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WASHINGTON—Seaman Roger Priest, who said he felt it was his “duty to speak out on the Vietnam war,” received nearly the minimum court-martial sentence after being convicted of promoting disloyalty with his anti-war newspaper, “OM.”

Priest was convicted April 27 and received a bad-conduct discharge, a cut in rank and a reprimand. He could have received a total of 39 years in prison for the charges facing him.

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Recently, the Warren-Forest Student Mobilization Committee (SMC) chapter established a program for itself. The people felt that the anti-war movement in Detroit can and should go beyond the demand “U.S. Withdraw From Vietnam Now” to programs and demands which relate to the existence of American imperialism as a system which is oppressing people in other parts of the world as well as in Vietnam.

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This is the first in a series on Birth Control, compiled and presented with the aid of the Women’s News Co-op.

In less than 10 years there has been a staggering increase in the availability of contraceptive devices. The most talked about of these has been the pill. The media, drug companies and medical establishment have advanced and profited from the myth that the pill has led to the sexual liberation of women. But nothing of the sort has happened. Women are still denied complete self-expression in this society, are still the second sex—looked at by men primarily as sex-objects. The contraceptive explosion has not extended their possible life choices in many important ways. Families may be smaller but the woman’s place is still in the home. Furthermore, the continuing disclosures of many of the pill’s possible side-effects makes it abundantly clear that whatever “freedom” the pill has given is greatly diminished by the risks and uncertainties involved in taking it.

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Did you go to the march on April 15? Did you notice that there was lots of spirit on the march down Woodward and that things fell apart after that? The speakers (except for a couple) were mostly boring and the people were frustrated with the whole set-up. So they climbed the Soldier’s and Sailor’s statue, hung flags and then moved around in the street facing off cops for an hour and a half, eventually getting into a trashing set down by Hudson’s, blocking traffic on the Jefferson Freeway for awhile and finally dispersing after losing 18 people in busts.

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There’s a lot of garbage down by the freeway.

It was early afternoon, clear and warm. We piled the garbage into the truck and headed towards Wayne State. “We” were about nine or ten brothers and sisters from People Concerned About Urban Renewal and the Young Prides. We were black and white, young and old, students and neighborhood people.

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As predicted in the last issue of the Fifth Estate [FE #102, April 2–15, 1970], Dave (Mad Bomber) Valler and several other co-defendants pleaded guilty to reduced charges arising from a series of Detroit area bombings in late 1968.

Valler was convicted for possession of dynamite and sentenced to two to five years in prison to be served at the same time he is doing his seven to ten for two counts of possession of marijuana. This is like getting no sentence whatsoever on the dynamite charge.

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NEW YORK (LNS) The FBI has arrested one of the twelve top Weathermen who were indicted for conspiracy to riot in Chicago last October.

Linda Evans, a former SDS organizer in Michigan and more recently a Weatherwoman activist in the Detroit area, was captured by Federal agents on a street in New York’s East Village.

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A recent film critic termed Woodstock “a beautifully filmed record of rampant happiness,” which indeed it is. Michael Wadleigh’s 3-hour phenomenon is filled with enough visual and audio excitement to thrill an audience of heads and turn on all the straights.

Split-screen shots present everything from different views of the same entertainer, to different views of the whole stage, simultaneously, while colored filters instantly change the mood and dazzle the eye.

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The capacity of the white male for nearly unlimited self-delusion is well known in U.S. history. Colonel George A. Custer is perhaps its most famous symbol. Following in his tradition, the U.S. military has consistently underestimated the ability of Third World people to resist U.S. aggression. We have been seeing “the light at the end of the South East Asian tunnel” now for 15 years.

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“If the United States sends troops to Jordan,” Yasser Arafat (leader of Al-Fateh, Palestinian guerilla organization) commented after the announcement that the 82^nd Airborne had been placed on alert, “then we say welcome to another Vietnam.”

