Sottile writes: "In a city splintered by protest, acrimony and the fresh pain of a pair of killings on a light-rail train, demonstrators gathered again - and clashed again - here Sunday afternoon, with a right-wing rally drawing thousands of counterprotesters in the heart of downtown."
Department of Homeland agents (DHS) acting as police arrest a counter protester at a right-wing, pro-Trump rally in Portland. (photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images)
ALSO SEE: Portland Police Fire Stun Grenades and Rubber
Bullets Into Crowd of Antifascist Protesters
ALSO SEE: Right-Wing Free Speech Rally
Draws Massive Counter-Protests in Portland
What's Homeland Security Doing at a Right-Wing, Pro-Trump Rally?
05 June 17
Homeland security joining local law enforcement at a right-wing, pro-Trump Rally is odd. Looks like they might have been protecting the pro-Trump crowd from anti-fascist counterprotesters: "Between every block were thick lines of Portland police and Homeland Security officers clad in riot gear; they made several arrests. Portland police announced about 3:30 p.m. that the anti-fascist assembly was considered unlawful before deploying a volley of flash grenades into the crowd of counterprotesters, sending black-clad demonstrators running. A bit troubling. - MA/RSN 
n a city splintered by protest, acrimony and the fresh pain of a pair of killings on a light-rail train, demonstrators gathered again � and clashed again � here Sunday afternoon, with a right-wing rally drawing thousands of counterprotesters in the heart of downtown.
The planned, permitted free-speech and pro-President Trump rally came just more than a week after 35-year-old Jeremy Christian � a man who performed Nazi salutes and screamed racial slurs at a recent right-wing rally here in late April � allegedly stabbed three men, killing two, after what witnesses said was a hate-filled tirade against two teenage girls on a light-rail train. The slain men, Rick Best, 53, and Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche, 23, and the survivor, Micah Fletcher, were standing up to Christian as he harassed the girls, one of whom was wearing a hijab.
The slayings shocked the city and exposed the long-simmering racial tension here, with roots in Oregon�s establishment as a white utopia in the Pacific Northwest. At the light-rail station where the two men were killed, a memorial of flowers, signs and messages of hope and sadness were scrawled in chalk, including this one: �Portland We Have to Do Better.�
Though drawing outrage and sympathy, the deaths in some ways only amplified the issue, again making Portland a magnet for the fight of political extremes.
Mat Dos Santos, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon, was giving a television interview about the attacks last week when a man stood behind him performing a Nazi salute. �Did an interview with Al Jazeera in downtown Portland this morning and man walks up and starts doing the Nazi salute behind me on camera,� he tweeted. �The interview was on the rise of hate and Free Speech.�
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler (D) last week tried to cancel Sunday�s right-wing rally, calling on federal officials to aid in pulling the group�s permit because he believed it would be destructive at a particularly difficult time. He wrote on Facebook that �our city is in mourning, our community�s anger is real.� His request, which was declined, drew criticism from the ACLU of Oregon: �The government cannot revoke or deny a permit based on the viewpoint of the demonstrators. Period.�
Sunday�s rally � in an outdoor plaza sandwiched between City Hall and the jail where Christian is being held � provided a vivid illustration of the city�s divisions.
Protesters surrounded the plaza in the hours before the rally began. To the west, in front of City Hall, protesters chanted and displayed signs with such messages as �Wake Up Portland! Your city is racist!� and �Nazis? Never!� Steps away, dozens of local organizations took to a microphone at City Hall in a �Portland Stands Against Hate� rally.
�An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us,� Cari Luna, chair of the Portland chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, said in a statement Sunday morning. �We�re here now, we�re coming together, and we�re saying NO to racism, NO to bigotry. We want a world where every person is truly free, and we�re not going to let the last dinosaurs of the white colonialist patriarchy stand in our way.�
To the north, hundreds of black-clad, left-wing, anti-fascist protesters chanted, blared music and held paper-mache spiders and skeletons, which have become signature icons at Portland protests. Beyond them, a group of Buddhists sat in silent protest.
And to the south, labor union members clad in helmets and safety vests screamed: �Racists! Murderers! Fascists! Out of Portland!�
Between every block were thick lines of Portland police and Homeland Security officers clad in riot gear; they made several arrests. Portland police announced about 3:30 p.m. that the anti-facist assembly was considered unlawful before deploying a volley of flash grenades into the crowd of counterprotesters, sending black-clad demonstrators running.
In the center of it all, at the rally, an assembly of right-wing groups including American Freedom M/C, Patriot Prayer, the III Percenters and Oath Keepers gathered, many of them vowing to defend free speech.
Patriot Prayer�s Joey Gibson, who has said that his group tried to eject Christian from the April protest, brought a message of peace to Portland: �I want everybody here .?.?. to find it in yourself to make this day positive, with no hate and no violence,� he told the crowd. �We have to understand Portland is legitimately shaken up right now.�
He called on his supporters to �prove them wrong. .?.?. Hatred is a disease. We need to start spreading love to get rid of this hate.�
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So tell your Representative and friends and everybody you know to vote for people who are with us to avoid GMOs
But how many are dependent on corporate sponsorship, so they don't want to be labeled "anti-corporate"?
