Fifth Estate Collective

The FE staff and friends celebrated our 30^th anniversary at the Cass Café in April, not only bringing in people from as far away as California, Maryland and Philadelphia, but even a picket by two very entertaining old-fashioned stillborn-again Jesus freaks who drew even more irreverent Cass Corridor types into our vortex of sin. Favorite FE covers and FE memorabilia were displayed, including a judge’s gavel that some enterprising ‘60s staff member stole from a courtroom and turned into a hash pipe. People danced to the music of Detroit’s Ghost Band, and enough money was raised to keep this ship afloat. Thanks to Chuck Roy and the Cass Café staff, to the Ghost Band, to David Furer for the music mix, to Julie Herrada, and to unnamed others for their help in making it a success.

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Welcome to our Fall 1997 edition, #350. We think we’ve assembled numerous informative and challenging articles for you and are particularly pleased with the issue’s art work. Thanks to Stephen Goodfellow for the cover’s ominous drawing and no less to the creative talents of Richard Mock, Maurice Spira, Bill Koehnline, and Marilynn Rashid whose drawings grace our pages; also, to Alexis Buss for her tasty layout of Alan Antliff’s art and anarchy article. Thanks to all of you whose contributions keep our project going. Prisoners and GIs: if this is your first issue, please notify us if you want to be on our subscription list.

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Welcome to the Fall/Winter 2000 Fifth Estate which follows our Spring 2000 edition. This issue marks the 35^th anniversary of this paper, now the longest running English language anarchist publication in U.S. history.

It’s quite a legacy, one we continue to build on, but only with your ongoing support. Thanks to everyone who subscribed, renewed, sent donations (especially our Sustainers), bought books, came by, wrote articles and letters, sent graphics and photos, and a hundred other things that make issues happen.

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[two_third padding=“0 20px 0 0”]We have finally firmed up plans for the Fifth Estate 20^th Anniversary celebration. It will be held at Alvin’s, 5756 Cass Ave., Detroit, on Dec. 7. Hopefully, the event will bring together many of those who have worked on the paper over the last two decades, as well as all those who want to help us celebrate. Music will be by the Layabouts who will have just released their album by that time. Also, there will be a dinner the same night for present and former staff members, so if you were part of the paper at any time, please write so we can plan a grand reunion.

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Last issue we reported that the local Freezer Theater had been torched and that the people who performed there were looking for a new place. Well, all you ardent Freezer fans will be glad to know that they’ve opened up shop in a storefront on Cass, between Selden & Alexandrine in the Cass Corridor. They’re back to performing the “beyond the fridge” plays that only they can do, and have started poetry readings on Sundays. It’s well worth checking out...

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Thanks to those of you who so promptly answered your subscription renewal letters we sent out after the last issue. Thanks, also, for sending along your comments on the paper; it’s always good to get your feelings about our effort, even if it’s sometimes critical. And a special appreciation to those who contributed money beyond the price of their subscription. If you haven’t mailed your renewal letter back yet and intend to, please don’t make us have to spend more money on postage; it could much better be spent elsewhere. Also, this is your last opportunity to subscribe at the old rate of $4.

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Hello, and welcome to another issue of the Fifth Estate, our Summer edition 1991, Vol. 26, No. 2, total number, 337. Fortunately, our basement office provided us with a cool respite from the blistering heat we’ve experienced in this part of the country, so we have no tales of martyrdom to relate.

As usual, our gratitude to all of you who constitute the community of support for our project through your subscriptions, donations and book purchases. It is your generosity and consistency which allows us to keep publishing and to maintain a public office which functions as one of the centers of libertarian activity in Detroit (see below for the other).

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A shortage of staff, and not money problems, kept us from putting out this issue sooner. For the first time in a long time we are in good financial shape, thanks to your numerous and extremely generous contributions. The contributions have helped tremendously, but they haven’t solved our logistical problems. Most of us work, and those that don’t, scrape, and we find that our commitments to Capital—jobs, survival, cars that break down on an increasingly regular basis, all the vicissitudes of what is commonly referred to as “normal” existence—keep us from our true commitments and our projects. So be it; we’d be the last ones to deny the gulf that separates our desires and the pleasure we derive from this project and others like it on the one hand, and the struggling and daily despair on the other. Thanks again for your support. Hopefully we’ll have another issue in your hands within two months at most. We know you’ve heard that one before, folks, but this time we really mean it...

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October marks the 16^th anniversary of the Fifth Estate and a little over five years since we’ve been publishing this paper as an explicitly libertarian project (see the Oct. 1979 FE for a brief history), and we are pleased to report that the ship of anti-state remains healthy. We say this even though the Post Office has reduced our status to that of a quarterly. This has served as a reminder of how we’ve let our publishing frequency precipitously slip from that of a monthly to, in this case, once every four months. Readers write to us all too often complaining that they have missed an issue, when it’s just been our sloth. Please be assured, all of you will get the six issues you subscribed to no matter if they don’t fall into a given calendar year. Financially we’re holding our own (contrary to a year ago when we were dead broke), but please, don’t let this declaration act to forestall the generous donations that many of you have been sending to the paper, because it is exactly those extra dollars or two or $20! with a book order or subscription renewal that have carried us in the direction of solvency. We can rarely do so individually, so let us thank all of you collectively who continue to have faith, not so much in this paper, but in the ideas it embodies, Who have helped us so much over the last year. And as usual, a special debt of gratitude must go out to our Italian comrades on both coasts and in Florida who continue their lifelong commitment to anarchist ideals by support of the world libertarian press including this one.

