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Dear Fifth Estate,

“Meat as Murder” in last issue’s letters [FE #317, Summer 1984], should have been titled “Vegetarian Fascism.” Vegetables are also living and to eat them is also murder. We suggest sucking on rocks or having a solar device attached to one’s skull.

The freedom to be a vegetarian is a struggle in the corporate controlled food industry. Most vegetables, fruits, and grains are just as chemically poisoned as meat and dairy products. We would not want anyone (the A.M.A. included) to dictate our diet or any other aspect of our lives.

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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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“The Dogs Hold an Election” is a legend of the Brule Sioux.

We have a little story about elections. Once, a long time ago, the dogs were trying to elect a president. One of them got up in the big dog convention and said: “I nominate the bulldog for president. He’s strong. He can fight.”

“But he can’t run,” said another dog. “What good is a fighter who can’t run? He won’t catch anybody.”

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All right, I admit it. I started the World Series riot in Detroit on October 14, 1984. I tore up the outfield turf, ripped down the entrance signs and tore off other bits of Tiger Stadium to take home with me as souvenirs. Yes, I set fire to that police squad car, then trashed several others while the cops were distracted. Later in the evening, I stood side-by-side with other diehard celebrants at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull, throwing rocks and bottles at the riot police on horseback as they made their way down the street. And, yes, that was me emerging from a looted store on Woodward Avenue with the upper half of a mannequin in my arms, waving the surreal trophy over my head in triumph.

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During Autumn NATO maneuvers in West Germany, thousands of people demonstrated at U.S. military bases, and hundreds were arrested. U.S. military commanders protested, calling on the West German government to crack down on “anarchists and criminals” who have damaged military vehicles, cut fences, sprayed paint and thrown stones at soldiers.

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Government rule was reaffirmed Nov. 6 by a slim majority as only a scant 52.3% of voting-age Americans overcame apathy and disgust enough to enter the polling booth.

Flushed with victory, President Ivan P. Pavlov read his acceptance speech via a talking computer, announcing that the hitherto secret war against the Life Force would be declared official; that more laws would be passed and more police deployed “for the protection of all Americans”; and that more citizens would be mobilized into Service Brigades to fight the Enemy in Eurasia and to increase Production. He welcomed the statement of congratulations sent by Mr. B.F. “Fritz”, Skinner, leader of the Loyal Opposition, which called for National Unity, the continuance of law and order and respect for Authority, the quarantine of Enemy Nations in the Southern Hemisphere, and the rationalization of economic policies. “Sweeping changes will be made,” promised the computer in a startlingly human-sounding voice, “so that our operations can continue unimpeded.” The President urged Americans to return to their homes and workplaces to await further orders; adding, “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”

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On September 27, 1983, during a demonstration protesting the visit of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Ken Deyarmond, a Toronto activist, was pushed from behind toward Thatcher. He was tackled by a cop, thrown to the sidewalk, handcuffed, and charged with “threatening assault on an internationally protected person.” Charges were also added for assault on police and for possession of marijuana. Ken is the first person in Canada to be charged with the crime of threatening a foreign “dignitary” and scheduled to stand trial for it Sept. 25 in Toronto. He was convicted on the pot charge and sentenced to probation although he states categorically that he does not smoke it and certainly would have brought none to a well policed demonstration. Ken has been active in environmental, women’s issues, anti-racist and anti-imperialist politics for a long while in Toronto. He has been an active supporter and friend of the Vancouver Five and is a member of the anti-prison magazine, Bulldozer. The assault charges (Thatcher and the cops) are based on police statements which range from contradictory to inflammatory to outright lies. Ken had this to say about the situation: “(The charges) stem from my mobilizing opposition to the new security spy agency (in Canada). Furthermore, the charges are an attempt to intimidate people from developing more militant politics against racism, sexism and imperialism.” Support is urgently requested for Ken’s defense. Letters of support and much needed financial donations may be sent to Ken Deyarmond Defense Committee, Box 6326, Station “A”, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

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A low-power shortwave pirate radio station has been established in Florida. Tangerine Radio broadcasts 2 half-hour shows every weekend featuring rock music, news of the world and of the anarchist movement, and commentary. Frequencies used are approximately 3450 and 6940 kilocycles. $5 donation will bring a cassette tape of two shows to use for a Free Radio legal defense fund. We’re also putting together a booklet explaining how to start a free radio station. Rick Freeman, Box 541, Orlando FL 32802.

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The FE BOOKSERVICE is located in the same place as the Fifth Estate Newspaper, both of which are at 5928 Second, Detroit, MI 48202. Telephone (313) 831–6800. The hours we are open vary considerably, so it’s always best to give us a call before coming down.

HOW TO ORDER BY MAIL:

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

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The Clydeside Anarchist is a new quarterly publication from Scotland. They can be contacted at Box 3, 488 Great Western Road, Glasgow 12 Scotland. Black Bairn, an anarchist newssheet, can be contacted at the same address.

The May/June issue of Overthrow includes articles on South Africa, Chile, women’s struggles in India, and more. Write P.O. Box 392, Canal St. Station, New York NY 10013.

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We were pleased to see number 1 of Seditious Delicious (PO Box 6981, New York NY 10150), an openly anti-authoritarian (antiauthor-itarian, too?) poetry magazine. As in all poetry journals, be they little self-published magazines or fancy, established publications, you can find the usual mix from poems so bad they make you wince, to spirited and even thrilling songs. Here I even appreciated the stuff I thought bad, since in contrast to the self-serving gunk found in so many small reviews, even the failed attempts in SD often reveal good instincts, if only with a cracked voice. (Anyway, what is “good” and “bad” is ultimately a question for archeologists; if you feel the beat, dance.)

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This account of the blockade of the Rock Island Army Arsenal on June 4^th was written by Mike Haywood of the Disarm Now Action Group, 407 South Dearborn No. 307, Chicago IL 60605. This is neither an endorsement of the anti-war group nor of its politics, although we do not necessarily disagree with either. What interests us is Disarm Now’s creative use of civil disobedience and their call for an autonomous anti-war movement.

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Resistance to two years of aggressive war and occupation in Lebanon is growing in the Israeli armed forces. 2,500 reserve officers have formed a group called Yesh Gvul (“There is a Limit/Border”), and have requested not to be sent to Lebanon. Already 130 of their organization have served prison terms for their refusal to serve there.

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It’s too bad that he had to hear the word from Allah, but still it is heartening to know that at least one Marine refused to be used as cannon fodder in Reagan’s reckless war schemes.

Marine Cpl. Alfred Griffen, a practicing Muslim, told his military superiors in October 1983 that the Koran forbid him to kill fellow religionists in Lebanon or to participate in “a war of egression” in Grenada. Griffin was court-martialed for being AWOL and sentenced to a relatively light four months at hard labor.

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In the Southwest, “U.S. Out of North America” is not just another pretty slogan. In 1680, when Spain presided over the Four Corners Area, Indian ‘runners ran from village to village, launching the Pueblo Revolt, in which Pueblo, Navajo and Hopi Indians united to eliminate every Spaniard they could find, and freed the territory completely from foreign influence. It was twelve years before any of the territory was retaken by Spain and some of it never was, for instance at Hopi.

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As we were just finishing this issue, we received word from the anarchists of the Spooner collective in Willimantic, Connecticut that they are sponsoring an Anarchist UNconvention on Sept. 8. They apparently have a beautiful outdoor spot available for a picnic, music festival and campout. Musicians and bands are being sought to perform. Rain date will be Sept. 15. Full details by sending a SASE to Spooner Collective, Box 433, Willimantic CT 06226 or call their bookshop at (203) 423–5836.

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This exchange on christianity, anarchy, spirituality and resistance, follows an earlier one on religion and radicalism which appeared in the Winter 1984 FE [“Symbolic Protest & The Nuclear State,” FE #315, Winter, 1984]. Christian anti-war activist Bill Kellerman (foreground in photo above at his arrest at Williams International Corporation, a manufacturer of cruise missile engines in Walled Lake, Michigan), and self-described christian anarchist Bill McCormick, reply to the previous exchange, and FE staffer George Bradford responds on the facing page.

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Well, we hope that those of you who have complained for the last two years about our full-sheet size are happy about a return to a tabloid. However, after doing the layout for this edition in the smaller size, it confirms our contention that it is more time-consuming to put together, more difficult to find graphics and actually results in a loss of copy space. No decision yet on the size of the next issue; maybe we’ll even go further in the other direction and put it out in magazine size.

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VANCOUVER BC—Twenty years. That was the sentence handed down by Judge S.M. Toy May 18 to Julie Belmas, of the Vancouver Five. Toy explained that the harsh sentence was to “deter others from acts of anarchy and terrorism.”

Ten years were allotted for the Litton Industries cruise missile factory bombing in Toronto in October 1982; another ten were given for conspiracy to rob a Brink’s truck and other sentences to run concurrent with the 20 years for weapons, arson and theft charges.

