Steal this book

[Kez]

i just checked this book out, and its really scrubby, and has nothing to do with communism or socialism, its for tramps

comrade kamo

[libereco]

so what does it have to do with?

[Zippy]

Shouldnt you tell us the name then ?

Zippy.

[libereco]

it is actually called "steal this book" as far as i know.

[I Will Deny You]

Yes, Steal This Book is the actual title. It's by Abbie Hoffman (Soon to be a Major Motion Picture, Revolution for the Hell of it[/i], Square Dancing in the Ice Age, etc.).

Kamo, I don't know you very well and I certainly don't mean to offend you, but . . . how can I put this? You're not the kind of person who would get what Hoffman's trying to say. Hoffman and Co. viewing stealing as a sign of respect, not an insult (which seems to be how you would view stealing a book). Steal This Book was not meant to be taken seriously. Hardly any of the information in there is useful. The violence related stuff would piss of most of Hoffman's fellow Yippies and would be old news to the Weather Underground types. I doubt very many of the people who read the book would actually make it to New York and have the opportunity to crash with his poet friend. Basically, Steal This Book was meant to do one thing only: piss of the authorities. The title itself, not the content, is the reason why most bookstores wouldn't carry it. If any information inside did prove to be useful, the useful-ness of the book might overshadow the media spectacle that would be made of the book itself, and Hoffman's schtick was playing the media. Now, all of the information inside is completely irrelevant and Hoffman has become an underground cult icon in the way that Che has become an international icon. People talk and write about Steal This Book because, like Hoffman, it's funny, outrageous, strange and shows how stupid and reactionary society is.

About the whole socialism/communism thing, this once again has to do with the kind of revolutionary Hoffman was and the kind of revolutionary that (correct me if I'm wrong, I'm apologizing in advance for any error or misinterpretation) you seem to be. While as far as I can tell you want immediate and full-blown action, Hoffman focused on the direction that society needed to go in. He saw a country that had gone too far to the right and basically focused on bringing it to the left. He didn't ever say "This is what I think about Marx vs. Lenin vs. Guevara, blah blah blah." He was to the left of the American government and as long as that was very, very true (too true), that's what he focused on. He only talked about being a communist in the 70's, once he was underground. (He probably only admitted that to keep his name in the papers, anyway.) To make a long post short, Hoffman focused on different things than I think you would and he focused on the direction that the country needed to move in, not (for the time being) where it should end up.

[Breast Pump]

^how did you come to that conclusion? Yours is the first interpretation of the kind I've ran across. I haven't read the book yet, I've tried checking it out and it's never in circulation, anyway-- everyone I know that has read the book has taken the title literally and never had the same interpretation as you.

(Edited by Breast Pump at 8:29 pm on Jan. 30, 2002)

[Zippy]

Quote: from libereco on 12:00 am on Jan. 30, 2002
it is actually called "steal this book" as far as i know.

I was joking. :)

----------

They sell copys on Amazon but i know Amazon arent they friendliest of companies, and id hate to actually buy a copy of a book called "Steal This Book." I like to think im a risk taker, but its too difficult to shoplift from an internet company. ;)

There is also "Steal This Computer Book 2 : What They Won't Tell You About the Internet " - Wallace Wang, so thats something else to risk a conviction for.

Zippy.

[Kez]

from what ive read, its about how to live for as little money as you can.

comrade kamo

[I Will Deny You]

On the surface, yes. But you have to understand the icon that it's become, the cultural backlash, and what Hoffman represents. Otherwise you may have read the book, but you will not have (to borrow a phrase from Garofalo and Stiller) felt it.

[I Will Deny You]

Breast Pump, I'm not sure if you were asking about Hoffman's view of shoplifting or revolution, so I'll just write about both and you can skip over what you don't feel like reading.

