Fifth Estate 64, October 17-30, 1968 Add to the Bookbuilder

Last issue’s front cover was done by Detroit photographer Tom Burt. Fifth Estate readers may remember Tom’s work from a previous front cover and you can expect to see more in the months to come. Tom has a fantastic collection of photographs mounted for hanging and anyone who digs his work as much as we do can reach him at 864–2898. Leave a message if he is not there.

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Fifth Estate

A Newspaper Of Detroit

EDITORS

Harvey Ovshinsky

Peter Werbe

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

Cathy West

CIRCULATION

Tommye Wiese

NEWS EDITOR

Alan Gotkin

MUSIC EDITOR

John Sinclair

PHOTO EDITOR

Mike Tyre

ART DIRECTION

Blallen

ADVERTISING

Gunnar Lewis

CALENDAR

Resa Jannett

IDEOLOGUE

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The Movement in town is gearing itself for a week of political action this month, covering a variety of issues but organized around the theme of “Solidarity with the Vietnamese People.” Actions will be held around the country on this day.

The main event of the week is a mass march down Woodward Avenue to Kennedy Square slated for Saturday afternoon, October 26. The demonstration will culminate in a rally at Kennedy Square, with Peggy Terry of the National Community Union, Andy Stapp of the GI Servicemen’s Union, and Tom Hayden of the National Mobilization Committee as the featured speakers.

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Ron March, DRUM leader, addresses workers outside of Dodge Main. Photo: G. Simmons.

A group of militant black workers have begun to organize at a Detroit auto plant and have thrown both the union and the company into a near panic. It is called the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (DRUM) and is located at the Hamtramck Assembly plant, also known as Dodge Main.

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The revolutionary spirit among young people has begun to rage in the secondary schools and one may be seeing a multitude of mini-Columbias as high school students begin to demand their rights.

A recent example occurred at Mumford High on the Northwest side the week of Oct. 1. Because of student grievances, a protest walk-out was being planned, but relatively few students knew about it.

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A lot of changes have been taking place lately on the local independent underground film scene. Ralph Pickett, of the Indian Pickers, has left the Detroit Repertory Theatre. Bill Unger is now in charge of the film showing. It’s interesting to note the changes in the programming.

Booking styles, it seems can be as diverse as filmmaking styles. Whereas Ralph booked films of very broad appeal, Unger, it seems, is picking a lot of films that are not quite as well done, but still worth seeing. Its like the difference between John Mayall and One String Sam. You may not find as many films that you like at the Rep., but you see some shit that you wouldn’t believe.

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The cops and the Feds are sure Dave Valler is behind the Detroit bombings. They’ve told that to The Detroit News and they have constantly tailed Dave (see last issue).

Their only problem is that they have no evidence to directly connect him with the dynamitings. But leave it to the ever ingenious pigs to get their man.

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Here it is folks, an interview with Joshua Newton, demolition expert for the Rebel Army.

Q. Well, Josh, I guess we’ll get started with a little background: how old are you?

J. Twenty-one.

Q. So much for the background: how did you get started in this? I mean blowing up police cars and CIA offices is a pretty big step, I mean it’s the real thing.

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On August 2, Denny Dunn and Carlson Tuttle were arrested in an anti-Humphrey demonstration at Cobo Hall. Later in the evening a bail fund was collected in hopes that we could get enough money to get our brothers out of jail. We collected $206.00. As it turned out the bail was set at $1,000:00 each, so we had to pay a bondsman the $200.00.

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a review of

Poems for people who don’t read poems by Hans Magnus Enzenberger, Atheneum Press, NYC. 1968. $2.95. 177 pp.

Hans Magnus Enzenberger, in case you forgot, is Germany’s greatest living poet. This is the first collected translation of his work in English. The English versions, translated by pros like Michael Hamburger and Jerome Rothenberg (and sometimes by Enzenberger himself) are absolutely brilliant.

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Tom Sincavitch is uptight with the draft and the Army.

Fifth Estate readers are perhaps best acquainted with Tom through his artwork on the front pages and calendars in this paper. He drew the October calendar in last issue.

Tom was in the active Army Reserves and fulfilled 4-1/2 years of a six year “obligation” when he decided he had had enough. He felt he could no longer “justify his participation in the military with his efforts in the peace movement.”

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Special to Liberation News Service

How does one describe a House Un-American Activities Committee hearing? From a legal viewpoint? Confrontation of opposing forces? Show biz? From any point of view, the hearings held in Washington October 1, 3, and 4, to investigate what took place in Chicago were a flop, a farce.

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Editor’s Note: The following story was written by an associate editor of the Kentucky Kernel and was first published by the College Press Service.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (LNS) — George Wallace, a man who has contributed greatly to the political polarization of this country, visited the University of Kentucky recently and was greeted by a complete reversal of the polar stereotypes.

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

QUESTION: Sometimes you hear that very tight clothing around the scrotum of the male can cause sterility. I just can’t believe that. Athletes, particularly professionals, wear jock straps several hours daily, ballet dancers live day in and day out with tight leotards, and male fashions today may often call for very tight slim underwear. What is the truth about tight clothing and male sexuality? What does medical research show?

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The only task left for thinking men & women in the world today is conscious preparation for the revolution.

Brothers! The social revolution now in progress & vanguarded by black revolutionaries is a weapon of cultural revolution.

