Search

Free speech

Free speec

Free spee

Free spe

Free sp

Free s

Free

Fre

Fr

F

G. Kim Blank is a writer and professor in Victoria, British Columbia

According to the U.S. Army the 27 GIs pictured here staging a sit-in at the Presidio Stockade in San Francisco, Oct. 14, 1968 are guilty of mutiny; a military crime punishable by a prison term of up to life.

This peaceful demonstration was to protest conditions in the stockade and the murder of a fellow prisoner by a guard. The prisoners tried so far have been convicted and received sentences up to 14 years. For the story behind this Army atrocity see the full story on page five.

...

Poetry Seminar Tuesdays 7–9 p.m.

John Sinclair & Robin Eichele

Contemporary American Prose & Drama Thursdays 9 p.m.

John Sinclair

The Surrealist Stance (Arranged)

Allen Van Newkirk

Seminar in Pre-Homeric Greek Civilization (Arranged)

Sinclair, Eichele, Van Newkirk

Theatre Techniques/Acting (Arranged)

...

Open City’s Free University is preparing for its Winter term and has published a beautiful catalog listing the available courses.

They range from blues harp instruction to massage, organic farming, urban folklore, encounter groups, yoga, dance, photography and many others that “involve the basic needs of all people—the need to touch, the need to share, the need for love, growth and self-discovery.”

...

a review of

Free Women of Spain: Anarchism and the Struggle for the Emancipation of Women, by Martha A. Ackelsberg (Indiana University Press, 1991)

I write this review on the day George Bush officially declares his intent to run again for president. Against the backdrop of this obscene, insulting non-event, the positive image of grassroots politics evoked by Free Women of Spain stands out all the more. Obviously, envisioning and struggling toward fulfillment of people’s fullest capacities is far removed from the media’s image of politics.

...

a review of

Frinck: A Life in the Day of and Summer With Monika by Roger McGough (Ballantine Paperback, 60 cents)

This is one writer’s answer to how the modern novella should be written.

“I read the news today, oh boy,

“About a lucky man who made the grade, And though the news was rather sad, Well, I just had to laugh.”

...

The article below is part of a series of discussions that took place in Hong Kong in the early part of 1977, in which the participants (all ex-Red Guard members) attempt to make clear their reaction to Mao Tse-Tung and the Chinese Communist Party during the Cultural Revolution.

During the three years that mark the most active period of the Cultural Revolution (1966–69), Mao Tse-Tung executed perhaps one of the most alarming examples of George Orwell’s “doublethink.” In an attempt to regain control of the Party and purge the bureaucracy, Mao called upon the students to build a society along the lines of the Paris Commune (1871), but quickly labeled such actions “counterrevolutionary” when it became apparent that he and the Party were losing control over the situation. The Peoples Liberation Army was then used to crush the general uprisings in blood.

...

Mother

It is time you knew

I am guilty of the following charges:

Attempting to lead an unarmed insurrection,

33 unpaid parking tickets (to date)

compulsive jaywalking,

second helpings with my fingers,

embezzlement of milk money for 45-rpm records,

forced humor,

passing on sensitive information,

...

Liberation News Service — Paul Krassner once had an article in The Realist about the death of actress Louise Beavers, who used to play the part of Beulah on the television series of the same name. Beulah was a fat, dumb but lovable, black woman who shuffled around the suburban home of a benevolent white family, frequently saying, “Yes. Mister Harry,” to the head of the family she worked for.

...

December the 19^th was the turning point, the day when the Argentinean people said “enough!” The stage was set the day before, when people began looting shops and supermarkets, so they could feed their families. The president, Fernando De La Rua, panicked. De La Rua declared a state of emergency, suspending all constitutional rights, and banning meetings of more than three people. That was the last straw. Not only did it bring back traumatic memories of the seven year military dictatorship which killed over 30,000 people, but also it meant that the state was taking away the last shred of dignity from a hungry and desperate population — their freedom.

...

From its Eat the Rich Gang incarnation in the 1970s, Fifth Estate has been an unparalleled source of new ideas. Thinkers like Fredy Perlman, Jacques Ellul, and Jacques Camatte were introduced and moved anti-authoritarian perspectives forward very significantly.

I was happy to be a part of an exciting opening, as many of us pondered the limitations and defeat of the 1960s. Foundational critiques of technology and civilization emerged.

...

