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

[Boyle, Francis A]

I personally saw the Dem establishment steal the nomination from Gene McCarthy and give it to Houie. Sort of like in 2016 the Dem establishment stealing the nomination from Bernie and giving it to Hillary. Some things never change. Fab.

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (phone)
217-244-1478 (fax)
(personal comments only)

From: Boyle, Francis A
Sent: Monday, May 14, 2018 6:21 AM
To: Peace-discuss List (peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net) <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Cc: David Green <davegreen84 at yahoo.com>
Subject: RE: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Trump torpedoes Iran nuclear accord

I was at the 1968 DNC at the Chicago Amphitheater and Commuted Downtown from there. Missed Abbie then, but caught up with him at CIA On Trial in Northampton Mass 1987. RIP. fab

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (phone)
217-244-1478 (fax)
(personal comments only)

From: Peace-discuss [mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of C G Estabrook via Peace-discuss
Sent: Sunday, May 13, 2018 9:02 PM
To: David Green <davidgreen50 at gmail.com<mailto:davidgreen50 at gmail.com>>
Cc: Peace-discuss List (peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net<mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>) <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net<mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>>
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Trump torpedoes Iran nuclear accord

Mailer’s book might be the thing to read for those who came in late. Chomsky makes an appearance.

(Mailer writes of himself in the third person.)

http://robertvienneau.blogspot.com/2016/05/noam-chomsky-and-norman-mailer-share.html


On May 13, 2018, at 8:55 PM, David Green via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net<mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>> wrote:

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<mailto: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<mailto: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<mailto:karenaram at hotmail.com>>
> To: John W. <jbw292002 at gmail.com<mailto:jbw292002 at gmail.com>>
> Cc: C G Estabrook <cgestabrook at gmail.com<mailto:cgestabrook at gmail.com>>; Mildred O'brien <moboct1 at aim.com<mailto:moboct1 at aim.com>>; Peace-discuss List <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net<mailto: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<mailto:jbw292002 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>
> On Fri, May 11, 2018 at 2:14 PM, Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com<mailto: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<mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>> wrote:
>
>
> On Fri, May 11, 2018 at 1:18 PM, Mildred O'brien <moboct1 at aim.com<mailto: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<mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>>
> To: Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com<mailto:karenaram at hotmail.com>>
> Cc: Brussel, Morton K <brussel at illinois.edu<mailto:brussel at illinois.edu>>; Peace-discuss List (peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net<mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>) <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net<mailto: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<mailto: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<mailto: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<mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>> wrote:
>
>
> On Wed, May 9, 2018 at 4:52 PM, Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com<mailto: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<http://www.avg.com/>
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