Full list of texts

More than a thousand people opposed to the draft met here in Detroit the weekend of February 12 to 15 at a conference called as a planning and organizing session by the National Committee Against Registration and the Draft (NCARD). The entire conference, from the Friday night pep rally at which a bevy of socialist and liberal politicians and labor bureaucrats spoke, to the workshops, and plenary sessions characterized by leftist block voting, caucuses and maneuvering, produced an eerie sensation of traveling back into the 1960s to one of the Student Mobilization conferences of that era. Every little political group, from the “support Albania” political bizarros to the laissez faire “student libertarians,” maintained a literature table in one salon which appeared to be a sort of political shopping mall, and one had to shoo away the newspaper salesmen like flies,

...

The draft resistance movement in Detroit, which until now has operated underground, has surfaced with the opening of the Draft Resistance Center at 12820 Hamilton at Glendale.

The storefront office, rented by the Draft Resistance Committee and the Draft Committee of the Vietnam Summer Project, will serve primarily as the headquarters for their joint organizing project among draft age young men in Highland Park.

...

Each in its own way, the Draft Resistance Committee and the Highland Park Police Department both celebrated Anti-Draft Week, a week of intensive protest against the Vietnam war and the Selective Service System.

The new Detroit draft resistance movement attempted to communicate to the public through any means possible the discontent and resentment of young men being drafted to die in somebody else’s war in Vietnam.

...

Thirty-five people from the DCEWV picketed at the Detroit Stock Exchange, Thursday, May 19, protesting the fact that the war in Vietnam, although in the interest of certain American corporations making skyrocket profits from war production, benefits neither the Vietnamese people nor the GIs who are sent to Vietnam to kill and be killed.

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[two_third padding=“0 20px 0 0”]The reinstitution of the military draft is practically a foregone conclusion according to many observers. All that is needed is the official go-ahead from Congress to set the wheels in motion.

The October 1982 government exercise dubbed “Operation Proud Saber” proved that all is in a state of readiness. Draft boards have been trained and are ready to open; rules and regulations are up to date; and military reservists are ready to serve as temporary staff at induction centers across the country. The Selective Service System (SS) awaits only Congressional approval to begin calling up young men.

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An ad in the July 15–30 Fifth Estate calling for unknown playwrights and aspiring actors to help rejuvenate the American stage has blossomed into the Detroit Drama Workshop. First performance... two original one-act plays—Joan Feret’s “The Nightmare” and Sam Cohen’s “The Library Room.” Dates are September 14, 15, 16 and 21, 22, 23 at 616 West Hancock.

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a review of

The Nation on No Map: Black Anarchism and Abolition by William C. Anderson, Saidiya Hartman (Foreword), Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin (Afterword). AK Press 2021

As a Black diasporic female academic and activist, it isn’t so easy to encounter the intersectionality of the struggles I encounter reflected in many academic or anarchist discussions.

...

Dear Dr. Hypocrisy,

My boyfriend just got over a “dose” of Trotskyism. He says he is “safe” to begin relations again, but I’m worried. What do you think?

Livonia Libertarian

I get lots of letters like this and it never ceases to amaze me how ignorant many people are of the dangers of social diseases.

...

Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld speaking at Community Arts Auditorium, May 28, 1969 at a benefit for Open City. Photo: Alan Gotkin.

Dear Dr. Schoenfeld,

A couple of weeks ago my girlfriend and I got loaded and were making love. She told me that she wanted to show me something new that would be a real thrill to me. She said that one of her old boy friends liked to have her do it to him often, so without knowing what it was, I agreed to let her try it.

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Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld speaking at Community Arts Auditorium, May 28, 1969 at a benefit for Open City. Photo: Alan Gotkin.

QUESTION: Can long continued use of spray deodorants cause cancer of the armpits?

ANSWER: At first, I thought your letter was a put-on. In fact, that might have been your intention but, nevertheless, you raise an interesting question. Certainly there has been no epidemic of cancer of the axilla or armpit. But spray deodorants have not been in use for very long. Cigarette smoking causes cancer of the lungs but it takes about 20 years for it to develop. We don’t yet have 20 years experience with spray deodorants.

...

Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld speaking at Community Arts Auditorium, May 28, 1969 at a benefit for Open City. Photo: Alan Gotkin.

arf! arf!

QUESTION: My wife and I think it might be interesting for her to have intercourse, perhaps regularly, with a German Shepherd dog. We have not experimented, however, because we are afraid of weird diseases that we might get. What’s the deal?

...

Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld speaking at Community Arts Auditorium, May 28, 1969 at a benefit for Open City. Photo: Alan Gotkin.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following column will be a regular Fifth Estate feature. It is published regularly in our sister Underground Press Syndicate paper, The Berkeley Barb. Dr. Schoenfeld is a legitimate medical doctor and all of the questions he answers are authentic ones sent to him by readers of the UPS papers that syndicate his column. Your questions are welcome and may be sent to Dr. Schoenfeld at the Fifth Estate, 1107 W. Warren, Detroit, Michigan.

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Note: FE staffer Walker Lane interviewed Billy Bragg, the English singer/songwriter, when he played a 1998 Labor Day benefit for striking Detroit newspaper workers.

Lane: Rumor has it you once drank a glass of beer containing the ashes of the famous Wobbly songwriter, Joe Hill.