Reprinted with permission of the Guardian, independent radical weekly, NYC

1968 was the year in which the momentum of the past eight years reached a climax. From the first day of that year, everyone could feel that this year was the year for a series of confrontations which would expose the enemy more and more. Columbia, Chicago, the Black Panthers and much more happened—and the enemy was exposed to those who were predisposed to look and some who were not.

...

What happened to the future? The twenty-first century was supposed to be a new era; an age of liberty, love, and lucid life. The old world of misery was scheduled to be destroyed.

Instead, all we got is more slavery, hatred, and hyper-alienation.

Where are the dreamers? Why do we continue living on a prison planet? Why does it seem that it is each one of us alone against the universe?

...

Reprinted with permission of The Guardian, independent radical weekly, NYC

Brother Fred Ahmed Evans was scheduled to die in the electric chair of the Ohio State Prison on Sept. 23, but was granted a temporary reprieve at the last moment. The date of his execution has not been set.

If he dies, he will become the first black man to be tried, convicted and executed by the state for his role in the black liberation struggle. The state has no right to execute him, but it has the power.

...

In the fall of 2019, I taught a course at the University of Michigan: “Art and Anarchism: from Tolstoy to Pussy Riot.” The curriculum at the Ann Arbor, Michigan college concentrated on Russian anarchists, historic and contemporary, and was designed to be as accessible as possible even for those students with little knowledge of art, or Russia, or history, let alone anarchism.

...

SECRET

THIS IS A COVER SHEET

BASIC SECURITY REQUIREMENTS ARE CONTAINED IN AR 380–5

THE UNAUTHORIZED DISCLOSURE OF THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THE ATTACHED DOCUMENT(S) COULD RESULT IN SERIOUS DAMAGE TO THE UNITED STATES

RESPONSIBILITY OF PERSONS HANDLING THE ATTACHED DOCUMENT(S)

1. Exercise the necessary safeguards to prevent unauthorized disclosure by never leaving the document(s) unattended except when properly secured in a locked safe.

...

One afternoon a thousand years ago a Chinese administrator named Cao Bien was sitting by the River Lo in Vietnam. He had been sent by the Emperor of China to conquer Vietnam and make it part of China.

As he sat there on that afternoon, 500 years before the first white man ever set foot in America, scheming of ways to get the riches of Vietnam back to China, he saw something huge and terrifying.

...

Related: see “GIs Demand Rights” in this issue.

Fellow GIs:

For the past half decade our country has been involved in a long, drawn out, costly and tragic war in Vietnam. Most Americans do not support this war—increasing numbers are demonstrating their opposition, including active duty GIs. It is the most unpopular war in our history. Yet the government’s policy threatens to continue this tragedy for many years to come.

...

The past week has seen an effort by the Army to give undesirable discharges to three anti-war GIs. All three are known for their anti-war views and their active struggle for the constitutional rights of American servicemen, and have been defended by the GI Civil Liberties Defense Committee.

At Fort Jackson, S. Carolina, where GIs United Against the War in Vietnam was founded, Pvts. Joseph Cole and Tommie Woodfin, two members of the famous Ft. Jackson Eight have been given official notice that they will receive undesirable discharges from the Army.

...

a review of

Resisting Illegitimate Authority: A Thinking Person’s Guide to Being an Anti-Authoritarian—Strategies, Tools, and Models by Bruce E. Levine. AK Press, 2018

What makes someone anti-authoritarian? Bruce Levine, in his sometimes engaging book, Resisting Illegitimate Authority, starts by talking about his own childhood experiences testing adult authority, in this case, his teacher, and how he decided whether her authority was legitimate:

...

About two months ago Schoolcraft College student, Larry Halbert, produced a 1-1/2 by 2 foot combination poster-petition similar to the one above copied from Avant-Garde magazine.

[Web archive note: above this text in the print edition are “Fuck War” and 16 blank lines for signatures.]

Several students and five faculty members signed the petition at the Livonia college and wound up with a full-blown controversy on their hands.

...

1980 is an election year and we here in the Detroit area have the honor of housing the Republican convention.

This meeting of thieves and con-men will be held at the Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit and promises to be one of the more creepy sideshows of this new decade. To ensure this, these political traveling salesmen are bringing with them an army of FBI, CIA, Secret Service, State and County police; Detroit is already considered the “largest armed camp in the world.”

...

On a damp dreary Friday the 13^th September morning a battered funeral hearse was driven to the gates of Fort Wayne Induction Center.

