No Kings Day in Portland, Oregon

No Kings Day sign,"We will not go gently", from the Dylan Thomas poem reminding us to fight to the end.

Where I'm from, we support and protest with our words, our actions, our time, and our money.

We might support an owner of the local tire store who invested in his employees, because we knew those happy employees treated us better as customers. We might protest a business that treats its employees poorly by boycotting it. We might support the mayor if things were better in our little town, or we might vote out the next one because things were worse.

Supporting and protesting with a statement or action and expressing approval or disapproval is how we conduct our lives with businesses, politicians, business owners, and even our own families.

The No Kings protest is complicated (as are most things that involve humans:). Many issues were being protested that impact our economy, health care, over reach and others.

In Washington D.C. Senator Bernie Sanders beautifully defined the reasons for the protest and reminded listeners that we are marching and engaging in civil disobedience because of our love of country. I found that video on YouTube. He even mentioned Portland, Oregon, where I live, directly.

We don't have one place to go to see the news and discuss with family and friends. The absence of someone like Walter Cronkite, known as the the most trusted man in America, made it difficult to have a conversation drawing a shared sense of what was happening. I went to Substack (social media) and sought out the perspective of my favorite current day journalists like Dan Rather and Katie Couric.

I'm a native Oregonian. Born and raised in Prineville, Oregon with family in Sisters, Redmond, Gresham, and Boring. I have spent all but six years of my life in Oregon. Eugene, Salem, Roseburg, Hood River, and Portland. We're not sure where we'll retire, but we know we won't be retiring in Portland. Portland isn't MY city as much as Oregon is MY state. There's so much I love about the city, and there are many things I don't.

My family and some friends who don't live here or visit often sometimes have the perception that things are terrible. Here's my personal experience as a citizen of Portland.

1) Things are fine, and the protests are by and large peaceful, even joyful. I have, gratefully, never seen violent acts by protestors, police, ICE, or anyone else in the eight years I've lived here.

2) Our homeless problem is heartbreaking. I have compassion for the humans that are suffering from mental health issues, for the families who have been displaced because housing is so expensive, and for people who have lost their way and are medicating themselves with drugs, legal and illegal, to avoid their pain. I am disgusted by the filth and unsanitary conditions in some areas, by the lack of accountability, and the lack of effective action from our governor and city leaders. They either aren’t doing much about it or haven't clarified their plans.

3) I support the No King's peaceful protest and civil disobedience. It isn’t over. I’m not giving up on the city, state, and country I love. Most people I know feel the same way.

I chose not to march for No Kings, but to participate by exercising my protest and civil disobedience through meeting other humans, being curious about them, and hoping to learn from them.

From my life experience, most people are good. Of course, there are bad people who operate on bad faith, act only out of selfishness, and just generally do bad stuff. But, we are being incentivized to hate each other when our heads and hearts mostly want a lot of the same things. It's hard to hate people when you look in their eyes, hear their stories, and connect on pretty much anything.

I met Lisa walking through Northwest Portland. I wanted to check in on the play, "Primary Trust" playing at our lovely Portland Center Stage Armory. This beautiful, short, Black woman with long eyelashes stopped me to ask, "What is this all about?" She told me a little about her life. She had been abused and ignored by her mother and father and loved and adored by her grandparents (whom she called mom and dad:) She shared her struggle to trust people. We giggled about the fact that we had the same name and similar beauty marks on our left cheeks. We hugged. She told me she didn't understand because she wasn't educated. I told her wisdom comes from a lot of places. She told me I was beautiful and to know my worth in God's eyes.

I met Mike at Low Brow Lounge, a favorite Portland dive bar. It's more than 25 years old and owned by a woman who pays her employees well (no tip pool here) and treats them so fairly that bartenders and staff have little turnover. The food and drinks are solid and the customer service is exceptional. Mike is a Backend Software Engineer from Beaverton, a suburb of Portland. He's had a successful career in technology and now lives in New Orleans with his wife and two dogs. His mixed Great Dane and Golden Retriever pups are beautiful and obviously big loves of his life. He was laid off two years ago. We had that and many other things in common. He is grateful to have this time to care for his mom who had cancer. A favorite part of his job was answering customer service tickets, resolving problems, and caring for customers. He spoke with candor about the state of things, we shared concerns about the current state of tech and AI and the staggering lack of governance and ethics.

The train was full, but fairly subdued. One man sitting behind me was staring out the window and yelling. He began escalating his language from frustration to more violent-charged language. Some passengers, including me, were uncomfortable. Some were shaking their heads, some whispering about him, and some ignoring what is a pretty frequent occurence if you spend any time using our train system. I asked a Tri-Met employee what to do. His name was Kelly, he said he knew the man and that he hadn't ever witnessed him being violent and that it had been a hard day for him and many people, Kelly was kind, compassionate, and called security to have a presence, which was comforting. Tri-Met did an amazing job and responded to the crowds and need for transportation on a really difficult day.

I saw so many signs, some homemade, some quite professional. Messages on the signs were about health care, democracy, immigration, oligarchy, gun control, abortion, loving your neighbor, and impeachment. My favorite said, "We will not go gently."

I despise and reject the actions of any protesting that involves violence or hurting people. There's very little of that. I am proud of Portland's response to the authority over reach that our current administration is displaying.

I (along with many others) heard the words, "plenary authority" for the first time this week from a highly ranked official in the administration. It means authority and power that is complete, absolute, and not subject to significant limitation. It refers to the full legal capacity to act on a matter without needing additional approval. That's not the job of a president.

If that's not worth protesting against, I'm not sure what is.

Thank you to Indivisible.org VoteSaveAmerica, and other orgs that helped galvanize our country and the world to protest plenary authority.