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When we start receiving letters asking if we are still publishing, we know it’s time to get an issue out. One reason that the gap between our last issue and this one must appear so large to those who receive the FE by mail is that the edition published at the time of the Republican Convention was not mailed to subscribers. Because of a shortage of staff and funds at the time, we distributed it in Detroit only. Unfortunately, none remain available for distribution but a reproduction of it is on the opposite page as well as a selection from the text.

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When you get to be our age, it seems easy to forget your birthdays, but it probably should be noted that last November marked the 17^th anniversary of our first issue. The paper has gone through a number of marked changes since those first days (we became an explicitly anti-authoritarian paper in July 1975), but we continue on, our commitment intact and looking forward to the next 17...

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The chaos of a hundred packing boxes has finally been cleared away, lost correspondence found and misplaced book orders filled, and our new office space is beginning to take on the feeling of home. It’s quite a change since the paper was in its last office for 12 years, but the fact that we are sharing quarters with three other groups has made the transition one of positive expectations. The large building we are occupying is just a few blocks uptown from the old address (in the shadow of the General Motors world headquarters) and features office space in front with a large performance area in the rear. The latter will be utilized by the Layabouts, a new wave band (three of whose members also contribute to the FE), the Dramatic Research Company (the old Freezer Theatre Players), and the Duck Club Players (from the infamous club of the same name), so music, satire and plays will abound. We had a big, bang-up, Detroit style grand opening and May Day celebration (Workers of the World Relax!) and a small Fifth Estate open house to show off our new quarters and bookstore. A full schedule of events is not yet set, but with the above crew situated, events in the manner of the old Grinning Duck and Freezer Theatre can be expected.

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The space which the Fifth Estate shares with three other groups has been the scene of a number of events recently, mostly rock performances, but also a smattering of theatre and comedy. They have been generally well-received with an exceptionally gratifying turnout for our benefit held March 2. We raised $261 to help defray the expenses of maintaining the space shared by the Layabouts band, the Freezer Theatre Players and the Duck Club Players as well as the paper.

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Well, we hope that those of you who have complained for the last two years about our full-sheet size are happy about a return to a tabloid. However, after doing the layout for this edition in the smaller size, it confirms our contention that it is more time-consuming to put together, more difficult to find graphics and actually results in a loss of copy space. No decision yet on the size of the next issue; maybe we’ll even go further in the other direction and put it out in magazine size.

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Thank you for your patience in waiting for our Spring (almost Summer) issue. Our normal problems (or excuses) were compounded in the last few weeks by a broken typesetter which remained unfixed for a week due to IBM’s reluctance to dispatch a repairman to work on our almost two decades old machine. We are faced now with the decision to forge on into the computer age (choke!) or see if we can nurse along the mechanical nightmare that has served us for so long. A part of the problem is that the new technology of photocomposition is unsuited to our sporadic typesetting needs and is damn expensive to boot.

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Our offer of bulk copies of our back issues turned out better than we expected and we were swamped with requests. With a reduced volume, we can now make available issues only on a single copy basis. We have a list of back issues available for those who are interested.

Those of you who were sent subscription renewal notices last issue responded in greater numbers than any time in our memories. Thanks, since we hate doing bulk mailings and it saves greatly on postage when we don’t have to send a second reminder. By the way, some of you who have not responded to a second notice are getting this issue anyway since we wanted you to see our coverage of the Chicago gathering, but if you haven’t renewed, this is the last one you will receive.

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Where are the Bulgarians now that we need them department: Get ready Detroit! As the archbishop and the mayor slap each other on the back for bringing the pope himself into town in September, local entrepreneurs are geared up to produce all the exciting papal potpourri to be hawked in the wake of the holy parade as it cruises up Woodward Avenue and out to Pontiac’s Silverdome to pray that the roof doesn’t cave in. What will it be—tee shirts, buttons, pinwheel beanies, and, undoubtedly the classic style commemorative Popa Cola for a taste that refreshes. Rumor has it that the Pope plans to personally bless the site of the City’s world’s [as in print original] largest trash-to-dioxin municipal incinerator. Local fundamentalist christians are understandably horrified to see the antichrist and Whore of Babylon himself in these Yewnited States, and plan mass baptisms of born-again christians down at the Rouge River. Rumor also has it that there will be a huge pagan festival (more to our liking, though we’d enjoy seeing the born-agains fending off the bloated rats down at the Rouge as they go down for the third time) to coincide with the papal visit, to call up all the old Indian spirits of these lands to drive the blackrobes and their ilk away. Of course millions will be spent (and made) and security is going to be hard-core. Since, as Stalin once cynically but aptly pointed out, the pope has no military divisions, he’ll be relying on Detroit’s finest and lots of plainclothes pigs from every imaginable agency (and some we’ve never heard of, probably) to make sure the holy daddy-o doesn’t trip over his gown. Detroiters! Here’s your chance—a once-in-history opportunity: MOON THE POPE:

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Good news! The Fifth Estate has a new office and bookstore quarters with public access, plus it provides a better atmosphere for working and receiving visitors. The move has provided the spark for increased activity around the bookshop, with one of us taking responsibility for expanding its book selection and starting regular hours.

