Statement on federal officers in Portland, elsewhere

Unidentified federal law enforcement agents in Portland, Oregon, have detained protesters,
whisking them away in unmarked cars. This shocking practice is evocative of repressive methods
used by authoritarian governments.

Over the objections of local elected officials, the Trump administration recently deployed a variety
of federal agents to Portland, including U.S. Marshals and Customs and Border Protection officers,
purportedly to protect federal buildings during demonstrations. However, detentions have
reportedly occurred elsewhere. It is not immediately clear which federal agency is responsible.

Since the arrival of federal agents, local officials have complained that they are using excessive
force against protesters. On July 6, a U.S. Marshal shot a protester in the head with an “impact
munition” fracturing his skull and leaving him critically injured. U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) has condemned the federal deployment, saying, “These shadowy forces have been escalating, not preventing, violence.”

Federal officials have rejected the calls for de-escalation. On July 16, Acting Secretary of Homeland
Security Chad Wolf criticized local officials for failing to curb “lawless anarchists.” “This failed
response has only emboldened the violent mob,” he said.

Since the murder of George Floyd by police, Americans across the nation have taken to the streets to
exercise their First Amendment rights. Many times these peaceful protests against police violence
have been met with more violence, including by the Portland Police Department.The continued
deployment of federal forces in Portland, against the wishes of local elected officials, is the latest
example of the Trump administration’s policy of demonizing the protesters and peddling conspiracy
theories about outside agitators.

Reports that PPD may be formally or informally coordinating or sharing information with federal
agencies raise additional concerns.

Everyone has the right to protest freely and to speak out for a better world. Individuals do not
forfeit this right, even when others engage in vandalism or similar unlawful acts. Officers are only
legally authorized to arrest a person based on individualized probable cause that the individual has
committed a crime.

The use of unidentified militarized federal forces against the wishes of local officials, the exercise of
excessive force against peaceful demonstrators and the seemingly arbitrary detention of some of
them without a clear reason for arrest are designed to intimidate protesters into surrendering their
First Amendment rights.

We condemn these practices. We call for all unwanted federal forces to be removed from Portland
and urge Congress to investigate the pattern and practice of abuses against protesters.

(The American Friends Service Committee was one of several organizations to sign on to this statement. Click link for more.)

A FREE SOUL IN PRISON

Photo credit: Chicago Daily News negatives collection, DN-0003451. Courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society, by way of the Library of Congress.

Welcome to the last day of Eugene Debs Week at Goat Rope. If this is your first visit, please click on earlier entries.

Despite his status as a national spokesman for labor and the socialist movement (not to mention a perennial candidate) Debs did not aspire to be a conventional "leader" but rather encouraged ordinary people to take the lead:

I am not a Labor Leader; I do not want you to follow me or anyone else; if you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of this capitalist wilderness, you will stay right where you are. I would not lead you into this promised land if I could, because if I could lead you in, someone else would lead you out. YOU MUST use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourselves out of your present condition; as it is now the capitalists use your heads, and your hands.

His biggest brush with the Powers that Were came in the wake of the First World War, which many socialists and others believed was a disastrous slaughter driven by imperialism--a view that many later mainstream historians came to endorse.

In a famous 1918 anti-war speech in Canton, Ohio, he said:

...that is war in a nutshell. The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose — especially their lives.

Making an ant-war speech at that time carried considerable risks given repressive wartime legislation. He noted that

...it is extremely dangerous to exercise the constitutional right of free speech in a country fighting to make democracy safe in the world... I would rather a thousand times be a free soul in jail than to be a sycophant and coward in the streets.

(Golly, it's a good thing we don't have to worry about restrictions on liberty during wartime any more, isn't it?)

Debs was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 1919 for that speech. Never one to pass on a chance to make a statement, he saved some of his best for the trial. This is what he told the judge during his sentencing hearing:

Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

Debs eventually had his sentence commuted by Republican President Warren G. Harding in 1921 after serving time in Moundsville, WV and the federal prison in Atlanta. He lived until 1926, but was unable to regain his own vitality or that of the movement he dedicated his life to serve.

Wartime repression dealt organizations like the Socialist Party and the IWW a blow from which they never recovered. In addition to persecution and defection, a rival communist movement sprang up in the wake of the Russian Revolution, about which the staunchly democratic Debs became more and more critical.

While in some respects the ending was tragic, Debs remains an inspirational figure for his courage and idealism. And indirectly, many of the reforms he and his comrades supported were eventually enacted into legislation. Finally, he inspired the next generation, including such labor leaders as WV's own Reuther brothers.

Requiescat in pace.

PROTESTING THE NLRB. El Cabrero was in DC this week and drove by one of the protests against the Bush National Labor Relations Board described here. I wanted to hop out and join them.

MEGAN WILLIAMS CASE. Here's the latest.

DINOSAUR UPDATE. They found a new one that ate like a cow.

IT'S NOT JUST US. It looks like cockroaches also have conformity and peer pressure issues.

CENSORSHIP UPDATE. It looks like Pat Conroy's novel Beach Music has survived an attempt of censorship at Nitro High School. I'm sure there is gnashing of teeth in the domestic Taliban camp.

MORE ON ARCHIVEGATE, the WV tempest about the bizarre and unjust firing of a state archivist and future plans for the state archive can be found at the Uberblog of WV news, Lincoln Walks at Midnight. A protest is planned for today.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED