This is yet another story among many exposing the ugliness at the heart of the “resistance” and the increasingly fascist American Left…and, as the night follows day, another story that the mainstream news media is attempting to minimize.
Andy Ngo, a conservative journalist and pundit with the emerging online opinion and news website Quillette, attended a Portland, Oregon “Him Too” rally over the weekend. “Him Too” is a counter #MeToo movement that focuses on false rape and sexual assault allegations. It was a small rally, with only a few dozen attending; heck, there are probably only a few dozen non knee-jerk progressives in Portland. The left-wing/Anfifa/Trump Hate mob that showed up as a counter-protest (aka. “organized effort to constrain free speech by intimidation”), however, was much larger.
That group generated masked thugs who attacked Ngo, a recognized anti-Muslim critic, a hate-crime skeptic and a foe of the Antifa itself. Proving his assessment correct, the Antifa beat him and threw what the news media is calling “milkshakes” at him, a description that is literally a lie designed to trivialize what occurred. Several of the missiles were cups full of quick-setting cement, not dairy products. Bloody and battered, Ngo began livestreaming on his phone after the attacks, and could be heard asking a police officer, “Where the hell were all of you?” He was admitted to a local hospital for treatment, and at last report, was still there.
While this was occurring, Portland’s finest did nothing to intervene; the police just watched, even as some of them were struck by eggs thrown by the Antifa and the Left’s counter-protesters threw trash cans, newspaper stands, and patio furniture into the streets. . Portland’s mayor, Ted Wheeler, is also the police commissioner, so media accounts that he cannot be said to have encouraged this dereliction of duty are also partisan, misleading spin.
Wheeler avoided commenting on his police force’s disgraceful performance until yesterday, when he tweeted some insulting boilerplate:
But “we” didn’t stand against the violence, not when a journalist whose political positions are anathema to the hard left views of Wheeler’s city was in the process of being beaten. Note also that the Mayor slyly blames the victim, who, like the group that dared to rally against a popular progressive cause, “incited violence.”
The last two tweets concluded,
How hard is the “real time” decision to stop a mob from beating up a journalist?
You would think that the reaction of journalists, even in a sick age where the news media has firmly chosen to be on the same side as the Antifa, would be overwhelmingly supportive of Andy Ngo. (Actually I wouldn’t think that, because I have decided that placing any trust and faith whatsoever in the current U.S. journalism establishment to act ethically or responsibly is folly. YOU might still expect them to be ethical and professional, however.) But while many journalists, like CNN’s Jake Tapper, expressed outrage, other took the position more or less subtly that Ngo was “asking for it.”
The trend began with the Oregonian’s “Oregon Live,” whose online account of the incident included as its largest paragraph an explanation of what made Ngo “controversial.” This, of course, is irrelevant. CNN’s revolting “media critic” Brian Stelter used the pitifully diplomatic adjective “unacceptable” to describe the attack, and said that “even critics” of Ngo’s work should agree. Oh, even critics of his work, eh, Brian? What a revolutionary sentiment. The correct term for the attack is illegal suppression of free speech, and there should be no equivocation.
The Washington Examiner compiled the disgusting comments of some of the journalists who engaged in “Of course…but” rationalizations for Ngo’s beating. Standing far above his colleagues was progressive journalist Jesse Singal, who wrote in part,
It’s insane that in this, the Year of Our Lord 2019, there is any controversy over whether or not it is acceptable to physically assault a journalist, sending him to the emergency room. But that’s where we are!…The reaction online from a disturbingly big subset of the left was glee, rationalization, or both. Endless memes, endless jokes. Plus a lot of silence from those too scared to weigh in on the apparently controversial question of how one should react to masked vigilantes assaulting a journalist.
This extended pretty high up the progressive hierarchy….Ngo is a conservative journalist whose goal is to document what he claims are the violent excesses of antifa — an argument progressives tend to reject. In the course of filming antifa, which he does regularly, some members of antifa physically assaulted him, and not for the first time, which would certainly seem to lend credence to his claim.
To respond to this with “He was asking for it,” which is what a lot of fairly big-name progressives and leftists did, is insane. Insane!
Insane? I’d say that such behavior is typical and signature significance. It is rich irony that this same weekend the New York Times’ chief leftist troll, Paul Krugman, issued a column arguing that the Republican Party was fascist. “Oh, and isn’t it remarkable how blasé we’ve become about threats of legal persecution and/or physical violence against anyone who criticizes a Republican president?” he writes as part of his brief.
Krugman’s own party and its ideological allies have been engaging in actual violence against conservatives for over three years, as well as harassing, intimidating and abusing supporters of the President and his staff in public places. Trump’s juvenile bluster against critics is indefensible, but for Krugman to highlight verbal threats while ignoring genuine brown-shirt tactics from the end of the political spectrum he calls home is spectacular hypocrisy.
But, again, typical.
