Dear Fifth Estate:
We’ve stumbled upon your paper at the right time. Our heads have been infiltrated with “lifer” propaganda. We’re becoming radical and have developed a leftist attitude. It’s hard to accomplish in the Army but we continue to get our point across.
We’re more open minded in discussing the conflicts in our society today. We’re gaining power in our unit, we’re gaining freedom.
Your paper has given us a contact with what is really happening in America. It has established a foundation for our thoughts, ideas, our way of life. Keep the presses rolling!!
The Revolutionists
USAMMAV Det. 2
To the Fifth Estate:
At the threshold I want to thank Waino J. Jarvela for taking the trouble to answer my bitching letter to the Wayne Strike Committee. The Committee didn’t have the courtesy to reply. That tells me something about the Strike Committee, or at least that portion of it responsible for leafleting area plants.
Waino, I think you missed the point of my letter. That was probably my fault. What I was trying to say was there’s a tremendous amount of hard, long-term work to be done by both students and workers if there’s ever going to be a worker-student alliance capable of shutting down the war machine and taking it away from the pigs who run it now for their own profit. Students leafleting plant gates once or twice a year is not a long-term effort. Agree?
Now, regarding the points you raised:
- No shit, Solidarity House is openly contemptuous of workers’ wishes. The UAW-CIO is pro-war, racist and conservative. I never said it isn’t. What I did say is unions know how to run strikes when-they want to. (In the UAW’s case this isn’t often.) That’s all I said. And I raised the question whether any member of the Strike Committee consulted any union official anywhere for advice on how to shut down W.S.U. I still don’t know; the Committee never answered my letter.
- Of course workers make war materials. That’s how they earn a living for themselves and their families. Do you think men at, say, Chrysler’s Tank Plant are going to turn pacifist and shut it down, depriving themselves and their families of their livelihood? Can you honestly say you would if you worked there, 56 years old and little chance of getting another job? And where are all the idealistic students? Why aren’t all, or even many, of the student demonstrators working in the plants for extended periods of time participating in the struggle there? Maybe they don’t want to get their hands dirty. Maybe they aren’t in the plants because almost all of them are going to school to get into the middle (read management) class, or to stay in it. And in ten years, or in good fortune and a Republican administration five or less, that’s where they’ll be: wearing white collars and giving workers orders to produce war materials. Want to bet on it, Waino?
- I wasn’t criticizing or ridiculing long hair as such. I was just saying it isn’t politic to wear long hair if students want workers to relate to their programs, an indication of how far we all have to go before there’ll be a meaningful worker-student alliance. Factory workers are the friendliest people I’ve ever known, and they will work with students. But it’s hard to relate politically to someone when he’s only in the plant for 89 days in the summer with one foot out the door and one eye on an autumn campus.
- I haven’t seen any peaceful marches, letters, songs, meetings, radio, TV, protests, voting or campaigning shut down any motherfucking production yet. Have you?
- Workers do have all the power. as you say, but most of us are only dimly aware of it. What we need is a lot of these idealistic, educated, enlightened students you’re defending working in the plants with us for years giving us the benefit of their idealism, enlightenment, etc., if they really have these qualities, which I mostly doubt. Where are they, Waino? They don’t seem to Want to penetrate beyond the plant gates, or if they do they don’t get any further than the front office. Why?
- I think it says a lot for you that you saw through the lies, racism, etc. many years ago. Lots of workers (and students) didn’t and don’t. And won’t. Unless we ALL (I wish I could write it larger) get down and seriously do something about it.
- I deliberately used the phrase “our plant” because that’s who it really belongs to. Like you said, workers “have all the power.- All that’s needed is for us to use that power.
- I appreciate your suggesting whose propaganda I should read. I accept the suggestion in the spirit it was given. But it’s useful to read the “establishment press.” It’s a good way to learn where the enemy’s head’s at.
I’d sure like to meet you and discuss all this at length, I don’t think we disagree as much as this series of letters suggests. My phone number is on this letter. Why don’t you come to the Fifth Estate office and get it and call me’? I’d like that. Or you could leave your number there and I’ll call you. O.K.?
John Taylor
Dear Friend:
The order to eliminate the Panthers has to be withdrawn.
It is crystal clear to us that the U.S. government has decreed that the Panthers have to be removed from the scene. How can any other conclusion be drawn from the persecution of the last three years? Today the Panthers—tomorrow it could be any of us. Our country cannot—must not—tolerate government vendettas against ANY group. Unless the tide of repression is turned, and fast, we had all better run for our lives.
In addition to the overt acts of violence and terror by governmental officials, only slightly less subtle forms of persecution are taking place in the courts. The outrage of the gagging and shackling of Bobby Seale is more reminiscent of the Dark Ages than of U.S.A., 1970. The New York 21 were held for 10 months in $2,100,000 bail. The highest ranking officer not in jail, exiled or dead, David Hilliard, as a spectator in a courtroom in New Haven; was summarily jailed for contempt while merely reading a note handed him.
Bobby Seale is facing the electric chair. His trial in New Haven has begun, and the Chicago one will probably be under way by the time this reaches you. The New York 21 case is proceeding. All over the country less publicized trials of victims of police raids are on or about to begin—Denver, Chicago, Los Angeles, Newark, Baltimore.