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Dear Cave-dwellers:

Nice try, but you really make yourselves look a bit ignorant, not to mention self-righteous, in “El Salvador and Its Politicians” (FE #316, Spring 1984). Guillermo Ungo and his “reformist and Stalinist” FDR/FMLN might well become counterrevolutionary if they came to power, but they ‘re a long way from doing so.

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Millie’s view of Shangri-la was blocked. The child support payments had disappeared because she’d been dating Eddie, and now Eddie was permanently in IreJanet. Little Sammy kept pointing his finger at her, making aggressive noises. The Welfare Office was telling her to leave the kid at some basement daycare and look for gainful employment. In her eyes, gone gray lately from green, one could see shame, self-pity, dejection, disorder, fatigue, fear, desire, and loneliness...and here it was, Tuesday night of all nights, and the TV was blinking.

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Dear Fifth Estate:

As one about to escape the clutches of the US Army (an equal opportunity oppressor) I want to thank you for your paper and its role in keeping me sane/insane. Keep it up, even if you have the misfortune to become the next New Republic (yecchh...)

Strange resistance,

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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 5928 Second Ave., Detroit, Michigan 48202 USA; phone (313) 831–6800. Office hours vary, so please call before visiting. Subscriptions are $5.00 a year; $7.00 foreign including Canada. Second class postage paid at Detroit MI. No copyright. No paid advertisements.

VANCOUVER BC—A tomato thrown at the Judge sentencing her to life in prison clearly articulated Ann Hansen’s contempt for the “Justice System” that is sending her and four other members of the Canadian guerrilla group Direct Action—the Vancouver Five—to lengthy terms in prison.

A viciously right-wing judge with a lengthy history of anti-labor and antiradical sentiments, Judge S.M. Toy, gave Hansen the life term for her conviction on a charge of conspiring to rob a Brink’s guard in order to obscure the political basis of Hansen’s other charges for which lighter sentences were handed down.

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In his article on the idea of number, John Zerzan completes what appears to have become a trilogy on the origins and development of abstraction, and the accompanying alienation of humanity from nature and from the sources of its own being. Despite the difficult and inaccessible character of any anthropological-philosophical investigation of such cultural abstractions as time, language and number, his underlying motive is immediate and urgent—to discern in order to break out of “the wrenching and demoralizing character of the crisis we find ourselves in, above all, the growing emptiness of spirit and artificiality of matter.” He argues, “Who could deny that, in practice, quantity has been mastering us,” adding, “From knowledge, to information, to data, the mathematizing trajectory moves away from meaning...”

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Paul Jacob, the libertarian draft resister who went underground to escape prosecution, was convicted at a July 1 trial, sentenced and denied appeal bond. The penalty was six months imprisonment and 4-1/2 years of weekly community service.

The trial proved to be lively with Paul calling 1980 Libertarian Party candidate Ed Clark and former Congressman Ron Paul to testify on his behalf. Both explained the history of the draft and said that registration and the draft are unconstitutional. Paul also called Gen. Thomas Turnage, director of the Selective Service (SS), as a witness for the defense. Turnage testified that compliance with the registration law implied approval of the system which is one of the reasons that Paul refused to sign. Rhonda Allen, Libertarian activist and Paul’s wife, later described Turnage as a nazi.

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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. Visitots 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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An FE staff member currently traveling outside the U.S. wrote to us upon receiving his FE, that while the content and the layout were good, “there were a fair number of typos, which I’m sure you found as well.” We work hard on the paper, trying to catch every detail, to say things as best we can and to present it all in a dramatic, visually attractive format. Imagine our irritation, when we found, on the first page, that the typist had consistently put a typically gringo spelling Sandanista instead of Sandinista (staff members who speak Spanish had not gotten to proofread that page). That would make the Nicaraguan politicos disciples of Augusto Sandano rather than Sandino. Perhaps a niggling point, except that there are those of us who have always found something bothersome about foreign words and names being mangled in English language texts (though mangled English words in foreign language texts often strike us as amusing).

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See also: “The Machine against the Garden” (author’s introduction) in this issue, FE #321, Indian Summer, 1985.

Your comments as well as the urgings of other friends stimulated me to read Leo Marx’s book The Machine in the Garden. I quickly recognized the reviewer of Hawthorne’s Secret and also the author of the Foreword to my Signet Classic edition of Hawthorne’s superb novel. But I do not regret reading the book. The central themes of Leo Marx’s book have for several years been among my main concerns, and the book’s range as well as the profundity of many of its observations impressed, provoked and disturbed me.

