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      Portland: protesters bring down fence as confrontation with Trump agents rises

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      Portland

      Protests in cities across US as White House seeks confrontation
      ‘White as hell’: are protests eclipsing Black Lives Matter?
      ‘Made-for-TV fascism’: how Trump’s ploy could backfire

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      1:57

      Portland protests: why Trump has sent in federal agents – video report

      The confrontation between protesters and federal paramilitaries in Portland escalated early on Sunday morning, when demonstrators finally broke down a steel fence around the courthouse after days of trying.
      The federal agents fired waves of teargas and “non-lethal projectiles” to drive back thousands besieging the courthouse to demand Donald Trump withdraw the paramilitaries, ostensibly sent to curb two months of Black Lives Matters protests. The city police, who had largely withdrawn in recent days, declared a riot and joined federal agents in making arrests.
      Portland is now the focal point of nationwide protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May. But many other cities are affected.
      In Seattle, in neighbouring Washington state, authorities said rocks, bottles and fireworks were thrown at officers who used flash bangs and pepper spray. The police chief, Carmen Best, told reporters she had not seen federal agents the Trump administration sent to the city.
      In Oakland, California, after a peaceful protest, a courthouse was set on fire. In Aurora, Colorado, a car drove into a Black Lives Matter protest and a demonstrator was shot. In Richmond, Virginia, a dump truck was set on fire and police appeared to use teargas to disperse protesters.
      In Portland, authorities erected the steel barrier around the federal courthouse after two earlier fences were swiftly torn down. The latest barrier was held in place by large concrete blocks and proved impregnable for several days.
      Early on Sunday, protesters attempted to bring it down with teams pulling on ropes, but the ropes broke. Then they used a chain, a section of the fence gave way, and the rest was toppled to huge cheers before the crowd was driven back by teargas and rubber bullets.
      “Fuck the feds,” shouted a young woman in a helmet and gas mask who declined to give her name. “You want war? We’ll give you war. We will win.”
      More than 5,000 people, one of the largest crowds to date, turned out for the protest on the two-month anniversary of Floyd’s death at the hands of a police officer.
      But support for the latest Portland protests has also been driven by the president deploying federal agents to the city dressed in camouflage and using unmarked white vans to snatch protesters off the streets, a tactic the mayors of several major cities called “chilling” in a letter to the Trump administration. More

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      in US Politics

      This is what happens when the War on Terror is turned inward, on America | Hamilton Nolan

