Portland, Oregon, styles itself as “The City of Roses.” For over a century, this Pacific Northwest city has held an annual Rose Festival, complete with multiple parades.
This year, there will be at least one parade less.
“The annual 82nd Avenue Rose Parade and Carnival scheduled for Saturday have been canceled because of threats against the Multnomah County Republican Party, a longtime participant in the parade,” we learn from the Portland Tribune. “In a Tuesday afternoon email, the 82 Avenue Business Association, which sponsors the Rose Festival-sanctioned event, said it canceled the entire event because [it] could not guarantee the safety of the community.”
KOIN‑6 News reported that the threats came from the Direct Action Alliance, an “antifa”-styled group that “created a Facebook event called ‘Defend Portland from Fascists at the Avenue of Roses Parade.’ The group wanted to disrupt the march because of ‘Nazis and fascists’ participating.”
Now, what you regard as “white supremacist” and what young pseudo-antifascists think of as “white supremacy” are probably very different. I doubt that many real Nazis and fascists would have marched on Saturday.
But the identification issue is irrelevant. If fascists want to peacefully parade, let them.
What is objectionable? Those who engage in violence to suppress views of which they disapprove.
Also objectionable? The organizers and the City of Roses police, who, by caving in, let free speech and assembly be squelched.
Spontaneous marches did occur on parade day, corralled to the left and right sides of the street. Literally and figuratively. Three violent activists were arrested but not identified by affiliation.
Portlanders used to worry that the clouds would rain on their parades. Now, it is ideological violence casting a dark shadow.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
6 replies on “Thorns in the Parade”
The parallels between this and the creation of the Nazi states of the last century are compelling.
The true radicals were not proposing to march, but rather were those threatening violence to stop the march.
We have ceased teaching history to our youth and now it looks as if they are going to be condemned to relive it.
Can’t the groups threatening be prosecuted for making a terroristic threat?
You can be “darned” sure if a conservative group made such a threat they would be prosecuted.
Most probably correct, and do realize that the law becomes the weapon of the tyrant when unevenly applied.
The source of this is George Soros and, as long as his money holds out, he can keep the nation in a constant state of insurrection. Curiously, most writers omit his name from their ‘investigations’.
The people of Portland have been warned.
Their freedom to peaceably assemble has been threatened. What are they going to do about it?
The choice is theirs. They can prosecute those who made the threats or they can give in to them. Anarchy is coming.
If you noticed, those that seek to overthrow the Constitution are only protesting on the west coast (California and Oregon) where the authorities are far more liberal than normal and more likely to “look the other way” if violence breaks out. Try that here in the midwest and some antifa will be going to the hospital and some to the morgue. And Drifter is absolutely right. Sure as anything George Soros is behind this at least indirectly. Stick him in Gitmo where every terrorist belongs and deny him the ability to use his connections and deny him to ability to fund these attacks on the Constitution and see just how fast this stops.