Full list of texts
Fifth Estate Collective
Philippines comrades skilling up for the long haul
![4-w-fe-402-26-philippines.jpg](/library/4-w-fe-402-26-philippines.jpg)
Members of Feral Crust, a small DIY ecologically-minded anarchist collective in the mountains of Marilog Davao (Southern Mindanao), Philippines are developing a rural community based on balance with the surrounding environment and social solidarity. Their community is located in a forest home to wildlife and indigenous people.
Jan 17, 2019 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Picket at LBJ Speech
Lyndon Baines Johnson, 36th President of the U-nited States of America; the man who sends troops to Vietnam, Santo Domingo, the Congo, and now our own home town is scheduled to speak in Detroit on August 2nd.
Peace activists across the country have promised that Johnson will be met with demonstrations wherever he goes as long as he continues the war in Vietnam. And if Johnson is not frightened away by a little rioting the major peace and civil rights groups plan a large reception for him in the form of a giant picket line.
Jan 16, 2017 Read the whole text...
Edward Rom
Pickets Greet What’s-His-Name at Cobo Hall Dinner
On Thursday, October 6, two people could have gone to Cobo Hall and for one hundred dollars had a dinner and heard Vice-president Humphrey give a speech. If the political viewpoint of the two people was slightly skewed to the right they could have gone down the hall to the “Romney-Griffin Bandwagon Ball” for only one hundred and twenty-five dollars. The difference in price was because the Romney people had to pay the band.
Mar 8, 2024 Read the whole text...
Pun Plamondon
Pictures of Chairman Mao
George Wallace stood up and said all the magic words, “Dope Fiend, Outlaw, Pervert, Cuba, Masses, Red, Mao, Free, Fidel, Workers, Black, White!” These are magic words in America. These arc the words that make white America go to its knees in fear George Wallace got 9 million votes, 9 million honkies are behind George.
Mar 30, 2021 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Piece Now
The following article was taken from “A Handbook for Radicals; Revolutionaries and Easy Riders” published by the International Liberation School. It is available for fifty cents and is an invaluable guide to small arms weaponry. Send to: People’s Office, 1925 Grove St., Berkeley CA.
America has a long tradition of vigilante paramilitary violence. Usually it has been directed against blacks and Third World people, poor whites and dissident political groups.
Jun 8, 2023 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Piece Pow-Wow at WSU
The Unified Megalopolitan Piece Pow Wow, a choreographed multi-media presentation will debut Thursday, June 8, at 8:00 p.m. in the WSU Community Arts Auditorium, Cass at Putnam.
The magic circus will feature performances by folksingers Phil Marcus Esser, Jan and Lorraine, and Tony Wright; bands including the MC-5, The Passing Clouds, and the Spike-Drivers; lights by The Magic Veil; poetry by John Sinclair and an astrological reading by Billy Reid. Unexpected sympathetic apparitions are also anticipated.
Apr 27, 2022 Read the whole text...
C. McCall
Pig Conspiracy
The forces of political and cultural oppression have opened up a new front. Along with attempts to silence, arrest, and confine the leadership of the black community, the forces of repression inherent in capitalistic societies have begun to strip the young white community of their spokesmen.
The most current manifestation of these repressive forces is the harassment of John Sinclair, MC5 mentor-manager and Minister of Information of the White Panthers.
Jun 16, 2022 Read the whole text...
Pat Halley
Pig Guts for Gutless Pigs
An Offal Situation
Except for the contemptuous throwing of animal entrails, blood, and a decomposed lamb’s head all over Wayne State University President George Gullen’s office, February 19 was a typical day at the school.
Secretaries were processing records while tender-bellied professors busily tried to seem important. The faceless administrators like Gullen would occasionally leave their 12th floor cocktail lounge to flirt with their secretaries or sign some orders that a petty aide had drawn up.
Jul 21, 2014 Read the whole text...
Thorne Dreyer
Pigman Meets the Super Media
NEW YORK (LNS)—The media of the revolution is mushrooming through America.
The growth of the underground and movement press is phenomenal. Equally notable is the outrage and fear which it creates in those whose interests it opposes. As the radical media grows, so do the attempts to repress it.
In recent weeks, the minions of law and order have been beating on the doors of the underground press. The Great Speckled Bird in Atlanta has been threatened with grand jury indictments for obscenity. Dallas Notes has seen its office torn apart by the cops and its equipment confiscated. Bloomington, Indiana’s Spectator and Ithaca, New York’s First Issue, have had their editors busted for resisting the draft.
Apr 4, 2021 Read the whole text...
Liberation News Service
Pig Media Joins Police
NEW YORK (LNS) — On January 26, two men identifying themselves as “being from the government” dropped a subpoena off at CBS.
The FBI and the Secret Service wanted to get their hands on all the tapes, memos, notes, letters and telephone calls that CBS has concerning the Black Panther Party from mid-1968 to the present, as well as the unedited tapes—outtakes—of interviews with Panther leaders David Hilliard and Eldridge Cleaver.
Nov 10, 2023 Read the whole text...
Howard Kohn
Pig Riot Manual Exposed!
(via The Ann Arbor Argus) When the insurrection of July, 1967 began, Detroit police were ready with Schutzstaffel rules.
The Argus secured an official copy of the police riot manual issued in 1966 and signed by Ray Girardin, police commissioner, 1961–68. Among the manual policies still in force are the following.
Apr 30, 2019 Read the whole text...
Lazarus
Pigs Attack Panthers
Approximately 150 white off-duty patrolmen and detectives, and civilians attacked and beat a small group of Black Panthers and white sympathizers in the Brooklyn Criminal Court Wednesday, Sept. 4th. The attackers, many shouting “White Power” and wearing George Wallace for President buttons, were responding to a pamphlet distributed by the Law Enforcement Group of New York which urged “all patrolmen and loyal Americans” to “stand up and be counted in court.”
Sep 1, 2015 Read the whole text...
John Sinclair
Pigs Attack Sinclair
Poet John Sinclair and MC5 guitarist Fred Smith were brutally assaulted, beaten, MACEd, and arrested by members of the National Security Police and the Oakland County (Michigan) Sheriffs Dept. while performing at a Michigan teen-club on July 23rd.
