Tactical urbanism, bicycle rebellion, Right to the City.

Justified Rage In the Streets of Baltimore

Watching the local corporate news feeds and listening to the paid talking heads covering the protests in Baltimore on Saturday, one might be forgiven for thinking blocking traffic and smashing windows was somehow a greater act of violence than Baltimore police murdering Freddie Gray.

This summer America got a much-needed wake up call about why people burn down buildings and smash in franchise chain storefronts. Still though, police continue to murder young black men, and still for-profit media report their pro-government, pro-cop propaganda.

Local CBS WJZ anchor Denise Koch reached a point of near hysteria with her concern for the fans of a baseball game who might be stuck in traffic due to the occupied streets. “It’s important the people of Baltimore remain civilized,” Koch proclaimed over and over.

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The Future Is Finally Here: Hoverboards, Mr. Fusion, and Social Justice

We’re finally here, the year 2015! After a quarter century we’ve finally reached the age of Mattel™ hover boards and Mr. Fushion powered flying cars.

Thank you, Science! Thank you, Zemeckis!

Okay, so maybe anti-gravity and cold fusion was a bit ambitious. The far-off tech of Back to the Future II is sadly nowhere to be found in this year of our Lord. What do we have in our tomorrow world of today? Lots of gadgets that make Star Trek feel a far more accurate indicator of trending tech. With as much as Steve Jobs watched the show, this might have been more self-fulfilling prophecy than prediction.

The endless marketing and manufacture of iPhones and Androids represent a selfish, material side of civilization. On the other hand, these devices have helped chip away at the corporate media monopoly over information. Time was, having the latest tech fix was the premiere selling point. Now, just the idea of staying connected minute by minute to ongoing events and your comrades engaged in them – this has become advertisers’ main focus.

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The America Dream of suburban life was marketed as quite the opposite. The nuclear family was all about getting away from the dirt and diversity of urban life. Generations later, branded isolationism has magnified self-obsession and violent school-shooter types like no other nation on earth. Long dead is the Dream, and the first generation to grow up on the internet is well aware of this fact.

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Shutting Down Streets to Celebrate a #CopFreeChristmas

Last Saturday, dozens of Portlanders took to the streets in opposition to police violence, and in opposition to the idea of police all together. Titled ‘A Cop-Free Christmas’ the event included creative acts of traffic blocking, as well as some equally creative remixed Christmas caroling up and down festive Peacock Lane, a wealthy Portland holiday institution.

Full disclosure: I helped organize this action insofar as I published an event page with an agreed upon time and location. Beyond this, my involvement on the ground was that of documentarian. All decisions about minute by minute direction were up to other individuals. I claim no responsibility for anyone’s actions, nor do I necessarily condone or condemn them.

From the action’s press release, co-written by multiple organizers: “As city leadership continues to fight against police reform, and PPA president Daryl Turner blames protesters for the deaths of two officers in NYC, it is time to continue a series of autonomous escalating actions. Near Ferguson on Christmas Eve, police gunned down another black teenager. This nonstop violence begs the question, what would Christmas without cops look like? What would a WORLD without cops look like? Let’s celebrate the season by marching for a 2015 free from killer cops and racist legal systems. Come envision a future where no family suffers the holidays missing family members lost to police violence.”

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1,000 Mike Browns Take Over Portland’s Downtown: PHOTO ESSAY

Last night saw an amazing local achievement within the justice movement for Ferguson and the supporters of Mike Brown, as well as opponents of police violence and institutionalized racism at large.

Portlanders, like most the world, have watched events unfolding in Ferguson closely. After a grand jury refused to indict Brown’s killer, riots broke out across the nation.

Portland is far too passive for lighting cop cars on fire. Monday night, though, our city did indeed march without the consent of the Portland Police Bureau, albeit briefly and with only about 200 protesters.

It turned out to be but a warmup for Tuesday.

A large rally and sanctioned march was ordained by many elder clergy-members and organizations the police maintain a working relationship with. Some 3,500 people showed up, pensive, but calm. Speakers spoke, most of them over 50. Then we marched, briskly, but predictably, around downtown for something like twenty-five minutes. While several of the organizing groups were rooted in radicalism, this event was ruled by the clergy.

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Portland Police Proudly Display Support for Child-Murderer

In March 1981, Portland police officers grotesquely killed several possums, then threw their dead bodies at a black-owned restaurant in North Portland in a sickening display of violence meant to terrorize a community. That was then. This is now. And nothing’s changed.

In recent days, numerous Portland Police Bureau officers have taken to social media to show their support for killer cop Darren Wilson, who in August executed an unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown. For anyone still believing Portland is somehow different, somehow immune from the racist institution that is law enforcement, here’s your wake up call.

Nobody should be surprised that a ‘Support Darren Wilson‘ Facebook page quickly garnered almost 100,000 followers, or that the bulk of its comments revolve around religious deities protecting killer cops from justice. Nobody should have been surprised that a fundraising effort for Darren Wilson – who has yet to be charged with a crime 100 days after his lethal act – was able to raise over half a million dollars.

But now we see, finally, the extent of hatred and callousness within our own local police force. It’s entirely evident Black Lives don’t matter within the Portland Police Bureau.

Officer Richard Storm also has a history of violating people’s rights and bashing in the faces of people of color. As reported in the Willamette Week, on May 5th, 2011 Officer Storm approached Fausto Brambila-Naranjo for the suspicious activity of “standing in the rain“.

After a verbal exchange and take-down, Storm proceeded to beat Fausto, striking him between “seven to ten times in the face.” Continue reading →

The Last Minute Preparations Before Hurricane Ferguson

The grand jury decision whether to indict killer cop Darren Wilson for the execution of Michael Brown could be mere weeks, or even days away. Almost everyone knows there’ll be no indictment – police officers are rarely disciplined for using deadly force, let alone prosecuted.

Knowing this, law enforcement agencies have begun flaunting new military weapons as residents also prepare: by way of fashioning homemade defensive shields and boarding up windows.

It truly looks as though a hurricane is about to hit Ferguson. That might not be so far from the truth.

This is what police state looks like: where the mere idea of unrest elicits hundreds of police to become even more hostile. Imagine if the reverse were true: if we lived in a world where we were all preparing for the guaranteed trial and likely conviction of a white cop for murdering a black teenager – because such an act was universally considered outrageous.

Corporate media has played a large role in hyping up the “chaos and violence” angle as they always do. The only ‘chaos’ has been some selectively targeted property destruction of mostly franchise chain stores. The only violence in Ferguson has been inflicted by police.

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Welcome to the Public/Private Partnership Totalitarian Police State

Weeks ago when the initial uprising in Ferguson was not yet an international news story, a white person whom I follow on Twitter declared that ‘Nothing like Ferguson has ever happened before‘. My response was one of bafflement. I asked how one could say such a thing. The dialog that followed was less than constructive, to say the least. No conclusion was forthcoming, yet I can’t seem to get their assertion out of my head.

Obviously Twitter is a terrible place for discourse. Without having the time and space to fully understand their point of view, I’m left to ponder a couple different assumptions listed below in regard to what makes Ferguson unique, having ‘never happened before‘ in the mind of this person.

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Liberals and their Love of Law Enforcement

Growing up I’d always thought of being Liberal as a virtue. During the last Bush administration, it was liberals who were anti-war, who marched for peace, who demanded action on global warming, who were the backbone of the struggling labor movement.

With Obama in the white house, being liberal now means making excuses for war, remaining totally silent regarding Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, ignoring Obama’s KXL tar sand pipeline, ignoring Chelsea Manning’s heroism and her decades long prison sentence, shrugging at mention of Edward Snowden’s world-changing sacrifice. Explain to today’s liberal how Obama’s militarization of the border has deported over 2 million migrant workers and refugees fleeing drug cartel violence, and they’ll stare at you blankly.

What concern liberals still have for climate change usually gets channeled into signing online petitions from MoveOn or 350. Rarely do they display solidarity with the people taking direction action against KXL or other devastating extraction operations. Liberals tell us to remain nonviolent during protests, regardless of the violence committed by police, and regardless of the institutional violence committed every day against marginalized communities. The liberal of today is concerned with better bicycle lanes, but not rising rents that soon follow. And why should they? Life’s pretty good with Democrats running the show, as long as you’re a Democrat.

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