Behind the Bastards

There’s a reason the History Channel has produced hundreds of documentaries about Hitler but only a few about Dwight D. Eisenhower. Bad guys (and gals) are eternally fascinating. Behind the Bastards dives in past the Cliffs Notes of the worst humans in history and exposes the bizarre realities of their lives. Listeners will learn about the young adult novels that helped Hitler form his monstrous ideology, the founder of Blackwater’s insane quest to build his own Air Force, the bizarre lives of the sons and daughters of dictators and Saddam Hussein’s side career as a trashy romance novelist.

Episode 3: Uprising: A Guide From Portland: The Birth of an Uprising

Episode 3: Uprising: A Guide From Portland: The Birth of an Uprising

Mon, 07 Dec 2020 05:06

Episode 3: Uprising: A Guide From Portland: The Birth of an Uprising

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Sports Illustrated Weekly is available every Wednesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe now. The art world. It is essentially a money laundering business. The best fakes are still hanging on people's walls. You know, they don't even know or suspect that they're fakes. I'm Alec Baldwin and this is a podcast about deception, greed, and forgery in the art world. I just walked in and saw this bright red painting presuming to be a Rothko. Of course, art forgeries only happen because there's money to be made. A lot of money. I'm listening to how what they're paying for these things. It was an incredible amount of money. You knew the painting was fake. Umm. Listen to art fraud starting February 1st on the iHeartRadio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Conquer your New Year's resolutions with the Before Breakfast podcast and each bite sized daily episode. You'll learn how to make the most of your time with practical tools to help you feel less busy and get more done. Listen to before breakfast on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. We started this series by asking why Portland? And the most accurate answer to that question is the history lesson we gave in episode one. But the most direct answer to why the city of Portland became the Nexus of an uprising starts with a bunch of teenagers and a statue of George Washington. Our own Garrison Davis was there. Here's what he experienced. On Thursday, June 18th, I set out for a park in East Portland. The teenage activist group Pacific Northwest Youth Liberation Front, or just the Y LF, posted on their Twitter account that something was planned for 8:00 PM, so I made my way, expecting something interesting to happen. The previous night, the while left and some new black organizers had set up an autonomous zone style occupation in front of the mayor's apartment in the upscale Pearl District, inspired by Seattle's Capitol Hill occupied protest slash Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. Come morning, not enough bodies were present at the attempted autonomous zone to resist the riot police who arrived to clear the area. After the very short lived autonomous zone, I had wondered what the while left had planned next. As 8:00 PM approached on that Thursday, only a little over a dozen people gathered at the original Mint Mobile offers premium wireless starting at just 15 bucks a month. And now for the plot twist. Nope, there isn't one. Mint Mobile just has premium wireless from 15 bucks a month. There's no trapping you into a two year contract. You're opening the bill to find all these nuts fees. 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Is there anything that we haven't talked about or or? Would you like to add that seems relevant. You should have asked me why I'm missing fingers on my left hand. A story about sacrifice. I think his suffering drove him to try to alleviate suffering. And the shocking discovery I made where I faced the consequences of writing a book I thought would help people? Isn't that funny? That's not funny at all. It's depressing. Very depressing. Religious history is back with more. Listen to revisionist history on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. I've never seen less enthusiasm for a great idea in my life. While meeting spot, the small group were mostly in black bloc. Black Bloc is a tactic that originated with German anti globalization protesters. It involves wearing all black clothing to make it difficult to identify specific people. Shortly after I arrived, the crowd had began marching N they decided to take the sidewalk instead of the street due to their low numbers. In a matter of minutes, the crowd arrived at their apparent destination, the Portland German American Society. Which features a large statue of George Washington out in front of the building. Activists started by draping an American flag over the face of the statue and lighting it ablaze. People spray painted the base and statue itself writing genocidal colonist, slave owner, and 1619, the year the first enslaved Africans were brought to America. Slowly, more people arrived. As calls for support were made out over social media, the few dozen people in attendance started attaching nylon straps to the head of the statue. And began pulling back and forth. By 11:00 PM, the statue of George Washington had been completely torn down. The crowd quickly left, calling the night a success, and police arrived a little over half an hour later. At the time, no one could have known that this small action would trigger a series of events that would turn Portland's BLM protests into the biggest story in the entire country. Hey, lethal listeners, tig here. Last season on Lethal lit, you might remember I came to Hollow falls on a mission, clearing my Aunt Beth's name and making sure justice was finally served. But I hadn't counted on a rash of new murders tearing apart the town. My mission put myself and my friends in danger, though. It wasn't all bad. I'm going to be real with you, tig. I like you. But now all signs point to a new serial killer in Hollow Falls. If this game is just starting, you better believe I'm going to win. I'm Tig Torres and this is lethal lit. Catch up on season one of the hit Murder Mystery podcast, Lethal Lit, a tig Torres mystery out now and then TuneIn for all new thrills in Season 2 dropping weekly starting February 9. Subscribe now to never miss an episode. Listen to lethal lit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Colleen Witt. Join me, the host of eating Wall broke podcast while I eat a meal created by self-made entrepreneurs, influencers, and celebrities over a meal they once ate when they were broke. Today I have the lovely AJ Crimson, the official Princess