smoke.
September 29, 2020

A few Proud Boys came to Portland, Oregon, on Saturday, threatening anyone who got in their way. Believing their blustering boasts that thousands would participate in their rally, Oregon Governor Kate Brown signed a state of emergency Executive Order on Friday.

She handed control over “law enforcement coordination” to the Oregon State Police (OSP) and Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO). This was done deliberately to bypass court orders and feeble attempts by elected officials’ to restrain Portland Police. Putting the city cops under OSP and MCSO command, removed the (often-ignored) prohibitions against attacking and arresting the reporters and legal observers who document their violent nightly assaults on protesters.

As part of this, the U.S. Marshals Service deputized 56 Portland Police Bureau (PPB) officers and 22 Multnomah County Sheriff’s Deputies as federal marshals early Saturday morning. This was in addition to approximately 50 Oregon State Police troopers who were deputized in July for one year as part of Brown’s deal with the Trump administration to return the responsibility for beating, gassing, and arresting Black Lives Matter protesters to OSP, MCSO, and PPB, relieving U.S. Marshals, Federal Protective Service, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Homeland Security Investigations, etc.

Racism Over ReformAnointing local officers as federal officials allows federal prosecutors to charge protesters with federal crimes. Most importantly for local cops, federal marshal status allows the U.S. Attorney’s Office to bypass progressive Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt. Elected by more than 75% of voters, Schmidt has a mandate to change the criminal justice system. The resounding defeat of the handpicked successor of previous law-and-order District Attorney Rod Underhill led him to resign five months early in a fit of pique. And Schmidt’s refusal to prosecute protesters for crimes that do not involve violence or property destruction has angered local police.

Also, anyone accused of assaulting a peace officer, a charge frequently made without justification, would now face severely harsher penalties for “assault on a federal officer”. Protesters filmed attempting to cover their faces or protect their heads with their hands are routinely charged with “assaulting” an officer. On Monday, PPB claimed that most of the officers working Saturday night/Sunday morning were on light duty due to “injuries”. As a public defender noted Sunday, “Nearly every time someone I represented was charged w/ assaulting a police officer, the wounds were self-inflicted. Bruised hands. Pulled shoulders. Twisted ankles. When you rush, push, punch, kick, & attack protestors w/ hundreds of other cops, you’re likely going to get hurt.”

Since July, federal charges have already been filed against a number of protesters including four announced on Monday. Despite the executive order expiring early Monday morning, the deputization will remain in effect through the end of the year — until after the election and whatever turmoil follows.

On Saturday, fewer than 200 white supremacists turned out at Delta Park in north Portland. They were armed with AR-15s and other long guns, pistols, paintball guns, bear mace, and shields. They were captured on camera (photographs and video) breaking various laws and ordinances, often in full view of police, including:

  • Smoking in a city park (“No person shall smoke or use tobacco in any form in any place in any Park. For purposes of this policy, smoking and tobacco are defined to include, but are not limited to: bidis, cigarettes, cigarillos, cigars, clove cigarettes, e-cigarettes, nicotine vaporizers, nicotine liquids, hookahs, kreteks, pipes, chew, snuff, smokeless tobacco, and marijuana.”)
  • Drinking alcohol in a city park (“Alcohol is not allowed on park property unless you have applied for and received a permit”. It should be noted that the Proud Boys applied for, and were denied, a permit partially because they significantly overestimated the anticipated number of participants.)
  • Violating the Weapons and Explosives section of Portland’s city code prohibiting the carrying of loaded firearms without a concealed handgun licensed. (“Oregon is one of the few states that does not recognize any other state‘s” concealed carry license. Many of the Proud Boys were from out of state and unlikely to have applied for or received an Oregon license. Police asked about this violation wouldn’t answer questions as to whether police had checked if any of the armed Proud Boys were licensed to carry.)
  • Operating an armed checkpoint preventing people from entering a public park
  • Assaulting at least three journalists including one who is Black and another who is Syrian, injuring at least one, and damaging their equipment; none of those involved in the assaults were arrested (Portland Police claim to be investigating the incident in which the Black journalist was kicked in the head, but took no action at the time. After the incident, Oregon State Police were seen talking and joking with the person who committed assault. The mugger has since been identified by anti-fascists as Samson Steele of Tangent, Oregon, an employee of Pacific Northwest Environmental, LLC in Damascus. No known attempt to arrest Samson has been made.)

