Full list of texts

There’s not much news on the fate of Marie and Noel Murray at this point. Although the two Irish anarchists have attempted to withdraw the appeals of their death sentences (see FE, October and November, 1976), they are still being considered by the Irish supreme court because of a point of law which allows capital punishment for killing a police officer, but not for killing citizens in general. Reynolds, the Dublin cop allegedly murdered by the Murrays, was not in uniform or on duty at the time of the killing.

...

When the founder of organized zionism, Theodore Herzl, proposed to create a European Jewish state in the Middle East as “an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism,” he was acting within a western tradition. It is possible that this tradition has its roots in the rise of the ancient middle eastern civilizations, but it certainly becomes predominant with the rise of capitalism and its expansion first into the heaths of Europe (where “heathens” lived who had to be conquered, christianized and civilized by the developing state powers across the continent) and later to all the continents of the world where these civilized men—explorers, missionaries, marauders, and colonizers—spread their empire.

...

a review of

Lives of the Saints by Alan Franklin. Black and Red, Detroit, 2022

Alan Franklin dropped his book, Lives of the Saints, into a world where the final years of the last century seem like a distant dream. Where our then dramatically dire descriptions of accumulated misery were actually more understated prophecies than the mere screeching wheels of an overblown cerebral car-crash on the freeway of our shared consciousness. That is to say, Chicken Little was right, and so were the angry writers at publications like Fifth Estate. As bad as we told you it was then, it is worse now

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Last year, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to permit the display of the biblical Ten Commandments in schools as part of larger legislative efforts to combat youth violence.

Rather than “a first step toward reinstilling the value of human life in children influenced by violent culture,” as the politicians claim, this is yet another shallow gesture by hypocritical lawmakers to legislate ethical control in a culture that is ethically out-of-control.

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LOS ANGELES, Dec. 8—25 Black Panthers were arrested, three wounded, during police raids on two apartments and a four-and-a-half hour gun battle at the main Panther office in Watts.

The office was surrounded at 5:30 a.m. by a force of between 300 and 400 police. They were refused entrance to the office. They began to break down the front door, but were driven away by shotgun fire; two cops were wounded.

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A number of Detroit lawyers have indicated to Detroit LEMAR (Legalize Marijuana) that they would be interested in setting up a legal aid service for busted marijuana users if a general fund could be set up which would insure a nominal fee for those attorneys involved.

Their suggestion was that interested heads and sympathetic persons pledge a dollar or two per month to such a fund so that a backlog of available money would be made available in cases of arrests on marijuana charges.

...

Enthusiasm about the work of friends is often taken skeptically, since the assumption is that one’s critical faculties are lessened by affection. Hence, a gushing review of the Layabouts’ new album, No Masters, from those of us on the Fifth Estate staff who are friends and even relatives of the band members will probably be suspect. Fortunately our appreciation of the group’s music is shared by enough other people to make us believe that, beyond our subjective feel for the people who produced this unique blend of music and lyrics, is a solid effort worth substantial listening.

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The movement to re-legalize marijuana was dealt a severe blow several weeks ago according to an article in the Village Voice of June 22, 1967.

On May 25 President Johnson, a reputed speed freak, signed a treaty known as the Single Convention after it was ratified by the Senate. There was virtually no opposition to the treaty during hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and no publicity was given to the treaty’ s progress.

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from L.A. Free Press (UPS)

Last week President Johnson signed into law the 1967 draft law extension thereby allowing the government to impress young men into involuntary servitude ‘til at least 1971.

In every respect the revision intensifies the coercive and regimentive features of the old law. Here are the gruesome details of the extension, which will be in effect.

...

“Confront the Warmakers” is no idle phrase. Coming together from throughout the nation on October 21 and 22, war opponents will march, demonstrate, petition and culminate the activities by mass acts of civil disobedience inside the Pentagon.

The confrontation will be real and physical. Of the 200,000 plus participants, 10,000 are expected to sit-in to block the doorways of the Pentagon, says the National Mobilizing Committee, “preventing people from entering to work but permitting them to leave. If they are able to enter the building the direct actionists will also block the hallways and staircases.”

...

This interview was conducted and transcribed by Dena Clamage.

[Part 1 of the interview appeared in FE #78, May 1–14, 1969.]

Editors’ Note: John Watson, editor of the Wayne State University South End, has been involved in Detroit revolutionary politics for a number of years. Former editor of the black community newspaper, The Inner City Voice, Watson was one of the original founders of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. He is currently serving as a member of the Central Committee of the League.

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[Part 2 of the interview appeared in FE #79, May 15–28, 1969.]

Editors’ Note: John Watson, editor of the Wayne State University South End, has been involved in Detroit revolutionary politics for a number of years. Former editor of the black community newspaper, The Inner City Voice, Watson was one of the original founders of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. He is currently serving as a member of the Central Committee of the League.

