Full list of texts

a review of

d’bi young. Wombanifesto.

www.dbiyoung.net

Invoking Elegua to open the musical floodgates, d’bi young wastes no time in unleashing bold soul sonic vibrations that ripple through the body and mind, swiftly but surely navigating the resulting rapids to carry us along on the raging (as in outrageous and outraged) river of her creativity.

...

MUSSOLINI’S ITALY

“A hero is he who can pierce with the mystic light of an inner vision to the very heart of things; he who can re-discover the greatest and most profound of all truths: viz., that beyond his realm of fugitive appearances there lies, immutable and eternal, what Fichte called the ‘Divine Idea of the World;’ finally, he who, living already in spirit in this realm of timeless and absolute Reality, is able to translate his vision into deeds and to act according to the dictates of an inner voice telling him that ‘...they wrong man greatly who say he is to be seduced by ease. Difficulty, abnegation, martyrdom, death are the allurements that act on the heart of man.’

...

From a leaflet by the Angry Workers Group, 2000 Center St., No. 1200, Berkeley CA 94704, which was passed out during Fleet Week in San Francisco, October, 1985.

The past few years have seen a wholesale rewriting of the history of American involvement in Vietnam. From the official government versions of the events to extremely violent television shows and movies like “The Deer Hunter” and “Rambo,” the people who rule us are attempting to glamorize the slaughter of the Indochinese Wars as a prelude to the next war. It might be in the Philippines or Southern Africa, Central America or Korea. It might be fought on five or ten fronts simultaneously with the Soviet Union. Or maybe they’ll send us off to massacre the populations of Spain or Italy or Britain in the suppression of a revolutionary civil war in Western Europe.

...

The original full-length article is online in the Fifth Estate archive; see Issue 346, Summer 1995.

As America’s involvement in Vietnam deepened in 1965, political and social turbulence at home reached proportions unimaginable at the beginning. Within two years, the army started falling apart.

Low morale and outright rebellion eroded its combat effectiveness, and the malaise began spreading beyond Southeast Asia to brigades garrisoning more vital imperial frontiers, especially Central Europe. The conscripted sons of the men who fought World War II came to see not Asian communists but the United States military machine as the real enemy.

...

Thirty years ago, the most powerful military colossus ever assembled, its triumphant legions spread throughout the world, committed an expeditionary force of its best troops to the Asian mainland. “The American Army of 1965,” wrote an admiring historian, “was headstrong with confidence, sharply honed to a lethal fighting edge ... [and] eager to test its newly acquired wings of airmobility.” [1] In other words, it felt invincible. Battalions dispatched to Indochina were told that the local communist guerrilla-bandits were politically isolated and would quickly succumb to their superior might, but instead they found themselves locked in desperate battle with a determined adversary enjoying massive popular support. This expeditionary force gradually became a gigantic field army of over half a million men, and the lightning war turned into a meat-grinder.

...

CU CHI, South Vietnam—Some time ago, Capt. Frank Smith (Bravo Company, Second Battalion, 27^th Infantry) passed the word down to his First Platoon that he needed a patrol near the Cambodian border.

The platoon, however, declined to go.

Smith, faced in fact with mutiny, said immediately that he was not asking for volunteers. He was ordering the platoon into activity and he expected instant compliance.

...

SAN FRANCISCO (LNS)—Pvt. Louis Osczepinski, one of 27 soldiers being tried for mutiny at the Presidio Army Base in San Francisco, attempted to commit suicide on Feb. 14. He slashed his arms four times.

Osczepinski, along with Pvt. Lawrence Reidel, was scheduled to hear the verdict in his case some time during the week of Feb. 17 through 24. On Feb. 13, Pvt. Henry Sood, the first of the Presidio 27 to be tried, was convicted and sentenced to 15 years hard labor.

...

a review of

Mutual Aid: An Illuminated Factor of Evolution by Peter Kropotkin, Illustrated by N.O. Bonzo, Introduction by David Graeber & Andrej Grubacic, Foreword by Ruth Kinna, Preface by GATS, Afterword by Allan Antliff. PM Press/Kairos 2021

This new edition of anthropological essays by Russian naturalist and anarchist philosopher Peter Kropotkin’s 1902 Mutual Aid provides us with key insights necessary to prevent our headlong plunge into planetary suicide.

...

New Orleans headquarters of the Common Ground Collective

The mutual-aid tendency in man has so remote an origin, and is so deeply interwoven with all the past evolution of the human race, that it has been maintained by mankind up to the present time, notwithstanding all vicissitudes of history.

-- Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid

...

We came close to a disaster during preparation of this edition, but due to the incredible mutual aid offered by readers and supporters, we have come out stronger than ever. We were very close to our publication deadline when our computer crashed! We could have lost all of our work, plus, we needed to spend almost a thousand dollars on a new machine.

...

Up until March 10, I lived in a small, wooded, old neighborhood on the edge of Northside in Cincinnati.

That morning, I left the house with just enough time to get to my job while my 16-year-old daughter, Arianna, was asleep in her room. I drove to the end of my block and was startled to see an SUV come around the corner and stop directly in front of my car, blocking my way.

...

a review of

My Secret Life by a Victorian Gentleman. New York: Grove Press, $1.75

My Secret Life ranks alongside other erotic novels such as The Story of O, Last Exit to Brooklyn, My Life and Loves, Candy, or Fanny Hill.

