Most Recent Additions

a review of

The Gun and the Olive Branch: The Roots of Violence in the Middle East by David Hirst. Second Edition, 1984, Faber and Faber, 475 pp., £12.50.

In Mein Weltbild (1934) Albert Einstein identified Judaism with a specific “moral attitude” to life: “the essence of that conception seems to me to lie in an affirmative attitude to the life of all creation. The life of the individual only has meaning insofar as it aids in making the life of every living thing nobler and more beautiful. Life is sacred, that is to say, it is the supreme value, to which all other values are subordinate.” Yet in this same work, the great thinker and lover of peace and human brotherhood defended the Zionist realization of “Judaism” in Palestine

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• Renew the Earthly Paradise

• Present Day Banalities

The two essays printed here were written in response to a questionnaire sent out by the Italian anarchist magazine, Rivista anarchica, investigating the present situation for North American anarchist and libertarian groups and publications. Rivista anarchica, a monthly publication, is publishing a special issue on “Anarchism in America,” and asked each group to describe its point of view and activities, and to respond to the following two questions: 1) In the “Reagan era,” what do you see as the important areas of social conflict in North America from an anarchist perspective? and 2) In your opinion, what are the most relevant differences between the radical movements of the 60s and the radical movements of the ‘80s? Each question was to take about 20 to 30 lines. We’ve never been famous for brevity, so we did our best to talk about our concerns in the space allotted. The other response is from Anti-Authoritarians Anonymous (P.O. Box 11331, Eugene OR 97440), long-time collaborators of the FE whose articles have frequently appeared in these pages. We thought that the responses to Rivista anarchica would be appropriate for our 20^th Anniversary issue as an indication of where we’re at and what we’re thinking.

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As the Covid-19 epidemic spread through the world at the beginning of 2020, the governments of many countries, including Greece, enacted emergency quarantine and stringent lock-down measures. There was a fear among social activists that collective action would be stifled.

Nonetheless, collective action emerged in Greece, mainly on two fronts. There was a mobilization of health workers against the government’s inadequate funding of public health care, as well as grassroots forms of mutual aid. The latter took shape mainly in Athens through two distinct networks.

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In the last few years there has been a rapid increase of right-wing white gangs in Southern California’s white, middle-class suburbs. Known as “white-boy gangs,” they are not as territorial as the traditional cultural gangs in black or Mexican urban areas which Los Angeles authorities estimate at 50,000 members. Rather, the new gangs push their weight around at youth culture events anywhere in the area, mostly at punk and metal music gigs.

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“Sridevi and her relatives collected nine types of Dioscorea tubers; some extended deep underground. The ease and flow of the work, and the general lack of rules governing the way spouses cooperated in doing this job, struck me.”

—Nurit Bird-David, Us, Relatives: Scaling and Plural Life in a Forager World

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An excerpt from an exclusive Detroit interview with Jello Biafra, lead singer of the Dead Kennedys, one of the more famous hardcore bands. In 1979 Jello ran for mayor of San Francisco, finishing fourth out of ten with a ‘platform’ which included requiring all businessmen to wear clown suits from nine to five. Exclusive here because there was only one other interviewer backstage, asking the usual ‘How did you get your name?’ and ‘How long have you been together?’ questions while I kept asking Jello if he needed a ride.

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We are in mass society’s Age of Pandemics. At this stage of civilization nothing is stable or secure. The Age of Pandemics is also the Age of Extinction, as in no longer existing.

Death as an existential, ontological matter.

Nursing homes, prisons, meat packing factories—where humans and other animals are warehoused under the sign of Death. Meanwhile, life continues at the extremes of representation, the time of the virtual spectacle. Digital validation is the norm in hypermodernity. What exists is what is on the screen, displayed on the display screen and not elsewhere.

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A Thanksgiving weekend planning conference in Chicago, which was attended by some 50 anti-authoritarians and anarchists from the US and Canada, announced a centennial celebration to take place during May Day week, to commemorate the 1886 Haymarket Affair.

Haymarket was an example of the state and capital’s brutal suppression of the workers’ movement in Chicago culminating in the state murder of five anarchists (four by hanging).

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Like so many other historical instances of state persecution, such as the Sacco and Vanzetti and the Rosenberg cases, the 1886 Haymarket Affair continues to haunt the present with its injustices. It is almost universally accepted in the Haymarket case that the five anarchists condemned to death by the state of Illinois were victims of an incredible miscarriage of justice, a view held even at that time.

