Full list of texts
Jim Campbell
Indian Summer
Canadian Army vs. the Mohawks
On September 26; 1990 a 78-day siege of two Mohawk territories near Montreal, Quebec, ended when the last group of holdouts walked out of a rehabilitation centre where they had been surrounded by Canadian army troops since September 1st. Rather than the unconditional surrender that the state wanted, the Mohawks were able to turn apparent defeat into symbolic victory.
Aug 25, 2019 Read the whole text...
Pablo Kala
Indian Villagers Confront Military, State
Theater of War, Theater of Displacement
In North Orissa, on the coast of India’s Bay of Bengal, a three-year conflict between the Central Government and local farmers and fisherfolk continues, virtually ignored by the international media.
In the village areas of Baliapal and Bhograi—a region known as the granary of Orissa because of its great fertility and high-yielding cash crops—approximately 100,000 people face eviction from their homes and lands. The cause of their imminent displacement is the government’s National Testing Range, a military base costing an estimated $840 million (U.S.), designed to test and launch satellites, rockets and missiles.
Sep 30, 2021 Read the whole text...
Primitivo Solis (David Watson)
Indigenism & its Enemies
indigenous, adj. 1. Occurring or living naturally in an area; not introduced; native. 2. Intrinsic; innate. [From Latin indigena, native. See indigene.
Indigenism, which begins as a defense of the Indian within western political and literary discourse, ends as a form of conquest, the final assault of civilization on prehistory.
Jul 8, 2017 Read the whole text...
Nick Mamatas
Individualism’s Dandy Daddy
A review of
Resist Everything Except Temptation: The Anarchist Philosophy of Oscar Wilde by Kristian Williams. AK Press 2020
At first blush, Kristian Williams’ literary and political biography Resist Everything Except Temptation: The Anarchist Philosophy of Oscar Wilde, could have been an interesting blog post about the famed playwright. After all, the details of Wilde’s politics are well-known enough, articulated as they are in the essay “The Soul of Man Under Socialism.” He was an enemy of the state as well, and was arrested and imprisoned for gross indecency and sodomy. All that needs doing is to rifle through the man’s creative works and surviving correspondence to find some political bons mot, and behold—clickbait!
Jan 22, 2021 Read the whole text...
Leopold Roc
Industrial Domestication
Industry as the Origins of Modern Domination
“If science was put to the service of capital, the recalcitrant worker’s docility would be assured.”
—Andrew Ure, Philosophie des manufactures, 1835
“In the past, if anyone called a tradesman a worker, he risked a brawl. Today, when they are told that workers are what is best in the state, they all insist on being workers.”
Nov 14, 2020 Read the whole text...
John Zerzan
Paula Zerzan
Industrialism & Domestication
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the rise of capitalism was met by bitter and intense resistance. Its establishment was only effectuated by the imposition of the factory system as a method of social control. The result was a tamed working class and a degradation of labor which lives today at the core of the marxist conception of socialism.
Feb 24, 2018 Read the whole text...
John Zerzan
Industrialism and its discontents
the Luddites and their inheritors
Download PDF [174 KB] fe-389-19-industrialism-and-its-discontents
Nearly two hundred years ago, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley gave us a classic warning about the hubris of technology’s combat against nature. Her late Gothic novel, Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1818), depicts the revenge nature takes upon the presumption of engineering life from the dead. Victor Frankenstein and his creation perish, of course; his “Adam” is as doomed as he is. If this monster cannot be saved by his father/creator, however, today’s cyborg/robot/Artificial Intelligence products do expect to be saved. For those at the forefront of technological innovation today, there will be no return to a previous, monster-free state.
Jun 14, 2013 Read the whole text...
Penelope Rosemont
Influencing Machines...
..., Intuition Pumps, Paranoia & The Poisonous Cobra of Surrealism
Madness & the Surrealist Imagination
The common denominator of the sorcerer, the poet and the madman cannot be anything but magic...the flesh and blood of poetry.
--Benjamin Peret
Surrealists have celebrated madness as a means of exploring the possibilities of the human mind. Madness provides that window into how people put together reality; how thoughts are often assembled in an unusual and creative way.
Dec 17, 2013 Read the whole text...
Jason Rodgers
Infomodities
All the Psy-Ops that Fit the Screen
“News is the dialogue of fragmented power with itself. Notice how scientists, politicians or businessmen now complain that even they only learn about the events they manage from the news.
—“Some Fragmented Views from a Fragmented World” (Against Sleep and Nightmares)
Information bombardment from multiple media sources makes contemplation difficult. Everything is broken down into fragmented data having no relation to anything else presenting. It is superficially processed constantly. No rest, but neither exertion nor effort. Just continuous banality and superficiality.
Feb 23, 2020 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Infoshop, Gallery, & Mail Order
BOOKSTORE IN A BARN
(615) 536–5999
an hour east of Nashville; call, write, or email for directions
FifthEstate@pumpkinhollow.net
Read more
WORDS
Dr. Ben Reitman, Sister of the Road: the Autobiography of Boxcar Bertha (2002) $15.00
Dark Star
Beneath the Paving Stones (2001) $15.00
Hakim Bey
Immediatism (1992) $10.00
Jul 16, 2021 Read the whole text...
Peter Werbe
In Havana?
Conference on Trotsky?
It seems improbable that a conference was held in Havana last May to examine the life and ideas of the Russian Bolshevik, Leon Trotsky. One would think the Cuban Stalinist bureaucracy would be averse to allowing a gathering sympathetic to the Soviet dictator’s arch rival within the Russian ruling clique power struggle that occurred almost 100 years ago.
Feb 13, 2020 Read the whole text...
Marlene Tyre
‘Inhuman Treament’ Charged by Families of Fort Hood Three
Last month the Fort Hood Three were convicted and sentenced to prison terms of three years for Mora; and five years for Samas and Johnson. The Fort Hood Three, to perhaps refresh a few memories, are Pvt. Dennis Mora, Pvt. David Samas and PFC James Johnson—the three U. S. soldiers who refused to serve in Viet4 nam believing that the war is “immoral, unjust and illegal.”
Feb 29, 2024 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
In memoriam Malcolm X
February 21st marked the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Black America’s hero, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (known to many as Malcolm X).
Born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska on May 19, 1925, Malcolm quickly learned the bitter taste of white racism. His mother was born as the result of her mother’s rape by a white planter (thus giving Malcolm his light complexion and red hair).