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“We are bringing our legitimate grievances to the legal establishment of the white man’s government to give the racist monopoly capitalist system the opportunity to begin to redeem itself for the crimes which have been perpetuated against Black workers and Black people for centuries.”

With this statement on Friday, May 16, the League of Revolutionary Black Workers filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against the United Auto Workers International Union (UAW), Locals No. 3 and No. 961, and against the Chrysler Corporation.

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a review of

Unruly Equality: U.S. Anarchism in the Twentieth Century by Andrew Cornell. University of California Press, 2016

Nonviolence Ain’t What It Used To Be: Unarmed Insurrection and the Rhetoric of Resistance by Shon Meckfessel. AK Press, 2016

Reading about history with anarchist ideas in mind can often be inspiring and sometimes even lead to insights useful in present-day situations. Andrew Cornell and Shon Meckfessel have written books that are treasure-troves of information about the multifaceted 20^th century North American radical movements for societal change. They are helpful companions to the various memoirs and retrospectives on anarchist groups of the period published during the past decade by Anatole Dolgoff, Penelope Rosemont, Franklin Rosemont, Larry Gambone, Ben Morea, and others.

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Modernity is an age of gadgets, where things are created and destroyed, not in years but in seconds, where stances change, but where social change itself is an unthinkable phenomenon. The world is divided into developed and underdeveloped, and people are valued not for what they produce but as commodities, where learning is merely schooling and where dissent is sophistically controlled. The weapons of subjugation are clever, and information overload is persistent. The destinies of people are determined behind closed doors. The global development is need of the market and the market drives the lives of the people.

...

Editor’s note: Cultural critic Ivan Illich died in December 2002 at the age of 76. In tribute after tribute, his personal friends and admirers of his work marvel at Illich’s enduring generosity, humility, and radical spirit. While many at Fifth Estate have appreciated his influence, we never paid proper tribute. Now with this unschooling issue, we share a poem from one of our regular contributors and a very brief excerpt from the essential and prophetic 1970 book Deschooling Society.

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LAGUNA BEACH, Calif. (LNS)—Dr. Timothy Leary, his wife and teen-age son, John, have been arrested here for possession of marijuana.

The long time and old time guru said that the arrests were part of a continuing campaign of police harassment.

Leary and his wife were released on $2,500 bail each. John was held “because of his condition.” Authorities refused to elaborate.

...

WASHINGTON, D.C. (LNS)—Timothy Leary is free! The Supreme Court has overturned his grass possession conviction.

Rumors are spreading fast and furious. What does it all mean for the rest of us?

Let’s start with what the court ruling doesn’t do.

It doesn’t effect prosecution on the basis of state anti-grass laws (all 50 states have them). It doesn’t imply that congress can’t pass federal laws against pot possession; and it doesn’t effect existing federal laws against the sale of grass.

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SANTA ANA, Cal., Feb. 20—Dr. Tim Leary, his wife and son were found guilty here on charges of possession of marijuana and LSD.

Superior Court Judge Byron Mcmillian set sentencing for March 13. Leary and his wife remained free on bail but the bail of their son was revoked and he was taken into custody.

...

Someday, it’s possible that surveillance technology may become sophisticated enough to read your mind as you’re walking down the street. If that dystopian future comes to pass, you’ll probably want one of these stylish thought-blocking accessories: When they detect scanning technology in action, they’ll distract you with a zap or a flashing light.

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The news of the fighting in Lebanon fills the headlines of the newspapers across the US. “Fall of Tripoli Looms,” “Guerrillas Gain in Lebanon,” and on and on. Why is there fighting? What are they fighting for?

Reading the mass media, watching one’s TV, and listening to the news on the radio, quickly confirms the media’s “confusion” on the dynamics raging all around them. There is not any understanding manifested beyond the “cowboys and Indians” mentality.

...

Read and considered, perused and recommended, liked and disliked, discussed and commented on in the following section:

Green Anarchy (current issue available from FE books for $4 or free with any book order, while supplies last) Issues #16 and 17, Spring and Summer 2004 PO Box 11331, Eugene, OR 97440 collective@greenanarchy.org

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LONDON, England—Liberation News Service—Europe’s left, new and old, has been brutally unanimous in its criticism of the Soviet military intervention in Czechoslovakia.

The Communist Parties of England, France, Italy and other nations issued long statements describing the Soviet action as an unjustified interference in the internal affairs of a Communist Party and socialist state.

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In astronomy, “revolution” refers to a return to the same place. For the left it seems to mean about the same. Leftism is literally reactionary. Just as generals prepare to fight the last war, leftists incite the last revolution. They welcome it because they know it failed. They’re vanguardists because they’re always behind the times. Like all leaders, leftists are least obnoxious when following their following, but in certain crises they step to the fore to make the system work. If the left/right metaphor has any meaning, it can only be that the left is to the left of the same thing the right is to the right of. But what if revolution means stepping out of line?

