Mooseknuckler Cycling Alliance

We live in an era of media concentration, vast efforts on many
fronts (political, economic, military, ideological) to insulate state and
private power from critical discussion or even popular awareness, and to
reduce citizens to isolated atomized creatures restricted to satisfying
personal ‘created wants.’ This massive and coordinated campaign has been
partially successful, but only in a limited way.

The range and scope and dedication of popular activism has also
increased, all over the world, reaching a level of international solidarity
and mutual support that has never been seen before. The basic conflicts are
very old, but they have taken quite dramatic and significant new forms, and
the stakes are far higher than ever before. It is, regrettably, no
exaggeration to say that the survival of the species is at risk — and many others
with it.
We all know why.

The popular movements are the hope for a decent future. They of
course have to have access to information and modes of interaction. In
addition to alternative print and video, to a very large extent they have
relied on the internet, which allows people to escape from the constraints of
the doctrinal systems, to explore and investigate and discuss crucial issues
with one another, to plan and organize.

Z Magazine and ZNet have played a crucial role in serving all of
these functions. I see that every day. I travel and speak constantly, in the U.S.
and abroad, and spend many hours a day just responding to inquiries and
comments. I constantly discover that the people and organizations I come in
contact with are relying very substantially on Z projects for information,
discussion, and opportunities for interaction and organizing, to an extent that is quite
remarkable.

Z is also an invaluable resource for me personally, in all of
these respects, and also in my case for providing a forum for intense and very
constructive discussion, the only one I regularly participate in. And for posting articles,
interviews, commentaries, etc., of mine. I know that many others have very much the same
experience.

It is of inestimable importance, in my judgment, that Z and ZNet,
now composing the new ZCom with their various other projects such as their
growing video efforts and incomparable summer school, arguably the most exciting and
instructive I have ever encountered.

Again, I do not think it is possible to exaggerate the stakes. I
hope that all of us who are committed to resisting and reversing the powerful
currents of reaction and oppression and violence, and showing that another
world is indeed possible, will contribute as best we can to ensure that the
remarkable achievements of Z and ZNet will be carried forward.