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Sep 17, 16
Filed under: Critique, Incarceration, Northwest, Political Prisoners, The State
From Portland Anarchist Black Cross
Leading up to the September 9th demonstration in Portland, Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury felt the need to spread a fearful message to the employees of Multnomah county in regards to the September 9th demonstration in town. Apparently the state capitalist system is so vulnerable now that a simple protest warrants a county wide warning message to stigmatize and cast fear upon any street mobilization that aligns its self against white supremacy and the prison system!
Dear Multnomah County employees,
We have learned that a group is planning a protest in downtown Portland today beginning at 2:00 pm. We do not know if this is intended to be a peaceful protest. However, supporters were asked to hold “noise demonstrations outside jails and prisons to disrupt and demonstrate outside of corporations that profit from prison labor and also support the strike that is happening across the US.”
Please keep this in mind as you come in and out of county buildings this afternoon. If you work downtown or plan to visit downtown and can stay in your building/office today that is recommended. If you plan to leave early, please check with your supervisor first and follow the leave procedures for your department.
As always, please remain situationally aware.
If you have any concerns please talk with your supervisor.• Always be aware of your surroundings.
• When entering or exiting secured areas, make sure the door latches behind you; do not let others “tailgate.”
• When inside the office, keep your ID visible and with you at all times.
• When outside of the office, put your ID out of sight.
• If you are approached and are asked suspicious questions or see anything or anyone suspicious, please report this to authorities immediately.
Sincerely,
<DK Email Signature.JPG>
Chair Deborah Kafoury
Its interesting that Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury felt no need to warn employees about the vicious gang who also hit the streets on Sept. 9th, the Portland Police. A gang who have a long and documented history of murdering civilians without cause, or their known Nazi Commander Mark Kruger who has received promotion after promotion by the Portland Police. Nor did she mention that the Portland Police are known to ruthlessly attack and brutalize peaceful protestors with batons, rubber bullets, flash grenades and have even pepper sprayed babies to name just one of its more egregious acts of unprovoked violence during “peaceful” demonstrations. What Deborah doesn’t understand is that the Portland Police don’t allow peaceful protests.
Instead she choose to use the same old tried and true methods of the state to stigmatize and demonize those who take to the streets in their own city. (WHAT DO YOU PEOPLE THINK YOU LIVE IN A DEMOCRACY!). Because apparently we have no right to demonstrate, we have no right to our own streets, those who think they have the right to their own streets must be viewed through a criminalizing othering lense. According to the state and their corporate media parrots, streets are only to be used for the steady flow of capital and commerce. If we prevent that, we are bad, we are violent, preventing the steady flow of capital to our corporate overlords in anyway is violence of course.
Lets look at the actual numbers. Deaths and injuries against the bodies of the general citizenry at the hands of protestors, zero. Deaths and injuries at the hands of the Portland police, TOO MANY TO COUNT!
When state agencies and the corporate media focus on the evil bad protesters, this is explicit act of political repression. Especially when its mounted before a protest even begins! Mounting state resources to demonize, stigmatize and cast fear upon popular mobilization’s that contest their interests, is the real intention, not the safety of the public/employees. “The business of obscuring language is a mask behind which is the much bigger business of obscuring plunder” -Frantz Fannon
According to CBS News “The number of inmates who died in state prisons and local jails in the United States increased for the third year in a row in 2013, according to a report from the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). The total number of inmate deaths that year, 4,446, is the highest since the agency began tracking it in 2007“. According to the Washington Post 980 people were killed by the police in 2016. This number is higher than US soldiers killed in this country’s ongoing wars in the middle east, more than any other countries police killings combined!
So who should the public fear, is it the protesters trying to put a stop to the ongoing slaughter of the public at the hands of the police and the kidnapping of millions of citizens for non-violent offenses, people who are actually trying to put a stop to the main outlets of violence/traumatization in this society, the prisons, police and capitalism.
Should we fear the protesters because they block traffic. Because once in awhile a window of a corrupt corporation gets cracked, or a pebble gets thrown at a heavily armored riot cop carrying a large Plexiglas shield, with multiple flash bangs around his belt, standing alongside compatriots with grenade launchers armed with tear gas, buddies with bean bag shot guns and backed up with an armada of friends with assault rifles, armored vehicles and more just waiting around the corner to exercise their monopoly on violence against these obstinate bodies.
Or should we fear an authoritarian state that deals with simple protests in such a militarized manner. A state that continues to ruthlessly murder citizens with impunity, incarcerates millions, the vast majority, for non-violent offenses, the vast majority being people of color. A state that is controlled by the wealthy 1% of mega billionaires, whose business are putting our world to the torch by never addressing global warming.
Should we not stand with those who refuse to be terrorized into submission by such blatant and constant threats of violence? A state that has a history of genocide against native American’s and the enslavement of people of color. A history that is not history at all because these legacies never ended and continue to this day. Given this don’t we have a right, no an ethical duty to put an end to the madness as Malcolm X said “by any means necessary?”
Or is the moral, correct and right thing to do, to sit idly by on the sidelines, complicit in genocide, miserable “peaceful” and paranoid in maintaining our position in society as Deborah does?
