Summer 2026 Editorial

This has been another hottest summer on record with floods, massive fires, drought, and deadly "heat domes." Ecological awareness and desperation are growing. The primary driver of accelerating planetary heating is war. Today, gas facilities, oil refineries and tankers are prime targets, again illustrating the inseparability of climate and war. Our corrupt military/corporate oligarchy is at present, led by the inept and the criminally insane. Wars of choice and extortionist threats have come to define U.S. foreign policy abroad. In our own country, civil rights, womens' rights, the vote, and our constitutionally enshrined rights are targeted along with our economic ability to live. Armed fascist goons unleashed on our streets continue their violence, abductions and murder, threatening us all with an emphasis on racist targeting of immigrants and the refugees our foreign policy and climate catastrophe continue to create.

The formerly unspeakable truth is that the many seemingly insurmountable issues we face, from economic difficulties to endless war, to biosphere destruction, are like the branches on a tree. They are connected at the root by a strangling knot of inseparable corporate interests. This truth is now being spoken by progressive candidates challenging the destructive fascism of corporate rule. They are being heard and are winning. Beyond corrupt leadership, corporate rule is increasingly being rejected.

We, living in what seem to be apocalyptic times, feel the pain up close, from the workplace to our ability to live. We are constantly assaulted by ever-worse news, higher costs, and the raving of racist, myopic, murderous, healthcare and climate denying corporate stooges of this overtly criminal leadership.

Poems in this issue speak to our struggles with the bad jobs we cling to for survival. They voice rage at the destruction of our country and world by and for a few ultra-wealthy, self-obsessed gangsters. A poem by George Fish speaks of a success won by labor, showing the better possibilities of united struggle. If there is any good news here it is that mounting working class anger at the realities of abuse, insults, crimes, and the personal harm of corporate rule -- of capitalism, has pushed people to fight back. The fears of socialism and an attempted revival of anti-Communist McCarthyism being pushed by corporate tell us the ruling class is frightened They should be, as real issues overcome their cultivated divisions and build progressive unity.

People around the country and across the political spectrum are rising up against growing all-intrusive dictatorship using Flock cameras, data centers, data-mining and the overall threat of uncontrollable Artificial Intelligence.

As attacks on progressive media, not-for profits, and anything antifascist, anti corporate, antiwar or anti-genocide escalate, antifascist literature has been attacked and criminalized. Now more than ever, the outreach of our words is vitally important. We remain committed to publishing poetry and short stories that matter in building the progressive working class solidarity upon which turning back the monstrosity of corporate dictatorship depend.

Editorial Spring 2026

As Spring turns to Summer this issue is a reflection of our present. Our country, broken by utter corruption, is attacking us all based on racism, sexism, manufactured xenophobia and class. Beyond our borders, it is attacking and threatening countries not threatening us, attempting to usher in a new era of brutal colonialism. The plague of violent masked thugs continues with record funding. Concentration camps proliferate and ICE goons are now attacking and beating protesters, already labeled as "internal enemies."

Poets in this collection speak to the reality we all feel of fear, of depression, disgust and rage as living becomes more difficult and the future unravels before our eyes. A few poems speak to the changing of attitudes by government workers who didn't sign up for what is now being demanded of them. Other poems voice the frustration of rising unemployment and costs; of living in an imploding economy with the greatest wealth disparity in history. Our poems speak for teachers and students in a system being deconstructed by its government There are concerted efforts by the embedded corporate media and government to push jingoistic celebrations of patriotism around the anniversary of our nation's founding, even as our constitutional rights are being eviscerated and our history erased or rewritten. We are too enraged to fall for this garbage. We do not want parades with tanks and goose-steppers. We do not want de-jobbing, or de-education. We do not want endless war and genocide. We do not want the image and name of a president draped everywhere in dictator fashion.. We do not want roving thugs beating and kidnapping people and tearing families apart. We do not want intrusive cameras everywhere tied to a national insecurity network or our personal information stolen or abused. We felt much more reason for pride when our nation helped defeat the genocidal fascism of the Axis than we do with our own leadership arming genocide and declaring antifascists and protesters to be "terrorists."

