Fifth Estate Collective

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On August 9–12 a fantasy now known as the “East Side Riot” was staged by the Detroit Police with the assistance of the prosecutor’s office, city government and the press. The major villain of the drama was Alvin Harrison, Director of the Afro-American Unity Movement and spokesman for Black Power. Below is The Fifth Estate’s interview with Mr. Harrison.

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BOOKSTORE IN A BARN

(615) 536–5999

an hour east of Nashville; call, write, or email for directions

FifthEstate@pumpkinhollow.net

Read more

WORDS

Dr. Ben Reitman, Sister of the Road: the Autobiography of Boxcar Bertha (2002) $15.00

Dark Star

Beneath the Paving Stones (2001) $15.00

Hakim Bey

Immediatism (1992) $10.00

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February 21^st marked the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Black America’s hero, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (known to many as Malcolm X).

Born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska on May 19, 1925, Malcolm quickly learned the bitter taste of white racism. His mother was born as the result of her mother’s rape by a white planter (thus giving Malcolm his light complexion and red hair).

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Arrangements are being completed for 100 poetry readings in the classrooms of 43 inner city parochial and public junior and senior high schools by 26 locally and nationally known poets. The Poetry Readings are being sponsored by DETROIT ADVENTURE and the Academy of American Poets in cooperation with the Detroit Public Schools.

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Canada is illegally renting out the territory of the Innu people to the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) countries so that their bombers can practice bombing and surprise attacks. The establishment of a permanent NATO base could be announced soon. [see FE note at end of article]

The Innu people (sometimes called the Montagnais or the Naskapi) refer to their ancestral territories as the Nitassinan, literally our land, in their native language. The area was never ceded by treaty or otherwise by the original inhabitants. The presence of the Innu in this remote part of the world goes back at least 9,000 years. This area extends from Sept-Iles, to Lac St. Jean, Quebec, to the west; to Fort Cains, Quebec, to the north; and down to St. Augustine, Quebec, and Goose Bay, Labradore, to the east.

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FIFTH ESTATE #366, Fall, 2004, Vol. 39, No. 3

News, etc. pages 2 — 11

Features on “unschooling the world” pages 12 — 45

Letters to the FE pages 46 — 49

Reviews, etc. pages 50 — 53

Bookstore & Calendar pages 54 — 55

Activists in Brattleboro, Vt. are calling for an International Day of Chalking Against State Violence, on Saturday, June 3. Autonomous actions with no central coordination; just get your chalks, go out by yourself or with others, and chalk about war, racism, police killings, prisons, sexual assaults or other issues.

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On Friday, March 25, the first of three INTERNATIONAL DAYS OF PROTEST, there will be activities on the Wayne Campus highlighted by a rally against the war in Vietnam. This will take place on the mall.

Such Universities as Oakland and University of Michigan will also be the site of anti-war demonstrations. The Citizens for Peace in Vietnam will carry on neighborhood activities.

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Schedule

Friday, March 25: At 6:30 P.M. the Wayne State University

Young Democrats are sponsoring a forum on the war in Vietnam in the community Arts Auditorium, Cass and Kirby.

Saturday, March 26: At 4:00 P.M. a mass march will start down Woodward from Central -Methodist Church at Adams and Woodward. We will march to Campus Martius carrying signs, banners, and giant grotesque puppets to the beat of death drums.

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Bruce Whitten, age 26, held the rank of Staff Sergeant in the Air Force until he received a general discharge on May 23, 1965. Whitten was assigned to the First Air Commando group and spent two years in Vietnam.

Q. How do the people feel about the governments that have been set up?

A. They don’t even discuss them. It just seems to be a taboo subject. You don’t speak to an Englishmen about the Queen in a sexual manner and it’s like that here. You’ll get your throat cut. I never got anywhere discussing that subject.

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Abbie Hoffman, fugitive Yippie, has been on the lam for over three years following a New York City cocaine deal set-up by the police. Abbie has had plastic surgery to alter his appearance and has managed to elude the authorities even while popping up at protest demonstrations, rallies held in his behalf and he once even appeared as the guest chef on a Toronto TV cooking program.

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The authoritarian, proto-fascist religious cults such as the Moonies, Krishna Consciousness and the People’s Temple have always thrived at the fringes of what was once called the “counter-culture” and which is today euphemistically referred to as “New Age” consciousness—a catch-all of Asian mysticism, macrobiotics, herbalist faddism, palmistry, “holistic” products-mongering, meditation, pop psychology and other obscurantist effluvia.

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TORONTO—Although the Vancouver 5 trials are over except for that of Brent Taylor on charges of bombing Litton Industries (see accompanying article), the support group here is still dealing with the aftermath of extensive police harassment.

