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Detroit’s first Participatory Zoo Dance, originally scheduled for September 16 and 17, was postponed, but an October opening is planned. Russ Gibbs, promoter of Detroit’s Grande Ballroom psychedelic dance, said that the original opening date had been cancelled due to technical problems.

The weekly dance, the first of its kind in Detroit, modeled in the San Francisco style, involves a great deal of electrical lighting equipment, and Russ said We ran into some unforeseen difficulties with the electrical wiring code in Detroit, but that has all been taken care of and we will open October 7 and 8 for sure.” Kicking off the grand opening will be the MC5 and the Woolies. Anyone interested in getting more information should call Russ Gibbs at 834–4904.

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a review of

Cyclonopedia: Complicity with anonymous materials, by Reza Negarestani. re.press, 2008

This book appears to be (but might not be) a treatise on Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the Nomadic War Machine, written by someone (said to be an Iranian philosopher) who’s bitten off a bit more French Theory than I can chew. It’s thinly disguised as a SciFi novel as written by or about a brilliant Iranian philosopher named Parsani (“the Persian”) who’s on the verge of paranoid schizophrenic breakdown, in which is embedded a commentary on H.P. Lovecraft and other pulp-horror mashers, in the light of Zoroastrian and Mesopotamian religion and myth (this part is so clever it transcends mere parody), using diagrams of bizarre topology and non-Euclidian geometry, creating fake sources and mixing them with real (but very obscure and erudite) sources--all aimed at an elaborate allegorization of Middle East oil politics and the War on Terror--and analysis that strikes me as partly the work of a genius and partly quite mad, although this is probably the author’s intention, if there is in fact an author.

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Common radical wisdom suggests that capitalism won’t crumble on its own, so imagine the ironically comforting confidence with which we have watched the system convulse over the last few months. But as Don LaCoss reminds us in “The Disasters of Disaster Capitalism,” it’s not a good idea to expect the system to just wither away. The cruel nature of corporations and the state suggests that the forces of domination will continue to profit from the people’s misery and punish anyone who gets in the way.

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Every day for a week I peruse the crumpled quarter-page announcement I’ve been carrying around in my wallet. “MUDPEOPLE: 10^th Anniversary...We supply mud. Wear as little as possible. Bring drinks, food, towels, friends, wildness. Finally, the day is here.

Mudpeople confront the rich, Detroit Athletic Club, 1991 (Photo: Mike)

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The sign read: “Men can wear one article of clothing, and women can wear two articles of clothing.” This was the second annual naked smoothie party that boasted not just fruity blender drinks and creative nudity, but also a steamy hot tub, a banana shaped pool, dancing, body painting, massage, and more.

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Imagine an alternate dimension where

dervishes are roaming around America

sects of Swedenborgian hobos, etc.

You’re there camping in the cemetery

long black hair in tangles ghostwhite face

Sion County is remote, rural, and poor, and always has been. Around 1870 a breakaway sect of German Amish-type farmers—the Sabbatarian Anabaptists of the “Seventh Day Dunkers,” moved there from Pennsylvania and settled down in the river valleys of the county’s northeast.

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Paul Avrich (left) with Federico Arcos at Emma Goldman’s grave site, Waldheim Cemetery, Chicago, 1998. Photo: Julie Herrada

A beloved comrade and renowned scholar of 19^th and 20^th century anarchism passed away on February 17 at his home in New York City. Paul Avrich was author and editor of dozens of influential books and articles on the history of anarchism, including The Haymarket Tragedy; The Modern School Movement: Anarchism and Education in the United States; An American Anarchist: The Life of Voltairine de Cleyre; Anarchist Portraits; Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background, and Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America.

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A review of New Reformation: Notes of a Neolithic Conservative by Paul Goodman, PM Press, 194 pages, trade paperback, $20.00

Although Paul Goodman established himself as one of the most influential thinkers of the 20^th century, by the end of his life the anarchist philosopher felt dissatisfied with the direction of the political movements his writings had inspired.

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Every Mother’s Day Paul Krassner, editor of the REALIST comes to Detroit and educates us on what’s REALLY happening in the underground.

