Fifth Estate (periodical)
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''Fifth Estate'' (''FE'') is a U.S. periodical, based in Detroit, Michigan, begun in 1965, and presently with staff members across North America who connect via the Internet. Its editorial collective sometimes has divergent views on the topics the magazine addresses but generally shares an anarchist, anti-authoritarian outlook and a non-dogmatic, action-oriented approach to change. The title implies that the periodical is an alternative to the fourth estate (traditional print journalism). ''Fifth Estate'' is frequently cited as the longest running English language anarchist publication in North America, although this is sometimes disputed since it became only explicitly anti-authoritarian in 1975 after ten years of publishing as part of the 1960s Underground Press movement. The archives for the ''Fifth Estate'' are held at the Labadie Collection in
Ann Arbor, Michigan Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County, Michigan, Washtenaw County. The 2020 United States census, 2020 census recorded its population to be 123,851. It is the principal city of the Ann Arbor ...
.


History


Origin

''Fifth Estate'' was started by Harvey Ovshinsky, a seventeen-year-old youth from Detroit. He was inspired by a 1965 summer trip to California where he worked on the '' Los Angeles Free Press'', the first underground paper in the United States; Harvey's father, inventor
Stan Ovshinsky Stanford Robert Ovshinsky (November 24, 1922 – October 17, 2012) was an American engineer, scientist and inventor who over a span of fifty years was granted well over 400 patents, mostly in the areas of energy and information.Avery Cohn, "A ...
, knew the editor of the ''Free Press'',
Art Kunkin Arthur Glick Kunkin (March 28, 1928 – April 30, 2019) was an American journalist, community organizer, machinist, and New Age esotericist best known as the founding publisher and editor of the ''Los Angeles Free Press''. Early life and educatio ...
, from their years as comrades in the Socialist Party. The name "Fifth Estate" was inspired by The Fifth Estate coffee house on the
Sunset Strip The Sunset Strip is the stretch of Sunset Boulevard that passes through the city of West Hollywood, California. It extends from West Hollywood's eastern border with the city of Los Angeles near Marmont Lane to its western border with Beverly H ...
, where the '' Free Press'' had its office in the basement. The first issue was published on November 19, 1965—"That's what we really are—the voice of the liberal element in Detroit", it said. It was produced on a typewriter and then reproduced by offset lithograph, in an 8-page tabloid newspaper format with two pages left blank. It featured a critical review of a Bob Dylan concert, a borrowed Jules Feiffer cartoon, alternative events listing and an announcement of a forthcoming anti- Vietnam War march. None of these things would have been included in contemporary newspapers. In 1966 Ovshinsky moved the office from his parents' basement to a Cass Corridor storefront near Wayne State University. Here the paper was saved from extinction by the
Detroit Committee to End the War in Vietnam The Detroit Committee to End the War in Vietnam was the citywide anti-war organization that mobilized numerous actions in Detroit, United States between 1965 and 1972(?) and helped bring thousands of people to mass protests in Washington, D.C. Ofte ...
, John Sinclair's Artist Workshop, and other radicals, with Sinclair signing on as the paper's first music editor. Later in 1966 the paper moved to
Plum Street A plum is a fruit of some species in ''Prunus'' subg. ''Prunus'.'' Dried plums are called prunes. History Plums may have been one of the first fruits domesticated by humans. Three of the most abundantly cultivated species are not found i ...
where they also established a bookshop. ''Fifth Estate'' thrived in the late sixties, a period when over 500 underground papers emerged in the US. Thousands of copies were distributed locally with hundreds more being sent to
GIs A geographic information system (GIS) is a type of database containing Geographic data and information, geographic data (that is, descriptions of phenomena for which location is relevant), combined with Geographic information system software, sof ...
in Vietnam. ''Fifth Estate'' openly called on soldiers to
mutiny Mutiny is a revolt among a group of people (typically of a military, of a crew or of a crew of pirates) to oppose, change, or overthrow an organization to which they were previously loyal. The term is commonly used for a rebellion among member ...
. In 1967 the ''Fifth Estate'' offices were tear-gassed by the National Guard during the
12th Street riot The 1967 Detroit Riot, also known as the 12th Street Riot or Detroit Rebellion, was the bloodiest of the urban riots in the United States during the "Long, hot summer of 1967". Composed mainly of confrontations between Black residents and the De ...
. In this period the print run reached 15,000 – 20,000 copies, publishing biweekly in a tabloid newspaper format of 20 to 32 pages, with local ads and listings. The spirit of the paper during the first ten years of its existence was summed up in a Feb. 1, 1969, staff editorial:


1970s

By 1972 the optimism of the sixties had worn off and the tone of the paper became more concerned with struggle than fun. Ovshinsky had left in 1969, leaving a group of young people (teenagers or in their early twenties) to run the paper.
Peter Werbe ''Fifth Estate'' (''FE'') is a U.S. periodical, based in Detroit, Michigan, begun in 1965, and presently with staff members across North America who connect via the Internet. Its editorial collective sometimes has divergent views on the topics the ...
, a 29-year-old Michigan State dropout who had been with the paper since March 1966, took over as editor. The staff sent delegations to Vietnam, Cambodia and Cuba. The massive defeat of
George McGovern George Stanley McGovern (July 19, 1922 – October 21, 2012) was an American historian and South Dakota politician who was a U.S. representative and three-term U.S. senator, and the Democratic Party presidential nominee in the 1972 pres ...
and the election of Richard Nixon for a second term with an increased vote damaged the movement—many underground papers stopped coming out and the alternative news services such as the Liberation News Service, and the Underground Press Syndicate collapsed. The ''Fifth Estate'' was mentioned in the national press when one of its reporters, Pat Halley, threw a shaving cream pie at Guru Maharaj Ji in 1973. Though the guru forgave him publicly, two of his followers attacked Halley a week later and fractured his skull. By 1975, ''Fifth Estate'' was lingering on—many staff had burnt out through too much activism and they had their share of internal disputes. The debts were mounting. In August 1975, Vol. 11, No.1 declared "The issue you are now holding is the last issue of the ''Fifth Estate'' - the last issue of a failing capitalist enterprise…This is also the first issue of a new ''Fifth Estate''." This was the first explicitly anti-authoritarian issue of ''Fifth Estate''. The paper had been taken over by the Eat the Rich Gang, a group that had successfully published several pamphlets and were particularly influenced by Fredy Perlman,
Jacques Camatte Jacques Camatte (born 1935) is a French writer and former Marxist theoretician and member of the International Communist Party, a primarily Italian left communist organisation under the influence of Amadeo Bordiga. After Bordiga's death and ...
, Jean Baudrillard, Council communism, and Left Communism, as well as the
Situationists The Situationist International (SI) was an international organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and political theorists. It was prominent in Europe from its formation in 1957 to its dissolution ...
. They did not originally identify themselves as explicitly anarchist and had no contacts with the anarchist currents of the 1930s. However, they were contacted by veterans of that period who they saw as powerful
role model A role model is a person whose behaviour, example, or success is or can be emulated by others, especially by younger people. The term ''role model'' is credited to sociologist Robert K. Merton, who hypothesized that individuals compare themselves ...
s. Those included Marcus Graham (publisher of the 1930s anarchist periodical ''Man!'') and Spanish and Italian anarchist veterans. They also developed a close relationship with Black and Red Press, a radical printers/publishers group with which Lorraine and Fredy Perlman were involved.


1980s and 1990s

By 1980, the paper had become more anti-technological and anti-civilisation, something for which it was well known throughout the 1980s. It was the focal point for the development of the political trend of anarcho-primitivism. Long-time contributor
John Zerzan John Edward Zerzan ( ; born August 10, 1943) is an American anarchist and primitivist ecophilosopher and author. His works criticize agricultural civilization as inherently oppressive, and advocates drawing upon the ways of life of hunter-gathe ...
published his seminal essays on time, language, art, number and agriculture in the magazine. His articles were frequently accompanied by long critiques by George Bradford (né David Watson) or Bob Brubaker, who developed different versions of primitivism. After Zerzan's 1988 article on agriculture, he started publishing his new essays in Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed. Dismayed by what he saw as the excesses of Zerzan and others, Watson eventually repudiated primitivism in his 1997 essay "Swamp Fever"."Swamp Fever: Primitivism & the Ideological Vortex", ''Fifth Estate'' #350 (vol 32, #2), Fall 1997. pp 15–25 However, as of 2012, Zerzan began publishing articles in the Fifth Estate again on subjects as varied as the Black Bloc, the sea, and the Luddites.


