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On opening night of the Fourth Annual New York Film Festival, back in September, there appeared a ‘band of outsiders’ picketing the fountain on the plaza of Lincoln Center. There were maybe four or five men, dressed in black, wearing gas masks, carrying coffins on their shoulders.

A few days later, people attending the Special Events program on the Independent Cinema at the fest were handed flyers printed on pop-art orange paper entitled Engaged Cinema in the United States. When I read this statement of purpose, I found it to be one of the most compelling and sobering calls to arms to emerge in this country in the area of film. I later discovered that the opening night pickets were affiliated with Cinema Engagé, as they are called.

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Detroit is going through a lot of changes. Plum Street has made the inner city a nice place to visit and the Grande Ballroom has made tripping out a routine. But the most important change is at 2555 Burns Avenue, home of the Court Players.

The Court Theatre is headed by Clyde Vinson, speech instructor at Wayne. His resident acting company consists of thirteen University students, most of whom are Detroiters. Their current production is Joan Littlewood’s OH WHAT A LOVELY WAR.

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[Web archive note: “Ripes” as it appears in the original print edition]

She stands five feet seven inches in her Courreges boots. Her face is as smooth and unreacting as a billiard ball. She wears miniskirts four inches above her knobby knees, and hip-huggers which hug skinny, unrelenting hips. Her favorite people in the whole wide world are Bobby Dylan, the Beatles, and Mick Jagger. She gets high on anything that’s handy—bennies, methadrine, grass, acid. She is known as a Groupie. Want to ball her?

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Yes it IS a New year. This year Detroit will be born into flesh and spirit and we will have what we want finally. It’s been a long time acomin’, but it IS here. Yes. Last Friday night I was able to go out to a place of business (the Wisdom Tooth on Plum Street) and hear the Lyman Woodard Trio, playing its own music, and a joyful occasion THAT was. I mean it’s the first time anyone has HIRED a forward jazz unit for the public to hear, in Detroit, and that’s just ONE sign of what will come. Woodard’s trio includes the master himself on organ, alto saxophonist Charles Miles, and drummer Norman Roberts, who is really amazing. Norman plays regularly with the Temptations, and can handle ANY kind of music like he was born to it. He was. The Trio will be at the Wisdom Tooth every Friday and Saturday night after hours, that is from 2:30 to 6:00 a.m. The cover charge is $2.00, which is fine, as the money goes to the musicians. And they need it, just as you need them.

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In my last column [FE #21, January 1–15, 1967] I enumerated some of the more outstanding malfeasances on the part of the leading representatives of the jazz critics’ Establishment. In what follows I intend to go beyond mere individuals, to make clear the pivotal institutional role played by DOWN BEAT magazine in helping to perpetuate the reign of white supremacy in jazz.

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A Conference in Chicago of Dec. 26–29, student and anti-war activists has called for National Student Actions April 8–15 against the war in Vietnam. This will culminate in the transportation of as many students as possible to New York and San Francisco as part of the general Spring Mobilization of the anti-war movement on April 15.

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During the past few months, the peace movement has become aware of the fact that it must pass into a new phase of protest, a phase closer to resistance than symbolic demonstrations.

Draftees at Ft. Polk, LA. Is this the only way? photo: THE TOY

Especially within the context of the draft, the most oppressive mechanism of the military apparatus, it has become clear that real support and aid should be given to those young men who, realizing that they cannot participate in the immoral Vietnam war, must search for alternatives to the draft.

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Provo! Provo! Provo! Provo! Provo! Provo! They used to be called “Nosems,” the Dutch beatnik. The new word rides out of France. The Provo is the new young style in Holland—the Provocateur—the Hipster. They stopped being Nosems when the big changeover came about a year ago; when the kids started paying more attention to style than to content.

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in Cooperation with Detroit Adventure

THURS APRIL 2

JOHN SINCLAIR, White Panther Party Chairman, appears in Recorders Court at 9:30 am to seek an appeal bond on his marijuana case. Come and show your support! at Frank Murphy Hall of Just-us, Gratiot and St. Antoine.

They’re making REMARKS ON THE PERSONALITY OF MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI in the Det. Inst. of Arts Lecture Hall (for $2.50 no less). “They” are psychoanalysts Richard& Editha Sterba. 2:00 p.m.

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Dear Friends:

The murders of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark in Chicago have awakened many Americans to the campaign being carried out against the Black Panther Party throughout the country. Since April 1968, 28 Panthers have died and countless others have been imprisoned. But the “search and destroy” operations against the Black Panther Party do not always take such dramatic forms.