of Compton, Asia, kidding, and Asia. This is the professor. We're here on 80 while broke and today I'm going to break down my meal that got me through a time when I was broke. Listen to eating while broke on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Roxanne gay, host of the Roxanne gay agenda, the Bad Feminist podcast of Your Dreams. Now, what is the Roxanne gay agenda, you might ask? Well, it's a podcast where I'm going to speak my mind about what's on my mind, and that could be anything. Every week I will be in conversation with an interesting person who has something to say. We're going to talk about feminism, race, writing in books and arts, food, pop culture, and, yes, politics. I started show with a recommendation. Really, I'm just going to share with you a movie or a book or maybe some music or a comedy set. Something that I really want you to be aware of and maybe engage with as well. Listen to the Luminary original podcast, the Roxanne gay agenda, the Bad Feminist podcast of Your Dreams, Every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Right Wing Media reacted to the toppling of the George Washington statue. As expected, a narrative was spun that police were letting a violent mob of Antifa rioters go around town, destroying property without consequence. Pundits criticized protesters for erasing history. The Portland police defended their failure to stop the toppling of the statue by complaining that they had been occupied with a concurrent protest at the Justice Center fence. They stated the group blocked the street for several hours, throwing projectiles such as hot dogs at the Justice Center doors. By this point, three weeks into the protests, dozens of Portlanders had been arrested at actions. And yet a narrative had begun to spread on right wing media that there had been no consequences for protesters engaging in destructive activity. The toppling of George Washington flipped a switch in national Far Right media, and suddenly Portland was a symbol of everything wrong with the left. Here's President Trump on the campaign. Rail. Days ago, leftist radicals in Portland, OR, ripped down a statue. Of George Washington. And wrapped it in an American flag and set the American flag on fire. Democrat. All Democrats, everything I tell you is Democrat. And, you know, we ought to do something, Mr Senators. We have two great senators. We ought to come up with legislation that if you burn the American flag, you go to jail for one year. There are a lot of things wrong with that statement. First off, some of the folks who took down that statue would find being called a Democrat insulting. Also, the Supreme Court has ruled that burning an American flag is a constitutionally protected form of free speech. Portland protesters toppling a George Washington statue seems to have inspired the president to suggest. Legislation that would ban not just the toppling of statues, which was already illegal, but flag burning and similar acts of protest. As it turned out, Donald Trump would follow through on the idea of criminalizing that sort of behaviour. But why would protesters go through all the trouble of tumbling down statues in the 1st place? We talked with some members of the YLF the Youth Liberation Front to get their perspective, since the President of the United States has threatened these again, literal children. Repeatedly, we've redubbed the audio in order to protect their identities. Because they represent monuments to people who are white supremacist and genocidal. And as an anarchist, I think every statue to a human should be torn down because they don't believe in idolizing anyone, but especially like people who led the way for colonization and just awful atrocities in their lifetime. President Trump's fury over the George Washington action through the Youth Liberation Front into the national spotlight. But that statue was not actually the first to fall in Portland, and it would not be the last, though. Wolf would become synonymous with a more radical, militant segment of the protests acting under the cover of night. The first statue to come down in Portland was actually at Thomas Jefferson High School, one of the only remaining majority black schools in the state. On the afternoon of June 14th, as a large peaceful March led by Rose City Justice departed from Jefferson, the statue of the school's namesake was torn from its pedestal by a small, enthusiastic group in broad daylight. Picking up the rest of the story is my colleague and partner in getting horribly tear gassed Elaine. Mention toppling statues of historical slaveholders became a nationwide trend during the first three weeks of the George Floyd protests. By the time the George Washington statue at the Portland German American Association came down, 18 other statues had fallen to crowds across the country. In the weeks that followed, at least 17 more statues would meet the same fate, and many more would be quietly relocated for their own protection. Just as the Wilfs vandalism of the Washington statue fits into a larger context of statue toppling, the while left themselves. Only one part of Portland's activist ecosystem, originally emerging from a loose coalition of anti racist and anti Trump high school groups. Here are two wildlife members talking about the genesis of the group in 2018-2019. The comrades who started it made a lot of connections with the Occupy ice and started running things, running the social media. I think we was really born. It came out of like really sporadic school protests just like whatever was happening and it was something that people felt was really important back then. The group slowly moved towards like anti fascism and you liberation, trying to interest ageism as well in those spaces and I think it definitely went that direction completely. And 29th, yeah, that was like a big anti fascist and fascist rally in Portland. And I definitely think that kind of sparked a turning point where I think like the organization really blossomed from there. Yeah, we started off as like a very liberal group, like one of those many boring student activist groups that just like participated in walkouts. But then we started to take a more radical turn. Like our first protest that I was involved with was for gun control rally. And that's yeah, that's really cringe looking back because now we're all like insurrectionary. Anarchists? Oh, I think it definitely moved from that into a more radical stance after June 29th. And then came August 17th, which was another big rally in Portland that. Where. Yeah. I mean, like a good amount of focus was placed on us all of a sudden. Yeah. And I think it kind of