[WSMDiscuss] [Debate-List] Trump’s Occupation of American Cities Has Begun (Michelle Goldberg) / Federal presence in Portland gives protests new momentum (Gillian Flaccus, Associated Press)

[Jai Sen]

Wednesday, July 22, 2020

Thanks for this comment, Riaz… and for putting what is happening in the US right now in a broader, deeper, and international, perspective, and for joining some of the dots…

And so, if I understand the situation that is now taking shape in the US, we’re talking about the organic rise of the joined-at-the-hip twins : Of both fascism and imperialism - and not to make too fine a point of it, but of white supremacist imperialism.

But in the meanwhile though, there is also the rise of the plebs, and of a now multi-racial plebs…, who are sort of getting in the way, with this as just one arena within the US :

Far from tamping down the unrest, the presence of federal agents on the streets of Portland – and particularly allegations [that] they have whisked people away in unmarked cars without probable cause – has given new momentum and a renewed, laser-sharp focus to protests that had begun to devolve into smaller, chaotic crowds. The use of federal agents against the will of local officials has also set up the potential for a constitutional crisis – and one that could escalate if Mr. Trump sends federal agents elsewhere, as he says he plans to do.

Federal presence in Portland gives protests new momentum

Gillian Flaccus, Associated Press

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/us-politics/article-potential-constitutional-crisis-looms-over-federal-officers-actions/ <https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/us-politics/article-potential-constitutional-crisis-looms-over-federal-officers-actions/>


A federal officer pepper sprays a protester in front of the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse, in Portland, Ore., on July 20, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

Mardy Widman has watched protests against racial injustice unfold in her hometown of Portland, Ore., for more than seven weeks but stayed away because, at age 79, she feared contracting the coronavirus.

But that calculus changed for Ms. Widman when U.S. President Donald Trump sent federal law enforcement agents to the liberal city to quell violent demonstrations – a tactic he’s said he’ll use for other cities. On Monday, a masked Ms. Widman was in the street with more than 1,000 other Portlanders – a far larger crowd than the city had seen in recent days, as it entered its eighth week of nightly protests.

“It’s like a dictatorship,” Ms. Widman, a grandmother of five, said, holding up a sign that read: “Grammy says: Please feds, leave Portland.”

“I mean, that he can pick on our city mostly because of the way we vote and make an example of it for his base is very frightening,” she said.

Far from tamping down the unrest, the presence of federal agents on the streets of Portland – and particularly allegations they have whisked people away in unmarked cars without probable cause – has given new momentum and a renewed, laser-sharp focus to protests that had begun to devolve into smaller, chaotic crowds. The use of federal agents against the will of local officials has also set up the potential for a constitutional crisis – and one that could escalate if Mr. Trump sends federal agents elsewhere, as he says he plans to do.

Federal forces were deployed to Portland in early July, and tensions have grown since then: first, on July 11, when a protester was hospitalized with critical injuries after a U.S. Marshals Service officer struck him in the head with a round of what’s known as less-lethal ammunition.

Then, anger flared again over the weekend after video surfaced of a federal agent hitting a U.S. Navy veteran repeatedly with a baton while another agent sprays him in the face with pepper spray. Principal Deputy Director of the Federal Protective Service Richard Cline said at a news conference Tuesday that the officers were members of the U.S. Marshals, and the Department of Justice inspector general is investigating.

Crowds in Portland had recently numbered fewer than 100 people but swelled to more than 1,000 over the weekend – and they are once again attracting a broader base in a city that’s increasingly unified and outraged.

Federal agents again used force to scatter protesters early Tuesday and deployed tear gas and rubber bullets as some in the crowd banged on the doors of the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse and attempted to pull plywood off the shuttered entryway. The courthouse, which has been a focus of protests, is now covered with graffiti and boarded up, with only thin slits in the plywood to be used as peepholes.

The Portland Police Bureau said in a statement that some protesters lit fires in the street and tried several times to light fires at the courthouse doors.

“It is time for the Trump troops to go home and focus their attention on other activities,” Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, said on MSNBC.

State and local authorities, who didn’t ask for federal help, are awaiting a decision in a state lawsuit that seeks to restrain the federal agents’ actions. State Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said in court papers that masked federal agents have arrested people on the street, far from the courthouse, with no probable cause and whisked them away in unmarked cars.

The federal government also faces another lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal court. In it, The Western States Center, two state representatives and others argue federal agents violated protesters’ 10th Amendment rights because they engaged in police activities that are designated to local and state governments. The Western States Center, based in Portland, helps organize and promote the rights of minority and low-income communities.