The first public edition lifted its head above the blanket of U.S. censorship in 1966 even though it was written about 1820 by an unknown author. The first edition contained 2,400 pages of large magazine page size which probably makes it the longest erotic autobiography ever written. This edition is abridged but unexpurgated and considering the size of the original edition, an unexpurgated edition is welcome. If a person wishes to include masochism in his erotic readings, he can attempt to read the entire edition.

...

First time in Afghanistan, late winter 1968/9, making the Overland Trail fast as possible through howling cold of Central Asian steppes. Minibus from Mashhad to Herat, arriving at the border crossing: dark, dusty, cold and bleak. (Later, I was to discover that somehow Afghan border-crossings were always dark dusty cold bleak, even on nice summer days.) Bus-load of hippies pulls up at the checkpoint. Suddenly a huge Afghan officer with bristling mustaches and fierce scowl thrusts himself into the bus: “Any you got hashish?!” he screamed.

...

I was in New York during the Republican convention, mostly staying as far as possible from Madison Square Garden, but greatly enjoying the joyous spirit of counter-cultural expression that filled the city simultaneous with the Republican invasion. On August 31, 2004, I went to participate in a “green bloc” action called “true security,” with the theme of creative representations of a better world. The meeting place was the steps of the public library on 42^nd Street and 5^th Avenue. I arrived early and sat on the steps reading. Those library steps epitomize public space and free speech and have served for generations as a meeting place.

...

See Fifth Estate introduction in this issue.

Social revolutions are not “made” by parties, groups, or cadres; they occur as a result of deep-seated historic forces and contradictions that activate large sections of the population. They occur not merely (as Trotsky argued) because the “masses” find the existing society intolerable, but also because of the tension between the actual and the possible, between “what is” and “what could be.”

...

Social revolutions are not “made” by parties, groups, or cadres; they occur as a result of deep-seated historic forces and contradictions that activate large sections of the population. They occur not merely (as Trotsky argued) because the “masses” find the existing society intolerable, but also because of the tension between the actual and the possible, between “what is” and “what could be.”

...

(by Bob Fleck, with a little help from his friends—Alfie, Acid, Dena, Nancy and Barb)

“Naked Angels” is the worst movie we have seen. It’s a hype, a ruse and a shuck on the audience that only serves to exploit the image of bikers and titillate the over-40s. And what’s worse, three issues back, Art Johnston did a lyrical piece heralding this flick as the vision of our culture’s rise to total freedom.

...

In a war, no nation loses: the Nation of Man is lost.

In Viet Nam, the unwilling penitents who bear the brunt of that nation’s suffering are those who know least of any suffering but their own.

These unfortunates are the children who, burned horribly by napalm, tossed to chance care by the death of parents, and maimed in a thousand ways, are suffering the fate of Viet Nam in their small bodies.

...

No matter what his choice of words, every newspaper editor is aware that he is bound to offend someone. The arrest and trial of Peter Zenger two hundred years ago and the bombing of the office of the WORKER in New York 4 weeks ago bear witness to this. The FIFTH ESTATE has not made everyone happy, nor would this be realistically possible. Some kind of people we displease send us threatening letters and make anonymous phone calls. Even our friends have had bitter words for us at times, as evidenced by our Letters to the Editor column, but this is to be expected and is a welcome indication that we are being read and thought about.

...

Word reached the Fifth Estate office last week that FBI and Detroit Narcotics Squad agents met with Wayne State University officials to plan a massive attack on users of marijuana, LSD, and other consciousness-expanding substances in the campus and Plum Street areas in the near future.

Already waves of maniac paranoia are spreading through the city’s psychedelic culture as the police-state fear machines go into action. But as poet Gary Snyder remarked at his poetry reading last month at WSU, “This is no time to be scared.” The narcotics bureaucracy works on one principle only—the fear-guilt-intimidation deal—and it can be exposed by bringing all the facts into the open.

...

The Trans-Love commune of Ann Arbor (late of Detroit) was plundered by police June 18 when Grand Traverse County Sheriff’s Deputies took into custody Lawrence “Pun” Plamondon on a warrant charging him with “sale and dispension of marijuana” in Traverse City, Michigan, on the 17^th of March, 1968.

Also charged on the same warrant is artist Gary Grimshaw and editor of the Sun newspaper. Grimshaw has not yet been apprehended.

...

WASHINGTON (LNS)—The Justice Department is getting ready for a crackdown on the “illegal sale and use of drugs,” according to an announcement by Attorney General Ramsey Clark.

The nation’s top cop recently announced the appointment of 30 key officials and the creation of 17 regional offices by the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.

...

Over 4,500 farm workers in Delano, California have been on strike against Delano grape growers since September 8, 1965.

These California farm workers are seeking the rights you take for granted: UNION RECOGNITION and COLLECTIVE BARGAINING. Delano grape growers refuse to recognize and respect these rights.

...

The National Coal Company (NCC) has filed a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) against five Knoxville, Tennessee environmental activists associated with Katuah Earth First! (KEF!) NCC is demanding over $7,000 and a permanent injunction banning the five from ever contacting them or coming on their property.

...

Nearing the end of an almost year long civil war, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) appears to be on the verge of a military victory over its rivals in the West African former Portuguese colony.

The National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) have suffered substantial battlefield losses in recent weeks to the MPLA forces led by 10,000 Cuban troops and most Western military analysts predict a quick MPLA victory now that South Africa has withdrawn its 1,200 troops from the conflict.

...

The Motor City Nine—nine Weatherman SDS women who invaded a Macomb College classroom last July—were convicted of disorderly conduct by District Judge Robert Chrzanowski in Centerline.

