Fifth Estate Collective

On the front page of the latest issue of Black Flag (organ of the Anarchist Black Cross) is the picture of Spanish anarchist Laureano Cerrada Santos with the word MURDERED printed under it in large type.

According to Black Flag, Cerrada, who fought in the Spanish revolution and later became a skilled forger in passports and Spanish food rationing coupons, was shot to death in the streets of a Paris suburb by a Spanish secret agent last October.

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The positioning of this article in the back pages in no way reflects our assessment of the gravity of the situation described herein. We extend our full solidarity to these comrades, victimized for committing no “crime” other than to cross a point of land arbitrarily designated as a “border” by those who we hold in utter contempt. It is small acts like this, carried out by cretinous functionaries of the State, that further steels our resolve to work actively for its total elimination.

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The recent arrest of Andrew Mikolasch, editor of Toronto’s Underground Press Syndicate paper, Satyrday, has completed the cycle of busts on all of Canada’s U.P.S. papers. Earlier this year the Canadian Free Press from Ottowa and Georgia Straight from Vancouver were busted.

The police based the Satyrday arrest on an irate parent’s complaint about an article entitled “The way the platform is.” Mikolasch did not write the article himself but said: “It was a sort of satire on the music business and dealt with various sex practices, using honest words to describe them. You can pick up any book downtown using the same words, but they busted me.” He was released on personal bail.

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“If they didn’t physically slash him and tie the cord around his neck, the years of sensory deprivation, beatings, setups, transfers, hole time, mind and law games, and the psycho-torture which this place is famous for had the same effect. I know that anyone can be gotten to, regardless of how strong they are.”

— A Walla Walla Prisoner

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“I don’t want to startle you, but they mean to kill us all.”

—e.e. cummings

War—the word on everyone’s lips—the deadly end of the capitalist cycle of prosperity and economic collapse, appears close at hand as the major world empires and their vassals play out the world-wide “Great Game” of inter-capitalist rivalries. In this country, President Carter has posed the situation in the Persian Gulf region as a new period of confrontation with the Soviet Union and a return to the Cold War, complete with renewed fears of nuclear conflict.

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Protesting the threat of the removal of their school performing arts curriculum, about five hundred students from Cass Technical High School demonstrated at the Schools Center Building on Woodward November 26.

Mrs. Betty Gittlen, a parent, asked simply for the board to “state clearly that it will maintain Cass Tech as an undistributed, city-wide, specialized high school with its present curricula intact.”

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The Grande Ballroom, Grande River and Joy will be host to Detroit’s first psychedelic prom at 8:00 p. m. on Tuesday, June 20.

The dance will be Cass Tech’s underground Prom and is being produced by Bob Serling, Cass senior and editor of the school’s underground newspaper, YELLOW.

The SPIKEDRIVERS will lead the entertainment and graduating seniors from all of Detroit’s schools are invited.

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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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From time to time over the past 25 years, a motley collection of cops, principals, prosecutors, factory foremen, army sergeants, prison wardens, mall owners, shop keepers and vigilantes have tried to interfere with the circulation of this newspaper. Almost always because, as the FBI once put it, the Fifth Estate “supports the cause of revolution everywhere.” The bastions of authority hate our message of indiscipline and freedom and have gone to great lengths in attempts to suppress it.

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The 1980 census has come and gone without much ado. On the face of it, it appears as though most Americans dutifully mailed back their forms and provided the government with its constitutionally mandated information needed to apportion each state’s Congressional representation. Although there was a massive propaganda effort on the part of the Census Bureau to count every resident of the U.S., it is still believed that millions of illegal aliens, poor and minority group members went uncounted.

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Cesar Chavez, president of the United Farm Workers union, and perennial darling of the liberal-Catholic-Stalinist milieu, has recently been making his followers uncomfortable by behaving like a George Meany-style labor hack. At the end of July, Chavez, touring the Philippines at the request of the Philippine farmworkers in California to see how their families were faring under martial law imposed by dictator Ferdinand Marcos, ended up being given the royal treatment by the regime and presented an award by Marcos himself! Chavez, who admitted having no knowledge of Marcos’ ban on strikes or the arrests of thousands of striking workers, defended the Marcos regime, claiming that life under martial law was “a hell of a lot better” for the Philippine workers than before. Chavez had never been in the Philippines previous to his July trip.

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When revolution is in the air and extremist groups take to the streets, the Establishment smells a conspiracy to commit violence, usually led by outside agitators.

So it was in August, 1968, when 10,000 of us took to the streets of Chicago for six days of protest and eight of us were selected and are being tried for conspiracy to incite riot and crossing interstate lines with the intention to incite riot.

