Fifth Estate Collective

“History’s political and economic power structures have always abhorred ‘idle people’ as potential troublemakers. Yet nature never abhors seemingly idle trees, grass, snails, coral reefs, and clouds in the sky.”

— R. Buckminster Fuller

This year marks the one hundredth birthday of the Industrial Workers of the World union, but it is also the seventy-fifth anniversary of an event that symbolizes everything that the Wobblies battled against: that is, the perverse concept that work is ennobling, righteous, empowering and essentially has no bearing on class relations.

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From the Fifth Estate files: Washington DC anti-draft, anti-war demonstration, March 22, 1980, organized by anarchists --photo: Craig
Glassner/Phantasm Photography

Sept. 6-Nov. 26

“Soapboxers and Saboteurs: 100 Years of Wobbly Solidarity.” An exhibit highlighting materials from the Labadie Collection, one of the world’s best collections of materials documenting early IWW history.. Special Collections Library, 711 Hatcher Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109–1205. Open to the public. See October 19 for accompanying reception.

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Complete catalog available from pumpkinhollow.net/thebarn

Creating Anarchy by Ron Sakolsky

(Fifth Estate Books 2005) $15

Twenty chapters in a dynamic collage of ideas and action. This vibrant collection glows with flames of discontent and defiance and flows with waves of laughter and possibility. Ranging widely from Mayday to Utopia, from Refusal to Autonomy, and from Insurrection to Imagination, this compilation is in turn defiant, reflective, and playful--a brick for hurling through the windows of despair and a doorway to creating an anarchy that is not afraid to dream.

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This issue’s theme--The Psychology of Freedom--comes to the reader without pretension or self-righteousness. We are not trying to instruct others on how they should conduct themselves in their personal or collective lives. Rather, we feel it is important to explore the anti-authoritarian ideals we often project onto society from the inside of our communities and lives.

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5 Letter from New Orleans

15 Psychic Liberation 6P the Almost Revolution

17 The War Against Imagination

20 No Borders

22 Retalin at Fifty

25 Poisoning the Poor

29 Psychology of Empire

30 Passion Fruit

27, 32–33, 37–38 Reviews

34 Both Sides Now

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Gothick Institutions by Peter Lamborn Wilson (Xexoxial 2005) $10 (see the review on page 38)

Garden Planet by William Kotke (AuthorHouse 2005) $11 (see the reprint on page 33)

Passion Fruit (Passion Fruit 2005) $5 (see the reprint on page 30–31)

Hymns for Brueghel: Brambles of Berries, Rants, and Poetic Orgies by (un)leash. (Primal Revival Press 2005) $20 (see the review on page 32)

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Welcome to the first issue in our 41^st year of radical publishing. This edition, no different than the preceding 371, takes up our desire for revolution, one that ends the monstrous systems of capitalism and the state. It begins with a critical look at what is billed by the Left as the Bolivarian Revolution. Michael Staudenmaier, with Anne Carlson, describing their month long visit through Venezuela and relates anarchist perspectives on Chavismo. The FE’s Walker Lane writes about the 2006 Caracas World Social Forum (WSF) he attended, and offers critiques of the gathering and the direction the country is taking.

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Friday, 7pm-11pm, Community Church of Boston, 565 Boylston St.

Mitchell Verter, editor of Dreams of Freedom, on Mexican anarchist Ricardo Flores Magon and contemporary Magonism, a video and music.

The Bookfair. Saturday, 10am-7pm. Massachusetts College of Art, Pozen Center, 621 Huntington Ave. Tables from distros, radical bookstores, Info-shops, and publishers. Speakers, workshops, panel discussions, and films.

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José Peirats, The CNT in the Spanish Revolution, published by The Meltzer Press (Vol. 1) and Christie Books (Vol. 2). They are essential reading.

Stuart Christie, We, The Anarchists, The Meltzer Press. A telling and thorough look at the FAI.

Much of our knowledge of the anarchist resistance to Franco comes from the work of Antonio Tellez and Miguel Garcia. All of the above publications are available from AK Press akpress.org and deserve close reading.

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A Chinese journalist was freed in February after spending nearly 17 years in prison for splattering paint on a portrait of Mao during the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square.

Yu Dongyue, now 38, and two friends, hurled eggs filled with red paint at the famous painting of Mao, which still stares at the Square from across the street. Yu and his family are expected to reunite in Hunan Province, but his younger brother said the family was deeply concerned about Yu’s mental health.

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Cover: http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/speccoll/visfront/index.html

Page 13: Peter Kuper, peterkuper.com

Page 21: Nik Moore, maladroitdrone.org

Page 24, 25, 32, 36: Private collection, Federico Arcos

Page 26, 34, 35: 1936: The Spanish Revolution, by The Ex

akpress.org

Page 30 & 31: Richard Warren from The Man Who Killed Durruti by Pedro De Paz, christiebooks.com

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Bush League Spectacles: Empire, Politics, and Culture in Bushwhacked America by Fran Shor (Factory School 2005) $13

“In the aftermath of 9/11, many of us looked to the Internet for the desperately needed analysis that was pushed out of the corporate media, and it’s there that we found writers such as Fran Shor. Combining an academic’s careful research and a political activist’s quest for justice, Shor speaks plainly and speaks with passion in these essays that analyze the political and cultural crisis of the contemporary United States.”