No efforts were made to stop or arrest any of the Proud Boys, who were seen “chatting it up with cops”. However, police did prevent anti-fascists from unloading shields, and arrested someone who was helping them, at a Black Lives Matter counter protest.

Meanwhile, more than 2,000 anti-fascists gathered at multiple locations throughout the city for several peaceful counter protests that included speeches, music, mutual aid, food distribution, information sharing, and the 100th protest appearance of the no drama llama.

After only ninety minutes, the Proud Boys left Portland. As night fell, Black Lives Matter activists gathered downtown to continue the ongoing protests against #PoliceBrutality and police murders of numerous Black men and women. While they listened to speeches, Portland Police, still under command of OSP and MCSO, attacked them with a vicious fury that demonstrated raging hatred, suppressed by court orders and city attempts to rein them in.

[Content Warning: many of the following links are to videos that show graphic violence by police.]

After sitting around all day ignoring Proud Boys’ illegal activity, police had lots of energy to chase protesters. Police, who removed even the inscrutable numbers previously providing an almost-useless way to identify them, wore black uniforms with only the words “police” printed on their backs making it impossible to determine which agency they worked for. They:

More than 30 people were arrested, most for nebulous “crimes” which could all be interpreted as attempts to suppress freedom of speech such as disorderly conduct, interfering with a peace officer, resisting arrest, and harassment. Mug shots show many of those arrested with facial injuries, including multiple contusions, swollen lips and eyes, abrasions, and cuts. A number of people required medical attention.

John Rudoff, the 73-year-old photographer police threw to the ground, posted: “…the cops need to understand that an action like this — shoving a guy down on the cement with no warning — can fracture a hip or an arm or a skull, and can be a life-ending or career/mobility-ending move.” I responded on Twitter, “They do understand. They don’t care. They see injury/death as a way to get people off the streets.”

Before Saturday’s events, the governor stated: “Let me be very clear. Those who commit serious, violent acts will be charged, prosecuted and held accountable.” But her only response to the documented, horrific violence committed by Portland Police, Multnomah County Sherriff’s Deputies, and the Oregon State Police on Saturday night was to ask “Superintendent Hampton, Sheriff Reese, and Chief Lovell to review any alleged incidents involving officers from each of their agencies during joint operations last night.” In response, hundreds of Oregonians demanded an independent investigation via Twitter and telephone.

Multiple media outlets, which had filed voluminous reports about the clash that didn’t happen Saturday afternoon, mostly ignored the outrageous violence Saturday night as they have the previous four months of police brutality. At least one outlet regurgitated the standard police lies that projectiles were thrown at officers even though the only “weapons” confiscated from all the protesters arrested were the aforementioned “can of bear spray and a baton”.

Despite numerous reports of police attacking multiple members of the press, to say nothing about the abuse heaped on multitudinous protesters, the Independent Police Review of the Portland City Auditor’s Office which is responsible for “independent, civilian oversight of the Portland Police Bureau”, posted only that “the IPR is aware of video footage circulating on social media that shows an officer grabbing a press photographer and throwing him to the ground during a protest on the night of September 26, 2020. IPR has opened an investigation into this incident“. As one reporter asked, “If a person is grabbed by an officer and thrown to the ground and it’s not caught on camera/doesn’t involve a well-known person, does it get an investigation?”

The “Unified Command” responded to use of force concerns by stating: “Individuals who felt an officer’s action was unjust or excessive, should file a complaint with the officer’s department or review board. Each officer is responsible for following their agency’s use of force policy.” As previously noted, police made sure it was impossible to determine which agency they worked for.

On Monday evening, police continued to drive home the message that there are two sets of laws in Portland: one for white supremacists who support police and the racist in chief, and completely different standards for Black Lives Matter activists and anti-fascists. Despite ignoring much more egregious crimes listed above that Proud Boys committed Saturday, on Monday night/Tuesday morning, police:

  • Violated protesters’ Fourth Amendment rights by searching them and their belongings and seizing  their property
  • Viciously shoved a woman, who may or may not have been involved in the protests (she wasn’t dressed for it) to the ground, and when she regained her feet pushed her, dazed, to the sidewalk
  • Violently arrested multiple people for:

Police were also captured on video collecting rocks to use to support their daily fabricated tales about protesters throwing “projectiles” at them. Today, Portland Police even claimed that “at least 5 officers were sprayed by a chemical irritant“, attempting to imply that protesters had done so, even though multiple reporters had captured them carelessly spraying each other in attempts to injure more protesters.

