Fifth Estate Collective

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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A valuable anarchist history resource, The Emma Goldman Papers archive, is being defunded by University of California, Berkeley, and will have to close if alternative funding can’t be found soon. The 34-year-old archive is currently the most comprehensive, organized collection of Goldman-related materials in the world.

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The Martyrs’ Farewell
That we lost and have to die, does not diminish our appreciation and gratitude for your great solidarity with us and our families. Friends and Comrades, now that the tragedy of this trial is at an end, be all as of one heart. Only two of us will die. Our ideal, you our comrades, will live by millions. We have won. We are not vanquished. Just treasure our suffering, our sorrow, our mistakes, our defeats, our passion for future battles and for the great emancipation.
Be all as of one heart in this blackest hour of our tragedy. And we have heart. Salute for us all the Friends and Comrades on the earth.
We embrace you all and bid you our extreme good-bye with our hearts filled with love and affection.
Now and ever, long life to you all, long life to liberty.
Yours for life and death.
--Nicola Sacco, Bartolomeo Vanzetti (Death House, August 21, 1927)

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Beginning in the late 1970s, punk as a form of rebellion, along with the do-it-yourself ethos, engaged many people with anarchist and anti-authoritarian ideas.

But, whatever happened to the Sex Pistols, one of the punk rock scene’s founding groups?

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The MC5 from promotion photo for their debut album, “Kick Out the Jams.” (photo: Leni Sinclair)

It was fifty years ago this summer that the lead singer of a band from a working class Detroit suburb screamed into a mic, “Kick out the jams, motherfucker,” inaugurating a wild ride into rock history.

The music of the MC5, whose combination of rock and roll power, attitude, and connection to the revolutionary White Panther Party, made them, and their poet, marijuana advocate manager, John Sinclair, frequent targets for police suppression, arrest, and violence.

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You don’t have to watch the nightly TV news to realize that money is tight these days. It is an international problem that has put many anti-authoritarian printing projects in jeopardy including this one. For that reason we are planning a benefit party to raise money for the international anti-authoritarian press.

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Who’s Afraid of The Black Blocs?: Anarchy in Action Around the World, Francis Dupuis-Deri, 2013, PM Press pmpress.org

The Watcher, Nicholas P. Oakley, 2014, See Sharp Press, SeeSharpPress.com (Sci-fi)

The End of the World As We Know it?: Crisis, Resistance, & the Age of Austerity, edited by Deric Shannon, 2014, AK press, akpress.org

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The standard rationalization for the existence of the State is that supposedly without an external restraining element, such as a heavily armed police force, the nature of humans is such-that all of us would prey so wickedly upon one another that life would become intolerable. Forgetting that the State is a somewhat recent development in human affairs and permanent police forces an even newer innovation, many people believe that at least under capitalism the police are a necessary evil as long as this society creates such a potential for disorder.

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• Renew the Earthly Paradise

• Present Day Banalities

The two essays printed here were written in response to a questionnaire sent out by the Italian anarchist magazine, Rivista anarchica, investigating the present situation for North American anarchist and libertarian groups and publications. Rivista anarchica, a monthly publication, is publishing a special issue on “Anarchism in America,” and asked each group to describe its point of view and activities, and to respond to the following two questions: 1) In the “Reagan era,” what do you see as the important areas of social conflict in North America from an anarchist perspective? and 2) In your opinion, what are the most relevant differences between the radical movements of the 60s and the radical movements of the ‘80s? Each question was to take about 20 to 30 lines. We’ve never been famous for brevity, so we did our best to talk about our concerns in the space allotted. The other response is from Anti-Authoritarians Anonymous (P.O. Box 11331, Eugene OR 97440), long-time collaborators of the FE whose articles have frequently appeared in these pages. We thought that the responses to Rivista anarchica would be appropriate for our 20^th Anniversary issue as an indication of where we’re at and what we’re thinking.

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On November 6^th, the night of the presidential election, San Francisco’s amorphous and semi-marginal anti-authoritarian “community” called for a funeral march to mourn for freedom, the dead of the next war, and to hope for the death of imperialism and the system that keeps it alive.

At about 6:30 pm 150 people walked between City Hall and the Democratic Party’s San Francisco headquarters; we also went by polling places and imitated sheep, finally ending up at the Republican Party’s victory celebration. At 8:00 we set up a soup kitchen across the street to dramatize the immense gap which separates the ruling class from the rest of us.

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Top: Sunday in the park spontaneous music and dancing were continuous.
Middle: We were treated to a variety of performances, including poetry, improvisational jazz, acoustic and electric music, and theater.
Bottom: It is interesting to note that although the police were not in control of the demonstrators they did have some finely tuned methods of dealing with them. A protestor grabbed by an officer was quickly isolated as mounted police surrounded them pushing the crowd outward while police on foot reinforced the widening circle.
Photos by Rebecca Cook

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Millard Berry--Long time Fifth Estate photographer and staff member. www.millardberry.com

Detroit Artists Workshop--Founded in 1964 in Detroit’s art and cultural community. Personnel and events frequently coincided with the Fifth Estate. www.detroitartistsworkshop.org

Egg Syntax--FE staff member, writes experimental music: http://glossolalia.jukeboxalive.com and metablogs regularly on the intersections of art, technology, and ethics: http://www.bloglines.com/blog/eggsyntax

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Want to learn how to turn off GPS on your phone? Hear the latest from the pipeline blockade? Or, how to support pipeline resisters near you? The Final Straw Radio (TFSR) is a weekly anarchist radio show and podcast based in Asheville, N.C. TFSR has produced programs since 2010, airing on stations across the country, and offering free downloads at thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org.