Bragg: It’s true, actually. Joe Hill was executed by the state of Utah in 1915 after a frame-up trial. When he died, he was cremated, and they had asked him where he wanted to be buried. He answered, “Anywhere but in Utah,” where he had been executed by a firing squad. So, what the Wobblies decided to do was to send his ashes to every union branch in the United States. They put them in little packets and mailed them out.

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A July 13, 2012 New York Times article, “That’s No Phone. That’s My Tracker,” by Peter Maass, suggests that we should consider smartphones, computers, and other connected devices as tracking machines rather than appliances of personal convenience.

The manufacturers of these now ubiquitous gadgets claim that aggregating data about individuals favors the consumer, so when you visit a web page, it might display ads relevant to your tastes and needs. But it’s widely speculated that far more sinister use is made of this information--that the government enjoys a cozy relationship with the private data gatherers, that information can and will be used against us, and/ or to the advantage of the military-industrial complex.

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The recent clamor by employers for mandatory drug testing of workers threatens to add yet another humiliating dimension to wage labor. Both private and governmental concerns have expressed strong support for the idea, and it was recently given a boost by a report from the President’s Commission on Organized Crime which recommended a national program which would subject most working Americans to urinalysis tests.

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Ron March, DRUM leader, addresses workers outside of Dodge Main. Photo: G. Simmons.

A group of militant black workers have begun to organize at a Detroit auto plant and have thrown both the union and the company into a near panic. It is called the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (DRUM) and is located at the Hamtramck Assembly plant, also known as Dodge Main.

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NEW YORK — Melvin L. Wulf, an ACLU Legal Director has announced that a brief was filed on August 18 challenging the right of US Attorney General Katzenbach to force the W.E.B. Du Bois Clubs to register with the Subversive Activities Control Board as a “Communist-front organization” under the 1950 Subversive Activities Control Act.

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On Thursday, January 23, 1969, the Metropolitan Detroit Branch of the American Civil Liberties Union will present a film, “The Seasons Change,” and a panel discussion on the events which occurred in Chicago during the Democratic Party Convention.

“The Seasons Change” is a one-hour film in response to the City of Chicago and Mayor Daley’s “What Trees Do They Plant?”, which was carried on many TV stations some months ago.

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reviewed in this article

The Net: The Unabomber, LSD, and the Internet by Lutz Dammbeck

Other Cinema, San Francisco, 2003

www.othercinemadvd.com/net.html

“Facts sometimes have a strange and bizarre power that makes their inherent truth seem unbelievable.”

--Werner Herzog, filmmaker.

“Truth is the invention of a liar.”

--Heinz von Foerster, cybernetician.

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Earth Day supplement page 1

If there was ever a need for an “Earth Day,” “Earth Week,” or “Earth Year” “to get people thinking creatively about the problems we now confront, and looking for new ways to tackle them,” in the words of Earth Day 1970 organizer (and Earth Day 1990 CEO) Denis Hayes, now is certainly the time.

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If there was ever a need for an “Earth Day,” “Earth Week,” or “Earth Year” “to get people thinking creatively about the problems we now confront, and looking for new ways to tackle them,” in the words of Earth Day 1970 organizer (and Earth Day 1990™ CEO) Denis Hayes; now is certainly the time.

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Fifth Estate Note: In “Earth Culture-Earth Diet” author William H. Koethke chronicles the life and culture of the inhabitants along New Mexico’s San Francisco River watershed over a millennium up to the present time. At the time he wrote the article William lived in the area described, but has since become a member of the consensus community of Breitenbush Hot Springs in Detroit, Oregon. He recently was arrested for blockading logging crews trying to cut the last remnant of undamaged old growth forest near his community.

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Fifth Estate note: The 12^th annual Earth First! Round River Rendezvous (RRR) was held in Colorado’s San Juan National Forest, June 28-July 5, with a direct action against an Amoco Corp. facility immediately after it.

Lone Wolf Circles, a long-time EF! activist, contributes the following report of the RRR and his impressions of it.

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Wow! I thought, look at all that color! Can it really be the Earth First! Journal? They pulled out all the stops creating this collage of Earth First! art, poetry, history and personal reminiscences of radical eco-warriors over the past 40 years!

It’s been a long while since there’s been an issue of the Journal chronicling the actions and campaigns of what the powers-that-be love to label eco-terrorism, but so many others see simply as a fight to save life on Earth!

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Earth First! is dead! Long live Earth First!

The irreconcilable differences within the dispute-plagued, radical environmental group finally led to what one of its founders, Dave Foreman, who is often at the center of the controversies, has long called for—a “no-fault divorce.” Although there is much behind-the-scenes acrimony among the leading figures on all sides, the public stance has been that each should go in peace and continue defending the environment in their own way.

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a review of

Earth House Hold by Gary Snyder, New Directions Paperback, 143 pp., $1.95

Liberation News Service — Gary Snyder spoke at a Berkeley teach-in on ecology and politics recently. It was the end of a long afternoon, at the end of two very long weeks, and most of the students had gone on about their business, but those who stayed found their poet.

