Elwood: “Portland Anarchists.” Jake: “I hate Portland Anarchists.”
The good people (er, person) over at Welcome to Blog have a great post up comparing the Portland media’s reaction to recent anarchist activity with that of the “rightosphere”. As one would expect from Blog, the writing is excellent:
My pet theory: for Portland, anarchists setting things on fire is passe. Oh, sure, it was all really, really exciting back in ’99 during the WTO fallout but in ’07? It draws a collective roll of the eyes. Their actions on Sunday smack of Marilyn Manson or a random shock celeb trying to top themselves well after their fanbase has moved on.
Sorry, guys. It’s over. I know, I know. Given all the local attention the Schumacher Furs protesters received, it isn’t fair. But, hey, you made the Drudge Report. That’s got to count for something. Middle America is still outraged by your antics. Have you considered taking this act out on the road? Just start in Pendleton and work your way east until you hit Savannah.
I’ll take anarchists holding up signs and burning flags over anarchists breaking shit and acting like pissed off soccer fans. Frankly the idea of anarchists organizing a protest is incredibly funny to me. Although, when anarchists do break shit it gives the police an excuse to break them, which I enjoy even more. So I guess I’m torn on this one.
Organizing a protest doesn’t go against anarchy, we do it to bring down the oppresive corpracy piece by piece then rise up overthrow the republic and replace it with consensual democracy. So effectively its to change goverment in the big picture.
Uhh, I am not that emily
dogg.
Timothy,
In this model (Doc as consumer) I think we are to assume that the patient is the third party? The HMO model places the Doc in the role of labour receiving a wage from the insurance co. I haven’t pondered this much until now.
in all honesty I am not too familiar with the
emily thanks for campaigning on the blog!
Oh man, that’s terrible news. My condolences, Andrea.
Tim– re: adverse selection… let’s continue this via email.
Andrea: My heart goes out to you and your family!
See you guys after Spring break.
I’m sorry to hear that, Ted, all the best to y’all.
John: As Dustin pointed out, the invasion of Iraq is justified in moral terms almost ad absurdum. Frankly, your “my morality is good, but Bush’s morality is bad” position gives relativism a good name. Also, the value of your platitudes are directly tied to your ability to communicate them. If nobody seems to understand your sense of moral clarity, perhaps you bear as much responsibility for their confusion as they do. You might be able to sympathize with Bush on this point.
Tim et al: Andreas mother has passed away, so the vacation is over… I’m gonna leave things around here in your capable hands for the next few days.
Eric: That’s a pretty interesting point, actually. I wonder about the implication of that on the usual story of “health care as a third-party payer problem” discussion.