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Six hundred young Americans are planning to show their support this winter for the Cuban revolution by taking to that country’s fields armed with machetes.

They will be members of the Venceremos Cane-Cutting Brigade and will join with Cubans in a battle to harvest 10 million tons of sugar cane.

Venceremos is Spanish for “We Shall Triumph” and is the motto of the Cuban revolution.

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Editors’ Note: this interview with poet Allen Ginsberg took place at 10 a.m. on October 15 while driving from Detroit’s inner city to Macomb College, where he was reading. Ginsberg was in the area doing a series of readings for the John Sinclair Defense Fund and a benefit for the Ann Arbor Argus.

Fifth Estate: What place does poetry have in the United States, at the present time, in connection with the movement?

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Editors’ Note: Roman Gribbs is Sheriff of Wayne County and candidate for mayor of Detroit. Part of his attempt to sell himself to the people of our city has been on the basis of his role in reforming the Wayne County Jail, which is his responsibility.

Long a chamber of horrors, the Sheriff has been able to enlist the cooperation of Detroit’s two daily papers to create an illusion that his dungeon has become a fit place for humans to inhabit due to his work.

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There is a Saying: “Good writing is counter-revolutionary. According to Ellen Willis (who did a piece on the Chicago Pig Riot in New American Review No. 6) good writing “is a reminder that literature is basically an activity of mandarins, that it is all too easy for a writer to start thinking like a mandarin, that literary mandarins will be eager to recruit us, since there are too few good writers around. It is an exhortation not to glory in literacy as an end in itself, but to use it responsibly. And by responsibly I don’t mean judiciousness, intellectual respectability, or the balanced view. I mean responsibility to our fellows and our struggle.”

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“I believe that if we had and would keep our dirty, bloody, dollar-crooked fingers out of the business of these nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own.”

—General David M. Shoupe, Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps. Retired

It’s hard to believe that the war in Vietnam is still dragging on. The generals have already lost the war in the Vietnamese countryside and are now fighting a losing battle to hold on to the few cities and enclaves left to them.

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Special to the Fifth Estate

CHICAGO, Oct. 25—This week the Conspiracy is still learning about agents and informers.

Tobin, Chicago Police-undercover; Carcarano, Chicago Police-undercover; Rodriguez, Chicago Police-undercover; Salzberg, underground press photographer known personally and more or less trusted by many of the defendants, got paid $10,000 as an FBI informer for the last two years, code name Winston; Sweeny, FBI Informer; Killian, reporter for the far right Chicago Tribune, Chicago Police-undercover. The list goes on.

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The news of the fighting in Lebanon fills the headlines of the newspapers across the US. “Fall of Tripoli Looms,” “Guerrillas Gain in Lebanon,” and on and on. Why is there fighting? What are they fighting for?

Reading the mass media, watching one’s TV, and listening to the news on the radio, quickly confirms the media’s “confusion” on the dynamics raging all around them. There is not any understanding manifested beyond the “cowboys and Indians” mentality.

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LOS ANGELES (LNS)—Operation Intercept, billed as the biggest and best-publicized anti-narcotics campaign in history, has come to a close, according to officials in Washington—and with it closes a colorful and exciting chapter in the continuing story of America’s War on Dope.

Late in September, Deputy Attorney General Richard Kleindeinst sat down behind a mountain of kilo bricks of pot at a Los Angeles press conference and said, “this is war.” Two explanations were advanced by observers.

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It has recently come to light that the Detroit Police Department has armed and trained a volunteer force of 1,500 civilians as Emergency Police Reserves.

This force was created after the 1967 Detroit rebellion to aid police in case of another major bid for freedom by the black community or during a natural disaster.

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In a surprise but not so surprising appearance at a regular City of Plymouth City Commission meeting on Monday, Oct. 21, twelve anointed Veterans of Foreign Wars of one of the local posts registered their objections to the liberation of our brothers and sisters in that city.

The VFW read a statement which said in part, “We strongly object to the fact that certain publications, namely underground newspapers, have been made available to the students of Plymouth schools. Our objections primarily are to the vulgar and sexually provocative language, the disrespect for law and order and the overthrow of government.” Right on!

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Six million Jews did not die in Germany during World War II, anyone should know there was but sixty thousand of them in all of Europe. Franklin Roosevelt was a dirty commie. John Sinclair is a dirty commie. Water fluoridation and LSD are both Communist plots. So is marijuana. All the yellow trash in Asia is not worth the life of one white, American soldier.

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Bring the Fifth Estate to Washington as you march to bring the troops home. The Fifth Estate will have an increased press run of our issue scheduled to come out right before the next days of protest against the war. It will be available to vendors about noon on Wednesday, Nov. 13 from our office at 1107 W. Warren. The cost to vendors is 10 cents per copy and can be sold at the actions here for 20 cents and in Washington for a quarter.