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Note: The Hog Farm is an apolitical commune which has set up shop in New Mexico. A few innovators who had been involved in People’s Park and Woodstock got together with the Hog Farm and kindred spirits and have recently come up with a groovy idea—why not stake out an “Earth People’s Park” in some vast wilderness territory, move in about 20,000 of the beautiful people, and live together in love and harmony, taking good care of each other and the natural environment. The Earth People’s Park developers are trying to collect $1 million to buy about 100,000 acres in New Mexico on which to settle their 20,000 people. Twenty thousand who are not Mexican, not Spanish-speaking, not Indian. Ecology-minded people really dig the idea. Those who can’t stand the rat-race of city life, those who feel they’ve struggled long enough and want to drop out, those who feel they could somehow build a better life away from the repression of the cities, groove on the idea. The Governor of New Mexico, reassured that the Earth People plan to “obey all the laws of the state,” grooves on the idea. The Chicano and Latino and Indian people of New Mexico don’t groove on the idea at all. The following article is from El Grito del Norte, the Chicano paper that comes out of Espanola, N.M. It explains the position of the people who already live on the land that the Earth People want to buy. Earth People’s Park has a mailing address at 1230 Grant Ave., Box 313, San Francisco, Calif 94113, where they expect to receive donations. People might want to write to them to tell them what they think of the idea of setting up their “liberated zone” in an area already brutally “liberated” from its original inhabitants. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ The basic message is: PLEASE DON’T COME! At least not now. Stop and think about a few things that you may not have heard about or thought about. Think about the fact that, much as you reject your middle class Anglo society and its values, you are still seen here as gringos. Anglos. Think about the 120-year old struggle by Chicanos and the even older struggle by Indians to get back millions of acres of land stolen from them by Anglo ranchers with their Anglo lawyer buddies. Think about what it means for a new influx of Anglos—no matter how different their purpose from those others—to come in and buy up land that the local people feel to be theirs and cannot afford to buy themselves. Think about the fact that a real estate agent in Taos reports having sold almost $500,000 worth of land to longhairs. Think, on the other hand, about how people have sometimes reacted to hippies who get welfare payments and food stamps. Even though this takes nothing away from poor Raza people, they have felt resentment. It seems like a false identification, when the hippies involved can get money from home or a decent job if necessary. Think about the water problem. Longhairs usually come from the big city, not knowing that water is precious and often hard to get. They see a stream and wash their feet or dishes in it. Hey! That’s our drinking water. We are used to being abused, ignored, scorned—but that’s too much. Think about not only the land and water, but also the culture. Longhairs come, often deliberately unwashed and ungroomed in their rebellion against a sterile, hypocritical middle-class society. They don’t see that, for the Spanish-speaking people, cleanliness is a weapon of cultural self-defense against the oppressor. It is not a symbol of hypocrisy but part of the little pride and self-respect left to them, preciously guarded. So is conventional morality: the tight-knit family is everywhere a source of strength and unity against a hostile environment. Longhair values might sometimes be better—but they cannot be imposed. Especially when you are not joining the struggle of the people against the oppression which is the source of many Raza values. Think about the educational advantages that you often have—whether you wanted to have them or not. You can come here and start a little business, and you will often succeed where Raza people fail (or would not even try). “Son muy vivo.” Raza people say—the hippies are very bright. It is often true, it is not your “fault,” but it is important to remember how many millions of times the Anglo’s education and technology helped to make him a successful oppressor. If you say, “I’ve come to learn from the people,” excuse us if we sometimes remember: that’s what the Anglos said when they came to Sierra Nevada, learned from us how to mine—and then drove us out, even murdered us. Think about yourself, and just how clear you are about rejecting your own society’s values. Recent events here have shown that, when things get heavy, the longhairs sometimes act very much like the society they have fled. When a hippie woman in Taos was raped by a Chicano youth (because the Chicanos don’t understand free women and because they have been taught not to see hippies as human beings) the longhaired men called the cops—THE COPS! In another case, the longhair went out and shot the Chicano dead for supposedly raping “his” woman. And he got off, with a hung jury. Think about this: the longhair has opted out. Most of the Chicanos and Indians have no option—except revolution. People here cannot flee to islands of peace in their nation of horrors, this is their nation. It cannot be said too often that there is a long, hard political and economic struggle in these beautiful mountains, a struggle for land and justice. That struggle calls for fighters and supporters, not refugees with their own set of problems. You may see the scenery as relief from an oppressive America. We see a battleground against oppression. You (rightly) condemn your own society, your own culture strongly, but why not go where it is, and change it? And if your answer to that is “I can’t” or “I won’t” then think about what this answer implies—and whether you are then a person needed by people here, who can be useful here. Now, finally, please think about this: if you must come, wait a while. Wait until things cool off for longhairs, wait until the speed freaks have hopefully left, wait until the longhairs who are already here can develop a better climate—if they can. While you wait, READ and LEARN about this part of the country. Read what has been done to the people here by the white man; find out why they see Kit Carson and those other frontier types as murderers—not heroes; find out what the U.S. Forest Service and Smokey the Bear represent here. Don’t just put on long skirts and beads, and think you understand “the Indians;” too many rich tourist ladies do that too: Learn Spanish, learn about the every day culture, hang around some poor Spanish-speaking families. Learn about the tradition of courtesy, and why you must not presume on it. Learn some humility; look in yourself for unconscious arrogance and selfishness. Ask yourself, what do I know? Do you know how many Mexican-Americans there are in this country? Do you know that, in terms of education and jobs, they are worse off even than the blacks? Can you imagine what it is to speak one language as a child and then suddenly be dumped into a classroom where another is enforced on you—and fall behind in class, then be told you are stupid? Can you see the difference between being poor and being without money? Can you go to a demonstration by poor people and let them run it their way, and not impose your style as did some longhairs in Santa Fe recently? Can you show respect for another people’s culture and not be disrespectful simply because that’s the way you feel toward your own culture. Can you in other words, do some hard thinking? If you think, you won’t come. Not now. And when you come, come as a revolutionary.

