Two bit tales, 3 times the price

O sing o muse

Ben — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 16:18:57 GMT

SPOILERS IN THE ARTICLE

For the first time in a long time, a good chunk of America is talking about what elitists, or those that pretend (myself) to the title, would call high art. I find it a pleasant …

The Dark Frontier

Ben — Sat, 23 May 2026 23:34:04 GMT

In Journey to the West, the Chinese epic, Tang Sanzang embarks upon an epic quest to bring Buddhism (literally enlightenment) from India back to China. The quest for what one could describe as the “the secret scrolls which contain the truth of all things” and not be terribly errant in doing so. To brave the Chinese frontier where he will encounter demon…

There is a November 6th

Ben — Sun, 27 Oct 2024 21:11:09 GMT

Tuesday November 5th is not an the end to existence. It’s a climatic end to an election year that has been different in all the ways one wouldn’t want to be different. Substituted a nominee with no primary. Trump getting shot and shot at. Far from being a year to remember it’s another year to nearly forget.

Possibly the most galling thing? The attempt to…

Are the dudes OK?

Ben — Sun, 24 Mar 2024 22:08:04 GMT

My grandfather was a guy by the name of James (Jimmy) Price. Jimmy was married 4 times, with 2 long term girlfriends. I have a riddle for you: why was this the situation?

He made money
Did not cheat
Didn’t hit
He gambled, but, and I mean this as a kid who had gotten solid at Gin rummy who played him straight up for a couple hours who never won a single hand…

A quick update

Ben — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 21:55:24 GMT

By any reasonable metric, this has been a dead substack account. Don’t worry folks, I have been laboring quite hard to get some projects wrapped up. In addition to work, family law drama with my exwife, and a move to Socal from Oregon I’ve been all too busy. Patience folks, more to come.

You don't have to support Gang rape

Ben — Mon, 09 Oct 2023 17:43:23 GMT

The problem encapsulated in an image and a tweet

The brutality we saw that launched Israel’s latest war is the kind of horror that demands official responses from every individual witness. It is not the kind of thing you can walk away from without personal declaration. You, the individual, do not need to endorse gang rape to please others of your politic…

Underrated Evil: Pinochet

Ben — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 04:31:15 GMT

When Augusto Pinochet left office after agreeing to an election in 1990 it marked the end of institutionalized terrorism of the Chilean people. His opponents ran with the simplest slogan: “No.”

Simplicity, with its accompanying lack of accoutrements, often obscures the truth. Even when couched in a rainbow, “No,” one of the shortest words in either English or Spanish, contained a multitude of horror.

Helicopter rides

Almost everyone is familiar with the story of “Helicopter rides for commies” the colloquial version for those unfamiliar was that whenever the junta got a hold of an actual communist, they’d put them in a helicopter and kick them out at altitude.

Pinochet’s own personal pilot admitted to performing the act on numerous occasions. In the present day certain right-wing ideologues profess an admiration of the practice through memes

Garish? Certainly. Though in keeping with the modern era of communication through deliberately evoking outrage. As you are supposed to see, this is the funny part. This is the great truth unspoken: that people actually want to throw communists out of helicopters. A macabre ghoulishness meant to be a political Halloween.

It should come as a shock to most, but, the real horror of the story isn’t just the following stories about brutal torture, and even more brutal rape. It’s the active and ongoing suppression of those truths:

This used to house information gleaned from torture reports

A little older news article that used to link to the Valech report

Thankfully there’s archive.org and they’re worthwhile project.

A wayback engine production for those without some spanish “Names of political prisoners and tortured”

Here is an English translation, and here is the report in original Spanish .