On Tuesday, federal agencies defended their agents’ actions in Portland, detailing the tactics they said had been used against them. According to the Justice Department, some in the crowd outside the courthouse this weekend used radio frequency jammers and shot pellet and Airsoft guns to injure officers. The department is also investigating “suspicious devices outside the courthouse that were configured in a way that could have caused serious harm to those in the building,” spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said.

Some of the demonstrators also tried to barricade federal officers inside the courthouse and attempted to set the building on fire, Ms. Kupec said.

In a news conference in Washington, acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said agents have been assaulted with lasers, bats, fireworks, bottles and other weapons and “yet the city of Portland takes little to no action.”

Wolf said the agency has clear authority to protect government property and detain people suspected of threatening personnel or damaging that property. He disputed that unidentified agents have arrested people, noting they have the word “police” on their uniforms and added that DHS officers wear camouflage, as they do when they work on the border.

“These police officers are not storm troopers, they are not Gestapo. That description is offensive,” Mr. Wolf said.

But constitutional law experts said federal officers’ actions are “unprecedented” and a “red flag” in what could become a test case of states’ rights as the Trump administration expands federal policing.

Elsewhere, the Department of Homeland Security said Monday it plans to deploy about 150 of its agents to Chicago to help local law enforcement deal with a spike in crime, according to an official with direct knowledge of the plans who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. The Trump administration also sent more than 100 federal law enforcement officers to Kansas City, Mo., to help quell a rise in violence after the shooting death of a young boy there.

For days after the death of George Floyd – a Black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee into his neck – protests against police brutality and racial injustice in Portland attracted thousands and were largely peaceful, though smaller groups vandalized federal property, local law enforcement buildings, and have clashed violently with local police.

Portland police used tear gas on multiple occasions until a federal court order banned its officers from doing so without declaring a riot. Now, anger is building as federal officers deploy tear gas.

As crowds have swelled again in Portland, most prominent among them now are the Wall of Moms and PDX Dad Pod, self-described parents who have shown up each night since the weekend by the hundreds, wearing yellow T-shirts and bicycle helmets and ski goggles for protection and carrying sunflowers.

Some wielded leaf blowers Monday night to help disperse tear gas as they marched down a major downtown street and joined up with several hundred Black Lives Matter protesters in front of the federal courthouse.

“It’s appalling to me, and it’s a unifying thing. Nobody wants them here,” said Eryn Hoerster, a mother of two children, ages 4 and 8, who was attending her first nighttime protest.

 

SEE VIDEO AT LINK TO ARTICLE

 

Federal law enforcement in military fatigues fired tear gas to disperse protesters in the streets of Portland, Oregon, which local news described as the largest demonstration in over 50 nights of clashes. Reuters 




