Most Recent Additions

in Cooperation with Detroit Adventure

THURSDAY, MAY 28

ROMAN POLANSKI’S “Fearless Vampire Killers” with Sharon Tate in color, and f.w. Murnau’s “Nosferatu,” loosely based on Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Two bloody chiller killers. There is a $1 donation to go to Lafayette Clinic to help finance the Methadone Clinic, headed by Dr. Paul Lowinger. 7 p.m. Be there.

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a review of

Me, Mikko, and Annikki: A Community Love Story in a Finnish City by Tiitu Takal. North Atlantic Books, 2019

The continuing interest at the Fifth Estate in anarchist/community struggles as seen in comic art, inadvertently passed over an extremely remarkable example in Tiitu Takal’s Me, Mikko, and Annikki: A Community Love Story in a Finnish City, to which I wrote the Afterword.

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Augusta

On May 9^th Charles Oatman, a mentally retarded black youth was tortured to death in the Richmond County jail in Augusta. The county sheriff alleged that other cellmates had done the killing, but black community residents felt that the torture could only have been done by the jailers or with their knowledge.

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This article is the third in a series on Birth Control, compiled and presented with the aid of the Women’s News Co-op.

Because of the media’s big push for the “pill” over the last few years, little information has been readily available on other birth control methods. There are, in fact, many of us who are not even aware of the number of different medically approved methods which are both safe and inexpensive. There is presently no one method of birth control that is perfect for everyone. Since this choice must be made on an individual basis, correct and current information is necessary to aid in that decision.

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I have called this a “Hidden Chapter in the Fight Against War” because the vast majority of our generation is totally unaware of the fact that the end of 1945 and the beginning of 1946 saw the greatest troop revolt that has ever occurred in a victorious army. The central issue was whether the troops would be demobilized, or whether they would be kept in the Pacific to protect Western interests from the growing colonial revolution.

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Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld speaking at Community Arts Auditorium, May 28, 1969 at a benefit for Open City. Photo: Alan Gotkin.

Dear Dr. Schoenfeld:

Recently my 14 month old daughter got ahold of some LSD tabs. The trip was apparently too much for her because she kept crying out in what seemed to be terror.

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Dear F.E.,

Just got the new issue. It’s too good to be true! Two issues in a row with relevant, well-written, hip articles specifically for women [FE #105, May 14–27, 1970].

Women being equal with men in all things except glandular and physical makeup, such articles as the Women’s News Co-op’s are welcome [FE #105, May 14–27, 1970]. And the tone of these articles is so positive and pleasant-natured. They give the Fifth Estate a freshness it has been needing.

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“We have finally seen that we are brothers and sisters in spite of ideological differences. We finally sense that we hold much in common.”

—STP Coalition

Working together on this basis, 16 community based organizations got together May 19 to define the structure and direction of the SERVE THE PEOPLE Coalition.

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MONTEREY, Calif. (LNS) — In over a dozen actions at military bases across the country on May 16, thousands of anti-war soldiers and civilians marched and rallied against the traditional celebration of Armed Forces Day.

Armed Forces Day ceremonies on May 16 were canceled at Fort Ord, California—and 22 other bases—because the Army couldn’t face the prospect of people going on post to discuss the war with GIs. Not even parents could visit the soldiers, most of whom were assigned to their barracks, riot-control training or make-work details.

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The brass at Fort Wayne have taken their revenge for Spec. 4 Jerry Brown’s criticism of induction center medical examinations. Brown was given 36 hours to leave the post after an article appeared in the last issue of this paper detailing Fort Wayne’s improper procedures used to examine potential draftees. He was transferred to Fort Benjamin Harrison Indiana to await duty “overseas.”

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WASHINGTON, D.C. (LNS), — In an unprecedented lawsuit filed in Federal Court May 11, the Reservist’s Committee to Stop the War moved to expel 122 Congressmen from the Armed Forces Reserves and the National Guard.

Claiming that it is an unconstitutional conflict of interest for a congressman to hold any military position, the Committee cited Article 1, Section 6 of the Constitution: “...no person holding any office under the United States shall be a member of either house during his continuance in office.”