The judge sentenced five of the women to jail terms ranging from six days to ninety days. He also issued bench warrants for three women who failed to appear and delayed sentencing on the remainder. He refused appeal bond requested by defense attorney Dennis James.

...

a review of

Red Nation Rising: From Bordertown Violence to Native Liberation by Nick Estes, Melanie K. Yazzie, Jennifer Nez Denetdale, and David Correia. PM Press 2021

“I can’t fucking breathe,” Zachary Bearheels (Rosebud Sioux) said before he died in Omaha, Nebraska, in 2017, where cops tased, then mounted him on the pavement, and punched his head 13 times. Murdered. In a bordertown.

...

Talking about the weather just isn’t what it used to be. These days it is no longer a diversion. A January cold wave of historical dimensions resulted in all-time record lows in places such as Pittsburgh, Louisville and Indianapolis, records of all sorts over much of the eastern two-thirds of the U.S., and a seemingly endless series of snowstorms.

...

“Once the Germans were war-like and mean but that couldn’t happen again.

We taught them a lesson in 1918.

And they haven’t bothered us since then.”

—Tom Lehrer

Playing an oldie but goodie in an age of more subtle tunes of political violence, more than a million of the good citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany have cast their lots in with the National Democratic Party (NDP). Getting 6.1 and 7.4 percent of the votes in state elections in Bavaria and Hesse, the NDP has stirred up some feelings of uneasiness and some fancy political science footwork as to which generation they belong to.

...

In the aftermath of the highly successful April 30^th occupation of the Seabrook, New Hampshire nuclear plant site has come documented information from the Clamshell Alliance that members of the scurrilous leftoid U.S. Labor Party (a.k.a. the NCLC or National Carcass of Labor Committees) actively operated as police informants in an effort to sabotage the demonstration.

...

“...a little Neanderthal DHA, between one to four percent, exists in (some) people today...The Neanderthals are not dead; some of them live on in us.”

-- Svante Paabo, Max Planck Institute, Neanderthal Genome Project

Resistance against alienation begins

w/ Neanderthal Liberation Front circa

40,000 BC. Giants of folklore stand for

...

Doctors have been screwing with people for a long time.

Those of us who have tried to have babies in the present structure of American medicine know how rigid, male dominated and money oriented that structure always is.

A friend of mine who had her child here in Detroit has had the following experiences. When she was six weeks pregnant she thought she was miscarrying and tried to get an appointment with a doctor, but every one that she called said he would not see her without a previous appointment (made three weeks in advance).

...

Remember “Mademoiselle,” the Tony Richardson-Jean Genet collaboration in which lovely Jeanne Moreau raced around the French countryside in stiletto heels heaping destruction on a poor little town, and all because of sexual repression? Then there was Jules Dassin’s 10:30 p.m. “Summer,” the agonized tale of a traveling menage a trois.

...

A statewide Negotiation Now campaign, sponsored by the Metropolitan Detroit Chapter of Americans for Democratic Action, is now in operation at full speed, according to John A. Fillion, director of the campaign.

The Negotiation Now effort—sponsored nationally by prominent civic leaders, including John Kenneth Galbraith, Dr. Martin Luther King, and Victor Reuther—seeks to petition for new U.S. attempts to end the war in Vietnam in accordance with recommendations for settlement made by United Nations Secretary-General U Thant.

...

Joseph Patterson is a Negro.

He is 14 years old and bright—an honors student at Miller Junior High School in Detroit.

Joseph Patterson is a self-proclaimed Nazi and a member of Breakthrough, a local right-wing group. Some people, including teachers and counselors at Miller, alarmed at his preoccupation with Nazis and threats of killing everyone from commie teachers he “spys” on for Breakthrough, up to Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren and Lyndon Johnson think that Joseph Patterson is emotionally disturbed. Breakthrough thinks not. Last week they went into Wayne County circuit court to have Mr. Patterson released from the Towne Mental Hospital where Patterson had been committed on a petition from the Wayne County Sheriff. Deputy Sheriff Leontyne Smith who examined Patterson at the Detroit Psychiatric Institute Children’s Clinic where he was referred stated in a petition dated June 15:

...

If you liked Buffalo Springfield, you will probably like the first ‘solo album of one of its departed members, Neil Young (on Reprise).

A Buffalo Springfield revival is taking place as people realize that of all the American groups that came out of the “Beatle revolution,” the Springfield rank with the very best. Not enough people seemed to realize that when the group was struggling to make it.

...

During the Cold War period, there was a sector of anarchists/left-libertarians in the West who took special interest in developments and repression in the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc countries.

Their interest was in part due to the ultra-closed nature of Soviet Bloc societies and the lack of information about activism within them that wasn’t Western oriented.

...

WE HAVE NO WORDS FOR THE HORROR TO COME, for the screams and carnage of the first days of battle, the fear and brutality of the long night of occupation that will follow, the truck bombs and slit throats and unstoppable cycle of revenge, the puppets in the palaces chattering about “democracy,” the exultation of the anti-Crusaders, Baghdad descending into the shambles of a new, more dreadful Beirut, and the inevitable retreat (thousands of bodybags later) from the failed McJerusalem.

...

FT. JACKSON, S.C.—Military hearings began April 22 at this Southern Army base into the cases of eight anti-war GIs being harassed by the post brass.

The eight are all members of GIs United Against the War in Vietnam, an on-post organization of mostly black and Puerto Rican soldiers, who have been circulating an anti-war petition and holding regular discussions on the war since late January.