Moderate conservative columnist Rod Dreher writes:
What is not a problem — or should not be a problem — is condemning without hesitation or qualification physical assaults on journalists and peaceful protesters. (And yes, I defended the odious white supremacist Richard Spencer when Antifa attacked him, and I condemned CBS when they staged a version of this assault and framed it in a justifying way.) It would have been wrong had this happened to Spencer, but what’s especially galling about the Left’s response (including the silence of the major media) is that Andy Ngo isn’t any kind of white supremacist, or white anything: he’s a gay Vietnamese-American journalist and editor at Quillette who has made a habit of filming Antifa’s violence, and publicizing it in a critical way.
He’s in a Portland hospital with his brain bleeding now, but certain well-known progressives — with Jesse Singal an honorable exception — are saying he deserved it, and other mainstream media figures who were very quick to report on the Covington Catholic non-story remaining restrained, even silent, on the Ngo beating.
It is yet to be seen if this episode will provide any tipping point in the public consciousness. As Draher points out, only Fox and conservative outlets are treating it as a national story. Meanwhile, the Democratic Presidential candidates (except for Andrew Yang, who is a candidate only in his own mind) have signaled their cowardice by remaining silent; after all, their base LIKES to see conservatives beaten and intimidated. Don’t annoy the base! Senator Ted Cruz tweeted,
“To federal law enforcement: investigate & bring legal action against a Mayor who has, for political reasons, ordered his police officers to let citizens be attacked by domestic terrorists.”
Maybe that will get some attention. For a conservative journalist to be viciously attacked by a masked mob in a major Democratic city as the police stand by is res ipsa loquitur for a serious problem for our democracy and a dangerous trend.
One of my favorite ethics quotes comes from the 1966 Western, “The Professionals.” A group of mercenaries has been recruited to oppose an old ally, who has kidnapped their client’s wife. Musing on the shifting loyalties among revolutionaries, explosives expert Bill Dahlworth (Burt Lancaster) says,
“Maybe there’s only one revolution, since the beginning, the good guys against the bad guys. Question is, who are the good guys?”
The jury is still out on Burt’s question. I think its becoming pretty clear who the bad guys are, though. My question is, “How much clearer does it have to be?”
____________________
Sources: The Oregonian, Washington Examiner 1,2, American Conservative,
Ethics Alarms 
Despite EA being the Gold Standard (seen the price of gold, lately?), Quillette is a fragrant lily in a noxious weed-choked Universe!
I have followed Quillette from the beginning, but noted or quoted it in my comments here only twice (I think) because it so often echoed Ethics Alarms arguments, stands or comments. It tends to be readably scholarly – if there is such a thing – without shrieking or pounding the table, though the steam can be seen regularly rising from heads that have obviously had their tops blown off. It doesn’t have the ongoing commenter colloquium that obtains here either — what blog does! — but its think-pieces are well thought out, wide-ranging, and chosen from a great variety of conservative stances. I am talking about the “magazine” rather than the writer because I didn’t want to examine the idea that has been increasingly clouding my brain for the past decade. When I read this, the exact same first thought hit me as at word of 9/11: “Finally!” That’s it. The other shoe dropped. It’s about time! Now we know where we stand. The enemy shows its naked face at last.
The vicious attack on Andy Ngo has been waiting to happen. The police have been waiting for it, waiting to do nothing, knowing they would do nothing to stop it. It had to happen in Portland or Seattle or Austin, Buffalo, St. Louis, Oakland, /Baltimore, Pittsburgh, or D.C. That’s their “go” sign. San Francisco is too complacent. (Besides, it’s had its White Night Riots already.) … I could be wrong, but people living in an snug, smug echo chamber don’t even pay attention to the strangers the gates. It makes me ill. I have “shared” this with my entire contact list – it will be my political “coming out” (and Ethics Alarms ringing) only to the most distant of them.
As I wait to hear from my sis Anna just up the pike in Olympia, please flesh out the ” Now we know where we stand. The enemy shows its naked face at last”?
For the umpteenth time, we have had two countries since Bush v Gore. A Resistance that seeks America becoming something it is not and never was at the expense of the wisdom of the Constitution, a “workers paradise”. The other opposing the revolution they seek.
If the citizens of Oregon can’t critically think their way out of this, they deserve the government they voted in…authoritarian fools.
At some point soon we will likely have to decide whether to find a way separate or fight. The differences are irreconcilable.
As for me, I support avoiding conflict and letting them have the states they have already financially destroyed…California, Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, maybe Minnesota and Oregon too, and probably others I haven’t bothered to research.
Add Connecticut to your list.
“At some point soon we will likely have to decide whether to find a way separate or fight. The differences are irreconcilable.” However, you go on to say, “As for me, I support avoiding conflict and letting them have the states they have already financially destroyed.” Well, which is it? We can’t have it both ways. I do believe that will be the main problem with the coming civil war. People will talk a tough line. but at the end of the day will sit home and do nothing, which will allow for a small group of the extremist on the winning side to subjugate the majority. We are in big trouble.
You are mistaken. Limits to conflict avoidance exist and the timing and tools to address the situation do too.
