Most Recent Additions

We never could figure out which faction was responsible for the auto-destruction of New York City’s Sabotage Bookstore (the pamphlets published by either side casting blame are definitely not recommended reading), but we had the same sensation one does when watching a once loving couple rage at one another. Fortunately, people close to the excellent Shadow newspaper (PO Box 20298, New York NY 10009) have established the city’s only “underground anarchist bookstore” featuring publications, records, tapes and books, as well as pins, t-shirts, posters and the like. A-Central Books is located at 208 E. 7^th St., phone (212) 674–0581, and also contains a People’s Switchboard with information on local, national and international anarchist events.

...

a review of

Bisexuality: A Reader and Sourcebook edited by Thomas Geller (available for $10.95 from Times Change Press c/o Publishers Services, Box 2510, Novato, CA 94948 or the FE Bookstore)

We are sometimes afraid of the risks which must be taken when we integrate discussions of sexuality and gender into the life of our activist community. It’s rather dangerous to try to define a “politically correct” sexuality for anti-authoritarians. The gay vs. straight or monogamy vs. non-monogamy discussions (and a huge list of other related discussions) should be most familiar to those of us whose lives, identified with communities of resistance, transcend (or defy) a purely political involvement. Discussions of gender and sexuality do have serious implications for our politics (or anti-politics).

...

discussed in this article:

Encyclopaedia of Nuisances: Dictionary of the irrational in the sciences, trades and industrial arts, April 1989, “Abyss.” Author anonymous, no price listed. Available from Boite postale 188, 75665 Paris Cedex 14 France

“It seems somewhat ridiculous to talk of revolution...But everything else is even more ridiculous, since it implies accepting the existing order in one way or another.”

...

The FE Bookstore is located at 4632 Second Ave., just south of W. Forest, in Detroit. We share space with the Fifth Estate Newspaper and may be reached at the same phone number: (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;

...

[Translator’s note: Recently, a voluminous dossier began to circulate in France. The dossier, sent by Os Cangaceiros, included stolen prison plans and documents and a chronology outlining Os Cangaceiros’s campaign of sabotage against the “13,000 project” (new maximum security penitentiaries with room for 13,000 prisoners), as well as reproductions of communiques sent to those who were targeted. Interestingly, the police and companies which were attacked have been very discreet about this campaign, apparently wishing to give it as little publicity as possible. The following excerpts from the dossier have been translated from Mordicus, B.P. 11, 75622 Paris cedex 13, France, and Le Monde Libertaire, 145 rue Amelot, 75011 Paris, France].

...

See Fifth Estate introduction in this issue.

Social revolutions are not “made” by parties, groups, or cadres; they occur as a result of deep-seated historic forces and contradictions that activate large sections of the population. They occur not merely (as Trotsky argued) because the “masses” find the existing society intolerable, but also because of the tension between the actual and the possible, between “what is” and “what could be.”

...

Although the phrase, “The first casualty in war is truth,” has been aptly realized in the media coverage of the Persian Gulf war, the truth is often the last casualty as well. In the case of America’s military adventure in Vietnam, numerous Big Lies about that conflict continue sixteen years after the U.S. defeat.

...

On Malcolm X Day, February 21, in Detroit, members of two rival leftist sects slugged it out for control of a microphone following an anti-war march organized as part of nationwide protests against the Gulf war.

The demonstration of 125 people was sponsored by a local anti-war coalition, but those calling the shots all seemed to be from the trotskyist Socialist Workers Party (SWP). The brawl occurred at the protest after-glow on the Wayne State University campus where about half the marchers gathered to discuss what to do next.

...

The article appearing on the following two pages, “The Myth of the Party,” by Murray Bookchin (from his essay “Listen Marxist”) was first excerpted in FE #272, May 1976. We reprint it hoping it will be of interest to a new generation of anti-war and social activists who find themselves beset by the return of the living dead—marxist-leninist parties.

...

FE Note: There continues to be a sometimes rancorous debate within the anarchist movement about how best to combat the system. What follows is meant to be critical but comradely. We in no way doubt the spirit of those we criticize in this article, only their judgment.

Unfortunately, even for a small number of those who espouse the ideas of anarchy, the modern form of organization (which both the left and the right employ) holds an allure as a seemingly efficient manner in which to confront the state and capitalism. However, when adopted by anarchists, the formal organizational mode has been no more successful than it has for leninists.

...