...

The savage crimes of civilization cannot mute the cries of the savage. But the voice of the savage is not the machine buzz of chainsaws in the forest or the clank of garbage trucks in the ghetto. Her savage voice mirrors an angel, an angel wailing one last song of protest before the last bulldozer takes out the last wild place.

...

Throughout the Pentagon’s preparations for nuclear war, it has waged genocide on the Earth and native people. As of 1987, the U.S. and Great Britain had exploded 670 nuclear bombs on Newe Segobia, the Western Shoshone Nation. All the nuclear “tests” in the world are conducted on the territory of native peoples. The Nevada Test Site (NTS) was created in 1951 by an executive order of President Truman, violating Shoshone land rights and the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley.

...

The federal government’s continuing campaign to prosecute eco-saboteurs as terrorists has not stopped it from also trying to imprison other radicals on outlandish charges. In particular, it continues to expand its powers to criminalize what has in the past been legal activism.

A recent target is the anarchist New York City household Tortuga, a uniquely long-standing anarchist residence in the city, and definitely the only one in Jackson Heights, Queens, proudly flying a red-and-black flag in front!

...

The pre-trial examination of Rafael Viera, accused of murder in the New Bethel shooting, heard testimony that may clear him of the charge.

Viera is accused of murdering Patrolman Michael Czapski last march in a shoot-out between police and several armed citizens. Patrolman Richard Worobec who was shot also, testified from a bed in Detroit General Hospital that Viera did not resemble the man he saw shoot Czapski. He did say Viera looked like one of the dozen armed men he saw flee the scene right before the shooting began.

...

Exclusive to the Fifth Estate

An eye-witness to the New Bethel Incident has given the Fifth Estate an account of the shootings that contradicts both official police versions, and testimony of prosecution witnesses in two court cases.

Max Hardeman, a legal researcher on the staff of Neighborhood Legal Services (NLS), told this newspaper that he and his wife, Cynthia, saw the fatal shooting of Patrolman Michael J. Czapski on the night of March 29, outside the New Bethel Baptist Church.

...

Dr. David Herreshoff, assistant professor of English at Wayne State University, is the author of a new book published by the WSU Press.

Dr. Herreshoff’s book, American Disciples of Marx, From the Age of Jackson to the Progressive Era (216 pages, $7.95) traces the activities of the first Marxists in America, including Orestes Brownson, Joseph Weydemeyer, Friedrich Sorge, and Daniel De Leon. The book traces the pressures faced by the first American Marxists in their efforts to organize a socialist working class movement.

In an unprecedented move Russ Gibb, Detroit rock and roll magnate and creator and owner of the Grande Ballroom, has announced that he is imposing a 1% community tax on the gate proceeds of the Detroit Rock and Roll Revival, held at the State Fairgrounds over the Memorial day weekend.

The 1% will come off the top of the gross proceeds, Gibb said, and will go into a new Community Fund which will then make disbursements through its Board of Directors to groups and/or individuals in the community who need money.

...

In House appropriations Bill 4445 for fiscal year 1975–1976, the State Legislature has instructed the Department of Social Services (DSS), the Department of Labor (through the MESC) and the Department of the Treasury to “develop a plan for the exchange of data as a check on the financial eligibility of recipients of financial aid.”

...

“Shortly after the riot in Detroit last summer, I talked to a Negro in his late thirties, and I asked him what he thought about the 12-year old boy lying in the street after being shot by a white policeman in Newark. A newsmagazine had the picture on its cover in living color. The man said he thought it was a joke. ‘A joke?’ I inquired. He said, ‘Yeah, the whole goddam thing is a joke. Every year, they pass some new damn civil rights bill; and every year, Emmett Till gets younger.”

...

Remember, if you will, the inevitable explosion that took place in our fair city during that dark week in July two years ago.

No sooner were the fires put out, the hoses rolled up and the fire trucks washed, there appeared a group of dedicated citizens whose sole purpose was, at any cost, to rebuild Detroit and put things “back to normal.”

...

There are many retail outlets which sell the Fifth Estate, but it is the indy projects and infoshops that are dearest to our hearts. Here’s a couple of new ones. Visit them; support them.

Big Idea is one of the few independent bookstores in the Pittsburgh area. They do readings/signings, potlucks, prisoner letter writing events, reading groups, film screenings, fundraiser brunches for arrested anti-fascists, and anything related to anarchism.

...

Editor’s note: Investigation of the murder of John Leroy reported in the last issue of the Fifth Estate is continuing. (See “Who Killed John Leroy?” FE #36, August 15–31, 1967.) News editor Frank H. Joyce has talked with two of the national guardsmen who were on the scene, the photographer who took pictures immediately after the shooting stopped and additional witnesses. His report of new information appears below.

...

Fifteen years ago, in 1951, Morton Sobell was sentenced to thirty years in prison. Julius and Ethyl Rosenburg were sentenced to the electric chair. The charge-espionage. In 1953, after numerous, fruitless appeals to higher courts, the Rosenburgs went to their death at Sing Sing prison still proclaiming their innocence.

...

“A fascist government is a one-party system, highly centralized and authoritarian, with rigid control over every phase of a nation’s life...This government is militaristic, nationalistic and imperialistic and it claims dogmatic political faith.”