![5-a-fe-59-2-sinclair.jpg](/library/5-a-fe-59-2-sinclair.jpg)
The scene took place at the Loft, located on Army Road in Leonard, Michigan (between Pontiac and Lapeer), where the MC5 had been contracted to play a dance job.
Oct 30, 2018 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Pigs Beat Teens
The Detroit Police are out of control. From the Algiers Motel to Cobo Hall they have left a trail of broken heads, illegal arrests and even murders.
The most recent example of this state of affairs followed right on the heels of the Wallace demonstration [see “Cobo Hall Creep Scene” in this issue] and found drunken off-duty pigs beating and terrorizing black high school students at a church dance.
Dec 11, 2019 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Pigs Bust Panther Chairman
This time it’s Bobby Seale.
With Eldridge in exile, and Huey in jail, the punk-ass power-structure has turned its racist wrath on the Black Panther Party Chairman. Seale’s troubles are simply the latest government attempt to crush the Panthers by ripping off their leaders and vamping on their headquarters.
Jun 19, 2019 Read the whole text...
Ian Rommel
Pigs Bust Pun and Kelley
Pun Plamondon, White Panther Minister of Defense, has been busted....again!
This time in Chicago on Sept. 21, where he was attending the Conspiracy 8 trials with Ken Kelley, Editor of the Ann Arbor Argus and Al Rosenfeld of the Chicago Seed.
All three were arrested after being stopped by the pigs and ordered to produce some I.D. while walking on Lincoln Ave. The Pigs exercised their right of stop and frisk and found Pun to be in possession of “a dangerous weapon.”
Jul 19, 2019 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Pigs get blank check
Inhaling deeply on his political hookah, Detroit mayor Jerry Cavanagh, leading contender for the August “Uptight Honkie of the Month” award, attempted to justify his approval of the controversial “stop and frisk” ordinance which moments earlier he had signed into law.
Cavanagh stated that he didn’t think that his action would hurt him politically. “The situation is far different than it was in 1960...” Jerry honked, “ ‘police brutality’ is a thing of the past: The climate has changed completely.”
Nov 6, 2018 Read the whole text...
Joe Check
Pigs Riot in Park
On Sunday, August 24, a group of men attending the Ever-Seven (Evergreen-Seven Mile Road) neighborhood association picnic in Stoepel Park harassed and beat up a group of young people who were also in the park.
There were a number of off-duty police officers at the picnic, as well as several kegs of beer and “law and order” Common Council candidate Jack Kelly.
Jul 8, 2019 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Pigs Scalp Sinclair
John Sinclair has had his hair cut twice in the last three years. Both times by pigs.
The first time when he left the Detroit House of Correction in July of 1966 after serving a six month sentence for possession of grass.
This time the White Panther Minister of Information had his shoulder-length black hair cut by a guard in the Oakland County jail.
Apr 14, 2019 Read the whole text...
Joe Check
Pig Vigilantes
It has recently come to light that the Detroit Police Department has armed and trained a volunteer force of 1,500 civilians as Emergency Police Reserves.
This force was created after the 1967 Detroit rebellion to aid police in case of another major bid for freedom by the black community or during a natural disaster.
Aug 1, 2019 Read the whole text...
Hank Malone
Pimp—“Black Capitalist”
a review of
Pimp, by Iceberg Slim, Holloway House Publishing Company, 1967, paperback, 95 cents.
This is the strangest bona fide bestseller ever published, appearing on no best-seller list; a kind of God-awful literary masterpiece and fluke, containing some of the lousiest writing ever conceived, and yet a kind of genuine-article taking the reader along on one of the most disgusting American journeys to the end of Night.
Sep 23, 2021 Read the whole text...
Uninvited Guests Radio Cooperative
Pirate Radio Manifesto
In these lackluster months of 1976 in which “our revolutionary heritage” is paraded like a hairless, three-legged dog from the past down main street, the people of America are content to follow mere fads and hobbies in place of the nearly infinite possibilities of creative experiments, and revolutionary “outrages”. The most current and popular fad is the C.B. (Citizens Band) radio craze with its own particular jargon, catch phrases and all of the pseudo-sexual connotations that dominant fads command in this sociocarnival.
Feb 21, 2016 Read the whole text...
Sean Cleary
Pirates
Our stateless heroes
a review of
Under the Banner of King Death: Pirates of the Atlantic by David Lester and Marcus Rediker; Illustrated by David Lester; Edited by Paul Buhle. Beacon Press 2023
When you encounter the English-speaking world’s fascination with the golden age of Atlantic pirating, it’s better understood to think of it less about the act of pirating itself, and more about the relationship of pirates to the state. As Marcus Rediker’s 2004 book’s title indicated, they were the Villains of All Nations, separate from state sanctioned pirating like privateering, seemingly dead to the people of other nations.
Jan 17, 2024 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Pirates!
Issue Introduction
It’s a paradox and an irony that in a nation so filled with timid, quiescent conformists, that pirates hold such romantic appeal for so many.
Perhaps, due to the dominant mass psychology of submission, it’s the repressed fantasy of transgression and rebellion that drives so many web sites, festivals, games, movies, histories, and re-enactments devoted to the buccaneers.
Apr 5, 2014 Read the whole text...
Stewart Albert
Piss in the Voting Booths
Liberation News Service—The American election itself is the candidate, and millions of Americans are going to vote against it. On election day, the streets, parks and voting booths will belong to the people.
Everyone who sees through the fraud will be doing his human thing—showing up the election for the fake it is.
Nov 30, 2019 Read the whole text...
anon.
Pistoleros! 2: 1919
Review
Pistoleros! 2: 1919 is the second volume of the memoirs and notebooks of Farquhar McHarg, a seventy-six-year-old anarchist from Glasgow. Its writing was prompted by the murder of a lifelong friend.
