Fifth Estate 309, June 19, 1982 Add to the Bookbuilder

Contrary to the impression the accompanying photo may give, we have not been lying down on the job. Rather, since our last issue we have been quite heavily involved in holding several anti-nuclear war conferences (including the one announced in our January 19 issue), as well as various anti-war, anti-draft activities, and on-going discussions concerning our activities and our relationship to the momentum against nuclear war now taking shape throughout the country.

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Introductory Note: Is it the war of the Malvinas or the fight for the Falklands? It all depends upon which imperialist gang you support, the doddering Great Britain or the budding young Argentina. But what if you support neither of these positions? What if you refuse to accept the “legitimacy” of the nation state, whether it be Democratic, Fascist, Communist, Monarchist, etc., let alone its global conflicts?

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The rapidity with which a movement against nuclear weapons and war has blossomed has been as surprising to us as it has been to everyone else. There can be no doubt that the possibility of nuclear holocaust, and the understandable concern if not out-and-out terror which accompanies it, is one of the foremost questions on people’s minds today. The upsurge began in Europe and quickly spread to the United States. Conferences and convocations; demonstrations (20,000 in Chicago, 30,000 in Vancouver, 12,000 in Seattle to name just a few); the repudiation of civil defense plans in towns and cities throughout the U.S.; the growth of peace and disarmament organizations; and the storm of books and articles on the subject have all revealed a pervasive urgency and a growing sense of horror and resistance to the Reagan administration’s recent talk of “limited” and “winnable “ nuclear war, demonstration shots, and “first strike” capability.

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Dear Friends:

I am resubscribing to the Fifth Estate plus $1.00 extra for a prisoner’s subscription. I support the work of the FE and believe that it is of critical value to all revolutionaries. However, I strongly disagree with your printing of the “Challenge to the Prison Movement” (See FE #307, Nov. 19, 1981) piece of fascist dissension.

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The cover graphic of the mushroom cloud with the word WAR! in seven centimeter lettering across the front struck me as highly appropriate for the Fifth Estate (See FE #307, Nov. 19, 1981). It would seem to me that a worldwide nuclear war would surely be a progressive step towards “Paleolithic Liberation.” In all your polemics against technology and in your point by point rebuttals to pro-tech arguments you never seem to deal with the sort of question I am inclined to raise. Namely, how do you expect 4 billion people to sustain themselves on this planet in a hunter gatherer mode of production?

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The Fifth Estate is a cooperative project, published by a group of friends who are in general, but not necessarily complete agreement with the articles herein. Each segment of the paper represents the collective effort of writing, typesetting, lay-out and proofreading.

No, you haven’t missed an issue; this is Vol. 17, No. 2 and is our second issue of the year (see P. 1 story for more on this). Also, there is no Vol. 16; we skipped it to have the volume numbers correspond with our first year of publication-1965.

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Thanks to those of you who so promptly answered your subscription renewal letters we sent out after the last issue. Thanks, also, for sending along your comments on the paper; it’s always good to get your feelings about our effort, even if it’s sometimes critical. And a special appreciation to those who contributed money beyond the price of their subscription. If you haven’t mailed your renewal letter back yet and intend to, please don’t make us have to spend more money on postage; it could much better be spent elsewhere. Also, this is your last opportunity to subscribe at the old rate of $4.

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For too long we have gone on like sleepwalkers as the weapons of total extermination were manufactured and readied. Now it is becoming clear to even the most myopic that nuclear war threatens not only the present configurations of social and political relations, but all of life.

Such a war (which cannot even be described as a “war” if we are to maintain a sense of human proportion) would be an act of total, absolute destruction: destruction of human beings, destruction of human culture, destruction of the ecosphere. For all practical purposes nothing would survive the blast, the heat, the radiation and the destruction of the ozone layer, and all the intermingled secondary and tertiary effects of all-out nuclear confrontation.

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Prosecution of some fifty-five known resisters of draft registration was to begin in June. However, in an effort to avoid student protests and demonstrations, the government has decided to postpone prosecution until later in the summer. Also, according to an article in the Detroit Free Press (5/20/82), a recent Defense Department document has revealed that the administration, obviously intimidated by the anti-nuclear war movement, fears that litigation against these resisters will further stimulate that movement. When questioned about this document, the White House press secretary responded that the government’s policy is still registration, not prosecution.

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Dear folks,

Here is a list of safety tips and advice for your paper. I have tried these techniques in testing areas and found them successful. With proper application there is no reason for anybody to get hurt in a nuclear war. If these techniques fail, however, I refuse to be held responsible as people do not always follow explicit instructions while they are severely injured.