Aug 20, 2021 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Innu People Resist NATO
Canada is illegally renting out the territory of the Innu people to the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) countries so that their bombers can practice bombing and surprise attacks. The establishment of a permanent NATO base could be announced soon. [see FE note at end of article]
The Innu people (sometimes called the Montagnais or the Naskapi) refer to their ancestral territories as the Nitassinan, literally our land, in their native language. The area was never ceded by treaty or otherwise by the original inhabitants. The presence of the Innu in this remote part of the world goes back at least 9,000 years. This area extends from Sept-Iles, to Lac St. Jean, Quebec, to the west; to Fort Cains, Quebec, to the north; and down to St. Augustine, Quebec, and Goose Bay, Labradore, to the east.
Aug 15, 2019 Read the whole text...
Goldie Silence
Inquisition 2012
Northwest federal grand jury targets anarchists. Activists jailed for their resistance to the attempt to criminalize a philosophy.
As of early November, three people were detained in the SeaTac Federal Detention Facility near Seattle because of their refusal to provide a federal grand jury with information about anarchist beliefs and associations.
Federal government prosecutors claim they are investigating violent actions at demonstrations, but the Portland-based Committee Against Political Repression says the extensive surveillance, SWAT raids, and grand jury subpoenas are not simply a response to a few broken windows, but an effort to criminalize the political philosophy of anarchism.
Apr 15, 2013 Read the whole text...
David Porter
In Revolutionary Spain, Workers Made the Anarchist Vision Real
Book review
a review of
Anarchism and Workers’ Self-Management in Revolutionary Spain by Frank Mintz. AK Press, 2013, 326pp., $19, akpress.org
Following his brief synopsis about the Spanish anarchist movement before 1936, the central concern of French anarchist Frank Mintz is the very core of the 1930s Spanish revolution--the grassroots movement of urban and rural collectivization throughout republican Spain.
Jul 16, 2014 Read the whole text...
Hank Malone
In Search of the Ultimate Fantasy
A journey to Old Radio
To those of you tenderly under 20: imagine, if you dare, that tomorrow you could no longer obtain records anywhere. Imagine that all the record stores were suddenly boarded up. Imagine that all of your records and tapes have mysteriously disappeared, your stereo is missing, and that it is now impossible to gain access to music anywhere in the world. Pretend, for a moment, that all the musicians everywhere have suddenly left without notice!
Aug 15, 2015 Read the whole text...
Marshall Rubinoff
Inside Sounds
The new album by COUNTRY JOE and the FISH on Vanguard is the greatest piece of music that was ever vaguely labeled under the title of rock ‘n roll.
They do every kind of musical change in the album better than I’ve ever heard it before. They do heavy blues things, soft regular singing, guitar and organ solos that just fly, the free sounds of tinking wind chimes and hands rubbing a balloon.
Apr 29, 2022 Read the whole text...
Marshall Rubinoff
Inside Sounds
The Spikedrivers were the first psychedelic rock group that existed in Detroit.
Their sound wasn’t super hard, yet it was able to take you off into the freedom of your sub-consciousness. That was a year ago and they weren’t hip to the new obvious fact that music doesn’t happen on 45 records. All they knew was, if you wanted to make music you needed the big money of a record company to pay for the studio time to put something out in order to reach a large enough audience.
May 18, 2017 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Inside the FE
FIFTH ESTATE #366, Fall, 2004, Vol. 39, No. 3
News, etc. pages 2 — 11
Features on “unschooling the world” pages 12 — 45
Letters to the FE pages 46 — 49
Reviews, etc. pages 50 — 53
Bookstore & Calendar pages 54 — 55
May 31, 2016 Read the whole text...
Pono Bonobo
Instead of a Primer
on isms, schisms, & anarchisms
What is anarchism? This question continues to crop up as anarchists debate amongst themselves as how to accurately express their perspectives to non-anarchist activists in the antiwar and global justice movements.
Subsequently, a new wave of anarchist primers has appeared in the Summer editions of North American anti-authoritarian periodicals such as Green Anarchy and Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed. Also, anarchist web sites often include glossaries, FAQs, mission statements, constitutions, manifestos, and talking points to explain anarchist principles to the uninitiated. Thus, we are challenged to recognize and celebrate anarchist diversity while seeking the meaningful collaborations needed to influence lasting change on the other.
May 16, 2021 Read the whole text...
International Werewolf Conspiracy
Instructions
REVOLUTION
REVOLUTION
ELDRIDGE
CLEAVER
Get your shit together be
ready
Tell your friends be
the first on
your block
My God Man be
serious
What would Che say
?
Kill a pig a day fuck in the streets wear
berets
Quote Mao
If you like this poem
it isnt for you
friend
five sticks/electric cap
Aug 17, 2021 Read the whole text...
T. Fulano (David Watson)
Insurgent Mexico!
Redefining Revolution & Progress for the 21st Century
“The political status quo in Mexico died on January 1. Every Mexican institution is now in a state of crisis.”
—El Financiero (Mexican business newspaper)
“If 53 people died in the riots in the Dominican Republic, 53,000 people could die if the Mexicans remember that they are a people with a history of rebellion. If that happens, capitalism in Latin America will go to the devil!”
Apr 30, 2020 Read the whole text...
Jason Rodgers
Insurrections of Imagination
A Speculative Review
a review of
The Collected Writings of Renzo Novatore. Translated by Wolfi Landstreicher. Ardent Press, 2012, $13, 300 pp., ardentpress.org
The Italian insurrectionary and individualist anarchist, Renzo Novatore (the pen name of Abele Rizieri Ferrar, 1890–1922), died at the brink of a great confrontation with Fascism. His comrade Enzo Martucci claimed that at his death, Novatore “was preparing to strike at society and tear from it that which it denies the individual.” Unfortunately, he died in a gun battle with carabinieri in 1922 who had ambushed him.
Jul 1, 2014 Read the whole text...
Andrew Mehall
Interest v. Principal
A brief review of a book about Banksy
a review of
This Is Not a Photo Opportunity: The Street Art of Banksy
Artist: Banksy, Photographs by Martin Bull. PM Press, 2014 pmpress.org
Anonymous England-based vandal Banksy, most known for graffiti-like works across the planet recently made news with his latest prank, by destroying it, or rather by it destroying itself. Upon selling at Sotheby’s, an art auction in London, Girl with Red Balloon, autonomously shredded itself before bidders. This was a departure from previous works, which are displayed in Martin Bull’s 2014 book, This Is Not a Photo Opportunity. There is a problem with Bull’s book. You discover the issue when you approach the text more critically than you would a coffee table book, which might be all that this is.
