Full list of texts
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
We dedicate this issue to the memory of the 14 women slaughtered in Montreal December 6 at the hand of a patriarchal maniac. As he lined up his victims and methodically shot them, he expressed a hatred for all women and said he wanted “to kill feminists.”
In the memory of these dead sisters, we pledge, “We’re all feminists here!”
Jan 23, 2018 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
A happy new year thank-you to all of you who responded so quickly to our request in the last issue to please renew your subscriptions promptly. Thank you also for all the very generous donations and requests for papers to distribute to friends—we love to see those piles of papers disappear. Remember that we always need people and places to distribute the FE; we’ll send you papers on a consignment basis and you pay only for those you sell and keep half of the proceeds for yourself. If you wish to give the papers away free, send us the postage and we’ll send you a corresponding amount of FE’s.
Jul 18, 2017 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
Welcome to our Summer 1998 edition. Thanks to everyone who had a hand in creating our 351st 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.
Feb 4, 2016 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
Welcome to our 30th anniversary issue—although you are reading this as we are already into our 31st year. 1965 seems like ancient history or just a heartbeat away, depending on your current age. The cover logo on page one over our chronicle comes from our 1968–71 period.
As always we would like to express our gratitude to each reader, each Sustainer, each contributor. On the occasion of this anniversary, we feel this sense of gratitude even more deeply. Without your support, none of this would happen. We appreciate the patience with which all of you tolerate our sporadic publishing schedule although we have given up promising to appear more frequently.
Jan 15, 2018 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
Welcome to the long time coming Summer edition of the Fifth Estate. It is our first since the Winter 1995 issue which was published Dec. 31, 1994. Subscribers (and particularly libraries) frequently think they have missed issues when six months go by between our papers. For instance, they’ll understandably inquire, “Where’s the Spring 1995 edition?” although there wasn’t one.
Mar 22, 2016 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
Welcome to the Spring 1992 issue of the Fifth Estate (Vol. 27, No. 1, our 339th 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.
Jan 17, 2016 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
Greetings to all and as usual, a special thanks to those who have added a contribution to their subscription renewal or book order. Also, to that small group who have elected to become Fifth Estate Sustainers—those who donate a fixed sum each issue. One of the reasons why Sustainers are limited is that we rarely promote the category or indicate how important it is to us. Sustainers are sent the issue first class, receive publications from time to time and free admission to local FE events. This issue we sent Sustainers a tabloid we produced in conjunction with the Evergreen Alliance as part of the opposition to the Detroit Incinerator, and the next issue will be accompanied (hopefully) by the soon-to-be published last book by Fredy Perlman, The Strait. So, if we have enticed you, please drop us a line and let us know how much you can pledge each issue.
Jul 30, 2017 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
Good news! The Fifth Estate has a new office and bookstore quarters with public access, plus it provides a better atmosphere for working and receiving visitors. The move has provided the spark for increased activity around the bookshop, with one of us taking responsibility for expanding its book selection and starting regular hours.
Feb 9, 2018 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
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:
Sep 4, 2017 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
Our offer of bulk copies of our back issues turned out better than we expected and we were swamped with requests. With a reduced volume, we can now make available issues only on a single copy basis. We have a list of back issues available for those who are interested.
Those of you who were sent subscription renewal notices last issue responded in greater numbers than any time in our memories. Thanks, since we hate doing bulk mailings and it saves greatly on postage when we don’t have to send a second reminder. By the way, some of you who have not responded to a second notice are getting this issue anyway since we wanted you to see our coverage of the Chicago gathering, but if you haven’t renewed, this is the last one you will receive.
Dec 15, 2017 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
The space which the Fifth Estate shares with three other groups has been the scene of a number of events recently, mostly rock performances, but also a smattering of theatre and comedy. They have been generally well-received with an exceptionally gratifying turnout for our benefit held March 2. We raised $261 to help defray the expenses of maintaining the space shared by the Layabouts band, the Freezer Theatre Players and the Duck Club Players as well as the paper.
Apr 19, 2018 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
When you get to be our age, it seems easy to forget your birthdays, but it probably should be noted that last November marked the 17th anniversary of our first issue. The paper has gone through a number of marked changes since those first days (we became an explicitly anti-authoritarian paper in July 1975), but we continue on, our commitment intact and looking forward to the next 17...
Jul 6, 2015 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
Welcome to our Fall 1997 edition, #350. We think we’ve assembled numerous informative and challenging articles for you and are particularly pleased with the issue’s art work. Thanks to Stephen Goodfellow for the cover’s ominous drawing and no less to the creative talents of Richard Mock, Maurice Spira, Bill Koehnline, and Marilynn Rashid whose drawings grace our pages; also, to Alexis Buss for her tasty layout of Alan Antliff’s art and anarchy article. Thanks to all of you whose contributions keep our project going. Prisoners and GIs: if this is your first issue, please notify us if you want to be on our subscription list.
Feb 15, 2016 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
The FE staff and friends celebrated our 30th anniversary at the Cass Café in April, not only bringing in people from as far away as California, Maryland and Philadelphia, but even a picket by two very entertaining old-fashioned stillborn-again Jesus freaks who drew even more irreverent Cass Corridor types into our vortex of sin. Favorite FE covers and FE memorabilia were displayed, including a judge’s gavel that some enterprising ‘60s staff member stole from a courtroom and turned into a hash pipe. People danced to the music of Detroit’s Ghost Band, and enough money was raised to keep this ship afloat. Thanks to Chuck Roy and the Cass Café staff, to the Ghost Band, to David Furer for the music mix, to Julie Herrada, and to unnamed others for their help in making it a success.
May 3, 2018 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
This issue of the Fifth Estate is only twelve pages due to both staff and financial problems. Several members of our collective are traveling and all others but one are working full-time. This leaves the paper to just a few of us working mainly at night after our jobs. Not being very good businesspeople, we have never been able to figure out why we are in flush times at one period and at the brink of going under at another, but we have reached a point not real far from the latter. In that we have a fairly low budget, this means we are only talking about $350 a month, but still it is enough to get our creditors knocking at the door. Finances haven’t quite reached the point they did a year ago when we had to send out an emergency mailing asking for funds, but that is a real possibility if the picture does not improve soon. We have just sent out 150 renewal forms to those people whose subscriptions are about to expire. We urge those of you receiving them to return them as soon as possible as the money from those renewals would put us back in shape. Book orders, new subscriptions, donations and our ever-faithful sustainers’ fund will keep periods like this from re-occurring. Also, look for an FE benefit in the near future....
Feb 18, 2018 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
Once again we have to extend gratitude to our subscribers for their generous contributions to insure this paper’s continued existence. Every time we thought the flow of letters containing checks or cash had ceased, we would receive yet another with an explanation that the delay was due to a wait for an unemployment check or paycheck to arrive. It’s this sort of support that provides not only the money for us to continue, but also the motivation. Some of us felt that a notice of thanks this small is insufficient to thank those that provided the funds, but really the whole paper is our response...
