Chicago, February 2—More than 70 anti-racist students and community members converged on the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in opposition to the school’s speaking invitation to white supremacist Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former chief strategist.
Progressive Labor Party comrades were there to point out Bannon’s role in the context of rising fascism, and to offer revolutionary communist struggle as the only way to crush the capitalist system that creates racist scum like Bannon and his old boss.
Attack All Fascists, Head On
On the steps of the business school, leaders of various organizations emphasized that efforts against racism and sexism needed to go beyond the immediate struggle against Bannon. Speakers addressed the University of Chicago’s racist history of displacing surrounding residents through gentrification (see box).
PLP members held signs reading “Make Racists Afraid Again” and “No Free Speech for Racists” and joined in chants of “Say it loud, say it clear, fascists/Nazis are not welcome here.” About a dozen participants took CHALLENGE and the majority welcomed our presence in the march and rally.
One comrade approached a dozen fascists who were being protected by a line of kkkops across the street from the protest. This comrade went against the grain and sharply attacked their racism head-on. Our Party confronts racists because ignoring them will not aid us in our fight against the capitalist bosses’ increasing fascism. In fact, the liberal response of ignoring racist, fascist hate speech, in the name of some ludicrous “moral high ground,” has only led to more university appearances by gutter racist speakers nationwide, along with a sharp spike in violent crimes against Black, Arab, Latin, and Asian workers.
Capitalist ”Free Speech” Benefits Only the Bosses
University of Chicago President Robert Zimmer claims the institution stands for free speech for all. But when a group tried to deliver a petition to him opposing Bannon’s invitation, Zimmer showed a lot less interest in engaging with the petitioners than he had with Professor Luigi Zingales, the fascist collaborator who initiated the invitation. The racist capitalists back free speech only when it pits working-class people against one another and reinforces the rulers’ political agenda of dividing and exploiting the entire working class. Communists, on the other hand, value only speech that has scientific and objective merit, and is used to support the interests of the international working class.
Sharpening Future Struggle
After a brief march that included taking over an intersection, the group met at a local church to strategize plans for the next action. PLP comrades called for encircling and confronting racist counter-protesters at any future action. We also proposed that the march continue to take place in low-income, working-class Black neighborhoods on the periphery of this elite university, rather than downtown. A comrade joined other attendees in pointing out the importance of focusing the protests on the Black and Latin working class, as these workers are the primary targets of the racist and sexist attacks that are provoked by fascist mouthpieces like Bannon. Although the anti-racist struggle needs to be able to engage workers in downtown Chicago as well, it was telling that some liberal organizers placed a higher priority on bringing the struggle to this wealthier area.
Going further, a veteran comrade stressed the potential worldwide effectiveness of stopping Bannon here. The comrade cited a 1985 PLP action at Northwestern University, where comrades threw red paint on Adolfo Calero, the murderous Nicaraguan Contra leader. This comrade also pointed out the inverse relationship between the strength of the anti-fascist movement and the eventual strength of the fascist state. As we prepare for revolution, we are saving the lives of millions of workers. What you do counts!
We also said the problem was much broader than Bannon or Trump, and that racist oppression worsens under liberals like Barack Obama. We must fight the entire capitalist system.
The Party will continue working with these students as we broaden our appeal to workers citywide to fight fascists like Bannon and the capitalist class that protects him.  Stay tuned!

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The Racist and Imperialist History of the University of Chicago

In 1857, the University’s founding endowment was donated by a notoriously cruel slave owner named Stephen A. Douglas. The ten acres of land from Douglas were drenched in the blood of Black slaves from Africa.
In the 1930s and 1940s, the University funded racially restrictive covenants which prevented  property sales to Black buyers. The Chicago Defender reported that “many of the real estate owners in that area refer to restrictive covenants as ‘the University of Chicago Agreement to get rid of Negroes.’”
The University was home to arch-imperialist economist Milton Friedman, whose deadly policies of neoliberal capitalism were taught to a generation of Chilean ruling-class agents. “The Chicago Boys,” as they were known, piloted Friedman’s policies during the fascist rule of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), when countless working-class lives were destroyed through political repression or widespread privatization of the economy (Nation, 9/21/16).
UC’s siege of gentrification and displacement remains relentless to this day—most recently in Woodlawn, a working-class Black neighborhood just south of the University. Breaking an understanding that it would not build south of 61st Street, the University is expanding by building a new charter school and the Obama Presidential Center, among other projects.
After 25 years of protests demanding a trauma center to serve the South Side, the University is finally opening a trauma center at the medical school. For years, many workers have died needlessly from this blatantly racist disregard for their lives (The Chicago Maroon, 9/15/17).