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The Bearer of this document is hereby recognized as a member in good standing of the Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Community. As such, this creature is entitled to the following rights as established by the unwritten Constitution of the Universe:

• Right to Purity of Soil, Air and Waters

• Right to Immunity from Artificial Concepts of Time, Space and Location

• Right to All Territory of the Universe

• Right to Self-Defined Identity Regardless of Race, Nationality, Species or Genus

• Right to Unlimited Ecstasy and Its Means of Acquisition

• Right of Unlimited Choice of Behavior

• Right to Independence from All Gods, Laws and Religions

• Right to be Useless and Unproductive

• Right to Disregard Prevailing Concepts of Science, Logic, Politics, History and Mathematics

• Right to Death and Choice of Means

• Right to Unlimited Shape or Personality

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Over the years, our special features addressing identity politics—from the 1971 women’s issue to the queer edition of 1993—have both appealed to and tested our readers for the challenging exchanges these topics inevitably generate. This issue on Race and Culture has inspired both an unprecedented quantity of contributions and stimulating controversy within the Fifth Estate (FE) collective.

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Dear Ann Landers: I am a person of simple taste. I don’t need much to make me happy. A can of beer, two good baseball teams, a freeway and a tank of gas. A sunny day in early June. A brisk run at sunrise. A pretty girl who smiles when I look her way. A short story by William Faulkner.

None of these will pay the rent, so I have to work—which I hate, but I realize a person must be practical. What I need to know is why should I kill myself to meet someone else’s definition of success?

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Dear Ann Landers:

Please tell me how certain people can appear to be perfectly OK when they are clearly insane?

Our sweet, innocent daughter was married last week to a Mortician 12 years her senior. He courted her for more than a year. One of the things that Impressed her so favorably was this man’s restraint and good manners. He never embraced her intimately nor did be try to talk her into sex, even after they were engaged.

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People of Detroit, someone needs you!

A girl in the Warren-Forest area will die of a rare blood disease in October if she doesn’t raise close to $1000 and 51 pints of blood.

Through a period of time in the hospital her diseased blood will be drained and healthy blood restored. If you can donate blood or money please contact Susie, 833–7260.

A radical publishing project, “We are Everywhere: the irresistible rise of global anti-capitalism,” is being put together by a collective of activists, artists and writers. We are looking for more photographs, street art and posters/flyers for the book. The book will celebrate, document, explore and critique the recent rise of the global movement(s) against capitalism and for life, autonomy, land, dignity and justice.

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The Third Space infoshop and lending library is open in Norman, Oklahoma. It features radical, revolutionary, and progressive social theory; philosophy, history, race, class and gender studies; art, literature, DIY manuals, and guides; plus a selection of over eight hundred books. They feature a collection of over one thousand ‘zines, magazines, and periodicals, as well as a small collection of audio and video material, and a public internet terminal.

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Fifth Estate Books publishes the first title of its new imprint.

We are proud to announce the launch of Fifth Estate Books as a publishing imprint. Our first book--Creating Anarchy by Ron Sakolsky--should be released sometime this year.

Gathering at Bolo Bonobo

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Things have a real roll on here at the Fifth Estate and believe it or not we may have the next issue to you in about six weeks. We had several articles left over from this issue and already have an anti-nuke special in mind for the next. Also, look for an announcement of an anti-nuke conference to be held at the Grinning Duck. Final note: Did Canadian subscribers receive our last issue dated July? If not, write us and we’ll send it out.

Answers for Anarcho-Crossword, Fifth Estate 390

Voltairine: Voltairine de Cleyre (1866--1912); prolific anarchist-feminist writer and lecturer who advocated freethinking and “anarchism without adjectives.”

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—Albo Jeavons (www.adanon.org)

This issue on economy marks the Fifth Estate’s last edition of 2004, and as we approach our 40^th anniversary edition, it feels critical to consider the decision we made 30 years ago to become explicitly anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist.

For a brief period in the early 1970s, FE flirted with the kind of alternative journalism that we expect from weeklies like Nashville Scene, Detroit’s Metro Times, and the hundreds of other free papers of that ilk. During this time, FE also attempted to run itself as a business. This phase of the project was a failure. To mark “the last issue of the FE as a capitalist enterprise,” the volunteer editors who had been working together as the Eat The Rich Gang (some still involved in the project), made a series of decisions that we affirm today.

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Norman Nawrocki’s “No way! No way! Trees that Talk” was presented at the 2018 Montreal International Anarchist Theatre Festival, the theme of which was Anti-Fascism. The play is based on the lives of six anarchist, anti-fascist women—four from 20^th century opposition in Italy, Spain, Germany and Poland, and two recent ones from Greece and Syria.