Ken Deyarmond, one of the more active supporters, was to go on trial Nov. 13 for “attempted assault against an internationally protected person” who, in this case, was British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Deyarmond was participating in a demonstration against Thatcher’s visit to Toronto organized by IRA supporters and anti-Cruise groups when he was pushed from behind towards the prime minister and then grabbed and punched by three cops. (See FE #317, Summer 1984.)

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On January 22 the usually quiet and staid University of Detroit joined the ‘70s as police arrested 17 students who were protesting the presence of a Navy recruiter on campus.

photo / A. Gotkin

The students, who began a non-violent, non-disruptive sit-in at the University’s Placement Center, refused to leave when ordered to by Dean for Student Affairs, Fred Shadrick. Then, as the headline of the U-D Varsity News put it, “Fred Calls Cops” and the Tactical Mobile Unit, a police riot bus and a paddy wagon took the students away.

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Welcome to the first FE of 2003!

One year ago, when the Tennessee Collective stepped up to take over primary editorial responsibilities for the Fifth Estate, many of us were discouraged and disillusioned by the dreadful lack of public opposition to empire in the weeks and months following 9/11. One year ago, when we wrote about “the emergence of a mass-based movement...contesting the state and capital,” it was speculation. Today, the mass-based anti-war movement that boldly connects the dots between corporate tyranny and its bloodbaths is here.

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With the defeat of the White Christian Nationalist Party in the U.S. presidential election, liberals and progressives are understandably relieved that the politics of racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and the rest of the right-wing panoply were rejected by American voters, even if only by a fairly small percentage. We share that sense, but hold no illusions about the second term of Barack Obama containing any possibility for authentic hope or change, or even mild reform.

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“When I pronounce the word civilization, I spit.”

—Gauguin

We are all trapped within the technological labyrinth, and at its center awaits our annihilation. We have already lost more than we can imagine to civilization’s insatiable hunger for power and uniformity. We live in the shadow of an enormous edifice, a monstrosity which teeters and threatens to collapse upon us in a moment. We sing, make love, struggle and despair amid its decomposing limbs. But the smell of decomposition is general. We are in eclipse; the human spirit is moribund.

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Inside the walled compound of a Buddhist monastery on the outskirts of Kyoto, Japan, the monks who reside there have created a meditation garden consisting of raked sand and about a dozen large stones. The stones are adroitly arranged so that no matter where one stands on the perimeter of the garden, at least one of the rocks is blocked from sight of the viewer. The Zen wisdom behind this arrangement suggests that the world in all of its aspects is never completely knowable; that something always remains hidden.

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Welcome to the New York City issue of Fifth Estate. The editorship of the magazine now rotates, and two of us in NYC have stepped in to give the peops in Detroit and Tennessee a rest (making this the first issue in 41 years that has been produced in the northeast!). The people that put out this publication have a variety of views and backgrounds (we range in age from our 20s to 70s, and live across North America); this issue reflects our reality and issues here in NYC.

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The article appearing on the following two pages, “The Myth of the Party,” by Murray Bookchin (from his essay “Listen Marxist”) was first excerpted in FE #272, May 1976. We reprint it hoping it will be of interest to a new generation of anti-war and social activists who find themselves beset by the return of the living dead—marxist-leninist parties.

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It’s been fifty years since the exciting events of May 1968 in France that shook the country to its foundations. It is still inspiring to remember the widespread revolt of high school and university students, and then workers, that erupted throughout the country, leading to the largest general strike in French history. These events brought society to a stop, temporarily transforming daily life, and posing the possibility of a complete social revolution. The 1968 turmoil in France was part of a worldwide upsurge.

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We perhaps owe John Zerzan a debt of gratitude for the research that has gone into his essay The Promise of the ‘80s, for it graphically demonstrates to us what we have suspected all along—that all is not well with the rule of capital. In fact, the litany of decomposition presented both among the institutions of rule and its subjects is shown to be so widespread and systemic that one can conclude little else than that the rulers will no longer be able to govern as they have, due to the massive erosion of loyalty to the reigning mode of domination.

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Resistance to two years of aggressive war and occupation in Lebanon is growing in the Israeli armed forces. 2,500 reserve officers have formed a group called Yesh Gvul (“There is a Limit/Border”), and have requested not to be sent to Lebanon. Already 130 of their organization have served prison terms for their refusal to serve there.

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Yes, it does often feel like we’re beating our heads against a brick wall. What do we do?

The now-cliched definition of insanity, although it originated with Albert Einstein, is “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

Do we meet that description? Anarchists fight against racism and there is an upsurge in violence against people of color. We fight the pipelines, and governments roll out more of them. We oppose the patriarchy, but in many ways it is as entrenched as ever. The climate crisis worsens each season and a dynamic fascist movement is on the rise.

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The photo above of a traffic jam on a Brazilian highway could be a metaphor for life today. A scarred landscape littered with trucks filled with the everyday stuff of commerce going nowhere.