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Every edition of Fifth Estate could be our last. This issue, originally scheduled for summer, did not hit the press until early September, thus making it our Fall 2006 edition; subscribers and distributors, please take note. Back in June, when this issue was due, our bank account was depleted, and our volunteers needed a break. But thanks to all the writers and artists who gave us material and to all the readers who answered our perennial plea for funds, we can publish another time. Without the contributions of art, prose, and cash, we would not exist.

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When we set out to produce an issue on and of literature, we had wide eyes and wild ideas. Ideas like Thoreau suggested, “In literature it is only the wild that attracts us. Dullness is but another name for tameness.” Guided by these instructions, we set out searching for the same sense of “uncivilized free and wild thinking” that Thoreau found “in Hamlet and the Iliad, in all the scriptures and mythologies, not learned in the schools.” Rather than see books as stuffy culture, we would endorse Thoreau’s claim: “As the wild duck is more swift and beautiful than the tame, so is the wild-mallard-thought, which ‘mid falling dews wings its way above the fens. A truly good book is something as natural, and as unexpectedly and unaccountably fair and perfect, as a wild-flower discovered on the prairies of the West or in the jungles of the East. Genius is a light which makes the darkness visible, like the lightning’s flash, which perchance shatters the temple of knowledge itself ...”

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The winter issue of FE will critically reflect upon contemporary anarchist and radical anti-authoritarian political movements. What directions should radicals--who wish to both create a revolution in our everyday lives, as well as to destroy the various and overlapping systems of oppression--take in our current political situation? We welcome theoretical, historical and practical pieces on political and cultural issues.

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This issue of FE was finished on the first anniversary of Katrina. A year later, our friends in New Orleans still need our help. At the beginning of June, our comrade, regular contributor, friend, and Louisiana native John Clark wrote:

“It’s now exactly nine months since Hurricane Katrina. The past months have only reinforced the lessons that were learned in the first weeks after Katrina. The abject failure and utter irrationality of the dominant system of state and corporate power have only become more obvious with the passage of time. On the other hand, we have seen growing evidence of the extraordinary and inspiring achievements possible through mutual aid and solidarity.”

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Our friends at Black and Red Books--another radical publishing project from Detroit--have finally put their catalog online at http://blackandred.org. It’s now easier than ever to find titles like Society of the Spectacle; Against His-story, Against Leviathan; The Strait; The Continuing Appeal of Nationalism; Love and Politics; The Wandering of Humanity, and more.

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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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November 11^th was the 120^th anniversary of the hangings of the anarchist Haymarket martyrs in Chicago, Illinois. Albert Parsons, August Spies, Adolph Fischer and George Engel were hung (and Louis Lingg committed suicide) after a bomb killed police at a labor rally. There was no evidence against them and all were convicted solely on the basis of their anarchist ideas.

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Momentos, Compendio Poetico by Federico Arcos

The Story of Tatiana by Jacques Baynac

The Wandering of Humanity by Jacques Camatte

Objectivity and Liberal Scholarship by N. Chomsky

Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord

Worker-Student Action Committees: France, May ’68 by R.Gregoire & F. Perlman

Love & Politics by Judith Malina

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Vision Quest Guidebook

“The New Freedom”: Corporate Capitalism by Fredy Perlman

The Big Melt, President of the United Hearts

We Know You Are Watching by Surveillance Camera Players

The Modern School of Stelton: A Sketch by Joseph J. Cohen and Alexis C. Ferm

Facing Reality, Correspondence Publishing Committee

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Revelations

The word apocalypse, counter to centuries of disinformation, does not refer to the end of the world. The word’s actual meaning is “uncovering” — a revelation of truths that are concealed from the majority of the human population. This spring we suggest a rebirth of understanding about the world around us-through revelation.

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Without you reading what we struggle to write and creatively present, there obviously would be no point in our effort. And, without the generous financial support many of you give, we wouldn’t be able to publish at all!

We’re at a critical period for print publications. All daily papers are reporting declines in their readership (of course, in their case, it’s probably desirable), and many radical and anarchist papers are either cutting back on their publication schedule because of financial difficulties, or note no increase in their circulation at a time when the empire is functioning at a particularly vicious level.

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This edition begins our 42^nd year of continuous publishing as the longest running, English language anarchist publication in American history. We’ve got a ways to go to catch the Yiddish language Freie Arbeiter Stimme (Free Voice of Labor) which printed for 87 years, but we’re hot on the heels of the Italian Dunata dei Refrattari, which published between 1922 and 1971.

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September 7, 8, 9, at the Victoria Coolaid Society, 749 Pandora St., Victoria, BC

The only Anarchist Bookfair on the Canadian west coast will be part of a week-long Festival of Anarchy. Events include book and information, tables, workshops, readings, films, and presentations.

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Mick Kubiak: Here Comes Spring

cdbaby.com

reviewed by Sean Flynn

Mick Kubiak is the girl you were in love with in school. Who read novels and wrote in a notebook during class, despised convention and carried her otherworldly beauty and sexuality as simple givens. A part of no clique, Kubiak began to form her eviscerating and hilarious social critique of a culture obsessed with possessing women when she was barely seventeen.

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FIFTH ESTATE #376, Halloween 2007, Vol. 42, #2

Issue Theme: End of the Worldism

Cover, centerfold, & back page art

Tammy Wetzel

http://tammywetzel.zenfolio.com/

End of the Worldism (but not for us), Editorial

“Great Dismal Mercenaries” Blackwater & Iraq

Don LaCoss

“Elves Sentenced” ALF/ELF Activists Sentenced

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This issue arrives late, but we think you’ll find it worth the wait. We published 1 last in March 2007, but our plans for timely Summer and Fall issues faltered due to a lack in finances and in our issue-editor’s free time. But unlike some publications that have recently ceased operations, we’re as motivated as ever, which should be self-evident from the articles and art in our “End of the Worldism” edition.