Continuation of a review: The Population Bomb, by Paul R. Ehrlich, Ballantine, 223 pp., 95 cents paper.

[For Part I see “Earth Read-Out,” FE #86, August 21-September 3, 1969].

Ehrlich says: “A general answer to the question, ‘What needs to be done?’ is simple. We must rapidly bring the world population under control, reducing the growth rate to zero or making it go negative. Conscious regulation of human numbers must be achieved. Simultaneously we must, at least temporarily, greatly increase our food production.

...

a review of

The Population Bomb, by Paul R. Ehrlich, Ballantine, 223 pp., $.95, paper.

Ehrlich tries to reach a broad public in this book—but he’s not coy or campy.

He knows there’s no longer time for that.

His first words are: “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines—hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs -embarked upon now...

...

BERKELEY—About 2,000 persons attended—off and on—a six hour teach-in on “Ecology and Politics in America” May 28 at the U-C Berkeley campus.

The idea was to relate the People’s Park issue to broader questions of planetary survival.

A lot of language under a hot sun—but hopefully the thing will get made into a book to help people past the old politics and into a root politics of ecology.

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The idea of getting a lot of great musicians together to work as a back-up band for a featured artist on rock recordings is almost as old as rock itself.

On most of these, the back-up people were lucky to get mentioned conspicuously on the album jacket. But somewhere along the line people began to really care about who played what.

...

It was probably something I had coming for a long time, but it really caught me by surprise when it happened. After all I don’t write these pieces because I get paid for them. I do it because it gets me some free records, gets me into the clubs for free, and a few other fringe benefits. Or so I thought.

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The on again-off again break up of the Red, White and Blues Band is On-again-off again. After the original guitarist-harpist quit, he was replaced by two people, a singer-harpist and a lead player who never really worked out.

It was announced that the group was breaking up for good, then that they would just replace the singer and the guitarist with two new people. But bigger things were in the air, and now, it seems, piano player Skip has left the group to join the Wilson Mower Pursuit.

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While local music business people continue to hype the Detroit scene as a major center of the pop world the scene itself continues to deteriorate and no one seems to care enough about it to do anything constructive.

Quite the contrary, the trend seems to be toward copying all the mistakes that have been made in every other “major music center” in order to exploit every last nickel to be had from the people.

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The thought of hearing any music played in Olympia Stadium is distressing. There is no acoustical ceiling on the arena and the bare rafters not only echo much of the sound, but also distort it or often trap it. Also, setting up the stage at one end of the narrow stadium makes it difficult, if not impossible to clearly see what’s going on.

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East Detroit High School was the scene Jan. 10 of a student sit-in protesting school policies there.

The action involved some 450 students and had demands ranging from dress and hair regulations and money wasted on “hall mothers” who patrol the school’s halls to a general demand for a student veto on school policies.

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(The Sunday News supplement)

Caption: The feet that once walked the Sea of Galilee here protrude from the mud, still showing the nail scars from the crucifixion.

JERUSALEM--UPI-- The Christian Faith lies in ruins today as the central myth of the world-wide religion--the Resurrection of Christ-- was shattered by the discovery of a 2,000 year-old corpse and its positive identification as that of Jesus of Nazareth.

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YPSILANTI, Feb. 20 — On this cold Thursday morning over 100 black students seized the administration building of Eastern Michigan University and chained themselves inside.

Students massing on Eastern Michigan campus to support demands of black students.

After a one hour occupation approximately 100 riot-equipped Washtenaw County sheriff’s deputies sawed their way into the occupied building and busted the “leaders” of the demonstration. A list of people to be arrested had been drawn up by the university president the night before.

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On Tuesday, May 3, 1966. Thomas L. Baker, a 16 year old black youth was shot and wounded while entering the office of the Afro-American Youth Movement (A.A.Y.M.), formerly known as the Adult Community Movement for Equality, at 9211 Kercheval on Detroit’s East Side.

This incident is only one of a long series of violent acts directed at the A.A.Y.M., as well as A.C.M.E. The A.A.Y.M. has been in existence for approximately three months. In that time, burning rags have been thrown through the rear office window, a bomb has been tossed through the front window, and a shotgun blast at the office in the middle of the night.

...

a review of

Ukraine & the Empire of Capital: From Marketisation to Armed Conflict by Yuliya Yurchenko. Pluto Press, 2018

This book was written four years before Russia massively invaded Ukraine, but is in some ways even more relevant now.

Yurchenko is a democratic socialist, yet takes a more rigorous neither/nor position regarding Russia and the West than some figures associated with the Western anarchist left, such as Noam Chomsky.

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In 1943, Eastwood Amusement Park was literally the end of the line. Streetcars, packed with servicemen and factory workers, would cut sharply across Gratiot at Eight Mile, screech around a tight loop at the park’s entrance, and head back downtown.

Located in the then semi-rural town of East Detroit, Eastwood seemed removed from the bleak realities of the early Forties—if not from reality itself. In fact, even today, a list of the park’s attractions produces a mild sensory overload.

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“Tan me ‘ide when I’m dead, Fred,

“Tan me ‘ide when I’m dead.

“So we tanned ‘is ‘ide when ‘e died, Clyde,

“An’ that’s it ‘angin’ on the shed.”

—Bela Kun

They’re dropping like flies! A devil of a run of luck! First Paul, then “Smiley” Albino, Pope John Paul. Now another gets ready to float belly up: full name, Pope John Paul George and Ringo...And he’ll undoubtedly croak within a few weeks. And no warranty!