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Coming out of antifa smashups with fascists, in Charlottesville and Berkeley in August, condemnation of those physically fighting the alt-right has given new life to Trump’s charge that “many sides” are responsible for violence at anti-fascist actions.

And, some on the left are contributing to this.

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VOICE, the University of Michigan Chapter of Students for a Democratic Society has called for regional action Aug. 8 at the Dow Chemical Corp. in Midland, Mich., protesting that company’s production of napalm for use on Vietnamese villages.

Members of the participating organizations will travel to Midland on August 7^th to attempt to mobilize community support against napalm production there much in the same way a group of citizens did in Redwood City, California. On Monday, August 8^th, there will be a mass demonstration at the Dow Chemical plant. Participants are expected from all across Michigan and Northern Ohio. The Detroit Committee to End the War in Vietnam voted July 13 to support the action and will coordinate travel arrangements and publicity for the Detroit area. The Committee may be contacted at its office at 1101 W. Warren.

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On Saturday night, May 3, a gathering of about 250 to 400 women and perhaps 100 men held a rally in Palmer Park on Detroit’s North End and then marched through the surrounding neighborhood chanting, “Women, Take Back The Night.” The assembly was one of a series of actions initiated by women which have been held nationwide to protest the pervasive rape culture of this society.

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In response to the arrest of two antiwar GIs and the steady harassment of military organizers, the Detroit Resistance and the Detroit Committee to End the War in Vietnam have launched a law suit against the Board of County Road Commissioners.

The suit, which was announced by Attorney Marc Kadish of the National Lawyers Guild and Victory Fidelman of the Resistance at an April 8 press conference, will attack the regulation which governs the distribution of literature at Metropolitan Airport.

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Fort Ord, Calif., (LNS)—Two GI’s, members of the American Serviceman’s Union, face possible charges of “promoting disloyalty and disaffection among the troops and the civilian populace.” Pvts. Ken Stolte, Jr. and Pfc. Daniel Amick are being investigated because of their leaflet, We Protest.”

The Army maintains “they did publish and distribute leaflets urging the formation of a union to organize their opposition to the war.

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The Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, the group that brought over 400,000 persons to New York City and San Francisco on April 15, has called for a national conference to evaluate the Mobilization and to exchange ideas on future programs and actions.

The conference, to be held in Washington, D.C., is scheduled for the weekend of May 20–21, following the confrontation with President Johnson by representatives of the peace movement. All groups and individuals who oppose the war are invited to attend.

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FORT KNOX — Pvt. Thomas Tuck of Cleveland, a black anti-war GI at Ft. Knox, Kentucky, was given a summary court-martial August 4 and sentenced to thirty days in the stockade at hard labor. His offense was that he refused to pick up a gun twice.

Tuck was notified of the court-martial the day before the trial. At the trial he was told that he would not be permitted a civilian lawyer. The Cleveland Draft Resistance Union has hired New York lawyer Conrad Lynn, who has filed notice of an appeal on this basis. The question is: does a soldier have a right to due process of law?

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Over the weekend of September 8–10, a Detroit Area High School Anti-war Conference was held. Many concrete resolutions came out of it, including “support of the October 21^st demonstration in Washington; support of all activities based around the confrontation; that a call go out to all high school students to participate in the march and organize around it. That they march in it under their own banners.”

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The mass anti-war march set for April 15 down Woodward Ave. may have wider support than all previous such demonstrations.

Plans call for the march to begin at the Wayne State University campus at 2:00 pm and march to Kennedy Square for a rally from 3:30 to 7:00 pm. Speakers and rock bands will be featured there.

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In the face of a seemingly inevitable campaign driven by the capitalists and their warmongering politicians, anti-war sentiment around the globe continues to grow. As resistance diversifies and broadens in political scope, fresh faces appear in the streets, voicing a firm rejection of the rulers’ policies.

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Socialist Workers party presidential nominee Fred Halstead was in Detroit Friday, October 6 to kick off his campaign at a rally sponsored by the S.W.P. campaign committee.

Halstead spoke about the positions of the Republican and Democratic presidential aspirants on the Vietnam war before an audience mostly made up of young people. Picking up on Governor Romney’s statement that LBJ had “brainwashed” him on Vietnam, Halstead pointed out that even the “dove” candidates and mass media evidenced brainwashing in the unconscious racism of assuming that somehow the U.S. had a mission in Vietnam.

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1,500 persons marched from Cass Park to Kennedy Square in downtown Detroit on October 26 as the city’s part in the international “Week of Solidarity with the Vietnamese People.” The marchers rested in the drained fountain of the square and listened while a variety of speakers denounced the presidential candidates, the war, and the system that produced it.

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Everybody knows we’re living in a period of unprecedented disillusionment. People everywhere are questioning even those basic assumptions which once bound their futures up safely and securely with the future of this society—a society they once felt themselves indispensable parts of.

Nobody trusts our government anymore. People hardly ever go to church anymore, and when they do, it’s only to vandalize the premises and assault priests with their own crucifixes. The family is falling apart. Everybody steals (look at New York!). Why; just the other day a poll taken by the Opinion Research Corporation revealed that, even with reduced work hours and increased pay, more people are dissatisfied with their jobs than at any time since they started taking the poll 25 years ago!