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Publication date: Early 2008

Issue theme: ESCAPE!

Prisoners. Deserters. Divorcees. Vacationers. Junkies. Exile, exodus, emigration, and escape velocity. Shelters, sanctuaries, and safe-houses. Escaping consequences, escaping responsibility, and escaping attention. Escape to or escape from? Is escapism helpful or harmful? Is it useless to try to escape? We seek original, critical, and analytical assessments of theory and practice of escape, as well as essays, articles, and artwork on general themes.

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Fifth Estate Issue #377, March, 2008, Vol. 43 No. 1

4 Readers’ letters

6 Green Scare News: Police Terrorize Earth First!er in Ohio

7 Powerlessness & the Power of the Prank from La lettre versatile de Jimmy Gladiator

8 Bowling with the Bonobo Bashers by Pieter Primatus

10 Stronger Wine! Madder Music! A manifesto by Apio Ludd

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The ultimate representation; the symbol of all that is alienated in the modern world; the driving force of pathological greed; the whip that coerces wage labor; the basis of wars. Ten million millionaires world-wide control $37.2 trillion dollars in financial assets, assuring a planet of immiseration for billions of people.

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This is part of a communique from France, “La lettre versatile de Jimmy Gladiator,” translated by FE collective members.

Being especially partial to the sort of collective punishment that was declared illegal by the Geneva Conventions governing the conduct of occupying powers during war, the Israeli state periodically cuts the supply of electricity to the Gaza Strip (Israel bombed Gaza’s only electrical plant in 2006). Israeli human rights groups and the anti-colonial movement launched their usual protests, but it was some members of the extra-parliamentary far left that took an original initiative with the goal of getting people to think.

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Note: Originally, FE special correspondent Kellie Button valiantly embedded herself with a group of anarchist LSD enthusiasts (represented here by the initials “HO”, “KG.”, and “AJ”) in order to report on recreational drug use for this issue’s special “Escape” feature. Unfortunately, a very long weekend in southeastern Minnesota among these self-described “anarcho-acidheads” yielded very little usable material, but something that did come up that has a bearing on the anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist anti-RNC and anti-DNC actions currently under preparation. The relevant portion of one morning’s recorded discussion is excerpted here. Clarifying information provided by the editors appears in brackets.

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Contrary to the honeyed words of gentlemen, this Age of Empire is a pestilence upon every continent and soul, through colonization manifest or implied. Rich men from stone buildings wade blindly through the penniless on their way to the opera, at leisure after a day spent plotting wars across the seas; and though these gentlemen are excellent at imposing a world order, they are equally adept at colonizing the women who maintain their homes.

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As several people who have seen this issue prior to publication have noted, the correct quote is “The love of money is the root of all evil,” but its truncated form seems more accurate than the original. Money itself, not just cherishing it, is the ultimate representation of all that is alienated in the modern world; the driving force of pathological greed; the whip that coerces wage labor; and the basis of wars. The current inequitable split of the planet’s wealth now allows ten million millionaires world-wide to control $37.2 trillion dollars in financial assets assuring a life of immiseration for billions of people.

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Play as a concept has always animated the anarchist/underground milieu with an infectious spirit of playful experimentation and exuberance. Riding wild and playful energy, we created seeds of an insurrectionary alternative reality that could one day replace or overthrow the dominant system. Physical, political, ideological, and imaginal spaces seemed open to us.

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This winter, the Fifth Estate seeks to publish good reading for winter hibernation. Work that focuses on underground political, cultural, and social activity, as well as subtextual analysis. We seek discussion on how radicals and everyday people subvert the dominant culture in a meaningful way.

We seek analysis on the unspoken meanings of current social, economic, semiotic, and political phenomena such as entertainment, gender, institutionalized violence, the environmental crisis, the Green Scare, bio-ethical decisions or anything you can fit into the theme. We seek to examine the parts we play in subjection and subjugation. This winter we seek to exhume the churchyard and provide readers with an invisible choir that will sing audibly and precisely about the true meanings of things.

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Utah Phillips at IWW Centenary, 2005, Chicago. On ends, folk singers Len Wallace and Charlie King; to Utah’s right, Federico Arcos.

The IWW and the labor movement lose a troubadour Utah Phillips, a seminal figure in American folk music, who performed tirelessly on two continents for 38 years, died May 23 of congestive heart failure in Nevada City, California, a small town in the Sierra Nevada mountains where he lived for the last 21 years with his wife, Joanna Robinson, a freelance editor. Phillips died at home, in bed, in his sleep, next to his wife.

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The following is a portion of a transcript of a May 7 interview with Utah Phillips conducted by long-time Fifth Estate contributor, Peter Werbe. It aired on his May 11 Detroit radio show in part to provide publicity for a benefit concert for Utah held in Ann Arbor. It is available as a podcast at wrif.compodcastnightcall for the show on that date. It follows the first two hours of phone-in talk.

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The Fifth Estate sat down with Andrew Flood from the Workers Solidarity Movement (WSM), an Irish anarchist group, who was on a 43 city speaking tour of North America. Walker Lane conducted the interview April 16 at the Baile Corcaigh Irish Pub in Detroit’s Corktown district.

