by loretta.kim.rosenberg@gmail.com
“Everybody that I know who doesn’t live in Portland is convinced we burned it to the ground in 2020. That it’s some sort of nightmarish hellscape that looks like Mad Max, only with rain.” PSU Associate Professor of Sociology and expert on policing Aaron Rousell from Street Roots August 21, 2024.
Portland is not on fire. Portland is not war torn. Portland is a big city with all the problems a big city has—homelessness, drugs, crime. I was born and lived there or near enough for most of my life. Before NW 23rd was fancy and a one bedroom apartment near Good Sam cost $225 a month, you could work a regular job and live a regular life. There were still plenty of drugs around just different ones and way more violent crime than there is now. The crime rate has actually been steadily falling in Portland since 2020 so what’s the emergency that necessitates sending National Guard troops to American cities like Portland?
According to the Constitution there are only certain instances when a president is supposed to use the National Guard to police a city and none of these conditions exist in the cities where troops are being sent. There’s a good explanation of when, how and why a president can use the National Guard in a 2/28/2025 Substack article by Cyrus Javadi. It was reposted on the Pioneer’s website.
The ICE facility is on one block in the city of Portland. So the Guard is being deployed to protect one block and it’s estimated to cost $3.8 million dollars, which doesn’t count food and lodging.
Your technology knows what you like to read and what gets you clicking. The more we click the worse we usually feel because nobody is just looking at kitten videos these days. We’re a fearful bunch. We love us some bad news and a good conspiracy theory that reenforces whatever our beliefs are, so if you have a deep seated fear of people who are not like you, your technology will give you more of the same to feed that fear. If you believe Democrats or Republicans are the Antichrist or the Antifa you’ll get all the clickbait on the interwebs to keep you busy believing. The people with the power know that. They know that division serves them. They use fear as a tool and a distraction. Now that AI can replicate reality and there are few adults in the room to call a lie a lie, people are struggling to figure what’s real and what’s not.
I have a lot of friends in Portland and one of them is Ed, a retired attorney who happens to live near enough to the ICE facility in Portland’s south Waterfront to walk there on his 83 year old legs. He’s made it a practice to stop by and talk with the people protesting for the past three months. He’s not afraid and nothing bad has happened to him. It’s usually a group of about 30 people although it can be more. The other residents he’s talked with are more concerned about federal agents and National Guard troops encouraged to use “full force” than they are about the citizens protesting, as well they should be. Because when emotions are running hot and the people charged with community policing are not community police, bad things can and do happen.
Here’s an example. On May 4, 1970, the governor of Ohio called in the National Guard to intervene at Kent State where students were protesting the US invasion of Cambodia. When students didn’t disperse, Guardsmen advanced and opened fire on unarmed students killing 4 in a matter of thirteen seconds.
There are real things to be afraid of right now—hospitals closing, safety net programs shut down, masked ICE agents detaining undocumented people without criminal records, deportation to third countries without due process, domestic military action by a Department of War, the chilling of free speech. I could go on but you get the idea.
I can’t remember where I read this or who said it but it struck a chord for me—America is the home of the brave and the land of the free and sometimes you have to be brave to be free.
Kim Rosenberg
by loretta.kim.rosenberg@gmail.com