I don’t want it both ways. It will be one or the other. Not sure I understand your confusion.
The political left is actively bastardizing the concept of civil disobedience and turning it into a weaponized tool.
It’s only a matter of time before the antifa fascists thugs in Oregon cross a pissed off opposition group that is willing and able to use wield rationalizations #2A & #7 to justify putting a serious public beat down on antifa with a well planned urban ambush.
What will the police do when this happens?
What will the media do when this happens?
What will I do when this happens?
As far as I can tell; antifa is currently dependent upon police in areas like Portland Oregon, and other antifa strongholds, to keep average citizens law abiding while the same police allow and enable antifa to rule the streets with their lawless behavior.
This will come to an end, a very bloody end.
They already have. You might want to look up the Proud Boys. Apparently they are the right’s answer to antifa, with a disturbing strain of white male supremacy. They’ve been in many fights with antifa and antifa often comes away the loser, since a good chunk of their membership are skinny beta males who are good at throwing insults, throwing objects, or hitting someone from behind, but are worthless in a stand-up fight with a brawny alpha white guy. Quite often the police in these liberal cities are more interested in stopping them than antifa. Not so in the south, where the Proud Boys have pretty well suppressed them.
Frankly, I have very little problem with them, just as the left has very little problem with antifa. If the cops and other authorities aren’t going to protect ordinary folks, someone else must. I should not fear going to the Salute to America, that I’ll get attacked by a bunch of masked thugs for no reason. That said, this is not a good precedent to set, and this is not a good path to go down. It’s only going to be a matter of time before antifa kicks some poor guy who they knocked down to death, or the Proud Boys introduce some antifa guy’s head forcefully enough to the corner of a dumpster to kill him. What then?
We’ve been over this ground a million times. There is no such thing as good hate vs. bad hate or good rioting vs. bad rioting. There is such a thing as the breakdown of good order, though, and that’s what we’re seeing here.
In Charlottesville, was that bozo who rammed his card into the crowd a member of the Proud Boy? I don’t know for sure. But, I agree with you: Someone is going to get killed by either the idiots in Antifa and the idiots in the Proud Boys.
jvb
In Charlottesville, was that bozo who rammed his card into the crowd a member of the Proud Boy[s]? I don’t know for sure. But, I agree with you: Someone is going to get killed by either the idiots in Antifa and the idiots in the Proud Boys.
Fields seems to have had no contact with any of the various groups that have arisen. He associated himself with a group at that rally called Identity Evropa which is modeled after a European right-leaning identitarian movement. The Proud Boys are something else altogether. They are now modeling themselves quite differently from what they began as, and are working to become less radical and more, if I can put it like this, mainstream.
Those groups (there were 20+ different groups that went to Charlottesville to protest the removal of the monuments) each has a distinct raison d’etre and each one is largely distinct from the other.
That rally is regarded as a public relations failure by almost everyone who was associated with it, but that does not mean (this is my own opinion) that the concerns and values of the different groups that attended do not have value. To the ‘movement’ (the movement that is resisting ‘white replacement’, the war on whiteness, the activism and power-putsch by racial minorities, the dispossession of the majority population of the US) Charlottesville is understood to have been a set-back. But Fields himself had no connection to any group and, as seems to be the case, had pretty severe mental issues.
In the Postwar era there have been various resistance movements to the excessive and extreme liberal régime which has become powerful in the US. In a sense (again, this is my understanding, having researched them) there is something innately or perhaps I might say ‘naturally’ pathological in the movements of reaction that have shown themselves in Europe and the US (over the last 75 years). It is when the body politic is ‘sick’ that the sickness itself manifests itself. It is reaction to ‘social derangement’, and some part of the manifestation of the illness is itself deranged. The essential sickness, or the base cause of sickness, is to be found in the social engineering project that is understood to be ‘white replacement’ or ‘majority dispossession’.
My understanding is that this produces a (natural) pathology in the population that it affects. When in the course of time those in that population (demographic) begin to react, the first agents of it, the first activists, show pathological characteristics. But that is only at the beginning, at least in the best of cases. If they succeed in their activism, they represent ‘getting well’. But if they are attacked and destroyed, they are driven down and underground, like a psychological ailment or a complex. It festers and ‘putresces’ under the surface, both in the body politic and, of course, in the general mind. The other aspect of this is also related to the Postwar: when American Conservatism purged itself of its original core and ‘c***cked-out’ to Standard Liberalism. This too drove the activist sentiments underground, just like psychological complexes.
Interesting position.
It has been reported that the accused is a white supremacist and attempted to kill as many people as possible out of racial animus.
jvb
I think it would be very hard to get to the bottom of what was going on in Field’s mind. Some asserted that he had been chased in his car by Antifa-types (who had baseball bats and acted as Antifa often does, as we have recently witnessed). Some asserted that he got frightened and did not know his way around the city and got trapped.