2001 to present

In 2002, the center of the magazine shifted from Detroit, Michigan to
Liberty, Tennessee Liberty is a town in DeKalb County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 367 at the 2000 census and 310 in 2010. Liberty's main street was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987 as the Liberty Historic District. Histor ...
when long-time contributor Andrew Smith (who wrote under the name Andy Sunfrog) took over the main editorial duties of the magazine, although long-time Detroit staffers like Peter Werbe remained involved. In 2006, ''Fifth Estate'' decentralized their editorial group, and since then issues have been published that were primarily produced in Michigan, Tennessee, New York and Wisconsin. The current editorial collective has moved away from primitivism, does not endorse a specific political line and welcomes voices from disparate strains of anti-authoritarian thought. The group also continues to endorse anarchism as a specific ideology, but embraces a more inclusive, yet still radical, anti-capitalist perspective. Continuing to cover environmental and anti-capitalist resistance, articles have also appeared which address immigration, race, feminism, queer sexuality and transgender issues. Smith left the paper in 2009 to pursue an academic career at a Tennessee university, but still contributes an occasional article. The magazine shifted back to Detroit for final editing and production with Peter and Marilyn Werbe having responsibility for much of that plus the magazine's business functions. The collective now consists of the Werbes and several others throughout North America. In 2008, long-time contributor
Marius Mason Marius Mason (born Marie Mason, January 26, 1962) is an American anarchist who in 2009 was sentenced to 22 years in prison after admitting 13 counts of arson and property damage amounting to US$4 million. Mason, a member of the Earth Liberation ...
was arrested as part of what some call the
Green Scare The Green Scare is legal action by the US government against the radical environmental movement. It alludes to the Red Scares, periods of fear over communist infiltration of US society. The term was popularized by environmental activists. It is ...
. In February 2009, he was sentenced to almost 22 years for two acts of environmentally motivated property destruction. The ''Fifth Estate'' has run articles protesting both the labeling of his actions as "terrorism" as well as the long sentence he received.


Contributors

* David Watson, longtime ''Fifth Estate'' writer and editorial collective member * Fredy Perlman, ''Fifth Estate'' writer *
John Zerzan John Edward Zerzan ( ; born August 10, 1943) is an American anarchist and primitivist ecophilosopher and author. His works criticize agricultural civilization as inherently oppressive, and advocates drawing upon the ways of life of hunter-gathe ...
, ''Fifth Estate'' contributor from 1974 to 1988; 2012 to present *
Richard Mock Richard Mock (1944 – July 28, 2006) was a printmaker, painter, sculptor, and editorial cartoonist. Mock was best known for his linocut illustrations that appeared on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times from 1980 through 1996. Born in 1944 in ...
, designer of many of the linocuts used on ''Fifth Estates covers. *
Marius Mason Marius Mason (born Marie Mason, January 26, 1962) is an American anarchist who in 2009 was sentenced to 22 years in prison after admitting 13 counts of arson and property damage amounting to US$4 million. Mason, a member of the Earth Liberation ...
Anarchist environmental prisoner. Serving 22 years in prison for nonviolent ecological sabotage. *Peter Werbe Editorial collective member currently. Associated with the publication since 1966.


See also

* List of underground newspapers of the 1960s counterculture


References


Further reading

*


External links


Official websiteFifth Estate Issue 368-369, Spring-Summer, 2005, includes several articles relating to the publication's historyMetro Times story on ''Fifth Estates 40th anniversaryLabadie Collection Finding Aid for ''Fifth Estate''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fifth Estate (Periodical) Anarchist periodicals published in the United States Magazines established in 1965 Post-left anarchism Anti-consumerist groups Triannual magazines published in the United States Magazines published in Detroit Political magazines published in the United States