Having had the privilege of living for a time among stone age peoples of Brazil, a very civilized European of considerable erudition wrote afterwards, “Civilization is no longer a fragile flower, to be carefully preserved and reared with great difficulty here and there in sheltered corners...All that is over: humanity has taken to monoculture, once and for all, and is preparing to produce civilization in bulk, as if it were sugar-beet. The same dish will be served to us every day.” [1]

...

Participants in the 400-person anarchist contingent carry banners from the New York-based Autonomous Anarchist Action group at the Jan. 26 Washington DC march. —photo/Mitch

The following is a brief summary of the many anti-war actions which occurred in the Detroit area since just before the January 16 U.S. air assault on Iraq. The numbers involved here were considerably lower than anti-war actions in other large metropolitan areas such as San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis, Chicago and New York, where tens, and even hundreds, of thousands participated. Reasons for the small numbers in Detroit are linked to racial, geographical and political patterns of our city (a story best told another time), but we did what we could with the people we had to impede the war machine and express the depth of our rage against the government.

...

“Clemenceau, Lloyd George, Woodrow Wilson. Three old men shuffling the pack, dealing out the cards: The Rhineland, Danzig, the Polish Corridor, the Ruhr, self-determination of small nations, the Saar, League of Nations, mandates, the Mespot, Freedom of the Seas, Trans-Jordania, Shantung, Fiume, and the Island of Yap: machinegun fire and arson, starvation, lice, cholera, typhus, oil was trumps.”

...

Fifth Estate

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 4632 Second Ave., Detroit, Michigan 48201 USA; phone (313) 831–6800. Office hours vary, so please call before visiting. Subscriptions are $6.00 a year; $8.00 foreign including Canada. Second class postage paid at Detroit MI. No copyright. No paid advertisements.

...

At 6:46 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on January 16, 1991, George Bush, Commander-in-Chief of the Empire’s armed forces, announced in Washington DC, “The liberation of Kuwait has begun.” And, at that moment half a world away in Iraq, the most furious air assault in history commenced against a nation which fit perfectly into the larger schemes of the United States.

...

[three_fifth padding=“0 20px 0 0”]In George Orwell’s 1984, protagonist Winston Smith has acquired a copy of the arch-traitor Emmanuel Goldstein’s manual for totalitarian domination, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchic Collectivism, in which he reads that the ideal party member “should be a credulous and ignorant fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation and orgiastic triumph. In other words it is necessary that he should have the mentality appropriate to a state of war.” The novel functions in great part through ironic reversals (the subversive conspiracy is contrived by the police, etc.); it should come as no surprise, then, that the reality it illuminates is not so much the otherness of the state socialist dictatorships that it originally resembled, but rather the oligarchic collectivism of modern corporate capital and its military-industrial garrison states—those states waging their brutal crusade against “Eurasia,” now that former enemies appear to be vanquished and incorporated into the empire.

...

“Helmeted Hornbill” Marius Mason 2019

MARIUS MASON, AN ANARCHIST TRANS PRISONER serving 22-years for environmental sabotage, has been moved to a low security prison in Danbury, Conn.

The painting above will be one of two dozen as part of an exhibit of Marius’s work at the Maine Film Center in Waterville, Maine on Sept. 20. Fifth Estate staff member, Peter Werbe, will speak and singer/songwriter, David Rovics will perform. Check the Fifth Estate web site and Facebook page for more info.

As opposed to the mechanistic, cold, pseudo-scientific dogma of Marxists and others, we know that the urge for revolution has to come from a deeper place in our lives. The Spanish anarchists said they had “a new world in their hearts,” which provided a vision for their struggles. The idea of re-enchantment of the world mirrors that longing as a prefiguring of what we want. We dedicate this issue to those in the past who have fought for a new world and to those today who continue in their footsteps.

...

Send letters to fe [@] fifthestate [dot] org or Fifth Estate, POB 201016, Ferndale MI 48220

All formats accepted including typescript & handwritten.

Letters may be edited for length.

Fifth Estate note: We usually don’t print letters of this length, but thought this encapsulated the sexual immiseration suffered by many. We don’t offer advice in this matter, but invite others to suggest how best to navigate sex and partnering.

...

Last June, I was invited by the anarchist publisher, Textos Subterraneos, to speak about the newly-published Portuguese edition of my book, The Garden of Peculiarities, in Lisbon and Oporto. Of interest to FE readers, TS has also put out an anthology of Fredy Perlman’s work, A Reprodugio da Vida Quotidian e Outros Escritos.

