From the Administration that Brought You Kids-in-Cages, It's Tear-Gassed-Moms

[aubiefifty 18,231]

rollingstone.com

 

From the Administration that Brought You Kids-in-Cages, It's Tear-Gassed-Moms

Tim Dickinson

11-14 minutes

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July 22, 2020 7:48PM ET

 

Trump denounced Portland protests as illegitimate, led by anarchists. What happens when a bunch of moms show up in yellow shirts?

Mothers form the front line of a protest march toward Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse on July 20, 2020 in Portland, Ore. Monday night marked 54 days of protests in Portland following the death of George Floyd in police custody.

Nathan Howard/Getty Images

As nightly protests have dominated downtown Portland for nearly two months, both local officials and the Trump administration have attempted to cast the largely peaceful demonstrators as ruffians with suspect political values, hellbent on destruction. “It’s a very big difference between protests and the kind of mayhem that we’ve seen every night,” deputy chief of the Portland police Chris Davis insisted at a July 8th press conference. “Protests and this are two different things.” President Donald Trump delivered the same message from the Oval Office on July 20th: “These are not protesters. People say ‘protesters’; these people are anarchists. These are people that hate our country.  And we’re not going to let it go forward.”

But the composition of the protest crowd in Portland is changing, following revelations that “the federal government effectively kidnapped people of Portland streets,” to quote the city attorney’s description of unidentified federal agents hauling protesters off into unmarked cars. Hundreds of mothers from across the city have shown up downtown this week, wearing yellow shirts and bike helmets or hard hats and improvised goggles. They’ve locked arms near the front of the protests to form a “Wall of Moms,” attempting to shield younger, edgier protesters from law enforcement violence. As one mother protester, Tara Russell, described her intentions on Facebook on July 20th: “Going to join the Wall of Moms…. I really hope I don’t get tear gassed, but I can’t sit at home anymore and watch these brave young people get beaten and rounded up by the Federal Secret Police. (And the Portland Police for that matter).”

The Wall of Moms draws on a long history of anti-authoritarian activism, particularly in Latin America where mother protesters famously demanded accountability for the thousands “disappeared” by right-wing regimes in Argentina and Chile. But the arrival of these demonstrators to protests that arose out of fury against official violence against Black people is complex. The layers of race- and class- and gender- privilege and expectation and subversion involved when a large group of (largely) white mothers shows up to make it more challenging for armed federal agents to injure marginalized people require a lot of unpacking. But many have welcomed the Wall of Moms:

The arrival of the moms has certainly made it more difficult for local and federal authorities to justify their crackdown on protests by appealing to public hostility toward black bloc agitators. Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, pulled no punches:

These demonstrators in yellow shirts have not just lifted their voices. On the night of July 21st, they put their bodies on the front line outside of the Mark O. Hatfield federal courthouse, in which federal agents have barricaded themselves. A Trump administration court filing on July 21st cites vandalism to the building — with estimated damages “in excess of $50,000” — as the key justification for the deployment of 114 federal law enforcement agents in Portland. The courthouse has been heavily tagged with graffiti, some of it reading “Mamma,” evoking George Floyd’s call for his mother with his dying breaths as he was pinned by cops in Minneapolis in late May.

The feds, wearing fatigues and holding military-style rifles, showed no special treatment to the Wall of Moms. The protesters absorbed blows and tear gas from federal agents who were trying to shut down the protests.

As resistance to Trump’s paramilitary buildup in Portland has gone mainstream, the administration has announced it is expanding deployment of federal agents to “assist American cities which are experiencing upticks in violent crime.” The unwelcome federal surge, which began earlier this month in Kansas City, Missouri, will soon expand to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and to Chicago.

Trump, who is trying to rescue his failed presidency by campaigning on “law and order,” also invoked the sanctity of motherhood in justifying the federal intrusion known as Operation Legend and named after a four year old, LeGend Taliferro, who was recently killed in Kansas City gun violence.

“No mother should ever have to cradle her dead child in her arms,” said Trump, a president who has refused to take action on gun control, furthered lethal policies at the border for undocumented immigrants, and demonized a movement aimed at preventing black people from being killed at the hands of police, “simply because politicians refused to do what is necessary to secure their neighborhood and to secure their city.”

