Most Recent Additions

Poetry Seminar Tuesdays 7–9 p.m.

John Sinclair & Robin Eichele

Contemporary American Prose & Drama Thursdays 9 p.m.

John Sinclair

The Surrealist Stance (Arranged)

Allen Van Newkirk

Seminar in Pre-Homeric Greek Civilization (Arranged)

Sinclair, Eichele, Van Newkirk

Theatre Techniques/Acting (Arranged)

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The Fifth Estate 1107 W. Warren Detroit Michigan 48201

831–2525

EDITOR AND PUBLISHER: Harvey Ovshinsky

EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS: Robin Diber, Steve Dibner, Steven Simons

STAFF: John Sinclair, John Hawksley, Magdalene Sinclair, and Janet Klotman

The National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam has learned that at least four Negro G.I.s are in jail serving six months to ten years at hard labor for refusing to fight in Vietnam.

They are: Privates Johny L. Jackson, Harold Brown, Percy L. Green and David Clark.

NCCEWV has asked those who wish to write to do so at this address: U.S. Army Stockade, APO San Francisco, California 96243. Navy and Marine C.O.s who also refused to fight in Vietnam are Michael L. Yankess, Jack Gorman and Larry Bobbitt. Write Pearl Harbor Marine Barracks, Honolulu, Hawaii.

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On the 24^th of February, John Sinclair was sentenced by Judge Groat of the Recorders Court to six months in the Detroit House of Correction and three years probation for possession of marijuana. He’ll have to go before Judge Krause on Thursday, March 3, to be sentenced for violation of probation. This is why he is not writing the column today. Hopefully he will be able to continue writing for the Fifth Estate when (if) he goes to the “House” as they call it. I will help him out as well as I can with the local news items that he should tell you about.

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a review of

Never Work: Essays Against the Sale of Life. Detritus Books, 2022

“Workplaces are fascist. They’re cults designed to eat your life; bosses hoard your minutes jealously, like dragons hoard gold.”

—Nouri, solar punk

This collection of essays argues that we are sacrificing our lives in the service of the Machine. The concluding essay sums it up. Written in 2022, “Anti-work: from ‘I quit’ to ‘We revolt’ by Crimethlnc Ex-Workers Collective, starts by addressing the revolt against work that coincided with the two years of the pandemic. In 2021, a quarter of the workforce quit their jobs. The pandemic made it clear that the function of the market is to force people to sacrifice their lives for others’ benefit.

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Shoppers in Downtown Birmingham found themselves window shopping for open occupancy on Saturday, February 26.

The Birmingham-Bloomfield Committee on Open Occupancy distributed 10,000 leaflets encouraging a re-examination of fair housing in that area. The pamphlet is reprinted below.

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Something’s happening in Detroit and a good part of it ‘happened’ on Friday, February 25.

More than fifty persons gathered at the Fifth Estate to attend a reorganization party for the Detroit Circle. The Circle, recently bogged down with a decreasing attendance record, is a group of forty five students and adults.

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On Friday, March 25, the first of three INTERNATIONAL DAYS OF PROTEST, there will be activities on the Wayne Campus highlighted by a rally against the war in Vietnam. This will take place on the mall.

Such Universities as Oakland and University of Michigan will also be the site of anti-war demonstrations. The Citizens for Peace in Vietnam will carry on neighborhood activities.

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Reprinted from The Daily Collegian

Looking for something different in newspapers? Like to see current topics treated from a new angle? Interested in cultural events that don’t appear in the major papers? You might take a glance at “The Fifth Estate,” a Collegian-size four-page paper, and a product of a University freshman, Harvey Ovshinsky.

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Huelga, the grape strike in the San Joaquin Valley, has given heart to those who lament the American labor movement as moribund, backward and sold out.

Teatro Campesino, the Farm Workers’ Theater, has grown directly out of the strike, and should give heart to those who still lament the American theater as dying or dead.

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Reprinted from the LA Free Press

Dame Sybil Leek is in this area to apply finishing touches to a soon-to-be-published book, and for one speaking engagement Tuesday night, Dec. 14, at the Ionic Building, 1122 S. La Cienega.