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If you read the South End, The Metro, The Detroit News or Free Press, you already know the story of “Easy Rider.” But that’s all you know.

Despite the number of reviews which claim to analyze or criticize “Easy Rider” as a movie, none have considered what its effect as a film is. It may be a good story, but from the reviews, it’s hard to tell whether “Easy Rider” is a good movie.

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After talking about it for a long time, there finally is someplace to go on Sunday Mornings, someplace to pick up the Times and read it over coffee and danish.

Your own Eat It girl is opening Alvin’s Finer Delicatessen (Cass at the expressway) on Sundays. We started a few weeks ago with danishes and donuts, my mother’s homemade apple pan dowdy, and a special for the day, Sandy Feldheim’s cheese blintzes. We had a nice crowd and everyone seemed to encourage us.

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As a belated Mother’s Day present—a tribute to my mother (who said I was no lady for using the word “bullshit” in my last column).

Like other little girls, I learned to cook by getting in my mother’s way. You know how mothers are, giving menial tasks like watching the egg whites become meringue when what I really wanted to do was make a wedding cake.

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Having been publicly admonished by the editors for a lack of responsibility, I dutifully return to these pages, hanging my head and offering bagels, begging forgiveness (up the wall, Peter!).

Finals time usually finds me typing papers with little interest in cooking or column writing which is my excuse for a lack of responsibility.

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Open City has started to happen and I’m excited about it and glad to be involved in it. I’m working on the job co-op, hoping to influence the business world to hire freaks who really want to work but are more left of center in their commitments.

Why do we all have to lie so much when we apply for a job? Why do we have to promise to never miss a day and stay with the job forever when both sides know it’s so much bullshit? Part of the job of our committee is to try to get work that is meaningful, a job at which we can be ourselves: long hair, freaky clothes and whatever else we are. We hope to eventually extend beyond the menial, baby-sitting, window washing job set up that other freak communities have established.

...

A big thanks to the Tennessee Ghost writer for socking it to you last issue.

And thank you to everyone concerned about my hand. It wasn’t a bad burn and I was fine the next day.

Sundays at Alvin’s continue to be a lot of fun for me and hopefully for everyone who comes there. My soc. class with Dr. Stein has taken to meeting informally at Alvin’s on Sundays as a few Monteith classes have done. It’s a fine place to study later in the afternoon (our hours are 11 to 5).

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As I write this time I’m recovering from a tonsillectomy and therefore haven’t done much cooking or eating.

Vernors ginger ale seems to have healing powers that only Detroiters are aware of. Vernors and milk is also my number one remedy for a morning-after thirst.

I’ve also had this yen for Chinese food for the past three days and can’t wait to swallow a big bite of chow mein or egg roll or sweet and sour pork.

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Talking-pre-holiday-pre-final-two-papers-due-blues. No feel for cooking; no money for eating out and Peter says get your column in.

Heat oil, brown pork on both sides, salt and pepper. Peel 5–6 onions, cut in slices and smother the pork. Pour in a little water, reduce the heat and simmer 20 minutes.

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By the time you read this I will have gotten through Christmas, but as I write I haven’t yet.

I sort of have a tradition which I sometimes wish I could stop. Anyway, I have this tree trimming party every year where everyone who comes for the first time must bring an ornament which somehow expresses the “real” them.

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I had a groovy Thanksgiving that I’d like to tell you about: Some of my friends asked me if I’d like to cook for about 30 people.

What I took on as a challenge turned out to be a great night of eating for over a hundred people. Charlie Auringer, Myron Green, Steve Swainson, Eric Morrice, and Barry Kramer all live and work out of a huge studio loft on Cass which easily accommodated our friends and guests.

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I made a delicious beef stew the other day, a real one pot delight, filled with all kinds of vegetables and served over noodles. Pick up on it.

The meat to use in a beef stew is usually packaged as “stewing beef.” Actually it is sirloin tip or top round steak. Buy it when it’s called stew beef because it usually costs less and is easier to cut into cubes.

...

butter

medium onion

few pieces garlic

2 oz. salt pork (few pieces cut up bacon will do)

2 to 3 lbs. frying chicken

1 sm. can tomato sauce

seasoning: pinches of parsley, rosemary, oregano and basil (or a couple teaspoons Italian seasoning which is all of the above in a more expensive bottle).

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Since I’m more or less trapped working downtown this summer my latest food adventure is the lost art of sandwich making.

Making your own lunch is always a drag. When you were a kid there was at least some element of surprise when your mother made your lunch. At least there was with my mother who believed in putting in surprises once in a while.

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It’s been so long now since I’ve written a column that I hardly know where to begin. I was turned off writing about recipes and am hoping this column can take a different direction, but it’s all still going around in my head, so I’ll just ramble on about some food things and non-food things too.

Latest “thumbs down” is the China Doll, Second at Seward which has shitty Chinese food. Portions are small, prices are high and service is nil.

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Summertime—Picnic Time

It’s silly to cook much when the weather is warm. Picnics don’t have to be big, planned things. If you keep a few basic picnic foods around the house, you can grab them and go to Palmer Park or Belle Isle anytime.

I think that food in warm weather should be kept whole and simple. Summer fruits and vegetables don’t need much preparation. It is easy to keep green onions, radishes, tomatoes and cucumbers cleaned and in a plastic bag. Throw a few ice cubes in the bag and everything will stay crisp and cold, even in a picnic basket.

