Ngl, adult friendships require grace. People are very busy. People are healing. People are growing. People are taking time for self care just like you. Less communication isn’t less love. Check in not out.
Let’s be honest. PPB isn’t Antifa-adjacent. Nor is Portland an actual “war zone.” Anyone who claims this is using absurd hyperbole. Most cops I know want to clean up the city. I also know Chief Day, who I know personally, wants the city cleaned up and safe.
Here’s where the problems are occurring in the quagmire that is occurring down at the ICE facility.
1) PPB is roughly 50% staffed compared to other large metropolitan municipalities in the US. Being able to cover the issues all over the city has been trying, not just on this particular block.
2) Portland was always a little whacky in that the mayor also always served as its police commissioner. Now, with the new city government, the situation is even more hairbrained than before. Although the mayor can appoint, remove, and direct oversight of the Chief, the city council and the city administrator also have input. This means that there is no actual Police Commissioner and the Police Chief apparently has multiple bosses. There seems to be a severe lack of leadership that is causing the confusion and ineptitude.
3) There’s also a lot of damaging rhetoric being thrown around by electeds on both sides, which makes this seem more and more like a middle school playground brawl every day.
4) The malaise that many Portlanders are feeling is not so much what is currently happening down on the South Waterfront, but rather, the absolute exhaustion of seeing the city we love being thrown down a hole of despair with closing businesses, rampant homelessness, crime, drug addiction, cartel influence, rising taxes, and political corruption and incompetence. In this way, it IS a war zone because Portlanders feel as if they are being attacked on all sides, with no end in sight. We are tired of this city being a punch line for the rest of the country and the world. The attacks on the ICE facility is yet another reminder of how poorly this city is managed.
5) Also, anyone who has followed anarchist unrest in this city as long as we have also knows that the individuals currently down at the ICE facility protesting are not the anarchist “A Team.” Those people are actually smart enough to stay away when the Feds come to town. What they are cleaning up down there are mostly the brain dead useful idiots and over-grown children. Unfortunately, these attempts by Federal agents probably aren’t going do much to eliminate leftist unrest in the city in the future.
Portland has a leadership problem. Our leaders would rather grandstand than fix the city’s problems. This is a great diversion to keep us from looking at the problems that affect the residents every day: affordability and security.
I just found out that viagra doesn’t only help with endometriosis, it also helps with infertility and avoiding miscarriages. They literally took what could’ve been a miracle drug for HALF THE POPULARITY, and turned it into a pill for creepy old men.