Author: Ann Haskins

Streamed performance everywhere was upstaged this week by the “Wall of Moms.” The female phalanx of linked arms provided peaceful counter-choreography to unidentified federal militia snatching demonstrators off Portland’s streets into unmarked vans, releasing them hours later without charge, without paperwork, without explanation. Unimpressed even with moms or that what had dwindled to a few hundred demonstrators until this invasion of Portland swelled the protesting crowd to thousands, the federal militia’s choreography reprised lobbed tear gas, impact munitions, and batons at peaceful protestors. The power of Portland’s scenes was further heightened by the death of Congressman John Lewis and 60-year old newsreels of Lewis with other peaceful civil rights demonstrators similarly beaten and attacked by men with badges wielding batons, firehoses, and dogs.  In what may prove a timely coincidence …