Oct 9, 2019 Read the whole text...
Laurie LePain
Interiors
she had quickly cleaned the house
now she waited
perched nervously on the kitchen stool
as if she were a bird ready to take flight
Finally, he arrives
dressed fashionably in grey and white
he cuts an elegant figure
and the interview begins—
he asks:
which do you prefer
the black enamel finish
or these soft, muted rose-tones
shall we discuss the various
textures of carpets
or do you prefer the sensual earthiness
of a fine wood floor
the stark simplicity of the modern
or the eclectic clutter
of the victorian?
Jan 27, 2018 Read the whole text...
Gyorgy Furiosa
Interlude: Riot!
Only pent-up rage or potential for creating autonomous urban space?
In August 2011, thousands of people rioted in several London boroughs and cities and towns across England after a protest in Tottenham following the death of an area youth who was shot to death by police. The resulting looting, arson, and mass deployment of police were called “BlackBerry riots” because people used mobile devices and social media to organize.
May 2, 2014 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
International Days of Chalking
Activists in Brattleboro, Vt. are calling for an International Day of Chalking Against State Violence, on Saturday, June 3. Autonomous actions with no central coordination; just get your chalks, go out by yourself or with others, and chalk about war, racism, police killings, prisons, sexual assaults or other issues.
Jan 27, 2017 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
International Days of Protest
The Second Time Around
On Friday, March 25, the first of three INTERNATIONAL DAYS OF PROTEST, there will be activities on the Wayne Campus highlighted by a rally against the war in Vietnam. This will take place on the mall.
Such Universities as Oakland and University of Michigan will also be the site of anti-war demonstrations. The Citizens for Peace in Vietnam will carry on neighborhood activities.
Jan 29, 2023 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
International Days of Protest
Against the War in Vietnam, March 25 — 26
Schedule
Friday, March 25: At 6:30 P.M. the Wayne State University
Young Democrats are sponsoring a forum on the war in Vietnam in the community Arts Auditorium, Cass and Kirby.
Saturday, March 26: At 4:00 P.M. a mass march will start down Woodward from Central -Methodist Church at Adams and Woodward. We will march to Campus Martius carrying signs, banners, and giant grotesque puppets to the beat of death drums.
Dec 26, 2022 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Interview: A Soldier in Vietnam
Bruce Whitten, age 26, held the rank of Staff Sergeant in the Air Force until he received a general discharge on May 23, 1965. Whitten was assigned to the First Air Commando group and spent two years in Vietnam.
Q. How do the people feel about the governments that have been set up?
A. They don’t even discuss them. It just seems to be a taboo subject. You don’t speak to an Englishmen about the Queen in a sexual manner and it’s like that here. You’ll get your throat cut. I never got anywhere discussing that subject.
Feb 10, 2015 Read the whole text...
R.B. Mandarin
Interview: Roman Gribbs
Fifth Estate: First of all, let me congratulate you on your victory.
Roman Gribbs: Thank you.
Fifth Estate: I understand that Mr. Austin issued a statement calling for brotherhood and unity between his supporters and yours.
Roman Gribbs: Yes, Mr. Austin did that. He ran a fine dignified campaign. He has earned the respect, admiration, and adulation of many people in this city. We plan to work together. We must work together to make Detroit the city where we can live together and prosper together.
Sep 2, 2019 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Interview with Abbie
Grippies plan Hot Reception for 1980 Republican and Democratic Conventions
Abbie Hoffman, fugitive Yippie, has been on the lam for over three years following a New York City cocaine deal set-up by the police. Abbie has had plastic surgery to alter his appearance and has managed to elude the authorities even while popping up at protest demonstrations, rallies held in his behalf and he once even appeared as the guest chef on a Toronto TV cooking program.
Sep 25, 2018 Read the whole text...
Mu Xidi
Interview with a Chinese Rebel
Me, a dissident? No thanks.
[two_third padding=“0 30px 0 0”]The following interview with Mu Xidi, a former sailor, Chinese rebel, and since 1990, a refugee in Barcelona was taken from the French book Bureaucratie, Bagnes et Business (Bureaucracy, Prisons and Profits), published in Paris by L’insomniaque last year.
The editors, Hsi Hsuan-wou and Charles Reeve conducted 22 such interviews in China, Hong Kong, and Macao with Chinese individuals from different occupations and political perspectives. The views expressed below by Mu come closest to those enunciated by our publication on the subject of reform and revolution.
Feb 6, 2021 Read the whole text...
National Guardian
Interview with Angela Davis
Following is an excerpt from an interview with Angela Davis done by the Guardian.
How do you see the women’s movement? Also, do you consider it to have a special role for black women?
Let me begin by saying this: no revolutionary should fail to understand the underlying significance of the dictum that the success or failure of a revolution can almost always be gauged by the degree to which the status of women is altered in a radical, progressive direction. After all, Marx and Engels contended that there are two basic facts around which the history of mankind revolves: production and reproduction. The way in which people obtain their means of subsistence on one hand, and in which the family is organized on the other hand.
Sep 10, 2015 Read the whole text...
Milton Klamen
Interview With a Witch
Reprinted from the LA Free Press
Dame Sybil Leek is in this area to apply finishing touches to a soon-to-be-published book, and for one speaking engagement Tuesday night, Dec. 14, at the Ionic Building, 1122 S. La Cienega.
As I drove out to North Hollywood (where ELSE would a witch stay?), I recalled my dictionary’s definition:
Jan 28, 2023 Read the whole text...
Courtland Cox
Interview with Courtland Cox
Black Panther Party
Reprinted from The Free Student
FS: What is your reaction to the New York Times quote that “SNCC officials insist that they would prefer segregationist officials because their presence would keep Negroes aroused and militant?”
Courtland Cox: I think the facade—that if you vote for Wilson Baker as opposed to Jim Clark you have improved something—is really something people have to look at as not being true. I would feel much better if Negroes would stop thinking in terms of which is the lesser of two evils and start thinking of how I can get somebody that benefits me. The Democratic Party in the South is still racist
Feb 19, 2023 Read the whole text...