Apr 28, 2016 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
Sorry to be so late with this issue, but the FE staff had a lot of its time and energy sapped by Michigan Bell’s efforts to prosecute us out of existence. (See story elsewhere in this issue.) We just couldn’t pull the paper together after sitting in Recorder’s Court all day. However, our tardiness fueled more speculation (some of it gleeful) that we had finally gone under, but, after a rocky three months, the project has stabilized itself financially and has a functioning staff which is prepared to go ahead with long-range plans for the FE’s continued existence....We particularly want to extend our thanks to the many people who have shown their appreciation and support of our “new” direction by sending in subscriptions and donations--the money has helped cut into the still-large backlog of debts...Another reason we certainly don’t want to go under is that we want to be here to celebrate with you the 10th anniversary of the Fifth Estate. We are tentatively planning a dinner/music celebration for Halloween evening, October 31st at the Earth Center in Hamtramck. The first FE appeared in October of 1965--whew!
Sep 17, 2013 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
Usually when a publication such as ours disappears for several months it is due to money problems, political differences among the staff or a combination of the two. However, we can happily report that neither of these maladies caused our hiatus, but rather a combination of sloth and self-indulgence. The days and then the months just slipped away as we traveled, tended our gardens, took leisurely bike-rides, worked our dumb jobs and generally laid about as much as we could. Now that our mail has slacked off to almost zero, and the rumors of our demise have begun to reach us once again, we figure it is time for another assault against contemporary reality. Perhaps, though, it understates our intellectual activity to suggest we were only doing the above mentioned pastimes, because every article in the paper has been the subject of discussion and debate; some of it extending back several months. This newspaper is much like letter-writing: you get back in accordance with what you send out. In that we value greatly the input we receive from readers, you probably can expect to see more of this paper during the winter months ahead...
Oct 28, 2016 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
The Detroit primary elections, as usual, contained no surprises with a majority of both registered and eligible voters not bothering to venture out of their house to participate in selecting who shall rule them. Officials have even given up bemoaning the low turnouts and called this primary a success because 46% of the voters cast ballots...
Feb 19, 2018 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
Wowie zowie!—this issue marks the beginning of the 12th year of continuous publication for the Fifth Estate. In 1965, 17-year-old Harvey Ovshinsky came back from the West Coast after a summer of working on the Los Angeles Free Press with the idea of starting a similar “underground” newspaper in Detroit. After varying fits and starts the FE rapidly became part of the dope, rock and roll and marching in the streets phenomena of the ‘60s and early ‘70s. With the demise of the “Movement” and an accompanying reduction in circulation from a high of 14,000 in 1969 to a low of about 5,000 in 1974, the paper made one last stab at survival as a commercial, youth-oriented weekly. That effort collapsed in July 1975 when the present staff revamped the works into a monthly publication of libertarian communism having a circulation of 3,000. None of us feel an “awesome responsibility” or anything like that, to continue what has turned out to be an institution in Detroit, but we do plan to keep on rolling for the time being—at least as long as we can maintain a degree of relevancy and have a touch of fun...
Aug 2, 2016 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
To paraphrase an ex-president; we won’t have The Detroit Sun to kick around anymore—the city’s “hottest paper” collapsed financially after its Oct. 22 issue, ending several months of weekly publication. In a desperate attempt to raise needed cash (the staff hadn’t been paid in several weeks), Editor John Sinclair began a campaign of favorable publicity for the mayor and the police that even outdid The Sun’s previous performances. But even though grinning cops and politicians dominated the front pages of the last two issues, no one in the city administration was willing to secure the financial commitment the paper needed to continue publishing. The Sun was never like the other “alternative” liberal weeklies which appear in other major U.S. cities such as the Boston Real Paper or the Los Angeles Free Press with their combination of left-liberal politics and “hip” culture which meant that city hall is always fair game for investigative reporting.
Aug 17, 2016 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
What with all the straight media from TV-2 to the Ann Arbor Sun declaring us dead, we thought it was about time to bring out some proof to the contrary. On the other hand, maybe we shouldn’t be so cocky about it since this is only our third paper in four months, pretty well giving the lie to our proposed monthly schedule. But a fatal combination of laziness and a desire not to be bound by externally imposed deadlines has probably allowed us to become self-indulgent (like this column). Also, this is an explanation, not a promise for more frequent issue.
Nov 18, 2013 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
Several people have asked us if the back page of last issue’s FE [#289, January 24, 1978] depicting the “thoughts” of Kim Il Sung was real or just another put-on. Well, we wish that it was something we had thought up, but unfortunately those tragic State comedians in North Korea beat us to the punch. Everything on the back page was taken from official North Korean propaganda publications—everything except, of course, the segment by the Italian fascist Mario Palmieri—or was it the other way around; it’s hard to tell. Also, we’d like to thank the members of the IWW group in Hawaii for sending us the info for the North Korean movie “The Engineers” which also appeared on the back page...
Jun 20, 2018 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
Our finances present a decidedly brighter picture this month, although a few creditors like IBM are demanding large sums from us for back debts. The sole reason we are able to peek a little above the waterline is due to the generosity and support from our readers—from one-time donors, and especially from our growing list of sustainers. We will probably still need to hold a benefit in April, but we can get completely out of the entertainment business and concentrate on the newspaper if a score more people would become sustainers. If you are so motivated, please use the coupon farther back in the paper...
Dec 30, 2015 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
The Fifth Estate benefit on April 10 was one of the best ever with Detroit bluesman Bobo Jenkins and his band turning everybody on to their strong rhythms and FE supporters and friends dancing and drinking the night away. Unfortunately, our paper didn’t reach people early enough and many of the usual revelers missed the festivities. We took in about $400, but that was just enough to make expenses.
Dec 30, 2014 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
The Fifth Estate’s benefit party on February 20th was a rousing success which saw the paper raise $400 over expenses and provided a party-down good time for about 450 revelers. Although the 5 kegs of beer went out faster than we expected, brilliant performances by the Shadowfax Band, creative theater by The Acme Theatrical Agency and Primitive Lust, and mystifying magic by Art DeAwful combined with the resources of the people in attendance made for a fun night for all.
Jul 20, 2014 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
Special thanks to all those readers who sent in contributions and became sustainers in response to last issue’s plea for funds. Financially we are at somewhat of an equilibrium, but still remain on the edge, so although we don’t want to keep calling “emergency” before the situation warrants it, we still urge readers to become sustainers and to renew their subscriptions when the time comes....
Jul 5, 2018 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
Rather than try to reconcile the obvious disparity between a newspaper that indicts the entire edifice of civilization and the technology it has developed with the fact that the FE mail subscriptions have just been converted to a computer list, we’ll just take another sip of beer. We think the transition (required of us by our mailing house) went fairly smoothly, but if there are any serious errors, please bring them to our attention....
