[Peace-discuss] [Peace] Trump torpedoes Iran nuclear accord

[David Green]

FWIW, Abbie maintained throughout the decades a relationship with the
well-known Chicago activist Dr. Quentin Young, who memorialized him very
positively on his WBEZ radio show not soon after his death; from that I
recall reference to his environmental activities, especially in relation to
the St. Lawrence River, although there was I'm sure much more.

Around 1980, Abbie was on tour with gone-to-Wall Street Jerry Rubin,
debating the 60s, I guess. They happened to pass through Chapel Hill, but
for some reason it did not interest me, or perhaps I had a class to go to.

I did attend an event at the Chicago Cultural Center (formerly central
library) in 1988, 20th anniversary of the convention. I don't believe
either Rubin or Hoffmann was there, however, although Dellinger and
(probably) Hayden were; Dellinger was the "grand old man" of the peace
movement, and remained sincerely admired. For some reason I remember that
the person with a controversially revisionist account of the events of
August '68 at that event was a fellow named David Farber, but I can't
remember much more; perhaps it was because I was babysitting a one-year-old
during the event.

I saw Hoffmann's book in the UCLA bookstore back in the day, but I did not
steal it or, for that matter, read it. But I did read Norman Mailer's
excellent "Miami and the Siege of Chicago," regarding the events of 1968.
And I do recommend Haskell Wexler's film, Medium Cool, as a compelling
example of cinema vérité.

On Sun, May 13, 2018 at 10:15 AM, C G Estabrook via Peace-discuss <
peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:

> Hoffman was born November 30, 1936, in Worcester, Massachusetts, [and
> reared] in a middle-class household [with] two younger siblings. As a child
> in the 1940s–50s, he was a member of what has been described as "the
> transitional generation between the beatniks and hippies". He described his
> childhood as "idyllic" and the '40s as "a great time to grow up in.”
>
> In his sophomore year, Hoffman was expelled from Classical High School, a
> now-closed public high school in Worcester ... Hoffman wrote a paper
> declaring that "God could not possibly exist, for if he did, there wouldn't
> be any suffering in the world." The irate teacher ripped up the paper and
> called him "a Communist punk". Hoffman jumped on the teacher and started
> fighting him until he was restrained and removed from the school ... he
> enrolled in Brandeis University, where he studied under professors such as
> noted psychologist Abraham Maslow…
>
> He was also a student of Marxist theorist Herbert Marcuse, who Hoffman
> said had a profound effect on his political outlook. Hoffman would later
> cite Marcuse's influence during his activism and his theories on revolution…
>
> Hoffman was involved with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
> (SNCC), and organized Liberty House, which sold items to support the Civil
> Rights Movement in the southern United States. During the Vietnam War,
> Hoffman was an anti-war activist, using deliberately comical and theatrical
> tactics...
>
> One of Hoffman's well-known stunts was on August 24, 1967, when he led
> members of the movement to the gallery of the New York Stock Exchange
> (NYSE). The protesters threw fistfuls of real and fake dollar bills down to
> the traders below, some of whom booed, while others began to scramble
> frantically to grab the money as fast as they could.  Accounts of the
> amount of money that Hoffman and the group tossed was said to be as little
> as $30 to $300. Hoffman claimed to be pointing out that, metaphorically,
> that's what NYSE traders "were already doing." "We didn't call the press,"
> wrote Hoffman. "At that time we really had no notion of anything called a
> media event." Yet the press was quick to react and by evening the event was
> reported around the world. After that incident, the stock exchange spent
> $20,000 to enclose the gallery with bulletproof glass.
>
> In October 1967, David Dellinger of the National Mobilization Committee to
> End the War in Vietnam asked Jerry Rubin to help mobilize and direct a
> march on the Pentagon. The protesters gathered at the Lincoln Memorial as
> Dellinger and Dr. Benjamin Spock gave speeches to the mass of people. From
> there, the group marched towards the Pentagon. As the protesters neared the
> Pentagon, they were met by soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division who
> formed a human barricade blocking the Pentagon steps. Not to be dissuaded,
> Hoffman vowed to levitate the Pentagon claiming he would attempt to use
> psychic energy to levitate the Pentagon until it would turn orange and
> begin to vibrate, at which time the war in Vietnam would end. Allen
> Ginsberg led Tibetan chants to assist Hoffman.
