The state of the state right now...

[bladespark]

...is such that I am having borderline panic attacks.

Now was maybe a bad time to start using twitter again? Think I might have to mute #Portland or something. >.<

If you haven't heard, and you might not have, because I haven't seen it on the national news yet, Federal soldiers, potentially mercenaries as well as Homeland Security officers, (same unbadged military as in Lafayette Square) have invaded Portland despite the mayor and governor both saying they do not want them there. They have cited graffiti (I kid you not!) as the evidence that Portland is in such chaos they need to be there, and are grabbing random people off the street and hauling them off, at least some to be blindfolded, driven around for hours, interrogated aggressively, and then just dumped back on the street. In my book it amounts to an undeclared civil war. A state is being attacked by the federal government. The fuck else you call that? I live just south of this cluster fuck. I don't necessarily expect it here, but this is seriously fucking with me. So yeah, not in a great mental space just now.

Comments

[conuly]

Wait, what. WHAT!?

[bladespark]

https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1284109211790712832

[conuly]

What the hell.

[bladespark]

It is one of the most fucked-up bits of fuckery I've seen all year and that's fucking saying something. (My "fuck" knob appears to be turned all the way up right now, sorry.) It doesn't get top billing just because I also just saw video of cops dumping a guy out of a wheelchair, clubbing the guy, and tearing apart the chair, which tops it on the "fucked up" scale but only just.

[conuly]

Is this it? Is this mass uprising time? I wasn't expecting it so soon.

[bladespark]

Hah. If only...

[spoondrift]

I wasn't aware of this before you posted.It's unbelievable, my god.

[erulissedances]

Damn. I used to adore Portland. I visited regularly for several years, and my nephew just moved there a couple of months ago. I'm astonished and so angry at the Federal government for stepping in where they aren't welcome or invited.

- Erulisse (one L)

[sanguinity]

It's been getting some national coverage -- OPB did a story, which got picked up and passed around by at least NPR and Huffington Post.

I live in Portland, btw, and I am so. angry. We didn't ask for them here, we don't want them here, they're not abiding by the local laws and court orders, they're not abiding by national law, either, they're even more violent than the PPB, and they're blatantly engaging in shock-and-intimidation tactics...

Sorry, I'm probably being as bad as twitter right now.

[thewayne]

I want to see squads of football players roaming the streets. 6-12 big guys can stop two unidentified wannabe kidnappers.

[adafrog]

WTF?

[silveradept]

It's probably not going to expand, no, because Portland is where they want to suppress people's rights and make them afraid of ever speaking up against the government at all. Asking with every other place that's been having sustained protest.

Even though they've ashtray shown their contempt for the law, I do hope someone is filing charges against them because of these tactics and their complete refusal to identify themselves or have any markings that would allow for accountability.

I sincerely hope that since these unmarked people are behaving as an occupying paramilitary force, they receive treatment from the citizenry as if they were one.

[bladespark]

https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1284344926092906498
The people doing it have said it will definitely expand.

The ACLU is suing them. https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1284109211790712832

Portlanders are protesting them, which is a bit recursive, but. https://twitter.com/JoAnnPDX/status/1284563440221032448

[silveradept]

Ah, I meant "expand" to mean "to jump to the suburbs" rather than "to be deployed where there are protests", so yes, they will expand to other places, but I wasn't expecting the perimeter to expand outside downtown.

More protests and lawsuits and insistence that this is neither legal nor wanted is good for at least preventing someone from claiming the silent majority is with him.