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Behind the surface appearance of every beauty contest, from Home Coming Queen to “Miss World,” exists an entire framework that represses and objectifies women. That framework had produced the idea that exposing one’s flesh, with proper techniques of body exhibition, is a desirable skill, to be rewarded with prizes and tribute.

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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:

About restaurants that prohibit nude feet. Am assuming hygienic rationale: Are shoes more hygienic per foot?”

ANSWER: Shoes are more likely to track in disease from the street than bare feet. Some restaurant owners cite health codes but the truth is they just don’t like barefooted customers.

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America moves closer to a labor crisis as other unions enter or poise for strikes throughout the country. Air travel has been seriously crippled by the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) walk-out in many major U.S. cities, and they have affected air travel throughout the world.

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The government of the Bahamas has recently instituted a so-called courtesy campaign aimed at making the natives more respectful to the American and European tourists who frequent the islands. The program is, in effect, one of the most fascist official proposals from a government since apartheid became a way of life in South Africa.

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MANNHEIM, West Germany—In a violent clash with military police, imprisoned G.I.s staged a massive riot at the Army stockade in Mannheim, West Germany. On March 19^th, the U.S. Command there fought with imprisoned soldiers for 5 hours and the reported damages inflicted on government property amounted to $10,000.

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Charles Costa, an Inner City slumlord that lives in Southfield, has a habit of always trying to grab the media limelight. Through his hustling, Costa has gained a favorable reputation with Detroit’s straight papers.

Among the people that he exploits in this community, however, he is branded for the pig that he is. His latest publicity ruse is to offer a 20 cent bounty on dead rats to all local residents.

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Washington, D.C.—After nine months of pre-trial hearings, a date was set today for the trial of anti-war sailor Roger Priest. Priest, the first serviceman to face court-martial for statements made in an anti-war newsletter, will stand trial in Washington on April 14^th, the day before the nation-wide demonstrations against the war.

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LOS ANGELES, Calif.—An Air Force Academy graduate, Richard T. Hubbard, under orders to go to Vietnam on March 30, says he will risk courtmartial and endanger his professional career as a physician rather than obey those orders.

Hubbard is a practicing Methodist whose home town is in Mt. Gilead, Ohio. As a result of his religious background, he is morally against the war. Hubbard stated, “I am opposed to the War on an emotional basis...I am opposed to military life on a religious basis...I accept nonviolent resistance as a form of Christian Witness.”

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WABX DJs Larry Miller and Dave Dixon both emphatically deny the report of last issue that they came to blows over station policy. “The real miracle of the station is how well we work together,” Miller said. Sorry fellas, we had thought that the info came from a “reliable source...

The ad for the Chicago Conspiracy trial that appeared on the back page of our last issue was refused by the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times. Several other major dailies did accept the ad...

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Broadly conceived, ecology deals with a balance in nature. Inasmuch as nature includes man, the science basically deals with the harmonization of man and nature. Ecology is an integrative and reconstructed science in that it deals with the most radical systems of political economy.

This intrinsic characteristic of ecology, carried through to all its implications, leads directly into anarchic areas of political and economic thought.

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On November 9, 1969, the GI Press Service placed in the New York Times an advertisement signed by 1,365 active duty servicemen. The ad announced the GIs’ support for the November 15 demonstrations in Washington and San Francisco, and called for the immediate withdrawal of all American troops from Vietnam.

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a review of

Rattling the Cages: Oral Histories of North American Political Prisoners, Editors: Eric King and Josh Davidson; forward by Angela Davis. AK Press, 2023

“I was told that I would be dead by the time I finished my sentence.”

—Oscar Lopez Rivera, sentenced to 55 years for 130 FALN bomb attacks in 1974–1983

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a review of

End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration by Peter Turchin. Penguin Press, 2023

Historian Arnold J. Toynbee once insisted that history is not “just one damn thing after another.”

Joe Strummer, lead singer of The Clash, once insisted that, “The future is unwritten.”

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a review of

It Did Happen Here: An Antifascist People’s History, Editors: Moe Bowstern, Mic Crenshaw, Alec Dunn, Celina Flores, Julie Perini, and Erin Yanke. PM Press, 2023

We Go Where They Go: The Story of Anti-Racist Action by Shannon Clay, Kristin Schwartz and Michael Staudenmaier. PM Press, 2023

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from The Great Speckled Bird

Radical women across the country are demanding an end to the male supremacist attitudes and policies of the underground press. It is essential that these demands be recognized and met as a political priority; not only for the women who are struggling against male supremacy in this country but for the Movement as a whole.

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In a virtually unprecedented move, Reverend Robert Morrison, rector of St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church, has called for the resignation of Richard Emrich as diocesan Bishop of Michigan, calling him “unchristian, inhuman and irresponsible.”

