Friends and neighbors,
I want to speak directly to the moment we are in as Portlanders. We are all facing a Presidential Administration that continues to threaten our city with increasing levels of militarization and force. Today we will hear a decision from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on whether Trump has the legal right to deploy American troops to police our city. While I am confident that the facts are on our side, and we have the benefit of an Attorney General and City Attorney who are working tirelessly to defend us on the legal merits, like you I remain worried about an out-of-control administration that does not respect our Constitution and cares only about the consolidation of its own power.
Our city has the misfortune of lying directly in the gaze of the Eye of Sauron (sorry, not sorry, about the Tolkien reference), and so we are forced to play a very important role in the history of our Nation. When I was a young troop during the Bush Administration, the propaganda of the Post 9/11 period was that we had to go to war in the Middle East because “they hate our freedoms.” Well, I guess we are seeing history repeat itself, because that phrase finally has meaningful relevance: it was first a tragic encapsulation of the moral bankruptcy of the country to kill a million civilians over a lie and now captures how farcical it is to describe our city as war-ravaged.
Trump, the MAGA right, the whole lot of them, do in fact hate our freedoms. They hate that we insist that immigrants and trans people have every right to exist as the rest of us, and that what makes us strong is our willingness to commit to each other in acts of solidarity, big and small. The fact that there are no conditions under which Portlanders will submit to the demands of a racist, fascistic administration to abandon our values is why we are targeted. But, it is also our strength.
Portland: I am so very proud of you. I have seen you show up to ensure that out-of-town White Nationalists do not get to roam our streets and terrorize our neighbors unopposed. I have seen you take to the streets in the tens of thousands to protest police violence and assert that Black Lives do in fact matter. I’ve seen you turn out during a pandemic to establish a universal preschool program and defend it against bad faith attacks. I’ve seen moms and dads form walls to defend a community of protesters from chemical warfare by the same people who are threatening us now.
And I’ve seen you meet the current moment by using your voices and finding your courage to speak against an administration that is trying to find every excuse to terrorize you for doing so. You’ve shown yourselves to be resilient, strategic, and disciplined, because you know we’ve been here before and we’ll make it through this, too.
Whatever happens, I will always protect you with the tools I have. Even if that means I draw the direct ire of an administration who is calling for local elected officials to be jailed for opposing him.
In Solidarity,
Mitch Green
If you've received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up for yourself here.
October 17: Office Hours at Sellwood Community House from 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.
October 28: Town Hall at Sellwood Community House from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
|