As I drove out to North Hollywood (where ELSE would a witch stay?), I recalled my dictionary’s definition:

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Here and There and Where

Surprising how many people still don’t realize how important and far-reaching is Madelyn Murray’s suit to Tax the Churches and how, when it reaches the Supreme Court, it might change the entire real estate tax structure of this country. Being a tough determined woman she’ll almost certainly fight the case all the way—and win. In a recent letter she told me that she keeps reading about all the people who are collecting money in her name, but she never sees any of it. Her ONLY address is Madelyn Murray O’Hair, P. O. Box 2117, Austin, Texas 78767. Baltimore assault case against her has been dropped...

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SATURDAY

HANOI, Eyewitness Report by Dr. Herbert Apthekar. Central Methodist Church 8:00 p.m. 2/12

FILM: “Beauty and the Beast” (1946), directed by Jean Cocteau. Sponsored by UCAE at WSU Community Arts Aud, Cass and Kirby. 8 p.m. Adm. charge. 2/12

CONFERENCE on China. United Nations Assn. of USA at WSU Community Arts Aud. Cass and Kirby 2–5 p.m. 2/12

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Reprinted from FE #386, Spring 2012.

Reversion to 1911 would constitute a perfect first step for a 21^st century neo-Luddite movement. Living in 1911 means using technology and culture only up to that point and no further, or as little as possible.

For example, you can have a player-piano and phonograph, but no radio or TV; an ice-box, but not a refrigerator; an ocean liner, but not an aeroplane, electric fans, but no air conditioner.

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To no one’s great surprise, the United States has resumed the bombing of a sovereign nation with which it is not at war. This was clearly done to stem the rising tide of criticism of the war, which was beginning to be heard even within the president’s own party.

The decision to take the issue to the U.N. is a token concession to the critics. Although the outcome of the Security Council debate seems uncertain, it is clear that the U.S. would never have agreed to initiate debate if it envisioned any adverse decisions resulting from this.

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Work on the second International Days of Protest scheduled for March 25 and 26 has begun. For Detroit, a whole weekend of activities is projected. The plans are as follows:

FRIDAY, March 25—In the afternoon, all activities will be centered around Wayne State University. Citizens for Peace in Vietnam will also do something on this day. A fundraising event is being planned for the evening.

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The Fifth Estate, our answer “to what could be happening in Detroit if people knew where to find it,” has moved from its Post Office box in Bloomfield Hills to 1107 Warren. Located just off the John Lodge expressway and four blocks from Wayne State University, the paper is making the move as the first of many steps to improve itself and to eventually come out weekly.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The following letter was sent to one of our subscribers who had sent Mich. Senator Philip Hart a copy of the speech given by Dr. Norman Pollack on U.S. participation in the war in Vietnam:

Dr. Pollack’s premise that “we are at war today because we cannot—or will not—solve the internal problems at home” is just all wrong. The first session of this congress enacted more social and economic legislation than any Congress since the early days of the New Deal, and the fear now is (not the pain, as Dr. Pollack seems to imply) that increasing costs in Vietnam will slow down full implementation of all these programs.

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THE FIFTH ESTATE

1107 W. WARREN

DETROIT 1, MICH.

EDITOR AND PUBLISHER: Harvey Ovshinsky

EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS: Robin Dibner, Steven Dibner, Steve Simons

Reward

For information leading to the apprehension of

JESUS CHRIST

WANTED—FOR SEDITION, CRIMINAL ANARCHY, VAGRANCY, AND CONSPIRACY TO OVERTHROW THE ESTABLISHED GOVERNMENT

DRESSES POORLY. SAID TO BE A CARPENTER BY TRADE. ILL-NOURISHED, HAS VISIONARY IDEAS. ASSOCIATES WITH COMMON WORKING PEOPLE, THE UNEMPLOYED AND BUMS. ALIEN. IS BELIEVED TO BE A JEW. ALIAS PRINCE OF PEACE, SON OF MAN, LIGHT OF THE WORLD &c. PROFESSIONAL AGITATOR

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The following article is the statement issued by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee concerning U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam. Julian Bond was refused his seat in the Georgia House of Representatives when he publically endorsed this statement.