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“To Serve the People”

EDITORIAL GROUP

Alan Gotkin

Peter Werbe

Cathy West

MANAGING EDITOR

Bill Rowe

DISTRIBUTION

Keep On Truckin Co-op

STAFF

Jane Capellaro

Dena Clamage

Bob Fleck

David Gaynes

Joel Landy

Bruce Montrose

Claudia Montrose

Marilyn Werbe

Tommye Wiese

POLITICAL PRISONER

John Sinclair

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John Sinclair was arraigned in Federal District Court in Detroit Oct. 23, on charges that he conspired with two other White Panthers to place explosives at an Ann Arbor CIA office last year.

The others accused are Jack Forrest and Pun Plamondon, White Panther Minister of Defense, who still has not been apprehended at this writing. Pun is charged in a separate count of doing the &crust bombing that ripped apart the international pig office.

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On October 15, 25,000 Detroiters added their voice to the millions of others across the country saying “End the War in Vietnam, Bring All the Troops Home Now.” President Nixon, as he had promised, did not listen to that cry. The war continues and so does the Fall Anti-War Offensive.

The dates for the next phase are Nov. 13, 14, and 15. We urge every American who wants the carnage in Vietnam ended to participate as fully as possible in the scheduled events of those days.

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Almost exactly two years ago, tens of thousands of demonstrators came down on Washington, D.C., to let the Pentagon feel the force of their opposition to the war in Vietnam.

Few of them got inside the Pentagon, nearly a thousand were arrested on the steps outside, beaten with clubs and rifle butts, gassed.

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In cooperation with Detroit Adventure

THURS. -OCT. 16

NEWSREEL SHORTS and features in Lower DeRoy Aud. 8 pm. Adm. 75 cents. They will be presenting Newsreel flics every Thurs. nite. Be sure to attend.

OPEN CITY FREE MEDICAL CLINIC. They will gladly cure your ills only come about an hour early (5:30 pm) to sign your name so you don’t have to wait so long. 6:30–8:30 pm. 4726 Third.

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

QUESTION: Dear Dr. Schoenfeld: “I am replying to a recent column of yours and to the girl that complained about her boyfriend’s balls. It seemed that during intercourse, his balls banged against her body and she didn’t care for this. That girl is absolutely NUTS!

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Hey John, I’ve been digging your doings way back since 1965. I have always respected and, I might add, shared, your point of view on this whole pig establishment.

I’ve been keeping in touch with the scene even though I’ve been in Vietnam more than a year, via the Fifth Estate and news-clippings and papers sent by friends back in Detroit.

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UNCLASSIFIEDS cost 50 cents per line per issue. Figure four words per line. (A word is a word including one and two letter words. A phone number is a word. Street numbers are words.) Abbreviations should be sensible. DISCOUNT RATES: Five runs cost 35 cents per line.

Lead guitar player needs work; Lead guitar player needs music; Call JoJo 863–2290 soon.

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The week of Oct. 5 through 12, the Ad Hoc Construction Coalition presented demands to 8 agencies that 50% of all workers in construction and construction-related projects in the Detroit area be black.

Spokesman Hank Rogers said that the Coalition represents an affiliation of approximately 50 community groups, including the West Central Organization, Urban League, Metropolitan Contractors Association, and black construction Local 124.

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If you read the South End, The Metro, The Detroit News or Free Press, you already know the story of “Easy Rider.” But that’s all you know.

Despite the number of reviews which claim to analyze or criticize “Easy Rider” as a movie, none have considered what its effect as a film is. It may be a good story, but from the reviews, it’s hard to tell whether “Easy Rider” is a good movie.

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The Fall Offensive has now been launched on a scale more massive than anyone anticipated with the strikes, rallies, marches, and other activities that swept Detroit and the entire country on Oct. 15. These are however, only a prelude to the November phase of the offensive.

Organization is now under way for the International Student Strike called for Nov. 14^th, where the goal is the shutdown of every high school and college in the nation, with similar strikes throughout the world.

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CHICAGO, Oct. 1 (Liberation News Service) — I am at this writing locked in a tiny cell in the Cook County Jail, a cell which I share with too many friendly cockroaches. I can’t get out except to go to court. I can’t see any other people, but I hear their screams. The hysterical cries of people going mad because they’re treated like caged animals.

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It’s mother’s little helper that boosts the harried housewife over that mid afternoon hump; an added push to help the busy student deal with last minute cramming to ace that last exam; the wonder drug that makes dieting fast, easy, and effortless—and the liquid fire that eats away bodies and minds from the veins on out.