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“We might as well leave, Fred.”

Not many of us are fortunate enuf to have parents like the above.

For a book directed at (against) the establishment & the reaction, Tuli Kupferberg is seeking info about young people with ideas radically different from their families: case histories of the generation gap. For example: at the last great Pentagon demo, the daughter of Gen. Hershey’s first assistant was arrested. “A colonel’s son was arrested in Lawrence, Kansas, for parading in front of the local draft board with a sign reading: “Fuck the Draft.” An admiral’s son is a member of the Cornell resistance. Sen. McGovern’s daughter has been busted for dope, &c &c. (He is looking for people in all branches of the establishment, not just the military: i.e., in industry, finance, government, education, &c.)

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With “These faggots kill fascists” emblazoned on their banner, an army of international volunteers formed the first LGBT fighting unit to “smash the ISIS caliphate. This July photo shows them raising the rainbow flag in Raqqa, Syria. According to an online statement, The Queer Insurrection and Liberation Army, or TQILA, exists to “smash the gender binary...and advance the sexual revolution.”

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Editors’ Note: The following is taken from the Ft. Bliss “Gigline,” the GI anti-war paper at that base. Its address is Box 31094, Summit Hts. Sta, El Paso, TX 79931.

Ft. Bliss, Tex.—General William Westmoreland expected to visit Ft. Bliss to perform a ritualistic inspection of the base, make a few speeches, and accept the plaudits of local citizens.

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Reprinted from The Bond: The Voice of the American Servicemen’s Union

SEATTLE—GIs from Fort Lewis and McChord Air Force Base held a trial of the Brass and its war in Vietnam before an audience of 1,500 at the University of Washington. A jury of twelve active-duty soldiers found the military “guilty” on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of soldiers’ rights.

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NEW YORK, N.Y., July 1—The national office of the American Servicemen’s Union announced that two revolts had taken place in army stockades recently; on June 14 at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina and on June 22 at Ft. Riley, Kansas.

The uprising at Jackson was touched off by the beating of a prisoner, Julio Rivera, who had refused to pull K.P. Rivera was severely beaten by three sergeants and had to be hospitalized.

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from Community Reporter and Fifth Estate sources

For as long as most of them can remember, Larry Johns, Ernie Elswick, Van Johnson, Jimmy Brown, and their friends have been pushed around by Wayne State University.

They’ve seen their families forced to move because Wayne State “needed” the land their homes were on “for the good of the Community.”

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Oakland, Calif. police made an arrest in June of a 19-year-old man they say is responsible for the death of Jen Angel, the social justice activist, anarchist and baker, during a bungled robbery in February.

Ishmael Burch of San Francisco was identified as the person driving the car in which Jen became entangled as she tried to retrieve her purse grabbed from her as she exited a bank. Angel was the owner of Angel Cakes Bakery in Oakland.

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Things are happening in the Detroit art scene, and the latest event was the opening of the BRUSH and STONE Art Gallery, at 328 E. Eight Mile Road!

Carol Hartman Weisenauer and Philip Newton Kellogg make up the two man show that opened the gallery on Sunday, November 5 and continues to December 3. Together they have about 90 works on view, including welded steel, terra cotta, carved wood, bronzes, clay, plaster and wax sculptures and oil paintings by Kellogg and water colors by Carol Weisenauer.

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Art Attack

Do You Know the Symptoms?

1. Glazed Eyes

2. Shallow Breathing

3. Clammy Skin

4. Nausea

5. Victim May Smell of Linseed Oil and Formaldehyde

Art Attack victims will usually be found in museums, galleries and Art schools. (Art students have been found to have a propensity for attacks.) The fatal attack may be preceded by the onset of general studio malaise, and an occasional incidence of gallery narcolepsy. When the victim becomes aware of the division between his mundane life and his sanctified Art, he may attempt a self-cure through conceptual Art, punk, or other popular forms of “Anti-Art.” A more effective treatment involves the artist revolutionizing his relationship to the Art World. A simple case may be alleviated with the smashing of a particular work of Art. More advanced cases may require the destruction of entire galleries, museums and Art schools.

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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We welcome submissions of art and photography. Send high resolution images to fe@fifthestate.org. The Fifth Estate is an all-volunteer project. Images that appear in our pages are separate statements on subjects addressed in articles.

P. 5 Paul Signac, “Portrait of M. Felix Feneon” 1890.

Feneon was a French art critic and anarchist who coined the term Neo-Impressionism. Signac also was an anarchist.

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Images that appear in our pages are separate statements on the subject addressed in an article.

P. 29 Lars van Dooren is a Brooklyn-based artist. He is a 2020 Frederieke Sanders-Taylor Studio Projects Fund grant recipient. arsvandooren.com.

P. 20 Carla Repice’s work investigates systems of oppression and memory, and probes the effects of racism and dehumanization on the human psyche. She has an MFA in performance art, and studied painting and feminist theory at The Lorenzo de Medici School of Art in Florence, Italy. She lives in New York City.

