Fifth Estate 104, April 30-May 13, 1970 Add to the Bookbuilder

Attorneys for several of those charged by the State of Michigan with conspiracy to place explosives in several instances in the Fall of 1968 are planning to plead their clients guilty to lesser charges. They are accused of plotting the bombings of police stations, draft boards and the Ann Arbor CIA office. No one has been charged with he actual bombings.

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FIFTH ESTATE #104, April 30-May 13, 1970, Vol. 4, No. 26, page 2

[incorrectly marked FIFTH ESTATE #103, April 15–29, 1970, Vol. 4, No. 25 on cover]

Debbie Brentz

Steve Dunn

David Gaynes

Alan Gotkin

Mike John

Keep on Truckin’ Co-op

Jim Kennedy

Lee Ann Kennedy

David Levison

Rick London

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No one was surprised when White Panther Party Chairman, John Sinclair was denied an appeal bond April 2^nd in Federal District Court. The same mechanism that has worked for years to put John where he is today (in Marquette Prison on a 9-1/2 to 10 year dope rap) is not about to reverse its efforts in the interest of something as trivial as justice.

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In August of 1969, the Michigan State Legislature passed Public Act 244, designed to “decentralize” the Detroit school system. The act (a watered down version of the original bill submitted by Sen. Coleman Young) called for a new division of Detroit city schools into 7 to 11 school districts, each of which would be run by a locally elected regional board. On the surface, the act appeared to provide a way of giving people in each community a much greater say in the way in which their schools would be run.

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On Tuesday, April sixth, white kids from Denby High were involved in protests outside the School Board meeting which voted to send some of those kids’ younger brothers and sisters to Osborn High, where black kids go to school. White students boycotted the schools involved on the days that followed. On Wednesday three hundred white Denby students marched two miles to Osborn and nearly started a race riot. They beat up fifteen-year-old black girls. What’s happening here?

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I attend night school at Denby High School one evening a week. Last Monday my Social Problems class let out early to enable us to attend the meeting concerning de-centralizing Denby and other city high schools which would involve the bussing of kids to other schools.

I walked into the auditorium with an open mind. I could partially sympathize with parents who did not want their kids being bussed cross-city when there was a school available to them within their area. However, this was not really what the dissension was over. The issue was quite clearly racial and 2,500 parents there assembled very well knew it.

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Note: The following article was received from a long-time friend and frequent contributor to the Fifth Estate who is presently in Cuba with the Venceremos Cane Cutting Brigade. Future issues will carry further reports of the Brigade’s activities. The paragraphs in italics [and quotation marks in web archive version] are portions of a speech to the cane cutters by Fidel Castro.

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Politically speaking, Chicago is a very heavy city, and, as it begins to fall apart and crumble under the weight of its own contradictions, it seems to breed repression and conspiracy.

As you know by now, another event was recently added to that city’s ever-growing list of political confrontations when twelve national leaders of Weatherman SDS were indicted on federal conspiracy charges for “crossing state lines with intent to incite a riot.”

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“But that the white eye-lid of the screen reflects its proper light, the Universe would go up in flames.”

—Luis Bunuel

Crazed, incendiary film-makers like Bunuel are few; most of the time, the movie-screen only gives back to us the asbestos of a dream industry. Money and convention rule. The truly disturbing insight must be packaged and sold in the psychic space of the market place.

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An exciting decision came down recently in the Southfield District Court. Judge Clarence A. Reid, Jr. declared Michigan’s abortion law unconstitutional during a pretrial examination of Dr. Jesse Ketchum and his wife Judith, March 30^th. The two had been charged with conspiracy to perform abortions, following Ketchum’s arrest January 5 at the Northland Inn in Southfield, as he prepared to perform an abortion on an undercover State policewoman, Mrs. Kay McEntee. Ketchum’s wife was later implicated following Mrs. McEntee’s testimony that Mrs. Ketchum had been the original contact in setting up the abortion.

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Note: The American Serviceman’s Union (ASU) is the largest GI anti-war group with close to 10,000 members in dozens of chapters on military bases across the world. The ASU publishes the largest circulation anti-war GI paper, THE BOND, that reports on the struggles of GIs to end the war and their struggles against the brass. The following article originally appeared in THE BOND.

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NOTE: Last issue we carried a brief story on a stockade revolt in Mannheim, W. Germany. The following is a longer account from Liberation News Service.

Mannheim, West Germany (LNS) — Another Army stockade has broken out in rebellion.

About 100 GI inmates of the Mannheim, West Germany U.S. Army stockade broke out of their cell blocks on March 13, set fire to stockade buildings demolishing a number of cell blocks, the stockade chapel and -some administrative offices—and fought a two-hour battle with MPs and confinement officers.

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DENVER, Colo. (LNS) — “We have created the nation of Aztlàn,” Corky Gonzalez said to the people who filled the Crusade for Justice auditorium on Sunday afternoon on the fifth and last day of the 2^nd Annual Chicano Youth Liberation Conference held March 25–29.

The main purpose of this year’s meeting was to create a political party and Congress of Aztlàn—the Aztec name for the lands of the Southwest stolen from the Indian and Mexican ancestors of today’s Chicanos, spiritually incorporating all brown people, all of North America’s Spanish-speaking people.