The talk Andrew gave later in the evening described the group’s involvement in anti-war and abortion rights organizing, opposition to a gas pipeline, and participation in community based movements. Descriptions of these struggles and more information are at their web site, www.wsm.ie

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Common radical wisdom suggests that capitalism won’t crumble on its own, so imagine the ironically comforting confidence with which we have watched the system convulse over the last few months. But as Don LaCoss reminds us in “The Disasters of Disaster Capitalism,” it’s not a good idea to expect the system to just wither away. The cruel nature of corporations and the state suggests that the forces of domination will continue to profit from the people’s misery and punish anyone who gets in the way.

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The Green Scare continues with the plea-bargain and imprisonment of Fifth Estate writer Marie Mason, three new arrests in Wisconsin, grand jury appearances by activists Kevin Tucker and already-imprisoned Daniel McGowan, and the sentencing of Briana Waters.

The “Green Scare” refers to a series of recent arrests of earth and animal liberation activists (and the ongoing investigation and intimidation of the same) who have engaged in acts of property damage in which no one was hurt. The arrests have been marked by outrageous charges (activists often face life in prison), as well as the public and legal labeling of these acts as “terrorism.”

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During four days in September, the Republican Party held its national convention in the Excel Energy Center in Saint Paul, Minnesota. In the style of 21^st century capitalism, these party conventions are almost entirely virtual: media spectacles complete with bright lights, hokey sets, and lots of the red, white, and blue; an imaginary world occupied by creepy mannequins with stiff smiles.

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SUBTEXT, SUBVERSION and SABOTAGE

This winter, Fifth Estate seeks to put out good reading for hibernation. Work that focuses on underground political, cultural and social activity as well as subtextual analysis. We seek discussion on how radicals and everyday folks subvert the dominant culture in a meaningful way. We seek analysis on the unspoken meanings of current social, economic, semiotic and political phenomena such as the environmental crisis and the Green Scare, bio-ethical decisions, entertainment, gender, institutionalized violence. We seek to examine the parts we play in subjection and subjugation This winter we seek to exhume the churchyard and provide readers with an invisible choir that will sing audibly and precisely about the hidden meanings of things.

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The RNC 8 are eight activists from Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota charged with four felony counts of conspiracy, two with “Terrorism Enhancements,” in the first known use of the Minnesota Anti Terrorism Act of 2002 (dubbed the MN PATRIOT Act), for their organizing in response to the 2008 Republican National Convention (RNC).

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Anarchist Studies vol. 16 #1 (2008)

c/o Lawrence & Wishart,

99a Wallis Rd,

London E9 5LN, UK

www.lwbooks.co.uk/journals/anarchiststudies/contents.html

£20.00 subscription

Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed #66 (Winter/Fall 2008)

PO Box 3488,

Berkeley, CA 94703

anarchymag.org

$20 / 5 issue subscription

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It’s the biggest and only anarchist theatre festival in the world, and it’s happening again during the month-long May 2009 Festival of Anarchy in North America’s favourite anarchist playground, Montreal, Quebec.

The fourth annual Montreal International Anarchist Theatre Festival (MIATF) takes place May 13 and 14, 2009, at Concordia University’s 400 seat D.B. Clarke Theatre, where last year, almost 800 people attended spectacular performances by The Bread & Puppet Theatre and other anarchist artists.

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Fifth Estate #381, Summer-Fall 2009, Vol. 44, No. 2

2 LETTERS

4 MARIE MASON INTERVIEW

5 RNC FRAME-UP UPDATE

6 THE SHIT HITS THE FAN by Ron Sakolsky

8 KILLER APE THEORY DISPROVED by Tim MacGowan

10 THE FUTURE OF LEARNING by Christopher J. Schneider

12 MURDER IN OAXACA by John Gibler

13 TUNING INTO THE ILLEGALIST CONTINUUM by Ron Sakolsky

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It’s a paradox and an irony that in a nation so filled with timid, quiescent conformists, that pirates hold such romantic appeal for so many.

Perhaps, due to the dominant mass psychology of submission, it’s the repressed fantasy of transgression and rebellion that drives so many web sites, festivals, games, movies, histories, and re-enactments devoted to the buccaneers.

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Marie Mason, a long-time Fifth Estate contributor, sentenced in February to almost 22-years in prison following a guilty plea for two acts of property destruction on behalf of the environment, is now an inmate at the Waseca federal prison, 75 miles south of Minneapolis. (See Fifth Estate #380, Spring 2009).

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In a sign of the power of post-Republican National Convention court solidarity, Ramsey County, Minnesota prosecuting attorney, Susan Gaertner, dropped two of the four unfounded charges against the RNC 8, in April.

The RNC 8 are organizers against the 2008 Twin Cities Republican National Convention who have been falsely charged in response to their political organizing: Luce Guillen-Givins, Max Specktor, Nathanael Secor, Eryn Trimmer, Monica Bicking, Erik Oseland, Robert Czernik and Garrett Fitzgerald.

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The late Richard Mock’s linocut art has been featured in the Fifth Estate and other anarchist publications for many years including after his death in 2006 at age 61. His work also appeared on the Op-Ed pages of The New York Times and was the featured art cover for a United Nations magazine with world-wide circulation. Several museums hold his paintings and prints as well. Mock was named the official portrait painter of the 1980 Olympics. Richard left us with the originals of the art that has appeared in these pages since 2002. We’re pleased to offer the 17” by 14.5” original linocut on the previous page for the price of $250 unframed. Richard’s Prints have sold for as much as $2000, but although a signed edition, this is an unnumbered Test Print and marked T.P. as is the custom in such work.