...

The FE BOOKSERVICE is located in the same place as the Fifth Estate Newspaper, both of which are located at 4403 Second Avenue, Detroit MI 48201—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;

...

a review of

Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, adrienne maree brown, Editor. AK Press, 2019 AKpress.org

This book is about creation, the act of re-creating the world; about a new world, a new language, a new flesh. Politics based around healing and happiness. adrienne maree brown and her fellow contributors offer a gift of unspeakable value by way of this sturdy, hilarious, tragic book. By helping to reinvigorate the world with magick and remembrance of the ancestors, it is more revolutionary than any text I can recall reading in years.

...

In the last issue of the FE, we reported that Cienfuegos in the United Kingdom had closed up shop. What we failed to mention was that the U.S. branch, Cienfuegos/Soil of Liberty, is still going strong publishing their own books and distributing Cienfuegos books. This group has two new publications, the latest Anarchist Review, and a book entitled With the Peasants of Aragon, by Augustin Souchy. Both are available from Cienfuegos Distribution, 3512 12^th Avenue S., Minneapolis Minnesota 55407. Cienfuegos UK will continue under the name REFRAC. For more information, write REFRAC Publications, BCM Refract, London WC1N 3XX, United Kingdom...

...

The possibility of total destruction through nuclear war corresponds to a condition of ruin everywhere that makes such destruction attractive. And in the absence of opposition that contests everything about the existing social order, only the eruption of nuclear war can be expected to put an end to our present flattened lives.

...

One of the 28 or so Radios Libres (Free Radios) broadcasting in Paris is Radio Libertaire. “La Voix Sans Maitre” (The Voice Without Master) sponsored by the Fédération Anarchiste Française (The French Anarchist Federation). The FAF is comprised of 120 French anarchist groups and began transmission of the underground station in September 1981.

...

B. Traven, The White Rose, Lawrence Hill & Co., Westport, CT, 1979, 209 pages, ($5.95, available from Fifth Estate Bookstore)

reviewed by L.S.D.

The White Rose by B. Traven is the story of the destruction of the pearl that was the most beautiful of all, the Rosa-Blanca, The White Rose, and its transformation into an industrial wasteland. This Mexican hacienda was almost entirely surrounded by land rich in oil owned by the Condor Oil Co., where rich wells poured forth thick streams of black gold. The richest of these wells bordered Rosa Blanca where Jacinto Yanez, owner of the hacienda, and sixty Totonac Indian families lived and had lived in almost the same manner for generations past, for Rosa Blanca was their ancestral home.

...

a review of

Seizure of State Power, Part 3 of Manual for Revolutionary Leaders by Michael Velli. Sources of Velli’s thought annotated by Fredy Perlman. Black & Red (2019) BlackandRed.org

Spoiler alert: This text is not well-intentioned advice for those seeking to lead the working class and seize the power of the state. Quite the opposite. It is a polemic against those who seek such a role.

...

Those of us who include abstention from voting as part of our libertarian or anarchist principles can look back at the November elections and smugly state the obvious, “Nobody won.” As usual, less than half of the eligible electorate bothered to participate in the fraud of “democracy,” i.e., which crook will represent our lives to the political expression of capital.

...

a review of

This Is Not a Photo Opportunity: The Street Art of Banksy

Artist: Banksy, Photographs by Martin Bull. PM Press, 2014 pmpress.org

Anonymous England-based vandal Banksy, most known for graffiti-like works across the planet recently made news with his latest prank, by destroying it, or rather by it destroying itself. Upon selling at Sotheby’s, an art auction in London, Girl with Red Balloon, autonomously shredded itself before bidders. This was a departure from previous works, which are displayed in Martin Bull’s 2014 book, This Is Not a Photo Opportunity. There is a problem with Bull’s book. You discover the issue when you approach the text more critically than you would a coffee table book, which might be all that this is.

...

On May Day 1919, in the immediate aftermath of World War I, a general strike began that shut down all economic activity in Winnipeg, Canada. The general strikes that took place in Glasgow, Scotland in January 1919, in Seattle in February 1919, along with the Winnipeg strike remain some of the high watermarks in North American working class history.

...

a review of

1919: A Graphic History of the Winnipeg General Strike. Graphic History Collective and David Lester. Between The Lines (2019)

Although the term graphic novel may seem used simply to gussie up what many would call a comic book, the phrase generally describes a publication with more serious content than what you find in Marvel’s superhero tales of Captain America, Iron Man, The Hulk, Spider-Man, and the rest.

