Abbie Hoffman and the Youth International Party

[Lobotomy]

I don't think I've ever seen any talk of Abbie Hoffman on Revleft, and I wanted to know what others thought about him. I recently started reading Steal This Book and so far I must say I'm not too impressed. Here's a free copy if anyone's interested: http://www.tenant.net/Community/steal/steal.html


In fancy sit-down restaurants, you can order a large meal and halfway through the main course, take a little dead cockroach or a piece of glass out of your pocket and place it deftly on the plate. Jump up astonished and summon the headwaiter. "Never have I been so insulted. I could have been poisoned" you scream slapping down the napkin. You can refuse to pay and leave, or let the waiter talk you into having a brand new meal on the house for this terrible inconvenience.

What exactly does this accomplish aside from pissing off a waiter? (Later he does say something about leaving a large tip, but whatever).

Like I said, I only just started reading, so maybe I'm ignorant of something. But what do you think? Did Abbie Hoffman contribute something to revolutionary leftist politics, or is he largely irrelevant?

[¿Que?]

All I know about Hoffman was from Steal This Movie, and he seemed more like a prankster than a serious political figure. But that was from the movie. Never read the book.

[graymouser]

Radicalization expresses itself in weird ways sometimes. Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies weren't terribly good at what they did, and in a lot of ways they represented the subcultural trends that existed in the '60s radicalization. Their politics never had a class basis or revolutionary theory, so they got quite a lot of attention but didn't build anything that really lasted.

[Proukunin]

they were political pranksters. I mean Pigusus haha c'mon. but I liked his work, and he had good ideas.

[gorillafuck]

Unless you really need to eat and just can't pay, then making a whole restaurant staff look terrible is pretty fuckin' anti-worker.

[Robocommie]

That's not really challenging capitalism, that's con-artistry.

[NGNM85]

You're first mistake was starting with Steal This Book, which is more of a curiosity, really. You should have read the Autobiography of Abbie Hoffman (With a forward by Norman Mailer.) or Revolution For the Hell of It.

Hoffman had a long and distinguished career of activism, including being one of the key organizers of the protest at the 1968 DNC. (For which he stood trial with the 'Chicago 8,' which quickly became the Chicago 7.) He also used his 1987 arrest to put the CIA on trial, calling Ramsey Clark, Daniel Ellsberg, and a Contra leader to give extensive testimony on the criminal activities of the US Govt. Also, I wouldn't be so quick to put down his radical theatre, some of it was brilliant, and effective. The best example, in my opinion, was when he threw dollor bills down onto the floor of the stock exchange, the image of stock traders pawing and scrambling for money on the front page spoke volumes.