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1. Subscribe. Subscribers are a publication’s life blood. If you bought this at a news stand, consider subscribing and buying one for a friend or a library.

2. Donate. Postal and printing costs continue to rise making financial stability an increasing Challenge to publications which refuse commercial advertising. Donations also allow us to continue sending free subscriptions to prisoners and GIs.

3. Distribute the FE. Sell or give away current or back issues. Get stores in your area to sell the magazine. Use them for tabling. Take them to events and demos. Most back issues available for the cost of postage. Write us at fe@fifthestate.org for info.

4. Hold a fundraiser for the FE. A house party or an event not only provides revenue for the magazine, but gets people together that share similar ideas.

5. Become an FE Sustainer. Sustainers pledge a certain amount each issue or yearly above the subscription fee to assure our continuing publishing, and receive each issue by First Class mail.

6. Buy FE Books. Support our authors and independent publishers and revenue for the magazine.

To honor Ursula K. LeGuin’s 80^th year on the planet, the FE’s next edition will explore the intersection of utopian, feminist, ecological, Taoist, and anti-authoritarian ideas in her prolific catalog of novels, poems, and essays.

The centerpiece of this issue will be a reprint of LeGuin’s 1989 essay “A Non-Euclidean View Of California As A Cold Place To Be” featuring a new introduction by John Clark. Clark writes: “LeGuin poses the question of whether our voyage to the elsewheres of the past or the nowheres of fiction can lead us to regain certain lost qualities of mind and abandoned sensibilities, so that we may be once again able to experience reality more intensely, and care about it more passionately, as it manifests itself precisely where we are.”

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This issue was edited and produced in Detroit with extensive assistance from our friends and comrades of the FE collective around the country. Also, thanks is due to our contributing artists and photographers.

Jim Feast has contributed essays for the last three issues. He is one of the Unbearables who co-edited The Worst Book I Ever Read (Autonomedia 2009).

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“We are going to inherit the earth. There is not the slightest doubt about that. The bourgeoisie may blast and burn its own world before it finally leaves the stage of history. We are not afraid of ruins. We who ploughed the prairies and built the cities can build again, only better next time. We carry a new world, here in our hearts. That world is growing this minute.”

-- Durruti

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By the time you hold this issue in your hands, Fifth Estate will have entered into its 45^th year of continuous publication! This is no small feat for an all-volunteer run publication operating on a shoestring budget, and it would not be possible without the continued support of our subscribers, sustainers, and readers like you. For this, you have the heartfelt thanks of everyone in the FE collective. That said, if you are not yet a subscriber, please consider subscribing so we can continue to bring you compelling stories and well argued essays from FE’s unique perspectives (see our subscription call out on page 37). If you are already a subscriber, consider donating or sponsoring a subscription to a prisoner (FE provides free subscriptions to prisoners).

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FE’s Bill Blank, wearing a Free Marie t-shirt, crosses the finish line at the Indianapolis Half-Marathon, Sept. 2009. Shirt and other Marie merch available at freemarie.org.

FE Note: Most of the following information on Marie Mason is from the web site supportmariemason.org. Check for updates.

Marie, a long-time Fifth Estate contributor, was sentenced in February 2009 to almost 22 years in prison following a guilty plea for two acts of property destruction. She is currently an inmate at the Waseca, Minnesota federal correctional institution, serving the longest sentence of any Green Scare arrestee. (See Fifth Estate Spring and Summer 2009 editions.) These are available at the FE web site.

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Belief systems--cognitive constructions--determine our perception of reality which can chain us to old ideas or free us with visions that go beyond dominant paradigms. The entire modern era has been one of contestation as to which belief systems will rule in societies--ones that link us to submission and acquiescence to hierarchal authority or those which rebel against them.

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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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Welcome to our Summer edition with its theme of Belief/Disbelief/Unbelief.

Our essays don’t so much investigate beliefs themselves as much as belief systems, our cognitive constructions which determine our perception of reality. Beliefs can either chain us to repressive ideas or free us with visions that go beyond dominant paradigms. The entire modern era has been one of contestation as to which belief systems will rule in societies--ones that link us to submission and acquiescence to hierarchal authority, or those which rebel against them and eliminate the categories of rulers and ruled. Comments are welcome on the essays which follow.

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Theme: “DIY: Culture, Ethics, Aesthetics”

Next issue: FIFTH ESTATE #384 Winter 2011

Maybe the most persistent of all forms of external authority in our lives are the day-to-day tyrannies of specialists and experts. The Fifth Estate’s next issue investigates strategies of resistance to and liberation from this insidious system of technocratic mystification and domination with a look at the culture, ethics, and aesthetics of do-it-yourselfism.

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As BP continues to devastate the Gulf of Mexico for generations to come, militant eco-radicals like Marie Mason, who have dedicated their lives to halting exactly this kind of environmental destruction, helplessly watch from inside the dungeons of the State.

Mason is serving almost 22 years for two acts of environmentally-motivated property destruction, the longest sentence of any Green Scare prisoner. The Green Scare is the name given to the recent slate of prosecutions of radical environmental and animal liberation activists. Her sentence is under appeal.

