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Bruce Whitten, age 26, held the rank of Staff Sergeant in the Air Force until he received a general discharge on May 23, 1965. Whitten was assigned to the First Air Commando group and spent two years in Vietnam.

Q. How do the people feel about the governments that have been set up?

A. They don’t even discuss them. It just seems to be a taboo subject. You don’t speak to an Englishmen about the Queen in a sexual manner and it’s like that here. You’ll get your throat cut. I never got anywhere discussing that subject.

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TORONTO—Although the Vancouver 5 trials are over except for that of Brent Taylor on charges of bombing Litton Industries (see accompanying article), the support group here is still dealing with the aftermath of extensive police harassment.

Ken Deyarmond, one of the more active supporters, was to go on trial Nov. 13 for “attempted assault against an internationally protected person” who, in this case, was British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Deyarmond was participating in a demonstration against Thatcher’s visit to Toronto organized by IRA supporters and anti-Cruise groups when he was pushed from behind towards the prime minister and then grabbed and punched by three cops. (See FE #317, Summer 1984.)

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FIFTH ESTATE #366, Fall, 2004, Vol. 39, No. 3

News, etc. pages 2 — 11

Features on “unschooling the world” pages 12 — 45

Letters to the FE pages 46 — 49

Reviews, etc. pages 50 — 53

Bookstore & Calendar pages 54 — 55

Those who believe in a staunch ecological stance that subverts the dominant patterns of objectification, degradation, subordination, and commodification should take time to understand the revolutionary force of poetry.

Among those who can help in this regard are the surrealists. When one scrapes below the surface definitions of surrealism provided by universities, museums, and art dealers, one can begin to sense the insurrectionary thirst for liberty that is the core tenet for which surrealism fights.

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“The National Black Economic Development Conference (NBEDC) will in no way yield to threats of prosecution for non-existent crimes or other intimidation. On the contrary, we will continue to press our demands which are known to be just by all, including the religious industry and the U.S. Department of Justice.”

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It is said that the automobile created and brought life to the cities, but once again official history dangerously misrepresents and distorts the facts. In reality, it is responsible for the destruction of viable human communities and emblematic of death culture all over the world. The auto industry’s monopolistic power kept Detroit and the rest of the world from creating alternative urban environments and consciously built car cities and a car world--chopped up and destroyed by incredible expressway systems. Cities and a world for cars, not for people.

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The League of Revolutionary Black Workers has been participating in elections of UAW locals and found itself confronted with vote fraud when it was clear the union bureaucrats could win in no other way.

At the Chrysler Eldon Avenue gear and axel plant four white company hacks won a recent election although the plant employees are 85% black, as is the local president, who won last year with League support. League leaders attribute the loss to the fact that the ballot box was locked in a police station overnight for “safekeeping” while waiting to be counted the next morning. The group plans to contest the election.

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a review of

HOME! A Bioregional Reader edited by Van Andruss, Christopher Plant, Judith Plant, and Eleanor Wright. New Society Publishers, Santa Cruz, CA. 1990, 181 pgs. $14.95.

This collection of thirty-one essays is a stimulating introduction to the notion of bioregionalism. Bioregionalism presents a model for a conscious transition from a late industrial society to a society which values community as well as freedom and diversity, a society which emphasizes the limits as well as the regenerative powers of the earth.

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“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

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(by the Fifth Estate Creep Scene Editor)

Creep scenes abound from the Detroit area to Florida as power-authority heads try to suppress the Fifth Estate.

In Royal Oak, the Gas Company, at 290 W. Ten Mile Road, a head shop run by Andy Gingold, has had its request for an operating permit denied by the Royal Oak city commission solely on the grounds that he is selling “lewd and lascivious literature,” i.e., our paper.

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It is two hundred years since the European invasion of Australia. The resistance that was begun then by Australian Aborigines continues today. While the presentation of a sanitized version of history takes place on the TV screens of the nation, the original inhabitants of the continent have declared 1988 a Year of Mourning and Commitment to Struggle.