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      A strange and necessary ingredient of America’s descent towards fascism is that it will have little impact on the majority of people. As militarized federal agents are deployed into major cities to snatch protesters and charge them with harsh federal crimes for daring to deface the ruling party’s monuments, most Americans will continue living their normal lives with no discernible changes, at least for the time being. People wake up and eat breakfast and spend their days doing mundane tasks in fascist countries, too.If there was ever a tipping point, we are past it. Trying to stare hard at the daily news to determine the exact point at which we slip into fascism is like staring at a baby to see when it turns into an adult. By the time you perceive it, it’s already happened. It is important to understand that the crackdown phase that we are now in – the unaccountable government forces, the riot police, the teargas, the targeted political prosecutions that will come next – are not something new, but something old. This isn’t about Donald Trump. This is about America, baby. This is what we do.Trying to determine when we slip into fascism is like staring at a baby to see when it turns into an adult. Once you perceive it, it’s already happenedTrump, a fool ruled by impulse rather than strategy, did not build the fearsome machine of government oppression that is now being aimed at his political opponents. This machine was systematically assembled and lovingly tended to by generations of presidents before him – Democratic, Republican, Whig. Trump is only broadening its aperture. All of these tools have been sharpened on the bones of Native Americans and Black people and immigrants and Muslims overseas. America has always needed someone to oppress. Mostly so that we could steal their stuff, but also so that the rest of us didn’t turn against one another. This country has managed to avoid a class war by giving poor white people an array of minorities to abuse, a trick that has benefited rich white people for centuries. We have used injustice not just as a way to get ahead, but as a release valve. Our leaders have long calculated that it is safer to subjugate and mistreat a minority of the population than to risk dissatisfaction in the majority. In doing so, the government has become very adept at creating enemies and wielding power against them in flagrant shows of force.These are trivial observations, basic facts that will only be disputed by those who are destined to land on the side of fascism anyhow. The question is what they mean for our present moment, which is distinguished not by the existence of government oppression but by its direction. We are finding out what happens when the war on terror is turned inward on ourselves. In addition to the federal agents already in Portland, more are coming to Chicago, Albuquerque, and Kansas City; that may well be just the beginning of a national rollout. “Protecting federal property” and “maintaining law and order” are twin fig leaves wafting in a cloud of teargas. The Department of Homeland Security has effectively become a White House-controlled paramilitary and domestic surveillance service unaccountable to anyone except Trump and his loyalists. (If we’re being honest, this moment has been inevitable since DHS was panic-created in the days after the September 11 attacks. If there is any more fascist word than “homeland”, I haven’t heard it.)The basic logic behind gun control is that if there are a bunch of guns lying around, sooner or later someone will get shot. The same holds true for the security state. If you build it, it will eventually come for you. Cloaked in the banality of federal bureaucracy, we have tolerated the creation of a terrifying set of powers that now rest in the small hands of a man who has been waiting his entire life to take revenge on each and every enemy who has slighted him. Barack Obama sat in the White House for eight years and did nothing to dismantle this bureaucracy of soldier-cops. He was too busy using it in foreign drone wars. It’s too seductive to have that power, when you are the one who controls it. Now a worse president has it, and it will be turned, at last, against a bigger chunk of us than ever before.The trick now is convincing that tranquil majority that their interests are more aligned with the protesters than with the cops in fatiguesEvery new outrage is a test of what we will tolerate. If the government can roll out troops to a large swath of major cities and shoot the eyes out of protesters with rubber bullets all under the guise of stopping some kids from spray-painting some courthouse, it is a fairly good indicator that the spirit of the broader American public will not rouse itself to stand in the way of fascism’s tightening grip. In a nation this big, you can make 100 million people official Enemies of the State and still leave a comfortable majority blissfully unaffected. The trick now is convincing that tranquil, all-American majority that their interests are actually more aligned with the protesters wielding spray-paint outside the courthouse than with the militarized cops in fatigues.That shouldn’t be an impossible task. When there is actual justice being done inside the courthouses, the protesters and the storm troopers will both disappear. More

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      Portland mayor teargassed by federal agents at protest

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      Portland

      Democrat Ted Wheeler gives backing to protesters against ‘Trump’s occupation of this city’

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      1:14

      Portland mayor teargassed by federal agents during protest – video

      Portland’s mayor, Ted Wheeler, has accused Donald Trump of conducting “urban warfare” after he was caught up in the teargassing of protesters by federal forces sent to quell Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the city.
      But Wheeler, who was left gasping for air by the teargas, was himself the target of anger and mockery from activists who accused him of sending the city police to attack other protests.
      “I’m not going to lie. It stings. It’s hard to breathe, and I can tell you with 100% honesty I saw nothing that provoked this response,” Wheeler said as he stood with protesters outside the federal courthouse that has become the focus of confrontation.
      “This is flat-out urban warfare, and it’s being brought on the people of this country by the president of the United States, and it’s got to stop now.”
      Protests into the early hours of Thursday morning were more contained than in previous nights after the authorities were finally able to erect a fence around the courthouse that could withstand attack by demonstrators.
      Protesters quickly tore down barriers on other nights but the stronger fortification kept them from reaching the front of the courthouse which meant members of the Department of Homeland Security taskforce sent by Trump largely remained behind the fence firing teargas over it.
      But the standoff showed how far the federal forces have fallen short of the president’s pledge to restore order in Portland, a liberal city with a long history of street protest.
      The DHS taskforce is largely trapped inside the courthouse grounds with the protesters generally controlling the streets outside.
      Earlier in the evening, Wheeler, who as mayor is also Portland’s police commissioner, attempted to reassure protesters at a large and peaceful demonstration that he was committed to police reform. But he was met with jeers and forced to admit that change had not come quick enough.
      “Obviously we have a long way to go,” Wheeler told the crowd.
      Large numbers of people at the demonstration remained sceptical of the man derided in graffiti as “Ded Wheeler” and “Fed Wheeler”.
      “He’s two-faced,” said Jennifer Bradley, a grandmother who joined the Wall of Moms formed to act as a shield between the protesters and the police. “Wheeler’s been on the side of the police when it was attacking Black Lives Matters before the feds arrived. I don’t think he’s done anything to support this movement.”
      A daily ritual has evolved in which thousands of protesters rally to the Black Lives Matter cause toward sundown in front of Portland’s justice center which holds the police department and county jail. More