What is needed is not shallow pseudo-patriotic hoopla. We need citizen solidarity beyond cultivated partisan division to overcome an increasingly aggressive and oppressive regime. A recent poll found over 90% of us wanting to ban the private and dark money that got us here from politics at all levels and a return to constitutional governance and human rights. This issue could be a uniting and empowering goal which has truly revolutionary potential. Abolishing corporate rule should be our primary focus and it is becoming a central issue for progressives.

If there is anything positive here, it is that the monstrosity of this ugly, shortsighted fascist misleadership has exposed the corporatocracy for what it is, radicalizing a growing majority in opposition beyond Trump himself. We see this in growing activism and the election of fighting progressives in primaries across the country, much to the discomfort of corporate politicians and their wealthy (and foreign) backers. Our national rage is reaching critical mass. Together we reject and stand against this dangerously insane administration, foisted on us by a corporate-military junta. As this and other collections continue to show, it's not just you or me. Together, we are the majority and, when united, we have the power to take our country not back, but forward.

Winter 2025-26 Editorial

What can poets write in times like these? As we go to press with this collection, our leadership, now inseparable from Israel's, is illegally bombing Iran in a spreading nightmare of mass murder and destruction involving a growing number of countries and likely to go nuclear. As we have stated in every Summer issue for decades, war and its climate impact are inseparable. In this one, oil, gas and nuclear facilities along with oil tankers are prime targets.

As more than one poet, has said, every day seems to bring a new horror. This criminal administration wreaking havoc on the world and on all of us at home is the inevitable result of the corruption of corporate, CIA, and billionaire dominance; of the influence of private wealth which has undermined public safety, foreign policy, media, and any semblance of a deomcratic citizen- representative republic.

Our working-class faces rising prices on rents, groceries, gas, and medicine. We are increasingly facing replacement by A.I., robotics or of being abducted by ICE agents or killed in mass shootings. Recently Daniel Sanchez, in response to a demonstration outside the Prairieland ICE detention facility in Alvarado Texas, was arrested and found guilty of terrorism for possession of "radical antifascist literature," setting a dangerous precedent. This is the country we are now living in. This understanding permeates this collection.

On the positive side, and also evident in these poems, are the growing number of citizens becoming active in standing against this assault on our country, people and world by a corporate fascist, blatantly criminal administration and its unelected cronies.

This is a telling moment for all of us. Many feel helpless. Some voice a desire driven by fear, disgust and helplessness to just withdraw -- as if that were possible beyond delusion given the intrusive reality. What we do now matters far more than what we say in the face of fascism. This foul and blatant administration has bared its ugly reality for all to see. Its popularity, even among its base -- misled for decades by disinformation and paranoid bigotry -- is in the pits. As the "No Kings" demonstrations increased labor actions, and the heroic mass resistance in Minneapolis and elsewhere show, We the People are coming together to defeat it.

That defeat must go beyond simply removing a criminal administration and holding it responsible for it crimes. People across the spectrum are sick to death of the corruption of greedy capitalists that harm us all for profit. Going back to a pre-Trump normality is not acceptable. People are increasingly ready for progressive politics and citizen first democracy. That requires the abolition of corporate rule and the banning of private money from politics at all levels. It requires an end to the monopoly of the partisan duopoly and its electoral college.

With his issue comes our annual fund drive, necessary to keep our collective voices in print. The past shows us the vital importance of progressive working class culture in shaping popular consciousness. There has never been a more important time for the outreach of progressive working class voices and culture. Your editors struggle to get by on inadequate, limited incomes, so we understand how hard times are. We more than appreciate your support as well as your brave and powerful words

Website Issues

Our website has been down because the host crashed but our journal is doing fine and has been mailed.We have set up a simpler version on Blogger for now and are continuing to work on it.