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This is the story about how I got a C- grade in my high school economics class. Mr. Burns told the class on the first day that we were going to spend all of our time playing the “Stock Market Game.”

We were given an imaginary lump sum of $10,000 at the beginning of September and our assignment was to invest it in stocks. We read the financial page of the local newspaper at the beginning of every class and compared notes from cable television financial news programs to track our make-believe investments. Mr. Burns said that the highest grade would go to the three people who made the most money in the class. Extra points would be given to those whose stock value had the greatest increase.

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THE SUN, Volume 3, Issue 18

(3 pages with 33-page ad supplement)

FLASH!

A high-energy, killer rally to “JAIL JOHN NOW!” has been announced by the Rainbow People’s Party (RPP) Minister of Information to be held at Ann Arbor’s Chrysler Arena on the eve of the Zenta New Year, Oct. 31. This monster event will climax several months of dynamite work by people of the Rainbow Nation to get RPP Chairman John Sinclair back into the Michigan prison system where he can best serve the people.

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from L.A. Free Press (UPS)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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This week, a record review concerning not fact, but opinion about Bob Dylan’s “BLONDE ON BLONDE”, (Columbia C2S 841). The current interview in these pages [FE #12, August 15, 1966] is covering the personal side of Dylan far better than anything I could write, so we shall instead talk about music. The main thing wrong with the record is the quality, or lack thereof, of the vocals. From the earlier Dylan records, particularly the last two rockers, we know that he is capable of sounding damn good when he wants to. The impression one gets is that he is sort of putting the listener down, trying to see how much he can get away with. Dylan is probably THE supreme individualist, and makes a point of not being what his audience expects him to be. However, when this protection of personal identity goes too far, it can and does detract from the art itself. What would have been a truly great recording is spoiled by the Rex Harrison manner of talking thought words, and the record is then merely good. The second point of criticism is based on Dylan’s apparent inability to grow musically. In spite of Dylan’s obvious genius as a lyricist, the inability to keep the musical idiom growing and changing detracts from the possible real greatness of this record. Apparently, in order to venture in to the rock field, Dylan felt it necessary to establish a certain sort of sound as a base, a musical framework. The truly exciting thing about this music (to me) is the search for new sounds, along with the expression of new ideas. In making BLONDE ON BLONDE he resorted to rather drastic measures to perhaps try to do something better with the music; he recorded in Nashville, used practically all new sidemen, but, with several exceptions, for the most part it sounds the same.

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

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

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

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

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

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This Interview Is something of a rarity in that it is one of the very few—if any—in which Dylan volunteered to talk to and with his interviewer in a manner honest and meaningful. However, I do not claim to have caught Dylan in it—I have only caught a segment of his shadow on that day...

Robbins: I don’t know whether to do a serious interview or carryon in that Absurdist way we talked last night.

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

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

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

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This interview was conducted and transcribed by Dena Clamage.

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

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

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

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a review of

The Menu. Dir: Mark Mylod (2022)

Judging from The Menu’s trailer and promotional images, it seemed as though it was going to literally be an Eat the Rich story. While a movie with a cannibal revenge plot would have been entertaining, there was some welcomed nuance and style within the film that made up for some of its disappointments.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. (LNS)—J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI, said the black radicals and white New Leftists constitute “a potential threat to the internal security of the Nation.”

He reserved his harshest words for the Black Panthers and SDS.

Hoover noted that some officers in SDS identify themselves as “small c” communists rather than regular Communist Party members, adding:

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In an airport recently, I idly watched the 24-hour cable TV news that they pipe into the waiting lounges. A big report on the current financial market smashup noted that the US stock market had tumbled 40% in less than 365 days; this, the telegenic blonde woman on the screen told me in her “No, I’m really serious, now” voice.