The hearse was stopped at the M.P. Station just inside the gates and the driver was told to leave the base. The driver turned the car around and stopped in the driveway. Six pallbearers got out of the hearse, opened the tailgate and took out a casket, designed with the Resistance Omega and other peace symbols.

...

On December 11, 1993 The New York Times heralded that scientists at Princeton University had “plunged across a new physics frontier...with a series of experiments that may eventually lead to an inexhaustible source of energy.” After decades of effort, Princeton’s Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPL) had produced a short, controlled burst of fusion energy.

...

The prisons? Open. The army? Disbanded. And much more, besides.

Capitalism’s debraining machines have ceased all their debraining. Capitalism’s debraining machines lay rusty kudzu covered dead gone utterly forgotten.

It’s a love sex & shamanism world now, baby, yeah it’s everywhere ya look. Here, now, in this strange and marvelous and most lackadaisical of places—we all wear masks. Cuz we’re tricksters, kiddo, cuz we’re Monkey cuz we’re Crow. The ol’ Br’er Rabbit, reincarnated. But these masks of futurekind, they aren’t like any old mask that you knew from the waybackwhen, no siree.

...

Under the Canadian Criminal code, violence is not defined as a gendered issue. When a girl or woman is physically or sexually attacked, the act is subsumed under sections 244–246, which define assault, assault with a weapon, aggravated assault, sexual assault and aggravated sexual assault.

Removed from their social and historical context, acts of violence against women appear to be a spontaneous phenomenon whose perpetrators lack any definite motivation besides anger or lack of self control. This lack of context also removes political accountability from the social norms and legislature that enable gender-motivated violence.

...

a review of

World War 3 Now? World War 3 Illustrated, Issue #54 by Jordan Worley, Nicole Shulman, Seth Tobocman, Sue Simensky Bietila, eds. AK Press, 2024

The new issue of World War 3 Illustrated, the 54^th, is one of the biggest in the history of this long-running project, with over 50 artists and writers contributing.

...

The passing of graphic artist, Gary Grimshaw, is mourned by his family and all those who knew him, as well as the rock and art community.

Gary was internationally known for his rock posters that began with those he created for Detroit’s Grande Ballroom in the late 1960s and early 70s. A friend of Detroit’s influential MC5 band and the Fifth Estate, he designed logos for both including the one for our then tabloid newspaper on the opposite page.

...

Although there have been no recent developments in the nation-wide campaign to free Gary Tyler, the 17-year-old Black Louisiana man framed and sentenced to death for the shooting of a 13-year-old white racist youth, there have been new disclosures concerning Tyler and his family, friends and supporters.

...

In a virtually unprecedented move, Reverend Robert Morrison, rector of St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church, has called for the resignation of Richard Emrich as diocesan Bishop of Michigan, calling him “unchristian, inhuman and irresponsible.”

This call comes in the wake of the decision of the Episcopal diocese of Detroit to cut off funds for Reverend Morrison’s church because he allows the Gay Liberation Front, a homosexual group, to meet at the Church.

...

Committee for Homosexual Freedom co-founder Leo Laurence predicted a violent uprising if the oppression of Gays is not ended.

In an interview for Tangents Magazine, Laurence warned, “If the oppression of the homosexual is not stopped, if discrimination in employment, in government is not stopped, if the hypocrisy taught by the churches, the lies taught by the schools is not stopped—then this country is in danger, and there’s a likelihood of having a violent revolution, where there will be fighting in the streets of every city across this country, where there will be sniping by hostile people. I’m opposed to violence. But if the government doesn’t change, that’s probably what will happen.”

...

This is part of a communique from France, “La lettre versatile de Jimmy Gladiator,” translated by FE collective members.

Being especially partial to the sort of collective punishment that was declared illegal by the Geneva Conventions governing the conduct of occupying powers during war, the Israeli state periodically cuts the supply of electricity to the Gaza Strip (Israel bombed Gaza’s only electrical plant in 2006). Israeli human rights groups and the anti-colonial movement launched their usual protests, but it was some members of the extra-parliamentary far left that took an original initiative with the goal of getting people to think.

...

This cry for justice appeared in the Fall 2011 Fifth Estate. In almost 13 years, little has changed. The article is available in our online archive at fifthestate.org.

Fuck Hamas. Fuck Israel. Fuck Fatah. Fuck UN. Fuck UNWRA. Fuck USA!