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee assumes its right to dissent with U.S. foreign policy on any issue, and states its opposition to U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam on these grounds:

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There’s a lot of very interesting “cultural activity” coming up in the next couple months in Detroit, but nothing definite is set as far as dates and times, so I’ll try to give a few teasers and come back with more specific information next time.

The success of Andrew Hill’s and Marion Brown’s concerts for the WSU Artists’ Society has spread around New York and, as a consequence, a number of forward New York musicians are writing about arranging concerts for themselves here in the immediate future. Pianist Paul Bley, one of the original members of the Jazz Composers Guild and the possessor of a number of fine recordings (among them FOOT LOOSE, on Savoy; BARRAGE, on ESP-Disk 1009; and appearances with Jimmy Guiffrie on Columbia and Verve labels) may be coming toward the end of this month. Then another exciting pianist, Burton Greene, another of the Jazz Composers Guild, whose ESP album will be out next month, will be here in early March, featured with the Detroit Contemporary 4. So those are things to look forward to, music lovers.

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a review of

We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration by Frank Abe, script and story; Tamiko Nimura, story; art, Ross Ishikawa and Matt Sasaki. Chin Music Press Inc, 2021

Resistance and oppression are perhaps the most consistent threads that link history. No matter what social system a population lives under, it is inevitable that people will at some point turn to resistance.

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William Bunge, Geography Professor at Wayne State University, last week issued the following statement concerning his own steps in protesting the war in Vietnam. Mr. Bunge’s action was made known immediately after the recent Selective Service decision to draft those students who ranked in the lower quarter of their class:

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Freeing ourselves from the state, capital, and civilization requires radical action. Radical means going for the jugular. The blood pumping through the jugular is money.

Without money, labor power can no longer be commanded. Nor can wealth be hoarded, which means labor power cannot be commanded further down the line. Without taxes, the state’s war machine can not reinforce capital, nor police our bodies.

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The calendar is prepared by Fifth Estate calendar girls, Karen Kovac and Naomi Epel, [Naiomi Epil —Web Archiver] with cooperation from Detroit Adventure. Copy deadline is the 6^th and 22^nd of each month and should be sent to the Fifth Estate, Calendar, 1107 W. Warren, Detroit, Michigan 48201.

WED. NOV. 15

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UNCLASSIFIEDS cost 50 cents per line per issue. Figure four words per line. (A word is a word including one and two letter words. A phone number is a word. Street numbers are words. Abbreviations should be sensible).

DISCOUNT RATES: Five runs cost 35 cents per line.

A Psychedelic treat! Magic Veil Light Co.—Call Skip or Jerry (313) 833–9871.

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Wayne University’s complicity with the war effort as well as the manifestation of student-faculty impotency in university policy making were both clearly revealed Nov. 1, when the administration of Wayne State University decided to lodge a marine recruiter on campus.

Following a rally near the south side of State Hall approximately 100 students headed by members of SDS (Students for a Democratic Society), Wayne State University Veterans for Peace in Vietnam and the Detroit Draft Resistance Committee protested the presence on campus of Captain Frank Huey, marine recruiting officer for the area south of Marquette, Mich.

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Things are happening in the Detroit art scene, and the latest event was the opening of the BRUSH and STONE Art Gallery, at 328 E. Eight Mile Road!

Carol Hartman Weisenauer and Philip Newton Kellogg make up the two man show that opened the gallery on Sunday, November 5 and continues to December 3. Together they have about 90 works on view, including welded steel, terra cotta, carved wood, bronzes, clay, plaster and wax sculptures and oil paintings by Kellogg and water colors by Carol Weisenauer.

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The recent arrest of Andrew Mikolasch, editor of Toronto’s Underground Press Syndicate paper, Satyrday, has completed the cycle of busts on all of Canada’s U.P.S. papers. Earlier this year the Canadian Free Press from Ottowa and Georgia Straight from Vancouver were busted.

The police based the Satyrday arrest on an irate parent’s complaint about an article entitled “The way the platform is.” Mikolasch did not write the article himself but said: “It was a sort of satire on the music business and dealt with various sex practices, using honest words to describe them. You can pick up any book downtown using the same words, but they busted me.” He was released on personal bail.

