Nick Medvecky

Editors’ Note: Nick Medvecky, former News Editor for the WSU South End, is currently touring the Middle East and will send back periodic on-the-spot reports from his travels.

He will visit Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Israel visiting with revolutionaries, student groups and government officials.

(Special to the Fifth Estate)

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Special to the Fifth Estate

Editors’ Note: Nick Medvecky, former News Editor for the WSU South End, is currently touring the Middle East and will send back periodic on-the-spot reports from his travels.

He will visit Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Israel, visiting with revolutionaries, student groups and government officials.

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The news of the fighting in Lebanon fills the headlines of the newspapers across the US. “Fall of Tripoli Looms,” “Guerrillas Gain in Lebanon,” and on and on. Why is there fighting? What are they fighting for?

Reading the mass media, watching one’s TV, and listening to the news on the radio, quickly confirms the media’s “confusion” on the dynamics raging all around them. There is not any understanding manifested beyond the “cowboys and Indians” mentality.

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A review of

Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist, Alexander Berkman, Pittsburgh: Frontier Press, 1970 [available from FE Books, see page 44 for information).

For political organizers, the great worth of Berkman’s Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist is the evolution of his political thought during incarceration. He is plunged into the bowels of the beast, stripped of his ultimate sense of worth, yet continuously analyzes his own positions and beliefs.

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a review of

Government Repression, Prisoner Support. Sacramento Prisoner Support, 2012, 157pp., P & L Printing, Denver CO $10, order through pandlprinting.com

Unknown to many U.S. citizens, federal and state governments currently imprison more people, 2.4 million+, in their gulag than any nation in history.

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JERUSALEM—The greatest thing that strikes you when you leave the Arab countries and enter Israel are the differences in the culture and the level of material wealth.

A Westerner feels completely at home in Israel. Miniskirted girls, wide avenues, traffic signs and lights, supermarkets and the complete freedom of the English language allow one to freely mix and mingle here. The abundance of discotheques, theatres, transportation facilities and lush parks provide good and easy-to-get recreation.

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a review of

Winter Soldiers: An Oral History of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Richard Stacewicz, Twayne Publishers, 1997, New York, 471 pp.

FE Note: Nick Medvecky was a civil rights activist (1961–65) in the South and, later, an anti-war coordinator. He covered the VVAW Winter Soldier Investigation for Creem magazine. He is currently serving a federal prison term: #12155039, P.O. Box 8000, Bradford, PA 16701.

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