831
Federal officer blasts chemical spray into vocal but nonviolent Portland protester, video shows
(www.oregonlive.com)
this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2025
831 points (99.1% liked)
News
32631 readers
3617 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Maybe it's the general state of things and the incredible amount of horrifying news out there.. but does anyone else feel like democracy is dead and we'll never get out of this? Like I'm in full on doomer mode. It feels like we've lost and soon, protesting will be outlawed.
Political elections going forward will instead just be AI generated videos of extremist views spreading misinformation on whoever opposes this current administration and their goals. Trump's health is poor but I can only imagine he's going to appoint one of his family members to take his place and his base will eat it up.
The billionaire class will continue to get away with everything, and use their platforms to silence the voices of the American people, and hide the atrocities committed by these extremist.
The far right religious fanatics will continue to erode our rights, and force us to abide by their rules and laws. We will be shamed, outcasted, and demonized for disagreeing with them, and the political leaders and billionaires above will aid them in that.
We're most likely going to go to war, or at minimum will turn a blind eye to war crimes in this world. Taiwan will be invaded by China, Ukraine will continue to be engulfed in a never ending war and nations worldwide will simply not be able to support their efforts, along with these far right extremist continuing their control will just decide to stop supporting them.
The hellscape of Gaza and Palestine will only get worse, and genocide will be hidden in plain sight.
We're so fucked, and all the pieces are in place for this regime to control us, and we will have no way to truly fight back.
Listen I'm a doomer about a lot of things--just see my post history about climate change--but protests don't lose until they stop. So, if you can, get out there and protest. Canned, ready-to-eat soup is the protester's preferred meal, if you just want to drop off some ~~ammo~~ supplies to the people out there.
Talk to the people on the ground, or other that have protested effectively; they'll have much better advice than the Internet (particularly me). Do keep in mind that it's easier for police to counter and control one group of 10k protesters than it is to counter and control 10 groups of 1k protesters, most communication methods will be monitored, and even if your are use E2E encrypted messaging (e.g. Signal) you could be talking with an informant.
There's one saving grace... The sheer fucking incompetence
How long do you think this will remain stable? We're in a free fall by every metric. The dollar is down, the stocks are down (except for the ai bubble... That's going to be a big pop), the housing market is crashing, insurance is falling apart, federal workers are getting mass fired by email, job numbers are shrinking...
How long until something important breaks? If we're lucky, we can keep the shutdown going long enough for ICE to drain whatever funds they can misappropriate and see what happens to brown shirts when they aren't getting paid
Bad shit is going to happen. China is going to get Taiwan, hopefully after chip factories are set up elsewhere. The people in Gaza are fucked. Immigrants and minorities are getting terrorized. Ukraine can go either way, Russia is in a bad way and Ukraine is feeling war fatigue.
The Internet is dying, cyber attacks are ramping up, deep fakes are getting very good, palantir is setting up surveillance everywhere, AI is going to do some future crime bullshit
But despite all that, life will go on.
Maybe the military steps in to force elections - at least they so far refuse to even menace the people, if they decide they have to act to save the Constitution as per their oaths nothing could stop them
Trump is actively dying, and Vance doesn't have the juice to keep everyone in line - there will be a power struggle
Trump's end goal is to live out his remaining days in an imaginary kingdom where his legacy will live on forever.
Vance's goal is to go on never ending extravagant vacations
Peter Tiel thinks if society collapses billionaires will be able to step in and make technocratic kingdoms... But again, the military has plans to feed the entire country for extended periods and restore order in every imaginable collapse scenario
This just is not a stable state of affairs, it has to end, but no one is properly preparing for what comes next.
Maybe the country is fucked, but what about your state? Your city? Maybe things only get better locally for a while, and the federal government becomes less relevant
Maybe the military does step in but decides they don't want to organize new elections...a military junta isn't ideal, but it would be more restrained and orderly than this
Maybe lots of people die from starvation and sickness and those that survive have to rebuild
As for how to keep going? I look for the cracks. Watch Trump's speeches - he probably just had another stroke, and he's noticably more incoherent than even this summer. The leaks never stop. They're rehiring a lot of cut workers. Abrego Garcia is still in the country. Candidates like Mumdani are coming out of the woodwork. Learn about economic indicators and watch them plummet. Learn about what happens historically in similar situations.
It'll be painfully slow, but eventually we'll hit rock bottom. And then we can build something new
We are only fucked if you give up and let us be. In history, authoritarian regimes fall all the time, especially when pressure is applied in the right places. Get involved with your local resistance organization.
Evil has won and has pulled up the ladder behind it.
Power is too entrenched at this point, with technology being an enormous force multiplier. I think the only real thing people can do at this point is flip the fucking table and stop putting more meat into the meatgrinder.
This is why you hear so much whining and crying about falling fertility rates, so much propaganda and push to increase population. It’s the one actual challenge to their power.