For instance, if you ever see Tim Leary walking around crouched like a rabbi, it’s because he has a rip in his pants and he doesn’t wear underwear. Krassner also suggested that’s where Leary keeps his stash.

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FE Note: In the following article, Hakim Bey moves beyond his idea of the Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ)—those moments when normally domesticated space is liberated for a limited time for festive and subversive “moments of happiness.” He discusses what happens when those moments become fixed in time and space.

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After being dropped by the media as no longer newsworthy, and being submerged in a myriad of bureaucratic committees on the State Legislature—a process so utterly boring that we have failed to follow its developments (you’ll forgive us, won’t you?)—the issue of PBB (polybrominated biphenyl, a component of a fire-retardant chemical which was introduced by mistake into Michigan livestock feed starting in 1973) has again hit the headlines, this time in a particularly gruesome development. (See “PBB: Case Study of an Industrial Plague,” FE May 1976).

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The Public Broadcasting System produces “programming” toward a more manageable society. In fact, it is the network rather expressly for managers, and what it airs can best be understood by keeping in mind this service to the managing class. The exact ration of corporate to government funding of PBS is inconsequential to its basic nature and function.

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The cement never sets on the WSU empire.

A sign is attached to the cement wall of the new Foreign Language Building at Wayne State University. It faces the John C. Lodge Freeway and the Matthaei Physical Education Complex beyond it. The sign, without reservation announces that Wayne is “Building For Our Second Century.”

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DETROIT: Six weeks ago the News Editor of the FIFTH ESTATE sent an inquiry to the Defense Department regarding the validity of an article in the VIETNAM COURIER, a paper published in Hanoi, reflecting the political positions of that country. The article in question appears in May 12, 1966 edition and claims that a battalion of the First Infantry Division mutinied and refused to fight on April 24, 1966 at Lai Khe. It further claims that several soldiers were shot by their own officers in an attempt to force them into battle. Also, several suicides by men of the First Battalion were reported. As of July 13 no answer has been received from the Defense Department. In a further attempt to ascertain the truth of the situation copies of all correspondence have been sent to Cong. Charles C. Diggs (D-13^th district) asking him to investigate the matter. Nothing has been heard from him to date.

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On May 15, at the Wayne Campus, the Detroit Committee to End the War in Vietnam and the Students for a Democratic Society marched to demand that Wayne State University stop their cooperation with the draft system. A brief sit-in of 60 students followed.

WASHINGTON, May 6. The defense Department yesterday boosted the draft back up to 26,000 men for July compared to 15,000 in June.

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“Why the Dearborn Referendum?” was the subject of a talk given by Dearborn Mayor Orville Hubbard at St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church, January 26.

The lecture was presented by Citizens for Peace in Vietnam as part of their Spring educational series. Other speakers will include William Pepper, who wrote the article in the January Ramparts on U.S. napalm effects on Vietnamese children and Harrison Salisbury of the New York Times, who recently returned from Hanoi.

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Confrontations over a contested Berkeley lot “legally” owned by the University of California (U.C.), known as People’s Park, continues. But increasingly, University and City attempts to reassert the rules of private property are succeeding.

Private seizure of common land, a process known as enclosure, was the essential basis for the imposition of the capitalist system. Starting in the 14^th century, peasants found land which had previously belonged to the community as a whole fenced off and claimed as private property. They had to move. Many small farmers also saw their meager holdings seized by larger landlords.

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The battle for People’s Park began 22 years ago. The following is an excerpt from our lead article in FE #80, May 29, 1969, which was entitled, “Police Riot: Murder In Berkeley.” The cover price was 15 cents.

BERKELEY (LNS)—One man was murdered and over 200 people injured by police May 15 in the heaviest street battle in Berkeley yet over who controlled a city park.

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The spirit of liberation has swept across this freedom stoned land from Berkeley to our sister city, Ann Arbor, and now into Detroit.

Inner city people in the Warren-Forest area are demanding their right to the people’s land to use for the benefit of the people. The nation’s second People’s Park will be made this summer; a call is out for support from the community to everyone who believes in freedom.

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Within the broad spectrum of real and non-real cultural/political revolution, many diverse and contradictory tendencies exist side-by-side. The sensitive “spiritual” types deplore the nihilism and violence of the revolutionaries with righteous indignation. The wilted flower children pack their bags and split to the country where ““the vibes are mellow.”

