Various Authors

The Fifth Estate welcomes letters at PO Box 201016, Ferndale MI 48220, or fe-AT-fifthestate-DOT-org

I am no fan of the United States Government, nor of any of its agencies, including the FCC. As far as I can tell, we have government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich, and only a revolution in the human psyche will change that. Nevertheless, I found much to disagree with in Ron Sakolsky’s article “No More Safety Valves” (#372, Spring, 2006).

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I appreciate the thoughtfulness of Cookie Orlando’s “Unlocking the Girl Lock: Gender Trouble at Burning Man.” (FE, Winter 2007). However, what’s missing is the girl’s point of view.

The article tells us that she didn’t feel like going to a lecture at the Burning Man festival in Nevada that her boyfriend wanted to attend, so he left her in the “Girl Lock,” a service much like left luggage at the airport.

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To the Fifth Estate:

I disagree with Fifth Estate picking on Hugo Chavez (See Spring 2007 FE, “In Chavez’s Venezuela: Continued Repression of Popular Protest”).

Most of the charges made are correct; his regime is dictatorial. But there’s also the tremendous work done in the barrios (or misiones as they call them), where clinics staffed by Cuban doctors are now almost in all of them, and public housing has been built. I visited one in Caracas on opening day: 218 units rented to poor families at 10 percent of their salary, or free if unemployed.

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The Fifth Estate encourages letters commenting on our articles, raising issues we haven’t presented, or reports from your area. Although we live in a digital age and comments in Microsoft Word are the most convenient for us, all formats are welcome, including type- and handwritten ones.

We read them all, but we can’t promise every letter will be published and some may be edited for length, grammar and punctuation.

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Send letters to fe-at-fifthestate-dot-org or Fifth Estate, POB 201016, Ferndale MI 48220

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I’m writing to ask about the amazing excerpt on the back cover of Spring 2008 Fifth Estate.

Who is or was Erica A. Smith? When was “On the Political Situation Experienced in Our Era” written? Most of the language in the excerpt seems to be late 19^th or early 20^th Century. But “colonization,” in context, seems to be contemporary. Perhaps I’m mistaken, but I don’t believe it was used in quite that way a century ago.

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Counterfeiting Mischief

I’ve been taking my time enjoying the Summer 2008 issue of Fifth Estate and just read “Counterfeiting Sovereignty” by Don LaCoss. The story about the superdollar in the last paragraph of column 1 and then the top of col. 2, p. 20 is amazing. Given the reported cases where people (like Iraq proconsul Paul Bremer) have gone into hot spots and started handing out money, the counterfeit idea makes a certain sense. I suppose the stuff keeps a certain value, as long as it keeps circulating abroad, causing who knows what sort of mischief.

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Game (1) “Shelf Life”

How to Play: You take a series of books off your shelf in the order they sit there. Working through them in sequence, you open them at random, selecting the phrase or clause that strikes you, and create a text in this way. (It’s also possible to make a title in this way). As a variant, this can also be played with more than one player, by taking it in turns to add a sentence, phrase, clause or half-sentence.

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Send letters to fe — AT — fifthestate — DOT — org or Fifth Estate, PO Box 201016, Ferndale, MI 48220

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Sorry to hear about your financial situation. As vile and evil as it is, money is still the life force of the modern world. Without proper funds to sustain a project, more often than not, it will all come tumbling down.

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Send letters to fe — at — fifthestate — dot — org or Fifth Estate, POB 201016, Ferndale MI 48220

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Seattle’s first ever anarchist book fair will be held October 17–18.

So, let’s say education is the lifeblood of social change and the written word--books, zines, texts, blogs--the circulatory system spreading that lifeblood around. A little to the hands to keep building, a little to the brain to keep thinking, a little to the digestive tract to keep energy levels up.