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“Let us hope that their theater may allow them to enjoy as entertainment that terrible and never-ending labour which should ensure their maintenance together with the terror of their increasing transformation. Let them here produce their own lives in the simplest way; for the simplest way of living in an art.”

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NEW YORK—The American Civil Liberties Union has warned that a new round of anti-Communist investigation by congressional committees could turn into a “congressional inquisition” and jeopardize freedom of speech and association.

In a statement issued by John de J. Pemberton, Jr., the Union’s executive director, the ACLU sharply attacked the sweeping investigation by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee of New Left organizations and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, and the House Un-American Activities Committee’s inquiry into the alleged role of Communist influence in last summer’s rioting.

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As most movie goers know, “skin is in.” Some of the current biggies in Detroit are: “Naughty Shutter”; “Naked and the Wicked”; “Nudes on Credit”; “The Erotic Mr. Rose”; “Notorious Daughter of Fanny Hill”; and last, but not least, “Fanny Hill Meets Lady Chatterley.”

The above pictures, and many more like them, have become so popular in Detroit that we now rank number three in the nation in skin houses.

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Joseph Déjacque was a major 19^th-century communist anarchist political theorist and visionary utopian writer, born in Besancon, France on December 27, 1821. To celebrate the bicentennial year of his birth, two New Orleans-based groups, are convening a Déjacque Bicentennial Conference on December 10 and 11.

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That g.d., m.f., c.s., s.o.b., J.L. Hudson is running for mayor.

F. Janorin

Detroit

Love and flowers from a sleeping city.

I subscribed to your Oracle in August and took some issues with me to school in September. I have changed a lot of attitudes with the FIFTH ESTATE’s help.

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The Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) had its long-awaited dinner at the Rackham Bldg. recently, only a few days after anti-war demonstrators had clashed with the warmakers and local gendarmes in the same locals.

I tend to think that the spontaneous outbreaks which resulted in 14 arrests probably had more effect (if anyone can have effect) in dramatizing opposition to the War in Vietnam than the ADA gathering of 500 $10.00 dinner-goers passively listening to ADA National Chairman John Kenneth Galbraith—in a setting which was essentially a reunion of the Democratic Party.

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There is an obvious need for revolutionary media in the black community, states editor John Watson in explaining the creation of a new newspaper for the black community.

Titled the Inner-City Voice, the new paper which has already printed two issues expects to become a weekly with a circulation of more than 30,000 within a few months.

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“Is life too dear or peace too sweet as to be purchased at the price of...slavery?...I know not what course others may take, but for me, give me liberty, or give me death.”

—Patrick Henry

Eddie Steamshovel, Tod Damone, Bob Bob Bob and Soap Xhead spent Tuesday mornings scrubbing tobacco stains off their knees. They wrote the Declaration of Independence. Once when Eddie Steamshovel was by himself in a tavern beer cooler in Michigan he took out his Raisin Bran Detecto-Code Flasher. These men were weird and had grown up with the usual pre-revolutionary superstitions like doing the Monkey and Frug would give you Anthrax.

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

QUESTION: Can anything be done to increase penis size at the age of about twenty? I feel I am underdeveloped and have always felt a little inadequate because of it.

ANSWER: When I was a high school student, a friend felt he had the same problem. Each day he would tie a weight to his penis, swinging it like a pendulum and gradually increasing the weight. He worked his way up to ten or fifteen pounds, setting some sort of record in masochism but his member remained unchanged except for some rope burns.

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Today, after twenty years of Israel’s existence and three wars between Arab and Israeli, the Arab-Israeli conflict remains one of total deadlock. Arab acceptance of Israel’s existence after the June, 1967 blitzkrieg must remain the wishful thinking of the Sunday NEW YORK TIMES.

So many millions of words have been written about the Palestine problem and yet the basic issues remain uncomprehended by so many people. Recent statements by Black Power advocates in the U.S. condemning the “Zionist imperialist war of Israel” show that some radicals in the country are, however, very much aware of why Arab opposition to Israel has not abated.

