Most Recent Additions
Agent Automatic
Targeting Who?
The DEA’s Vision of Terrorism
“And what could be more natural nowadays than to suspect someone of a fondness for drugs?”
-- Stanislaw Lem
“Target America: Eyes Open to the Damage Drugs Cause” is the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency’s (DEA) traveling educational exhibit which attempts to illustrate a connection between the drug war and the war on terror. The operating assumption behind the exhibit is that terrorists need narcotic sales to fund their campaigns, and by extension, buying or selling drugs promotes terrorism.
Sep 11, 2013 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Toronto Cops Find Themselves Guilty!
When the cops themselves say they acted illegally, you know it’s got to have been bad. It is also rare when the police (smiley-faced when helping kids across the street; brutal, out-of-control mercenaries when unleashed) make their misdeeds public.
So, it was a shock of some proportion to read parts of a 287-page report issued in May by Toronto’s Office of the Independent Police Review on the excessive force, illegal arrests, and attacks on peaceful demonstrators during the June 2010 G-8 meeting in that city.
Sep 11, 2013 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Anarchist reading list from the Fifth Estate staff
The Dispossessed
Author: Ursula, K. LeGuin
The best fictional account of an anarchist society in practice, from the perspective of a brilliant scientist from that society who leaves it to try and bridge the cultural gap between his society and that of their nearest neighbors.
Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice
Sep 10, 2013 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Anarchist Writers Bloc publishes new anthology of anarchist short stories
With Prefaces by Raoul Vaneigem and Marge Piercy

The Montreal-based Anarchist Writers Bloc (AWB) has published Subversions Vol II, their second anthology of new anarchist fiction. The 260 page, trilingual (English, French & Italian) text is a powerful collection of 28 original short stories from 28 established and emerging anarchist writers from around the world.
Sep 10, 2013 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Briefs
The 3rd Annual Twin Cities Anarchist Book Fair (TCABF) is the weekend of Sept. 15–16 at the Powderhorn Park building in Minneapolis.
The organizers say while the primary purpose of the Book Fair is to promote and debate the ideas of anarchism, it is also open to organizations and individuals who seek a radical restructuring of our current society to be more democratic, less oppressive, and just for all people.
Sep 10, 2013 Read the whole text...
Paul J. Comeau
Everything you thought you knew about human history is wrong, and here’s why
Book Review
A review of Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber. Melville House Publishing, 534 pages, hardcover, $32.00
It takes a particularly special kind of writer to tackle a subject as nebulous as the history of debt. However, none seems better suited to the task than David Graeber.
Debt, perhaps Graeber’s most powerful and deeply subversive work to date, grapples with one of the oldest economic and moral conundrums in human history, that of money’s unique capacity to “turn morality into a matter of impersonal arithmetic--and by doing so, to justify things that would otherwise seem outrageous or obscene.”
Sep 10, 2013 Read the whole text...
Paul Buhle
Is syndicalism outdated?
Book Review
a review of
Ours to Master and to Own: Workers’ Control from the Commune to the Present Edited by Immanuel Ness and Dario Azzellini. Chicago, Haymarket Books, 2011, 417pp, $19
Syndicalism, the love child of socialism (or Marxism) and anarchism, seems to be badly outdated, or is it?
The idea that the working class could overthrow capitalism and the state through a general strike, and administer a new society through workers councils reached a peak popularity shortly before the outbreak of the First World War, but sunk rapidly thereafter. It was sometimes criticized as the propensity of highly skilled workers, but actually it was the faith of the lower levels (especially in the Industrial Workers of the World, if rarely called syndicalism by them).
Sep 10, 2013 Read the whole text...
Paul J. Comeau
Johnny Spanish “Dissent”
Music Review
The past few years have seen an explosion in politically conscious hip-hop, with many artists like Rebel Diaz and Final Outlaw gaining widespread recognition for their affiliation with Occupy Wall Street and other social justice causes.

