Letters

Dearest Friends,

I am a dumb old GI and I hate this MF Army. I want to subscribe to your underground paper. It’s not a very pleasant thing being here where I really don’t want to be.

The only thing that I want is to be back home (Detroit) and to be with my girl. I don’t want the war in Vietnam, or the Army or all of this unnecessary harassment. I’m not really proud of being in the Army although my parents seem to think so.

In August on the second day of the month I will be home on leave but the bad thing is, I have to come back to Germany. I really don’t think that I will.

I’m not really dumb and I’m not very old. I’m only 19 and I’ll be 20 next month.

Time to go because I have to work tomorrow. I should be able to sleep good because I just did my thing.

Keep your heads.

D.B.

(Psychedelic Sam)

Dear Editors:

For preparation of a novel about the Yippie Aeonic Smut Brigade and the Democratic Convention of 1968, I am looking for photos of a) day & night action in Lincoln Park, b) street action in front of the Hilton Hotel, c) oink-vamping d) any pictures of Abbie, Jerry, Krassner, Ginsberg, Wolf Lowenthal, Bob Fass, Larry Lipton, Tuli Kupferberg, Piano Wire Louie, Johnny Pissoff, etc. & particularly Spain Rodriuguez, e) Jerry Rubin holding up Pigasus at Grant Park rally or f) any example of spontaneous, spirit photography that occurred anywhere.

Please contact Ed Sanders at:

Peace Eye Bookstore

147 Avenue A

New York, N.Y. 10009

To the Editors:

Everyone is cordially invited to the second coming of Christ at Kennedy Pk. in East Detroit. It is located on Stephens east of Gratiot. Do what you please there.

This is all happening on Saturday, August 2, 1969. I hope we can all come together.

Yours,

J. Christ

To the Editors:

I have been given a copy of the Fifth Estate recently to see what I thought of it. After reading it through I found it disgusting.

It’s sickening to see how far some people’s morals can go...to the level of irrational animals. And yet they call themselves human beings. The Want Ads and comic section are deploring! It’s filthy to the highest degree.

Billy Graham states: “Sex is a gift from God. Young people are getting the wrong idea about sex. Within marriage it’s the most wonderful of relationships...Sex is for enjoyment within the confines of marriage...” (not single men and women or as some ads indicate ‘mistress.)’

Billy Graham continues—“The literature is unbelievable. And the underground newspapers with their filthy names and titles and want ads. You see, there’s no love in this sort of thing. We’re just buying sex like you would buy a piece of meat. Eventually this decadence will destroy us and that’s why I’m asking people to commit themselves to a Christ who’s teaching love and understanding.”

Why don’t all of you try? You’ll never regret it! I know.

A Wayne Student

Editors’ Note: Wayne student? You sound like a WSU grad, class of ’28.

What the hell does a piece of paper and some mumbo-jumbo by a priest or judge have to do with having a loving relationship and enjoying sex with a fellow human being?

We all are animals. Dig it.

Dear Sir:

This letter is prompted by a letter you printed from a serviceman in Vietnam.

As I recall, the letter said something about a company or group of servicemen “sucking cock.”

Now what I am interested in knowing from you and your readers is: is this supposed to be a putdown of homosexuals or is it just an expression. I was under the delusion that the younger generation had done away with all the hypocrisy and double standards of the older generation.

I assumed that sex was no hangup and that each man was free to do whatever his thing was or whatever turned him on. But if this young man is saying that homosexuals are evil, then where is he any different from his parents?

Are the young men still also afraid of queers? Of their own masculinity? I would be sorry to hear this for it would mean that they were only interested in getting what they are interested in “free” and not in getting humanity free of old dogmas out of date.

William Edward Glover

Sir:

Usually enjoy 5^th Estate but didn’t appreciate all the shit you tried to pass off on the Toronto Rock Festival [FE #83, July 10–23, 1969]. Both writer Bob Stark and an unnamed writer tried to put it down, both on different, but highly questionable grounds.

The unnamed writer put the whole scene down as not being “revolutionary” enough and inferred the Toronto audience didn’t really dig the Detroit sound and didn’t quite know where things were at.

Having lived in both the Detroit and Toronto scenes, I can say that it’s a lot more groovy in Toronto and only Toronto was capable of pulling off what was in many ways the best pop-rock fest since the original at Monterey. Instead of revolution shit, pig riots, and crashers, the people just went for a good time.