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Send letters to fe — at — fifthestate — dot — org or Fifth Estate, POB 201016, Ferndale, MI 48220

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Spencer Sunshine’s review of John Zerzan’s Twilight of the Machines begins promisingly enough with a brief summation of Zerzan’s history and a lengthy description of Twilight’s contents.

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Greetings Comrades,

I just want to say thanks for keeping FE going. Yes indeed, the longest running radical mag in the US. I just ordered another year’s subscription.

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I, too, have fears about the Americanization of Cuba and that it will end up “just like other Caribbean resorts” and that IMF-driven and other economic decisions will lead to the end of the many services provided to everyone and a change in the life and culture and well-being of its citizens. [See “Adios, Socialismo,” by Walker Lane, Summer FE 2010.]

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When our friend Myrna Rochester, an expert on the surrealist Rene Crevel, told us it was necessary for us to meet someone interested in surrealism who was finishing his doctorate at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, we were skeptical, even perhaps somewhat hostile. There are, after all, lots of people interested in surrealism, but most only in a superficial way. But when we met Don LaCoss, we were impressed; not only did he know as much about surrealism as we did, but he loved it just as much.

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Send letters to fe — AT — fifthestate.org or Fifth Estate, POB 201016, Ferndale MI 48220

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The Fifth Estate/Support Marie Mason table at the 5^th annual New York City Anarchist Book Fair, April 8–10. Several FE staff members and friends from Detroit and New York distributed 300 copies of the new FE, sold books, and back issues, and raised funds for Marie. The fair featured dozens of exhibitors, a film festival, workshops, children’s programs, and the 3^rd Annual NYC Anarchist Art Festival PAnarko Lab” and art exhibit, including a Living Theatre performance. Hundreds of attendees crowded Judson Memorial Church.

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Send letters to fe — AT — fifthestate.org or Fifth Estate, POB 201016, Ferndale MI 48220

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As a fellow traveler/indie film maker, I have had the chance to learn about copyrighting from posting and also utilizing other people’s videos. [ See Fall 2011 FE, “Copyright or Wrong.”]

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All formats accepted including typescript & handwritten. Letters may be edited for length.

Send letters via email to fe@fifthestate.org or Fifth Estate, P.O. Box 201016, Ferndale MI 48220

Youth Sexualization

In your Spring 2012 issue, reviewer Paul Comeau questions Paul Goodman’s “advocating the sexualization of adolescents and children.” (see “The Anarchist Writings of Paul Goodman”).

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We welcome your opinions.

Please send us your comments and ideas about what we have published by letter (typed or handwritten), email, or social media.

Address information is at our website: www.fifthestate.org

Florida Kollective

I’m writing on behalf of our small and growing kollective in northeast Florida.

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War criminal Nixon orders invasion of Cambodia. graphic—Liberation News Service, 1970. Fifth Estate files.

Send letters via email to fe — AT — fifthestate.org or Fifth Estate, P.O. Box 201016, Ferndale MI 48220. All formats accepted including typescript & handwritten. Letters may be edited for length.

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Send letters to fe — AT — fifthestate — DOT — org or Fifth Estate, POB 201016, Ferndale MI 48220.

All formats accepted including typescript & handwritten; letters may be edited for length.

What Size?

Not many mistakes in your Summer 2013 edition, but one I saw that referred to the 7-1/2” penis. It shrank significantly from the headline measurement of “Lessons from a 7-Foot Penis.”

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Send letters to fe — at — fifthestate — dot — org or Fifth Estate, POB 201016, Ferndale MI 48220. All formats accepted, including typescript & handwritten; letters may be edited for length.

I now live in London, England, but back in 1968 I lived in Walled Lake, Michigan, not far from Detroit. I was in the 10^th grade and angry about Viet Nam.

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Send letters to fe (at) fifthestate.org or Fifth Estate, POB 201016, Ferndale MI 48220.

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A long time ago, my heart was busted by a girl who had her kicks with me but wasn’t ready for a long time commitment. As these things go, I was tremendously trashed, heartbroken, and horny. Things got so bad it devolved into clinical depression. I was losing my head. So, I thought, go to a red house for some well needed relief.