> On Jul 22, 2020, at 2:47 AM, Ryz Tyb <riaz.tayob at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> This is frightening. Now we wait for ordinary Americans to realise that they are surplus to requirements. 
> Even Madison got it, Imperialism is not possible without tyranny at home. 
> At least we know the Trump Administration is consulting the best legal experts. There is a flavour of Afghanistan to this: John Yoo, He is being consulted on the legal grounds for Feds in the states and the actions he can take.
> And sarcastically, an onshore Guantanamo would be cheaper and easier to manage. 
> But this is also Portland, so they not gonna give up on the pursuit of happiness. Watch out for the name of Trump's fall guy coming soon if Portlandia is successful... 
> 
> 
> On Tue, 21 Jul 2020 at 22:30, Jai Sen <jai.sen at cacim.net <mailto:jai.sen at cacim.net>> wrote:
> Tuesday, July 21, 2020
> 
> Viruses in movement…, The US in movement…, Racism in movement…, Resistance in movement…, Freedoms in movement…,  Power in movement…
> 
> [Further update : Here, further to my posts on July 18 (‘50 Nights of Anti-Racist Protests and Police Violence in Portland (Kevin Zeese, Popular Resistance) / Federal Agents Unleash Militarized Crackdown on Portland (New York Times)’, and then ‘To End 'Unconstitutional Nightmare', ACLU Sues Trump Administration Over Use of Secret Police in Portland (Common Dreams)) is an opinion piece in the New York Times yesterday…
> 
> [This – the  photograph below - is US America today; the Green light is on for crossing the road is on, and this is Empire, now turning humanoids on its own people :
> 
> Trump’s Occupation of American Cities Has Begun
> 
> Protesters are being snatched from the streets without warrants. Can we call it fascism yet ?
> 
> Michelle Goldberg <https://www.nytimes.com/by/michelle-goldberg>
> 
> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/20/opinion/portland-protests-trump.html?referringSource=articleShare <https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/20/opinion/portland-protests-trump.html?referringSource=articleShare>
> 
> 
> Federal agents confronting Black Lives Matter protesters in Portland, Ore., on Monday. (Credit...Noah Berger/Associated Press)
> 
> 
> 
> The month after Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Yale historian Timothy Snyder published the best-selling book “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century.” It was part of a small flood of titles meant to help Americans find their bearings as the new president laid siege to liberal democracy.
> 
> One of Snyder’s lessons was, “Be wary of paramilitaries.” He wrote, “When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the end has come.” In 2017, the idea of unidentified agents in camouflage snatching leftists off the streets without warrants might have seemed like a febrile Resistance fantasy. Now it’s happening.
> 
> According to a lawsuit <http://opb-imgserve-production.s3-website-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/original/ag_rosenblum_xxxx_updated_complaint_1595086491349.pdf> filed by Oregon’s attorney general, Ellen Rosenblum, on Friday, federal agents “have been using unmarked vehicles to drive around downtown Portland, detain protesters, and place them into the officers’ unmarked vehicles” since at least last Tuesday. The protesters are neither arrested nor told why they’re being held.
> 
> There’s no way to know the affiliation of all the agents — they’ve been wearing military fatigues with patches that just say “Police” — but The Times reported that some of them are part of a specialized Border Patrol group <https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/us/portland-protests.html> “that normally is tasked with investigating drug smuggling organizations.”
> 
> The Trump administration has announced that it intends to send a similar force to other cities <https://www.motherjones.com/anti-racism-police-protest/2020/07/trump-border-patrol-cities-portland-chicago/>; on Monday, The Chicago Tribune reported <https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/criminal-justice/ct-chicago-police-dhs-deployment-20200720-dftu5ychwbcxtg4ltarh5qnwma-story.html> on plans to deploy about 150 federal agents to Chicago. “I don’t need invitations by the state,” Chad Wolf, acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said on Fox News <https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1285224329878306817?s=20> Monday, adding, “We’re going to do that whether they like us there or not.”
> 
> Portland Protests
> Photos of clashes with federal forces <https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/21/us/portland-photos-protests.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article>
> In Portland, we see what such an occupation looks like. Oregon Public Broadcasting reported on 29-year-old Mark Pettibone <https://www.opb.org/news/article/federal-law-enforcement-unmarked-vehicles-portland-protesters/>, who early last Wednesday was grabbed off the street by unidentified men, hustled into an unmarked minivan and taken to a holding cell in the federal courthouse. He was eventually released without learning who had abducted him.
> 
> A federal agent shot 26-year-old Donavan La Bella in the head with an impact munition; he was hospitalized and needed reconstructive surgery. In a widely circulated video, a 53-year-old Navy veteran was pepper sprayed and beaten <https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/20/christopher-david-portland-protest-video/> after approaching federal agents to ask them about their oaths to the Constitution, leaving him with two broken bones.
> 
> There’s something particularly terrifying in the use of Border Patrol agents against American dissidents. After the attack on protesters <https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/02/us/politics/trump-walk-lafayette-square.html> near the White House last month, the military pushed back on Trump’s attempts to turn it against the citizenry. Police officers in many cities are willing to brutalize demonstrators, but they’re under local control. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, however, is under federal authority, has leadership that’s fanatically devoted <https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-border-patrol-was-primed-for-president-trump> to Trump and is saturated with far-right politics.
> 
> “It doesn’t surprise me that Donald Trump picked C.B.P. to be the ones to go over to Portland and do this,” Representative Joaquin Castro, Democrat of Texas, told me. “It has been a very problematic agency in terms of respecting human rights and in terms of respecting the law.”
> 
> It is true that C.B.P. is not an extragovernmental militia, and so might not fit precisely into Snyder’s “On Tyranny” schema. But when I spoke to Snyder on Monday, he suggested the distinction isn’t that significant. “The state is allowed to use force, but the state is allowed to use force according to rules,” he said. These agents, operating outside their normal roles, are by all appearances behaving lawlessly.
> 
> Snyder pointed out that the history of autocracy offers several examples of border agents being used against regime enemies.
> 
> “This is a classic way that violence happens in authoritarian regimes, whether it’s Franco’s Spain or whether it’s the Russian Empire,” said Snyder. “The people who are getting used to committing violence on the border are then brought in to commit violence against people in the interior.”
> 
>  
> SEE VIDEO AT LINK TO ARTICLE
> 
>  
> When fascism starts to feel normal, we’re all in trouble : “If you’re not scared about fascism in the US, you should be.”
> 
> Castro worries that since the agents are unidentified, far-right groups could easily masquerade as them <https://twitter.com/JoaquinCastrotx/status/1284956181400899585?s=20> to go after their enemies on the left. “It becomes more likely the more that this tactic is used,” he said. “I think it’s unconstitutional and dangerous and heading towards fascism.”
> 
> On Friday, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, tweeted about what’s happening in Portland <https://twitter.com/SpeakerPelosi/status/1284294427654197248?s=20>: “Trump and his storm troopers must be stopped.” She didn’t mention what Congress plans to do to stop them, but the House will soon vote on a homeland security appropriations bill. People outraged about the administration’s police-state tactics should demand, at a minimum, that Congress hold up the department’s funding until those tactics are halted.
> 
> Through the Trump years, there’s been a debate about whether the president’s authoritarianism is tempered by his incompetence. Those who think concern about fascism is overblown can cite several instances when the administration has been beaten back after overreaching. But all too often the White House has persevered, deforming American life until what once seemed like worst-case scenarios become the status quo.
> 
> Trump has already established that his allies, like Michael Flynn and Roger Stone, are above the law. What happens now will tell us how many of us are below it.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ____________________________
> 
> Jai Sen
> 
> Independent researcher, editor; Senior Fellow at the School of International Development and Globalisation Studies at the University of Ottawa
> 
> jai.sen at cacim.net <mailto:jai.sen at cacim.net>
> Now based in New Delhi, India (+91-98189 11325) and in Ottawa, Canada, on unceded and unsurrendered Anishinaabe territory (+1-613-282 2900) 
> 
> CURRENT / RECENT publications :
> 
> Jai Sen, ed, 2018a – The Movements of Movements, Part 2 : Rethinking Our Dance. Ebook and hard copy available at PM Press <http://www.pmpress.org/>
> Jai Sen, ed, 2018b – The Movements of Movements, Part 1 : What Makes Us Move ? (Indian edition). New Delhi : AuthorsUpfront, in collaboration with OpenWord and PM Press.  Hard copy available at MOM1AmazonIN <https://www.amazon.in/dp/9387280101/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1522884070&sr=8-2&keywords=movements+of+movements+jai+sen>, MOM1Flipkart <https://www.flipkart.com/the-movements-of-movements/p/itmf3zg7h79ecpgj?pid=9789387280106&lid=LSTBOK9789387280106NBA1CH&marketplace=FLIPKART&srno=s_1_1&otracker=search&fm=SEARCH&iid=ff35b702-e6a8-4423-b014-16c84f6f0092.9789387280106.SEARCH&ppt=Search%20Page>, and MOM1AUpFront <http://www.authorsupfront.com/movements.htm>
> Jai Sen, ed, 2017 – The Movements of Movements, Part 1 : What Makes Us Move ?.  New Delhi : OpenWord and Oakland, CA : PM Press.  Ebook and hard copy available at PM Press <http://www.pmpress.org/>
> 
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____________________________