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Now that Fall is here, I hope to be more regular with this column. I just haven’t been in the mood to write about food, what with the world coming down all around. But as my editor says, politics is a dime a lime, but everyone likes to Eat It.

Bradley Jones keeps asking me for some one dish casserole recipes so I’ll start with my own chili recipe. I like chili very thick and sort of spicy sweet.

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Sorry about not making the last issue. Your Eat It girl was in the hospital, which gives her a good reason to rap on institutional feeding and freedom.

The curfew was on the week before I went into the hospital, which seemed to prepare me for the confinement. I became a body which had to be operated on, something which had nothing to do with my mind. First my civil liberties, then my body!

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Jake Frankhouser is a gentle, revolutionary who has good and practical ideas about food. Jake’s good discipline has gotten him an undergraduate degree in landscape architecture and this year, a Masters in urban planning. Beyond all that, Jake’s interest is urban recreation; and he has some fantastic plans for neighborhood recreation facilities, planned and built by the neighborhood.

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A group of friends and myself recently decided to take on the problem of gouging by inner city food merchants. Calling ourselves ICHWAG, or Inner City Honky Women Against Gouging, five of us set out to prove the price differences between inner city and suburban stores. Wouldn’t you just know, soon as we got organized and set the next date for our coffee klatch business meeting, I find out that it is already being done: At a slightly more professional level, too.

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“Bread: prime symbol. Try and find a good loaf.”

Most of us are familiar with this, the opening line from Henry Miller’s essay, “The Staff of Life.” And it seems a good place to begin a column about food.

We all know how really lousy Wonder Bread is, but chances are that’s what is in your bread box. White bread is cheaper and more convenient to buy. Not all of us live near a bagel factory. Now, what to do with it. If you insist upon putting cheese and bologna between it, what can I tell you?

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Why I like Chinese food:

I guess I really became crazy about Chinese food when I was living in New York and working as a waitress. I always ate Chinese on my day off because I was tired of roast beef and other all-American delights.

Chinese food is different from anything else; it’s hard to make at home, and it is usually quite cheap and very filling. I have never known anyone to leave a Chinese restaurant hungry.

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I seem to be coming to a better understanding of what kind of cook I am. What this clarity can be attributed to is uncertain, but I’m digging it. Guess these past few columns are towards a philosophy of cooking.

I’m more of an eclectic, I suppose, borrowing what I can from whoever I can. I am not a gourmet: I rarely measure ingredients, unless it’s a complicated recipe which I’m trying for the first time. I am also not one for expensive cuts of meat or fancy, out-of-season vegetables.

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A loose group of anarchists centered around the new 404 space organized a Festival Against Wealth and Waste, June 20–22. More than 50 participants, including anarchists from Chicago and Toledo, engaged in three days of demonstrations, actions, discussion and performance.

The first day began with a Television Sacrifice on the Wayne State University campus featuring guerrilla theater illustrating the mind-numbing effects of TV. The climax of the action was thwarted, however, when the campus cops threatened to arrest anyone who destroyed the several sets we had ready for the sacrifice.

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After the Eat The Rich Gang (ETR) distributed several thousand copies of their phony front page, which were stuffed in Detroit News coin boxes, angry christians called the offices of the Fifth Estate demanding, “my children came home crying because of your sick joke. What are you going to do about it?!”

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The long and tiresome electoral campaign of President Posterior revealed to home audiences (we can hardly call the unmobilized American masses anything else) the dyspeptic underbelly of the liberal-democratic fantasy.

Locked within the confines of their curated Internet timelines and baseless feel-good truisms about voting, clueless pseudorationalists speak about waking up to a new epoch. We cannot call it an awakening. Perhaps it is more like a fit of hypnopompic sleep paralysis and its accompanying suite of horrible hallucinations.

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In the Third World, the possibility of economic development can bring a strange form of “modernity.” For example, Madagascar, formerly a jewel in France’s illustrious colonial empire (45,000 deaths resulted from the French quelling of the 1947 uprising), had long been self-sufficient.

By the end of the nineteenth century, a relatively numerous and prosperous bourgeoisie had started to emerge, but it was destroyed by colonialism. The global economic crisis (fall in prices of raw materials, breakdown of local industries) coincided with ruling class mismanagement and led to economic catastrophe and to a suffocating spiral of decline: agricultural collapse, dependence on food provisions, the need for imports without having anything to sell, debts and pressures from the International Monetary Fund, currency devaluation of 700%, poverty, the exodus from the countryside, etc.

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Position: Man is but a part of the fabric of life—dependent on the whole fabric for his very existence. As the most highly developed tool-using animal, he must recognize that the unknown evolutionary destinies of other life forms are to be respected, and act as gentle steward of the earth’s community of being.

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FE note: See our introduction, “Revolution & Counter-revolution in Italy,” [FE#293–294, August 21, 1978] in this issue.

A conspiracy of silence and careful distortion of what doesn’t fit the picture of Italy as a panting country trying to catch up with the other industrial “democracies” have mystified the Italian events in the past year. If one believes the American press, the only problem is to know how long the Carter Administration will succeed in keeping the so-called Communist Party out of the government: however, another much more dangerous reality, whose lineaments we will attempt to trace, seems to threaten the management of the crisis and the project of integration of the country into the new international economic order.