In fairness he might have had some inclination to the sort of ‘white identitarianism’ which is pretty common all over the Web and in thousands of YouTube vids. It sound like you have not looked into these issues and so you would not know about it. My impression is that Fields really had no particular ideology or, shall I say, intellectual position in an ideology. He was (he is) a disturbed person though, that much is clear.
I do not think anyone — except perhaps his defense team, or his mother? (a disabled woman with quite a burden to carry) — actually can state what his motive was, or how he ended up ramming his car. Was it intentional? Was it because of a fear reaction and stepping on the gas? Did he mean to? It is not clear.
But I do think the liberal reactionary crowd must frame it in its own specific way. It was the means of course by which ‘Charlottesville’ was discredited almost absolutely. Had that car event not happened, it would be seen and viewed differently.
But it does stand to reason that if his intention was as you say, he’d have gotten up speed to 50-60 MPH and not the 20+ MPH he was said to be driving.
In another antifa connection, one of that sort claims to have chased Fields with a rifle shortly before the car incident. I don’t know if this was explored during the trial.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/01/armed-antifa-professor-admits-chasing-charlottesville-driver-rifle-deadly-crash/
I have to suspect that, given Fields mental condition and history, that he would have been treated much less harshly if the incident had occurred in a more mundane setting than that of the politically charged Charlottesville situation. I wonder if he really had adequate legal representation.
I found this, perhaps it interests you: https://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/closing-statements-given-at-james-fields-murder-trial-in-charlottesville/article_0703246b-1bf5-5dd8-b0df-627521acb6b5.html
No longer accused: sentenced to life in prison.
Ah. I haven’t followed the case.
jvb
The local media sure likes to paint the Proud Boys as “alt-right” and “white supremacists” but with little backing of that claim. In this day and age where everyone on the right is regularly lied about in the mainstream media I’m skeptical.
Curiously, their leader is Asian – so at least to be honest we’d have to be a white and Asian supremacist organization?
I’m with Matt. The term “White Supremacist” has been diluted to meaninglessness, and the people who use it have traded in all of their credibility. I haven’t heard of them attacking innocent people, just people who attack innocent people – marking them with a sign of valor. No amount of mere rudeness, if that holds true, would lower them to a position of moral equivalence with the odious Antifas.
Standing against violent criminals is the role of the civil authorities, and those authorities void the social contract, and thereby their own authority, by standing aside and leaving private citizens responsible for filling that void.
What you described as the actions of the Proud Boys is identical to the Guardian Angels that began in the 70’s to provide protection for whites and Blacks in inner cities from ” The Element”.
The Element was the term used by black parents in Baltimore to describe those who are bad influencers. How times have changed.
Be warned, I know very little about these Proud Boys. I’m just saying that the criticisms so far haven’t done much to sway me. Knowing they’re antifa antagonists, on the other hand, curries much favor. For all I know, they’re a Klan spin-off that uses misogynist slogans, litters, and cheats on their taxes.
The Proud Boys here are not led by Joey Gibson. Patriot Prayer is, which is an entirely different group, though often conflated w/ the Proud Boys.
You’re right.
They both get the term “alt-right”, “far-right”, and “white supremacist” label bandied about regularly.
I am uncertain whether to admire or to fear your proto-fascist use of the boldface.
Singal’s piece was actually really good, I especially liked:
“Part of the problem is that relatively big-microphoned enablers on the left have either been ignoring these attacks, or, when the target is unsympathetic, outright defending or laughing about them. Some of this is a sniveling, pathetic defensive move on the part of online-lefty personalities who might not actually be in favor of violence against journalists but can’t afford, brand-wise, to broadcast opposition to it, either. The idea, forged in the mewlingly infantile fires of Twitter, seems to be that if you criticize antifa, someone could accuse you of having fascist sympathies.”
Which I don’t think could have been more on the nose.
If ANY journalists are fair game to stomp into the hospital, ALL will be.
Journalists should have condemned this long and loud. Now it has entered the unethical tit-for-tat realm, where cover can be given when a lefty is treated the same way.
For me, this was foreshadowed long ago – back when supporters of Prop 8 were targeted. See my two Comments of the Day posted on March 28, 2013 and April 9, 2016. I noted in 2013 that the supporters of same-sex marriage were acting like bullies, and the only saving grace was a relative lack of power – power later gained in the Windsor and Obergefell rulings.
Thankfully, the Masterpiece Cakeshop ruling has put a small brake on this, but there is no doubt that the new power given to the LGBT community has put religious freedom in the crosshairs. The open discrimination against Chick-Fil-A at airports and colleges is just the beginning.
When the Equality Act passes, we will see open discrimination against practicing evangelical Christians, Mormons, Roman Catholics, and other denominations that hold to the belief that marriage is between one man and one woman. You can also bet that religious families who don’t affirm transgender kids will find their kids taken away by the state.
In that vein, Portland is another preview of when the power is fully in the hands of the “progressive” left. In this case, Antifa carries out violence, in open view, and the cops do nothing. They may have the tacit approval of the mayor.