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p. 4, 14, 25 Dennis Fox writes and has taught about the intersections of anarchism, law/justice, radical/critical psychology, and interpersonal connection. dennisfox.net He explores abstract, street, ft other forms of photography dennisfoxphoto.com

p. 6 Tylonn J. Sawyer lives and works in Detroit as a multidisciplinary artist educator and curator. His work juxtaposes themes of identity, both individual and collective, with investigations of race and history in popular culture. tylonn-j-sawyer.com

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P. 6 Greg Giegucz is a multimedia artist living and working in New Orleans. He moved to New Orleans from New York to draw its devastated landscape, still recovering from Hurricane Katrina. giegucz.com

P. 9 John Gruntfest is a saxophonist and artist. His free form jazz draws upon western and eastern radical artistic and philosophical traditions Ives to Coltrane, Buddha to Marx, Goldman to Debord, Whitman to Artaud.

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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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WORK, a journal of new writing, edited by John Sinclair

$1.00/copy, 4-issue subscriptions $3.00

CHANGE, a new jazz magazine, edited by John Sinclair & Charles Moore, $1.00/copy, 4-issue subscription: $3.00

WORKSHOP BOOKS, new writing from Detroit under the general editorship of Robin Eichele

WB/1 Book of Humors, Jim Senark, 25¢

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April 9–17

Washington D.C. Days of Action for Global Economic Justice. Shut Down the IMF and World Bank, April 16. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank are meeting to expand their power over Third World nations’ economies. Information at www. 50years.org or call 202-IMF-BANK.

May 1

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COMRADES! Fellow Marxist-Leninists of the Revolutionary Proletarian Vanguard!

Let us be open and honest, using the revolutionary method of criticism-self-criticism to sum up the experience of the Mao-Tse-Tung Memorial Meetings we called for September. Quite frankly, they were a flop! Although we blighted every city and college campus with our large, garish signs (much like this one) virtually no one showed up to pay $3.50 to hear us praise the Great Helmsman for his revolutionary virtues. No one seems to take our praise of this great revolutionary seriously anymore.

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Asheville Global Report

P.O. Box 1504

Asheville, NC 28802

Phone/fax: 828-236-3103

Web: www.agrnews.org

Email: editors@agrnews.org

A sister publication to FE and an ambitious weekly, the AGR crew covers news underreported by mainstream media, believing that a free exchange of information is necessary to organize for social change. AGR is distributed free every Thursday in Asheville and other cities, and is published weekly on the world wide web at www.agrnews.org. For out-of-towners, AGR is available for $50 for one year, 52 issues; $25 for six months, 26 issues. Donations: We gladly accept donations. Asheville Global Report is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

CAUTION! There are terrorists among us.

THEY infest this planet from Washington to New York, from Nuremburg to Moscow, from Peking to Santiago.

THEY detain millions of hostages every day and give them the ultimatum—become a slave to the state or an enemy.

THEY maintain large armies that are trained to kill in support of the ideology of the state.

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In a scene that could have been taken from the movie version of “The Godfather,” four gunmen rushed into a small Italian restaurant on July 12 and shot to death Carmine Galante—the mafioso capo di tutti capi—the boss of all bosses of the Mafia.

Carlo Tresca (1879–1943)

This not unusual manner of demise for a scummy gangster chieftain raised few eyebrows or roused little interest in what is part of an ongoing battle between the old Bonanno and Gallo families for control of the New York City rackets.

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The following is a statement sent to us by Emily Harris, who, along with Bill Harris, Joe Remiro and Russ Little, is one of the surviving members of the SLA. The four are currently prisoners of the State of California; six others were murdered by police in Los Angeles in 1975.

I was one of the prisoners in the women’s section of Santa Rita Jail near Oakland on the night of May 14 when it was destroyed by fire. Many women could have lost their lives in that fire because they came within a hair’s breath of being left locked in their cells with no way to get out. It was an outrageous and frightening experience and I want to share it so at least people will know what happened and will understand better how prisoners’ lives are threatened everyday in a million different ways by the very fact that one class of people—the police—has been granted the power of a key that locks the door.

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Things may never be the same again at Selfridge Air Force Base of Mt. Clemens.

Several of the Marines, Airmen and one Navy man stationed at the base are forming a chapter of the American Serviceman’s Union (ASU) and this has meant trouble for the brass at every base where the Union exists.

The ASU is committed to support of the enlisted man, the removal of all officer privileges and the stopping of the Armed Forces from being used in a politically reactionary way.

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Atanas Porezoff was, as were so many revolutionaries of his generation, host to many names: Atanas Vidloff, Tony Bulgar, even affectionately “The Old Man.” But to those of us who knew him only in his later years, he was just Tony.

Once towards the end of his life, when we visited him in the hospital, he smiled at the nurse and, said, “See, I don’t need medicine, these people are my medicine.” And he would remind us at the end of each visit to remember the message contained in the works of his “great teachers, Bakunin, Kropotkin and Tolstoy.” His customary call of “Viva la anarchia” as we left after visiting will stay with us always. Tony lived a long and full life, yet we cannot mask our sadness for a departed friend and comrade.

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FT. JACKSON, S.C.—Four GIs are in the stockade as a result of an on-base meeting to discuss the war in Vietnam.