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Marijuana will become legal in the U.S. within one year, predicts the first issue of the Chicago Mirror, an underground satire magazine slated for publication this month.

According to the author of the article, whose source is an art director of an unidentified Chicago advertising agency, the legalization of pot “will be the result of one of the most fantastic public relations campaigns in the history of this country.”

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Between now and October 9^th the J.L. Hudson Gallery is offering the public a legal trip via the work of Michelangelo Pistoletto.

Pistoletto, a 34 year old Italian artist, has succeeded in opening up an entirely new dimension in art through the relatively simple device of mounting life-size photographs on highly polished stainless steel plates.

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The idea of an “anarchist saint” might seem kind of silly at first, but that did not stop Autonomedia publishers from starting its annual jubilee calendars of radical saints, now in its 26^th year. If anyone who has recently died qualifies for the status of anti-authoritarian saint, I would nominate the author, Ursula K. Le Guin, who is featured on the calendar with prominent and lesser known anarchists.

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When Lenin and 32 other Russian refugees (30 adult revolutionaries and 2 children) were returning to Russia via a sealed train through Germany they encountered a number of problems living together. One of the earliest conflicts in the railroad carriage arose between smokers and non-smokers. Lenin was a nonsmoker and detested smoking. It had been agreed at the beginning of the journey that those people who wanted to smoke had to do so in the toilet. A line formed in the corridor outside the toilet and eventually arguments broke out between the smokers and the “comrades” who wanted to use the toilet for its intended purpose. Since the vast majority of the people were Bolsheviks, Lenin, as the leader of the Party, was called upon to settle the question. He wrote out passes, which had to be presented in order for the toilet to be used. There were two kinds of passes—those for organic use had the first priority, and those for inorganic, smoking purposes had second priority.

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I don’t know if people still buy comedy monologue records. We all know that after a couple of listenings we don’t play them until we have company and there is nothing else to do. But a Reprise-Bizarre (Frank Sinatra and Zappa together!) double album Lenny Bruce The Berkeley Concert is a service for the many of us who never heard him live.

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1992 marks the five hundred year anniversary of the Columbus expedition, which many governments and corporations are celebrating as “An Encounter of Cultures.” To counter this, a loosely organized movement under the banner of “500 Years of Resistance,” seeks to overturn the prevailing mythology about the Columbus voyages. Many people in Europe and the Americas are organizing cultural and educational events toward that end.

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I came home one night many years ago to find my then girlfriend crying on the couch. “What happened?” I asked. “Nothing. Just some guy in the street.” “What did he do to you?”

“He wouldn’t let me cross the street unless I told him my name and agreed to go out with him. He kept blocking my way.”

She told me that this total stranger kept harassing her for blocks and wouldn’t give up. No one intervened.

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“...[A] small number of big WTO Members are leading an undesirable globalization that is inhumane, environmentally degrading, farmer-killing, and undemocratic. It should be stopped immediately. Otherwise the false logic of neo-liberalism will wipe out the diversity of global agriculture and be disastrous to all human beings.”

—Lee Kyung Hae, Korean farmer & activist who took his own life on the barricades

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In 1936, groups of women in Madrid and Barcelona founded Mujeres Libres, an organization dedicated to liberation from their “triple enslavement to ignorance, as women, and as producers.” While it lasted for less than three years (its activities in Spain were brought to an abrupt halt by the victory of Franco’s forces in February 1939), Mujeres Libres mobilized over 20,000 women, and developed an extensive network of activities designed to empower individual women while building a sense of community.

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Better Late Than Never In the spirit of the weather and the season, a few obituaries. Harry Bennet, a chief gangster for Henry Ford, scabherder, thug, assassin, head of the Ford Motor Company’s notorious “Service Department,” drowned in his drool in a California nursing home. Suffice it to say that he won’t be missed around these parts.

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Inside sources have reported that Betty Ford, formerly of state furniture capital Grand Rapids, Michigan, has fallen into a deep depression since her celebrated plastic surgery at a laetrile clinic in Tijuana, Mexico. Unknown to most people, her surgery was a complete failure! She had intended to resemble the late Elvis Presley, and had planned a career as an Elvis impersonator! “I’m tired of Jerry being the only breadwinner in this family,” she said shortly before entering Dr. Ramon Cabron’s Clinica Veterinaria. “I too have talents and ambitions. I want to make something of myself.”

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from Detroit Free Press, April 5, 1966

Gentlemen:

Regarding the issue of negotiation vs. withdrawal, it would be most unfortunate to allow the question to take up the working time of the peace movement. We are not Johnson’s special advisors, and our precise policy statements need not be unified, or even entirely compatible. What would appear to count most is visibility and persistence. There are, however, many who disagree with that statement. Some contend that the more extreme positions are too easily accommodated by the administration. The key question then is the difference in the operating code of ethics between these factions. I suggest the following. Once a group decides and plans an activity, all those who can in good conscience assist with its execution should do so in accord with the ground rules set by the originally responsible group. I see no contradiction in restraining my sign to “urge negotiations” even if I were personally to favor immediate withdrawal...

