by the Editors
Out of the void, onto the stage. Introducing The Partisans Magazine
“Let us not talk falsely now, the hour’s getting late.” – Jimi Hendrix
Everywhere we look, it seems like the world is going to shit. Hundreds of thousands are being slaughtered in Gaza. Fascist political parties surge in elections across the globe. Inter-imperialist proxy wars have regional and international powers colliding in Ukraine, the Middle East and in East Asia, with the threat of nuclear war looming in ways it has not since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Trump threatens to occupy Greenland and Panama. Climate change forces refugees from their homelands and causes global conflicts, threatening more massive dislocation and fighting over finite natural resources.
All around us the situation looks bleak and dark, casting us, at times, into a deep despair.
And yet, and yet…
There are glimmers of hope. Yes, indeed. The blooming of resistance and the willingness to struggle for a better future on our pale blue dot.
Thousands of students occupied their campuses to end a brutal genocide in Palestine. Millions refused to vote for killer Kamala, based largely on her support for Israel’s crimes. In West Africa, hostility to French imperialist ambitions have led to regime change in the Sahel region and beyond, and the hope for an alternative to forced indebtedness and domination by imperialist bloodsuckers. Then there is the resistance of the Palestinians themselves, who despite unrelenting bombing campaigns continue to hold out against the zionist entity, refusing to leave their native land.
It is a good thing, for those of us who envision a better world, that institutions in the US are totally de-legitimized and hated, from the far-right supreme court, the capitalist media, the billionaire tech oligarchs, and the for-profit healthcare system. The leaders of this society are no longer unchallenged and they are no longer unchallengeable. Disgust with the system is widespread.
For all the darkness, all the fear of a MAGA future, the numbing global poverty itself, the painful loneliness of atomized isolation, the discarding of the old and the young, endless wars for dominance, global structures of empire, the destruction of nature, the manufacture of ignorance, intolerance and bigotry, the rape and casual daily brutality toward women – there is still an opportunity now for those who envision a more egalitarian world if we choose to seize the moment.
The global resistance to genocide and the de-legitimization of neoliberalism work in our favor. The lessons we have gathered since Occupy Wall Street, Ferguson, Standing Rock, George Floyd, and Gaza have provided us with a considerable degree of resolve and experience. We are well aware that thugs with suits and video cameras will be coming to snatch that ground away and portray us as fools, or dupes, or barbarians at the gate. But we are here; here for each other, and ready to fight and win.
Maybe the outlook is not so dark after all. Perhaps we are at a crossroads and surely it will be an intense struggle. But it is a fight we can win if we resolve to take ourselves seriously, to look out for one another with patience, to learn from one another, and to have no patience for the rulers of this destructive system and their cronies.
We are The Partisans Magazine.
The change we want is about taking the accumulated wealth, technology, hard work, science, and connections of a complex global civilization — and finally (finally!) putting it all into the service of humanity, including the very least and previously powerless among us. It is about the voiceless suddenly speaking, and the wealthy elites suddenly becoming silent.
Our aim is to address the cardinal questions of strategy and organization that we face in the current global conjuncture. What type of world do we want to live in? What will it take to defeat the rulers of this capitalist system? What type of organization will it take? What forms of culture? How do we create a movement that will inspire millions now concerned about a world that seems to be going to shit? How can we articulate a politics and a vision that can overcome the challenges of MAGA and become an active social force, a revolutionary people, ready to lay it down, to go for the whole thing – an egalitarian future worth living in?
The Partisans Magazine does not claim to have all the answers, but we will also not shy away from what we do know. This whole system is for the benefit of only a small number of very wealthy elites. We aim to seek the ways to get to the world we want, where resources and knowledge are shared and utilized for the common good of society as a whole.
We wish for you to be part of this conversation with us. To submit your articles and questions. History is accelerating and much is at stake. We have a lot of work to do, and as Hendrix said, the hour is getting late.