#title Letters
#author Various Authors
#SORTauthors Various Authors;
#date 1969
#source [[https://www.fifthestate.org/archive/92-november-13-26-1969/letters]]
#lang en
#pubdate 2019-09-06
#notes Fifth Estate #92, November 13–26, 1969
*** To the Editors:
The Students for a Democratic Society, the Radical Education Project (REP) and other radical groups in Detroit, were set up for harassment in the Detroit Free Press article of October 30, 1969 which printed one of our names and several addresses. The article implied that we were responsible for the unrest in local high schools this fall.
We believe that this evasion of the real cause of discontent is an obvious attempt to intimidate us for our political beliefs and to destroy the right to dissent guaranteed to all Americans.
The article contained testimony of Detective Sgt. Allen Crouter of the Detroit Police Department given before the House Internal Security Committee. The House Internal Security Committee and other such committees (including the House Committee in Michigan) serve to harass and intimidate people.
They regularly release one-sided, unsubstantiated “informational” gossip that is designed to make people afraid of a threatened loss of freedom, when all along these committees work for the people who have already stolen that freedom.
They work for the people who every day steal our labor, steal our dignity, decide what kind of dissent is all right, and generally keep us frustrated in our attempts to get together, black, brown and white oppressed people, to do something about our problems.
The material presented before this committee indicated the irresponsible nature of the committee which must resort to such phony grabbing of headlines to insure the continued exercise of its illegitimate power.
The Detroit Free Press, in this instance, has served as the mouthpiece for this harassment and along with the so-called public police department has proven not an impartial protector of justice and freedom, but rather a decider of who shall and shall not be free.
We will not be intimidated. The people will not refrain from uniting to create a society that serves and protects all of its citizens.
The REP Staff
*** Friends,
When last month some West Coast sisters tore up plates and prevented the publication of a porno-thing—which was really bookburning—it was a grim reminder that the female can victimize no less than the male.
And that she can—as we now switch to the total socio-economic scene—exploit no less than he, except that her brand of exploitation is economic.
From the male she sucks out economic security, like he from her drains out the sex. A mutual drain deal. Sometimes, in the case of a Casanova the roles are reversed. But the western-culture weltanschauung still holds—her fuck for his buck.
Which is the capitalist weltanschauung—everything and everybody in some way used. All existence must have a pragmatic and utilitarian reason.
Female and male are in the same capitalist bag and in the final analysis ridiculous for one to war on the other. Sure it’s a male-supremacist society, but within this tyranny are a multiplicity of female sub-tyrannies.
Just let him enter one of her sacred inner-sanctums, like the kitchen! Let him try cooking himself a meal instead of like a good little boy, waiting for wifey, mama or sis to do it!
Or let him try getting a little relief from the night-after-night screwing he has to give her after marriage or mating! The passive pussycat, after capturing him, turns into a sex-lioness—or bedroom commando. (Now who is sexploited!)
We can go on with this who-exploits-more; and up to a point it’s even healthy, clears the air. But when we drag it to the point that the West Coast sisters dragged it and expend all this good energy, we got little energy left for the real villain—an 8,000-year class-property-family statism, an 800-year mercantilism and capitalism, an 80-year neo-mercantilism and imperialism, and an 8-year imperialist war in Asia.
Missing this real villain, we not only stay hung up on side-issues, but get enmeshed in a Puritanism on the left, a Stalinism in female garb, a Red Fascism in the name of freedom.
Sam Cohen
*** To the People;
Ours is not the first radical movement in American history and I don’t think it’s counter-revolutionary to learn from past mistakes. Each movement in the past has failed in part because of exclusionary tactics.
The best example of exclusionary tactics shown so far are those used by the SDS “weatherman” splinter.
Panther Fred Hampton’s indictment of weatherman behavior as “adventuristic, opportunistic, and Custeristic” is valid. Bernadine Dorhn labels those opposed to weatherman tactics as Nazis. Others call GIs pigs unless they turn their weapons around.
Weatherman energy and commitment is fine, but they can keep the tactics. We will win... if we stay together and grow.
Right on!
Bill Rice
Malmstrom AFB,
Mont.