—Herbert Matthews of the New York Times on Nazi Germany

...

a review of

Love & Politics, Judith Malina, Preface by Ira Cohen, 2001, Black & Red, PO Box 02374, Detroit, Michigan 48202, $5 postage included, 84 pages

<em>

Love & Politics</em>: a perfect title for Judith Malina’s poems—politics of love, politics of the heart. Anyone who’s ever fallen for the Living Theatre—that grand Kabuki of the avant garde—would want to own this book.

...

There is a lot happening in pop music and it is ridiculous to predict trends. One noticeable occurrence is the breaking up of groups and the need for individual artists to “go it alone.”

The group movement started in England and came over with the Beatles.

On both sides of the Atlantic all musicians seemed to be in groups. Possibly forsaking their own musical desires, what seemed important to the rock artist was the group “sound.”

...

The laws regarding the use of marijuana may become significantly less stringent if several bills before the Michigan State House of Representatives are enacted into law.

A series of bills introduced by Rep. Dale Warner, Eaton Rapids Republican, would reclassify pot from a narcotic to a “dangerous drug,” make possession of it a misdemeanor, and reduce the maximum penalty for sales to four years in prison. Currently the maximum for possession is 10 years (which is being served by John Sinclair) and the minimum for sales is twenty years.

...

A group has formed calling itself the Detroit Circle. Its purpose is to fill the void that exists among those who consider themselves part of the independent left. One of its spokesmen said this about the organization:

“There is a need for new ideas, re-evaluating the old ones, and fresh discussion among us who reject totalitarianism in any form. There is a need for the youth and the adults of this city not only to discuss in depth new concepts, but to re-evaluate old ones. There is a need to have a forum for the community as a whole so that others who are contributing to creative thinking can be heard--people like Hal Draper, Erich Fromm, etc. We ought to set up a dialogue with the Detroit liberal and radical community with the purpose of helping, and even, when necessary, initiating actions concerning the burning issues of peace and civil rights.”

...

Backwoods, Spring 2019, offers readers a discourse on anti-civilization thought and “autochthonous anarchy.”

Comprised of several central essays, including an impassioned and scathing examination of the atheist-materialist worldview by Backwoods editor Bellamy Fitzpatrick in “What Does the World Desire?,” the 72-page journal presents both practical and theoretical considerations in a well designed format.

...

a review of

The Cream, “Wheels of Fire” (ATCO)

and

Donovan, “In Concert” (Epic)

I can remember when I was young, thinking how nothing in the music world ever stayed constant. Later in my life I was to be proven wrong. Cream had nothing to do with it, unfortunately, as nothing in the world would give me greater pleasure than to admit that they were the group!

...

“In the New Orleans Free School Network, people are there because they want to be. There are no grades, people are free to participate, but they don’t have to.”

This is how John Clark, Loyola University professor, activist, and a network founding organizer, understands the difference between traditional education and the alternative he and others established in 2010.

...

NEW YORK—Dr. Benjamin Spock on August 1 called President Johnson “the worst betrayer of the American people” for recklessly escalating the Vietnam War.

“He (Johnson) was elected by an overwhelming majority who believed him when he promised to avoid escalation in Vietnam and avoid the sacrifice of American soldiers,” the famed pediatrician said.

...

Organized political opposition to the Johnson Administration will be mapped in Chicago Labor Day weekend at a nationwide convention of grassroots activist organizations in the peace, civil rights and student movements. The convention, “New Politics—’68 and Beyond,” is expected to draw more than 2,000 delegates representing more than 200 local and national groups, said William Pepper at a recent news conference. Pepper is Executive Director of the National Conference for New Politics, sponsor of the convention.

...

The DIY Bandits collective are many things: a record label, a distro, a booking agency, and a bunch of cool people from many walks of life who are tired of the status quo.

The Bandits do not see themselves as anarchists, as they say on their website, “DIY Bandits do not belong to the anarchist scene, punk scene, underground scene, or mainstream scene. Bandits are not interested in being seen as a scene but rather in dismantling all scenes.”

...

We welcome free literature, news, & announcements at: PO Box 6, Liberty, TN 37095 or fifthesatenewspaper — AT — yahoo — DOT — com.

Back in November, I had the privilege to see the Drawing Resistance traveling exhibition at Detroit’s Trumbullplex. This compelling collection addresses the anti-globalization movement, working class rights, the destruction of the environment, corporate control, police brutality, homelessness, gentrification, and the Zapatista liberation movement in Mexico.

...

The several thousand unapproved, pirate radio stations operating in the U.S. won a Pyrrhic victory in July when the Federal Communication Commission agreed to license hundreds of the low power broadcasting operations, many which feature anarchist, punk, black, and community programming.

The catch is that the FCC will demand that licensed frequencies broadcast a certain number of hours a week. Also, about half of the applications for licensing have come from right-wing, fundamentalist churches.

...

The 15 minutes of fame for Ted Kaczynski, the convicted Unabomber, are not up after all. He’s been in the news several times recently. Kaczynski is releasing an autobiographical account of his life, entitled Truth Versus Lie, printed by Context Media. This new, small, New York City publisher picked up the manuscript after hearing that Simon and Schuster rejected it.

...

In his foreword to Clifford Harper’s Designs for Anarchist Postage Stamps: Postage Stamps for After the Revolution, Colin Ward reminds us that some public institutions are worth saving. No radical activist could deny the immense importance of sending and receiving mail, and what this international public institution has meant to us.

...