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Greetings to all and as usual, a special thanks to those who have added a contribution to their subscription renewal or book order. Also, to that small group who have elected to become Fifth Estate Sustainers—those who donate a fixed sum each issue. One of the reasons why Sustainers are limited is that we rarely promote the category or indicate how important it is to us. Sustainers are sent the issue first class, receive publications from time to time and free admission to local FE events. This issue we sent Sustainers a tabloid we produced in conjunction with the Evergreen Alliance as part of the opposition to the Detroit Incinerator, and the next issue will be accompanied (hopefully) by the soon-to-be published last book by Fredy Perlman, The Strait. So, if we have enticed you, please drop us a line and let us know how much you can pledge each issue.

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Hi, remember us? We put out a paper called the Fifth Estate every once in a while. Seriously though, we hope the reports of events in this issue such as the protests against the Detroit incinerator and the Toronto Anarchist Gathering give the idea that we’ve been doing more than just lazing about since our last issue. In fact, the last seven months have probably been the most active ones we’ve experienced in recent memory.

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Amazing! This issue follows the last faster than any one since we became a quarterly ten years ago. In good part it is motivated by the quickening pace of political events throughout the world and the sense that revolution is once again afoot in the land (even in the United States and even in Detroit!).

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According to our staff box, this newspaper is officially a quarterly, but in reality, we have become an “episodic,” corning out between or in conjunction with our political, cultural and environmental projects. It has been common practice in this space to offer explanations for our long printing delays and infrequent publishing schedule which is now about three issues a year. That is contrasted to twenty years ago when the Fifth Estate appeared weekly. It is perhaps time to formally declare that three-four times a year will be it for a while and devote this column to matters other than apologia.

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Victor D. Schumacher
January 27, 1922 — January 28, 1991

This issue of the FE is dedicated to Victor Schumacher, a mainstay of the Detroit antiwar movement and activist community, who was killed by a car late in January during his morning jog. Vic was a pacifist and a member of the War Resisters League whose resistance to militarism dated back to the time he spent in prison for refusing to serve in the U.S. armed forces during World War II. Vic refused to do alternative service as well. While working in a New York hospital tending many war victims, he saw wards cleared of war wounded for security reasons so that Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, the wife of the Chinese Nationalist dictator, could have cosmetic surgery. Seeing the soldiers lying in gurneys in the hallways to make room for the privileged, he vowed to resist the system of injustice in every way he could.

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Welcome to the Spring 1992 issue of the Fifth Estate (Vol. 27, No. 1, our 339^th paper)! As usual, we are later than we had planned, due in part to our worst nightmare: the breakdown, in the heat of production, of our IBM Composer. Most of this issue has been typeset on Macintosh computers by a host of busy friends stealing time at work, home and in school computer labs.

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Welcome to the Spring 1993 edition of the Fifth Estate. Our promise of a third issue for 1992 never materialized, so you are reading the edition which follows our Fall 1992 publication. Subscribers receive four issues even if the period extends beyond a calendar year, so fear not if we don’t produce the expected annual number. You can check whether you are receiving sequential issues by looking at the total number of issues printed since our founding in 1965. This issue is #341 and Fall’s was #340.

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Welcome to the Spring 1993 edition of the Fifth Estate. You probably noticed, it is different in two striking respects. First, the elaborate use of color by two of our favorite illustrators, Tony Doyle, on the cover, and Sean Bieri in the centerfold.

Color is normally an expense we think inappropriate to incur (particularly full-color), but the cost for this issue was picked up generously by the people responsible for the back-page Mao poster, which meant it could be used in the other sections as well. Contributions to further printing of the poster and to offset the cost of the color work in the FE, can be sent to their address listed elsewhere in the issue.

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Welcome to the Summer 1994 Fifth Estate. Our center eight pages feature the return of the once-a-decade Daily Barbarian, which last appeared as an FE supplement in 1984. Just wait until 2004! Also, this 40-page issue is the largest in our 28-year history.

We are late again with this edition. Our last was marked Fall/Winter 1993, Vol. 28, #3, and this is Summer 1994, Vol. 29, #1; no other issues appeared in between. Best way of keeping track of issues is by their whole numbers. This is issue #344; the previous, #343.

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Welcome to the long time coming Summer edition of the Fifth Estate. It is our first since the Winter 1995 issue which was published Dec. 31, 1994. Subscribers (and particularly libraries) frequently think they have missed issues when six months go by between our papers. For instance, they’ll understandably inquire, “Where’s the Spring 1995 edition?” although there wasn’t one.

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Welcome to our 30^th anniversary issue—although you are reading this as we are already into our 31^st year. 1965 seems like ancient history or just a heartbeat away, depending on your current age. The cover logo on page one over our chronicle comes from our 1968–71 period.

As always we would like to express our gratitude to each reader, each Sustainer, each contributor. On the occasion of this anniversary, we feel this sense of gratitude even more deeply. Without your support, none of this would happen. We appreciate the patience with which all of you tolerate our sporadic publishing schedule although we have given up promising to appear more frequently.

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Welcome to our Summer 1997 edition; the last one published was Fall 1996. This issue has been the result of numerous fruitful collaborations. Our visually stunning cover is the work of renowned artist Richard Mock. We used his work for the first time last issue and hope to have more in the future.