We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the international community! We want to scream and break this wall of silence, injustice and in difference like the Israeli F16s breaking the wall of sound; scream with all the power in our souls in order to release this immense frustration that consumes us because of this fucking situation we live in.

...

Fuck Hamas. Fuck Israel. Fuck Fatah. Fuck UN. Fuck UNWRA. Fuck USA! We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the international community! We want to scream and break this wall of silence, injustice and indifference like the Israeli F16’s breaking the wall of sound; scream with all the power in our souls in order to release this immense frustration that consumes us because of this fucking situation we live in; we are like lice between two nails living a nightmare inside a nightmare, no room for hope, no space for freedom. We are sick of being caught in this political struggle; sick of coal dark nights with airplanes circling above our homes; sick of innocent farmers getting shot in the buffer zone because they are taking care of their lands; sick of bearded guys walking around with their guns abusing their power, beating up or incarcerating young people demonstrating for what they believe in; sick of the wall of shame that separates us from the rest of our country and keeps us imprisoned in a stamp-sized piece of land; sick of being portrayed as terrorists, homemade fanatics with explosives in our pockets and evil in our eyes; sick of the indifference we meet from the international community, the so-called experts in expressing concerns and drafting resolutions but cowards in enforcing anything they agree on; we are sick and tired of living a shitty life, being kept in jail by Israel, beaten up by Hamas and completely ignored by the rest of the world.

...

NEW YORK (LNS) — The three month old strike of 147,000 General Electric workers has been settled.

J. Curtis Counts, the federal mediator in the strike, called it “a triumph for voluntary collective bargaining.” Albert J. Fitzgerald, president of the United Electrical Workers Union (UE) called it “the first negotiated settlement with GE in 20 years.” And the Wall Street Journal said, “The agreement contains enough concessions for both sides to claim victory.”

...

On November 9 to 11, Milwaukee hosted the Midwest Anti-RNC Planning consulta. During the Sunday break-out strategizing session, a group met to discuss the possibilities of militant trans and queer action against the Republican National Convention in 2008.

Those involved in the discussion expressed their desire for a trans and queer bloc to play an integral and aggressive role in the strategy to shut down the RNC. It was proposed that such a bloc could hold one of the key intersections surrounding the convention center or could crash the parties of especially grievous religious fundamentalists.

...

(Underground Press Syndicate) An inspired madman whose bright blue eyes halt now and then in their rapid pantomime to beam upon you with benevolent love and pity, has rediscovered the ancient secret of the court jester.

General Hershey Bar (an absolute ringer for a great freak-out dancer named Calypso Joe) is the court jester to the War in Viet Nam. For a year and a half now he has appeared at every major protest meeting, on the streets, anywhere a crowd is on hand to listen. He has a strangely ingratiating way of telling the truth to people who would not listen to a serious presentation of the war horrors they would rather forget. And his mannerisms and costume allow you to pretend it’s all a joke. (But later that night, you begin to think, to wonder, and then...)

...

Quick call the police;

The Negroes are barbecuing at the lake.

Quick call the police;

The Negroes are drumming too loud

Quick call the cops

The colored choir is singing too loud.

Quick call the cops

That pregnant Negro’s belly is swollen;

Search that shoplifter’s belly!

Quick call the cops;

...

a review of
Beyond Geography: The Western Spirit against the Wilderness by Frederick Turner. Viking, 1980

Beyond Geography first came to my attention in the early 1980s when Fredy Perlman began his arguments in Against His-story, Against Leviathan! with an appraisal of Turner’s book. Both of these texts attracted attention from the anarchist milieu around the Fifth Estate at the time, especially for those of us trying to build an historical picture of where human society went wrong.

...

There are at least three reasons to suggest why Gulf War 1-1/2 came at the transition point between the end of the Reagan/Bush regime and the Clinton imperial inauguration.

One: The Last Desperate Act Theory. The bombing of Iraq by the murderous Bush in the last hours of his presidency was primarily a final act of vanity by the out-going President who realized he was going to be remembered by history solely for his failures and corruption—a crumbling economy, Iraqgate, the last minute pardons to stop the exposure of his role in Iran/Contra, etc. So, he played his one successful trump—the Sadaam card. Hopefully, thought the craven Bush, this would leave indelibly his only triumph. Gulf War 1. Problem: TV reruns never play as well as the original hit series.

...