McHarg’s Chronicles record his evolving beliefs and sense of mission, and the remarkable adventures he experienced from the day he sailed into the neutral port of Barcelona in the spring of 1918, a naive but idealistic eighteen-year-old, and 1976. Farquhar’s Chronicles are folk history, bringing the changes that shook the political and social landscape of Spain (and the world) between 1918 and 1976 into the framework of an adult lifetime. They make a vexatious but fascinating story that provides a deep insight into the spirit that moved the selfless, generous, occasionally naive and recklessly idealistic people who were involved in the bitter social struggles that marked the hectic insurrectionary and utopian aftermath of the great imperialist war of 1914 through 1918.
Feb 11, 2014 Read the whole text...
Joe Check
Pistol-happy Pig Re-instated
Sgt. Gerald Biscup is one of the police officers who was involved in the Veteran Memorial incident on November 2. The Detroit Police Officers’ Wives Association (DPOWA) was holding a dance in the Veterans Memorial that night and many police officers and their wives were in attendance.
Sgt. Biscup’s wife is the president of the DPOWA. He was in attendance.
Jun 7, 2019 Read the whole text...
Sol Plafkin
Plafkin Backlashes Ravitz
It was a muggy, uncomfortable night at the 17th District Democratic Headquarters in the all-white Redford section of northwest Detroit. Meeting was the “Democratic Forum,” a conservative faction of the District. The speaker was the noted liberal statesman, Councilman Mel Ravitz.
What was he there to talk about? What else but the recent Detroit insurrection (Part I). And it was amazing how one person, a learned Ph.D. in Sociology, could say so little in such a long speech.
Mar 5, 2017 Read the whole text...
Carrie Laben
Plague for Profit
a review of
The Monster Enters: COVID-19 and the Plagues of Capitalism by Mike Davis. O/R Books 2020
As he has done in the past for California wildfires and famine in India, Mike Davis contextualizes pandemic disease in a matrix of capitalism and deprivation that make a particular kind of disaster inevitable. In The Monster Enters, Davis chronicles the emergence of a new virus; confusion reigns about how it spreads, how deadly it might prove, and how best to stop it. Some governments downplay the danger for political or economic reasons; others are hamstrung in their response by neglected public health infrastructure. People suffer and die—poor people most of all.
Feb 12, 2021 Read the whole text...
Thomas Haroldson
Planet of the Apes
Film review
“Planet of the Apes” may turn out to be the “Bonnie and Clyde” of 1968.
Many film critics, after giving the picture an unfavorable review, are beginning to have second thoughts about it.
Richard Schickel, of Life magazine, said in a recent retraction: “I should have trusted my instincts, stood up and proclaimed my affectionate regard for the thing right off.”
Mar 29, 2018 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Planning for Peoples’ Power
A major recruitment and fund raising campaign is currently under way as a part of Open City’s winter offensive.
Open City is the service organization for the free community and has already opened a free medical service, a non profit general store, a food co-op, a free University, a counseling center and switchboard that operates twenty four hours a day.
In order to expand it’s operations Open City is scheduling a week of public meetings at the Unitarian Church (corner of Forest and Cass).
Sep 6, 2019 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Plans for Haymarket Centennial
Anarchy to Reign Again in Chicago
![3-w-fe-272-10-haymarket-a.png](/library/3-w-fe-272-10-haymarket-a.png)
A Thanksgiving weekend planning conference in Chicago, which was attended by some 50 anti-authoritarians and anarchists from the US and Canada, announced a centennial celebration to take place during May Day week, to commemorate the 1886 Haymarket Affair.
Haymarket was an example of the state and capital’s brutal suppression of the workers’ movement in Chicago culminating in the state murder of five anarchists (four by hanging).
Oct 9, 2020 Read the whole text...
Benjamin Carson
Planting the Seeds of Anarchy
Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower
In America, the last vestiges of the liberal social contract and public safety net have been virtually erased. Under George W. Bush, the gap between the rich and poor increases at an alarming rate while privatization pushes forward. While Social Security is being slowly eviscerated and replaced by Individual Retirement Accounts, wealthy people can survive growing old while leaving those who cannot to fend for themselves. At the same time, the “richest 1% of Americans,” who, according to Peter Singer, “hold more than 38 percent of the nation’s wealth,” are forming what David Harvey calls “ghettoes of affluence (their ‘bourgeois utopias’),” which undermine “concepts of citizenship, social belonging, and mutual support,” while the poor, who are being “pushed off welfare into a stagnant labor market,” are left to make their way in what, for so many, looks like a post-apocalyptic landscape.
Mar 28, 2015 Read the whole text...
Anu Bonobo
Plan Wellstone
Conspiracy, Complicity, and the Left
Back in October 2002, driving from the hills to the anti-war rally in the city, we had plenty of time to talk. Conversation immediately turned to a possible conspiracy behind the plane crash the previous day. Did Bush’s people assassinate liberal senator Paul Wellstone just days before his possible re-election?
Jan 6, 2017 Read the whole text...
MaxZine Weinstein
Plan Z builds bridges in Tennessee
Plan Z: A Strategy Conference for Radical Wimmin and Trannies rolled into our radical queer community, IDA, this past June. (“Tranny,” by the way, is a common, chosen term for the transgendered.) The week-long gathering brought together activists from around the country and beyond to the secluded woods of Tennessee. We were happy to open up our home and gardens to enthusiastic agents of social change.
May 11, 2021 Read the whole text...
Sara Loosestrife
Plastic Poem, Plastic Plague
Yellow garbage bag ties
pieces of ziplock bags
whole ziplock bags and baggies
tips of tiparello cigars
orange bread bag ties, green ones
juice bottle top
milk bottle top
camera lens cover
pieces of pampers disposable diapers
toy soldier
toy truck wheel
chapstick
coffee stir
pieces of bic pens
Nov 7, 2020 Read the whole text...
Jeff Shero
Playboy’s Tinseled Seductress
from The Rag (UPS) — One of the brighter aspects of the sexual revolution is that it offers this generation whole new levels of personal manipulation. Instead of the older concept of “nice girls” being virgins upon marriage, the liberated standards offer people the chance to express their deepest feelings to one another in a natural way. Marriage counselors often say that successful marriages are built upon compatible interests, liking one another, and a satisfactory sex life.
Mar 14, 2024 Read the whole text...
anon.
