Editorials.

The article focuses on sociopolitical issues related to the U.S., as of December 1999. Organizing overnight, the King County Central Labor Council brought 5,000 high-spirited marchers out at noon on December 3 with two objectives: to violate the city's downtown no protest zone and to show solidarity with the hundreds of peaceful demonstrators still in jail. As the farm crisis confronts 40,000 Midwestern family farmers with the prospect of being forced off the land, no state faces a situation more dire than Minnesota. Although the problem is nothing new, this time it has spawned novel responses. Broad community- based coalitions are forming, and many young activists are be- coming involved.