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The Fifth Estate welcomes letters at PO Box 201016, Ferndale MI 48220, or fe-AT-fifthestate-DOT-org

I am no fan of the United States Government, nor of any of its agencies, including the FCC. As far as I can tell, we have government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich, and only a revolution in the human psyche will change that. Nevertheless, I found much to disagree with in Ron Sakolsky’s article “No More Safety Valves” (#372, Spring, 2006).

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Send letters to fe@fifthestate.org or Fifth Estate, POB 201016, Ferndale MI 48220. All formats accepted including typescript & handwritten; letters may be edited for length.

Thank you to the comrades of the Fifth Estate for publishing John Clark’s review and remembering my father so fondly. (See Winter 2017 FE, “Sam Dolgoff: A life at the center of American anarchism for seventy years.”)

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

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

Spencer Sunshine’s review of John Zerzan’s Twilight of the Machines begins promisingly enough with a brief summation of Zerzan’s history and a lengthy description of Twilight’s contents.

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Send letters via email to fe<AT>fifthestate<DOT>org or Fifth Estate, P.O. Box 201016, Ferndale MI 48220. All formats accepted including typescript & handwritten. Letters may be edited for length.

I had just thought about Pat Halley yesterday. (See “FE Staffer Puts a Pie in God’s Face,” FE Spring 2015)

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I seem to be coming to a better understanding of what kind of cook I am. What this clarity can be attributed to is uncertain, but I’m digging it. Guess these past few columns are towards a philosophy of cooking.

I’m more of an eclectic, I suppose, borrowing what I can from whoever I can. I am not a gourmet: I rarely measure ingredients, unless it’s a complicated recipe which I’m trying for the first time. I am also not one for expensive cuts of meat or fancy, out-of-season vegetables.

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Send letters to fe — at — fifthestate — dot — org or Fifth Estate, POB 201016, Ferndale MI 48220. All formats accepted, including typescript & handwritten; letters may be edited for length.

I now live in London, England, but back in 1968 I lived in Walled Lake, Michigan, not far from Detroit. I was in the 10^th grade and angry about Viet Nam.

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Previous to this era, opponents of capitalism, particularly marxists, but also anarchists, saw the internal contradictions inherent in the political economy as the basis of the system’s overthrow; the working class was to be the agency of revolution. Other marxist theorists postulated that resistance to imperialist domination and colonial oppression, or a revolutionary peasantry, could carry out this task.

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I, too, have fears about the Americanization of Cuba and that it will end up “just like other Caribbean resorts” and that IMF-driven and other economic decisions will lead to the end of the many services provided to everyone and a change in the life and culture and well-being of its citizens. [See “Adios, Socialismo,” by Walker Lane, Summer FE 2010.]

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July ’87 marks the twentieth anniversary of the Detroit riots: the largest American rebellion of the century. Reactions to an early morning police raid on a ghetto after-hours drinking spot began with stones and bricks aimed at cop cars and quickly grew into excited looting within hours. The retreating police were eventually reinforced by 8,000 national guardsmen and 4,700 federal troops (82^nd and 101^st Airborne). The official body count after one wild week of looting, smashing, and burning was 43 killed, 657 wounded—at least 30 were slain by police or government forces. Rumors of snipers provoked troops to fire wildly at people, windows, buildings, and each other. Of the 682 fires, 412 buildings were destroyed. Over 1,700 stores were looted as whites quickly joined blacks in a true communal uprising. The number one song in the country that week was The Doors’ “Light My Fire.”

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Dear Friends:

The murders of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark in Chicago have awakened many Americans to the campaign being carried out against the Black Panther Party throughout the country. Since April 1968, 28 Panthers have died and countless others have been imprisoned. But the “search and destroy” operations against the Black Panther Party do not always take such dramatic forms.

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Please send one year’s subscription of this thing you call “The Fifth Estate’ to me. It gets pretty cold out here in the wintertime and I gotta have something to burn in my fireplace. Ever tried to heat a 3 room house with a flaming draft card?