When asked how to end the protests, one police officer specifically told a homeowner, that the only way they would stop abusing protesters would be “if people liked our trump government a lot more“.

Peaceful Protests

F.I. GoldhaberLeave a comment

First published on The Big Smoke.
September 9, 2020

The white mayor, various other mostly white regional elected officials, the white editorial board of the “local” (actually owned by national media chain) newspaper, and numerous mostly white-owned businesses have called (repeatedly) for an end to the violence on the streets of Portland, Oregon.

They use passive language–“the violence needs to end”, “All of us must take a stance against violence”, “violence has no place in civic engagement and protest”, etc.–while barely giving lip service to Black Lives Matter (ignoring centuries of abuse and police violence and claiming to know what behavior is appropriate for Black people trying to stop the police from killing them) or the First Amendment right “to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

But, nowhere, in any of their documents, editorials, statements, or letters, do any of them acknowledge that, night after night, the primary perpetrators of violence–the people breaking bones, and cracking open peoples’ heads that results in concussions and traumatic brain injuries, and causing other injuries that have put people in the hospital–wear the uniforms and badges of the Portland Police Bureau.

White supremacist groups have come to Portland on several occasions, shooting paint ball guns and mace, threatening people with loaded pistols, and beating people with baseball bats. The police don’t arrest the Fascist group members for felonious assaults committed and recorded on video. Yet night after night, police arrest Black Lives Matter protesters for disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and the ever-popular interfering with a police officer (a nebulous, undefined law that has been interpreted by police as anything from insulting a police officer, which is not actually a crime, to not running away fast enough).

Night after night, any violence that isn’t committed by right-wing “patriots” is inflicted by the Portland Police.

After 59 people were arrested Saturday night/Sunday morning, and after being prevented by the police from reaching their protest goal the evening before, on Tuesday, September 8th, protesters implemented a new tactic. Whenever the police tried to block them, they went somewhere else. They flowed through the streets of downtown Portland, shifting direction and destination.

Police told protesters to stay off the train tracks, while they themselves stood on the train tracks. They told protesters not to block the street, while they themselves blocked the street. Police threatened protesters, via Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD), with “arrest, citation, or crowd control agents, including, but not limited to, tear gas and/or impact weapons.”

But there is no evidence any protesters threw water bottles, plastic pigs, or fruit at police. No one affiliated with the protest set dumpster fires, which have become a protest mascot and have been used as barriers to stop drivers from attempting to run down pedestrians with their vehicles. Presumably aware of the high fire danger, no one even started a small trash fire. No new graffiti was added to government buildings.

Protesters listened to speeches and rap songs excoriating the police and the mayor, chanted, and danced in front of City Hall. Even Mayor Edward Tevis “Tear Gas Ted” Wheeler, who is also the police commissioner, couldn’t have called it anything but a peaceful protest. The police couldn’t justify an “unlawful assembly” or “riot” declaration for which, in the past, they’ve only needed a minuscule excuse, such as a balloon being tossed in their direction.

So, instead, police declared the streets the protesters occupied, and an additional dozen blocks of downtown Portland, closed to pedestrians. And then, as protesters cleared the area, expanded the closure to more than forty blocks.

Police chased and attacked protesters, throwing them violently to the ground; pushed them off the sidewalk they had ordered them to stay on; arrested whoever they could catch including one woman who was legally crossing the street in a crosswalk, with the light, outside the “closed” zone; including one of the Moms for Black Lives who, standing on the sidewalk as instructed, yelled at them for attacking peaceful protesters but refusing to arrest violent white supremacists; and including at least one member of the press despite a restraining order forbidding them from doing so.

For each arrest, four or five police officers tackled and restrained individuals, some weighing less than 100 pounds, who were not resisting in any way and several additional police officers attempted to prevent the press from photographing the violence while repeatedly announcing via LRAD that the arrests were “lawful”. (One normally need not repeatedly state something is “lawful” if it actually is.) Restraining and arresting a person did not stop police from inflicting further damage, including holding one man down and pulling his head up by his hair to spray mace in his face.