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Chicago (UNS)—A meeting called to rename a southside Chicago park in honor of slain leader Malcolm X Shabazz was turned into a scene of police violence, complete with billy clubs and riot guns, Sunday, May 21.

The occasion started out on a joyous note, with speeches, Afro-American music and dance, but friction developed when two young women attempted to join the crowd of between 250 and 300 black people. When the women were asked to leave and refused to do so, they were set upon by two young women from the group, who pushed and shoved them away.

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Last issue we promised to print more reactions to the May Day centenary celebration of the Haymarket Affair (see FE #323, Summer 1986), but much of what we had intended for publication failed to come together. This is unfortunate since many of the criticisms—of responsibility for the arrests at the Friday march (see report further on), the structure of the workshops, meat at the banquet, and even anarchism itself—made for important reflections on an experience that was significant to many of us.

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Citizens for Peace in Vietnam, an organization of Detroit area residents opposed to U.S. involvement in Vietnam, was re-activated recently with the holding of its first general ‘meeting since last March.

“There has been a widespread demand for the re-convening of CPV,” stated a committee spokesman, “and the administration’s continued escalation leaves us no moral alternative but to reaffirm our condemnation of the nature and the fact of America’s participation in this war.”

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The May 16, 1966, murder of a former Wayne State University student, Leo Bernard, and the near-fatal shooting of two others, was reviewed last week by attorney Ernest Goodman who filed a petition with Detroit Common Council requesting funds for burial costs and for medical, hospital, transportation and rehabilitation expenses.

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Two Detroit policemen, Sergeant Fred T. Wright and Lieutenant Teddy Sikora were suspended from duty over the weekend of June 1 for “conduct unbecoming a police officer,” and “bad judgment” in connection with the May 13 clash at Cobo Hall between Detroit fuzz and a group of Poor People’s Campaign marchers (FIFTH ESTATE, June 4–18). The suspensions will remain in effect until a police trial board decides what disciplinary action, if any, will be brought against the pair.

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The Clamshell Alliance and more than 20 anti-nuclear organizations around the country plan a major shift in tactics in their opposition to nuclear power plants. Angered by the Environmental Protection Agency’s approval of the cooling system of the nuclear plant at Seabrook, New Hampshire, the Clamshell Alliance says the era of fighting nuclear power in the courts is over. Direct action, civil disobedience and site occupation will take its place.

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CLASSIFIEDS cost 50 cents per line per issue. Figure four words per line. (A word is a word including one and two letter words. A phone number is a word. Street numbers are words, Abbreviations should be sensible. DISCOUNT RATES: Five runs cost 35 cents per line, per issue. (i.e. 2 lines in 5 issues cost $3.50)

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(Page 3 of The South End insert)

Classified deadline is noon of the day before publication. Rates are $2 a day (non-student) and $1 a day (students with ID), for the first 15 words or less. Classified ads must be pre-paid by check, money Order, or receipt from the WSU Cashier Office. No cash accepted at the South End Office.

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Florida state police arrested Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver yesterday as he sat smoking a cigarillo and reading the Works of Chairman Mao in the lobby of the Hotel Fontainbleu in Miami Beach. He is being held for extradition to California and has been charged with violating a statute which makes crossing state lines to save your life a federal offense.

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Where is Eldridge Cleaver, Minister of Information of the Black Panther Party?

Every pig from Oakland, California to New York City is looking for him since he failed to turn himself in for parole violation on November 25^th.

Like Spartacus or Zapata he is rumored to be everywhere. Word has reached this office that he was in Detroit, but most think that he has left the country and will wind up in Cuba or is living underground in an urban ghetto.

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HAVANA, Cuba—Eldridge Cleaver, Black Panther leader is living and writing in Havana according to the British news agency, Reuters.

Cleaver, who disappeared in the United States late last year after a warrant was issued for his arrest on a phony charge of parole violation, was rumored to have been living in Cuba, but his whereabouts on the island had been a mystery.

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Berkeley, April 16—On April 12, six days after Eldridge Cleaver was wounded in the foot by Oakland cops during the gun battle that preceded the killing of Black Panther Bobby Hutton, he was ordered to prison for three years by the California Adult Authority. The charge: parole violation.

Before the night of April 6, Cleaver, gifted author and Minister of Information for the Black Panthers, was serving the last eight months of his parole from San Quentin Prison.

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Why isn’t anyone doing anything to protest Clinton’s bombing of Iraq? There seems to be a growing resignation about the U.S. bashing Saddam Hussein to boost the approval ratings of American politicians.

The reaction in Iraq, where 16 American Tomahawk cruise missiles slammed into the capital city of Baghdad June 26, was much different as 100,000 people took to the streets to protest the latest attack from the U.S. As usual, it was the civilian population who paid the cost in lives and destruction, not Saddam their belligerent ruler.