...

This article, which began as a review of Frederick Turner’s inspiring work of intuitive history, Beyond Geography: The Western Spirit Against the Wilderness, is now the introductory section of a book in progress treating similar and related questions—the origins of the state, the destruction of myth-centered, communitarian, free societies by authoritarian machines and economic social relations, the varied forms of resistance to and flight from the state, and other seminal and provocative problems.

...

a review of

Woman at War

Director: Benedikt Erlingsson

104 min. (2018)

You might be surprised to find the protagonist in this action-packed movie about a saboteur, Woman at War, is not a buxom blonde nor a dark-skinned foreign terrorist, but a white, middle-aged woman with a few visible wrinkles that appear around the eyes.

...

During October, two non-registrants in contact with the Fifth Estate received warning letters from the Selective Service System (SSS) regarding their failure to report. This broke an almost two year silence on the part of the government during which the two men had heard nothing on their status. Both initially assumed that the government was now on to their “delinquent” status and that, due to the recent prosecution of resisters taking place, a confrontation was in the making. This seemingly purposeful notification is probably due to the expanded efforts of the SSS to identify those who have failed to register by matching up registration forms with social security numbers, Internal Revenue Service computer printouts and some state Motor Vehicle Department lists. Still, other resisters known to the Fifth Estate have yet to receive any notification whatsoever, which indicates that the SSS process for identifying offenders remains haphazard.

...

WASHINGTON, DC—The following statement was made by Paul Jacob, a political activist who was indicted by the Arkansas Grand Jury on September 23, 1982 for failure to register for the draft. Although he is the 11^th person to be indicted for this offense, Jacob’s case is unique in that he is the only draft resister who has been indicted that the FBI cannot locate for prosecution, despite a nationwide search. Jacob left his home in 1981 (after receiving a threatening letter from the Selective Service System) and has been living underground in an attempt to avoid prosecution. His statement follows:

...

On October 14 a bomb blast ripped apart a production building at the Litton Systems Canada Ltd. plant in Rexdale, Ontario, causing an estimated $5 million in damage. The group Direct Action claimed responsibility for the bombing, which also injured seven people.

Direct Action is apparently the same group that claimed responsibility for the bombing of power transformers on Vancouver Island in British Columbia (see FE #309, June 19, 1982, for Direct Action’s communique and our comments on it). This time, seven people were injured, due to the bomber’s mistakes and the apparent incompetence of Litton’s security personnel.

...

These are bad times and getting depressed about the situation is an easy trap to fall into. But then there’s always that little spark that makes you think there’s still a chance for humanity. New York’s Sentry Armored Car-Courier Co. heist for $5.3 million, brought on such a spark.

On the night of December 14, two people cut their way through the roof of the Sentry garage and office building and made off with the loot (Sentry officials put the amount at around $5.3, while FBI agents are talking of $8 million or more). Everyone I talked to was elated after reading the front page stories of this “victimless crime.” A hold-up where no one was hurt, the guard was handcuffed to a stairway, and where the daring and adventure of such an act brought life to the dreams of millions of people. Where the unpredictable act of these two “criminals” gave meaning to desires in the otherwise pre-arranged and predictable day-to-day lives of the people on the street. Personally, the heart-warming headlines concerning the Sentry robbery, also made me think back to another “take the money and run” situation that happened earlier this year in the Motor City.

...

Roger Noel, a Belgian anarchist imprisoned in Warsaw since July 5, was set free on November 26^th by the Polish authorities after paying a fine of 900,000 Zlotys ($900 U.S. currency). He was accused of smuggling radio material into Poland and was sentenced to three years in jail or the fine which was paid through the intermediary of the Belgian Embassy in Warsaw, after having been raised in Belgium by the “Free Roger Noel Committee.”

...

A friend and I, one recent evening, stroll into the Oak Park Community Center. Sundry activities are taking place, bridge-playing, music groups, etc. We’re not there 60 seconds when this guy—janitor, custodian or whoever he was—barges up with the cop-like “CAN I HELP YOU FELLAS?” At first, but eyeing the man, my friend tells him that, since it’s a public place, we’re simply looking around. The worker takes on an increasing anxiety, as though wondering who we are, what we’re up to. Like maybe we’ll steal the building! Or rape the females! (even though most, that evening, were there taking karate lessons).