Ed Sanders
Interview with Ed Sanders
Editor’s Note: Ed Sanders, founder and lead singer of the fuck-rock group The Fugs, is a legendary figure on the avant-garde poetry-peace-dope-fucking in the streets scene in the Lower East Side of New York City. A native of Kansas, Sanders made his first splash on the national scene as one of the peacefreaks who boarded the atomic submarine Polaris in 1962. He served 90 days in jail when he was apprehended and later had his account of the scene, “Poem from Jail,” published as a pamphlet by City Lights Books (1963). In New York City in 1962 Sanders founded the mind-shattering magazine Fuck You / a magazine of the arts, which published such American poetry giants as Charles Olson, Michael McClure, LeRoi Jones, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Creeley, et al.
May 28, 2018 Read the whole text...
Doc Stanley
Interview with Phil Ochs
Color image of album cover for Phil Ochs’ 1966 LP “I ain’t Marchin’ Any More.”
It has been a good season recently at Ed Pearl’s Ash Grove: last week it was Doc Watson and now it is Phil Ochs, songwriter, poet, revolutionary, and all-around good egg. Phil Ochs, who has been held over this weekend to co-star with Guy Carawan, writes his own songs, thinks up his own comedy lines on the spot, and plays his old-style Gibson Jumbo guitar in a most entertaining fashion. I talked with Phil Ochs between sets and he told me:
Dec 31, 2022 Read the whole text...
Dave Watson (David Watson)
In the High Schools
“Hey! What’s that sound?”
Free Speech Fight in Plymouth—Students around Detroit may have been misled by the so-called “news reports” on what recently went down in Plymouth. I cleared up the story after talking to Jim Kalliel, editor of Free Verse, an underground paper which the Plymouth officials tried to silence.
The fascists in Plymouth were beaten out of a victory when Jim faced the Court, the pigs, and the “powers that be” in the tradition of all those who have dared to print what they believe in the face of much opposition and a repressive ruling group.
Jun 28, 2022 Read the whole text...
David Watson
In the High Schools
“Hey! What’s That Sound?”
Progressive High School students throughout the Detroit area were shocked April 22 to read in the Detroit “News”: “Ferndale H.S. Drops 138 Negro Protesters.”
This blatantly racist act by the administration at Ferndale came down when black students walked out in protest of the treatment of their demands to the Ferndale Board of Racist Education. The students, according to spokesman Anthony Collins, had demanded a meeting on April 21, but the Board stalled, and finally postponed the meeting. So black students walked out.
Jun 17, 2022 Read the whole text...
Dave Watson (David Watson)
In the High Schools
“Hey! What’s That Sound?”
On April 3, Detroit area high school students walked out of school in protest against the war in Vietnam, in commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and around issues of student rights, racism, and other issues pertaining to each school.
Jun 10, 2022 Read the whole text...
Dave Watson (David Watson)
In the High Schools
“Hey! What’s That Sound?”
To high school students who are going to be free and happy this Summer, remember the future; the Man will come in the Fall and lead you back to the zoo where he can watch you and work on you for another year.
With this in mind, high school students should leave school this year with a Fall perspective, so we can get our shit together and let it all hit the fan at the same time.
Apr 4, 2019 Read the whole text...
Dave Watson (David Watson)
In The High Schools
Two High School Student Unions, in the northeast suburbs and at Cooley have been agitating for change inside their schools.
The Cooley High School Student Union recently printed and distributed its Five point program with the following demands:
1) The elimination of ROTC;
Feb 10, 2019 Read the whole text...
George Bradford (David Watson)
In the Image of Capital
the rise of biotechnology
In this terrifying explication of biotechnology, Tomas Mac Sheoin notes that to reduce the natural world to a single monolithic “logic”—in this case, it is capital’s logic of accumulation and control to which he refers—is to imperil life itself. This totalitarian logic is perceived by Jean Baudrillard as well, in his book Simulations, as “that delirious illusion of uniting the world under the aegis of a single principle;” Baudrillard points out the connection between this totalitarian social program and the “fascination of the biological “: “From a capitalist-productivist society to a neo-capitalist cybernetic order that aims now at total control. This is: the mutation for which the biological theorization of the Code prepares the ground.” (110–111)
Sep 24, 2020 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
In The On-Deck Circle
The authoritarian, proto-fascist religious cults such as the Moonies, Krishna Consciousness and the People’s Temple have always thrived at the fringes of what was once called the “counter-culture” and which is today euphemistically referred to as “New Age” consciousness—a catch-all of Asian mysticism, macrobiotics, herbalist faddism, palmistry, “holistic” products-mongering, meditation, pop psychology and other obscurantist effluvia.
Aug 25, 2018 Read the whole text...
Rich Dana (Ricardo Feral)
In the World of Digital, Print Raises A Challenge
a review of
Urgent Publishing after the Artist’s Book: Making Public Movements Toward Liberation by Paul Soulellis (Book Design: Be Oakley). GenderFail 2021
Urgent Publishing After the Artist’s Book operates as a document, a record, an archival object and a piece of art, while the book’s commentary on the arts, publishing, and social justice is expressed both through text and graphic design. It challenges the reader’s role as viewer and consumer, potential ally and an unwitting antagonist.
Dec 19, 2021 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
In Toronto
Harassment Continues
TORONTO—Although the Vancouver 5 trials are over except for that of Brent Taylor on charges of bombing Litton Industries (see accompanying article), the support group here is still dealing with the aftermath of extensive police harassment.
Ken Deyarmond, one of the more active supporters, was to go on trial Nov. 13 for “attempted assault against an internationally protected person” who, in this case, was British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Deyarmond was participating in a demonstration against Thatcher’s visit to Toronto organized by IRA supporters and anti-Cruise groups when he was pushed from behind towards the prime minister and then grabbed and punched by three cops. (See FE #317, Summer 1984.)
Aug 29, 2020 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Into the ‘70s
On January 22 the usually quiet and staid University of Detroit joined the ‘70s as police arrested 17 students who were protesting the presence of a Navy recruiter on campus.
The students, who began a non-violent, non-disruptive sit-in at the University’s Placement Center, refused to leave when ordered to by Dean for Student Affairs, Fred Shadrick. Then, as the headline of the U-D Varsity News put it, “Fred Calls Cops” and the Tactical Mobile Unit, a police riot bus and a paddy wagon took the students away.
Oct 1, 2023 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Introduction
Welcome to the first FE of 2003!
One year ago, when the Tennessee Collective stepped up to take over primary editorial responsibilities for the Fifth Estate, many of us were discouraged and disillusioned by the dreadful lack of public opposition to empire in the weeks and months following 9/11. One year ago, when we wrote about “the emergence of a mass-based movement...contesting the state and capital,” it was speculation. Today, the mass-based anti-war movement that boldly connects the dots between corporate tyranny and its bloodbaths is here.
Jun 21, 2021 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Introduction
With the defeat of the White Christian Nationalist Party in the U.S. presidential election, liberals and progressives are understandably relieved that the politics of racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and the rest of the right-wing panoply were rejected by American voters, even if only by a fairly small percentage. We share that sense, but hold no illusions about the second term of Barack Obama containing any possibility for authentic hope or change, or even mild reform.
Apr 14, 2013 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Introduction
“When I pronounce the word civilization, I spit.”
—Gauguin
We are all trapped within the technological labyrinth, and at its center awaits our annihilation. We have already lost more than we can imagine to civilization’s insatiable hunger for power and uniformity. We live in the shadow of an enormous edifice, a monstrosity which teeters and threatens to collapse upon us in a moment. We sing, make love, struggle and despair amid its decomposing limbs. But the smell of decomposition is general. We are in eclipse; the human spirit is moribund.
Jul 4, 2017 Read the whole text...
Lynne Clive (Marilynn Rashid)
Introduction to “Aberration: The Automobile”
reprint from FE #325, Spring, 1987
It is said that the automobile created and brought life to the cities, but once again official history dangerously misrepresents and distorts the facts. In reality, it is responsible for the destruction of viable human communities and emblematic of death culture all over the world. The auto industry’s monopolistic power kept Detroit and the rest of the world from creating alternative urban environments and consciously built car cities and a car world--chopped up and destroyed by incredible expressway systems. Cities and a world for cars, not for people.
Feb 25, 2014 Read the whole text...
John Clark
Introduction to “A Non-Euclidean View of California as a Cold Place To Be”
Ursula Le Guin’s works typically recount the story of a voyage. Whether or not this voyage traverses vast distances of space, it is always an epic journey of the spirit. It is a kind of vision quest in which we who allow ourselves to be taken along confront the strange, the alien, the other, only to return with a deeper understanding of ourselves. We gain a better sense of who we are, but as is perhaps more crucial, we gain insight into where we are. In the end, the voyage is a journey home.
Mar 26, 2014 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Introduction to Anti-Marx Section
Inside the walled compound of a Buddhist monastery on the outskirts of Kyoto, Japan, the monks who reside there have created a meditation garden consisting of raked sand and about a dozen large stones. The stones are adroitly arranged so that no matter where one stands on the perimeter of the garden, at least one of the rocks is blocked from sight of the viewer. The Zen wisdom behind this arrangement suggests that the world in all of its aspects is never completely knowable; that something always remains hidden.
Mar 13, 2015 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Introduction to Fifth Estate Issue 374
Welcome to the New York City issue of Fifth Estate. The editorship of the magazine now rotates, and two of us in NYC have stepped in to give the peops in Detroit and Tennessee a rest (making this the first issue in 41 years that has been produced in the northeast!). The people that put out this publication have a variety of views and backgrounds (we range in age from our 20s to 70s, and live across North America); this issue reflects our reality and issues here in NYC.
Feb 28, 2015 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Introduction to “The Myth of the Party”
The article appearing on the following two pages, “The Myth of the Party,” by Murray Bookchin (from his essay “Listen Marxist”) was first excerpted in FE #272, May 1976. We reprint it hoping it will be of interest to a new generation of anti-war and social activists who find themselves beset by the return of the living dead—marxist-leninist parties.
Nov 15, 2019 Read the whole text...
Tabatha Statid
Intro to Economics
This is the story about how I got a C- grade in my high school economics class. Mr. Burns told the class on the first day that we were going to spend all of our time playing the “Stock Market Game.”
We were given an imaginary lump sum of $10,000 at the beginning of September and our assignment was to invest it in stocks. We read the financial page of the local newspaper at the beginning of every class and compared notes from cable television financial news programs to track our make-believe investments. Mr. Burns said that the highest grade would go to the three people who made the most money in the class. Extra points would be given to those whose stock value had the greatest increase.
Oct 22, 2015 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Intro to May ’68
We’ll Always Have Paris
It’s been fifty years since the exciting events of May 1968 in France that shook the country to its foundations. It is still inspiring to remember the widespread revolt of high school and university students, and then workers, that erupted throughout the country, leading to the largest general strike in French history. These events brought society to a stop, temporarily transforming daily life, and posing the possibility of a complete social revolution. The 1968 turmoil in France was part of a worldwide upsurge.
Sep 28, 2018 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Intro to Zerzan
Facing the ‘80s: Promise or Collapse?
We perhaps owe John Zerzan a debt of gratitude for the research that has gone into his essay The Promise of the ‘80s, for it graphically demonstrates to us what we have suspected all along—that all is not well with the rule of capital. In fact, the litany of decomposition presented both among the institutions of rule and its subjects is shown to be so widespread and systemic that one can conclude little else than that the rulers will no longer be able to govern as they have, due to the massive erosion of loyalty to the reigning mode of domination.
Dec 13, 2018 Read the whole text...
SF
Isabelle Walks With Angels
a review of
Isabelle Walks With Angels: A Montreal Urban legend by Norman Nawrocki, Illustrated by Ivan R. Les Pages Noires, 2023
Norman Nawrocki’s novella is a beautifully illustrated story, allegory, or fable about a woman who had a home, but lost it. All her adult life there have been abusive men: lovers, landlords bosses, restaurant clients. She loses what little she has and is now living on the street, defending herself from predators the best she can. All the avenues have been closed, there’s only one left...jumping into the freezing waters of the Saint-Laurence Seaway from a high bridge.
Feb 12, 2024 Read the whole text...
Peter Werbe
Jess Flarity
Is ChatGPT just a new tech toy or is it Skynet?
Your Future as Servo-Protein
“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin
ChatGPT has lit up the West in the last three months evincing delight among enthusiasts of Artificial Intelligence (AI), but great fear and loathing among critics who see its entry into a world already diminished by machines as a further ratcheting downward of what it means to be human.
May 5, 2023 Read the whole text...
Acme Collective
Is Destruction of Private Property Violence?
A communique from one section of the black bloc of N30 in Seattle
On November 30, several groups of individuals in black bloc attacked various corporate targets in downtown Seattle. Among them were (to name just a few):
Fidelity Investment (major investor in Occidental Petroleum, the bane of the U’wa tribe in Colombia), Bank of America, US Bancorp, Key Bank and Washington Mutual Bank (financial institutions key in the expansion of corporate repression), Old Navy, Banana Republic and the GAP (as Fisher family businesses, rapers of Northwest forest lands and sweatshop laborers).
Nov 24, 2019 Read the whole text...
David Widgington
Islands of Resistance
a review of
Islands of Resistance: Pirate Radio in Canada by Andrea Langlois, Ron Sakolsky and Marian van der Zon. New Star Books, 2010
After reading Islands of Resistance: Pirate Radio in Canada, all I wanted to do was become a pirate. Not the kind that steals in a capitalist bent to become rich at the expense of others. I want to appropriate what is already mine: the public airways and broadcast what corporate media despise most--defiant free-form radio that encourages audio creativity and promotes social justice.
Dec 29, 2013 Read the whole text...
Bob Nirkind
Is Michigan Slated For Nuclear Landfill?
Residents have no choice
This article is the second of a two-part series on the effects that the indiscriminate care and usage of radioactive waste materials and dangerous chemicals are having, and will continue to have in the future, on man and his environment.
Part One of the series, Capitalism’s Industrial Plagues, #276, September 1976, dealt with the devastating results of nuclear and chemical dumps, leakages and accidents in the United States and around the world. Part Two now looks into the Federal Government’s intention of testing land here in Michigan for the possible construction of a nuclear waste disposal system.
Aug 5, 2016 Read the whole text...
E.B. Maple (Peter Werbe)
Isn’t All Money Fake?
a review of
Counterfeit Currency: How To Really Make Money, M. Thomas Collins, Loompanics Unlimited, P.O. Box 1197, Port Townsend WA 98368, $15; $3 shipping.
Money is a fairly curious substance. Its official function is to represent value, but once said, you can immediately challenge all the assumptions inherent in such a formulation: Value?; its representation? Since value itself is a representation of abstract worth, money operates within economies as a representation of a representation! No wonder its properties seem so inscrutable.
Sep 11, 2018 Read the whole text...
E.B. Maple (Peter Werbe)
Isn’t All Money Fake?
a review of
Counterfeit Currency: How To Really Make Money, M. Thomas Collins. Loompanics Unlimited, 1990 (out-of-print). Reprint from Fifth Estate, Fall, 1991.
Money is a fairly curious substance. Its official function is to represent value, but once said, you can immediately challenge all the assumptions inherent in such a formulation: Value; its representation? Since value itself is a representation of abstract worth, money operates within economies as a representation of a representation. No wonder its properties seem so inscrutable.
Aug 13, 2014 Read the whole text...
Miguel Xolotl (David Watson)
Israel: 50 years of conquest
FE Note: We are publishing this essay to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel. It is a substantially revised version of two articles written in the wake of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 (“The Israeli Massacre—Peace in Galilee?” FE #310, Fall, 1982 and “Latin American Terror: The Israeli Connection”) that also appeared in FE #310, Fall 1982.
Jan 30, 2021 Read the whole text...
Miguel Xolotl (David Watson)
Israel and the Death Squad Dictatorships
“Best friends”
In the Negev Desert Israeli “Green Patrols” employed military intimidation and violence to force the Bedouins off their ancestral lands into closed areas similar to Indian reservations. In fact, all Palestinian areas have more and more come to resemble reservations or South African bantustans, a situation which has only been exacerbated by the Oslo Accords. Israel’s resemblance to the English colonial expansion in the Americas is notable, thus it should come as no surprise that Israel has also been one of the largest suppliers of arms to Latin American death squad regimes, often functioning as a proxy for the U.S. when political pressure made direct arms aid impossible. Israel’s customers have included El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia and Haiti, and have generated billions of dollars in profit.
Feb 6, 2021 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Israeli GIs Resist War
Resistance to two years of aggressive war and occupation in Lebanon is growing in the Israeli armed forces. 2,500 reserve officers have formed a group called Yesh Gvul (“There is a Limit/Border”), and have requested not to be sent to Lebanon. Already 130 of their organization have served prison terms for their refusal to serve there.
Aug 19, 2020 Read the whole text...
Dean Jabara
Israel Without Tears
Today, after twenty years of Israel’s existence and three wars between Arab and Israeli, the Arab-Israeli conflict remains one of total deadlock. Arab acceptance of Israel’s existence after the June, 1967 blitzkrieg must remain the wishful thinking of the Sunday NEW YORK TIMES.
So many millions of words have been written about the Palestine problem and yet the basic issues remain uncomprehended by so many people. Recent statements by Black Power advocates in the U.S. condemning the “Zionist imperialist war of Israel” show that some radicals in the country are, however, very much aware of why Arab opposition to Israel has not abated.
Jan 17, 2023 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Issue intro
Yes, it does often feel like we’re beating our heads against a brick wall. What do we do?
The now-cliched definition of insanity, although it originated with Albert Einstein, is “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
Do we meet that description? Anarchists fight against racism and there is an upsurge in violence against people of color. We fight the pipelines, and governments roll out more of them. We oppose the patriarchy, but in many ways it is as entrenched as ever. The climate crisis worsens each season and a dynamic fascist movement is on the rise.
Dec 12, 2023 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Issue intro
The photo above of a traffic jam on a Brazilian highway could be a metaphor for life today. A scarred landscape littered with trucks filled with the everyday stuff of commerce going nowhere.
The trucks carrying what are now the necessities of modern society are stalled at a local level but reflect the entire global economy and culture. As the planetary integrated system becomes increasingly complex, so does its capacity for collapse.
May 5, 2023 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Issue intro
This issue’s theme, “What’s Next? Demand the Impossible,” is a challenge to all our imaginations.
We live in a world faced with the scourge of a plague, and in a country that is an armed madhouse with a good portion of its population seemingly gone off the rails with fascist rage and white fear.
What appears in these pages is nothing like a blueprint for where or how to focus our energies. We know well what we don’t want and what doesn’t work. In general, we know that creating alternative communities of resistance is what brings results and can provide a model of the world we desire.
May 9, 2021 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Issue intro
Welcome to the fourth Fifth Estate of 2002!!
We have not published four issues in one year since the late 1980s. As much as any of our magazines this year, this edition represents the contribution of many heads, hearts, and hands in our ever-evolving collective.
Although we love the front cover art of May Thistle, its symbology may threaten the penology of the department of corrections in the state of Oregon. According to notices we’ve received from prison officials, anarchism’s classic circle-A is a dangerous gang symbol!