The cultural revolution seeks not only to transform the entire political & social status quo but in so much as it seeks to liberate the creative spirit inherent in all men then we can say that it tends to transform the revolutionary socialist’s task of ‘making history’ into the revolutionary Poet’s task of destroying the whole SPECTACLE of history as narrated sequences of events. The cultural revolution, as if she were the beautiful woman who sleeps in the hearts of all men, whispers, & in critical times like these, shouts -THINK OF YOUR DESIRES AS REALITIES. Again & again this great vision of the world transformed, as if this woman were the very organic source of the planet herself, has called her men to arms that they might re-establish themselves in joyous harmony with all things alive & growing, Yet again & again the infamous cities, regardless of what small reforms they have granted & now seek to take back, have managed to contain the struggle. Our vision gnawed into a kind of blue death. OVER THE PAST 150 YEARS MORE DAMAGE HAS BEEN DONE TO THE ORGANIC PRODUCTIVE PROCESS OF THE PLANET THAN IN ALL HUMAN HISTORY PRECEDING.

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1. We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our black community.

2. We want full employment for our people.

3. We want an and to the robbery by the white man of our black community.

4. We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings.

5. We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present day Society.

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“The Fifth Horseman is Fear” is a relevant work of art. It is relevant in all its parts, almost in spite of the fact that it deals with Nazism in occupied Czechoslovakia. Its statement is relevant in the way that any statement about fear is particularly and personally relevant in our time. It is a work of art in the true sense, as it engages the viewer in a cathartic experience and involves him actively in its own transformation.

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“Barbarella” is a gas. No doubt about it. In fact, it is one of the most enjoyable and imaginative movies ever made.

The picture, in a sense, takes Candy to the year 40,000 and drops her off somewhere just this side of surrealism. And all in all it’s a damn fine trip.

Since Barbarella, like other masturbatory heroines, is a product of pure imagination, it is only proper that she is at last free from the mundane restrictions of earthly reality.

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Digger O’Dell, world famous stunt man, will be buried in Detroit October 26^th, at 1 pm at 13505 Grand River east of Schaefer. Mr. O’Dell will be buried alive.

He will arrive on October 21 to begin construction of his concrete casket six feet beneath an abandoned gas station.

Digger estimates he has spent 6-1/2 of his 54 years buried in a self made grave and has been buried 93 times before. O’Dell, who earns his living either sitting on flagpoles or going to the other extreme of being buried alive, holds the present World Record of 78 days 20 minutes and 10 seconds for staying under six feet of dirt.

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WASHINGTON (LNS)—The Justice Department is getting ready for a crackdown on the “illegal sale and use of drugs,” according to an announcement by Attorney General Ramsey Clark.

The nation’s top cop recently announced the appointment of 30 key officials and the creation of 17 regional offices by the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.

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“I’m tired. I’m tired of being tired. White man, devil, don’t bother me. No, bastard, I’m going to keep my cool. I won’t give you an easy way. I’m going to kick your ass at your own rigged-up game. When I do it you’ll probably be too cold to feel it. Honky, I’ll never get as cold and as inhuman as you. I wouldn’t want to be as cold and inhuman as you. I wouldn’t want to be your Goddamned imitation. I’ve got better things to do.”

—“Painted Black”

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butter

medium onion

few pieces garlic

2 oz. salt pork (few pieces cut up bacon will do)

2 to 3 lbs. frying chicken

1 sm. can tomato sauce

seasoning: pinches of parsley, rosemary, oregano and basil (or a couple teaspoons Italian seasoning which is all of the above in a more expensive bottle).

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DETROIT—Veterans of the Chicago battle have been approached by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in an attempt to get detailed information on Movement activities during the Democratic National Convention.

At least four local residents who were busted in Chicago have since been approached by FBI agents who said “Mr. Hoover wants to get all the facts about this business. he’s very concerned about it.”

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Reprinted with permission of The Guardian, independent radical weekly, NYC

The very different nature of the problems facing the white and black communities necessitated a white radical movement and a black radical movement. In no organic way could these two movements merge, although they were both fighting the same enemy. That situation still exists, except the black and white radical movements have a common problem for the first time, a problem which can be more effectively fought if the two movements formally align with each other.

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New York’s Film Festival proved once again how utterly impossible it is to satisfy a mixed media audience with the subjective selections of any group of film tasters. Some critics thought there was too much Godard, or too many “foreign” selections in general; others complained about the “amateurism” of the solitary American selection—Norman Mailer’s corny “Beyond the Law” or the thin content of the charming opening selection, “Capricious Summer.” Press tickets were tightly restricted and uniformed guards were alert to combat threatened disruption by militant young filmmakers who see the festival as a classic example of decadent bourgeois culture.

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Hi kids, sorry I wasn’t here last time but I got a little depressed by Cella Alderson’s letter and just couldn’t get it together in time for the deadline. The only reason I write this shit is because people seem to dig reading it and if you don’t dig it I’d rather not write it. It takes some effort and a lot of dope to get my head into this linear trip anyway, but it’s worth it if it’s appreciated.

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Reprinted from The Berkeley Barb

The death of the ballot, the birth of the bullet—here is the choice—contemptuously thrust in our face by this decadent racist power structure: racist pig Humphrey, racist pig Nixon, racist pig Wallace for President! So where do we go from here?

Into the streets! Into the alleys! Back of town! Onto the rooftops! Behind whatever shelter remains for a black person here in Babylon!

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Fri. Oct. 18

GRANDE BALLROOM fun with the Kensington Market and the fantastic MC-5. All sorts of psychedelic bullshit happening. Don’t forget to check out Barry Kramer’s groovy counter, he has a very complete assortment of English records, hippie Bob Stark is the head salesman. You gotta be 17. Grand River & Beverly.

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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.

ALL UNCLASSIFIEDS MUST BE PAID FOR IN ADVANCE.

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