All are leaders of GIs United Against the War in Vietnam and are charged with “inciting to riot,” “disturbing the peace,” and “disrespect to an officer.”

The GI organization has been actively involved in opposing the war and demanding that GIs be allowed the same rights as civilians.

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Bring the Fifth Estate to Washington as you march to bring the troops home. The Fifth Estate will have an increased press run of our issue scheduled to come out right before the next days of protest against the war. It will be available to vendors about noon on Wednesday, Nov. 13 from our office at 1107 W. Warren. The cost to vendors is 10 cents per copy and can be sold at the actions here for 20 cents and in Washington for a quarter.

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Attilio Bortolotti (Toronto, 1993) photo / CIRA-Lausanne

Attilio Bortolotti died of pneumonia on February 10, 1995, in a nursing home near Toronto. He was born on September 19, 1903, in Codroipo, Friuli, Italy, the fifteenth of eighteen children of Luigi Bortolotti, a builder, and Maria Pittana.

Tilio emigrated to Canada in 1920 and became active in the anarchist and antifascist movements in Windsor and Detroit during the agitation for Sacco and Vanzetti. Arrested in Detroit in 1929 for distributing a leaflet announcing a Sacco-Vanzetti meeting, he was held for deportation to Italy, but jumped bail and fled to Toronto. There he worked as a tool-and-die maker and resumed his anarchist activities, editing Il Libertario from 1933 to 1935 and The Libertarian in 1968 and 1969.

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The New York Times headline trumpeted “[President] Urges Rises in Military Outlay, Cuts in Other Areas,” above an article which stated, “[The President] today proposed to Congress a series of substantial increases in military spending in the 1980s and cuts in many non-defense programs.”

Is this the dreaded Reagan slashing programs for the poor while spending ever more on the already glutted military monolith? No, not at all, but rather the president referred to in the Jan. 15, 1981 article is Jimmy Carter, who several days before leaving office proposed a fiscal 1982 budget which foreshadowed what his successor would announce several weeks later.

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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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“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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Unlimited rewards offered for the elimination of Republicans, Democrats and other politicians.

Known to be engaged in conspiracy to further spread diseased and death-oriented politics.

Aim of this conspiracy: Complete domination of our lives and destruction of all human freedom.

Recent crimes include promotion of global poverty, genocidal war plans, moronic christian morality, debasing of all human life, and rape of the planet.

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Letters of Thanks from Gen. Westmoreland to “Breakthrough”

22 November 1965

Mr. Donald J. Lobsinger, Chairman

Breakthrough P.O. Box 3061

Detroit, Michigan 48231

Dear Mr. Lobsinger:

Your letter and the accompanying signatures of over 6,000 citizens of the Detroit area indicating support for the efforts of our armed forces in Vietnam are reassuring and deeply appreciated.

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The angel that lives so well is brother to the king of hell.

And like the shore of ravaged sea is beaten,

caressed, endlessly.

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Poisoned feathers of stainless-steel

create the illusion if not the feel

of paradise that always seems

just one more stop

beyond your dreams.

—T.F. Rodinsky

In a recent issue of the Fifth Estate (April 1) it was reported that State Senator Roger Craig of Dearborn had introduced a bill into the Michigan Senate that would exempt marijuana from the application of the general “narcotics” act.

While this was an accurate report and reflective of a new climate regarding public opinion toward the use of “drugs” we hope people are still being careful. In a letter to this paper Sen. Craig stated, “Nothing significant will happen in this area (of legislation) until January.”

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Ann Arbor—A nonprofit exhibition and sale for the benefit of EAT (Experiments in Art and Technology, Inc.) will take place at the studio of artist Robert Rauschenberg from June 5 to 7.

The exhibition is called GIANT MODEL AIRPLANES and consists of precisely scaled and detailed enlargements of stick-and-tissue-type models of vintage aircraft.

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The dance/concert, which will be open only to those 17 or over due to local ordinances, will feature the music of the MC-5, the Rationals, the Thyme, the Apostles, Wilson Lindsey’s FDA, the Gang, Our Mother’s Children, and a number of other Detroit bands, with lights by the Pisces Eyes Light Company.

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As a result of Valler’s eagerness to switch rather than fight, John Sinclair, Pun Plamondon and Jack Forrest have been indicted on Federal bombing conspiracy charges.

In addition, Pun has been charged with the physical act of dynamiting government property, or, as the pigs so revealingly put it, “...injure property of the United States....”

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Some of the books consulted for Looking back on the Vietnam War:

Richard Drinnon, Facing West The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire-Building (1980);

Frances Fitzgerald, The Fire in the Lake (1972);

War Crimes and the American Conscience (testimony from the Congressional Conference on War and National Responsibility, 1970, edited by Erwin Knoll and Judith N. McFadden);

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Sometimes no news is good news, and that seems to be the case with the folks at Big Mountain. According to Matt Strasberg (of the Big Mountain Legal Defense/Offense Committee), the July 7, 1986 deadline passed quietly. Indian activists, supporters and the media showed up for the showdown, but U.S. marshals declined to make an appearance. Claiming that the deadline was merely a “target date,” government officials have been close-lipped about their inability to overcome Hopi and Navajo resistance and to complete the relocation project.