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Critiques of economic development, material progress, technology and industry are not a discovery of the Fifth Estate. Human beings resisted the incursions from the earliest days, and many of North America’s best-known 19^th century writers, among them Melville, Hawthorn and Thoreau, were profound critics of the technological society. Since these writers became “classics of American literature,” and therefore available to all interested readers, defenders of official views have had to carry on a “cold war” against them. The most powerful weapon has been the classroom assignment; most students attacked by this weapon never again cracked a book by a “classic.” Other ways of “conquering and pacifying” the classics have been more subtle: the authors were maligned, the works were misinterpreted, the critiques were diverted and at times inverted.

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See also: “The Machine against the Garden” (author’s introduction) in this issue, FE #321, Indian Summer, 1985.

Web archive note: Numbers in the text are related to references at the end. They are not errors in numbering endnotes.

While skimming through a recent issue of your magazine, I came across a caricature of a man baring his chest and exposing a letter stamped or branded on it. I supposed that the mark was intended to be a scarlet letter, even though the cartoon was black and white. I learned that the branded man in the cartoon was supposed to be Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of an unforgettable exposure of bigots who branded human beings with scarlet letters.

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It is with great sorrow that we announce the passing of our friend and comrade, Fredy Perlman, who died while undergoing heart surgery in Detroit on July 26, 1985.

Fredy Perlman escaped Czechoslovakia as a very young child just before the nazi takeover, thus barely avoiding, in his words, that “rationally planned extermination of human beings, the central experience of so many people in an age of highly developed science and productive forces...” His life experiences and his ideas were framed within that context—the life-crushing machinery and the varieties of human response.

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Fredy Perlman was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia on August 20, 1934. He emigrated with his parents to Cochabamba, Bolivia in 1938 just ahead of the Nazi takeover. The Perlman family came to the United States in 1945 and lived variously in Mobile, Alabama, Brooklyn, Queens before settling in Lakeside Park, Kentucky, a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio where Fredy graduated high school.

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In all the-publicity and controversy over the film “Rambo: First Blood, Part II,” an interesting comparison of fictional characters named Rambo might add to our understanding of how and why such characters are created and received. While Johnny Rambo is quickly becoming enshrined in popular and political discourse as a symbol of a vengeful “Captain America” here, a much lesser known Rambo is hidden away.

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Since 1954, when a U.S.-backed coup toppled the democratically elected reformist government of Jacobo Árbenz, there has been a succession of military regimes aided by the U.S. The Guatemalan people, 60% of whom are Mayan Indians, have fought through both peaceful and violent means for social change; the Guatemalan state’s response has been the brutal suppression of any and all movements of opposition or reform.

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Late 1985

Dear People:

North America’s disarmament movement has gone from momentum to defeat during the first half of the 1980s, but we have not heard much candor about the dimensions of the loss. Arms-race boosters see little reason to taunt floundering adversaries—who tend to be busy cheering for the disarmament team while steering clear of somber assessments. Increasingly, the anti-nuclear movement’s propaganda of the word is being outmatched by the nuclear establishment’s propaganda of the deed; disarmament advocates decry while thermonuclear advocates deploy.

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Discussed in this article

I...Rigoberta Menchu. An Indian Woman in Guatemala, Edited by Elisabeth Burgos-Debray, translated by Ann Wright, The Thetford Press, Thetford, Norfolk, England, 1984.

Indian women and U.S. military attache George Maynes, observing a demonstration (1982).

Although circumstance has forced Rigoberta Menchu, a twenty-three-year-old Quiche Indian woman, to tell her story in Spanish, the language of her oppressors, she speaks it from her Quiche heart with an honesty, a directness, and a simplicity of language characteristic only of one who is close to the earth.

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Despite its much publicized popularity, the film “Rambo...Part II”, has been blasted nationwide by many groups and individuals. A San Francisco Vietnam veterans group, calling themselves “Veterans’ Speakers Alliance,” picketed in July in front of a local theater showing the film.

This group of Vietnam vets, as well as others around the country, have been quoted as saying that Stallone’s film misrepresents the realities of the war, glorifies its horrors and exploits the sacrifices of the men who fought it.

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Shortly after we published our issue with a discussion of the war in Vietnam, [Looking back on the Vietnam War, FE #320, Spring, 1985] an article appeared in the New York Times about studies done by the Vietnamese government and the Switzerland-based International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources concerning the effects of the “ecocide” (a word coined during the Vietnam war to describe the U.S. war there) on the land since the end of the U.S. war. The study traces developments since 1945 in a 97-page document, portraying a rural and agricultural nation devastated by “deliberate destruction of the environment as a military tactic on a scale never before seen in the history of warfare.”

