At a racial justice demonstration in Portland on Feb. 19, well-known and respected activist June Knightly was shot and killed by far-right vigilante Benjamin Smith, who also shot and injured five other activists before an armed protester opened fire against him. Activists in Portland have long warned of the increasingly brazen and dangerous violence from far-right groups and individuals, and many fear that such violence will only increase and that the police will do little to stop it. In this segment of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc welcomes back Portland-based author and organizer Shane Burley to discuss last week’s shooting in Portland and what it says about the state of right-wing extremism in the Pacific Northwest and beyond.

Shane Burley is the author of Why We Fight: Essays on Fascism, Resistance, and Surviving the Apocalypse and Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It. His work has appeared in a range of outlets including NBC News, Jacobin, Al Jazeera, The Baffler, The Daily Beast, Truthout, In These Times, and Protean magazine.

Tune in for new episodes of The Marc Steiner Show every Monday and Thursday on TRNN.

Read the transcript of this interview: https://therealnews.com/in-the-pacific-northwest-the-fight-against-the-far-right-is-turning-into-an-arms-race

Pre-Production/Studio: Dwayne Gladden
Post-Production: Stephen Frank, Dwayne Gladden

Help us continue producing The Marc Steiner Show by following us and making a small donation:

Donate: https://therealnews.com/donate-yt-st
Sign up for our newsletter: https://therealnews.com/nl-yt-st

Get The Marc Steiner Show updates: https://therealnews.com/up-yt-st

Like us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/therealnews
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/therealnews

** (Disclaimer: This video content is intended for educational and informational purposes only) **

The Real News is a viewer-supported media network bringing you the stories from the frontlines of the fight for a better world.

By elboriyorker

HOSTING BY PHILLYFINESTSERVERSTAT | ANGELHOUSE © 2009 - 2024 | ALL YOUTUBE VIDEOS IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF GOOGLE INC. THE YOUTUBE CHANNELS AND BLOG FEEDS IS MANAGED BY THERE RIGHTFUL OWNERS. POST QUESTION OR INQUIRIES SEND ME AN EMAIL TO elboriyorkeratgmailcom (www.phillyfinest369.com)

31 thoughts on “Far-right gunman in Portland kills beloved activist”
  1. Ok, so I am white, I am armed but I'm neither left nor right wing and regardless, that doesn't matter.

    Just because people are armed does not mean they have the intent to harm others merely for the difference of opinions. People who are pro gun do not commit any of the offenses within the confines of your narrative. The point of owning a gun and carrying it is to ensure that I have the ability to defend my life from someone who would seek to seriously harm me or take my life. It's not a means to show force.

    The real problem is that you think that people shouldn't be allowed to own and carry guns to defend themselves unless the government allows that which goes vehemently against the concept of the constitution.

    Everyone likes the concept of free speech on the left, until someone says something they disagree with and then wants them to be silenced and with force if necessary. This is the problem with the left, you believe that everyone is just as well off as many of you are and can live in total safety without any fear of becoming a victim to others. You think that the Government has total reign over rights to delegate who, can and cant own something, who can and can't carry, who can say what and when.

    That is literally why the government today has become so corrupt and filled with lies and is completely out of control, violating the rights of citizens, arresting them without any cause and imprisoning them without due process.

    The bill of rights was meant to be a check in balance to tell the government what they were not allowed to do to citizens, not there to tell us and the government what rights we had and to dictate our rights.

    The left and right are literally both responsible for the mass majority of why our rights get trampled by government every single day and why people are constantly victimized by police officers and why there is no accountability and the fact that we now have no rights to resist any unlawful arrests or defend our lives from government actors who would seek to take our freedom from us.

    Both allowed the creation of legislation, which is little more than a use of semantics in order to violate our bill of rights as well as our natural rights.

    Both sides are completely responsible for why our government gets away with mass crime on grand scales, violations of civil rights with or without lawful reason and the fact that government actors do not have to adhere to the same laws that we do.

    Do you have any clue as to why the second amendment is even there? It was placed there to protect the entirety of the constitution and bill of rights, so that Americans had access and means to defend their lives from government overreach, to go to war with and take down any and all government agencies and actors that violated our constitutional rights regardless of which one or however many were violated. It also is literally the only one that states that it shall not be infringed upon due to the fact that it is the only way possible that citizens could fight back against their government when they needed to.

    It's not about hunting, it's not about any stupid, arbitrary, ridiculous nonsense that you might spout off.