Add to this list another up and coming emcee, Johnny Spanish, whose free mix tape Dissent can be found online. Originally from Louisville, Kentucky, but currently living in Brooklyn, Spanish says Dissent “[was] heavily influenced by my anarchist beliefs and was my first real foray into explaining my philosophy.”
Sep 10, 2013 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Revolution as Spectacle
Book Review
A review of
Venezuela: Revolution as Spectacle by Rafael Uzcategui, Introduction by Octavio Alberola, Translated by Chaz Bufe, Tucson, See Sharp Press, 2011, 232 pages; seesharppress.com
FE Note: What follows isn’t strictly speaking a review. The one we had intended didn’t materialize, so we are reprinting this from the Venezuelan anarchist publication, El Libertario, where much of Rafael Uzcatequi’s writings appear, and whose themes are echoed in this book.
Sep 10, 2013 Read the whole text...
Fran Shor
Rise and Fall
Global Competition, Conflict, and Realignment in an Era of Declining U. S. Hegemony and China’s Rising Power
A defining historical feature of the decline of specific empires in the world capitalist system has been the conflict surrounding the emergence of a successor. The United States and Germany engaged in a protracted struggle in the first half of the twentieth century to determine which country would replace Great Britain as the dominant power.
Sep 10, 2013 Read the whole text...
Peter Werbe
Voices of the Underground
Book Review
A review of Insider Histories of the Vietnam Era Underground Press, Part 2 edited by Ken Wachsberger, Michigan State University Press, 2012, 442 pp, $40
As you can see by the type on our cover, the Fifth Estate is approaching its 50th anniversary of radical publishing. This makes us either the longest or one of the longest running English language anarchist publications in U.S. history. The “either or” is due to from what date you count our appearance as an explicitly anarchist paper.
Sep 10, 2013 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Anarchist Summer Reading
Read a book this summer. Then pass it on.
In a by-gone era, summers were when people took two week vacations and sat on the beach with an escapist novel to forget the world of work and obligations.
The books reviewed here contain the opposite of an escape: they ask the reader to become engaged with a world facing collapse on a multitude of levels, and with the critical task of knowing what we want and how to get it.
Sep 9, 2013 Read the whole text...
Bernard Marszalek
Anarchy for Kids
A Review of Colin Ward’s Essays
A review of Autonomy, Solidarity, Possibility: The Colin Ward Reader
Damian White (Editor), Chris Wilbert (Editor), and Colin Ward, Paperback, 375pages, AK Press (Edinburgh, Oakland, Baltimore), 2011, $21.95
This large collection of essays by Colin Ward, his last publishing effort before he died last year at the age of 84, affords those who know him only as the author of the ever-popular Anarchy in Action (now in print for almost 40 years!) with an in-depth view of his many interests.
Sep 9, 2013 Read the whole text...
Peter Werbe
Cara Hoffman
Interview
Cara Hoffman published her first major novel, So Much Pretty, in 2011. It is a tale of family, community, and storytelling, but also about the ongoing acceptance of violence against women. Cara’s writing has appeared frequently in these pages. The Spring 2012 Fifth Estate featured a review of her book which was nominated for the National Book Award.
Sep 9, 2013 Read the whole text...
Marieke Bivar
Creating a Community Against Abuse
A review of The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities, Edited by Ching-In Chen, Jai DuLani, and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Preface by Andrea Smith. South End Press, 2011, 325 pp, $16
The Revolution Starts at Home is a series of articles, accounts, and discussions aimed at not only dealing with the aftermath of abuse, but also challenging the underlying institutions and values that perpetuate abuse and violence. The aim of the anti-violence movement, as Rebecca Farr of Communities Against Rape and Abuse (CARA) writes, is to “create a world where so many people are walking around with the skills and knowledge to support one another that there is no longer the need for anonymous hotlines.”
Sep 9, 2013 Read the whole text...
Peter Werbe
Danger: Inflammatory Literature
A review of Scratching the Tiger’s Belly by Ron Sakolsky, 2012, Eberhardt Press, Portland, Oregon, 160pp., price listed as, “Until we achieve a world free of currency, this book is $9.95,” eberhardtpress.org.
Even the mailing envelope containing Ron Sakolsky’s latest collection of essays and poems announces a subversion of the expected. The publisher’s return address label has a traditional red “DANGER” oval above the words “INFLAMMATORY LITERATURE.”
Sep 9, 2013 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Donations to Support Marie Mason
Important Change
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.
Sep 9, 2013 Read the whole text...
Paul J. Comeau
Paul Goodman’s Last Testament
A review of New Reformation: Notes of a Neolithic Conservative by Paul Goodman, PM Press, 194 pages, trade paperback, $20.00
Although Paul Goodman established himself as one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century, by the end of his life the anarchist philosopher felt dissatisfied with the direction of the political movements his writings had inspired.
Sep 9, 2013 Read the whole text...
David Widgington
The Power of Art Should Never be Underestimated
A review of The Listener: Memory, Lies, Art, Power, A Graphic Novel by David Lester, Arbeiter Ring Publishing, 2011, 310 pp, $19.95; distributed by AK Press, akpress.org.
All works of art, regardless of their form, offer a message to their audience. Some may be conceived as more deliberate acts of communication, while others allow room for nuanced interpretation. As a political tool, art can even inspire an audience to risk their own lives or take the lives of others in the name of social change.
Sep 9, 2013 Read the whole text...
Yasmin Nair
Ryan Conrad
Karma R. Chavez
Against Equality: Don’t Ask to Fight Their Wars!
Repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell means gays can now fight openly in the Empire’s wars