Jai Sen

Independent researcher, editor; Senior Fellow at the School of International Development and Globalisation Studies at the University of Ottawa

jai.sen at cacim.net <mailto:jai.sen at cacim.net>
Now based in New Delhi, India (+91-98189 11325) and in Ottawa, Canada, on unceded and unsurrendered Anishinaabe territory (+1-613-282 2900) 

CURRENT / RECENT publications :

Jai Sen, ed, 2018a – The Movements of Movements, Part 2 : Rethinking Our Dance. Ebook and hard copy available at PM Press <http://www.pmpress.org/>
Jai Sen, ed, 2018b – The Movements of Movements, Part 1 : What Makes Us Move ? (Indian edition). New Delhi : AuthorsUpfront, in collaboration with OpenWord and PM Press.  Hard copy available at MOM1AmazonIN <https://www.amazon.in/dp/9387280101/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1522884070&sr=8-2&keywords=movements+of+movements+jai+sen>, MOM1Flipkart <https://www.flipkart.com/the-movements-of-movements/p/itmf3zg7h79ecpgj?pid=9789387280106&lid=LSTBOK9789387280106NBA1CH&marketplace=FLIPKART&srno=s_1_1&otracker=search&fm=SEARCH&iid=ff35b702-e6a8-4423-b014-16c84f6f0092.9789387280106.SEARCH&ppt=Search%20Page>, and MOM1AUpFront <http://www.authorsupfront.com/movements.htm>
Jai Sen, ed, 2017 – The Movements of Movements, Part 1 : What Makes Us Move ?.  New Delhi : OpenWord and Oakland, CA : PM Press.  Ebook and hard copy available at PM Press <http://www.pmpress.org/>
SUBSCRIBE TO World Social Movement Discuss, an open, unmoderated, and self-organising forum on social and political movement at any level (local, national, regional, and global).  To subscribe, simply send an empty email to wsm-discuss-subscribe at lists.openspaceforum.net <mailto:wsm-discuss-subscribe at lists.openspaceforum.net>
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