This cannot end well. A two-tiered system is inherently unstable… because those on the lower tier won’t stand for it. And those the progressive left are targeting have a strong belief in the Second Amendment, and won’t accept being thrust into the 2019 version of Jim Crow/apartheid quietly.
Well not all. Muslims will be just fine.
Well, since our society now views everything through the prism of identity politics, where is the outrage from the gay and lesbian community?
I’ll tell you where — the same place as the outrage from every other corner of the Left.
Here is another telling fact: To date, the only 2020 Democratic candidate to decry the Antifa violence against Ngo has been the Quixotic Andrew Yang.
I hate to bring this up, because I always get so annoyed when people demand those on the right say something about intolerable events by miscreants associated with them. In that sense, and in all fairness, I will say that it is probably reasonable not to hold them to account for something they didn’t say, but then again, sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Here’s a notable graf from the NY Times reporting on the subject:
Yes, well, we have to make sure that everyone knows Ngo deserved his beating because he is a racist and hates Muslims. No mention of Antifa by name at all in the piece except in a quote attributed to Ngo’s lawyer. They are just “anti-fascist protesters,” and everyone knows that fascists should be protested.
And if beatings occur, well… eggs, omelets anyone?
The article that you quote is paradigmatic of the NY Times’s coverage:
1. The Times always calls Antifa, “anti-fascist protestors” and “anti-fascist activists,” as they do here, or occasionally “anti-racist protestors” and “anti-racist activists” and by implication characterizes the people that Antifia attacks as “fascists” and “racists.”
2. The Times typically characterize Antifa’s opponents as “neo-Nazis,” “white supremacists” or, as this article does, “right-wing extremists.”
3. A “rowdy group of anti-fascist protestors” means an Antifa mob that physically attacks a greatly outnumbered gathering of people or, as here, a lone individual.
4. Despite the fact that the violence is almost always one-sided, with Antifa attacking people who cannot defend themselves, the Times always suggests that it is mutual. Here, for example, the Times says, “[Mr. Ngo] has a history of battling with anti-fascist groups.” What he really has is a history of writing articles critical of Antifa, but the Times deliberately uses a word, “battling,” that falsely suggests a history of mutual physical violence. Note also how this sentence suggests that Mr. Ngo is a “fascist” battling with “anti-fascists,” when in fact he is a conservative so mainstream and moderate that he is regularly published in the Wall Street Journal.
5. The article doesn’t mention that the Antifa thugs are wearing masks, helmets and body armor, nor does it mention that they are carrying red (Communist) and black (anarchist) banners, in addition to (if this gathering is like other Antifa events) various objects that they intend to use as weapons. The article does have a picture of the thugs, but the caption says only, “Multiple groups protested in Portland,” without identifying the group shown as the Antifa mob. Until I looked more closely, I thought it showed a group of riot police, because of the helmets and armor.
The Times is becoming a mere organ of propaganda: Even when its articles don’t contain outright lies, the accounts of events are so slanted and the language used is so slyly chosen to create false impressions that they are virtually indistinguishable from lies.
Mr. Ngo wrote violent hate so antifa used to freedom of expression against him.
George Orwell would be proud.
Yet the Times is still regarded as ‘the paper of record?”
The rot will extend to every article, if they will write this. Nothing the Times says should be regarded as true without personally witnessing the events.
The Times is becoming a mere organ of propaganda: Even when its articles don’t contain outright lies, the accounts of events are so slanted and the language used is so slyly chosen to create false impressions that they are virtually indistinguishable from lies.
From a Wiki article on the topic of ‘social engineering’:
I was interested that you included the word ‘mere’ [late Middle English (in the senses ‘pure’ and ‘sheer, downright’): from Latin merus ‘undiluted’].
Because my project, if you will, is to gain clarity about what is going on in our present I am forced to examine causation in greater detail. Also, I cannot rely or try as little as possible to rely on ‘received ideas’ about the present. Thus, it would have to be stated that we live in a time in which social engineering is common, systematic and more or less accepted. In regard to your statement about the Times, I think that what you are saying is that the Times’ involvement in social engineering, and cultural intervention, has become more overt. But it is not possible to say that any US organ of mass communication is free of shall I say the ‘coercive’ aspect of spreading influence: of convincing and influencing. The object, if one is interested, is to be able to correctly analyze and to reveal, in clear terms, what are the tenets of the social engineering that is being applied. So, the larger question is to examine the social engineering project that was undertaken on a mass scale in the American Postwar. But, under what *mood* or with what intentions would one undertake that study? That is, as a critical Marxist? Or, in contradistinction, as a traditionally grounded American civic patriot concerned in a strict sense for republican and Constitutional values? I include these two poles — there are others of course — because the former is common and the latter less so, or so it seems to me.
