I hear in the distance the “This is the Portland Police.  Stay off the sidewalk.  Any attempt to obstruct law enforcement will result in your arrest”, repeat, in loop.

A giant pick up truck drives by with a giant “Trump 2020” flag.  Not an American flag, mind you –those might be taken to be Berniecrats after all and get you bashed from both sides.

Looking down as I walk over the overpass the gaggle of dudes with black bandanas in wait to put on.  After I cross the bridge, another batch of dudes — more crew cutted, if you will — walk past.  I see one with an Alex Jones t-shirt… don’t get a good look at it.

From what I hear there was a bunch of hippy dippy jumping about somewhere about the park.  This is the main crux of activity for the mass of people.  Closer to the police line you have the hardcore antifa shouting across the line, next to whatever the fas — “Proud Boys” — are proud about.

I probably get in trouble with my peers for suggesting that, whatever these are, they aren’t “nazis in the streets”, and not having as much sympathy for the antifa forces as they want to… they managed to avoid beating up a gay Asian man this time — the logic I suppose is in the polling data that shows one small cohort of political demographics with a 50-50 split on whether it’s okay to “punch someone just because they are a nazi” and what gets defined as “nazi” is that gay Asian man who says mean things about them on the Internet…

If the fas versus antifas battles resemble this one in the future, it will be a positive development.

“NOW I don’t think I like him.”

— comment made regarding President Trump in regards to retweeting Hillary connected conspiracy theory on Epstein.)

(On “We see ‘been Hillary’d?  Why isn’t it “Bill’d?”… “Yeah, ‘billed’ is actually a word!”  “Then again, we throw Trump into the mix, so “Donalded” or “Trumped?”… “Or… Epstein was just “Bidened” his time?”)

Flinting past, I saw they were giving away free vegan milkshakes.  I think it was over by the time I was flinting past, or rather in a stage of restocking.  I take the “Free Vegan Milkshakes … No Nazis” to be a curious ideological construct.

According to the cops, someone might possibly have stuck quick making cement in it, so I suppose that’s why when someone threw a cup at someone, it warranted a beat down of all in the nearby vicinity.

… the one event told to me by someone I know who went in waving a sign.  I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the sign he was waving was incoherent — plausibly funny if it was actually connected to something I can identify with on this scene.

He told me that the Proud Boys — a group of 20 or so — were there “hiding behind the police”.  I don’t have the heart to suggest that, never mind the reprehensible nature of their politics, and besides them having committed gross atrocities (Cider Riot on May Day), this, narrowly speaking, speaks well of them.

The Oregonian ran for its “story” on the event, on Sunday, a grouping of photographs — black scarved peoples marching, followed by the “HimToo” speaker (Proud Boys Lady Auxiliary, I think it is?), and a photo of the violent attack on Andy Ngo (antifa wanting to maintain an equivalence)*, and a man holding a towel to his face… and then a photo of a bunch of naked people gathering in a park before hiking out on bikes.  So it’s antifa, the fas, and the naked bike riders…

Bad scene all around, isn’t it?

* Hm.  A group of whites anonymous costumed behind hankees beating up a gay Asian man.  Brilliant job, brilliant job.

Hottest most humid day of the year thus far.  I walk by a woman wearing a “conversation t” — (though, doing a quick google search I’m not sure I have the terminology of the apparel industry right).  It’s a tight form fitting shirt, generally short enough to show one’s navel (but I’m not sure if the industry has it down that far), where a sassy and saucy statement sits right on her boobs, sometimes — as is the case here– the punchline to a line that’s right above her boobs.

So I see the phrase “Touch my butt” right above her boobs.  I want to know what the rest of the thing says, but I can’t really look because I just don’t want to be seen staring at her breasts.  I assume it’s something like “And I’ll chop your nuts off” or “And I’ll karate chop you”, as that’s about what may make sense.

Well, maybe I can find someone wearing a dark pair of sunglasses to do the job, or someone not afraid of being called a dirty old man, or dirty old woman.

Hanging on a pole, or was until I took it down today.  It kind of feels like a joke, a trolling of the “progressive”, a mocking of minor gestures of solidarity as activism… but if it were… it sure would be a slight one…  And, (sic)…

NO ONE SHOULD BE TOLD WHAT TO DO WITH THERE BODY!
SHOW YOUR SUPPORT NOW.  WEAR GREY.  DON’T LET ROE V. WADE GET OVERTURNED
PROTECT THE FUTURE RIGHTS FOR ALL WOMEN!
WOMEN HAVE THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE WHAT WE DO WITH OUR BODIES!
PROTECT YOUR RIGHTS BY WEARING GREY!

In other political pamphleteering news, I haven’t seen a new anti-Trump throttling jammed into the free boxes of the WW or PM or whatever.  But today I did see someone tossed in a paper declaring “Protect Free Speech”, and a stylish image of a hand holding a smart-phone device with “infowars.com” written on it.  So the fights continue.

“And The Cosby Show… is the greatest television comedy of all time.”

Yeah.  And it won’t be mass marketed again until sometime after the guy is dead…

“I’m full blown for Bernie.”
“I don’t understand how Bernie didn’t get in 2016.  He would have swamped Trump.”
“Well, the DNC is massively corrupt.”

Tads of revisionism history, and partisan history on the fly, that will seep into their personal political narrative and will be a little difficult to entangle, as parts of it are true — so as to overwhelm larger issues.  There’s a lot of that.  We will never be able to acknowledge, for instance, the political weaknesses and limitations of Senator Robert Kennedy in 1968 — except maybe Pat Buchanan.

Interestingly this runs counter to the Hillary Clinton hagiography and pure victim of our misogynistic culture… with no room for anything else.  (The election was PAMIWI… Eye on the ball…) But it is.  As is.

The messages that the activist who slots crap into the free boxes (alt weeklies and the like) …

… are getting more obscure and opaque.  Tell me if you can can reassemble this message into coherence.

PICK YOUR TEAM
RUSSIAN REPUBLICAN
CAPITALIST PREDATOR
HOME GROWN JINGO
How do you want to be remembered?
Where’s Washington and Lincoln?

I don’t know what any of this means.  I suppose the problem is someone called them out for fat-shaming the President, so now they can’t quite find any good insult.

I can’t quite catch a term, but it’s a term that seems important to … know.

“I keep hearing from Bernie Sanders supporters who say he can’t lose.  Like, they’re…”
“naive?”
“Not that.”
“[  term of some sort ]”  — something with “dogging” it at the end of the phrase…
“Yeah.  Like.  Way too hopeful here.”

“Not even popularity.  It’s the electoral system and… they won’t allow it.  It’s naive to think they would.  I mean.  You know Chile.  Venezuela.”

Why not mention JFK while they’re at it?

A Feminist store of some good location has the sign …

“Before there was Clinton, there was Chisholm.”

Sure.  But before there was Chisholm, there was Woodhull.

Between them, there was Margaret Chase Smith.
Two poles of “respectability”, Woodhull had an eccentric spirituality, and Smith was a Republican.  I don’t know which one they’d go with.

Then again, there’s also Jill Stein.  We could have a “Concurrent with Clinton, there was Stein” sign.  Maybe they’ll put that up next time?