The trucks carrying what are now the necessities of modern society are stalled at a local level but reflect the entire global economy and culture. As the planetary integrated system becomes increasingly complex, so does its capacity for collapse.

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This issue’s theme, “What’s Next? Demand the Impossible,” is a challenge to all our imaginations.

We live in a world faced with the scourge of a plague, and in a country that is an armed madhouse with a good portion of its population seemingly gone off the rails with fascist rage and white fear.

What appears in these pages is nothing like a blueprint for where or how to focus our energies. We know well what we don’t want and what doesn’t work. In general, we know that creating alternative communities of resistance is what brings results and can provide a model of the world we desire.

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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!

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Welcome to our Winter 2020 edition. Although there is no specific theme this issue, the totality of our articles affirms a longstanding commitment to the philosophy of anarchism that is now an existential necessity given the political and environmental crises the world faces.

Can a body of ideas, considered impractical by many, and ignored by most, rise to the point where it is powerful enough to challenge centuries old modes of hierarchal rule and ecological destruction?

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As we send this issue to the printer, the ghastly Shit Show known as the 2016 American presidential election has not yet concluded, although it will be over when you read this.

While one of the candidates expressed definitively more openly bigoted and authoritarian ideas, neither challenged the basic equation of life within the state and capitalism. The horrors of war, racism, environmental collapse, and oppression will continue regardless of the electoral outcome.

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Just so readers don’t think all of the celebration around the 50^th anniversary of publishing has brought forth a bout of hubris in us, let us be clear. Those of us working on the Fifth Estate today know this publication couldn’t have lasted this long without connection to a vibrant tradition and social solidarity from contemporary comrades.

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Throughout 2005, we will celebrate our anniversary by spreading the ideas of revolution that made us notorious to authority and noted by readers everywhere as a consistent, intelligent, and even humorous tool for change.

From the suburban Detroit home of a 17-year-old high school student in 1965, to a gritty, inner-city Cass Corridor basement with an ever-changing revolutionary collective to a remote Tennessee barn of the current communal and editorial core group, the Fifth Estate has remained what the FBI called a voice “supporting the cause of revolution everywhere.”

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Where’s my issue?

We’ve heard that question a considerable number of times recently from subscribers, bookstores, and distributors.

No, you haven’t missed an issue. The last one we published was our Summer 2024 edition. The one you are holding is Spring 2025.

This issue marks the beginning of our 60^th year of continuous publication. We used to joke that the Fifth Estate was once a weekly in the early 1970s, but now our goal is a yearly. We met that criterion for 2024. If you are a subscriber, how often can you expect an issue? Subscriptions, which provide the basic finances for continuing publication, are for four issues regardless of when or how often we appear.

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When the wind blows against us, there are two distinct choices: either push back and push on against it with ever more resolve, or surrender to the direction in which it’s going.

Undoubtedly, if you are reading this publication, like us, you have decided that resistance must continue regardless of the forces we face. It’s easy to take for granted democratic rights supposedly guaranteed to us, but at critical junctures in U.S. history, those evaporated leaving critics of government at great risk.

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Welcome to another issue of the Fifth Estate Anarchist Review of Books. We haven’t changed our title permanently; just letting readers know what to expect inside this edition. We also haven’t changed our belief that it is direct action in the streets and in the woods, and creating communities of resistance and rebellion that are needed so critically as conditions worsen on almost every level. We read and learn to increase our commitment in our struggles.

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At a time when everyone is declaring the death of print media, our magazine, now in its 47^th year, is not only alive, but prospering. We have many new subscribers, new staff, more renewals, increased newsstand sales, and an exciting new look. We ran out of our last issue on Revolution and are increasing our press run for this edition.

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Since its origin 55 years ago, the Fifth Estate has always supported draft refusal and mutinies among the troops as the best tactics along with anti-war mass demonstrations for stopping the empire’s endless wars.

However, a bipartisan bill is currently before the U.S. Congress that would abolish the requirement for draft registration and related penalties. This is welcome, but the impetus for it isn’t a sudden commitment to peace or a realization that conscription is slavery.

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Growing numbers of people compelled to flee their homes because of ongoing devastations of wars, cataclysmic climate change, and intractable environmental crises! It’s not a Hollywood sci-fi horror movie—it’s the world of industrialization and capitalism. As the system grinds on, it continues to multiply threats to all living creatures on the planet.

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On the day it rained stockbrokers, meteorologists debated the causes of this strange, nearly unprecedented weather. One claimed that stockbrokers represented a dense, heavy element which would continue to fall, down through the Earth and out the other side, eventually creating monstrous, irrepressible explosions in the center of the planet as they returned along their trajectory with the force of gravity and met themselves coming back from the other direction. Another said that there was nothing unusual and nothing to be concerned about. Stockbrokers rained every fifty years in regular, predictable cycles. Still, another denied that it was raining stockbrokers at all, and attributed the sightings of plummeting stockbrokers to a form of mass hysteria.

