Most Recent Additions

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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WASHINGTON, D.C. (LNS)—Laos hit the front pages of the nation’s dailies recently with a story about how “U.S.-backed” troops took over liberated areas in new counter-offensives.

The very phrase “U.S.-backed” could not help but remind readers of the early years of the conflict in Vietnam.

“In a very real sense,” a diplomatic source told The New York Times, “the war in Vietnam is now being fought in Laos.”

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Enjoyed our paper over here in Nam. They really get worn from use. I’ll be back home to Detroit in 3 weeks so you should stop sending it. I will subscribe when I’m back.

Read with great interest the John Sinclair story. He spoke at our high school a few years ago, and the instructor that brought him down was dismissed.

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Pun Plamondon, White Panther Minister of Defense, has been busted....again!

This time in Chicago on Sept. 21, where he was attending the Conspiracy 8 trials with Ken Kelley, Editor of the Ann Arbor Argus and Al Rosenfeld of the Chicago Seed.

All three were arrested after being stopped by the pigs and ordered to produce some I.D. while walking on Lincoln Ave. The Pigs exercised their right of stop and frisk and found Pun to be in possession of “a dangerous weapon.”

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PLYMOUTH—With the deft hand of a club wielding savage, Garden City District Judge Richard Hammer, sat in Plymouth District Court Sept. 9, and summarily dismissed a suit against the city without allowing the complainant a chance to present his case.

The city’s full-time judge, Dunbar Davis, had previously disqualified himself and had called upon Hammer’s help, in the suit of Rolf Dietrich.

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“All over the world, people are laughing at America because they’re so stupid. They don’t know what time it is. This is a late hour for America. America is on her way out.” (Robert Williams at a Detroit press conference following his release on bond from two courts after returning to the United States from eight years of exile.)

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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.

Wanted—salesmen for Ann Arbor silk screen printing concern. Call 769–5160.

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The Establishment press has been full of three things lately: encounter groups, pollution-ecology-environmental control (which has got to be the most cooptable issue since sideburns) and wasteful spending by the Defense Department.

Two interesting mainstream views on the latter were in Look (Aug. 25, the second of a series) and Fortune (Aug. 1^st issue). Fortune lists the top 25 contractors, breaks down defense contracts by state and into dollars per head of the population per state (meaning: just how dependent a particular state is on the military), and shows how the 25 largest contractors account for nearly half the value of all contracts.

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A coordinated black student walkout occurred on Friday, Sept. 19, in support of Ahmed Evans, a black nationalist sentenced to die in connection with a shoot-out in which 3 Cleveland pigs were iced.

Four inner-city schools were shut-down by the walkout—Murray Wright, Malcolm X (Northwestern), Northern, and Mac-Michael. Minor walkouts came off at other schools as well—Cass, Mumford, and Highland Park.

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CHICAGO (LNS)—It was beginning to look like the Democratic National Convention all over again.

The “conspirators” were back in town, people were fighting the pigs in the streets and there was the bejowled mayor of the city muttering darkly on TV.

Wednesday the 24^th was opening day.

By noon, 5,000 young people had turned out for a rally at the Federal Building in support of the eight men on trial whom the government would like to put away for possibly ten years.

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Editors’ Note: Nick Medvecky, former News Editor for the WSU South End, is currently touring the Middle East and will send back periodic on-the-spot reports from his travels.

He will visit Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Israel visiting with revolutionaries, student groups and government officials.

(Special to the Fifth Estate)

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Is Detroit headed for the sort of scenes that have gone down in Pittsburgh and Chicago around demands by blacks for more construction jobs?

The NAACP and the Urban League of Detroit have announced plans to work with the construction industry in an effort to include more blacks and other minorities in the building trades.

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MEXICO CITY (DF)—Mounting resentment against “Operation Intercept”—the U.S. effort to halt illegal drug traffic by thorough inspection of cars at border points has been voiced by border officials, business organizations and the Mexican press.

“Whoever dreamed up this witch hunt should have his head examined,” said Mexico City’s News. “By last night a million people had been hurt by it to net a handful of two-bit pushers.”

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Smokin’ more now and enjoyin’ it less?

The Feds would rather see heads come up to the cool taste of speed and smack than stay down in the valley of harsh reefer fumes (and they’ve been plenty rough lately).

Sound unreal? Hardly.

Courtesy of the R. Miltown Nixon thugs, Operation Intercept is underway, a marijuana eradication program tailored to keep the weed from the minds and lungs of our nation’s youth.

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David Valler, convicted dope user, accused bomber, ex-candidate for President, and of late, Detroit News feature writer, seems to have pretty well squared things away with his former adversaries—the pigs.

Valler is doing 7 to 10 years in Jackson for two counts of violating the Michigan Narcotics Act and is the Principle defendant in a conspiracy case involving the bombings that took place in Detroit and Ann Arbor last year.

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SAIGON (LNS)—Have you ever wondered why the North Vietnamese government doesn’t permit the International Red Cross to inspect its prison camps?

The official reason is that there is no declared war in Vietnam and that captured American pilots, therefore, are not prisoners-of-war (POWs), but criminals under the jurisdiction of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

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John Sinclair, Minister of Information for the White Panther Party, remains as political prisoner of the State of Michigan.

John has been moved to Marquette Prison in the Upper Peninsula after Department of Corrections officials began to worry that he might be a uniting force among the prisoners at Jackson to protest conditions there.

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The “Man” is a veritable packaging genius. He has just about mastered the art of packaging the same old shit so that it looks like different new shit.

This is all very nice, until the packages are unwrapped. The same old funky odor wafts up to our poor, exploited nostrils every time.

“The Other Section,” a Detroit News supplement, is an example of the way “special groups” are handled in Amerika.

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SAIGON (LNS)—The following letter is directed to the American anti-war movement from Hugo Hill, an American civilian who lives in Saigon. For the past nine months, Hugo Hill has frequently contributed articles to Liberation News Service.

SAIGON

Sept. 6, 1969

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

As you well know, the Vietnamese people need no help in defeating U.S. military strategy. They have already smashed Maxwell Taylor’s “special war” and Westmoreland’s “search and destroy” operations. They have seized control of their own land from under the noses of half a million expeditionary troops and right now they surround all the American military bases in their country.

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The Fall Anti-War Offensive has begun. Ending the war in Vietnam is the most important task facing the American people and the American people must be the force to end it.

We urge every Fifth Estate reader to actively take part in every rally, march, and demonstration that calls for immediate withdrawal of all troops NOW!

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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

Dena Clamage

Bob Fleck

David Gaynes

Jane Capellaro

Joel Landy

Bruce Montrose

Claudia Montrose

Marilyn Werbe

Tommye Wiese

POLITICAL PRISONER

John Sinclair

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Which is worse in Detroit? Jay-walking or carrying a red flag? I suppose it depends on where you are coming from, but put together 60 persons jay-walking after a rally, led by a red-flag-carrying revolutionary, and you can expect what did happen on Saturday, September 27.

Motor City SDS had called a rally on the front steps of the Main Library on Woodward and Kirby to demand an end to Wayne University’s racist urban renewal program and its planned entry into the war research field.

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CHICAGO—The toadies of Mayor Daley’s court are working long hours into the night attempting to prepare an official battle plan for the latest onslaught into their domain.

It comes in the form of the SDS National Action set for October 8 thru 11. The scene in Pig City is always chaotic, but this time it may be even more so with two factions of SDS each planning separate programs for the week.

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A POEM FOR JOHN SINCLAIR

we are lonely

we will attack you w/ our smallest uttered parts

we will move w/ the mask of darkness w/ simple weapons

& slit the bellies of yr women

we will replace each foetus w/ a phoneme of our loneliness

a barely uttered beast sound that will take root

and grow until yr women’s bellies explode w/ bizarre totems

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The Stoepel Park Incident of Sunday, August 24 was not an isolated instance of police harassment [see “Pigs Riot in Park,” FE #87, September 4–17, 1969]. On-duty and off-duty, legally and illegally, police harassment of the young people who gather in Stoepel Park continues. But the latest round has been won by the kids.

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In Cooperation with Detroit Adventure

THURS. SEPT. 18

WOODLAND INDIANS: Their Arts and Crafts. An exciting lecture dealing with this fascinating topic with Donald Sebastion, at the Historical Museum. 3:30 pm.

DETROIT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA in concert with Sixten Ehrling conducting. Soloist is Alicia de Larrocha, pianist. With the Kenneth Jewell Chorale. Ford Aud. 8:30 pm.

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For the past year, everyone has been trying to play down the war in Vietnam. According to President Nixon, the war is almost over. Twenty-five thousand troops have been withdrawn, leaving only 475,000 American soldiers in the rice paddies and brothels of South Vietnam.

The money press puts battle news and body counts on page 16-C. TeeVee 2 hardly mentions the war at all any more.

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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: What are the potential dangers of the new “3-way” tablets (mostly mescaline plus a little LSD and a wee bit of cocaine?) One of my friends got stoned wild for 9 hours on this but spent the last 3 hours on the john. What’s coming off?

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I’m still alive and well in the U.S. Navy. Much has happened since the MP hassled with Ray Greer last Jan. 4^th at Metro airport. If you’ll remember I was on a TV news spot last Feb. 27^th when I left for Norfolk. Va.

Haven’t been home since Feb. 27^th when I left for Norfolk, Va. to join the U.S.S. Yorktown CVS-10, a “Hunter-Killer Force” anti-submarine carrier.

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Abbie Hoffman explains the reason for the grass shortage in his new book, The Woodstock World (about to be published by Random House). Federal narcs armed with hundreds of thousands of dollars went to Mexico, says Abbie, and outbid the big dope dealers for the new crop. Which they then burned and destroyed.

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Editors’ Note: The following interview with Rafael Viera took place at a conference of the Republic of New Africa which was held in Washington, D.C. recently. Viera is awaiting trial on second-degree murder charges stemming from the fatal shooting of Patrolman Michael J. Czapski outside the New Bethel Baptist Church, last March 29.

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It’s my wife

It’s my life

Cause the needle to my vein

Leads to a center in my head

And then I’m better off than dead

Cause when the smack begins to flow

I really don’t care any more

About all the Jim-Jims in this town

And all the politicians makin’ crazy sounds

And thank God that I’m not aware

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A review of Technicians of the Sacred: A Range of Poetries from Africa, America, Asia & Oceania, Collected & Edited by Jerome Rothenberg

Published by Doubleday Anchor, $3.95

A book RE-view

“There’s nothing an anthropologist hates worse than a native”

—Wm. Burroughs

Poetry, rite, shamanistic rituals, criminal dope fiend seers of amazing vision colored w/ the blue stars of tongue hanging prophesy? Color of fire moving at night, thru this field in the kingdom of death. Aztec sacrifice? Cortez loves Motecuzoma. Poly wanna cracker?

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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.

Amazing opportunity for starting and operating your own successful small business. Free details: B&W Enterprises, P.O. Box 9175F. Boston, Mass. 02114.

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