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FRANKFURT, Sept. 28, 1984—Like so many times before, groups from left, Green, and autonomous circles had called out their crews to protest a meeting of the neo-fascist NPD, taking place in a marginal neighborhood of Frankfurt, where Turkish and other immigrant workers predominate.

Like so many times before, German police were at hand to protect the right of the fascists to have their meeting. This time, the German police were very “efficient.” They forcefully beat away the protesters who were blockading the entrance. And then, one of their new water cannons chased and crushed a protester, Gunter Sare, to death.

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ROCK ISLAND, IL—For 3 hours beginning at 4 a.m. Monday morning, October 21, 1985, 400 or so activists attempted to shut down the Rock Island Arsenal by blockading workers trying to drive onto the island. The five-month—organizing campaign by Project Disarm culminated in an action with 127 arrests. Many of these people attempting to blockade Arsenal workers, and many others were arbitrarily arrested.

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As a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic, there is renewed interest in Albert Camus’ 1947 novel, The Plague. While providing a fictional confrontation with a life-threatening infectious disease, the novel also reflects Camus’ perspectives on solidarity. Those expressions of solidarity convey meanings that have resonance for our present situation in relation to Covid-19.

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“With the aid of the high-powered rocket modern man is indeed conquering space. But in the very act of making this achievement possible, the megamachine is carrying further its conquest of man...At the bottom of this whole effort lies a purpose that animates the entire megamachine, indeed, figures as its only viable consummation: to reduce the human organism itself, its habitat, and its mode of existence, and its life-purpose to just those minimal dimensions that will bring it under total external control...So the ultimate gift of space technics, it now turns out is to establish in experimental small-scale models the requirements for imprisoning, conditioning, and controlling large populations.”

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Rambo-man Reagan is gearing up the U.S. military machine for an escalation of his wars against the Empire’s pandemic array of enemies. A trident of battle plans was announced from the White House on January 21 which included a decision to seek $100 million additional aid for the murderous Nicaraguan contras, “assistance” to the troops of South African stooge Jonas Savimbi who is trying to oust the Cuban-backed Angolan government, and increased support for Reagan’s doomsday Star Wars system.

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As usual, let us begin this column with an apology for the lateness of this issue, as well as an appeal to readers who have been notified of their subscription expiration to send us their renewals. Also, a heartfelt expression of gratitude to those who have made a special contribution to help sustain our project.

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To “A Comrade” c/o The FE:

I am fed up with the “murder of the innocents” argument re: abortion. (See Letters, FE #321, Indian Summer 1985).

Nature murders the “innocents,” i.e. fertilized cell clusters, by the billions each and every month. These natural abortions are flushed down the toilet without fanfare by sexually active women whose bodies nature finds not prepared to carry the cells to term.

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The Fifth Estate is a cooperative project, published by a group of friends who are in general, but not necessarily complete agreement with the articles herein. Each segment of the paper represents the collective effort of writing, typesetting, layout and proofreading.

The Fifth Estate Newspaper (ISSN No. 0015–0800) is published quarterly at P.O. Box 02548, Detroit, Michigan 48202 USA;

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On the occasion of a past anniversary, we noted that the Fifth Estate had been described by the FBI in its files as “supporting the cause of revolution everywhere.” It has been a pleasure and an honor, a calling and a commitment over the past twenty years for the hundreds of people who have comprised the newspaper staff and the hundreds of thousands of readers to make that description accurate. In an age dominated by a mass media whose message is that no resistance exists to the empire and its culture, we are proud to be one of the many centers which boldly announces that this is not true.

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is áille ná bratacha an domhain é ...

an níochán

ar an líne

.

more beautiful

than the flags of all nations ...

washing on the line

A haiku in Irish and English by Gabriel Rosenstock (Ireland) with artwork by Masood Hussain (Kashmir) whose first book together, Walk with Gandhi, commemorates the 150^th anniversary of the Mahatma’s birth. More bilingual haiku posters from them are available at

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Most public health concerns are ultimately local. Mutual aid projects and autonomous zones from New York City to Seattle, and from Chiapas and Rojava have shown how democratically controlled, non-hierarchical communities provide not only food and shelter but also health education, training and tools for people to care for themselves and their communities, families and comrades.