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“A top notch job” was the way Detroit Police Commissioner Johannes Spreen characterized the attack by 289 of his pigs on a peacefully assembled crowd at Cobo Hall last October.

Spreen said the blame for the clash following an appearance of Gov. George Wallace should be put on “those who provoke, those who instigate, those hurlers of missiles and invectives...”

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(by the Fifth Estate Creep Scene Editor)

Creep scenes abound from the Detroit area to Florida as power-authority heads try to suppress the Fifth Estate.

In Royal Oak, the Gas Company, at 290 W. Ten Mile Road, a head shop run by Andy Gingold, has had its request for an operating permit denied by the Royal Oak city commission solely on the grounds that he is selling “lewd and lascivious literature,” i.e., our paper.

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Federal prosecutors announced in January the dismissal of charges against 129 J20 defendants for actions against the Trump inauguration in Washington DC on January 20, 2017.

Fifty-nine people are still facing seven felony charges each, punishable by over 60 years in prison. While the government alleges that these people damaged property, planned the protests, or had knowledge of the black bloc tactic, the case has always been about political repression and expanding the state’s ability to stifle resistance.

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THE SUN, Volume 3, Issue 18

(3 pages with 33-page ad supplement)

FLASH!

A high-energy, killer rally to “JAIL JOHN NOW!” has been announced by the Rainbow People’s Party (RPP) Minister of Information to be held at Ann Arbor’s Chrysler Arena on the eve of the Zenta New Year, Oct. 31. This monster event will climax several months of dynamite work by people of the Rainbow Nation to get RPP Chairman John Sinclair back into the Michigan prison system where he can best serve the people.

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So intense was the air war against Vietnam, known as Operation Rolling Thunder, that more bomb tonnage was dropped on this small nation than the combined total expended during World War II.

These raids contributed heavily to the enormous Vietnamese casualties ranging up to four million dead, numbers which dwarf those suffered by the U.S. invaders.

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Nearly 4,000 young people jammed Into the Ford Auditorium on Friday June 30 to hear the Jefferson Airplane.

Three thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine people enjoyed themselves.

The Detroit News didn’t.

Their reporter came on like a middle aged Brenda Starr equipped only with platinum hair and a super-hostile attitude towards rock and roll, folk-rock and Grace Slick:

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Since the punitive government witch hunt of the Green Scare has commenced, we usually have only apprehensions, snitching, and sentencing on which to report. But, this time it’s good news!

Jeff “Free” Luers, political prisoner and environmental activist, was released from prison in Oregon after serving nine and a half years. Luers was originally sentenced in 2001 to twenty-two years and eight months for the politically motivated arson of three SUVs at an auto dealership in Eugene.

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Is Detroit headed for the sort of scenes that have gone down in Pittsburgh and Chicago around demands by blacks for more construction jobs?

The NAACP and the Urban League of Detroit have announced plans to work with the construction industry in an effort to include more blacks and other minorities in the building trades.

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Friend and comrade, Joel Silvers, died unexpectedly at age 72 in Detroit on December 8, 2018.

Joel was present when the Fifth Estate was launched in 1965 and at the 2015 festivities that celebrated the 50^th anniversary of this publication.

As an award-winning filmmaker, he produced a documentary of interviews with some of the early staff, a trailer of which is available on our web site, FifthEstate.org, “Enduring Voices: 50 years of the Fifth Estate.”

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The demonstrations against the war, though they were probably the biggest and most widespread demonstrations in the history of the world, were ignored by our so-called representatives. That’s right: neither our votes, nor our letters to our congressmen, nor the opinions of our allies, nor our efforts to show our numbers in the streets have had any influence on their decisions.

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</strong> Sunday, December 11, 2022

The Joseph Déjacque Bicentennial Conference is being held in recognition of the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of this major nineteenth-century communist anarchist political theorist and visionary utopian writer. It is sponsored by La Terre Institute for Community and Ecology and Yes We Cannibal, with the support of the Anarchist Political Ecology Group and the Dialectical Social Ecology Group.

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Editors’ Note: The following is a public statement on the New Bethel incident released by George W. Crockett, Judge, Recorder’s Court, Detroit.

The distortions of fact and the confusion over this Court’s actions in the recent events at New Bethel Church compel me to make certain facts clear. I am personally deeply affronted by reports and stories which have clearly and deliberately twisted the truth and the law in this matter.

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Three hundred and fifty supporters of two Earth First! forest defense activists rallied outside the San Francisco FBI field office May 24 on the tenth anniversary of the day when a shrapnel-stuffed pipe bomb exploded in a car driven by Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney, crippling her.

