This tempest in a teapot is a comedy. The members of the Junto are mortified that their little club might be seen as a back room cabal with serious political influence, except they are so flattered to hear that people think they have political influence they can hardly keep from giggling aloud. Here's the deal: Anytime wealth speaks privately to power there is going to be suspicion on the part of those excluded. When you have a government official address your group invite the media or, better yet, do it as a public event. Otherwise, enjoy the company of whomever you like but be respectful of others and try not to brag.

Screw the talk about race and class. I'm want to hear the lurid details about sex and drugs.

The members of Skull and Bones are mortified that their little club might be seen as a back room cabal with serious political influence.

"And it's a sad commentary on Portland "liberalism" that the group took shape and built momentum with apparently no self awareness of the race, gender and class dynamics Caitlin describes."

Thanks, Dan. And I want to add another element. I wonder if this would have happened (or even been considered) anywhere in Oregon outside of Portland.

Just as women were shut out of this group, people outside the Metro area sometimes feel that Portlanders consider themselves superior to the rest of the state.

There is a joke going back at least decades about the trip from Portland to Salem being longer than the trip from Salem to Portland---having any kind of a party meeting, even in Woodburn or Albany, was such a great inconvenience to Portlanders. Why was it such a big deal for other people to come to Portland?

But it is not just distance, it is also mindset. Some years ago, Peter Courtney was speaking to Portland City Club and making just this point. Whether or not people in the live audience noticed this line, it was a great line for those of us in Marion County, "You may think, because I represent a district just down the highway a ways, that my district is just like any district in Portland. Well, it is not."

Sen. Courtney represents Sen. Dist. 11: Salem, Keizer, Gervais. How many people in Portland even know where Gervais is, much less have ever been there?

When St. Treasurer Ben Westlund spoke to Marion Demoforum, he talked about what he learned from ranching, incl. Sunlight is the best disinfectant Watch where you step.

Those lessons apply here. An invitation-only group of the politically powerful (even if it were all women or mixed gender) would attract attention sooner or later. And there are folks in the rest of the state who have long thought that "urban progressives" don't really understand their lives, but seek to tell them what is important.

A century ago, Progressives stood for opening up the process to everyone. Many believe that Vote By Mail was a progressive idea because it made life easier for the working parents who didn't want to take small children to stand in long polling place lines, people working odd shifts, people with long commutes.

This sounds more like the old fashioned smoke filled room decision-making than like a group of progressives/liberals who may appear to the outside world as exemplifying the old saying, "too cute by half".

As I wrote in an earlier thread:

... the problem with they Junta[sic] goes beyond its all male membership. Check into how many public office holders and members of influential committees have worked for Stoel Rives and Ater Wynne. We do not know all the group's members, but I'd wager that "well-connected" would describe most.

In a Utopian Aristotelian democracy, this would be just fine - a discussion group of the best and brightest who promote life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all. Unfortunately, we live in a corrupted republic where wealth and power guide government through seen and unseen hands. While members of the elite may see this as meritocracy, it is, in effect, most of time closer to kleptocracy. Members of a group like the Junta are mostly either kleptocrats, employed by kleptocrats, or retained by kleptocrats - even are they are jolly nice fellows with progressive ideals.

Opening a group like the Junta to women mostly serves to widen the talent pool of potential best-and-brightest lackeys. One of the lessons of women's movement is that women are just as capable as men at serving the masters.

Of course, the members of the Junto attract heat because they are Portland liberals acting like good old boys. The damage done is trivial compared to whenever the board of AOI gets together with their lobbyists.

This is just hilarious.

The fact is that political clubs and discussion groups of all kinds form and dissolve all the time.

To see liberals wring their hands because gasp 'these guys are white!' makes me laugh.

Race baiters seem to have no problem with an avowedly racist political group such as the Congressional Black Caucus.

But they are in a tizzy about an informal group that had no formal rule AFAIK against women or minority participation.