Boa No. 2 (June 1988), a publication of the Bevy of Anarchist-Feminists from Vancouver and Montreal, is a wild, provocative, angry, often depressing but also humorous collection of poems, graphics, short essays and stories (some in French) covering a wide range of topics: Voltarine De Cleyre, women’s prison, AIDS, prostitution, poverty, consumerism, institutionalized medicine, work, lesbianism, romantic love, heterosexual love, repression, militarism, the stereotyping of women in literature, women and theory and more. There are personal accounts of rape, child abuse, abortion and a number of bitingly satiric and sardonic graphics.

...

The Alternative Press Center, Box 33109, Baltimore MD 21218, indexes this newspapers and dozens more radical, socialist, feminist and alternative publications as well. They have just released the 1988–89 Directory of Alternative and Radical Publications with over 300 periodicals listed; $3. They also publish quarterly the Alternative Press Index, which lists 200 alternative publications by subject; individuals $30 per year; Libraries $110.

...

The Daily Barbarian is loose again after almost a year’s absence. The large, 8-page broadsheet filled with libertarian news, poetry, an essay on S & M, a great back-page Reagan poster, irreverent humor and imaginative layout makes one wish for more frequent issues. Alas, the barbarians in charge refuse to be pushed, wheedled or cajoled into working harder at publishing so its appearance will remain “infrequent!” We will send a new Barbarian with each book order or contact them directly at Box 02455, Detroit MI 48202.

...

We always enjoy receiving the North Country Anvil in the mail. Despite serious differences in outlook that we have with its editors, we never fail to find articles and letter exchanges in this “handcrafted” journal that strike a chord. We had the pleasure of meeting Pauline Redmond and Jack Miller, Anvil editors, a few years back when they came to see us during a family visit to Detroit, and we’ve seen pictures of their region and been told firsthand stories of the communities spread across the north country of Minnesota who read and contribute to the Anvil. But we get the same sense of place and attachment to the land from the magazine.

...

The Libertarian Book Club offers anarchist books, newspapers, and magazines. 20% discount included with a $5 yearly membership. Send SASE to: Libertarian Book Club, 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012, Room 202.

An anarcho-communist newspaper, Libertarian Workers Bulletin, has recently released vol. 7 no. 1 which includes an extended article concerning “The Anarchist Case Against Terrorism.” The Libertarian Workers for a Self-Managed Society can be reached by writing: P.O. Box 20, Parkville 3052, Melbourne Victoria, Australia.

...

We continue to receive a tremendous variety of publications for mention in this column, some of them anarchist and/ or syndicalist and libertarian communist, but many of them uncategorizable. It appears that an anarchic, autonomous underground press is flowering. Whereas the old underground press found its format in the multicolored tabloid, this new movement makes use of the photocopy—undoubtedly many of them printed free on liberated time, materials and machinery at workplaces. Some of the collage work is exceptional as well. We should also mention that they are often published in conjunction with street activities such as spraypainting, disruption and guerrilla theater.

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Librairie Alternative, Canada’s only anarchist bookstore, desperately needs repairs on its Montreal quarters. The state of things were so bad that they were forced to evacuate the premises several weeks and have now begun a North America-wide fund raising campaign. They are able to have some of the needed $45,000 financed, but need an additional $10,000 from movement sources. They are trying to encourage 100 groups to contribute $100 each, but welcome individual donations of lesser amounts. The shop is self-managed and anti-profit. Send donations to Librarie Alternative, 2033 Boul. St. Laurent, Montreal PQ H2X 2T3, Canada.

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The Clydeside Anarchist is a new quarterly publication from Scotland. They can be contacted at Box 3, 488 Great Western Road, Glasgow 12 Scotland. Black Bairn, an anarchist newssheet, can be contacted at the same address.

The May/June issue of Overthrow includes articles on South Africa, Chile, women’s struggles in India, and more. Write P.O. Box 392, Canal St. Station, New York NY 10013.

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An FE staff member currently traveling outside the U.S. wrote to us upon receiving his FE, that while the content and the layout were good, “there were a fair number of typos, which I’m sure you found as well.” We work hard on the paper, trying to catch every detail, to say things as best we can and to present it all in a dramatic, visually attractive format. Imagine our irritation, when we found, on the first page, that the typist had consistently put a typically gringo spelling Sandanista instead of Sandinista (staff members who speak Spanish had not gotten to proofread that page). That would make the Nicaraguan politicos disciples of Augusto Sandano rather than Sandino. Perhaps a niggling point, except that there are those of us who have always found something bothersome about foreign words and names being mangled in English language texts (though mangled English words in foreign language texts often strike us as amusing).

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England’s Green Anarchist magazine is now available as single issues or in bulk from Autonome Distribution, PO Box 79119, New Orleans LA 70179. In GA the Earth First! Journal meets Class War and puts forth an anti-civilization perspective as uncompromising as ours. Their long-range strategy is to support “Revolution on the Periphery,” Third World revolts that deprive mass society of the resources it exploits from the poorer regions. (They don’t support national liberation struggles!) They see this as creating the basis for “self-governing, self-sufficient communities” which will be “easier to establish as the State loses control of the rest of the planet.”

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Detroit’s Black & Red has just released The Story of Tatiana (see description [in Fifth Estate Books] to the right) by Jacques Baynac. A list of titles, including Fredy Perlman’s works, are available upon request from us or, write B&R at PO BX 02374, Detroit MI 48202.

Last issue we mentioned The Anarchist Cookbook along with Dave Foreman’s Eco-Defense as two books despised by the authorities, and were marveling at the 25,000 copies sold of the latter edition. However, the former has just celebrated its 2,000,000^th sale! The Anarchist Cookbook is not a culinary tract, but a how-to text of bombs, guns, booby-traps and incendiaries, and according to the New York Times, has become “a cult classic.” We have heard several times since it was published over twenty years ago that some of its “recipes” could backfire on the preparer. However, we never heard of an accident actually occurring.

