Scott Bruun: Portlandia’s Radical Marionettes
Wednesday, August 05, 2015
Last week’s column on Greenpeace was written several days before that organization decided to embarrass Portland by dangling its people from the St. Johns Bridge. Writing that piece, I had some reservations about using the phrase, “Greenpeace is as Greenpeace does.” I thought then that it might be a little harsh.
In hindsight, I was far too kind.
My friend Dan may have summed it up perfectly, seeing it as a logical step in Portland’s evolution. He says we’ve gone from hanging dildos on Portland power lines to hanging dildos on a Portland bridge.
Yet give Greenpeace credit, the organization is a PR machine. They are smart, strategic and “on-message.” Greenpeace is a large, multi-national organization and like all multi-nationals, organizes its efforts around money generation. Coca-Cola uses images of youthful fun and refreshment to sell its products. Greenpeace uses images of polar bears and fur seals to sell its.
And now, with new images of protesters hanging from a bridge in Portland, Greenpeace’s monthly dues-paying membership is sure to spike. Greenpeace, the multi-national, played its Portlandia marionettes like the master of puppets it is. Good for Greenpeace, one supposes.
Not so good for Portland.
There are plenty of other take-away images from last week’s events, images that Portland will be stuck with long after Greenpeace is gone. Images like the guy with the red, Hagrid-style beard, vacuous eyes and marijuana-leaf t-shirt. The one who stood and dopily nodded his head while the Greenpeace spokesperson spoke of their “victory.”
Or how about the image, the face, of the angry, spittle-frothing woman in a rubber (oil-based) raft? The woman so determined to make her principled stand against “Big Oil,” that she repeatedly used an oar to strike a Coast Guardsman on his head and arms as he tried to do his job.
It’s worth noting that the Coast Guard’s formal duty is to save lives and protect property. Their informal mission, as local Coasties have long said among themselves, is “we have to go out, but we don’t have to come back in.”
Consider all the positive images and faces that Portland could show the world, then consider what the world actually did see when it looked at Portland last week: a dopey guy with a marijuana t-shirt, a crazy woman with an oar, and a baker’s dozen protestors swinging from a bridge immersed in their own feces.
Another memorable face from last week was that of a frustrated Portland truck driver. Frustrated that his efforts to simply and quietly do his job, to provide for his family, were hijacked by a small group of ideologically-blinded, bridge-hanging narcissists.
Frustrated because the city and state government to whom he and his employer pay taxes: the government that should reasonably be expected to maintain order and enforce laws on a timely basis, was conspicuously absent. Sure there were cops, eventually. But where were the leaders, where were the elected faces of government?
Hiding? Playing it safe? Who knows. Though give credit where credit is due. Charlie Hales’ office did issue a stern press release, clearly demonstrating the mayor’s iron resolve and steadfast leadership. It read: “It’s not the city’s river, and it’s not the city’s bridge.”
Almost Churchillian, right?
Missing from last week’s event was the face of Mayor Hales. Now we can’t be too critical, the mayor does have a full schedule after all. The bridge episode was terribly inconvenient, coming right after his return from Rome and the Pope’s “Climate Summit,” and just before he was summoned to leave for another climate meeting, this time at the White House with President Obama.
When Hales was elected in 2012, the expectations among most were very low. Hales has met those expectations in every way. As my friend Kent puts it: Charlie’s fiddling in Rome while Portland burns.
The good news is that Portland can do better. It must do better. We have much better faces to show the world than Greenpeace’s marionettes. We have families, employers and employees. We have students and teachers, art and culture. We have philanthropists and a university that may very well cure cancer. We have truck drivers and scientists, ship welders and cops – the very people who actually make Portland work.
We simply need to elect the kind of people, the kind of mayor, who represent and appreciate what makes Portland work. But we need to do this soon.
Very soon. Because right now, Portland is burning.
Related Slideshow: Charlie Hales’s Top 15 Donors
Portland's mayoral election is still over a year away, but that hasn't stopped incumbent mayor Charlie Hales from launching his campaign. Thus far, Hales has raised over $88,000 in donations from more than 60 donors, whose contributions have ranged from $100 to $5,000 each. Using state campaign finance records, GoLocalPDX compiled a list of Hale's 15 biggest donors, many of which are major power players in Portland's development industry.
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