May 23, 2021 Read the whole text...
Sunfrog (Andy “Sunfrog” Smith)
Issue intro
The magazine you hold in your hands represents the ongoing project of a dedicated group of individuals and the enduring vision of many more. Just a few months ago, it looked as though this anti-authoritarian publishing cooperative might retire after 37 years of, in the FBI’s assessment, “supporting the cause of revolution everywhere.” However, while the writers and activists in the Detroit collective have been unable to put out the paper on a regular schedule, their wish to see it continue led to passing the torch to a new editorial enclave based on the radical communes of rural Tennessee.
May 4, 2021 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Issue intro
Welcome to our Winter 2020 edition. Although there is no specific theme this issue, the totality of our articles affirms a longstanding commitment to the philosophy of anarchism that is now an existential necessity given the political and environmental crises the world faces.
Can a body of ideas, considered impractical by many, and ignored by most, rise to the point where it is powerful enough to challenge centuries old modes of hierarchal rule and ecological destruction?
Feb 28, 2020 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Issue intro
Time to Begin!
As we send this issue to the printer, the ghastly Shit Show known as the 2016 American presidential election has not yet concluded, although it will be over when you read this.
While one of the candidates expressed definitively more openly bigoted and authoritarian ideas, neither challenged the basic equation of life within the state and capitalism. The horrors of war, racism, environmental collapse, and oppression will continue regardless of the electoral outcome.
Feb 2, 2017 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Issue intro
The FE at 50
Just so readers don’t think all of the celebration around the 50th anniversary of publishing has brought forth a bout of hubris in us, let us be clear. Those of us working on the Fifth Estate today know this publication couldn’t have lasted this long without connection to a vibrant tradition and social solidarity from contemporary comrades.
Mar 6, 2016 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Issue intro
Throughout 2005, we will celebrate our anniversary by spreading the ideas of revolution that made us notorious to authority and noted by readers everywhere as a consistent, intelligent, and even humorous tool for change.
From the suburban Detroit home of a 17-year-old high school student in 1965, to a gritty, inner-city Cass Corridor basement with an ever-changing revolutionary collective to a remote Tennessee barn of the current communal and editorial core group, the Fifth Estate has remained what the FBI called a voice “supporting the cause of revolution everywhere.”
Oct 21, 2015 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Issue Intro
When the wind blows against us, there are two distinct choices: either push back and push on against it with ever more resolve, or surrender to the direction in which it’s going.
Undoubtedly, if you are reading this publication, like us, you have decided that resistance must continue regardless of the forces we face. It’s easy to take for granted democratic rights supposedly guaranteed to us, but at critical junctures in U.S. history, those evaporated leaving critics of government at great risk.
Feb 7, 2023 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Issue Intro
Welcome to another issue of the Fifth Estate Anarchist Review of Books. We haven’t changed our title permanently; just letting readers know what to expect inside this edition. We also haven’t changed our belief that it is direct action in the streets and in the woods, and creating communities of resistance and rebellion that are needed so critically as conditions worsen on almost every level. We read and learn to increase our commitment in our struggles.
May 2, 2022 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Issue Intro
Exciting times for Fifth Estate
At a time when everyone is declaring the death of print media, our magazine, now in its 47th year, is not only alive, but prospering. We have many new subscribers, new staff, more renewals, increased newsstand sales, and an exciting new look. We ran out of our last issue on Revolution and are increasing our press run for this edition.
Aug 5, 2013 Read the whole text...
Paul Buhle
Is syndicalism outdated?
Book Review
a review of
Ours to Master and to Own: Workers’ Control from the Commune to the Present Edited by Immanuel Ness and Dario Azzellini. Chicago, Haymarket Books, 2011, 417pp, $19
Syndicalism, the love child of socialism (or Marxism) and anarchism, seems to be badly outdated, or is it?
The idea that the working class could overthrow capitalism and the state through a general strike, and administer a new society through workers councils reached a peak popularity shortly before the outbreak of the First World War, but sunk rapidly thereafter. It was sometimes criticized as the propensity of highly skilled workers, but actually it was the faith of the lower levels (especially in the Industrial Workers of the World, if rarely called syndicalism by them).
Sep 10, 2013 Read the whole text...
Katerina Gogou
I Stand for Anarchy
Don’t stop me. I’m dreaming.
We’ve been through centuries of injustice.
Centuries of loneliness.
Not now—don’t stop me.
Now here forever and everywhere.
I’m dreaming of freedom.
Gorgeous unique anyone,
let’s restore harmony to the universe.
Let’s play. Knowledge is joy.
It’s not mandatory schoolwork—
Jan 9, 2022 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Is the government ready to say Fuck The Draft?
Since its origin 55 years ago, the Fifth Estate has always supported draft refusal and mutinies among the troops as the best tactics along with anti-war mass demonstrations for stopping the empire’s endless wars.
However, a bipartisan bill is currently before the U.S. Congress that would abolish the requirement for draft registration and related penalties. This is welcome, but the impetus for it isn’t a sudden commitment to peace or a realization that conscription is slavery.
Mar 26, 2020 Read the whole text...
Brian James Schill
Is Trump The “Punk” President?
Nothing could be farther from reality
Unbelievably, it has become fashionable among some observers of the American political scene to associate the alt-right with punk rock, lauding Donald Trump for his “punk” presidency.
The liberal magazine, The Atlantic, noted in 2016, that Trump and his supporters “created a space in American politics that is uniquely transgressive, volatile, carnivalesque, and (from a certain angle) punk rock.” Similarly, the New York Post gushed that Trump “is a guy with a safety pin through his nose and a purple mohawk.”
Feb 19, 2018 Read the whole text...
Hazel C. Cline
Is Your Nature Revolting?
Is your nature revolting? You certainly look the type. Yes? Then you will be interested in a very special inscription found scrawled on the wall of a public toilette by some good fairy to offer us salvation in transformation: “you must get smaller.” No simple task you might say. Maybe Alice left us a crumb, you might quip. Or perhaps we can reverse time, you add incredulously. No, my cynical friend, there is another way. And I found it on a sunny Sunday walk in the park. It is simple. Just walk out on the path with a stone in one hand and a leaf in the other and think of a vine sprouting through asphalt. When that pale green light inside your aorta expands around you and the or olfactories are filled with the scent of rich earth, you are ready, and your feet will guide you to the deeply trodden path of the deer. Crouch low to pass under boughs and thick bramble till you can feel your hooves firmly beneath you. Sniff out the rabbit trails among the moss and dry leaves, straining to follow them until you can hear clearly with your long, soft ears. Search out the long line of ants and walk with them until you can taste with your antennae down in the detritus. Crawl down into the earth, ever smaller and deeper. Until you are so small you can fit inside the smallest unit of life. And there, of course, you will find and become that which...well, I can’t tell you what. Perhaps you’ll know soon enough. In any case, I must be going. I have some graffiti to write.