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The word went out through the grapevine. In the parts shops and on the street the word went from mouth to mouth, “There’s gonna be a protest!”

There was no other publicity, but on Sunday, September 7, better than 150 bikers gathered to protest a clearly unconstitutional law recently passed in Michigan requiring motorcyclists to cover their hair with a regulation motorcycle helmet while on a bike. The U.S. Supreme Court has declared a similar case unconstitutional on the basis that it violates the individual’s right to die any way he damn well pleases.

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Recently the staff of the Fifth Estate, members of the Zulus motorcycle club and people from Detroit Newsreel a movement film making group, went to a press screening of “Easy Rider.”

The film is about two bikers played by Peter Fonda (Captain America) and Dennis Hopper (Billy), who produced and directed the film, riding out to Mardi Gras in Search of America on two beautiful choppers.

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The first public meeting of The Birmingham-Bloomfield Committee on Open Occupancy was held at the Birmingham Unitarian Church on Sunday, November 14. An unexpectedly large turnout of 250 people responded to the speakers’ demands for an end to the organized exclusion of Negroes by the realtors in the area.

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Editors note: The Fifth Estate continued to win readers and supporters throughout the Detroit Metropolitan area.

The following review of the paper recently appeared in the school newspaper of Covington Jr. High School in Birmingham.

Covington student Claudia Marcun II forwarded the story to us.

Dennis Nelson

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A national movement has been developing in Detroit with accelerated momentum since the summer rebellion, according to an analysis by Grace and James Boggs in the October 7 issue of the independent radical newsweekly NATIONAL GUARDIAN printed in New York City.

The movement, according to the authors, “is conscious of itself as being in the process of creating from all elements of the black community a self-governing nation which will control and determine its own destiny.”

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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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The Innu Indians of Labrador, Canada, like all native peoples caught in the tentacles of civilization, are constantly threatened with imminent annihilation. Since 1980, West Germany has been using this flat barren land, a territory about the size of Nevada and the home of the Innu for over 10,000 years, as a training area for their pilots. West German F4 Phantom jets regularly zoom by at altitudes of less than 300 feet, spewing exhaust and totally upsetting the natural balance of things. Ducks have laid eggs a month early, the caribou have changed migration patterns, beavers and other game have vanished, and Innu families have been forced to deal with this latest blatant insult to their traditional way of life, which has already been substantially disrupted and destroyed by encroaching development.

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The following letter, at the top of which appeared the heading “Direct Action,” recently arrived at the FE office. Its view of the ecological crisis and the essential sameness of the capitalist West and the communist East is one with which we are in substantial agreement. And this anonymous attack on property strikes us as acceptable—unlike attacks on people, which, barring self-defense or extraordinary circumstances, we find repugnant—and often a useful means of struggle. However, we have some doubts about what seems to be their assessment of their own role in the struggle against capital (though the problem might be one of unclear writing). Like many others, they apparently feel compelled to formulate a strategy based on their understanding of historical processes in which they make themselves mere instrumentalities of these processes, rather than proceeding from their own desires and experiences. In this case, the authors of the letter see themselves as making it difficult for capitalists to expand their domestic development of energy and resources in the context of world-wide economic crises and the successes of allegedly destabilizing third world movements, presumably, their intention is to heighten the economic crisis by opposing further encroachments by multinational corporations. This formulation resembles the instrumentalism of ‘60s anti-imperialist students in the U.S. who sought to assist third world struggles by creating resistance in the imperialist centers, a limited and self-sacrificing vision containing the seeds of authoritarianism.

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The Epilepsy Foundation of America is warning that the simple act of watching television may trigger seizures in nearly a third of all individuals with epilepsy. The Washington-based organization says there is substantial scientific data indicating that the moving images of lights and shadows on TV screens can provoke the seizures.

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WELLINGTON, New Zealand—A Maori land-rights activist, driving a van with a traditional native people’s insult painted on its side, was arrested in February when he tried to join visiting Queen Elizabeth’s motorcade. The Queen was the repeated target during her visit of Maoris protesting the continuing theft of their homelands by the New Zealand government.

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Big Mountain News announces the annual spring “Survival Gathering” April 19–22 to be held at Big Mountain Dine (Navajo) Nation. Native peoples and their supporters are invited to participate in the gathering which has been planned to commemorate and honor the resistance of the Navajo and Hopi Elders against the U.S. government. Governmental attempts to remove and relocate some 14,000 Dine peoples from the ancestral lands of the Hopi and Navajo have not been successful. So far only about 200 families have succumbed to relocation programs; 2,800 families still remain. The government intends to clear the land, mine it for coal and uranium, and incorporate it into agribusiness ventures. For information on the continuing struggles of the Navajo and Hopi, and on the upcoming spring gathering write: Big Mountain Support Group, 1412 Cypress Street, Berkeley, CA 94703.

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It is two hundred years since the European invasion of Australia. The resistance that was begun then by Australian Aborigines continues today. While the presentation of a sanitized version of history takes place on the TV screens of the nation, the original inhabitants of the continent have declared 1988 a Year of Mourning and Commitment to Struggle.

