According to station KGW8 in Portland, Oregon (the home of Authoritarian Leftism), a food cart whose profits were going to a charity for the homeless was forced to close by Occupy ICE PDX protestors, who repeatedly harassed the food cart’s owners. Read the article by clicking on the screenshot below.
An excerpt:
The owners of a Portland food cart located near the Occupy ICE PDX camp announced they are closing the business due threats and verbal attacks by protesters.
Julie and Scott Hakes, owners of The Happy Camper Food and Coffee Bar, say they no longer feel safe in the neighborhood after their daughter, who works at the cart, was repeatedly threatened.
The Occupy ICE PDX demonstration began a month ago at the Southwest Portland U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement holding facility.
“It started with one day that really started this all off where one of the main antagonizer over there was obviously bored, and my daughter was talking with a customer and laughing and joking,” said Scott Hakes. “The antagonizer screams out, gets on the blow horn and starts screaming that out that my daughter is laughing at them, trying to make a mockery of them, everything that they believe in, and boom. Away it went. We were on the number one hit list from that point on.”
Scott Hakes said some of the protesters told his daughter they would hurt her. He said the threats got worse after his daughter sold food to a DHS [Department of Homeland Security] officer.
“They’re constantly cussing at her and screaming at her. You know she’d finally had enough. She finally called me up on the phone, crying,” Scott Hakes said.
“They already know what she drives. They see her walking around, and they run after her. You know, they videotape her, and they’re telling her they know where she’s at. And there’s no reason for it. She hasn’t done anything,” said Julie Hakes.
The cart, located at 0651 SW Bancroft St., is owned by the nonprofit homeless outreach organization, Operation Off The Grid, according to its Facebook page, and helps pay for food, clothing and hygiene products for the homeless.
“Unfortunately, over the last month, we have been threatened and verbally attacked for not backing the immigration agenda at the DHS location and wanting to stay neutral and serve all who are hungry,” said a post on the cart’s Facebook page. “We tried repeatedly to try to work out peaceful solutions with the organizations and individuals protesting, but it all came back to being told almost daily to either support the anti-DHS agenda or suffer the consequences.”
In other words, the protestors are saying “Join us or we’ll harass the hell out of you.” And they succeeded—succeeded in closing down a food cart that helped the homeless. This is what the extreme Left has come to in America.
What’s more, the Portland police refused to intervene after Police Commissioner and Mayor Ted Wheeler was asked.
Keep it up, Control-Left, and we’ll have Trump for another six years.
h/t: BJ
Hopefully, things are a lot worse out there in crazy left land. If they really wanted to do some good work they could go down closer to the boarder. Today is the deadline for reuniting the kids and parents and it is not even going to be close.
Hazmat teams have been called in to clean up Occupy ICE camps when they were abandoned, and at least one such camp put up a border fence!
You might not have to wait for 2020 to see the consequences of the Democrats going full Occasio-Cortez.
I bet the Republicans and Trumpers are deathly afraid of Ocasio-Cortez. She’s a good speaker, easy on the eyes, young, and energetic. She’s a sign of what’s coming.
As one who leans republican I can only say I hope she is the face of the party — anti Israel, economically ignorant, and control left. If she scares the GOP, they will ignore her. Want a bet on whether they do?
I didn’t say she was the face of the party as that implies leadership which is something she’ll have to grow into. Perhaps in 10 years but who knows. She is representative of a new generation of Dems running for office.
As someone who leans left, this is a candidate that I find much more appealing than Ocasio-Cortez:
https://www.yang2020.com/meet-andrew/
Even if he has little chance of getting the nomination, it would be nice to see many of his ideas being discussed.
His recent book, The War on Normal People, was far better than I expected for a political manifesto.
Ocasio-Cortez is already a leader, in the same way the first lemming over the cliff is one.
She and her fellow lunatics represent the Dems’ best chance of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory this November.
I shudder to think she’s a harbinger.
I don’t say this often but … whatever.
If she is a sign of what’s coming, then I am thankful for the ocean between her and me.
” going full Occasio-Cortez ”
I’m not familiar with her, beyond her being from the Bronx and a Latina. Is she Ctrl-Left ?
She’s a self-described “Social Democrat.” She’s been critical of ICE, but she’s got nothing to do with this crap.
Not that that will keep her from being tarred with it.
Actually, she describes herself as a democratic socialist, and belongs to the party (which has moved to the left since the days of Michael Harrington). But, given her public statements, she actually is, like Bernie Sanders, a social democrat. The difference is that the former are post-capitalist, while social democrats favour a mixed economy with strong controls on capital.
