God help us for the next couple of weeks
Politics sure has gotten ugly in this country. Beyond ugly, really. I don't think there's a word for what it's become.
Here in Portland, we haven't had any assassination attempts yet, but the other night the black-bloc-heads busted a window at Rene Gonzalez's campaign office. It was the third time that place has been vandalized.
It's really amazing how fast things have come apart in this country. Technology sure has amplified to a dangerous level the hate that was always there.
I suspect the few businesses left downtown will be boarding up anything breakable over the coming weekend. If the avengers of all societal wrongs don't like the outcome of the elections – and I suspect there will be very little to their liking come Election Night – there's no telling what they'll do. And of course, the worthless police force won't step in. Too messy. Been there, done that, we're understaffed don'tcha know, we're busy photographing bullet casings on the sidewalk, yada yada yada.
It's easy to feel helpless. But this Friday, let's at least resurrect what we tried two years ago: a fine suggestion by a good man, my friend Bill McDonald. He wrote:
Look, there are forces in the universe we don't know about. Quantum physics has particles affecting each other across vast amounts of space at exactly the same time. Particles that appear to act differently depending on who's observing them. Particles that are in two places at once. You can't tell me there isn't some heavy shit going on that we don't know about. And somehow these atoms and molecules have formed humans with consciousness but our brains aren't just computers – they're receivers. We're tapped in to forces we can't fully comprehend. You might believe in God or many Gods or no Gods or Allah or any of the other words for it. It doesn't matter. Focus your mind for 5 minutes and ask whatever is out there for help getting through this next week and beyond without all the violence.
Amen. Think about penciling it in for Friday afternoon at 3.
The manor in which the local media reports on this evidence of community degradation only glamorizes it
ReplyDeleteYou have to almost wonder if the smashers of windows are in the pay of 1 or two big buyers that wants to buy up all of downtown for a song once the demolition is complete strategy-wise?
ReplyDeleteThe ultra wealthy make money off the dips and zig-zags after all?
I’m not saying this is a conspiracy or the case but you have to wonder?
As to Jo Ann or Gonzales, can’t decide?
Things are declining snd getting worse regardless of the face cards.
Wouldn’t hurt my feelings if Gonzales is the fall guy in bad times & you kinda know who he’s going to listen to& funding him & what you’re getting with him.
Loose cannon & amateur hour with Hardesty and in a way, between bad to getting worse times (does she control the black bloc, proud boys and zombie RVs flooding into the city to wreck it entirely?) and the police union I’m not sure it’s doing her, us or ideals she supposedly is for any favors to have her in there?
That said, my enemies are for Gonzales (comfortable yuppies, developer weasels, suburbanites, monied divorced dads who probably should be carpet bombed/put to the wall along with interruption of outer ring supplies chains or an Amazon warehouse gulag or the oike snd Flows of capital if black block types really wanted to do something effective?) if all politics is spite & spectacle anymore…
…but whatever, there’s no good option, it’s not up to me alone anyway/what I think doesn’t matter of the face cards, this sucks/stinks?
Unless you’re just waiting in the wings to buy up all of downtown for the really long Hail Mary on the cheap biding your time as it’s destroyed and demolished, then maybe you don’t care all from much at the moment snd this is a good campaign ad for scared average awful American suburban voters/home owners? Fair enough? It checks all those boxes?
Creative writing class mixed in with WTF...
DeleteAntifa is also a noun and they have an objective.
ReplyDeleteBut, I don’t think they’re red or blue
No doubt a lot of frustration that has been brewing for quite a while. When you see the privileged and connected face no serious consequences for crimes (the Biden crime family to name just one), and at the other end street criminals with little punishment either, the tension becomes close to unbearable (likely planned that way).
ReplyDeleteViolence is exactly the reaction they want because it becomes a no-win feedback loop that goes nowhere. Rolling up your sleeves and getting real change is not easy- could be why the youth have been dumbed down, emasculated and barely able to hold down a basic job.
Good lord “Biden Crime Family”??? Lay off the Foxnews for a smidge and ponder where Tucker Carlson’s son in employed and if his pay is commensurate with his experience. Booking your rep employer on daddy’s show is probably worth $120k/yr as a 20 something.
DeleteNice quote from Bill McDonald. I'm sorry to see that he passed away in February, way too young.
ReplyDeletegenuinely don’t know what do do on this one.
ReplyDeleteVote for Gonzales & get in bed with enemies/we know who funds him and who he’ll listen to.
As Jack pointed out, clueless commissioners selected from the city at large get shoved in there & meanwhile the time servers, hacks & entrenched bureaucrats run the city on the take same as they always have, now dodging taxes remotely & maximally parasitically for amplified effect.
Do you hope Hardesty figures some stuff out at age 50+ if she gets back in there on slim margins and it’s at least not *as much* amateur hour? A disorganized in debt person with enemies in key places is a vulnerable one & makes the city/us vulnerable.
Do you shove a new face card in there with limited experience hardly backed by your ‘friends’ as a good sport, but fall guy who maybe will stir up other reactions on the outside or who might be in personal danger further setting precedent that no sane person with something better to do runs?
Looks pretty rotten…
This one’s likely to be a harder decision than the really really really hold the nose/governor or Secretary of State decision…
…might be the choice between getting to vote at all again (even in our largely fake sham democracy we sometimes pretend isn’t 100% that with bad choices hand picked in the first place?) or maybe kinda not really *at all* in practical terms?
I think I’d choose *at all,*even if the choices aren’t likely to get better any time soon, *any* choices seems better than none/totally voting foreclosing a/ *some* future, in practice?
Definite ‘no’ on the charter reform.
Ranked choice I don’t really have a strong or informed opinion for or against like Jack does?
Doubt it’ll help or hurt much if at all, might hurt sometimes, but sometimes it can help idk? Depends on the context?
In a New Hampshire skin/granite flint libertarian 400 person statehouse anti-bureaucratic state? Maybe it’s already borderline tradition/they love doing that crap in NH & ME / New England! Idk that it’d help much, but might not hurt?
You can threaten to rearrange your rankings with all your other older hardened by the climate flinty annoying tax/fee dodging neighbors constantly like a state wide version of the condo board in Seinfeld?
Niiice!
In our little uh, corrupt state, maybe not haha?