just continued after that. Jacob fueros, the founder of Direct Action Alliance, says he first encountered what would eventually become the Wilf in March of 2017 while organizing to counter a far right demonstration in the wealthy suburb of Lake Oswego. It would be, you know, Rose City Antifa Direct Action Alliance TM WLF, which I think had back then it was still called Oregonians against Trump or something like that. But. That's when we first started organizing together to confront the right wing was during that time in March of 2017 through May of 2017, and then after that it was this coordinated effort, Jacobs says. The Direct Action Alliance was formed out of a sense of desperation in late 2016. Yeah, after the election, I just didn't want to keep wasting my time in politics and I I felt this really big sense of urgency and around that time was when they started attacking. People at Standing Rock. And both of my kids are are citizens of the Cherokee Nation, my partners, the citizen of the Cherokee Nation. And they were they were all really upset about it, and I was really upset about it. Jacob had been an activist for a while previous to this point, and he was already familiar with Portland organizers who had risen to prominence with the first Black Lives Matter protests in 2014. These include Danielle James and the founder of Don't shoot Portland, Teresa Rayford. We each have our own individual. Thing that we really focus on, except for in the Direct Action Alliance we kind of just do everything. But most groups have their own thing that they focus on, but we're all the same people helping each other behind the scenes. So when while F is working, focusing on something that's anti, anti police, right? It's the same people who organized the large, peaceful BLM rallies, who are working with them to support them. And so that's where the intersection is. We're all one big family here in Portland. It's not a, it's not like in other cities where we actually have to build alliances. People have been active in the city for so long and have been seeing the same faces for so long. I I'd say it all goes back to Teresa Rayford. She's the one. She's the one who took it from 2011 when the when the Occupy movement happened and kind of. Molded that energy. Into something where Portland became an activist scene again. This, this city wasn't wasn't very active. It kind of lost its edge until Teresa Rayford came along and started pushing people to come out to show up to fight back. When Quantus Hayes was killed, she was out there calling everyone to come out, do something about it. And I'd say that she was, I'd say she's at the core of it. I mean, most of the people who I've met, who I've coordinated with, who I've worked with, all of those groups that I just mentioned to you, I met all of them that don't shoot. Portland rallies way back before Trump was president. Rayford had originally formed don't Shoot PDX in response to the killing of Michael Brown and Ferguson. But the failed PPB shooting of teenager Quanis Hayes in February 2017 gave a new local urgency to calls for police accountability and came in the midst of an upswing of far right mobilizations targeting Portland. Every city has certain defining moments, traumas which galvanized the community, spur the creation of new coalitions, and give rise to new organizing. Strategies one of those defining moments for Portland came in May of 2017, when a white supremacist named Jeremy Christian murdered two people on a Max light rail train. The day before the killings, Christian assaulted another portlander Demetria Hester here. She recounts her experience. OK, so three years ago, Jeremy Joseph Christian attacked me. He's a white known supremacist. That here in Organism that the police know about everybody the the the mayor knew about. I mean, everybody just knew about him because he has set the tone at every March and stay in. Stating how much he hates, you know, other races, anyone that wasn't black, it wasn't there, wasn't white, and wanted to harm or kill anyone that wasn't, you know, those descents of that descent of being white and Christian so. He verbally attacks me for three stops on the Max in May 2000. 2017 front and center, often with a bullhorn in hand, Demetria became one of the most recognizable voices of Portland's 2020 protests. The man she's describing, Jeremy Christian, was a regular attendee of far right rallies in the Portland area. That night, Demetria fended off Christian with pepper spray. Police responded, but Christian was not detained, and he got away to kill the people. The next day, on that same green line, he was looking for me. Because I made him the night before he encountered 21 African American young lady and one lady who had her G Habeeb on and she wasn't. She thought she was Muslim. So he verbally started attacking these little girls under 18 and three men came into their rescuing, was defending them and tried to deescalate the problem, but he stabbed two of them and killed them. Stabbed 1/3 and tried to kill him. So the police got the call not to even use force when they were got the call that he did this on the Max. This just shows you how the police play a part and everything he did and the reason why he got away with what he did. And then so when they actually caught him he was still wielding the knife that he killed people with. He threatened 4 people on his way to when they detained him. And the only reason they detained him again was because the public was following him and they didn't even shoot him with rubber bullets or tear gas them or anything. With a knife in his hand and threatening the police, he was able to throw the knife on the police car, still drinking his wine that he had in another Gatorade bottle. And. They detain him, and after they detain him, he bragged about what he did. Ricky John Best and Taliesin Namkhai Mechi died in the attack. The third man, Micah Fletcher, survived. A few weeks before the murders, Christian had attended a right wing free speech event in the Montavilla neighborhood of Portland. The rally aimed to build on the momentum of the Lake Oswego event in March. Micah Fletcher, the only survivor of the stabbings, had been in Montavilla as well, counter protesting alongside direct. Action Alliance, Rose City, Antifa and what would eventually become the Ylf. In some ways Portland is a very small town. After the murders far right rallies in Portland continued anti fascist counter protests were large and spirited at first, but as Effie Baum describes that didn't last. And in the year since that we had seen the counter demonstrations dwindle to just basically a small black block that