She’s part of the Judean People’s Front, not the People’s Front of Judea.
This is untrue. She describes herself as a democratic socialist, not a social democrat, which is a different kettle of fish altogether, and looks forward to the end of capitalism.
Your sentence can be parsed at least two ways. Are you saying that she’s “looking forward to the end of capitalism”? If so, where’s your evidence?
This is what Business Insider has to say [note the bolded part]:
Interestingly the media company that helped boost her are named Means Of Production 🙂
Strictly speaking Democratic Socialists are for the worker ownership of the means of production & thus the downfall of capitalism. I can’t find anything written by Ocasio-Cortez to suggest she wants to go all the way down that road. It is my impression she wants a rebalancing of the relationship between workers & business owners, but her main concerns are… Medicare-for-all and a single-payer health care system, tuition-free college for all, banning private prisons & abolishing the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
She lives in the real world & has concrete, fairly achievable goals that are very popular. I think it is the opposition to her that trumpet “anti-capitalist” & the derogatory [in the US] “socialist!” because it means her opponents are then free to belittle or ignore the rest of what she has to say.
Of course, as a socialist Brit I see no down side at the moment to Ms. Ocasio-Cortez
The BI piece sounds like a right-wing hit job on Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and Means of Production is a pretty catchy name for a media production outfit. I will wait for further evidence before throwing under the workers’ bus.
It isn’t a hit piece – why would you think that from what I wrote? Google a phrase from the quote I supplied to find the BI piece & see for yourself.
Also – I wasn’t suggesting Means of Production was a bad name – the “workers bus” comment is weird – throwing whom or what under the bus? Please investigate the goals of the DSA & confirm for yourself that Ms. O-C is a member of DSA.
My own view on what I think Ms. O-C wants for the USA doesn’t include the overthrow of capitalism, but she associates with an org that does & identifies with a political label that does – her enemies will sling that at her until she comes out with a statement denying such an extreme position. She has nothing to say [that I can find] on her fundamental ideology – I think she’s kind of Bernie Sanders in her outlook, but doesn’t want to lose DSA support at this stage, by admitting she’s a boring, typical centrist vanilla socialist.
I will admit that I was not impressed by Ms O-C’s (thanks for the shorthand) interview by Trevor Noah. She came off as a giggly, no-nothing teenager. She’s got some work to do.
Eliminating ICE is a bad position to take, IMHO. Even if that becomes part of a well-thought-out border and immigration policy it sounds way to much like “open borders” and is too focused on changing the organizational structure without regard without establishing the new policies first. It shows no more thought than the GOP’s brain-dead approach.
The Dem’s overall platform should be to bring back good governance. The GOP has shown that they can’t govern.
Agreed. I’m afraid that her lack of depth means “here today gone tomorrow”. We shall see.
My evidence is her public statements, which are as available to you as they are to me. I won’t present evidence Trump lies either.
She’s called for abolishing ICE, with no suggestion how or even if to replace it.
Immigration and Customs. Just abolish the agency responsible for regulating those.
Christ, rightwingers call for abolishing federal agencies all the time (including ones that have been around a lot longer than ICE) — the EPA, the IRS, the Education Department, the Energy Department, just to name a few. Hell, Rick Perry called for abolishing the Energy Department (the keeper of this nation’s nuclear weapons), though he couldn’t recall its name off the top of his head (“Oops!”), and clearly had no idea what it actually did. And what’d it get him? Oh yeah, right, the Secretaryship of … the Department of Energy.
I’m not sure what your point is, Ken. That two wrongs make a right? If rightwingers can call for abolishing federal agencies, why can’t leftwingers, too?
Because my point was that Ocasio-Cortez is a dangerous extremist, which is only supported your comparison of her to Rick Perry.
My point is that no one bats an eye when rightwingers seek to abolish federal agencies. Those who wish to abolish ICE, as I understand it, are not seeking to do away with immigration enforcement or border security. They simply think it was a mistake to conglomerate so much power in a single agency in reaction to 9-11. (Opposition to the centralization of federal power used to be a tenet of conservatism.)
I don’t see AOC as a “dangerous extremist”; I see her as something of a dilettante (though she already knows a ton more public policy than does our current chief executive). She’s young; time will tell if she gains sufficient seasoning to make substantive contributions to the public weal.
Even if what you suggest about abolishing ICE is the right thing to do, the policies we should implement are more important than which agencies to which implementation falls. Abolishment of agencies seems like a lazy answer to our problems. Of course, the Trump administration has effectively abolished several agencies by appointing heads who have spent their careers fighting against them.