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Tonight I am alone, which is rare, and the air is cold and clear, so I blow out the oil lamp and make my way down to the clearing to take in the new moon, the milky way, and the unsilent forest. It’s autumn, the season when we harvest the last of it from our gardens and the rest becomes compost to build on next year. It’s a natural time to look around, evaluate what we’ve been doing, and think about where we might go from here.

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American heoroes, the Fort Hood Three: (l. to rt.) Mora, Samas, Johnson

Although I am being held in solitary confinement, the prisoners and guards find occasion to speak with me. I was ordered to remove the name tags from my uniforms and from above my cage door. I now exist as the man without a country or a name; this plus instructions for no one to speak with me entices the prisoners and guards to find out my story.

...

Teaching at Durfee Middle School in Detroit’s inner-city, I found that most students had not been exposed to books of any kind before entering school in first grade or Kindergarten. No one read at home, not to themselves, and parents did not read to their children.

At staff meetings and informal discussions with teachers at both schools, I tried getting a teacher book discussion club going. One reason was to model enjoyment of reading to our students. I was appalled to find out that most of the teachers didn’t read anything outside of school either. One year, I discovered that only one teacher out of 33 read out-side of school and that for a weekly bible study class at her church.

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FE note: See also the letter exchange “L’affaire Black Rose Books” in this issue.

Dear Editor,

With reference to the slanderous letter from a Mr. Joe Doaks in your June 1977 issue, we would like you to publish the following reply in full.

(1) Why did the English-language edition of Durruti by Abel Paz not include Part 4? The history of this question is as follows. A member of our book-publishing cooperative read the French-language version some two and a half years ago. We thought about publishing an English-language version, but naturally we were overwhelmed by the complexity of the project. The one French-language edition we had was returned to the person from whom it was borrowed. Some time later we received the translation by Nancy Macdonald. We then negotiated a contractual agreement with both the author and translator. Part of the agreement included that the contents and approval of translation was a matter between the author and translator. We frankly proceeded to the publication of the book without anyone of us being aware that there was a Part 4. Last month to our embarrassment a member of our cooperative while visiting Paris was told by Paz that we had not included Part 4. This was news to us as we had insisted that the translation be cleared by the author. We have written to Nancy about this and received the following reply which we quote in part: “About the 4^th part of the Durruti it was (Paz) who suggested to me that it be cut out of the English edition as the book would be too long. And I agreed. There was never any question again of my translating it. I sent my translation to (Paz) a long time ago for him to OK it and he never mentioned the 4^th section. I have already written him to this effect a few days ago since he raised the question with me by letter...” As far as BRB was concerned it was certainly not an act of censorship in any way. If there is another edition of the book we intend to include Part 4, unless Paz thinks to the contrary.

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Since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in April 1986, much information has come out about its terrible effects. The irradiation of (particularly European) people, animals and vegetation has been devastating. Dr. John Gofman, a Widely respected expert on radiation effects, estimated that more than a million people will develop cancers, half of them fatal, as a result of the accident.

...

I’ve been in jail for so long now that I’ve lost count of the days, But such is the fate of the man who doesn’t have the money for bail ($10,000 or $1,000 for a bondsman).

I’ve found that there’s two types of justice in our illustrious nation: one for the rich, and one for the poor.

But if life in a “democracy” hands you a lemon, you don’t bitch. You find that there’s only steel bars to listen to you. So you do what any man who wants to make the world a better place to live would do. You squeeze the lemon and start a lemonade stand.

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The following letter was sent to an International Conference on Elisee Reclus, the 19^th century anarchist geographer and political theorist. The conference, which was held in Milan on October 12–13, was one of several planned for 2005 to celebrate the 175^th anniversary of Reclus’ birth and the 100^th anniversary of his death. I was invited to do a presentation but couldn’t leave New Orleans to attend. Fortunately, our electricity, which had been out for almost six weeks, resumed shortly before the conference, and I was able to write the letter hastily and find a place to email it. It arrived in Milan the day before the conference and was read during the proceedings, and it will be translated and published in the Italian anarchist magazine Libertaria.

...

John Sinclair

Southern Michigan State

Prison Jackson, Michigan

Dear Leni & Everybody:

My letter yesterday from the Wayne County jail should be disregarded in large part since I was transferred up here this morning. It’s really good to get here at last—just like when you’ve been threatened with something for years and find out it ain’t so bad after all.

...

