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We are proud to present the 3rd issue of our comrades at Sabotage Noise Production’s mini zine, featuring radical benefit shows and an interview with Ostrich Bay Exchange, a harm reduction crew in Kitsap County. For more follow them on Instagram @sabotagenoiseproductions.

The Violent and Fantastical Thinking of Riley Carter

Riley Carter is running for Aberdeen City Council Ward 5 Position 9. He bought a house here about a year and a half ago, somewhat near to the downtown core of Aberdeen, making him a part of the price hike in property values that occurred around the same time. He has an equally long history of organized harassment of the unhoused community, labeling them all as “tweakers” in order to dehumanize them and validate his violent fantasies. Here at Sabot Media, we have documented his founding of the Facebook group “HEY TWEAKERS OF ABERDEEN, I WANT MY SHIT BACK!!!” a troubling private group of locals who all gang together in comment sections to express their own visions of violence towards the unhoused, who themselves are the biggest victims of theft often having all their belongings seized by the state and others. This “out grouping” behavior is concerning, especially as many known fascists have used this group to advocate nothing short of murdering poor people whom they suspect of a crime which has led to a noticeable increase of harassment against the unhoused community that anyone who works with them will have seen. After founding this group he was called out publicly by many in the community who saw through the facade of “law and order” to the fascistic roots of this violent rhetorical propaganda. Riley was, and still is, trying to get people hurt. He clearly doesn’t see the unhoused, or those he deems to be addicts, as humans worthy of his empathy, although he knows how to censor himself in these regards when being interview by the local radio station KXRO.

In a video uploaded to his TikTok account, while driving around downtown Aberdeen:

@rileycarter697

Riley Carter for Aberdeen City Council Ward 5 Position 9. Thanks for watching! #politics #pnw #lifeisgood #dadlife #USA #conservative #aberdeenwa #future #votered

♬ original sound –

He starts the video by referring to unhoused people as “walkers”, a likely reference to the name of the zombies the TV series “The Walking Dead”. He says, “Who knows what they’re really up to?”, seeming to suspect them of being up to some sort of nefarious conspiratorial behavior. He then seemed to blame the unhoused for the graffiti in town, among other vague references. He told his viewers that he knew they would want to see the unhoused encampment underneath the bridge, but said he wouldn’t go there as his kids were sleeping in the vehicle he was driving. He then proceeded to discuss beating a person to death for a fantasized assault on his daughter, and promised an upcoming tour of camp when he didn’t have his kids with him.

As he drove by the library, where the unhoused have recently been forced out of and had their shopping carts confiscated by the City, he claimed credit for getting the shopping carts removed from the front of the library. Then gave a tour of the banks of the Chehalis River behind the local Walmart, continuing to call people on the streets “tweakers”. Says “we need to get people sober”. He then complains about shopping carts used by the unhoused, although he admitted that he understood that it “must be nice” to have them and keep all your things in them, but sweeps it aside in favor of customer satisfaction and comfort. He made reference to “The Walking Dead” at the end of his video, showing that his earlier “walkers” comment earlier was, in fact, the dehumanizing reference that we assumed it was.

In his interview with local radio station KXRO:

He said what drew him to run for council was the “criminal element” in town and that his reporting of crimes to the police never amounted to anything. In his words this seems to be a common feeling among his “friends”, ignoring those who disagree with him. He wants people to “feel safe”, meaning more policing of marginalized communities. Throughout the interview he attempts to express normal human empathy and refrain from calling people “tweakers”. He raised an issue with people giving out tents, harm reduction supplies, and other resources; saying it “doesn’t help”. Little does he know what the needs of the unhoused are, he is far too scared to go to camp and talk to people. He identifies real problems, such as wage stagnation, cost of living increases, and other fallout symptoms of capitalism and empire. Then proceeds to blame the most vulnerable populations in our society, such as the unhoused, mentally ill, or those suffering from substance abuse disorder for all these problems.

