Chicago’s capitalism, a health hazard

Capitalism will never be able to guarantee an acceptable level of health for the overwhelming majority of the working class. By transforming essential medical services like prescription drugs and surgery into commodities to buy and sell for profit, the capitalist bosses who run healthcare ensure that if workers and their families can’t pay, disease, disability, and death are the common consequences.
The city of Chicago, despite having a booming health care industry valued close to $70 billion, has led the way in using racist attacks as the cutting edge to decrease the overall health of workers across the region.  From racist police murder to the closure of health care facilities that serve mostly Black and immigrant workers, the city has mirrored the overall trend of capitalism in denying even a remotely healthy existence to an increasing number of our class.

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PLP fights fascism, builds communists

LOS ANGELES, July 14—The Progressive Labor Party (PLP) strengthened its ranks against fascism at this year’s Summer Project. The theme was “Fighting Fascism in all its Forms.” A PLP Summer Project is an opportunity for comrades and friends from around the world to unite for intense political work in support of existing struggles to build communist understanding and PLP (see first-hand accounts on page 6).
We began with a lively orientation where we learned about the week ahead of us. Our first reading was the foreword to German communist Karl Billinger’s Fatherland (1935). The foreword clearly states that we have two choices: following the road to fascism or fighting for communism. After team building activities and icebreakers, we made posters and chant sheets for the different antiracist actions planned for later in the week. We concluded our first day with a communist barbecue and card games. At every turn, collectivity was at work.

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On the job report No safety net for workers under capitalism

As I began my training for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) as a track worker, there has been a lot of safety talk at orientation and training. The indoctrination has begun, and the first order of business is making sure that workers know safety is our responsibility, and ours alone.

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Thousands shut down highway for gun reform— To end violence, shut down capitalism

 CHICAGO, July 7—Today, 3,000 people shut down the main Chicago expressway, the Dan Ryan. They challenged the racist myth that Black and Latin youth responsible for high gun violence in their communities. It’s actually mass unemployment and school closings, symtoms of capitalist inequality, that lead to gun violence.
Chicago Strong, a youth group tied to a local Catholic Church, led the march. It was an inspiring day for communists in PLP. We were present with our mass organizations and we distributed hundreds of CHALLENGEs.

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Puerto Rico: Workers occupy school, resist bosses’ state

“Who has the power? Grandmothers have the power!” So spoke one of the grandmothers occupying a public school in Toa Baja. Parents and teachers have been camping out at the school daily to ensure that

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Obama promotes U.S. imperialist order

Obama has a proposal for the Democratic Party and for the imperialist wing of the U.S. ruling class. He laid it out in a “lecture” to a crowd of 15,000 supporters in Johannesburg, South Africa on the 100th anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s birth. Obama’s plan involves stopping Trumpism (though Trump is never named) and restoring the liberal world order dominated by the U. S. rulers.
Obama starts by observing that in 1918 when Mandela was born colonialism was alive and well, with the great powers mobilizing mass racist sentiment in service of imperial expansion and rivalry.  Of course, he overlooks the world-shaking Bolshevik Revolution where the communist-led working class took power in Russia and disrupted the imperialist world order. 

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Capitalism sinks by the Bay

San Francisco, CA—Capitalism cannot and will not provide adequate housing for the working class. In the ferociously gentrified San Francisco Bay Area, where the median price of a single-family home now exceeds $1.6 million (sf.curbed.com, 4/5), more than seven thousand people are homeless (San Francisco Chronicle, 6/28).  With an acute shortage of shelter beds, the number of homeless camps has exploded. Thousands—including families with children—are living in cars, tents, parks, abandoned buildings, outside bus stations, or in the streets.

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Mexico: AMLO will build fascism and hedge on U.S. imperialism

Mexico’s President-Elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (a.k.a. “AMLO”) represents a significant step toward fascism. His July 1 landslide victory was forged by a capitalist coalition seeking to impose greater discipline on a famously corrupt ruling class. His fake-leftist campaign misled millions into an electoral process that justifies massive inequality and daily attacks on workers and students.

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Families Belong Together March SMASH RACIST BORDERS

[The baby] “continued to cry when we got home and would hold on to my leg and would not let me go…When I took off his clothes, he was full of dirt and lice. It seemed like they had not bathed him the 85 days he was away from us. [my son] is not the same since we were reunited. He does not separate from me. He cries when he does not see me ... he cries for fear of being alone.”
—Olivia Caceras (PBS News Hour 7/5).

NEW YORK CITY, June 30—Rage at stories like Olivia’s boiled over today as a crowd of 30,000 flowed across the Brooklyn Bridge. While bosses’ segregated schools enforce racism and preach passivity had closed for summer, a vigorous and integrated group of youngsters, some of them new members of Progressive Labor Party, joined the communist contingent at the Families Belong Together march. PLP infused communist ideas of no borders and rejection of the Republicrats into the march against family separation at the southern border.

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Beat back the KKK—Antiracists win the day!

ANAHEIM, CA, July 9—The Anaheim 3, who stood up to Ku Klux Klan in February 2016, won the day in court this morning! The injustice system was forced to back down.

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