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During the American Civil War, Detroit’s population scarcely exceeded that of a modern day university. But, with 1,400 blacks and 43,000 whites, it wasn’t too small to have a race riot.

On March 6, 1863, rampaging whites left one dead, dozens injured, and scores of homes burned.

About 500 troops had to be called in from Ypsilanti to restore order.

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Compiled by Cathy, Peter and the Crotchpuller with a little help from their friends. Send your scandal to Seen c/o The Fifth Estate.

Turning over the 7^th Floor of the Student Union to WSU strikers cost Wayne State over $53,000 according to “U” officials. The total included stolen furniture, repairs, overtime to pay employees, and $13,000 for sandblasting slogans off of walls. David Baldwin, WSU vice-president said it “was a small cost t& pay for peace at the school”...

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The Detroit News has once again exposed the latest Communist conspiracy nesting in the Motor City. This time the villains are the Radical Education Project and the Revolutionary Printing Co-op, which print and distribute movement literature.

The story was revealed in the Sunday News edition of May 24 by vanguard crime and subversion fighter John Peterson with a little help from W. Howard Erickson. Peterson, who was named best writer in Michigan on crime and corrections in 1969, really outdid himself this time. He and his pal managed to write a half page article about REP and the Printing Co-op that was fabrication and distortion from beginning to end, except for the addresses of the groups.

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The following article is a first person account of the author’s involvement in the FBI’s program of using students to spy on students. Although occurring at Purdue University, the author feels that such activities are far from rare, and that the implications contained in it are fairly universal.

In the fall of 1968, a friend (who will not be named and who is no longer a danger) and I called the FBI office in Lafayette, Indiana, in pursuit of money and excitement, to inform on what we thought, when we witnessed it, to be a criminal act. Speaking for myself, at this time I had no political convictions or prejudices.

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Repression is coming down heavy on the youth of America. Though millions in the U.S. smoke pot, it is the young who get busted for it by selectively enforced laws. Though millions in the U.S. are neurotic patriots, it is the young who get prosecuted for desecrating the flag. Due process of law, a constitutional right, is denied to those who most need legal protection because they are the ones that are repressed: under the law.

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“Historically, all reactionary forces on the verge of extinction invariably conduct a last desperate struggle against the revolutionary forces, and some revolutionaries are apt to be deluded for a time by this phenomenon of outward strength but inner weakness, failing to grasp the essential fact that the enemy is nearing extinction while they themselves are approaching victory.”

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FIFTH ESTATE #106, May 28-June 10, 1970, Vol. 5 No. 2

Debby Brentz

David Gaynes

Carol George

Mike John

Keep on Truckin’ Co-op

Resa Jannett

Jim Kennedy

Lee Ann Kennedy

David Levison

Julie Medvecky

Harvey Ovshinsky

Dave Riddle

Bill Rowe

Len Schafer

Marilyn Werbe

Peter Werbe

Cathy West

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HAVANA (LNS) In two speeches May 19 and 20, Cuban leader Fidel Castro announced that the projected mark of ten million tons of sugar would not be reached this year.

With a frank and detailed explanation of the specific technical reasons for the failure to obtain the goal, Fidel blamed the revolutionary leadership for errors in planning, declaring that the efforts of the sugar workers have been magnificent:

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A little more than a year ago, David Brown, Jr. of Compton, California sat isolated and frightened in a Wayne County jail cell awaiting trial on charges of assault with intent to commit murder.

He was charged with having shot at Detroit Patrolman Harkewitz from a loft inside the New Bethel Baptist Church on the night of March 29, 1969.

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Jim Jacobs is a member of the Detroit Organizing Committee.

The death of Walter Reuther ends the reign of the foremost social democratic unionist in American history. Since 1947, when Reuther took control over the UAW international, he has built a massive union organization behind his politics. It is tradition in Detroit left wing trade union circles to picture Reuther as a “sellout,” “opportunist” or “bureaucrat,” but these epithets hardly explain the actions of the man or his union. Reuther was guided by a political ideology of social democracy, an important one for revolutionaries to understand.