I have made similar comments when threads on BO had titles like 'We Need More Women in Oregon Politics'.

Talk about sexist.

To recruit/elect someone to run for office based on their plumbing is sexist. Just admit it blue people.

Race baiters seem to have no problem with an avowedly racist political group such as the Congressional Black Caucus.

Yup, "avowedly racist", just like the Sons of Norway and the B'nai Brith.

It's morbidly fascinating the way that the Joe Whites of the world have decided that any recognition of ethnic or racial difference is "avowedly racist". Caucasian is normal, unremarkable, the default plain vanilla. Recognizing anything different, or even suggesting that anything different might be worth our notice, is "avowedly racist".

Discussion groups are one thing. Inviting powerful people to speak to an invitation only group is something else. It says about as much as some people need to know how members didn't realize that once they started inviting famous people to speak it wasn't just a discussion group of friends getting together for dinner.

And the quote from Rep. Nolan makes her sound like a clueless Portlander.

From the column,

"They seemed harmless," Nolan said. "It did strike me walking in that it had been a long time since I'd been the only woman in a professional setting."

Which hits the underlying problem. Influence begets influence, particularly in a place as insular as Oregon. Zehren knows a bunch of middle-aged white guys from task forces and commissions because middle-aged white guys are often the ones with the time to serve and the connections to be asked.

What's troubling -- and not just in a, "No fair, let us in your treehouse," way -- is the lack of self-awareness.

This subject still seems like "sour grapes" by the folks that do not have money / power and are jealous of those that do. Why single out some BS discussion club involving a bunch of 400 dollar an hour attorneys? I have been to the Arlington Club a few times (not as a member thank you) and I have observed state and federal politicians kissing the hind-end of various fat cat donors or potential donors. Same with University Club or even the MAC on occasion. Why not advocate the pitchforks and torches for those folks too?

Greg, spoken like a true Portlander.

Why not campaign finance reform? Or are you OK with "state and federal politicians kissing the hind-end of various fat cat donors or potential donors"?

If that status quo is fine with you, by all means say so.

Or does the Oregon Constitution no longer begin "We the people"?

fred friendly wrote:

"just like the Sons of Norway and the B'nai Brith"

In case you missed the sarcasm, I was defending the right of these white guys to meet together and to invite anyone they so choose to meet with them.

Those who somehow think the Junto is an evil conspiracy because 'it's only guys of one race' need to apply the same standard to the Congressional Black Caucus.

Grow up folks. This whole subject is soooooo high school.

If you don't like it, start your own dang club and be as egalitarian and welcoming as you can be. There is more than enough mojo amongst the regular contributors and snipers here to get local officials to come to your meeting or get a little press.

If anyone truly believes that these guys "didn't realize" the implications of their little all-male, all-white group, then you're just as clueless as they claim to be. These guys know exactly what they're doing, and just because it's come to light now, don't think it won't be resurrected in some other format down the road. They can't resist the self-importance, drama and intrigue created by simply being a member of such an "exclusive" group.

"What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive" must have escaped the consciousness of these Elitists. And please... don't try to hand us the worn out "They don't mean nuthin' by it".

No matter how you slice it, or dice it, the whole thing about this still reminds me that it sounds like a "Star Chamber"

Fine. Then "Sex in the City" never appears on my TV again for the same reasons.

Good. I hated that damn show. So fracking materialistic it made me want to wretch. If a male dared to criticise "Sex in the City" in front of a female, they were "done" forever. More chance of getting a date with a woman they'd been honest about how they looked in an outfit.

Joe White, just as soon as you re-run history and create a United States of America that never had slavery and institutionalized racism, I will seriously consider your claim that the Congressional Black Caucus is superfluous and an "avowedly racist" organization.

I follow your "racism" schtick. It's the same nonsense that the Chief Justice flogs. Basically it goes like this: You take a country with a 300+ year-long foundation that includes slavery, genocide of the indigenous people, and a whole range of institutionalized bigotry. Then one day Uncle Sam proclaims, no more institutionalized discrimination. Anyone a wee bit skeptical that this proclamation will immediately usher in a Bright New Day of Equality is thenceforth denounced as an "avowed racist".