Playgirl Caught
Playboy magazine’s June Playmate of the Month, June Gibson, was convicted August 23 on a charge of prostitution in Hollywood, California.
The platinum-blond Miss Gibson was arrested in an apartment July 12 with another woman and a man. In the June Playboy story she said, “I am my own woman. I lead my life according to no social standards other than my own. A Playboy spokesman said he felt the bust (forgive pun) would not stain the girl-next-door image of the Playmates.
Mar 1, 2017 Read the whole text...
L.M. Bogad
Playing in the Key of Clown
Reflections on the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army
![3-w-fe-397-4-clown.jpg](/library/3-w-fe-397-4-clown.jpg)
Related: Clown Army Recruiting Poster
At the July 2005 Carnival for Full Enjoyment in Edinburgh, Scotland, riot police mass on the streets with shields and truncheons, fireproof armor; all very imposing. They use their shields to shove protesters, who are dancing in the street without a permit.
But these are no run of the mill protesters. They are the trained cadres of the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (CIRCA), which, since its 2003 founding, has been spreading across the world.
Jan 14, 2017 Read the whole text...
anon.
Please...Do Not Kidnap These Men
back cover
![2-j-fe-273-20-back-cover.jpg](/library/2-j-fe-273-20-back-cover.jpg)
Since General Motors reported a net profit of $300 million for the first quarter of 1976, our executives have been probable targets for kidnapping by members of the criminal element and left crazies.
The Central Executive Office of GM is composed of fourteen men, most of whom live in the Bloomfield Hills, Birmingham area. Each is a valuable and integral part of the executive team and would command a high ransom if abducted.
Aug 12, 2015 Read the whole text...
Various Authors
Pledges
I pledge obedience
to the flag
of a desecrated America,
and to the multinationals
who let us stand
one nation
of underdogs,
who are exploitable,
with liberty and justice
for sale
—Ron B.
I pledge allegiance
to the bargains of
the United Consumers
at Wal-Mart
and to the stockholders
May 16, 2021 Read the whole text...
Victor Mansfield
Plymouth Hits Smut
In a surprise but not so surprising appearance at a regular City of Plymouth City Commission meeting on Monday, Oct. 21, twelve anointed Veterans of Foreign Wars of one of the local posts registered their objections to the liberation of our brothers and sisters in that city.
The VFW read a statement which said in part, “We strongly object to the fact that certain publications, namely underground newspapers, have been made available to the students of Plymouth schools. Our objections primarily are to the vulgar and sexually provocative language, the disrespect for law and order and the overthrow of government.” Right on!
Aug 1, 2019 Read the whole text...
Victor Mansfield
Plymouth Legal Battle Rages
PLYMOUTH—With the deft hand of a club wielding savage, Garden City District Judge Richard Hammer, sat in Plymouth District Court Sept. 9, and summarily dismissed a suit against the city without allowing the complainant a chance to present his case.
The city’s full-time judge, Dunbar Davis, had previously disqualified himself and had called upon Hammer’s help, in the suit of Rolf Dietrich.
Jul 19, 2019 Read the whole text...
Victor Mansfield
Plymouth Legal Circus
On Oct. 2, Judge Dunbar Davis of the 35th District Court in Plymouth once again reaffirmed his judicial agility by bailing out the primordial Judge Richard Hammer of the 21st district court in Garden City and the ephemeral Charles Lowe, City Attorney for the City of Plymouth, when he granted Brother Rolf Dietrich’s motion for a new hearing on the suit for $2,999.99 Dietrich is pressing against 11 Plymouth officials for confiscating 15 copies of the Fifth Estate last February.
Jul 26, 2019 Read the whole text...
David Watson
Plymouth, Mich.
Police State
Plymouth, Michigan, is a small town. To say that it is conservative would be an understatement.
It is run by a small group of politicians and pigs, among them Carl “Pig” Berry, the chief narc; Chief of Pigs “Daley” Straley; Harold Gunther, the ex-mayor, who is running for the post of city commissioner; and a few others.
May 26, 2022 Read the whole text...
Victor Mansfield
Plymouth pigs bust Dietrich
On Halloween eve the Chief of the Plymouth pigs, in what was the culmination of an “extended investigation of the circulation and distribution of the Fifth Estate and the Ann Arbor Argus newspapers,” finally arrested Rolf Dietrich as he “did then and there” show, offer for sale, and sell an indecent or obscene paper(s) to wit: The Fifth Estate and The Ann Arbor Argus; contrary to the provisions of the ordinances of the City of Plymouth...” according to the warrant of the arrest.
Sep 2, 2019 Read the whole text...
Craig O’Hara
PM Press
Ten Years of Literary Molotovs
Bay Area-based PM Press celebrated its tenth anniversary of publishing in May with a bang-up party in Oakland, Calif., where staff, authors, and well-wishers howled at political sketch comedy, smashed a captured Amazon delivery drone, and danced the night away to punk rock.
PM was founded at the end of 2007 by a small group of people with decades of publishing, media, and organizing experience. At the outset we strived to create and distribute radical audio, video, and text releases through every available channel in all possible formats. True to one expanded variation of our name, “Print Matters,” however, we’re biased in favor of hardcopy books as the best format in which to communicate ideas for social change.
Sep 13, 2018 Read the whole text...
Joshua Newton
Poem by Joshua Newton
Yesterday we were in your station.
it was not what we had in mind,
that morning—to be pulled over at gunpoint
& shoved upagainstthecar / motherfucker.
surrounded
by five or six cars
with pigs jumping
out of each pigcar
like clowns at the circus do &
their cars too were gaudy with
ads from their sponsors
Jan 19, 2024 Read the whole text...
John Sinclair
Poem for Warner Stringfellow
Detective Lieutenant,
Detroit Narcotics Squad,
who has been single-handedly responsible
for busting me on two separate occasions
for possessing and selling marijuana
.
and who stumbled into my new apartment last night by accident
over a year since the last time he saw me
& two years to the day after he first busted me —
May 17, 2019 Read the whole text...