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“a very great revolutionary force latent in the American people”

—Peking Radio, May 9

President Nixon’s announcement of the invasion of Cambodia effectively implemented the old SDS slogan “Bring the War Home!” Millions of people joined the revolutionary struggle, striking out at the war, racism and political repression. Almost 600 college campuses as well as countless high schools joined the national strike, as chaos swept the nation for many days. This sheet represents only the most advanced forms of struggle that have come down during the strike. The struggle continues. Venceremos!

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CHICAGO, Ill.—An underground “Declaration of War” purportedly issued by the Weathermen warns that the revolutionary group will “attack a symbol or institution of Amerikan injustice” within the next two weeks.

The announcement came in a three-page typed statement said to be a transcript of a tape recording by Bernadine Dohrn, a leader of the Weathermen faction of SDS.

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VIENTIANE, Laos (LNS)—Nixon’s desperate plunge into Cambodia, like his earlier escalation here in Laos, has made public an old secret: that the U.S. campaign to stall the Southeast Asian revolution is an international conspiracy. This campaign, involving half a dozen Asian client states, respects no boundaries and no laws.

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Imprisoned Italian insurrectionist anarchist Alfredo Cospito’s six-month hunger strike ended in April with a partial victory of a reduced sentence.

Over the past year, Cospito has waged a struggle against the brutality and dehumanization of prison life in Italy. (See “Alfredo Cospito’s Struggle,” FE #413, Spring 2023). He and his comrade Anna Beniamino were convicted of kneecapping the CEO of Italy’s main nuclear power company, and later of planting bombs at a school for Carabinieri, the national police.

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2023 has officially been designated as the worst fire season on record in so-called Canada, with almost 20 million acres burned by summer’s end. While these wildfires deeply ravaged many communities, they have most severely impacted Indigenous communities, many of whose territories are northern, rural, or wilderness.

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Abuelo, like a history professor, extrapolated on The Zone’s relationship, or lack thereof, with Chicago, the USA, the rest of the world...and, the unlikely events that created a place found on no maps.

Abuelo pulled down a screen with a map of Chicago. “This is where I lived in the 1990s,” he said, pointing with a broom handle. “By the end of the century, there was a bike collective here, an organic bakery here and a puppet troupe in a warehouse here.”

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a review of

This Rancid Mill: An Alex Damage Novel by Kyle Decker. PM Press 2023

Foul deeds will rise

Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.

—Hamlet

When C. Auguste Dupin solves the case in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Murders on the Rue Morgue, the chilling elements comprising the grizzly killings and the shocking conclusion contain the model for much of subsequent murder mystery and detective fiction. The genre’s popularity, almost 200 years later, remains undiminished in literature and film. Ones with depth, raise not only the question of who-dunnit, but along the way, pose larger, wide-ranging considerations of greed, revenge, power, politics, trust, friendship, sex, family, or combinations.

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a review of

Letterpress Revolution: The Politics of Anarchist Print Culture by Kathy E. Ferguson. Duke University Press, 2023

In his search for truth, William Blake might take an idea of the dominant culture and invert it as he did in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1793). There, he calls the printing house “Hell.” He sees dragon men preparing the space, vipers adorning it, eagle-like men building palaces, lions casting the sorts or types, and unnam’d forms casting them so that books were printed and bound. Kathy Ferguson does not write this kind of magical bestiary, instead her writing is scholarly to a high and sophisticated degree. It is useful, clear, and thorough, every bit as ready as Blake to turn the world upside down.

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Oakland, Calif. police made an arrest in June of a 19-year-old man they say is responsible for the death of Jen Angel, the social justice activist, anarchist and baker, during a bungled robbery in February.

Ishmael Burch of San Francisco was identified as the person driving the car in which Jen became entangled as she tried to retrieve her purse grabbed from her as she exited a bank. Angel was the owner of Angel Cakes Bakery in Oakland.

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a review of

Resurgence: Jonathan Leake, Radical Surrealism and the Resurgence Youth Movement 1964–1967 edited by Abigail Susik. Eberhardt Press, 2023

Who would have suspected that the humble mimeograph duplicator, invented for office work and used by organizations of every imaginable kind, would also have a political-cultural role across generations?

