From ats5@internet01.comp.pge.com Thu Aug  4 15:11:16 1994
Date: Wed, 3 Aug 94 23:47:14 PDT
From: Andy Smith <ats5@internet01.comp.pge.com>
Subject: REFLECTIONS ON STUDENT ACTIVISM 

                 REFLECTIONS ON STUDENT ACTIVISM                
                          Abbie Hoffman
                                                                
                                                                
Speech to the first National Student Convention, Rutgers University,
                        February 6, 1988                        
                                                                
                                                                
I guess you can't see my button. It says, "I fought tuition." It's a
two  part  set,  actually. The second button says,  "And  tuition
won."                                                           
                                                                
You  should  know  that  over 650  students  have  registered  as
delegates here, representing over 130 different schools. You have
come  despite  freezing  weather and hard economic  times  to  do
something  that I'm not sure anybody is yet ready to  comprehend.
I'm  absolutely  convinced  that you are making history  just  by
being  here.  You  are  proving that the image  of  the  American
college student as a career-interested, marriage-interested, self
centered  yuppie is absolutely outdated, that a new age is on the
rise, a new college student.                                    
                                                                
There's  been a lot of talk about comparing today to what went on
in  the sixties. I would remind you that in 1960, when we started
the  Student  Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to fight  in  the
South  in  the  civil rights movement, less that 30  people  came
together  to  begin  it.  The famous Students  for  a  Democratic
Society,  which we're all reading about, was formed in 1962  with
exactly  59  people.  No one before this has done  anything  this
bold,  imaginative,  creative, and daring to bring together  this
many  different  strains  of people, who all believe  in  radical
change in our society. It is just an amazing feat. And I wish you
the best of luck today, and especially tomorrow, when you have to
decide  whether to go forward or backward. I'd also like to  take
this moment to salute our glorious actor-in chief: Happy Birthday
Ronald  Reagan! I don't believe anyone in here believes its "Good
morning in America" tonight.                                    
                                                                
I  have  a lot of speeches in my head: On the CIA, urine  testing,
nuclear  power,  saving  water -- that's my  local  battle.  We're
fighting the Philadelphia Electric Company's attempt to steal the
waters  of  the Delaware River for yet another nuclear  plant.  A
local  battle? I don't know. One out of ten Americans drink  from
that  river.  I also speak on the modern history of  the  student
protest and on Central America, where I've been five times. Every
time  I  get  before  a microphone  I'm  extremely  nervous  that
chromosome  damage and Alzheimer's will take their toll. I'll come
out  foaming  at  the mouth, accusing the CIA of pissing  in  the
nuclear  plants, to poison  the water, to burn out the  minds  of
youth, so they'll be easy cannon fodder for the Pentagon's war in
Central America. Actually that's probably not a bad speech.     
                                                                
On  Tuesday I had to give a speech at the local grammar school to
nine  year-olds.  I said, "Go ahead, pick any subject you  want."
They  wanted to hear about hippies. My 16-year old kid,  America,
heard  me give this speech about how you can't have political and
social  change  without  cultural change as well,  and  he  said,
"Daddy,  you're  not  gonna bring back the hippies are  you?  The
hippies  go  to Van Halen concerts, get drunk, throw up on  their
sweatshirts and beat up all the punks in town." I said, "Okay, no
hippies."  That  was last year, this year he's changed his  mind.
His  mother and I were activists in the sixties, and he heard all
the  anti-war stories over and over again, never believed any  of
it.   Then  one night last spring he saw the  documentary  "Twenty
Years  Ago  Today"  about  the effect of  the  Beatles'  Sergeant
Peppers  Lonely  Hearts Club Band on us all. It's about the  only
thing I'm ever going to recommend to anybody about the sixties, a
simply  brilliant  documentary. He sat there watching cops  fight
with  the young people in the streets, people put flowers at  the
Pentagon  in the soldiers' bayonets, and the Pentagon rise in the
air, he saw it move just like we said it did. Tears cam streaming
out  his eyes, and he called up and said, "Daddy, why was I  born
now? I should have been a hippie."                              
                                                                