The nightly police-written summary, released at 2:51 a.m. Pacific time, that details arrests and invents reasons for them, as usual, contained misleading statements and outright lies.

“A mass gathering blocked streets and Trimet Max tracks in downtown Portland for several hours Tuesday evening.” That statement is only accurate if you identify the “mass gathering” as the Portland Police, because even when protesters moved away from areas as instructed, the police continued to block the streets and the train tracks. It should be noted that on numerous occasions when protesters take to the streets in Portland, they make an effort to allow Max trains, buses, and delivery trucks to pass through unimpeded.

“Targeted arrests were made” is only accurate if you consider “targeted” as anyone they could catch.

“As the group marched in the streets, group members were seen wearing helmets, gas masks, and carrying shields.” So now, apparently, the police interpret efforts made by protesters to protect themselves against further police brutality as intention to commit a criminal act.

As Mac Smiff, Portland activist and Editor-in-Chief of We Out Here, has stated: “We came out here dressed in T-shirts and twirling Hula-Hoops and stuff, and they started gassing us, so we came back with respirators, and they started shooting us, so we came back with vests, and they started aiming for the head, so we started wearing helmets, and now they call us terrorists.”

Eleven arrests were made on charges of interfering with a peace officer, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest (under Oregon law people have the right to defend themselves against unreasonable use of force). One person had an additional charge of attempt escape tacked on.

None of those arrested were charged with vandalism (despite claims in the summary that vandalizing property had occurred), assault, or even littering (despite claims in the summary that projectiles had been thrown). The county District Attorney, Mike Schmidt, has specifically said his office will not press charges for interference with a police officer or disorderly conduct and Oregon courts have ruled that resisting arrest is not a valid charge in and of itself.

The Portland Police have made it very clear that they will not tolerate any form of protest, peaceful or otherwise, that calls out their racism, their violence, and their brutality, nor any calls for eliminating their funding. So, exactly what do officials and media mean when they declare “we ask those who may want to demonstrate to do so peacefully and safely” or “This is not the culture of peaceful protest that Portland knows”?

Federal Troops “Removed” from Portland

F.I. Goldhaber2 Comments

I sent my monthly newsletter out this morning (you get kitty pics if you subscribe) and several recipients responded with questions along the lines of: were the Federal troops removed from Portland? Das Fuhrer (okay, that’s my moniker for him) is threatening to send them to my city and make things here much worse.

The answer is yes, no, and it doesn’t really matter.

Yes: the governor and the mayor made a big show of “negotiating” (Why would you “negotiate” with a dictator illegally using an armed force created under a piece of probably, but never-tested, unconstitutional legislation as his own, personal police?) to get the Feds “out” of Portland.

No: Although they haven’t come out and attacked protesters recently, we know at least 120 Feds are still stationed in the Portland area (although we don’t know precisely where) and they’re still kidnaping people off the streets in unmarked rental vehicle (boycott Enterprise).

It doesn’t really matter: Why? Because for five weeks before the Feds got here and ever since they “left”, the Portland Police have beaten, gassed, shot “less-than-lethal” bullets at protesters, and violently “arrested” them.

The only real differences is a) the Portland Police are required to “declare a riot” before they start shooting (something they never did before the temporary restraining order, something they do without any justification every since). Sometimes they remember to do so beforehand. Sometimes, like last night, they do it mid volley.

And b) the Feds seemed to have more tear gas to use, so they filled city streets, the parks, and nearby buildings with what was an horrific amount compared to what the cops use.

It should be noted, we do not know the long-term impact of being attacked with tear gas every night, although we do know that female-bodied persons have had their menstrual cycles screwed up.

Also, both the Feds and the cops are using expired munitions — protesters and reporters have found canisters with expiration dates that passed as long ago as 20 years ago — and we don’t know what the impact of those are, although we do know that expired CS gas produces cyanide gas, among other things.

We also do not know what the long-term environmental impact of prolonged tear gas exposure for trees, other plants, and the river will be.

But, every single thing the national media reported, and local elected officials berated, the Feds for doing, the local cops had been doing for weeks before the Feds got here and are still doing nightly, now. Haven’t heard a peep out of the elected officials (including the mayor, to whom the cops report, who made a big deal about showing up when the Feds were here and hasn’t been seen since). National media (and many of the white protesters) went home.

