Portland is about to tell Homeland Security they don’t want to be involved in its terrorism task force any longer. [u]NBC News[/u]. So, a news report is saying that progressives should move to Portland, Oregon, not Canada! [u]Applegate Oregon News[/u] published an article about the virtues of this most progressive of US cities.
Progressives who are distraught as a result of President Bush’s re-election victory should seriously consider Portland, Oregon, as their future home. Portland and Multnomah County, where Portland is located, have shown that they are willing to be leaders in a vast array of progressive causes.
Portland is a leader in Same-Sex Marriages, Opposition To The Patriot Act, Liberal Voting Majority, Tax Support For Government And Education, and more.
But look at some of the responses to the article.
I can’t stand anything about modern day Portland, the city, the crime, the attitudes, the politics, and especially the whining “Progressives”. There is no “progress” being made by these people. They have taken a once beautiful city and ruined it. I live in the suburbs of Portland. I work in the suburbs for a great company, whose only sin is being located near Portland. I only travel inside the city limits about once a month if I can avoid it, and that’s too often. Send the progressives anywhere but Portland. Canada is nice. Antarctica is even nicer. Really. Go check it out. -Ralph Williams
I fully agree with the article. I was born in Portland in '35 and spent most of my life living in the area. I remember when it was conservative and mostly Republican. Liberal carpetbaggers moved in and took over the political scene and it’s been downhill ever since. A couple of years ago I threw in the towel and my wife and I moved to the coast. I was sick and tired of unending taxes, crime, gangs, stupid planning, “diversity” and the rest of the dreck from the liberals. I dearly miss the old town and what it once was, but I would never consider going back. -Al Martin
Living in another city in similar straights (Santa Cruz, CA), I agree with these guys. The so-called “progressives” have stalled every aspect of real progress in our city, with the result that we now have an unbelievable crime rate, taxes through the ceiling, no jobs, the worst schools in the state, and precious little future. Our city council spends its time passing resolutions against this thing and that thing happening in the federal government, and ignores the serious problems facing the community they were elected to represent.
Unfortunately things aren’t looking much better here. There is an absolute refusal to deal with problems such as homelessness and drug use because many city councillors believe (and in many cases rightly so) that these people don’t want the help. Throw in a chief medical officer who believes that a van travelling the city handing out crack kits is the way to go, and Ottawa has seen better days. The police have just about had it, apparently our Chief is talking with the Crown Prosecutor to see what would happen if he charged city staff for dispensing drug material.
Oh come on now… hello? These changes have nothing to do with the “progressives” being around, places with a lot of conservatives are suffering from the same sorts of things. Everytown USA is suffering from the infrastructure being ripped away because federal funds are being redirected to war (800 billion now) government programs being shut down, the widening gap between rich and poor, tax breaks for the rich etc. etc. To blame it on “progressives” for everything bad that’s happening is like blaming the guy whose car you just rear-ended for running into you.
I know what you mean. My aunt and uncle lived in Santa Cruz most of
their life, up Graham Hill Rd. near the golf course. My aunt was
Admisnistrative Assistant in one or two of the high schools for about 30
years. She loved the old town the way it use to be. They finally sold out
because they couldn’t afford to live there anymore, and moved up here.
Now, in Walla Walla, there’s about 60 new winery and vinyards. Seems
everyone has discovered this lovely place. I just bought 80 acres up near
the Eagle Cap Wilderness of the Wallowa Mts. Soon as I get this house
build next door, I’m selling out and heading up to the mts. of NE Oregon.
Back in the early 80’ some county planners decided to rezone all the
country side to 240 minimum ac. p/dwelling. You can drive back up there
20 years later and nothing has changed. Really.
My brother inlaw’s brother is building official/ planner/ engineer for the
City of Portland. He says what happened is that the city, and surrounding
communities, all subdivided their land into small lots, with cluster
developments everywhere, and the public works and road depts never
knew what hit them. It takes about one to two hours to drive the
freeways after work to get home. Most people take the side roads to and
from work. Still an hour or more but more pleasant driving. Downtown
has lots of nice little merchant type stores and restaurants but there’s no
parking spaces empty, hardly anywhere, except maybe on the roof of the
public parking towers. They do have a bicycle department though and lots
of bike riders.
In the early to mid 90’s there was a mass exodus from Portland into
Washington State, just across the river. Some older people were having
to pay from $9,000 to $12,000 property tax, annually. For the same
house, over in Washington, taxes were less than $1,000. That’s changed
some since, but still radically different.
Anyone is a fool to walk around Portland after dark.
Really? (you know lots of Quakers go to a certain college in Portland, I
forget it’s name. Reed? Have several friends from there.
Well, um…I’ve never been to Maine or Oregon, but I’ve seen them on TV. And I still think Maine is prettier. Doesn’t Martha Stewart live there? It’d have to be.
I applied to Earlham, and got accepted and given a scholarship, but it costs $35,000.00 a year so even with financial aid, the scholarship, and various federal grants I still could not afford it (I’m on my own as far as money goes, no parental help at all). I’m already in debt with medical bills, so I did not want to try to get loans.
I feel that it is a contradiction of the Quaker Testimonies of Equality and Simplicity for Quaker schools to cost so much. But, in this Friend’s opinion, many Quaker colleges are a lot less “Quaker” and a lot more “college” in their enviroments.
As of August, though, I’m moving into a dorm at a small, cheap, private Christian college, which is less than 2 miles away from a silent Meeting. Woo.
In my town we have low crime, low taxes, no gangs, poor schools, few jobs, no diversity, and a city council that will close the public library down a few days a week if it does not make a profit. The progressives are few and far between. I don’t have any children to educate, so I guess I’m livin’ in paradise and just didn’t realize it.
When I moved to Lafayette, Indiana seven years ago I was somewhat surprised to learn that our public city library does not charge fines for late books, CD’s, DVD’s, etc. I guess that the county has enough money that it doesn’t need to collect fees to support the library. In contrast to when I lived in the inner city of Tucson, I don’t hear gunshots at night, people don’t have steel bars on their home windows, I haven’t seen any gang graffiti, and there are no armed officers guarding the all-night convenience stores. I feel safe here. The only thing that I don’t like is that it depends on the direction of the wind as to what my neighborhood smells like. The corn processing plants smell bad, and so do the hog farms. I can tolerate the smell of mowed grass mixed in with a little car exhaust. However, I do prefer the smell of the Arizona desert in Springtime.
I never knew John Hopkins University was Quaker owned.
I toured the campus once and thought it was very nice, in fact quite advanced. I don’t blame you for going to a cheaper private /Christian college. Sometime they are excellent, academically.
Actually, Martha S. lives in Connecticut, in the well-heeled town of Westport. (The type of place were having to ask, “How much is it?” means that you cannot afford it).
These days, she stays pretty close to home (if you know what I mean)
Yikes! You hit on something there. Federal Grants are nothing like they use to be for poor small cities whose infrastructure is so old it needs replaced (streets, water, sewer, etc). The timing of this war is not good. If there’s that kind of money to spend on imaginary defense, first strike or whatever it’s called, you’d think the Gov’t could come up with ways of funding smalltown America. State funds are in trouble too, so hundreds of thousands of dollars (per city) are no longer available through “equalization” distribution like it was about 5 years ago. Even though the big boys are spending their extra millions/billions on new cassinos in Las Vegas, there are exceptions.
Some wealthy donor (a Woman) just gave a small town next door a 1.5 million dollar library (Milton-Freewater, Oregon). And Bill Gates does distribute computers to schools, etc., I guess (lots of charities as I understand it). Seems like so little though. Think what could be done to rebuild small town America if only some this money were spent on infrastructure. As it is, many of these little towns just barely get by, and then some environmental group comes along and sues them for non-compliance with their new sewerage treatment plant’s effluent. I know one city nearby that just paid some of these California lawyers about $860,000 for something like this (legal fees, etc.) all because the temperature of the effluent was ½ degree too warm, and failure to get a permit on time for irrigation (all due to a change in staffing). These env. groups go around and feed off of small cities tiny mistakes and inability to always function correctly. Then, they take the money and go buy these $75,000 cars, plus that hideaway in the Sierras, and start looking for a new victim soon as the money runs down.