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a review of

Ecotopia, Ernest Callenbach, Bantam Books, $1.95

Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia, an underground novel for two years, recently released as a Bantam paperback, regrettably could become the fable of the age. And if it does it will duplicate Looking Backwards’ performance of 80 years ago, ironically for the opposite reasons. Bellamy’s story provided an outlet for a wave of discontent and despair following a series of working-class defeats and economic crises. It literally propelled thousands into the countryside to form communes with little more than a new shovel and an old hope.

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a review of

EcoVillage at Ithaca: Pioneering a Sustainable Culture by Liz Walker. 256 pages. New Society Publishers. 2005.

Those who are best comprehending The Problem are making alliances with those who are best comprehending The Solution. Liz Walker’s timely book is a chronicle, manual, and inspiration for that movement. The Problem being addressed is that the praxis of our civilization is unsustainable. The Solution is to move in the direction of living more locally and more lightly.

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(written on the 500^th anniversary of the European “discovery” of the Americas)

Oh that he had fallen off the edge of the world.

Oh that there had been an edge to fall off,

an edge the natives knew and revered

sharp and well-defined

a cutting edge

the edge the fearful sailors dreamed of

a never-ending point of no return.

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As several people who have seen this issue prior to publication have noted, the correct quote is “The love of money is the root of all evil,” but its truncated form seems more accurate than the original. Money itself, not just cherishing it, is the ultimate representation of all that is alienated in the modern world; the driving force of pathological greed; the whip that coerces wage labor; and the basis of wars. The current inequitable split of the planet’s wealth now allows ten million millionaires world-wide to control $37.2 trillion dollars in financial assets assuring a life of immiseration for billions of people.

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“If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen. As if a town had no interest in its forests but to cut them down! Most men would feel insulted if it were proposed to employ them in throwing stones over a wall, and then in throwing them back, merely that they might earn their wages. But many are no more worthily employed now.”

—Henry David Thoreau

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Welcome to another Fifth Estate! This marks our eighth issue since moving to Pumpkin Hollow. With an editorial office in the Barn and an editorial collective all over the continent, we are proud to approach our 40^th anniversary with a thriving publication as opposed to authority as ever.

When we announced the theme as “Conspirarchy and Elections,” little did we realize how much the edition would emerge as one focused on politics and rhetoric. In particular, we examine the growing tension between the horrific hallucination known as democracy and the utopian vision known as anarchy.

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Powerlessness and the lack of control which black people are allowed over their own community was not a major cause of the Detroit rebellion, Mr. Lomax tells us.

Nor was the cause the culture of violence which the United States has perfected; a culture which would make it UnAmerican for black people not to use violence as a means to effect social change.

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There are four estates, the fourth of which is journalism. We are the fifth because we are something different than Detroit’s other newspapers. We hope to fill a void in that fourth estate a void created by party-controlled newspapers and the cutting of those articles which might express the more liberal viewpoint. That’s what we really are--the voice (I hate that word) of the liberal element of Detroit. This does not mean that everything in the paper will be slanted or written with the so-called “far left” creeping through every space. We want to be a truly free press. If it’s good, if it has a name, and if it’s sincere, it will be in the Fifth Estate. If not, you can probably find it in the News.

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This issue arrives late, but we think you’ll find it worth the wait. We published 1 last in March 2007, but our plans for timely Summer and Fall issues faltered due to a lack in finances and in our issue-editor’s free time. But unlike some publications that have recently ceased operations, we’re as motivated as ever, which should be self-evident from the articles and art in our “End of the Worldism” edition.

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By the time you hold this issue in your hands, Fifth Estate will have entered into its 45^th year of continuous publication! This is no small feat for an all-volunteer run publication operating on a shoestring budget, and it would not be possible without the continued support of our subscribers, sustainers, and readers like you. For this, you have the heartfelt thanks of everyone in the FE collective. That said, if you are not yet a subscriber, please consider subscribing so we can continue to bring you compelling stories and well argued essays from FE’s unique perspectives (see our subscription call out on page 37). If you are already a subscriber, consider donating or sponsoring a subscription to a prisoner (FE provides free subscriptions to prisoners).

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WAR!

The weapons are in place. The language of war is accepted everywhere. The rulers of the opposing empires confront each other menacingly.

Their fingers are poised on the button. The warheads ache to be launched. Will we wait passively for annihilation?

The words above are what should have shown through a light image of a mushroom cloud on our Nov. 19 [FE #307] cover, but were obscured due to a communication error with our printer. Our disappointment with the results was lightened somewhat when several people told us they thought it was a contest to see if the words could be discerned. Others said that the bomb obliterating our words was appropriate for the matter under discussion.

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Trouble time again at Northland. The punk rent-a-pigs out there have been giving our salesmen such a hard time when they are trying to sell that we are going to begin a suit against the shopping center to enforce our legal right to sell in a public area.

Our staff and our attorney, James Lafferty, met with the jerks that run the place last year and came to an agreement whereby the harassment of sellers would stop, but apparently it meant nothing to the businessmen who are trying to drive elements of the free community out of the shopping center.

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ATTENTION GIs: We are interested in any and all written material given you while you are in the service. This includes everything from training manuals to Stars and Stripes. Also, any of you who would like to submit articles or letters to the editor are urged to do so.

If you want to show your support for Judge George W. Crockett and risk getting a few traffic tickets at the same time, stop in our office and pick up a “Support Judge Crockett” bumper sticker. They are free or if you can, for a small donation. We will not send any out by mail.

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The Revolutionary Newspaper Conference held at Wayne State’s Lower DeRoy on April 12 was fairly successful. Over 70 persons registered and over 125 were in attendance throughout the day.