This call comes in the wake of the decision of the Episcopal diocese of Detroit to cut off funds for Reverend Morrison’s church because he allows the Gay Liberation Front, a homosexual group, to meet at the Church.

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NEW YORK (LNS)—Those castrating bitches are at it again. Give ‘em an inch...and they...er...never satisfied...just gave ‘em a cover story...back for more....

Newsweek’s cover story on women’s liberation had just hit the stands when 46 women on the staff filed a complaint Monday, March 16 with the Federal Government charging that Newsweek had violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964—which prohibits “segregation, classification, and/or limitation of an employee” on the grounds of race, color, religion, or sex.

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NEW YORK ( LNS) “Never Underestimate the Power of a Woman” runs the slogan of Ladies Home Journal, a monthly women’s magazine with a circulation of seven million.

Over a hundred radical women barged into the magazine’s editorial offices March 18 to bring substance to that slogan, demanding a liberated issue of the magazine.

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Buenos Aires, Argentina—Members of the Argentine National Liberation Front (ALF) bargained on March 25 over the exchange of two government-held political prisoners for their own political hostage, the Paraguayan Consul to Argentina.

If the release was not made, the ALF pledged to assemble a firing squad and off the diplomat.

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ALBANY, N.Y. (LNS)—New York has joined the trend set recently by Hawaii in changing antiquated abortion laws.

The State Senate voted here March 18, 31–26 in favor of a sweeping abortion reform bill, which if passed in its present form by the State Assembly, will remove virtually all restrictions on obtaining an abortion in New York, including residency requirements.

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a review of

Chevengur by Andrei Platonov. NYRB 2023 (Originally published 1929)

In his 1920 essay, “Anarchists and Communists,” journalist, engineer and author Andrei Platonov wrote “True Anarchy is the understanding that all power and authority on Earth is unnecessary and harmful, that people do not need to be led.”

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Imagine if more people believed in the power and the magic of collective creativity, what a crazy wonderful new anarchist world we could build. Under capitalism, any form of creativity is usually seen as an individual pursuit, the domain of the rich, the elite and artistes. It’s something to be commodified, re-packaged, and sold back to others as pop culture to be consumed. People accept that they must subscribe to watch movies or hear music to get their cultural fix. For the average person, the high costs of attending live theatre or dance performances are usually prohibitive.

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a review of

Anti-Oculus: A Philosophy of Escape by Acid Horizon. Repeater

The New York City-based podcasting collective Acid Horizon’s book features anarchist-leaning text ranging from informative musings on our present cyberpunk era to densely twisted lexical corridors lined with the thoughts of those like Jung, Deleuze, and Agamben.

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a review of

Poetic Reason in the Age of Digital Control by Jesús Sepúlveda. Bad Idea Publishing, 2023

Jesús Sepúlveda’s Poetic Reason in the Age of Digital Control addresses some of today’s most pressing threats and sketches out some promising ideas of a strategy in response, which will hopefully be elaborated in future works.

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John Sinclair, poet, author of Guitar Army, manager of the MC5 rock band, anti-racist White Panther Party co-founder, and early Fifth Estate writer, died of heart failure at 82 in Detroit on April 9. Sinclair was remembered in publications across the U.S. and the world far from his Motor City base as a counterculture icon, a marijuana legalization campaigner, and a rock and roll enthusiast who was immortalized in a John Lennon song.

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On April 15, millions of people across the world will take to the streets to demand that the United States end its aggression against Vietnam and immediately withdraw all of its troops. In Detroit, the Coalition to End the War has called for a mass march, rally and local school strikes. The Fifth Estate endorses this call and asks all of our readers to join with the staff in participating to the fullest extent possible.

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Her pallor of skin and her gauntness (both doubtless accentuated by the austerities of the Weatherman life-style) and her cool light blue eyes behind gold frames put me in mind of the woman in Grant Wood’s “American Gothic.” Her vibrant contralto voice and sensuous mouth suggested a tremendous courage for struggle and love.

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“To the accusation that Cuba wants to export its revolution, we reply: revolutions are not exported—they are made by the people.”

—Fidel Castro, Second Declaration of Havana, 1962

Another witch-hunt is underfoot. The late ‘60s and moreover the ‘70s are beginning to reek of McCarthyism. The latest example of repression and red-baiting is exemplified by Sen. James Eastland’s charges that Venceremos Brigade Volunteers acquired guerrilla training in Cuba.