Jun 9, 2018 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
The August mayoral and Common Council elections in Detroit are worth no more than a casual brickbat if for no other reason then their irrelevance. Unlike many other cities, where political machines were powers to be reckoned with, in the Motor City the politicians occupy a position not even a distant second to the city’s real rulers—the auto companies. Barely rating even a few copy inches in the mass media, the usual collection of opportunists, careerists, and thieves are waiting to feed at the public trough. Perhaps even more despicable is the same gaggle of socialists, ex-militants, and other leftoids vying for a shot at a small piece of power in the state apparatus. In elections like these, participation is even more of a humiliation than normally—don’t vote or if you do have a voter’s card—piss in the voting booth...
Feb 26, 2017 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
Things can only get worse for auto workers with the election of Doug Fraser as president of the UAW. Beyond just being a run-of-the-mill hack, Fraser has a record of strike-breaking that old Henry Ford’s security department would have admired. Fraser engineered the suppression of four major wildcat strikes in Detroit during 1973 through 1974 at Chrysler Corporation’s Jefferson Ave., Detroit Forge, Mack Ave., and Dodge Truck plants. The worst case was at the Mack Stamping Plant where a mini-occupation had taken place and Fraser put together a goon squad comprised of over 1,000 union officials armed with clubs to force the strikers back to work and to “deal with radicals”. When Detroit Police Inspector Joseph Areeda saw the gang of union officials at the plant he said to Fraser, “I’m glad we’re on the same side.” And so it is...
Feb 22, 2017 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
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.
Jan 23, 2016 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
It’s party time again! The Fifth Estate will feature a rock concert, theatrefest, beer guzzling spectacular Friday, June 25, 9:00 pm to 2:00 am at Formerly Alvin’s Deli on Cass just south of the Ford Freeway. The admission is $2.50 and the entertainment will feature the Spikedrivers, Primitive Lust and Acme Theatrical Agency theatre groups, free beer, and maybe a guest reggae band. We hope you will attend, as these affairs are part of our life’s blood and also provide a damn good time. Call us at the office if you want more information or can help distribute promotional leaflets in your area. Although we are not entirely out of the clutches of the money monster, we want to thank people for their response to our last issue’s plea for financial assistance. We keep getting hit with back bills from when the paper was a commercial weekly and still need your support. We have just ordered several hundred dollars in new titles for our book store and hope you will find a few that strike your interest. The most solid support we can receive is from those who become Fifth Estate sustainers and provide us with an anticipated revenue each month. To subscribe or become a sustainer, use the blank on this page or order books further in....
Aug 8, 2015 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
Thanks to everyone (musicians, performers and party-goers) who made the Fifth Estate 10th anniversary party on December 6 one of the most entertaining and fun sets Detroit has seen in a long while. (See details and photos farther in.) Besides all of the joyous dancing and partying, the benefit managed to bring in enough money to print this issue, order some more books for our store and catch up on some nagging bills. Also, reaction to the affair was so overwhelming that numerous people have suggested that we sponsor events featuring Detroit talent on a regular basis, perhaps every two months. Sounds good to us and we are planning a meeting in a few weeks to discuss such possibilities.
Dec 21, 2013 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
The Fifth Estate Benefit Party held Jan. 14 turned out to be one of the most enjoyable to date, with folks guzzling down six kegs of beer and dancing their asses off to the Shadowfax band. Special thanks are due to all the people who helped out including Mark Wenson for printing our leaflets; Carman Harlan of WWWW, Jack Broderick of WJZZ, Mike McCoy, Phil Marcus Esser and Judy Adams of WDET, and other stations and newspapers which helped publicize the event. A last minute bureaucratic hassle with the state liquor commission which threatened to stop the party was averted thanks to staff members of the Lansing Star (Box 24, Lansing, Mi. 48824) who made a special trip which saved the day—thanks folks. Still in all, this could possibly be the last benefit due to our staggering overhead—this time $455—for beer, band, rent and five smaller items—against door receipts of $608, which produced only a total income of $153. This is almost enough to print one issue but we were hoping for at least twice that. Any suggestions? And if we do have another benefit, will any readers give us a hand on setting it up?...
Sep 24, 2016 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
Bad news for the Ann Arbor Sun. “Detroit’s Hottest Paper” (as they call it) was hit in January with a coordinated wave of vandalism which left 40 of their newspaper coinboxes disabled after a liquid solder was poured in the coinslots. Since the gang from Ann Arbor has offered a $100 reward to bring in the culprits to justice, we thought we could narrow down the list of suspects for them. (1) Any of the 650,000 members of Detroit’s black community who have been insulted by the blatantly racist attempt of a group of white college-town liberals to publish a paper for blacks without the slightest understanding of the dynamics of the situation; (2) Any of the 250,000 members of the UAW who have seen chief union bureaucrat Leonard Woodcock portrayed on the Sun pages as a friend of labor, rather than as the stooge of the auto companies which he is; and (3) Any of the thousands of radicals in Detroit who have seen the Sun try to divert criticism of the political system by uncritically praising every elected hack in the state. Hope that helps you out, fellas...
Jan 1, 2014 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
With this issue of the Fifth Estate, the paper begins its thirteenth year of continuous publications with the first edition appearing November 19, 1965. Since that date 288 issues have been published, hundreds of people have come and gone from the staff, publishing schedules have varied from weekly to monthly and the politics contained within have flipped and flopped from liberal to New Left to Maoist to anarchist to its current perspectives. We keep on truckin’ through, sometimes with less of a sense of purpose than at others, but always with a desire for revolution and the demand for the sweetness of life. Hope you can dig a little of what we are doing, and are doing something we dig on as well. Through all of it, we always try to remember the immortal words of Sammy Smoot, “When you smash the State, keep a smile on your lips and a song in your heart”...
Mar 23, 2018 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
Many thanks to those who continue to send donations both through our Sustainer’s fund (which is growing) and one-time donations. It’s been financially difficult trying to make it through three months without holding a benefit, and it’s the individual responses of so many subscribers that keeps us in the game. We’re going to have another rip-roarer in January (see details later on in the paper) so you can get ready to boogie...
Sep 20, 2016 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
Last month the Detroit City Water Board was boasting to the news media that Detroit’s water was some of the cleanest in the country. By clean, City officials mean that the chances of there being any harmful (or non-harmful for that matter) bacteria in our drinking water is almost zero. But considering all of the chemicals added to the already polluted waters that surround Detroit, it’s not surprising. What is surprising though, is that we’re still alive! An example of the amount of chemicals the water board uses to clean up our drinking water can be found in the fact that people at the Detroit Print Co-op have found that the needed content p h for the fountain solution in their presses (the fountain solution is a mixture of water and chemicals that keeps ink off of the non-print areas of a printing plate), can be found in plain old Detroit tap water. Drink up...