Autumn Editorial

Most of us, not refugees have never lived through times like these. Our cities and towns are terrorized by masked armed and empowered thugs. People, targeted by race, are being assaulted and disappeared to horrendous prisons in poor countries. We are now living in a growing surveillance state, monitored by ubiquitous cameras linked into a national security apparatus, by online tracking and by personal data breaches. In September, a new decree, (NSPM-7), stated that anyone standing against fascism, racism, sexism, capitalism, ICE, or official policy could be targeted as a terrorist. It is now official; we are, to echo Jefferson Airplane, all terrorists in the eyes of Amerika -- and proudly so.

This collection embodies our state of mind at this ugly juncture of history, amid the continuing daily assaults on our ability to live and on our sanity and tolerance. We are horrified. We are outraged. And we are active in building resistance and fightback in this time of monsters. Monsters are a recurring theme in this issue, along with poems railing at enforced poverty, and our enslavement to terrible insecure jobs. Our alienation as a class and society are a prevalent theme, from a review of Carson McCullers' "The Jockey" by Ali Shehzad Zaidi to poems by Gene Grabiner and Mitch Valente.

In response to an essay on music to empower our struggle by Andrew Slipp, suggestions keep coming. The Poem "Charlie's Angels" by Burton Raabe suggests Bob Marley's song "War" inspired by a speech against racism by Haile Selassie. Another suggestion was the music of Jesse Wells, much like Bob Dylan or Phil Ochs but contemporary and powerful, was made by Ayler Roskos. It is with great sadness that we note Ayler's death since our last issue, succumbing to his condition. He died young at 28 but lived a full, active and creative life. His poetry continues in this issue.

The imposed terror of ICE thugs is also a theme running throughout this issue as is the continuation of slavery by the courts and prisons. There are ongoing efforts in this increasingly stifling time to silence us through fear and intimidation. Speaking out, speaking truth that can unite us, and saying what needs to be said is more important than ever. Our traditional sub-theme for the autumn issue has been of coming together, as we do in these short days, with family and friends. That coming together and building of unity is our best way of overcoming continuing crimes and tragedies imposed by a small cabal of racists and corporate criminals empowered by and for corruption.

The recent and continuing elections of progressive candidates; Zohran Mamdani in New York, Katie Wilson in Seattle and others around the country, demonstrate that a majority of us are increasingly appalled by both maga Republicans and corporate Democrats. Building a broad front coalition for real progress against endless wars, sexist and racist oppression, toxic nationalism, ecocide, and corporate dictatorship has rarely been more possible. Trump, by in his hateful blather, public crimes, and continuing assault on our country, people, and world, is doing everything he can to help unite us against him. Together, we can push these sociopathic gangsters out and move toward building a sane and civilized working class democracy. We hope our journal adds to the struggle as outreach to build the necessary cultural consciousness of class solidarity out of our shared pain. We continue to be deeply grateful for those who speak out and who continue to send us poetry that matters.

Summer Editorial

As we complete 28 years of publishing, the corporate ruling class is going all out to impose the kind of brutal dictatorship on us that it has forced on other nations for decades. From Los Angeles and D.C. to Chicago, Memphis and likely coming to a city near you, the National Guard, combined with Trump's ICE goons are invading our streets and workplaces. They are brutally kidnapping and sometimes killing whomever they can racially profile. In some cases, as with the arrest of William Gimenez, a day laborer suing an off-duty cop working for Home Depot for violent assault, they are then targeted by ICE.

These ongoing assaults were just accelerated by the killing of a right-wing podcaster building a career on bigoted hyper-nationalism, suppression of free speech, and support of violence. Trump has been threatening as, so-called "extreme left, anyone opposing his monstrous corruption, his bigoted actions, or standing in support of climate sanity, worker's rights, peace, reproductive freedom, civil rights or public healthcare, since before his Madison Square rally tirade.

Working-class and democratic movements know from our own long experience that acts of violent direct action only serve the interests of the forces of hate, racism, intolerance, corporate interests and reaction. This killing by a young man, unable to discern reality from computer games, now provides Trump an excuse, a Horst Wessel moment; someone they can declare a holy martyr and use to justify the kind of brutal, bloody oppression we see in police-state dictatorships.

