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Typed letters or ones on disk are appreciated, but not required. Length should not exceed two double-spaced pages. If you are interested in writing longer responses, please contact us.

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Reviewed by Allan Antliff unless otherwise noted

The Uncontrollables vs the Grotesque Frame-Up Against Anarchists in Italy: Dossier, 1997 documents the Italian government’s efforts to target Italy’s anarchist movement using the confession of an activist’s former lover. The government is using her testimony to pin numerous unsolved kidnappings, bank robberies, and direct actions (attacks on energy pylons, etc.) on over 50 anarchists.

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On 28^th September last, a group of unknown people approached a field in County Carlow, Ireland, with malicious intent. They proceeded to tear apart an acre of sugar beets’ then disappeared back into the night from which they came.

The field was the property of Teagasc, a semi-state agricultural research organization. The catchily-branded Roundup Ready Sugar Beet that was destroyed had grown from seed provided by the U.S. multinational, Monsanto (See p. 2). The sabotage was claimed by the Gaelic Earth Liberation Front.

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One, two, three, four, we don’t want your fuckin’ war!

Again and again they chanted the couplet as they slowly made their way downtown along New York City’s Fifth Avenue, and then crosstown on 42^nd Street to the United Nations. There, they would hear Martin Luther King and several other luminaries express these same sentiments against the Vietnam war, albeit in somewhat milder language.

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This essay originally appeared in John Clark’s now out-of-print The Anarchist Moment: Reflections on Culture, Nature and Power (Black Rose Books, Montreal, 1984) as “Master Lao and the Anarchist Prince.” John is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of Environmental Studies at Loyola University, New Orleans. He edits the Freeport Watch Bulletin, covering the activities of the evil Freeport-McMoRan mining corporation from POB 79, Loyola Univ., New Orleans LA 70118.

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This section is produced for the Fifth Estate by Neither East Nor West; a New York City group linking alternative oppositions in the East and West, and printing news and documents unavailable in the corporate and “left” media. Our title refers to Moscow’s Gogol Boulevard, a favorite hangout of Soviet-era counterculture youth dissidents, artists, and peace and human rights activists.

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“The tramps refused to obey; they abandoned time, possessions, labor, slavery. They walked and slept in counter-rhythm to the world.”

—Anais Nin, The Tramps, 1946

Anais Nin’s encounter-with the homeless wanderers of her day—the tramps of Paris, “in counter-rhythm to the world” reminds me of an enduring duality in anarchism. We stand at one remove from capitalism, attempting in our own way to live in a degraded world in spite of it. In the quest to realize our ideals many of us have joined the ranks of such rebels, who subsist on capital’s margins.

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In December 1997 two writers died who influenced our perspective: Rudolf Bahro and Cornelius Castoriadis, both former marxists capable of valuable insights as well as highly questionable positions. Bahro and Castoriadis were original thinkers, nevertheless, and deserve recognition as important voices in the breakup of traditional leftism and the emergence of new forms of radicalism.

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With the hope of leaving a fruitful seed, the bodies of the Spanish libertarians are sowing the earth in various continents of the planet. In Montreal, it is our dear Cisco Rebordosa. He was preceded by Enrique Castillos, who dedicated many years of his life to militancy, Alfred Munrós (see Fall 1996 FE), whose illustrations are well known to readers of our publications, and Alfred Ruiz, a veteran of the anti-Franco struggle in Spain, where he was imprisoned.

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Honoring the Haymarket Martyrs

The U.S. National Park Service has declared Chicago’s Haymarket Martyrs’ monument a National Historic Landmark and the Illinois Labor History Society (ILHS) is sponsoring a celebration, Sunday afternoon, May 3. The ceremony will take place at the former Waldheim cemetery, now called Forest Home, at 863 Desplaines Ave. in Forest Park, Ill., outside of Chicago.

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MOSCOW—Sometimes I wonder who has more sexual hang-ups: Moscow anarchists or Bill Clinton? Only serious perverts can truly understand Clinton’s conflict with Iraq as more than the quest for domination; it’s penis envy of Zhirinovsky-esque proportions, the sublimated sexual aggression of two presidents played out on the world political stage.

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Amid all the media saturation about oral sex in the Oval Office, it went almost unnoticed that Bill Clinton considered use of nuclear weapons against Iraq to take out Saddam Hussein’s underground complexes, or to retaliate for an Iraqi chemical or biological attack by issuing Presidential Policy Directive 60 (PPD 60).

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Welcome to our Summer 1998 edition. Thanks to everyone who had a hand in creating our 351^st issue. This issue follows our Fall 1997 edition, so please note that there was not an issue designated Winter or Spring.

As always, you can keep track of issues by noting the number in parentheses. Subscriptions expire after you have received four issues, not a calendar year. Special thanks to our Sustainers and to those who made generous donations with their subscription renewals. Also, to our writers and artists whose works grace our pages.

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Recycling is a classic case of co-optation.

The title of this article is somewhat misleading since I continue to recycle a portion of the waste produced daily by my household. What has changed is my previous diligence in making certain every scrap of what is recyclable winds up in my yellow curbside container.

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By last count, 1.5 million Iraqis, one million of them children under five, have died as a result of the U.S./U.N. sanctions, either through starvation or from lack of medicine for easily curable diseases. People are dying at a rate of about 11,000 a month, and some four million more are on the verge of starvation. In the seven years since the 1991 Gulf War’s intense and devastating bombing campaign, Iraq has become the international oil economy’s extermination camp.

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The following is from a translated text of a videotaped message from Subcomandante Marcos, spokesperson for Mexico’s Zapatista National Liberation Front, to a January 1997 Freeing the Media teach-in in New York City.

We’re in the mountains of southeast Mexico, in the Lacandon Jungle of Chiapas, and we want to send a greeting to our brothers and sisters in independent communication media from the U.S. and Canada.

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a review of

Why Hope? The Stand Against Civilization by John Zerzan; introduction by Lang Gore. Feral House, 2015, 136 pp.

John Zerzan’s latest book, Why Hope? The Stand Against Civilization, continues his ongoing critique of civilization and its consequences. The collection of essays--many of which originally appeared in Fifth Estate and other anarchist publications during the past few years--explore familiar topics: the origins of civilization, the techno-culture, industrialism, the Left, and collapse.

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“...the city is not fitting human habitat. Architecturally, in form and function, they resemble nothing so much as endless aisles of battery hen cages.”

—Dion Workman, Thinking Like A Forest: Towards an Agricultural Counter-Revolution

It is pessimistically seductive to perceive a recently announced Chinese government plan to construct the apotheosis of urbanity—a mega-city centered around the capital of Beijing—as our herald of the end times.

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Mumia Abu-Jamal’s appeal that his conviction and death sentence be overturned for the 1981 death of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner is still pending before Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court. The recent election of an extreme conservative justice to a court that has never granted a new trial, much less dismissed charges for a death-row inmate, does not bode well.

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Whatever one thought of Ted Kaczynski before his trial, by January, when he admitted he was the Unabomber, thus avoiding a death penalty by pleading guilty to an 18-year bombing campaign, one had to feel a certain sympathy for him. After several weeks of struggling with a defense team apparently determined to portray him as severely mentally ill in order to save him from execution (even over his own objections and desire to represent himself), and with a federal judge who committed a number of egregious procedural errors that would have almost certainly led to successful appeals, Kaczynski apparently took the only option he thought he had to avoid a trial that would present him as an incompetent madman, and copped a plea.

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I arrived early at Clutch Cargo’s, once an imposing church, but now a trendy rock joint in yuppified downtown Pontiac, a gritty, predominantly black, industrial Detroit suburb. The occasion was a concert by Chumbawamba, the anarchist pop group from Leeds, England, which has achieved international acclaim for their catchy hit, “Tubthumping.”

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Although there have been no recent developments in the nation-wide campaign to free Gary Tyler, the 17-year-old Black Louisiana man framed and sentenced to death for the shooting of a 13-year-old white racist youth, there have been new disclosures concerning Tyler and his family, friends and supporters.

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Detroit just sits there

like the head of a large dog on a serving platter.

It lurks in the middle of a continent,

or passes itself off as a civilization dangling at the end of a rope.

The lumpiness of the skyline

is the lumpiness of a sheet stretched over

what’s left of a tender young body.

Detroit groans and aches and oppresses.

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Response to:

A Bicentennial moment: Haymarket Square Riot by Bob Nirkind, Fifth Estate #272, May, 1976, Vol. 11, No. 8, page 10

To the Fifth Estate:

A brief note concerning Bob Nirkind’s treatment of the Knights of Labor in the May issue of the Fifth Estate.

Most historians have seen the Knights of Labor as a backward-looking organization grounded in the craftsman’s rejection of the development of wage-slavery and the destruction of his skills—and privileges. There is a certain grain of truth in this, especially as far as the early years of the organization are concerned (1879 through 1884), and the leadership itself. However, in my own work (which meant looking at the Knights in great detail on both the local and national level) I found a more useful framework.

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Vote Nobody ’76

The winner is sitting in a crowded bathtub, clad in a stovepipe hat, tails and sneakers and snorting long hits of laughing gas. He staggers to his feet, steps over a cohort dressed like an inflated pumpkin and pushes past another wearing a banner reading: “Is there life after student government?” Finally, he slurs his only “victory statement” of the night.

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Bicentennial

A Living History

Two hundred years ago today nothing happened. Literally nothing happened. Philadelphia was sweltering: the garbage men were threatening to strike, and had already enforced a slowdown. They knew that a goodly amount of refuse and filth was going to collect in the city for the July 4^th Continental Congress. Flies swarmed over the heaps of trash bags lying in the streets next to the piles of bodies of plague victims.

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In a fairly recent booklet, I came across a very standard view of pre-modern class society. It was stated that the life of the individual was completely controlled, and based on something quite external to him.

“The central mode of experience in pre-capitalist society was the event, principally the religious/historical event—Christ on the cross,” it explained further.

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Billowing smoke pours from the stacks that surround the huge water tower on the edge of the Rouge River. A too-familiar blue and white emblem proclaims the domination of the area by Ford Motor Company’s massive Rouge Plant complex, once the largest industrial plant in the world.

East of the railroad tracks that cross Dix Road, UAW Local 600 faces a strip of small stores and coffee houses. On a weekday afternoon, sometime between the changeover of a factory’s day and afternoon shifts, groups of men gather along the street. Dark complexions and painted shop signs are the only indications of the largest Arab Muslim community in the U.S., located in the shadow of the Rouge Plant in the South End of Dearborn.

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The fact that the East Eight Mile Road Light Guard Armory is strategically located in the heart of the industrial sector for the Detroit area is no accident (see story). The armory, also by no coincidence, is on the crucial border between Warren and the City. A recent Channel 1 newscast highlighted the fact that the building, housing enough weapons and munitions to equip a small army, is protected by only a small contingent of unarmed guards. (photo: Millard Berry)

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The results of the Italian parliamentary elections held June 20 and 21 toppled the predictions of political forecasters (including us; see FE last issue, June 1976) that the Italian Communist Party (PCI) would emerge as the greatest vote getter. As it turned out, the Christian Democrats (DC) maintained their place as Italy’s largest party although the Communists increased their vote totals more than 10% from the elections held in 1972 for Senate and House of Deputies seats.

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Our Fifth Estate benefit and party at Alvin’s Back-room on June 25 worked out pretty well for us, both in terms of money (we made about $215 after expenses) and everyone seemed to have a good time. The entertainment was provided by the Acme Theatrical Agency and Primitive Lust satire groups, both who left folks rolling in the aisles. After them, Ted Lucas and the Spikedrivers provided the rock and roll for a night of dancing. Unfortunately, the pressure gauge on the beer tapper broke while we were into our fourth keg and left us with a lot of undrunk suds at the end of the evening. You can hear more of the Spikedrivers every Friday and Saturday nights at Alvin’s after hours from 11 pm to 4 am. Our usual thanks to everyone who helped put the benefit together including Mark for printing and Mike McCoy and Judy Adams of WDET for publicity.

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“A newspaper printed locally and called the Fifth Estate is running a dangerous advertisement, purportedly placed by General Motors, but actually put on the back page of the Fifth Estate by the staff of the paper.

“It gives the home addresses of fourteen key General Motors executives,” reported TV 2’s golden boy, Joe Glover, as he gave the viewers at home his most solemn on-camera expression, “including GM Board Chairman Tom Murphy. It even shows a picture of his home and a map of escape routes for anyone who wants to kidnap Murphy.

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On the morning of July 18, 1936 General Francisco Franco began the fascist rebellion against the Spanish Republican liberal bourgeois regime in Madrid. This move was immediately met by armed resistance of the urban proletariat who, after defeating the fascists in half of Spain began the revolutionary process of expropriating industry, while their counterparts among the peasantry collectivized agriculture.

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Millard Berry

Alan Franklin

Ralph Franklin

Pat Halley

Kathy Horak

Rick Schrader

Pat Kazenko

Bob Nirkind

E.B. Maple

Pat O’Bryan

Algirdas Ratnikas

Dennis Rosenblum

Bill McGraw

Marilyn Werbe

Peter Werbe

John Zerzan

Paula Zerzan

David Watson

The Fifth Estate Newspaper, a non-profit Michigan corporation is published monthly at 4403 Second Ave., Detroit MI 48201; phone: (313) 831–6800. Office hours are: 1:00–5:00 P.M., Mondays through Fridays. Subscriptions are $3.00 for 12 issues. Call 842–8888 for retail sales outlets. Second Class postage paid at Detroit, Michigan. No copyright. No commercial advertising.

Underneath the center of the international menagerie, whereupon governments totter for power, politicians tumble for fame, generals squawk for security, and clergy rant and rave, skitter the well-fed rodents of the financial world, endlessly greasing the vital parts of all those acrobats center-stage.

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To the Fifth Estate:

The feature on the “Crisis in Health Care” (June FE) is O.K. However, I think it should include some coverage of the so-called mental health system. (The Brain Police wear white uniforms!)

Another facet of the medical end of things deserves mention, too. During the revolution, members of the peoples’ militia will not be covered by Blue Cross/Blue Shield. Every hospital will probably have special security Pigs whose job will be apprehending wounded revolutionaries. Think about this.

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Just as in other periods of contestation with the ruling order, not only did the Vietnam era resistance create its own periodicals, but it also published an enormous number of posters and flyers. Their subject matter didn’t only call for an end to the war, but denounced the U.S. empire and its armed forces, the police, racism, sexism, and many contained calls for revolution against capitalism.

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a review of

In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology & the Survival of the Indian Nations. Jerry Mander. Sierra Club Books, San Francisco. 1991. $25.00. 446 pp.

From my window overlooking Detroit’s entropic landscape, no earth is visible. The ground is comprised of layers of pavement spread through eras over an anonymous “fill,”—dirt, roots, decimated bits of life systems, ripped out and hauled in long ago from some other abused place on Earth. This is the true landscape of the western spirit.

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a review of

HOME! A Bioregional Reader edited by Van Andruss, Christopher Plant, Judith Plant, and Eleanor Wright. New Society Publishers, Santa Cruz, CA. 1990, 181 pgs. $14.95.

This collection of thirty-one essays is a stimulating introduction to the notion of bioregionalism. Bioregionalism presents a model for a conscious transition from a late industrial society to a society which values community as well as freedom and diversity, a society which emphasizes the limits as well as the regenerative powers of the earth.

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At their National Gathering last August, the U.S. Greens decided to embark upon a project they called “Detroit Summer” as one of their three major campaigns for 1992.

The idea was to express an urban consciousness for ecological issues through the establishment of a “Green alternative” for an economically and socially disintegrating urban environment. Part of this ambitious project involved the recruitment of Youth Greens, many of whom constitute the most radical and even anarchist wing of the Greens, to come to this city for the summer.

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LIVING MY LIFE by Emma Goldman

The turbulent autobiography of a woman at the—center of the century’s major events. Although her life intersected with the famous figures of the era, it is the day-to-day struggles for anarchy which make this account come alive. This is the original two-volume edition first published in 1931.

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a review of

Free Women of Spain: Anarchism and the Struggle for the Emancipation of Women, by Martha A. Ackelsberg (Indiana University Press, 1991)

I write this review on the day George Bush officially declares his intent to run again for president. Against the backdrop of this obscene, insulting non-event, the positive image of grassroots politics evoked by Free Women of Spain stands out all the more. Obviously, envisioning and struggling toward fulfillment of people’s fullest capacities is far removed from the media’s image of politics.

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“I shall never be able to forget where I was standing on that dramatic day when President John Fitzgerald Kennedy nearly killed me. It was during the nuclear confrontation that arose out of his war on Cuba.”

—Christopher Hitchens in The Nation, Feb. 3, 1992

John Kennedy has been described as a popular president who stood up to powerful business interests and was ready to pull U.S. troops out of Vietnam. His assassination, assert many, including Oliver Stone in his latest film JFK, resulted from his impending shift of Indochina policies; it marked the end of democracy in the U.S. and the beginning of a military dictatorship dominated by military-oil interests and executed by the CIA.

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Hi:

In his review of Counterfeit Currency, E.B. Maple asserted that gold has served as money because of arbitrary human assignation, an analysis which treats money in general as a mere sign. (See Winter 1992 Fifth Estate.)

In actuality, processed gold assured its role because, like other commodities, it is (even in its rawest form, sifted flakes) the product of human labor. But unlike other commodities, it is chemically stable, compact, and generally useless except as a medium of exchange.

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James Koehnline’s inventive collages often grace our pages including this issue. His mixture of the ancient with the modern, sacred idols with the banal, and the improbable alongside the ordinary, are often ominously unsettling. The jarring juxtaposition creates a combination of images which reveals much more than the constituent parts.

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In May 1992, 404 Willis will celebrate its first anniversary as a collectively-run community center and autonomous zone in Detroit’s Cass Corridor. The evolution of 404 has been the combined effort of many individuals united in their desire to create a gathering place that is an alternative to the bars and spectacular culture as a whole—an all ages, Do-It-Yourself, volunteer-run, inclusive yet anti-authoritarian atmosphere for people to come to and create, share ideas or simply hang out.

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“Safe sex” has put sex in the safe. The three number combination lock reads: heterosexuality (two turns to the right) ultra-monogamy (two more turns to the right)—and condoms (one reluctant turn to the left), unlocking the Final Solution for the far right. Even if AIDS isn’t the result of covert germ warfare testing (see “Did U.S. Cause AIDS?” FE #326, Summer, 1987) the CIA couldn’t have created a better weapon against the subculture of drug use and “deviant” sex. Is it time to raise the white flag of celibacy and wait for science to invent a new pill, or do we have some real choices beyond the modern black plague hysteria?

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Related story: “Tony” Revealed, Fifth Estate #377, March 2008

On July 26, 1900, officials of Western Penitentiary in Woods Run, Pennsylvania, discovered a tunnel which zigzagged some three hundred feet from the basement of the red brick house of 28 Sterling Street, which bordered the southern wall of the prison, to a point just inside the east wall. A superlative feat of engineering, the underground passage was equipped with an ingenious ventilation system as well as an electric warning device.

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Welcome to the Spring 1992 issue of the Fifth Estate (Vol. 27, No. 1, our 339^th paper)! As usual, we are later than we had planned, due in part to our worst nightmare: the breakdown, in the heat of production, of our IBM Composer. Most of this issue has been typeset on Macintosh computers by a host of busy friends stealing time at work, home and in school computer labs.

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In an era when almost all environmental battles seem doomed to defeat, it was heartening to see Quebec’s energy megaproject at James Bay dealt a crippling blow by the decision of the State of New York to cancel a 20-year power contract.

The giant hydroelectric complex in the Canadian sub-Arctic is devastating the James Bay wilderness and destroying the traditional way of life for thousands of Cree and Inuit who live there. (See FE, Winter 1992.)

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