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Nancy Rommelmann

24 Apr, 11 tweets, 3 min read

So I'm reading this and seeing, more than I previously have, how people--pretty much always the same types of people--fall for the idea of becoming revolutionaries and begin trajectories identical to those who came before. Call it the ideologues' do-si-do amazon.com/Tonight-Bombed…

You know how this dance goes: protests, violence, breakdown of traditional units, give over the kids to be raised by the group (gotta show commitment!), poisonings (hey, Rajneeshees!), "communism didn't work bc they didn't do it right," Stalin, that old softie...

Reporting from Portland 2020, I sometimes privately told people, "I think people are building bombs in basements here." I don't think it's the journalist's place to put ideas in people's heads (as if), but anyone who knows about history/human nature deduces the trajectory

How this tension ratchets up requires more space than a tweet thread; I'll post a links at the end, but to begin: a small portion of the populace primed to revolt; local officials show active/passive support (in this case, bc they hated Trump) and then lose control they never had

Mayor Ted Wheeler for a long time either believed in the progressive cause or thought it the road to appeasement. When I wrote the following, I asked, what happens when *you* become the hate group? Now he knows reason.com/2019/02/12/por…

This is from last night oregonlive.com/crime/2021/04/…

It's hard to see things getting better in the current climate. You'd need a massive groundswell of civic support for Wheeler/the police. I think the chances of this are low. Plus it only takes a few people committing violence to destabilize the city, which is of course the point

So, smart people, people better schooled in revolution that I: What happens on the ground now? Do they grow more ambitious than they were a decade ago, as I alluded to here? tabletmag.com/sections/news/…

I know, if not for a few years, several women like those in M19: educated, committed, willing to go on the offensive against what they see as injustice. You won't see them pelting the federal building with flaming trash, they will work more strategically, perhaps extralegally

One thing "Tonight We Bombed the Capitol" emphasizes is the alliances formed in the 70s/80s with groups already committing serious violence. I think people forget how many bombings there were then, how many gunfights and people murdered in the streets. JC let us not revisit this

But I think we are fooling ourselves if we don't see the current climate courting such behavior, people attracted to it saying, "We've tried everything else"; I've been told as much again and again, including in the lede here, it's always a lie. Try harder reason.com/2021/03/22/the…

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More from @NancyRomm

Nancy Rommelmann

@NancyRomm

22 Apr

No time like the present! Tonight, my daughter Tafv Sampson , storied the following on Instagram

So yes, that's her grandpa, Will Sampson. He died in 1987; I was with him when he died; I was also with Tafv's dad when he died, in 2019; this is all a little too much but some back story here nytimes.com/2017/09/29/sty…

As I alluded to in the NYT piece, Will was *not* an actor. He'd been a Navy SEAL and a lineman and was working at various and painting (he was a helluva painter) when he went to a powwow and heard the announcer call, "Sonny Sampson! If Sonny Sampson is in the arena, come on up."

Read 7 tweets

Nancy Rommelmann

@NancyRomm

18 Apr

To the people creeping onto my posts saying, “Everyone *I* know in Portland says this is all overblown, damage is to a few square blocks”: I don’t believe you. The people you know may *like* the direction the city is taking, but it is not normal, and it is not a few square blocks

The blocks around the federal building and Justice Center have incurred the most damage. This will never change. The movement, such as it is, needs enemies, needs rage calories, and the police, whether good or ill, will perennially supply these.

Every body needs fuel, needs calories, so you sup at Justice Center, at the federal building, for variety, ICE headquarters, the police station on MLK, and if the stores surrounding that last need to go out of business, maybe the Boys and Girls Club, well, sorry; I was hungry

Read 6 tweets

Nancy Rommelmann

@NancyRomm

13 Apr

“Do you want to see it? Do you have time?” D asks. It’s the start of the Derek Chauvin trial and D, who works in finance in downtown Minneapolis, drives to the area around Lake Street, scene of the riots following the death of George Floyd.

“So the first one happens on Wednesday. On Thursday, Mayor Frey holds a press conference and says, ‘I understand your pain. Everything you do is probably justified’ – I’m paraphrasing – ‘and by the way… we’re pulling the cops.’ All hell’s gonna break loose, right?

"And that’s really what happened. They basically went down Lake Street like Godzilla. They burned up like six square blocks. It was like Dresden.

Read 23 tweets

Nancy Rommelmann

@NancyRomm

6 Feb

This is adapted from last week's Substack; go ahead and subscribe, nancyrommelmann.substack.com.

Some of us have been writing and podcasting for a week about Donald McNeil, who left the New York Times today, after 45 years and a week of outrage from some of his colleagues, for using the n-word in context during a student trip to Peru in 2019.

I suggested the context might have been quoting from a book or song.

Bingo: McNeil told us as much in his resignation letter, though apparently he was also about to be fired.

Read 16 tweets

Nancy Rommelmann

@NancyRomm

10 Nov 20

Portland to Progressives: Not So Fast

While the nation waits to see how badly presidential pollsters got things (again), Portlanders already know how far off local statisticians were: 11 points.

That was the spread touted several weeks ago, in terms of how far ahead Sarah Iannarone, openly pro-antifa and partial to skirts featuring murderous dictators, was in her bid for mayor.

That she was running against someone about as popular as a jar of moldy Velveeta did not dissuade citizens from giving Mayor Ted Wheeler a second-term, the first time in two decades voters have delivered such largesse.

Read 14 tweets

Nancy Rommelmann

@NancyRomm

8 Nov 20

I am wearing a small black leather jacket, kind of a Patti Smith-1970s thing, I imagine, though maybe it’s because my friend has just sent me this image and it’s in my mind.

I think, maybe, what Smith was saying was in reference to the Chelsea Hotel. I can tell you that this guy I slept with, who lived in his mother’s brownstone (we were 23) on East 3rd, part of the Hell’s Angels encampment, told me he once had to jump out of a window at the Chelsea.

because he was sleeping with some guy’s girlfriend. He showed me what he said was a gun shot, or maybe a knife wound, in his gut. He was a little fat. I liked that. Also, that when I met him, he was the youngest guy in a construction crew and they made him jackhammer the ceiling.

Read 6 tweets

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