Portland Police Provocation at Anarchist Coffee Shop

[Hannah Bell]

For those who have far better things to worry about, a recap: Recently, at a worker-owned Portland anarchist cafe, Red And Black, a police officer was asked to leave by a co-owner. A local blogger was outraged (enough so to revisit the subject), the insipid Portland hipster yuppie press picks it up and the national media has a field day yukking it up over the bizarre notion that some people don't think cops are acceptable in polite company. Meanwhile, no one (except Infoshop News in their roundabout, "let's pretend we're trying to be objective to avoid the political fight" identity politics-laden "anarchist" sort of way) asks the crucial question: Why is a police officer going into an anarchist cafe in the first place...?

Red And Black have already received their fair share of negative attention. The Mercury's Blogtown intern Angela Weber contributed an especially idiotic and smug piece last Friday...All sarcasm aside, the Blogtown piece is a hatchet job, the kind Portland has come to know to expect from The Mercury. The article drips with snide, middle class derision of any ideology not approved by the academy, Spin or MSNBC...Rival yuppietainment rag The Willamette Week has yet to weigh in. But auslanders might need to be clued into some facts that Portlanders are keenly aware of. Portland police are particularly trigger happy...Portland's finest are also fond of things like these recent shenanigans with a 12-year old girl...

James Crooker, the police officer is an agent provocateur, whether on official orders or his own personal initiative. The role of useful idiot is played by Ms. Cornelia Becker Seigneur, who is obviously qualified for at least the second part...

Make no mistakes: Police are little more than a legitimate street gang authorized to do the bidding of the ruling class. In Portland this takes the form of harassing the homeless, racial minorities, leftists and anyone else creating an "unfriendly business climate." The question is not one of a few bad apples, but of the role of the police. Compare the role of police in protecting Tea Party members or Klansmen as compared to policing an anti-war protest or, even worse, striking workers. Police are not our guardians, but our warders, serving those who oppress and exploit us, regardless of their own personal motivations, feelings or subjective personal strengths. There is a culture of lawlessness, sadism and corruption within the police force that self-selects for narcissists and sociopaths. Those wishing to serve their community are assimilated into this culture or driven out.

Go by the Red And Black and get yourself a coffee. Show your support for their stand.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/nick-pell/29288/portland-police-provocation-at-anarchist-coffee-shop

[LooseWilly]

1. I'm not sure the source of this article... but I like the writer...

"Police are not our guardians, but our warders, serving those who oppress and exploit us, regardless of their own personal motivations, feelings or subjective personal strengths." elegantly well put... and I'm sure that many statists will take issue with my expression of ideational pleasure upon beholding this prose...

:)

[old mark]

2. Rec. We have armed Right Wing Militias running around talking sedition

and revolution, "Oath Keepers" planning to seal off the borders of their communities against Federal tyranny and "lifers" planning to murder more doctors and harrass those who seek their services...and the cops are after some leftie neo-hippies in a coffee house...this is startin gto remind me of the late '60's except there are no angry, violent leftwing groups blowing things up...yet.

The bit about the cops being just another gang is right on the money, IMO...


mark

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. Someone on Facebook posted glowing praise for Oathkeepers

Then she went on to discuss the evils of fluoride and chemtrails.

I blocked her. :)

[old mark]

18. The GOP woman in Nevada running against Reid thinks flouride in drinking water is socialism...

this shit was going on right after WWII and never went away...they were also against "mental health" back then-they thought it was aSOCIALIST (Democrat) PLOT to put Good American RWers in mental hospital/prison camps for "brainwashing"...these people have been crazy for generations, show no signs of changing now...


mark

[nomorenomore08]

19. So they were afraid they might be suffering from "sluggishly progressing schizophrenia"?

;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sluggishly_progressing_schizophrenia

[old mark]

26. Right - "political insanity". I am sure they got the idea from the Soviet "Clinics" that

that tried to "cure" dissidents of their unbelief in Soviet Socialism...how could any sane person find fault with the New Soviet Man, after all?

Than and reports of "brainwashing" of Korean war POWs made lots of those people fear their government, especially them Demoncrats...
Never seems to end, does it...

mark

[proud2BlibKansan]

22. Can I send them my dental bills?

No fluoride in my water until I was 10. I am now in my 50s and still have bad teeth. I am just grateful I have still most of them. LOL

[old mark]

25. Just wait - I am 62, have 5 left on top....bad dental care of the 50's

and large number of extractions....


mark

[nomorenomore08]

3. So what exactly does being a "Bolshevik" entail in 2010 North America?

I mostly enjoyed the article, as much for its provocative tone as anything else - I share the writer's profound distrust for most authority figures, particularly those with guns - but that part jumped out at me in a weird way.

[hobbit709]

4. They can call themselves that

but in reality they are Mensheviks.