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The Fifth Estate

1107 W. Warren

Detroit 48201

EDITORS

Harvey Ovshinsky

Peter Werbe

NEWS EDITOR

Frank H. Joyce

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

Cathy West

CIRCULATION MANAGER

Tommye Wiess

ACE REPORTER

John Sinclair

ART AND LAY-OUT

Gary Grimshaw

Carl Lundgren

FILM EDITOR

Joe Finemen

CALENDAR GIRLS

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In the past month Detroit area music-lovers have had the opportunity to attend performances of the Jefferson Airplane, the Cream, Donovan, the Who, and Ravi Shankar. The biggest threat is to come December 1, when the MOTHERS OF INVENTION invade our hallowed Civic Center’s Ford Auditorium. Detroit will never be the same.

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Joseph Patterson is a Negro.

He is 14 years old and bright—an honors student at Miller Junior High School in Detroit.

Joseph Patterson is a self-proclaimed Nazi and a member of Breakthrough, a local right-wing group. Some people, including teachers and counselors at Miller, alarmed at his preoccupation with Nazis and threats of killing everyone from commie teachers he “spys” on for Breakthrough, up to Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren and Lyndon Johnson think that Joseph Patterson is emotionally disturbed. Breakthrough thinks not. Last week they went into Wayne County circuit court to have Mr. Patterson released from the Towne Mental Hospital where Patterson had been committed on a petition from the Wayne County Sheriff. Deputy Sheriff Leontyne Smith who examined Patterson at the Detroit Psychiatric Institute Children’s Clinic where he was referred stated in a petition dated June 15:

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Out of a crop of albums these stand out for one reason or another:

PINK FLOYD: “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (Tower 5093). The Pink Floyd has enjoyed in London roughly the same position as the MC5 holds here: the Floyd made itself known through working at the weekly UFO dance/ concerts at the Roundhouse, under the sponsorship of the London UPS paper, the International Times.

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The draft resistance action at the Cadillac Tower Selective Service headquarters on October 16 and the busloads of people from Detroit who joined the assault on the Pentagon in Washington, DC brought the first winds of the new turn taken by the antiwar movement. People in this country are now moving to BLOCK rather than protest the mobilization of this country’s forces for the inhuman war in Vietnam.

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WASHINGTON — (Liberation News Service) At least two, and perhaps three, American military men in the line of troops at the Pentagon took off their helmets, laid down their guns, and joined the demonstrators sitting in on the Pentagon steps, Saturday, October 21.

The fate of the demonstrators is unknown, since the Pentagon denies their existence. “There were no defectors. We have no AWOL’s; no one is missing,” stated a Defense Department press spokesman.

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“Bread: prime symbol. Try and find a good loaf.”

Most of us are familiar with this, the opening line from Henry Miller’s essay, “The Staff of Life.” And it seems a good place to begin a column about food.

We all know how really lousy Wonder Bread is, but chances are that’s what is in your bread box. White bread is cheaper and more convenient to buy. Not all of us live near a bagel factory. Now, what to do with it. If you insist upon putting cheese and bologna between it, what can I tell you?

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Charging that Wayne State University’s student newspaper is too leftist and “put out by left-wing radicals,” a group of undergraduate students began publishing a rival daily the week of Nov. 6^th.

The South End, WSU’s s official student publication, formerly known as The Daily Collegian, has come under attack by staffers of the competition paper, The Phoenix. The South End has been criticized as leaning heavily toward the left end of the political spectrum, concentrating on protest and anti-war movements.

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An Open Letter to George Romney

Dear Sir:

As a free man and a revolutionary, and as a citizen of the state of Michigan with strong roots in my own Michigan community of Detroit, I’ve been interested to follow your recent career as a “national” politician. I haven’t really been too interested in your work as governor of the state of Michigan since that office has little or no relevance to my life nor have I ever been very interested in the office of president of the United States, since that office has even less relevance to my life. But the combination of events that has marked your entry into the national presidential race scene has captured my attention and my imagination, and I wanted after yesterday to say something about the whole thing.

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WASHINGTON, D.C.— (Liberation News Service) The Pentagon still clings to its original statements, attributing the use of tear gas at the Oct. 21 demonstration solely to demonstrators, despite eye-witness accounts to the contrary by the Washington Post’s Paul Valentine, Jed Stout of UPI, and many individuals.

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