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<strong>Related: Playing in the Key of Clown

</strong>

when you can join the Rebel Clown Army instead?!</strong>

The U.S. army is no picnic and actually is far worse. Tons of money is poured into the recruiting campaign offering false promises. Our soldiers are being manipulated, fooled, and thrown into horrific situations. For the benefit of corporations and war-profiteers far away from the battlefield.

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The Committee for Nonviolent Action has issued an urgent request for additional financial backing. CNVA and the War Resisters League are mutually considering a merger and the CNVA Executive Committee has already authorized the partnership. The major obstacle, however, seems to be the current CNVA deficit of about $7500 which must be greatly reduced before the merger can be completed. UPS member, WIN magazine, currently behind in its printing bills, will be unable to publish an October issue unless new and immediate financial help becomes available. CNVA staff members have not received salaries for the last several weeks.

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The Coca Cola Bottling Co. extends its hand in congratulations to the People’s Republic of China on the occasion of the 30^th Anniversary of its Revolution and on its ambitious plans to become a modern technological society by the year 2000. We at Coke are proud to be part of that process!

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Colonel Arthur Holmes, Director of the Selective Service System for the State of Michigan, announced that at his order, all male students from Michigan now entering their Freshman year of college will automatically be classified I-A by their local draft boards. After taking a pre-induction physical examination, all students over 19 will be served with induction notices. The students will then have to apply for the 1 year statutory deferment for registered students, I-S(C). At the end of the Freshman year, the students will be drafted unless they prove to the satisfaction of their local boards that they deserve a II-S student deferment.

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U.S. Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North, a hero?

A patriot?

Shit! This guy is a fascist and a war criminal!

Less people than it appears are willing to stand up and salute this creep who bears great responsibility for the slaughter of thousands of Nicaraguan peasants at the hands of the U.S. financed, North directed, contras.

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You were mad about Iran, mad about Afghanistan, mad about that and a whole lot more. You want to fight communism and the foreign scurvy who undermine our American way of life? Well, are you ready to go toe-to-toe with the Ruskies, no holds barred, for an all-out fight? Be prepared, America! Don’t lag behind your leaders! We’re doing it all for you—Presidential Directive Number 59 has given us the go-ahead to prepare for a prolonged but limited nuclear war, with cruise missiles, neutron bombs and first-strike capability!

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The almost two-year-old labor battle against the Motor City’s two corporate daily papers is almost at its conclusion (see the first page of The Rumble insert for latest details). Belatedly, the national AFL-CIO has called for a mass mobilization in Detroit June 20 and 21 to demand an equitable settlement of the strike. Attendance is expected to be over a hundred thousand.

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Shoppers in Downtown Birmingham found themselves window shopping for open occupancy on Saturday, February 26.

The Birmingham-Bloomfield Committee on Open Occupancy distributed 10,000 leaflets encouraging a re-examination of fair housing in that area. The pamphlet is reprinted below.

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Related: see Letters in this issue.

The discussion regarding Black Rose Books, Ltd. (BRB) and concerning what constitutes a libertarian project has taken two distressing and, in our opinion, unproductive directions. The first is the absolute indignation on the part of BRB supporters that we would even question “the fine work BRB has done,” and that such an inquiry, which tries to assess the nature of their activity, is on the face of it objectionable. The other is the argument that all of us are compromised by living within capitalist society, that “pure” activity is impossible without a revolution, so why are we being so self-righteous when we, like BRB, exhibit numerous contradictions to libertarian ideals?

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Fifth Estate:

I want to offer some criticisms of the latest issue. The Vietnam article [Web archive note: This article first appeared in FE #320, Spring 1985. With an added Introduction by Richard Drinnon it was reprinted in FE #346, Summer, 1995.] was a bit strange: even with the understanding that the author, George Bradford, used to be a supporter of the stalinists in Vietnam, it offered no analysis of “wars of national liberation” (much less of one that lasted so long), which formed an integral aspect of the war. Space limitations aside, at least an attempt to approach that aspect of the war needed to be addressed. (It also seems that Bradford still idealizes the NLF.)

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On Sunday, May 18, from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., the Detroit Artists’ Market, 1452 Randolph will open an exhibit entitled “The Common Ground” which will include new work by 22 artists of the Common Ground of the Arts.

The exhibit will continue through Saturday, June 14.

Contributors will be Patricia Duff, George Ettl, James Lewandowski, Jonnie Russel, Marilyn Schechter, G. Alden Smith, Jerry Gibbons, Al Hebert, Stanley Rosenthal, Bradley Jones, William Jordan, George Rogers, Arthur Wenk, Marie Tapert, Gary Boyll, Stanley Dolega, Edmund Morais, Jean Pollack, Nolan Ross, Michael Frantz, Bette Klegon, and Aris Koutroulis.

