what's the right way to start fighting back?

Now, that's a million dollar question.

This goes hand in hand with article in Big O this week about Metro spending over $9,000 to study chemicals (!!!the horror!!!) in cosmetics and beauty aids. Mascara is going to kill us allll! Lipstick could be causing birth defects! I assume that is what they are looking for. Another way to clean up Portland. Can someone please tell me why cosmetic ingredients should be on Metro's radar? How is that local gub'mint's business? Is Metro going to start 're-education' campaign to get women to quit coloring their roots and using wrinkle cream? Will they forbid selling of certain products in metro area? I can still purchase on internet. Will that be forbidden in future?

Public money spent to influence/change behavior and attitude seems as wrong to me as public money spent to influence an election. I would suggest an ethics investigation as the only tool currently available for such nonsense.

Instead of protesting(?) by not voting, do the right thing - RUN!

Last year, we got a letter from some electricity snitching organization (whom I can't remember their name)- but am sure they are on the government dole.

They informed us that we are consuming more electricity than our neighbors and that we are really, really bad people.

This year, I believe they are going to send out Federal Storm troopers to anyone daring to use more than their allotted amount of juice.

In the city of Portland, you are free to do whatever you wish—as long as it's compulsory.

Put out more garbage.

Buy another car. (Or drive your car more.)

Use transit less.

Buy a gas-powered lawn mower or other gas-powered landscaping tools.

Buy more lawn chemicals.

Buy more groceries at "big box" grocery stores like Safeway, Albertsons, Freddy's, Costco...

Patronize chain restaurants.

Drive to businesses and destinations outside of the city... Choose a suburban store to shop at rather than an in-city store.

Have an unsustainable yard. Less gardens, more lawns and heavy-maintenance things. (Even "weeds" are deemed sustainable.)

Concerning the Metro study, there is some reason for it. Many of the chemicals end up in our environment, and the issue of what is ending up in sewage/stormwater run-off/streams and how to treat it may be the next thing EPA goes after. (Unless of course, Rick Perry is elected and remembers which organizations he'll cut or alter.) The price was also pretty low considering the study.

The BPS effort - a whole lot of effort in that bureau to "alter behavior". While I think some of the things they push are valid points to at least discuss, I agree with many on this blog that this is not the government's role to push this behavior. Portland is truly becoming a nanny state, which is really just a nice way to say fascist state.

Someone please make it stop

Most of us need to be more resourceful these days thanks to the terrible economy around here - an economy that has been in no small part undermined by incompetent leadership in City Hall.

What should be asked is do you do these things by choice or necessity?

umpire
Mascara? Really? Face cream, eyeshadow, lipstick? Wow, just gallons of all that running into the watershed, eh? I don't think so.
Please. Gimme a break. Of all the problems in this state that is on list of things Metro is going to try and 'fix'.

http://www.drivelesssavemore.com/

These ads have been running non-stop on TV in the evening. Apparently those advertising dollars are going to convince folks to go online to find a stranger to share a ride to the store.

I would like to know whether or not my tax or rate dollars are being used to subsidize the above organization.

CoP officials urging "behavior change"? Too ironic.

Somewhere in town, Charlie Brown is pounding his head on a wall, muttering "I can't stand it. I just can't stand it."

Oh, he was just here: https://bojack.org/2011/10/art_fills_the_void.html#comments

It's amazing when you think about how dumb the population of Portland is.

Problems with schools, shootings or potholes? That's not as big a problem as sustainable paper bags and cloth napkins. Those problems are never defined, unmeasurable and can never be solved and have no limit on the amount of people, time and money we can throw at them.

Something real like a pothole, is actually measurable.

They're basically are programming us. Just like Winston Smith in 1984.

$40 grand is a lot of money in my world. What a waste!
How do WE fight back? No one decent runs for elected office anymore. Camping and marching seem pretty useless.
I wish I had some grand plan.

Hey Erik H.

Thanks for the tips. But I do all of those things already.