[nomorenomore08]

6. Had to Wikipedia that...

But it seems that the Mensheviks were relatively more moderate, more "work-within-the-system." Whereas the author of this article seems to be positioning himself as more-radical-than-thou, implying that even the anti-cop anarchists lack ideological purity. Or am I misunderstanding because it's late (or early) and I'm still a little buzzed? :)

[hobbit709]

8. Bolshevik loosely translated meant majority

Menshevik were the minority faction. In the general political scheme these people are a minority.

[nomorenomore08]

9. Okay, so I read more into your last post than I should've...

But that still doesn't answer my initial question. And I really am genuinely curious.

[hobbit709]

10. The right can't hold a candle to left wing ideological purity infighting

I learned that over 40 years ago.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

24. Isn't that the truth. Vary from the orthodoxy and all hell will break loose

Its something that the right wing seems not to do nearly as much

[rucky]

5. And sometimes a cup of coffee is just a beverage. n/t

[nomorenomore08]

7. I guess small symbolic gestures are more important to some people than to others.

I respect that, and I'm not going to tell them they're wrong.

[rucky]

12. I know a few Portland Police officers.

One is openly gay. Another is a good liberal. When Moose was chief, he marched in the Pride Parade.

PDX cops have done some pretty awful things, but if an off duty officer wants to come into the Red and Black for a cup of coffee, it's pretty obvious that it toatlly fucked with the frame of the activist groups (which is clearly laid out in this article.) The truth is there are some good cops in the force and the culture isn't completely rotten - not beyond reform, at least. One of those good cops may have been the one kicked out of the Red & Black.

Showing a little understanding for the individuals who do join the force for the right reasons would go a little way towards ending this long-standing feud. If it can't happen in a coffee shop, I'm not sure where it could happen.

[nomorenomore08]

17. Well I'm certainly not going to fall back on some knee-jerk "all cops are evil" argument...

They're participants in a corrupt, all-around rotten social system, just as you and I are - I understand this, and I don't blame individual officers as much as I blame the whole way that things are set up in this country.

But as far as "reform of the culture" and such, I have serious doubts. Seems to me that the relationship between law enforcement, and the kind of people who work at or frequent the Red and Black, can only be adversarial, under current political and economic conditions. Reason being that "anarchists," "radicals," whatever you label them or they label themselves, represent a threat - however small or ineffectual - to the whole crooked structure.

Maybe I haven't explained myself quite as well as I'd like, but that was at least an attempt... :shrug:

[rucky]

20. I know what you mean.

That menacing aspect serves a purpose for both sides, I guess. I'm as anti-authoritarian as the next guy, but being militantly so is sort of a contradiction.

[nomorenomore08]

21. Yeah, I don't know if a guy who labels himself a Bolshevik and trashes anarchists

is necessarily "anti-authoritarian." :)

[Obamanaut]

13. An answer to the question the OP asks may well be "to get a cup

of coffee."

Here is the question "...Why is a police officer going into an anarchist cafe in the first place...?"

There is not necessarily a boogeyman lurking in every shadow. If one finds a bad apple in any barrel, it is because sometimes apples are bad. Not all apples are bad, not all politicians (or so I've been told), not all police. Not all teachers are good, there are some members of the military who are ne'er-do-wells, some members of various religions leave something to be desired in their behavior.

All these groups are simply smaller groups of the whole society. There are some bad members in these groups because the groups are made up of members of that larger society, and that larger society has some 'bad apples.'

Another poster said it nicely "Sometimes a cup of coffee is simply a cup of coffee."

ETA unrec for dead horse beating

[nomorenomore08]

15. If he wasn't trying to start shit, he sure stepped in some.

I'm not saying the guy should be demonized - though neither should the cafe's employees - but as others have commented, something about the whole story just seems a little too "perfect." Raises the suspicions of already suspicious types, I suppose...

[IndianaGreen]

14. Perhaps James Crooker is working for his local intelligence fusion center, one of many in USA

I recently posted this ACLU piece about the sinister Fusion Centers being established across the country:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x336183

[cali]

16. oh for fuck's sake. Agent provocateur? The idiocy over this abounds?

Can anyone say much ado about nothing?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

23. What good is a Sunday morning without a large does of hyperbole?

Kind of like how you can not have DYSFUNCTIONAL without some FUN

[smoking357]

27. Great post

"Make no mistakes: Police are little more than a legitimate street gang authorized to do the bidding of the ruling class. In Portland this takes the form of harassing the homeless, racial minorities, leftists and anyone else creating an "unfriendly business climate." The question is not one of a few bad apples, but of the role of the police. Compare the role of police in protecting Tea Party members or Klansmen as compared to policing an anti-war protest or, even worse, striking workers. Police are not our guardians, but our warders, serving those who oppress and exploit us, regardless of their own personal motivations, feelings or subjective personal strengths. There is a culture of lawlessness, sadism and corruption within the police force that self-selects for narcissists and sociopaths. Those wishing to serve their community are assimilated into this culture or driven out."

Holy crap. I've been banned from a few gun forums for saying, more or less, this same point.

You're not at risk of imminent ban for speaking the truth, are you?