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The Committee for Independent Political Action (CIPA) on the West Side of New York City was formed at the end of the summer of 1965, on the basis of a draft statement prepared by two editors of Studies on the Left, Jim Weinstein and Stanley Aronowitz. The initial CIPA nucleus consisted of about twenty people, all conscious “radicals” from a diversity of activist backgrounds—single issue and housing groups, reform democratic clubs, “old left”, SDS and others. They all came to CIPA with some sense that the actions they had been engaged in were inadequate: those of us from the anti-war movement felt that a certain saturation point was being reached with demonstrations: that they were no longer bringing in or educating significant numbers of new people, and that the old people were beginning to feel frustrated and discouraged.

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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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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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Letters, page 2

Issue intro, page 3

The Logic of the Telescope Against the wisdom of Hawaii’s Native People

STEVE KIRK page 4

Seattle Far-Right Shooter’s Trial Ends in Hung Jury: How can we get justice in an unjust system?

RUI PRETI page 6

Museum Chronicles Fightback & Victories Against Gentrification: The storefront housing the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space in NYC.

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Cover photo: Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army in Edinburgh, Scotland.

4 Insurgent Rebel Clown Army

L.M. Bogad

7 Cultural Appropriation & Shaming

Rod Dubey

9 The Myth of Che Guevara

MLB

11 Ukrainian & Russian Repression

FE Staff

12 The Legacy of Omar Aziz

Leila Al Shami

14 Left Abets Genocide in Syria

...

4 The Future is Now!

Jesús Sepúlveda

7 Sabotage & the Flows of Capital

Jeff Shantz

10 Transgender Struggle in Prison

Anonymous

12 Image Worshipping

Panos Papadimitropoulos

13 Mega-Cities

Bellamy Fitzpatrick

16 Wolf Patrol

Rod Coronado

Vietnam: The Resistance

Pages 17–30

Mutinies at the Outposts of Empire

Rob Blurton

...

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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Class & Solidarity 15

Intro to Economics 16

Last Ticket to Utopia 17

Political Economy, Perennial Economy: Marx, Thoreau, & Us 18

Land & Liberty 22

Refusing The Marketplace 24

Communalism of Desire 26

Pastoral Letter 28

Give it Away 32

Burning Man 33

Wildcat Reprint 34

Nietzsche & The Anarchists 36

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FIFTH ESTATE #363, Winter, 2003/2004, Vol. 38, No. 4, page 3

Miami: The War Comes Home 5

APOC Report 11

Tales From The Planet 12

Lessons From Cancun 13

Against the Wall 14

Uprising in Bolivia 16

Sex and Lies in Cuba 18

Intro 22

Pencils Like Daggers 23

Anarchist Panther’s Journey 26

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Cover: Occupy Wall Street, Zuccotti Park, NYC 2011, MTT mttphoto.com

4 Seattle Shooting

CP Et SM

6 A Fascist by Any Other Name

Bill Weinberg

8 The Struggle to Get Back to Zero

Peter Werbe

10 Veil of the Vile

Jesús Sepúlveda

12 Eat Your President

The Mormyrids

14 The Russian Revolution Unfinished

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COVER: “St. Mary of the Machines”--Stephen Goodfellow BACK: Joey Salamon

3 AnarchoShorts & Other tales from the planet

3 Letters

4 Fifth Estate celebrates 50^th year

5 The Rojava Revolution

Andrew Flood

6 All Organizing is Science Fiction

adrienne maree brown

7 When the War Comes Home

Marieke Bivar

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Fifth Estate, #393, Spring 2015, Vol. 50, No. 1

2 Letters

4 Anarchy in Kurdistan

Bill Weinberg

7 Eric McDavid Freed!

FE Staff

8 Armed Madhouse

Bryan Tucker

9 Justice for Franco Fascists?

David Porter

11 Sam Mbah Dies

Kelly Rose Pflug-Back

12 Florida’s Burnpile Press

Matt Keene

13 An Anarchist in Berlin

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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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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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Intro: Primitivism & The Wild, page 17

Derrick Jensen on the Future, page 18

Green Anarchy & Oil Depletion, page 23

Peter Wilson On Domestication & Luddism, page 27

Our Enemy, The State, page 31

All Isms Are Wasms, page 34

Swamp Fever, page 38

Wolves, page 41

Mars First, page 42

Against History! page 45

...

