Summer 2024 Editorial

The reality we face in our coming election this year is much like we have seen before -- only more so. Corruption has overtaken our official parties and their mass media machines, now fully run by a corporate/military consortium. This election pits center-right against hard right sadly, without a viable alternative.

At this crucial moment in our history, amid mounting atrocities, spreading war, and expanding climate catastrophe, we are presented with a predetermined choice. Either brutal, bigoted fascism and national catastrophe or arrogant aggressive empire, war and likely nuclear annihilation. Both candidates intend to continue arming Israel's genocide in Palestine in spite of majority opinion, international law, and growing protests.

On the positive side, labor activism continues to grow to win and to gain political influence. The Democrats, at least, support the Pro Act and labor laws, as well as defending reproductive freedom, Social Security, Medicare and benefits that help our children. Though we make no endorsement, we, as workers, must act in our own best interest, continuing to push for peace, economic justice and defending our right and ability to do so.

Climate and its inseparability from the damage of war are the sub-theme of our summer issue. Poems by Royal Rhodes, Jonathan Andersen, Emily Berry and Mary Franke confront the horrors of war that weigh on us like a suffocating burden. We have poems and prose about the crushing degradation of the workplace as well as description of work we take pride in.

Here, at what may be the end of history as we have known it, we have poems celebrating the Earth, of which we are a part. We have poems calling for peace. Without peace we all suffer, spiritually, ecologically and economically. Our taxes are spent on weapons to kill others rather than on addressing our most basic needs. Weapons proliferate here in this most violent of countries. Police murders, mass shootings, school shootings and random murders happen continuously. None of us are safe from the scourges of poverty or weapons which inundate our society. Chris Butters and Stewart Acuff close this issue with poems voicing our experience and frustration with corrupt party politics and our need to move beyond them.

Like this journal, they are not attached to a corporate political party but to the struggle for working class liberation and for authentic participatory democracy. Until we achieve that, we must work to best effect the system we have in our own defense while building the next system beneath it.

This requires breaking with official narratives, building militant working class consciousness, cooperative businesses and communities, understanding that, as with our symbiotic biosphere, every thing is connected. We are connected to and interdependent on each other and on all Earth's myriad life forms. An understanding of this truth is vital in the shaping of a free and livable future. No matter who comes to power this fall, or how, we must be there for each other. We must struggle on and struggle forward to abolish the blood-soaked tyranny of corporate rule -- and we will.

This journal serves not only to connect us but as needed outreach to our class brothers and sisters. Consider passing this issue on or leaving it where others will find it. Consider becoming a Partisan supporter with extra copies to distribute, (see back inside cover). As the holiday season approaches, consider buying a subscription for someone who might benefit; an affordable gift that will keep giving. As ever, we remain grateful for your writing and your much needed support.