15 minutes are up: Rich and north of Richmond

Ben — Wed, 13 Sep 2023 03:48:43 GMT

Song has a unique place in life. A song isn’t meant to be a cerebral exercise, its a mostly emotional experience that occasionally expresses coherent ideological deliberation. Which is why the “Rich Men North of Richmond” song is not as dismissible as other stories and one elegy. The latter are often found in the little libraries that litter progressive…

Summer is over

Ben — Sun, 03 Sep 2023 15:37:19 GMT

Hello all, I basically bailed over August. I did manage to talk staunch American lefty Aaron Mate into the realization that Ukraine needs a NATO guarantee. But, I’m still working on the big reveal concerning the Portland anarchists. And I have a few other stories coming.

All about the D(isinformation)

Ben — Mon, 17 Jul 2023 05:32:46 GMT

So, last week I hopefully did not get in the way of a Fantastic conversation between Eli Lake and Jacob (best millennial writer in English) Siegel on this Podcast . There is the possibility of a sequel as we left a lot of material untouched and a lot of the touched material yearns for more handling. Specifically the rise of the behavioral engineers who …

Why is Portland so liberal?

Ben — Sat, 01 Jul 2023 21:55:58 GMT

In the late 1960s Eugene Oregon became Oregon’s cultural hub. It had become a part of the counter culture by this time. Ken Kesey had graduated in 1957 from University of Oregon in Eugene. He and his “merry pranksters” would go on to become a more memorable piece of the counter culture movement.

The national counter culture movement as we think of it is really something that starts closer to the middle of the decade and doesn’t really end until the early 1970s. It was a “rethinking” of American culture in the era. A deconstructive energy of the WWII era norms and thinking in the shadow of the Vietnam war. But here in the Pacific Northwest, this deconstruction was taking place in a nutrient rich bath of Kropotkin and Spooner anarchist ideals laying all over. From the logging roads to Everett field they began soaking in them.

In order to understand the counter-culture that takes hold in Oregon, one must look not at its national similarities (civil rights, 2nd wave feminism, etc.) inasmuch as the divergences.

The emergence of a Malthusian or anarcho-primitivist strain of conservation. This isn’t what most of America thinks of as environmentalism. This line of thinking explicitly identifies people as a problem to be managed. It’s philosophical infrastructure underpins major pieces of Oregon legislation: Oregon land use laws in SB 100. Which is then wielded like a cudgel against people by groups like 1000 friends of Oregon. From wealthy developers all the way to regular home owners.
3rd wave feminism. It’s hard to explain how profound an effect this has had. Whereas 2nd wave feminism has come to be embraced at all. 3rd wave has not. The critical difference for Oregon is that it leads to the creation of ideas, particularly in law enforcement, that make enforcement of order and property rights difficult. Drug abuse is not to be treated with coercion but strong incentives.
The divorce of labor from socialism. While this happened everywhere, no place more so than in the greater PNW. In one generation, the millers and loggers were displaced out of the movement they largely founded. Replaced largely by public sector unions.
California and Californication. No state has had greater impact on Oregon then its southern neighbor. People have been moving to Oregon from California for over 40 years. Largely in reactionary panic to “fake” California. Have a look at this Blitz-Weinhard ad from the 70s.

In 1967 the first act of political violence from the culture arrived in Oregon. Again starting in Eugene. One bombing in April at Naval and Marine ROTC location, one bombing in November targeting the Air Force. And this is just the beginning

In 1968 the Democratic party primary, which would come to be the most bruising and bloody primary of the postwar era would come to Oregon. One RFK vs Eugene Mccarthy for the May primary. They campaigned up and down the the Willamette Valley. RFK came to Eugene, and almost started a riot . Long gone was the age of Camelot. This was the RFK who had it out to nail Jimmy Hoffa. The progressive left was not happy he was here.

In this turbulent, nutrient, rich bath. The conservationism routed in protecting the wilds of America for big game and fish, championed by one Teddy Roosevelt, diverged. Convinced by the threat of worldwide thermonuclear extinction that humanity itself was a threat, the new unnamed breed took a very different turn. Resurrecting terms like wild space, encroachment, they added terms like renewable, sustainable, and recycling.