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American Civil Liberties Union, 961–4662

Ad Hoc Citizens Committee (Police Brutality Complaints), 872–2828

Creem Magazine, 831–0816

Detroit Anti-war Coalition, 873–4322

Fifth Estate Office, 831–6800

Fire Department, 962–0400

Grape Boycott Office, 825–4811

Metro, 832–5126

National Lawyers Guild, 871–1251

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STAFF

Debbie Brentz

Steve Dunn

David Gaynes

Alan Gotkin

Mike John

Keep on Truckin’ Co-op

Jim Kennedy

Lee Ann Kennedy

David Levison

Rick London

Nick Medvecky

Bruce Montrose

Claudia Montrose

Harvey Ovshinsky (dig this!)

Dave Riddle

Bill Rowe

Eddie Silver

Marilyn Werbe

Peter Werbe

Cathy West

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Accused persons in Detroit Recorder’s Court have been tried and, in many cases, found guilty by juries of which Blacks, other minority group members, Southern-born, foreign-born, working-class people, ADC mothers, students, bearded males, and persons convicted of moving traffic violations have been systematically and discriminatorily excluded from serving on.

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They’re throwing a peace march April 15. Why come to another demonstration? Because it helps pressure Nixon to bring the troops home. Bringing the troops home will do two things: it will save a lot of American and Vietnamese lives and it will mean the success of the Vietnamese struggle for national self-determination.

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Most anarchists are familiar with Ursula K. Le Guin’s utopian science fiction novel, The Dispossessed. But its fame has somewhat served to overshadow other works of science fiction that are also of great interest. Here are a few of those.

* Eric Frank Russell’s 1948 story, “And Then There Were None,” was the nearest sci fi work to an anarchist utopia prior to Le Guin’s 1974 novel, and was praised as such in the pages of Freedom and Anarchy at the time, starting with a full-length review in 1954, under the headline “An Anarchist Utopia,” saying it “makes an anarchist society not only attractive, but also eminently practical.” John Pilgrim, writing in 1963, speculated on “just how much influence this much anthologised tale has had in forming the political opinions of the fallout generation.”

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Following nearly ten years of incarceration and numerous attempts by the State to frame, break and murder him, anarchist prisoner Eric King was released in late December 2023.

Imprisoned for taking direct action in solidarity with the 2014 Ferguson, Mo. uprising, King survived Covid, attacks by neo-Nazi prisoners, and years of abuse from guards. His ten-year sentence was for an attempt to Molotov the Kansas City office of a Democratic Congress member following the murder of Michael Brown by a Ferguson cop.

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The struggle for political power within the United Auto Workers Union between the League of Revolutionary Black Workers and the entrenched, conservative, white bureaucracy continued at the recent elections at Dodge local 3 of the Hamtramck Assembly Plant.

Held March 18 and 19, in the shadow of the grey, ugly plant on Joseph Campau, the incumbent leadership of local 3 turned to ballot stealing and cheating to insure the continuance of their racist leadership in the predominately black factory.

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The postal workers’ strike exploded like a time-bomb across the nation. Beginning in New York City, and spreading quickly through every major city in the country.

The massive revolt defied court injunctions, Presidential orders, and the miserable sell-outs in the union bureaucracies. The workers were beyond the control of legal actions and of their union “leadership.” They went out to demonstrate that they intended to win.

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a review of

Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech by Brian Merchant. Little, Brown & Company, 2023

A February arson attack by a mob of Lunar New Year revelers in San Francisco on a Google driverless taxi, to the cheers of onlookers, brings to mind the early 19^th century assaults on factories and industrial machines by newly-marginalized workers who came to be known as Luddites. The attempt of these workers to hold on to social solidarity and community is the subject of Brian Merchant’s timely offering.

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We are entering another new epoch.

Things will only get far worse/much better from here.

No more trying to find the light or poke holes in the darkness. That time has passed.

Nor do we resolve ourselves to moving slowly through the night.

No, let’s just let our eyes adjust.

Eat carrots.

We’ll move in and out of time and plot quietly under the cover of dusk.

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a review of

Manufacturing the Threat, Dir: Amy Miller, 2023

Online archive note: Several paragraphs were inadvertently not included in the printed edition of the magazine, starting with “Still, I do recommend it as a powerful piece of storytelling...”

Below is the complete article.

John “Omar” Nuttall and Amanda “Ana” Korody were arrested July 1, 2013, after planting what they had been led to believe were functional pressure cooker bombs on the grounds of the provincial legislature in Victoria, British Columbia. Their arrests eventually led to the revelation of years of police dirty tricks, manipulation, and abuse in the name of anti-terrorism.

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In a war, no nation loses: the Nation of Man is lost.

In Viet Nam, the unwilling penitents who bear the brunt of that nation’s suffering are those who know least of any suffering but their own.

These unfortunates are the children who, burned horribly by napalm, tossed to chance care by the death of parents, and maimed in a thousand ways, are suffering the fate of Viet Nam in their small bodies.

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