Dena Clamage

A green pickup truck with living space for ten or twelve if you squeeze together. Rain-soaked, faded picket signs barely readable: RECOGNIZE OUR UNION, WSU USES STUDENTS FOR CHEAP LABOR, WSU IS ANTI-LABOR.

A leaky makeshift tent made out of clear plastic and freight skids. Finally replaced with a luxurious water-proof boy scout tent.

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The factories of Detroit are the guts of the city. They are a central, common reality in the lives of Detroit people, whether people are working a 10-hour day on the line or just watching from their office windows as factory chimneys fill the air with thick, black smoke.

Most public art in Detroit tries to ignore this centrality. Factories are not pretty places. For the people who work in the factories life is not a pretty matter. So “The Spirit of Detroit” is a jolly green giant.

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Pig-paper reporters don’t wear blue uniforms.

But the pig media has to be considered one of the important repressive forces in this country. As long as “their” media are allowed to define “facts” for people, “their” power structure will be able to control these people. Power is partially the ability to define your world and yourself.

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Black high school students escalated their Spring Offensive March 26 in a city-wide demonstration at the School Center Building, headquarters of the Detroit Board of Education.

The demonstration was sponsored by the Black Student Voice, a black junior and senior high school newsletter dedicated to the complete liberation of black people.

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To no one’s great surprise, the United States has resumed the bombing of a sovereign nation with which it is not at war. This was clearly done to stem the rising tide of criticism of the war, which was beginning to be heard even within the president’s own party.

The decision to take the issue to the U.N. is a token concession to the critics. Although the outcome of the Security Council debate seems uncertain, it is clear that the U.S. would never have agreed to initiate debate if it envisioned any adverse decisions resulting from this.

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For the past year, everyone has been trying to play down the war in Vietnam. According to President Nixon, the war is almost over. Twenty-five thousand troops have been withdrawn, leaving only 475,000 American soldiers in the rice paddies and brothels of South Vietnam.

The money press puts battle news and body counts on page 16-C. TeeVee 2 hardly mentions the war at all any more.

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The Fall Offensive has now been launched on a scale more massive than anyone anticipated with the strikes, rallies, marches, and other activities that swept Detroit and the entire country on Oct. 15. These are however, only a prelude to the November phase of the offensive.

Organization is now under way for the International Student Strike called for Nov. 14^th, where the goal is the shutdown of every high school and college in the nation, with similar strikes throughout the world.

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“I believe that if we had and would keep our dirty, bloody, dollar-crooked fingers out of the business of these nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own.”

—General David M. Shoupe, Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps. Retired

It’s hard to believe that the war in Vietnam is still dragging on. The generals have already lost the war in the Vietnamese countryside and are now fighting a losing battle to hold on to the few cities and enclaves left to them.

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“The National Black Economic Development Conference (NBEDC) will in no way yield to threats of prosecution for non-existent crimes or other intimidation. On the contrary, we will continue to press our demands which are known to be just by all, including the religious industry and the U.S. Department of Justice.”

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On the night of July 3 the staccato of machine-gun fire rang out across the Jeffries Housing Project bordering on the Lodge Freeway. The sound was accompanied by the appearance of flickering letters on the wall of one of the high-rise concentration camps spelling out the name: NEWSREEL.

The sound and the letters are the trademark of Newsreel, a radical filmmaking and distribution organization which had an outdoor film showing at the housing project.

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“To build communism, a new man must be created simultaneously with the material base.”

— Che Guevara, Man and Socialism in Cuba.

In the preceding articles, I have dealt with the quality of life in Cuba, the laying of the base of material production, international relations, and other facets of the Cuban revolution. But the most important aspect of the revolution is yet to be described: the creation of the “new man.” This act of creation is the heart of the Cuban revolution. Although there has been little formally written about it, except for Che’s small but important book, Man and Socialism in Cuba, the task of this creation is reflected in the daily lives and the daily consciousness of every participant in the revolution.

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Murray Bookchin is the editor of Anarchos magazine, a periodically appearing journal of anarchist thought published in New York City. Copies of his magazine and other writings are available from Anarchos, P.O. Box 466, Peter Stuyvesant Station, N.Y., N.Y. 10009 or may be picked up in person only at the Fifth Estate office.

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At the September 1965 National Council meeting, members of Students for a Democratic Society, (SDS), decided that the time had come for a thorough re-examination of the organization, its ideology, its programs and strategies, its coalitions, and its goals. In order to insure a broad number of participants in this reexamination, the organization decided to hold a conference in late December, a conference free from the normal pressures of decision-making, which could at least begin to define the questions which arise from a serious commitment to social change.

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Mackenzie High School, located on Wyoming and Chicago, has been the scene of picketing, walkouts and militant assemblies since the beginning of the fall semester in September. The cause of the conflict, as in many Detroit inner-city schools, has been racial tension and hostility over poor education building up to a point where the whole thing had to explode. As a spokesman from the Black Council, a militant student-community organization, put it, “The spark lit the fuse that blew up the place.”

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I would like at this time to point out what I believe to be the central considerations involved in my position that the United States is totally unjustified in pursuing its current policy in Vietnam.

To begin with, the resumption of bombings of North Vietnam can lead only to escalation and intensification of the already dangerous war in Vietnam. Three presidents have warned us of the dangers of an all-out war on mainland Southeast Asia; and yet, this is exactly the situation which the United States is now confronting.

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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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For as long as the “New Left” has been in existence, “New Leftniks” have talked about the need for serious thought and analysis within the various “movements” which have arisen: analysis of American society, its history, its power structure, its operating mechanisms; analysis of other countries, especially those of the under-developed (overexploited) Third World; analysis of the problems which this country is or very soon will be confronting, i.e., automation, foreign policy, poverty, etc.; and analysis of where we as a movement, should be concentrating our attention and organizing energies. Unfortunately, very few New Leftniks have actually undertaken this type of work.

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Editor’s note: Dena is a Detroit movement activist who went to Cuba in February of this year. She was part of a group of 20 members of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) who made the trip at the invitation of the Cuban government. This is the fourth article in a series.

The situation regarding the status of the Cuban woman is similar to the situation of black people there. As with black people, women have been integrated into economic and political life of the country, but it has been impossible to completely erase in ten years the scars of centuries of male chauvinism.

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Joyce recently had a baby. She had tried to obtain birth control pills, but couldn’t because of rules which said she had to be married to get a prescription from Planned Parenthood. After discovering that she was pregnant, she attempted to get an abortion, but strict Michigan abortion laws prevented this. Ultimately she married the father of the baby and had a little girl.

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The League of Revolutionary Black Workers has moved onto the Wayne State University Campus.

In a move to combat racism in employment and bad working conditions, members of the League have organized a group of thirty to forty black secretaries into the Ad Hoc Committee to End Racism, Exploitation and Oppression at Wayne State University.

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