Robert Knox
Poems for John Coltrane
a review of
Divine Blue Light: for John Coltrane by Will Alexander. City Light Books, 2022
Will Alexander’s latest poems, collected in Divine Blue Light: for John Coltrane, “remain (in the author’s own prefatory words) parallels to nanograms as dazzling wattage.”
A nanogram, a billionth of a gram, is light on its feet, and the poet is asking the reader to be similarly nimble in responding to his lines, images, and appropriations of vocabulary from the sciences, mathematics, and non-Western dialects.
Jun 5, 2023 Read the whole text...
Various Authors
Poems for Our 20th Anniversary
Poetry has been a part of the Fifth Estate since its origins, so it is with great pleasure that we print these sent to us by The Alternative Press on the occasion of our 20th anniversary. The Alternative Press, Grindstone City, MI 48467, does hand-printed broadsides, postcards, bookmarks, etc. from the pressroom of Ann & Ken Mikolowski and comes in three packets a year for $15.
Oct 18, 2020 Read the whole text...
Hank Malone
Poems for people who don’t read poems
a review of
Poems for people who don’t read poems by Hans Magnus Enzenberger, Atheneum Press, NYC. 1968. $2.95. 177 pp.
Hans Magnus Enzenberger, in case you forgot, is Germany’s greatest living poet. This is the first collected translation of his work in English. The English versions, translated by pros like Michael Hamburger and Jerome Rothenberg (and sometimes by Enzenberger himself) are absolutely brilliant.
Aug 7, 2019 Read the whole text...
Various Authors
Poetry
from Cultural Democracy, Spring 1989, P.O.B. 7591, Minneapolis, MN 55407
Anchored in the oily swamp
Near the crumbling dockyard
Lurks an old ship
.
Stumbling past
The foggy glass portholes
I glance at the stowaways:
The Black men and women
Are herded and counted
The aisles sway
Oct 5, 2021 Read the whole text...
Guerrilla
Poetry
Centerfold, outer side
[Web Archive note: This centerfold insert is a two-sided 15 x 22 inch poster, of which this page can be considered the back side. The other side of the poster is rendered at https://www.fifthestate.org/archive/69-december-26-1968-january-8-1969/poetry-2/ .]
Apr 7, 2021 Read the whole text...
Guerrilla
Poetry
Centerfold, inner side
![6-d-fe-69-12-poetry.png](/library/6-d-fe-69-12-poetry.png)
from Guerrilla, free newspaper of the streets, Volume 2, Number 2 (Surrealists, 1925 — Artists & Writers Militia, 1968)
Guerrilla is edited by Allen Van Newkirk and Susan Hodges and published occasionally as a broadside of poetry and revolution. It is reprinted here as a special supplement. The newspaper is distributed free in the immediate community. Mail subscriptions by donation. All corporations, federal and state agencies by minimum $10.00 donation. Free to any human being held against his will in any army or prison. Guerrilla, 1107 W. Warren, Detroit, Michigan 48201.
Apr 8, 2021 Read the whole text...
Mick Vranich
Willie Williams
Kim Derrick Hunter
Marie Stephens
Christina Pacosz
Ron Allen
Poetry
centerfold feature
by Mick Vranich
America’s totem is the hamburger
don’t look at me look at tv
chains across the trees
generations bread on cheap meat
glass cars with flashy decals
x this z that magnum force
for minute sight
name a town where the demons
don’t lurk lead heads zapped on crack
Dec 28, 2020 Read the whole text...
Various Authors
Poetry
by Lisa Last
My cunt is a battleground
of life and death
pain and pleasure
it opens up to swallow
whole beings
then spits them out on command
My cunt is a battleground
of senators and stockbrokers
of you and me
who gets the last draw
My cunt is angry and mean
it is sad and sorry
Mar 19, 2020 Read the whole text...
Various Authors
Poetry
walls smeared with
burnt campaign posters
cracks papered over
with yellowed collection
notices
.
we pass smokes
swap zip codes
wait for toxic
clouds to dissipate
.
eyes lay in darkness
and wait
.
wait to take it
all back and start
again.
—Jay Marvin
Sep 7, 2018 Read the whole text...
Various Authors
Poetry
One day in the prison yard, the resident grey cat chased heedlessly
A bird, who’d landed on the roof, all enclosed with steely swirls
And slipping through the curling razor wire, stalked
Until it caught her leg and stopping
Shaking as it sliced her paw...open...raw
The sharp barbs cutting fur and muscle, white and wounded to the bone
Mar 9, 2016 Read the whole text...
Various Authors
Poetry centerfold
mick vranich
detroit 1989
surrounded and left alone
more marks that don’t connect
movies with the faces as big
as worlds of flesh in bright
light on the thin screen
i don’t have anything to say
about it really you should
talk to someone else like
the wind working up into a
frenzy in the trees bending
Jan 23, 2020 Read the whole text...
Various Authors
Poetry for Peltier
For 22 years the doors of justice have been closed to Leonard Peltier. Now, the door may be opening a crack. A few months ago AIM activist Dennis Banks announced that Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs, had agreed to hold oversight hearings into the events leading to Peltier’s arrest and conviction. Wounded Knee, the COINTELPRO programs against AIM, Peltier’s illegal extradition from Canada, and the many irregularities in his trial will be among the issues brought to light.
Feb 18, 2016 Read the whole text...
Fritz
Poisoning the Poor
As a survivor of more than a decade of psychiatric abuse, I oppose the pseudo-scientific concept of “Mental Illness” entirely. Unlike physical illnesses that are biologically based and sometimes have chemical cures, Mental Illness is a social construct used to justify abuse for the purpose of social control.
May 8, 2015 Read the whole text...
anon.
Poland: 1970–71
There’s no light quite so bright as the glow from a burning government building
a review of
Poland: 1970–71; Capitalism and Class Struggle, Informations Correspondence Ourvrieres (ICO), 117 pages; illustrated, Black & Red, Detroit, 1977.
“Nothing draws a crowd like a burning cop car!”
