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Quote of the Day: How the Left Has Trashed Portland
“Why are Washington and Oregon the home turf of every violent left-wing radical? It seems to be a never-ending cycle of radical lefties burning down Starbucks and moderate lefties upset they can’t get their lattes.” — Milo Yiannopoulos
Portland was once a great little city: clean and neat, full of parks, food trucks that served everything from full Egyptian meals to Salvadoran street food, one of the great Japanese gardens of the world, and of course Powell’s, the U.S.’s largest independent bookstore. The New York Times — enamored of Portland’s urban hipsters, quirky left-wing politics, and, for reasons beyond my understanding, Voodoo Donuts — would run an article on Portland, it seemed every few weeks. To the East Coast sophisticates at The Times, Portland was not only politically correct, but it was also Northwestern cute.
We’ve retained our political correctness but we’ve lost our cuteness. Storefronts are boarded up, bums camp out on the streets, graffiti is everywhere, and trash is strewn on our once clean sidewalks.
The Left has trashed the town. Oregon has a left-wing governor with an authoritarian streak, who has been all too eager, with Covid-19 to back her up, to close up small businesses and restaurants, including outdoor eating areas; which has resulted in deserted storefronts and thousands out of work. Closer to home, Portland has a spineless left-wing mayor, who did nothing when mobs burned and trashed the city night after night. And of course, Portland has mobs of left-wing jackals, mostly young white males, who form a volatile underclass in Portland and who pretend to be working on behalf of social justice as they trash the city.
At one point, looting and rioting went on for a hundred straight nights. That’s right, over three months straight of nighttime destruction by roving groups of young radicals, who have thrown burning flares through the windows of the Oregon Historical Society and smashed church windows. Nothing is sacred.
Here is what the Left’s desire for peace and justice looks like on the Federal Courthouse
I moved out of the city center before all of this happened. I now live in the Portland suburb of Tigard, and even though I read The Oregonian every morning, stories on the broken and trashed condition of Portland have been so rare that I had no idea that Portland looked the way it does.
My wife Marie, who had recently driven into the city on business, told me the city was a mess. I didn’t believe her. It would have covered thoroughly in The Oregonian, wouldn’t it? So she and I took a drive into the city a few days ago.
We started out walking north along the Willamette River, where we were almost the only walkers on this once popular walk. I looked over to Naito Parkway, which runs parallel to the river, and could see nothing but boarded-up storefronts.
We turned left at the Saturday Market Square and walked up to Fourth Street. The bathroom along the way was boarded up. The walk south on Fourth Street was depressing. Something like seventy-five percent of the storefronts were boarded up. There was trash on the sidewalks, graffiti on the plywood. A couple of the food trucks were open but they had no customers. The entrance to Portland’s upscale downtown mall was boarded up, as you see below.
There were encampments of tents, along with their trash, on sidewalks, in alcoves, under bridges, on the slopes that lead to the freeway — anywhere and everywhere. Two statues on the South Park Blocks, Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln have been pulled down off their pedestals and slogans painted on them.
In Chapman Square, there used to be a marvelous statue of a pioneer family. The father, his rifle propped up against a wagon wheel, is pointing out something to his wife and son, perhaps the glorious future that awaits them. Here is that statue:
The woke vandals may have been incensed by the patriarchal nature of the statue, the man’s rifle, or perhaps the Bible in the child’s hand. At any rate, they destroyed part of the pedestal and scrawled some graffiti on the statue. We now have a busted and defaced pedestal to look at. (The vandals sometimes bring sledgehammers with them.)
Below is a couple of Portland’s dimwitted radicals trying to burn the statue pictured above. The statue is bronze, so that didn’t work. The next day the city took down the statue, charred but intact, for safekeeping. The age of the dimwits will pass sooner or later and then the pioneer family can go back up where it belongs.
The biggest story in the history of Portland, the decline of a once livable city into a scary mess, and The Oregonian doesn’t deem it worth their while to go about the city and report and photograph on what has happened. My suspicion is that the story has been largely underreported because it’s the Left that is responsible for the destruction and The Oregonian is accustomed to blaming everything on Trump and his followers. Making too big a deal of the destruction would be like ratting on your lefty buddies.
Here’s more of the new look for Portland. This is the boarded-up Apple store, one block from Courthouse Square.
The left-wing protest/vandalism/looting movement that started with George Floyd has been propped up by lies and hypocrisy. The Portland mayor and city council pretend that rioting is protest. The vandals, who have wrapped themselves in the felicitous language of social justice cliches, pretend that they are improving society as they trash it. And finally, The Oregonian pretends that it is a reputable newspaper.
