Fifth Estate 105, May 14-27, 1970 Add to the Bookbuilder

The American Servicemen’s Union (ASU) at Selfridge Air Force Base is inviting the peace movement to join them on the base in a “Picnic for Peace” on Memorial Day, May 30.

This is an excellent opportunity for the entire anti-war movement in the area to give support to and show solidarity with a vital faction of the movement, the GIs who are standing up to be counted.

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Fifth Estate

STAFF

Debby Brentz

David Gaynes

Carol George

Alan Gotkin

Mike John

Keep on Truckin’ Co-op

Resa Jannett

Jim Kennedy

Lee Ann Kennedy

David Levison

Julie Medvecky

Harvey Ovshinsky

Dave Riddle

Bill Rowe

Marilyn Werbe

Peter Werbe

Cathy West

POLITICAL PRISONER:

John Sinclair

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Last week we went out on strike. We shut down universities and colleges across the country. Over 400 schools learned the power of the political strike. Hundreds of thousands of students moved militantly in rage over the Cambodia invasion and the Kent State murders. We trashed ROTC buildings, occupied administration centers, fought police, and made demands that put our schools against the wall.

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Answer to last issue’s quiz: The designer of the nationally known Willow Run bomber plant was Charles Lindberg, former Warren-Forest resident and grandson of John C. Lodge, of X-way fame...

Rumors of the week: The J.L. Hudson Co. will announce after this Xmas that it will abandon its downtown Detroit store due to lagging sales. The last day of business will be after Xmas of 1971 (of course)...

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One morning last week I was approached at the plant gate after my shift-by a student passing out your handouts. I spoke to him briefly, and noting the peace symbol painted on my lunchbox, he asked me to pass out your sheets in the plant on my lunch break. How can you expect workers to relate to your programs when your people are so uninformed about conditions in the plants they don’t even know a worker can be automatically fired for “distribution of unauthorized literature?”

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About 400 men a day take their Pre-Induction Physical at the Fort Wayne Armed Forces Entrance & Examining Station (AFEES) at 6300 W. Jefferson Avenue. The physical is usually the final step in the Selective Service system prior to induction.

For most men this is it. They are 1-A. If they pass the physical, they go into the Army or face prison for draft refusal.

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A good cigarette is like a woman—the best ones are thin and rich.

If there ever was a time to be a woman, Woman it’s now!

You’ve come a long way Baby—now you’ve even got your own cigarette!

The capitalist media has copped all the rhetoric and jumped on the Women’s Liberation bandwagon. Woman’s newfound freedom has opened up a vast new market of products and ad campaigns-everything from vaginal deodorant sprays to her very own cigarette.

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(Women’s News Co-op) As women step out of their passive housewife role and become more active outside of the home they are discovering the need for child care centers. Many women are interested in starting their own, collectively run centers, because the present day care centers are run as money making ventures and glorified baby sitting services.

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LIBERATION NEWS SERVICE—As the unexpectedly early monsoon rains fell on War Zone “C” by the Cambodian-South Vietnamese border, a U.S. divisional planning officer said, “The people who advised President Nixon to start something like this at this time of year must be the same ones who advised him on candidates for the Supreme Court.”

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Reprinted from Off Our Backs (February 27, 1970), a Woman’s News Journal.

This article is the second in a series on birth control, compiled and presented with the aid of the Women’s News Co-op. The first article, which dealt with “the pill” and the recent unsettling facts brought to light surrounding its use, clearly indicates the necessity for information on other birth control means. Because of the capitalist media’s big push for the pill over the last few years, little information has been readily available on other birth control methods. We will endeavor, in this series, to rectify this situation.

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Reprinted from Off Our Backs (February 27, 1970), a Woman’s News Journal.

“My doctor told me that if using a diaphragm were a test of mental ability I’d be given a moron rating.”

That quote is unique to one woman’s experience with one strange gynecologist but it is, unfortunately, revealing. Most women don’t receive adequate instruction or encouragement from their doctor and leave his office insecure about their ability to use it.

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In 1943, Eastwood Amusement Park was literally the end of the line. Streetcars, packed with servicemen and factory workers, would cut sharply across Gratiot at Eight Mile, screech around a tight loop at the park’s entrance, and head back downtown.

Located in the then semi-rural town of East Detroit, Eastwood seemed removed from the bleak realities of the early Forties—if not from reality itself. In fact, even today, a list of the park’s attractions produces a mild sensory overload.

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“What the fuck are we going to do about those crazy White Panthers?” “I don’t know, man....I’m too wasted to even think about it.”

“Me too, man, shit, how are we gonna have a legislative session this afternoon?”