When  I  went to college long ago there was a ritual that we  all
had  to  go through at freshman induction. We were herded into  a
big  room  and the dean of admissions came and gave us  a  famous
speech,  "Look to your right, look to your left, one of you three
won't  be here in four years when it comes time to graduate." I'm
going  to say to you, "Look to your right, look to your left, two
of  you  three  won't be here in four years."  That's  about  the
attrition  rate of the left. I'm sure that many of the people who
want  to  organize  interplanetary  space  connections  have  got
everything  worked out with Shirley MacLaine, and it's Okay  with
me  that  they  become moonies and yuppies and  then  borne-again
Mormons.  They're  not  the ones who keep me up at night.  But  I
worry  about  the  good organizers,  the  successful  organizers.
You're  the  ones who know you can actually get better  at  this,
that  you  can get good at it. You know that being on the side  of
the  angels, being right, isn't enough. To succeed you also  have
to work very hard with lots of cooperation from those around you.
You  have your wits about you continuously, show up on time,  and
follow  through. These are the things that take place behind  the
scenes  that keep you aimed a goal, at victory, at success. And I
worry because somehow on the left, all too often, it's like three
people  in a phone booth trying to get out. Two are really trying
to  kick  the third one out, and that's how they spend all  their
time.  The third one's always called some dirty name that ends in
an  "ist." It's been a movement that devours its own. I look  out
at  you and I think of my comrades, not the people you saw in The
Big  Chill,  but people that were great movement organizers.  You
know  some  of their names, and many others you don't know.  They
risked not just their careers, marriage plans, and ostracism from
their  family,  but their lives. They faced mobs with chains  and
brass  knuckles,  the clubs of the police, the dirty  tricks  and
infiltrations of the FBI, and the CIA, Army intelligence, Navy
intelligence,  and local red squads all around the country.  They
had  pressure  put on their families. They were prepared for  all
this  from  the moment they decided to go against the  grain  and
take  on  the  powers  that be. They were not  prepared  for  the
infighting.  They  were not prepared for a movement that  devours
itself.  That  has got to cease. I remember a very free and  open
democratic  meeting  in a room in New York City in 1971. All  the
various  strains  were there. There was one group that  disagreed
with  the  decision  making structure that had been set  up. They
wanted to settle their differences with the majority so they came
armed  with  baseball bats. I can't remember the groups  name--it
was  the  National Labor Committee or Caucus-- but I do  remember
the  name  of  it's leader, Lynn Marcus, better  known  today  as
Lyndon LaRouche.                                                 
                                                                
The  movement  has  had its share of other problems. We  are  too
issue-oriented   and  not  practical  enough.  We  debate  issues
endlessly,  Deciding  whose  issue is more important  than  whose
other  issue, and so letting the moment of opportunity in history
pass.  By that time there's another issue There that's outstripped
the other two. We debate which "ism" is more important than which
other  "ism", and I agree that all the isms lead to schisms which
lead  to  wasms.  We  need a new language as we  enter  the  next
century.                                                        
                                                                
We  need  to be rid of the false dichotomies. There's been a  big
discussion  going  on  for  the last couple of  days  here  about
whether  the organizing focus should be local, regional, national,
or  interplanetary.  I have never seen a national issue won  that
wasn't  based on grassroots organizing and support. On the  other
hand,  I  have never seen a local issue won that didn't  rely  on
outside support and outside agitators. Another false dichotomy is
one that I call "In the system/out of the system." Between inside
the  system  and  outside  it is a  semipermeable  membrane.  And
either-or  is  only  a  metaphysical question,  not  a  practical
one.  The  correct stance, especially now in these times, is  one
foot  in  the  street-- the foot of courage, that  gets  off  the
curbstone  of  indifference--and  one  foot  in  the  system--the
intelligent  foot, the one that learns how to develop strategies,
to build coalitions, to negotiate differences, to raise money, to
do  mailing lists, to make use of the electronic media. You  need
that  foot too. The brave foot goes out into the street to strike
out  against the enculturation process that says: "Stay indoors,"
"Don't  go  out  into  the street," "You lose  your  job  in  the
street," "There's crime in the street,""You'll be homeless,""It's
terrible,""Yecch."  Civil disobedience--blocking trucks, digging
up the soil, occupying the buildings, chaining yourself to fences
(I  spent  my  summer  vacation chained to  a  fence)--can  be  a
necessary  act of courage, but it doesn't take a hell of a lot of
brains.                                                         
                                                                
Decision  making has been a problem on the left. In the  sixties
we  always made decisions by consensus. By 1970, when you had  15
people   show  up  and  three  were  FBI  agents  and  six   were
schizophrenics,  universal agreement was getting to be a problem.
I  call  it "The Curse of Consensus Decision Making," because  in
the  end  consensus decision making is rule of the minority:  the
easiest  form  to manipulate, the easiest way to block  any  real
decision  making. Trying to get everyone to agree  takes forever.
Usually  the people are broke, without alternatives, with no  new
language,  just competing to see who can burn the shit out of the
other  the most. There must be a spirit of agreement and in  this
way  most decisions _are_ made by consensus, but there must  also
be  a  format  whereby  you can  express  your  differences.  The
democratic parliamentary procedure--majority rule--is the toughest
to stack, because in order to really get your point across you've
got  to  go out and get more people to come in to have the  votes
the next time around.
                                                                