He wants to deal with things that “make him feel uncomfortable”, not things that are illegal. He wants to morally police the community and make things look the way he wants them to look. The reason he expressed for wanting to get people sober was to make them productive workers. As he states”You gotta put in the grind”. He speaks of community while excluding those he doesn’t like. He wants permanent solutions, he wants people to be “put to work”, he wants people to get clean. The interviewer asks how the City might help the unhoused without increasing taxes or diverting funds. His answer was to “think outside the box”. He assumes in the video that there must be lots of resources he doesn’t know about. Hard work, there’s gotta be a way to have people to generate their own income. He even suggests the unhoused be put to use farming the land. Yet without increasing taxes or diverting funds this idea would lead the homeless from becoming induntured servants at best and being pressed into flat out slaves in the plainest of terms at worst. He claims “No one has an answer”, except various local organizations such as the aspiring local housing coopertive The Blackflower Collective, Chehalis River Mutual Aid Network, Chaplains on the Harbor, and many other groups including the unhoused community have been proposing the solution for years now.

Why vote for Riley Carter, interviewer asks? “I’m just a hard working family man”, he responds. “Things have gotten a little out of hand”, and he alone can fix it. The hard working people like him deserve someone to stand up for them and represent their interests. As opposed to self-determining their own future on their own terms. His last pitch was to “bring back community”, in his narrow, and exclusionary sense.

What follows are several screenshots that display his callous and often violent rhetoric. Despite saying repeatedly that his group does not condone physical violence against, he clearly only has to say that because it is not true. The general format of a post in his group is someone, often Riley himself, will post a series of photos or videos they have taken of people walking near, and sometimes on their property. They will generally include a disparaging remark about this person’s assumed mental state, accuse them of some petty crime, and then fearmonger about how the cops are hamstrung by laws to not have the ability to open a can of whoop ass on these “tweakers”. The comments are a mix of bullying and mocking the person displayed, calling attention to the “lack of action” when police have no real evidence to go on other than their paranoid conspiracy theories. The comment section is typically where violence is either threatened outright or insinuated at the very least, with Riley Carter playing along with the dehumanizing and othering of vulnerable people in their community. What’s worst is how they also often spout off about the lack of mental health care and drug counseling, and yet blame the poorest and least powerful people in that whole dilemma.

Here is in response to a banner drop that happened in protest of the last major encampment sweep. He develops his conspiracy theory in line with the major trends of the conspiratorial far right at the time. The narrative boils down to a national secret cabal of people bent on taking over the country and degrading the moral fiber of the nation. This is reminiscent, as many conspiracy theories are, of old anti-Semitic tropes. Even if people don’t actively and outwardly blame the Jews, it is coded in the language they use. The idea that elected officials support and fund ANTIFA terrorists is clearly absurd, and yet this man wants to serve on our City council. Injecting his poisonous ideas into our already sickened local politics.

Here he again implies the conspiracy theory that ANTIFA is an actual organized body, and that they receive some special protections from unnamed laws. This is Q Anon level galaxy brain stuff which actively ignores the army of police faced by protestors during various actions before, during, and after the 2020 protests, themselves being organized around the brutality and racial profiling of police and the fascist creep infecting the nation.

We wonder here, after all his fantasies of violence, what he means by “cleaning house”. A lot of people on the right use the term cleaning up, or cleaning the streets to refer to what amounts to genocide of the unhoused and drug addicted. There are open calls for such violence in this group admined by Riley Carter.

Here he demonstrates his clear hostility towards anyone who he deems to below him on the social hierarchy. Saying, “People need to be pushy so they know where their place is” denotes that he sees them as others, not members of the community, not people who have lived here longer than he has. He has some right that the unhoused do not have because he owns more property than they do, all while actively disparaging their right to own any property by degrading the notion of them owning things such as vehicles. “Their place” seems to be neither in cars that they own, no on the streets. So what is their place Riley?

Calling people digging through the garbage for survival “filth” and in the original post a “crackhead” because they display extreme poverty and lack of hygiene or nutrition, basic human needs, things anyone addict or not would find themselves struggling with without proper housing. All he sees is literal zombies that he would love nothing more than to shoot down on his Private Property, should they come around when he is awake. This man has nothing to offer the City of Aberdeen other than more dehumanization of the poor and unhoused, and more ridiculous conspiracy theories about stuff that doesn’t exist.

Douglas Orr’s History of Hate

As we write this Douglas Orr will be advancing to the General Election in November for Aberdeen City Mayor. The result broke down to a very close race, with an estimated 10 ballots yet to be counted, Doug Orr is leading Pieraccini by 59 votes and Shaw by 86 votes. In total 2,555 people voted for Mayor this primary election, which is about 15% of the City’s population according to the last census in 2020. By any calculation, a vast majority of people in the City of Aberdeen took our advice and didn’t vote for Mayor. It remains to be seen how many will take political direct action into their own hands. It’s too bad that a Mayor will still take office, regardless of the will of the people.