*** Dear Fifth Estate,
Your article on Auntie Gibb killing off Paul McCartney was good, but a bit too bitter and, I think, slightly off base. [See “Rock Ghouls,” [[https://www.fifthestate.org/archive/91-october-30-november-12-1969/rock-ghouls/][FE #91, October 30-November 12, 1969]].] The article implied that the force behind the hoax was publicity...and if this were the case there would be due cause for bitterness. But I think the reason is more basic than that.
Gore Vidal once said: “the little door in William F. Buckley Jr.‘s forehead suddenly opened and out sprang that wild cuckoo which I had always known was there, but had wanted so much for others, preferably millions of others, to get a good look at.” (Esquire, September 1969)
I have always thought that a cuckoo of sorts had been co-existing within Gibb but it never really (publicly, anyway) showed itself. Then, one eventful Saturday afternoon, the doors of deception slowly parted and the bird began to sing...and sing...and sing... AND SING.
Five solid hours of “CUCKOO! Paul is dead!” “CUCKOO! We got proof! CUCKOO! I am great! CUCKOO! Out of sight! CUCKOO! He’s been dead for years! CUCKOO etc. etc.” And it didn’t stop at the end of five hours. It began a chain reaction! All the Cuckoos in all the WKNR Jock’s clocks began erupting. Ah, it was delightful. It sounded like noon in a clock repair shop.
Any publicity Gibb or WKNR got was secondary to the eruption—much like Lee Harvey Oswald’s. It’s the kind of publicity they got...and the kind of publicity they got...they deserve. “WKNR: Cuckoo Radio!” One thing’s for sure, if the Beatles ever do come to Detroit, it won’t be Russ Gibb who’ll bring them here.
OM
P.S. Did you hear that the REAL Russ Gibb died in a motor cycle accident six years ago and that he was replaced by Dan Carlisle’s twin sister who is a male impersonator? I have evidence!
*** To the Editor:
As the Detroit bombing trial proceedings commenced unveiling a fink that finked, alias “Owsley the shrew.” Even before his testimony other defendants in the case were easily persuaded to cooperate with the defenders of justice (Gary Miltimore for one). They very well crucified David No. 123110. David No. 123110 lately has been tagged as a “Fink”.
My conversation recently disputed whether he is qualified to be a member of such a growing organization. He says he has not finked on anyone. Sinclair needs no assistant in my opinion.
Is Sinclair a stalwart hero of the revolutionary movement? By proclaiming himself a revolutionary destined to destroy the toys of society from his crib? By making himself known to be a sadist no different than his enemy’s? By shouting here I am pigs put me in prison so I won’t kill the human being in a blue suit and tin badge? Or any human being I can’t change?
Maybe he is right. I’m not ready to believe it. David No. 123110 is called a “Fink” because what he feels to be true conflicts with past beliefs. Grass, Acid, H, etc. There are too many that cannot change even though they may feel what they believe may be wrong.
At least 6 people I knew are dead due to drugs. “They made the decision to use drugs, sure!” The ability to change when you feel it wrong to follow a more accustomed course it is it seems finking on the aware individuals that scream for change. That is all they do.
Daniel Valler
Editors’ Note: Your semi-literate letter notwithstanding, your insane brother is a fink, rat, traitor, pig, punk, stoolie and shall be dealt with by the people accordingly.
*** Dear Editors:
Really have to agree that President Dave is turning into a strange, weirdo werewolf turncoat. Deranged acidhead that he is, it seems explainable. Honesty is the better part of Valler? I doubt it.
Not only is Dave a traitor to his friends, he has become a traitor to the peoples’ revolutionary culture. Through his statements in the racist Detroit News, it is easy to see that he really is looking out for his own interests and not sparing his friends—if they ever were his friends.
These conspiracy charges he laid on John Sinclair and Jack Forrest are obviously false. How really low can someone get?
For Valler there will be no way out. Not only will he be brought to court when the pigs find out that he is actually the trigger man in the bombings, but he will find no place to hide when and if he is released from prison in the future.
Long live the revolutionary culture!
Free Huey—Free John
ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!!!