Hoffman did not write a story in Steal This Book and he did not add insight to ideas, he simply spread old ideas. If you find anything written about his conflicts with the Digger leaders, you'll probably get an exact quote (which I'm too lazy to get for myself at this hour) of his thoughts on this, but basically he did not believe ideas belonged to anyone. (I myself think that ideas just kind of float around the universe waiting to be discovered.) It would be absurd to think that he found all of the methods for living cheaply on his own. He went around finding ideas and then got permission to reprint them. If Book were a novel then it would be understandable for him to ask for a little more respect. But people had spread their discoveries for living for free to him, and he was spreading word of the discoveries to other people. So, since none of the ideas in the book belonged to anyone and I'd be shocked if he had even discovered one thing in the book on his own, the book arguably didn't belong to him. How, then, could Hoffman say that he deserved the royalties? He didn't, and he gave most of his money to charities. (The FBI spread rumors than Abbie and Anita were living in a penthouse, but it is far from true.) Behind all of the shock value, there really was some principle in the title.

A violent overthrow of the government requires one basic idea, and many times a dicatorship is installed after a government is overthrown. I'll use Che as an example (because everyone on this board either knows about him or is learning about him): the only figure that had anything to do with the Civil Rights movement that I know of Che mentioning is Faubus. (I'm probably wrong, and would appreciate any more information on this.) So Che grows up and all that he hears about blacks in the South is that they're mistreated. The Civil Rights movement had definitely come a long way by the time Fidel was in power, but I doubt very much of its image had changed by the time stories of the South would reach Cuba. The South really is a key part of how Che and Abbie both viewed America because they both saw a minority that they simpathized with but had never been a part of. (I think Che viewed black people mainly as he viewed the indegenous of South America.) As I recall, Che had been to Miami and was disgusted by the was African Americans were treated. By the time Abbie came along, however, SNCC was very popular. Abbie was involved with Friends of SNCC and went to the South when he could. (Remember, he had a wife and two young children to support.) NAACP meetings also caught his attention, and he worked for the ACLU. So now you've got Hoffman, and he's involved with these optimistic organizations that did end up with a lot of victories to their credit. Hoffman had black idols and worked with black people. He saw how close the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party came to getting into the convention of '64. He campaigned for both 1+ Democrats and 1+ third party candidates. (Sorry, I don't remember the exact numbers offhand, but I know that there was at least one of each that he worked for.) He knew better than anyone that the American system was flawed and he would eventually learn that most American people were stupid, but when Hoffman was young he saw people telling him to have faith and that the changes he was working for would come. By '67, Hoffman's first real taste of fame, the people who told him to have faith ended up being right. Against impossible odds and hundreds of years of brutal persecution, black people who he had worked for had accomplished so much. Of course, by now he was a lot more active in the anti-Vietnam movement.

Now it didn't matter though, because he had enough faith in the democratic system in America to know that at least something was possible, or would be possible soon enough. (He would be right about this, too.) In America, no one could have just walked up to a ballot box and said, "Lyndon, please end this war," or, "Keep the war going." One thing about democracy: no matter what change comes, good or bad, it usually comes very slowly. Patience is the key. If you try your hardest to move the voting public in the general direction you'd like to see the American government go towards, and then tweak everything once you get there, that is arguably the best approach. Move the country as far to the left as possible, and then get to the particulars. This is what Hoffman did. To my knowledge, he never mentioned which of Marx's principles ought to be the most important in guiding the economy. He never said whether he prefered Mao over Lenin (although I think he mentioned Mao much more often). Basically, he'd embrace Mao, Lenin, or anyone else to the left of LBJ as long as it would get closer to ending segregation, getting out of Vietnam, saving the environment, or achieving any other leftist goal. (Those were his three biggest causes, although he supported a whole lot of them.) Here's where it gets hairy: many revolutionaries rejected television and all mainstream media. They had some excellent points that I agree with myself. But Hoffman knew that even though 51% was a majority, it wasn't enough to start radical change. 60% was a majority, and it was nowhere near enough to get a lot done. He had to invade white, middle class homes and change the country. The easiest way was through television. That's not to say that he rejected all print publications. Time photographers were at his damned wedding!