We have recently published a zine with some of Doug’s most egregious outbursts and views. We have also published plenty on his opponent, the hate group leader Debi Ann Pieracinni. While her history of harassing the unhoused is markedly more vicious and long-term, his is nonetheless useful to examine as we head into a useless general election between two candidates that both want the same things for the City.

We became aware of Doug Orr for the first time in the winter of 2022, when the last emergency Cold Weather Shelter (CWS) was open across the street from his massive art studio/house. This was when he began to loose his mind over the proximity of the extreme poverty near his place of residence and business. Instead of empathizing with the struggles of those on the streets, forced to go to a congregate shelter for survival, he chose to lash out at them through a series of rant posts on his Facebook profile.

Here he begins by referring to someone struggling with mental illness as a “crazy fuck”. Complaining at the lack of police action in arresting the person who clearly needed a hospital. Police are not the answer to the health care crisis in this country. He ends by threatening to move towns because him and his NIMBY customers were scared by the symptoms of the system that causes so many poor people to end up on the streets for lack of care. Instead of being empathetic and understanding, they are reactionary and cruel. He also expresses a willingness to sell his building to Emmert, knowing the eventual fate of those buildings. He cares more about himself than he does for Aberdeen.

Here he harasses people for trying to sleep in his doorway, filming them against their wishes in order to put them on blast on Facebook despite complying with the police. Even though he was clearly able to get outside to walk his dog and snap more photos of them on the outside.

Demonstrating more concern for broken windows than for the people suffering around him marking the unhoused as crazy. Property over people is his motto.

Here he complains about the impact to his business that he blames on the unhoused being located nearby his art studio, with no context as to what his sales were prior to the shelter opening, he claims that his lack of sales are the direct result of the shelter. His only concern is for himself and maintaining his economic standard of living despite being committed to his current politics of gentrification which will result in increasing the cost of living.

As the date approached in March of 2022 for the closure of the temporary cold weather shelter despite the nights still dipping into below freezing temperatures, he proceeds to relish in the upcoming closure of the CWS.

Here he somehow claims to be doing something for the unhoused through his work of dehumanizing them through Facebook, yet claims other people should “just shut up and make an effort yourself. Not on Facebook, but on the streets where it’s needed.”, despite acting as a keyboard warrior himself. His statement of getting out in the street is a sentiment we can get behind for sure, however upon closer analysis we see the true intention of this statement. Supposedly his ranting on Facebook should be seen as work to help the unhoused, but the work of those who offer any level of criticism is framed as useless. This use of rhetoric in defense of criticisms, though different in it’s application, acts in a similar way to the rhetoric of Republicans who make fraudulent cries of “censorship” whenever public criticisms are made about their actions. Both approaches act as a defensive line of reasoning to deflect any criticisms made, while the justification for the defense does not hold up to scrutiny. Just as Republicans are not being censored, and are the loudest voices in the zeitgeist despite their bigotry, Doug Orr insists that critics of his bigotry need to get off Facebook and into the streets while doing the opposite himself.

Similarly there can be a connection made of his statement that “folks who don’t live in Aberdeen need to mind your own business. You don’t live here and are doing nothing to actually do anything but cause more division” to the “outside agitators” rhetoric used by both liberals and conservatives. Yet the rhetoric used by both sides are pushed with their own unique applications as well. While conservatives use it as a racial calling card, liberals use it to stifle legitimate forms of protest like riots, and looting, that they are uncomfortable with. While civil unrest often happens within poor, black and brown communities, as they take the brunt of State oppression, conservatives use the “outside agitator” narrative to push the idea that people using alternative forms of protest are simply white anarchists coming in from outside the community, as though the community itself couldn’t ever just feel that level of rage. Liberals use the narrative of outside agitators to quell rebellion at street protests, whenever a liberal is present at a direct action they are danger to people, as they don;t have the necessary analysis to know why people commit these rebellious acts. In both cases that which lies outside of their own personal experiences is invalid as a mode of thought.