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Recently a number of articles have appeared in various movement publications on women’s liberation. Many of the articles (the most recent, by Robin Morgan of The Rat, reprinted in the Fifth Estate [“Goodbye to All That,” FE #101, March 19-April 1, 1970]) have talked about the particular reality of male chauvinism in the movement. We can entirely sympathize with the sense of urgency, frustrations and gut feelings expressed in this article, but unfortunately we find their conclusions totally dead-end and irrelevant to the majority of women outside the movement with whom we must join to build a mass women’s revolutionary movement.

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You know what, J.L., you’re right. Now is a great time to be a woman, but make no mistake about it, we see right through your plastic sales pitch. The soft music and cellophane baubles, the WOMAN NOW placards and flower emblems, the buttons, bumper stickers and billboards don’t fool us. We see right past that phony Frenchman on the first floor, painting women’s faces in his own image. We see right through the come-ons and not-so-hidden persuaders in every ad and in every corner of your store.

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“So many deeds cry out to be done;

And always urgently.

The world rolls on,

Time presses.

Ten thousand years are too long,

Seize the day, seize the hour.”

—Chairman Mao

I really feel like I’ve got to answer Robin Morgan’s article in the first issue of the Woman’s Rat [“Goodbye to All That,” FE #101, March 19-April 1, 1970].

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Five people from out of state have been charged with “conspiracy to illegally break and enter,” and “conspiracy to commit malicious destruction” at the Midland offices of Dow Chemical, and the Feds are charging them with vandalizing a draft board in Marion County, Indiana. They’ll probably come up for trial in June.

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The Third World—Gato Barbieri (Flying Dutchman); Power To The People—Joe Henderson (Milestone); Liberation Music Orchestra—Charlie Haden (Impulse); The Prisoner—Herbie Hancock (Blue Note); The Giant Is Awakened—Horace Tapscott (Flying Dutchman); A Night At Santa Rita—Rosko (Flying Dutchman); Massacre At My Lai—Rosko (Flying Dutchman); Spirits Known And Unknown—Leon Thomas (Flying Dutchman).

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John Carpenter is the U.S. Coordinator for the Toronto Peace Festival and chief scout for a “peace” caravan that will stop in Detroit at the end of June. The caravan of buses and trucks will originate in Los Angeles and make its way across the country, making select stops for free concerts, films, and speakers.

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Last week, some 50 American student radicals experienced the joy of work that was both socially productive and non-alienating.

The students were not part of the Venceremos Brigade. They were mostly individuals from Wayne State University but others were members of organizations such as the White Panthers and the Warren-Forest SMC.

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Some friends and I had occasion to check out the Citizens’ Complaint Bureau recently. Located on the 4^th floor of the YMCA, in the heart of beautiful downtown Detroit, this office is presumably set up to offer aid to the unfortunate citizen who has been brutalized, harassed or done injustice by the Detroit Police Department.

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Social Deviant

Timothy Leary

Dr. Leary is presently being held at Orange County Jail (550 N. Flower, Santa Ana, California) pending appeal of a ten-year sentence for bringing marijuana into the United States from Mexico. The trial judge labeled him a dangerous perverter of the nation’s youth and denied bail.

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Several people have asked recently about the effects of cocaine so I’ve sniffed out some information for you.

Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld speaking at Community Arts Auditorium, May 28, 1969 at a benefit for Open City. Photo: Alan Gotkin.

Cocaine is a stimulant to the central nervous system, reduces hunger and, when applied directly to mucus membranes, such as those lining the nose and mouth, produces anesthesia and constriction of blood vessels. The drug is derived from leaves of Erythroxylon coca and for centuries natives of Peru and Bolivia have chewed coca leaves for their stimulatory effect.

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VIENTIANE, Laos—Dick Nixon is up to his old tricks again. On March 6 he issued a policy statement on Laos, supposedly to give the American people “full information” on the background and present situation in this country.

Like Nixon himself, the statement is devious and deceptive.

Nixon portrays the U.S. as a reluctant warrior, assisting hapless little Laos, at the request of the government, to resist “foreign aggression.” The record is different.

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As an ex-Detroiter, I know of your fine paper and your service to the people. Over here in Toronto we read your paper and pass it on to our brothers and sisters.

In Toronto some of the people are forming small revolutionary cells. For reasons of security the number of cells is not known and there is no formal leadership or set plan. Everyone does whatever needs to be done as they see fit.

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in Cooperation with Detroit Adventure

THURSDAY APRIL 16

OPEN CITY FREE MEDICAL CLINIC offeres free medical help for those in need. 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Come in at 5:30 for appointment. 4425 Second at Canfield.

Don Redlich: CONTEMPORARY DANCE will have a lecture and demonstration for all you dance freeks at the Marygrove College aud. Lecture/demonstration 1:40 p.m. Master Dance Class, 4:30 to 6:00 p.m.

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The word is out. May 1^st, 1970 is the day for the First Annual Marijuana Mail-In and Cross Country Toke-Down. Dealers and heads all over the U.S. are already madly rolling joints and stuffing envelopes in preparation for the big occasion...

MAY DAY IS CALLED LAW DAY HERE IN THE U.S.A. and every dope smoker will be doing his or her part on that day to change the marijuana laws that are being used by the government, police, and courts of Amerika in an attempt to destroy our rapidly growing culture. Over 200,000 of our brothers and sisters are already rotting in jail for so-called “marijuana crimes.” White Panther John Sinclair is doing 10 years for possession of 2 joints, brother Tim Leary has received sentences totaling 20 years for one joint. On May 1^st, we, the 20-million or more dope smokers in this country, will serve notice on the pig power structure that THIS CULTURAL GENOCIDE MUST BE STOPPED IMMEDIATELY!!!

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