Fall Editorial

This issue comes out at the most exciting time since we began publishing our journal. In nearly every city across our country and many around the world, people are rising up and occupying the town squares. These protests are qualitatively different than any we have seen in recent history. The corporate media pretends to be puzzled, focusing on the lack of issue-based demands and leaders on one hand, and intent on smearing, discrediting, and destroying the movement on the other.
There are many issues involved, but the focus is on Wall Street and the mass realization of the division of wealth between the 1%, and the rest of us -- the 99%, and the connection of that amassed wealth to power. The formerly unspeakable truth is that the many seemingly insurmountable issues, from unemployment to endless war, to the plundered economy and the unfolding ecological crisis are like the branches on a tree. They are connected at the root by a strangling knot of corporate interests. As the signs at growing protests say, capitalism is the crisis. The basic demand of reclaiming a representative republic by separating wealth from power strikes at the heart of our corrupt corporate oligarchy. As Frederick Douglas said, "Power concedes nothing without a struggle." This life and death struggle is heating up and it will not go away. Your editors have been spending much time on the streets in the escalating struggle for working class democracy, as have many of you. We will continue to do so.
This collection, as ever, speaks from where we are. The poets in this issue are angry, we are desperate, and we are actively resisting. We know our class history and we know the players in this scam system. To paraphrase the great poet, Tom McGrath, we have discovered the grammar of the common good, we are speaking a language that can be understood. We are proud and elated to be a part of the paradigm shift that we hope is the dawning of a better world. We have nothing to lose but our chains.