was based that was showing up to counter them and on. And 30th it had turned into a really, really violent, Umm event where a lot of folks on our side got pretty seriously hurt and some of them had to go to the hospital and sustain school fractures. And there was that video of Umm, you know, Ethan Nordine or Rufio, Umm, you know, knocking out somebody. And that kind of, you know, became the viral, proud boy sensation it did. And and really kind of Umm. You know, did a lot for recruitment for them. Umm and so. We decided that what we needed in Portland was Umm, a strong organizing effort to get as many people as possible to show up to oppose them when they have these rallies. Effie is part of a group called Pop MOP, Short for Popular Mobilization. Their goal is to use innovative and community friendly organizing tactics to foster a big tent approach to anti fascism. We planned pretty closely with Rose City, Antifa and DS a pretty much all of our events that we've had have been in partnership with at least those two organizations. And then for various events, we've had coalitions of up to 30, you know, plus organizations at various times have signed on to different actions that we've had involving groups like jobs with justice and like the Buddhist Peace Fellowship and Queer Liberation Front. Uh, symbiosis and uh Portland assembly. There's a lot of different organizations. Since 2018, pop Mob has countered far right events with online fundraisers, hundreds of free vegan milkshakes, and anti fascist dance parties. When the George Floyd protests began, they took on a different role. So one thing is that we've always had a very, very narrow mission as an organization and we've been really intentional about trying to stick within the scope of that mission, which is inspiring. Able to show up and oppose the far right and Umm, so Umm we didn't feel like we were in a position where we should be leading anything. So we instead agreed as a group that we wanted to operate in a support role only. And one of the things that we've done over the last couple of years is kind of really build up a social media presence and have you know, had a lot of been lucky enough doesn't really talented people within our group. Do a lot of great media work and Umm. And so we had basically just wanted to use our platform to boost the organizing the other groups were doing on the ground. Don't shoot would organize rallies throughout the summer. Marches called by the Direct Action Alliance would repeatedly target police infrastructure. But as new groups sprung up and led marches of thousands, Portland also had a robust support network of activist groups looking for ways to help. Longtime Portland activist Gregory Mckelvey describes the transition to new leadership. Groups springing up in 2020, there were people who were new, brand new, that were called to the moment because of the murder of George Floyd. And I think that it is really imperative that those people become the leaders. I also think it's imperative that the people who were previous leaders take a step back and allow those people to be the the new leaders, right? And but I think that we cannot keep reinventing the wheel every time that a protest movement comes up. So what needs to happen? Is the previous leaders of every protest movement that happens need to mentor and try and teach the lessons that they learned to the new generation that is called to a current moment. The stabbing would put all eyes on Portland, though no outlets reporting on the incident knew about Demetrius encounter the day before. Months later, she would link with activist group Don't Shoot Portland and other organizations to tell her story. Thank you so much for giving me hope in being restored. I was praying. Every night. That God would prevail over evil. For three years, we, our community, the victims, have been waking up, hoping to see some closure to the end of this list. Travesty. Today it's finally here with a quill unanimous votes from the people of our community. Let's get them in the bar. Thank you for the beautiful, amazing Resilience support group. We have changed the narrative and came hard and strong towards represents our community. Ricky and television are heroes and will forever be looked at as heroes. We're all fine. Until everyone like Jeremy Christian, it's off the street and they are not welcome here, we will not stop until we are treated equal. She'd continue to work with don't shoot, which had grown to become the largest Black Lives Matter organization in the state throughout the litigation of her case. In June 2020, well into the Portland Uprisings, Jeremy Christian was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences without parole. At the sentencing hearing, Dimitria offered her own indictment of not only Christian, but the entire law enforcement system for facilitating people like him before offering some searing last words for her attacker. We need people of color. That's for our community and office. We need our community and offers to do what is best for our Community, not people that are looking out for popularity and being noticed. We're going to stop you from using our debts to capitalize and make a profit out of. We will not let you keep these people in office. You are not welcome here and to Mr Jeremy Christian. Your mom should have swallowed you. You are a waste of breath. And then you die. You go to hell. I hope you rot. See you there, *****. Yeah, they go back to Tennessee, too. What do I tell Tennessee, too? You can. We don't want you here. The exchange would become fuel for Demetrius, chance in the streets. Next is my colleague, Beatrix. Beatrix is a reporter who worked with me on the ground in Portland. One time I watched her get shot in the head with a grenade by a federal agent. She's fine. She had a good helmet. She's going to take you through what happened next, starting with the story of Portland's largest new activist group. As thousands of newly activated Portlanders looked for meaningful ways to latch on to the movement budding in their own backyard, one organization quickly sprung up as one of the loudest in the crowd Rose City justice. Almost overnight, Rose City justice, or RCJ, was leading marches throughout the city, educating about Portland's past, its black community, gentrification, and police brutality. Led by a black truck and enthusiastic chants, these marches amassed upwards of 10,000 people. At times, Judah was part of another organization that formed in the wake of Floyd's death. His group, Portland Civil Rights Collective, began informally through a chance meet up on the first night of the Portland Uprisings. Their goal