    Try telling this shit to the many new liberal or left leaning gun owners and see how they will react and respond to this. I guarantee you that they will not agree with any of this bearing in mind that when mass crimes broke out during the pandemic, they were on their own and realized that cops only respond to crimes after they occurred and the only way they could guarantee their own safety was to buy their own handguns or rifles to defend their lives with.

    Before you even open your mouth about the subject, you should seriously do some real research on this and not just take some leftist regurgitated nonsensical, garbage and recite it as if its something we haven't heard before. Do some real research on how the CDC discovered that guns are used more often to prevent crimes, save lives and prevent potential victims who would have been defenseless against their attackers as opposed to them being used in crimes.

    Btw, just because I own a gun doesn't mean that I'm an idiot or that I'm going to harm or murder someone just because I don'tlike their political views. That has to be the absolute stupidest thing I have ever heard in my life.

    The true idiot would be one who would talk themselves out of any means to defend their life, land and liberties.

    Law abiding gun owners are not the ones on the streets committing crimes, those would be criminals who typically obtain their firearms illegally by means of theft bearing in mind that we already have background checks at the time of purchase called 4473 forms and if you get caught with a felony on your record or violent misdemeanor while trying to purchase a firearm, you'll be arrested for it. Every single offender is in the NCIC database and you are processed on the spot for the purchase prior to the transaction and transfer of every single firearm.

    I am so damn tired of this stupid narrative that gun owners are nuts, criminals who are going to randomly just go around and murder people who they disagree with. That is the dumbest argument I have ever heard in my life and the lies just need to stop.

    We have bigger problems to deal with by putting our government back in check, punishing government for violating the rights of countless individuals and for unspeakable crimes of all types. We don't need this garbage anymore and it needs to just go…

  2. Lay on the hypocrisy thick here, it starts on the left who assaulted the right, then it escalated and the right then assaults the left to get revenge and then these leftist play the victim, but if they would police their own and keep them in check, things would remain peaceful on both sides. Yes law enforcement can and does over react, but attacking their supporters with violence only create more violence.

  3. I wish rural disenfranchised whites to understand their disenfranchisement- at the hands of a self-proclaimed "elite"- as the same as what black & indigenous americans are still fighting (though without the added barbaric, state-backed lynch & race mobs). They helped create, grow & maintain this beast…till they were (unceremoniously) kicked out the cool kids club. MLK said it best: injustice to one leads to injustice to all.

  4. Let’s pray it was either an ANTIFA member, a liberal, a Biden voter, a mainstream media member or a democrat politician. 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

  5. Far left pro vax extremist ran into 4 protesters in Edmonton Canada and got out in days on bail. Left Right fake causes breed nut cases no matter the cause. Violent fire bombing extreme Buddhists exist also that make others suffer LOL!

  6. This comes off as incredibly disingenuous. What proof is there that this indecent is linked to any sort of right wing militia?

  7. I think what makes many mad is the right wing groups that come from other states to cause trouble and try to change Oregon. This should be a local fight not a national one.

  8. I don’t think he means to say “counter protesters” because their are only protesters in this story and a right wing extremist unless he’s protesting by mass shooting🤷🏻‍♂️

  9. That seems to be a classic false flag, They want the peoples gun so they can roll the tyranny faster, Covid_19 demonstrated clear that the rulers don't give a fuck about us. They will do as many false or real flags as necessary to try to disarm the Americans.

  10. All I can say is there are far more left wing groups in the news as peaceful when they are not than right wing and all right wing news is used for ammunition by the left over and over, The same can be said for every minority group such as no go zones, riot, looting , destruction of property and arson protected by the media and left. The media is no longer an observer with news and comment from a neutral point of view.
    It is becoming reminiscent of the 1800's wild west where if you were not armed you became a victim. and as long as Biden and Democrats continue it will spread across America.

  11. We need to denazyfy our country too. We have an unholy alliance between our government law enforcement agencies in some places in our country and far right extremists. This should not be tolerated in 2022.

  12. This is incredibly misleading. Portland has had WAY more problems with violence, up to and including murder coming from the left than anything from the far right boogeyman…

  13. Shayne is failing to realize that the right wing he's talking about care more about their racism than their material conditions.

  14. we need to stop these violent furry gangs that are rising all over the country. They seem so inviting even to our children but they are dangerous animals
    Christians against the rise of furries

  15. How did they determine the shooter was a far-right vigilante? They make a statement and don't back it up with any facts.

Comments are closed.