As for Stark’s reference to “6,000 Detroiters who went and got milked by slick New Yorkers”...bullshit! The Detroit brothers and sisters weren’t forced to go to Toronto ... and they probably loved it! And the promoters were from Toronto.

Other than that... peace.

N. Lugsdin

Windsor

Dear Editor:

I would like to rebut the criticism levelled upon me and my organizational work at Cass Tech by writer Dave Watson in your last issue [FE #83, July 10–23, 1969].

It is true, I will readily admit, that I am not as radical as Watson would like me to be, however I take issue with him when he refers to the Cass Student Association as “irrelevant at best; reactionary in fact.”

Last fall, the CSA was formed to fight the removal of the Performing Arts curriculum from the school, with myself as one of three leaders. The group at this time worked with the Cass Association, a parent/alumni organization, to fight the Board of Education. (It must be noted that we were not opposed to the building of a new facility for Northwestern, but rather to the removal of a successful curriculum at Cass.)

After the start of the spring semester, a group of students, including myself, decided to start a student rights group (or, if you prefer, a student power group), and for lack of a better name, we called it the Cass Student Association.

Our main action was the presentation of 14 demands.

Among them were demands for draft counseling in school, immediate destruction of any “black lists” in existence, the right to assemble without supervision or approval, teacher and course evaluation by students, and elimination of ROTC as a credit course.

Watson calls the CSA “a junior PTA to the end.” Apparently he knows something about the PTA that the rest of us don’t.

I am quoted as saying “Basically the students, even the radicals are apathetic.” I’ve seen too many super-radicals who are more concerned with being radicals than with getting something accomplished. They’re the types that sit around doing nothing while you do all the work involved, then if the action is not successful, they jump out of nowhere and start calling you names like “dumb liberal” and “counterrevolutionary.”

From my own observations, it appears that Dave Watson falls into this category. It is significant that while considering himself a high school student in print, he in fact dropped out a few months back.

If he wishes to work in the role of an outside organizer, he could probably perform a useful function, but the first prerequisite for being a high school radical is to be a high school student.

While Watson was being a full time revolutionary, the rest of us had to divide our time between organizing and studying for tests. Unless he was suffering through the school system like the rest of us, he had no right saying that we did no useful work.

I am further quoted as saying, “I’m not trying to destroy the system,” and I stand behind this statement. There are two ways in which we can chose to view the schools. We can say that they belong to the establishment, so we must destroy them as contributing to the capitalist system. This is Watson’s view.

I instead believe the school actually belongs to the students, but I observe that it is being controlled by the establishment. I believe that high school students should work towards gaining control of the schools which are theirs. Hence, as a student, I have no desire to destroy that which belongs to me, but rather to make it operate in a way most beneficial to me.

Watson speaks of radicals as being destined to win, as he says, “because we are the majority.” In the high schools, at least, this is not the case. Most students still swallow the bullshit being fed them and lick the spoon clean.

The ranks of the movement must grow. In attempting to show unaware high school students how they are enslaved, there is no better way of making a kid who shouts all the slogans at football games ignore you than by telling him you want to destroy his school.

Dennis Rosenblum

Watson replies: Thank you, Dennis, for confirming all of my charges.

Dear Marilyn Werbe „

Today I have received your letter. No, I did not receive your letter of May 13 it is possible that the officials here decided that I was not to receive it or the small possibility that it was lost in the mail.

I thank you for taking the time to answer me, and I thank the paper for publishing the letter from the Director of Corrections they did. I did not get to see the issue that it appeared in, but Larry Belcher’s wife sent in a letter that said it appeared in one of the issues.

I don’t know for sure, but when I checked with the mail official here, in regards to the ban on the Fifth, he phoned someone and from what I could make from the conversation, there has been no final decision as to whether or not the paper is to come in. I do know that I only received the one issue.

I will attempt to have your letter printed (all or in part) in our prison newspaper, in this way I can reach not only the inmates inside, but also those on the farms and trustee div. By all means, I will notify you if the ban is lifted and submit another subscription.

Anyway Dec. is not too far off, if at that time there is anything I can do for the paper, you have but to ask. I will keep in touch.

Good Things ‘n’ Better Times

Don Willard

121864 4000 Cooper Street

Jackson, Michigan 49201