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Much of contemporary anarchist thought is completely reconciled with industrial society and technological social organization. This common anarchist viewpoint is summed up by Daniel Guerin thusly: “[Anarchism] rests upon large-scale modern industry, up-to-date techniques, the modern proletariat, and internationalism on a world scale. In this regard it is of our times and belongs to the twentieth century.” (Daniel Guerin, Anarchism, p. 154) The optimism of many anarchists regarding the liberatory potential of modern technology was echoed by a student-worker action committee formed during the May, 1968 French uprising. The committee urged the formation of workers’ councils, federated with the councils of other companies on a regional, national, and international level. In the committee’s view, “worker management of business is the power to do better for everybody what the capitalists were scandalously doing for a few.” (George Katsiaficas, “The Meaning of May 1968,” Monthly Review, May 1978)

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The Bearer of this document is hereby recognized as a member in good standing of the Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Community. As such, this creature is entitled to the following rights as established by the unwritten Constitution of the Universe:

• Right to Purity of Soil, Air and Waters

• Right to Immunity from Artificial Concepts of Time, Space and Location

• Right to All Territory of the Universe

• Right to Self-Defined Identity Regardless of Race, Nationality, Species or Genus

• Right to Unlimited Ecstasy and Its Means of Acquisition

• Right of Unlimited Choice of Behavior

• Right to Independence from All Gods, Laws and Religions

• Right to be Useless and Unproductive

• Right to Disregard Prevailing Concepts of Science, Logic, Politics, History and Mathematics

• Right to Death and Choice of Means

• Right to Unlimited Shape or Personality

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I thought that the article on Bhopal in your Winter 1985 issue [FE #319, Winter, 1985] was quite good and, since nothing on the event appeared in Strike!, I’m glad that you too are “filling some gaps quite nicely.” The only problems I have with the article come in the final section where you tack on your standard anti-technology pro-primitive spiel. In doing so you delineate a problematic that goes straight to the heart of your politics.

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a review of

Ecrits Politiques, 1977–1983. Noam Chomsky, Paris. Editions Acratie, 1984 189 pp.

There is Noam Chomsky the world-famous linguist, Chomsky the anarchist theorist, Chomsky the political activist against American foreign policy; last but not least, there is Chomsky the polemicist and ideology critic.

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The FE Bookservice may be reached at the same address as the Fifth Estate Newspaper, P.O. Box 02548, Detroit MI 48202 USA;

telephone (313) 831–6800.

Visitors are welcome, but our hours vary so please call before dropping in.

HOW TO ORDER BY MAIL:

1) List the title of the book, quantity wanted, and the price of each;

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The Libertarian Book Club offers anarchist books, newspapers, and magazines. 20% discount included with a $5 yearly membership. Send SASE to: Libertarian Book Club, 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012, Room 202.

An anarcho-communist newspaper, Libertarian Workers Bulletin, has recently released vol. 7 no. 1 which includes an extended article concerning “The Anarchist Case Against Terrorism.” The Libertarian Workers for a Self-Managed Society can be reached by writing: P.O. Box 20, Parkville 3052, Melbourne Victoria, Australia.

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Before the global pandemic and waves of insurrection, gaps in the empire’s dominion were already widening. The culture wars were escalating, tensions between older and younger generations mounting, the health care system showing its serious inadequacies, psychiatric problems becoming ubiquitous, and environmental devastation rapidly accelerating.

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Anarchism is everywhere in the media recently. Anarchists are blamed and denounced by a wide spectrum of politicians. Trump and his followers denounce anarchists and antifa as being the central figures in the Black Lives Matter demonstrations.

Democrats make a distinction between those they designate as peaceful protesters and bad, violent anarchists who, echoing the Republicans, they charge are responsible for property damage and engage in looting.

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a review of

A Tomb for Boris Davidovich. Danilo Kis, New York, Harcourt Brace, 1978

Few Fifth Estate readers have illusions about the revolutionary nature of the Bolshevik state, but in case any do remain, this book effectively dispels such illusions. Strictly speaking, Kis’s book is not just one more denunciation of the Soviet Union and it does not self-righteously condemn the individuals who were caught up in the revolutionary fervor in the days when the overthrow of the Tsar seemed to promise fulfillment of long-awaited hopes.

