Nothing like a Saturday

So thankful for the Portland improv with the inflatables that puts the lie to all of the Noem posturing. You can't stay serious with all of those cartoon characters twerking on the news. We will see a lot of this next week with the No Kings protests. Ecologically, I hate those inflatables, but I guess some things can be set aside for a minute while we get our human and civil rights back on line. Clowns to the left, jokers to the right...

Meanwhile things continue to crumble in our microcosm, and we are seeing the real effects of some of the bad ideas from this admin. Cancelling the two November markets (Nov. 8th and Nov. 15th) means for food booths, who pay $271 for a 90-day county permit to sell outdoors, that they only have 3 weeks left to cover, and for at least two of them I am aware of, it does not pencil out to buy another permit at that cost level, so they will not be selling. Crafters are making the choice in public post after post to say it was their last day on the Park Blocks for the season yesterday. Many are already finished.

Because rain was predicted (though as usual it was much less rain than predicted) many booths were not occupied yesterday. Many. Sales were also low, and we had the X-tians, and the Game Day thing at UO with the 12:30 game. Although it hasn't frozen out any crops yet, the farmers are thinning and it's what we have called "the shoulder season," which means we're between peak tourism and peak Holiday buying. It is when we should be promoting things heavily and with great creativity to encourage people to treasure our outdoor community gathering before it is gone until spring. Sadly we have let the title go to farmers as we won't be gathering for two whole weeks, leaving our regulars out and not holding our own as the destination that is always surprising and entertaining. When we are there, we are those things, but when we are not, it's up to the northern blocks. 

Now many people have indeed taken to quitting market for the season earlier, and October probably doesn't pay the bills. I used to put up inspirational posts for why and how I navigate the rainy days and want us all to remember we have bills to pay, but now others must inspire...I don't put myself in a position of supporting the market publicly, except by my presence and the personal interactions I have there. Giving away the market logo bags I made is delightful and they're almost gone. Sad to see the end of those, but let this admin figure out promotions with the untrained and uneducated staff we have left. I'm not sacrificing myself on the altar of the market anymore. 

The Board apology that has run in the newsletter twice in a row now is embarrassing. Forcing the Board to lie for your benefit should be seen as an inexcusable action, but it is seemingly routine and involving lawyers isn't helping. Why would you want a staff that threatens your org with lawsuits? Or if your members are considering suing you as well, why would you let things continue as if this were usual? You have to really wonder at the people making these decisions, how they keep refusing to see this crisis and attribute it to the real causes. Increased member complaints? You don't trash the messengers who are trying to help you. It's not negativity to point out what's going wrong. 

The apology says there was no cause for the firing and boy howdy, that is a provable lie. It's probably carefully worded to hide the fact that financial mismanagement did happen, there was proof, but maybe it wasn't framed carefully enough at the moment of decision. It was a clusterfuck. Board members resigned and then tried to pretend they didn't, a couple of scapegoats were chosen who will likely see their memberships terminated for having opinions, and a fabrication was spun about the skills of the GM which is demonstrably false but people are now intimidated from bringing the truth. 

Domination and control tactics are effective. People tend to feel safe in a somewhat elevated controlled situation, if they can get up next to the predator and don't feel like prey. They have proven to have little regard for those who are chosen as prey or insist on continuing to have unpopular opinions. It is not okay in our community now to speak anything but praise...which translates to a condition where improvement is not actually sought. More control is...as it has seemingly brought safety. 

This is the narcissism I have been writing about. I still can't believe so many of our members have bought into this. They are stressed and confused and are being manipulated and lied to and don't see their way out. I can't help. I can bring facts and evidence, but I may be on that termination list for writing these essays, so I am cautious about what more I am willing to do. I will not sit in the Board room and be lied to. I will not be angered to the point of losing emotional control in the face of dishonesty and oppressive tactics. 

The type of community building and bringing members together that previous admins did is gone, and we are seeing loyalty and commitment go with it. People find them inconvenient (well, yeah...) and cut their losses instead of wanting to build back what we had. I am just in a holding pattern and trying to keep my own life together while I face the fact that I may not have my means of making a living still available to me as long as I need it to be. 

My products sell, and I am lucky that even on a slow day I can make a good amount of sales, so if I can be there, I will likely still thrive, but only if the public comes out and supports us. The pandemic support is over, and this recession and government collapse situation doesn't motivate people to support crafters or chefs, which is why we have always cultivated the community gathering space concept so hard. We want you to come down, regardless of whether or not you spend money, to keep open the vital center city space where we all can connect. But without constant nurturing that ends. Last No Kings the GM handed out flyers and told people to keep their signs down or not bring them into the market...if someone official said that to me, I would find it offensive enough to not return. They said to the media they thought the protests would hurt the market. They won't hurt as much as early football games do. 

Free speech is still necessary within the market. I suppose I will make a bigger sign this week about that. I think it is important for the market to still be there, even on such a big protest day, and I want to see the market included in the protest. You can't both support free speech and oppress it. I would never have dreamed that the market would suppress it, but here we are.

So even though I am only loud in this space which is not interactive, I will still keep it going here despite the threat of punishment for calling out mismanagement. We are well into a second year of overspending and deficits, using our savings to dubious purposes to cover the lack of skills in our admin staff. Members can't cover these debts...our costs have risen with the tariffs and increased municipal fees, our living situations are threatened, and most of our members are well below the poverty line and are now selecting whether or not they will attend based on whether or not they might make money, which is speculation based on higher fees and nonexistent promotions. Market is supposed to be our safety net, a way for us DIY folks to make honest livings based on our hard work. The direct connection from us to our appreciators is clean and simple. Our management is supposed to protect and enhance this, not exploit it for their own gain. 

Please let's address this effectively with honesty and research. We have so much to lose. While I am a lousy fighter and am not good at confrontation, I am a good researcher and I can put two and two together. We have to find accountability and make it stick. 

Showing your bra or your underpants to the X-tians is about all our members could think to do yesterday, actions which had no effect on what was happening. The loud bell ringing was kind of helpful, but my choice as usual was to present the market as unaffected, giving the lie to everything the X-tian men were saying. Giving them confrontation is what they want. Getting manipulated by them is forgivable, but pay attention to your body when you are manipulated like that. Remember that feeling. 

It took me a long time to identify that kind of dissonance and the strategies to lessen its effects on me. I will not engage with predators. Their power lies in how scared they can make me. I do not grant them that power. I will withdraw my support as I have done and do what I can to promote honesty, truth, and the courage to make hard decisions and find common values and actions we can get behind. 

Our members want financial accountability. We want to not be lied to. We want market to be the org we have been so proud of for so long, our lifetimes. A community that stands for connection, right livelihood, participation and meaningful commerce. Inclusive values. Fighting for justice. Being vulnerable but strong. Being on the streets in a dependable way so that everyone can be safe on the streets. Opportunity and support. Progressive ways to interact, ground-breaking ways to communicate and govern ourselves. The hippies are right, and the kids are alright too. 

We should be seeing a lot of inflatable frogs next week, twerking away. People on FB are invoking the famous Frog, who died just before the Repubs stole the last election. I think he would be proud of the inflatable brigades. He wasn't the only Frog, but he would have things to say, and even jokes about this situation we are in. Without the market, he might not have been the inspirational community icon he was...strolling the market every week gave him a home. Many will claim him, but he was us, willing to be funky enough to present authentically while still doing the meaningful work.

See you next Saturday. I will finish out the season in person. Hope you will too.