Fifth Estate 66, November 14-27, 1968 Add to the Bookbuilder

Police mass for attack on peaceful demonstrators / Photo: Ken Hamblin

“I really got this one guy who called me a fascist pig. I beat him to a pulp.”

— A Detroit Policeman (Detroit Scope Magazine, November 9, 1968)

The October 29 rally for George Wallace at Cobo Hall in downtown Detroit ended in what can only be called a full scale police riot. Events inside the Arena set the stage for what later occurred after the rally when 350 club-swinging Detroit pigs attacked a group of about 1,000 demonstrators who had assembled to express their opposition to Wallace’s candidacy.

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America’s election farce is over and proved to be one of the dullest in years reminiscent of the Eisenhower years as Hank Malone points out in this issue. The only pleasant surprise was the small number of Americans willing to vote for George Wallace’s militant brand of racism. They obviously prefer the more subtle and effective variety advocated by the other two creeps. Wallace pulled only 7.8 per cent of the vote outside of the South and this isn’t a hell of a lot given the amount of money he spent on his campaign.

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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

Blalien

ADVERTISING

Gunnar Lewis

CALENDAR

Resa Jannett

IDEOLOGUE

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The Detroit Police are out of control. From the Algiers Motel to Cobo Hall they have left a trail of broken heads, illegal arrests and even murders.

The most recent example of this state of affairs followed right on the heels of the Wallace demonstration [see “Cobo Hall Creep Scene” in this issue] and found drunken off-duty pigs beating and terrorizing black high school students at a church dance.

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Reprinted from Detroit Scope

“Detroit is controlled 100% by the Mafia,” says a man close to Mafia kingpins. Many Detroit police officers admit there is a great deal of truth in that statement because of the extent to which the Mafia influences police department activities.

These officers say the department has been so infiltrated by men in the power of the Mafia that Detroit police cannot be effective against organized crime. The Central Intelligence Bureau (CIB) has been denied authority to investigate killings and other activities associated with the Mafia even though it was originally created for the purpose of combating organized crime. Some officers say the orders to “lay off’ the Mafia come from the highest levels.

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Gradually the Kennedy legend is being demolished and there’s hope that one day both JFK and Bobby will be seen in less idolatrous terms. To the rest of the world, JFK will always be a superhero but Americans are obsessive about the “White Knight” syndrome—the myth of the untarnished pure prince who will ride out of nowhere to save us all from everything. It’s the favorite myth, oddly enough, of what rednecks describe as the pseudo-intellectual: the thinker with intellect but no intelligence, no depth or genuine humanity. The White Knight syndrome is a cop-out theory that somewhere is somebody who will solve all the problems that beset society. He will take power and sweep away inequities, injustice, greed, colonialism etc., etc. And, of course, once he’s in power we won’t have to bother about it any more ourselves will we? We can go on being vicious, greedy, rapacious, unfair to our fellow men, knowing that we already did our bit. Well, Kennedy (neither of them) was a White Knight. He was an ambitious, compromising, timid aristocrat who achieved power first and foremost through money and retained popularity largely through shrewd publicity. He was, admittedly, a cut above most of the disgusting illiterates who masquerade as our “leaders” but just by definition that’s not saying very much.

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The Detroit Police are out of control. They have completely slipped out from under the authority of the Mayor and his Police Commissioner and now comprise a vigilante force dedicated to maintenance of the status quo.

They have resorted to criminal methods and produced a string of murders, mass assaults, and severe injuries to citizens engaged in lawful conduct. Their connection with the Mafia and right-wing groups is well known and documented.

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WASHINGTON, Oct. 29—The U.S. Treasury Department ordered the confiscation of perhaps the most unusual piece of campaign literature in use as the electoral farce drew near its completion.

Treasury agents broke into the New York Dick Gregory for President headquarters and seized all the Gregory campaign “dollar bills” they could find. Agents were reported scouring Chicago for the contraband material.

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Liberation News Service — Paul Krassner once had an article in The Realist about the death of actress Louise Beavers, who used to play the part of Beulah on the television series of the same name. Beulah was a fat, dumb but lovable, black woman who shuffled around the suburban home of a benevolent white family, frequently saying, “Yes. Mister Harry,” to the head of the family she worked for.

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Detroit police arrested 11 neighborhood street brothers and sisters over Nov. 10^th and 11^th and charged them with “conspiracy to place explosives with intent to cause damage,” a bullshit rap that carries a 25-year maximum prison sentence.

Snatched up were David Valler, who was already in the Wayne County Jail in lieu of $10,000 bond on two phony marijuana sales beefs; Joseph Clever; Antoine Daghuyt; Gary. Miltemore; Ronald Pierce; John Schmittroth; William Ladd; James Moscara; Sandra Rousseau; Benjamin Parks; and Diedre Flowers.

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First I must say that this statement, like all statements is bullshit without an active program to back it up. We have a program which is on-going and total and which must not be confused with anything that is said or written about it.

Our program is cultural revolution through a total assault on the culture, which makes use of every tool, every energy and every media we can get our collective hands on. We take our program with us everywhere we go and use any means necessary to expose people to it.