This is another difference between Hoffman and Yippie!-style revolutionaries and Old Left types. Hoffman, for better or for worse, had faith in the public. He'd taunt the public and make fun of them, but at the end of the day he believed that once they were exposed to the entire truth they had the potential to be enlightened, to transform themselves. It's not as if Pigasus' nomination speech was filled with references to and quotations from Fidel, Uncle Joe or any other established communist or psuedo-communist, but he just wanted to open people's minds and act as a gateway. That's one thing I love about Abbie: he realized that even in a revolution of the egalitarian kind, everyone has a different place. His place was to get people asking questions, get people involved. Many of the leftists who he would taunt were really his allies at the end of the day--they would be involved in the next step of a person's transformation, getting someone to figure out exactly where they stand and keeping them up to date. Hoffman realized that if his plan didn't work he was fucked and if his plan worked he would probably create more SDS'ers than Yippies! but he didn't care, because as long as he created more people who were on his side of the political spectrum he would be okay for the time being. If you look back, you can find all sorts of people who he obviously didn't agree with who he worked with just because he wanted to move America in a general direction. Once black people stopped getting lynched, then he'd work out exact plans to create equal job opportunities. Once HUAC stopped holding hearings, then he'd decide how to approach taxes and Welfare. I honestly believe that if America, by some miracle, had become a leftist nation during Hoffman's lifetime, and the majority wanted something different from what he wanted, he'd go along with it as long as the majority was rational and well-informed (unlike they were then or are now). He wasn't afraid to use the system because as long as there was a system, he figured the Left may as well acknowlege it instead of living in denial. He hoped that one day the system would be abolished, but until it was it could be used as a weapon against itself. That's the beauty of what he did--it was all open-ended ("End the") and, although there was a lot of petty infighting among the Left that Hoffman definitely had a part in, the fact that he asked questions instead of telling answers showed that he really had faith in other people, and ultimately he may have had more faith in an informed public than he would have had in himself. He didn't mind being outrageous, funny or provocative because that's what he knew Walter Cronkite was likely to talk about. Certainly more likely than "Abbie Hoffman wrote a well-thought-out book today about where American should be x-number of years from now," or "Abbie and Jerry held up anti-war signs and chanted anti-war slogans today." When you capture people's attention, that's the first step. If you make people ask you questions instead of randomly approaching them and telling them what to do, they're a lot more likely to stay on your side in the long run.

I'm not sure if that's even what you want to know and it's way, way too long, so I'll stop now. If you have anything else to ask I'll try to answer.

[I Will Deny You]

Okay, I guess that wasn't what you wanted to know after all.

[El Che]

You cant steal something if its free. (http://tenant.net/Community/steal/index.html)

(Edited by El Che at 7:57 am on Feb. 22, 2002)

[Kez]

so, run this past me again.....
how was the book in the slightest socialist?

its an interesting to book to read, funny too, even if not meant to be.

by the way, is it supposed to be taken seriously?
for example, theres a bit where u go into a resturant, then when someone leaves, u go sit in their place and eat what reamins. that is scrubby

comrade kamo

[I Will Deny You]

El Che, if you just read the book online without actually stealing it, it takes all the fun out of it.
Quote: from TavareeshKamo on 6:00 pm on Feb. 22, 2002
its an interesting to book to read, funny too, even if not meant to be.

by the way, is it supposed to be taken seriously?
for example, theres a bit where u go into a resturant, then when someone leaves, u go sit in their place and eat what reaminsTrust me, every time you laugh you were meant to laugh. It's not supposed to be taken seriously . . . remember, this is advice for living from a man who tried to exorcise the Pentagon. I'm not sure how much you know about Abbie, but that might explain your thoughts toward the beginning of this post . . .

This book is not socialist in a specifically Marxist, going-by-the-doctrine way. It's more socialist in a "hey, I'm poor and I'm hungry and they're rich, hmmm" kind of way. Hoffman never really defined his beliefs and there's definitely a reason for it. There were all sorts of socialists in Hoffman's time and I'm sure that if you don't like Hoffman there's a Dave Dellinger or Tom Hayden fan club that you can join.

[Supermodel]

IWDY, just because of your insights on this book I ordered it and read it. I really liked it, and would never have read it if you hadn't given us these thoughts.

I kept in mind as I was reading it, the young Ernesto travelling around South America, scrounging food and keep from cops and hospitals. The book made me feel a lot more self-reliant, as in, how could someone be stuck if they have the right mindset, when they ask for support?.

Very, very interesting. Of course I don't relate at all to Abbie's life experiences, other than working with the homeless, so I was an armchair yippie for a few nights.

[RedRevolutionary87]

y did you order it??? its kalled steal this book you should steal it!