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We could spend all day reading here in the basement apartment which serves as the office for the Fifth Estate. Our mailbox gets stuffed with several ‘zines and newspapers a week, and a few hundred each year. The underground press continues to flourish, yet even our favorite ‘zines rarely get mentioned in these pages. We’ve often left such zine-scene surveys to those who do it best: Factsheet Five, Anarchy and Maximum Rock N Roll. For this issue I tried to pick out some of my favorite mags to mention in a completely biased and subjective manner.

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Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkey-wrenching, written by Earth First! founder, Dave Foreman and the probably pseudononymous, Bill Haywood, has sold out of five printings since 1985 and is now unavailable. The book figured heavily in the government’s case against Foreman and other EF!ers in 1991 and was seen by friend and foe alike as a manual of sabotage and destruction to be used against polluters, developers and loggers.

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Writers and Artists: Guillotine Press is seeking poetry, short-short stories, and line art of a social/political/anarchistic basis documenting our struggle against the current implementation of fascist totalitarianism under the guise of Reagan/Bush Republicanism; the unleashing of Capital’s watchdogs, the police, on a brutal (and now thanks to the Supreme Court) legal rampage against personal freedoms; the militaristic nationalism surging through White America’s veins justifying the continued oppression of nature, women and all people of color; and the continued ecologic rape of Earth in the name of profit & progress by the industrial mega-machines of multi-national corporations.

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SLINGSHOT (700 Eshlecreature Hall, Berkeley, CA 94608) continues to be a thorough and thoughtful anarcho-newspaper from the always radical and socially tumultuous community of Berkeley. The Summer 1992 issue contains several interesting pieces of analysis on the Los Angeles rebellion and simultaneous uprisings throughout the world. Rather than resorting to reductionist cheerleading, the diverse collection of articles on LA provide a patchwork of revolutionary perspectives that reflect the event’s complexity and significance. The informative “News Briefs” about Berkeley and Jack Straw’s essay on psychedelic mushrooms balance out the issue.

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Sorry for such a short column of News & Reviews this issue, but we are short of space this time around. Keep sending us news of your publications and activities—we like to read them and promise to give them more space next issue.

For news of political prisoners in Spain, write to: Associacio de Familiars i Amics dells presos politics, Rda. Sant Pere, 32, ter. E, Barcelona 10, Spain. Information comes in spanish and catalan.

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Bound Together Books is presenting the fifth annual Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair, Saturday, April 15 at the San Francisco Hall of Flowers in the city’s Golden Gate Park.

The fair showcases anarchist publishers, distributors and activist groups with attendance at last year’s event having grown to 3,000. According to its organizers, the idea for the fair is to build an international radical community, exchange ideas and sell literature.

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The always provocative and irreverent The Match! (P.O. Box 3488, Tucson AZ 85722) is currently involved in a raging debate on pornography in which it inveighs against any censorship even by women who maintain they are victimized by it. “No one,” states The Match! “is fit to be a censor!”

Also, Kent Winslow’s serialized novelette, “Dream World,” is worth the price of admission alone.

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We never could figure out which faction was responsible for the auto-destruction of New York City’s Sabotage Bookstore (the pamphlets published by either side casting blame are definitely not recommended reading), but we had the same sensation one does when watching a once loving couple rage at one another. Fortunately, people close to the excellent Shadow newspaper (PO Box 20298, New York NY 10009) have established the city’s only “underground anarchist bookstore” featuring publications, records, tapes and books, as well as pins, t-shirts, posters and the like. A-Central Books is located at 208 E. 7^th St., phone (212) 674–0581, and also contains a People’s Switchboard with information on local, national and international anarchist events.

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In the last issue of the FE, we reported that Cienfuegos in the United Kingdom had closed up shop. What we failed to mention was that the U.S. branch, Cienfuegos/Soil of Liberty, is still going strong publishing their own books and distributing Cienfuegos books. This group has two new publications, the latest Anarchist Review, and a book entitled With the Peasants of Aragon, by Augustin Souchy. Both are available from Cienfuegos Distribution, 3512 12^th Avenue S., Minneapolis Minnesota 55407. Cienfuegos UK will continue under the name REFRAC. For more information, write REFRAC Publications, BCM Refract, London WC1N 3XX, United Kingdom...

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Bound Together Books, 1369 Haight Street, San Francisco CA 94117, a bookstore specializing in anti-authoritarian titles, has copies available of Paul Goodman’s The Black Flag of Anarchism and Other Essays, a 46-page pamphlet from the long dormant Employee’s Theft Press. Essays beside the title include, “A Touchstone for the Libertarian Program” and “Reflections on Drawing the Line.” Although we haven’t seen these essays, Goodman wrote in the dark days of the ‘50s as an individualist anarchist, so much of what he says may be of particular relevance to those isolated from co-thinkers today. Send $2.75 postpaid; also ask for their catalog.

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An anarchist group and bookstore, Impossible Books (Suite 202, 3435 N. Sheffield Chicago, IL 60657) has been formed by a group of friends in the Chicago area. Although their resources are limited and funds low, they have initiated a newsletter and a small but growing booklist, and have put on several public forums and engaged in activities around the city. They also decided to take part as a group in the Chicago peace march on April 10 (attended by some 20,000 people) and distributed a leaflet entitled “Protest Without Illusions,” which is worth quoting here:

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Notice: Books reviewed in the “News & Reviews” section are not available through the FE Bookstore unless specifically stated otherwise.

