A couple days ago I witnessed about 50 people marching through a neighborhood in North East Portland. The area they were marching through is a historically minority area, the businesses in that part of town are primarily used car lots, there are a lot of low cost motels. This area is near the airport, it is also the area where sex workers do their business.
The people on this march had gathered in Washington state, miles away across the state line, to bring their form of "protection" to the people who they see as victims of sex trafficking. Their action was quite misguided, if their desire was to prevent human trafficking. By marching down Northern 82nd ave they effectively accomplished nothing. The sex workers carried on, and more to the point, the banksters and other human traffickers who actually extort the sex Worker's industry don't do any work in the street. Predatory capitalists ala Jeffery Epstein sit in their Mara Lago like resorts while stable operators work with street level recruiters, who then bring sex workers into these larger organizations. These top tier criminals launder large sums of money through prominent banks. The sex workers industry and human trafficking industries are big money enterprises. The fact that so much money passes through the sex industry draws in big name investors and powerful men. This is why we see Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump along with many others powerful men named in legal proceedings as associated with the Epstein pedophile ring.
Protecting Sex Workers is important, and lending strength to sex workers by giving them access to resources is one way we can help. There are nonprofit organizations which do exactly that. If each of the people who marched had connected with one of these nonprofits they could have affected positive change, even more so if they had taken the time to understand the needed solutions.
Sadly the alabaster outrage carried by this group of right wing nut jobs has led to a vigilante group forming to "drive off parasites" further harming the street level people and misdirecting the much needed attention away from the Epsteins of the world and onto the every day sex workers.
In my opinion this an example of the looming civil war. The forming of a vigilante group that intends to somehow enforce this evangelical extremist agenda will lead to murder. The people forming this group are associated with a known violent street gang. The proud boys and patriot prayer people are dangerous and a threat to our community.