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Dear Dr. Schoenfeld:

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

In a recent column you printed the letter of a girl whose “problem” was a boyfriend who had an almost continuous erection and made her sore with continuous and lengthy intercourse. I think you missed the obvious solution. Let her share her good fortune with a girl friend. God knows there are many sexually frustrated girls who would be happy to get half of such a good thing.

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An interesting omen—a few days ago, barely preceding the Nixonian “renaissance” I received in the mail a strange newly-issued artifact of the Eisenhower-Nixon era. It was a pamphlet titled HOW TO SAVE THE WORLD, published by- none other than The Planetary Council, reminding me that not only is Dick Nixon still unfortunately alive (in a primitive biochemical sense) but so are FLYING SAUCERS, the favorite after-dinner conversation-topic of the former Eisenhower-Nixon era.

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Have you who are reading this article expecting to be told how good or how bad whatever record I have chosen to review really is, ever stopped to analyze what you personally think is good music? Have you ever tried to think of music (Rock music) outside of the context of an immediately occurring pleasure-displeasure-boredom reaction?

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Marilyn Olson is a pretty, blue-eyed blonde from Stockholm, Sweden. She and her husband, Bertil, operate the Cafe Marx in Stockholm.

She is a warm and friendly woman who talks easily. And she tells stories. She speaks of “a lot of CIA agents around” her and her co-workers. She tells the story of “one fellow who was hiding in a closet for three months” in Japan.

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This letter was sent to the Editor of the Detroit Free Press.

About the arrogant note on page 7-C of the Free Press of Nov. 8 that “writer Richie Yorke of Toronto has supplied the Detroit Free Press with the first newspaper review in the United States of the Beatles’ new album, ‘The Beatles.’”

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After talking about it for a long time, there finally is someplace to go on Sunday Mornings, someplace to pick up the Times and read it over coffee and danish.

Your own Eat It girl is opening Alvin’s Finer Delicatessen (Cass at the expressway) on Sundays. We started a few weeks ago with danishes and donuts, my mother’s homemade apple pan dowdy, and a special for the day, Sandy Feldheim’s cheese blintzes. We had a nice crowd and everyone seemed to encourage us.

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Detroit’s friendly neighborhood rock and roll band, the MC5, recorded their first album under their new contract with Elektra Records at the Grande Ballroom last month, and it was a killer affair. The festivities took place on the First International Zenta New Year, October 30 and 31, and what went down was an all-American Dionysian stomp-down rock and roll religious experience in the best Zenta tradition.

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NEW YORK (LNS) — A new press service especially for the growing network of high school underground papers has been established in New York City.

The High School Independent Press Service (HIPS) sends out news packets weekly to several hundred high school publications. HIPS works out of the LNS office at 160 Claremont Ave., New York, N.Y. 10027, phone: (212) 749–2200.

a review of

“Beggars Banquet”

The Rolling Stones

(London)

The Rolling Stones are in the same class as many other groups whose albums are beyond comment. There are people who like the Stones and those who don’t and I very much doubt if anyone ever changes sides.

The first cut on “Beggars Banquet” is set to what most glossy mags would call a “driving beat”—you know, the kind of rhythm you can make love to.

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It would seem to me that the country, as a whole (you may eliminate the “w” from “whole” if you wish) is at last beginning to realize that you Cannot dictate from which area a certain style of music must come.

I realize that tradition dictates that blues should come from Chicago or the South, and that soul should come from Motown, but now at long last music is spreading. The MC-5 have spread into the bracket-of “national” groups, as did the SRC, but really that doesn’t mean much because all bands are local at some time.

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a review of

“The Battle of Algiers”

How surprised we were three years ago by the success of “To Die in Madrid,” Francisco Rosi’s remarkable compilation of old news films from the Spanish Civil War. The distinction of that film was the poetic way in which it shaped and explained the ironic progress and outcome of the struggle. And now we have a new film, though in much the same vein, which is historically more immediate.

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We look at them, their fat, sagging bellies, hard faces, tight lips, and we despair. It is logical in our eyes that they should support Wallace, for they are ugly and Wallace is ugly and we are beautiful and gentle and want to do nothing more than love everyone in the rising of each sun. We look at them and the conclusion is quickly reached that they will never change. They will always be filled with resentments, fears and hates. And having so concluded, we end our examination and analysis of them and prepare to wait for more propitious times.

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a film review of

“The Bride Wore Black”

Francois Truffaut’s “The Bride Wore Black” is terrific. Infused with his patented brand of gentle humor, the film is a modern horror story in which lovely Jeanne Moreau goes about methodically murdering five gentlemen with an iron calm and comic sunniness. Essentially an entertainment movie, a minor effort for Truffaut, other films of similar genre pale beside it.

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* Asterisks mean this is a good place to sell FIFTH ESTATES. If you are going to the event anyway, stop by our office or the Green Grass House on Plum Street and pick up some papers. Make bread and spread the good word.

Fri., Nov. 15

THE MIRACLE WORKER, a play at Cass Tech. High School, 2421 Second. Curtain at 8:00 pm.

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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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