Getting clear about our present situation — this is not easy. Making statements about it, because a statement is a reduction, is ‘problematic’. I will offer an example: I say that we are living within the machinations of a hyper-liberal régime, which is like a giant machine, a culture machine and an economic machine, and we are to one degree or other ‘mystified’ and ‘confused’ by the assortment of messages that we receive, which are often in tremendous contradiction. I want to go on and try to describe the cultural and social machinations that have led to the present, and then to make statements about the present, that is, about the conflict that is developing and evident. The question is: with what tools? What are my terms? How shall I conceive of my ‘critical position’?
If the implication of Bernay’s clear and defined statement about our modern situation is not obvious, I am uncertain how to make it more so.
The conflict that we are facing is far more strange and dangerous than we seem to be considering, that is, if we are ‘merely’ examining surface. I submit that we are in, or there is going on around us, a larger and more significant reevaluation-process. One level of ‘surface’, though it is a consequential level, is what ‘America’ shall be predominant? The Postwar socially-engineered hyper-liberal coerced model that involves racial and cultural blending? Or, a turn away from the distortions of that model, the coerciveness of that model, to another model as yet undefined? How will this be settled? The crisis deepens . . .
Jack writes: “You would think that the reaction of journalists, even in a sick age where the news media has firmly chosen to be on the same side as the Antifa, would be overwhelmingly supportive of Andy Ngo. (Actually I wouldn’t think that, because I have decided that placing any trust and faith whatsoever in the current U.S. journalism establishment to act ethically or responsibly is folly. YOU might still expect them to be ethical and professional, however.) But while many journalists, like CNN’s Jake Tapper, expressed outrage, other took the position more or less subtly that Ngo was “asking for it.”
It is more than ‘media’ that has chosen to side with Antifa. It is the ‘system itself’ at fundamental levels. It has been determined that America will take a specific shape, and to achieve that end they set out to *engineer* it to become what it is becoming.
The causes of the present conflict and social chaos can be traced back. I noticed that Rob Dreher takes a gratuitous and easy shot at Richard Spencer. But Richard Spencer and many others like him are informed by intelligent and rational ideas, and not ‘white supremacy’.
From The Three Phases of Democracy by Wilmot Robertson:
I’ve seen far left blogger (I won’t name him) completely ignore (I just searched his blog) when antifa physically attacks, bully enmasse, incite riot against conservatives and outright publicly intimidate conservatives including other journalists, but when this particular Conservative gets attacked I’m seeing a completely different reaction. I’m seeing this same person break his enabling silence towards antifa’s fascists activities, and condemn this attack.
I commend this blogger for writing a blog condemning this attack but I have questions;
1. Is this a change in heart towards antifa’s activities?
2. What’s makes this attack on a journalist by antifa different?
Here is the the only difference I can find; the man antifa attacked this time is gay, the blogger in question is gay. What’s interesting is that I’m seeing others on Facebook condemn this particular attack by antifa where they’ve been completely silent about similar attacks from antifa in the past; are they virtue signalling because the man attacked was gay?
What the hell are these perceived new moral standards for our society?
It’s things like this that show how the building blocks of our society are crumbling.
Antifa Members Have Repeatedly Attacked Journalists Who Cover Them
There are more links within that article.
That “far left blogger” your friend-n-mine, Steve?
Steve Witherspoon writes:
It’s things like this that show how the building blocks of our society are crumbling.
I suggest [with typical, cloying, eloquent humility] that this sort of statement is meaningless and valueless. It implies that you have some sense of what are those ‘building blocks’. The implication is that if those building blocks are recovered that the social problems will vanish. It is a simplistic statement and a misleading one though. Little more than a ‘complaint’.
I think that we need to state that there is a battle going on about which ‘building blocks’ will be used and what ‘building’ will be constructed. The Democrat Left seems to have one model or vision in mind. It seems to me to reveal itself res ipsa loquitur as Jack is fond of saying. They clearly show what they have in mind. It is a model based essentially in ‘demography is destiny’. It is intimately tied to the democratic model.
But I have no clear sense of what faction within America now opposes that vision. There is therefore essentially one model, just one model, and so-called Conservatives and American Liberal Progressives serve the same general vision. It is called ‘Americanism’.
Anyone who does not accept this general model is described as ‘extremist’ ‘fringe’ ‘lunatic’ ‘anti-American’ and other such pathological terms.
Within the democratic system, the rising demographic is asserting itself legitimately. As the original demographic is weakened, vilified, ‘dispossessed’, the new demographic rises up to take power.
So, perhaps it could be more accurately stated that the old power-structure is weakening, as the old demographic is displaced, but this is not so much because different building blocks are being used, but rather that in a demographic sense the new demographic is constructing a new power-base.
Within the context of Liberal Progressive Americanism this is evolution, not devolution.
But, the President is responsible for his rhetoric on journalists not Antifa. (Snark}
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_draft_riots
Lincoln’s response to this seems adequate for Portland.
I also thought of the draft riots.
I understand the USS Iowa is ‘re-commissionable’. Her 16-inch guns should make this idiot mayor take note.
Great idea! Have her cruise up the Columbia River. “You may fire when ready Gridley.”