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SAIGON, Sept. 30 (LNS)—The Green Berets have gotten away with murder.

After announcing that it would press forward with a court martial, the Pentagon suddenly reversed field and dropped all charges against the six Special Forces officers accused of killing a Vietnamese interpreter.

The official reason for the switch, offered by Secretary of the Army, Stanley Resor, in a statement on September 29, is that the CIA “has determined that in the interest of national security it will not make available any of its personnel as witnesses” in the court martial. Without CIA testimony the prosecution, presumably, would have no case.

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Tokyo, Sept. 18

There’s no Women’s Liberation Movement in Japan—which certainly needs one—and so the 1969 Miss International Beauty Pageant went off without a hitch in the Hall of Martial Arts here last week.

The only trouble, in fact, was that things went so smoothly that even the people normally awed by these things must have been affected by the all-pervasive boredom. The nitty gritty of the affair, after all, is to display 50 girls in “national costume”, in evening gowns and in swimsuits and then pare these down to a final quintet of winners.

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October 8^th, Jack Forrest was awakened by the noisy spectacle of nine Federal agents bouncing off the vestibule wall of his mother’s apartment on Pingree.

Streaming through the kicked-in door in wild disarray, they gathered their forces around Jack’s bed and, guns drawn, proceeded to shout some dialogue that they had heard on television.

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Sept. 30, 1969

Dear People,

Sorry I haven’t written in so long but I wanted to get settled up here before writing you again. There seems to be a lot more going on out there in the streets than happens here in prison, but then that seems to be the idea of locking people up, so they won’t be able to participate in the activities they enjoy.

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JERUSALEM—The greatest thing that strikes you when you leave the Arab countries and enter Israel are the differences in the culture and the level of material wealth.

A Westerner feels completely at home in Israel. Miniskirted girls, wide avenues, traffic signs and lights, supermarkets and the complete freedom of the English language allow one to freely mix and mingle here. The abundance of discotheques, theatres, transportation facilities and lush parks provide good and easy-to-get recreation.

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Early this year, George Meany’s AFL—CIO pulled out of the International Confederation of “Free” Trade Unions because ICFTU, originally set up as an anti-Communist rival to a pro-Soviet World Federation of Trade Unions in 1949, is getting closer to dealing with WFTU bodies.

“In the future,” said the Wall Street Journal, “AFL-CIO will spend the money on its own international programs,” that is, the ICFTU will no longer be directly on the CIA payroll. Unfortunately, nationally-isolated trade unions run into other kinds of problems.

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ITHACA, NY, Sept. 25, (LNS)—Four women toting gallon cans of paint ran up to the Marine officers recruiting at Cornell University’s Barton Hall and doused them with paint.

One recruiter, Captain Donald Frank, was covered from head to foot, front and back, with purple, white and yellow paint. Two other officers, a blanket, and a projector were splattered with paint. Damage was estimated to be over $250.

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On Oct. 2, Judge Dunbar Davis of the 35^th District Court in Plymouth once again reaffirmed his judicial agility by bailing out the primordial Judge Richard Hammer of the 21^st district court in Garden City and the ephemeral Charles Lowe, City Attorney for the City of Plymouth, when he granted Brother Rolf Dietrich’s motion for a new hearing on the suit for $2,999.99 Dietrich is pressing against 11 Plymouth officials for confiscating 15 copies of the Fifth Estate last February.

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Racism has been heavy at Selfridge Air Force Base, twenty miles north of Detroit, for quite a while. Especially in the last year, there have been numerous incidents, and a great deal of harassment and intimidation of black airmen and air women (WAFs).

Colonel Harold Lund, the commander at Selfridge, is completely ineffectual in dealing with the problem, although one is not sure whether it is through incompetence or design.

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CHICAGO, Oct. 7 (LNS)—A day before the SDS national action was scheduled to begin here, headlines all over the city announced that the “historic” Haymarket Square Police Monument had been blown sky high.

The eight foot high bronze statue of a policeman was built to commemorate seven policemen who died in the famous Haymarket Square riot in 1886.

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The Free University at Wayne State is beginning its second term and is looking for students and professors.

Anyone can attend and the only qualifications necessary for teaching-age that you have something to profess and can get people to sit through your class.

The Free University is a community project begun by Open City and has a catalog of classes available from the Open City Office, call 831–2770 for more information.

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As a result of Valler’s eagerness to switch rather than fight, John Sinclair, Pun Plamondon and Jack Forrest have been indicted on Federal bombing conspiracy charges.

In addition, Pun has been charged with the physical act of dynamiting government property, or, as the pigs so revealingly put it, “...injure property of the United States....”

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The Ringling Bros., Barnum and Bailey Circus is coming to Detroit. Running a poor second in entertainment value is the election campaign for the mayor of Detroit.