Pages 10–13, containing Allan Antliff’s fascinating study of Russian anarchist artists of the revolution, was designed by Alexis Buss, a member of the Wooden Shoe collective in Philadelphia. See page 5 for details On the fire that destroyed their bookstore.

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Welcome to our Summer 1998 edition. Thanks to everyone who had a hand in creating our 351^st issue. This issue follows our Fall 1997 edition, so please note that there was not an issue designated Winter or Spring.

As always, you can keep track of issues by noting the number in parentheses. Subscriptions expire after you have received four issues, not a calendar year. Special thanks to our Sustainers and to those who made generous donations with their subscription renewals. Also, to our writers and artists whose works grace our pages.

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It’s a pleasure to launch our Summer 1999 edition with a rare splash of color on our front page and center section. The other art and photos also provide an excellent setting for a diverse set of articles.

There are probably more people contributing to this issue than we’ve had in a long while. We haven’t had a color front page in six years, but Stephen Good-fellow’s terrific art and the page one photos made it almost a necessity.

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Welcome to our Spring 2000 issue. The last one we published was dated Summer 1999, so subscribers and libraries, please take note; you haven’t missed any intervening papers. This edition is numbered 354, the previous one, 353, so we are trudging along, even if not very quickly.

We’re grateful to have Maurice Spira’s inspiring and hilarious graphic grace our front page, and are pleased to be able to give extensive space to the discussion regarding tactics and strategies following the Seattle WTO demos. As David Solnit suggests in our page one article, we could very well be on the cusp of a new period of contestation.

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For submission of articles and art, contact Sunfrog, PO Box 6, Liberty TN 37095.

For new subscriptions, renewals, donation, or other business matters, please continue to use our old address at Fifth Estate, 4632 Second Ave., Detroit MI 48201.

A 1972 Fifth Estate office meeting. photo/Millard Berry

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A happy new year thank-you to all of you who responded so quickly to our request in the last issue to please renew your subscriptions promptly. Thank you also for all the very generous donations and requests for papers to distribute to friends—we love to see those piles of papers disappear. Remember that we always need people and places to distribute the FE; we’ll send you papers on a consignment basis and you pay only for those you sell and keep half of the proceeds for yourself. If you wish to give the papers away free, send us the postage and we’ll send you a corresponding amount of FE’s.

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All of us at the Fifth Estate want to extend our warmest greetings and wishes for a happy, healthy and revolutionary New Year to those of you who have supported our project through your subscriptions, donations and participation. We made it through the long-dreaded 1984 and although the megamachine of the state seemed all but undeterred in its vicious reproduction of itself, our capacity to maintain our ideals, our dreams and our resistance seems heightened. It may be too early to declare the resurgence of a mass anti-authoritarian/anarchist movement, but from much of what we receive at the FE office, there is a definite upsurge in libertarian activity. 1985—the year to go for the master’s throat.

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As usual, let us begin this column with an apology for the lateness of this issue, as well as an appeal to readers who have been notified of their subscription expiration to send us their renewals. Also, a heartfelt expression of gratitude to those who have made a special contribution to help sustain our project.

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We can tell when it’s been a long time between issues when we start getting letters from subscribers asking if they’ve missed an issue or it we’ve stopped publishing. This issue is the third we’ve published this year, which doesn’t meet our official status as a quarterly, but this should not be taken as a measure of our enthusiasm for our project. While this past year has seen both personal and other commitments interrupt our plans for publishing more issues, 1989 could be an improvement. We are simultaneously preparing a special issue along with this one which will feature a further investigation by George Bradford into the philosophy of deep ecology, the grounding of environmental ethics and concepts of wilderness. This will come out hopefully early in February.

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We dedicate this issue to the memory of the 14 women slaughtered in Montreal December 6 at the hand of a patriarchal maniac. As he lined up his victims and methodically shot them, he expressed a hatred for all women and said he wanted “to kill feminists.”

In the memory of these dead sisters, we pledge, “We’re all feminists here!”

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That’s as good a reason as any for why the observance of our 25 years of publishing is reduced to a short mention in this column. We had intended more, both self-congratulation and perhaps a deeper discussion about our origins and political evolution. But the idea of a retrospective special issue began to slip as this issue became overwhelmed with articles.

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Welcome to our Winter 1992 edition. This was our final issue for the 1991 year. continuing our recent pattern of three papers per year. As we’ve said in the past, the fact that we publish so infrequently comes neither from a lack of will nor is it a measure of the growing anti-authoritarian movement.

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Welcome to the Winter 1995 Fifth Estate. This is only the second edition we’ve published this year, so you probably have not missed any issues. This issue also marks the 29^th anniversary of continuous publication of the Fifth Estate. We probably should have a giant, wild celebration for our 30^th next year, but if the 25^th was any indication, the date may just slip by. However, if there is anyone in the Detroit area willing to organize a gathering/celebration event, let us know; we’re up for it.

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Welcome to the Winter 1999 issue of the Fifth Estate, #352. This edition follows our Summer issue by about six months. Maybe, like Anarchy has in its recently published issue, we should stop any pretense of quarterly publication, and openly state that we are publishing twice yearly for the time being. One problem with that is the Post Office demands a four time yearly schedule for us to remain eligible for our special mailing status. This issue was delayed even longer than normal due to the great Blizzard of ’99 which hit Detroit.