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“Anti-Work and the Struggle for Control” continues John Zerzan’s work demonstrating the massive erosion of traditional American values, in this case centering on popular allegiance to the work ethic. Following it [in this issue, FE #309, June 19, 1982] is a rebuttal from Tim Luke, which appeared in Telos magazine No. 50 (Box 3111, St. Louis MO 63130, $5); this is followed by a reply from Zerzan and a comment from Bob Brubaker from the FE staff.

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“Anti-Work and the Struggle for Control” in this issue [FE #309, June 19, 1982] continues John Zerzan’s work demonstrating the massive erosion of traditional American values, in this case centering on popular allegiance to the work ethic. Below is a rebuttal from Tim Luke, which appeared in Telos magazine No. 50 (Box 3111, St. Louis MO 63130, $5); this is followed by a reply from Zerzan and a comment by Bob Brubaker of the FE staff.

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The following letter, at the top of which appeared the heading “Direct Action,” recently arrived at the FE office. Its view of the ecological crisis and the essential sameness of the capitalist West and the communist East is one with which we are in substantial agreement. And this anonymous attack on property strikes us as acceptable—unlike attacks on people, which, barring self-defense or extraordinary circumstances, we find repugnant—and often a useful means of struggle. However, we have some doubts about what seems to be their assessment of their own role in the struggle against capital (though the problem might be one of unclear writing). Like many others, they apparently feel compelled to formulate a strategy based on their understanding of historical processes in which they make themselves mere instrumentalities of these processes, rather than proceeding from their own desires and experiences. In this case, the authors of the letter see themselves as making it difficult for capitalists to expand their domestic development of energy and resources in the context of world-wide economic crises and the successes of allegedly destabilizing third world movements, presumably, their intention is to heighten the economic crisis by opposing further encroachments by multinational corporations. This formulation resembles the instrumentalism of ‘60s anti-imperialist students in the U.S. who sought to assist third world struggles by creating resistance in the imperialist centers, a limited and self-sacrificing vision containing the seeds of authoritarianism.

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“Winter is yours, Spring is ours!”

—Solidarity

Painted across a thousand walls in Poland, this promise reminds us that the democratic upsurge there is far from buried. A certain phase of the movement has ended. When the movement reappears its form will be different, advanced by the lessons of a year and a half in the open air, and by the lessons of December’s defeat.

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In response to “The Collapse in Poland” by Rudy Perkins in this issue (FE #309, June 19, 1982).

A Movement Which is “Represented” is Unfree.

When I hear the term “seizure of power,” my flesh crawls. It is a hideous term originating in the Marxist-Leninist movement and produces images of police round-ups and the gulag; it is the code word for counterrevolution. It is a thoroughly inappropriate concept for those who believe in human freedom and one best left to those whose only program is the elevation of the police to complete political power, i.e., socialists and communists.

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An anarchist group and bookstore, Impossible Books (Suite 202, 3435 N. Sheffield Chicago, IL 60657) has been formed by a group of friends in the Chicago area. Although their resources are limited and funds low, they have initiated a newsletter and a small but growing booklist, and have put on several public forums and engaged in activities around the city. They also decided to take part as a group in the Chicago peace march on April 10 (attended by some 20,000 people) and distributed a leaflet entitled “Protest Without Illusions,” which is worth quoting here:

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A review of

Powerline: The First Battle of America’s Energy War, Barry M. Casper and Paul David Wellstone, The University of Massachusetts Press, 1981, 314 pp.

In many ways this is a hard book to get a handle on. It would be easy to dismiss the protagonists as middle-income, conservative, small-landholding farmers pitted against a giant power company and only squawking when their ox is suddenly gored. But it’s more than that. The farmers who tried to stop a 430 mile long direct powerline from trespassing across their property in the middle ‘70s were propelled along by the deceit of politicians and corporations until most of them had experienced a profound transformation in how they viewed their isolated rural world of western Minnesota.

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The FE BOOKSERVICE is located in the same place as the Fifth Estate Newspaper, both of which are located at 4403 Second Avenue, Detroit MI 48201—telephone (313) 831–6800. The hours we are open vary considerably, so it’s always best to give us a call before coming down.

HOW TO ORDER BY MAIL:

1) List the title of the book, quantity wanted, and the price of each;

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In astronomy, “revolution” refers to a return to the same place. For the left it seems to mean about the same. Leftism is literally reactionary. Just as generals prepare to fight the last war, leftists incite the last revolution. They welcome it because they know it failed. They’re vanguardists because they’re always behind the times. Like all leaders, leftists are least obnoxious when following their following, but in certain crises they step to the fore to make the system work. If the left/right metaphor has any meaning, it can only be that the left is to the left of the same thing the right is to the right of. But what if revolution means stepping out of line?

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