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in Cooperation with Detroit Adventure

THURS MARCH 5

DETROIT TUBE WORKS, turn on your tube to John Lee Hooker, Joe Cocker, Fleetwood Mac, Terry Reid and Dr. Paul Lowenger of Lafayette Clinic, plus an Open City rap. Channel 56, 10:30 p.m. It’s free.

KING KONG (1933) and ALPHAVILLE (1965) The biggest ape of them all returns, as does Eddie Constatine in Jean-Luc Godard’s futuristic spy tale. DeRoy Aud. 8:30 p.m., single feature 50 cents, double 75 cents.

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Committee for Homosexual Freedom co-founder Leo Laurence predicted a violent uprising if the oppression of Gays is not ended.

In an interview for Tangents Magazine, Laurence warned, “If the oppression of the homosexual is not stopped, if discrimination in employment, in government is not stopped, if the hypocrisy taught by the churches, the lies taught by the schools is not stopped—then this country is in danger, and there’s a likelihood of having a violent revolution, where there will be fighting in the streets of every city across this country, where there will be sniping by hostile people. I’m opposed to violence. But if the government doesn’t change, that’s probably what will happen.”

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It was all so easy back in the ‘50s—Eisenhower and Dulles had learned a lesson from Korea and kept us busy smelling the reds out from under our own beds while they concentrated on sewing up the Iron Curtain with brinksmanship. And when McCarthy’s purges palled, juvenile dee-linquency was off and running with your hub caps (remember, the Teenage Werewolf was just a mixed up kid who couldn’t keep out of fights or the clutches of know-it-all shrinks).

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Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld speaking at Community Arts Auditorium, May 28, 1969 at a benefit for Open City. Photo: Alan Gotkin.

The audience stared incredulously at Old Glory.

Their eyes moved down the little wooden staff and remained fixed on its base, a candle in the shape of an erect penis. The candle was red, white and blue and larger than life. Silver stars covered its blue testicles.

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You will note with paradoxical titters that the “Silent Majority” of which Nixon speaks (that is, referring to “a nation of sheep”), is in fact a misnomer caused of social lingual conditioning. The silent majority in this country—I would like to believe—are those millions of young and old people both, who inside themselves, know the radical youth of today are right and correct.

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The laws regarding the use of marijuana may become significantly less stringent if several bills before the Michigan State House of Representatives are enacted into law.

A series of bills introduced by Rep. Dale Warner, Eaton Rapids Republican, would reclassify pot from a narcotic to a “dangerous drug,” make possession of it a misdemeanor, and reduce the maximum penalty for sales to four years in prison. Currently the maximum for possession is 10 years (which is being served by John Sinclair) and the minimum for sales is twenty years.

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The following article is a reprint of an interview with Rafael Viera, Chief Medical Cadre of the Young Lords Organization (YLO), that first appeared in the Black Panther Newspaper. Viera is one of three men that were indicted following the New Bethel incident here in Detroit last March. At that time Viera was the only non-black member of the Black Legion, a paramilitary arm of the Republic of New Africa. He, along with Clarence Fuller, is to face trial on March 9 here in Detroit. Alfred Hibbitt, the third individual indicted, was acquitted on December 22 (see the Fifth Estate Jan. 22—Feb. 4, Vol. 4, No. 19). Viera is charged with assault with intent to kill and will be defended by Milton Henry, Ken Cockerel, and Chuck Ravitz. He is currently in New York City working in Spanish Harlem to maintain a recently established chapter of the YLO.

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Longtime French anarchist scholar and activist Ronald Creagh died on September 8 at age 94.

He was in touch with anarchists and anti-authoritarians on several continents. Those who knew him personally appreciated his broad-minded openness and supportive spirit.

Some Fifth Estate staffers were among those who found him engaging and attentive in conversations on many subjects. In recent years he was a regular reader of our online current and past articles and enjoyed discussing them.

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Writing serious, meaningful information that helps people is important, but after a while it bores me (and maybe you too) shitless. In response to this shitty boredom, it’s time for a collection of useless information, meaningless facts and general dung.