Robb Smith, Chairman-RYM2 SDS
Macomb Center Campus Chapter
*** To the Editors:
So at last, fascist values hit the Fifth Estate. Yr article by Hank Malone in yr Oct. 30 paper entitled “How Does a Radical Read Art?” [[[https://www.fifthestate.org/archive/91-october-30-november-12-1969/how-does-a-radical-read-art/][FE #91, October 30-November 12, 1969]]] was indeed a first class example of the goon squad out on a witch hunt. Brothers & sisters, do not be deceived by this two bit prophet of tradition seeking fixator of the imagination, limiter of the mind & brain pig! Mr. Malone resorts to the lowest methods of mediocrity and Grade D slander in order to brush aside three among the most monumental writers of our time; truly nazi tacktic, and very traditional! How is it this self-styled, mandarin fiddler, Mr. Malone, proposes to use his (?) midEVIL trick bag & trans-mute (change thru witchcraft & spells) bad writing (as opposed to “good writing,” which he suggested was counter-revolutionary) into writing with life in it (as opposed to “our” new “dead arts”?).
Wd it go something like this?
EXTRA, EXTRA!
Jackie judos junkies in obscene movies, paranoia surges thru the hearts of millions. Junkies say “we’re planning a retaliation; we’re gonna go out and read some head comics!”
Whew!
As Ezra Pound sd in his “ABC of Reading”: “You can spot the bad critic when he starts by discussing the poet and not the poem.” If anybody swallowed Mr. Malone’s criticism, I suggest they go stick their finger up their throat & expropriate his words to their proper place; the garbage can.
ALL POWER TO THOT
ALL POWER TO ACTION
ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!
H.W. Peters
Hank Malone replies: None of my remarks in “How Does a Radical Read Art?” suggested curtailing the freedom of the artist.
Peters’ hysterical raving is an example of what I meant, however„ when I said that Pound (among others) had infected another generation with the screaming spirit of fascism.
Traditional art forms during recent decades have suffered from an almost conspiratorial ignoring of important social and political realities. The reason resides in the counter-revolutionary, uninvolved, despairing, mandarin spirit that infected European and American art after World War I
Ortega Y Gasset called that spirit: “The Dehumanization of Art.” And you pay a hell of a price for that “dehumanization,” even though you get Abstract Impressionism, “The Four Quarters,” and Ezra Pound.
Most Western art is now bankrupt (from the point of view of the Movement) because it has no capacity to creatively absorb the revolutionary and life-affirming spirit.
Write any way you like, Peters, but understand that the octogenarian spirit of mandarin irony, morbidly preoccupied with itself, is an insult to all revolutionary people.
ALL ART TO THE PEOPLE!
*** To the Editors:
I always see the initials “SMC” in your articles about the peace movement. In my school they stand for “Suck My Cock”; is this what it means in your paper?
Curious Carol
Madison Heights
Editors’ Note: All Power to the Imagination!
*** Greetings Brothuhs & Sistahs,
This letter and check is enclosed to show that am interested in your paper. Presently, I’m stationed in Frankfort, Germany at the 28th Base Post Office for the Army.
Since I’m a native Detroiter and concerned about the real happenings in Detroit and, the World, I consider this a golden opportunity. Also, I’d like to correspond with some of the people at home and discuss people and myself.
I’m from the West Side of Detroit and a graduate of Chadsey High School (in case I have some friends left).
I’ll keep in contact with you if I can and possibly contribute some news or items of supreme importance to your readers about the Army in Europe.
Long live the Fifth Estate.
If it is possible could you send me a couple of “subs” by the Detroiters like The South End or GO magazine by WABX and Creem.
Thank you,
PFC Gregory Jenkins
371-52-2920
28th BP0 APO 09082
*** Brothers & Sisters:
The word is getting through!!!
Despite the censorship of the papers that the Armed Forces are putting out, the word of peace and freedom still reaches us in ‘Nam. With the help of your paper and others like the Fifth Estate we are reading about the progress of the People.
At the present, I’m the only one in my unit (25 men—one asshole and one lifer) who receives the facts via the Fifth Estate, but you can count on the paper being read at least 15 times.
If it is at all possible could you maybe send me some more papers to spread around. The written word really holds the attention and informs the squares of our cause.
SP/4 Barry Winn
Vietnam