The appearance of the phrase "New World Order" can be taken, regardless of how cynically and deceptively it has been employed by the ruling powers, as expressing the need for a new structure within the chaos. The essay of Guy Rundle addresses this problem and tries to draw the "positive out of the negative." Though the essay skillfully unmasks the theoretical and practical delusions of "The New World Order,"as well as defunct Leftist responses, and identifies the universalization of the commodity form with the global electronic and communication revolution as underlying this latest ideological reflection of capitalist domination, his attempt to see hope for resistance "...from the widespread breakdown of persons within the system..." comes off as less than satisfactory. Most problematic is his pointing to the "intellectually trained" as the supposed agents of the new form. In some ways this is but a reformulation of Lenin's old thesis of the "professional revolutionary" bring truth to the masses. The disintegration of the old Soviet Union has proved to be the fate of such strategies. Nevertheless, Rundle's call for conscious awareness of the need for human intimacy, common labour, and a sense of place, provides a general framework of what will be necessary for new meanings to emerge. Just how this might occur, without fragmentation into jealously guarded artificial ethnocentrisms, is a big unanswered question.

Continuing on a critical theme, John O'Kane's essay on Reaganism provides a helpful, if distasteful reminder of the delusory nature of the last U.S. cultural reflex to total uncertainty. What we have been left with by Reaganismís legacy is a deep seated moral, intellectual, and cultural demise, which now can only be dangerously exasperated by the growing economic crises unfolding in this country.

The several articles dealing with political prisoners are examples of concrete forms of resistance on the ìmargins.î The long standing case of Leonard Peltier is significant not only as an example of a strong and principled stand against governmental oppression; but also, culturally, as a manifestation of the potential contribution of Native peoples, with their deep-seated sense of ties to the earth and nature's rhythms, to an understanding of problems faced by all of contemporary civilization = a kind of completing the circle: a "return to the beginning." The articles commemorating the prison rebellions of the early 70s, remind us not only of the vicious way in which the state put down open rebellion two decades ago, but also of just how much unfinished business there is left - particularly in view of the exponential growth of imprisonment as a way of dealing with the decay of our inner cities, and the alarming erosion of basic rights, such as contained in the new ìcrime billî recently passed by congress.

The article by the Puerto Rican writer, Iv·n Silan, on the painting of Elizam Escobar can be read on several different levels. For one, Elizam is a political prisoner, serving a 68 year term in the Federal Prison at El Reno, Oklahoma for his activities in the Puerto Rican independence struggle. At the same time Elizam is not only a committed revolutionary who has laid his life on the line, but an equally committed artist of the highest calibre who has unflinchingly faced the dilemmas of making art outside of the totally compromised art world, without succumbing to the "easy" option of turning his art into political propaganda. Rooting his work in the concreteness of his Puerto Rican experience, he courageously seeks to address the most fundamental questions facing humanity today. His Citizens of the Phantom Country wait with patience and fortitude for a kind of life, in true freedom and justice, that we all unconsciously aspire for - waiting, waiting for a place that can be truly called "home."

Jack Hirschman's poem, The First Light Arcane, also takes on the monster straight-on and movingly gives expression to all the not so under-the-surface phantoms that haunt our daily existence, while leaving open (regardless of the authorís own self-imposed conceptual schemata) just what, if anything, might be beyond "our fetal spin/ toward the opening in the darkness."

A significant event during the past year undoubtedly has been the Gulf War, as the first self-proclaimed police action of the post-Cold War "New World Order." The fearful use of the new tools of the electronics revolution, both militarily and culturally, does not forebode well for what the future may have in store, and underscores the urgency of the need for the development of new forms of resistance.

Though traditional forms of resistance may seem hopelessly ineffective, the most that may be possible today needs to be involved with at least the cultivation of a sense of autonomy, critical distance, and the acceptance of the concreteness of our experience - trying, as much as possible, not to become obscured and blinded by current dominant (both of the ruling system and its current supposed "opposition") forms of representation. Much of the remainder of this issue tries to offer such an awareness: work by people who have not been co-opted by delusions of fame or power and can manage somehow to concretize their experience and thereby shed some light on just what faces us. This is the value of writings as diverse as those reviewed by Hirschman's essay, "Three Poets for the New Decade", P.J. Laskaís homage to the work of Vincent Ferrini, the poems by Maggie Jaffe, Margot Pepper, Victoria Chang and the refreshingly unpretentious directness of "Options for Living in a Dying Civilization" by David Thomas. Paul Laraque's poem, Sands of Exile, eloquently brings to us the hope of Haiti's long-suffering people and reminds us of the brutality that they have so long endured - and continue to do so after the brief promise of Aristide's election. The essay by Michael Hoover and Lisa Stokes, "Education, Culture, Conflict: The Last Temptation of Christ as Contested Terrain," offers an interesting attempt to utilize the work of Mikhail Bakhtin in "de-coding" cultural meanings from the fundamentalism vs. liberalism conflict underlying the recent "censorship" debate. Though that debate seems not to be as significant now, in the light of more recent events (from the Gulf War, the death knell of the U.S.S.R., and the deepening economic crises), the essay is useful as an example of attempting to shed light on cultural conflict by, for a change, bringing a part of the increasingly useless academic "post-modernist discourse" down to earth. Nora R. Wainer's essay, "Whispering Galleries," is a useful juxtaposition of 19th century realism, as exemplified by the work of George Eliot, and the narcissistic vacuity of much of recent writing, as in the work of Marge Piercy.

Also offered in this issue is "A Historical Trajectory" by the editor, as a way to attempt to get some sense of a pattern that might be underlying our current situation. It is offered as food for thought (and hopefully experience as well) rather than as some literal document pretending to be identical with its mode of representation. As is always the case with this journal, we welcome your responses, contribution, and critical input.

_{- the editor}