The Alliance for the Liberation of Mental Patients publishes a newsletter from 1427 Walnut Street 4^th Floor, Philadelphia PA 19102, and sends it free of charge to all current and former psychiatric inmates...

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The Fifth Estate office receives a large number of anarchist and environmental newspapers and ‘zines from the U.S. and the rest of the world. After we look at them, they rarely get much farther than a growing pile under a desk.

We feel this is too dismal an end for publications with so much information and creativity, so we are hoping FE readers would like to see them. We will send them out with book orders or on request if you send postage. Please indicate country of interest or language (including U.S., England, Australia, etc.). If you’re in the neighborhood, the papers can be picked up at our office or the 404 W. Willis space.

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Both this newspaper in our last issue and Bad Attitude, No. 3 (POB 11589, Detroit Ml 48211) failed to give credit for the poem/ritual, “The Appeal of Anarchy.” It was taken from the compelling pamphlet by John Moore, Anarchy & Ecstasy: Visions of Halcyon Day.

The author states that the text “has been adapted from renderings of ‘The Charge of the Goddess’ by Starhawk and Charles G. Leland...Some maintain that it contains sentiments which have been uninterruptedly passed down the ages from prehistoric times, whilst others aver that it derives wholly from the fertile imagination of Leland, who first published it in 1899.”

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Last autumn fascists nearly rioted when twelve volunteers, hooded to protect their identities, removed the equestrian statue of Franco from the Plaza del Pais Valenciano in Valencia, Spain. While the National Police looked on, ultrarightists sang fascist hymns, threatened the workers and attempted to disrupt the operation. Finally the cops dispersed the demonstrators.
Later, fascists bombed a statue of the American revolutionary Simon Bolivar in reprisal. The dismantled statue, which had been slated for removal for four years before action was finally taken, has gone to a military museum. (Photo: El Pais)

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Reviewed by Allan Antliff unless otherwise noted

The Uncontrollables vs the Grotesque Frame-Up Against Anarchists in Italy: Dossier, 1997 documents the Italian government’s efforts to target Italy’s anarchist movement using the confession of an activist’s former lover. The government is using her testimony to pin numerous unsolved kidnappings, bank robberies, and direct actions (attacks on energy pylons, etc.) on over 50 anarchists.

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The prolific III Publishing group, PO Box 1581, Guala CA 95445, recently released two new books. Saab Lofton’s A.D. is set in 2410 where society is organized according to libertarian principles, but a menace from the past threatens the future. J.G. Eccarius, author of the blasphemous The Last Days of Christ the Vampire, latest book. Resurrection 2027, is a post-apocalyptic thriller set in the year of the title where rebellion is the only way out for children resurrected from the dead. III is also publishing Anti-Christ magazine, formerly The Stake, and wants to exchange ads with other zines.

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Both of the best selling issues of this newspaper, our 1970 Special Women’s Issue, which had to be reprinted three times to meet the demand for it, and our recent Queer Anarchy edition met with high acclaim for their coverage of gender issues. However, each was met with criticism for being “sectoralist” or even “pornography” in the case of the later edition.

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James Koehnline’s inventive collages often grace our pages including this issue. His mixture of the ancient with the modern, sacred idols with the banal, and the improbable alongside the ordinary, are often ominously unsettling. The jarring juxtaposition creates a combination of images which reveals much more than the constituent parts.

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The Poet’s Coven is a relatively new photocopied publication distributed free in the Vancouver, B.C. area. It consciously defies categorization and is open to a wide variety of expression—poetry, collage, fiction, articles. The Coven describes its vision as coming from an “eclectic assortment of inspirations,” and considers itself to be “a propaganda or counter-information project that would like to encourage creativity as well as debate and analysis within the anarchist/ social-ecologist/ ‘primitivist’ milieu.” The Coven seeks contributions from “anti-authoritarians, misfits, earth worshippers, optimistic and social nihilists, and underground rebels,” with a promise that all correspondence will be answered. Contributions in the form of money are also welcome.

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When Cienfuegos Press ceased publishing books several years ago, it left unfilled the anarchist movement’s need for regularly appearing quality titles. Their energetic efforts produced numerous volumes which ranged from the arcane and theoretical (Proudhonist Materialism & Revolutionary Doctrine) to the practical (Towards a Citizens’ Militia) with stops along the way for anthropology, criminology, history, several autobiographies, biographies, and assorted essays on anarchist themes. We thought most of the volumes unavailable, but fortunately they can be obtained through an American affiliate, Cienfuegos Distribution, c/o Soil of Liberty, Box 7056, Powderhorn Sta., Minneapolis, MN 55407. They have a catalog of their titles available, many of which the Fifth Estate Bookstore will soon be ordering.

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A little belatedly we have received The Alternative Press Annual, for 1983 and 1984 published by Temple Univ. Press, Broad & Oxford streets, Philadelphia PA 19122, both of which contain articles by Fifth Estate writers. The 1983 edition has E.B. Maple’s article “The Pain of America and the Tylenol Killings” (FE Winter 1982–3) and the 1984 volume (the most interesting to date) features Lynne Clive’s “Newspeak and the Impoverishment of Language” (FE #315, Winter 1984) as the lead article. Publication price is a whopping $34.95 meaning it was published primarily with library reference sections in mind, where it might be a good place to read it.

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