Telephone trips can be weird. For a starter try the usual tried and true recorded raps. The day we called Dial A Prayer 261–2440 the word God was mentioned 7 times during the 75 second religious message.

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Earlier this year, I created a fifteen-minute presentation on the ethical implications of the program Midjourney and other A.I. art generators for the Northeast Modern Language Conference, then released it online through the University of New Hampshire.

A week later, a computer science PhD student emailed me asking to meet up. As a literature PhD, I wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted. Perhaps it was to gossip about the plethora of A.I. software spreading like a digital kudzu, or maybe he would pitch me a business idea.

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a review of

Pets DC: Rise of the Pets by Ramon Dines and Kit Brixton. A.B.O. Comix, 2022

A.B.O. Comix describes themselves as “a collective of creators and activists who work to amplify the voices of LGBTQ prisoners through art. By working closely with prison abolitionist and queer advocacy organizations, we aim to keep queer prisoners connected to outside community and help them fight towards liberation.”

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SANTA ANA, Cal., Feb. 20—Dr. Tim Leary, his wife and son were found guilty here on charges of possession of marijuana and LSD.

Superior Court Judge Byron Mcmillian set sentencing for March 13. Leary and his wife remained free on bail but the bail of their son was revoked and he was taken into custody.

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FLINT—The acquittal by an all-white jury here on Feb. 25 of three white Detroit cops and a black private guard in connection with the beating of eight black youths and two white girls in the Algiers Motel in 1967 was not unexpected.

Auburey Pollard, Carl Cooper, Fred Temple, three black youths, were gunned to death in the motel by Detroit cops and after 3 years no one has been convicted of the massacre. Ronald August, one of the cops, was acquitted of first degree murder charges last summer even after he had admitted killing Pollard, whom he said grabbed at his shotgun. Pollard was unarmed, while August had a pistol, blackjack and shotgun and the aid of several cops in and around the room.

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a review of

Abolish the Family! by Sophie Lewis. Verso, 2022

Family Abolition: Capitalism and the Communizing of Care by M.E. O’Brien. Pluto Press, 2023

As we all navigate the perilous shoals of capitalist austerity and precarity, many turn to the family as the last reserve of collectivity, care, and survival. For a lucky few, this is enough, but this notion of the “last reserve” is a deep structural problem that leaves too many people vulnerable to abandonment or abuse.

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Yes, it does often feel like we’re beating our heads against a brick wall. What do we do?

The now-cliched definition of insanity, although it originated with Albert Einstein, is “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

Do we meet that description? Anarchists fight against racism and there is an upsurge in violence against people of color. We fight the pipelines, and governments roll out more of them. We oppose the patriarchy, but in many ways it is as entrenched as ever. The climate crisis worsens each season and a dynamic fascist movement is on the rise.

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Fifth Estate

Radical Publishing since 1965

Vol. 58, No. 2, #414, Fall 2023

The Fifth Estate is an anti-profit, anarchist project published by a volunteer collective of friends and comrades. www.FifthEstate.org

No ads. No copyright. Kopimi — reprint freely

The danger facing freeks—even many so-called “cultural revolutionaries”—is that hip culture is close to a revolutionary cultural movement, but more of a lumpen middle-class culture, deformed by capitalist society, to the extent that it even preserved class-lines between the upper and lower middle-class (plastic hippie and freek).

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I. STUDENTS HAVE THE RIGHT TO EXERCISE ALL RIGHTS ENUMERATED IN THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION, THE BILL OF RIGHTS AND ALL OTHER AMENDMENTS AND THOSE ESTABLISHED BY THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT.

II. STUDENTS HAVE THE FULL FREEDOM OF POLITICAL ACTIVITY IN THE HIGH SCHOOLS.

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Reprinted from The Bond: The Voice of the American Servicemen’s Union

SEATTLE—GIs from Fort Lewis and McChord Air Force Base held a trial of the Brass and its war in Vietnam before an audience of 1,500 at the University of Washington. A jury of twelve active-duty soldiers found the military “guilty” on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of soldiers’ rights.

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