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ANNOUNCER: The leader’s coming. He approaches. He’s bending. He’s unbending. He’s jumping. He’s crossed the river. ‘They’re shaking his hand. He sticks out his thumb.
Can you hear? They’re laughing... Ah ... ! he’s signing autographs. The leader is stroking a hedgehog, a superb hedgehog! The crowd applauds. He’s dancing with the hedgehog in his hand. He’s embracing his dancer. Hurrah! Hurrah! He’s being photographed, with his dancer on one hand and the hedgehog on the other... He greets the crowd ... He spits a tremendous distance. --from The Leader, Eugene Ionesco (1953)
Can you hear? They’re laughing... Ah ... ! he’s signing autographs. The leader is stroking a hedgehog, a superb hedgehog! The crowd applauds. He’s dancing with the hedgehog in his hand. He’s embracing his dancer. Hurrah! Hurrah! He’s being photographed, with his dancer on one hand and the hedgehog on the other... He greets the crowd ... He spits a tremendous distance.
--from The Leader, Eugene Ionesco (1953)
...
The July, 1967 Detroit rebellion left 42 dead, hundreds of millions of dollars in damages and scars still unhealed today. The Fifth Estate office was in a hard-hit area: the August 1, 1967 issue featured first-hand accounts from staff members who went directly into the fray while half the city was still in flames.
“We should war with relentless efficiency not only against anarchists, but against all active and passive sympathizers with anarchists.” —President Theodore Roosevelt, annual address to Congress, December 3, 1901
“We should war with relentless efficiency not only against anarchists, but against all active and passive sympathizers with anarchists.”
—President Theodore Roosevelt, annual address to Congress, December 3, 1901
“It is time to take a look at the culture and climate of support for criminally-based activism like ELF and ALF and do something about it. Just like al-Qaeda or any other terrorist organization, ELF and ALF cannot accomplish their goals without money, membership and the media.” —Senator James Inhofe, US Senate Environment & Public Works Committee, May 18, 2005
“It is time to take a look at the culture and climate of support for criminally-based activism like ELF and ALF and do something about it. Just like al-Qaeda or any other terrorist organization, ELF and ALF cannot accomplish their goals without money, membership and the media.”
—Senator James Inhofe, US Senate Environment & Public Works Committee, May 18, 2005
Vision Quest Guidebook
“The New Freedom”: Corporate Capitalism by Fredy Perlman
The Big Melt, President of the United Hearts
We Know You Are Watching by Surveillance Camera Players
The Modern School of Stelton: A Sketch by Joseph J. Cohen and Alexis C. Ferm
Facing Reality, Correspondence Publishing Committee
A couple of weeks ago I went to the Open City Health Clinic for the first time to see a gynecologist. I was a little nervous, but glad that Open City was there for people like me who have no money. I was excited about getting medical care in a comfortable place, rather than some: doctor’s sterile waiting room, and with people who are part of a new culture. People who are trying to create alternative institutions like the clinic, places that are free, that are staffed by people who are concerned for others, and who give concrete aid—places where all kinds of people can come together to talk, and not be as separated from each other as we usually are.
“Is the enemy strong? One avoids him.” -- Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, People’s War, People’s Army
“Is the enemy strong? One avoids him.”
-- Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, People’s War, People’s Army
Sun Tzu, Von Clausewitz, and Napoleon all agree. When the battle’s over and one has lost and they have triumphed again, one must run away--especially if one hopes to fight another day. Napoleon points out that a good tactical retreat is not a rout and shambles but an orderly withdrawal toward sources of logistical reinforcement, complete with rear-guard guerrilla and political action.
A hundred years ago, in September 1918, more than a hundred leaders of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) were convicted of conspiracy to obstruct World War I. The trial marked a critical turning point for the union and the Left. In marking this centenary, we remember the Industrial Workers of the World as the most successful organization holding to a radical vision in U.S. history.
This poster originally appeared in the Daily Barbarian and was reprinted in the Fifth Estate, June 19, 1979--vol. 14, no. 3 (298).
