Most Recent Additions

translated & edited by FE collective members

This article was written by a participant in the VAAAG, the Village Alternatif Anticapitaliste et Anti-guerre (the Alternative Anti-capitalist and Anti-war Village) that was created during the Group of Eight summit meeting (G8) in Evian, Switzerland during June 2003. The anonymous author wants to make it clear that s/he was not a member of the coalition protesting the summit, the Convergence des Luttes Anti-Autoritaires et Anticapitalistes Contre le G8 (CLAAAC G 8). This text, the author says, is “addressed to comrades and companions on the other side of the Atlantic and elsewhere.”

...

Insubordination—literally, the utter refusal to submit to order—is not always revolutionary, but it may be one of the first signs that a revolution is brewing.

The insubordinate can be someone rebelling against an institution to which she formerly conformed or someone who never has been any part of the system of authority. Sometimes ideological and sometimes instinctual, insubordination burns the nerves.

...

In November 2003, Miami, Florida, is hosting both the eighth round of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) trade negotiations and the eighth Americas Business Forum. Trade Ministers from 34 nations in the Western hemisphere, and hundreds of their closest commerce-inclined friends, will descend on this city for a week of business and pleasure: the business of advancing capitalism’s parasitic agenda, and the pleasure of getting away with it. This is to be our region’s principal contribution to the much-heralded age of globalization.

...

These excerpts come from the English section of the El Libertario website. El Libertario is a collective in Venezuela that has been active for eight years now.

Everything with the people, nothing with the power!

Against a broken State and an inefficient market economy, self-management!

Against the maneuvering of the few, the autonomy of the many!

...

In August, Starbucks stores in San Francisco had “for lease” signs and letters saying, the stores were closing pasted on the windows and doors. In all 17 Starbucks were hit with the official-looking signs, mostly in the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods. At many stores, the windows were soaped up and the locks were jammed, leaving employees waiting outside to start their shifts. One flyer posted outside one store said, “We are moving over and making room for local coffee bars, our last best example of our commitment to fine coffee and local culture that got us into the business in the first place.”

...

We gather today not to praise capitalism, but to bury it. Rejoice, the great god greed is dead! It lived far too long, laying waste to all it touched. Its chains have been broken, its tentacles severed. The world is free to breathe again; to grow, to flourish, no longer weighed down by this voracious monster.

...

This year the Ford motor company celebrates its 100^th anniversary. To proponents and critics alike, Ford is the perfect illustration of the corporate world-view. Henry Ford’s rationalization of the assembly-line process was a great advance for industrial technology, and the mass production of the automobile led inevitably to the creation of a world—through auto-centric urban design and the creation of America’s highway system—in which the automobile became an expensive necessity rather than a luxury.

...

People arrested during the January 20 Inauguration Day demonstrations are facing up to 75 years in prison as the Trump administration is bringing the hammer down on protests.

This is being met by an organized legal pushback on the part of the defendants, and by increased solidarity actions.

On January 20 (J20), thousands of people went to Washington D.C. to oppose the inauguration of President Donald Trump. While the day’s events were largely overshadowed in the mainstream media by the Women’s March on January 21—which drew hundreds of thousands of people to the capital—January 20 was an inspirational day of resistance.

...

Recently, several American peace activists, who traveled to Iraq to act as “human shields”, have been notified that they are subject to fines and jail time by the US Government. The government is fining the activists $10,000 for traveling to Iraq in violation of US sanctions against Iraq.

...

The Museum of Capitalism (MOC), in Oakland, California, was a provocation not solely for being situated in the Jack London waterfront district, a gentrified marina area, but also for occupying a white elephant of a building erected just as the entire US economy collapsed.

The so-called Great Recession of 2007 could just as appropriately be called the Great Economic Coma, and the capacious future food market that the Museum reclaimed for its quarters, stands as the unintended main exhibit—a cadaver of capitalism.

...

Anarchist solidarity can take many forms, including collecting books, pamphlets, and letters. Through such activity, comrades active in the world’s anarchist archives are part of anchoring an important segment of the struggle for a libertarian and egalitarian world.

They are helping to maintain a living connection between present-day anarchist activities and that of yesterday’s rebels whose values and goals continue to inspire.

...

The rising tide of fascism and organized political violence of the Right, particularly the mobilization of street-level right-wing forces, such as the Proud Boys and the Oathkeepers, have returned the question of self-defense to the center of anarchist and antifascist concerns. This has become more burning following the brutal fascist mobilization and violence in Charlottesville, Virginia in August. The murder there of Heather Heyer by a neo-Nazi gives the issue of self-defense life or death importance.

...

Solidarity and Mutual Aid, two anarchist bedrock principles, are being tested in the real world with the rise of the fascist right.

Although small in numbers, they have gained social and political space as the result of the election of Donald Trump.

We, like many others, pledge they will find no home, no safe haven from which to spread their toxic message of racism and authoritarianism. We will also defend ourselves and at-risk populations from the physical and political threat they pose.

...

Asheville Global Report

P.O. Box 1504

Asheville, NC 28802

Phone/fax: 828-236-3103

Web: www.agrnews.org

Email: editors@agrnews.org

A sister publication to FE and an ambitious weekly, the AGR crew covers news underreported by mainstream media, believing that a free exchange of information is necessary to organize for social change. AGR is distributed free every Thursday in Asheville and other cities, and is published weekly on the world wide web at www.agrnews.org. For out-of-towners, AGR is available for $50 for one year, 52 issues; $25 for six months, 26 issues. Donations: We gladly accept donations. Asheville Global Report is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

It’s Friday night, and a hundred sweaty freaks are dancing their asses off to the sounds of a Cyndi Lauper cover band. Courtney is standing on a stool by the front collecting money, but no one’s ever turned away for lack of funds around here. The cash she collects will go to benefit the local women & transgendered health collective. Paintings from the last art opening are still hanging on the walls, and out front dozens of beautiful, grungy people are smoking cigarettes and networking like mad.

...

FIFTH ESTATE #362, Fall, 2003, Vol. 38, No. 3, page 4

The Fifth Estate (FE) is an unincorporated, cooperative magazine publishing since 1965. As opposed to professionals who publish to secure wages or invest in the media information industry, our collective consists of volunteer writers, artists, and editors--friends who produce the paper as an expression of resistance to an unjust and destructive society.

...

This summer, the Rule of Thirds recently dubbed by the Nashville Scene as a “subversive art space”—played host to numerous politically proactive collectives. June saw the educational and entertaining Upside Down Culture Collective hailing from our other outpost: Detroit. They shared a mix of radical art history, puppetry, music, and readings, in promotion for their newly released book All the Days After, a collection of art and poetry ranging from creatively pissed off to outright heart wrenching, in response to the events on and after September 11^th. These guys are warm, funny, and intelligent: turning a culture upside down in a city near you or at

...

Since the Fifth Estate refuses to publish the voice of capital, advertisements—the normal source of financing ‘newspapers—we depend on you through your subscriptions, newsstand purchases, and donations to insure our survival.

This issue was made possible through a combination of the above sources as well as a series of regional benefits held on our behalf. The most recent ones occurred in Chattanooga, Asheville, “Punk-n-holler,” and Detroit and combined raised over $1000, with $850 coming from the latter event alone. This provided us with almost half of what we needed to print, mail, and ship this issue. So, thanks to the many performers, organizers, and attendees who made them so successful.

...

Our backyard bonfire crackles, dimly lighting the faces of neighbors and their dogs emerging from the shadows. Secure with our bottled water, red wine and campfire grill, over a dozen of us trade clumsily barbecued chicken, whitefish, and green peppers, along with vignettes of the worst power outage in American history.

...

Asheville, North Carolina, August 6. Ten Asheville women from Women in Black (WIB) found themselves in court on Aug. 6 faced with charges of trespassing. WIB is an international peace network that was started in Israel in 1988 by women protesting against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. They wear black as a symbol of sorrow for all victims of war, for the destruction of people, nature, and the fabric of life.

...

Coming out of antifa smashups with fascists, in Charlottesville and Berkeley in August, condemnation of those physically fighting the alt-right has given new life to Trump’s charge that “many sides” are responsible for violence at anti-fascist actions.

And, some on the left are contributing to this.

...

These are anarchistic times—times in which increasing numbers of people are resisting the horrors of contemporary society by engaging in direct action without waiting for leaders to tell them what to do. So, it is no surprise that anarchists are once again at the center of fights against the capitalist system and the subjugation of the many to the will of the few.

...

A former community center that hosted a youth rock scene is now being occupied by activists, seemingly ignored by the authorities. A few blocks away, urban farms are bright patches of green in the landscape, producing vegetables and fruits for the community.

Oakland? Detroit? Manhattan’s Lower East Side?

...

This article originally appeared as “Berkeley Strikes the Coral Sea” in Fifth Estate #146, November 25 — December 8, 1971 (Vol. 6 No. 18) page 2

ALAMEDA, Calif.—With a Navy band blaring “Anchors Aweigh,” the USS Coral Sea sailed out of the Golden Gate for Vietnam Nov. 12 despite a mass petition drive by anti-war sailors, an offer of sanctuary to deserters from the Berkeley, Calif. City Council and a threat of mass disruption from civilian picketers.

...

From a leaflet by the Angry Workers Group, 2000 Center St., No. 1200, Berkeley CA 94704, which was passed out during Fleet Week in San Francisco, October, 1985.

The past few years have seen a wholesale rewriting of the history of American involvement in Vietnam. From the official government versions of the events to extremely violent television shows and movies like “The Deer Hunter” and “Rambo,” the people who rule us are attempting to glamorize the slaughter of the Indochinese Wars as a prelude to the next war. It might be in the Philippines or Southern Africa, Central America or Korea. It might be fought on five or ten fronts simultaneously with the Soviet Union. Or maybe they’ll send us off to massacre the populations of Spain or Italy or Britain in the suppression of a revolutionary civil war in Western Europe.

...

President Reagan came into office with an understanding apparently lacking in the two previous administrations which had been still reeling from the egregious defeat of the U.S. imperial forces in Vietnam: If U.S. capital was to continue to function successfully as a permanent war economy (as it has since 1942), a corresponding war psychosis was going to have to be created to justify programs of economic austerity for the working class and poor while making enormous expenditures of state funds for armaments.

...

Errekaleor Bizirik is a large squat occupied by over 150 adults and children in Vitoria-Gasteiz, the capital city of the Basque Autonomous Community in northern Spain.

Defenders of the Basque Squat are prepared for police assault.

The name, Errekaleor, a contraction of a basque word that means dry river, refers to the plateau on which the neighborhood is situated. Like other large squats in Spain, such as Can Vies (see Fifth Estate, Summer 2017), Errekaleor is resisting police and government efforts to evict the residents.

...

In two years, this newspaper will celebrate its 40^th anniversary and carries the distinction of being the longest running, English language, anti-authoritarian publication in American history. Yet, the substantial upsurge in computer use in recent years as a major source for ideas and information may be putting our existence in jeopardy.

...

In early August 2003, African-American anarchist revolutionary Sherman Austin was sentenced to one year in jail, a $2000 fine, and three years probation. His crime? Being a black man who published a website with links to bomb-making information.

Sherman Austin

According to experts, the data Austin linked to is widely available—on the Internet and in public libraries. The state attacked Austin because he is black and because he is an anarchist.

...

The burden of war always falls heaviest on the toilers. They are taught that their masters can do no wrong and go out in vast numbers to be killed on the battlefield. And what is their reward? If they escape death they come back to face heavy taxation and have their burden of poverty doubled. Through all the ages they have been robbed of the just rewards of their patriotism as they have been of the just rewards of their labors.

...

Perhaps the most important thing we learned in Chicago is that we are right. We suspected it all along, but it took clubs and gas and Humphrey’s grinning face to cinch it. We know now for sure that the values of this society are fraudulent and used only to support the unjust system that benefits only the few in positions of economic and political power. The values that we have begun to devise through living and struggling together are superior to the ones of this society. They are revolutionary values and all of us that are serious must begin to live the revolution now as well as struggling to make it a reality.

...

Comrades:

You have won a place in my heart forever. The lions’ response to the letter, “Pretty Bad Taste” (FE Vol. 21 No. 1) was right on!

When I started reading the letter, I kind of slunk back, kind of anxiously awaiting the FE’s response. Then, when I read the lions’ response, a roar of laughter came out of me that took the roof off, strung my intestines out of my split gut, and kept me laughing my ass off two blocks down the street!

...

a review of

And Yet It Moves: The Realization and Suppression of Science & Technology, by Boy Igor, 1986, 120 pp., $5, Zamisdat Press, GPO Box 1255, Gracie Station, NY NY 10028.

Boy Igor’s provocatively titled text gets off to a start that suggests a real depth. It challenges modern science as inseparable from the development of capitalism and pronounces “proletarian” science as bourgeois as proletarian art or the proletarian state.

...

The FE Bookservice may be reached at the same address as the Fifth Estate Newspaper, P.O. Box 02548, Detroit MI 48202 USA, telephone (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;

...

When Cienfuegos Press ceased publishing books several years ago, it left unfilled the anarchist movement’s need for regularly appearing quality titles. Their energetic efforts produced numerous volumes which ranged from the arcane and theoretical (Proudhonist Materialism & Revolutionary Doctrine) to the practical (Towards a Citizens’ Militia) with stops along the way for anthropology, criminology, history, several autobiographies, biographies, and assorted essays on anarchist themes. We thought most of the volumes unavailable, but fortunately they can be obtained through an American affiliate, Cienfuegos Distribution, c/o Soil of Liberty, Box 7056, Powderhorn Sta., Minneapolis, MN 55407. They have a catalog of their titles available, many of which the Fifth Estate Bookstore will soon be ordering.

...

Introduction

It is said that the automobile industry created and brought life to the cities, but once again official history dangerously misrepresents and distorts the facts. In reality, it is responsible for the destruction of viable human communities and emblematic of death culture all over the world. The auto industry’s monopolistic power kept Detroit and the rest of the world from creating alternative urban environments and consciously built car cities and a car world, chopped up and destroyed by incredible expressway systems—cities and a world for cars, not for people.

...

FE note: This is one of three responses to John Zerzan’s “The Case Against Art,” in FE #324, Fall 1986. The other two articles are: “A ‘Culture-in-Action’” by George Bradford and “Journal Notes on Art” by George Bradford.

Art, Life & Death

John Zerzan’s “Case Against Art” is an opus to the reality principle, Rationalist reaction, a puritanical attempt to reduce the multiverse into a limpid, linear, static version of nature and consciousness. Except for that, it is well-written and a masterly example of philosophical name-dropping.

...

Fifth Estate Note: In “Earth Culture-Earth Diet” author William H. Koethke chronicles the life and culture of the inhabitants along New Mexico’s San Francisco River watershed over a millennium up to the present time. At the time he wrote the article William lived in the area described, but has since become a member of the consensus community of Breitenbush Hot Springs in Detroit, Oregon. He recently was arrested for blockading logging crews trying to cut the last remnant of undamaged old growth forest near his community.

...

FE note: This is one of three responses to John Zerzan’s “The Case Against Art,” in FE #324, Fall 1986. The other two articles are: “A ‘Culture-in-Action’” by George Bradford and “Art, Life & Death” by Ratticus.

Of course, while in Paris it is one’s duty to see the art and the many monuments. This is called “sightseeing.” You travel thousands of miles; peasants must be killed, perhaps, to get you there. Certainly whole estuaries have been fouled and species pushed over the critical edge toward extinction. But you cannot deny it: you are in Paris to see the sights and the sites. (Some sociologist has written a book describing tourism as paradigmatic of modernity. Without knowing the details of his argument, it is possible to agree that the rootlessness, the craving for authentic experience, and the pseudopraxis which is only another variant of commodity passivity, all of which characterize the modern traveler or tourist, do represent central elements in modern life. By criticizing it, we in no way escape its implications.)

...

The FE staff and friends have begun discussions again about moving to another building, one which would provide public access to our book shop, serve as a meeting space and perhaps a performance space, and which would encourage the participation of more people who have expressed an interest in working on the paper. For the last two years we have been located in a secluded warehouse with water problems, a very poor heating situation, and space barely large enough for five people. This is a major factor in our less frequent publication over the last two years. We are trying to stay in the same general area, since much of the activity which interests us goes on here and several of us have lived in this neighborhood for many years.

FE note: This is one of three responses to John Zerzan’s “The Case Against Art,” in FE #324, Fall 1986. The other two articles are: “Art, Life & Death” by Ratticus and “Journal Notes on Art” by George Bradford.

“Culture is dead. Create!”

—Paris graffito, 1968

“If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.”

—Emma Goldman

...

Where are the Bulgarians now that we need them department: Get ready Detroit! As the archbishop and the mayor slap each other on the back for bringing the pope himself into town in September, local entrepreneurs are geared up to produce all the exciting papal potpourri to be hawked in the wake of the holy parade as it cruises up Woodward Avenue and out to Pontiac’s Silverdome to pray that the roof doesn’t cave in. What will it be—tee shirts, buttons, pinwheel beanies, and, undoubtedly the classic style commemorative Popa Cola for a taste that refreshes. Rumor has it that the Pope plans to personally bless the site of the City’s world’s [as in print original] largest trash-to-dioxin municipal incinerator. Local fundamentalist christians are understandably horrified to see the antichrist and Whore of Babylon himself in these Yewnited States, and plan mass baptisms of born-again christians down at the Rouge River. Rumor also has it that there will be a huge pagan festival (more to our liking, though we’d enjoy seeing the born-agains fending off the bloated rats down at the Rouge as they go down for the third time) to coincide with the papal visit, to call up all the old Indian spirits of these lands to drive the blackrobes and their ilk away. Of course millions will be spent (and made) and security is going to be hard-core. Since, as Stalin once cynically but aptly pointed out, the pope has no military divisions, he’ll be relying on Detroit’s finest and lots of plainclothes pigs from every imaginable agency (and some we’ve never heard of, probably) to make sure the holy daddy-o doesn’t trip over his gown. Detroiters! Here’s your chance—a once-in-history opportunity: MOON THE POPE:

...

The people at Back Room Anarchist Books in Minneapolis have announced a continental anarchist gathering to be held June 18–22 in that city. After the success of the May Day/Haymarket events in Chicago last year, most of our appetites have been whetted for closer and more frequent communication within the anti-authoritarian movement. The tentative agenda includes workshops, several actions, a banquet and a party.

...

2004 is a leap year—a fantastic opportunity to leap into something new. Are you gonna use your extra day like you use so many other days—using up more of the earth’s resources while the forests, the oceans, and tree communities wither and die? Watching it all go on around you—an “information consumer”—feeling helpless to do anything to resist it?

...

From a talk given at the Fourth Annual Montreal Anarchist Bookfair, May 18, 2003

Think back to the Great Depression and World War II and envision the odd alliances that developed around the world in the face of capitalist crisis and rising fascism: the Hitler-Stalin pact, for instance, or syndicalist support for Mussolini. Or, imagine militant anti-fascists in the underground resistance (often dominated by Stalinists) building ties with US and British military forces. Radicals in North America split between those who encouraged enrollment in the fight against fascism and those who did time in prison for refusing the draft. Think of the strange permutations of Peronism in Argentina, the “green” and “left” wings of the Nazi Party, the failure of the European left in the face of Italian occupation in Ethiopia, or the twists and turns of East Asian resistance to Japanese occupation.

...

Fueled by the massive international antiwar demonstrations of February 2003, people have increasingly turned to the Internet, lured by the hype of a global virtual community, to organize resistance against the murderous plans of the corporate state. Yet in most cases, the results have been demoralizing. Like the empty promise of television’s “global village,” the seductive power of computers is having a destructive effect on human community.

...

FE note: Although we generally dislike back and forths in our letters column, we thought the issues raised by our two comrades below are worthy of continuing the discussion raised about combating fascism begun in our Summer 2003 edition (see “Strange Bedfellows?”) and then commented upon in the letters section of the subsequent issue. We welcome readers’ thoughts as well.

...

a review of

Fugitive Days: A Memoir by Bill Ayers. 2001, Beacon Press. 289 pages.

For activists born after the Vietnam War, the common folklore of the 1960s and ‘70s usually centers around Woodstock, Jimi and Janis, flower children, going back to the land, and burning draft cards. We certainly don’t learn about the militant resistance movements from popular media or in American high schools.

...

FIFTH ESTATE LETTERS POLICY

We welcome letters commenting on our articles, ones stating opinions, or reports from your area. We can’t print every letter we receive, but each is read by our staff and considered for publication.

Letters via email or on disk are appreciated, but type- or hand-written ones are acceptable. Length should not exceed two, double spaced pages. If you are interested in writing a longer response, please contact us: POB 6, Liberty TN 37095. fifthestatenewspaper@yahoo.com

...

David Rovics. “Return” (Available from FE books for $10)

reviewed by Ellen Carryout

David Rovics is a dynamic troubadour, an American Billy Bragg, a Phil Ochs for our time, a folk music MC making revolution accessible. A collaboration with Ever Reviled Records, this latest collection contains classic Rovics musical rants focusing on the struggle for an independent Palestine. As the poetic lyrics chronicle the horrors of life in the occupied territories, some listeners will experience a chilling combination of tears and rage. But Rovics touches on other themes as well.

...