Jun 30, 2018 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
Good news on the financial front: the Fifth Estate is still cruising on the generosity of our growing list of sustainers and those making one-time contributions. Also, a thank you to all of those subscribers who have been renewing over the past few months. One note though: if you received a letter last month stating that your subscription has expired, this will be the last issue you receive unless we hear from you. (Hate to lose anyone, but...)
Oct 2, 2016 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
If you are reading this newspaper and are not a subscriber, please be advised that you are able to do so only through the support and generosity of those who are. On about July 18 we realized that we had no money for our August print bill, the July rent and a multitude of other smaller obligations. We sent out a special mailing to our subscribers asking for $1.00 donations per person and the response was overwhelming, with some contributions as high as $25.00! The total was $500 and is enough to allow us to hang on another month. We were all really pleased with the tremendous response from our readers; we thank you all greatly for your support, and hope for your continued interest in our future...
Feb 21, 2016 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
As promised in our March issue, the FE will be throwing another rip-roaring benefit, to raise money for the paper’s maintenance and provide a great time for all. To be held on Saturday, April 10 (9 until ?) at Formerly Alvin’s Delicatessen (on Cass between Antoinette and Palmer near the WSU campus), the $2.50 admission charge will include dancing to a great blues band headed by Detroit’s own BoBo Jenkins and lots of free beer. As before, all money goes toward the continued appearance of this paper and we are looking forward to your support and participation.
Nov 20, 2014 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Detroit Seen
Well this issue of the FE is a little late in coming out because three-quarters of the staff is off taking a much awaited summer break. This is the last FE you’ll see until September (this issue is a double issue—July/Aug.), when we hope to be back in the swing of things...
As usual, we’re operating the paper by the skin of our teeth and would like to thank all of those people who resubscribed and sent in those much needed donations—it saved us this month. If you received a “renewal” notice in the mail and haven’t re-subscribed yet, we hope that you do so soon since it’s your subscriptions that help us cover costs each month...
Jul 10, 2018 Read the whole text...
Lorraine Perlman
Detroit’s jovial community
from Having Little Being Much
In 1969 [when Fredy and Lorraine moved to Detroit], the “underground” newspaper the Fifth Estate addressed itself to the Detroit radical and counter-culture community. Fredy sought out the staff, and except for a brief period (when there was an attempt to make the paper a commercial success), was an ardent but critical supporter of the paper, extending his friendship to the numerous remarkable collaborators. In addition to his criticisms, Fredy’s typing skills were welcomed. Over the years, Fredy took part in the paper’s production. At his death in 1985, only one staff person, Marilyn Werbe, had more typesetting seniority than Fredy.
Mar 5, 2014 Read the whole text...
Pat O’Dea
Detroit Smoke-In
May Day was celebrated in Detroit with a Smoke-In in Grand Circus Park, to call for the re-legalization of marijuana.
Hippies stood around and smoked joints made of Bull Durham, legal herbs, and bananas.
The demonstration started out with lots of rain, and a big hassle with the local constables about a permit they were supposed to have. As a result, the demonstration was temporarily moved to the lobby of the City-County building. Later everyone slowly wandered back to the park and nothing else was said.
May 17, 2017 Read the whole text...
Mary Wildwood
Detroit’s People Mover
The train to nowhere
For all those world-weary visionaries fed up with ever doleful tones and anxious to hear something concrete and uplifting—didja hear the one about the Detroit People Mover?
It’s this big snakey rail on cement poles that winds around downtown Detroit and looks sort of like MGM’s yellow brick road except it’s not yellow (except in rusty streaks down the sides) and it won’t take you to Kansas. It only trails in a series of question marks back to the Renaissance Center (a maze-like fortress of glass and poured concrete, barricading the river) to which you may have come from Kansas, or to the new “Millender Center Luxury Hotel and Apartments” across the street (which, and this is the truth, prides itself on being “the Tallest Prefab Building in the World” and during construction had signs hanging off each floor, boasting for instance, “13th floor—completed in 1-1/2 days!”). As things stand now, however, the People Mover won’t take you or anybody else anywhere and possibly, hopefully for everybody’s sake, never will.
Sep 22, 2020 Read the whole text...
Hank Malone
Detroit—Spring & Summer
Imagine this scene: a bright cloudless warm May Sunday in Detroit. On days like this, rare as the purple wallaby, half the local population has suddenly taken cover indoors in a shroud of bubbling beercans, listening to Tiger announcer, Ernie Harwell, broadcasting his play-by-play commentary from New York.
Jun 17, 2022 Read the whole text...
E.B. Maple (Peter Werbe)
Detroit Summer
A new city or paint-up, fix-up?
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.
Jan 18, 2016 Read the whole text...
Ann Manders
Detroit Trash Incinerator
Local Papers = Toxic Waste
Last year when Detroit residents began their protest against the proposed municipal trash incinerator (by demonstrating, attending meetings, putting out informational flyers, hanging banners over the freeway near the incinerator site) there was some local media coverage. But the focus of the coverage was the Detroit City Council meetings where the building permit was being challenged by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). After the permit was approved and since construction has begun, there has been little mention of the issue, even though there have been numerous protest activities organized by residents and local environmental groups.
Feb 9, 2018 Read the whole text...
David Watson
Detroit trash incinerator closing
—eco-apocalypse continues
The news in March 2019 that, due to “financial and community concerns,” the Detroit trash incinerator was to be closed was weirdly reminiscent of news back in the spring of 1986 that it was going to be built: It came as a surprise to almost everyone in the city. This time, obviously, it came as good news; people who had been working to shut it for decades naturally celebrated the closing as “a glorious day for the city and its residents,” as Sandra Turner-Handy, a long-term environmental justice activist, member of the Michigan Environmental Council, co-supervisor of Zero Waste Detroit, put it. [1]
Sep 6, 2019 Read the whole text...
Frank H. Joyce
Detroit Tries to Support Viet War
...as 500 March in Parade
The gentlemen of Grand Circus Park were not impressed. But then there wasn’t much to be impressed by.
Less than 500 people marched down Woodward Avenue in the great Flag Day parade on June 14. The March was called by a resolution of the Michigan Senate to honor the flag and “Support Our Boys in Vietnam.”
Jan 29, 2017 Read the whole text...
Don LaCoss
Paul Garon
Devil’s Music
A conversation with Paul Garon
Interview by Don LaCoss, April 2003, Chicago
Poet, storyteller, and cultural critic Paul Garon co-founded Living Blues, a periodical that, from its origins in the early 1970s, documented and supported blues music as an innovative and revolutionary African-American response to discrimination, abuse, and injustice by whites.
Jul 22, 2021 Read the whole text...
