Washington, D.C., September 6—Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members joined thousands of Black, Latin and white workers who gathered to protest the fascist federal government’s occupation of the District of Columbia. We marched to Freedom Plaza outside the Wilson Building, where Mayor Muriel Bowser collaborated with President Donald Trump to terrorize city residents. Worldwide capitalism is decaying by the minute. We’re witnessing genocides, worsening conditions, inflation, record displacement, violent kidnappings of migrant workers, climate change, and sharpening competition between the U.S. China, and Russia. The smaller domestic capitalists, those fronted by Trump, plan to use the D.C. occupation as a model for targeting Black, immigrant, and antiracist workers nationwide.The emerging U.S. federal police force—a hallmark of fascism, as evidenced by the Nazi regime in Germany—is a bipartisan creation, decades in the making.

This march demanded removal of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, aka the 21st century gestapo, and Park Police, an end to their racist profiling, and support for unhoused workers whose tents and possessions have been destroyed. Chanting “Down, Down with Occupation, Up Up with Liberation,”  D.C. residents, CASA, Free D.C., and anti-genocide protestors controlled the streets for a couple of hours. PLP further called for communism while managing a literature table and distributing over 200 CHALLENGES along with many more PLP flyers about ICE, public health and transit.   

ICE out of our trains!

In our conversations we highlighted our campaigns around the transit system, which is one of the forces that has the power to shut down the city. Many local struggles against ICE show the multiracial unity of the city but need the power of the workers in the subway, buses, electricity, water and communications to advance. We attacked WMATA (Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority) for running ads for the Border Patrol and using their transit police to help ICE at subway stations. When people asked what we could do, we urged them to contact WMATA customer service and plan to join us to testify and protest at the board meeting at the end of the month. Engaging with station managers, operators and other riders is necessary to build this campaign. We called for safety measures like workers on automated trains and free fares to stop attacks on drivers. Take funding from the deep pockets of the large businesses and entertainment centers that benefit from the transit system. Some local bus systems have eliminated fares already. Protestors were enthusiastic about our focus on transit and signed up to help out. 

Making connections

Some of us also went to a program at the University of the District of Columbia to meet “rising organizers” and explain about PLP and the need for revolution against capitalism. A lot of young people want to build a revolutionary movement to destroy fascism and change the world. We went home with over 45 contacts from the two events.

Fighting dead end revisionism

There are a number of fake left organizations that are fighting the occupation. They include open revisionists and social democrats. Most of the non-hardcore revisionists can be won to revolutionary politics. How do we do this?  Our strategy in D.C. is to strengthen our base among transit workers and win them to provide leadership to the rest of the working class. We say make them strike-ready because they have the leverage to shut down the city. Only a massive disruption can defeat fascism and win working class power!