With low poll numbers, high-profile indictments, worldwide condemnation and increasing criticism from within their own party, the Bush administration seems to finally have lost their air of invulnerability. In fact, it appears that a new scandal breaks almost every week. From going on the defensive on torture to admitting that the administration has illegally been spying on it’s citizens, Bush and co. have stayed on the run from the media and down in public opinion—the source of this unrest are the two ongoing disasters of New Orleans and Iraq.

No event has dramatized the warped priorities of the current regime quite like the continuing Gulf Coast catastrophe. In this issue we bring both coverage of the politics of race and reconstruction to the ongoing organizing for a just relief and the long history of cultural resistance in New Orleans. From New Orleans we move into coverage of environmental justice issues and the economic crisis. As Zein El-Amine points out in his editorial, the process of gentrification, privatization and environmental destruction taking place in New Orleans is an accelerated model of a similar process of devastation taking place on the communities and schools in urban areas across the country.

Scenes of mercenary corporations and profiteers like Halliburton and Blackwater moving in to New Orleans to make a killing off of people’s misery was an all too familiar sight from post-occupation Iraq. In this issue we continue our coverage of the Iraqi resistance in a truly special piece by activist and journalist Ewa Jasiewicz. Though the Bush administration may hype the recent elections in hopes to regain support for their disastrous rule in Iraq, it is the grassroots groups working across sectarian lines who bring real hope of a better future for Iraq, beyond occupation.

Through the stories of survival and fight backs we hope to bring to you some of the threads of the resistance to racist policies and endless wars. People from New Orleans to Iraq are refusing to submit to the attacks on their cities, communities, cultures and environment they face from the neoliberal economic policies, corporate profiteering and militarism.

As this issue goes to print we also take hope from several ongoing victories in Latin America and in Hong Kong. We are inspired by the creative and militant protests against the World Trade Organization in Hong Kong, particularly the workers, students and farmers from across Asia and around the world who outlined a people’s economic priorities. In Bolivia Evo Morales, an indigenous leader in the movement against neoliberalism seems to have won with a large margin.

In hope,
The editors