By Joan Sheperd
WASHINGTON — In mid-May, the Department of Justice announced that it is requesting the deployment of an additional 1,500 National Guard troops in anticipation of a “summer surge” of visitors to the city ahead of July 4. The proposed increase would bring the total number of National Guard personnel in the city to 5,000.
Since the initial deployment of federal troops to the city of Washington D.C. in November of last year, D.C. residents, especially in majority Black and Latino neighborhoods, face increased daily state terror in what may already be one of the most heavily militarized and policed locales in the world. National Guard troops have become a common spectacle on D.C. sidewalks, streets, and public transit. For residents of the city, they are a conspicuous reminder of the occupation of the place they call home, and a stark representation of the ruling class’s commitment to unrelenting class warfare against the masses, especially the deepest and most concentrated sections of the oppressed masses.
In addition to advancing the strategy of low-intensity warfare through psychological terror, the collaboration with local police was made more explicit by the U.S. Marshalls Service Director Gaydyaces Serralta’s claim that “High visibility presence reduces response time to crime, provides support to law enforcement on scene and keeps officers and civilians safe.” With this remark, Serralta, who also heads the “Safe and Beautiful Task Force,” illustrates the intended function of the National Guard presence in D.C. In addition to establishing a highly visual presence to instill fear, their purpose is to escalate the already severe daily terror in D.C. neighborhoods by directly aiding police.
This onslaught carried out through the military occupation of working-class neighborhoods in D.C. was already made blatantly obvious by the use of national guard troops to terrorize predominantly Black D.C. youth. Reality television personality Jeanine Piro, who now occupies the position of U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, announced the enforcement of a citywide youth curfew for the summer by punishing parents and youth alike as part of the regime’s plans for the summer.
These declarations of intent to further brutalize the working poor in D.C. coincide with the deteriorating infrastructure, healthcare, housing, education and employment opportunities as part of both longstanding austerity measures, and the inevitable result of the crises inherent in late stage capitalism, or imperialism. The gleefully transgressive fashion in which such unbridled attacks against the multinational working-class residents of the district are carried-out, are indicative of an increasing preference for a more naked, and grotesque style of class dictatorship. Through the use of more odious characters like Piro, it makes plain the ugly face of U.S. Imperialism for all to see. This is clearly indicative of increasing reactionization and rising fascism that tends to emerge when capital is in periods of profound crisis. The local conditions in Washington D.C. may serve as a microcosmic example of the struggle of the exploited and oppressed peoples against Imperialism abroad. The shared struggle against the principal enemy of the people of the world today is more apparent even in the heart of empire.