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Send letters to fe — at — fifthestate — dot — org or Fifth Estate, POB 201016, Ferndale MI 48220 All formats accepted including typescript & handwritten; letters may be edited for length

Want to write a letter about our Anti-Marx section?

We assume our essays critical of Marxism will generate a large number of responses. Limit letters to 400 words. If you want to suggest an essay in reply, please contact us.

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I had just thought about Pat Halley yesterday. (See “FE Staffer Puts a Pie in God’s Face,” FE Spring 2015)

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by Ken Wachsberger

Preceding the Fifth Estate by two weeks, the Berkeley Barb celebrated its fiftieth anniversary with exhibits, films, poetry, and panel discussions on August 9, 2015.

The two papers were among the first five members of the Underground Press Syndicate. The Barb was known for its radical news coverage, outrageous visuals, support for liberation movements, and its explicit sex ads.

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Send letters to fe--at--fifthestate--dot--org or Fifth Estate, POB 201016, Ferndale MI 48220. All formats accepted including typescript & handwritten; letters may be edited for length.

Enclosed is $30. Please send us a bundle of the Summer 2015 Vietnam issue. Thank you for putting out this paper! Printed propaganda is where it’s at!

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One day in the prison yard, the resident grey cat chased heedlessly

A bird, who’d landed on the roof, all enclosed with steely swirls

And slipping through the curling razor wire, stalked

Until it caught her leg and stopping

Shaking as it sliced her paw...open...raw

The sharp barbs cutting fur and muscle, white and wounded to the bone

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Send letters to fe — at — fifthestate — dot — org or Fifth Estate, POB 201016, Ferndale MI 48220. All formats accepted, including typescript & handwritten; letters may be edited for length.

I am really glad the FE has published and continues to publish articles that cover the experiences of people in various parts of the world that haven’t conformed neatly to the dominant narratives on the left or the right, or the cheerleaders of any government. As anarchists, these are the stories we need to know about, and often the people are the ones we want to be in solidarity with, when we know they are there!

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Send letters to fe@fifthestate.org or Fifth Estate, POB 201016, Ferndale MI 48220

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I appreciate Chellis Glendinning’s criticisms of modern, Western civilization, including modern agriculture, which has been highly detrimental to ecological and social balance in the world. (See “Linear Perspective, Fences & Nature’s Glory,” FE #396, Summer 2016.)

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Send letters to fe@fifthestate.org or Fifth Estate, POB 201016, Ferndale MI 48220. All formats accepted including typescript & handwritten; letters may be edited for length.

Thank you to the comrades of the Fifth Estate for publishing John Clark’s review and remembering my father so fondly. (See Winter 2017 FE, “Sam Dolgoff: A life at the center of American anarchism for seventy years.”)

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The following are excerpts from stories published in the Fifth Estate immediately following the July 1967 events.

Reading them a half century later, one is saddened and angered by the fact that the causes of the Rebellion—police brutality, racial discrimination, and wealth inequality—remain virulent and unresolved.

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Send letters to fe — AT — fifthestate — DOT — org or Fifth Estate, POB 201016, Ferndale MI 48220

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I moved to Detroit recently from the suburbs, but wasn’t even born when the 1967 Rebellion occurred.

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Send letters to fe — AT — fifthestate — DOT — org or Fifth Estate, POB 201016, Ferndale MI 48220. All formats accepted including typescript & handwritten; letters may be edited for length.

Taking part in protests is an act of defiance which may result in violent retaliation. “In Defense of Self Defense” by Paul Walker in the Fall 2017 Fifth Estate (#399) made this clear.

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Thank you for finally calling out your fellow privileged white lefties for their, “I choose not to vote,” bullshit. (See “In Defense of Tactical Voting,” by Bill Weinberg, FE #400, Spring 2018.)

