Hey Bandits, 

Sincerely, how are you? 

With sweeping cuts to federal budgets coming for social services and medicare, the politically-motivated assassinations of democratic lawmakers, ethnic cleansing in Palestine due to US-made bombs, ICE raids wrecking havoc on communities all over the country, and the overt and rapid descent into fascist dictatorship, suffice it to say that we are all dealing with a lot. 

Our attention and data are being seized in ways that are difficult to withstand or resist, and joy as a tool for survival and resistance is seeming harder and harder to come by. But still we’ll try. 

This issue contains stories on surveillance, struggles for environmental justice, city happenings, and perspective pieces about some of our neighbors’ lived experiences. Through the work we do with Dissonant Times, we want you to feel informed, but, above that, we want you to feel connected. Every struggle is linked; solidarity is not only a value, it is a tactical strategy to build collective power.  Aboriginal activists fighting for land sovereignty in Queensland in the 70s famously said: “If you have come to help me you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” 

Let us build connections and community networks of care, knowing that the care and trust that we forge today will alchemize into power on the streets tomorrow. Let us leave no one behind in our demands for justice and liberation, and be guided by those who have lived furthest in the margins. As one hand smashes surveillance, let the other water the garden.