DC Direct Action News

On the 15th of February, the progressive Jewish group IfNotNow DC protested at Trump Hotel against both the occupation of Palestine and the growing fascist and racist menace of Donald Trump. At almost the same time American Muslims for Palestine held a similar protest at the White House. Shortly after dark IfNotNow DC marched to the White House to join the other protest on essentially the same issues. At one point they held and blocked 15th st by the Penn Ave entrance to the White House area.

One of the issue raised at the White House protest by American Muslims for Palestine was the proposal by Trump to move the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This inflammatory proposal has long been blocked by fears that it would lead to another general Middle East war, and in fact some groups have warned that it would be considered a declaration of war. Trump does not seem to listen to such warnings.

There was yet another march and some street blockades earlier in the day. All of these protests were triggered by the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin (“Bibi”) Nehtanyahu to the White House and his meeting with Donald Trump. Bibi and Trump reportedly discussed the anti-African refugee wall on Israel’s southern border as a prototype for Trump’s proposed wall on the Mexican border.

IfNotNow DC condemned Donald Trump for his connections to the “alt-right” neo-Nazis, who are of course often openly anti-Semitic. Speakers reminded everyone that the kind of hate Trump is peddliing against Muslims and Latinos usually comes for the Jews sooner or later. One speaker warned that some of the “evangelican Christian Zionist” groups who loudly support Israel do so because they want to get all Jews to emigrate to Israel, essentially to self-deport from the US.

Video highlights of the rally and street theater at Trump Hotel plus the departure of the march

Tearing apart a symbolic wall against both the Apartheid Wall in Israel and Trump’s planned wall

Marchers turn their backs on Trump Hotel and head to the White House

The march on Penn Ave

The intersection of 15th and Penn shut down by the march (photo by Libi)

On the 13th of February, hundreds rallied outside the Rayburn building, then dispersed and traveled on their own to an even bigger meeting in the Atlas Theater against ugly Congressional assaults on DC home rule. So many people showed up at the Atlas theater to organize that the event overflowed into a neighboring bar. One twitter poster estimated 1,500 people showed up at the Atlas, though only hundreds were in the earlier rally. There was no march to the Atlas, the rally simply wrapped up at about 6PM to give people time to find their way over.

With their power and potentially their jobs on the line, Mayor Muriel Bowser and city officials participated in these events, raising a number of interesting political issues. Putting aside the “can it get worse” issue, it is a lot easier for DC voters to remove Muriel Bowser (as they did Adrien Fenty) than it is for DC voters to get rid of Jason Chaffitz, a House Repugnican from Utah who is turning his attention to micromanaging DC.

There remains the “how much worse can it get” question. Muriel Bowser is infamous both for her support of aggressive policing and for development. Again and again Black Lives Matter activists have confronted her over her demands for more cops, more searches, and more raids. Economic justice activists called her on the carpet for helping bring Wal-Mart to DC, forcing her to support at least a limited increase in the minimum wage.

The GOP vision for DC”s future would look like this: All the worst from Muriel Bowser on policing, plus requiring DC police to check immigration status and letting ICE fish for migrants in DC courts and jail. On development probably little would change except that support for racial displacement might become explicit and open, depending on how much influence the alt-right is able to maintain in Congress. For anyone daring to speak out, to step out of line in the slightest, felony charges and aggressive prosecution would become the norm.

It is almost certain that the existing Federal control of DC’s prosecutors (who are US Attorneys) has played a role in the current witch-hunt against protesters. Already we have seen felony charges filed against Greenpeace activists for nothing more than hanging a “resist” banner from a crane. These charges were filed by US Attorneys who answer to Trump, not to Bowser.

It is thus in both the strategic interests of progressives and the direct security interests of those who are not white and wealthy that the GOP offensives against DC home rule end in failure. It is of immediate importance that the current GOP efforts to forbid DC from using its own tax money to subsidize abortions for low income women be defeated. The same for defeating Congressional efforts to overturn DC’s “Death with Dignity” act for the terminally ill. The effort to overturn gun laws is another matter: while it it folly to disarm the people in the face of a potential dictatorship, existing Federal gun laws combined with wholesale criminalization of Black and Brown youth mean the main beneficiaries of overturning the city laws will be upscale white “New Washingtonians,” the very people who could benefit from rather than be harmed by an explicit white nationalist dictatorship. So many people of color have been railroaded by the US Attorney’s office that cops would likely regard any African-American with an openly carried firearm as probable cause to assume an ilegally-owned weapon on account of prior convictions.