Sep 7, 2013 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Call For Submissions: Education
For: Fifth Estate, Fall 2012
Deadline: August 1
Publication date: September 5
Fall is the traditional time when students resume their studies. At present, there are tuition strikes, austerity strikes, student loan debt crises, and other dilemmas regarding education playing out in the public arena. For much of mainstream society, even the very value and meaning of education is now in question.
Sep 7, 2013 Read the whole text...
Bjorn Gay
Corvid College: Public Fire
Anarchy goes to college and no debt when you leave.

Forty-two years ago, philosopher Ivan Illich wrote, “I also believe that the end of the ‘age of schooling’ could usher in the epoch of a global schoolhouse that would be distinguishable only in name from a global madhouse or a global prison in which education, correction, and adjustment became synonymous.”
Sep 7, 2013 Read the whole text...
Kelly Pflug-Back
G20 Gender Violence
Police Attacks at the 2010 Toronto Demonstrations Targeted Women
Under the Canadian Criminal code, violence is not defined as a gendered issue. When a girl or woman is physically or sexually attacked, the act is subsumed under sections 244–246, which define assault, assault with a weapon, aggravated assault, sexual assault and aggravated sexual assault.
Removed from their social and historical context, acts of violence against women appear to be a spontaneous phenomenon whose perpetrators lack any definite motivation besides anger or lack of self control. This lack of context also removes political accountability from the social norms and legislature that enable gender-motivated violence.
Sep 7, 2013 Read the whole text...
John Clark
Occupy New Orleans Fights Off the authoritarian Left to defend Horizontalism

It was encouraging to see large numbers of anarchists and anti-authoritarians at a late March Occupy New Orleans General Assembly (OccupyNOLA). As one of the participants mentioned, Occupy is in many ways the most significant grassroots uprising since the Vietnam Era.
Sep 7, 2013 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Occupy the Future
It’s us or them. For almost all of state society, except for a few precious moments, it’s been them.
They’ve wrecked the earth, destroyed her treasures, and inflicted misery on the many, all so they can golf or set up their lawn chairs on some clear cut forest. It’s over whether we do anything or not, but if we fail to act, the future will metastasize into the wreckage colonization always leaves in its collapse.
Sep 7, 2013 Read the whole text...
Benjamin Shepard
Return to Liberty Square
Occupy Wall Street, the COOLS, and the Cultural Resistance of Story Telling

