Arrests And Clashes As Rival Right And Left Rallies Descend On Portland Again

[appalachiablue]

Source: The Guardian

By Jason Wilson, 2.44 EST. Oregon city scene of skirmishes as rightwing protest is countered by larger antifascist gathering.

Police in Portland, Oregon, declared a civil disturbance and made six arrests on Saturday evening as they once again struggled to contain conflict between contending protest groups in the city’s downtown area.

Using fences, barricades and tapes, police kept rightwing and leftwing protests confined to opposite parks for several hours starting from noon. But after the small rightwing group left their rally venue around 4pm, they were pursued through downtown blocks for an hour by a much larger group of antifascist protesters, who had broken from their own rally.

Ensuing confrontations were much less violent than at similar events earlier in the year, but there were a number of skirmishes, and protesters deployed pepper spray, fireworks, smoke bombs and silly string. Police tried to keep up with the groups, and to break up the larger antifascist contingent, but were unable to prevent a number of face-to-face confrontations.

A final standoff around 5pm outside a parking garage ended when police moved in and formed a protective wall around the remnant group of rightwingers, covering their exit. One of the last rightwingers out was Joey Gibson, the leader of the Patriot Prayer movement, whose contentious rallies have taken place in the city for almost two years. Patriot Prayer rallies have frequently culminated in violence, and have consistently drawn large counter-protests.


Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/18/arrests-and-clashes-as-rival-right-and-left-rallies-descend-on-portland-again

---

"Him Too" was the name of the protest rally. Speakers topics included “false rape accusations”; other “Men’s Rights” talking points in response alleged excesses of the #MeToo movement; conspiracy theories involving billionaire philanthropist George Soros; and the role of industrial chemicals in 'emasculating' men. Rightwing attendees numbered 40 and many were closely associated with Joey Gibson and the Patriot Prayer group. A handful of Proud Boys attended.

A counter-protest of leftwing groups appeared under the banner “Survivors are Everywhere”, and focused on victims of sexual assault. Antifascists dressed in "black block" outfits and members of the Portland DSA, Democratic Socialists of America were present. At its largest, the event attracted about 350 people.






Portland Police block antifascists from following members of the Patriot Prayer group.

[wasupaloopa]

1. I was in Portland for a walking relay to the coast. The running part was from Mt Hood to the coast.

Portland had 2500 volunteers to help us on our 129 mile relay in August this year.

I really like Portland and the people there. I wish the demonstrations were somewhere else.

[snort]

2. I think a lot of these assholes are coming down from Vancouver.

[appalachiablue]

4. Understand. This rally was smaller, less aggressive at least. Several

members who were at Charlottesville were pulled by LE recently I think.

Are the protests interfering much with regular weekend activities in Portland?

[CentralMass]

6. The local news suggested avoiding the area where the protest were planned.

These assholes (the antifascists) seem to be responsible for most of the property damage and violence in Portland over the last year or two.

[mr_lebowski]

7. OTOH, they wouldn't be there (presumably) if Fascists weren't gathering to begin with

I have serious doubts about the true nature and provenance of this so-called 'Antifa'. Makes no sense to me that they frequently show up in masks ... Being anti-fascist is being on the side of goodness and right. Depending on the year, hundreds of thousands if not millions of us who hate fascism show up in the streets yearly to protest extreme right-wing policies and actions, and we show our faces, proudly.

Adopting a militant stance and wearing masks and committing property crimes and violence is NOT what our side stands for.

Seems like these Antifa people, if they even are true liberal and not agent provocateurs ... are a buncha asshat punks, generally speaking.

If our democracy totally breaks down at some point, then ... yeah ... we might need to adopt a similar approach on our side ... but right now? They just make our side look bad, IMHO. Even if they are protesting on the 'right side' (i.e. the left side lol).

[xor]

10. They give the trash groups like Patriot Prayer and Proud Boys exactly what they want

Whatever their motives are, they are not helping at all. If they are not agent provocateurs from the right, then I am willing to bet a lot of them do not consider themselves liberal in the sense of how most of us think of liberalism. I don't know if this is a newer thing, or it's always been this way, but I've noticed a lot of what I consider to be far-leftists have an equally dim view of liberals as they have of conservatives. I haven't pushed any of them for en explanation of how they define there term yet, but someday I will have to try to find more reasonable one in the wild to pick their brain to figure out their overall worldview. Maybe there are some folks with direct knowledge here on DU who can explain this and if I am interpreting it correctly.