Jan 9, 2022 Read the whole text...
R.F.
Italian Chemical Disaster
Possible Here? Michigan neglects safeguards.
Since the July 10th explosion at an Italian Chemical plant outside of the northern Italian city of Seveso, information has come to light to indicate that Michigan could be the setting for a similar disaster.
The explosion at the Icmesa plant, which sickened 500 persons and caused a mass evacuation of the area released approximately 4 1/2 pounds of the chemical dioxin (TCDD) into the atmosphere. TCDD is considered to be “the most toxic small molecule known to science—so dangerous that it is toxic at concentrations as low as one part per trillion.
Aug 5, 2016 Read the whole text...
Isaac Cronin
Italy: the refusal of all constraints
This text was taken from a leaflet by Isaac Cronin (Box 14221, San Francisco, Ca. 94114). Thanks to No Limits (Box 2605, Madison, WI 53701) for the information. It appeared in their June/July issue.
The ‘movement’ declares itself ‘autonomous’: it doesn’t accept any ‘mediation’ and asserts that it is independent of all organized forces, even those of the ultra-left. It is not a student movement. It’s a movement of struggle uniting workers, feminists and the unemployed.” In 1977, unlike the ‘Italian May,’ no powerful leader has emerged. ‘We refuse all delegation of authority,’ insists one rebel.
May 2, 2017 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
It’s all connected
Growing numbers of people compelled to flee their homes because of ongoing devastations of wars, cataclysmic climate change, and intractable environmental crises! It’s not a Hollywood sci-fi horror movie—it’s the world of industrialization and capitalism. As the system grinds on, it continues to multiply threats to all living creatures on the planet.
Jul 2, 2017 Read the whole text...
Jim Feast
It’s Anarchy Time!
Is it our turn now? Anarchism flourishes when work is precarious; & that’s now!
I begin with two insights. Global systems theorist, Immanuel Wallerstein, argues that throughout capitalist history the working class has been divided into a proletariat, which makes a living solely through waged labor, and a semi-proletariat which in its contemporary incarnation, juggles such pursuits as temp work, freelance projects, state subsidies (food stamps, artists in residence grants, or student loans), and maxing out on credit cards.
Feb 20, 2015 Read the whole text...
anon.
“It’s her patriotic duty...
...to keep looking slim and attractive”
Military life is no sweet deal for anyone. We are aware of the oppression and harassment meted out to our GIs, but what about our sisters, the WAFS in the service?
The WAFS I talked to are not gung-ho! So why do they join? One WAF I talked to put it this way: “We are tricked. They promise us a career, choices, job training and they tell us rosey stories about traveling the world. Once we are in it’s a whole different scene. They keep you busy with paper work or some shit job and the attitude of the guys is so bad. They treat us like scum.”
Sep 11, 2015 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
It’s Raining Stockbrokers
Wall Street Stock Market Collapse of 1929
On the day it rained stockbrokers, meteorologists debated the causes of this strange, nearly unprecedented weather. One claimed that stockbrokers represented a dense, heavy element which would continue to fall, down through the Earth and out the other side, eventually creating monstrous, irrepressible explosions in the center of the planet as they returned along their trajectory with the force of gravity and met themselves coming back from the other direction. Another said that there was nothing unusual and nothing to be concerned about. Stockbrokers rained every fifty years in regular, predictable cycles. Still, another denied that it was raining stockbrokers at all, and attributed the sightings of plummeting stockbrokers to a form of mass hysteria.
Nov 24, 2016 Read the whole text...
Anu Bonobo
It’s the end of the world and I don’t feel fine
“Not only religious zealots but economists, social theorists, technologists, nuclear critics, population experts, ecologists and political ideologues agree that an unprecedented shift in man’s world—whether catastrophic or beatific—is inevitable within the next half-century.”
—Richard Heinberg, Memories and Visions of Paradise
Jul 17, 2016 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
It Takes a Team...
Your Police and You
“A top notch job” was the way Detroit Police Commissioner Johannes Spreen characterized the attack by 289 of his pigs on a peacefully assembled crowd at Cobo Hall last October.
Spreen said the blame for the clash following an appearance of Gov. George Wallace should be put on “those who provoke, those who instigate, those hurlers of missiles and invectives...”
Sep 21, 2021 Read the whole text...
Molly Maguires
It Used to be the Red Scare...
Now, it’s the Green Scare
“We should war with relentless efficiency not only against anarchists, but against all active and passive sympathizers with anarchists.”
—President Theodore Roosevelt, annual address to Congress, December 3, 1901
“It is time to take a look at the culture and climate of support for criminally-based activism like ELF and ALF and do something about it. Just like al-Qaeda or any other terrorist organization, ELF and ALF cannot accomplish their goals without money, membership and the media.”
—Senator James Inhofe, US Senate Environment & Public Works Committee, May 18, 2005
Jun 8, 2015 Read the whole text...
Phillip Norbury
It Will be Like This
My father had strong ideas about heaven. He would share them with his congregation like sweets for good behaviour. ‘There will be no gravity,’ he would say with irresistible certainty. ‘And no sun or moon. God’s love is all the light we need.’
At home on grim, rainy Saturdays he would stand looking out of the window for long durations while I lounged around reading comics. ‘We won’t have to endure this for much longer,’ he would say, looking up to the continents of clouds overhead. His eyes would close and a serene smile form in his mouth; and I, just a boy, would look up in wonder knowing that in those moments he was not thinking of this life, of me, but of paradise.
Nov 6, 2013 Read the whole text...
Bernard Marszalek
I was corrupted by MAD (magazine)
MAD, the wildly satirical humor magazine, was my primer for critical thinking in my early teens. This may seem an odd statement given the vacuous contents of the current magazine, but today’s MAD is a pale reflection of its initial 1950s issues. We could say that it has been “neo-liberalized” like all mainstream media.
Dec 15, 2013 Read the whole text...