Last December, Lawrence Summers the chief economist for the World Bank issued a surprisingly forthright memorandum to other senior World Bank staff in which he called for the distribution of toxic wastes and pollution away from the big industrialized nations …
The author of the following article, Joe Jacobs, was an English comrade and one-time member of London Solidarity (one of the two organizations mentioned in the discussion) who, we learned, died shortly after sending us this manuscript. Though we’ve devoted …
June 11 brought activists and revolutionaries from across the country together with former prisoners and family members of prisoners for a weekend gathering in Washington, D.C. for a “Convergence Against Toxic Prisons.”
One characteristic that seems pervasive recently among many political actors (including anarchists) is a fixation with the State’s incessant “failures.” From the vulnerability that the State experienced on 9/11/01 to the breakdown of the State during Hurricane Katrina, there is …
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 …
I begin with two insights. Global systems theorist, Immanuel Wallerstein, argues that throughout capitalist history the working class has been divided into a proletariat, which makes a living solely through waged labor, and a semi-proletariat which in its contemporary incarnation, …
Related: see Intro to Zerzan in this issue. For many, the 1970s were—and the 1980s bid fair to continue—a kind of “midnight of the century,” an arrival at the point of complete demoralization and unrelieved sadness. What follows is one …
Of all the issues raised by Israel’s fifty year anniversary, none holds more pain and longing, nor embodies the Palestinian experience more, than that of the refugees.
translated & edited by FE collective members
When Chou En-lai, the first and only Prime Minister of the Peoples Republic of China, died in the beginning of this year, a struggle between the so-called “moderate,” pro-managerial and “radical left,” pro-Maoist factions within the Party burst into the …
a review of Test-Tube Women, What Future for Motherhood? Rita Arditti et. al., Pandora Press, 482 pages.
Ammunition Books shares space with the Fifth Estate Newspaper(?) [question mark in original] and can be found at 4403 Second Ave, (telephone (313) 831-6800. Our hours vary quite a bit, so it’s always best to give us a telephone call …
Behind the male facade of business and politics Russia is a country run by women. Their labor keeps the population from starving. Yet post-1991 economic changes have led some women to reason that if they have to be beasts of …
In March of this year a small article appeared in the Detroit Free Press announcing the last public hearing before the City of Detroit was to begin building the world’s largest trash-to-energy waste-incinerator plant. For those of us who live …
Note: This is a shortened version of an essay that can be found in several locations on the Internet. Some material is likely dated at this point, given the rapidly changing situation in Venezuela. Since the essay primarily has value …
As we witness the imposition of military rule in Poland it seems clear it was not something to have been unexpected. However, that realization does nothing to limit our anger and sadness as we helplessly watch tanks and faceless armed …
a review of T.A.Z: Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchism, Poetic Terrorism, Hakim Bey, Autonomedia, New York, 1991, $6.00 (Available from FE Books)
The Concept Redwood Summer was modeled after the “Mississippi Summer” of the civil rights movement. The conditions were similar to those of Mississippi in 1964. African-American victims of the system needed outside intervention to advocate for them in hostile territory. …
Within the small circles that constitute the libertarian movement in the United States, the question of whether to combine in organizations, associations, federations, etc., has become a subject of some debate and much interest Many feel that the only obstacle …
The letters on this page are responses to John Zerzan’s “The Refusal of Technology” which appeared in the October 20, 1980 edition [#303] of the Fifth Estate; below are our comments on the question. In the article, Zerzan accuses those …
We want to save the world, and we want to save ourselves. It’s the same thing. The problems confronting us are enormous and at every level: personal, social, planetary. I will spare you a list. My aim is to suggest …
CHRISTIAN ANARCHY? Fifth Estate: People can call themselves anything they like but I would think the differences between Christianity and anarchism are so massive as to preclude anyone calling themselves Christian anarchists (see FE June19, 1982 Letters column). There are …
In the Southwest, “U.S. Out of North America” is not just another pretty slogan. In 1680, when Spain presided over the Four Corners Area, Indian ‘runners ran from village to village, launching the Pueblo Revolt, in which Pueblo, Navajo and …
Send letters via email to fe – AT – fifthestate.org or Fifth Estate, P.O. Box 201016, Ferndale MI 48220. All formats accepted including typescript & handwritten. Letters may be edited for length.
[Translator’s note: Recently, a voluminous dossier began to circulate in France. The dossier, sent by Os Cangaceiros, included stolen prison plans and documents and a chronology outlining Os Cangaceiros’s campaign of sabotage against the “13,000 project” (new maximum security penitentiaries …
Within the past several months the FE has received many publications and letters from Greece trying to make contact with radicals and libertarian revolutionaries in the U.S.
Next issue: Part II of “Notes on the Death of Franco” will cover an analysis of modern Spain and the state of the revolutionary movement today. Murray Bookchin is the author of a forthcoming book The Spanish Anarchists which is …
a review of The Final Empire: The Collapse of Civilization: The Seed of the Future, William Kotke, 401 pp., Arrow Point Press, Portland OR, 1993, $20 (available from FE Books at $15.
Dear Fifth Estate: I was heartened to read your issue concerning Earth First! [FE #327, Fall, 1987]. I’ve had a gut feeling about that group for a while, felt uncomfortable with the male-dominated norm of most all environmental groups, even …
This article is the third in a series of counter-bicentennial pieces dealing with the more sordid and less-acknowledged incidents in America’s 200-year-old history.
Staff note: George Bradford was a pseudonym used by David Watson in these pages. 1. Autopsy of a Petrochemical Disaster Remember the Exxon Valdez? The ship was the source of the worst oil spill to date in U.S. history, spilling …
FE note: See our introduction, “Revolution & Counter-revolution in Italy,” [FE#293-294, August 21, 1978] in this issue. Author’s Introduction A conspiracy of silence and careful distortion of what doesn’t fit the picture of Italy as a panting country trying to …
In considering the anti-nuclear movement in Germany—the growing opposition, agitation and the emergence of hundreds of local citizen’s initiatives that are directly organizing to stop the nuclear designs of the government and the electric utility companies—we must keep in mind …
No one should ever work. Work is the source of nearly all the misery in the world. Almost all evil you’d care to name comes from working or from living in a world designed for work. In order to stop …
“Counterfeit coin is said to prove the existence of genuine–the terms being purely relative. But because there can be no counterfeit where there is no original, does it in any manner follow that any undemonstrated original exists? In seeing a …
In recent months, we have been critical of a number of anarchists, through correspondence and in person, on the question of working politically with marxist-leninists on specific projects of joint interest. Those we have been in contact with on these …
Quite a Drag Howdy, Folks! (That’s the only non-sexist salutation I can think of.)
FASCIST DISSENSION Dear Friends: I am resubscribing to the Fifth Estate plus $1.00 extra for a prisoner’s subscription. I support the work of the FE and believe that it is of critical value to all revolutionaries. However, I strongly disagree …
Fifth Estate: I want to offer some criticisms of the latest issue. The Vietnam article [Web archive note: This article first appeared in FE #320, Spring 1985. With an added Introduction by Richard Drinnon it was reprinted in FE #346, …
The FE BOOKSERVICE is located in the same place as the Fifth Estate Newspaper, both of which are at 5928 Second, Detroit MI 48202. telephone (313) 831-6800. The hours we are open vary considerably, so it’s always best to give …