Being a revolutionary, the threat of spending time in prison comes down on me from time to time. Not knowing much about the day-to-day life of women inside the prison walls, I have always been uneasy at the thought of that unknown world and put it out of my mind. The letter that follows was written by Jane Kennedy, an angry voice from inside the prison walls, running down the systematic pain and humiliation suffered by the women prisoners she lives with.

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Pumpkin Hollow, Tenn.—I’m trying to pick this narrative up off the gravel road, gyrating back into the woods. This odyssey of drift must stop somewhere; that somewhere is here. Perhaps my nomadic motion can continue in psychic space as my body plants itself firmly on the ground, my ground, our ground. I previously chose to be homeless, a vagabond, a hobo, roaming, raving and misbehaving.

...

The late David Graeber perhaps said it best. “Bureaucracy has become the water in which we swim.”

For over 20 years, I was embedded within the New York City Board of Education as a licensed agent authorized to deploy weapons of mass instruction. These weapons were placed in our arsenal to control, and perhaps teach, but above all avoid scenes like the following, which happened just days after I started:

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first

Volunteer to serve the Negation

Never too late for Mrs Ludd

If Bugs Bunny’s a Surrealist

what’s that make Elmer Fudd?

Wherever you are tonight Mrs L

Tiamat Tara river nymph undine

Captain Moonlight & Saint Monday

flaneurs on ancient boulevards of spleen

never complain never explain

our secret society goes back to the Neolithic

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Send letters to fe — at — fifthestate — dot — org or Fifth Estate, POB 201016, Ferndale MI 48220.

In order to engage in electoral politics by claiming it as harm reduction, you have to ignore the fact that each new law creates new criminals, and that the state has always sought to isolate and punish criminals. Aside from whatever fantasy of minimizing damage Kathy Ferguson proffers in her article, “Anarchism & the Vote,” in FE #413, Spring, 2023, that’s an objective harm to individuals and even entire classes of people.

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This letter is in reply to the article by Tom Haroldson entitled, “Vote No On Survival” which appeared in FE #99, February 19 — March 4.

Mr. Haroldson makes some very good points in regards to Nixon’s bullshit maneuvers regarding the ecology issue, and also by pointing out that the “...ecology movement is endorsed by the very people who make the movement necessary.”

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Dear F.E.,

Just got the new issue. It’s too good to be true! Two issues in a row with relevant, well-written, hip articles specifically for women [FE #105, May 14–27, 1970].

Women being equal with men in all things except glandular and physical makeup, such articles as the Women’s News Co-op’s are welcome [FE #105, May 14–27, 1970]. And the tone of these articles is so positive and pleasant-natured. They give the Fifth Estate a freshness it has been needing.

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I’d like to reply to SP Marc Nadeau whose trash was published in the Feb. 4, F.E. [Letters, FE #98, February 4–18, 1970]

Baby, I’m not under 25, and am old enough to be your mother. Guys like you make me want to vomit. You made a big issue out of an article on the Northland “happening”. I don’t condone what the “kids” have done, but they were exercising a constitutional right—free assembly.

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You will note with paradoxical titters that the “Silent Majority” of which Nixon speaks (that is, referring to “a nation of sheep”), is in fact a misnomer caused of social lingual conditioning. The silent majority in this country—I would like to believe—are those millions of young and old people both, who inside themselves, know the radical youth of today are right and correct.

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“Where grievances pile high and most of the elected spokesmen represent the establishment, violence may be the only effective response.”

—Justice William O. Douglas, U.S. Supreme Court

“Violence? We hate it. But is it violent to shoot a cop who breaks into your home bent on killing you? If so, the Panthers are violent.”

...

Editors’ Note: Fifth Estate staffer Rick Londin is in Cuba with Venceremos Cane Cutting Brigade. The Brigade has been there since last November to assist the Cubans in harvesting 10 million tons of sugar cane as part of their program of attaining economic independence. The contingent Rick is with will be arriving back in the U.S. in early February and a second group will leave for Cuba at that time.

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I managed to get my hands on a copy of the Fifth Estate. Wow, what a paper. I passed it around my section and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it.

I’m a GI and I have been in Vietnam for six months. I despise the military and I believe the same as I did before I came here, that we don’t belong here.

...

Send letters to fe@fifthestate.org or Fifth Estate, POB 201016, Ferndale MI 48220.

All formats accepted including typescript & handwritten.

Letters may be edited for length.

Your editorial on the Ukraine war in FE #411, Spring 2022 starts out promising, calling for the defeat of Putin by the Ukrainian resistance, and the overthrow of his dictatorship in Russia.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The following letter was sent to one of our subscribers who had sent Mich. Senator Philip Hart a copy of the speech given by Dr. Norman Pollack on U.S. participation in the war in Vietnam:

Dr. Pollack’s premise that “we are at war today because we cannot—or will not—solve the internal problems at home” is just all wrong. The first session of this congress enacted more social and economic legislation than any Congress since the early days of the New Deal, and the fear now is (not the pain, as Dr. Pollack seems to imply) that increasing costs in Vietnam will slow down full implementation of all these programs.