—late 1960s political graffiti
Really just one other thing does—a burning government building—and the cover picture of this pamphlet showing the blazing Communist Party headquarters in the Polish city of Szczecin graphically illustrates what this pamphlet is really all about: the hatred of the people for their rulers and the accessibility of the oppressors. The violent class combat that shook Poland over six years ago is recounted here from both Polish and other European sources and details the massive worker counter-offensive to a price hike and wage freeze.
Oct 7, 2016 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Poland at the Crossroad
Solidarity and State Pitted Against Polish Workers
With the endorsement of the Polish Communist Party’s Politburo, on November 10, of a plan that would include the Solidarity union in a new coalition government, it appears that the seemingly endless period of crisis and confrontation in Poland will soon have a conclusion of classic dimensions: A militant working class, as it presses ahead with its demands, will face the combined opposition of both the state and union.
Jan 1, 2019 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Poland on the Edge
Revolution or reform?
This article is being written just as the pressure of a Soviet invasion of Poland is being eased and under the assumption that such an attack is not about to occur. Amid an atmosphere of continuing political crisis, growing worker militancy, continuing economic problems, and constant reshuffling of the Polish government personnel, Solidarity, the recently formed “independent” labor organization, looks like it is about to become a permanent part of Polish society.
Jan 10, 2019 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Poland: Triumphs and Defeats
On September 1, Lech Walesa, the worker who negotiated the end of the recent Polish strike wave, climbed two flights of wooden stairs to the temporary offices of the new Independent Trade Union which he heads. Walesa carried a two-foot crucifix, a bunch of gladiolas and a pennant from a bicycle club, all to adorn the headquarters of what he and the Western press have hailed as a “triumph” for the strikers—the right to organize a labor organization independent of the government-controlled official union federations.
Dec 16, 2018 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Poland under martial law
As we witness the imposition of military rule in Poland it seems clear it was not something to have been unexpected. However, that realization does nothing to limit our anger and sadness as we helplessly watch tanks and faceless armed men crush at least the public manifestations of a movement that threatened to turn the world upside down.
Feb 17, 2019 Read the whole text...
Bill Blank
Poletown: Community Betrayed
a review of
Poletown: Community Betrayed by Jeanie Wylie. 1989, University of Illinois Press
For centuries, capitalism has systematically destroyed or relocated minority and ethnic groups. A particularly repulsive local example occurred during the last decade in Detroit’s “Poletown” neighborhood, where a thriving community was destroyed to build a General Motors Cadillac plant nobody needed and few wanted.
Aug 29, 2019 Read the whole text...
anon.
Police Attack MOVE
As the 1,000 Philadelphia cops assembled outside the home of the anti-government, anti-technology group called MOVE on Aug. 8, they must have thought it was going to be like shooting fish in a barrel. The forces of state terror were in full battle gear and were assisted by a large contingent of city firemen preparing to evict the group for what really amounted to housekeeping standards that offended the city’s vicious mayor, Frank Rizzo.
Aug 7, 2018 Read the whole text...
anon.
Police Block Spy File Disclosure
If you are one of the thousands of persons hoping to get a look at the information collected on you by the Detroit and State police anti-subversive (Red) squads, your chances may be dimming.
Lawyers bringing suit against police intelligence unit spying have been trying to force both police agencies to open the 50,000 dossiers to those named in them, but legal counsel for the city and state have resisted this at every turn.
Dec 28, 2014 Read the whole text...
Alec Smart
Police Break London Anti-Road Blockade
LONDON (Special to the Fifth Estate)—The last remaining group of 25 houses in the path of a contested road construction in London were cleared and bulldozed late last year.
The “No M11 Link Campaign” created Operation Roadblock to stop work on Claremont road in Leytonstone, an East London working class district situated on the southern end of a seven kilometer construction project linking the M 11 motorway from Wanstead to the Blackwall Tunnel.
Mar 14, 2016 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Police Lose
A little bit of justice was done in Detroit the other day.
Gene (Reb) Bell, president of the Highwaymen Motorcycle club, and Ronnie Rose, president of the Branded, appeared in Recorder’s Court on charges of running an illegal drinking spot. The charges stemmed from a police raid on the biker’s clubhouse January 11 when Detroit police confiscated property, wrecked the entire premises, beat one person with a pool cue and arrested everyone present.
Nov 9, 2023 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Police Love-in
More M-1s
![8-j-fe-82-5-cops-guns.jpg](/library/8-j-fe-82-5-cops-guns.jpg)
Detroit Police Commissioner Johannes (The Lover) Spreen has called for another “love in” to improve police relations with the community.
His last love in was pretty much of a flop with the New Bethel shooting coming right in the middle of it, so Jo is trying again.
Spreen is a wonderful public relations man and seems sincere in wanting to ease community tensions. The only problem is that he is not in effective control of his force (the reactionary Detroit Police Officers Association is the real boss) and most Detroit cops are going about their 24 hour a day, seven day a week hate in.
Apr 14, 2019 Read the whole text...
Liberation News Service
Police Power
NEW YORK (LNS)—New York cops are guilty of a regular pattern of arbitrary arrest, physical abuse and courtroom perjury, according to a two-year study recently completed under the auspices of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
The study was conducted by lawyer Paul Chevigny and its findings are published in a new book, Police Power.
Aug 22, 2021 Read the whole text...
H. Lawrence Lack
Police Riot
L.A. Police Storm Anti-LBJ Demonstration
The honor of launching the 1968 Presidential election campaign fell to the Los Angeles Police Department as Lyndon B. Johnson, fresh from meetings with his Communist counterpart, dropped in on June 23 at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles to grab a quick meal.
L.A. Police Chief Reddin summed up the day’s events succinctly as he debriefed his heroes in the evening: “A perfect police exercise; I am very satisfied. You can’t imagine how good you looked,” he told them, obviously deeply moved. “We’ve got many movies of this, because it’s some thing that’s never happened in this country before... We proved to them that WE own this city, not the rabble.”
Feb 5, 2017 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Police Roust Meeting
Detroit’s racist cops apparently unsatisfied at being forced to live in the city they occupy militarily blew their cool at a Detroit Common Council meeting May 17.
Robert Tindal, executive secretary of the Detroit NAACP was speaking strongly against relaxation of the rule requiring officers to live within the city. Several hundred white cops began yelling “racist” and “bigot” at Tindal and then stormed out of the hearing.