(Ieft) Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney, victims of an assassin’s bomb, playing earlier at a Redwood Summer benefit. (right) The car they were driving when the bomb exploded.

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“My ideals will live long after I am dead.”

—Emma Goldman

In a moving memorial to his dear friend and comrade Judi Bari (in the March 1997 Earth First! Journal), Darryl Cherney writes that he was plagued by a number of unsettling signs before her death, including the crash of an enormous old-growth redwood to the forest floor on a windless night near the Earth First! base camp in Myers Flat, California. That redwood turned out to be Judi Bari, whose death meant not only a terrible loss to her children and her family, to her community and the movement, but to the earth.

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World-wide events organized to show solidarity with Marie Mason and Eric McDavid, the two longest sentenced environmental prisoners, were an overwhelming success.

Events took place in at least 30 cities across the world including two in New York City, ones in Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore, and San Francisco, but also in places such as Fresno, Calif, Worcester, Mass., Salt Lake City, and Asheville, NC. Internationally, people responded in Toronto, Guelph, Ontario, Montreal, Melbourne, Barcelona, Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv.

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Charles Costa, an Inner City slumlord that lives in Southfield, has a habit of always trying to grab the media limelight. Through his hustling, Costa has gained a favorable reputation with Detroit’s straight papers.

Among the people that he exploits in this community, however, he is branded for the pig that he is. His latest publicity ruse is to offer a 20 cent bounty on dead rats to all local residents.

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The League of Revolutionary Black Workers has been participating in elections of UAW locals and found itself confronted with vote fraud when it was clear the union bureaucrats could win in no other way.

At the Chrysler Eldon Avenue gear and axel plant four white company hacks won a recent election although the plant employees are 85% black, as is the local president, who won last year with League support. League leaders attribute the loss to the fact that the ballot box was locked in a police station overnight for “safekeeping” while waiting to be counted the next morning. The group plans to contest the election.

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Josh MacPhee of Chicago has been very busy this summer. Touring his stencil graffiti art show to infoshops, cafes, independent art galleries, and even the Allied Media Conference, selling prints from five to fifty dollars to raise funds for a book of collected stencils from around the country.

MacPhee facilitates “Just Seeds,” organizing artists from all walks, styles, and artistic backgrounds to create beautiful works of educational art entitled “Celebrate Peoples History.” Each poster is a highly unique tribute, honoring radical speakers, thinkers, organizers, agitators, and events. This is the history our textbooks seemed to have “left out.” The series pays homage to such prominent figures as Harriet Tubman, Augusto Sandino, and Fred Hampton. Shining light on events like Little Bighorn, the Stonewall riots, and the Battle of Homestead. This project continues to grow as new artists approach MacPhee with new ideas.

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Recorder’s Court Judge Robert DeMascio is a vicious man who wields a heavy hand against poor and black defendants that have the misfortune to enter “his” courtroom. He is almost as hard on youth dope offenders that come before him.

Recently though, two freaks had the last laugh when they ripped off the Judge’s gavel from his bench after he had just arraigned them on a charge of possession of marijuana.

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The Second Coming, a new underground newspaper at Eastern Michigan University, is locked in battle with the administration of that school over its right to distribute on campus.

University president Harold Sponberg (called the Phantom by students) is largely responsible for the hysteria, having freaked out after seeing issue number two of the Second Coming.

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Kelly Pflug-Back sentenced to 15 months for attacks in Toronto

by Fifth Estate

Fifth Estate writer and editor, Kelly Rose Pflug-Back, was sentenced by a Canadian court July 19 to 15 months in prison for militant actions carried out by a Black Bloc contingent during protests at the 2010 Toronto G20 meeting.

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Media manufactured crises come and go so quickly these days that it is often hard to comment on one before it has disappeared from immediate concern. At the height of frenzy about a particular issue—whether it is terrorism, the space shuttle crash or most recently, drugs—the unitary message of power appears to command all thought. Nothing seems to exist outside of the official messages: we are all portrayed as angry or sad or worried.

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All of a sudden the media has discovered police brutality after years of denying its existence. The spotlight on this public secret came as a result of a particularly hideous incident of police torture recently by New York City cops who rival their L.A. counterparts for racism, brutal behavior and right wing politics.

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Fr. James Markunas of St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church has been convicted of illegally marching last April during the so-called “emergency” following Martin Luther King’s assassination. (See Fifth Estate, April 16–30, 1968.)

Markunas was arrested April 7, 1968 with 107 others while attempting to march to the Royal Oak City Hall in memory of Dr. King. A ban had been put on all gatherings of over three people by then Gov. Romney.

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A few of us got together to talk, as women, about masturbation, because we felt that it is an important and much-neglected topic. Here is the resulting conversation:

Carol: I can’t remember ever masturbating when I was a child. And I know I see little girls do it alt the time!