Rarely does a horror movie of such magnitude reach the public, but when it does, it holds an unshakable grip on our imagination, if not our very being. Such is the latest film from 20th Century Technology--MEGA DEATH.
“When one comes to think of it, it is strange that thousands of people in a great modern city should spend their waking hours swabbing dishes in hot dens underground. The question I am raising is why this life goes on--what purpose it serves, and who wants it to continue.” --George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London
“When one comes to think of it, it is strange that thousands of people in a great modern city should spend their waking hours swabbing dishes in hot dens underground. The question I am raising is why this life goes on--what purpose it serves, and who wants it to continue.”
--George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London
FIFTH ESTATE #363, Winter, 2003/2004, Vol. 38, No. 4, page 3
Miami: The War Comes Home 5
APOC Report 11
Tales From The Planet 12
Lessons From Cancun 13
Against the Wall 14
Uprising in Bolivia 16
Sex and Lies in Cuba 18
Intro 22
Pencils Like Daggers 23
Anarchist Panther’s Journey 26
The following essay by George Bradford continues the discussion of environmental perspectives begun in these pages in our Fall 1987 edition. Our previous special issue, published at that time, “How Deep Is Deep Ecology? A Challenge to Radical Environmentalism” (also by Bradford), appeared as a major statement coming out of the theoretical work the Fifth Estate has been undertaking since 1979 in examining the character of technology, industrial capitalism and the worsening ecological crisis.
a review of We are the Birds of the Coming Storm by Lola Lafon. Seagull Books, 2014, translated from the French by David and Nicole Ball Originally published in 2011 as Nous sommes les oiseaux de la tempête qui s’annonce
a review of
We are the Birds of the Coming Storm by Lola Lafon. Seagull Books, 2014, translated from the French by David and Nicole Ball
Originally published in 2011 as Nous sommes les oiseaux de la tempête qui s’annonce
We are the Birds of the Coming Storm is French author Lola Lafond’s third novel, and the first to be translated into English. It is the story of three women whose lives converge and intertwine during a time of personal and political upheaval.
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.
The Occupy mobilizations of the last year have offered to many some hope for a renewal of popular movements and alternatives to state capitalist arrangements Yet, perhaps few recurring events show the great disparity that exists between activist subcultures and broader working class and poor communities in North America than the privileging of street protests and demonstrations within activist practices.
Though we do not accept commercial advertising, this Unclassified ad space is free for our readers’ use. We do not accept ads over the telephone, so please send your ads in writing to our office at: 4403 Second Ave., Detroit 48201
WE CAN STOP THE NUKES bumpersticker of the Clamshell Alliance (who occupied the Seabrook, NH nuclear plant site). Copies available for a donation (all $$ to Clamshell). Send for sticker and info on nuclear technofascism to COLT, Box 271, New Vernon, N.J. 07976. Please enclose 13 cent stamp.
NEW YORK (LNS)—In the more than six weeks following the kidnapping and execution of Hans-Martin Schleyer by guerrillas of the Red Army Faction (RAF), the West German Government took few visible steps to win the release of one of the country’s leading industrialists and ex-Nazi. But the government wasted little time in enacting laws that will take the country back a long ways toward the golden years of Schleyer’s youth, when he was in charge of stamping out anti-Nazi sentiment on university campuses, first in Heidelberg, then Innsbruck, Austria, and finally in Prague, Czechoslovakia.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand—A Maori land-rights activist, driving a van with a traditional native people’s insult painted on its side, was arrested in February when he tried to join visiting Queen Elizabeth’s motorcade. The Queen was the repeated target during her visit of Maoris protesting the continuing theft of their homelands by the New Zealand government.
The tales of violence go on-and-on.
There is a bold arrogance that comes with class privilege and economic security and comfort. Certainly there are exceptions, but for the most part there is little or no sympathy in affluent communities for the plight of the poor, the homeless, the unemployed.