at first, making cops hate their jobs. Every night he and the PCRC team would take to the streets, warring with cops downtown in an attempt to drain police resources. Their fight would unknowingly lead them to RC J. So the first me and Kinsey. You know Kenzie Smith. I met her that night. And we had just like linked up and just so happened to just find ourselves leading, man, like 80 random people that were down just around. Battling the cops all night. We just kind of fell into that role because, I mean, there's very few black people to begin with, even downtown anyway. So we were like the only ones that we could really see in our vicinity that were able to like. I hate the word leader, but just like lead the the the allies around. And trying to keep them safe. And so that night we got, we exchanged numbers with like 80 different people that we had in that group. Well, really, I took everybody's number and put it all in a signal group chat and we just kept going out every single night. And then eventually maybe like five or six days, maybe a week passes. And Kinsey had came up with a a name and she named it a Portland civil rights collective. And so we did our thing for like a week or two, and then we linked up with Rose City justice. Once the merge happened, they began taking to the streets in a very different way. No longer were they standing toe to toe with cops every night. Now they were marching in the streets sometimes, Judiah said. It felt like they were going nowhere, man. It's that's a. It's interesting because it's not how I would have probably imagined it. Cause rosy justice at the time was not. They weren't really going out at night. I feel like they were doing like the the early date or late evening but still daytime marches because it was still light out. And then things were like calm down. Like, you know, once it got dark. PCRC, we were like out, out on the ground every night, all night, just battling the police basically. And so when we linked up with RCJ, because they are they, they have like a much larger following at the at the time and they also had a larger social media presence that was like twice as high as of ours in a way. Seems like we defaulted to their style of of resistance basically, which was just like doing this. Now I think about people call them the long marches to nowhere. Which is really true in retrospect. That's kind of what? What's happening? I'd like to think that we still made an impact on a lot of the Community that we would roll around. A lot of the the neighborhoods that we roll around, like it was nice to see, like families come out of their houses and like actually join the March just sometimes or, you know, just seeing their kids on the porch with holding up their sides and stuff and that kind of stuff. But when I think about how I literally never ever saw the police at any of these marches, it it it makes me wonder, like just the the effectiveness of it all, if the police didn't give a ****. About what we were doing then, was it really helping? But I I I don't nonetheless like it. Kind of just. Eight, it evolved into basically us doing marches every day. Trying to basically trying to activate people to come out. It's kind of, I guess, how I would look at it. But that's kind of what it turned into. It can't. It went from us going out every night battling the police to gathering like hundreds and thousands of people actually to go on these like long marches. RCJ LED massive actions, the so-called peaceful protests favored by the likes of Wheeler. Events at the sacred fence continue to draw the ire of City Hall and the police. Some protesters even started to wonder if there was really any point in getting tear gassed at the same location every night. Divisions began to mount between RCJ's education leaning resistance during the day, and the more lively and more volatile standoffs with cops at the fence at night. Rifts formed between the peaceful crowd and what you might call the direct action crowd activist and live streamer Max Smith said he's purposefully not tied to anyone organization. But as the so-called fence wars raged on, he too found himself questioning how this was furthering the cause for black lives, a fight in the feds. That was all we were here for. You know, fighting the feds was like some **** that kind of it was like, I used to call it the Grand Theft autos. A side mission like, this is this has nothing to do with what we're supposed to be doing right now, but we have to complete this to get back in the game, you know? And it was really weird. And I I think at that moment, I really realized that the distraction was intentional. And that this was all getting just diverted to become like a like a Trump like campaign ad. You know, he's gonna come through and support these police unions and this is his big commercial for it. So it was a very, I felt like it was a frustrating part of the protest because a was really a dangerous and people were really getting hurt and kidnapped and all that kind of weird stuff. And then on top of that, it wasn't the fight that I wanted to you know, to be fighting, but it was, but it's the fight that. Brings out a lot of people, so I've a very contrasting and confusing time for sure. Gregory also found frustration with some of the unclear goals of the protests as they developed. I think this is a big part of the story that I think is not being told, or that the hard or further left has failed to really reckon with in an effective way. So. One, I I'm still unsure if any of the protests have an incredibly coherent goal. For some it's abolish the police, for some it's defund the police. For some of those things mean the same thing. And then I also think there are a ton of Portlanders, actually most Portlanders, after working in politics for so long, who don't support either of those things. I mean, we pulled all of those things. They're not popular. They're incredibly popular on the left. And if you were at the protest, you would think that these are unanimous things. They're not. So I think there was an incredible opportunity for us, when those massive protests were happening, to get a lot of change, not just the common sense reforms that I think would make, you know, people on the hard left just call me a liberal. As divisions grew, trouble loomed for RCJ. In addition to the sometimes fierce arguments over tactics many Portlanders criticized RCJ leadership for, including a former military police officer. There were also claims of financial mismanagement. Particularly once leaders from RJJ posted about attending a luxurious 3 day retreat. As tensions rose, activists drew lines in the sand and began