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Media commentators have grown so fond of labeling President Reagan’s mad scheme for placing laser and particle beam weapons in space “Star Wars” that it is hard to see why they have failed to extend the movie analogy logically forward and call the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) by a more appropriate name emanating from the same movie—“The Death Star.” Also, the prez certainly makes a better Darth Vader than a Luke Skywalker.

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The Redfern Black Rose Anarchist Bookstore, 36 Botany Rd., Alexandria, Sydney 2015 Australia, sends us the following news from down under:

March 4: A flotilla of 60 odd boats and other watercraft (windsurfers, surfboards, rafts) attempted to hinder the entry of two U.S. destroyers capable of carrying nuclear weapons. 300 people carried out a 96-hour vigil across the Naval yard where they were docked.

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a review of

Test-Tube Women, What Future for Motherhood? Rita Arditti et. al., Pandora Press, 482 pages.

“Human beings will end their second millennium since Christ perfecting the means to tamper, for the first time, with their own nature and existence,” The Economist of London editorialized recently. And it is hard to imagine an area more important for political debate and action than this one which will determine the fate of our children and their children.

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Some of the books consulted for Looking back on the Vietnam War:

Richard Drinnon, Facing West The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire-Building (1980);

Frances Fitzgerald, The Fire in the Lake (1972);

War Crimes and the American Conscience (testimony from the Congressional Conference on War and National Responsibility, 1970, edited by Erwin Knoll and Judith N. McFadden);

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Related: see the introductory essay “In the Image of Capital: the rise of biotechnology,” FE #320, Spring, 1985

We are entering the newest phase in the technologization of the world. As microelectronics continues to encroach everywhere, capital is preparing the next wave—that of biotechnology or genetic engineering. Just as nuclear power promised to give us electricity too cheap to meter, so biotech’s publicity promises miracles: it will heal the sick, give children to the infertile, cure cancer, deal with chemical pollution and feed the starving millions. The implications of this technology are so vast and far-reaching that its prophets now speak of the coming biosociety, just as publicists of the computer speak of the information society.

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In this terrifying explication of biotechnology, Tomas Mac Sheoin notes that to reduce the natural world to a single monolithic “logic”—in this case, it is capital’s logic of accumulation and control to which he refers—is to imperil life itself. This totalitarian logic is perceived by Jean Baudrillard as well, in his book Simulations, as “that delirious illusion of uniting the world under the aegis of a single principle;” Baudrillard points out the connection between this totalitarian social program and the “fascination of the biological “: “From a capitalist-productivist society to a neo-capitalist cybernetic order that aims now at total control. This is: the mutation for which the biological theorization of the Code prepares the ground.” (110–111)

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The lynching of a black man, George Floyd, by a white Minneapolis policeman on May 25, sparked widespread and sustained protests, some escalating to uprisings, across the country and the world. They began as a cry against police killings of Black and Brown people, and many grew to include broader demands such as the abolition of the police and prisons and the widespread surveillance and control of daily life. Many also identified with demands for eliminating racial oppression, de-colonization and reparations for past wrongs.

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Fifth Estate

Radical Publishing since 1965

Vol. 55, No. 2, #407, Fall 2020

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

No ads. No copyright. Kopimi — reprint freely

www.FIFTHESTATE.org

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is an author and queer anti-assimilationist activist living in the Capitol Hill district of Seattle. She spoke with Fifth Estate on July 2, the day CHOP, the district’s autonomous zone, was demolished by police. Sycamore’s latest novel The Freezer Door is in part about the stranglehold the suburban imagination has on city life; a meditation on the trauma and possibility of searching for connection in a world that enforces bland norms of gender, sexual, and social conformity.

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“Without the exposure of these Vietnam policies as criminal, there is every likelihood of their repetition in subsequent conflicts.”

—Richard Falk, speaking at the Congressional Conference on War and National Responsibility, convened in Washington, D.C. in early 1970

“Historical memory was never the forte of Americans in Vietnam.”

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Thank you for your patience in waiting for our Spring (almost Summer) issue. Our normal problems (or excuses) were compounded in the last few weeks by a broken typesetter which remained unfixed for a week due to IBM’s reluctance to dispatch a repairman to work on our almost two decades old machine. We are faced now with the decision to forge on into the computer age (choke!) or see if we can nurse along the mechanical nightmare that has served us for so long. A part of the problem is that the new technology of photocomposition is unsuited to our sporadic typesetting needs and is damn expensive to boot.