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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FIFTH ESTATE #392, Fall/Winter, 2014, Vol. 49, No. 2

Cover: D. Sands

4 Welcome to the Idiocene

Max Cafard

5 Logistical Anarchism

Jeff Shantz

7 VR Troopers:

Jason Rodgers

8 Seattle’s Left Bank Books

Sylvie Kashdan

9 Anarchist Golf?

Joseph Winogrond

11 Free Marius Jacob Mason

12 Dirty Yeti: DIY House

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Cover photo: Pierre Garine: Bridge across the Yalu River to N. Korea

4 Mutual Aid in Times of Crisis scott crow

6 Mutual Aid in Action Dr. Zak Flash

8 16 Theses on the Cell Phone Jason Rodgers

9 “You are not welcome in New Zealand. Mr. Rovics.” David Rovics

10 Grand Jury Resister Margaret Killjoy

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5 Occupied Iraq: The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill

7 First They Came For Ward Churchill

9 The New McCarthyism: On The Recent Purge Of David Graeber

11 Fear And Loathing At The University

12 Introduction: Wobblies At 100; Work At 4,000

15 Why I Was A Burglar

...

FE Histories & Memoirs

No Anarchy, No Money page 6

Offices as Autonomous Zones page 7

The History of the Fifth Estate by Peter Werbe page 8

Music as Revolution page 20

Giving Up the Gun Fetish page 21

Zapping the Pyramid by Don La Coss page 22

Notes toward a history by David Watson page 26

Detroit’s Jovial Community by Lorraine Perlman page 40

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*Articles with Asterisk have extended versions on our web site.

4 Anarchists & Sex Work

Aaron Lakoff

6 Wholly Shit — Church Reviews

Stephane

7 Grand Jury Resister Freed

*8 Education as Domestication of Inner Space

Layla AbdelRahim

11 Agriculture History Misses Mark

John Zerzan

12 Ken Kesey & the Merry Pranksters

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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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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

...

The response to last issue’s “Contest of Contests” [FE #289, January 24, 1978] was underwhelming to say the least, but we did receive enough entries to fill the first three winning spots (in fact, exactly that number). The contest was to describe what you could imagine doing at the gathering of ghouls assembled for Hubert Humphrey’s funeral at the Capitol in Washington D.C. Here are the winners:

...

Buster Brown

Bob Brubaker

Angela Di Sante

Alan Franklin

Ralph Franklin

Jim Gilman

Blue Jesus

E.B. Maple

Richard Rollins

Primitivo Solis

Larry Talbert

Mr. Venom

Marilyn Werbe

Peter Werbe

John Zerzan

Suzie

The Fifth Estate Newspaper (ISSN 0015–0800) is published bi-monthly at 4403 Second Ave., Detroit, Michigan 48201 USA; phone (313) 831–6800. Office hours vary, so please call before visiting. Subscriptions are $4.00 for six issues; $6 for foreign including Canada. Second class postage paid at Detroit, Michigan. No copyright. No paid ads accepted.

The Detroit Police are out of control. They have completely slipped out from under the authority of the Mayor and his Police Commissioner and now comprise a vigilante force dedicated to maintenance of the status quo.

They have resorted to criminal methods and produced a string of murders, mass assaults, and severe injuries to citizens engaged in lawful conduct. Their connection with the Mafia and right-wing groups is well known and documented.

...

As we were completing work on our current issue, we received a letter for publication from the Wooden Shoe collective in Philadelphia regarding the vandalism of their bookstore last October. At that time the premises were entered with a key, a sink stopped up with towels and books and periodicals thrown into the overflowing water. A quantity of record albums and $150 in cash was stolen as well. Although the damage was extensive, collective members worked all through the night and were able to open the next morning.

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We should have realized that the anti-convention efforts in Detroit were going to be a flop when only two people responded to the FE article about planned activity which invited others to “join us in a game with no rules” (See FE #301, Feb. 26, 1980). And a flop it was. Only about 200 people turned up here to greet the Republicans July 13–16 coming mostly from cult/sect/political groups like the Communist Workers Party but also including a few valiant Yippies who refused to believe it wasn’t 1968. A sponsoring coalition of leftists and liberals (the FE declined to participate) planned a series of protests aimed at the delegates and the media but each event proved to be more disastrous than the one preceding it.

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Two interviews with the poet on life, death, sex, poetry, Kerouac, and meditation—the first from 1991, published here for the first time; the second from the October 1969 issue of Fifth Estate.

Note: In October 1991, Fifth Estate staff member Peter Werbe interviewed poet Allen Ginsberg on the radio talk show he hosts. Ginsberg was in Ann Arbor for the performance of his opera, “Hydrogen Jukebox,” a collaboration with composer and pianist Philip Glass. As were so many of Ginsberg’s Michigan appearances, the opening was a benefit for Jewel Heart, an international organization of Tibetan Buddhist and cultural centers.