¿“Te compadeces de los destechados?” I asked one of my students, after explaining the Spanish verbal phrase “to sympathize with” and the noun for the homeless, “los destechados.” No, he answered, in slow, perfect Spanish, I don’t sympathize with the homeless. And when asked why not, he confidently explained that there were plenty of jobs for people if they really wanted to work, and then went on to complain about welfare fraud. A middle-class black student, whose family recently moved to the suburbs from the city, denounced AIDS victims, telling me they got what they deserved, they made their choices, opted to take drugs, chose to be gay or not to use condoms.
Recently, I was talking politics and revolution with a friend and she said to me the last thing we need is 19-year-old boys fighting a revolution. I think she was referring to me at 19. Sure enough, I don’t feel as invincible now as I did then.
Still, that’s not the point she was making. Our society is not ready for a revolution. Women still get raped everyday, communities are still divided along racial lines, people still don’t care about one another. If revolution came right now and we actually won, ultimately, we would replace what we have now with capitalism, racism and patriarchy because we still haven’t overcome those ailments or come up with alternatives
We live in a time and culture that does not understand, value, or manifest personal responsibility. The general doctrine is that even if you betray the rules of your religious practice you’ll be forgiven your digressions when you die, if you ask nice.
So, what happens when you combine a deeply entrenched culture of anarchy and individual responsibility with a political system, bureaucracy, cultural climate that is currently breaking records for its utter lack of introspection or capacity to admit mistakes? New Orleans meet America.
I think that it is about time that the people in this town stopped paying vast amounts of money to see out-of-town groups purely because they are an out-of-town group, and start to take some notice of local people, who are generally putting out music and shows as good, if not better than, many of the top imports. I have been of this opinion for some time but I have generally left the criticism and appraisal of local talent to my learned co-editors, who, having been in the area somewhat longer than myself, are more adept in the local scene. However one group in particular I have seen twice within the space of two weeks and I feel duty bound to give them some of the praise and publicity that they deserve.
In the hills of Tennessee, about an hour east of Nashville, on the outskirts of Dismal (population zero), there exists a barn. It’s an ordinary old barn from all outward appearances—except for a few anti war banners and the buzzing, whirring hum of electricity. Inside, the scene is anything but what Ma and Pa Kettle would have intended.
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.
CAUTION! There are terrorists among us.
THEY infest this planet from Washington to New York, from Nuremburg to Moscow, from Peking to Santiago.
THEY detain millions of hostages every day and give them the ultimatum—become a slave to the state or an enemy.
THEY maintain large armies that are trained to kill in support of the ideology of the state.
On January 28, a guard woke anarchist grand jury resister Jerry Koch in his cell and told him to get ready for court. They handed him some thin prison sweats and cotton slippers, then kicked him out in downtown New York City without even a phone call. He had to run six blocks in fifteen-degree weather to his lawyers’ office.
a review of Hungry for Peace: How you can help end poverty and war with Food Not Bombs by Keith McHenry. See Sharp Press, Tucson, 2012, 180 pp., $18.95
Hungry for Peace: How you can help end poverty and war with Food Not Bombs by Keith McHenry. See Sharp Press, Tucson, 2012, 180 pp., $18.95
Even after three decades of Food Not Bombs (FNB) volunteers sharing meals, smiles and good times with anyone who happens to pass by, the authorities still don’t seem very inclined to give members of the direct action anti-hunger group their proper respect.
It couldn’t happen in Detroit!
That was the proud proclamation of our city’s leaders all summer long until that fateful morning of July 23. Detroit had supposedly been the nation’s leader among big cities in making civil rights progress.
That is, Detroit was tops in fake tokenism and self-deception. There was bragging that so many Black people here were in positions of prominence and relative wealth. But, obviously, these successful people only represented an infinitesimally small portion of the Black community—and even many of these middle-class oriented people, who still feel the brutal whip of discrimination, were quietly hoping for the summer revolt which finally exploded on one of the first hot Saturday nights in a relatively cool summer.
indigenous, adj. 1. Occurring or living naturally in an area; not introduced; native. 2. Intrinsic; innate. [From Latin indigena, native. See indigene.
