Tag: donald-trump

Trump’s Invasion of Portland

REPORT FROM WSA IN PORTLAND

It seems the saying is true, “There are decades where nothing happens, and weeks where decades happen.” This week, we are confident to say, is one of those weeks. President Trump, in his continued attacks against the liberty of the American people, has deployed several federal agents to Portland, Oregon. This is yet another attempt by President Trump to use federal agents to stiffle popular opposition to his administration. First, the President targeted Los Angeles to subdue the protests against his immigration policy. Then he took aim at Washington D.C. after the carjacking of Edward Coristine (better known by his online nickname “Big Balls”). Then he turned to Memphis to “[restore] law and order”. Now, he has shifted his focus to Portland.

It was only a matter of time before the president shifted his focus to the City of Roses. Portland was a famous hub of discontent after the murder of George Floyd, which President Trump tried suppressing in his first term. Besides that, Portland is the only major US city with members of the Democratic Socialists of America controlling one-third of the city council. While the electoral method is not and has never been a viable route to revolution, the success of the DSA in Portland is, to quote the New York Times, “[playing] an outsize role in a city where Republicans are an endangered species.” This socialist influence in Portland is especially relevant as a groundswell of progressive candidates have emerged across the country to challenge the capitalist establishment (including in fellow Pacific Northwest city Seattle). And for that, Trump has decided to send troops.

The president knows that people are growing tired of his administration, so he is trying to silence people through strength. If he can suppress Portland without resistance, it is another domino falling that will allow him to become like the dictators he has sought to emulate since his first term. But he is failing. On October 4, Trump-appointed judge Karin Immergut temporarily blocked Trump from sending troops to Portland. However, Trump is already searching for ways around this ruling. Most recently, he floated invoking the Insurrection Act to force troops into Portland. Beyond that, he has already deployed 300 National Guardsmen to Chicago. No matter how many judicial blocks, how many strongly worded letters, how many governments tell him “no,” Trump will always ignore them. The only way forward now is resistance. The people of Portland must take their city back.

To that end, there is hope. Protests have broken out against Trump and ICE, despite threat of injury and arrest. More demonstrations were held on October 7 to protest the Trump Administration’s continued funding of the genocide in Gaza, a march on the Portland ICE facility is scheduled for the 12th, as well as a second round of No Kings protests that are scheduled for the 18th. The people of Portland are fed up. They are not willing to stand idly by while fascists try to take their city from them, and it is our duty to stand beside them. But beyond that, we must work to foster revolutionary potential. We have been given a chance to fight and win true liberty, true equality, and true solidarity. We cannot let it pass us by.

If freedom is dear to you, if you are tired of the continued assaults on our rights, if you are angry at the injustice in the world, now is the time to fight. In any way that you can, you must defy Trump and his fascists. Protest, speak out, organize. Times may seem desperate, and it is normal to feel confused. It is normal to not know what happens next. It is normal to be afraid. But you cannot let fear keep you from action. We are living through the passing of greed, of hateful men who fear the progress of society. But their hatred is not unstoppable. Their rule is not unstoppable. Because so long as humans can think for themselves, tyranny will falter. It will stumble and show its hand. And when it does that, its days are numbered.

Earliest Days of This Trump Attack  

By Philly Metro and Greater Chicago WSA 

Among many reports and conversations at our November 40th Anniversary Congress, two that stand out are a  renewed excitement about working-class journalism, and how our WSA Branches are trying to orient our work to our worksites and co-workers. 

What this has meant in these early days of the Trump-Musk Attacks? 

We can’t speak for all WSA members, but many of us have felt depressed and in shock, aware that our families are directly vulnerable.

In contrast to 2016, where the resistance to Trump was immediately galvanizing, there has been a cultural sea-change. We certainly feel part of this ‘just-getting-on-our-feet-now’ period.

Speaking for only some in our branches, these early months have felt like a tornado watch. We keep looking out our window to see how close the danger is. There has been a noticeable pause on our public national level projects as this Trump-Musk attack is unfolding, but  as we write this, we are getting back to our work! 

As regards our worksites, one of the immediate responses has been to the scapegoating ICE raids some of our most at-risk families have been living in terror at the haphazard nature of these assaults. 

We’ve been actively working on connecting our coworkers with community organizations, putting out flyers with contact info for immigrant rights hotlines, helping with outreach for multilingual trainings. 

Locally, we’ve also been helping to organize an upcoming protest in coalition with local activists. While we are not reformists, we bring our workforce concerns and syndicalist analysis as best we can, trying to build momentum for any public opportunity to say “NO!” to this time of crisis. 

As anarcha-syndicalists we are clear as daylight that we use the word ‘democracy’ to mean not bourgeois democracy where the competing elites vie for our votes to get power. We will resist Trump and Musk, but this does not mean we were signed up to support what would have been a Biden-Harris regime of business as usual and genocide.  We are clear that by standing up for democracy we mean a worker’s democracy, and the classless, non-hierarchical society which alone can make the word ‘democracy’ meaningful.  But right now we are focusing on our commonality with at-risk co-workers and others, with Trump voters who suddenly realize their jobs & benefits are now in jeopardy.

While we are few and our branches are small, it feels the best way for us to cope is to stay engaged. While we’ve been slow to get back to journalism, it’s time to do just that. Members are saying it’s time for us to have our WSA National Labor Committee soon, and we will!

As a way back to working-class journalism, today during work hours we did what we meant to do, which was to talk with WSA members and comrades, and try to get their thoughts into print.

As a start today, at 10 am, while on the clock, we talked on the phone with our comrade Greg Mcgee:

“What we should do is have a dialogue with our fellow workers, but make sure we use facts. Use radical websites talking about Russian deserters and Ukrainian deserters refusing to fight. Imagine together if they called the soldiers and no one showed up! The wars would stop.”

“With all this rampant fascist nationalism happening now, the bigotry, anti-semitism, racism, right now, imagine replacing the word “immigrant” with “Jew”, and discuss the fascist past. We know that Mussolini and General Franco were fascists, we really don’t know what Trump and Musk are. LThey may just be narcissists, but I think we need to draw our fellow workers’ attention to the historical past of fascism, how this is looking worse and worse. Again, the scapegoat is immigrants right now; remember what happened in Nazi Germany: Right now it is much much less far-fetched thinking it could happen here. We have to remember what happened to Japanese people in the U.S. in WWII, where people were rounded up and put in concentration camps.”

“This is the time for meetings with our fellow workers at our places of employment; this is the time to work on our common ground, the threat that’s facing us now.”

From Lana –  by phone during work hours, an hour later:

“It’s so multi-faceted, this outright chainsaw to any social safety nets, and we absolutely know as the economy goes south, we in the working class are first in line for the economic consequences.  Isn’t this what we’ve been saying all along? That capitalism is evil because it uses us as fodder in so-called good times, and uses us as frontline fodder in any disaster? 

“I think this is the time for us as syndicalists to get on our feet and organize, to get our fellow workers involved as a group from our workplace in community resistance – it’s a wake-up call. Five-alarm fire, let’s get to it !” 

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