>
> Hoffman was arrested and tried for conspiracy and inciting to riot as a
> result of his role in anti-Vietnam War protests, which were met by a
> violent police response during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in
> Chicago. He was among the group that came to be known as the Chicago Seven
> (originally known as the Chicago Eight), which included fellow Yippie Jerry
> Rubin, David Dellinger, Rennie Davis, John Froines, Lee Weiner, future
> California state senator Tom Hayden and Black Panther Party co-founder
> Bobby Seale (before his trial was severed from the others).
>
> Presided over by Judge Julius Hoffman (no relation to Hoffman, about which
> he joked throughout the trial), Abbie Hoffman's courtroom antics frequently
> grabbed the headlines; one day, defendants Hoffman and Rubin appeared in
> court dressed in judicial robes, while on another day, Hoffman was sworn in
> as a witness with his hand giving the finger. Judge Hoffman became the
> favorite courtroom target of the Chicago Seven defendants, who frequently
> would insult the judge to his face. Abbie Hoffman told Judge Hoffman "you
> are a 'shande fur de Goyim' [disgrace in front of the gentiles]. You would
> have served Hitler better." He later added that "your idea of justice is
> the only obscenity in the room." Both Davis and Rubin told the Judge "this
> court is bullshit." When Hoffman was asked in what state he resided, he
> replied the "state of mind of my brothers and sisters".
>
> Other celebrities were called as "cultural witnesses" including Allen
> Ginsberg, Phil Ochs, Arlo Guthrie, Norman Mailer and others. Hoffman closed
> the trial with a speech in which he quoted Abraham Lincoln, making the
> claim that the president himself, if alive today, would also be arrested in
> Chicago's Lincoln Park.
>
> On February 18, 1970, Hoffman and four of the other defendants (Rubin,
> Dellinger, Davis, and Hayden) were found guilty of intent to incite a riot
> while crossing state lines. All seven defendants were found not guilty of
> conspiracy. At sentencing, Hoffman suggested the judge try LSD and offered
> to set him up with "a dealer he knew in Florida" (the judge was known to be
> headed to Florida for a post-trial vacation). Each of the five was
> sentenced to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
>
> However, all convictions were subsequently overturned by the Seventh
> Circuit Court of Appeals. The Walker Commission later found that in fact it
> had been a "police riot”...
>
> In 1971, Hoffman published 'Steal This Book', which advised readers on how
> to live basically for free. Many of his readers followed Hoffman's advice
> and stole the book, leading many bookstores to refuse to carry it. He was
> also the author of several other books, including Vote!, co-written with
> Rubin and Ed Sanders. Hoffman was arrested August 28, 1973, on drug charges
> for intent to sell and distribute cocaine. He always maintained that
> undercover police agents entrapped him into a drug deal and planted
> suitcases of cocaine in his office. In the spring of 1974, Hoffman skipped
> bail, underwent cosmetic surgery to alter his appearance, and hid from
> authorities, sometimes dressed as an Orthodox Jew, for several years...
>
> In 1998, Peter Coyote opined:
>
> "The FBI couldn't infiltrate us. We did everything anonymously, and we did
> everything for nothing, because we wanted our actions to be authentic. It's
> the mistake that Abbie Hoffman made. He came out, he studied with us, we
> taught him everything, and then he went back and wrote a book called Free,
> and he put his name on it! He set himself up to be a leader of the
> counterculture, and he was undone by that. Big mistake."
>
> Despite being "in hiding" during part of this period (Hoffman lived in
> Fineview, New York, near Thousand Island Park, a private resort on
> Wellesley Island on the St. Lawrence River under the name "Barry Freed"),
> he helped coordinate an environmental campaign to preserve the Saint
> Lawrence River (Save the River organization). During his time on the run,
> he was also the "travel" columnist for Crawdaddy! magazine. On September 4,
> 1980, he surrendered to authorities, and, on the same date, he appeared on
> a pre-taped edition of ABC-TV's 20/20 in an interview with Barbara Walters.
> Hoffman received a one-year sentence, but was released after four months.
>
> In November 1986, Hoffman was arrested along with 14 others, including Amy
> Carter, the daughter of former President Jimmy Carter, for trespassing at
> the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The charges stemmed from a protest
> against the Central Intelligence Agency's recruitment on the UMass campus.
> Since the university's policy limited campus recruitment to law-abiding
> organizations, the defense argued that the CIA engaged in illegal
> activities. The federal district court judge permitted expert witnesses,
> including former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and a former CIA agent who
> testified that the CIA carried on an illegal Contra war against the
> Sandinista regime in Nicaragua in violation of the Boland Amendment.