Traditionally, the people of Amerika have come to expect great election extravaganzas each year. One of our great spectator sports—like a Lions’ game.

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FORT DIX, N.J. Oct 12—Thousands of demonstrators, marching under the banners of many anti-war and militant groups, were turned back by tear gas as they marched onto the mammoth military reservation.

More than 1,000 military policemen, most of them with bayonets fixed on their rifles, were called on to repel the 4,000 demonstrators, but no injuries or arrests were reported.

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CHICAGO—Hundreds of SDS members, responding to two separate calls, moved in the streets of Chicago and braved police gunfire on several occasions in the opening days of the Oct. 8–11 action against U. S. imperialism.

Workers at Harvester Plant in Chicago say “Right On” to demonstrators. photo / LNS

On the first night four hundred young people, mostly members of SDS’s prominent Weatherman faction—wearing helmets and carrying sticks—charged through Chicago’s fashionable Gold Coast district, smashing left and right the windows of stores, banks, cars, apartments and hotels.

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Fifth Estate

“To Serve the People”

EDITORIAL GROUP

Alan Gotkin

Peter Werbe

Cathy West

MANAGING EDITOR

Bill Rowe

DISTRIBUTION

Keep On Truckin’ Co-op

STAFF

Jane Capellaro

Dena Clamage

Bob Fleck

David Gaynes

Joel Landy

Bruce Montrose

Claudia Montrose

Marilyn Werbe

Tommye Wiese

POLITICAL PRISONER

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Newsreel is a national organization of revolutionary filmmakers with bases in 10 cities and Puerto Rico. We came to Detroit at the beginning of the summer to make a film on auto workers and set up regional distribution of our films. All summer we’ve shown our films in parks and projects, at the Grande Ballroom and in our own backyard.

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While local music business people continue to hype the Detroit scene as a major center of the pop world the scene itself continues to deteriorate and no one seems to care enough about it to do anything constructive.

Quite the contrary, the trend seems to be toward copying all the mistakes that have been made in every other “major music center” in order to exploit every last nickel to be had from the people.

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(in Cooperation with Detroit Adventure)

THURS. OCT. 2

OLD WORLD MARKET. Here’s your opportunity to travel the world by stepping through the portals of the International Institute. Exotic national arts, crafts and cuisine are available for purchase. Noon until 10 pm. -Adm. $1.00, 25 cents for kids. Thru Oct. 5. John R & Kirby.

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As a public service, the Fifth Estate will present eight times daily, newscasts on WABX, Detroit’s contemporary radical FM station.

With a little help from our friends, the broadcasts will be a success. We are asking for high school and college students in all areas served by WABX (Detroit, Ann Arbor, Jackson, East Lansing, Flint, Port Huron and Toledo) to phone all newsworthy items to the Fifth Estate office (831–6800).

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Reprinted with permission of The Guardian, independent radical weekly, NYC

Brother Fred Ahmed Evans was scheduled to die in the electric chair of the Ohio State Prison on Sept. 23, but was granted a temporary reprieve at the last moment. The date of his execution has not been set.

If he dies, he will become the first black man to be tried, convicted and executed by the state for his role in the black liberation struggle. The state has no right to execute him, but it has the power.

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Andrew Pulley, one of the leaders of the Ft. Jackson GIs United Against the War in Vietnam, wound up his speaking tour in the Detroit area Sept. 25, by addressing the first meeting of the Third World Vietnam Solidarity Committee.

GIs United was initiated at Ft. Jackson by Pulley and other black and Puerto Rican GIs who held meetings to discuss the war and the racism rampant inside the armed forces. The GI anti-war movement grew rapidly.

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SAN FRANCISCO (LNS)—In a startling development, recent figures in the San Francisco Chronicle show field desertions in Vietnam to be running at the rate of ten a day.

Many of the GIs are joining the military forces of the Provisional Revolutionary Government, their alleged enemy.

Those deserters who would rather switch and fight join up with the PRG, bringing with them detailed knowledge of how to work American equipment and how American units operate. There have been reports of misdirected artillery and helicopter fire in the Mekong Delta because deserters used stolen radios to cut in on Army frequencies.

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QUESTION: My old lady is a light sleeper and she can’t sleep because my snoring keeps her awake. I’ve never heard myself snore, but those who have say I’m really loud.

What causes snoring? Is there anything I can do about this problem—other than separate bedrooms?

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

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The series of brief poems which make up the Prison Diary—his one and only, his precious book of poetry—were written by Ho Chi Minh between August 29, 1942, and September 10, 1943, during a journey which he describes in one of his poems in these words: “I have travelled the thirteen districts of Kwangsi Province, and tasted the pleasures of eighteen different prisons.”

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