Juneteenth, Father's day, bad back

Ben — Mon, 19 Jun 2023 14:13:11 GMT

If I had known what a task this section of the Portland liberal origin story would be I would’ve had done it well before I started this substack. Adding to the difficulty: social obligations and injury. I’m just all excuses at the moment folks. I will absolutely get this done and soon.

Team Hoyt

Ben — Mon, 29 May 2023 04:38:54 GMT

As much as I love the written word, some sports stories simply need to be introduced with images:

Rick Hoyt being pushed by his father Dick Hoyt circa 1978

Mother's Day

Ben — Sun, 14 May 2023 16:20:22 GMT

It’s Mother’s day, nothing this week. The “Why is Portland so Liberal” 60s to the year 2000 won’t drop until the 28th at the earliest. Next week will probably be a bit of popular (rather unpopular when you think about it) history regarding the Pinochet regime. Thank you for the subscriptions. And yes, I will be following the Penny prosecution pretty clo…

Gravestanding

Ben — Mon, 08 May 2023 04:19:52 GMT

Writer’s Note: The “Why is Portland so liberal?” series is going to be completed soon. We’ve gotten to the point where I want to nail down the events that transpire from the mid-60s on in a truly authoritative manner. As such I will be much more meticulous in writing the rest of the series.

Unfortunately, this week I have something depressing to pour ov…

Why is Portland so liberal?

Ben — Mon, 01 May 2023 03:17:52 GMT

World War 2 didn’t wave a magic wand and disappear the IWW organizers and socialists who rose to prominence in the 20s and especially in the Great Depression. Many of these people carried their ideas like torches into the postwar era.

These torches on pathways lighting the way to further events. Something to keep in mind as our pathways to the present P…

A week in Portland

Ben — Sun, 23 Apr 2023 23:58:31 GMT

So, the Blazers missed the playoffs.

REI in the Pearl district announced it’s impending closure. The excuse gibbons are saying it’s “because even though REI is a customer Co-Op, it’s oppressing its labor and that PDX was unionizing, so that’s why. IT’S NOT THE RAMPANT DESTRUCTION AND CRIME.”

Why is Portland so liberal?

Ben — Mon, 17 Apr 2023 02:35:50 GMT

This will be the first in a series of articles covering the Pacific NW, particularly Portland, and an anarchy origin story

The emergence of far left violent actors appears to many to have come from nowhere. Sure, there was a riot when the WTO met in Seattle in 1999. But, between then and now, the anarchists were mostly quiet. Why then have they suddenly emerged out of the Doug Fir trees in this part of the Contiguous United States?

From the Western Territory, Canada south to San Francisco, California stretching East to the borders of Wyoming and looping back north through Montana stretches some of the last real wilderness in the United States. Home of the Bigfoot. This sparsely populated landscape is where people could get lost and do (oh boy do they) all manner of things. A great place to have ideas way beyond any Overton window in any age.

Emma Goldman, her paramore Jacob Kirshner, both observed the following:

“the American movement is yet in its infancy, not older than five or six years . . . Only since the first issue of the Firebrand, in Oregon, seized by authorities, and now published under the name of Free Society, in San Francisco, have we begun to make headway among the American people.”

Easter

Ben — Mon, 10 Apr 2023 02:10:27 GMT

As you can imagine, today was not going to be a day to publish a story. Every so often it will happen that a Sunday ends up being a holiday. As such, I’ll put out what they call in film “previews of coming attractions.”

Non-Fiction

Why is Portland so liberal?

Team Hoyt

Bruce Lee vs Wong Jack Man

American Millennial misanthropy

Pinochet: underrated evil

…. and …

Hoaxes, horrors, and hinders

Ben — Sun, 02 Apr 2023 22:50:13 GMT

Jacob Siegel wrote a story you should read this week. Unfortunately it will be just as relevant next year as it is this week.

The quick summation of that story is that we now have in our defense apparatus, traditional and social media an authoritarian cabal. Both censorious and sacrosanct, this cabal aims to tell you what to do in every waking moment of…