Obviously, with my admiration of Abbie Hoffman and whatnot, I am really into street theater. I was wondering what everyone thought about this. It's great because it captures the attention of people walking by (and sometimes the press) more than a regular demonstration or pamphlet-handing out session. But at the same time, it can take attention away from the issues at hand. If someone nominates pigs for president, it will get attention of course. Considering how Jewish Hoffman, Rubin, Krassner and their friends looked, however, a passer-by might think they were demonstrating in favor of Kosher foods.
The problem in the 60's, a golden age of street theater, is that ideally someone would be attracted to the left by the Yippies and then once they were drawn in they would do research and end up reading articles by Hayden and eventually Marx. But lots of the kids who joined the Yippies and other groups never really ended up caring about the issues and that's why so many Hippies were just empty leftists. They never cared about anything and only posed as leftists for an excuse for being anti-Vietnam. If we use street theater, we it will undoubtedly attract more people to the cause, and those who don't join us will at least be more aware of who we are and what we stand for. The challenge now is to use street theater and then get people to read, ask questions and do research once they have become our comrades. How can we do this? We need to show people that what we're into is more than just fun and games. (I had a friend attend the SSDP convention, and she said that there was way too much of a focus on the drugs themselves and not enough kids knew about the war in Colombia or anything like that.) The thing is, the left IS fun to a certain extent once a person is educated. We need to come up with demonstrations that can say "being on the left is fun, but there are important issues here, of course." How can we do this? I'd really like some suggestions, since I'm friends with the kid who founded Bong Water for the Children and a part of the movement to take the White House from NW DC and put it in SE where it probably belongs.
(Edited by I Will Deny You at 9:27 am on Jan. 26, 2002)