Jess Flarity
Diamond Dogs
a review of
Isle of Dogs by Jon Frankel. Whiskey Tit 2020
Every time Jon Frankel releases a novel it feels as if he’s managed to twist the English language into a new, illusory shape: a mobius strip made of words. Specimen Tank, his debut in 1994, is a lurid nightmarescape with one foot in the grimiest alley of 1980’s New York City and the other in the bizarro universe it took David Wong and all those Eraserhead Press writers another twenty years to finally tap into. If you strip down his latest book from Whiskey Tit, Isle of Dogs, it appears to resemble a political thriller—but it takes place in the year 2500 and all the politicians are multi-generational clones who ride flesh-eating horses around a war-torn, biopunk, feudalist-dystopian version of crumbling America. It’s like sitting down to watch a familiar courtroom drama and discovering your couch is releasing hallucinogenic spores while Netflix beams into your tv from two dimensions away. A word of warning: if you don’t first read Gaha: Babes of the Abyss (the sequel), you may ricochet off this book’s first chapter like a bullet shot into a centrifuge. Frankel must have snorted some Gene Wolfe recently, because he throws his reader directly into the center of the Sargon 4’s political web without wasting a single page on backstory, making it feel like a contemporary novel about life on Capitol Hill except now all the congress members have been replaced by techno-Spartans with delicate, epicurean palates. In a single scene, a couple of two-hundred year old clones might casually discuss mass genocide while drinking jasmine tea and referencing the latest issue of The New York Times, and Frankel continually mixes the familiarity of our modern day with his surreal vision of the future to keep the prose highly readable, yet somehow...askew. His style is a fusion of literary realism and highly imaginative science fiction that harkens back to works such as Philip K. Dick’s Martian Time-Slip, Samuel Delaney’s Trouble on Triton, and Ursula Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven. But compared to his other novels, such as The Man Who Can’t Die, Frankel has pumped the brakes on his graphic depictions of sexuality and violence, to the relief of some his readers and to the disappointment of others. This is possibly because Isle of Dogs is told from the perspective of the tyrannical Rulers rather than from their “genetically inferior” victims, and so the story has a familial warmth as the plot passes from character to character, almost as if the reader is peeking behind the curtains of the powerful kings or queens more typical of a high fantasy setting. Again, it’s difficult to pin a single genre on this or any of Frankel’s other works, but for the kind of reader who longs for a story that doesn’t have the slapped-together feel of too much of today’s popular fiction or the overwrought stylism of the literary novels hemorrhaging from Brooklyn’s coffee shops, this book will activate a part of your mind that you didn’t know was there before.
Mar 1, 2021 Read the whole text...
Marieke Bivar
Diane di Prima (1934–2020)
Beat Poet & Activist
Diane di Prima has died. Now we have no choice but to introduce her to each other, since she is no longer here to introduce herself.
On paper, you could say, “she was a poet, she was a feminist, beatnik, anarchist, Buddhist.” You could list her famous friends and lovers. Promote her books, her poems, her art. But she was so many things.
Aug 13, 2021 Read the whole text...
Peter Lamborn Wilson
Diane Di Prima’s “Revolutionary Letters”
Review
a review of
Diane di Prima, Revolutionary Letters
San Francisco: Last Gasp, 2007.
160 pages, available for $15 from the Barn
Diane di Prima, America’s (and probably the world’s) leading anarcho-Hermetic poet, has issued a new edition (the fifth) of her famous Revolutionary Letters, containing all of the poems from the City Lights versions from 1971 through 1980, plus 23 new and more recent pieces. This new edition emanates--rather oddly but not inappropriately-- from Last Gasp, a publisher mostly known for underground comics.
Dec 18, 2014 Read the whole text...
anon.
Dick Tracy’s Crimestoppers Textbook
This is for all you young Crimestoppers who might be interested in reproducing one of Chester Gould’s best. Tracy can always be relied upon to get to the root of the matter without any minced words, and his is a lesson we could all learn a lot from:
The desire for easy money, tax-free, with a disdain for work and the law, marks a potential criminal.
Aug 11, 2015 Read the whole text...
Marilyn Werbe
Dictionary of Birth Control
This article is the third in a series on Birth Control, compiled and presented with the aid of the Women’s News Co-op.
Because of the media’s big push for the “pill” over the last few years, little information has been readily available on other birth control methods. There are, in fact, many of us who are not even aware of the number of different medically approved methods which are both safe and inexpensive. There is presently no one method of birth control that is perfect for everyone. Since this choice must be made on an individual basis, correct and current information is necessary to aid in that decision.
Jan 11, 2024 Read the whole text...
Marshall Bloom
Did GIs Really Defect?
WASHINGTON — (Liberation News Service) At least two, and perhaps three, American military men in the line of troops at the Pentagon took off their helmets, laid down their guns, and joined the demonstrators sitting in on the Pentagon steps, Saturday, October 21.
The fate of the demonstrators is unknown, since the Pentagon denies their existence. “There were no defectors. We have no AWOL’s; no one is missing,” stated a Defense Department press spokesman.
Jan 16, 2023 Read the whole text...
Rudy Perkins
Did Pacifists Block Militant Action?
Groups Excluded; Cooperated With Authorities at Seabrook
.
Caption for photos:
Contrasted with the U.S., European anti-nuclear demonstrations often result in violent clashes with police. Scene above (l.) shows a Clamshell demonstrator practicing nonviolence being dragged away by a New Hampshire State Trooper, May 1 at Seabrook, At right, part of a contingent of 30,000 who tried to march on a plant site at Creys-Malville, France, July 31. One demonstrator was left dead and a hundred others injured after police attacked, trying to block access to the plant. French Interior Minister Christian Bonnet issued a statement saying, “About a fifth of the demonstrators were foreigners. Among them were about a thousand troublemakers, indisputably anarchist in action and inspiration who ignore frontiers and who already have made trouble elsewhere, especially in West Germany.”
Dec 26, 2017 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Did U.S. Cause AIDS?
As predictions for the eventual toll of the deadly AIDS disease grow higher, speculation as to the origin of the virus remain unanswered. Reports continue to surface that rather than a natural occurring new strain, the disease was a result of U.S. Army germ warfare research conducted at Fort Detrick, Maryland in the mid 1970s.
Feb 9, 2018 Read the whole text...
anon.
Did You Ever Want To Kill Your Boss?
Panel 1: Drawing of an angry man.
Angry man: Work stinks!
Response, off: Well, you’re not the only one.
Panel 2: Two men in conversation
Man 1: When we fuck up on the job and steal from our boss, we begin to realize our own power.
Jun 13, 2018 Read the whole text...
Victor Mansfield
Dietrich Wins in Plymouth
Plymouth pigs went down in defeat in a frontal legal attack by Rolf Dietrich on December 18th.
As reported earlier on these pages, the pigs of suburban Plymouth have hassled Dietrich from the beginning of the year when they first arrested him on a phony traffic charge and confiscated 15 copies of the Fifth Estate which he had on the back seat of his car. [See articles in FE Archive.]