...

Hello:

I would like to subscribe to the Fifth Estate. I’m impressed with the content or the majority of it enough to want to see more.

However, the format and layout will assure you that only the true believers will ever read it regularly. You don’t break up the columns, it’s endlessssssssss. Visually it’s dull; reminds me of The Weekly People, only with possibilities.

...

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 4403 Second Ave., Detroit, Michigan 48201 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

...

1. Not felt except by a very few under especially favorable circumstances.

Marginal and long-period effects.

2. Felt only by a few persons at rest, or favorably placed.

Delicately suspended objects may swing.

3. Felt quite noticeably especially on upper levels.

Many people do not recognize it.

Hanging objects swing.

...

Norman Mayer tried to stop the Missile X and failed. On the morning of December 8 the 66-year-old Miami man drove his van up to the Washington Monument, threatening to blow up the structure with 1,000 pounds of dynamite. Not interested in taking human lives, he insisted that nine people inside be evacuated. Perhaps he could have toppled that ugly stone spire resembling a hooded Ku Klux Klansman, or even broken a few windows in the White House. (In fact, a White House luncheon attended by President Reagan was moved to a room facing away from the monument grounds.) But no bombs were exploded and no White House windows broken.

...

Mass murder, random killings and the like are nothing new in this country; Bruce Springsteen, in his ballad about a killing spree in the late 1950s by Charlie Starkweather, sings, “It’s just a meanness in this land, sir.”

It seems someone blows their top, flips their lid almost daily. So, reports of a homophobic minister’s son in New York City shooting into a crowd of gays, or a driver ramming her car into pedestrians packed onto a Las Vegas sidewalk, or a disgruntled client tossing gasoline bombs before him as he shoots his way through a crowded Detroit law office, or a bored Southern California school girl who calmly fires round after round into her school yard, become almost mundane, ordinary, such is their frequency. They are the small percentage of flip-outs, those whose rage has gotten out of control.

...

a review of

Blood of the Earth: Resource Nationalism, Revolution, and Empire in Bolivia by Kevin A. Young, 2017, University of Texas Press

Kevin Young’s Blood of the Earth examines the period of Bolivian history after the country’s 1952 revolution, in which the Nationalist Revolutionary Movement (MNR) was able to overthrow the ruling military government with the help of popular militias led by factory workers and miners.

...

How dreary—to be—Somebody!

How public—like a Frog—

To tell one’s name—the livelong June—

To an admiring bog!

—Emily Dickinson

Dogwoods swathed in delicate white, gently clear their winter throats as cable news updates crawl and grovel for her attention. But she doesn’t blog, pin, Snapchat, Instagram or—God No!—tweet, and her dumb phone shortcomings are just fine. She the freak in the waiting room without an umbilical glow in her palm, just a paperback copy of something she fills with marginalia.

...

From its Eat the Rich Gang incarnation in the 1970s, Fifth Estate has been an unparalleled source of new ideas. Thinkers like Fredy Perlman, Jacques Ellul, and Jacques Camatte were introduced and moved anti-authoritarian perspectives forward very significantly.

I was happy to be a part of an exciting opening, as many of us pondered the limitations and defeat of the 1960s. Foundational critiques of technology and civilization emerged.

...

The inflated effigy of a head of state, dressed in nothing but a diaper, floats over a joyous crowd of protesters on a sunny day. Beneath the surface description, two spirits can be perceived, the vile spirit of a deranged despot and the angry but hopeful and playful spirit of collective refusal.

Images such as this appear in current protests against the rule of racketeers like Trump. They are artistic weapons wielded against repressive reality, a part of radical history we are privileged to experience directly. In opposing authority, it is important to explore many cultural expressions of revolt, their past as well as present incarnations.

...

a review of

Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons by Silvia Federici, Foreword by Peter Linebaugh. PM Press, 2019

Silvia Federici was born in Italy, taught for years in Nigeria, made many visits to South America, and now lives and teaches in the U.S. This broad experience, along with extensive scholarship, provides the wide angle lens which enables the perspective on view in her new book, Re-Enchanting the World.

...

Decentralization of the Detroit Public School System has emerged as a major issue confronting this city. Within this conflict there exists a strong potential for radical change. Recognizing this, many activist groups have joined in the struggle for effective decentralization.

This becomes a radical issue when the part that is played by education in the Amerikan system is considered.

...