Threats of Violence Shut Down Portland’s Avenue of Roses Parade
“Hateful rhetoric” and the “spreading of views” cited as reason for threatened violence
In disturbing parallels to the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Weather Underground of the 1960’s, we are seeing a small band of violent radicals attempt—and thus far succeed—in imposing their will on Americans. The terrorist acts that the SDS and Weather Underground engaged in are what we most remember, but it’s worth noting that they, too, started out with threats, riots, and destruction of property during their “Days of Rage.” They ultimately used violence as a means of condemning violence(?!) and of coalescing their “families” and “tribes” behind a “youth resistance,” and we are seeing this all unfold yet again as violent radicals shriek about fascism while engaging in it themselves.
In the wake of the violent riots that shut down speaking engagements by Milo Yiannopoulos and Heather Mac Donald, the violent radicals of the fringe left have notched up further “wins” in silencing Ann Coulter and in now causing the cancellation of the Avenue of Roses Parade in Portland, Oregon.
The annual 82nd Avenue of Roses Parade in East Portland has been canceled.
The parade, which is the first sanctioned event of the Rose Festival season, was scheduled for Saturday, April 29. Organizers said the event was canceled “following threats of violence during the parade by multiple groups.”
The Multnomah County Republican Party (MCRP), whose members were going to march in the parade, said threats were made against their group.
According to the Oregon GOP, organizers of the parade received an email saying that a group would take their own initiative to make sure the MCRP didn’t march in the parade if organizers let them participate.
“We will have two hundred or more people rush into the parade into the middle and drag and push those people out as we will not give one inch to groups who espouse hatred toward LGBT, immigrants, people of color or others,” the email reads in part.
The email in question reads as follows:
These cowards are objecting to “hateful rhetoric” and the “spread[ing] of views” with which they do not agree. Regrettably, they do not seem to understand that they are exactly what they claim to reject: hateful fascists policing speech and threatening an event that is attended by families with children and by the elderly.
This war of “resistance” against Trump and the GOP has spread from individual speakers like Milo and Coulter to the wholesale ejection of Republicans from all civic, nonpolitical activities, including a parade that has taken place for 81 consecutive years.
The Atlantic comments on the disturbing trend:
On the day after Donald Trump was inaugurated, perhaps 3 million Americans took to the streets in peaceful protest to register their opposition. When news of his travel ban broke, I stood at LAX watching Angelenos sing the Star Spangled Banner and Amazing Grace. Across the nation, peaceful protest against President Trump continues. But a violent fringe has been using Trump’s rise as a justification for political violence, as if his authoritarian impulses justify authoritarianism from his opponents.
This tiny faction knows that most of their compatriots on the left are committed to nonviolence, so they frame their aggressive actions as a narrow exception to the rule.
Most famously, they insisted that it was okay, or even righteous, to punch white supremacist Richard Spencer because he was “a Nazi.” That position impels the debate down a slippery slope. And now, activists in Oregon caused the cancellation of the 82nd Avenue of Roses Parade, a community event in the southeast quadrant of Portland, by threatening to forcibly drag “fascists” off the parade route if they weren’t excluded.
Who exactly did they want removed from the parade? The local Republican Party of Multonomah County.
Ah yes, the dreaded Republican Party of Multonomah County . . . obscure nobodies who might, with their very presence in a parade, commit the heinous act of “normalizing” support for a sitting president.
The Atlantic continues:
[O]ne reason these protesters cite as justification for stopping Republicans on a parade route is that they will otherwise “normalize support” for a sitting president.
. . . . So long as threats of violence succeed in causing events to get shut down by their risk-averse organizers, more threats will be made. One wonders who this faction on the left will next label a Nazi or a fascist in order to justify their own use of fascistic tactics.
This is indeed the danger inherent in this chilling trend. It’s hard to tell where they go from here with yet another “win” under their belt because, unlike their ideological foreparents in the SDS and Weather Underground, these violent radicals aren’t trying to stop a war they don’t agree with, they have no concrete cause. They are simply policing thought and shutting down rhetoric with which they disagree.
So who will be next? Will it be pro-life Democrats, those recently told they are unwelcome in Tom Perez’s Democrat Party? What about Bernie Sanders who recently called protests and threats like this “a sign of intellectual weakness“? Maybe it will be Bill Maher, who also dared support Ann Coulter’s freedom of speech?
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Comments
“We will have two hundred or more people rush into the parade into the middle and drag and push those people out…”
All in the name of “Down with the fascists!” and, no doubt, “Love Trumps Hate.”
Look in the mirror much, gentle snowflakes?
Only Fascists (Democrat Party ones) do that.
RE: “We will have two hundred or more people rush into the parade into the middle and drag and push those people out…”
1) The local government, and the state government in Oregon is on the side of the Democrats’ street thugs.
2) This is a massive victory for the Democrats and their street thugs.
3) They now have a precedent to bar any non-Leftist participation from any public event.
4) They will claim that any future events that are explicitly Leftist as a “victory” from free speech because they do not cancel [after censoring who is allowed to participate].
5) There will be sequalae.
They “only” believe it is a victory.
It is a death knell to their movement.