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As predictions for the eventual toll of the deadly AIDS disease grow higher, speculation as to the origin of the virus remain unanswered. Reports continue to surface that rather than a natural occurring new strain, the disease was a result of U.S. Army germ warfare research conducted at Fort Detrick, Maryland in the mid 1970s.

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Digger O’Dell, world famous stunt man, will be buried in Detroit October 26^th, at 1 pm at 13505 Grand River east of Schaefer. Mr. O’Dell will be buried alive.

He will arrive on October 21 to begin construction of his concrete casket six feet beneath an abandoned gas station.

Digger estimates he has spent 6-1/2 of his 54 years buried in a self made grave and has been buried 93 times before. O’Dell, who earns his living either sitting on flagpoles or going to the other extreme of being buried alive, holds the present World Record of 78 days 20 minutes and 10 seconds for staying under six feet of dirt.

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As of 1970, all homes in Cuba are rent-free.

In Cuba, medical care is free.

Since 1967, there have been no cases of polio in Cuba; immunization of children is free and carried on each year. In 1970, some cities in Texas were having sharp increases in the number of cases of polio reported.

There is a much higher percentage of women in medical school in Cuba than in the United States.

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a review of

Direct Action: An Historical Novel by Luke Hauser

In Direct Action, Luke Hauser writes fiction so steeped in reality that he reproduces an era for us, with all of its excitement and frustrations.

Although the 1980s are generally thought of as a kind of dead zone for progressive activism, in the San Francisco Bay Area the early part of the decade was a time of fervent activism around nuclear issues.

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Everyday sexual predation on women by men of power and prestige in the entertainment world, politics, business, and the university has been an open secret that has suddenly gained massive public attention. Women’s words have been listened to and prominent men have experienced almost immediate banishment from their fields after exposure of their abusive actions.

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According to Time Magazine, prostitution has always been part of the American soldier’s life. It is a continuation of a grand tradition going back to the Crusades and extending through the vivandieres of World War I to the B-Girls called tea girls in Saigon today. After dysentery and other intestinal diseases had multiplied fourfold in four months and venereal disease had afflicted one-third of the 21,000 troopers of the U.S. first cavalry (Airmobile) in the small town of An Khe in the central highlands, the local commander acted. He made the town off limits. Prices, which the soldiers had forced up, and disease rates soon fell but, as Time puts it, “In March the first cases of ‘battle fatigue’ showed up.”

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A new book of oral histories edited by political prisoner Eric King and abolitionist Josh Davidson is now available for preorder through AK Press and Burning Books. Rattling the Cages: Oral Histories of North American Political Prisoners with a foreword by Angela Davis and an introduction by Sara Falconer is a fundraiser for, and a way to raise awareness of those imprisoned for politically motivated actions.

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In June 2001, 23-year-old forest defense activist Jeffrey “Free” Luers was sentenced to 22 years and 8 months in prison for a Eugene, Oregon arson. Free and his co-defendant Critter set fire to three Sport Utility Vehicles (SUV’s) at a local car dealership to raise awareness about global warming and the role that the gas-guzzlers play in the process. No one was hurt in this action nor was that their intent.

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

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

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All donations for Marie Mason should be sent to

Support Marie Mason,

c/o Fifth Estate,

POB 201016,

Ferndale MI 48220.

Checks should be made out to Support Marie Mason.

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

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

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

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By working in secretarial jobs, at Ys, day care centers, and in other experimental ways, SDS hopes to do practical work in organizing women.

Besides these organizing collectives, the project will engage in intensive political study and research into Detroit. By the end of the summer the project will have trained a large number of people who can become sophisticated political cadre for -the organizing of a youth movement throughout Michigan as well as Detroit.

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Don’t Vote—Piss in the Voting Booth

(back cover)

Another election, another opportunity to let someone else determine our lives. In modern capitalist society, the election of representatives has become an integral part of the general process of self-denial and self-repression standing at the center of modern life. It has become a prohibition to the real possibilities for self-realization. At root in bourgeois society—occurring fundamentally in creative human activity, in labor—is the phenomenon of alienation, an active process whereby human life and energy become crystallized in objects and institutions divorced from their creators and the creators become mere objects alien to themselves and available to be manipulated, dominated, controlled. This process is reproduced in the general life of bourgeois society and finds its political expression in electoral politics, in so-called “representative democracy”. Through the practice of voting we alienate the possibility for defining and administering our own lives by delivering this function to someone else. Electoral politics is an obstacle to both. And so we conclude that voting will get us nowhere. Don’t vote for reactionaries, don’t vote for liberals. They are all committed to the present state of affairs. Don’t vote for members of so-called Socialist or Communist Parties. They are charlatans incapable of a liberated vision of life. Don’t vote for fools, don’t vote for wisemen. Don’t vote for anyone. We can do it ourselves.

Local folk singers David and Roselyn are the focal point of a campaign to raise $6,000 by August 15. David and Roselyn, who provided the music for Tom and Kate’s wedding and played at their reception (see last issue, FE #58, July 18–31, 1968) were from Houston, Texas. The trial for the inter-racial couple will be in Houston on August 16, and they are without money for a lawyer.