Joanne: I did it a lot when I was a little girl, with a stuffed elephant I had, and I always had this feeling that my mother was watching me. I knew it was the wrong thing to do. I used to look for her feet under the door. Then I just stopped. When I was five or six, I started believing the chastity thing—and thinking that sex and those parts of your body were nasty.

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The articles on Kosovo were written in early April. The death rates from Serbian ethnic cleansing increase daily.

The articles have been edited for length; full text of the Chomsky and Cockburn pieces are available at www.zmag.org, a web site which contains many useful observations about the war in the Balkans.

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The demonstration in Kalamazoo that resulted in a police riot on Feb. 17 has given rise to a full-scale witch hunt in the city. The local citizens grand jury has turned in indictments against members of the United Front, a local community organization, which is a coalition of black, brown and student groups.

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Motor City Labor News is a regular feature of the Fifth Estate. In this column we want to provide a space for people from different parts of the Detroit labor scene to exchange their experiences—experiences of the struggle to gain control over the rate and conditions of work as well as experiences of the fight to regain control over their unions, where these have gotten bogged down in bureaucracy.

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Both TIME and NEWSWEEK have picked up the word that the “largest demonstration in the history of Los Angeles” will greet Lyndon Johnson when he arrives to kick off the 1968 Presidential campaign with a gala $1000 a plate dinner in the Century Plaza Hotel on June 23^rd.

The Peace Action Council is coordinating the efforts of over 60 peace groups, all of which plan to participate in a massive protest march, which, since permits have so far been witheld, may be in violation of the law.

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Larry Portis (1943–2011)

Larry:Portis grew up in a working-class family in Seattle, Washington and Billings, Montana. His father was a sheet metal worker and city fireman. His mother was an occasional secretary. At the age of 18 he married and quickly had two children. In 1968 he graduated from Montana State University Billings where he was active in university and local politics, wrote (1965 through 1968) weekly articles on politics for the university- newspaper (The Retort) and created an underground newspaper (The Free Student Press) in addition to working for a living. Before leaving the area he participated in organizing the municipal water workers in Billings.

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There’s not much news on the fate of Marie and Noel Murray at this point. Although the two Irish anarchists have attempted to withdraw the appeals of their death sentences (see FE, October and November, 1976), they are still being considered by the Irish supreme court because of a point of law which allows capital punishment for killing a police officer, but not for killing citizens in general. Reynolds, the Dublin cop allegedly murdered by the Murrays, was not in uniform or on duty at the time of the killing.

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A number of Detroit lawyers have indicated to Detroit LEMAR (Legalize Marijuana) that they would be interested in setting up a legal aid service for busted marijuana users if a general fund could be set up which would insure a nominal fee for those attorneys involved.

Their suggestion was that interested heads and sympathetic persons pledge a dollar or two per month to such a fund so that a backlog of available money would be made available in cases of arrests on marijuana charges.

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The movement to re-legalize marijuana was dealt a severe blow several weeks ago according to an article in the Village Voice of June 22, 1967.

On May 25 President Johnson, a reputed speed freak, signed a treaty known as the Single Convention after it was ratified by the Senate. There was virtually no opposition to the treaty during hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and no publicity was given to the treaty’ s progress.

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This interview was conducted and transcribed by Dena Clamage.

[Part 1 of the interview appeared in FE #78, May 1–14, 1969.]

Editors’ Note: John Watson, editor of the Wayne State University South End, has been involved in Detroit revolutionary politics for a number of years. Former editor of the black community newspaper, The Inner City Voice, Watson was one of the original founders of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. He is currently serving as a member of the Central Committee of the League.

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[Part 2 of the interview appeared in FE #79, May 15–28, 1969.]

Editors’ Note: John Watson, editor of the Wayne State University South End, has been involved in Detroit revolutionary politics for a number of years. Former editor of the black community newspaper, The Inner City Voice, Watson was one of the original founders of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. He is currently serving as a member of the Central Committee of the League.

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“We are bringing our legitimate grievances to the legal establishment of the white man’s government to give the racist monopoly capitalist system the opportunity to begin to redeem itself for the crimes which have been perpetuated against Black workers and Black people for centuries.”

With this statement on Friday, May 16, the League of Revolutionary Black Workers filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against the United Auto Workers International Union (UAW), Locals No. 3 and No. 961, and against the Chrysler Corporation.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. (LNS)—Timothy Leary is free! The Supreme Court has overturned his grass possession conviction.

Rumors are spreading fast and furious. What does it all mean for the rest of us?

Let’s start with what the court ruling doesn’t do.

It doesn’t effect prosecution on the basis of state anti-grass laws (all 50 states have them). It doesn’t imply that congress can’t pass federal laws against pot possession; and it doesn’t effect existing federal laws against the sale of grass.