Oh, Yea! One other thing. Please try to keep your columnist out of jail (i.e. John Sinclair). Now that I got MONEY invested in your organization (and I use the term very loosely), I would like to see it go somewhere. And I don’t mean prison.

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The population of hard core anarchists from the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s is slowly dwindling, and the next generation is unprepared to take up the slack.

Young people today are filled with apathy in a day and age where apathy is the one thing you don’t want. So, where are you guys? Where are the huge mass gatherings of rage and indignation? Where are the fliers, the meetings, the banners and protests?

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ANN ARBOR—This city witnessed the first public expression of dissent by Women’s Liberation groups of Michigan Saturday night, March 22, at the Miss Ann Arbor Pageant.

Outside the Auditorium doors of the Ann Arbor High School where the Pageant was being held about 100 women picketed in protest of the local meat auction which will eventually culminate in the Atlantic City Miss America prostitution rites.

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Dear Fifth Estate:

We appreciate your kind mention of our group in your last issue (see “300,000 at Pro-Choice Demo—Plus Us,” FE #333, Winter, 1990), but we are not “Storm Warning” as the article identified us.

Our name is Tornado Warning and we are a feminist action group devoted to Womyn’s self-determination, self-help, and self-knowledge.

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Hi:

In his review of Counterfeit Currency, E.B. Maple asserted that gold has served as money because of arbitrary human assignation, an analysis which treats money in general as a mere sign. (See Winter 1992 Fifth Estate.)

In actuality, processed gold assured its role because, like other commodities, it is (even in its rawest form, sifted flakes) the product of human labor. But unlike other commodities, it is chemically stable, compact, and generally useless except as a medium of exchange.

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“Side by side with the exigencies of life, love is the great educator.”

—Sigmund Freud

“Some day, men and women will rise, they will reach the mountain peak, ready to receive, to partake and to bask in the golden rays of love. What fancy, what imagination, what poetic genius can foresee even approximately the potentialities of such a force in the lives of men and women.”

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The Fifth Estate encourages letters commenting on our articles, raising issues we haven’t presented, or reports from your area. Although we live in a digital age and comments in Microsoft Word are the most convenient for us, all formats are welcome, including type- and handwritten ones.

We read them all, but we can’t promise every letter will be published and some may be edited for length, grammar and punctuation.

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Fifth Estate Letters Policy

The Fifth Estate always welcomes letters commenting on our articles, stating opinions„ or giving reports of events in local areas. We don’t guarantee we will print everything we receive, but all letters are read by our staff and considered.

Typed letters or ones on disk are appreciated, but not required. Length should not exceed two double-spaced pages. If you are interested in writing a longer response, please contact us.

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Dear People,

The cena at Negri’s on Saturday, January 12, 1980 raised money for anarchist propaganda, as well as $75 for the defense of Kamalla Miller.

Those present at the dinner choose to send you $50.00 to help with your valuable work.

Yours for the works,

Jim Bumpas

FE Note: Fund raising picnics and dinners have a long tradition in the anarchist movement as means of supporting libertarian groups and publications. A group has met in Florida twice since the appearance of our last issue and sent us $30 and $25 from each of the picnics. Below is listed the other recipients of the contributions as sent to us by a participant:

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

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

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To the FE:

Let me make some observations regarding the recent debates in the FE on organization, worker’s councils, and so on. I hope you take what I say as friendly criticism rather than as the beginning of a polemic.

First of all, many of the statements in the paper, both by correspondents and by FE staff, display considerable pomposity, as well as a desire to dismiss as idiotic or reactionary the views of opponents. This kind of revolutionary one-upmanship not only fails to clarify the issues; it also risks discouraging the participation of people who doubt their own glibness or literary skill.

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Three sisters

Sit in judgment-

Darkly, mutely on the mesa,

Apportioned their appointed part

In the cosmic monotony.

.

A man is shot dead

On ancestral lands (now

“Ran” by the national park

service) praying to

The four directions, hand

On his chest & over

The heart. Belligerent

At the command to leave,

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