Mar 29, 2018 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Police State America
book review
a review of Police State America: U.S. Military ‘Civil Disturbance’ Planning, edited by Tom Burghardt. April 2002 Arm the Spirit/Solidarity: Toronto, Montreal, San Francisco. Contributions by Frank Morales, Michael Novick, Ron Ridenhour, Arthur Lubow, Mitzi Waltz, Douglas Valentine, and Tom Burghardt.
Jul 16, 2021 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Police Take Lumps
Is Detroit Police Commissioner Johannes Spreen serious about trying to alter the brutal, racist and corrupt nature of the force he commands?
Some think he is.
He ordered the suspension on Nov. 13 of nine policemen in the unprovoked beating of several black teen-agers after a dance given by the Detroit Pig Officers Association (DPOA) at the Veterans Memorial Building. The youth were attending a church dance.
Mar 28, 2021 Read the whole text...
anon.
Police Terrorize Earth First!er In Ohio
Just before midnight one night in early February Cincinnati Earth First! organizer (and longtime Fifth Estate friend) Marie Mason was terrorized by cops after her 16 year-old daughter discovered a cop fumbling with equipment underneath her automobile. Shortly thereafter, the same plainclothes cop and a uniformed henchman broke into Mason’s home; when confronted, they claimed to be searching for “prowlers” who were stealing “catalytic converters” from cars in the neighborhood and then they hastily left the scene.
Sep 30, 2014 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Police Testimony
Cops “Worried” About FE
The following are excerpts from the testimony of Sgt. Allen Crouter of the Detroit Police Intelligence (Red) Squad taken from him in connection with the lawsuit asking for disclosure of the contents of some 50,000 police files maintained on Detroit individuals and groups.
Crouter, a longtime foe of the Fifth Estate, was being quizzed in regard to the document appearing on this page by one of the attorneys cooperating in the suit The black lines covering names were required by order of the Court which has forbidden the disclosure of identities until final disposition of the suit. See related article, More on Red Squad in this issue.
Dec 21, 2013 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Police Vamp on Bikers Clubhouse
Nearly a dozen members of the Blue Flu smashed their way into a private party during a cowardly attack on the Highwaymen Motorcycle Club of Detroit.
The blitzkrieg-like attack was carried out in the early hours of Sunday morning Jan. 11, by police assigned to the Western District Morality Squad. This catchy title is a Spreen-style cover for the old-fashioned Vice Squad. The herd operates out of the 16th (Northwest) Precinct pig pen.
Jun 28, 2023 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Police Your Local Support
Police are always complaining about what dangerous jobs they have.
Some of this is justified; some of it is of their own making. When you are part of an occupying army, the people do tend to get a little uptight and unfriendly towards you.
Still, it’s not as dangerous a job as all that. In New York City (noted crime in the streets center) policemen rank third in hazardous city jobs behind sanitation workers and firemen.
Jul 31, 2021 Read the whole text...
anon.
Polish Food Riots
“The whole of Poland is on strike today.”
— A worker from the city of Ursus, Poland, June, 1976
On July 20, six Polish workers from Ursus (a suburb of Warsaw) and seven from the city of Random were sentenced to prison terms ranging from three to ten years for their alleged participation in a series of food riots that swept Poland in June.
Feb 22, 2016 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Polish Libertarians Under Martial Law
The following was received by the Fifth Estate as a “Declaration to the Libertarian Movement in the West.”
We are a group of anarchists and anti-authoritarian left-wingers in Warsaw who came together in a discussion circle (Sigma) at the beginning of 1980. We all agreed on a general opposition to the existing political system in our country. Most of us came to anarchism via literature. For example, at the beginning of the 1950s some works of the Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin were published in Poland in small editions. All of them were accessible to everyone in the public libraries. Another important source for us was a series called Library of Socialist Thought in which, during the 1960s, along with texts of Owen, Saint Simon, and Fourier, some works of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Mikhail Bakunin were published. In addition, a very badly edited collection of works of the most important Polish anarchist, Edward Abromowski, was published.
Dec 20, 2019 Read the whole text...
Ron Sakolsky
Polish Oranges
How the Orange Alternative, a band of surrealist provocateurs, helped bring down Poland’s Communist government in the 1980s
a review of
Lives of the Orange Men by Major Waldemar Fydrych, edited by Gavin Grindon, translated by David French, with an introduction by the Yes Men Minor Compositions/Autonomedia, 2014, 330 pp.
While many historically-minded radicals are familiar with the imaginative counter-cultural actions undertaken by the Dutch Provos in the 1960s, the Orange Alternative’s subversive cultural resistance tactics emanating from Poland in the 1980s are less well known.
Feb 25, 2016 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Polish Workers Face Repression
In the last August 1976 Fifth Estate [#275, Polish Food Riots] we gave a sketchy report (all that was then available) of repression against striking workers centering in the Polish cities of Ursus and Radom. This major strike wave which swept Poland in June was the second in six years that resulted from arbitrary government raises in food prices.
Aug 17, 2016 Read the whole text...
Kristi Phillips
Political Music is Mysterious
I played the guitar once when I was seventeen in front of a crowd of college students. The building had a sign outside that read, Built During World War II. There was a spiked fence that ran a mile around Orange St. and the workers sold cheap beer in the back. I sang a song that was written by yours truly; it was about war and conformity in America.
Nov 16, 2014 Read the whole text...
Robcat
Political Prisoners
Maine shows its solidarity with Jennifer Gann, Eric King, & Herman Bell
It’s a cold Friday night in November in Portland, Maine. Comrades from around the state have gathered at the Aphodian Theater to support our imprisoned friend, Herman Bell. The benefit features bands and speakers, including former political prisoner Ray Luc Lavasseur.
It is organized by our group of friends and family, Maine Anti-Racist Action, in order to raise funds to help pay for Herman’s family visits. We give out organic squash, anarchist papers including the Fifth Estate, and prisoner information.
Apr 4, 2018 Read the whole text...