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The RNC 8 are preparing for trial following hearings to dismiss felony charges against them stemming from planned demonstrations at the 2008 Republican National Convention (RNC). The eight activists were preemptively arrested before the convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, some in raids by heavily armed SWAT teams. While the State dismissed terrorism counts last year, the defendants still face charges of conspiracy to riot with a dangerous weapon and conspiracy to commit criminal damage to property.

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FIFTH ESTATE #384 Spring, 2011, Vol. 46, #1

Maybe the most persistent of all forms of external authority in our lives are the day-to-day tyrannies of specialists and experts. The Fifth Estate’s next issue investigates strategies of resistance to and liberation from this insidious system of technocratic mystification and domination with a look at the culture, ethics, and aesthetics of do-it-yourselfism.

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This issue is dated Spring 2011 and follows our Summer 2010 number. It was intended for publication on November 1, but the tragic death of our friend and comrade, Don LaCoss, who was editing the issue, is the reason for our interruption in publishing.

Death’s scythe slices always cruelly, often unexpectedly, sweeping away those we cherish and need without regard for those left in grief. So it was with Don LaCoss, who succumbed on January 31 to complications from a respiratory illness he had been fighting for months.

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Marie Mason, who is serving the longest prison term of any Green Scare prisoner, lost her appeal as the U.S. 6^th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati on December 16 upheld her almost 22-year sentence for two acts of eco-sabotage. Following oral arguments in front of the court in October, Mason’s attorney, Anastatse Markou, said he was encouraged by the questions the judges asked about the harshness of the sentence which is the basis of the appeal, but it came to naught. As usual, American justice, not impartially blindfolded to her supplicants, but with one eye open, winked obscenely at the power she serves so dutifully. Green Scare is the name given to recent prosecutions of radical environmental and animal liberation activists who are labeled terrorists by the government and given exceptionally long sentences. No one has been killed or injured as a result of their actions. Mason accepted a plea agreement that called for a sentence of 15–20 years, although the judge tacked on even more time to the maximum agreed upon with the prosecution. It’s not clear whether any further avenues within the legal system are worth pursuing. An appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, given its right-wing composition, and the cost involved, makes it probably prohibitive. In early July, Mason was remanded to solitary confinement for a month before being transferred to a facility in Fort Worth, Texas. She was told by prison officials at Federal Correction Institution (FCI) Waseca (Minnesota) that her confinement and transfer, during which she was not allowed to retain many of her personal belongings including books and photos, was “administrative” and not punitive. Mason had been a model prisoner and was teaching guitar to other prisoners. She was known for her peacekeeping efforts inside the prison. Mason’s plea agreement included the crime of arson at the Michigan State University Biotechnology Support Project in East Lansing, Michigan, a genetically modified organism (GMO) research site. In 1999, she and her husband at the time, Frank Ambrose, set fire to research records at the lab causing considerable damage to the building. Ambrose became a snitch for the federal government almost ten years later, taping incriminating conversations with Mason, and later with dozens of other activists around the country at the behest of the FBI. Ambrose is serving a nine-year term in spite of all his work as a government informant. He was sentenced by US District Judge Paul Maloney who also presided in Mason’s case. Ambrose and Mason had been divorced prior to their arrests. There were initial fears that Mason had been transferred to a newly established Communications Management Unit (CMU) at the Federal Medical Center (FMC) Carswell in Fort Worth. In CMUs, prisoners are subjected to a heavily repressive regimen that allows only severely reduced contact with friends and family. Lawyers with the New York City-based Center for Constitutional Rights say the feds have consistently denied that Carswell is a CMU. However, the wing Mason is in is clearly a special control unit, and has restrictive conditions. Carswell’s web site states that it “provides specialized medical and mental health services to female offenders,” but the facility is notorious for its bad services for ill or disturbed prisoners and has been the subject of past law suits. Although Mason says she preferred the prison in Minnesota with its larger population, she is reconstructing her life at Carswell and reports that she has improved access to fresh foods to accommodate her vegan diet. Mason receives support from environmentalists and animal rights activists world-wide, many who do not approve of her tactics, but are appalled at her harsh sentence. She says she wants to assure them that, contrary to rumors, she steadfastly maintains her vegan diet even though so doing was beginning to erode her health given the lack of proper food at the Minnesota facility. Supporters help provide Mason with money for food of her choice from the prison commissary, stamps, clothing, supplies, phone calls and internet communication. Mason’s son and daughter receive stipends from the Rosenberg Fund for Children that makes grants to the offspring of persecuted activists. The fund is administered in part by Robert Meerpol, one of the two children of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg who were executed as atomic spies in 1953 following a frame-up trial. In other developments, Mason urgently asks that her supporters not send money directly to her commissary account, since when it reaches a certain level the government confiscates the overage to pay toward her $4 million restitution she has been ordered to repay. All donations should be sent to her mother, Karin Mason, at PO Box 352, Stanwood MI 49346. Money sent to her is put into Mason’s commissary account as needed. Please circulate this information. Benefits continue to support Mason including recent ones in Cincinnati, and another in October in Detroit’s Trumbullplex featuring singer/songwriter David Rovics which raised over $700. Mason welcomes mail, but please contact her before sending her anything other than a letter to insure she can receive a particular item. Her address is: Marie Mason #04672–061 FMC Carswell P.O. Box 27137 Fort Worth, TX 76127

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In a 1905 letter from prison, Alexander Berkman wrote: “None of us are ready for anarchy, though many are for anarchism.” In this letter, Berkman defined anarchism as a philosophy, and anarchy as a social state, the end goal of anarchism.