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For all those world-weary visionaries fed up with ever doleful tones and anxious to hear something concrete and uplifting—didja hear the one about the Detroit People Mover?

It’s this big snakey rail on cement poles that winds around downtown Detroit and looks sort of like MGM’s yellow brick road except it’s not yellow (except in rusty streaks down the sides) and it won’t take you to Kansas. It only trails in a series of question marks back to the Renaissance Center (a maze-like fortress of glass and poured concrete, barricading the river) to which you may have come from Kansas, or to the new “Millender Center Luxury Hotel and Apartments” across the street (which, and this is the truth, prides itself on being “the Tallest Prefab Building in the World” and during construction had signs hanging off each floor, boasting for instance, “13^th floor—completed in 1-1/2 days!”). As things stand now, however, the People Mover won’t take you or anybody else anywhere and possibly, hopefully for everybody’s sake, never will.

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[two_third padding=“0 20px 0 0”]The reinstitution of the military draft is practically a foregone conclusion according to many observers. All that is needed is the official go-ahead from Congress to set the wheels in motion.

The October 1982 government exercise dubbed “Operation Proud Saber” proved that all is in a state of readiness. Draft boards have been trained and are ready to open; rules and regulations are up to date; and military reservists are ready to serve as temporary staff at induction centers across the country. The Selective Service System (SS) awaits only Congressional approval to begin calling up young men.

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Dear People:

I was really glad to see the extensive coverage given to the Big Mountain struggles in FE #317, Summer 1984. The graphics were great, too. More regular updates on indigenous struggles in N. America, the Amazon, Australia and elsewhere would be greatly appreciated.

The direct action anti-war movement, with its external and internal struggles, seems to be overflowing into the anarchist circles now. The War Chest tours over the summer represented, I think, a real breakthrough, along with actions like Rock Island (see FE #317, Summer, 1984).

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The Fifth Estate is a co-operative project, published by a group of friends who are in general, but not necessarily complete agreement with the articles herein. Each segment of the paper represents the collective effort of writing, typesetting, lay-out and proofreading.

The Fifth Estate Newspaper (ISSN No. 0015–0800) is published quarterly at P.O. Box 02548, Detroit, Michigan 48202 USA;

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“Nicaragua’s continued efforts to subvert its neighbors, its rapid and destabilizing military build-up, its close military and security ties to Cuba and the Soviet Union and its imposition of Communist internal rule.”

Such were Ronald Reagan’s reasons, as he left for his visit to honor the Waffen SS at Bitberg, for placing a U.S. economic and travel embargo on Nicaragua. It little mattered to President Bonzo that all of what he said was either a fabrication or a result of American interventionist policy in Central America. Nor did he seem to appreciate the irony of placing trade restrictions on a country at the same moment he was scheduled to embark on a journey which would also include a conference where the concept of free trade between nations would be affirmed.

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As the story goes, Abraham Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of the bestselling and game changing Uncle Tom’s Cabin. “So,” he said, “you’re the little lady who started all the trouble.”

Historian Gerald Horne started some trouble too. His book, The Counter Revolution of 1776, published in 2014, brought into the light of day the long suppressed truth about the so called revolution. More recently, the 1619 Project featured in The New York Times expanded awareness of how much the commitment to enslavement drove the violent secession from British colonial rule.

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

—André Breton

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

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The graphics/collages on pages 9–13 are taken from “Manual for Revolutionary Leaders” by M. Velli, and appear in the book in full color. It is available through our book service and is listed on page 18.

Each construction contains a variety of images representing the rise to power of the leader and his party, and the process of modernization and industrialization.

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Beautiful, marvelous weeks.

America is on fire, america is shining, america is a flower of joyful rage. A dead tree, bearing unexpected fruit.

A fresh batch of lynchings by repulsive pigs and pig wannabes earlier in May. Yet this time it felt different. The wound had a stronger sting to it. Patience already worn thin. It was too much, too much.

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The summary execution of George Floyd by a defender of white supremacy has its antecedents in the contact of Europeans with Africans in the early 17^th century. Since then, black people have been killed when any resistance was offered or even suspected.

In villages in Gambia, on slave ships, in Charleston Harbor, on plantations, in small towns and on back roads of the South, on the streets of any city in America today at the hands of police, unchronicled violence was and is practiced as terror and punishment against black people for not accepting their assigned lowly status. Few ever had their names said the way George floyd’s has all over the world.

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