In the last month a lot of shit has been coming down in the Middle East. In Jordan, the CIA-supported right-wing of the government tried to come down hard on the Palestinian guerillas, and thus sparked an insurrection. Fighting continued for quite a few days. The guerillas even held dozens of Americans, German, and British at one point.

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SAN DIEGO, Calif. (LNS) — Pfc. James Wallace, 23 years old, a Marine Corps Reservist and a student at San Diego State College, was convicted at a court-martial recently for refusal to comply with regulations that Marines must wear their hair no more than three inches long.

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Food, wine, dope, brothers and sisters from our community: Mix these together and put them at Matthaei field and good things begin to happen. It happened Monday, June 29. We got fed, drunk, and stoned. Aside from that, some real things developed out of our Community Feast.

Our people began to come together. We brought hot dogs, rice with meat, Boones Farm apple wine, kool-aid, beer, grass, hash, and ourselves.

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in Cooperation with Detroit Adventure

THURS JULY 9

SYMPHONY UNDER THE STARS. Sixten Ehrling conducting the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and soloist, Vladimir Ashkenazy, pianist. Oakland Univ. at Meadowbrook Music Festival. 8:30 p.m.

INDIAN POW WOW. Wow! it’s a pow wow at Cross Village, Michigan. Consult your favorite map for more details.

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When “Hair” first appeared in 1967, at New York’s Open Theatre, it promised to be a refreshing, honest statement about ourselves and an emerging life style.

That was in 1967.

Now, three years later, that same life style makes it impossible to accept “Hair” as anything less than a cultural rip-off and a bold faced lie. This conclusion has nothing to do with the production as theatre, because “Hair” is not just another Broadway musical singing about surrey’s with fringes or weather conditions in Spain. “Hair’s” whole hype is that it’s about us and that makes it dangerous.

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Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld speaking at Community Arts Auditorium, May 28, 1969 at a benefit for Open City. Photo: Alan Gotkin.

Dear Dr. Schoenfeld: Usually I stack my dirty dishes at the bottom of the refrigerator for a day or two before I wash them. After washing them I do not rinse them (no hot running water).

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Editor’s Note: The following is an LNS interview with Sisana Sisane, a leader of the Pathet Lao. The Pathet Lao is the military arm of the Laotian liberation movement known as the Neo Lao Haksat.

The Laotian leader describes with clarity, not only the military statistics of a direct U.S. combat aggression against his country, but also points out and discusses details concerning U.S. ideological policies, indirect military commitment, and this country’s extensive invested economic interest.

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To the Fifth Estate,

As a result of the Airports and Airways Bill, which was passed by Congress recently, all air travel within or from the U.S. commencing after July 1, will involve changes in U.S. Transportation taxes. The local Media has done a fine job in keeping the truth from the public as they usually do.

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Old generals never die, but what is worse they don’t fade away either! Where do old generals go? Into the Elysian Fields of “Defense” Contracting.

2,100 retired high ranking officers are holding executive positions in the top 100 war contracting firms. These 100 firms receive 68% of the Pentagon’s business. The ten leading “defense” firms employ 1,065 retired officers. These ten firms ripped off 25% of the war trade.

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a review of

Rommel Drives on Deep Into Egypt by Richard Brautigan, A Delta Book, 1970, $1.95.

Anyone who has been thinking of reading Richard Brautigan’s poetry should not buy his new book. Almost every worthwhile poem he has written is available in The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster which came out two years ago. The Pill contains 104 outstanding poems written between 1957 and 1968—all are above average; a third are very good; a dozen are great.

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The real pig is not the obvious pig. The obvious pig is the one that we see every day: the police force. These are the neanderthals who patrol our communities trying to keep us in line. Government institutions are also the overt pig. The Congress, state legislatures and city councils in Amerika direct the police and military and mouth the policies of the actual controllers.

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More than 3,000 youths took to the streets over the holiday weekend in Russell Point, a small resort town located next to Indian Lake in Ohio. Pigs moved on the set firing tear gas and shotguns loaded with rock salt. The youths responded with firecrackers, regrouping at different locations each time they were dispersed.

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