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The anti-napalm protest scheduled in Midland, Mich., national headquarters of Dow Chemical Corp., for Aug. 7 and 8 will include participants from all across Michigan and northern Ohio and parts of Canada. The region wide action has been called by VOICE, the University of Michigan chapter of Students for a Democratic Society. The demonstration planned in New York on Hiroshima Day, Aug. 6, by the 5^th Avenue Peace Parade Committee, will culminate in a rally in front of the Dow Chemical offices at Rockefeller Plaza. Dow is a major supplier of napalm to the government and has been responsible for developing napalm-B, a deadlier variety. (“Napalm has been used to bomb Vietnamese villages during the war. The jelly-like substance sticks to whatever it touches and burns with such heat that all oxygen in the immediate area is quickly exhausted” (N.Y. Times, May 29, 1966). Protests have been held at napalm plants in Torrance, California, and Redwood City, California. A nationwide boycott of Dow’s domestic products is also being organized. The new kind of napalm which Dow has developed contains 50% polystyrene, which Dow makes. CHEM. & ENG. NEWS recently reported that, “Predictions of future use of polystyrene in napalm-B now are running as high as 25 million pounds a month.” This is a 50% increase in the production of polystyrene, a fact which has led to the building of new plants. Dow has also raised the price of its product. So that it is no surprise when it is reported that sales and profits for Dow Chemical “were higher than in any quarter of any prior year. (Det. News, July 21, 1966).

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A mass demonstration is being staged to confront those who reap rich rewards from burned villages, crops and people, namely the stockholders of Dow Chemical.

They are meeting May 8^th in the home of napalm, Midland, Michigan. (Isn’t it delightful that Michigan is blessed with such a proliferation of peace-keeping outfits such as Cadillac Gauge, General Motors and Dow. Perhaps next year’s plates should read “Munitions Wonderland”).

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Atlanta—On Saturday, August 12, a crowd of 175 supporters and newsmen gathered at Atlanta’s Piedmont Park to watch 25 Atlanta students and workers take off and burn their Levi pants.

The “burn-in,” sponsored by the Southern Labor Action Movement (SLAM), marked the kickoff of a nation-wide boycott of all Levi Straus products. The boycott is being organized in support of the 400 workers now on strike at Levi Straus’ Blue Ridge, Georgia plant.

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Burning draft cards in NYC 1967

Bruce Dancis’ book Resister: A Story of Protest and Prison (Cornell Press, 2014) chronicles his efforts during the Vietnam War to defy the draft and cripple the U.S. war effort.

Fifth Estate: You tore up your draft card and then led a mass burning of them in 1967.

Bruce Dancis: Very few people wanted to fight in the Vietnam War, even those who supported it. There were 27 million draft age men and 25 million didn’t go into the army.

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Demonstrators on the steps of the “Defense” Dept. during the March 22, 1980 Washington DC rally against the draft and war.

When bullet-headed Selective Service Director Bernard D. Rostker looked sternly into the TV cameras last July and predicted that all but 2% of the nation’s 19- and 20-year-old men would comply with the scheduled draft registration his self-confidence was chilling. It was easy to believe that a generation of youth untouched by the protests of the ’60’s and ’70’s and raised on the Fonz and skateboards would march dutifully off to their local Post Office to become willing parts of the state military machine.

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More than a thousand people opposed to the draft met here in Detroit the weekend of February 12 to 15 at a conference called as a planning and organizing session by the National Committee Against Registration and the Draft (NCARD). The entire conference, from the Friday night pep rally at which a bevy of socialist and liberal politicians and labor bureaucrats spoke, to the workshops, and plenary sessions characterized by leftist block voting, caucuses and maneuvering, produced an eerie sensation of traveling back into the 1960s to one of the Student Mobilization conferences of that era. Every little political group, from the “support Albania” political bizarros to the laissez faire “student libertarians,” maintained a literature table in one salon which appeared to be a sort of political shopping mall, and one had to shoo away the newspaper salesmen like flies,

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Thirty-five people from the DCEWV picketed at the Detroit Stock Exchange, Thursday, May 19, protesting the fact that the war in Vietnam, although in the interest of certain American corporations making skyrocket profits from war production, benefits neither the Vietnamese people nor the GIs who are sent to Vietnam to kill and be killed.

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[two_third padding=“0 20px 0 0”]The reinstitution of the military draft is practically a foregone conclusion according to many observers. All that is needed is the official go-ahead from Congress to set the wheels in motion.

The October 1982 government exercise dubbed “Operation Proud Saber” proved that all is in a state of readiness. Draft boards have been trained and are ready to open; rules and regulations are up to date; and military reservists are ready to serve as temporary staff at induction centers across the country. The Selective Service System (SS) awaits only Congressional approval to begin calling up young men.

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An ad in the July 15–30 Fifth Estate calling for unknown playwrights and aspiring actors to help rejuvenate the American stage has blossomed into the Detroit Drama Workshop. First performance... two original one-act plays—Joan Feret’s “The Nightmare” and Sam Cohen’s “The Library Room.” Dates are September 14, 15, 16 and 21, 22, 23 at 616 West Hancock.

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The recent clamor by employers for mandatory drug testing of workers threatens to add yet another humiliating dimension to wage labor. Both private and governmental concerns have expressed strong support for the idea, and it was recently given a boost by a report from the President’s Commission on Organized Crime which recommended a national program which would subject most working Americans to urinalysis tests.