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Food Not Bombs is one of the fastest growing revolutionary movements in North America today and is gaining momentum all over the world. There are over 120 autonomous chapters sharing vegetarian food with hungry people and protesting war and poverty throughout the Americas, Europe and Australia. The first group was formed in Cambridge, Mass. in 1980 by anti-nuclear activists. Food Not Bombs is an all volunteer organization dedicated to nonviolence. Food Not Bombs has no formal leaders and strives to include everyone in its decision making process. Each group recovers food that would otherwise be discarded and makes fresh hot vegetarian meals that are served in city parks to anyone without restriction. The groups also serve free vegetarian meals at protests and other events. San Francisco chapter members have been arrested over 1,000 times in the city’s effort to silence protests against the Mayor’s anti-homeless policies. The Arcata, Calif. group faces civil contempt charges for sharing food and the Whittier, Calif. group has been issued tickets for feeding people. Seattle and Burlington, Vt. Food Not Bombs are being threatened by the cops. Amnesty International says it may adopt imprisoned Food Not Bombs volunteers as “Prisoners of Conscience.”

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Gang fever is sweeping Detroit. Everywhere the gangs are the main topic of conversation—the Black Killers, the Errol Flynns, the Coney Oneys, the Chene Gang. The cops are puffed with importance—they’re the thin blue line between the hordes and the populace; the media are ecstatic—they have found a story that can be milked every day to break the monotony regularly presented; and for the average citizen: a concrete discernible reason for why Detroit is falling apart—1,000 teenage gang members.

...

Justice—Detroit style. Danny Royster was convicted last week of manslaughter in the slaying of the only pig killed during the July 1967 uprising. One problem—Danny didn’t off the pig and everyone including the State admits to that fact.

What happened was that Danny and a buddy were liberating some goods from a store on the near Eastside when they were discovered by the 13^th Precinct Big 4. One particularly vicious pig, Roy (Butterfingers) St. Onge who works the Warren-Forest area entered the smashed out storefront and whopped Royster upside the head with his shotgun.

...

The Detroit Police has begun a reign of terror in the Warren-Forest area near Wayne University.

Almost all of it has been aimed at the local freaks. “It’s getting to be too much,” said Skip Cooper, who lives in the Castle on John Lodge. “All the cops do is hassle with anyone with long hair.”

Other people in the area have reported a marked increase in illegal searches and entries by the cops. Mostly, the cops involved are from the Tactical Mobile Units and the “Big Four.” The latter is the precinct cruiser that travels in a Dodge sedan with three plainclothes (and they are) patrolmen and one uniformed driver.

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Police representatives from twelve suburban communities have been training in methods of riot control on the Cranbrook School campus once a month throughout the year.

The newly-formed Cranbrook SDS concentrated on their removal as a primary goal. A victory was scored May 8, when the pigs failed to appear, apparently aware of the increasing militancy of certain students at Cranbrook School. This eliminated the necessity of an open confrontation between SDS and the cops, as this was the date when such a confrontation was supposed to have occurred.

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For once it appears that it pays to be black.

At least the sons of prominent black ministers and politicians.

The Detroit Police Department actually disciplined several of it’s men for their drunken and cowardly beatings of several black youths after a church dance Nov. 2 of last year.

Commissioner Johannes Spreen called the attack “unprofessional, uncalled for and unexcusable.”

...

Fernando Gonzalez was 16 years old.

He won’t be getting any older.

As his name implies, Gonzalez was a Chicano youth from southwest Detroit. And in a wanton display of insane racism, four crazed pigs from the Fort-Green Station of the Detroit Police Department, savagely clubbed the man to death on a Detroit street.

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2000 may be the decisive year in the legal and political battle for the life of Mumia Abu-Jamal. As the campaign to save the falsely imprisoned journalist and ex-Black Panther gathers momentum, the police, politicians and media are stepping up their efforts to have him strapped to the execution gurney.

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HOUSTON, Texas—The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has requested the U.S. Attorney General to launch a “vigorous investigation” of Houston police who “engaged in a vengeful and destructive rampage” against students and property at Texas Southern University during a five-hour riot on May 17.

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Floyd McKissick, National Director of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), will be speaking in Detroit on Monday, November 7. The Detroit Committee to End the War in Vietnam and the Wayne Committee to End the War in Vietnam have announced that McKissick will be one of the main speakers at a teach-in which is scheduled for that day on the Wayne State University campus.

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Although we’ve gotten an excellent response from last issue’s article, “Industrial Domestication” [FE #329, Summer, 1988] which originally appeared in the French magazine Os Cangaceiros, we were informed by the translators that we had inadvertently typeset it from a working, rather than final, version.