The poets in this issue focus on the oppressive reality of mindless labor and the dictatorship of bad managers and bosses we are all familiar with in the workplace. We have poems about the struggle of living in poverty amid price-gouging, the added costs of groceries, raised rents, and the decimation of safety-net programs on which lives depend. We are now a people under active assault by a criminal regime embodying record corruption and asserting vengeful, reactionary corporate dictatorship -- fascism unleashed.

Our summer issue focuses on the inseparability of war and climate destruction -- from the U.S. genocide of Palestinians to our recent attacks on Venezuela, and to the fires that have devastated California. War continues to be instigated against countries whose governments and resources the U.S. does not control. The continuing use of threats, false libels, and extortion as foreign policy are driving the rest of the world away from us and strengthening new blocs like BRICS and the Global South. The US reaction is to foment war for short-term gains and, under Trump, to defund climate policy, alternative energy, health programs and to criminalize dissent -- even as our continued existence depends on global cooperation on issues of climate and health.

This collection also focuses on our struggle for the necessary fightback from the workplace to national politics and the necessity of building a movement capable of defeating this fascist regime and the corporate empowerment at its root. Anyone paying attention to recent events is frightened of the coming onslaught. Know that we are the majority and that Americans will continue to resist. The threat we face must serve to unite and strengthen us in our struggle for a legitimate democracy and working class empowerment.

Spring Editorial

In the 28½ years we've been publishing, we've seen hard times and worse. These are the bleakest times most of us alive today have confronted. A plague of masked thugs are snatching people, mostly immigrants and people perceived to be immigrants, from their homes, from courts, from workplaces and off the streets sending them to foreign hellholes without due process or charges. This, combined with intentional dysfunction throughout our government and the cutting of public services puts our health, our ability to survive and our safety at risk.

People are defiant in growing numbers, protesting the criminal abuses emanating from a cabal of corporate gangsters. As we write this, the National Guard, and possibly the military, are waging brutal violence on those standing against ICE raids in LA. The illegitimate MAGA leadership has declared war not just on the refugees our country has created but on our working class, on Labor, and on any who dare to speak out. We've already seen attacks on those objecting to our arming of a genocide in Palestine. Now the brutality of bigoted fascism is unleashed against all who dare to exercise our constitutional right to object -- and object we must.

If the poets in our last issue were cursing mad, we are now depressed and outraged. In this issue we have a string of poems and prose related to the Blues, a carthartic music emerging from the oppressed. We've got the blues, feel stressed and angry. We despair. Our own class history informs us that our strength and our salvation are dependent upon our class unity. The corporate interests in power see us as disposable commodities and do everything they can to maintain our powerlessness with cultivated partisanship and cultural division. It's important for us to know our own history of class struggle and movement tactics. In that regard, two important books by labor organizers worth reading are Stewart Acuff's book "Playing Bigger Than You Are" and "No Power Greater, The Life & Times of George A. Meyers" by Tim Wheeler. These books are deep and personal histories of our working class struggles and our fighting Labor history. Your editors were fortunate to know George Meyers. His biography, from International Publishers, and the lessons from it are powerful and needed medicine in these increasingly oppressive times when knowing our strength and our history are so vital.

Though many of us are feeling smothered by the tight grip of the not so invisible hand, we must continue to be active and to speak out. We also must know that media and progressive venues are a prime target for MAGA repression: from universities, Public Broadcasting and news sources that don't toe the bigoted hyper-nationalist official line, to websites and magazines engendering progressive working class values that encourage active fightback, we are all on the defensive. We are grateful for the support we have received from readers. Given the economic and institutional difficulties we are facing, we hope that support will continue so all of us have a place our words can be published and seen.

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As we have written before, it is important to keep in mind when we are feeling crushed that it isn't just us. That we are the majority, and together we can defeat this imposed nightmare -- and we will.