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Although opposition to draft registration has dropped from prominence in the daily media, an active anti-conscription movement remains committed to opposing one necessary component of the Reagan war drive. Hundreds of thousands of young men remain in violation of the law through their refusal to register and even more through their failure to keep the Selective Service System (SS) informed of address changes and other required data.

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The Redfern Black Rose Anarchist Bookstore, 36 Botany Rd., Alexandria, Sydney 2015 Australia, sends us the following news from down under:

March 4: A flotilla of 60 odd boats and other watercraft (windsurfers, surfboards, rafts) attempted to hinder the entry of two U.S. destroyers capable of carrying nuclear weapons. 300 people carried out a 96-hour vigil across the Naval yard where they were docked.

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So-called “national-liberation” struggles (read: establish an indigenous bureaucracy in power with its police rather than that of the colonial power) have pretty much been discredited in recent years except among dismal leftists. High on the list of leftist boosterism has been the Polisario Liberation Front which according to Western intelligence sources appears to be all but defeated in their 8-year war with Morocco for control of the Western Sahara in North Africa.

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On September 27, 1983, during a demonstration protesting the visit of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Ken Deyarmond, a Toronto activist, was pushed from behind toward Thatcher. He was tackled by a cop, thrown to the sidewalk, handcuffed, and charged with “threatening assault on an internationally protected person.” Charges were also added for assault on police and for possession of marijuana. Ken is the first person in Canada to be charged with the crime of threatening a foreign “dignitary” and scheduled to stand trial for it Sept. 25 in Toronto. He was convicted on the pot charge and sentenced to probation although he states categorically that he does not smoke it and certainly would have brought none to a well policed demonstration. Ken has been active in environmental, women’s issues, anti-racist and anti-imperialist politics for a long while in Toronto. He has been an active supporter and friend of the Vancouver Five and is a member of the anti-prison magazine, Bulldozer. The assault charges (Thatcher and the cops) are based on police statements which range from contradictory to inflammatory to outright lies. Ken had this to say about the situation: “(The charges) stem from my mobilizing opposition to the new security spy agency (in Canada). Furthermore, the charges are an attempt to intimidate people from developing more militant politics against racism, sexism and imperialism.” Support is urgently requested for Ken’s defense. Letters of support and much needed financial donations may be sent to Ken Deyarmond Defense Committee, Box 6326, Station “A”, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

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Paul Jacob, the libertarian draft resister who went underground to escape prosecution, was convicted at a July 1 trial, sentenced and denied appeal bond. The penalty was six months imprisonment and 4-1/2 years of weekly community service.

The trial proved to be lively with Paul calling 1980 Libertarian Party candidate Ed Clark and former Congressman Ron Paul to testify on his behalf. Both explained the history of the draft and said that registration and the draft are unconstitutional. Paul also called Gen. Thomas Turnage, director of the Selective Service (SS), as a witness for the defense. Turnage testified that compliance with the registration law implied approval of the system which is one of the reasons that Paul refused to sign. Rhonda Allen, Libertarian activist and Paul’s wife, later described Turnage as a nazi.

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On Sunday, July 17, at around 1:30 am, two masked men carrying machine guns broke into the house in Comiso, Sicily functioning as the coordinating center for the groups against the U.S. cruise missile base. Once inside they lined all the occupants up against the wall and aimed their guns.

About 20 people were subjected to this terror. They included most of the Anarchismo group from Catania and other local anti-militarists. A blast was fired in the direction where Alfredo Bonanno stood and it was later discovered that a bullet had passed through his clothing. The two intruders then ordered everyone in the house to get out of Comiso for good. The two men are assumed to have been mafiosi.

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GREEK LIBERTARIANS: As of May 14, Greek libertarians, Photis Danatos and Kyriakos Miras were in their 54^th day of a hunger strike. They were arrested on the apparently minor charge of “hooliganism”—a catch-all charge used to imprison protesters (peaceful or otherwise). The arrests took place during a march (to protest at the “suiciding” and torture of, prisoners in Greece under the so-called “socialists”) that took place in Piraeus when a motorist (presumably a provocateur/extremist) drove into the crowd so as to break up the march. In the resulting melee the two—who were in the crowd protesting and are known by the police as “politicals”—were picked up and they have been in prison ever since.

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HOPE FOR DOPE — High Times magazine reports that the recent Paraquat scare is just that and “not to believe the government.” Paraquat paranoia developed a few months ago when it surfaced that the U.S. had financed the spraying of Mexican marijuana fields with the herbicide and that smoking of treated weed would cause “irreversible lung damage.” The Paraquat campaign has cost the taxpayers over $50 million since it began in 1974.

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How beauteous it would have been to see your lifeless corpse dangling from the iron gate before your majestic estate, as the flames began appearing as ghosts might appear in the windows of the second floor. To hear the sound of breaking glass, and the occasional report of a gun, to see the broken fragments scattered across the lawn, discarded during the looting, the smell of smoke, acrid and oily of your burning limousine, your shiny rich man’s shoes turning like a weathervane, first south, then east, then south, then west, then north, in the direction of all your crimes...
But you died in comfort, perhaps surprised that you were not, after all, immortal. Attica went unavenged. I think of you and I spit, happy at least that you are dead and gone!
—Mr Venom

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