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NEW YORK — Melvin L. Wulf, an ACLU Legal Director has announced that a brief was filed on August 18 challenging the right of US Attorney General Katzenbach to force the W.E.B. Du Bois Clubs to register with the Subversive Activities Control Board as a “Communist-front organization” under the 1950 Subversive Activities Control Act.

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On Thursday, January 23, 1969, the Metropolitan Detroit Branch of the American Civil Liberties Union will present a film, “The Seasons Change,” and a panel discussion on the events which occurred in Chicago during the Democratic Party Convention.

“The Seasons Change” is a one-hour film in response to the City of Chicago and Mayor Daley’s “What Trees Do They Plant?”, which was carried on many TV stations some months ago.

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Earth First! is dead! Long live Earth First!

The irreconcilable differences within the dispute-plagued, radical environmental group finally led to what one of its founders, Dave Foreman, who is often at the center of the controversies, has long called for—a “no-fault divorce.” Although there is much behind-the-scenes acrimony among the leading figures on all sides, the public stance has been that each should go in peace and continue defending the environment in their own way.

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The people of East Detroit are undergoing a fast and, in many ways, painful awakening process that is cutting through all levels of the community.

On June 8 at a graduation party on Lincoln St., the police pushed 200 kids out onto the street and ordered them to leave the neighborhood. Arguments followed and, when the cops saw that the kids were not going to jump at their command, they called in reinforcements from the neighboring suburbs and Detroit.

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East Detroit High School was the scene Jan. 10 of a student sit-in protesting school policies there.

The action involved some 450 students and had demands ranging from dress and hair regulations and money wasted on “hall mothers” who patrol the school’s halls to a general demand for a student veto on school policies.

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On Tuesday, May 3, 1966. Thomas L. Baker, a 16 year old black youth was shot and wounded while entering the office of the Afro-American Youth Movement (A.A.Y.M.), formerly known as the Adult Community Movement for Equality, at 9211 Kercheval on Detroit’s East Side.

This incident is only one of a long series of violent acts directed at the A.A.Y.M., as well as A.C.M.E. The A.A.Y.M. has been in existence for approximately three months. In that time, burning rags have been thrown through the rear office window, a bomb has been tossed through the front window, and a shotgun blast at the office in the middle of the night.

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After the Eat The Rich Gang (ETR) distributed several thousand copies of their phony front page, which were stuffed in Detroit News coin boxes, angry christians called the offices of the Fifth Estate demanding, “my children came home crying because of your sick joke. What are you going to do about it?!”

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Powerlessness and the lack of control which black people are allowed over their own community was not a major cause of the Detroit rebellion, Mr. Lomax tells us.

Nor was the cause the culture of violence which the United States has perfected; a culture which would make it UnAmerican for black people not to use violence as a means to effect social change.

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Welcome to another Fifth Estate! This marks our eighth issue since moving to Pumpkin Hollow. With an editorial office in the Barn and an editorial collective all over the continent, we are proud to approach our 40^th anniversary with a thriving publication as opposed to authority as ever.

When we announced the theme as “Conspirarchy and Elections,” little did we realize how much the edition would emerge as one focused on politics and rhetoric. In particular, we examine the growing tension between the horrific hallucination known as democracy and the utopian vision known as anarchy.

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

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

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

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WAR!

The weapons are in place. The language of war is accepted everywhere. The rulers of the opposing empires confront each other menacingly.

Their fingers are poised on the button. The warheads ache to be launched. Will we wait passively for annihilation?

The words above are what should have shown through a light image of a mushroom cloud on our Nov. 19 [FE #307] cover, but were obscured due to a communication error with our printer. Our disappointment with the results was lightened somewhat when several people told us they thought it was a contest to see if the words could be discerned. Others said that the bomb obliterating our words was appropriate for the matter under discussion.

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This newspaper, WSU’s South End, and the Inner City Voice are going to sponsor a revolutionary newspaper conference on April 11, 12, and 13. It will be held on the Wayne University campus.

The need for such a conference rises out of a growing movement in the Detroit area; in high schools, plants, colleges, and communities.

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ATTENTION GIs: We are interested in any and all written material given you while you are in the service. This includes everything from training manuals to Stars and Stripes. Also, any of you who would like to submit articles or letters to the editor are urged to do so.

If you want to show your support for Judge George W. Crockett and risk getting a few traffic tickets at the same time, stop in our office and pick up a “Support Judge Crockett” bumper sticker. They are free or if you can, for a small donation. We will not send any out by mail.

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The revolutionary newspaper conference sponsored by this newspaper and several other publications will be held on only one day: Saturday, April 12. The planners felt that the necessary work could be accomplished in that period.

The conference will cover a complete range of subjects from how to put together any printed newspaper (from mimeo to offset) as well as political perspectives, organizing, financing, legal questions and anything else people want to know.

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America’s election farce is over and proved to be one of the dullest in years reminiscent of the Eisenhower years as Hank Malone points out in this issue. The only pleasant surprise was the small number of Americans willing to vote for George Wallace’s militant brand of racism. They obviously prefer the more subtle and effective variety advocated by the other two creeps. Wallace pulled only 7.8 per cent of the vote outside of the South and this isn’t a hell of a lot given the amount of money he spent on his campaign.

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The Revolutionary Newspaper Conference held at Wayne State’s Lower DeRoy on April 12 was fairly successful. Over 70 persons registered and over 125 were in attendance throughout the day.