Indigenism, which begins as a defense of the Indian within western political and literary discourse, ends as a form of conquest, the final assault of civilization on prehistory.
FE Note. The December 1976 Fifth Estate carried a critique by Charles Reeve (see “The Revolt Against Work or Fight for the Right to Be Lazy,” p. 9) of the contentions of John and Paula Zerzan that the crisis point in capitalism today revolves around worker alienation, job refusal, sabotage, absenteeism, etc. Reeve asserted that on one hand, the significance of this phenomenon is overplayed by the Zerzans and on the other, that to the extent that it does exist, it represents nothing new in workers’ struggles.
Revolution and Other Writings: A Political Reader by Gustav Landauer, edited and translated by Gabriel Kuhn, PM Press, 2010.
Gustav Landauer is perhaps the most important German speaking anarchist of the late 19th and early 20th century, but he is not well known in the English speaking world. Despite four book length studies of Landauer and a few translations, there has never been a major collection of his work in English. Gabriel Kuhn and PM Press have changed that.
FORT HOOD, Tex.—A court-martial found five black soldiers, including two Detroiters, guilty of refusing to obey an order growing out of a demonstration against possible anti-riot duty at the Democratic National Convention.
The specific charge was failing to report for reveille.
A sixth soldier, Pvt. Ronald McCoy, 23, of Philadelphia was acquitted.
Romantic love so often doesn’t work because it isn’t rooted in human traditions.
In the long course of our culture’s evolution, romantic love has become the primary post-pubescent source of affection in our world. But it has not always occupied this special position. It may be a universal in human experience, but in our globalizing monoculture, romance has intensified over the millennia into a distorted caricature of versions common in tribal and Neolithic village societies.
The Scavengers and Critics of the Warren Report by Richard Warren Lewis based on an investigation by Lawrence Schiller. Dell Original 95 cents
The Truth About the Assassination by Charles Roberts. Grosset & Dunlap, Original Paperback $1
“If I learned anything in Dallas that day, besides what it’s like to be numbed by shock and grief,” says Charles Roberts in his book (p. 13), “it was that eye-witness testimony is the worst kind.”
To many, it seems there will be no escape from the dominant reality, no alternative to an irredeemably darkened modernity as civilization’s final, lasting mode. We are indeed currently trapped, and the nature of our imprisonment is not subject to scrutiny. Its very existence is off-limits to discourse.
Where are the Bulgarians now that we need them department: Get ready Detroit! As the archbishop and the mayor slap each other on the back for bringing the pope himself into town in September, local entrepreneurs are geared up to produce all the exciting papal potpourri to be hawked in the wake of the holy parade as it cruises up Woodward Avenue and out to Pontiac’s Silverdome to pray that the roof doesn’t cave in. What will it be—tee shirts, buttons, pinwheel beanies, and, undoubtedly the classic style commemorative Popa Cola for a taste that refreshes. Rumor has it that the Pope plans to personally bless the site of the City’s world’s [as in print original] largest trash-to-dioxin municipal incinerator. Local fundamentalist christians are understandably horrified to see the antichrist and Whore of Babylon himself in these Yewnited States, and plan mass baptisms of born-again christians down at the Rouge River. Rumor also has it that there will be a huge pagan festival (more to our liking, though we’d enjoy seeing the born-agains fending off the bloated rats down at the Rouge as they go down for the third time) to coincide with the papal visit, to call up all the old Indian spirits of these lands to drive the blackrobes and their ilk away. Of course millions will be spent (and made) and security is going to be hard-core. Since, as Stalin once cynically but aptly pointed out, the pope has no military divisions, he’ll be relying on Detroit’s finest and lots of plainclothes pigs from every imaginable agency (and some we’ve never heard of, probably) to make sure the holy daddy-o doesn’t trip over his gown. Detroiters! Here’s your chance—a once-in-history opportunity: MOON THE POPE:
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.