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Common Council, City of Detroit, 2 Woodward Avenue, Detroit 26, Michigan

Dear Sirs,

A meeting was held Wednesday, March 9 at Burton School promoted through the combined efforts of Cass Community Council, Cass Community Church, Burton School Mother and Dad’s Club, WCO affiliated groups (St.. Patrick’s Parrish and Central Methodist Church, Southern Baptist Convention, Priscilla Hall, St. John’s Episcopal Young Adult Fellowship and Cass Park Baptist Church).

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That g.d., m.f., c.s., s.o.b., J.L. Hudson is running for mayor.

F. Janorin

Detroit

Love and flowers from a sleeping city.

I subscribed to your Oracle in August and took some issues with me to school in September. I have changed a lot of attitudes with the FIFTH ESTATE’s help.

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The Underground Press has opened the eyes of many Americans to much of life that they otherwise would not know of. But many of the more intelligent readers still do not understand homosexuality, especially some hippies who, due to their long hair, etc., have been falsely accused of being gay.

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Please tell Mike Bloomfield (“Honkies Can’t Dig Soul Music,” FE #39, October 1–15, 1967) that he can take his idea about us Honkies (I’m from Grosse Pointe) and stick it up his ass.

Just because we buy the Doors doesn’t mean we’ve never heard Howlin’ Wolf. We can see this ugly world, too. The method is not the message.

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We just finished reading your paper “the 5^th Estate” dated April 3–16, which couldn’t be classified as good trash. After wasting 4 books of matches we finally got your paper burning so we could heat our C-rations.

You probably are wondering why we are writing this letter to you. Well, we read some articles concerning Vietnam and some of the letters from men in Vietnam which we will call clerks, because we know they haven’t seen any combat by the letters they have written. The rest of the articles were written by the girlish boys back in the world.

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I have read your newspaper many times and for the most part, found it very enlightening. You have helped answer many of my questions, and set me on the right foot on some important issues. Now, I’m asking another favor. Your acceptance and backing of minority groups is what has prompted me to write to you.

...

Thanks for reprinting my Other Scenes article on nudity in and out of the theater (They Can’t Get Any Nuder. FE #75, March 20-April 2, 1969). I’ve just seen it and you did an esthetically nice job. But a line was dropped from one of the final paragraphs.

My point (the important part) was that “the real qualitative difference in the experience of public nudity lies in its goals. If one’s goal is to convince a skeptical public that nudity need not lead to sensuality, then one’s participants dare not touch. But if one’s goal is personal self-fulfillment—and nudity is just a means to that end—one will want to touch. And to be touched.

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I’ve been watching all the shit going down around Detroit and our revolution either means we’re fighting for communism or black supremacy. I am not prejudiced, but want equality for all; not white or black supremacy.

And I’ll be damned if I’m in this revolution if it’s for communism. I wanna change the government, but not have the government change me.

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I read your paper today for the first time and I dig it to the max.

I’ve been around army posts for 6-1/2 years and just recently my eyes were opened to what the vast “green machine” is really like.

I don’t believe we had any business getting involved in Vietnam.

We went in as advisers! Like always. We wound up fighting their war.

...

Myself and another head, were very mellow on the bunker line, when we happened to glance at your paper “The Fifth Estate.”

Since then it hasn’t left our hands. Our souls and hearts would be yours if we could get more of this paper, just to keep our minds straight.” We would appreciate your free subscription as soon as possible.

...

Just wanted to let you know how much I, and many of my friends who read the paper, dig the poems you’ve been printing lately, especially Diane DiPrima’s.

I always say that a good anarchistic poem is worth a thousand MC-5 jams since very few of the 5’s songs have any revolutionary message to them while the poems have a lot. I can now see William Leach’s point that music isn’t revolution.

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I was dismayed, but not overly surprised, upon reading William Spencer Leach’s article [“The White Left—Serious or Not?” FE #70, January 9–22, 1969]. Brother Bill has made several good points and suggestions.

He is right in the need for “white revolutionaries” to work in factories (and in fields, I might add). He’s also correct in his call for going into churches with the Word; some of the most important work can be done by going into “straight” gatherings.

...

Just a short note of congratulations on your editors’ notes column in the last (Jan. 23) issue of the Fifth Estate.

It is not often that a good cultural newspaper is willing to admit that the working class contains more than a bunch of fat contented racists. While I am one of those lucky individuals who can be both worker and hippy, I am the first to realize that this is impossible for most of the population.

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William Leach from the Black Panther Party is absolutely correct (“The White Left—Serious or Not?” FE #70, January 9–22, 1969) when he points out that white so-called revolutionaries have not organized anyone in the white community—we must ask ourselves why?

