Ted Rall for February 19, 2010

A celebration of mediocrity and half-measures with all the bells and whistles.

Hurray!

And, while we’re at it, let’s out-Orwell George Bush and rename our various imperial wars.

Hurray!

“be realistic-demand the impossible” abbie hoffman

Abbie Hoffman?! C’mon, how many people out there actually remember him!

Whether or not doing more would be politically feasible, I sure wish Obama would at least TRY doing some of the things he said he’d do if elected and for which so many voted for him.

Indeed.

Unfortunately Rall is right. If Obama raised taxes on the middle class or fights for gay marriage he’d be a one term president GUARANTEED! Until he can get a second term he’s walking on egg shells right now.

Lavocat, do you think Iran is next? Bush Lite & Co. are making the same noises about Iran as Bush & Co. did about Iraq. Apparently at least three of us remember Abbie.

@goulo - He has it in his head that more people will somehow vote for him if he keeps offering an olive branch. Meanwhile he erodes his own base by watering down proposals to meet the demands of a group who instantly turn around and say ‘no’ anyway the second they get it.

“Revolution is not a dinner party.” – Mao

@jgcp1: (Raises hand)

Better dead than red? So be it.

You mean red states, right?

I remember Abbie well. I was at the stock exchange demonstration when we threw money onto the trading floor and all the brokers stopped trading and ran to pick up the bills.

^^ Never heard of Abbie and looked it up a few minutes ago. Your demo sounded like a hoot! So how much was thrown down?

^I don’t think it was very much. A couple of hundred in one dollar bills. As demonstrations go, it was pretty cheep. We got good press. Abbie was very inventive. But I was never really a Yippie. A group of us happened to be in court that day on another charge, from another demonstration, so we had dressed up in suits to make a good impression on the judge (it didn’t really help). During a recess we went over and helped Abbie out with his demonstration, and the press reports said that we were hippies in disguise. Well, in a sense maybe that was true, but we didn’t think of ourselves as hippies, either, partly because we didn’t do drugs. In those days, by the way, we were demonstrating against a democrat, Lyndon Johnson. I’m non-partisan. “I would never belong to a political party that would have me as a member.” Does that make me a Marxist?

I remember Abbie and the yippies. Please come to Chicago and all that.

No, Iran is just a nice distraction. Gotta have the red meat for the masses dontcha know. However, if the economy really tanks, I have no doubt that Iran will be added to the already long list of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. After all, what’s another war when you’re already fighting so many to begin with?

I remember Abbie too.

Abbie was before my time, but I’ve read about him and I’m anxiously waiting his Second Coming. We need him (or at least a reasonable facsimile). I think this story was one of his, or at least told about him (maybe by Paul Krassner?):

In October of 1967, as part of the March on the Pentagon, Abbie Hoffman announced that they were going to levitate the building 300 feet by means of mass meditation, wobbling it once in mid-air in order to exorcise evil spirits. That much is well known. But what I heard is that, while Abbie and the East Coast freaks(1) conceived of the plan purely as political theater, they ended up being enthusiastically joined by all the California freaks who were convinced they would actually DO it(2).

(1) I mean that in the nicest possible sense.

(2) They didn’t.

I was there. On the Pentagon steps, someone stuck a flower in a soldier’s bayonet. That was good enough.

I remember a report about a crowd of Yippies sticking their fingers down their throats and literally vomiting in front of arriving delegates at the 1972 Realuglyman national convention in Miami Beach.

Hey, sirrom – I was there, too. A lot of the weirder ideas were cooked up by Keith Lampe, who was an adjunct professor at NYU before he met Abbie. Allen Ginsberg was also involved in the levitation. I know people who claimed the levitation worked, that they saw the Pentagon floating about six inches in the air. I can’t say, I was arrested early on, and I spent the night in jail listening to Chomsky argue with some Trotskyites.

lonecat: Yes, but you’re my type of Marxist. Lonecat/sirrom et al Thanks for the anecdotes, glad I am -we are- with pretty funky company! :)

lonecat: I heard about the six-inch levitation too, on WBAI when I got home. As for me, I was so stoned it seemed like the whole city was floating anyway. I haven’t been back to DC since then.

In those days I called myself a Marxist-Lennonist (as in Groucho and John). It was Groucho, I think, who said he would never belong to any club that would let him be a member. (A version of Russell’s paradox, I suppose.)

Nuncle, thou shouldst not have been old before thou hadst been wise.

The trick is to grow up without losing your ideals. I wouldn’t do now what I did back then (well, under certain circumstances I hope that I would), and I think my political analysis is more nuanced than it was, but my basic ideals have not changed – peace, a free society, opportunity for all to develop their talents as they see fit (within reason), and so on.

In those days there were two situations which seemed to call for action outside the usual political structures. I was just old enough to catch the end of the civil rights movement, and I was trained by people from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Non-violent direct action was an essential tool of the movement. We would never have made the progress we have made without people like Diane Nash and John Lewis – and all those whose names have been lost to the history books, but who really made the movement.

Opposition to the war in Vietnam also required a mass response outside of the normal political structures. That’s where I spent most of my effort, just because that was my generation, and I remain proud of my own small contribution.

I’m sure Churchill was right about some things and wrong about others. I can’t evaluate your nom de plume without more information.

That “I grew up” is a frequent conservative insult to people on their left. I’m not sure what churchillwasright’s politics are (nor do I really care) but I don’t understand why so many people have to insult those with whom they disagree rather than rationally argue their positions. That also applies to a lot of people on the left. I do not accept the theory that I never grew up because I still care about the well being of others.

Some people just grow down, it seems to me.

met abby hoffman when he came to the U of Texas when I was an undergrad

hey church - nom de plume

Speaking frog are we?