Anifa beating up an Oregonian reporter last year wasn’t enough to turn the coverage, they still are sympathetic to their cause.
https://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/2018/08/im_the_reporter_you_saw_bleeding_at_portland_protests.html
Just note how this is being covered. Ngo has a subdural hematoma. The articles don’t say it, but that’s ICU level care. Yet the Oregonians title still says “roughed up” to describe the attack.
Two things:
1) The reports of milkshakes containing quick drying cement have, at this point, the status of rumor. I have yet to see any evidence beyond repeated thirdhand “reports”. Would it be consistent with the character of Antifa to use such tactics? Absolutely. The vocal approbation of their supporters shows that. But would conservatives activists lie about such a thing? I think Jacob Wohl, James O’Keefe, and their ilk show that they would.
2. I don’t think Jesse Singal is considered a progressive in good standing anymore, ever since he dared to notice that some people who at one point identify as the opposite sex do sometimes revert to identifying as their birth sex.
I may be dense but can someone explain why an anti capitalist group ( Antifa ) as well as sympathetic progressive journalists, pundits, elected officials and citizens alike are so concerned about Russian interference in our election?
The platform of the DNC as indicated by the candidates during the debates is identical in many ways to the old Soviet Constitution.
If Trump is Putin’s puppet why are progressives concerned about his policies when they themselves are wanting to move further from free market capitalism and toward socialism? This is incongruous.
The constitution of the Soviet Union that Putin wants to return requires a guaranteed of a job according to the persons skills, health care, and free education for those that qualify for university and trade schools. Seems like the DNC platform to me.
Many months back, I pleaded with the Portland city council, and the city human rights commission, to address the growing incivility here. After my wife experienced homophobic rants directed at her (for the first time since the early 90’s) on multiple occasions, by other designated minorities (3 trans people & a black man) it became clear that not only was this city not safe, it was becoming increasingly antagonistic towards certain peoples. The response to my asking for help was silence.
Since then my wife has been told at her job she has “an agenda” for equally representing both political parties in her work. Due to her fellow employees having ties to Antifa, she has had non-employee Antifa members destroy her work and follow her around at her job. All for being a butch lesbian doing her job properly, in a city where being “queer” and totally leftist is the only option for safety.
This plantation wokeness, where if you’re a minority, you better know your place lest you become the oppressor, has dominated this city since 2016. These tactics aren’t new in the world, but in the city I once loved, this energy has been used to keep especially moderate & right of center minorities quiet. Obviously for non-minorities who think past “orange man bad” in town, they know to keep their heads down.
Our city is crumbling. Almost weekly now I cannot even go into my own yard because junkies have figured out our quiet street is a good place to pass out for 8-12 hours. Or people come here to go through our garbage & recycling, while the cops say if they don’t commit a crime, they can do what they want. Other counties won’t work with Portland police due to the anti-police sentiment here. Our mayor and city council do nothing to protect their citizens on a number of platforms, so of course they don’t stop the plantation keeping wokesters from beating up people like Andy. They can’t even grasp what happens daily in our neighborhoods.
My wife and I finally decided this week we are done here. Living here feels like being in an abusive relationship.
The issue is that they broke tradition on how mutual aid is supposed to work. If you’re inviting another agency to assist, you’re expected to treat them as “your” officers. That includes extending liability coverage.
Portland Police asked Washington County to assist in a large raid and several SWAT officers responded. They were going through another backyard to cover potential escapes when the homeowner stepped onto the back porch with a gun. The officers ended up shooting the homeowner. One of those unfortunate cases where the cop didn’t commit a crime, yet a “good guy” got shot. It’s one of those civil cases you’re going to lose bad. Washington County asked PPB to cover the trial and settlement. The refused both, and left Washington County holding the bag.
Every neighboring agency didn’t take long to notify them that don’t bother to call, we won’t respond. Rather bad timing since PPB is facing massive retirements and a hiring crisis. Nobody wants to work where you don’t get political backing. The next time Portland has a big riot, they’re going to have trouble.
Where are you headed? The rest of the state is quite nice. Yes, there are a-holes everywhere. But what I’ve started seeing is that there are enough people out that the “ew” factor is lessening and the general polite tenor of the rest of the state wins out to where most people are polite.
@Matthew B
Roberts said he also considered an April 8 statement from the Portland Police Association when making his decision. In that statement police union President Daryl Turner said there is an “intense anti-police sentiment in our city that City Council seems to share.”
https://www.opb.org/news/article/oregon-clackamas-sheriff-pulls-out-of-portland/
We enjoy the rest of Oregon and generally hang out in the suburbs so we may not go far…except the homelessness & crime stuff appears to be spreading rapidly to those areas. We have family in eastern Oregon and Idaho & have never experienced prejudice except a stare or two which is nothing compared to living here.
We know too that you can’t runaway from struggles. The point for us to to be with family and hopefully get some respite from what may well infect the rest of the country some day.
That is seriously, SERIOUSLY fucked, Mrs. Q.
Hope you can find a nice place, M.Q.; good luck. Perhaps the things you describe are another factor in the reported current trend of people (especially millennials) reversing the preference for cities and moving to exurbs.