The weekend of September 6th, 7th and 8th will provide for diggers of radical-rock an unusual and revolutionary concept at the First Unitarian-Universalist Church, in the heart of the Warren-Forest Community (corner of Forest and Cass).
Long active in social and cultural activities, the church, through the sponsorship of its “Social Singles” group, will host a weekend of hard rock music, psychedelic and stroboscopic light shows, underground films, love-ins and similar activities related to the theme of the festival—DIALOGUE 68
Syria’s current borders were drawn up by imperial map makers a hundred years ago in the midst of World War I as part of a secret accord between France and Britain to divide the Mideast spoils of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. As the colonial state gave way to the post-independence state, power was transferred from Western masters to local elites.
Peter Kropotkin, called the “anarchist prince” because of his origins in the Russian nobility, stands out among the many classic anarchist writers for his breadth of subject matter and his concern with the problems of daily life. The following essay was included in a 1924 collection of his writings entitled Kropotkin’s Revolutionary Pamphlets, with an introduction by Roger Baldwin.
When Lutxo Rodríguez recalls the local punks and social outcasts of the downtown Lima, Peru district he habituates “dressing in black in the ‘80s,” I smile wryly, remembering the Lower East Side of my own youth. But the urban decay that allowed for the florescence of bohemia and an anarcho-punk scene in this small enclave of a South American capital came “in the context of political violence,” he says.
Cover: Occupy Wall Street, Zuccotti Park, NYC 2011, MTT mttphoto.com
4 Seattle Shooting
CP Et SM
6 A Fascist by Any Other Name
Bill Weinberg
8 The Struggle to Get Back to Zero
Peter Werbe
10 Veil of the Vile
Jesús Sepúlveda
12 Eat Your President
The Mormyrids
14 The Russian Revolution Unfinished
Young women may soon face the same choice at age 18 that men have faced since 1980: whether to register with the Selective Service System for possible military conscription.
Fifth Estate, #393, Spring 2015, Vol. 50, No. 1
2 Letters
4 Anarchy in Kurdistan
7 Eric McDavid Freed!
FE Staff
8 Armed Madhouse
Bryan Tucker
9 Justice for Franco Fascists?
David Porter
11 Sam Mbah Dies
Kelly Rose Pflug-Back
12 Florida’s Burnpile Press
Matt Keene
13 An Anarchist in Berlin
*Articles with Asterisk have extended versions on our web site.
4 Anarchists & Sex Work
Aaron Lakoff
6 Wholly Shit — Church Reviews
Stephane
7 Grand Jury Resister Freed
*8 Education as Domestication of Inner Space
Layla AbdelRahim
11 Agriculture History Misses Mark
John Zerzan
12 Ken Kesey & the Merry Pranksters
1976, being America’s 200th anniversary--with all the commercial pomp and whitewashed historical hoopla that’s riding along with it--would be the ideal year to miss entirely and go abroad.
Between television’s “‘Buy-Centennial’ Minutes” and the countless newspaper and magazine articles extolling our so-called grand and glorious history, it’s going to be kind of hard to keep our food down and our spirits up.
i can’t help it.
i don’t care how far you think the analogy extends itself.
when i see you making that bus driver climb up and down
on and off the roof of his bus
for your amusement
for hours in the hot sun
i think of how we once had to dance and sing for them
while they shot our parents.
when i see you keep that woman
Last September, the forces of law and order in Davidson County, Tenn. dropped criminal trespass charges against a member of this magazine’s editorial collective.
At a protest outside the White Bridge Road offices of senator Bill Frist, the activist was arrested on March 21, 2003, during the second full day of the US invasion against the people of Iraq. Wearing white medical scrubs emblazoned with the slogan “Harm None,” the FE writer distributed a leaflet denouncing Dr. Frist for using his professional title to help rationalize war in an essay called “When War is the Best Medicine.”
In two years, this newspaper will celebrate its 40th anniversary and carries the distinction of being the longest running, English language, anti-authoritarian publication in American history. Yet, the substantial upsurge in computer use in recent years as a major source for ideas and information may be putting our existence in jeopardy.
