More "largely peaceful" Portland protests

[Dill]

(08-15-2020, 04:50 AM)Von Cichlid Wrote: The notion of liberal indoctrination at the university level is new to you?
I'm too tired to write substantially about it now but I might be able to find some books on the subject.     

"Cities being burned to the ground" is hyperbole.  I would say it is a common phrase to describe something like we are seeing in a lot of cities right now.  After over 70 days straight of fireworks and burning cop cars and looting, it all congeals in my mind to something like a big dumpster fire.

The Minnesota riots were early in this and occurred when this phenomena had legitimacy to a lot of people.  I don't think Minnesota is getting much of the focus now.  Portland is the epicenter currently and it is now 76% white and 6% black.  This is the city where every video I've seen has white agitators who are prolonging this.  I'll find some videos to support this I promise, but not right now.

Yeah I'm from Lubbock.  Do you know the area?   

Well it's not new to me that people claim universities "indoctrinate." In the US that began in the 19th century with the emergence of research universities. They became a place where people taught evolution and non-denominational history and that "critical thinking" stuff that Samhain referred to. For a hundred years or so they were a symbol of progress and an aspirational goal for Americans who could afford the education they offered. They produced "experts" who spoke with the authority of science and staffed government and business with their graduates. After 1933, they were poised to take over world leadership in science and engineering.

But also many parents were not happy that their children came back from college with new ideas and often set to question their elders' religious teachings. By 1940, some Evangelical denominations had constructed a network of their own colleges to an education less tainted by Enlightenment ideals. (A lot of them in Texas. My parents met at Howard Payne.)

After the Nixon debacle and Vietnam, though, universities were perceived as a source of the wrong kind of critical thinking--the kind that criticized government policies and capitalism as well as traditional religion. Thereafter was a more concerted effort on the part of Corporate America and politically organized conservatives to undermine their autonomy, in part through defunding the publicly supported ones, and in part by casting them as "leftist" indoctrination machines in need of external (state) control. Anyway, that seems to me the background of current claims of indoctrination. The complaint is not not so much about "indoctrination" per se as about the wrong (progressive) kind.

As far as riots go, I guess Portland is 77% white, so I expect we'll see lots of white folks among the protestors. No need to post video links. What interests me is the background of those specifically arrested for rioting. Are they from Portland? Are they college students? Unemployed? Identified with organizations like Anti-fa? Opportunists? I continue to see the rioters as mostly separate from the peaceful protestors, and I'd like to hear from them why they are doing what they are doing.

Lubbock--I have driven through there a number of times--reddish soil and cotton fields. I was born in Texas, though I never really lived there. I still have lots of family there (15 cousins and their families) and return to visit them every few years. All flat where y'all are. lol