anthonypants posted:

That is what is going on at Burgerville.

porkface posted:

Meanwhile wealthy developers continue to raze Portland.

There are off-the-shelf proven solutions, and the mayor and city council continue to do literally nothing.

seiferguy posted:

Thanks, I forgot it was mentioned here. I'm headed to Portland Friday and wanted to grab a bite there but won't be now!

Thanatosian posted:

Washington State Legislature just put out their budget that gives "homeowners" a temporary property tax reduction in 2019.

Which is to say it takes money from tenants and gives it to their landlords. But hey, they did this with less than 24 hours until the end of the legislative session, so there's no time to discuss it.

So loving done voting for Democrats at the state level.

kensei posted:

Hey let's hang out again without the dude yelling at RJ on the Giants

seiferguy posted:

We could plan another goonmeet at a Mariner game but the person who organized them kind of doesn't post here anymore!

IM DAY DAY IRL posted:

i came here to yell about dumbass chloe, tony beats me to it.

Solkanar512 posted:

Anyone here have good information about safe injection sites? I know they want to build one in Snohomish county and the usual suspects are flipping out.

dont even fink about it posted:

http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/topics/pods/drug-consumption-rooms

Basically,

1) The heroin users and such will be out there whether or not you provide any support

2) It costs the city less when they're not overdosing and stuff

3) They die and transmit diseases a lot less when they're supervised

4) It's a good springboard into treatment

TL;DR: Get over the moral hump of "state-subsidized drug use" and wake up to the fact that 35 years of drug war has accomplished nothing or made the problem worse

punk rebel ecks posted:

Travel Oregon makes the best ads period:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXRBLyQQ78A

Oregon: "Making Anime Real"

anthonypants posted:

Solkanar512 posted:

Thanks a bunch, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing anything important. That and I kept wanting to shout “Hamsterdam worked you rear end in a top hat” but I was being shouted down by cries of “my property values”.

Solkanar512 posted:

Thanks a bunch, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing anything important. That and I kept wanting to shout “Hamsterdam worked you rear end in a top hat” but I was being shouted down by cries of “my property values”.

punk rebel ecks posted:

Travel Oregon makes the best ads period:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXRBLyQQ78A

Oregon: "Making Anime Real"

GodFish posted:

I've seen those rocks at 45 seconds and they're in Washington.

anthonypants posted:

Nice try. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haystack_Rock

GodFish posted:

I've seen those rocks at 45 seconds and they're in Washington.

anthonypants posted:

I don't really feel like there's a "best" beach, but Cannon Beach is close to Portland. I grew up in Eugene and got to see more of the coast between like Florence and Yachats. It depends on what you're looking for; whether you want to go antiquing, or visit landmarks, or stay at a bed-and-breakfast, or go camping in the forest, if you need to deal with kids or not. I'd also like to point out that the temporary visitor's center at the Tillamook Cheese Factory will be opening at the end of the month, if that counts for anything.

therobit posted:

If the street that they choose to locate it on is currently not full of addicts and homeless people it will be once a safe injection site opens. If you locate it where there is already a problem and then use it as a point of contact to help people then it can actually make things better. How much do you trust your local government to not gently caress it up?

anthonypants posted:

I don't really feel like there's a "best" beach, but Cannon Beach is close to Portland. I grew up in Eugene and got to see more of the coast between like Florence and Yachats. It depends on what you're looking for; whether you want to go antiquing, or visit landmarks, or stay at a bed-and-breakfast, or go camping in the forest, if you need to deal with kids or not. I'd also like to point out that the temporary visitor's center at the Tillamook Cheese Factory will be opening at the end of the month, if that counts for anything.

anthonypants posted:

http://www.wweek.com/news/city/2018/03/13/portland-socialists-did-not-endorse-any-candidates-in-local-races/ This article is a mess, what happened

anthonypants posted:

http://www.wweek.com/news/city/2018/03/13/portland-socialists-did-not-endorse-any-candidates-in-local-races/ This article is a mess, what happened

Thaddius the Large posted:

My understanding was that the leadership committee requested member comments on the candidates in advance, so as to circulate them at the meeting, and accordingly cut back on the floor time needed for comments; the plan would be to hear from and question the candidates at the meeting, discuss, and then vote on whether to endorse. As several members of leadership were against endorsement (importantly, they were not against voting for the candidates in the election, but they generally seemed to feel they didn’t rise to the level of DSA endorsement), the candidates all seemed to interpret this as that they wouldn’t be endorsed at all, resulting in their withdrawing requests for nomination, some more fervently than others, and walking out. Chaos ensued.

Personally, I was on the fence with DeGraw and Jama, and wanted to hear from them, but against Garcia, as on her questionnaire response to DSA, she openly said she’s not a socialist, which is a pretty loving key criteria for endorsement in my book. Not to say I wouldn’t vote for them necessarily, but I tend to hold endorsement to a higher standard. Moreover, while I get how they might have misunderstood the statements circulated by leadership, and can see how they could have been more clear in explaining the agenda for today to the candidates, getting all hot and bothered at the “confrontation” was really ridiculous, and didn’t really endear any of them to me.

All that said, it’s loving hilarious that this chapter’s meetings continue to be utter shitshows, it’s the best entertainment in town and you can attend for free!

punk rebel ecks posted:

Now fast forward to forty minutes later after much back and forth, a member attending the meeting has a question. He's white, blonde, hair, no older than 20, and looks as autistic as you can possibly imagine. He begins by telling us that he is new and this is his first meeting. The question he asks is "I believe I heard that *insert Mexican-American candidate who spoke earlier's name* said that she was once a business owner. Why do we allow people to come in here and speak if they are part of the bourgeois class? We are a socialist party and should stick to our socialist values and shouldn't show such candidates support." Needless to say, while he was speaking EVERYONE was looking down on the floor. The two guys I mentioned previously got up and said "I want to punch you in the face!" and "I'm quitting my membership. You guys are nutcases!" and walked off. The kid who spoke sat back down and didn't seem self-aware of how much of a dumbass he made himself look.

IM DAY DAY IRL posted:

Alright, so Thad is pretty spot on with a lot of his reporting, I'm going to use his post as a template and throw in some clarification/expand on a few items. Before I get into it I should probably state that we just overhauled a good portion of our bylaws, including our endorsement policies and criteria. We made a big push (which passed with a unanimous vote) to make it very clear that an endorsement from our chapter is not simply a rubber stamp but a commitment of resources, primarily people, to help endorsed candidates campaign for office. The goal is to have the PDX DSA endorsement carry legitimate weight in a race and not just another paper medal to pin on the chest of a candidate.


the steering committee requested that members submit any statements they'd like to make in advance regarding the candidates. A few members were upset with the window of time provided (48 hours was what was said during the meeting, the request went out via e-mail to all members on Friday at 12:00, meeting was held today at 1:30) but there was time scheduled on the agenda for both candidate questions AND debate of whether or not we should endorse each individual candidate. The intent of requesting statements was to try to hear as many voices as possible on what could be a very important topic. There wasn't a reduction of time; the request and publication of statements was made so that we could present more voices through our limited capacity.


This is an important thing to point out- on the agenda for today's meeting there was very clearly scheduled times for candidate questions AND debate on endorsing their campaigns. This will come up again later.


IN MY OPINION the biggest preventable mistake that was made was listing the SC members' titles under their names in the candidate statement pamphlet. Many of the SC members referred to a lack of resources and the recent focus on creating our own campaigns as reasoning why we shouldn't endorse ANY candidates. There were a few statements peppered in with more direct criticism of candidates (e.g. pointing out that one candidate owns a business where employees are paid PDX minimum wage) along with statements from other members supporting individual candidates. That being said IN MY OPINION the pamphlet certainly had a tinge of "SC thinks we shouldn't endorse anyone." It seems that the candidates (one in particular) understood this as a statement from the leadership that we would NOT be endorsing them and that they had wasted a lot of time seeking said endorsement. The first candidate for endorsement spoke about her campaign before ultimately rescinding her request for endorsement. The second candidate gave a very impassioned speech that was IN MY OPINION very accusatory of the org, our values, our racial representation (or lack thereof), and generally called us a bunch of frauds for not endorsing their campaign.

This is where things started to go off the rails. One of our more involved members asked for a suspension of the rules so that we could clarify, and I quote, "just what in the hell is going on." We start on a downward spiral of pseudo-parliamentary discussion about the entire endorsement policy that results in the first two candidates walking out. After a huge detour the third candidate takes the stage, speaks about the importance of unity and working together, then ultimately pulls his request for nomination before walking out.


This is probably the most important thing to highlight with regard to today's debacle. These candidates functionally had a forum with ~100 progressive voters who are slam-loving-dunks for votes. Due to a relatively simple misunderstanding they all opted to hit the eject button, some more performative than others. The worst part is that we never got a chance to vote on whether or not to endorse them. They took individual statements from members of the SC as leadership guidance/orders and either had no idea (or didn't care) that they still could have easily been endorsed AND had the endorsement carry more weight as a result of the chapter's selective tendency with regard to endorsement. I completely understand them being upset at the notion that they had to apply for endorsement, complete a questionnaire, then attend a meeting for something that wasn't even possible in the first place but that was not the case at all. They very easily could have spoken for 10 minutes about how their candidacy is in line with DSA general principals and values, answered questions from the members for another 10 minutes, and then get a new team of people happy to help with their campaign after securing a 2/3rds vote. They didn't even make it to the question segment of the agenda.


Here's a learning moment for us and hopefully for those of you who are integral in your local. IMO if you are ever collecting statements from members for distribution/publication, both internal and/or external, consider putting your membership at the front of the pack. If our SC would have had a 75/25 general member/leadership split in the endorsement statement pamphlet (and, perhaps more importantly, not had put their fuckin' titles under their names FFS) the reception from the candidates may not have been nearly as adversarial and we very well could have been walking out of the meeting a hour earlier with smiles on our faces and excitement over our first foray in local electoral politics. We've got equity guidelines in a lot of the rest of the org and I really don't know why thought wasn't paid toward replicating that in this instance.

Thaddius the Large posted:

Pulling choice quotes from the DSA thread:

therobit posted:

That sound like a total loving disaster and if that is how your meetings are run then no wonder candidates decided it wasn't worth the trouble.