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Outside the Detroit Recorder’s Court in July 1969, supporters gather at the trial of White Panther leader and former FE columnist John Sinclair. Comrades, who did not want their photos in any pig paper, flip the bird to Detroit Free Press photographer Tom Venaleck. Sinclair was sentenced to ten years for the possession of two joints of marijuana. Before he was released from prison in late 1971, he garnered international attention and support as a political prisoner. Three days before his release, 15,000 friends gathered for a benefit concert including Abbie Hoffman, Bobbie Seale, Ed Sanders, Allen Ginsberg, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Phil Ochs, and Stevie Wonder.

NEW YORK, N.Y. June 25 (NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)—A group of about 40 hippie types, bearded, beaded and foul-mouthed, invaded the studio of WNDT-TV, Channel 13, last night and, within sight and sound of thousands of viewers, tried to take over the station.

Reality was performed on Channel 13, WNDT-TV, Tuesday night, June 25^th, at 10:30 p.m. A live reenactment of chaos sent shock waves through the New York metropolitan area as thousands of viewers witnessed the first physical confrontation between the underground and the establishment media. What was happening in Paris, in Vietnam, in Berlin, in Tokyo, in practically every major city in the world was happening at that exact moment on the third eye of living room consciousness: REBELLION.

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Power authority creeps have reared their puffy bourgeois heads once again in the Detroit area, this time at Clarenceville High School in Livonia.

Any Clarenceville student caught displaying the Fifth Estate inside the school will have his copy of the paper confiscated and his parents will be informed.

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During Autumn NATO maneuvers in West Germany, thousands of people demonstrated at U.S. military bases, and hundreds were arrested. U.S. military commanders protested, calling on the West German government to crack down on “anarchists and criminals” who have damaged military vehicles, cut fences, sprayed paint and thrown stones at soldiers.

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The confrontation between Iran and the United States over the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran Nov. 4 and taking of 63 hostages (later reduced to 50) by Islamic student militants has brought to the fore the worst features of this epoch. The grotesque spectacle of a million Iranians marching in lockstep, chanting praises of a decrepit mullah and a reactionary religion is matched in this country by a sudden upsurge of patriotism one would have thought impossible just a few weeks ago.

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George Orwell’s 1984, in which he potently describes a totalitarian society of the future, has been used by both capitalists and communists in describing each other’s society. The saddest thing of all is that they’re both right.

The photos on this page show the military forces of Germany (1936) and China (1977) practicing the art of criticism/self-criticism in attempts to clear the nation state of unwanted elements.

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When a reader sent us this page from the December ’76 issue of Granma (the official organ of the Cuban Communist party) pictured at the right, we thought the goose-stepping troops must have been from the army of Argentina or Chile. The pictured style of marching has always been identified with fascist armies and represents the extreme to which the male body at the service of the state can be distorted. Any leader knows that once troops have been submitted to the sort of discipline necessary to create a well-oiled military machine, the individual components lose any uniqueness and become a faceless, headless mass willing to follow any order that comes from above.

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On Wednesday, February 5^th, the Rev. Peter Pillsbury will talk on his recent tour of Cuba at the home of Dr. and Mrs. Paul Lowinger, 2170 Iroquois (Indian Village) at 8:00 p.m.

The lecture is sponsored by the Lafayette Park Vietnam Committee.

The Rev. Pillsbury was invited, as one of a small group of American churchmen, by the Cuban Government to visit the country. While in Cuba, Rev. Pillsbury traveled through four provinces, and visited social, political and economic institutions, in all of them.

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Acceding to the exigencies of global capital, the U.S. and Cuban governments finally admitted their mutual interests after some 16 years of mutual denunciation.

The first trade agreements are being hashed out in the Congressional carnival while fishing accords are already operative, confirming a 200-mile coastal limit which will put Cuban and American trawlers in equal competition off the Florida coast.

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When the President appointed a Commission to study violence after Chicago’s freak-out Convention activity last August, not even the most turned on prophet in the movement could have suspected the bombshell report which would become, after a single day on the stands, a runaway best seller.

Maybe hippies, Yippies, Panthers, college students, politicos, and assorted freeks have been saying it all along, but now the Establishment has come out and said it.

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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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For the first time a presidential candidate has been busted for dealing grass.

On April 10, David Valler, the candidate who is known to his followers as simply “David” was arrested in his apartment at Third and Hancock by members of the Detroit Narcotics Bureau.

Leading the raid was none other than Det. Vaghan Kapegian, best known to readers as “Louie,” the undercover agent who infiltrated the Trans-Love commune and was responsible for the busting of 56 young dope smokers in January 1967. Included in these arrests was John Sinclair, head of Trans-Love, who now faces a 20 year minimum jail sentence because Kapegian claims Sinclair gave him two joints.

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Longtime Fifth Estate friend and contributor, David Porter, died December 29; he was 79. A dedicated teacher, anarchist researcher, and grassroots community activist, Porter applied his anti-authoritarian principles to many projects.