retreating to their respective corners from people started. I guess people weren't really moving on principle and people weren't moving slow enough because a lot of people were really new to to like organizing and protesting. People just wanted to like. Get their way in that they wanted things to go their way, basically, and when you have too many cooks in the kitchen. You know, the recipe is gonna get ****** ** eventually, especially when everybody wants their recipe to work. I mean, I personally left because I was with PCRC. And. The split was basically all the original. RCJ members and all the original PCRC members are splitting down the middle, and we're going our separate ways because we had initially combined forces, our CJ didn't formally disband after the falling out, but things got noticeably quieter for the group after June. During the height of the RC J days, their marches had drawn thousands multiple times a week, but by late June they were mostly boosting other groups actions via Instagram. Many of the organizers involved with the group went on to form their own organizations that continue to play key roles in the movement today. Youth let orgs like Fridays for freedom and black youth movement immediately began staging community focused neighborhood events throughout the city. Another group calling itself Justice, Unity, Integrity, Community Equality or Juice PDX would go on to host several rallies later in the summer. Despite the split, organizers remember parts of the RJJ days fondly. Judah says the mass marches of June helped feed an undeniable sense of momentum, the amount of people that will come out and also like. Just some of the education that we were giving to the crowd was, I think, really amazing, man. And it's missed because during those marches, like, I would create like, little speeches to give to the crowd, and so would Chrissy. And so it's CV like some of the other organizers we get on the mic and like have like, oh, we'd also Mint mobile offers premium wireless starting at just 15 bucks a month. And now for the plot twist. Nope, there isn't one. Mint Mobile just has premium wireless from 15 bucks a month. There's no trapping you into a two year contract. You're opening the bill to find all these nuts fees. There's no luring you in with free subscriptions or streaming services that you'll forget to cancel and then be charged full price for. None of that. For anyone who hates their phone Bill, Mint Mobile offers. Premium wireless for just $15.00 a month meant mobile will give you the best rate whether you're buying one or for a family. And it meant family start at 2 lines. 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It's not funny at all. It's depressing. Very depressing. Religious history is back with more. Listen to revisionist history on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. I've never seen less enthusiasm for a great idea in my life. Like, give the crowd homework sometimes. So, like, we've like, all right, we want you all to read, like the Willie Lynch letters and then like 2 days of March, like literally the next day or the day after we like asked the crowd, all right? So raise your hand if you read that, you know so. Those were really nice moments because like you'd see some people literally raise their hand and obviously, you know, some people probably captain, but like some people literally did their homework, so it was nice to see that. And also just like I'd say like a high point is just we've never seen mass mobilization like that ever happened in port. I will. I've never seen that before. 1st for an extended period of time, like seeing thousands of people come out every single day. To basically wake up their neighborhoods that seemed like that was really powerful for for all of us to. To feel like. We were kind of shifting the, you know, the. We were causing like a paradigm shift in in our community. With Rose City Justice no longer organizing large scale marches on a regular basis on the nightly crowd at the Justice Center, and getting smaller each night, some activists decided a change was needed. On June 25th, people again attempted a temporary autonomous zone, this time in North Portland, in front of the Portland Police Bureau's N precinct. Barricades were put up along the streets. The precincts doors facing the occupied area were boarded shut. And the main exit and entrance facing the other direction were left open so that police could vacate the premises. Police responded to this occupation faster than the one at Wheeler's apartment. For one, it was at a police precinct, so there was a police presence. And two, it had the same problem as the first attempted autonomous zone. Not enough people were present to hold down the area. After only a few hours, police came charging from around the corner, ripping apart barricades and firing off stun grenades and pepper. Pause. The crowd moved to block north and then quickly started a dumpster fire in the middle of the road. You are dispersed now, right? Control agents and impact munitions will be used against you if you fail to comply. There was also a second, much smaller trash can fire beside a building adjacent to the police precinct. The flames from inside the trash can caught on fire. Some of the plywood boards covering a window. Protesters noticed. Some people began yelling. This is a black-owned business, but the fire out. People scrambled to put out the small flames on the plywood and at the same time police started shooting off tear gas and flashbangs. The next day, the police, mayor and local news companies spread the narrative that protesters locked and barricaded officers inside their precinct and then lit the precinct on fire. But what happened here last night? With doors being nailed shut, barred shut. With fires being set to the outside of the building, with people inside, that is not transformation. What happened here isn't helping to bring about any meaningful change, reform, or an end to the historic racism that all of us are joined together in seeking to eliminate. Last night was plainly and simply about arson. It was about destruction. It was about endangering lives. It's blatant criminal violence, violence that is totally unacceptable. That, of course, is not what happened, but once a narrative gets spread enough through mainstream outlets, it's very difficult to correct. Throughout the next few months, Portland police would put out misleading statements and flat out lies regarding the protests, which news outlets would signal boost and treat as absolute fact. The art world. It is essentially a money laundering business. The best fakes are still hanging on