The morning session consisted of a panel on the function of the media in a revolutionary movement. On the panel were Nick Medvecky and James Tripp of the South End, Peter Werbe from this paper, Marty Glaberman from Speak Out, and Mike Honey from the Oakland Observer.

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The revolutionary newspaper conference sponsored by this newspaper and several other publications will be held on only one day: Saturday, April 12. The planners felt that the necessary work could be accomplished in that period.

The conference will cover a complete range of subjects from how to put together any printed newspaper (from mimeo to offset) as well as political perspectives, organizing, financing, legal questions and anything else people want to know.

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This newspaper, WSU’s South End, and the Inner City Voice are going to sponsor a revolutionary newspaper conference on April 11, 12, and 13. It will be held on the Wayne University campus.

The need for such a conference rises out of a growing movement in the Detroit area; in high schools, plants, colleges, and communities.

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The Man’s heavy hand of repression is attempting again to strike at this paper. We have been getting reports from both sellers, distributors, and buyers about police and school harrassment.

At Southfield High, which is run by anti-Fifth Estate fanatics, Principal Robert Hall and youth pig, Richard Overmeyer, persons have been suspended for selling the paper and students have had individual copies confiscated merely for having them in their possession.

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There has been considerable question as to where the Fifth Estate stands regarding an attack on the white left in our last issue and on a number of articles appearing in these pages by White Panther spokesmen.

Political views that are explicitly those of this paper are printed only in this column and in editorials such as the one about the aftermath of the Democratic Convention. All news stories are edited by us and in that sense reflect our editorial views as in any newspaper.

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Every newspaper has left over papers from returns from stores and sellers. Usually these are just discarded and considered as junk since they are out-of-date.

However, our staff can not bear to think of the leftovers of our treasured publication as winding up in an incinerator. We think there is too much important material of lasting value to just discard, so we thought of a solution.

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Reading the Fifth Estate last issue was sort of a magical mystery tour with none of the teasers on the front page corresponding to the proper pages and a number of other horrors.

This was caused by last minute surgery when our printer decided he would be unable to print a two-page spread photo of John Lennon and Yoko Ono posing nude because he felt it would hurt his other business.

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Big changes at the Fifth Estate. As you can see by the staff box above our paper’s decisions will be made by an Editorial Group rather than by the two former co-editors. This represents an attitude on the part of the people working full-time on the paper that decisions should be made collectively by those most closely involved in its production.

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Nothing much to report or rap about; so just a few brief notes.

Our abortive record deal with ESP records is still fouled. We wrote the record company in New York and asked if they could mail the bonus records to our new subscribers, but they have not answered to date.

A few people have come into our office to pick up their albums, but the majority of them remain here in the office confronting us accusingly. If you live in the Detroit area please come and get your record or if you live a distance away write us a note and we will send it to you.

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Apparently Detroit’s two daily papers didn’t believe our interview in the last issue with the person who bombed the CIA office in Ann Arbor.

The News ran a front page synopsis of the interview and the next day both papers carried stories of the “authorities,” denying that it was authentic and the Free Press even accused us of taking it from other papers.

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America’s election farce is over and proved to be one of the dullest in years reminiscent of the Eisenhower years as Hank Malone points out in this issue. The only pleasant surprise was the small number of Americans willing to vote for George Wallace’s militant brand of racism. They obviously prefer the more subtle and effective variety advocated by the other two creeps. Wallace pulled only 7.8 per cent of the vote outside of the South and this isn’t a hell of a lot given the amount of money he spent on his campaign.

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We would like to apologize to any of our readers who were fooled by Mike Quatro’s ad in our paper for his Halloween Eve’s shuck at Olympia Stadium. The ad included a number of acts that had not been contracted and intimated that the show would go on as long as there were acts to perform, which of course didn’t happen.

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Last issue’s front cover was done by Detroit photographer Tom Burt. Fifth Estate readers may remember Tom’s work from a previous front cover and you can expect to see more in the months to come. Tom has a fantastic collection of photographs mounted for hanging and anyone who digs his work as much as we do can reach him at 864–2898. Leave a message if he is not there.

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The Fifth Estate’s Labor Day benefit at the Grande Ballroom was an overwhelming success. The bands were beautiful and so were the people. Newsreel’s films turned everybody on and a good time was had by all. Special thanks to the MC5, the Stooges, the Gold Brothers, Newsreel, Uncle Russ and everyone who came. It was a real Detroit city evening. Everyone got down.

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Everyone who wants to tune in to the music of our culture should be at the Fifth Estate Benefit to be held Sept. 1 at the Grande Ballroom from 6–11 pm. Featured will be the MC5, Stooges, and the Gold Brothers, along with Newsreel films of the San Francisco State strike and two short films from Cuba.

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Recorder’s Court Judge Robert J. Colombo, the pig who sentenced John Sinclair to almost ten years in prison, recently renewed his subscription to this paper for two years. Because of the barbaric sentence he placed on John, we are cancelling his subscription, confiscating his money and donating it to the John Sinclair Defense Fund. Money is urgently needed for legal fees and we hope all brothers and sisters will contribute generously to his defense. Send donations to John Sinclair Defense Fund, 1510 Hill St., Ann Arbor, Mich. 48104.

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As we go to press word has reached us that Recorder’s Court Judge Robert Colombo has dismissed charges of sales of marijuana against John Sinclair. His trial on the charge of possession began on June 24 and may be in progress at this writing. Call our office or White Panther headquarters for more information.

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