The next issue of Fifth Estate will explore visions of anarchism and anarchy through fiction. From fictional struggles of anarchists in the past and present to stories of an anarchist future, we will explore the many facets of anarchism as a philosophy, anarchy as a social state, and anything and everything else in between. We will be open to any style of fiction that carries this theme. Be creative. Tell us a good story, but don’t just entertain, inspire us! Challenge us to see anarchism from a new perspective, or in a different light.

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FIFTH ESTATE

ANARCHIST FICTION ISSUE

FIFTH ESTATE #385 Fall, 2011, Vol. 46, #2, page 1

2 LETTERS

4 COPYRIGHT OR WRONG by Walker Lane

6 INTERNATIONAL DAY OF SOLIDARITY WITH MARIE MASON

9 HOCKEY RIOTS IN VANCOUVER by Ron Sakolsky

11 A BRIEF HISTORY OF ANARCHIST FICTION by Margaret Killjoy

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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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St. Paul, Minn. — Three activists and their attorneys won a $50,000 settlement May 23 in a lawsuit that challenged an August 30, 2008 police raid on a St. Paul home before that year’s Republican National Convention (RNC).

The plaintiffs in the case, Sarah Coffey (who wrote the FE’s Detroit anarchist convergence article in the Spring 2011 edition), Erin Stalnaker and Kris Hermes, are giving most of the award to the Committee to Stop FBI Repression, the Institute for Anarchist Studies, and the formation of a national legal defense fund for political activists.

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Three new ones: The Raging Pelican; The Anvil Review; Psychic Swamp #1

The Raging Pelican, A Journal of Gulf Coast Resistance, published by a group of “blue collar New Orleans residents,” who are understandably pissed about what’s been done to their piece of planet. Their first issue came out in the weeks following the BP oil spill and they’ve broadened their focus to include a whole range of the worst abuses of cops, bureaucrats, politicians, and principals. Reach them at ragingpelican.com and on Facebook.

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Detroit-born and raised, and self-described anarchist, Philip Levine was named the U.S. Poet Laureate by the Library of Congress in August. The post, whose task entails raising “the national consciousness to a greater appreciation of the reading and writing of poetry,” may take on a different than usual dimension during Levine’s tenure given his politics.

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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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The Fifth Estate has always proudly displayed the FBI’s description of this publication as “supporting revolution everywhere,” but the world has greatly changed since the U.S. secret police prowled around our offices and kept tabs on staff members in the 1960s.

Those evil gumshoes knew little about what constitutes an authentic overthrow of the current misery and the restructuring of its causes along revolutionary principles. But, perhaps the armored toadies of the state intuited something important: that society perpetuates itself through people’s habit of submission to authority, and that even the smallest act of rebellion contains the seeds of total revolt.

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Just when the corporate bosses thought their world-racket was secure (give or take a few economic crises), the old mole of revolution has suddenly poked her furry head above ground and has put the question of power and wealth on everyone’s lips. Hence, this issue could not have appeared at a better time.

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Deadline: April 1,

Publication date: May 5

For the past several years, each edition of the Fifth Estate has had a specific theme. Maybe it’s the excitement of the era which has just opened up, but we have decided not to have a particular theme for our Summer edition, and simply let the imagination of writers get as wild as the times demand.

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Movement troubadour David Rovics performed a benefit concert in Detroit, October 27, for singer/songwriter/environmental activist, Marie Mason, the Green Scare prisoner serving the longest sentence for eco-sabotage.

Generous attendees at the benefit contributed over $1,000 to support Marie’s prison and legal needs.

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Militarized police attack unarmed demonstrators at a protest against the G20 meeting in Toronto, June 2010

In a packed Toronto courtroom, November 23, the prosecution dropped all conspiracy charges against the so-called “Main G20 Conspiracy Group,” 17 organizers from Southern Ontario and Quebec.

The G20 Summit, a meeting of international finance ministers held in Toronto in June 2010, was met with huge protests, followed by unprecedented mass arrests: 1105 people detained, and over 300 charged. Countless others were targets of police brutality and violations of fundamental human rights. Of those charged, almost 200 had charges dropped.

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The Montreal zine and distro, Mauvaise Herbe (MH; The Weed), celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2011. The journal, with its green and anarchist insurrectionist influences, prints articles in French and English, was first to publish this perspective in French in Quebec.

Since 2002, Mauvaise regularly presents workshops at the annual Montreal Anarchist Bookfair and at other events including the city’s Eco-radical festival. The topics include anarchism and the anti-civ critique, the question of organization, the concept of autonomy, and on the challenges to Quebec’s eco-radical movement.

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Many anarchist book fairs are scheduled for 2012, and the Fifth Estate will make an appearance at some of them.

We will have a booth for our magazine at the 6^th annual New York City Anarchist Book Fair, which we will share with the Support Marie Mason Committee as we’ve done in past years.

We will also will share tables at the Montreal and San Francisco events.

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Most publications receive more books for review than they can possibly do. What’s needed is an Anarchist Review of Books [now, there’s a project waiting to happen]. We are often disappointed, to say nothing of the authors, when we cannot find reviewers for excellent titles that are sent to us. Here are a selection of books we’ve gotten recently, and this isn’t a complete list.