people's walls. You know, they don't even know or suspect that they're fakes. I'm Alec Baldwin and this is a podcast about deception, greed and forgery in the art world. You knew the painting was fake. Umm. Listen to art fraud starting February 1st on the iHeartRadio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Conquer your New Year's resolution to be more productive with the Before Breakfast podcast and each bite size, daily episode. Time management and productivity expert Laura Vanderkam teaches you how to make the most of your time, both at work and at home. These are the practical suggestions you need to get more done with your to make the most of your time, both at work and at home. These are the practical suggestions you need to get more done with your day, just as lifting weights keeps our bodies strong as we age. Learning new skills is the mental equivalent of pumping iron. Listen to before breakfast wherever you get your podcasts. Executive producer Paris Hilton brings back the hit podcast how men think, and that's good news for anyone that is confused by men, which is basically everyone get an inside look at what goes on in the mind of men from the men themselves. It's real talk straight from the source. How men Think podcast is exactly what we need to figure them out. It's going to be fun, informative, and probably a bit scary at times because we're literally going inside the minds of men. As much as we like to think all men are the same, they're actually very different. Each week, a celebrity guest host provides honest advice in his area of expertise. When I agreed to do this reboot, I had a few conditions. No sugar coating, no mind games, and absolutely no mansplaining. Men are hard enough to understand without the mind games. Listen to how men think on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. After the protest at the North Precinct, people still wanted to get away from the nightly dread at the Justice Center and fence. Direct Action Alliance, the Youth Liberation Front, and some of the BIPAC activists who started the initial Justice Center protest organized another protest in North Portland, this time at the Police union building. So for a month we were just targeting downtown, right? We were just straight downtown every single day, and we we. Figured that we needed to diversify a little bit and start hitting other targets around town. Going and protesting and in areas like that in neighborhood, letting people participate, you know, come out into the streets with us. So that's when we decided to start marching through neighborhoods. So we did another event in Peninsula Park on June 30th, and this time we wanted to make it a lot more community oriented. So we invited a lot of artists to come perform. Mike Crenshaw was there. Emiliano Disabato was there. C3, the Guru, all these people, it it was like a concert slash rally and it was great. And we and that was the first night we targeted the Portland Police Association building and so we went out there and that's when they gassed us. And they gassed the whole neighborhood. That was the first night that they gassed an entire ******* neighborhood, when hundreds of Portlanders arrived at the police union building to protest. The building was already surrounded by Portland police and Oregon State troopers in riot gear. Within minutes, an unlawful assembly was declared, and soon after cops began pushing people E away from the PA building. Do not stop. Now. You've been talking. Get out of here. Cops shoved and hit people with their batons while walking E for a few blocks and then began to bull rush the crowd. In a bull rush, a line of officers sprints towards the mass of people, knocking over as many as possible, and then officers in the back typically come to tackle an arrest anyone on the ground that night. Officers initially used smoke grenades, flashbangs, pepper balls and rubber bullets as well. Indeed, an unlawful assembly you need to disperse to the east in order to comply with this lawful order may subject you to arrest and force to include crowd control. Munitions move to the east. After multiple bull rushes and constant volleys of munitions, protesters began throwing munitions back at the armored police, along with plastic water bottles. Police responded by declaring a riot and blanketing the neighborhood and tear gas. First beer can now see if gas is being used dispersed from the area. Disperse the area now. Tear gas had been banned in Portland since June 9th. On the 8th in Chapman Square, Mayor Wheeler had addressed an unfriendly crowd of activists who'd spent the last two weeks getting repeatedly tear gassed by Portland police. He promised to ban the use of tear gas the next day. Soon after he left, officers guessed the crowd. The next day. Wheeler kept his word. Sort of. The ban came with a lot of holes. Gas was allowed in situations where, quote, lives or safety of the public or the police are at risk, which was too vague to mean much. But Portland police did take longer than usual to use tear gas on the night of June 30th. The reason why was that earlier that day, Oregon Governor Kate Brown signed into law a bill that banned the use of tear gas. The exception was if Portland police declared a riot. And announced out loud that tear gas was about to be used. So of course the police switched tactics and made sure to declare a riot when they wanted to use tear gas. On the 30th, the main justification seemed to be that protesters were near the Union building and some of them had hocked plastic water bottles at riot lines of armored cops. The Portland Police declared a riot and started gassing. In the end, neither the state nor local bans on tear gas helped the Portlanders who lived in houses and apartments along N Lombard St it was a balmy summer night and many of them had their windows open in the fresh air. When that air turned to poison gas, multiple residents were assaulted and even arrested while trying to flee their gas filled homes outside of Oregon on the federal level, other events in late June would contribute to Portland becoming the most heavily tear gassed city in the United States on June 26th. President Trump had signed executive order 13933, protecting American monuments, memorials and statues, and federal property. As we've already explained, toppling statues had become a viral sensation at the time, but the toppling of a George Washington statue by teenage Portlanders seemed to have been the most direct inspiration for this. Executive order president even referenced Portland in his press release on the matter. The order also presents its own timeline of the nationwide protests. Of June 