[7962]

11. They'll blame it on "plants".

Most will never admit that the violence WAS perpetrated by the leftists here. And you are exactly right; the far leftists have no use for a "normal" liberal. And those far leftists do hurt the cause. Because everyone lumps the extremists in with the rest of the party, right and left.

[Farmer-Rick]

14. The so called far left hates the right NOT THE LEFT

They do not hate supposed shy liberals who are afraid to fight back. They just think they are misguided. Especially when shy liberals decide to attack the very people who are on their side like here on DU, right now. The left is way too quick to attack its own. You don't see the right objecting to violence against liberals.

The so called far left really thinks our democracy is about to fall right now. And they think it calls for desperate measures.

No they don't hate liberals who don't fight back. That's the majority of liberals anyway. Do you really think these groups hate everyone because the way you describe it, it's they hate the right and they hate shy liberals....who remains not to hate?

[JonLP24]

32. Some people don't sit posting at DU

Some show up to protests and I'm soaking myself while saying this. I probably deserve it.

[Farmer-Rick]

13. The real assholes are the right wing sexist proudly white power groups

who are trying to force their fascism onto our democracy. No one invited them to come to the most liberal city in Oregon and flap their hate around.

Yeah, just ignore these white power fascist and they will just go away. That's what some on the left have been saying regularly and yet the fascist get stronger and stronger.

How dare people on the left...normal people... fight back. You don't see the anyone on the right objecting to theses hate groups. But seems to me liberal are way too quick to attack their own.

[Coventina]

15. Oh, don't even get me started. I'm a proud supporter of the antifa.

Apparently this generation has completely forgotten that fascists cannot be reasoned with, or converted.

Nazis gotta be punched down, hard.

My grandfather was antifa, and proud of it!

He'd be horrified to see the way fascists are treated with kid gloves now.

[JonLP24]

31. Antifa put Richard Spencer and WS groups on the run

I have heard hating Nazis used to be a bigger thing back in the day.

[CentralMass]

17. Yes the right wingersare assholes. However I live close to Portland and the violent protest has been

largely from the anti-fafa side. The peaceful protesters are not the issue but their cause is has been hijacked by the violent protestors and that is all thst. gets considered.

Starting back in 2016.
(Photos of the arrested are in the article)

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/05/02/526532023/portland-police-arrest-25-saying-a-may-day-rally-devolved-into-riot

"May Day march in Portland, Ore., "devolved into a full-scale riot with random acts of vandalism" by anarchists late Monday, police say. Attacks on police and emergency personnel resulted in 25 arrests.

Molotov cocktails, smoke bombs and other items were thrown at police, according to member station Oregon Public Broadcasting.

"Various fires were set in the street and in garbage cans, a police car was spray-painted and vandalized, and there were attempts to set at least one business on fire," according to Portland Police. "Numerous projectiles were thrown at or launched at police and firefighters including rocks, bottles, ball bearings, fireworks, smoke bombs, and road flares."

Https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2016/11/pearl_district_ne_portland_wak.html
Portland wakes up to damage from anti-Trump riot
"Portland woke up to broken windows, boarded-up businesses and graffiti-marred walls from downtown to the east side in the aftermath of an anti-Trump pr
Portland woke up to broken windows, boarded-up businesses and graffiti-marred walls from downtown to the east side in the aftermath of an anti-Trump protest that turned violent overnight and led to the arrest of more than two dozen people.

Police used pepper balls and flash grenades to try to quell the mob after it snaked from downtown to neighborhoods near the Moda Center, to the Pearl District and back downtown, leaving a swath of vandalism in its wake.

Police Chief Mike Marshman estimated that the damage reached more than $1 million and called for protesters to take a break from demonstrating to allow his force to regroup.

He doesn't want protesters bent on destruction to "hijack" legitimate activists again, he said.

Mayor Charlie Hales was in San Diego during the protest but returned by mid-morning and was out surveying the destruction in Northwest Portland. He called the melee "completely unacceptable."


