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Here's a brief thread about the historical parallels between federal forces' "snatch-and-grab" tactics in Portland in comparison with US-backed Latin American military dictatorships in the '70s and '80s and the famed resistance by mothers in those same countries. 
/1 https://twitter.com/Clypian/status/1285062888680337409
/1 https://twitter.com/Clypian/status/1285062888680337409
Far-right Trump supporters have called themselves "Right Wing Death Squads" and evoked tactics from the Latin American military dictatorships' Dirty Wars, such as throwing leftists out of helicopters. They are the ones who pattern themselves after this historical parallel. /2
When Chile's dictator Pinochet was disappearing people in blue Ford Falcons, mothers with Agrupación de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos emerged as among the most powerful social actors in opposition to his regime. They helped eventually dismantle his regime. /3
Similarly in Argentina during the "Dirty Wars," when the Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo braved the powerful forces of stigmatization and even police repression to seek accountability for the many lives crushed by military dictatorships. /4
Let me add here that I'll be drawing from Wanda C. Krause's exceptional 2004 article, "The role and example of Chilean and Argentinian Mothers in democratisation," from the journal Development in Practice, Vol. 14, Issue 3.
https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1080/0961452042000191204
/5
https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1080/0961452042000191204
/5
Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared: "Every instinct of dignity was violated there: nuns & pregnant women were tortured with special glee, husbands and wives and children tortured in each other's presence, and babies taken from their mothers for military families" /6
For military dictatorships, the notion of "subversive" was so broad, it could include anybody's personal enemy, as long as they had some anti-chauvinist sentiment. A Catholic reformer, union member, Jew, professor, musician, a kid—anyone could become a target of the Terror. /7
Think about these numbers from Argentina alone: 1.5 million exiles; 340 hidden detention centers throughout the country. 30,000 kidnapped and disappeared across just 6 years—14 people kidnapped and killed every day. 10,000 disappeared in Chile, mostly political organizers. /8
The Chilean mothers wove arpilleras (tapestries) together in workshops not just to expose the human rights violations but to work through their collective pain. They also marched and held rallies, where they showed up social machismo and gained widespread reverence. /9
In both countries, the very fact of the mothers organizing stimulated others to organize autonomous organizations throughout society. They then formed the core of a burgeoning democratic movement that weakened the bureaucratic power structures of the dictatorships. /10
Krause says parallel networks alongside the bureaucratic authoritarian societal structures could also be seen in opposition to the Soviet domination of the Czech Republic and elsewhere—common opposition to US-backed military dictatorships and Soviet-supported authoritarians. /11
The mothers joining protests is a response from civil society that's staggeringly emotional for Portlanders who have been through too much as a city to relinquish hope for a better future. It's a powerful symbol of the human condition in rebellion against authoritarianism. /12
The fact that they're being faced by Border Patrol says a lot, in my opinion, about the reality of immigration policy under Trump, the building of the wall and its historical parallels to the Soviet bloc, and general humanitarianism against cold, brute force. /Ends
