Most Recent Additions

As President Clinton delivered his nomination acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) talking about “a bridge to the 21^st century,” a half a mile away Chicago police were raiding a building housing anarchists from the Active Resistance Counter-Convention (ARC).

The Corporate Power tower is dragged by its victims. Later, following a rebellion, it is transformed into utopian scenes of anarchy. — photo/Susan Simensky Bietila

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The FE staff and friends celebrated our 30^th anniversary at the Cass Café in April, not only bringing in people from as far away as California, Maryland and Philadelphia, but even a picket by two very entertaining old-fashioned stillborn-again Jesus freaks who drew even more irreverent Cass Corridor types into our vortex of sin. Favorite FE covers and FE memorabilia were displayed, including a judge’s gavel that some enterprising ‘60s staff member stole from a courtroom and turned into a hash pipe. People danced to the music of Detroit’s Ghost Band, and enough money was raised to keep this ship afloat. Thanks to Chuck Roy and the Cass Café staff, to the Ghost Band, to David Furer for the music mix, to Julie Herrada, and to unnamed others for their help in making it a success.

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The Fifth Estate is a cooperative, nonprofit project, publishing since 1965. The people who produce it are a group of friends who do so neither to secure wages nor as an investment in the newspaper industry, but to encourage resistance and rebellion to an unjust and destructive society.

The Fifth Estate (ISSN No. 0015–0800) is published quarterly at 4632 Second Ave., Detroit, Michigan 48201 USA; Phone (313) 831–6800. Our office hours vary, so please call before visiting. Subscriptions are $8.00 for four issues; $10.00 foreign including Canada. Periodical Mail postage paid at Detroit, Michigan. No copyright. No paid advertisements.

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According to David Brower, the ecology elder “archdruid,” the Clinton administration has done more harm to the environment than either preceding right-wing Republican presidents. For instance, Clinton’s signature on the infamous salvage rider bill allows extensive clear cutting in America’s forests such as Northern California’s Headwaters and Cove/Mallard in Idaho.

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“...If one has courage and daring without benevolence, one is like a madman wielding a sharp sword; if one is smart and swift without wisdom, one is as though riding on a fast mount but not knowing which way to go.

“Even if one has talent and ability, if one uses them improperly and handles them inappropriately, they can only assist falsehood and dress up errors: In that case it is better to have few technical skills than many.

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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;

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a review of

Bloodstained: One Hundred Years of Leninist Counterrevolution eds. Friends of Aron Baron; Luigi Fabbri, Rudolf Rocker, Nestor Makhno, Iain McKay, Alexander Berkman, Maurice Brinton, Ida Mett, Otto Wile, Emma Goldman, et al. AK Press akpress.org, 2017

The Kronstadt Uprising by Ida Mett. Theory and Practice, 2017 theoryandpractice.org.uk

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One irony of the deep ecology discussion is that almost at the same time that some deep ecologists were taking an explicit position for the abolition of agriculture as the prime cause of the widening spiral of civilization and ecological destruction, John Zerzan wrote an almost identical thesis in the pages of the Fifth Estate. (See “Agriculture: Essence of Civilization,” FE #329, Summer 1988.) For a response to Zerzan, see Bob Brubaker’s “Comments on Zerzan’s Critique of Agriculture” in FE #330, Winter 1988–89.)

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Newspapers and magazines have been a part of the anarchist movement since its inception.

They contain daily agitation for ongoing struggles and are excellent sources of the history of a movement that is usually ignored by other left tendencies and historians alike.

They keep the flame of anarchy alive and depend on readers for their solidarity and mutual aid. Take a look at the sampling we have here and consider ordering them to assure their survival.

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In his letter, “Miss” Ann Thropy [this issue, FE #331, Spring, 1989] writes that it was his article celebrating AIDS that generated the criticisms of Earth First! and deep ecology. Even though his claim drastically simplifies the reasons for our critiques, it is undeniable that cheerleading epidemics is what earned him his notoriety. If his original AIDS article (“Population and AIDS,” Beltane 1987 EF! Journal) could have been dismissed as a sick joke, the same cannot be said about articles that have since appeared in the EF! Journal with a more developed, ostensibly scientific, argument. One in particular, “Is AIDS the Answer to an Environmentalist’s Prayer?” by Daniel Conner (Yule 1987 EF! Journal) describes the virus as a kind of Gaia’s revenge (Gaia being the name given the concept of a superorganism which is the entire Earth). Since population pressure “lies at the root of every environmental problem we face,” he argues, starting predictably from a Malthusian position, AIDS may be the answer to any “thoughtful” environmentalist’s prayer. If prayer is the key word in this argument, there is a reason; it borders on being pure religion.

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Sun-drunk I roll

along the streets of Los Angeles

while the radio rewrites

the world as I know it: the Sahara,

it seems, is no longer a desert:

it is a graveyard, while the Mediterranean

they add, is no longer a sea—it too

is now a graveyard...strung out, I stare

at hummingbirds high on sugar

and switch over to Love. I try to picture you,

Arthur Lee, a jazz-talking child

of redlined south central. You were a prince

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The letter above [“Deep Ecology as Strategic Knowledge,” FE #331, Spring, 1989] was sent to the Fifth Estate last year in response to the essay I wrote, “How Deep Is Deep Ecology? A Challenge to Radical Environmentalism” (FE #327, Fall 1987). I had a brief correspondence with the author (who, interestingly, admitted to being an EF! man), and had planned to print his letter with several others from EF!ers (we eventually printed a selection of them in the Summer 1988 FE). The more I looked at “Miss Ann’s” (rather, Mr. Ann’s) letter, with its claims to an anti-technological, primitivist, even anarchist perspective, the more I realized its appropriateness as a starting point for my essay. However unkind one may judge me for using a relatively short letter as the focus for a long critical essay, I think the letter so representative of the entire range of problems with the deep ecology movement that I think the temptation is one worth following. If the form is strange, I can only hope that the ideas in the essay are important enough to overcome this problem. The form is in part a result of the shorthand manner in which deep ecologists tend to evade a genuinely critical dialogue. Deep ecology (DE) ideology appears to deflect criticism the way religious dogma does, by raising its voice over all others in defense of its intuitions and simply repeating its assertions (hallelujah and amen), as well as by conveniently misrepresenting the views of its critics.

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During a recent 10 day visit to Western Poland (Wielkopolska) to do research for a novel based on my family history, I spoke with many people in the street, in bars, cafes, on trains and buses trying to understand the new realities of Central Europe.

“Poznan not for developers; Rozbrat (squat) not for sale”

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The International Brigades came to Spain to fight fascism, but helped crush the anarchist social revolution.

In recent years, many leftists and even anarchists glowingly cite the communist-organized International Brigades (IB) that went to Spain to fight fascism during the late 1930s as an example relevant to many of today’s struggles. Men and women came from around the world to join forces with the army of the liberal Republican Spanish government in its civil war against a military-fascist rebellion that began in July 1936 led by Gen. Francisco Franco, who was aided by Hitler and Mussolini’s governments. The authoritarian right was finally triumphant in 1939.

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The Fifth Estate spoke with journalist and author, Jordan Flaherty, at Detroit’s Source Booksellers. His latest book, No More Heroes: Grassroots Challenges to the Savior Mentality, examines how often people of privilege makes things worse when they try to help oppressed or marginalized communities.

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January 20, 2017, the day Trump officially became President of the United States, was filled with many acts of defiance as well as foreboding.

This day had an additional sinister meaning for anarchists in Seattle. In the name of the liberal concept of free speech, and ignoring months of warnings and protests by students, workers, and faculty, the University of Washington’s administration permitted an appearance by the vicious arch troll and bigot, Milo Yiannopoulos. Previous appearances elsewhere clearly indicated that the worst was to be expected from him and his supporters.

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In a town with no law, in a far away land, there lived people without protection. In square, boxed houses, they made sections out of walls to shield them from something unknown. It was the something that drove them to worry.

“Do you think it will happen tomorrow?” One asked.

“What do you think it could be?”

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It is small wonder that most Americans are not the least big cognizant of the plight of the Aboriginal peoples of Australia; the mainstream press here in the United States does not even recognize the struggles of its own indigenous population. From our perspective, the systematic statist degradation of primitive and indigenous peoples and their spirited refusal to submit to the powers of progress are central to the complex question of social domination all over the world.

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Big Mountain News announces the annual spring “Survival Gathering” April 19–22 to be held at Big Mountain Dine (Navajo) Nation. Native peoples and their supporters are invited to participate in the gathering which has been planned to commemorate and honor the resistance of the Navajo and Hopi Elders against the U.S. government. Governmental attempts to remove and relocate some 14,000 Dine peoples from the ancestral lands of the Hopi and Navajo have not been successful. So far only about 200 families have succumbed to relocation programs; 2,800 families still remain. The government intends to clear the land, mine it for coal and uranium, and incorporate it into agribusiness ventures. For information on the continuing struggles of the Navajo and Hopi, and on the upcoming spring gathering write: Big Mountain Support Group, 1412 Cypress Street, Berkeley, CA 94703.

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FE Home > Issue 316, Spring, 1984 >

• Nature Imprisoned at the Zoo

• Why, What, Who Barbarian

• Poetry Page

• Absolute Divergence

• Fuck Governments

This issue of the Daily Barbarian is not only being distributed throughout the Detroit area for free, but thanks to the members of the Fifth Estate collective, it is also appearing as the center four pages of their paper. This means that along with the 3,000 copies we’re printing, an additional 3,000 will be sent all over the U.S. and different parts of the world through the subscription and bookstore sales of the FE.

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a review of

Shadow Work, Ivan Illich. Marion Boyers, Boston and London, 1981

“As progress and technology transform our way of life and our physical surroundings,” Lynne Clive writes [“Newspeak and the Impoverishment of Language,” FE #315, Winter, 1984], “they eat away at our language, enfeeble our spirit...” I would like to expand on this idea by making use of Ivan Illich’s insights discussed in his book Shadow Work, on language as one of the earliest areas of previous human competence—a cultural commons and focal point of shared meaning—to come under attack from church and state, and later from advancing technology and bureaucratic institutionalization. Illich argues that by undermining the “vernacular” domain in language, technics, and other areas of human activity, these forces of authority destroy self-sufficiency and freedom, making us all wards of the state and the disabling professional institutions.

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

HOW TO ORDER BY MAIL:

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

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a review of

No Gods; No Masters: A History of Anarchism (2017) (Originally: Ni dieu, ni maitre. Une histoire de l’anarchisme) Writer/Director: Tancrede Ramonet. 156 min. Color/B&W (French, German with English subtitles) Available from Icarus Films icarusfilms.com/if-nogods

For average Americans, the word anarchy calls to mind chaos, destruction, lawlessness, and violence. Most modern Westerners know little about the people, philosophies, and history that make up the broader political and cultural movement we identify under the term anarchism.

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From Coimbra, Portugal comes Pravda, put out by Fenda Editions. Pravda, with its obviously tongue-in-cheek title, describes itself as “a magazine of evil arts” and has just published its third issue. Although it refuses categorization, it could be described as a dada-esque journal of anti-politics and anti-art. It is infused with an impassioned desire to fight against the isolation which consumes us all. It will do this, its editors tell us, “by the undiplomatic unjournalistic communication between individuals who do not recognize themselves in that which the world of practical shit happiness avows and promotes.” They are defiant against this world in which “misery is the vicious synonym of wealth, and submission the frenetic synonym of liberty.”

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a review of

Socialism and Survival, Rudolf Bahro, Heretic Books, London, 1983

“We must pull the communications cord on the industrial system.” Who is this speaking? Some post-industrial prophet writing in the Fifth Estate, far from the social movement? Someone lost in theories with no immediate practical consequences or no political base? These are the words of Rudolf Bahro, former East German dissident and now one of the leading theorists and activists in the West German Green movement.

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The following two letters were recently received from fugitive draft resister Paul Jacob and from his support committee, the Paul Jacob Action Group. Paul was indicted in September 1982 for failure to register for the draft and has been the subject of an unsuccessful nation-wide search by the FBI for refusing to submit to arrest. We are pleased to report that at this date Paul Jacob is still “at-large.”

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Church of Film is a small volunteer film collective in Portland, Ore., whose mission is to provide accessible and free cinema, especially to communities where access to movies is limited. The program was founded in 2013 at the North Star Ballroom in North Portland.

There are no theaters of any kind in the area, and neighborhoods were hurting from a rapidly encroaching influx of development and gentrification. Since that time, the collective has expanded to other venues and parts of the city, most notably the Clinton Street Theater in Southeast Portland, and has shown one or more screenings weekly. Screenings have always been free and donations based.

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The following are three excerpts from Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television by Jerry Mander. The book is an insightful analysis not only of the medium, but the society which produces it. See p. 12

In less than four generations out of an estimated one hundred thousand, we have fundamentally changed the nature of our interaction with the planet.

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The space which the Fifth Estate shares with three other groups has been the scene of a number of events recently, mostly rock performances, but also a smattering of theatre and comedy. They have been generally well-received with an exceptionally gratifying turnout for our benefit held March 2. We raised $261 to help defray the expenses of maintaining the space shared by the Layabouts band, the Freezer Theatre Players and the Duck Club Players as well as the paper.

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As El Salvador’s leftist rebel movement scores repeated victories on the battlefield and brings an increasing geographic area under its administration, the Vietnam analogy is heard everywhere. However, what the U.S. faces is not so much the prospect of another “quagmire,” but the possibility of a direct defeat of its client state.

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

The getting of treasures by a lying tongue is a vanity tossed to and fro of them that seek death.

—Proverbs XXI, 6

But of this he took little or no notice, continuing his odd smiles and gesticulations.

In the marketplace one convinces by gestures, but real reasons make the populace distrustful.

—Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra

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Nobody dies like Stalin did. He didn’t just die, he took the world with him. My world at any rate. I was 8 years old when it happened. At school all the kids had been crying and I’d been crying the most. For us, Stalin was that saintly fatherly figure that smiled from above surrounded by adoring children. For me, personally, he was father, pure and simple, because I didn’t have one of my own. On my little night stand table I had his portrait and I slept securely under the shadow of his moustache. I was devastated.

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Puerto Rico is a United States colonial possession, but most North Americans know little about the island or its people. The U.S. government does not want our ignorance disturbed because then we are less likely to protest the exploitation of the island.

The people of Puerto Rico are also victims of a different type. The island is in the middle of the Caribbean, closer to Latin America than the United States, and shares the Spanish language with most of its neighboring nations.

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a review of

“Blade Runner 2049.” Director: Denis Villeneuve 146 min. (2017)

“Blade Runner 2049” slightly recalibrates the social dimensions of Ridley Scott’s 1982 android rebellion tale, “Blade Runner”—based on Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?—tailoring it for a new generation.

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Dear FE,

Neither the simple abuse by Ratticus nor the extended commentary by George Bradford seemed to me to engage the two most basic points or arguments of “Language: Origin and Meaning” (FE #315, Winter 1984), namely that language is the model of ideology and that it derives from earliest division of labor. Thus they rejected the piece while failing to deal with the essentials referred to by its title, an odd tack possibly reflecting on my craftsmanship as its author.

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The call to turn off television or even to lessen viewing hours certainly should not be interpreted as an inherently radical suggestion, since it emanates constantly from educators, parents, psychologists and others professing concern for the health and morals of the nation. Laying aside the fact that these well-meaning guardians undoubtedly are as hooked into extensive TV viewing as any other American, their pleas and advice should be seen as consistent with the continuing criticism television has experienced since its emergence as a mass medium 30 years ago.

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During America’s most highly watched television spectacle, the Super Bowl, viewers in ten major television markets were shown an advertisement from Apple Computer Corporation on the theme of George Orwell’s 1984. In the ad, the face of Big Brother speaks from a giant telescreen to a hall full of automatons (young people with fashionably shaven heads recruited for the role). Suddenly, a young woman runs into the room and hurls a sledgehammer through the screen, shattering it. A message follows, declaring a new model computer the machine which will ensure that the year 1984 cannot be come the nightmare world of Orwell’s novel.

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Dear Fifth Estate:

As the author of “Population and AIDS”—the article that seems to have galvanized so much “anarchist” opposition to Earth First!—I can’t help but attempt a brief response to George Bradford’s wide-ranging critique of deep ecology in FE. Although it would be easy enough to get polemical about the rancor in Bradford’s article, polemics are always a side show to the question at hand, which for deep ecology, at least, is the environmental crisis. What I’d like to do, then, is discuss the philosophic project of deep ecology, particularly as it pertains to population. For by misconstruing the former, Bradford misrepresents the latter.

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“Paroli Esperanton estis iam esenca parto de anarkiismo.”

(There was a time when speaking Esperanto was an essential part of being an anarchist.)

When 97-year-old, Barcelona-born Eduardo Vivancos walks down the streets of Toronto where he has lived as an exile since 1954, he never comes across another Esperanto speaker.

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Reprinted from Learning Good Consent: On Healthy Relationships and Survivor Support Edited by Cindy Crabb. AK Press, akpress.org 2016

FE Note: With people today left adrift to face conflicting social cues coming from every direction, this collection looks directly at the complications which arise from sex, consent, abuse, and survivor support. This, and the other essays in Learning Good Consent, is a guide to preventing sexual violence, helping survivors heal, and creating lives which correspond to our ideals. This essay has been shortened by the Fifth Estate editors.

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Last spring, I became a prisoner in a rural California county jail for 90 days having been sentenced for a non-political offense.

I did some research before surrendering to the authorities, so in many ways I knew what to expect when I arrived. Nothing, however, can really prepare you for the full range of indignity and repression you experience.

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Letters of Thanks from Gen. Westmoreland to “Breakthrough”

22 November 1965

Mr. Donald J. Lobsinger, Chairman

Breakthrough P.O. Box 3061

Detroit, Michigan 48231

Dear Mr. Lobsinger:

Your letter and the accompanying signatures of over 6,000 citizens of the Detroit area indicating support for the efforts of our armed forces in Vietnam are reassuring and deeply appreciated.

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“Grooving,” which we’ve been doing since birth, has recently taken on some formal definition as the Kulchur Kritiks attempt to sympathetically dig the spirit of the multimedia art forms. Grooving, they say means to yield yourself to the flow of activity around you. Grooving requires a lot of personal freedom, and a lot of self assurance. It is the opposite of uptight perception, the opposite of categorizing experience, the opposite of traditional logical “understanding”. Grooving is the ability to receive several clashing stimuli simultaneously, a form of perception dictated by the new urban environments.

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Editor’s Note: On Thursday, June 6, the House gave final approval and sent to the President for his signature or veto, the Omnibus Crime Bill of 1968, the effects of which may be on us for years.

Liberation News Service — Now a person can sit on his chair in his home and say, “I sure am enjoying this grass!” and be sent to federal prison for five years based on that statement—when and if the President signs the 109-page Omnibus Crime Bill. A local cop might have bugged the pot smoker’s house, on the tip of a member of a new style police private vigilante group which the new bill also provides for and would finance.

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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.

This newspaper will not accept ads that slander other persons (institutions are OK). Also, ads that have as their purpose meeting others or receiving phone calls must be accompanied by the name and address of the person placing the ad. This will not be put in the ad, but will allow us to check if we doubt The authenticity of it.

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Two Detroit policemen, Sergeant Fred T. Wright and Lieutenant Teddy Sikora were suspended from duty over the weekend of June 1 for “conduct unbecoming a police officer,” and “bad judgment” in connection with the May 13 clash at Cobo Hall between Detroit fuzz and a group of Poor People’s Campaign marchers (FIFTH ESTATE, June 4–18). The suspensions will remain in effect until a police trial board decides what disciplinary action, if any, will be brought against the pair.

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The author of the following helpful hints is an attorney employed by the federal government of the United States of America in Washington, D.C. Obviously, he prefers to remain underground in our interest and his own. —eds

One. Take photographs of undercover narks„ as it destroys their psychological stability. These pictures may then be either published in the underground press (preferably nationally, as narks in federal service get transferred). Additionally or alternatively, posters could be made up in “Wanted” style. These could be simply satirical: (“Wanted by the Free Community”) or made up as federal wanted posters, but if the latter, don’t get caught with them, since that is a violation of some federal statutes as well as libel laws.

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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: Last weekend my boyfriend and I were picking mushrooms in the woods and found some funny yellow ones with long stems. Could these have been hallucinigenic mushrooms?

ANSWER: Before you go tripping off in the woods again, you should realize that only experts should try to distinguish between edible mushrooms and poisonous toadstools. Toadstools (Amanita muscaria, A. verna, A. Phalloides, A. Brunnescens) may give a kind of trip but collapse and even death may follow. Amanita muscaria has a sudden (1 to 2 hours) onset of action and causes confusion, excitement, thirst, nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, wheezing, salivation, slow pulse, tremors, weakness, collapse and perhaps death. Amanita phalloides, brunnescens and verna have a delayed onset of action (12 to 24 hours) and cause confusion, depression, headache, convulsions, coma, nausea, vomiting, bloody vomitus and stools, jaundice, reduced flow of urine and fluid in the lungs.

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There is a rumor going around, a rumor of great tremors. Last week Chief Reddin called in the National Guard, set up an emergency morgue in the Pan Pacific, and declared L.A. a disaster area. You may already have heard: earthquakes are expected this summer, perhaps even this month.

California is going to break away from the continent and drop off into the Pacific Ocean.

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