"I know in Portland we are a community that believes love conquers hate -- let's be that example for the nation," he said in a statement.

In one of the worst-hit areas, Babs Jacobsen explored the damage as light dawned on Northwest Lovejoy Street and said the shouting from the protest woke her up the night before. The unruly demonstrators were "terrifying," she said.

"I woke up crying," said Jacobsen, who lives in the Pearl Court Apartments. "This is our neighborhood. We love our neighborhood."

Nearby, cleanup had begun. Plywood covered broken windows at businesses including a FedEx office, a Chase Bank branch and a Starbucks. Workers pressure-washed graffiti from a ZoomCare location.

Thousands had gathered in Pioneer Courthouse Square for a third consecutive day to protest the election of President-elect Donald Trump. They chanted and marched to the waterfront and then over the Hawthorne Bridge before some of the protesters became destructive.


Police said many demonstrators were "trying to get anarchist groups to stop destroying property" and that "anarchists" were refusing to do so. Demonstrators at many points shouted "peaceful protest."

The unrest led to 25 arrests, police said early Friday. Some protesters hurled bottles, shot fireworks and taunted police in riot gear who blocked streets and told the crowd repeatedly to disperse. The crowd grew to 4,000 people at one point."

[Farmer-Rick]

18. The so called peaceful protests of white supremacist are NOT ever peaceful at all

Their very language advocates rape, violence against women, outlawing of other religions and advocates murder of people of color. They are never peaceful because they call for violence in their very ideology.

"The Anti-Defamation League – a Jewish NGO based in the US which fights antisemitism and all forms of bigotry – found it is common to find men’s rights activism and incel (short for “involuntarily celibate”) language on alt-right message boards."

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/misogyny-white-supremacy-links-alt-right-antidefamation-league-report-incel-a8463611.html

"Misogyny is a key element of the so-called alt-right movement and there is a strong link between men’s rights activism and white supremacy, a report has found. The Anti-Defamation League’s report argues hatred of women is a “dangerous and underestimated component of extremism”. The research – titled When Women are the Enemy: The Intersection of Misogyny and White Supremacy – found the increasingly popular narrative of white men as victims of feminism has been a key driving force behind the misogyny which has become rife in far right movements."

So claim all you want the the right wing has peaceful protests. Their protests are never ever peaceful and their goals are to silence ALL dissent by any means necessary. That is NOT a peaceful protest in my mind. Just because at that one moment they are not murdering or raping does not mean they are peaceful. By pretending they are NOT advocating violence you are giving them legitimacy they do NOT deserve.

[CentralMass]

19. This issue is that a faction of violent protesters on the left are causing property damage and

personal injury in Portland.
Whatever the outher side is does not justify these actions. Ive watched it on the local news for two years now and even had to modify a trip when they were shutting bridges in Portland after the election. They stand by themselves on this. It is not the otherside fault when they broke store front windows burnt and painted and otherwise damage cars and injured people. The right wing groups were not even involved with the post election riots.

[Farmer-Rick]

29. That's NOT what I'm reading in the Guardian and other less biased sources

They say the right wing attacked first and beat up the left wing protesters.

You need to read more diverse news sources because the more accurate sources are clearly saying the right wing started the riots.

[The Liberal Lion]

22. Fuck peaceful protest.

This is war, get used to it.

[CentralMass]

23. You had sane people some who took rheir kids to those protests

that experienced mask wearing thugs breaking store front windows, lighting fires, damaging cars in some cases with people inside after the election.
They were caught on video by the media and by people with cell phones. The Portland Police tried using a light touch and they took adavantage of it.

Sorry I disagree. Either side breaking the law needs to be dealt with by law enforcement.

[The Liberal Lion]

24. I am in no way saying that that they didn't do what you said they did

We can disagree now, but I think very soon you will find the antifa helpful instead of an anathema. Me? I've already accepted them as a vital part of the resistance as I see the act of voting for trump as an act of war against America. All's fair in war, and war is hell. Some eggshells will be broken on the path to total and absolute victory. I'm not a troll, I'm a realist.

[chwaliszewski]

3. I'm just east of Vancouver...

and know there are a lot of these Neaderthugs from outside of Portland and Vancouver. Clark county (SW WA state) keeps reelecting Jaime Herrara-Beutler for House Rep so that should tell you something.

