Fifth Estate 11, July 30, 1966 Add to the Bookbuilder

The possible trial and execution of United States airmen as war criminals by the Hanoi government has been handled by the administration and by the press as a crucial turning point in the war in Vietnam. Partially to justify the bombings of Hanoi and Haiphong, partially to pave the way for bombings of the Red River dikes and, perhaps, China, and partially to silence the peace movement and other dissenters, the administration is conducting an incredibly effective propaganda campaign to project the impression that the trials represent a significant escalation of the war by Hanoi, justifying further escalation on the part of the U.S.

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The Sunday night sessions at the Artists’ Workshop (4857 John Lodge) have been getting better both in audience attendance and in presentation. Last Sunday’s (July 17) featured poet Tom Mitchell and the music of the Workshop Music Ensemble, this time composed of Lyman Woodard on organ, Charles Moore on drums (!), Jim Semark on piano & trombone, and Doug Riggs on bass and piano. You should have heard the sounds this band produced! Sunday the 24^th of July will feature poet Mike Little and the Workshop Music Ensemble again. The Ensemble, in case you have been wondering about it, is the new houseband of the Workshop, and is composed of whoever happens to be playing that particular night. You can be sure the band will never sound the same twice. And if you don’t want to miss their most exciting session, you should be at the Workshop every Sunday night at 7:00 p.m. (Admission is free.) There will be a very important happening, a FESTIVAL OF PEOPLE, at the Workshop on August 5. (See details on that in the special article on the festival in this issue).

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James Lafferty’s campaign for the Congress from the 17^th District on Detroit’s far West side took on a new dimension with the appearance in the district of a leaflet branding Lafferty a “traitor” and calling the FIFTH ESTATE an “anti-Christian, anti-American hate sheet.” Although the leaflet, entitled “HOW DARE JAMES LAFFERTY RUN FOR OFFICE IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD!” is signed by a group calling itself the 17^th Congressional District Citizens Associated for Support of Our Boys in Vietnam, with headquarters at 17538 Rutherford, Detroit, it appears as though this is a front for Detroit’s anti-Semitic hate group—Breakthrough. Particularly obvious is the re-use of “evidence” reprinted from past Breakthrough smear sheets and the liberal (excuse us) use of capital letters.

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The following are some random comments and recommendations on the upcoming August 2 primary election races.

It is entirely possible that Recorders Court is the worst criminal court in the United States. Its brand of “justice” has been discussed, exposed and documented in a number of reports, studies and editorials by the daily press.

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First, I would like to thank the editors of The Fifth Estate for asking me to contribute. Folk music and the new music, called Folk-rock are my own areas of endeavor, and I hope I will be able to add something of value to these already diversified pages. In coming issues, I will try to pass along news of interest in these areas, including record reviews, articles on the artists appearing in Detroit, and news in general.

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The American Civil Liberties Union last week urged the U.S. Post Office Department to reverse its decision to issue a 1966 Christmas stamp representing a religious scene, calling such governmental support of religion a violation of the First Amendment’s guarantee of separation of church and state.

In a letter to Postmaster General Lawrence O’Brien, ACLU executive director John de J. Pemberton Jr. sharply criticized the Post Office’s plan to reproduce Hans Memling’s “Madonna and Child with Angels” on a Christmas stamp. The ACLU spokesman declared that the government “has no mandate or authority to indoctrinate minorities in the religion of the majority, or to lend its instrumentalities and vast prestige to the celebration of the religious holidays of the majority.”

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The anti-napalm protest scheduled in Midland, Mich., national headquarters of Dow Chemical Corp., for Aug. 7 and 8 will include participants from all across Michigan and northern Ohio and parts of Canada. The region wide action has been called by VOICE, the University of Michigan chapter of Students for a Democratic Society. The demonstration planned in New York on Hiroshima Day, Aug. 6, by the 5^th Avenue Peace Parade Committee, will culminate in a rally in front of the Dow Chemical offices at Rockefeller Plaza. Dow is a major supplier of napalm to the government and has been responsible for developing napalm-B, a deadlier variety. (“Napalm has been used to bomb Vietnamese villages during the war. The jelly-like substance sticks to whatever it touches and burns with such heat that all oxygen in the immediate area is quickly exhausted” (N.Y. Times, May 29, 1966). Protests have been held at napalm plants in Torrance, California, and Redwood City, California. A nationwide boycott of Dow’s domestic products is also being organized. The new kind of napalm which Dow has developed contains 50% polystyrene, which Dow makes. CHEM. & ENG. NEWS recently reported that, “Predictions of future use of polystyrene in napalm-B now are running as high as 25 million pounds a month.” This is a 50% increase in the production of polystyrene, a fact which has led to the building of new plants. Dow has also raised the price of its product. So that it is no surprise when it is reported that sales and profits for Dow Chemical “were higher than in any quarter of any prior year. (Det. News, July 21, 1966).

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The Detroit Friends of the Student Non-Veiolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) last week launched a local drive to help raise money to build shelters and to buy land in the deep South. The Poor Peoples Land Fund, headed by Ronald Bennett has already approached Detroit store-owners to ask for their support by serving as sponsors of the project.

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AD RATES: 50 cents per line. Call 962–9334 with your message or stop by 937 Plum St.

BUTTON COLLECTION for sale: 120 different political, sexual, dirty buttons (NO CAMPAIGN BUTTONS). Collected in years of arduous labor; hardship case, must accept best offer over $50. Call 833–0387.

A motor trip to South America in quest of Nature’s psychedelics is leaving December 1, 1966. If interested write Gene Davis, Box 192, Lombard, Ill. 60148

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EDITOR & PUBLISHER: Harvey Ovshinsky

NEWS EDITOR: Peter Werbe

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Kathy

STAFF: Annie Katzen, Lena Sinclair, Marilyn Werbe, Steve Simons, Deborah Osment

THE FIFTH ESTATE 937 PLUM ST, DETROIT, MICHIGAN

48201 962–9334

The most important cultural event in Detroit this Summer will be the Artists’ Workshop’s FESTIVAL OF PEOPLE, or “a summer ecstasy of the contemporary arts.” It will be held on Sunday, August 7, at the Detroit Artists’ Workshop, 4857 John Lodge (corner of Warren), starting at 1:00 p.m. and lasting as long as it has to. The purpose of the Festival is simply to celebrate PEOPLE—ourselves.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Following is part one in a series of articles subtitled “a guide to bumming in the U.S.A.” The author is unknown, and we wouldn’t have found out about it if it weren’t for the keen eye of one of our readers in Berkeley, California.

“Nobody’s ever taught you how to live out on the streets and now you’re gonna have to get used to it.”

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Turn on! Consciousness is energy received and decoded by structure. Waves and particles.

There are as many levels of consciousness as there are levels of energy and structures for decoding.

There are as many levels of consciousness available to the human being as there are anatomical structures for decoding energy.

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This Interview Is something of a rarity in that it is one of the very few—if any—in which Dylan volunteered to talk to and with his interviewer in a manner honest and meaningful. However, I do not claim to have caught Dylan in it—I have only caught a segment of his shadow on that day...

Robbins: I don’t know whether to do a serious interview or carryon in that Absurdist way we talked last night.

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