The morning session consisted of a panel on the function of the media in a revolutionary movement. On the panel were Nick Medvecky and James Tripp of the South End, Peter Werbe from this paper, Marty Glaberman from Speak Out, and Mike Honey from the Oakland Observer.

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Apparently Detroit’s two daily papers didn’t believe our interview in the last issue with the person who bombed the CIA office in Ann Arbor.

The News ran a front page synopsis of the interview and the next day both papers carried stories of the “authorities,” denying that it was authentic and the Free Press even accused us of taking it from other papers.

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Reading the Fifth Estate last issue was sort of a magical mystery tour with none of the teasers on the front page corresponding to the proper pages and a number of other horrors.

This was caused by last minute surgery when our printer decided he would be unable to print a two-page spread photo of John Lennon and Yoko Ono posing nude because he felt it would hurt his other business.

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Recorder’s Court Judge Robert J. Colombo, the pig who sentenced John Sinclair to almost ten years in prison, recently renewed his subscription to this paper for two years. Because of the barbaric sentence he placed on John, we are cancelling his subscription, confiscating his money and donating it to the John Sinclair Defense Fund. Money is urgently needed for legal fees and we hope all brothers and sisters will contribute generously to his defense. Send donations to John Sinclair Defense Fund, 1510 Hill St., Ann Arbor, Mich. 48104.

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Quite a time these last few weeks. Most of our full-time staff went to Pig City and returned without injury or arrest. Still, just being there and seeing what happened to our brothers and sisters gave us a real shot in the arm in terms of our commitment to change this society. We want people in control of their own lives instead of pigs.

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As we go to press word has reached us that Recorder’s Court Judge Robert Colombo has dismissed charges of sales of marijuana against John Sinclair. His trial on the charge of possession began on June 24 and may be in progress at this writing. Call our office or White Panther headquarters for more information.

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A reader spoke to us about a letter that appeared in the last issue from a homosexual named Paul who was being harassed by the police. We didn’t ignore this letter, but wrote him back and suggested that he contact the American Civil Liberties Union. We don’t know how he made out.

Those new subscribers who took advantage of the free offer of an ESP record with their subscription will have them sent as soon as possible. There may be a delay of a few weeks, but you will get them.

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We think an important clarification is needed regarding the “editors’ note” that appeared on page seventeen of last issue that said, “All you need is dynamite.”

This, in fact, was not an editors’ note at all, but rather the whim of persons working on the layout of the paper. We can dig the way they felt at 4:00 in the morning reading Ralph Gleason’s bad review of the Beatles’ bad record, “Revolution,” but that statement does not reflect the thinking of this newspaper.

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Every newspaper has left over papers from returns from stores and sellers. Usually these are just discarded and considered as junk since they are out-of-date.

However, our staff can not bear to think of the leftovers of our treasured publication as winding up in an incinerator. We think there is too much important material of lasting value to just discard, so we thought of a solution.

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There has been considerable question as to where the Fifth Estate stands regarding an attack on the white left in our last issue and on a number of articles appearing in these pages by White Panther spokesmen.

Political views that are explicitly those of this paper are printed only in this column and in editorials such as the one about the aftermath of the Democratic Convention. All news stories are edited by us and in that sense reflect our editorial views as in any newspaper.

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Last issue’s front cover was done by Detroit photographer Tom Burt. Fifth Estate readers may remember Tom’s work from a previous front cover and you can expect to see more in the months to come. Tom has a fantastic collection of photographs mounted for hanging and anyone who digs his work as much as we do can reach him at 864–2898. Leave a message if he is not there.

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We are initiating this column as a means of communicating with the Fifth Estate readership. We hope to be able to give you periodic progress reports, answer your questions about the paper, and hopefully give you the feeling that there are real live people behind the newsprint and ink.

Although our Detroit circulation is increasing, distribution still remains our major problem. We feel our circulation could double if a method could be devised to get our paper close to the potential buyers. Any suggestions?

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Nothing much to report or rap about; so just a few brief notes.

Our abortive record deal with ESP records is still fouled. We wrote the record company in New York and asked if they could mail the bonus records to our new subscribers, but they have not answered to date.

A few people have come into our office to pick up their albums, but the majority of them remain here in the office confronting us accusingly. If you live in the Detroit area please come and get your record or if you live a distance away write us a note and we will send it to you.

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Big changes at the Fifth Estate. As you can see by the staff box above our paper’s decisions will be made by an Editorial Group rather than by the two former co-editors. This represents an attitude on the part of the people working full-time on the paper that decisions should be made collectively by those most closely involved in its production.

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The Man’s heavy hand of repression is attempting again to strike at this paper. We have been getting reports from both sellers, distributors, and buyers about police and school harrassment.

At Southfield High, which is run by anti-Fifth Estate fanatics, Principal Robert Hall and youth pig, Richard Overmeyer, persons have been suspended for selling the paper and students have had individual copies confiscated merely for having them in their possession.

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Trouble time again at Northland. The punk rent-a-pigs out there have been giving our salesmen such a hard time when they are trying to sell that we are going to begin a suit against the shopping center to enforce our legal right to sell in a public area.

Our staff and our attorney, James Lafferty, met with the jerks that run the place last year and came to an agreement whereby the harassment of sellers would stop, but apparently it meant nothing to the businessmen who are trying to drive elements of the free community out of the shopping center.

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