Read

User menu

Search form

Portland Anti-Austerity Protest Draws 1,000 Despite Police Violence

Portland Anti-Austerity Protest Draws 1,000 Despite Police Violence
Tue, 11/6/2012 - by Shamus Cooke
This article originally appeared on Workers Action

Photo: Ross William Hamilton

It’s difficult to build a pre-election protest with so many labor and community groups busy campaigning for Democrats. Nevertheless, more than 1,000 people marched the streets in Portland, Oregon, against austerity cuts to education and other public services and the consequent debt accumulated by students.

The specific date of the pre-election protest was timed to educate the public about the bipartisan plan of national austerity cuts, which are expected to occur post-election and likely include massive cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, public education and Social Security.

The Portland demonstration was endorsed or supported by six labor unions, including Portland’s teachers and the largest public employee union in Oregon. Over a dozen community groups endorsed the event.

But the police came ready to start a fight. There was a fleet of bicycle police and dozens of riot police, including those mounted on horseback. The police created confrontations by blocking streets on the marching route and pepper spraying marchers if they got too close. About 24 people were pepper sprayed, including several high school students and an elderly woman.

It should be noted that Portland’s mayor is the first openly gay Mayor in the country and a “liberal” Democrat.

Despite the police’s repeated attempts to dismember the march, the day was an overall success. The demonstration gained enough coverage to teach the city what austerity is, while speakers and fliers offered alternatives that would make austerity cuts unnecessary, such as taxing the rich and corporations instead of making cuts to education and social programs.

Also, the organizational framework has been created for further coalition building against austerity, with labor and community groups finding common purpose against a bi-partisan policy that is destroying the social safety net while being used as an excuse to attack unions.

This is important because future state budget deficits are expected in Oregon. Instead of raising taxes on the rich, whose tax rates have declined for the past three decades, the Democratic governor will likely try again to implement austerity cuts in response to a budget deficit. In other words, he will try to resolve the deficit at the expense of working people and the poor. Cuts will also likely be attempted again on the city level in Portland, in response to yet another budget deficit.

The economic crisis is not over for working people, who are likely to experience years of austerity budgets on all levels of government, while corporations, too, attempt to implement austerity wage and benefit cuts to their workforce in order to “remain competitive.”

If labor and community groups unite the broader population with common goals and collective, massive action, we can build a powerful social movement capable not only of defending ourselves from austerity, but changing the power dynamic in this country to the benefit of working people.

3 WAYS TO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT

ONE-TIME DONATION

Just use the simple form below to make a single direct donation.

DONATE NOW

MONTHLY DONATION

Be a sustaining sponsor. Give a reacurring monthly donation at any level.

GET SOME MERCH!

Now you can wear your support too! From T-Shirts to tote bags.

SHOP TODAY

Sign Up

Article Tabs

It isn’t difficult to argue that Musk is likely a white supremacist obsessed with increasing the white birthrate and simultaneously killing off undesirables by cutting off their aid.

In a political earthquake last year, the populist and racist Reform Party took 4.1 million votes, coming third, against a backdrop of collapsing living standards and accelerating impoverishment.

There are multiple similarities between Trump and the British monarch when looking at the 27 grievances the framers outlined in their 1776 declaration.

It is not hyperbole to say that the world’s richest man has now illegally seized control of America’s checkbook and the entire federal workforce.

Over the next four years, we’re about to be inundated with a flood of lies—including from federal agencies themselves.

A broad range of Americans are organizing a 24-hour economic boycott on February 28th to protest the ongoing actions of the Trump administration and to send a message to corporate America.

It isn’t difficult to argue that Musk is likely a white supremacist obsessed with increasing the white birthrate and simultaneously killing off undesirables by cutting off their aid.

In a political earthquake last year, the populist and racist Reform Party took 4.1 million votes, coming third, against a backdrop of collapsing living standards and accelerating impoverishment.

There are multiple similarities between Trump and the British monarch when looking at the 27 grievances the framers outlined in their 1776 declaration.

The grassroots opposition to President Donald Trump is hitting the streets everywhere.

It isn’t difficult to argue that Musk is likely a white supremacist obsessed with increasing the white birthrate and simultaneously killing off undesirables by cutting off their aid.

Posted 1 month 5 days ago

There are multiple similarities between Trump and the British monarch when looking at the 27 grievances the framers outlined in their 1776 declaration.

Posted 1 month 1 week ago

A broad range of Americans are organizing a 24-hour economic boycott on February 28th to protest the ongoing actions of the Trump administration and to send a message to corporate America.

Posted 1 month 4 days ago

Over the next four years, we’re about to be inundated with a flood of lies—including from federal agencies themselves.

Posted 1 month 3 weeks ago

The grassroots opposition to President Donald Trump is hitting the streets everywhere.

Posted 1 month 2 weeks ago