But the protests against police violence are still met with police brutality. (Again, it should be noted that on those few nights the police stay inside there is no violence. There is no riot, because the only rioting that’s been done in Portland has been police and Feds violently attacking protesters who are practicing their First Amendment right “to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

But the reason the protesters took to the streets (some Black, Indigenous, and Latiné protesters as early as 72 days ago), the reasons there are hundreds, sometimes thousands, of them in the streets every night, haven’t changed. Police routinely lie, violate the law, and ignore court-ordered restrictions, their own policies, and the demands of elected officials to whom they allegedly report. I saw at least three restraining orders, specific orders from an elected official, and several state laws broken by police just last night. (And, that was only one night’s observation, this happens every time the police venture out into the street.)

Cops break the law and any attempts to restrict or reform them with impunity because they have “qualified immunity” and will never face any consequences and because their “union” aka, in this case, the Portland Police Association (a private organization the headquarters of which the police attacked protesters to “protect” last night), will get them their jobs and pay back. They can’t even be bothered to obey orders to wear masks and we know there are infected employees of the Portland Police and Multnomah County carceral system (we just don’t know how many). If you watch the protests you’ll see most of the protesters wearing face coverings. Almost none of the cops do (their riot face shields do not protect against virus transmission).

And, if you think this isn’t already happening in your city, you’re either consuming the wrong media or aren’t blessed with the brave, independent journalists who risk injury, death, and arrest every night to report the truth about what’s happening in the streets of Portland. Because every report you read from Portland that was not written by one of those local journalists, was at best inaccurate and at worst outright copaganda.

The media in this country are owned (yes, even your “local” newspaper and television stations, look it up) by megacorps who benefit from GOP tax cuts and who are part of the cabal behind the Astroturf movement to “reopen” the U.S. They slant stories to meet their own agendas. And they won’t pay for journalists to do actual reporting so they regurgitate the lies that fill self-serving police press releases.

Many of our local journalists are working for tips (portlandpresscorps.com points you to where they can be tipped, but also to their Twitter handles so you can see some of the reports/video they’re producing). Reports that originated from other so-called “local” media (the local television stations and the Oregonian, specifically) are suspect.

Although Portland features prominently, you can probably find at least one example of police brutality where you live on this Twitter thread.

The first weekend of nationwide protests against the police who murdered George Floyd, T. Greg Doucette, a #NeverTrump 2A conservative who is also an attorney, posted 10 links to police violence videos of the most brutal incidents captured during the first 36 hours. But people kept sending them to him. So he kept posting them. And numbering them. Currently, there are more than 800 separate (he groups video from the same incident under the same number) reports of police brutality posted from just the United States, just the people who know to send the videos to him, just the most violent and egregious occurrences.

And, if you’re foolish enough to come on my blog and make noises about protester violence, you and your comments will be blocked for disseminating false information. Vandalism, including graffiti and pulling down monuments to white supremacy, is not violence. Throwing a water bottle in the general direction of police, is not violence (although the video of the Fed pretending to be injured by one that didn’t hit him is hilarious).

“We came out here dressed in T-shirts and twirling Hula-Hoops and stuff, and they started gassing us, so we came back with respirators, and they started shooting us, so we came back with vests, and they started aiming for the
head, so we started wearing helmets, and now they call us terrorists. Who’s escalating this? It’s not us.” — Mac Smiff, Portland, Oregon

Shooting people in the head, beating them with batons, hitting them with tear gas canisters fired at close range, is violence. Throwing them to the ground and kneeling on their neck is violence (and yes, at the protests against police brutality inspired by a man strangled to death by a cop kneeling on his neck, cops are horrifically brutal and have knelt on peoples’ necks). Pulling people’s masks and goggles off to spray mace in their face is violence. Throwing people in jail overnight in the middle of a pandemic when correction officers refuse to obey the governor’s orders regarding sanitation, knowing the bogus charges are going to be tossed, is violence. Lasers do not “blind” people. “Less-than-lethal” bullets fired directly at peoples’ heads blind people and have cost more than one reporter an eye.

Cops lie. They’re trained to lie. They are legally allowed to lie under some circumstances. And they do so by default. On Monday night, the cops claimed someone threw a “glass bottle” and used it as an excuse to violently attack protesters. But half a dozen independent journalists were streaming. At least three of those journalists, knowing that the “bottle” would be used as an excuse, made a point of asking everyone if anyone had seen anything thrown at the cops before the cops attacked. The only thing that had been thrown at the cops was an inflated pink pig and the only thing that hit was their egos.