Sep 18, 2019 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Digger Digs In
Digger O’Dell, world famous stunt man, will be buried in Detroit October 26th, at 1 pm at 13505 Grand River east of Schaefer. Mr. O’Dell will be buried alive.
He will arrive on October 21 to begin construction of his concrete casket six feet beneath an abandoned gas station.
Digger estimates he has spent 6-1/2 of his 54 years buried in a self made grave and has been buried 93 times before. O’Dell, who earns his living either sitting on flagpoles or going to the other extreme of being buried alive, holds the present World Record of 78 days 20 minutes and 10 seconds for staying under six feet of dirt.
Aug 8, 2019 Read the whole text...
R & R Crusader
Dig Music, Not Image!
The Crusader keeps wondering how long people are going to go on eating up images instead of music.
When a group comes to town all the hip people are here waiting to eat them up—which is as it should be—but even when the band isn’t making it musically or is just good, these people keep coming up and screaming about how out of sight they are or how the band is just blowing their minds.
Dec 20, 2022 Read the whole text...
Ken Kelley
Dionysus Busted in A2
Exposing His Privates
ANN ARBOR, Jan. 26—Euripides was so pissed after the Ann Arbor pigs busted the Performance Group’s performance of “Dionysus in ’69”—an updated and realistic version of his “Bacchae”—that the city was covered with a slick icy glaze for three days afterwards.
It all started when word leaked out that a nude performance was going to take place on the chaste floor of the Michigan Union Ballroom, as a part of the University of Michigan’s annual Creative Arts Festival.
Aug 22, 2021 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Direct Action: An Historical Novel
Book review
a review of
Direct Action: An Historical Novel by Luke Hauser
In Direct Action, Luke Hauser writes fiction so steeped in reality that he reproduces an era for us, with all of its excitement and frustrations.
Although the 1980s are generally thought of as a kind of dead zone for progressive activism, in the San Francisco Bay Area the early part of the decade was a time of fervent activism around nuclear issues.
Nov 21, 2017 Read the whole text...
Bob Brubaker
Direct Action Bombs Litton
On October 14 a bomb blast ripped apart a production building at the Litton Systems Canada Ltd. plant in Rexdale, Ontario, causing an estimated $5 million in damage. The group Direct Action claimed responsibility for the bombing, which also injured seven people.
Direct Action is apparently the same group that claimed responsibility for the bombing of power transformers on Vancouver Island in British Columbia (see FE #309, June 19, 1982, for Direct Action’s communique and our comments on it). This time, seven people were injured, due to the bomber’s mistakes and the apparent incompetence of Litton’s security personnel.
Oct 3, 2019 Read the whole text...
Philippe Pernot
Direct Action Creates Community
Unfuck the climate: Occupy the forests!
Anarchist utopias are alive and well, not only in Chiapas or Rojava but also in the heart of capitalist Europe. In Germany, police repression and gentrification have dealt a decisive blow to traditional anarchist strongholds like Berlin, with numerous free spaces closed down since the pandemic started.
May 31, 2021 Read the whole text...
Starhawk
Dirt, passion, rage
on spirituality, peace, & the politics of “NO!”
Editor’s note: Last issue, we printed a review of Starhawk’s new book Webs of Power in the context of our spirituality feature. [See “The Spirit of Global Justice,” FE #359, Winter, 2002–2003.] The following piece comes from a post Starhawk made to an e-mail list devoted to discussing issues raised by that book. It offers a compelling critique of those elements in the peace and justice movement that seek to censor anger and conflict.
Jul 16, 2021 Read the whole text...
Steve Izma
Dirty Secrets of the Mycelium Underground
The wisdom of indigenous elders
a review of
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Milkweed Editions, 2020 (original: 2013)
Don’t mistake the long lifespan on bestseller lists of Braiding Sweetgrass as something superficial. Certainly, Kimmerer’s excellent prose style attracts a broad range of readers. Yet the complexity of her ideas surely challenges those for whom nature equates to the landscape videos they capture on their smartphones.
May 20, 2023 Read the whole text...
Taylor Weech
Dirty Yeti
Spokane’s DIY House
Neither the fire marshal nor the police have ever paid a visit to the Dirty Yeti. It’s a small house in Spokane, Wash. which has hosted shows for local bands and a variety of musicians and artists on tour, travelers from around the world, has been a kitchen and pantry for the local Food Not Bombs, and a zine publishing and workshop space alongside its rotating cast of permanent residents.
Nov 3, 2014 Read the whole text...
Sylvie Kashdan
Disability and Creativity
Revolt against the categories and stereotypes that kill the spirit
a review of
There Plant Eyes: A Personal and Cultural History of Blindness by M. Leona Godin. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group 2021
More Than Meets the Eye: What Blindness Brings to Art by Georgina Kleege. Oxford University Press 2018
“I want freedom, the right to self expression, everybody’s right to beautiful, radiant things.”
May 22, 2022 Read the whole text...
Michael Scrivener
Discipline and Punish
Book review
a review of
Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison by Michel Foucault. Trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Pantheon Books, 1977)
The book is now a Vintage paperback; the original French version was Surveiller et punir, Naissance de la prison (Paris: Gallimard, 1975)
Foucault insists that “delinquency, controlled illegality, is an agent for the illegality of the dominant groups” (p.279). Delinquency is a uniquely modern development, which first materialized in the nineteenth century. As Foucault delineates the process, tine Enlightenment reforms of the penal code and prison conditions were adapted to the new conditions of early industrial capitalism. Delinquency, then, is depoliticized crime, distinct from popular illegalities such as peasant uprisings, sans-culotte direct democracy, Luddism, strikes, insurrections and so on. The reformed penal code and the new criminal justice bureaucracy (police, courts, lawyers, prisons) created, in the nineteenth century, a circumscribed zone of illegality that was easily controlled and which posed no threat to the ruling class. On the contrary, delinquency became one of the principal modes by which the bourgeois regime maintained its legitimacy as a ruling class.
Sep 26, 2018 Read the whole text...
Jack Bratich
Discordia Americana
Restoration Wars and Social Maneuvers: Is political and social chaos an opportunity for revolution or for further clampdown?
Daily life has a new rhythm: routine disruptions. DPacing an accelerated news cycle and affective bursts from smart phone notifications, our subjective autonomous systems are increasingly synced up with crisis-state and techno security tempos.
We don’t know what the next surprise is going to be, but we know it’s coming.
Jan 3, 2019 Read the whole text...
Associated Press
Discredit Who?
WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 (AP) — Senator Stephen M. Young, Democrat from Ohio, said Thursday that he had learned that the Central Intelligence Agency hired persons to disguise as Vietcong and discredit Communists in Vietnam by committing atrocities.
The C.I.A. and Representative Cornelius E, Gallagher, Democrat of New Jersey, said it was not so.
