Issue intro

Welcome to the fourth Fifth Estate of 2002!!

We have not published four issues in one year since the late 1980s. As much as any of our magazines this year, this edition represents the contribution of many heads, hearts, and hands in our ever-evolving collective.

Although we love the front cover art of May Thistle, its symbology may threaten the penology of the department of corrections in the state of Oregon. According to notices we’ve received from prison officials, anarchism’s classic circle-A is a dangerous gang symbol!

In addition to this delicious cover drawing dedicated to our issue’s theme section (which begins on page 19), James Koehnline provided the sumptuous collages for the inner pages. We also welcome the photography of Andy Stern to the back cover as he chronicles the uprising in Argentina for a special feature edited by David Solnit and the FE Collective.

We packed production of this edition into the days following an annual journey by several of our collective members to protest the US Army’s School of the Americas at Ft. Benning, Georgia. There’s several tastes of that trip from the Peace Bikers journal on page 36 to an interview with our favorite anti-SOA folksinger on page 3 to some puppetista photos by Sunfrog.

While this weekend of protest reminded us of the challenges we face in the new American security state, the upcoming months invite more resistance. Check out our calendar on page 46 for a few ideas.

The FE’s revival this year has invigorated all of us; check out some of the challenges from our readers beginning on page 38.

To continue publishing at the same pace in 2003, we need your support. Subscribe. Become an FE sustainer. Support our book distro. As we pay no staff, all funds raised go directly to the project.

Send us reports from your communities. The Deadline for the Spring ’03 “Food & Sustainability” FE is February 1^st.