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CounterPunch
August
31, 2002
Confronting
Police & Republicans in Portland
Porkland
by David Vest
"The Battle
of Portland," as it was named
by William Rivers Pitt, took place just a few short downhill
blocks from the offices of the Oregonian, which was if anything
even more unprepared than Portland's finest, who failed to provide
a "safety corridor" for the Republican fat cats to
enter the Hilton unjostled by dissident voices calling them cretins.
Portland's free newspaper, the Tribune, provided far more detailed
coverage that did the Oregonian, whose photographers may have
been "otherwise occupied."
The fat cats naturally felt they had
earned the right to a pleasant evening. After all, they were
ponying up $25,000 apiece to have their picture taken with the
Great Unificator. Not exactly chump change, bearing in mind that
these same pork forkers are unwilling to spend one dime to salvage
Oregon's crumbling public schools.
"Demonstration Turns Violent,"
brayed the Oregonian's ham-handed headline, in direct contradiction
of the story below it, which contained mainly second-hand accounts
of police incompetence and misbehavior and precious little by
way of direct observation. Perhaps the four blocks  was too
far to walk, even downhill.
"Kevin Mannix Sparks Riot"
would have made a more accurate headline. Wasn't it Mannix's
complaint about being made to pass through the rabble to get
to the event that inspired the cops to move the generally well-behaved
crowd back and create the corridor they had forgotten to establish?
Did Mannix, as gubernatorial standard bearer, fell the need to
"do something"?
After Mannix made it into the hotel,
someone thought it a good idea to declare a "state of emergency."
Someone thought it a good idea to drive a police car into the
crowd of protestors. When people in danger of being run over
banged on the hood of the car in outrage, someone thought it
was a good idea to open fire on the citizens of Portland with
rubber bullets, tear gas and pepper spray.
No one, however, thought it a good idea
to claim responsibility for giving the orders. When asked who
had fired the rubber bullets, which had never been fired at Portlanders
before in the entire history of the city, Portland's courageous
Chief Mark Kroeker, a self-described leading candidate to become
LAPD's new chief, said he thought it might have been the Beaverton
cops who did it.
Apparently this didn't sit too well with
Beaverton, because by the next morning Kroeker had decided, most
decisively, that "it's not this agency or that one, it's
a unified operation."
A unified operation for which no one
is responsible and for which god forbid anyone should be held
accountable. When urged (yet again) to fire Kroeker, Mayor Vera
Katz complained about people who think they can "put that
kind of pressure on the Mayor" and bragged that Portland's
unpleasantness was not serious enough to leave a "bad impression"
on the president, indeed it was only a "blip" compared
to "what goes on in other cities."
The size of the protest came as a "complete
surprise" to the White House, said Ari "Watch What
You Say" Fleischer. "We were caught off guard."
Nonsense, said the Secret Service's Portland Bureau, the White
House was "kept fully informed." Not to mention the
fact that Bush has for some time been attracting growing numbers
of protesters everywhere he goes.
Over the West Hills and down the road
a piece, Washington County held its annual fair a few weeks ago.
The Mannix for Governor booth stood not twenty feet from a statue
of a large pig in coveralls waving a big American flag.
David Vest writes the Rebel Angel column for CounterPunch.
He is a poet and piano-player for the Pacific Northwest's hottest
blues band, The Cannonballs.
He can be reached at: davidvest@springmail.com
Visit his website at http://www.rebelangel.com
Weekend Features
Gavin Keeney
Return to the Charterhouse of Parma
David Vest
Porkland:
Confronting Republicans & Police in Portland
Ralph Nader
The Highway
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M. Shahid Alam
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Neve Gordon
Sharon's
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The Gangbang
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The Sexual Life of Catherine M.
Jensen / Mahajan
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Kurt Nimmo
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