Although nothing he has done has anything to do with unhoused issues outside of online ostracization at the time of his post. He has, in fact, been a major part of the slow gentrification process of the City that haven taken place behind closed doors not on the “streets” he supposedly advocates for.

This is one of the most egregious comments he makes, saying that people who live in his City, and have lived here longer than him in many cases, are “squatting” simply because they are unhoused. It is unacceptable to lump all unhoused people into a group like this and condemn them all based on the errant behavior of a few of the most unruly. This is truly where his classism and bigotry towards the unhoused bleeds through. His comment shows that should anyone find themselves in the position of having to live on the streets, that Douglas Orr would brand them a blight on the community.

Even if all their needs are met and their problems are solved; be it addiction and other medical needs, employment and other financial needs, lawyer and other legal needs, mental illness and other psychological needs, community and other spiritual needs, food, water, clothes, and most notably housing and other physiological needs that make up the bottom tier of Maslow’s hierarchy.

It doesn’t matter to Douglas Orr that if they had their needs met, they would have housing and health care and wouldn’t be in the terrible situation they are in now. It doesn’t matter to him if you used to be homeless and have escaped those horrific conditions. It doesn’t matter to him that anyone who finds themselves homeless might be able to live a better life. The only thing that matters to Douglas Orr is that anyone who has found themselves in those positions have been stained by poverty and therefore deemed unworthy of concern by virtue of the false meritocracy that states only those who have wealth deserve it. Another bit of hypocritical rhetoric when taking this next comment into account.

It is a common tactic of the anti homeless to claim that people who are unhoused choose to be unhoused, rather than being to poor to afford the rising cost of rent, or being unable to support themselves in a society that values profit over human life. A key component to the idea of American Meritocracy. Doug Orr would climb the ladder out of poverty and kick it out from under him as he climbs out of the hole by advocating for the cracking down on the very tactics he states that he used to escape homelessness.

From everything we have read thus far could you imagine the outcry should all the residents at camp start using the showers at places like the YMCA, or other local gyms? Is this really a feasible solution that is being proposed by someone who wishes to be mayor? Would he actually endorse this, or crack down on their access to it regardless of the fact if they actually had the money to afford to use those facilities in the first place or not? Next is an interesting omission, he acknowledges the fact that it is impossible for a homeless person to get a legal job without an address that you can provide to your employer, he offers the solution of offering a fake address. Again I ask if he ended up receiving the mail from various homeless individuals who offered his residence as a place of address how would you expect him to react based on all that we’ve read? Not to mention this still leaves people with not having access to their mail for important things such as W-2’s.

He then claims that he proceeded to rent a “house” with no doors or windows, in order to get off the street as a stepping stone. Now there is no way for us to be sure what exactly happened here because it is illegal to rent a house in that condition. We can only presume that either he was allowing himself to being taken advantage of by a severely corrupt landlord who profited off his work or perhaps more likely he employed the survival technique colloquially referred to as “squatting”.

Whatever the answer may be the fact remains, rent and the cost of living has been steadily increasing while our buying power has been decreasing since the collapse of the labor movement leaving absolutely nowhere in the entirety of the United States that one might be able to support themselves on minimum wage jobs that make up the majority of available jobs within the service industry on their own. Certainly some may be able to find ways around these obstacles, but the idea that one must play the game perfectly or die is a morally bankrupt ideology, thus is the one of the plagues at the heart of Neo-liberal austerity. This is a hyper-focusing on the individual who could do that vs. giving any amount of attention to the systemic issues that leave countless individuals behind in poverty who could not play the game perfectly. It calls to mind a quote by John Steinbeck which itself was a paraphrase of  Ronald Wright who once said:

“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

What lies at core of Douglas Orr’s assertion that “most of the folks on the streets here are where they choose to be” is the refusal of Neo-liberals, Democrat & Republican alike, to acknowledge or address any type of systemic issue or challenge to the status quo.

Another common tactic of anti unhoused campaigns is to displace camps through sweeps, causing people to scatter for a time before finding a new place to camp. This does nothing to combat the problem these people are facing and simply destabilizes their already unstable lives. It is incredibly dangerous to be unhoused, and being able to find co-campers you can live near who will help keep you and your things safe is crucial for many. Doug Orr chose to live in an Art studio in the downtown of the City, where else would you expect people to live, in peoples front yards? Of course not, the only solution they seem willing to entertain is eradicating the unhoused from the city limits by any means necessary.