Again, this is just one specific example of the constant lies being told by police. Every night, I watch the video. And in the morning, I see the police chief and his minions (and the mayor) lie about what happened. Every .Single. Night

“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” — George Orwell 1984

More Misinformation

F.I. GoldhaberLeave a comment

Even people who are coming out (recently) to the Portland Protests are posting a lot of misinformation. The perspective in this report is interesting. But, the information is accurate only to the extent of the limited view of someone who didn’t show up until the feds did. So, I offer corrections and clarifications from someone who has been paying attention for 62 days (that’s right, today is day 62), not the 25 days since the Feds arrived:

1) The protests are confined to a 2 block radius around the courthouse, and if you’re 4 blocks away, you can’t tell anything has been happening. There is nothing going on outside of that region, and Portland is functioning as normally as the Pandemic will allow. It is not burning, nor is it out of control.

If you’re within a several block radius of the (in)Justice Center/Federal Courthouse you may be aware of the protests because a) the police routinely shut down hundreds of blocks the downtown core meaning if you attempt to leave your home or business you could be arrested; b) people many blocks away report hearing (and being terrified of) the exploding munitions regularly used against the protesters by police and federal agents; c) people (residents and business) outside that two-block radius report their buildings are seriously impacted by teargas and its residue (especially since the Federal government apparently has an unlimited supply and releases obscene amounts every night).

2) The protesters are absolutely peaceful at the Protests that I have been part of, and with the exception of graffiti, are completely within their constitutional rights to protest. The protests involve singing, chanting, and have used “white walls” to block whites who are trying to disrupt or corrupt the protests. Yes, cursing is rather commonplace. More than ½ of the protesters are white. All are protesting for Black Lives Matter, although the entrance of the federal paramilitary force has brought out a lot of people, including myself, who are incensed at the use of unregulated federal force against law abiding citizen and against the will of the state and local governments.

It needs to be understood by those outside Portland (and Oregon) that the reason the protesters appear to be mostly white is because Oregon has only a very small percentage of Black people. However, there are also non-black POC on the front lines every day including Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, and mixed race, white-appearing folks.

3) ALL of the protesters are wearing masks to minimize transmission of CoV-2. However, as at times there are 1000 or more of us, it is hard (though not impossible) to maintain social distancing. When the federal paramilitary force is deployed, it becomes impossible.

Often the protesters will remove their masks when they’re speaking to the group. These are always the photos you see in mainstream media, even though they put them back on when they’re done. However, it’s important to understand that except for gas masks, the majority of law enforcement agents do not wear masks. They also routinely pull masks off protesters to spray chemical agents in their faces. Cops/feds are using tear gas which makes people cough, vomit, and spit — in the middle of a pandemic transmitted through those means. When they arrest protesters, they’re deprived of their masks and taken to a jail which has no sanitation or other means to avoid the virus.

4. The Police responded unprovoked and were brutal, but nothing like the paramilitary force. There is a court order that forbids the police to use teargas. I was not there when it was just the police.

Nothing the federal agents are doing is worse than what the police were doing for more than a month before the feds showed up. The primary difference is court orders required the police to declare a riot (the temporary restraining order stated cops couldn’t use tear gas unless there was a riot, so the cops now routinely claim a riot is in process whether or not anyone is doing anything remotely like “rioting”) and the Feds don’t bother. The police were also required to warn people before firing tear gas which the Feds don’t do. Otherwise, there is no difference in their behavior. People are saying there is a difference because those people didn’t show up to be brutalized by the cops. They didn’t take offense until the Feds arrived. As I stated earlier, the Police were forced by civilian authorities to “warn” before attacking. But their attacks were no less brutal, unwarranted, or capricious.

