Posted on: February 2, 2008 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

Fifth Estate Volume 38, #4 / 1:10 / 64M / $3 / PO Bodx 201016, Ferndale, MI 48229 /

Where most of the anarchist zines that I’ve read really degenerate into unreadable theory after a few pages, Fifth Esatate is written in such a way that the pieces are actually grounded in real life experience and fact instead of the intangibilities of theory. This issue’s cover section is by far the most interesting in this issue, with pieces like “One Journey into and out of the Anarchist…Black” and rapier-sharp insights, like “Reviewing one’s life over and over again has come to be a necessary practice for a revolutionary dedicated to living revolution to its fullest.” Instead of directly showing this systemic removal of early minority pioneers in American fields, “Where are you, Arnold Shultz?’ is a much more acceptable piece in the sense that it informs about this African-American country star, in order to dispel this aforementioned removal from the annals of the history. It is only too common to assume that individuals are familiar with these individuals on the brink of esoteria and go off into a diatribe about the fucked-up nature of the system. Ron is able to put down what Arnold actually contributed to the field of music and allow individuals to draw some connection with that, so that the later revolutionary activities are that more impassioned – they know what they are fighting for. Fifth Estate is the perfect mesh of personality and straight-forward calls of revolution – after thirty-five years of publication, it would almost be a slap to their readers’ face if they weren’t precisely this way.

Rating: 8.6/10

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