Capitalism corrupts; global capitalism corrupts absolutely.
Currently USDA organics are not allowed to BE GMO. So for them to serve only organic food is either a head fake or some kind if weird PR.
As to Starbucks.
A Latte GMOs
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-couzens/a-latte-gmos_b_6119032.html
Posted: 11/07/2014
Apart from the article above, my SO got a Starbucks latte at Safeway around 2 years ago and instead of milk or cream they put some kind of plastic substitute in it that made him sick. Starbucks has become the "McDonalds" of coffee. We stopped going there as their stuff is crap.
Good, he is a real progressive but has not fallen into the trap of leftwing antisemitism. Our priority is domestic issues and the environment. Another country's internal affairs is none of our bizniz!
Thanks to Neil for standing up against Starbucks, Monsanto & GMOs. Your song will make a difference & provide a vibration around which people will gather to create alternatives. The movement must go much deeper, questioning every food & beverage which we eat. Coffee is tarnished with huge oil-based transportation. We must change our eating from the lower monocrop plants to a diversity of tree / Polyculture Orchard deeply rooted, deeply photosynthesizi ng foods such as nuts, sustainably harvested barks, tree-saps, bush-foods, greens & fruits, which are packed with minerals, vitamins, proteins, enzymes & other nutrients. 'Indigenous' (Latin 'self-generatin g') Polyculture Orchards photosynthesize between 92 -98% of solar energy, roots descend tens of metres into the substrate pumping water, mining minerals, developing nutrient colonies. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/design/1-indigenous-welcome-orchard-food-production-efficiencies
I will grant conditionally that transgenic food could in principle, under the control of a benign hand, save some people from starvation. In reality there are certainly ways to achieve that goal that are more effective and efficient in almost all cases.
And in reality, Monsanto is anything but a benign hand, and may actually reduce the food supply wherever it operates by putting productive farmers out of business not through market efficiency but through bogus lawsuits under corrupt judges, based on the contamination of neighboring fields by its patented genes.
Unfortunately, it appears that a good many "scientists" believe falsely that the absence of definitive evidence of their toxicity in the ordinary sense is evidence that they are not toxic, period. "Evidently" they are well schooled in the techniques of science but not so much or the process or its principles, foremost among which is skepticism. I have a feeling that our "schools" teach too much of the "gee-whiz" applications, and the money they bring, and not enough of the process of science and the principles on which it is based (aka, "the history and philosophy of science).
Otherwise I think you are quite correct, and I am quite certain that Monsanto is evil.
If you want to discuss rgbh milk, which could also be considered a GMO if you think about the artificially altered hormone, that is carcinogenic as has been shown in more than one study, but is mind-bogglingly required to be labeled as no different from non-rgbh milk.
IOW, it is important to correctly address the problem as the Pesticide. For example, Roundup is statistically linked to chronic kidney disease in Sugar Workers in central and South America. Also, with the growing practice of spraying Roundup on wheat just before harvest, there appears to be a correlating rise in celiac disease (gluten intolerance).
Now, if one specifically addresses Bt-corn, that could be a GMO food that is harmful and is thought to cause leaky-gut syndrome.
Here on Kauai, the "Blues" (pro-GMO) usually deflect criticism by pointing to the studies that show GMO food is safe (there is no doubt that there are a LOT of these studies) and completely ignoring the pesticide problem.
I do highly recommend the community gardens movement. There seems to me to be a good chance that many of us are going to have to get a lot closer to our food supplies in the not too distant future anyway, like maybe the next decade or so, in order to avoid becoming "collateral damage" in the food wars.
I recently read that not only are GMO crops heavily sprayed, but non-organic wheat is as well, as part of the "preparation" of the plants for harvest. I am guessing this may be behind the current explosion of demand for gluten-free products -- people are suddenly very sensitive to wheat, but maybe nothing to do with wheat itself, and maybe everything to do with Roundup all in the wheat supply.
But groups like Kauai Rising and Babes Against Biotech are still fighting back.
Also, the Hawaii Alliance for Progressive Action. Members of HAPA attended the Syngenta Shareholders meeting in Switzerland to ask them to pull back on the pesticides poisoning Hawaii.
http://www.hawaiiallianceforprogressiveaction.org
The Blue/Red divide is huge! At least once a week there is a story or op-ed or letter to the editor either pro or anti-GMO.
http://thegardenisland.com
You might consider sending a note to the Kauai Visitors Bureau:
http://www.gohawaii.com/en/kauai/#/kauai/landing
Or calling members of the Hawaiian Legislature.
The anti-GMO movement is also strong in Oregon, but I think tourist dollars in Hawaii can push the anti-pesticide message much further much faster.