Beyond any of those issues there is the danger that any headway gained by the GOP, Trump, and that Pepe the frog-kissing alt-right against DC home rule will only whet their appetite for more as they seek to turn DC into a laboratory for far-right social engineeering experiments. No ground can be given, not a step back.

Video by Councilmember Kenyon McDuffies Twitter-telling Jason Chaffitz to Go back to Utah

Photo by “Raisin Invasion”

On the 10th of February, False President Trump’s Secretary of Education Betsy Devos attempted to enter a DC Middle School. She was turned away by Black Lives Matter activists. During this event, her SUV ran over one activist’s foot. That activist was later arrested, the Washington Examiner reports one arrest for “assaulting a police officer” a charge often filed to cover up police-inflicted injuries.

The same article also claims MPD is “investigating” whether Betsy Devos herself was assaulted. This even though it was her vehicle that had a tire sitting on a protester’s foot, not the other way around. In other words, the witch-hunt continues against DC’s progressive community.

Video clip from longer ABC News video showing protester’s foot run over by Betsy DeVos SUV

Betsy Devo’s SUV has its front right tire on the foot of the activist in the cap

On the 11th of February, migrants and their supporters marched on the White House against the wave of immigration raids that have swept several states this weekend. The DC march was completed without incident, but a similar march in New York City was assaulted by police and several marchers there were arrested after taking to the streets.

Fuhrer Trump has begun his pogrom against Latino migrants just as he said he would. At the moment Trump is claiming that only migrants with police records are being targetted, but the charges involved literally run the gamut from murder all the day down to jaywalking. This is how it always starts. If this is not stopped, Trump has announced that even legal immigrants may eventually be targetted and that up to 8 million people may face deportation.

Yesterday they came for the Muslims but tens of thousand of people spoke up and Federal judges listened. Today they come for the Latino community-will Federal judges and the people speak up again, or will the False President’s reign of terror spread unchecked?

Video of the DC march originally uploaded to Twitter by Nancy Trevino

photo by Collin Rhees

Still from Nancy Trevino’s video

On the 8th of February, the Washington, DC LGBTQ Welcoming Committee held a silent solidarity vigil at the Islamic Center, then marched up Mass Ave to deliver a valentine to the home of VP Mike Pence. Meanwhile, a Queer Women’s group held a second protest at the home of GOP Sen Majority leader Mitch McConnell.

HD 720p video of march on, dance party at, and attempted Valentine delivery to Mike Pence’s house

The Queer Dance Party at the US Naval Observatory, home of VP Mike Pence

The protest at Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell’s home by a Queer women’s group

On the 8th of February, hundreds of water protectors showed up at an emergency protest at the White House in response to the US Army Corps of Engineers decision to offer a 30 year easement for the Dakota Access Pipeline. Similar protests were held all over Turtle Island.

Water protectors and military veterans are returning to front-line positions in Standing Rock despite warnings from the Indigenous Environmental Network (EIN) that “Police violence seems inevitable and mass casualties are very likely. ” EIN has further warned that only a return to the now-cancelled Environmental Impact Statement process is likely to keep the peace, and that the blood of anyone who lays down his or her life to defend Standing Rock is on the hands of Donald Trump.

There are fears of another Wounded Knee, but with the very survival of Standing Rock on the line people are going to the front anyway. People have made sacrifices like this before fighting fascism, notably between 1939 and 1945 but also in all the “Indian Wars” ever fought to defend this continent from colonization and settler aggression.

2nd photo is by Collin Rees

On the 6th of February, opponents of Trump’s Secretary of Education nominee Betsy Devos gathered in Upper Senate Park. Inside, the Senate was split 50-50, meaning Mike Pence would get to cast the time-breaker favoring confirmation. One more vote though and the nomination fails. Democrats refused to yield the floor, and the GOP kept the Senate in session. vowing to continue night and day.

Betsy Devos was said by protesters to have “not done her homework” and to be a completely unfit nominee for Secretary of Education. A speaker on behalf of transgender speakers worried that even anti-bullying programs that save lives would be scrapped along with civil rights protections for public school students.

Instead of supporting students such as transgender students who can face extremely difficult times, Betsy Devos is known as a supporter of privatizing public schools.

speaker on behalf of Transgender students says Betsy Devos “has not done her homework”