Portland Native,
In the past there were some decent ones who did run for city council.
I have written before they were marginalized by the press, excluded from certain candidate fairs, etc.
This time, hopefully people will have waken up and become engaged,
their livability in this city depends upon it.

We have an opportunity with the Mayor and two Commissioner positions coming up, that could mean three votes needed to stop this nonsense and try if possible to clean up this mess of years of abuse against the citizens.
That means no insider picks and do a triple scrutiny on any familiar names.
I am thinking that there may be some good people in our city who do not wish to be a part of the circus now, but may step out later.
Perhaps we can begin the new year with some brave new folks announcing their candidacy.

Are we sure changing the mayor or the city council will make any difference? Seems to me no matter who's in there they all quietly fall into step as if they're following orders from somewhere else... Metro?

...They're basically are programming us...

Some are running to the bank with this green stuff while others are being used to propagandize, spout green and sneer at those who won’t go along with being programmed.

Mr. Grumpy,
The web of power...and tentacles.
Our city council is just one of the cooperating tentacles to be sure, but at least a start.
Then begin to streamline all this web around us, petitions, etc. to eliminate or at least cut way down on their numbers their budget and input from Metro, PDC, Tri-Met, etc. We have had enough of their plans, we need a breather.

Answers to

Question #1: No
Questions #2-5: Sometimes

Hope that helps, no need to call me.

Last year, we got a letter from some electricity snitching organization (whom I can't remember their name)- but am sure they are on the government dole.

It was PGE. It's not sinister, it is simply telling you how much energy you consume relative to other houses of roughly the same size in your area. Based on where you stand in the rankings, you can evaluate whether it might be possible/wise to look into energy conservation measures. In other words, they are trying to help you save money. Not everything is a one-world-government conspiracy.

It's all too sad.

Aside from the un-afforability that now is Portland (it was cheap and fun to live here in the 90s-2000s) - the curb lined with spilled food compost yesterday sealed my decision.

My handle is the only answer I can come up with.

Seems the Mayor and his greenies staff are conflicted.
On the one hand they want everyone to go to 2nd hand stores, get everything repaired, and borrow stuff, while traveling by bike and toy trains, and on the other they are trying to encourage folks to Christmas shop downtown at pop up stores that the city is subsidizing and to come by car and park in the Smart Park garages.
So which is it O Great Leaders? Enlighten us poor composting, recycling, water saving, leaf raking, gutter cleaning, walking serfs.

Can we start by firing the guy who claims to be "Sustainable Susan"?

Yes, you may have been here first, but when the nuisance creeps closer and closer and eventually surrounds you, you gotta get out of Dodge.

One of the reasons the sustainable movement is so obnoxious is that there is nothing new there. Greenies act as if they invented hand-me-downs, chicken coops, and saving gas. Give me a break. A generation has made their careers on government or NGO funding of one sort or another.

Pull the money and make these know-it-alls do something useful that doesn't have to do with branding something, being a change agent, or being sustainable. I hear ther are plenty of employers who need work that Americans won't do -- this would be a good place to start.

I can hardly wait till the CoP tells people that using soap, shampoo, feminine hygiene products, deodorant, and toothpaste is polluting the rivers and that use of these and similar produtcts is no longer allowed.

They haven't complained about pharmaceuticals being in the water in the well fields, and when we switch over to drink that water, PWB says essentially an insignificant amount to be concerned about...
and they are not standing up for our good Bull Run drinking water or seem at all concerned that toxic chemicals could be added to our water...
For some unexplainable reason, I guess they don't care about what we drink...no surveys about that, but yes to surveys to change behavior in ways that reduce carbon emissions? yes to we must be green here and yes to proper recycling...

Better they spend those dollars on finding what pesticides are absorbed into the foods bought at the grocery store that we are eating and feeding to our kids.
How about implementing that study City Hall and truly make a difference!

I guess that is it then.
No concerns about what people drink or eat...only if buildings are Leed Certified!