Yippie Tactics

I watched a video, “Abbie Hoffman on Yippie Tactics – 1968”, that was an interview with famous Yippie leader, Abbie Hoffman. In this video he discussed what his plans for the Yippie involvement at the Democratic Convention were. He explained that they were going to use tactics of Guerilla Theater, where the protesters would act outrageously and theatrically to garner attention. “We’re gonna throw around a bunch of banana peels around Chicago,” He told his interviewer, “until the machine stumbles”. The machine in which he was referring to was the Chicago police department as well as any violent opposition to the peace seekers’ goals. He continues in the interview to express that he’s not worried about what seems to be inevitable violence that could, and did, occur in Chicago that August. He foresaw the chance for conflict and claimed it was to his cause’s advantage. People, he argued, would be drawn to the protester versus police clash as they would a football game. As he put it, “People will say- We don’t wanna watch that speech stuff, we wanna watch the Rose Bowl out there”. Goofy faced and foul mouthed the entire interview, Hoffman seemed to show that he was definitely looking forward to what he deemed a “groovy time” in Chicago.

            I really enjoyed this video. I was lucky to find it for one thing; most of the videos on this topic were photo montages set to some ‘60s folk singer song. This video, however, was very insightful. It allowed me hear to Abbie Hoffman’s ideas in a casual setting with no background shouting, chanting, or static as was common in most other footage of him speaking. The video also gave me a better idea of what kind of person Hoffman was and how that channeled into his drive for his cause of youth empowerment. He was basically a big kid himself; he planned to fill up water guns with a LSD/water mixture to shoot at the cops if they charged at him in Chicago. Overall, from what I could tell from this video, he lived by and channeled both the complex and simple feelings of the youth counterculture of the time; he was individualistic, frustrated, in the mood for good times, and thinking about where he was going to get some cool new drugs and if he would get laid that night.

 

"Abbie Hoffman on Yippie Tactics – 1968." YouTube. Web. 15 Apr 2010. .