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SANTA ANA, Cal., Feb. 20—Dr. Tim Leary, his wife and son were found guilty here on charges of possession of marijuana and LSD.

Superior Court Judge Byron Mcmillian set sentencing for March 13. Leary and his wife remained free on bail but the bail of their son was revoked and he was taken into custody.

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Detroit LEMAR will organize and sponsor a May Day Smoke-In to take place in Grand Circus Park on May 1 at 12 noon.

The Smoke-In will be held to demonstrate the strength of those who would have the archaic Michigan and Federal marijuana laws changed and have marijuana made legal for all. Free banana joints and other legal herbs will be passed out, along with pro-marijuana literature explaining the LEMAR position to passers-by.

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When Lenin and 32 other Russian refugees (30 adult revolutionaries and 2 children) were returning to Russia via a sealed train through Germany they encountered a number of problems living together. One of the earliest conflicts in the railroad carriage arose between smokers and non-smokers. Lenin was a nonsmoker and detested smoking. It had been agreed at the beginning of the journey that those people who wanted to smoke had to do so in the toilet. A line formed in the corridor outside the toilet and eventually arguments broke out between the smokers and the “comrades” who wanted to use the toilet for its intended purpose. Since the vast majority of the people were Bolsheviks, Lenin, as the leader of the Party, was called upon to settle the question. He wrote out passes, which had to be presented in order for the toilet to be used. There were two kinds of passes—those for organic use had the first priority, and those for inorganic, smoking purposes had second priority.

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Since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in April 1986, much information has come out about its terrible effects. The irradiation of (particularly European) people, animals and vegetation has been devastating. Dr. John Gofman, a Widely respected expert on radiation effects, estimated that more than a million people will develop cancers, half of them fatal, as a result of the accident.

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To the Editor,

I would like to congratulate you and your staff for being so ambitious as to save our city from the blight which exists at the present time. The blight which I refer to is the lack of communication between the people of Detroit as a result of our inadequate news media. The result has been an uninformed, robotic society.

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The Fifth Estate always welcomes letters commenting on our articles, stating opinions, or giving reports of events in local areas. We don’t guarantee we will print everything we receive, but all letters are read by our staff and considered.

Typed letters or ones on disk are appreciated, but not required.

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FE note: Due to space considerations, some of the letters on these pages may have been excerpted. We ask that letter writers make their remarks as concise as possible. We will print the addresses of letter writers who request it.

Dear FE:

In general, I agree with E.B. Maple’s warnings about cozying up to the Left; (See FE #325, Spring 1987); anarchism’s blood-feud has always been with the Bolsheviks, even if its war has been fought against the Right. However, I get the sense of a subtext here, an attempt to “purify” anarchist ideology of all syndicalist, socialist & Left Revolutionary tendencies, to once again define who is & who is not a “real” anarchist.

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Dear Tomega Therion,

Your article on coffee (FE #305, March 18, 1981) confused the evils of capitalism and of working for someone else instead of for oneself with the “evils” of coffee. The latter is merely a tool which offers people the option of changing their energy rhythms. The purpose it is used for must determine its value in that instance. However, increasing the number of options is, in itself, a good thing whether we use every option or not.

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Saludos Companeros:

Your review of the Dolgoff book on Cuba (FE #286, Sept. 1977) left a lot to be desired. As anarchist propaganda that book is a disaster. At the least, it’s sloppy work and may be even worse than that. One thing anarchists do not need to do is run out a line of bullshit rhetoric, exaggerate and distort when attacking an authoritarian enemy. Soviet style authoritarians provide sufficient ammunition and targets; there’s no need to create new ones. For sure, “names will never hurt them.”

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Editors’ note: On July 21 at Central Methodist Church over 200 persons representing the Detroit anti-war movement met to discuss a series of actions against the war that had been proposed at an Independence Day conference in Cleveland.

The proposals included an SDS sponsored anti-imperialist action for October 8–11 in Chicago; an October 15 student strike called by the Vietnam Moratorium Committee; and a “legal, peaceful” March on Washington on November 15. The New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam has appointed two staffs; one each to coordinate the marches in Chicago and Washington.

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Mark Rudd, National Secretary

Students for a Democratic Society

Brother Mark,

When SDS proposed having an action in Chicago October 11, focusing on anti- imperialism, we at The Fifth Estate felt that it had the potential of being a very heavy action and crucial to the growth of a revolutionary movement in this country.

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How to love Poppa while he’s beating you on the hind end will be the theme of the Conference of Concerned Democrats all day Saturday, June 10 at the MacGregor Memorial Conference Center on the WSU campus.

A bunch of pretty decent-type Demos are going to get together and discuss the Democratic Party and its current stance on Vietnam, Civil Rights, etc. One of the main speakers will be happy warrior Zolton Ferency, Democratic State Chairman.