>
> In three days of testimony, more than a dozen defense witnesses, including
> Daniel Ellsberg, and former Contra leader Edgar Chamorro, described the
> CIA's role in more than two decades of covert, illegal and often violent
> activities. In his closing argument, Hoffman, acting as his own attorney,
> placed his actions within the best tradition of American civil
> disobedience. He quoted from Thomas Paine, "the most outspoken and
> farsighted of the leaders of the American Revolution: 'Every age and
> generation must be as free to act for itself, in all cases, as the ages and
> generations which preceded it. Man has no property in man, neither has any
> generation a property in the generations which are to follow.'"
>
> Hoffman concluded: "Thomas Paine was talking about this Spring day in this
> courtroom. A verdict of not guilty will say, 'When our country is  right,
> keep it right; but when it is wrong, right those wrongs.'" On April 15,
> 1987, the jury found Hoffman and the other defendants not guilty.
>
> After his acquittal, Hoffman acted in a cameo appearance in Oliver Stone's
> later-released anti-Vietnam War movie, 'Born on the Fourth of July'. He
> essentially played himself in the movie, waving a flag on the ramparts of
> an administration building during a campus protest that was being
> teargassed and crushed by state troopers.
>
> In 1987 Hoffman summed up his views:
>
> "You are talking to a leftist. I believe in the redistribution of wealth
> and power in the world. I believe in universal hospital care for everyone.
> I believe that we should not have a single homeless person in the richest
> country in the world. And I believe that we should not have a CIA that goes
> around overwhelming governments and assassinating political leaders,
> working for tight oligarchies around the world to protect the tight
> oligarchy here at home."
>
> Later that same year, Hoffman and Jonathan Silvers wrote 'Steal This Urine
> Test' (published October 5, 1987), which exposed the internal
> contradictions of the War on Drugs and suggested ways to circumvent its
> most intrusive measures. He stated, for instance, that Federal Express,
> which received high praise from management guru Tom Peters for "empowering"
> workers, in fact subjected most employees to random drug tests, firing any
> who got a positive result, with no retest or appeal procedure, despite the
> fact that FedEx chose a drug lab (the lowest bidder) with a proven record
> of frequent false positive results.
>
> Stone's 'Born on the Fourth of July' was released on December 20, 1989,
> more than eight months after Hoffman's suicide on April 12, 1989. At the
> time of his death, Hoffman was at the height of a renewed public visibility
> ... He regularly lectured audiences about the CIA's covert activities,
> including assassinations disguised as suicides. His Playboy article
> (October, 1988) outlining the connections that constitute the "October
> Surprise", brought that alleged conspiracy to the attention of a
> wide-ranging American readership for the first time...
>
> His personal life drew a great deal of scrutiny from the Federal Bureau of
> Investigation. By their own admission, they kept a file on him that was
> 13,262 pages long.
>
> Hoffman was 52 at the time of his death on April 12, 1989, which was
> caused by swallowing 150 phenobarbital tablets and liquor. He had been
> diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1980.[40] At the time he had recently
> changed treatment medications and was reportedly depressed when his
> 83-year-old mother was diagnosed with cancer (she died in 1996 at the age
> of 90). Some close to Hoffman, including his longtime friend David Denton
> and fellow Chicago Seven co-defendant Tom Hayden, claimed that as a natural
> prankster who valued youth, he was also unhappy about reaching middle age,
> combined with the fact that the ideas of the 1960s had given way to a
> conservative backlash in the 1980s. In 1984 he had expressed dismay that
> the current generation of young people were not as interested in protesting
> and social activism as youth had been during the 1960s. Hoffman's body was
> found in his apartment in a converted turkey coop on Sugan Road in Solebury
> Township, near New Hope, Pennsylvania. At the time of his death, he was
> surrounded by about 200 pages of his own handwritten notes, many about his
> own moods.
>
> His death was officially ruled as suicide. As reported by The New York
> Times, "Among the more vocal doubters at the service today was Mr.
> Dellinger, who said, 'I don't believe for one moment the suicide thing.' He
> said he had been in fairly frequent touch with Mr. Hoffman, who had
> 'numerous plans for the future.'" Yet the same New York Times article
> reported that the coroner found the residue of about 150 pills and quoted
> the coroner in a telephone interview saying "There is no way to take that
> amount of phenobarbital without intent. It was intentional and
> self-inflicted."
