The Policy of Yippeie

In the excerpt I read of Revolution for the Hell of It by Abbie Hoffman, the Yippie! plans for the Chicago convention are outlined and a invitation to come to Chicago is given. The entire event would be conspicuously and strategically in the presence of the media so that the images of Yippies would be scattered throughout the nation’s television sets. This way, the interpretation of what Yippie was could be given to the individual to decide. “Yippie! was in the eye of the beholder…” Hoffman wrote(Hoffman). The rest of the excerpt talked about the activities those coming to Chicago could expect. There would be workshops about how to start and maintain communes, discussions about pot, lessons in Guerilla Theater, talk of more effective ways to avoid the draft, performances by street theater troops, and obviously anti-war/anti-LBJ demonstrations. There was also to be over thirty live bands playing for free. People were encouraged to come and camp out only if they were willing to participate. As the excerpt reads, “Do not come prepared to sit and watch and be fed and cared for. It just won’t happen that way. It is time to become a life-actor. The days of the audience died with the old America. If you don’t have a thing to do, stay home, you’ll only get in the way”(Hoffman). There is also talk in this excerpt of how the organizers were still trying to get a permit to demonstrate and hold their event legally, but were basically being ignored by city officials. It goes on to remind the potential Chicago attendee that it was “…the United States, 1968,” and to “remember. If you are afraid of violence you shouldn’t have crossed the border”(Hoffman). This warning shows that conflict was expected, and even welcomed.

I found this small excerpt to be pretty interesting. If anything, the title of the book was enough catch my eye. Throughout the piece, I really enjoyed Hoffman’s use of effective yet common speech rhetoric. The content was pretty cool too. I’m not going to lie, the advertisement makes me wish that the event was something being planned for this summer rather than forty-two years ago. I also found it interesting how the goal of the convention was not only to protest the state of the nation, but also to bring factions of the counterculture together. It was, as Hoffman said, a method to bring the community together and get people with like goals but not of like mind talking. My favorite quote from the excerpt that deals with that is this: “The radical will say to the hippie: ‘Get together and fight, you are getting the shit kicked out of you.’ The hippie will say to the radical: ‘Your protest is so narrow, your rhetoric so boring, your ideological power plays so old-fashioned’ Each can help the other, and Chicago“(Hoffman). So basically, as the excerpt goes, I really like the overall feel of it. It has a sense of urgency with which it draws you in, and it has a feel of organization and order which is ironic, since its goal was to organize chaos.

 Hoffman, Abbie. Revolution for the Hell of It. Print.