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Everybody has some idea of the kind of heavy political repression the power structure has been laying down, if only from the power-structure media itself.

The Liberation Conference Against Repression January 29–30 at St. Joseph’s Church should be able to clarify a lot of the distortions, fill in some of the gaps and describe the national-regional-local pattern of repression. See ad for list of speakers and workshops.

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March 24—Black Moratorium Committee will hold all-day teach-in at Highland Park Community College, theme “Black America and the War in Southeast Asia” 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Emphasis on the War and its effects on black community and planning for April 3 March.

March 27—People’s Anti-War conference Learn In, all day, University of Detroit. Workshops on Imperialism, Peace Treaty, repression, racism, youth, women, GIs and veterans, and planning for April 30 Warren Tank Plant March. Sponsored by May Day Coalition and People’s Peace Treaty. (See Back Page for full details.)

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Marches, demonstrations, and other anti-war actions are a credit to the Peace Movement, but have not had enough impact on the men in uniform. This is the view of a group of Vietnam veterans opposed to the war who have formed an agency to build communication between servicemen and peace organizations. They call themselves the Servicemen’s LINK to Peace.

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On Feb. 4, 1980 in Los Gatos, California, the life of Lino Molin (a long-time supporter of the Fifth Estate) ended. He was the victim of a tragic automobile accident while he was crossing a street with heavy traffic. His remains were cremated without religious service.

A native of Cadore, Italy, Lino emigrated quite young and came to the United States almost 60 years ago. He lived for almost ten years in Detroit where he made contact with the anarchist movement and participated in the activities of the groups there. He moved to California where he lived most of his adult life.

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Perhaps the most important thing we learned in Chicago is that we are right. We suspected it all along, but it took clubs and gas and Humphrey’s grinning face to cinch it. We know now for sure that the values of this society are fraudulent and used only to support the unjust system that benefits only the few in positions of economic and political power. The values that we have begun to devise through living and struggling together are superior to the ones of this society. They are revolutionary values and all of us that are serious must begin to live the revolution now as well as struggling to make it a reality.

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The Living Theatre, triumphantly poised at the controversial edge of the avant-garde theatrical movement, will sweep into Detroit to take the chill off December.

The repertory troupe known as America’s most original and acclaimed by critics as the most artistic, Julian Beck and his energetic band will present three different productions December 12, 13, 14.

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Donald Lobsinger, head of the right-wing organization Breakthrough, was sentenced to two years probation and $208 court costs for disturbing the peace.

The charges stemmed from the January 20 appearance at Cobo Hall of Father James Groppi, the Milwaukee priest who led open housing marches in that city.

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The London bookshop Freedom was damaged in an arson attack in the early hours of February 28. Nobody was hurt in the fire which partially gutted the ground floor and damaged the building’s electrics.

However, there was extensive damage to the shop’s archives which contained publications dating back to the 1800s. Freedom Press is Britain’s longest running anarchist publisher and traces its history back to the original Freedom newspaper started by Charlotte Wilson and Peter Kropotkin in 1886. It is still printing and is available through freedompress.org.uk.

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How much is your long hair worth to you? Eight Ann Arbor brothers who were scalped during a short stay in the Washtenaw County jail think theirs is worth about $200,000.

This is the sum the eight, who were arrested following demonstrations against GE, on February 18^th are suing Sheriff Doug Harvey and two deputies for. They are also seeking a court order restraining Harvey and his men from similar actions in the future.

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“White man’s justice” in Detroit courts has again been offered to members of the city’s hip community, the Fifth Estate learned this week in two separate reports from Detroit longhairs.

“White man’s justice” is that peculiar form of legal blindness which punishes black people equally and allows errant white middle-class youths the chance to redeem themselves in the eyes of their society. It is evident usually in marijuana cases, where hippies are offered probation and a fine in exchange for going straight, i.e. cutting their hair, putting on decent clothes, and returning to school or a job. The alternative, of course, is a quick lock-up.

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VANCOUVER BC—Twenty years. That was the sentence handed down by Judge S.M. Toy May 18 to Julie Belmas, of the Vancouver Five. Toy explained that the harsh sentence was to “deter others from acts of anarchy and terrorism.”

Ten years were allotted for the Litton Industries cruise missile factory bombing in Toronto in October 1982; another ten were given for conspiracy to rob a Brink’s truck and other sentences to run concurrent with the 20 years for weapons, arson and theft charges.

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The war’s legacy of lies continues in an official commemoration that stands history on its head. 2015 marks the third year of a fifteen year, congressionally designated commemoration of the U.S. empire’s monstrous war in Vietnam.

It is also the fortieth anniversary of the final defeat and withdrawal of U.S. military forces.

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