In 1972 I was fired from the faculty of Columbia University. Two years earlier, I had spoken on a platform outside the physics department in support of the occupation of that building by graduate students. They were angry, as was I, at the sudden and secret decision by the Nixon administration to bomb and invade Cambodia, expanding the Vietnam war.
It was worth it to me. My country, the one I lived in and loved, was engaged in murderous activity affecting innocent people, far away, against any common sense and with no prospect of producing anything good by its action.
Why does this come back to me today, more than 50 years later?
The assumption of White House omnipotence that led to the Cambodia bombing, the utter irrationality of the decision to do so, and the awareness by much of America of the insanity of that war are mirrored and expanded to absurd and irrational heights by what is happening today internally, in this country, in my city.
I live in Portland, Oregon. I drive this city, eat out, go to movies, walk the streets, visit my grandchild, see friends, shop in thrift shops, drink coffee and eat quiche, meet in Sanghas, yes, just live my life.
The city is not burning; there are no riots. Oh, we have demonstrations from time to time. Pretty peaceful, unless the sound system is cranked up. We have clowns, too, and a naked bike ride or two. And some drag shows, but those are generally indoors.
Yes, Portland is demonstrably weird. We celebrate that. And pretty blue; we celebrate that, too. Great music, an abundance of food carts, the most spectacular Japanese Garden outside of Japan. People dress any way they want and pretty much say what they want, too. And we have street people, homeless, and most of the social problems other places.
That’s Portland for you. But no fires; this city ain’t perfect; but it ain’t burning, either!
The press keeps reporting the myth that it is burning, I suppose because the “mainstream media” is still embedded in the media-think that “balance” requires continually reporting that yellow-head thinks and says Portland is burning. Then the media can go on to say that his myopia has been fed by Fox News recycling video from 2020, when there were serious reactions in Portland to the George Floyd murder in Minneapolis. But the word “fire” keeps appearing.
What they need to report is the peace in which we live here. Report it repeatedly, go out in the streets, show it. Instead of reporting that the Mayor and the Governor say we are peaceful, for “balance,” of course.
No, instead, as the authoritarians in DC seek to repress any opposition to their takeover of the American state, the media are being drawn, like moths to a flame, to the hope that military deployments will create the very excuse the White House has used to justify these illegal deployment to begin with – violence. Makes for even better media.
The White House stokes it up; encourages ICE and its fellow storm troopers already at the small federal building they work from to provoke the small handful of demonstrators by firing rubber bullets and smoke grenades at them. Stoke anger, provoke response, then justify more deployments through that provocation.
We need more clowns. In the streets of Portland. I wish I had a credit for this photo; but to explain: the clowns are on the left.
GOTTA LOVE PORTLAND
Instead of escalation in the courts, in the press, and in the streets, it is time to make sustained fun of these oppressors. Cling to comedy as the antidote for the deep tragedy being rolled out across the country.
Laughter may be the only remedy left as our democracy leaves the light and enters a deep shadow.