Is it because we are afraid to challenge the handful of Wallacites in Hazel Park, or Wyandotte who are attempting to give leadership to the thousands of young white workers who live there.

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John Watson and the Fifth Estate are revolutionaries and that’s why they support the Teamster workers. [See “The News Gets Ready,” FE #68, December 12–25, 1968.]

Revolutionaries remember 1937 when industrial workers in Flint fought the National Guard, just as students at San Francisco State College are fighting the Tactical Police.

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Send letters to fe — AT — fifthestate — DOT — org or Fifth Estate, POB 201016, Ferndale MI 48220.

All formats accepted including typescript & handwritten.

Letters may be edited for length.

My partner brought home a copy of The Anarchist Review of Books and I wanted so much to love it.

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On the afternoon of November I, there was a demonstration in front of the 13^th precinct police station on Woodward. The purpose of the demonstration was to protest the brutal treatment which the police inflicted upon a group of anti-Wallace demonstrators at a rally earlier in the week.

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Due to a surprising thing to come, I wish to cancel my subscription.

I’m on a heavy cruiser off the DMZ (Vietnam) coast. On 18 Jan. 1969 the ship returns to the United States and I am to be released from active duty.

Upon my return home to Detroit I will again be in the groove. This will enable me to buy the Fifth Estate at my local hangouts. Thus, I won’t need your subscription at my current address.

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Since their seems to be some controversy about calling police “Pigs,” I would like to say that when you call any group any one name, that you are generalizing.

Whether you call a policeman a pig, a long haired freak a hippy, or a black man a nigger it’s all the same.

Believe it or not police are people and by classing them together as one name, you are guilty of exactly what their doing. Not to say that the majority of police aren’t sadists, I’m sure they are, but you have to realize that police work naturally caters to sadists.

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Send letters to fe AT fifthestate DOT org or Fifth Estate, P.O. Box 201016, Ferndale, MI 48220.

All formats accepted including typescript & handwritten.

Letters may be edited for length.

Rob Blurton’s article, “Anarchy in the Midwest,” [FE #406, Spring 2020] uses the term Native American to describe the people living in the lands invaded by Europeans.

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Send letters to fe@fifthestate.org or Fifth Estate, POB 201016, Ferndale MI 48220

All formats accepted including typescript & handwritten.

Letters may be edited for length.

Your Winter 2019 issue [FE #405] is full of fine writing and provocative thinking, particularly so in the review of Godless: 150 Years of Disbelief by Peter Werbe. The final section, beginning with “Let’s devise a spiritual belief system...” is a beautiful manifesto worth sharing. I wish I’d written it!

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Send letters to fe AT fifthestate DOT org or Fifth Estate, POB 201016, Ferndale MI 48220

All formats accepted including typescript & handwritten. Letters may be edited for length.

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Shit, man! I despise philosophical cretins like letter writer A.M. Holton [Letters, FE #64, October 17–30, 1968]. His archaic mind nurtures an imagination that’s 2,000 years behind the times. No wonder he got all shook up after reading Ayn Rand’s bullshit concerning the “mindless masses.” His idiotic outcry against us, reflects his despair at the thought of being a mediocrity. He says he’ll destroy us! There is no need to destroy him, cause he’s a self-destructive motherfucker.

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This letter was sent to the Editor of the Detroit Free Press.

About the arrogant note on page 7-C of the Free Press of Nov. 8 that “writer Richie Yorke of Toronto has supplied the Detroit Free Press with the first newspaper review in the United States of the Beatles’ new album, ‘The Beatles.’”

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The following writer is one of the Vancouver Five. See our coverage of the start of their trials elsewhere in this issue.

Dear Fifth Estate:

I’ve just finished reading the Summer 1983 issue of the paper which you sent me. As usual, I found lots to think about in it, and it is a joy to read many ideas that I am more than less in agreement with. Zerzan was thought provoking, but I especially liked the article on economic recovery, and the replies to the letter by Ron Haley.

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Send letters to fe [@] fifthestate [dot] org or Fifth Estate, POB 201016, Ferndale MI 48220

All formats accepted including typescript & handwritten.

Letters may be edited for length.

Fifth Estate note: We usually don’t print letters of this length, but thought this encapsulated the sexual immiseration suffered by many. We don’t offer advice in this matter, but invite others to suggest how best to navigate sex and partnering.

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I used to like ‘em too, just like everyone else, caught-up in that follow-the-other-people, emotional group-cohesion thing. But then I began to think! The Stooges are one example of a group that takes us (the audience) for fools and chumps.

Iggy goes thru all this sexual stuff and then he poses and finally JUMPS out into the audience on someone! He did this at Olympia, Halloween, and almost started a fight with the guy he jumped on! He cursed at the boy and called him names saying “Hit me, I dare ya” and stuff like that.