David Porter in his office, 1975

Growing up near Chicago, Porter graduated from Oberlin College near Cleveland in 1961. He then attended the Institute of Political Studies in Paris. His doctoral studies in politics at Columbia University included a year in Algeria learning directly about the workers’ self-management movement there.

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(paid advertisement)

As Veterans’ Day, November 11^th, draws near, it is significant to mention the “Day of Peace festival to be held at Olympia Stadium on that day.

“A Day of Peace” is intended by its producers to be just that—a do-your-own-thing day, for thousands of this area’s young people to gather together and enjoy one another as well as to see and hear fifteen of the groups which have made the Michigan area an exciting but peaceful place to live.

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In November 2003, Miami, Florida, is hosting both the eighth round of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) trade negotiations and the eighth Americas Business Forum. Trade Ministers from 34 nations in the Western hemisphere, and hundreds of their closest commerce-inclined friends, will descend on this city for a week of business and pleasure: the business of advancing capitalism’s parasitic agenda, and the pleasure of getting away with it. This is to be our region’s principal contribution to the much-heralded age of globalization.

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As the July 8 deadline nears for forced government relocation of indigenous people—some 10,000 Navajos and 1,000 Hopis—from their homes in the Navajo-Hopi “Joint Use Area,” the people are digging in in preparation for a fight while the federal government is training U.S. Marshals and the Arizona National Guard specifically for the pending removal. (For background on this conflict see “Big Mountain: Native Peoples Resist Forced Relocation” in the FE #317, Summer 1984.)

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After years of overwhelming public and political support in this country for the death penalty, the tide may be turning.

Following a string of exonerations for Illinois death row inmates, Governor George Ryan declared a halt to all executions in that state. Since 1977, when Illinois reinstated the death penalty, the state has executed 12 men, but has freed 13, several in the last two years, when they were found to have been convicted in error. One can only wonder, given that the dead-to-freed ratio is less than 50 percent, how many of those killed by the state were also innocent.

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We dedicate this Issue to the World-Wide Peace Movement & to Rachel Corrie: Martyr for Justice.

Following the Empire’s triumphal march to Baghdad, it seems appropriate to express our deep regret at being unable to stop Bush’s long-planned war to control Middle East oil, while simultaneously celebrating our participation in history’s largest mass movement for peace.

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It may take two or three years, but beware: Mayor Gribbs has let it be known that he is not adverse to a $1.00 admission fee to the Detroit Zoo, along with plans to raise the Sunday parking fee to $2.00...Detroit Patrolman Richard Worobec, who was shot in the New Bethel Incident nearly a year ago, is back on the job. Worobec, who is presently working at a desk job in the Police Department personnel office is “looking forward to outside duty”....

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Monument to the anarchist Haymarket martyrs, Waldheim Cenetary, Chicago

Comrades from Chicago’s Louis Lingg Society and Autonomous Zone are continuing their campaign to keep the truth about the Haymarket martyrs alive and to combat the lies and half-truths of the ILHS. As they so aptly ask, “is it not complete hypocrisy to love the martyrs and hate their anarchism?”

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Support for the Fort Hood Three, the three GI’s who refused to be transferred to Vietnam, is growing rapidly (see Fifth Estate August 15). A Defense Committee, set up to assist the men, has leaflets, pamphlets and buttons available on request from their office at 5 Beekman Street, NYC.

Pfc. James Johnson, Pvt. Dennis Mora, and Pvt. David Samas are still confined to the stockade at Fort Dix in New Jersey. Their conditions have improved slightly, after protests by members of their families. Nevertheless, their situation is still far from comfortable. They are treated as if they are convicted criminals, the Committee asserted.

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The letter exchanges and articles on the next few pages represent the second installment of what we see as an ongoing process of investigation and discussion of the ecology perspective and movement, nature and society. The response to FE #327, our special Fall 1987 issue on deep ecology has been overwhelming and gratifying—one of the greatest responses to any single issue since we published a special women’s issue sixteen years ago.

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“Mistuh Chairman,” the fleshy faced delegate droned, “the Great State of Mississippi, last bastion of slavery, casts all of its redneck ballots for...CLICK!

“CLICK!” The sound was unmistakable—all over America, in cities and small towns, high-rise apartments and wooden shacks, people were busy flipping their television sets to another channel as the Republican party exposed itself on all three major networks for nearly a week of unending boredom.

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(above) A Greek Independence Day celebration at the Masonic Temple March 22 was the signal for the Michigan Freedom for Greece Committee to hold a protest demonstration. “How can they hold an ‘independence’ day celebration when Greece is in chains ruled by a fascist dictatorship?” asked Nikos Boyias, chairman of the group. About 35 persons participated in the picketing.

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