john johnson

Once again the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund scaled back big annual meetings in DC in the face of popular opposition. Folks from the DC Anti-Capitalist Convergence organized a People’s Strike for Friday, September 27^th. The call was out for affinity groups to engage in- autonomous actions to disrupt business as usual for the ruling elites in DC. Many DC commuters stayed home, so traffic was light. There were probably 1000 radicals in the streets, and a large critical mass clogged up some traffic. However, the 3700 pigs were very well organized, and any time they caught up with a large group, they corralled protesters with bikes, motorcycles and armor clad storm troopers.

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In this section:

• Anarchy, food and sustainability

• Against agriculture

• The Hungry Sheep Look Up And Are Not Fed

• Feral Forager #1

• Someday the power will die

• Grange Appeal

• Two Ecological Fancies

• Biophilia

• Wasted, Indeed

Grow Food or Die! exclaims the headline from Live Wild or Die! (an eco-anarchist “breakaway” zine circulating in the Earth First! milieu in the ‘90s). The message rings true today. How will food be dealt with before, during, and after a potential catastrophe or our anarchist revolution? With farmers making up less than two percent of the US’s population and farmland giving way to generic subdivisions, we must wonder what and how we are going to eat after a crisis or in our future Utopia.

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Feral Forager is a wild 30-page zine coming out of the outskirts of the not-so-wild, hippie mecca of Asheville in the heart of the Southern Appalachian mountains in North Carolina.

It contains all sorts of very practical and easy to follow methods of gathering and eating wild foods. After a nice intro to scavenging and foraging ethics and a nod to anarchy, the zine dives into what will probably remain the most controversial section —Scavenging Roadkill! This section explores the authors’ philosophies and entry into the world of roadkill feasting and then gets into the nitty gritty details of skinning, cleaning, cooking and then using the leftovers. Included are great original and lifted illustrations.

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Compiled by john johnson

In November 2003, a bullet fired in the air during a Ku Klux Klan initiation ceremony near Johnson City, Tennessee came down and struck a participant in the head, critically injuring him. Gregory Allen Freeman, 45, was charged with aggravated assault and reckless endangerment in the incident that wounded Jeffery S. Murr, 24. About 10 people, including two children, had gathered for the ceremony. The man who was being initiated was blindfolded, tied with a noose to a tree, and shot with paintball guns as Freeman fired a pistol in the air to provide the sound of real gunfire.

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Anarchist organizer Sherman Austin has been released from prison after serving most of a one year sentence after being framed for controversial content on his website RaiseTheFist.com. He faces three years of federal probation under terms which are a continuing attempt to silence him from exercising his right to organize with anarchist groups. Sherman will be intensely monitored to the extent that every phone, computer or other digital device he comes in contact with will be under strict supervision by his probation officers. For updates on Sherman, check freesherman.org.

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In August, Starbucks stores in San Francisco had “for lease” signs and letters saying, the stores were closing pasted on the windows and doors. In all 17 Starbucks were hit with the official-looking signs, mostly in the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods. At many stores, the windows were soaped up and the locks were jammed, leaving employees waiting outside to start their shifts. One flyer posted outside one store said, “We are moving over and making room for local coffee bars, our last best example of our commitment to fine coffee and local culture that got us into the business in the first place.”

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Hundreds of well organized campesinos (agricultural workers) stormed and broke into the Mexican Congress on December 10^th, forcing many of the congressmen to run for their lives.

The campesinos are extremely desperate because of the worsening conditions in the agricultural sectors of Mexico and the lack of forthcoming solutions by the legislature. Thousands attended a protest at the Congressional building, parking 6 tractors in the front entrance to the building, spreading manure and throwing rotten vegetables against the walls. The group was accompanied by two pigs, named after President Vincente Fox and of Secretary of Foreign Relations Jorge C. Gutman.

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Camilo Vivieros, Darby Landy, and Eric Steinberg, known as the Timoney Three, were acquitted April 6 of all charges against them arising from their arrests at the 2000 Republican National Convention protests.

Former Philly chief pig John Timoney (who later led the assault on demonstrators at the Miami FTAA protests) personally accused the three of property damage and assaulting him and other police officers.

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Long time readers of the Fifth Estate will remember the section called “Detroit Seen” which brought news from the radical scene in Detroit. We hope to continue “scene” reports in the new incarnation of the Fifth Estate.

Howdy y’all! (The Eco-Anarcho-Communalist Faction of the Society for the Preservation of the Good Parts of Southern Culture officially declares “y’all” a new, non-sexist alternative for addressing groups. People who still say “you guys” are obviously not concerned with preservation of our fine language, or worse, they are yankees.)

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