[I Will Deny You]

Wow . . . this is one of the few times that I have nothing to say. (Do I open with a joke, or would that seem too disrespectful? Do I open with "thank you for letting me influence you," or would that be too un-Abbie? Ah, I should just open how I want to, and that would be to . . . ?) So yes, I appreciate that you read my comments, and I'm glad you pursued Steal this Book. And I'm also glad that you liked it, because if you didn't you might hate me or never read my comments again.

I agree that no one can be stuck if they have the right mindset. I hate to sound like some kind of annoying "attitude is everything" motivational poster, but to a large extent it's true. In a capitalist society we're encouraged to care so much about money and our biggest fear is supposed to be homelessness. I too have worked with the homeless and I admit it doesn't look like a blast, but if you live in a dirty neighborhood there are still worse things that could happen. If you just take life by the horns and choose to be a wanderer as long as you can do it on your own terms, you'll come out of life with actual stories and experiences that'll be truly priceless. I love that mentality.

Luckily, neither one of us relates too much to Abbies experiences (seeing your friend bound and gagged in a courtroom, getting convicted for conspiracy against the government and then that whole coke thing after the book was published). But although it may not have seemed clear in my long post before, I really think Che and Abbie have a lot in common. They're both incredibly smart but neither one of them wanted to get the 9-to-5 job that their family told them they should have. They could have set out to make a lot of money (and they would have been able to) but instead they set out to "go for broke" as Abbie might have said it (instead of "going for the money") and if you ask me, they both succeeded. They also both wanted to see the world--it's not one of the great Abbie Legends, but Abbie went on a motorcycle trip across Europe during college. There are lots of things about this that end up pretty ironic. (Abbie was a narcissist who would embrace pretty much anyone that was fighting for the cause as I hinted at in my long post, but today he's got a cult following with a few incredibly devoted admirers. Che, who never set out to become a symbol, is admired worldwide by tons of people, from the dedicated revolutionaries to Jay-Z.) Anyway, it's natural that there would be some common bond between my favorite revolutionaries and I think that may be it: they're all geniuses and they're all good people and they all saw the world on motorcycles and they're all slightly "bohemian." (Perhaps it's also no coincidence that Einstein, Che and Abbie--three of my favorites--all have great hair.)

It's books like Steal this Book and stories like Che's that inspired me to go on a roadtrip during a year off between high school and college, and I can't say that I regret it one bit. So if anyone who's reading this has the time, I suggest it 100%. And if anyone reads this book, understand that it shouldn't be read simply for the tips (most of which wouldn't work in today's world anyway). But understand the attitude that Hoffman had and you'll walk away with so much that's more valuable that the raw information that any book can give you.

[Breast Pump]

IWDY: I apologize for not replying earlier, but any clarification was more than welcomed, thank you. I don't know too much about Abbie Hoffman and I would like to know more, if you have the time please post some links to quench my curiousity.

... did you steal the book? I'm a wuss, I don't think I would steal it = Like I said before, I tried checking it out and it was unavailabe, but coming across this thread reminded me to put a request on the book. I'll read it as soon as I get the chance. Your insight on the book was more than generous, thank you again.

[I Will Deny You]

Don't worry BreastPump, all is well.

If you're looking for a book that's got the whole Abbie/Yippie! spirit you should actually try Soon to be a Major Motion Picture (a.k.a. The Autobiography of Abbie Hoffman or something like that) because it's got Abbie's great writing style and his personality practically jumps out of the pages, but it's also about his life story. The biography that his brother wrote has been criticized left and right (Anita Hoffman, Abbie's second wife, had some words for it as well) so it's probably not worth your time. The biography that Marty Jezer wrote had a ton of facts and I liked it, but it's as boring as the phone book when compared to Abbie's memoir. But anything that Abbie wrote would be worth your time.

I never figured there would be much on Abbie on the Internet, but I did some searches and this is what I found:
http://www.freespeech.org/yippie/
http://www.1968.john-schultz.com/econspir.html
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/f...7/chicago7.html (http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/Chicago7/chicago7.html)
http://theaction.com/Abbie/index.html
http://216.39.161.171/Abbie/AbbieHoffman.htm

I've stolen the book many times, I have a ton of copies.

[Breast Pump]

thank you, you're awesome. since you have a ton of copies, how 'bout sharing them? if you like maybe we can have a book exchange, what do you think?