>
> A week after Hoffman's death, 1,000 friends and relatives gathered for a
> memorial in Worcester, Massachusetts, at Temple Emanuel, the synagogue he
> attended as a child. Two of his colleagues from the Chicago Seven
> conspiracy trial were there: David Dellinger and Jerry Rubin, Hoffman's
> co-founder of the Yippies, by then a businessman...
>
> Bill Walton, the radical Celtic of basketball renown, told of a puckish
> Abbie, then underground evading a cocaine charge in the '70s, leaping from
> the shadows on a New York street to give him an impromptu basketball lesson
> after a loss to the Knicks. 'Abbie was not a fugitive from justice,' said
> Mr. Walton. 'Justice was a fugitive from him.' On a more traditional note,
> Rabbi Norman Mendell said in his eulogy that Mr. Hoffman's long history of
> protest, antic though much of it had been, was 'in the Jewish prophetic
> tradition, which is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.’
> [Wikipedia]
>
>
> On May 13, 2018, at 7:55 AM, Mildred O'brien <moboct1 at aim.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Abbie Hoffman may have been the brains behind resistance but I have no
> personal knowledge of his contribution; Dave Dellinger as a peace activist,
> socialist, and  pacifist lived it and was the real deal, like Dorothy Day
> and A. J. Muste, and was often jailed for it.  I don't know about his
> organizational skills, but he was a tireless speaker and demonstrator on
> behalf of peace issues, travelling all over the world to spread the message
> of peace and non-violence, which at least is organization by example.  I
> think he was formally involved in representing several organizations, I
> don't know to what extent, but he probably was. I was impressed by his
> sincerity and commitment when he was a resident scholar at Allen Hall here
> some 30 years ago.  He had a long and tireless life in activism and
> hardship when he apparently came from a family of means, and he had other
> alternatives but chose to be dedicated to peace.
> >
> > Midge
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com>
> > To: John W. <jbw292002 at gmail.com>
> > Cc: C G Estabrook <cgestabrook at gmail.com>; Mildred O'brien <
> moboct1 at aim.com>; Peace-discuss List <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
> > Sent: Fri, May 11, 2018 5:05 pm
> > Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Trump torpedoes Iran nuclear accord
> >
> > Were Abbie Hoffman and Dave Dellinger serious organizers, or were they
> just the “superstars.”
> >
> > I was informed in the seventies, by some of the serious organizers that
> those two were the latter.
> >
> > On May 11, 2018, at 15:02, John W. <jbw292002 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Fri, May 11, 2018 at 2:14 PM, Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Carl
> >
> > Your statement:
> >
> > “What happened after 1975 was the construction of a vicious
> counter-narrative, neo-conservatism, to join the business community’s
> counter-attack on ’the Sixties,’ neoliberalism.”
> > Makes sense and I believe this is what happened based upon what I have
> read, and what you have said stated many times.
> >
> > I have also heard others discuss how many people turned to “personal
> pursuits” as a result of Edward Bernais propaganda. The turn on, navel
> gazing crowd, populating the west coast began a movement, in the sixties
> that dulled the senses of many of those who “participated in political
> activism of the 60’s and 70’s”, not the serious organizers, who often were
> older and continued the struggle.
> >
> > In a word, Dave Dellinger vs. Abbie Hoffman.  Ironically, Abbie became a
> serious environmental activist years later in upstate New York, before
> committing suicide at age 53.  But he and Timothy Leary had turned a
> generation of college students into "yippies".
> >
> >
> > Just as today, its difficult with only small turn outs.
> >
> > Many of the groups such as the SWP regrouped under a new strategy, of
> taking individuals out of the cities, off of campuses, into more rural
> areas in order to organize unions, unfortunately many as a result, dropped
> out rather than uproot their lives.
> >
> > This is why I find it difficult to believe that the masses demonstrating
> against US interventions in Latin America were larger than that which took
> place during the Vietnam war.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On May 11, 2018, at 11:31, John W. via Peace-discuss <
> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Fri, May 11, 2018 at 1:18 PM, Mildred O'brien <moboct1 at aim.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > I suppose John W. (whoever he is) represents mainstream rural America,
> uninformed and unread, gullible patriots.
> >
> > You replied only to me, Mildred/Midge, so you may as well just address
> me directly, whoever I am.  Anything else would be rude and boorish.  But
> here, I'll add us back in to the peace-discuss discussion.