“Look, go wash your face with cold water and drink some coffee,” the fat one said, “I’ll call Schweigert and tell him what’s happening. If we can’t get it together, we’ll call the State Police and have everyone thrown out. It’ll be rough for those junior high kids from Petoskey, but we sure can’t let them see us like this.”

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Fred Chase was wearing an “I am Tom Sincavitch” button pinned to his Levi jacket. Fred was waiting for the FBI to take him from his sanctuary at Sacred Heart Church in much the same way that Tom had waited for the same thing almost a year before in St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church.

Fred was supposed to begin trial on May 4 for destroying the draft records of some 34 draft boards in Chicago last May, but was refusing to cooperate with the court system. “I didn’t show up for the trial because I don’t think they have a legitimate right to try me,” he told the Fifth Estate the day he and his supporters and family moved into the church.

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We were walking down Forest near the freeway after buying some smokes when a carload of Wayne State cops were breaking away from the light and saw us. They cruised up and junior pig sitting shotgun pulls us over.

“Let’s see some I.D.,” the two-year college grad stated.

“Hell, man, that’s bullshit. We’re just walkin’ down the street and you ain’t got no right stopping us from doin’ just that.”

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WASHINGTON, D.C.—Nixon’s public relations men are calling it an “economic readjustment,” but in English it’s a full blown economic recession.

U.S. Labor Dept. unemployment figures show joblessness for April at 4.8%, the highest since 1965, when U.S. “escalation” of the Vietnam war began.

Lines at unemployment compensation offices in Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Birmingham, Ala. are spilling out onto the sidewalks. 3,700,000 Americans can’t find jobs—and that’s one million more than a year ago.

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Reprinted from The Seed / UPS

YES FOLKS! NOW YOU CAN BE THE FIRST ON YOUR BLOCK TO EXPERIENCE THE ECOLOGICAL DISASTER.

WHY WAIT TILL 1980? DON’T LET THE FUTURE TAKE YOU BY SURPRISE.

PREPARE NOW FOR THE END OF CIVILIZATION.

REHEARSE FOR THE APOCALYPSE.

HERE ARE A FEW SUGGESTIONS:

Better start preparing your palette and stomach for the fare of the ‘80s:

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OCEANSIDE, Cal. (LNS)—A little after mid-night on April 29 about 25 active duty Marines from Camp Pendleton and civilian GI organizers were gathered in the staff house of the Movement for a Democratic Military (MDM) here. They talked in small groups about two successful meetings that had been held earlier that evening.

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NOTE: Costa-Gavras, the director of “Z,” was born in Athens, Greece in 1933. In 1964 he made his first film, “The Sleeping Car Murders” and since has completed “One Man Too Many” and “The Avowal.” While in New York for the opening of “Z,” he was interviewed by Dan Georgakas, a writer who is active in the anti-junta movement, a past contributor to the Fifth Estate who was in Greece in 1963 during the Lambrakis affair, and Gary Crowdus, editor of Cineaste Magazine.

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The Detroit community is getting together. Although militant demonstrations and spreading the movements’ rap are important functions, community people have initiated a number of programs needed to deal with the different levels of the People’s oppression.

To strengthen these programs, community organizations have gotten together to form the SERVE THE PEOPLE COALITION. STP was born out of an awareness of these groups that the common denominator of serving the People takes priority over minor political disagreements.

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

Dear Dr. Schoenfeld:

To be blunt, I’m scared. I was smoking some grass about 3 weeks ago and I started to feel dizzy. Next thing I remember is waking up on the floor and being told I’d been unconscious about 7 minutes.

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I have read your newspaper many times and for the most part, found it very enlightening. You have helped answer many of my questions, and set me on the right foot on some important issues. Now, I’m asking another favor. Your acceptance and backing of minority groups is what has prompted me to write to you.

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in Cooperation with Detroit Adventure

Thurs., May 14

FROM THE WAYNE CINEMA GUILD... Picnic on the Grass and Le Bonheur, both in color. Upper DeRoy Auditorium. 7:00 p.m. 75 cents.

OPEN CITY FREE MEDICAL CLINIC. Come get cured of your ills and aches and pains and anything else that hurts. 6:30–8:30 p.m. 4225 Second at Canfield.

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UNCLASSIFIEDS cost 50 cents per line per issue. Figure four words per line. (A word is a word including one and two letter words. A phone number is a word. Street numbers are words. Abbreviations should be sensible. DISCOUNT RATES: Five runs cost 35 cents per line, per issue. (i.e. 2 lines in 5 issues cost $3.50)

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KENT, Ohio (LNS)—William Schroeder, Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandy Schcur.

Four brothers and sisters were murdered by the Ohio National Guard on the Kent State University campus May 4. At least 15 others were wounded. Three are on the critical list. Injuries to police officers were minimal.

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