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The following text was originally published as a leaflet and distributed at this year’s Hiroshima Day observance sponsored by the Detroit Area Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign.

“What the powerful call utopia is now in fact the condition for human survival.”

—C. Wright Mills, The Causes of World War Three, 1958

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Dear Fifth Estate,

In your June, 1985 issue [Letters, FE #320, Spring, 1985] Lev Chernyi joined the Big Mountain discussions and described an uncomfortable experience at the 1980 Black Hills Gathering. Chernyi was also responding to previous letters to the Fifth Estate which complained about some of the messages of the article on Big Mountain which I wrote last year. In that article I had referred to the necessity for “respect for the elders” and other guidelines on how to get along, as a non-Indian, when visiting Indian lands.

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Fifth Estate:

I want to offer some criticisms of the latest issue. The Vietnam article [Web archive note: This article first appeared in FE #320, Spring 1985. With an added Introduction by Richard Drinnon it was reprinted in FE #346, Summer, 1995.] was a bit strange: even with the understanding that the author, George Bradford, used to be a supporter of the stalinists in Vietnam, it offered no analysis of “wars of national liberation” (much less of one that lasted so long), which formed an integral aspect of the war. Space limitations aside, at least an attempt to approach that aspect of the war needed to be addressed. (It also seems that Bradford still idealizes the NLF.)

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[two_third padding=“0 20px 0 0”]We have finally firmed up plans for the Fifth Estate 20^th Anniversary celebration. It will be held at Alvin’s, 5756 Cass Ave., Detroit, on Dec. 7. Hopefully, the event will bring together many of those who have worked on the paper over the last two decades, as well as all those who want to help us celebrate. Music will be by the Layabouts who will have just released their album by that time. Also, there will be a dinner the same night for present and former staff members, so if you were part of the paper at any time, please write so we can plan a grand reunion.

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Dear Fifth Estate:

Generally, the Fifth Estate is great. Articles are principled, well reasoned, sometimes poetic. But the review of Noam Chomsky’s book by Pat Flanagan (see Chomsky, Freedom & Truth, FE #320, Spring 1985) ended with Flanagan’s advocacy of “intolerance of the intolerant,” or more specifically, intolerance of what someone judges intolerant.

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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, lay-out and proofreading.

The Fifth Estate Newspaper (ISSN No. 0015.0800) is published quarterly at P.O. Box 02548, Detroit, Michigan 48202 USA; phone (313) 831–6800.

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South Africa—the rock of colonial racism—has finally begun to crack under the repeated blows of the general and sustained uprising of its black and colored population.

Perhaps the most telling sign that the end of formal apartheid is near is the sudden conversion of South African business leaders to its abolition. Their late September newspaper ad campaign contending “There is a better way,” demanded an end to racial segregation and “peace talks” with black leaders, and breaks significantly with the intransigent Afrikaner commitment to legal and formal white domination. Only a month previously, South African President P.W. Botha pledged no compromise with the black revolt.

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FE Note: In the following article, Hakim Bey moves beyond his idea of the Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ)—those moments when normally domesticated space is liberated for a limited time for festive and subversive “moments of happiness.” He discusses what happens when those moments become fixed in time and space.

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Beltane is the high festival of Spring. Its origins are ancient Celt. In the old times, people celebrated the end of Winter and the turning of the Wheel to the greening of the land with dancing, feasting and lovemaking. They wove the Maypole, decorated themselves with garlands of flowers, looking forward to a new season of growth and abundance. In America, May 1^st officially became Law Day to separate it from international May Day celebrations associated with communist nations and radical labor movements. U.S. Labor Day was established almost half a year away and is the occasion for civic, not labor, festivities.

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The Trumbull Theater Collective brings together a diverse group of people for the radical project of creating an authentic egalitarian community. We offer low-cost, self-governed, cooperatively-owned, non-profit, communal housing for community activists, students & young families in two, deteriorating, 100-year-old mansions in Detroit’s inner city. Also, there is a theater and meeting space attached to one of the houses. We strive to embody the anarchist principles of voluntary association, mutual aid, & human liberation. We see the Trumbull as an anti-authoritarian center of art & activism based on anti-racist action, feminism, queer liberation, ecology and anarchy.

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The Fifth Estate always welcomes letters commenting on our articles, stating opinions, or giving reports of events in local areas. We don’t guarantee we will print everything we receive, but all letters are read by our staff and considered.

Typed letters or ones on disk are appreciated, but not required.

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