Jan 13, 2014 Read the whole text...
John Zerzan
Bob Brubaker
Tim Luke
Discussion on Anti-work
Crisis of capital or its success?
“Anti-Work and the Struggle for Control” in this issue [FE #309, June 19, 1982] continues John Zerzan’s work demonstrating the massive erosion of traditional American values, in this case centering on popular allegiance to the work ethic. Below is a rebuttal from Tim Luke, which appeared in Telos magazine No. 50 (Box 3111, St. Louis MO 63130, $5); this is followed by a reply from Zerzan and a comment by Bob Brubaker of the FE staff.
Mar 17, 2019 Read the whole text...
Jason Rodgers
Dismantling the Biomechanical Leviathan
If Pavlov’s dogs can decondition from obedience to authority, so can we!
In Raoul Vaneigem’s 1967 Situationist treatise, The Revolution of Everyday Life, he recounts what resulted from the flooding of the basement of Ivan Pavlov’s laboratory where the Russian physiologist kept his famous salivating dogs as experiments in classical conditioning.
It was a traumatic event for the dogs that had to struggle to live in the rising water. The ones who survived completely shed the conditioning Pavlov had worked so diligently to place in them.
Jan 10, 2019 Read the whole text...
Primitivo Solis (David Watson)
Dismantling the Nuclear State
For too long we have gone on like sleepwalkers as the weapons of total extermination were manufactured and readied. Now it is becoming clear to even the most myopic that nuclear war threatens not only the present configurations of social and political relations, but all of life.
Such a war (which cannot even be described as a “war” if we are to maintain a sense of human proportion) would be an act of total, absolute destruction: destruction of human beings, destruction of human culture, destruction of the ecosphere. For all practical purposes nothing would survive the blast, the heat, the radiation and the destruction of the ozone layer, and all the intermingled secondary and tertiary effects of all-out nuclear confrontation.
Mar 10, 2019 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Dismantling the Patriarchy
Everyday sexual predation on women by men of power and prestige in the entertainment world, politics, business, and the university has been an open secret that has suddenly gained massive public attention. Women’s words have been listened to and prominent men have experienced almost immediate banishment from their fields after exposure of their abusive actions.
Apr 4, 2018 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Disneyland East
According to Time Magazine, prostitution has always been part of the American soldier’s life. It is a continuation of a grand tradition going back to the Crusades and extending through the vivandieres of World War I to the B-Girls called tea girls in Saigon today. After dysentery and other intestinal diseases had multiplied fourfold in four months and venereal disease had afflicted one-third of the 21,000 troopers of the U.S. first cavalry (Airmobile) in the small town of An Khe in the central highlands, the local commander acted. He made the town off limits. Prices, which the soldiers had forced up, and disease rates soon fell but, as Time puts it, “In March the first cases of ‘battle fatigue’ showed up.”
Feb 19, 2023 Read the whole text...
Penelope Rosemont
Disobedience: The antidote for miserablism
It’s our world; let’s take it!
Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue.
-- Oscar Wilde
...and then we go out and seize a square of singular symbolic significance and put our asses on the line to make it happen. The time has come to deploy this emerging stratagem against the greatest corrupter of our democracy: Wall Street, the financial Gomorrah of America.
-- From Adbusters (September/October 2011 issue)
We are not protesting. Who is there to protest to? What could we ask them for that they could grant? We are occupying. We are reclaiming those same spaces of public practice that have been commoded, privatized and locked into the hands of faceless bureaucracy, real estate portfolios and police ‘protection.’ Hold on to these spaces, nurture them and let the boundaries of your occupations grow.
-- Egyptian (Tahrir Square) Comrades
Oct 15, 2013 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Dispatches from behind bars
Political prisoners speak out
A new book of oral histories edited by political prisoner Eric King and abolitionist Josh Davidson is now available for preorder through AK Press and Burning Books. Rattling the Cages: Oral Histories of North American Political Prisoners with a foreword by Angela Davis and an introduction by Sara Falconer is a fundraiser for, and a way to raise awareness of those imprisoned for politically motivated actions.
Jan 27, 2024 Read the whole text...
S. Flynn
Dispatch from Exarchia
A Summer of Unrest in Athens
On July 9, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s ruling New Democracy party pushed through an opportunistic law restricting public protest.
This is part of a larger assault on Exarchia, the Athens neighborhood that is home to autonomous anarchist projects, migrant communities, and self-managed squats.
Oct 17, 2020 Read the whole text...
S. Flynn
Dispatch from Exarchia
“Calling all comrades!”
Athens Neighborhood is Home to Anarchy
ATHENS — In February, The National Herald, a right-wing Greek newspaper based in the U.S., boasted, “Exarchia Anarchists will be Wiped Out.” For nearly fifty years, Exarchia, a neighborhood in central Athens, Greece has been an example of autonomous living.
The neighborhood, which is the site of a number of uprisings has achieved what anarchists long believed possible; a self-organized city within a city. For decades, police who entered would be immediately attacked and pushed out.
Apr 4, 2020 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Dispatch from ‘Free’
Eco-Defense Political Prisoner speaks out about the release of co-defendant Critter
In June 2001, 23-year-old forest defense activist Jeffrey “Free” Luers was sentenced to 22 years and 8 months in prison for a Eugene, Oregon arson. Free and his co-defendant Critter set fire to three Sport Utility Vehicles (SUV’s) at a local car dealership to raise awareness about global warming and the role that the gas-guzzlers play in the process. No one was hurt in this action nor was that their intent.
Mar 13, 2014 Read the whole text...
Anne Babson
Dispatch From New Orleans
The only time it’s legal to mask in town these days is Mardi Gras. In fact, an old law on the books predating this regime says it’s illegal to be in a parade and not mask. Meanwhile, the Icemen arrest anybody on a non-parade day who dares even to wear a head scarf like those Yemeni women I saw in my neighborhood until they fell under the ban and got shipped offshore.
Apr 18, 2020 Read the whole text...
Marlene Tyre
Divine Toad Sweat Reports on Neo-Am Church
The Fifth Estate recently received a copy of “Divine Toad Sweat,” Church bulletin of the NeoAmerican Church, headquartered in Mt. Eden, California.
The Neo-American Church, although it does not employ set rituals, subscribes to three basic Principles. As stated in “Divine Toad Sweat” they are
“1) Everyone has the right to expand his consciousness and stimulate visionary experience by whatever means he considers desirable and proper without interference from anyone;
May 18, 2017 Read the whole text...
Bob Heilbroner
Dix Brass Plot Vengeance
NEW YORK (LNS)—The Army is planning a heavy vengeance for the June 5 rebellion of over 150 GIs imprisoned in the Ft. Dix stockade. [See “Army Stockades Blow,” FE #84, July 24-August 6, 1969.]
Apparently, 38 prisoners have already been hit with some kind of charge, or to declare the nature of the charges.