5. At the protests I have attended, I did not witness any unlawfulness on the part of the protesters. Each time, the federal paramilitary personnel launched an apparently unprovoked attack. There have been no “riots.” The federal paramilitary force has had no training in crowd control, has no oversight, was not invited to Portland by local leadership, does not have any form of identification do not wear name badges, and wears military camo. They are heavily armed with flash-bang grenades, less-lethal bullets, pepper bullets, pepper spray and tear gas. They will pull goggles off of protesters and spray pepper spray into their eyes. They used a baton to beat a US Navy vet, broke his hand and sprayed pepper spray in his eyes because he asked why they weren’t honoring their vow to protect the constitution. During the assault, he stood still and did not resist until blinded by the pepper spray, he turned around and walked away. The “line of mothers” on Sunday was gassed and shot with less-lethal bullets for chanting Black Lives Matter. At least one was pregnant. A protester holding a sign up with both hands was shot in the head with a “non-lethal” bullet and will likely have permanent brain damage. While I have not personally seen this, there are videos of people being kidnapped into unmarked vans by the federal paramilitaries as they left the protests, held for a couple of days, interrogated, then released without charges or explanation. At this time, re-read my first two points. The protests are no threat to Portland and only encompass a 2 block area. They have been peaceful, with graffiti as the only illegal activity. They are well controlled and supported by a cross section of Portlanders. There is no reason for the federal government to be involved, and the excessive force being used appears to be nothing more than a political show of force against US Citizens by the Trump administration.

There have been riots every night. The police have rioted. The federal agents have rioted. The protesters have not rioted. They have been the victims of rioting on the part of “law enforcement” bullies.

All of the weapons listed as being used by the federal agents, also have been used by the police almost every single night until the feds showed up and took over. The police covered their names and hid their badge numbers. The police beat plenty of veterans (including women). But they were Black, Indigenous, and Latiné so the mainstream media didn’t find their stories worthy of coverage. A police “officer” jammed their club into the stomach of a pregnant woman early in the protests. Again, it wasn’t covered because she wasn’t white.

The protester listed as “holding up a sign” who will have permanent brain damage was holding a boom box over his head, not even a sign. He was playing music. But numerous people were shot in the head by police (in Portland and elsewhere around the country) before the Feds showed up.

6. About 3000 protesters showed up last night (July 21); all with masks, very well behaved. Certainly no chaos, no violence on the part of the protesters. I left at 10:30, the paramilitary attacked at 12:30. I spent an hour talking to the medics. They say they are being targeted by the paramilitary personnel. They are often the first to be shot at and tear gassed. When they try to help an injured protester, the paramilitary personnel throw flash-bangs and tear gas at them (they carry gas masks). One of them was beaten, dragged away from the injured person they were treating and arrested. They are from OHSU as well as Portland Fire.

Not only are the medics (and journalists and legal observers) being specifically attacked by police and federal agents, but their supplies are being destroyed. This would be a violation of international law (as would tear gas) if these troops were in another country. Let that sink in. If this were another country the behavior reported would be war crimes. The medics Dr. Roberts spoke with are volunteers from OHSU, but OHSU is not sending them out. Also, they are by no means the only medics on the ground.

7. The Elk statue was taken down by the Police to “protect” it, but the Elk statue was a favorite of the protesters because it was uncontroversial; so they got a blow-up elk and put it where the real statue used to stand. It’s sort of a rallying point.”
This should concern, if not terrify, all of us. This is an unidentified and unaccountable federal police presence attacking American citizens who are not violating any federal laws. This is literally how the “secret police” in other authoritarian regimes began. The comparison to the early stages of Nazi Germany is NOT AN EXAGGERATION anymore.

The Elk statue was taken down by the Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC), not the police, for its protection. Because this is Portland, the Elk statue has its own twitter account as does the “sacred” fence that once surrounded the (in)Justice center and now surrounds the federal courthouse.

We are not in the “early stages of Nazi Germany”. We are well past the early stages and in full on fascism. It may even be too late to stop, because this didn’t start with the federal occupation of Portland. It started with police brutality and violence against Black, Indigenous, and other non-white people across the country.

Silence is complacency. Please share this post. Please spread this information. Please get involved. Do not allow or condone this conduct by our federal government. I don’t care which political party you support, this is an affront to the U.S. Constitution and the founding principals of our nation.

Silence is not complacency it is collaboration and complicity.

And, it’s only an “affront to the U.S. Constitution” now that white people are also victims. Because Black, Indigenous, and other non-white people have been enduring this violence and brutality since before the Constitution was written and the “founding principals (sic) of our nation” are white supremacy, racism, and misogyny, all written into the U.S. Constitution before amended. Make no mistake, the “great again” that the GOP wants to return to is before all those amendments were ratified.