BTW, what's with your use of "avowedly"? Do the CBC members take a blood oath denouncing Whitey or something? What is it exactly that they're avowing?

I am a member of a cigar club in Portland. All members are male, and I think most (maybe all) are lawyers. Don't know or care about anybody's sexual orientation, but other than possible "diversity credits" for maybe a couple GLBT members, I think we are white as snow. Our incomes probably average $100K/per person below the Junto guys (maybe not) but many folks are from the same suspect law firms.

We have had some elected folks come talk to us about tobacco tax issues and also I think about alcohol tax issues, since single malt scotch is our 2nd favorite vice.

I am not a political type, but am very liberal. I am not clear what to do here. Find women and people of color who want to smoke Macanudos? Disband?

Greg D: yer a rich guy. Wanna date?

I'm glad Steve N. saw for himself just how easy it would be to become a self-serving cabal. Good for him to take the lesson to heart. Maybe his mea culpa was a public opinion move? I realize that could be true, of course. But my preference is to believe he really saw it, got it. Great. That's what Stepping Up is about in leadership.

Getting the bejeezus scared out of you, and then being real enough to report what you saw.

Steve N, how come you have not said a word since then? I'm a little disappointed that you launched that Good Move, and have not engaged the conversation since.

All of politics everywhere is done by backroom dealing. Anyone who thinks that the big decisions are made under scrutiny of the pubic eye has been seriously misled.

The reigning paradigm in politics is to decide things in secret. Our current political machine - Dems included - believe that this cannot be any other way. The arguments that politicians present to the general public are so dumbed down and oversimplified that they are useless for the crafting of real policy. Furthermore, the real policy is often at apparent odds with the rhetoric, necessitating the careful control of the message.

Speaking of which, if you've ever heard of "message control", "regulatory capture", or the "kinsley gaffe" you should understand the consequence of the very existence of these terms.

Everyone knows these rich white guys have no right to gather and discuss politics on their own without inviting women and minorities. It's that simple.

I am waiting to see when the leaders of this group will be prosecuted for this. But so far, only silence from the DA's office. Why is this? What does it take to get justice around here?

Give a rest Joe. Disgruntlement over the loss of entitlement does not look pretty on anyone.

Whatever, rw.

I've never been rich, or close to it. And I'm not envious of those that are. I am glad for them.

I've never been part of an 'inner circle'. And I'm not intimidated by them or their supposed 'clout'.

I have another complaint with the Junto-Gate group. While I'm male, I'm only part white (a mongrel like our president), which alone would probably prevent me from being part of this group. But I would be excluded anyway for reasons of class and having the nerve to speak truth to power. The "environmentalists" in this group were and are paid by Portland's elite, especially 1000 Friends of Oregon and Metro, to fight against the Columbia Gorge getting the National Park System protection given ALL similar landscapes in the country. Instead, they support the "Friends" of the Gorge (FOG) legislative approach, which is the worst failure in national parks history (and was primarily written by a Stoel Rives attorney without any input from parks experts).

The Junto crowd thus gets to meet with the likes of Rep. Earl Blumenauer on the future of the Gorge, but we locals who started the Columbia Gorge National Scenic Area campaign, including Columbia Gorge Audubon, are literally banned from these meetings on our home because we're poor, rural activists. In fact, FOG's founder informed me that, even though I started the Gorge-protection campaign and produced the definitive book on the Gorge, I could not even talk to her group because I'm "too inferior a person to be allowed to take part in politics." Gender and race aside, the Junto members I've dealt with don't believe that my non-establishment ilk should be allowed to take part in politics, that they know much better than us what's best for our home. (And get paid well to believe that and to disfranchise us.)

<h2>As per the post above, may one rest one's case?</h2>