May 16, 2019 Read the whole text...
Liberation News Service
Dix Coffee House Evicted
WRIGHTSTOWN (LNS)—The GI movement at Ft. Dix is the largest and most advanced in the country, and this is due partly to the Coffeehouse for GIs in Wrightstown.
The organizing efforts of the Coffeehouse bring hundreds of GIs every week to relax, listen to music and talk about fighting imperialism, and they pulled off the first demonstration here when thousands of civilians invaded an Army base last Oct. 12.
Sep 2, 2019 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
D.I.Y. — We Can Make It Happen: OURSELVES!
FIFTH ESTATE #384 Spring, 2011, Vol. 46, #1
Maybe the most persistent of all forms of external authority in our lives are the day-to-day tyrannies of specialists and experts. The Fifth Estate’s next issue investigates strategies of resistance to and liberation from this insidious system of technocratic mystification and domination with a look at the culture, ethics, and aesthetics of do-it-yourselfism.
Dec 23, 2013 Read the whole text...
anon.
Docs for Dope
The New Physician, a national medical journal with a monthly circulation of over 60,000 physicians and medical students, has become the first major national medical journal to speak out in favor of the legalization of marijuana.
An editorial in the March 1969 issue entitled: “Pot: Hobby not Habit,” it was suggested that unless new medical evidence is unearthed to prove any ill effects from marijuana, then “marijuana should enjoy the same status as alcohol.”
May 23, 2022 Read the whole text...
Jerry Lindquist
Doin’ the Selfridge Squelch
As a result of a pre-Christmas anti-war march the brass at Selfridge Air Force Base are trying to bring down a cloak of repression on GI activists.
The Detroit Coalition to End the War Now sponsored a candle light march on the evening of Dec. 23 in support of anti-war GIs and for an end to the war. Approximately 1,200 persons joined the parade in a driving snow storm that soon left almost all the participants with extinguished candles.
May 19, 2023 Read the whole text...
Liberation News Service
Do It in the Road
MADISON, Wisc. (LNS)—Students and non-students in the University of Wisconsin community, responding to publicity which asked “Why don’t you do it in the road?”, found out why when they turned up for a block party on Saturday, May 3.
They were driven off the streets by police with clubs and gas in what led to three nights of fighting between cops and at least 1,000 young people on the tree-lined Madison streets.
Jun 26, 2022 Read the whole text...
Ian Erik Smith
Domesticated Animals & Us
How the early North American colonists used animals to subdue the Native people
a review of
Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America by Virginia Delohn Anderson. Oxford University Press, 2006, 336 pp., $19.95
Civilization is a lie. Its images mask violence and its logic is that of genocide. Even the most banal scene of grazing cattle, while seemingly serene, portrays a weapon of war.
Oct 16, 2014 Read the whole text...
Peter Lamborn Wilson
Domestication
The hunter/gatherer school of anarcho-anthropology and the anarchist critique of Civilization (e.g., Perlman’s Leviathan) proposed the domestication of plants and animals as the first step toward separation and ultimately the State.
Sahlins posed the question: why would any sane free hunter/gatherers voluntarily take up the shit-work of the “primitive agriculturist” (or, by extension, pastoralist)?—the erosion of leisure, the impoverished diet, etc.? Given his premises, this unsolved puzzle hints at coercion and deprivation. With hindsight we see that domestication leads to misery. We assume it began that way.
Jul 14, 2016 Read the whole text...
George Bradford (David Watson)
Domestication of Language
Ivan Illich on Verbal Abuse
a review of
Shadow Work, Ivan Illich. Marion Boyers, Boston and London, 1981
“As progress and technology transform our way of life and our physical surroundings,” Lynne Clive writes [“Newspeak and the Impoverishment of Language,” FE #315, Winter, 1984], “they eat away at our language, enfeeble our spirit...” I would like to expand on this idea by making use of Ivan Illich’s insights discussed in his book Shadow Work, on language as one of the earliest areas of previous human competence—a cultural commons and focal point of shared meaning—to come under attack from church and state, and later from advancing technology and bureaucratic institutionalization. Illich argues that by undermining the “vernacular” domain in language, technics, and other areas of human activity, these forces of authority destroy self-sufficiency and freedom, making us all wards of the state and the disabling professional institutions.
Apr 25, 2018 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Donations to Support Marie Mason
Important Change
All donations for Marie Mason should be sent to
Support Marie Mason,
c/o Fifth Estate,
POB 201016,
Ferndale MI 48220.
Checks should be made out to Support Marie Mason.
Funds are used for her prison expenditures, plus support material such as t-shirts, leaflets and brochures to publicize the injustice of Marie’s sentence, provide travel stipends, and expenses for her pro bono lawyers.
Sep 9, 2013 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Don LaCoss
This issue is dated Spring 2011 and follows our Summer 2010 number. It was intended for publication on November 1, but the tragic death of our friend and comrade, Don LaCoss, who was editing the issue, is the reason for our interruption in publishing.
Death’s scythe slices always cruelly, often unexpectedly, sweeping away those we cherish and need without regard for those left in grief. So it was with Don LaCoss, who succumbed on January 31 to complications from a respiratory illness he had been fighting for months.
Dec 24, 2013 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Don’t Forget the Motor City
By working in secretarial jobs, at Ys, day care centers, and in other experimental ways, SDS hopes to do practical work in organizing women.
Besides these organizing collectives, the project will engage in intensive political study and research into Detroit. By the end of the summer the project will have trained a large number of people who can become sophisticated political cadre for -the organizing of a youth movement throughout Michigan as well as Detroit.
Apr 3, 2019 Read the whole text...
William Boyer (Bill Boyer)
Don’t Look Sideways
As a comet approaches, the masses make light of their impending demise
a review of
Don’t Look Up, Dir: Adam McKay, 2021
Planet of the Humans Dir: Jeff Gibbs 2019
“You guys. The truth is way more depressing. They are not even smart enough to be as evil as you’re giving them credit for.”
—Kate Dibiasky (fictional astronomer in Don’t Look Up)
So, what to make of an unusual film about a streaking, earth-bound comet colliding with present-day distractions? Does it shake up the entertainment cycle only to disappear like a fairly close asteroid missing our orbital self-importance?
Jun 17, 2022 Read the whole text...
Dan Brook
Don’t Mourn—Organize!
Hundreds “Fiddle Down the FBI” on “Judi Bari Day” in Oakland
(from www.zmag.org)
Note: As we go to press, the jury in the “Judi Bari vs. the FBI” case is still deliberating. During the rally discussed below, the lawyers for the defendants filed a motion to dismiss the case because the protest might unfairly influence jurors against the FBI. The judge, however, rejected this motion. By the time you read this, the case has probably been decided. Visit judibari.org for the latest. Photo by unruLEE.
May 4, 2021 Read the whole text...