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The Students for a Democratic Society, the Radical Education Project (REP) and other radical groups in Detroit, were set up for harassment in the Detroit Free Press article of October 30, 1969 which printed one of our names and several addresses. The article implied that we were responsible for the unrest in local high schools this fall.

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Arthur Parumba’s review of Richard Brautigan’s three books [FE #94, December 11–24, 1969] was the best thing to appear in the Fifth Estate in ages. His Shell Station sounds like the greatest spot this side of Alice’s Restaurant. By the way, is “Parumba” for real?

Thomas Haroldson

Editors’ Note: Sure he’s real. The Parumba Bros. Shell Station is right on the corner of Prentis and Woodward. Drop in and see them.

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Ever since I’ve been reading Hank Malone’s articles, I acquired the irresistible urge to blast his ideas out of our midst into oblivion, where they belong. Malone’s reflections on art are a classical example of revolutionary cretinism.

Malone’s views have been attacked (rather irrationally) by another reader before me, and his response is curiously analogous to vice-president Agnew’s: “I’m not for censorship” said Agnew, after subtly advocating censorship in a previous speech.

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I just finished reading your latest “words of wisdom.” Isn’t it about time you knocked it off? Words are works, I agree, but more appropriate adjectives may be found in any pocket dictionary.

You must be aware of the fact that “straight” people find your choice of words more than a little distasteful. If you’re trying to “turn on” the squares, come on slow, in a way acceptable to all.

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Hey John, I’ve been digging your doings way back since 1965. I have always respected and, I might add, shared, your point of view on this whole pig establishment.

I’ve been keeping in touch with the scene even though I’ve been in Vietnam more than a year, via the Fifth Estate and news-clippings and papers sent by friends back in Detroit.

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On August 2, Denny Dunn and Carlson Tuttle were arrested in an anti-Humphrey demonstration at Cobo Hall. Later in the evening a bail fund was collected in hopes that we could get enough money to get our brothers out of jail. We collected $206.00. As it turned out the bail was set at $1,000:00 each, so we had to pay a bondsman the $200.00.

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I’m still alive and well in the U.S. Navy. Much has happened since the MP hassled with Ray Greer last Jan. 4^th at Metro airport. If you’ll remember I was on a TV news spot last Feb. 27^th when I left for Norfolk. Va.

Haven’t been home since Feb. 27^th when I left for Norfolk, Va. to join the U.S.S. Yorktown CVS-10, a “Hunter-Killer Force” anti-submarine carrier.

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I’ve really been digging the stuff that’s been going down in your (no THE it’s for everyone) paper, and I’d just like to mention a few radical things around.

First, I’m surprised that, except for once on ABX, no one in the left media has mentioned the only radical program on nationwide TV at the present. This being “The Prisoner” on CBS/Thurs., 8 pm.

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Enjoyed our paper over here in Nam. They really get worn from use. I’ll be back home to Detroit in 3 weeks so you should stop sending it. I will subscribe when I’m back.

Read with great interest the John Sinclair story. He spoke at our high school a few years ago, and the instructor that brought him down was dismissed.

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The letter in your August 7 issue [FE #85, August 7–20, 1969] from the corpsman in Da Nang harbor has prompted me to relate a similar experience to you.

I was a corpsman at the hospital at Fort Ord, Cal., for almost two years, where I was appalled by the condition and treatment of over 1000 patients who were packed into a hospital staffed for 250 beds. Most of these patients were Vietnam returnees, and seeing them (and in fact the whole experience) turned me on to the resistance and the revolution.

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Send letters to fe — AT — fifthestate — DOT — org or

Fifth Estate,

POB 201016,

Ferndale MI 48220

All formats accepted including typescript & handwritten.

Letters may be edited for length.

As always, thank you for everything your team does. I’ve been working my way through the Winter 2019 issue of Fifth Estate after my shifts at Starbucks, and it really grounds me and makes me feel sane after working for capitalist madness.

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

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

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To the Editor:

Your paper has done so much for our heads simply because it is so meaningful.

We would like to add just one thing for your other readers: “Respect the Revolution and you shall inherit the earth.”

The Iron Butterfly Conspiracy

Danang

I was in your town the past week and got caught up in the action there. I’m from Pittsburgh where there is absolutely nothing happening. And I mean nothing!

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Listen and dig the “fair” deal the troops get in good old Vietnam by the military-pig-racist-establishment.

Currently I am being framed on a phony marijuana bust. I have an eyewitness to testify in my favor but it will be the word of two enlisted men against the word of two 1^st Lts. who can do no wrong as far as the military is concerned.

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I have dug the newspaper for almost 8 months and I’m really for the People having the power, because the Establishment has fucked this country completely up. I feel that your paper really gets down to the natural nitty thang in every printed page!

I especially dug your hip reply to the brainwashed men of the 3^rd Plt., B Co., 1/6 Inf., 5^th Div.

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