Oregon is not Portland anymore than Detroit is Michigan.
They have a National Guard, too.
Time to step up, Pres. T-rump, and call out the guard…in various places.
As Barney Fife would say, “Nip it…in the bud”.
OR, as I say, “Crush it before it breeds”.
the governor of the state calls out the national guard, the governor is their commander in chief, not the president
During the 50s and 60s the Feds had no problem going in and taking over the Nat’l Guard to enforce the civil liberties of blacks. There IS a precedence for the Feds to deal with state sponsored attempts to violate individual civil rights.
Yes, the President has the right to “nationalize” the National Guard.
George Bush Jr. did it to use them over in Iraq.
Actually, Ike sent in the 101st Airborne.
Kennedy only sent in Federal Marshals in like circumstances, unarmed IIRC, who were shot up by locals.
Nope. Again, words mean things.
Renaud, John. “National Guard Fact Sheet Army National Guard (FY2005)” (PDF). Army National Guard, G5, Chief, Strategic Plans and Policy.
IF you read my posts, you’ll find that it’s rare that I don’t know what I opine about.
try again, in this case you don’t know jack, the article you refer to is the integration of the National Guard as a component of the active services, in other words the guard was supplementing the duties of the active forces, in other words the guard was getting more modern equipment then they were before (obsolete to the regular forces). another way of stating it you took what I said out of context.
NO. Read, stupid.
At this point in time, it’s worth reflecting on the fact that the Leftist jackboot idiots are so utterly un-self-aware and are so ignorant of history that they can dress up in black, conceal their faces, carry truncheons and mace and other weapons, attack innocents without any semblance of justification, and then have the temerity to unabashedly label themselves “anti-fascists.”
We are dealing with a bunch of malevolent and vindictive twits who are as transparently stupid as they are totalitarian.
Next the Leftists will be dressing up in blackface.
Unawareness and stupidity abound with these thugs. Not only do these fascists claim to be opposing fascism, they don’t realize that if they succeed in ushering in anarchy, they will likely be mowed down by conservatives, who are much better equipped and armed to survive–thrive??–as western civilization crumbles.
Good comment, but unless they’ve changed the definition of “anarchy,” these people are not anarchists; they want the power, and they want to rule. They’re “anarchists” of the type that gripes when the federal government doesn’t provide enough handouts. That’s anarchy like it’s conservatism to establish an unfunded entitlement. #NOT
actually they are anarchists, they cause chaos and expect to rise from it in control, like a phoenix. see how that worked out in Russia, Germany, and China for starters
I prefer the term nihilist rather than anarchist.
Political anarchism is not the same as simple “anarchy”. It’s actually very akin to libertarianism. Nihilist is actually a pretty good word for these people.
dumbassess is more succinct.
“Anarchy” is a state of no government. An “anarchist” is someone who believes in not having a government. In order to have anarchy, one must have lawful, respectful behavior. Because it is when some individuals or groups threaten the rights, property, and interests of others that those being threaten form organizations for self-defense. These organizations are nascent (if not actual) governments. People who call themselves “anarchists” yet insist on behaving as criminals are not anarchists at all. They don’t understand what it means to be an anarchist, nor do they understand what it takes (respectful, law-abiding behavior) to maintain an anarchistic state.
Not to mention that if they succeed in ushering in anarchy — real anarchy — the Governor and President will call in the Nat’l Guard to keep the peace. This may even include declaring martial law.
They’ll then realize two things:
1. They won’t be any freer than the conservatives they hate so much and try so hard to silence.
2. The Nat’l Guard isn’t on their side, doesn’t give a rip about their social-justice crusade, and unlike the Portland Police, doesn’t f@#k around when it comes to enforcement.
It’s a hard lesson, and I imagine some of them might end up learning it the hard way.
Trump and Sessions stop the resist movement now! By anty means necessary, too!
Tired of this BS Trump. Get the National Guard locked and loaded. Enough of the anarchy. These are monsters
Until these thugs are beaten down and organizations are not scared to have an event, they win. How long they are allowed to abuse other people’s civil rights depends on who has the nuts to fight them. Until then America is just Sweden west.
Imagine if it was a St Patrick’s Day Parade and someone sent an anonymous email saying that if the gays were allowed to march in that parade that they and several hundred of their associates would rush the parade and push and drag the gays out of the parade what the response would be.
It looks like Anti-First-Amendment has outlawed the Republican party.
Hate Love’s Abortion
Isn’t that email a “terroristic threat”? Doesn’t it threaten to violate the other’s right to peaceably assemble? Isn’t that a violation of federal civil rights statutes? When is Jeff Sessions going to look into this?
Hmmm…..conspiracy to deny civil rights to another.
Possibility of some people crossing state lines to join in the festivities.
Sounds like something worth looking into.
There are several threats in that letter that should put people in jail.
Touching anyone in that parade would be assault, unlawful restraint, and several other criminal acts, or civil rights violations.
When you sit on your rights, you lose them.
We’re sitting on our rights by allowing these lunatics the run of our society. Enough.
There are reportedly around 100 million firearms in this country. Care to guess how many are owned by the snowflakes? Do they really want civil war?