Most Recent Additions

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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:

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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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).

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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.

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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 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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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(in Cooperation with Detroit Adventure)

THURS. DEC. 25

Many places closed, better call ahead. Happy birthday; baby Jesus!!

FRI. DEC. 26

FLOCK YOU with Chicago’s Flock & Detroit’s own Stooges and Savage Grace, plus Magic Veil trippy lights at the Easttown-Grande. Harper at Van Dyke. Adm. $3.50.

TED LUCAS invades one of the sacrosanct shelters of the ruling class, at the Absolute Zero Coffeehouse in Birmingham. 388 N. Woodward. $1.50.

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

Dear Dr. Schoenfeld:

For several years we’ve been looking for physicians to help freeze people. With several exceptions, we haven’t had much luck. Most doctors are too frightened and conservative to even study our approach.

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Arthur Parumba’s review of Richard Brautigan’s three books [FE #94, December 11–24, 1969] was the best thing to appear in the Fifth Estate in ages. His Shell Station sounds like the greatest spot this side of Alice’s Restaurant. By the way, is “Parumba” for real?

Thomas Haroldson

Editors’ Note: Sure he’s real. The Parumba Bros. Shell Station is right on the corner of Prentis and Woodward. Drop in and see them.

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Editor’s note: Mike Quatro is a Detroit booking agent and promo man for some of Michigan’s leading rock groups. Quatro has been hit hard in the last few months by the underground media for being a parasite on the community. The Wayne County Prosecutor’s office even went so far as to investigate him for fraud for his ill-fated October 31 Black Arts Festival.

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Editors’ Note: This week’s Other Scenes is written by Maryanne Raphael and appeared originally in the UPS paper Other Scenes, published by John Wilcock.

WHAT’S A 4-LETTER WORD BEGINNING WITH F? If your answer to the above question was food, you’d probably rather eat greasy fried chicken than low-calorie cock or pussy, and chances are you’re overweight and could profit from the following reducing hints.

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Editors’ Note: People Concerned About Urban Renewal (PCAUR) is a community based organization that has resisted the expansion of Wayne State University and demanded local control of all renewal projects.

Their main political strategy is to build neighborhood block clubs and to agitate for the rights of the citizens of the Warren Forest area. This article taken from an article in the weekly paper, The Community Reporter, was written by Bob Repoley. PCAUR may be reached at 831–5664.

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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, per issue. (i.e. 2 lines in 5 issues cost $3.50)

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PRENSA LATINA—When asked “why did you come to Cuba” one black youth from Detroit answered earnestly: “To meet the beautiful Cuban people and help them with their harvest.” His friend, also from Detroit said: “To mix with the people and to get the truth of what’s happening here.”

“De pieeee...” followed by its English equivalent, “On your feeeet...” comes through the loudspeaker and echoes across the cane fields.

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Breakfield, Russell, Klug and Catlow, four of the Ft. Dix 38 (Shakedown/LNS)

FORT DIX, N.J.—The court-martial of Pvt. Terry Klug is over. He is the GI who the Ft. Dix brass had singled out as the “ringleader” in the now famous stockade rebellion on that base last June.

The surprise verdict: Not Guilty on all counts.

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DEC. 26–31, WEATHERMAN SDS IS PROCLAIMING A GATHERING OF THE TRIBES—A NATIONAL WAR COUNCIL! WEATHERMAN, MAD DOGS, THE CONSPIRACY, YAWF, YIPPIES, MEDIA FREEKS, JUVENILE DELINQUENTS, AND DOPE CRAZED HIPPIES FROM THE GUTS OF AMERIKA WILL BE THERE! PARTIES, FILMS, BANDS, DANCING AND POLITICAL DISCUSSIONS ON BRINGING THIS MOTHERFUCKER DOWN! PLACE SECRET UNTIL DEC. 24TH, THEN CALL DETROIT: 833–4323, CHICAGO (312) 666–3874.

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The virtual vacuum that has been left in the wake of SDS’s floundering may be filled by the New Youth International Party. With repression growing and the need for a national organization crucial, YIP looks promising as a junction for the vast but disparate political energy the movement is developing.

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Plymouth pigs went down in defeat in a frontal legal attack by Rolf Dietrich on December 18^th.

As reported earlier on these pages, the pigs of suburban Plymouth have hassled Dietrich from the beginning of the year when they first arrested him on a phony traffic charge and confiscated 15 copies of the Fifth Estate which he had on the back seat of his car. [See articles in FE Archive.]

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The following speech was delivered by David Hilliard, Chief of Staff of the Black Panther Party at the November 15^th anti-war rally at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.

He was charged with threatening the life of the President as a result of it.

There’s too many American flags out here, and our Minister of Information, Eldridge Cleaver, says that the American flag and the American eagle are the true symbols of fascism. ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE. Black power to Black people, Brown power to Brown people, Red power to Red people, and Yellow power to Ho Chi Minh, and Comrade Kim II Sung the courageous leader of the 40,000,000 Korean people.

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Brothers & Sisters:

After a long literary silence, I write again to the people of the planet. Joshua Newton, the phantom bomber, is still alive and carrying on the struggle. Are you?

The sooner we unite to off the oppressor, the sooner we will be able to live free lives by our own principles and our own values.

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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

ADVERTISING

Steve Dunn

STAFF

Jane Capellaro

David Gaynes

Jim Kennedy

Rick London

Nick Medvecky

Bruce Montrose

Claudia Montrose

Marilyn Werbe

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SAN FRANCISCO (LNS)—People are determined not to allow the murderous police raids which have been carried out in Chicago, Los Angeles, Kansas and other areas to occur in Berkeley and San Francisco.

A constant vigil has been established at Panther headquarters in both cities. The offices are filled at all times with thirty to forty people—black and white, very old to very young (some mothers with infants.)

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LOS ANGELES (LNS)—Over 5,000 people massed at Los Angeles City Hall on Thursday, Dec. 11 to protest the Dec. 8 attack on the Black Panther Party headquarters here in which 13 Panthers held off 300 police for close to five hours.

Speakers at the City Hall rally included representatives of NAACP and the Urban League as well as the Panthers.

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Plymouth City Attorney Charles Lowe told a Detroit News reporter recently that “the Plymouth City Commission felt that the Wayne County Prosecutor’s office will no longer recommend warrants for violations of the state obscenity law and thus it has become necessary for us to write our own law.”

This comes on the heels of a well financed campaign by the local chapter of the VFW to “rub out smut” in Plymouth. They collected, according to a spokesman, more than 3000 signatures on petitions in support for new anti-obscenity legislation in the City of Plymouth.

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“We are all outlaws in the eyes of America.”

—Jefferson Airplane

“The chickens are going to come home to roost.”

—Malcolm X

Years of police harassment of young people at Northland Shopping Center finally came home on Saturday, December 20, as hundreds of Detroit and suburban youths clashed with police for several hours in the center.

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A tentative existence is what society’s current trajectory offers us: alienation from others simultaneous with chronic concern about perception by others. Futile attempts to persist in these conditions takes the form of claiming an identity, espousing sanctioned banalities, and various other nonsense that renders us drained and pained.

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One afternoon a thousand years ago a Chinese administrator named Cao Bien was sitting by the River Lo in Vietnam. He had been sent by the Emperor of China to conquer Vietnam and make it part of China.

As he sat there on that afternoon, 500 years before the first white man ever set foot in America, scheming of ways to get the riches of Vietnam back to China, he saw something huge and terrifying.

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This May was a very exciting time for anarchists in Cuba, full of both inspiration and anxiety. On the positive side, the Anarchist Social Center and Library (ABRA: Centro Social y Biblioteca Libertaria) hosted the Fourth Libertarian Spring Conference in Havana, from May 4 to 11.

Cuba Pride March, May 11, despite being banned by authorities.

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Part of American Revolutionary Media / Detroit insert

When 300,000 people marched in Washington for civil rights in 1963, a lot of people felt as good as they did in November when 750,000 people marched in Washington for peace. But the civil rights movement has not liberated Black people. And the peace movement has yet to end the war in Vietnam, let alone “bring the boys home” from the 53 countries’ in which they are stationed around the world.

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(in Cooperation with Detroit Adventure)

THURS. DEC. 11

HEAR COME THE REVOLUTION (too bad its about the American one) a gallery talk with Glenn Still, Curator of Fort Wayne Military Museum. At the Det. Hist. Museum. 3:30 p.m. Free.

DETROIT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA in concert with Alexander Gibson guest conductor. Soloist: Wanda Wilkomirski, violinist. Ford Aud. 8:30 p.m.

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Part of American Revolutionary Media / Detroit insert

Ken Cockrell is a Black revolutionary, “so-called attorney,” and a member of the central staff of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers in Detroit. His rap was taped, transcribed and edited by Newsreel for this ARM issue on the day of the Los Angeles police attack on the Panther office, before that news was made public.

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