Winter Editorial

As this issue goes to press, an overtly fascist cabal in power is actively dismantling our government, our hard won rights, and our public and environmental protections. Public workers, are being fired en masse. Our courts, weakened by decades of the erosion of right-wing appointments, are resisting some of these actions but the Musk/Trump team are ignoring rulings and attacking judges. What Trump, Musk and their corporate backers are doing is not new. Guatemalans, Salvadorans, Domincans, Indonesians, Chileans and many others have seen it before, point by point. The horror of those brutal dictatorships, most installed and backed by our country, are now coming home to plague us.

We saw the extortion unleashed on Ukraine's installed leader and the chainsaw wielding Musk, whose henchmen are now focused on slashing Social Security, even as another $800 Billion is handed to the Pentagon. Our economy is being purposefully crashed so a few billionaires, as happened in 2008, can profit off of a crisis they created at our expense.

We know they are coming for us and we are as enraged as we are frightened. In typesetting this issue, We note a proliferation of expletives. Working class writing often evokes our class mood and these poets are pissed! Our anger is reaching levels not seen since the Great Depression when it threatened revolution resulting in gains extracted by organized struggle. We need to relearn the organizing tactics of that era. We are also witnessing a great rise in resistance. At angry town halls across the country. Republican politicians are cursed at and shouted down by growing protests against pending cuts to vital programs and illegal arrests of those such as that of Mahmoud Khalil, for publicly opposing a genocide. We are seeing sweeping roundups of immigrants, and threats to any citizen or government branch standing in the way of dictatorship. Actions by organized labor are growing and must continue to do so. Beyond protests, we desperately need a progressive labor coalition, a strengthened movement, and a new anti-corporate party of our own. We know from experience that we cannot count on corporate Democrats to stand against oligarchy.

On sad notes, we've lost some long-time contributors and fine working class poets. Fred Voss of Long Beach, CA died in December. Fred, along with poet Bill Mohr, had organized numerous worker poetry readings. Fred had a big heart and a much needed vision. He could express it in poems that moved many. Though we can't confirm it, we think poet and longtime contributor Shirley Adelman, who suffered from cancer, has also likely died. Though they are sorely missed, their poems, printed in this issue, and the effect of their writing will live on. With this issue begins our annual fund drive. Though this journal is needed more than ever in these times of desperate escalating struggle, funds are at a low ebb. We too feel and understand the insecurity of impending collapse which stymies charitable giving. We hope to continue in print, but we cannot do it without your much appreciated support.

As we wade tremulously though the daily news and the hourly assaults upon us by this illegitimate fascist junta, we know that our response is building. Together, we can sweep them away and push toward greater progress than we might have otherwise had. We'll have to fight for it and we will - and >we are.

Fred Voss (1952-2025)

I just recieved news that one of our countries finest working class poets, Fred Voss has died. This is a terrible loss as Fred not only had a big heart and a vision much needed but that he could put it into poems that counld move us. You could smell the machine grease and feel the class love. A good write up by his nieghbor and fellow proletarian poet Bill Mohr.

The Earth and the Stars in the Palm of Our Hand

“Another day in paradise,”
a machinist says to me as he drops his time card into the time clock and the sun
rises over the San Gabriel mountains
and we laugh
it’s a pretty good job we have
considering how tough it is out there in so many other factories
in this era of the busted union and the beaten-down worker
but paradise?
and we walk away toward our machines ready for another 10 hours inside tin walls
as outside perfect blue waves roll onto black sand Hawaiian beaches
and billionaires raise martini glasses
sailing their yachts to Cancún
but I can’t help thinking
why not paradise
why not a job
where I feel like I did when I was 4
out in my father’s garage
joyously shaving a block of wood in his vise with his plane
as a pile of sweet-smelling wood shavings rose at my feet
and my father smiled down at me and we held
the earth and the stars in the palm of our hand
why not a job
joyous as one of these poems I write
a job where each turn of a wrench
each ring of a hammer makes my soul sing out glad for each drop of sweat
rolling down my back because the world has woken up and stopped worshiping money
and power and fame
and because presidents and kings and professors and popes and Buddhas and mystics
and watch repairmen and astrophysicists and waitresses and undertakers know
there is nothing more important than the strong grip and will of men
carving steel
like I do
nothing more important than Jorge muscling a drill through steel plate so he can send money
to his mother and sister living under a sacred mountain in Honduras
nothing more noble
than bread on the table and a steel cutter’s grandson
reaching for the moon and men
dropping time cards into time clocks and stepping up to their machines
like the sun
couldn’t rise
without them.