Do you count yourself among that abolish ICE group? If so, in what specific way has power been conglomerated under ICE that it was not under INS?
Ocasio-Cortez is now calling for the occupation of every ICE office, every airport, and “every border” (sic). The occupation of the airports especially would really endear the Dems to the voting public.
She’s made the ludicrous claim that ICE is required by law to detain 34,000 illegals each night, and issues but slightly veiled calls for open borders.
She’s 28, worked as a bartender until her election, is a member of a fringe marxist group, and proposes simplistic yet sweeping alterations to our social & political structure. Some folks are warming to the idea of thrusting her into a leadership position. The closest historical analogy who comes to mind is Mussolini. Perhaps with ‘sufficient seasoning’, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez will find a way to make the trains run on time.
This has been, for a long time, one thing driving people to the Right. The Left has a nasty habit of resorting to violence. The Occupy movement may not have been violent at its start (it started with trespassing and vandalism, but we’ve accepted that as part of protesting in our culture), but when it spread to the West coast it certainly was–I know several major companies that advised their staff to work from home because the riots made the areas around the office buildings too unsafe to work in.
In contrast, the Tea Party Movement, for all its flaws, didn’t resort to assault as a standard tactic. Even in Trump’s campaign it was an exception, not the rule. What the Left doesn’t seem to realize is that this cost them their credibility. They try to paint themselves as the party of culture and civility and poise, but the Right views them as the party of gangs and thugs and vandals.
Trump was the Right saying “You’ve said we’re with you or against civility and civilization; I guess we’re against those things, then.” The more the Left takes an all-or-nothing, hard-line approach where the most radical group sets the standards, the more people will feel that way.
You have a citation for that quote from Trump?
I misread your quote as being directly from Trump; upon re-reading it, I see you’re saying something else. Apologies.
No worries. 🙂
It’s not a quote. It’s a summary of the general tone of the Right during the campaign and since the election.
single quotes is the US convention for that sort of thing.
You may want to reread what James wrote.
I get
Access Denied
You don’t have permission to access “http://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/food-cart-closing-due-to-threats-from-occupy-ice-pdx-protesters-owners-say/283-576480995” on this server.
Reference #18.126cd417.1532633383.3e3e57c
when clicking on the screenshot.
Perhaps you have been black-listed by the Ctrl-Left.
I’m in France, where I consistently get this message, whereas upon using a US-based VPN, it loads without a problem, so it is a stupid region-lock thingy.
You & I [in the UK] are blocked from KGW8, NY Daily News, Chicago Tribune & many other US news sites because a number of American sites have failed to comply with the EU’s GDPR [General Data Protection Regulation] despite having had two years to get their act together.
This has lost the larger American news providers European subscriptions & European ad revenue so the situation may change, though I doubt KGW8 & the like will bother since Europe is a rather virtual notion for many US news orgs.
As an example, this is how NPR are mishandling GDPR:
https://twitter.com/AlecMuffett/status/999616307241906176
The classic Conservative argument is that the tenets of the Left lead ineluctably to authoritarian behavior and social organization: thus, for example, the rule of Erich Honecker’s Socialist Unity Party in East Germany was neither a historical accident nor a “deformation” of Socialism, but exactly the logical outcome of its premises. Our contemporary pop-Left, exemplified so nicely by the Occupy ICE campers in Portland, is doing all it can to confirm this conservative argument.
At the same time, the Republican Party is doing its best to confirm the Left’s argument that the basic tenets of Conservatism lead ineluctably to Donald Trump and the like. On the evidence, it seems more and more that each sides’ analysis of the other is exactly correct.
That’s not an “argument”; it’s a naked assertion. If you’ve got an actual argument that Honecker’s East German party was somehow the “logical outcome” of socialism, I’d be interested to hear it.
What, specifically, are the tenets of the left that lead ineluctably to authoritarianism? Was the Third Reich not authoritarian?
The thing that leads to authoritarianism is human nature.
If you make levers of government and regulation, the wrong people will be lining up to pull them.
Curiously, religious and corporate power don’t seem to cause this concern.
I believe he is referring to Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom” well worth a read regardless of one’s political leanings.
Absolutely right.
Perpetual motion machines sort of seem like they should work, their hidden flaw is often friction.
Utopian societies also usually look good on paper, but their hidden flaw seems to be basic human nature.
That would explain why so many voters are shifting their registrations to “independent” or “Libertarian”! Here in Arizona the combined Libertarian and independent voters outnumber the combined Republicans and Democrats, and I expect this trend to continue.