My  vision of America is not as cheery and optimistic as it might
be.  I agree with Charles Dickens, "These are the worst of times,
these are the worst of times." Look at the institutions around us.
Financial   institutions,   bankrupt;   religious   institutions,
immoral;    communications   institutions   don't    communicate;
educational  institutions don't educate. A poll yesterday  showed
that  48% of Americans want someone else to run than the  current
candidates.  The  last  election in 1987 had the  lowest  turnout
since  1942.  There  are people that say to a gathering  such  as
this--students  taking  their proper role in the front  lines  of
social  change in America, fighting for peace and justice--  that
this  is not the time. This is not the time? You could never have
had a better time in history than right now.                    
                                                                
My  fingers  are  crossed because I hope that you won't  let  the
internal  difference  divide you. I hope that you'll be  able  to
focus on the real enemies that are out there. In the late sixties
we  were  so fed up we wanted to destroy it all. That's  when  we
changed  the  name of America and stuck in the "k." The  mood  is
different  today,  and the language that will respond  to  todays
mood will be different. Things are so deteriorated in this society,
that  it's not up to you to destroy America, it's up to you to go
out  and save America. The same impulse that helped us fight  our
way  out of one empire 200 years ago must help us get free of the
Holy Financial Empire today. The transnationals--with their money
in  Switzerland,  headquarters in Luxembourg, ships  in  tax-free
Panama,  natural resources all over the emerging world, and their
sleepy  consumers in the United States--do not have the  interest
of  the  United  States  at heart. Ronald Reagan and  the  CIA  are
traitors  to  America,  they have sold it to the  Holy  Financial
Empire. The enemy is out there, he's not in this room. People are
allowed  to  have different visions and different views, but  you
have to have unity.                                             
                                                                
You also have to communicate a message and to do that you have to
have  a  medium.  We know television as the boob  tube.  We  know
educational  television as an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms.
We  know  it from reading fake intellectuals like Alan Bloom  and
his  _Closing  of the American Mind_, or from reading  good  ones
like  Neil  Postman,  whose _Amusing Ourselves to  Death:  Public
Discourse in the Age of Showbiz_ is a wonderful book. Bloom wants
us  to shut off the t.v. and start reading the Bible, and Postman
just  wants us to shut off the t.v. They are critics of t.v., but
they  are  not organizers. A lot of people say, "Abbie, you  just
perform  for the media, that's your duty, you manipulate," a  lot
of  things like that. This is a misconception. I have never in my
life  done  anything for the media.I'm speaking to you through  a
microphone  because my voice is soft, and I couldn't reach all of
you  unless  I used it. That's why I use the microphone.  But  my
words  are  not for this goddam microphone. If you want to  reach
hundred  of thousands or millions of people, you have to use  the
media  and  television. Television has an immense impact  on  our
lives.  We  don't read, we just look at things. We  don't  gather
information  in  an  intellectual way, we just want  to  keep  in
touch.                                                          
                                                                
As  bad  as  it is, television has the ability  to  penetrate  our
fantasy  world.  That's  why the images are at  first  quick  and
action-packed,  very  short, very limited and very specific,  and
afterwards  vague, blurry and distorted. How can these images not
be  very  important? They determine our view of the world. We  in
New  England  would  not  have known there  was  a  civil  rights
movement  in  the South. We would not have known racism  existed,
that  blacks  were getting lynched, that blacks were not  getting
service at a Woolworth counter, if it hadn't been for television.
We weren't taught it in our schools or churches. We had to see it
and  feel  it with our eyes. You have to use that medium  to  get
across that image that students have changed. YOu have to show it
to  them. Let the world watch, just like we watch students in the
Gaza  strip  fight  for their freedom and  justice,  students  in
Johannesburg,   in  El  Salvador,  In  Central  America,  In  the
Phillipines  fight for their freedom.                           
                                                                
One  hundred  and  thirty schools represented here today  out  of
5,000  colleges and universities in America reminds us that  going
against  the grain at the University of South Dakota or Louisiana
Stat  is  a very tough, lonely job. You have to feel that  you're
part  of  something  bigger.  You want to  know  that  there's  a
movement  out there. That's where the role of a national  student
organization  becomes  so important, giving hope and  comfort  to
people  that are out there trying to make change at a  grassroots
level.                                                          
                                                                
The student movement is a global movement. It is always the young
that  make  the  change. You don't get these  ideas  when  you're
middle-aged.  Young  people have daring, creativity,  imagination
and  personal  computers.  Above  all, what  you  have  as  young
people that's vitally needed to make social change, is impatience.
You  want  it to happen now. There have to be enough  people  that
say,  "We  want  it right now, in our lifetime." We want  to  see
apartheid  in South Africa come down right now. We want to see the
war  in  Central America stop right now. We want the CIA off  our
campus  right  now.  We want an end to sexual harassment  in  our
community  right  now.  This  is  your  movement.  This  is  you
opportunity.                                                    
                                                                
Be  adventurists  in the same sense of being bold and daring.  Be
opportunists  and seize this opportunity, this moment in history,
to go out and save our country. It's your turn now. Thank you.