WASHINGTON, DC, January 23—For two hours a multiracial group of 50 Metro transit workers and supporters, including members of Progressive Labor Party, held a picket line in front of Northern Bus Garage in Washington, DC.   With chants of “Workers united will never be defeated!” and “If we don’t get it, Shut It Down!,” Amalgamated Transit Union 689 workers upped the ante in their contract struggle. Capitalism leaves workers no choice but to strike, even to keep gains that we had already won in the past, let alone to win new improvements. Only a communist system run by the working class would remove that necessity by ridding the world of bosses who profit from our labor.
The workers of the Metro Transit system have been without a union contract for over 18 months. Management wants to impose a three-year wage freeze, increase our contribution to our health insurance, and eliminate Metro’s contribution to pensions for new employees. They hope to get away with this outrage by relying on racism directed against the largely Black workforce. But many white workers are also affected, and multiracial unity can defeat this attempt.
The Washington regional transit system serves DC, Maryland, and Virginia and needs a major overhaul. Years of deferred maintenance have caused breakdowns, deadly derailments, and smoke incidents. The local governments refuse to tax the businesses that rely on transportation of their employees to pay for this maintenance, and instead cut workers’ wages and raise fares to make the working class pay.
The action at Northern Garage is the first in a series of coming actions to prepare the members to fight back. The traitorous union leadership has assured management that this action would not lead to a strike. But the picketing rank-and-file workers sent the opposite message, which is taking hold throughout the system.
Following the action, the workers debated whether to rely on local politicians to protect our interests (always a losing proposition) or to rely on ourselves, on other workers, and the riding public by organizing militant actions. PL’ers plan to increase the distribution of CHALLENGE among these groups to build the PLP at Metro and throughout the area. This will help answer this question in favor of a grassroots fightback and direct action. These are the building blocks of a revolutionary change to abolish capitalism and put the working class in the driver’s seat of a worldwide communist system.

BALTIMORE, January 10—Activists and the family of Tyrone West continue to see through the bosses’ attempted bribes as they held the 233rd West Wednesday rally. Held once a week without fail, ever since the police execution of Tyrone in July 2013, this week’s rally got an infusion of enthusiasm and energy from five dynamic members of a high school club.
Tonight’s protest was held right outside Northeast District – the police station at which Tyrone’s killers worked. One member of the student club kicked off the rally with a powerful mix of singing and spoken word. Later, after a strong speech by Tyrone’s sister, Tawanda Jones, two other members of the club gave their own heartfelt speeches. And just after the rally, club members did a high-energy, impromptu freestyle rap, condemning injustice and upholding Tyrone’s name.
Holding these rallies unflaggingly for 233 weeks is a big deal. When families and friends of a worker killed by the police fight back, the bosses work hard to try to quiet them down, even paying out money. The West family rejected a potentially large settlement from Baltimore City – except for a portion specifically targeted to the children and grandchildren of Tyrone. Accepting that deal would have required agreement with a gag order, stipulating that family members could no longer say anything publicly about the horrific police murder. Selflessly rejecting temptation, the family turned their backs on that payoff so they could continue to wage the long-term anti-racist struggle for police accountability.
One of the key lessons from this struggle is the need for long-term commitment to the struggle against racism, and against capitalism. Decades of Progressive Labor Party’s work with the high school club made it possible to give students this opportunity to participate in a fightback against racist kkkop murder.
The weekly participation of PLP in the West Wednesday rallies, and the regular distribution of CHALLENGE newspaper, has had a significant, positive influence on the ideas embraced by regular attendees. As many PLers have in past West Wednesdays, a PLer spoke this evening, condemning capitalism as the root of police terror. Police accountability under capitalism, whatever that might mean, is not enough for workers. The role of police in this system is to keep workers in line and to keep them from being able to fight back against the exploitative, murderous nature of this system. The police can’t be “fixed” to make them nicer—it’s their job to terrorize!
The students, participating in their first West Wednesday, thought the rally was terrific, and said they’d be back. One of the students, a ninth-grader, said that her life’s goal is to be a fighter. Each of the students took a copy of CHALLENGE to bring home, and there was talk of perhaps incorporating one week’s West Wednesday into the club’s spring concert.
The working class needs masses of young people with this energy, and all workers, to see through to the essence of this system and fight back to ultimately smash capitalism. There are ups and downs in the struggle, as there was in the fight against slavery, over a span of several hundred years. But if the working class remains committed for the long haul, we will win!

