On July 9th, the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR), a longstanding reformist organization, published a statement responding to recent social media drama concerning Alderman Byron Sigcho Lopez and various leftist organizations and NGOs. Behind Enemy Lines is replying to that arrogant statement, “A Call to the Movement: Defend our gains won through struggle, and defend the elected officials who ally with us,” not because we expect CAARPR to engage in a good-faith discussion or debate, but because that statement clarifies and crystallizes the muddle-headed thinking and careerist opportunism that has led CAARPR and its allies to play such a large role in running cover for Brandon Johnson and fooling well-intentioned people along with them.

Brandon Johnson might be an “ally to the movements,” giving CAARPR and assorted leftists and NGOs access to jobs, the halls of power, and permits for portable toilets, but his administration has been nothing short of disastrous for the masses of people. Johnson’s mishandling of the influx of migrants involved warehousing human beings in conditions so unsanitary that 5-year-old Jean Carlos Martinez Rivero died without access to proper medical care. Johnson, who ran for mayor, making a point to equate anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism and denounce the BDS movement, has continued to, in action, oppose protest for Palestine. Johnson has followed the absolutely typical Democratic party playbook, occasionally making rhetorically progressive statements, while in action, enforcing the reactionary status quo.

While casting a vote for a non-binding city council ceasefire resolution (that CAARPR is still celebrating him for), Johnson’s police force and his hand-picked CPD superintendent have enforced a regime of political repression against Palestine protesters. Every protest for Palestine (including those led by Johnson’s allies who work hand in hand with the CPD) is met by phalanxes of CPD to surveil, harass, and repress them. The protests that attempt to go beyond business-as-usual have been met with even more extreme brutality and arrests. While Johnson was oh-so-daringly calling for a ceasefire, his police were brutalizing the student encampments at DePaul and SAIC. By the time Johnson came around to calling the genocide a genocide, he was getting ready to throw a party for the US backers of that genocide–the DNC. During the DNC, Johnson’s police occupied the west side of Chicago, unleashing a reign of terror against protesters, who were arbitrarily arrested, hit with batons, and even hospitalized. Following the convention, Johnson praised the “Constitutional policing” of the CPD, while prosecuting dozens of anti-genocide protesters, all while hitting the campaign trail for Killer Kamala. With friends like these, who needs enemies?

In 2025, despite Chicago’s sanctuary city laws, there’s clear evidence of CPD collaboration with ICE, who are openly allowed to terrorize immigrants in Chicago, including warrantless kidnappings of people in immigration court. CPD was present and on the scene in response to an ICE 911 call when ICE agents brutalized protesters, including Chicago elected officials, and did nothing to intervene, much less actually arrest the ICE thugs. For all Johnson’s anti-Trump bloviating, why hasn’t he actually taken action to prevent ICE kidnappings in Chicago: ordering that any ICE agent trying to arrest someone without a judicial warrant would themselves be arrested?

Johnson, with the support of organizations like CAARPR, ran a campaign promising to rein in the CPD, and since the DNC has repeatedly bragged about how Chicago is practicing “Constitutional policing.” In 2025, the CPD has already killed six people, including Timothy Glaze, a 58-year-old man experiencing a mental health crisis, and 19-year-old Nathaniel Fejerang, targeted and murdered by a CPD tactical team. Johnson has never said the name Timothy Glaze or Nathaniel Fejerang in public. With friends like these, CAARPR, as an aside, has never issued a single statement or social media post about the CPD murder of Fejerang; a stunning silence.

All of this paints a picture of business as usual. Imagine the impact it would have had if Johnson had chosen to back up NGO workshop rhetoric with action: if he had refused to host the DNC in the midst of a genocide, and sent Genocide Joe and Killer Kamala packing? What if he came out tomorrow and said that he would no longer waste the city’s money having the CPD pigs protect the Israeli consulate? For all that Johnson and his supporters blather on about “Investing in people,” how much money was spent having police repress protests, holding dozens of protesters overnight (completely unnecessarily), and spending months trying and failing to prosecute the protesters? How much money has been spent just sending the CPD to harass and repress Behind Enemy Lines events alone?

As anti-imperialists, we don’t have a stake in the grifter-on-grifter violence between the PSL (Protesting Safely behind police Lines) and Pilsen Alliance that CAARPR is injecting itself into. But we have a large stake in pointing out that groups like CAARPR have been working overtime to carry water for people like Brandon Johnson, working overtime to divert the anger of the masses back into the rotten confines of the imperialist system, and to keep protests themselves from ever turning into genuine resistance. And we’ve seen too many well-intentioned people believe that they need permission to do what they know is right: actually escalate, actually resist.

Tell no lies, claim no easy victories. Behind Enemy Lines, Anti-Imperialist Resistance