George Garnett Jr. was found dead on the inner lane northbound of the John Lodge expressway, under the Warren Avenue bridge, at 1:45 a.m. Tuesday, December 28, 1965. He apparently fell from the bridge, struck the pavement and was hit by several cars which didn’t stop after running over the body. A passing motorist saw the body in mid-air and pulled over to the curb; other motorists who did stop called the police. George was pronounced dead on arrival at Detroit Receiving Hospital at 1:55 a.m.

...

Editor’s Note: Since the Beatles released their newest album (“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonelyhearts Club Band”), the American and British press have unleashed a variety of articles on the group. Below is an interview given to Miles of the International Times (London) by George Harrison M.B.E. (Courtesy UPS)

George: If you could just say a word and it would tell people something straight to the point, then, you take all the words that are going to say everything, and you’d get it in about two lines. Just use those. Just keep saying those words.

...

“Georgy Girl” suffers from the Americanization of Europe. Mediocre photography, a pasty storyline and a camera which adds next to nothing to the telling of the story combine to cook up a movie as flat as a tortilla.

Perhaps Margaret Forster’s milky book is to blame. Basically we are confronted with a flabby, hopelessly homely adoptee who, within the scope of her own unreal world manages to rearrange the lives of her roommate, her roommate’s mate and her benefactor-step-father. As is the American custom, all unreal situations continue through equally unreal conclusions and everyone is left just as they should be. No one has really arrived anywhere.

...

MULHOUSE, FRANCE — UPI-AP Leading German industrialist Hans-Martin Schleyer committed suicide Oct. 18 in the trunk of the car in which he had been held since his seizure Sep. 5^th by members of the German Red Army Faction.

The one-time Nazi reportedly shot himself after learning that negotiations between his captors and the Bonn government had completely broken down.

...

Part of American Revolutionary Media / Detroit insert

Ken Cockrell is a Black revolutionary, “so-called attorney,” and a member of the central staff of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers in Detroit. His rap was taped, transcribed and edited by Newsreel for this ARM issue on the day of the Los Angeles police attack on the Panther office, before that news was made public.

...

OUTRAGED! That’s what we are. Consider it. Think of what it means.

London Bridge. The Eifel Tower. The Arch d’ Triumph, the Vatican; even that monument to hypocracy, the Statue of Liberty. What does Detroit have?

A fifty-five foot spark plug at the intersection of Woodward and Eight Mile Rd.; gateway to the suburbs. The World’s largest and ugliest stove gracing the State Fair grounds. A giant grinning cow’s head on the Edsel Ford Freeway. A forty-foot bow tie, badge of a losing politician. The symbol of the city; THE SPIRIT OF DETROIT, in front of the City-County Building; a joke off a can of peas contorted in pain perhaps by something he ate—or something he saw.

...

“The chickens are coming home to roost”

—Malcolm X, Nov. 22, 1963

Malcolm was right, of course, and the chickens have come home so many ways since that grim day four years ago. Vietnam, Malcolm’s own death, riots across the country and now the biggest chicken of them all—the Detroit riot.

Detroit always does things up in a big way.

...

a review of

Food for our Grandmothers: Writings by Arab-American and Arab-Canadian Feminists, Edited by Joanna Kadi, South End Press, Boston, 1994, $16.00

There’s sand in the pages of my edition of Food for our Grandmothers: Writings by Arab-American and Arab-Canadian Feminists. This is not a derogatory reference to those named in the title, but rather because I am reviewing the anthology of poetry and essays at Makena Beach, on Maui in Hawaii.

...

“Throw back your books and outa your seat—Throw open the door—out into the street!”

—Chuck Berry.

High School has begun. Help us reverse the process it hopes to put you through.

The Fifth Estate will coordinate the news and publicize the actions of high school revolutionaries throughout the Detroit area. If you would like assistance from dedicated “outside agitators” or would like to get in touch with fellow inmates interested in building a movement in your high school, contact me c/o The Fifth Estate.

...

You’re on. You’re moving. So now you read (if you can in a moving car), watch the countryside, wave at children, talk to any companions you may have, drink wine, write books, and groove train riding activities.

Now—even if you’re on a fast freight—if it’s going very far, the train is going to stop a couple little times to drop off and pick up cars. What you do, again—before you get off and very far away from your car—is ask one of the brakemen how long it’s going to be before the train pulls out again, so that you won’t get off and lose your train like I’ve done a couple of times.

...