MEXICO—The approval of the national security law by both chambers of the legislature will enshrine the military’s role in law enforcement. This law, which was promoted by President Peña Nieto along with the consent of the Supreme Court, establishes the ability of the military to take over civilian law enforcement and exposes the power the capitalists have. It clearly shows we live in a dictatorship lead by oppressive billionaires who use democracy or fascism to guarantee the existence of their system of exploitation and profit.  
The law legalizes the military state imposed by Calderon when he was president. Solidifying the Mexican Army’s role as the frontline of fascism. “Since Mexico launched its “war on drugs” in 2006—with major deployments of the armed forces to fight organized crime—more than 100,000 people have been killed and more than 30,000 have gone missing. Homicide rates dropped in 2014 and 2015, but have climbed steadily since, with 2017 on track to be the deadliest year in Mexico in two decades”(Human Rights Watch 12/7/17).
On the imperialists interests in Mexico, Trump’s fuss at the beginning of his presidency about sending troops to Mexico to control the drug cartels and possible terrorist threats shows that the U.S. wants a more fascist control of the population, and to guarantee control of its backyard.  This has become more pressing to the U.S. bosses with the increased presence of is world arch rival China, which has more and more investments in Latin America.  
Even though there were some capitalists and their institutions, intellectuals, artists and human rights organizations, like the useless UN who opposed to the law, the government still approved it. But, the workers know the capitalist class needs its legal system to protect the bosses interests when the workers try to fight its abuses. The history of the military’s attacks on workers is long. For example: the mass murders in Tlatelolco in ’68 and El Halconazo in June 1971. The dirty war of the ‘70’s and ‘80’s. The systemic murder of dissident teachers from the CNTE union and militant PRD base members. The repression of the Zapatista communities. The massacres in Aguas Blancas and Acteal. The brutal repression of the Oxaca Comuna. The murders in Tlatlaya and Tanhuato. The Ayotzinapa students disappearance. The criminal repression in Nochixtlan.
Capitalism is a genocidal and murdering system. It is a dictatorship that uses different forms of violence against its workers, the violence mentioned above and the violence of inequality and misery.  The bosses will use their state apparatus, its laws and repressive forces to defend itself.  We can’t make a system like this one fulfill the needs of the working class, that is an illusion. We need a communist revolution to end this capitalist dictatorship of a minority over the whole population.   
One sector of the capitalist class, including many of its intellectuals and artists, believe that capitalism can function democratically, they trust that the system can be more fair, and they have convinced millions of workers. One of the leaders of these ideas is López Obrador.  But it is a scam, capitalist dictatorship has a two face mask, one is fascist, the other democratic, using each one according to its needs and class interests.  Behind the mask are the same class oppressors with their guns to our backs.
All electoral candidates defend capitalists interests; Jose Antonio Meade, Ricardo Anaya, López Obrador, Jaime Rodríguez “El Bronco” and Margarita Zavala.  Not one is going to end the profit system of exploitation, but they want us to believe that we have the power to decide who will govern us. Yet, in a system rigged against us, we are only free to choose the next oppressor.
There is a difference with Mari Chuy, the Indigenous Council’s candidate. Much of the support for her represents resistance of our class to capitalist oppression, but her candidacy is a reflection of the wrong line. Her candidacy represents support for the capitalist framework on elections, autonomy, and nationalism within the leadership of the Zapatista’s Army of National Liberation.  
During the debate on the new security law, many specialists and opposition leaders exposed how it violates the Constitution, but even in this exchange of ideas the fact that the bosses dictate the laws and modify them at will did not come up.  
One example of how laws are used is the energy reform law, approved along with several other reforms, it was the result of the work of the capitalist class since the De la Madrid presidency. The energy law, helped along over the years by even the most liberal administrations increased the ruling class’ control over the energy riches. While workers in Mexico suffered cuts in pay and a lengthening of the work week.
We have to fight against the National Security Law and all the injustices in the capitalist system.  We have to be prepared for what this law has in store for the working class and be prepared to keep fighting and build a communist movement that will end the oppressive and enslaving capitalist system with a communist society of social equality.