Unless these men and women can be assured of a fair trial, with a JURY OF THEIR PEERS, no man or woman in the United States can be sure of justice in court. You and I cannot make judges behave with reason and humanity—but we can help provide the dollars essential for top legal defense. Even where attorneys are serving without fee, as many are, other costs are astronomical—legal research, travel to interview and transport witnesses, court transcripts and other trial-related essentials. It is the function of this Committee to Defend the Panthers to raise the funds to assure this defense, and to inform the public about the way in which the Bill of Rights is being abrogated by the government in its treatment of the Black Panther Party.
Please write your check—NOW—and please give the most that you can afford. It is your investment in freedom and justice for all Americans.
Ossie Davis, Dick Gregory
Box 628
N.Y., N.Y. 10025
To the Editors,
I’m a marine (HAH) presently serving in Danang, RVN. My squadron C.O. recently passed an order stating that there will be no more incense burned in the living area.
Now I ask you, is that feasible? The lifers seem to have run out of gooks to wage war on, so naturally they chose to war on their second enemy, the peons.
I’m enclosing a copy of the order so you won’t think I’m crazy. I will be soon, if the monster doesn’t release its grip on me.
It seems that since they are allowed to send a person half way around the world to fight someone he is told is his enemy and forced to live in sickening conditions, they might let him make the best of his sad situation.
Hell no. They make us suffer as much as possible. Well I say fuck them and their goddamned war.
An Imprisoned Space Cowboy
To the Fifth Estate:
What about an amateur radio hook-up between communication centers across the country?
There is a great need for more complete and accurate information about pop festivals and other young adult things across the country. There is a need for a more efficient system of relaying runaway and regular messages between message centers. There is a need for a method of sharing ideas, resources and other information to keep each of us up to date and to solve special problems.
As a staff member of the Switchboard in Dallas and also as an amateur radio (ham) Operator, I am pursuing the possibilities of utilizing other ham operators to form a network between information and communication centers.
Peace,
Dennis Courtney, WA5RAI
Switchboard
Dallas
Note: All amateur radio freaks interested in this incredible idea contact Open City at 831-2770.
Dear Brothers & Sisters,
Being a former citizen of Detroit and of Amerika, though now a member of Woodstock Nation and American Serviceman’s Union, I felt obliged to write you a letter and let you know that we appreciate your support. Being in the Army is more than a hassle. It is frustrating, being a metaphysical cog in the Green Machine which is used to put down peoples’ war and also to act the role of scab in this country’s labor strikes.
I am almost out (Oct. 11, 1970) and am looking forward to my discharge as a man awaiting the pardon from the governor from some heinous crime who sits lonely and bitter in some cramped cell for some unreasonable charge such as smoking a little dope or engaging in overt conspiracy to do what our founding fathers did—the violent overthrow of the government.
Our right of free speech is non-existent as you well know, but in the Army you practically have no freedom of thought. The GIs here at Ft. Lewis are super-fed-up with all the shit going down at command level but until we get ourselves more together and stop taking every act as a personal affront and form ourselves into a unified political mind can we combat the evil of the Green Weenie. Castrate the Pentagon and we are free.
I presently work for the Shelter Half in Tacoma and plan on doing street work in Seattle for the Lib Front upon my release; then on down to Berkeley where I have managed to live and survive for two years prior to my induction. During which time I would like to make a trip to Detroit to visit family and political associates and perhaps write a few articles for the Fifth Estate.
At the time the Fifth Estate first appeared I was living in Haight Ashbury hawking Oracles and Barbs for a living until I graduated to dealing Dr. Leary’s love medication. I managed to pick up a few copies sent out to me by friends and realized Detroit was on its way as a center of constructive revolution.
Power to the People,
Mike
Ft. Lewis, Washington
To the Fifth Estate:
The time has come to get the freaks in Southfield, Birmingham, and surrounding areas, hip to the fascist bullshit going down at the Tel-Twelve Mall in Southfield.
On Thursday, June 4th, while watching the channel 56 auction, my boyfriend and I were hassled by the security and Southfield pigs for possession of a squirt gun! When I went to find out what was going down, I was shoved, hassled, and told that if I didn’t shut up, I was going to be arrested for disorderly person and hauled off to jail.
I called them pigs, turned around and started to leave, when a Southfield pig grabbed me, visibly bruising both my arms, and told me I was under arrest for disorderly person and using obscene language in public.
Is calling a pig a pig obscene language? Try again, pig! I now have to go to trial and face a $500 fine and/or 90 days in jail. Bullshit!
This has also happened to lots of other freaks in the past few weeks, and the time has come to put a stop to it. We have to get together and show these pigs that we won’t put up with their fascist bullshit any longer.
Help us: let’s put an end to this kind of hassle. Protest! Boycott! Let’s present our case to this fucked group of people who call themselves protectors of liberty!
ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!
Cheryl Kaye
Birmingham
Dear friends,
We are a libertarian couple in our early 30s, with children, living in a lovely village set in a green plain in the French Alps. There is everything necessary here for the formation of a libertarian (non-drug) rural community. What we need is the right kind of people.
We are interested in hearing from other constructive idealists who would like to form a sexually-free, rural commune with us here. Please enclose 2 international postal coupons for a reply.
Yours for a fuller life,
Emmanuel Petrakis,
Cite S.M.C.F. No. 7,
St. Marcellin par Veynes,
FRANCE