Change?

It's hard to even say right now. It feels so fragile.

So many movements have come and gone and left no real change in their wake. The WTO protests. Occupy Wall Street. Earlier iterations of Black Lives Matter. Earlier anti-Trump protests.

But this feels different, and hope has its claws in my heart.

I'm not holding my breath for results at the federal level. A better legal framework for police accountability is necessary, but it's not sufficient. Change has to start here, everywhere, every city block. From the ground up, like how grass grows. Monday night we joined the march on Alberta and followed it down to Knott-- all along the route, people from the neighborhood were leaving and joining.

The City Council votes on the PPB budget tomorrow. They've scheduled hours of public comment. I think we're guaranteed a substantial reduction, and the elimination of certain named programs. It's a long way from complete defunding, but it's something.

We've had a bunch of citizen oversight/review structures in Portland, and all of them have pretty much died in their tracks, with citizen members resigning in frustration and disgust. Maybe it was always the wrong approach: too case-by-case, too one-bad-apple narrative, not systemic enough. Maybe punishing the system, by withholding funds, will be more effective.

Hope, you are a cruel thing. If you are the thing with feathers, as ED called you, you also have talons and a flesh-tearing beak.

Books Available
Country Well-Known as an Old Nightmare's Stable
High-Voltage Lines
Knocking from Inside