> >
> > I don't "represent" mainstream rural America, except insofar as I lived
> and worked in that environment for 20 long years, and know what their
> interests are and how they think.  I was a fish out of water, but it was
> water that I was forced to swim in for all those years, and I really didn't
> know how to find fresher, purer water such as the kind that YOU plainly
> have been privileged to swim in.
> >
> >
> >
> >   He no doubt represents more of the population than informed activists,
> >
> > Again, I'm absolutely certain that that benighted population is far, far
> higher than the population of "informed activists", who as often as not
> can't even agree among themselves as to priorities, tactics, and
> strategies, and end up breaking into splinter groups and driving away those
> who might have been allies.
> >
> > You see, I've now been an "informed activist" in THIS community for 20
> long years, and I see how IT works too.  I have what might be termed by
> Noam Chomsky a "basis for comparison".
> >
> >
> > but to say there was no opposition in those days is not accurate at
> least in this area.
> >
> > I at least didn't assert that in any way, shape, or form.
> >
> >
> > Midge
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: John W. via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
> > To: Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com>
> > Cc: Brussel, Morton K <brussel at illinois.edu>; Peace-discuss List (
> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net) <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
> > Sent: Fri, May 11, 2018 1:09 pm
> > Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Trump torpedoes Iran nuclear accord
> >
> >
> > On Fri, May 11, 2018 at 8:41 AM, Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > It’s good to know that more Americans were protesting the USG Central
> American wars in the late 70’s and 80’s than even those protesting the
> Vietnam war in the 60”s. I had no idea, until you made the statement,
> below. I have the excuse of being in Asia from Spring 1977 on through the
> next 22 to 28 years, with brief visits to the US at times. However, I’m
> wondering if most Americans even knew of the opposition at the time, due to
> limited media coverage?
> >
> > No, most Americans had no idea.  Our "boys" weren't fighting and dying
> there, so most Americans outside of university communities had no
> particular awareness of what was going on in Central America, and no
> interest in finding out.  There was very little mainstream media coverage.
> Living in a small blue-collar Illinois town back then, I never did figure
> out the difference between the Sandinistas and the Contras, just as an
> example.  And didn't really care.  Nor did I understand what the whole
> Ollie North scandal was all about.  There was no internet in those days,
> remember, and I personally didn't even read a daily newspaper.
> >
> > I think academics and "progressives" and "revolutionaries" absolutely,
> dramatically overestimate the amount of support they have in middle America
> for their various causes.
> >
> >
> >
> > On May 9, 2018, at 15:32, Carl G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>
> wrote:
> >
> > You’re both forgetting the organizing in this country against the US
> government's Central American wars of the 1970s and ‘80s - arguably
> involving more Americans than the Vietnam protests of the ‘60s.
> >
> > A decorated (indicted) hero of those wars, Oliver North, has just become
> head of the NRA.
> >
> > What happened after 1975 was the construction of a vicious
> counter-narrative, neo-conservatism, to join the business community's
> counter-attack on ’the Sixties,’ neoliberalism.
> >
> > Beginning in the Carter* administration, neolib and neocon lies
> dominated US politics.
> >
> > President Bush I celebrated the real success of the first Gulf War
> (1990-91): “...by God, we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome [ = reluctance of
> Americans to engage in neo-colonial wars, after Vietnam] once and for all!”
> > ______________________________
> >
> > * "At one point, President Jimmy Carter actually said that the U.S. owed
> no reparations to Vietnam because 'the destruction was mutual.’”
> > <http://www.vvaw.org/veteran/article/?id=265&print=yes>
> >
> >
> >
> > On May 9, 2018, at 5:02 PM, John W. via Peace-discuss <
> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Wed, May 9, 2018 at 4:52 PM, Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Unfortunately, thats not what we did in the sixties. Once the Vietnam
> war was over, everyone went home, I left the country, many went to
> California to join communes, and navel gaze, while others got swept up into
> the eighties, where greed was good.  So here we are on the brink of nuclear
> war, and climate catastrophe, pick your poison.
> >
> > Right you are, Karen.  And more or less my point.  Every several decades
> there's a new generation of young idealists who are going to "straighten
> out" the mess their parents made.  And always, always, always with the same
> result.  Or, if not EXACTLY the same result, close enough that "it rhymes",
> as Carl is fond of quoting.
> >
> >       Virus-free. www.avg.com
> > _______________________________________________
> > Peace-discuss mailing list
> > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Peace-discuss mailing list
> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20180513/dbe4dc45/attachment-0001.html>