[appalachiablue]

5. #2 agrees on Vancouver

[Initech]

8. Patriot Prayer needs to be flushed down the sewer from which it came.

[Raster]

16. And take their 'proud boys' with them.

[xor]

9. Again. And Again.

Is this like the 50th time? After the videos I've seen of these "battles", I'm convinced both sides are working together to bring about some larger conflict among Americans.

[The Liberal Lion]

21. No, the Antifa is defending us.

It is the right who wants the larger conflict. It is the Antifa standing up to meet the challenge.

[xor]

27. From what I've seen (at least in Portland), I cannot agree with that statement.

I'm sure there are some who are well intentioned, but there is a large number who I don't think are really on our side as liberal who support our liberal democracy.

That being said, the most recent events in Portland seem to be a lot more tame reasonable. I think this a combination of the counter protesters have less tolerance for aggressive behavior from those claiming to be against the right-wing nuts, and also the police seem to be taking a more active role in keeping them separated.

Just to clarify, I don't fear antifa or far-leftist types, but I do fear the rise of the right. And my view on it is that continuing to escalate the aggressiveness against them, then that only feeds groups like patriot prayer and proud boys. To me it comes off as being a strategic blunder to take it to that level, and it plays right into their hands. I don't want things to get to a point where we devolve into a literal civil war because we didn't speak up when a small aggressive minority "on our side" made poor choices that helped lead us down that path.

[The Liberal Lion]

28. I respect your reservations concerning the Antifa

and you are correct, they are not necessarily believers in liberal democracy. Many are anarchist. But can you blame them? Liberal democracy has failed. Liberals (not in the sense of liberal democracy) are failing thruout Europe and America to standup for the leftist ideas we in the general population support, but rather keep drifting to the right. I, personally, still believe in liberal democracy, but I am not opposed to anarchy considering just how badly we here in America and those in Europe have been failed by the half-measures of progressives and liberals in power. Again, I am no troll. I stand with you and other liberals and progressives. However, I will not discount nor criticize the role of the Antifa in the resistance.

[JonLP24]

33. Portland has a racist history

I think things are coming to the surface over there. At least cannabis would be legal in a Portland civil war.

[Maxheader]

12. I know zip about Oregon culture, their politics...

But I wonder why they seem to attract these confrontations?
Is there a particular area of the state these rightwingers come
from? The country? Poor areas of the city's?

[hack89]

25. Oregon has a very racist past - on par with the deep south

But the act would become the first of three “exclusion laws” that shaped the Pacific Northwest, banning any additional black people from coming to Oregon Country. Those laws created what one African American professor calls “a very hostile environment” that has long made Oregon and its largest city, Portland, a stronghold for white supremacists like Jeremy Joseph Christian, the man accused of killing two men and severely wounding another on a light-rail train last month.

Few people are aware of Oregon’s history of blatant racism, including its refusal to ratify the 14th and 15th Amendments of the Constitution.

When Oregon entered the Union in 1859 — it did so as a “whites-only” state. The original state constitution banned slavery, but also excluded nonwhites from living there.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/06/07/when-portland-banned-blacks-oregons-shameful-history-as-an-all-white-state/?utm_term=.11c05fc4a86f

[Wintryjade]

26. I was going to make this point. As liberal as Oregon is, there is a surprising white supremacist

culture and history here.

[The Liberal Lion]

20. I personally think the ANTIFA are the best thing to happen to the left in this country at this time

Last edited Mon Nov 19, 2018, 04:26 PM - Edit history (1)

it is our militant arm, and we of the spineless, weak kneed, chattering class ought to thank gottdamn goodness that they are out there not just talking crap but but standing up to those who would see our demise. Wake the fuck up is what I say THERE IS A GOTTDAMN NAZI IN THE WHITE HOUSE! I personally say thank you to the Antifa, and would tell all of those trashing them in this thread to quit clutching your pearls and to grow a spine. This is war, whether you like it our not. The right winger is your enemy.

[CentralMass]

30. Proud Boys, a fixture at Portland protests, labeled 'extremist group' by FBI

https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2018/11/proud_boys_a_fixture_at_portla.html