Early this year, people involved with the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York City started talking about the COOLS, the Cultural Occupation of Liberty Square. The point was to get as many people possible back into Zuccotti Park, dubbed Liberty Square, where the movement began. The police carried out a mass eviction from the lower Manhattan park in November.
Sep 7, 2013 Read the whole text...
John F. Royal
Snitch Gets a Reduced Term
Another Prison Sentence in Marie Mason Case
<em>

The Never Alone national tour hit 30 cities in April, speaking to hundreds about long-term anarchist prisoner support. It focused on the cases of Eric McDavid and Marie Mason, using multimedia presentations and included strategizing about how to effectively encourage a culture of resistance and support. Above, from the left, Jason, Jenny, Ian, and released political prisoner, Jeff “Free” Luers at a tour stop at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Ore., April 26. Photo from becausewemust.org. The tour raised nearly $7,000 after expenses which will be split between McDavid and Mason support groups. To offer support, donate, or get information about the cases, go to</em> supporteric.org and supportmariemason.org. Info on the tour at http://neveralonetour.wordpress.com.
Sep 7, 2013 Read the whole text...
John Zerzan
Vagaries of the Left
John Zerzan answers liberal columnist Chris Hedges, who charges the Black Bloc has “hi-jacked” the Occupy Movement.
On February 6, progressive columnist Chris Hedges wrote a fairly predictable attack on Black Bloc militancy, “The Cancer in Occupy,” in Truthdig, the on-line news site.
It voiced, in general, the perspective of the liberal-moderate-reformist folks who have been mostly predominant in Occupy. Hedges’ screed against anarchists and others who “go too far” shows just what anti-authoritarians have been up against and why so few of them, in my experience, have been interested in Occupy.
Sep 7, 2013 Read the whole text...
Jim Feast
Anarchism and the Anti-Authoritarian Personality
Is there a distinct anarchist personality type? Is there a discernible one among the marginally employed?
All generalizations founder on the rock of their exceptions, but can it be said that certain definable character structures emanate from one’s political philosophy or position within capital’s work apparatus?
It is instructive that literary praise for the recently deceased, internationally acclaimed, Chilean author, Roberto Bolano, concentrate exclusively on his depiction of mysterious authors and texts, overlooking an equally prominent, political component of his work.
Aug 30, 2013 Read the whole text...
John Hardin
Financial Advice for the Working Class: Unemployment
Don’t have a job? Most people think this is a disaster. Could it be the context for a post-capitalist society?
You can’t turn on the news these days without hearing about unemployment. The national unemployment rate hovers at about 8.3 percent, although experts agree that the number of people outof-work far exceeds that figure.
The 8.3 percent figure only reflects the number of people actually looking for work. It does not count the growing number of people who have stopped looking for work.
Aug 30, 2013 Read the whole text...
Kelly Pflug-Back
Survival of the Fittest?
Tribal people took care of their own better than modern society.
The concept of history is far from neutral. Under the monopoly of elites, narratives of the past can be erased, rewritten and taken out of their original context according to their needs.
Dominant concepts of history are often used to justify social inequalities by portraying them as natural rather than constructed. We are led to believe that groups who lack power in today’s cultures have always lacked power, that inferiority is their natural state, and that there is no alternative social structure where freedom and equality could be achieved by all.
Aug 30, 2013 Read the whole text...
Jonny Ball
The Quadrennial Electoral Fraud
There’s an alternative between Obama and Romney, but it’s not at the polls
Occasionally, the liberal-democratic system nobly affords us the chance to select our representatives from a shallow gene-pool of political management professionals.
Save for this transient moment in the ballot booth, we’re separated from the exclusive franchise of governance altogether. Voting is our only momentary and tenuous connection to the establishment. Best to leave power and responsibility up to the professionals; the experts, the think-tanks, policy-wonks, lobbyists and journalists.
Aug 30, 2013 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
‘Unthinkable’ exhibit