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(via Good Times/UPS)

Q: How do you feel about your movie?

A: How do I feel about my movie? Very strong, and a bit funny in the knees. No, I’m putting you on. I feel very good about the movie. I hope I do better next time.

Q: Have you got the next film started?

A: No, I have no...I’m writing a flick now. About the American Revolution.

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The Paris Commune, which lasted from March 18 to May 28, 1871, was an experiment in self-governance that is still inspiring today.

The Franco-Prussian war of 1870 saw the defeat of the French military by the more disciplined and technically better equipped Prussian military.

While the French government worked on negotiating the end to the war, many people living in Paris refused to surrender. Following a brutal four-month siege, they bravely took their fate into their own hands and declared Paris an independent Commune.

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a review of

Champavert: Immoral Tales by Petrus Borel, trans. Brian Stableford. Borga Press, 2013 WildsidePess.com

The long-forgotten radical novel, Champavert, is the only full-length book available in English by Petrus Borel. The anti-authoritarian poet was known in 19^th century French underground circles as “The Lycanthrope” (Wolfman), and was central to the creation of the cultural avant-garde as both an idea and a functioning community in that era.

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Richard Lester’s new film, “Petulia,” is a contradiction in terms—it is at one and the same time old-fashioned, avant-garde, sophisticated, heavy-handed, and pointless.

Lester, who directed the Beatles films and “How I Won the ‘War,’” is no stranger to cinematic mixed bags, but this time something went wrong.

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Down the street, there’s a park about half the size of a city block. Tucked away in the corner is a four-foot granite monument inscribed with the Ten Commandments, the core credo of a 3,000-year-old eastern Mediterranean cult started by sun-stroked nomads.

For the last year, that monument has been at the center of controversy because of a lawsuit to get it removed from the park. According to plaintiffs, its presence violates the supposed guarantee of governmental neutrality in matters of mythology. But the loud God-fearing folk of this town have mobilized to “save” the Ten Commandments on the grounds that only good can come from having these writings on permanent display in the public arena, presumably for the same reasons given by those who thought that posting the Ten Commandments in public schools would magically prevent another Columbine High School-style outburst of murderous alienation and rage.

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Detroit-born and raised, and self-described anarchist, Philip Levine was named the U.S. Poet Laureate by the Library of Congress in August. The post, whose task entails raising “the national consciousness to a greater appreciation of the reading and writing of poetry,” may take on a different than usual dimension during Levine’s tenure given his politics.

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(Underground Press Syndicate) Phone phreaking is a rapidly-growing sport among the radical left, and even among a few with more conservative viewpoints. There are few rules to the me, and your opponent can be either the phone company and what it represents, or just the computers. The chance of arrest provides the kick.

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smachtini

comheiri lag

Sar gceannairi

.

police batons

collective semi-erection

of our rulers

Gabriel Rosenstock is an Irish writer who works chiefly in the Irish language. He is a poet, playwright, haikuist, tankaist, essayist, and author/translator of over 180 books, mostly in Irish. He lives in Dublin.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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 12^th floor cocktail lounge to flirt with their secretaries or sign some orders that a petty aide had drawn up.

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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.

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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.

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Caught in a gross miscarriage of justice, Assistant Prosecutor Avery Weiswaser agreed on June 9 to reverse Pigpen’s conviction and 90-day sentence on contempt of flag charges.

Pigpen, also called Alan Barber, was convicted on May 21 without benefit of a jury or a lawyer. He had been picked up on May 19 because a cop found a piece of red, white and blue bunting which had been folded up in his pocket for six months.

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Specially designed “Kill Cong” badges were awarded by a U.S. Army battalion to soldiers who could prove they killed a soldier of the National Liberation Front (NLF) last year, according to statements by returned servicemen.

“One way to prove your claim to a badge was to bring back an enemy ear,” former Sgt. Frank Shepard, 23, of Plymouth told the Detroit Free Press. “They kept a string of ears at headquarters, which I saw. The ears were rotting and they smelled pretty bad. It turned my stomach. It was like we were on a hunting trip or something.

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(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.

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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. 4^th. 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.”

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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 23^rd.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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