Oregon is the only unvisited state left on our travel checklist. I’ve told my wife that if/when we plan a trip, that I have no desire to include Portland in the itinerary. Certain other cities have made the “no revisit” list.
“My wife and I finally decided this week we are done here. Living here feels like being in an abusive relationship.”
Lady Q,
I formally and sincerely invite you and your family to move to rural Texas. You are welcome here, as are all hard working refugees who understand why they are fleeing the insanity democrats and progressives have wrought everywhere they gain power.
We only ask of such refugees that they do not bring the sickness with them, like a bad zombie movie, and destroy that which they flee to. I have no concerns about you personally on that score: your story is a cautionary tale all living along the edges of blue territory should heed.
I pray for your safety.
I mean, I don’t see how Portland doesn’t burn at this point, with the fires taking a large section of Oregon and southern Washington with it. Seattle is not very far away (in Texas terms) and seems a close match for the crazy and a secondary bonfire. Eugene, Yakima, and Tacoma describe a circle of danger once violence starts.
Concerning Antifa, I really expect to soon see one of these attack videos conclude with the use of a legally carried firearm to discourage the mob in an unfortunate but most convincing fashion. It will be a mad scramble of masks and man-buns to un-ass the area.
Regarding the Portland police, I have an acquaintance who retired from Portland Police Bureau in 2000. He maintains contact with the agency and informed me just a couple of weeks ago that they are hemorrhaging manpower at an alarming rate, not just by retirements but also by folks just leaving for better jobs, both inside and outside policing. Recruitment is predictably crippled by the city government’s hands-off policing approach as well. Twenty-five years ago Portland Police Bureau was widely considered one of the premier municipal agencies in the country. No longer.
I have to admit a long standing bias against the Portland Police. I was widely known that PPB was just Chicago Police in the west. Highly corrupt. Recent events has caused my position to make a 180° flip.
The depth of the corruption was widely exposed when they attempted to raid a biker gang bar and one of the officers was shot in the street without entering. In the ensuing standoff, the biker gang agreed to surrender if the State Police took them in. Smart move on their part, when the officer’s body was recovered he was found to be carrying a large quantity of cocaine. Only one bike gang member was convicted and that was later thrown out. The county DA was the son of a PPB officer. He announced an amnesty program where officers could come forward and they’d void convictions but not prosecute the officers. About 1/2 of the entire force came forward and nothing was done to them.
The other major hit is the department was rife with racists until the late 80’s. They had several incidents where officers committed crimes off duty against “uppity” blacks and the officers were convicted of misdemeanor harassment. The city management (back in those days not so nuts as they are today) insisted the officers be fired. The union backed the officers, and they got their jobs back. I will condemn EVERY damn one of the officers that sat quietly while they used the donations from the rank and file to get people who nailed dead possums to people’s front doors and burned crosses on front lawns. They’re complicit in their silence. If your friend was an officer from 1980-1985, in my mind he’s a racist asshole unless he openly distances himself from these events.
The PPB also has a well deserved monitoring by the justice department about a large number of questionable shootings. Much of the tension between the city management and the department originated from these. There is more than one incident where the hostage in a hostage situation was shot by raiding officers. They’re still under monitoring as efforts to reform aren’t deemed sufficient.
Meanwhile the city management has gone nuts the other direction.
One cause is the response to anifa and the right wing protestors. I give the PPB credit for behaving fairly. Remain peaceful and they let you be. Act in a riotous manner and they crack down on you. The problem the city management had is they looked only at the outcome and not the cause: violent arrests of the left leaning protesters and no arrests of any kind of right leaning protesters. The city management could be accuse of real life imitation of the parody position “right wingers were using violent expression by speaking, and were countered by the free expression of antifa using clubs and thrown projectiles.” There was the legitimate concern that left leaning protesters who were peaceful got wrapped up in the battle and hurt, but to a degree this is an issue of don’t stand with the violent folks and you’ll probably be OK.
The other issue causing strife among the officers is the BLM crowd has strong sway at city hall. Several shootings were highly justified yet still garnered violent protests. One of the most ridiculous was a 3AM shooting of a guy who committed murder by shooting another gang member in a strip club parking lot and was shot while still holding the murder weapon mere minutes later.
So now there is zero backing of the good officers, no sign that it’s going in a good direction, and no support from neighboring agencies. Their in deep shit now as your friend’s comments are true. Minimal hires, many early retirements and a fleeing of officers to other departments. I don’t know the eventual outcome. The sheriff’s department doesn’t have the size to cope with the city. The state police have their own troubles and own severe shortages of officers so it’s not coming from their either.
So you are saying that Oregon has gone majority progressive and we can see the results… Police officers fleeing a STATE where they will not be supported by politicians.
Californian refugees and indoctrination in education?
From the increasingly reliable Babylon Bee:
https://babylonbee.com/news/antifa-shatters-mirror-in-attempt-to-punch-nazi