Pictured at right are Federico Arcos, Fifth Estate comrade, and veteran of the Spanish anarchist militias of the 1930s, with Julie Herrada, April 7, at Hamtramck, Michigan’s 2739 Gallery, during the opening of the exhibit, ‘Unthinkable,’ a display of artifacts from the collection of Fredy and Lorraine Perlman. Featured were posters and publications from Paris 1968, and from ones produced at Detroit’s Print Co-op, as well as a first French edition of Debord’s Society of the Spectacle, and a floor-to-ceiling display of huge timeline sheets for Perlman’s, The Strait.
Aug 30, 2013 Read the whole text...
Various Authors
Letters to the editor
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”).
Aug 12, 2013 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Issue Intro
Exciting times for Fifth Estate
At a time when everyone is declaring the death of print media, our magazine, now in its 47th year, is not only alive, but prospering. We have many new subscribers, new staff, more renewals, increased newsstand sales, and an exciting new look. We ran out of our last issue on Revolution and are increasing our press run for this edition.
Aug 5, 2013 Read the whole text...
Ron Sakolsky
Why be so Attached to your Penis?
A fellow creature that gives new meaning to the phrase, “going both ways”
Download MS Word .doc [29 kb] fe-389-13-Why-Penis
“I haven’t seen anything like this before.”
-- Bernard Picton, Curator of Marine Invertebrates, National Museum of Northern Ireland
Could the surreal imagination of even Karel Capek in his most bitingly satirical novel, War With The Newts, ever have conceived of a game-changer the likes of chromodoris reticulata, a red and white sea slug that can actually shed its own penis after mating and then replenish said appendage the very next day.
Jun 29, 2013 Read the whole text...
Dave Not Bombs
Recipe for Change
a review of
Hungry for Peace: How you can help end poverty and war with Food Not Bombs by Keith McHenry. See Sharp Press, Tucson, 2012, 180 pp., $18.95
Even after three decades of Food Not Bombs (FNB) volunteers sharing meals, smiles and good times with anyone who happens to pass by, the authorities still don’t seem very inclined to give members of the direct action anti-hunger group their proper respect.
Jun 26, 2013 Read the whole text...
Penelope Rosemont
Time & Reality
a review of
None of This Is Real by Miranda Mellis, Sidebrow Books, San Francisco, 2012, 115 pp., $18, sidebrow.net.
Leonora Carrington, the great surrealist creator of paintings and stories, is quoted as saying, “The duty of the right eye is to plunge into the telescope, whereas the left eye interrogates the microscope.”
Jun 24, 2013 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
W W A D
What Would Anarchists Do?
<em>

Anarchy 101</em>, edited by Dot Matrix, is a crowd-sourced introduction to anarchist ideas. The content comes from the website anarchy101.org, which poses and answers ongoing questions it receives. They represent the best responses from dozens of contributors to hundreds of queries about the “Beautiful Idea: this thing called anarchy,” as Ardent Press, the book’s publisher, puts it. See ardentpress.com.
Jun 24, 2013 Read the whole text...
Robert Joe Stout
Mexico: Realities of Tourism
Behind the curtain lies the real country visitors rarely see