When Marie and I got back to Tigard after our eye-opening walk around Portland, I saw the scattered Black Lives Matter signs in my white, upper-middle-class neighborhood in a new light. These signs only make sense if a second sign is added: Imbeciles Live Here.
Published in General
Why? Journalism has never been objective, nor fair. It has always been crusading or venal (depending which side is reading it). How did the j-school justify this fantasy?
Happening as we speak in Portland:
Red House controversy.
Especially the small shopkeepers, whose stores are being robbed blind. They are leaving Seattle.
It is worse than that. Due to the equal protection clause, you cannot discriminate enforcement of laws based on economic status. Eventually someone who is not poor is going to get their case dismissed on equal protection grounds – whether by the DA or by some superior court judge who sees the injustice of one set of laws for one group and a different set for another.
Yep. That is part of what makes it so incredibly stupid.
Not for long, the state government will eventually impose this insanity on the rest of the state.
I don’t think there are enough crazies in the rest of Oregon for the government to be able to impose this statewide. I also suspect there are rural areas of the state, where – if the government is stupid enough to try to do so – they will discover that some rural residents believe in the three “S’s”.
The mainstream Left isn’t far behind, and will continue their radicalization and authoritarianism. The red areas will be at the mercy of the state government, and resistance will be punished by criminal prosecution, fines, and the withholding of revenues.
You did read the part about the three “S’s” didn’t you?
Genferei, I’m talking about news stories, not editorials or screeds like mine. That is, news stories have lost their fairness and objectivity.
Of course, it has never been possible to remove all traces of bias in a news story. Language itself has bias baked in. It’s just that the Left has trashed even the ideal of objectivity and fairness.
Lets hope you’re right.
Most cities like the one I live in (Salt Lake City) are left leaning but still sane. I hope these cities take note and don’t fall victim to the fashionable yet destructive policies of the super woke left. Salt Lake City did have some vandalism but in the end we didn’t let these idiots create too much destruction. I pray the rest of our nations cities wise up.
One theory of Soros’ role in all this is that he plans to buy the distressed properties at bargain prices. Why he would do so at his age is another mystery.
Not every news organization has ignored this decline. KOMO did a TV special on Seattle’s decline.
https://hotair.com/archives/john-s-2/2019/03/18/komo-news-seattle-dying-special/
Habit.
They’re hoping they’ll be devoured last.
I see them around faculty homes in Tucson near the U. Many of the homes are beautiful and far out of the range of most black buyers. Sort of “Eat Me Last ” message.
Hey, I’ve been writing posts on Ricochet for over three years, and this post is my PR for Likes: 63 Likes! (Of course, that includes one from my son, who always gives me a Like whether he likes the post or not).
There were some “proposed” billboards on a post a while back, I saved them:
I haven’t lived in Oregon for quite a while, but that sounds like Hillsboro.
Headlines in today’s Oregonian.
Insurers balk at covering Portland businesses
Tourists’ views of Portland turn sharply negative
(No link as they are behind a paywall.)
Kent, you must have studied journalism a really long time ago. I fired my local paper in 1995 because of its news bias. But welcome to the party.
I studied journalism at the U. Of Oregon in 1961.
And it was 61 likes WITHOUT a picture of BOB. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻🎊🎊🎊🎊🎊🎊🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇😎😎😎😎🥳🥳🥳🥳
( I now formally request a picture of Bob to brighten the mood of this all too depressing post🙂)
I watched part of a live stream from Washington DC 6 hours of reactionary counter forces organized and getting going.
Their are consequences for this. @seawriter and I discussed some of them last night in our podcast.
The left starts something and then right refines it makes it better.
Their is a reckoning coming, the left will not see it till its to late.
Our show for those interested.
https://ricochet.com/843301/the-historians-give-their-two-cents/#respond
The summer’s shenanigans and my wife’s newly flexible work situation allowed us to leave Oakland for Calaveras County after 25+ years. We’ve always wanted to retire to the mountains and activated our “retirement housing first” policy.
Now I get to worry about the influx of others from the Bay Area, their politics, amnesia over why they left in the first place and the irresistible desire to change things here. Even the appearance of one “In this house we believe…” sign concerns me.
Still awaiting an actual picture of Bob.
Aardo, you mean I didn’t fool you with the naked mole rat? Ok, here’s a three-second movie of Bob — if it works.
IMG_0432