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Send letters to fe AT fifthestate DOT org or Fifth Estate, POB 201016, Ferndale MI 48220.

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Enjoyed your review of John Zerzan’s A People’s History of Civilization, “The Way of the Passenger Pigeon,” by Peter Werbe in FE #401, Summer 2018. In your reviewer’s analogy of civilization being a train heading towards a bridge that is out without the realization of those supping in the dining car, if I enjoy that last supper as it crosses that trestle, is that decadence?

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AK Press is a worker-run anarchist collective that publishes and distributes radical books as well as visual and audio media. The collective was established in 1990 and is now run by seven people in five cities and two countries. They currently publish around twenty books each year.

Four collective members, who have been involved from 12 to 28 years, posed questions to themselves about anarchist publishing to take a look at their project.

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“Every time I think about us women, I think about the trees, the subversive trees laden in blood but not bleeding the rebellious trees encrusted but not cracking.”

—Jayne Cortez

“Unless rooted in poetry the experience of ‘outside’ from within—even the deepest ‘deep ecology’ barely scratches the surface.”

—Franklin Rosemont

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Fifth Estate,

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As always, thank you for everything your team does. I’ve been working my way through the Winter 2019 issue of Fifth Estate after my shifts at Starbucks, and it really grounds me and makes me feel sane after working for capitalist madness.

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A Joint Declaration by

Amphibians for Decolonization

Inner Island Surrealist Group (‘Kómoks/Pentlatch territory)

Ottawa Surrealist Group (Algonquin Anishnaabeg territory)

“It took me a long time to find out my mistakes But I’m not fattenin’ no more frogs for snakes.”

—Sonny Boy Williamson

The Unist’ot’en are the Big Frog clan of the Wet’suwet’en nation. They defiantly croak at the colonizer’s yoke without reservation. They are hungry for decolonization. We honor their spirited resistance to colonial authority and offer our wholehearted solidarity.

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Fifth Estate note: We usually don’t print letters of this length, but thought this encapsulated the sexual immiseration suffered by many. We don’t offer advice in this matter, but invite others to suggest how best to navigate sex and partnering.

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Send letters to fe AT fifthestate DOT org or Fifth Estate, POB 201016, Ferndale MI 48220

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Send letters to fe@fifthestate.org or Fifth Estate, POB 201016, Ferndale MI 48220

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Letters may be edited for length.

Your Winter 2019 issue [FE #405] is full of fine writing and provocative thinking, particularly so in the review of Godless: 150 Years of Disbelief by Peter Werbe. The final section, beginning with “Let’s devise a spiritual belief system...” is a beautiful manifesto worth sharing. I wish I’d written it!

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Send letters to fe AT fifthestate DOT org or Fifth Estate, P.O. Box 201016, Ferndale, MI 48220.

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Rob Blurton’s article, “Anarchy in the Midwest,” [FE #406, Spring 2020] uses the term Native American to describe the people living in the lands invaded by Europeans.

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Rebellion is its own justification, completely independent of the chance it has to modify the state of affairs that gives rise to it. It’s a spark in the wind, but a spark in search of a powder keg.

—André Breton

If only one thing has brought me joy in the last few weeks, it began when the matriarchs at Unist’ot’en burned the Canadian flag and declared reconciliation is dead. Like wildfire, it swept through the hearts of youth across the territories. Reconciliation was a distraction, a way for them to dangle a carrot in front of us and trick us into behaving. Do we not have a right to the land stolen from our ancestors? It’s time to shut everything the fuck down!

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My partner brought home a copy of The Anarchist Review of Books and I wanted so much to love it.

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Send letters to fe@fifthestate.org or Fifth Estate, POB 201016, Ferndale MI 48220.

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Your editorial on the Ukraine war in FE #411, Spring 2022 starts out promising, calling for the defeat of Putin by the Ukrainian resistance, and the overthrow of his dictatorship in Russia.

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