Political Prisoners in China Free the Li-I-Che 40 Million
Last March in Canton, China, an unnamed Peking official replied to questions by the New York-Times, on the subject of political prisoners in China, by stating, “A few intellectuals deprived of free speech is only a minor question. In the Soviet Union, the workers, the peasants and the intellectuals are all being oppressed.”
Feb 23, 2018 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Political Prisoner Update
“They’re in there for us; we’re out here for them.”
—IWW slogan
On May 15th the California State Supreme Court returned Geronimo’s request for a new trial to a lower court. This is good news because at this level his lawyers will be able to present new evidence showing Geronimo’s innocence and the FBI cover-up. A former Black Panther Party member, Geronimo has spent 24 years in prison, making him one of the longest held political prisoners in the world. For more information, contact the Geronimo support committee: PO Box 781328, Los Angeles CA 90016; (213) 294–8320.
May 8, 2018 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Political Repression
1969 will undoubtedly be a year which brings increased attacks upon the Movement: the HUAC hearings, the Chicago Grand Jury, and Oakland 7 trial, and repressive actions against GI coffeehouses, are only some of the better publicized incidents of repression and attack on the movement.
The Michigan State Legislature has set up its own little committee (as have several other states) to investigate “breaches of the peace and disorders on university campuses.” Indications are that this committee’s intentions are a broad and general attack upon Movement activity in the state; it is likely that the committee will follow the familiar pattern of using closed hearings, manipulation of the press, subpoenaing of Movement people, threats of legal action, etc., to intimidate and harass Movement activities in the state.
Sep 8, 2021 Read the whole text...
Frank H. Joyce
Political Repression in U.S.A.
“One man of 74 said he opposed the war but declined to write or send a telegram for fear that ‘if they find out, they’ll take my social security away.’ A housewife said, ‘My son’s in college now and I want him to finish. If I send your telegram (opposing the war) to the President, I know he’ll he drafted.’
Sep 7, 2019 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Political Scumbag Kicks Off
FE Note: The leaflet reproduced on this page was issued following the death late last year of Quebecois nationalist politician and ex-premier of the province, Rene Levesque. It was posted in several locations in Montreal, including Cafe Commune/Comun, a libertarian, worker-run restaurant and gathering place for leftists, as well as anti-authoritarians. Apparently nationalism runs high even in places where one would least expect it, and the leaflet was torn down by persons unknown. Two meetings were held at the Cafe during which the author was asked to explain his motives for publishing rather than to ask who had taken it upon themselves to become the official political censor of the Cafe. As of this writing, the question remains unresolved.
Aug 9, 2017 Read the whole text...
anon.
Politics of the “Nuclear State”
Report from W. Germany
The following was sent to us by a friend of the Fifth Estate living in West Germany and lays out the political implications of the “Nuclear State,” and gives a report on several mass anti-nuclear actions. See also “Turn on the Light and Say Goodnight” in this issue.
It is important to point out an aspect of the nuclear energy program which lies—independent from the deathly danger of nuclear energy—in the danger of the loss of personal freedom of each individual. Nuclear power plants do not only imply poisonous radiation, but also inevitably lead to the establishment of a totalitarian “nuclear state” and in the end to a complete control over the individual. Only in this way, argues the state, can the danger of sabotage be prevented. A recent example is the Traube case.
Feb 24, 2017 Read the whole text...
Andrew William Smith
Polyamory and Power
A Confession and Critique
It’s not news that much of modernity is all messed up about sex. Contemporary culture fluctuates between moralistic repression and hypersexual expression. Prudes use religion to promote abstinence for unmarried heterosexuals and celibacy for LGBT folks, and the more extreme libertines turn everything erotic and beautiful into a casual commodity.
Sep 16, 2013 Read the whole text...
Dave Sinclair
Pontiac’s speech to the whiteman
Out of the blue sky, out of
the waters, out of the woods, of the deer,
the beaver, the bush, the bird flies, out
of my people, the blood, out of
so many moons in this place a man
cannot count them, out of
grace with the Great Spirit who
gave us this land, you seek
to push us.
At night, in my dreams,
Mar 16, 2014 Read the whole text...
Thomas Haroldson
“Poor Cow”
Film review
To get some idea of what “Poor Cow” is like, one need only imagine what “Elvira Madigan” would have been like if it had been filmed in the slums of London.
The two pictures are remarkably similar: both deal with impractical young lovers; both use the same impressionistic film techniques; both employ many short, carefully composed scenes; and both follow a visual, rather than a narrative, plot line.
Sep 1, 2015 Read the whole text...
Chris Singer
Poor People in D.C.
Resurrection City
WASHINGTON, D.C. — It is almost like any other American city.
Resurrection City has its problems too. Mayor Ralph Abernathy and City Manager Jesse Jackson face: inadequate city funds; housing shortages; water pollution; and, a generation gap that has led to troubles with the city “police.”
But then it isn’t any other city. Resurrection City exists because the King and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference decided that the survival of one-fifth of American citizens was so In peril, it had to be dramatized by bringing thousands of poor to camp on the doorstep of Congress.
Mar 27, 2018 Read the whole text...
Liberation News Service
Pope Bans Laxative!
![6-s-fe-62-10-pope.jpg](/library/6-s-fe-62-10-pope.jpg)
LONDON (LNS)—Millions of Catholics all over the world already staggering under the blow of the Pope’s controversial encyclical on the pill, are in for a new shock.
In a new edict published today by the Vatican press entitled “De Constipatone” the Pope slams down on the use of artificial laxatives to relieve constipation.
Sep 2, 2015 Read the whole text...
Fifth Estate Collective
Pope Perishes
![2-2-fe-293-294-1-cover.jpg](/library/2-2-fe-293-294-1-cover.jpg)
Like a full moon, like the blazing collapse of a bank in an earthquake, like the comedic sinking of an imperial barge, the death of a pope, and the giddy and liberatory revelation that we are now—if only momentarily—living during a time when there is no pope, is a cause for celebration. Firecrackers, stink-bombs, and rockets should be fired in every aisle and nave, on the steps of every church from Rome to St. Clair Shores! Celebrate! The pope is dead!
Jul 11, 2018 Read the whole text...