-- Fred Voss

Fall Editorial 2024

This issue emerges at a time of dread as we await the volcanic pustule of corruption and brutal class war to be unleashed in January by Trump and his dystopian wrecking crew. Now the wealthiest man on the planet threatens to further impoverish the poorest of us by attacking Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Our health is now further endangered by an anti-vax conspiracy theorist. Roundups of hardworking and super exploited immigrants are promised. So too are attacks on women, gay, transgender, truth-telling media and the perceived left, labeled "the enemy within."

We can sympathize with those who withheld their vote for a weak, war and genocide supporting candidate put forward by the Democrats. But our brothers and sisters who voted for Trump made a grave mistake we'll all pay for. As a working class journal dedicated to building class unity we eschew divisive finger-pointing and blame.

The massive reaction to the recent killing of the CEO of a deadly greed-driven company in a greed-driven industry shows that all of us object to being harmed by big business greed. It isn't just the insurance industry. We are daily poisoned, impoverished and exploited by the corporate dominance that has undermined our government. Our massive righteous anger twisted against us by corporate "think tanks" and media have led us here. In this common outpouring of rage, we see the possibility for change in sharing our truths. Many have been citing our nation's sordid past of slavery, genocide,sexism, and a plethora of global atrocities in leading to the present. Let us also remember that since this country's birth and even before, there have always been people and movements struggling for justice. From abolitionists and suffragettes to civil rights, labor and opposition to wars, we've had our victories and much progress has resulted.

Trump, in many ways is the epitome of a self absorbed CEO knowingly harming us for his own personal enrichment. But we will survive him. In times like these, our efforts as poets and as a journal are needed more than ever. We are proud to claim Trump's epithet of being the "enemy within" and are determined to continue together -- no matter what -- to say what needs to be said. Our entire effort is, first and foremost, perspective shaping. We understand the power of art, of poetry, to make complex issues understood and felt, to change attitudes and minds. We understand our class commonalties and who really threatens our health and well being. We understand that, putrid and dangerous as Trump and his MAGA fascists are, the problem is systemic and that he is a useful tool funded by and for billionaires and noxious corporations. In spite of his 2% margin of victory in the popular vote, we should take heart that fascism is not supported by a majority of citizens; that even states Trump won voted to protect labor and abortion rights.

We must take advantage of rising working class rage to build a culture of militant solidarity and class perspective. To move beyond returning to the status-quo of empire, to abolishing the utter corruption of military/corporate dictatorship and to struggle for working class democracy and a livable future.

Let us remember that we are not alone, that we have the numbers and that we have to be here for each other in the hard times we face. Together, we make a difference, together we will persevere.

Gratitude and Getting the Word Out

Gratitude to poet George Fish for his comments on the Blue Collar Review in a recent interview on The Real News. Also, as I've been informed by a contact in China who puts together collections of poetry from our journal translated into Chinese, a new book by Nicholas Coles and Paul Lauter entitled, "A History of American Working Class Literature" opens with an intro by Stephen Kolter citing the influence of our journal.

Writing and being published are accomplishments that give us a sense of identity and worth but what is most important to all of us who write is getting our words read. What is most important to us as a journal is outreach. We wouldn't work so hard to do this just to preach to the choir. Our goal has always been to revive Proletarian literature, to inspire and open the eyes of new readers, and to build a class conscious culture of solidarity in the strugge for a better world in which corporate dominence is replaced by participatory, truly democractic working class rule. As such we are immensly greatful for those who contribute, who support us, and for those who promote our project and increase our outreach.

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.