[Supermodel]

IWDY, exactly right. It's not the book taken literally that's great, it's the attitude of total freedom and the combo of independence from all the working norms, but at the same time knowing that you can rely on your fellow man, if you have the right approach, to survive.

Yes, some of the ideas are gross such as finishing someone's food who has left a restaurant, but only nasty in a western sense. I can certainly see myself doing that if I were hungry and without easier alternatives. How many of us have worked in fancy restaurants and picked at a plate while taking it back to be dumped?

Yes I did purchase the book from Amazon. I'm also one of those who was never into napster because I believe in the artist's rights to the money.

[anarchoveganLAM]

abbie hoffman was my mother. huey p newton was my father. but bookchin is my grandmother, and grandpa is alexander berkman.

[I Will Deny You]

Quote: from anarchoveganLAM on 12:15 am on Feb. 28, 2002
abbie hoffman was my mother. huey p newton was my father.Ebony Jews will rule the world one day!

BreastPump, I think it's available online at a bunch of different places . . . I'm sure you'll be able to find it if you look in Yahoo! and if not I can try to help.

[ernestodekam]

You can find the book easily on the internet

[Rosa]

-masses-not-paying-the-profit would destroy capitalism
-unbuying masses would destroy capitalism
-mass-stealing would destroy capitalism
-nobody can have copyright on knowledge
-steal to get aware of powerty of capitalistic system when it put you in jail immediatly
-and anger produced by that awareness will give you the strength to fight the system
-steal, it's unlikely that global-non-buying-strike would happen
-if you don't need anything, be aware that someone else might have some needs.
-if you still feel guilty, remind yourself that Roobin Hood wasn't such a bad person

[Young Turk]

It didn't look like anyone posted a link, so here. I personally found this book very interesting when I read it and though somewhat corny, I still would consider it ahead of it's time. Take it for what it is.

http://tenant.net/Community/steal/index.html

[DestinDisaster]

I never knew half that stuff about Hoffman, thanks Lindsay. As far as Steal This Book goes, I have never read it. What I basically want to know is if it's even worth it. I knew Hoffman had a hand in the struggle, but wow.

Does anyone know any good books on Geranimo Pratt???

Shayla

[deadpool 52]

IWDY, how did you go about stealing the book?

[I Will Deny You]

Go to a big bookstore, like Barnes & Noble or Borders. Take a copy of the book, and then go to the bathroom. (The huge bookstores always have bathrooms.) When you're in the bathroom, put the book in your backpack. When you do this, it's good to bring three or four other books with you because if you walk in with one book and walk out with zero, it's kind of obvious.

But you didn't hear it from me.

[deadpool 52]

Ah, but they have detectors in the bathrooms now.

[red head]

kamo, are you so brainwashed that you can't enjoy a book if its not marxist? if you're stuck on the fact that hoffman advises people to eat food left at a table, or pretend to be a church charity and steal clothes, or hijack a plane to iraq, rather than the social/cultural conditions that he wrote the book in, than why were you reading the book to begin with? hoffman wasn't a marxist, so what? he was a great thinker and human being, and serves as a good symbol for a counter culture that existed during the 70's in america. hoffman contributed a lot more to revolutionizing the industrial world than your nihilistic "fuck shit up" attitude ever will.

[MJM]

Or you could go into the toilet and set the toilet rolls on fire to create a diversion, then cooly stroll out the door.

Get a friend to fake a fit right in the doorway.

Shout 'HE'S GOT MY BAG!' and run out pretending to chase someone.

[I Will Deny You]

Quote: from red head on 5:38 am on Mar. 18, 2002
hoffman wasn't a marxist, so what? he was a great thinker and human being, and serves as a good symbol for a counter culture that existed during the 70's in america.
Actually, he identified himself as a Marxist when he first arrived in New York City in the mid-60's and said he was a communist in the 70's. Of course, he might have been lying (since telling the truth wasn't his specialty) but since he said it before he was a media icon, I think it might be true.

But Amen about the counterculture thing. Abbie was brilliant for accepting that he would become an icon and fashioning an image. It wouldn't have been the right thing for every leftist leader to do, but it was a good thing for him to do. It's wonderful to see other Abbie appreciaters on here. :)