PMC

[aubiefifty 18,231]

this is posted for lefties altho any can read. some of you cats on the right  do not care what kind of horrors trumps forces on his people. i have not been this ashamed since they drug vets out of wheelchairs and beat them like redheaded step children.

[I_M4_AU 8,935]

All terrorists use human shields.

[jj3jordan 2,171]

Sorry fitty Obama brought you kids in cages. Not Trump.

[yngwie1995 2,363]

13 hours ago, jj3jordan said:

Sorry fitty Obama brought you kids in cages. Not Trump.

Exactly. 

https://apnews.com/a98f26f7c9424b44b7fa927ea1acd4d4/AP-FACT-CHECK:-2014-photo-wrongly-used-to-hit-Trump-policies

 

[aubiefifty 18,231]

On 7/23/2020 at 11:57 PM, jj3jordan said:

Sorry fitty Obama brought you kids in cages. Not Trump.

i know that and it is sad you do not remember i have stated my stance on that several times on these threads. but it is still going on and trump escalated it. you have a selective memory i see. but tell me jj are you personally ok with it?

[AUFAN78 4,156]

1 hour ago, aubiefifty said:

i know that and it is sad you do not remember i have stated my stance on that several times on these threads. but it is still going on and trump escalated it. you have a selective memory i see. but tell me jj are you personally ok with it?

Were you okay with when Obama started this practice? Did you voice your displeasure? To whom?

[aubiefifty 18,231]

16 minutes ago, AUFAN78 said:

Were you okay with when Obama started this practice? Did you voice your displeasure? To whom?

i have stated repeatedly i was pissed obama did that. not sure how ya missed it 78. this should not even be political but about the kids. also, if biden wins and does nothing i will be on him as well. we are better than this. do you agree? i await your answer

[jj3jordan 2,171]

3 hours ago, aubiefifty said:

i know that and it is sad you do not remember i have stated my stance on that several times on these threads. but it is still going on and trump escalated it. you have a selective memory i see. but tell me jj are you personally ok with it?

Your establishment of the OP belies your disapproval of Obama's caging of the children my friend. Trump did not escalate anything. He merely followed the law as written and upheld by the 9th circuit. If there were a large increase in illegals crossing the border then perhaps there would have been more occupants of the fenced in sections of a large building designed to give the illegals some privacy and security until their hearings.  The conditions of the temporary shelters are vastly better than anything the illegals would experience either loose in the country or outside of it.  The disappointment of these illegals with their plight is likely driven by their unfulfilled demand to be given free food water housing health care lawyers citizenship voting rights land etc. It horrible that criminals are actually being forced to follow the law. By the way, when Trump tried by executive order to amend the law to allow families to be together he was threatened legal action by the democrats (your people) and castigated by the media for acting as a dictator. 

[AUFAN78 4,156]

On 7/25/2020 at 9:44 AM, aubiefifty said:

i have stated repeatedly i was pissed obama did that. not sure how ya missed it 78. this should not even be political but about the kids. also, if biden wins and does nothing i will be on him as well. we are better than this. do you agree? i await your answer

I guess I did miss it fidy. It shouldn't be political. We need immigration reform.

[aubiefifty 18,231]

1 hour ago, AUFAN78 said:

I guess I did miss it fidy. It shouldn't be political. We need immigration reform.

good grief 78 you guys are the ones that told me. i had never heard it but yes it pissed me off.............i went ande googled it of course because i did not trust you guys and trust me i was upset and still am. it is crap and it should not be happening. taking babies away from fam's and all that. i try to ne as honest as i can but i get fooled sometimes. but yes you guys brought it up and i thought it was a joke to mess with me. wrong.   lol the drinking water as well. all those kids will be sick and many already are and he said it was drinkable and it is not. this country is doing some very bad things and sometimes i think maybe we should all go third party for a real change.

[homersapien 12,230]

Just to be clear, Obama didn't separate children from their families.  These were children who were either unaccompanied or being brought in by strangers/smugglers.

Trump is the one who separated kids from their families.

[aubiefifty 18,231]

trumps shock troops...........