The GOP doomed itself by its shabby treatment of Ron Paul, and Trump is completing the process. The Dems are losing all respectability by their downright hysterical anti-Trump antics, and their support of the Occupy, Antifa and BLM goons. The public is rapidly losing faith in both of them, and looking for alternatives. It’s high time for a workable third party, and the Libertarians are best organized to become that — if they’ll only learn how to advertize themselves better.
You seem to be exaggerating on both ends. I don’t see the independents going anywhere. Their showing in the last national election was pretty pathetic and I don’t see that changing much in the next one.
As for the “Dems hysterical anti-Trump antics”, I guess I missed that broadcast. Sure, there are a few people on the fringe just as there always are. Please name some significant anti-Trump antics. Plenty of anti-Trump rhetoric of course but why wouldn’t there be?
Tell me you Arizonans aren’t gonna send a ghoulish RWNJ like Kelli Ward (or, worse, Joe Arpaio!) to the US senate. Last I heard, Kyrsten Sinema looked like a pretty good bet to flip Flake’s seat blue.
A workable third party shouldn’t be hopelessly naive and mistakenly assume people are smart enough or ethical enough to do the right thing under no regulation.
The two-axes Political Compass is far more useful than the traditional left-right line.
Both left and right have authoritarian quadrants.
Now is the time for those of us in the lower, libertarian quadrants, left and right, to join in common cause to defeat the imminent threat from the CRT-Left and the ALT-Right.
Extremists have no sense of humor. It’s part of having no sense of proportion.
I find it so frustrating to be a leftie and see this kind of thing happening more and more. I might be moved to violence (a slap across the chops) if confronted by one of these idiots. (Kidding.) I don’t know how we can stop this from happening. Perhaps Left politicians need to speak out more against it but I fear that wouldn’t do much good and would supply the Right with video clips that would undoubtedly show up on Fox News.
It wouldn’t do any good, because the left politicians are obviously not “woke”.
+1
Regarding your last couple of sentences, when you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t perhaps the most reasonable course is to do what seems ethically correct. In other words, perhaps Left politicians should go ahead and criticize stuff like this regardless if Fox News will use it against them. Seems to me Fox will use anything they say in some way even if they have outright lie. And perhaps the people that could really make a difference at the polls, those not already on either extreme, will be favorable towards a bit of decency.
For that matter, CNN or MSCNBC will probably attack them for “backsliding”. Anybody who’s not an extremist will be set upon by the extremists, probably from both sides.
That’s nonsense. Neither CNN or MSNBC are in favor of Ctrl-Left tactics like this. Where’s your proof of that? I do wish they would cover this kind of incident more instead of spending an interminable amount of time covering the latest Stormy Daniels details. However, if they covered it, I am pretty sure they would show it in a negative light. Any reasonable person, left or right, would be in favor of the food cart owners and against the threats made to their daughter.
Fox News is going to be against you anyway. That’s a constant and therefore falls out of the equation here.
The question is, do you tolerate this sort of behavior in your name? You identify as a Leftist. These folks are committing violence in the name of YOUR cause. Are you okay with them doing that?
I’m not saying that the rank-and-file who say nothing are supporting these people. And there are obviously multiple ways to advocate for what you believe without fighting this specific battle. But you appear to feel it necessary to take some stand, so that’s the question you need to answer. And to be clear, sometimes the answer is a resounding “YES!!” Sometimes violence IS the right answer. But you need to decide if this is one of those times.
You are probably not really left anymore. I seem to have moved from center/left to right wing to almost Hitler in just a few years, and I have not changed my views much at all. More left, if anything.
If you are Ctl-Left and convinced of your own grasp of right ideas and right thinking then “Nothing is true, everything is permitted”.
Bonus points for spotting the Assassin’s Creed quotation. You can go for a long wander through Google as people offer explanations of what this means… but I guess that this is just a posh way of saying the ends justify the means without hearing the warnings from history.
Whee! When word of this gets around among the local poor and homeless, you’ll see them coming out of the woodwork to attack the Fat Antis with everything handy. It couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch.
Responding to Ken Kucek, the Conservative case (Hayek and many others) is as follows. Socialization of the means of production and distribution necessarily entails concentration of power in the hands of those who will oversee production and distribution on behalf of “society”. [Or “The People” or the force of History, revealed by the science of dialectical materialism.] The controllers (being human) will not escape the temptation to control everything they can, including your freedoms.