He tries to make this seem like a zoning issue instead of a human rights issue. If he can establish a residence in the Art studio across the street then why shouldn’t people be able to stay in and around the area as well. It’s as though he think he literally owns the whole downtown.

Doug’s most famous post! He threatens murder or great bodily harm against our comrades at Aberdeen Local 1312 after publishing the following post as show below using screenshots of his previous Facebook posts and comments to showcase his bigotry, not even bothering to get their name right. This demonstrates his readiness to at the very least threaten to shoot people who disagree with him publicly. Such a great quality in a leader…

If Doug takes office can we expect him to even target the Union Gospel Mission? This establishment is hardly a friend to the unhoused community, being far more concerned with the appearance of charitable acts than actually helping the vast majority of people on the streets, yet they do operate as the only shelter in town outside of the friendship house for women with even less vacancy, providing a scant few people a place to stay each night. Without this meager shelter, there would be literally no shelter in the whole of the City and even more people on the streets that Doug and politicians like him will use as a scapegoat for legitimate problems & criticisms while at the same time using them as a platform for elections.

Doug Orr Looses it at Rain Glow

Every year in Aberdeen the Aberdeen Art Center, Organized in part by Doug Orr among other community members and businesses, hosts their Rain Glow event. The alleyways and side streets are closed off near his art studio, and for a fee people can experience different “worlds” of light, sound, and art. A family friendly event that was disrupted by the main man himself screaming at comrades distributing our Aberdeen Anti-Voter’s Guide on the corner. He ran up on these good comrades, calling them “cunt lickers” and claiming that he was “not a fucking Republican” in front of dozens of families. He then said that he had reached out to them to see about working with them, possibly confusing Sabot Media for the Chehalis River Mutual Aid Network (CRMAN), who he did contact about working together according to public facebook posts by CRMAN posted before the Rain Glow event, after receiving his Facebook message proceeded to share a screenshot of its contents on their page with a scathing open response. The message sent to CRMAN and their response is stated as followed.

CRMAN’s Response:

In this post they asked him to save his words and show up how it counts, with actions. They implored him to drop out of the race and join them in the streets. He has since claimed that he will act in accordance with the needs of the unhoused in his hopeful bid for Mayor.

His history of acting hostile and often downright violent towards people who have done nothing but disagree with him publicly is disturbing, and points to a pattern of behavior that would lead one to believe that he will continue to present a danger to the unhoused community, who are as unlikely to accept his authority any more than any other Mayor’s.

This little tirade was followed up by multiple instances of Doug having a tantrum, including walking up and snapping photos, and telling the security guard about our comrades. Hilariously his outburst had interrupted a conversation between one of our comrades and a member of the community who was trying to defend Doug, saying that he would “never say those things” when presented with his threatening screenshots.

One community member who witnessed the meltdown had this to say:

He rushed over and started yelling, he didn’t even wait to get there. He called one person a “cunt licker” and said that everything in the zines were lies. He said he grew up on the streets on Gray Harbor, that was his excuse for his mouth. I tried to remind him that children were around, and he continued to go off. It was the first and only time that I met this man.

When he first approached a lady was saying that he was a good man and talking about he couldn’t do any wrong, and this tirade interrupted her. She then offered the defense “it’s because he was up the last 48 hrs preparing Rain Glow”. She then began to defend him saying people shouldn’t be bringing to their kids when its dark out, even though it was a family event. I told him again that it was a family event. I was in shock that someone would come running up screaming like that. Everything was civil until he ran up. He then went and told the security guard.

What is clear is that the future electoral political landscape of Aberdeen is not going to be friendly anytime soon. We maintain that it doesn’t really seem to matter who is in office; the poor are targeted, the unhoused are harassed, the rich get richer, and the government caters to them. This is the ultimate pattern underlying any political campaign. Doug Orr and Riley Carter could not be more opposed politically, supposedly, and yet their policies will echo each others, they will find much common ground on threatening the unhoused and calling them names. They will both push for the gentrification of the City in order to turn profit for those at the very top, while pushing most working class people out. If what we need is change, then we will have to look outside their halls of power for it, as they have nothing to offer us but oppression and lies. If what we need is liberation for all, then we will undoubtedly have to fight them for it.

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