2020 saying quote over the last five weeks there have been sustained assaults on the life and property of civilians, law enforcement officers, government property, and revered American monuments such as the Lincoln Memorial. Many of the rioters, arsonists and left wing extremists who have carried out and supported these acts have explicitly identified themselves with ideologies such as Marxism that call for the destruction of the United States System of Government. Anarchists and left wing extremists have sought to advance a fringe ideology that paints the United States of America as fundamentally unjust, and have sought to impose that ideology on Americans through violence and mob intimidation. The order describes a massive, overwhelmingly peaceful, nationwide protest movement throughout May and June as five nightmarish weeks of rampant violence and murder, but its solutions focus, confusingly, on the prevention of vandalism. The statues it states that quote United States law authorizes a penalty of up to 10 years imprisonment for the willful injury of federal property and quote and goes on to say state and local law enforcement agencies that fail to protect monuments, memorials and statues will be subject to withholding of federal support. And the federal government will ensure personnel are available across the nation to assist with the protection of federal monuments, memorials, statues. And property. The order is unclear on how broadly federal jurisdiction extends in the protection of statues. All in all, dozens of statues were vandalized and destroyed throughout the country in the first five weeks of the George Floyd uprisings. The vast majority of these statues were Confederate monuments in the American S as of June 26th, only two statues had been targeted by Portland's protests, one on the steps of a high school and the other on the private property of the Portland German American Society. Both of these were miles from any federal property. However, under the president's new executive order, Portland would become the first city to see the. Large scale deployment of federal troops the Multnomah County Justice Center, the epicenter of Portland's ongoing protests, is flanked on both sides by federal buildings, the mark O Hatfield courthouse and the Edith Green Wendell Wyatt Federal building. A few blocks away, the Federal landmark of Pioneer Courthouse overlooks Courthouse Square, the site of many of June's large daytime rallies as well as many tear gas choked showdowns between nighttime protesters and PPB riot lines. When Feds were sent in, they would be deploying into the center of Portland's ongoing. Protests on July 1st, Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Chad Wolf put out a statement answering the president's call, referring to the executive order he had made. The end of that statement read. As we approached the July 4th holiday, I have directed the deployment and pre positioning of rapid response teams across the country to respond to potential threats to facilities and property. While the department respects every American's right to protest peacefully, violence and civil unrest will not be tolerated. In the next episode, we'll hear how Portland protesters and those rapid deployment teams met in Portland for the very first time on July the 4th. Ah word. The Grand Pops who couldn't fathom the Obama says I don't hate America just to me and she keeps her promises 20 teens looking like the 60s. It's crazy a nationwide deja vu what more people posted do go to schools named after the Klan founder were around town is I don't see why we frowning Native American students forced to learn about when opera Sera how is that fair, bro? Some heroes unsung in some monsters get monuments built for them but they be all a little bit. Monster, we crook it up. When's the last time you took a time out? I'm Eve Rodsky, author of the New York Times Bestseller Fair play and find your Unicorn space activists on the gender division of Labor attorney and family mediator. And I'm doctor Adidi Naukar, a Harvard physician and medical correspondent with an expertise in the science of stress, resilience, mental health, and burnout. We're so excited to share our podcast, time out, a production of iheart podcasts, and Hello Sunshine. Repealing back the layers around why society makes it so easy to guard men's time like it's diamonds and treat women's time like it's infinite, like sand. And so whether you're partnered with or without children, or in a career where you want more boundaries, this is the place for you, for people of all family structures. So take this time out with us to learn, get inspired, and most importantly, reclaim your time. Listen to time out a Fair Play podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Look for your children's eyes and you will discover the true magic of a forest. Find a forest. For you and start exploring at discovertheforest.org, brought to you by the United States Forest Service and the Ad Council. What grows in the forest? Our imagination and our family bonds. The forest is closer than you think. Find a forest near you at discovertheforest.org, brought to you by the United States Forest Service and the Ad Council. Hello, I'm Erica Kelly from the podcast Southern Fried True crime, and if you want to go from podcast fan to podcast host, do what I did and check out spreaker from iheart. I was working in accounting and hating it. Then after just 18 months of podcasting with Spreaker, I was able to quit my day job. Follow your podcasting dreams. Let's break your handle the hosting, creation, distribution, and monetization of your podcast. Go to spreaker.com. That's spreaker.com. Hey there, it's Ebony Monet, your co-host for the San Diego Zoo's Amazing Wildlife podcast. In this special episode, we're speaking with Doctor Jane Goodall about the fascinating journey that led to her social discoveries on chimpanzees. So four whole months, the chimps ran away from me. I mean, they take one look at this peculiar white ape and disappear into the vegetation. In wildlife, on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Bobby Bones from the Bobby cast. We are Nashville's most listened to music podcast in depth interviews with your favorite country artists, plus the biggest songwriters and producers in Nashville, all from the comfort of my own home so it gets a little more laid back. They're sharing stories behind the biggest songs in country music and personal stories that you will not hear anywhere else. So if you love country music, I think you will love this podcast. Listen to the Bobby. Guest on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcast.