Letters

Dearest Hippie Editor:

I think you guys at the Fifth Estate are the biggest clot of hypocrites I have ever had witness to. Some people wrote some letters to the Editor in your Aug. 15–31 issue. They called you hypocrites. They were right. So give them this idiot reply “Go back to your bar-b-ques and rock gardens and go soak your head in gravy, and hang yourself on a telephone wire,” and other kindergarten sayings.

You guys are beautiful. So beautiful I could puke. Don’t print this letter because you might lose some of your readers with a brain.

Joe Cacaleawich

Dearborn

Dear Editor:

In the past few months I have visited Plum Street and seen the so-called “hippies” sitting around like warts. Some had love in their eyes, and speech, and actions.

But some looked to me like “phonies,” to quote J.D.S. When I was at Cranbrook School this summer, John Sinclair, his wife and child, Pun, and another person visited us. They were real “hippies.” They looked of love and spoke of love. But when I see these hoods looking for attention on Plum Street, ruining the whole effect and atmosphere, I want to leave.

You’d think a hippie was judged by his physical appearance. This is totally false. To be a hippie is completely mental. Clothing is a completely individual mark, but hippies are only collective in their ideas on certain ways of life.

I have a friend who is completely hippie at heart but doesn’t do the odd and disgusting things those asses on Plum Street do. He is a great kid and bound to be successful. Thank God for people like him.

Get rid of these “phonies” for your own good -they’re ruining you.

Martin LaBodie

Detroit

Dear Editor:

Sorry to upset your world, but I must write something that’s been nagging me lately. I’m sick to my stomach with John (the Leader, the God, the Savior) Sinclair. Lately he thinks he’s Mr. Detroit Hippy Personified and now he’s a biological chemist.

Last issue [actually, FE #36, August 15–31, 1967, Letters] he ranted for a column and a half on the scare tactics of the mass media in the form of alleged chromosome damage. He offered none of the promised “evidence on the contrary” in his letter, only screamed more of his worthless opinions.

Man, don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking acid. I just think it’s wrong when someone uses his position to endanger other people’s well being (Johnson does it and you condemn him!). You may think other people are handing you horse shit, but man, you don’t have to go brainwash others too.

Linda

Detroit

Dear Friends:

I am sending this letter to all underground newspapers I know, in the hope of informing other people about the other side of the Neo American Church.

As you may know, this is the organization that says they take psychedelics as part of their religion, psychedelics are sacramental foods, “manifestations of ‘the Grace of God’” and all kinds of beautiful hippie-Tim Leary shit.

One day I sent in my $5.00 to become a member (for this, you get a membership card and their newsletter—“Divine Toad Sweat”). A few days ago, I received issue #44, and found quite a surprise. On the back page of the newsletter, they printed the names and addresses of new members, my name included!

Now up until this time, I’d never had any trouble copping—the heat didn’t know me, they had no way of knowing me, until good ol’ Arthur Kleps (editor of Divine Toad Sweat) published my name. Just because I sent ‘em money for a membership, I’m now listed in print as boohoo of my area.

Is Klep’s organization a nark front?

Anonymous

Dear Editor:

Up to now most “liberals” in this country have voted for the Democratic party. However since that party is currently sponsoring Hitler reincarnated, many Democrats and other liberals have begun setting up third parties. It is my contention that a vote for a third party is a vote for Johnson!!!!

The Republicans offer the only realistic means of defeating Johnson. Whomever they run for president he will have a hard fight on his hands. He will need every vote he can get since a large segment of reactionary Republicans will probably vote for Wallace.

A vote for a liberal third party goes down the drain. A vote for a Republican fights Johnson. For this reason a vote for a third party helps Johnson simply because it does not help the Republicans.

Please advise your readers to be realistic and vote for a Republican. If the G.O.P. wins, we may not have heaven, but on the other hand, we’ve got Hell now, haven’t we?

Love, Peace, and Flowers

Robyn Asterrishe

1186 West Lincoln Ave.

Montebello, Calif.

To the Editors:

There are many students, young married couples, hippies, etc., who are looking for a doctor they can trust. Some need medical attention while others would like to have a doctor they know they can go to for periodic check ups. The Health Center at Wayne is totally inadequate even for treating a cut finger.

Many of us can—and do—go to the various public clinics, but we would like to have a private doctor, in the old sense of a family doctor.

Is there anyone around who is interested in our problems? One of the first things you hear from people who’ve been on the coast is the fact that you can get medical attention easily and sometimes free in Calif. I want a doctor who won’t laugh when I tell him I don’t eat meat and don’t like taking pills.

Many people who have taken acid would like to go to a doctor who would be sympathetic and able to relieve some of their anxieties—but who and where?

A Second Street Student

Dear Editors:

In the Fifth Estate, July 1–15, you ran an article reading “if something you want isn’t happening make it happen. A lot of things aren’t happening. Frisco makes Detroit look like Mayberry Town.

There are many things missing in Detroit’s Psychedelic Community. Like a store with free food and clothes. Many people get hungry and cold on Plum Street. But where can they get food and clothes. From a few friends, yes, but some day those few friends are gonna run out of clothes and foods.

Also a library would be very groovy and convenient. A library with underground magazines, newspapers and books. If any one is interested in starting an “Underground Library” call MI 7–2395 (8 p.m.) We need one building and a lot of books.

Why not? Who knows. Detroit might become a magic city.

Bill Golden

Detroit

To the Editor:

The hippies have become victims of their own ideology.

In their rejection of the grand spectacle—Hollywood/Madison Ave./America—they have accepted a spectacle no less destructive, one which substitutes synthetic play for real life, while at the same time they have become tools of those against whom they have supposedly rebelled. They have been added to the rostrum of “stars” who entertain the corpse of the bourgeoise, a corpse which seeks to remake the world in its own image.

Baby, you haven’t dropped out because this goddamn system is rotten. But what they will never allow is for us to remake our lives, because that will signal their end. They must instead attempt to either recoup our revolt by making it into a spectacle which reaffirms their vitality while it drains ours or they will seek to crush us. And we must fight either.

The one by refusing to “play their games” while real life is denied, the other by open struggle. “If they want to play Nazis, we ain’t going to play Jews.” And so our struggle crosses that of the blacks and together we can tear this shit down.

The American Indian was forced onto reservations (concentration camps) he did not retire there to smoke and groove. Life cannot be limited to a “reserve” specified by those who seek to control us. We must decide where and when we will live, play or die, otherwise our freedom is a lie.

Black Mask

New York