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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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Pictured at right are Federico Arcos, Fifth Estate comrade, and veteran of the Spanish anarchist militias of the 1930s, with Julie Herrada, April 7, at Hamtramck, Michigan’s 2739 Gallery, during the opening of the exhibit, ‘Unthinkable,’ a display of artifacts from the collection of Fredy and Lorraine Perlman. Featured were posters and publications from Paris 1968, and from ones produced at Detroit’s Print Co-op, as well as a first French edition of Debord’s Society of the Spectacle, and a floor-to-ceiling display of huge timeline sheets for Perlman’s, The Strait.

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They’ve wrecked the earth, destroyed her treasures, and inflicted misery on the many, all so they can golf or set up their lawn chairs on some clear cut forest. It’s over whether we do anything or not, but if we fail to act, the future will metastasize into the wreckage colonization always leaves in its collapse.

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For: Fifth Estate, Fall 2012

Deadline: August 1

Publication date: September 5

Fall is the traditional time when students resume their studies. At present, there are tuition strikes, austerity strikes, student loan debt crises, and other dilemmas regarding education playing out in the public arena. For much of mainstream society, even the very value and meaning of education is now in question.

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All donations for Marie Mason should be sent to

Support Marie Mason,

c/o Fifth Estate,

POB 201016,

Ferndale MI 48220.

Checks should be made out to Support Marie Mason.

Funds are used for her prison expenditures, plus support material such as t-shirts, leaflets and brochures to publicize the injustice of Marie’s sentence, provide travel stipends, and expenses for her pro bono lawyers.

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In a by-gone era, summers were when people took two week vacations and sat on the beach with an escapist novel to forget the world of work and obligations.

The books reviewed here contain the opposite of an escape: they ask the reader to become engaged with a world facing collapse on a multitude of levels, and with the critical task of knowing what we want and how to get it.

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The Montreal-based Anarchist Writers Bloc (AWB) has published Subversions Vol II, their second anthology of new anarchist fiction. The 260 page, trilingual (English, French & Italian) text is a powerful collection of 28 original short stories from 28 established and emerging anarchist writers from around the world.

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The Dispossessed

Author: Ursula, K. LeGuin

The best fictional account of an anarchist society in practice, from the perspective of a brilliant scientist from that society who leaves it to try and bridge the cultural gap between his society and that of their nearest neighbors.

Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice

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A review of

Venezuela: Revolution as Spectacle by Rafael Uzcategui, Introduction by Octavio Alberola, Translated by Chaz Bufe, Tucson, See Sharp Press, 2011, 232 pages; seesharppress.com

FE Note: What follows isn’t strictly speaking a review. The one we had intended didn’t materialize, so we are reprinting this from the Venezuelan anarchist publication, El Libertario, where much of Rafael Uzcatequi’s writings appear, and whose themes are echoed in this book.

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The 3^rd Annual Twin Cities Anarchist Book Fair (TCABF) is the weekend of Sept. 15–16 at the Powderhorn Park building in Minneapolis.

The organizers say while the primary purpose of the Book Fair is to promote and debate the ideas of anarchism, it is also open to organizations and individuals who seek a radical restructuring of our current society to be more democratic, less oppressive, and just for all people.

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Modern Slavery: The Libertarian Critique of Civilization, is a new magazine from CAL Press, publishers of Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed, that is printing material they identify as critical and creative material that has too often fallen in between the cracks of other periodicals from a left libertarian perspective.

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“Full sexual consciousness and a natural regulation of sexual life mean the end of mystical feelings of any kind. In other words, natural sexuality is the deadly enemy of mystical religion.”

--Wilhelm Reich, Listen, Little Man

Deadline: November 1, 2012 Publication date: December, 2012

Sex. It is perhaps the most loaded word in the English language, with numerous connotations and denotations. In this issue of Fifth Estate, we want to explore sex and sexuality in all its forms, exposing the naked truths, and teasing out the possibilities. No topic is too risqué.

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When the cops themselves say they acted illegally, you know it’s got to have been bad. It is also rare when the police (smiley-faced when helping kids across the street; brutal, out-of-control mercenaries when unleashed) make their misdeeds public.

So, it was a shock of some proportion to read parts of a 287-page report issued in May by Toronto’s Office of the Independent Police Review on the excessive force, illegal arrests, and attacks on peaceful demonstrators during the June 2010 G-8 meeting in that city.

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A few hundred people carrying a coffin and accompanied by a brass band marched through Oakland, Calif. on Leap Day, Feb. 29, at a funeral for capitalism. It was a welcome break from protesting-as-usual as well as a demonstration of how the Occupy scene is moving beyond single issue politics and rejecting the whole rotten system. The procession was short on mourning and long on celebration.

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“Underground presses cannot survive within capitalist society. They are created only in order to destroy capitalist relations.”

--Fredy Perlman

FREDY PERLMAN was a radical activist, college professor, writer and publisher whose philosophy has had a significant influence on modern anarchist thought. His most well-known book, Against His-Story, Against Leviathan!, uses Thomas Hobbes’ metaphor of the Leviathan (a huge, monstrous beast that represented the power of a strong government authority) to criticize the rise of modern statist, capitalist civilization. He also helped found the Detroit Printing Co-Op and the anarchist publishing company Black and Red Books. He died in 1985.

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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 you receive a phone call or a letter from Marie Mason, the Green Scare pri

Kelly Poe’s photo of Marie Mason’s image of sanity and chair, table, and book.

soner serving the longest sentence for eco-sabotage, one is almost startled at how buoyant she is, filled with questions about what you’re doing and wanting to give her opinion on what is happening in the world.

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