I used to dismiss this argument myself. But three lessons of the 20th and 21st century have forced me to at least take it seriously. (1) Every political formation of the Left which actually carried out socialization of ALL the means of production—meaning the Leninists—ALL imposed police states. (2) Those parties of the Left which retain democratic principles are precisely the ones [the social-democratic and Labour parties of western Europe] which publicly gave up the project of socializing all the means of prod and dist., and publicly support mixed economies.
The correlation in both directions, evident in (1) and (2), certainly suggests something basic. Even this might be passed over, but then we have a more recent datum. [(3) The repeated, seemingly inevitable behavior patterns of what we call the ctrl or regressive Left in these posts. Hmmm.
Thanks for the response. My withers remain unwrung.
I’d say your mistake is claiming that one of the tenets of the left is the socialization of all the means of production and distribution (leaving aside the question of what constitutes “socialization”; is the auto industry “socialized” because they have to abide by safety and environmental regulations?).
Police states are a necessary corollary to nationalization/socialization/whatever of the means of production and distribution. It’s inherent in the system. If you want the means of production/distribution centralized, having random people pop up doing the same job is going to throw your calculations into chaos. This is particularly true in situations where they can respond to the market faster than experts can. Ergo, you need some way to enforce centralization. This will necessarily grow (the enforcement system itself being bureaucratic in nature), until you get a police state.
But even that doesn’t do justice to the problems inherent in this system. Let’s say that the first generation to take over the means of production are genuinely convinced that this is the best way to ensure everyone has what they need, and they work their hardest to ensure a fair and equitable distribution of goods. Eventually they retire or die. Who takes their place? Anyone who’s worked in a bureaucratic organization knows that the traits necessary to rise within such an organization are not the traits necessary to do well at the higher levels of that organization–and we can assume that at least some of the people in the bureaucracy are power-hungry, selfish jerks, because some humans are power-hungry, selfish jerks. It’s pretty much inevitable that you will eventually–and I would say very quickly–end up with such people in high positions within the distribution bureaucracy.
At that point, the whole thing falls apart. Any system of centralized production/distribution can be easily twisted to benefit those on the top. This is admitted by socialists by their detestation of corporate greed, and overwhelming evidence can be supplied by picking up any newspaper and reading the financial section. Well, under socialism you now have power-hungry, selfish jerks operating as CEOs of multiple industries that have legal monopolies (and remember, this necessarily includes a police force with which to crush any competition!) operating on the scale of one or more countries.
The socialist answer to corporate greed is, in reality (as witnessed by every Communistic/socialistic nation that has been attempted), to amplify the worst aspects of it and grant them the power of law.
Thanks you, James. You have perfectly summarized the history of what the old Left liked to call “the Bolshevik experiment”, and all, without exception, of its replicates.
The experiment has now been replicated enough times to warrant serious thought.
It implies that the phrase “democratic Socialism” might well be an oxymoron, an illusion, or a mere advertising slogan. Of course, this applies to full-on state Socialism, not routine, prudent measures for regulating a market economy. On the latter, there can be agreement between Social Democrats and moderate Conservatives, like the Swedish party which in fact calls itself Moderaterna.
+ 1
I have an automatic response to people who say “You’re either with us or against us”, and it’s “Against you!”
Stop trying to drag the rest of the world into your squabble.
If Jesus was really to return and start preaching enlightenment and charity as he originally did*, he’d promptly get lynched by both sides (and that would include the Xtian fundies).
“But I’m Jesus of Nazareth!”
“Fake Jesus! Blasphemer! String him up!”
cr
*Okay, as He is popularly supposed to have done, I know the Bible is a bit erratic about what ‘he’ actually ‘did’.
To me, the most offensive thing about this whole situation is that we are expected to join one side or the other.
I always liked this Treebeard quote from Lord of the Rings:
I am not altogether on anybody’s side, because nobody is altogether on my side
Exactly, and to quote author Caitlin R. Kiernan (who happens to be transgendered.)
“And, in the end, no one ever said anything ever again that could possibly offend anyone, so great was the fear of retribution. It was safer not to speak. No one felt oppressed or triggered ever again. Outrage and offense became a thing of the past, along with comedy and art, literature and casual conversation, film and, for that matter, sex. And there was peace and bland silence and a smothering grey stillness where once there had been a vibrant culture.”
https://greygirlbeast.livejournal.com/1398856.html
This is the latest in a series of posts Kiernan has written after being shunned by the -Left when she declared her support for Hillary Clinton. back in 2016.
Are ctrl-lefties really this stupid or is this a case of Trumpette provocateurs pretending to be lefties here? Would Trumpettes be smart enough to pull something like this off?
Unlikely.