indiscriminately beating demonstrators and bystanders.
“Leave us your money and go home” isn’t published in Mexico’s tourist propaganda, but is the underlying theme behind promoting maquilado Mexico (“Mexico cosmeticized”).
Jun 23, 2013 Read the whole text...
Ron Sakolsky
Occupying the Citadels of the Mind
A Review of Two Insurgent Documents from the Frontlines of Educational Revolt (2009–2012)
a review of
After the Fall: Communiques from Occupied California by Aragorn! Edited by Little Black Cart Books, Berkeley, 2010. This free newsprint publication is presently out of print, but can be downloaded at afterthefallcommuniques.info.
One of the key essays, “We Are The Crisis,” appears in Occupy Everything: Anarchists in the Occupy Movement, 2009 2011 by Aragorn!, Little Black Cart Books, Berkeley, 2012, 258pp, $15
Jun 23, 2013 Read the whole text...
Megan Kinch
Toronto’s Free School
It Takes A Community
Anarchist experiments in education in the Toronto area reflect a history of brief spaces carved out from commercialism, of flowerings of liberation followed by the seeds of the next project to emerge.
Experiments in popular education or free schools have often co-existed with experiments in collective living, and have also been tied to particular waves of activism, following radical Brazilian educator Paulo Freire’s theories that liberation education only works when tied to a project of human liberation in general. Anarchist movements in urban areas, like Toronto and nearby cities, thrive in spaces at once marginal and central, and freeschools have emerged along with them.
Jun 23, 2013 Read the whole text...
Paul J. Comeau
William Gibson: unintended prophet of our digital future
a review of
Distrust That Particular Flavor by William Gibson. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York. Hardcover, 259 Pages, $26.95
For over thirty years William Gibson has been the unintended prophet of our digital future. The award-winning author of Neuromancer, Virtual Light, and a string of other best-selling science fiction novels, Gibson’s writings have not only presaged the future in many ways, but also serve as critiques on the present in which they were written.
Jun 23, 2013 Read the whole text...
Kate Smash
Esther Martin
New Orleans Free School Network
We are all students. We are all teachers.
“In the New Orleans Free School Network, people are there because they want to be. There are no grades, people are free to participate, but they don’t have to.”
This is how John Clark, Loyola University professor, activist, and a network founding organizer, understands the difference between traditional education and the alternative he and others established in 2010.
Jun 20, 2013 Read the whole text...
Marike Reid-Gaudet
Unschooling and Free Schools
So education can begin
I’m interested in unschooling because it’s an applied philosophy rather than a teaching method. This philosophy, which I strive to use daily with my son, who is now 16 years old, is also the one used in free schools. For me, this approach to life and to children’s’ development encourages independence, confidence, and pleasure in living. Experiencing unschooling with my son has permitted us to go beyond the simple accumulation of knowledge.
Jun 20, 2013 Read the whole text...
Bruce E. Levine
Anti-Authoritarian Personalities & Standard Schools
Are “Behavior Problems” More Accurately Rebellion Against Authority?
Mark Twain, one of America’s most beloved anti-authoritarians, gave young people sound advice: “Never let your schooling get in the way of your education.” Do most schools teach us:
* To be self-directed--or directed by others?
* That relationships should be respectful--or manipulated by rewards and punishments?
Jun 18, 2013 Read the whole text...
Norman Nawrocki
The Orchestra
7:58 pm
in this quiet, working class
Montreal residential neighbourhood
the orchestra starts
one person
walks slowly down her stairs
sets a solitary rhythm
taps a pot with an egg beater
looks around hopefully
8 pm
half way down the block
a smiling grandfather
and his shy teen grandson
leave their apartment
Jun 18, 2013 Read the whole text...
Maria Forti
Becca Yu
The Quebec Student Strike
Red Squares, Black Flags And Casseroles

The 2012 Quebec student general strike lasted for six months, between February and September. Participation peaked at around 300,000 out of 420,000 university and CEGEP (junior colleges) students in the province. During the high points, demonstrations took to the streets multiple times daily with growing militancy met with rampant police violence, especially during marches taking place after dark.
Jun 18, 2013 Read the whole text...
anon.
A short history of schools
The word school comes from the Latin word schola meaning “free time consecrated to learning,” an institution idealized by the philosophers and ideologues and perceived as being a socially valued category, in opposition to the sphere of manual or productive labor.
In early civilizations, school was created by scribes and other government functionaries who occupied religious and administrative posts. Among the ancient Greeks, school had the purpose of training future soldiers before it was transformed to teach philosophy and rhetoric by the Sophists for the children of the rich who would never have to work.
Jun 17, 2013 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Call for Submissions for FE #389
Deadline: April 15
Issue Theme: Sex
Your ideas for news articles, essays, and art are welcome. Submit manuscripts for short pieces and proposals for longer essays, along with graphics and photographs to: fe--AT--fifthestate.org or Fifth Estate, PO Box 201016, Ferndale, MI 48220, USA. Please put “Submission 389” on the subject line of email.
Jun 17, 2013 Read the whole text...