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ANOTHER VIETNAM? NOT FOR RETURNING TROOPS
Sixty people turned up in Washington last March to protest against the war. CNN covered this important event. But no mention by CNN of this:
Thousands lined Portland’s Congress Street on Friday to cheer for the state’s servicemen, its emergency workers and the NFL champion New England Patriots.
Billed as the city’s biggest ticker-tape parade, the event featured hundreds of soldiers, sailors and other members of the military marching in front of an enthusiastic crowd, estimated at 30,000.
Onlookers bellowed excitedly as each contingent of soldiers paraded into view. The marchers were met by shredded paper, a multitude of small U.S. flags and signs that read: “Welcome Home Heroes” and “America Rocks!”
Hit the link for photo galleries. Latest US polls are interesting; asked “How confident are you that U.S. policies in Iraq will be successful?”, 53% were very or somewhat confident while 42% were not very confident or not confident at all; asked to agree or disagree with the statement “The United States and the world are safer today without Saddam Hussein in power”, 71% agreed or agreed strongly; only 21% disagreed.
UPDATE. Major John writes:
At least in Chicago, when my unit came back from OEF a couple of weeks ago, we got coverage on all the local TV and a few lines in the papers. Of course, we are surrounded by “Jesusland”, so maybe the media was frightened that a fundamentalist Christian mob would burn them at the stake if they didn’t acknowledge us. Beats me …
Tim,
Kinda scary, isn’t it, to think that 1 in 5 people you’d pass on the American street would prefer to have Saddam back in power, in order to make the world safer.
This is a good example of why first-past-the-post is still the best electoral system; it keeps the fringe on the fringe.
Posted by localharbor on 2005 04 09 at 06:10 PM • permalinkI am aware the story is about Portland , Maine not Portland, Oregon, but as a Portland, OR resident, I have bile to vent.
“Latte Town� was coined a few years back and is the most appropriate term for the City of Portland, Oregon that I have ever heard. A Latte town consists of mostly white, educated baby boomers and young single people. The inhabitants of the town are usually newcomers who have priced out all the original inhabitants. These towns are usually expensive, pretentious, abound in natural fibers and are laid back on the surface. Latte towns like Portland pride themselves on their most cherished concepts of diversity and inclusiveness. Most Portlanders accept this myth as Gospel but upon close examination Portland’s dirty little secret is revealed. Portland is an overwhelmingly white, non-ethnic city. It is as vanilla as it gets so it makes one wonder what all the celebrating of diversity is all about. Drive through any neighborhood surrounding the downtown area and the impression that you get is that Portland is nothing more than a series of elitist ghettos compromised of rich white homosexuals, rich white yuppies, rich white hippies, rich white trust funders, and rich white kids from the suburbs pretending to be street people. Where’s the diversity? Well it doesn’t exist but the average Portlander likes the concept and in their eyes the different shades of rich whites all constituent diversity.
Portland is one of the most bigoted, racist, narrow-minded, intolerant places I have even been. Of course, their hate is politically correct hate. Portlanders know how you should live and are more than happy to legislate that down everyone’s throat. I still can not believe the government officially produced a pamphlet describing “How Good Portlanders Act.�
For all their talk of independence and open-mindedness they are amazing rule-followers. It is just that the set of rules they have blindly chosen to follow are the anti-American DemocraticUnderground set of rules.
And, of course, there are plenty of stories of violence from the anti-war protests. One involving a protestor that was harassed because he picked up a newspaper vending machine and hurled it at a police horse (like the horse made a conscious decision to join the cops). This protestor was a hero whose free speech rights had been clearly violated.
Christ, I need to move.
Yehudit - it was in Portland, Maine, not Portland, Minnesota. I live in a town 15 minutes south of there (Maine).
EvilDave - your description of Portland, Oregon, pretty much matches our Portland. Don’t let the photo of the mayor fool you - she and every other black resident could probably fit inside a Hemp Awareness Tent at any local festival, with room to spare for thirty heshers.
At least in Chicago, when my unit came back from OEF a couple of weeks ago, we got coverage on all the local TV and a few lines in the papers. Of course, we are surrounded by “Jesusland”, so maybe the media was frightened that a fundamentalist Christian mob would burn them at the stake if they didn’t acknowledge us. Beats me…
Posted by Major John on 2005 04 10 at 12:15 AM • permalinkAw, c’mon, you can’t keep ME, MN, MO, MA, MS and MI straight? ;-)
Could be worse. It could have happened in Springfield instead of Portland. ;)
Posted by Patrick Chester on 2005 04 10 at 02:13 AM • permalink@Dave S: ”...fit inside a Hemp Awareness Tent…”<
If you can remain vertical in a Hemp Awareness Tent, you’re a better man than I, Ganga Din.Posted by Jabba the Tutt on 2005 04 10 at 09:41 AM • permalink
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I live just outside of Portland. I imagine it didn’t get press because it was combined with the Pats parade. Knowing Portland (very Granola-left), I doubt the troops would have gotten a parade of their own.
They did have a big ol’ parade after 9/11, though… in support of area Muslims. I guess us white male oppressors were getting ready to string ‘em up from the lampposts, but the parade apparently dissuaded us.