Time Has Come Today: Or, What Would Abbie Do?

At 17, on the Lower East Side of New York, I became Abbie Hoffman's protege in rebellion: he liked to call me "The Littlest Yippie." And one of the core-truths that Abbie embodied -- whether it was fist-fighting pro-war thugs in the streets of New York or marching through clouds of tear-gas at the Pentagon -- was to never look for mercy in any kind of fight.

One night when we were shooting a game of eight-ball in an old Polish billards hall -- after he'd racked up a bunch of $5 and $10 bets from the local wanna-bes -- he started riffing on the subject of Revolutionary-Tactics-As-Pool-Hustling: "This is how ya deal with powah-figures. When ya go to Chicago to demonstrate against the war, ya hustle Mayor Daley at the table. Ya don't beg, ya don't petition, ya don't say 'gee, we've got rights too,' 'cause he don't give a crap about yer rights, ya don't appeal to his sense of decency 'cause he ain't got one -- ya out-shoot him at the freakin' pool-table! Ya sink the eight-ball, look 'im in the eye, and then ya stand up and holla: Who's next?"

That gut-level insight is one of the many, many things that Abbie would have in common with another long-time street-activist: Barack Obama. As hilariously different as Abbie and Obama may be on the surface, they share a history as community organizers -- and the very rare ability to win battles by staying authentic within their own skin.

Case in point: Abbie and I are walking through the Lower East Side in the long hot summer of 1968. Inter-racial tension sizzles off the pavement. Three tough young black men start taunting Abbie: "Hey man, when you gonna cut your hair?" Abbie turns around, walks up to the biggest heckler, and says: "Whenever I feel like it, whitey."

What followed was a moment of stunned, ominous silence so enormous it seemed, briefly, to engulf all of New York -- until the three black men burst out laughing and gave Abbie a round of spontaneous power-handshakes. Within moments they were walking to a demonstration with us.

Needless to say, no modern-day American politician shared that gift of Abbie's -- the guts to believe he can connect with his supposed "ememies", and the brains to actually pull it off -- until Barack Obama came along.

In the mid-'60s, Abbie had been the last white person in SNCC, and was tight with Stokely Carmichael, but when Stokely decided that SNCC should become all black, Abbie was out on his skinny Jewish ass. But his soul-deep identification with black people never wavered, and I know that while he'd be furious that NONE of the candidates, and none of the major media, are even talking about many core issues of the day -- like the ghoulish spectacle of homicide-by-government in the form of capitol punishment; or the wanton cruelty of Bill Clinton's dismemberment of Aid to Dependent Children, and the many social evils that supremely cynical act has spawned; or America's ongoing practice of war-by-corporation, in which companies like Boeing, Lockheed, and Bell-and-Howell are allowed to use dark-skinned peoples as lab-rats in glorified weapons-development projects like the "war" in Iraq -- he would be laughing in sheer delight to hear a black candidate for president, in 2007, actually talking about cutting into Exxon/Mobil's profits, or championing gay rights to a skeptical audience of Texas Longhorn fans, or simply having the stones to buck a media stampede in 2001 by voting against a genocidal invasion at its beginning.

Abbie would've definitely laughed himself silly at the oft-stated idea that, in fact, "Bill Clinton was our First Black President." "Oh yeah? If Bill Clinton was a black man, then he was a freakin' Uncle Tom!" And while he fancied himself a feminist, I can hear him howling when Hillary Clinton trots out the trope that it's time for a woman to take power, and how things will be "different" then..."Oh yeah? 'Different' like things were different under Margaret freakin' Thatcher? Or 'different' like with Madeleine ("the death of thousands of Iraqi children is just a price we'll have to accept") Albright?"

That golden myth from the '60s -- that because women give birth and nurture life, and because their bodies are tuned in to the rhythm of the moon and seas, they would never -- they could never -- become cold-blooded political murderers--has been proven wrong far too many times.

Even so, I'm not ashamed of that dream. It was a good one. But we were shaken awake from it a long time ago, by Thatcher, and Condelezza Rice, and especially by Madeleine Allbright -- who now stands regally behind Hillary Clinton on the podium.

***

Given the era, it goes without saying that Abbie sampled his share of drugs, but his favorite intoxicant, hands-down, was the one cooked up inside his own body -- a Revolutionary's Speedball, you might call it -- adrenaline cut with endorphins. That's why I believe he would've felt wired-in, soul-deep, to the Obama movement. Abbie knew in his bones and sinews that revolution is the greatest high of all, and his genius was that he embodied that joy for others to see. And though we are certainly not witnessing any kind of revolution yet -- we're only tilling the ground now, but tilling land is noble labor too -- every day it becomes clearer and clearer that for the grass-roots organizers in small towns, and the black-white coalitions in the streets, and the armies of freshly-mobilized kids across the country -- and yeah, for unrepentant ex-"Little Yippies," too -- the Obama candidacy offers one more chance to taste that special adrenaline-rush that can only come from working for social change. As Bob Marley wrote: "Who feels it knows it." And as the great Chambers Brothers sang, "Time Has Come Today."

Man, Abbie loved that tune.

Give it a listen.

It still holds up.

NOTE #1: A Yippie-ki-yay shout-out to the great Steve Earle for his cover version of "Time Has Come Today," which dubs bits and pieces of Abbie's speeches into the song.

NOTE #2: Readers who want real insight into Abbie's life and times should check out Larry Sloman's wonderful Steal This Book: An Oral Biography of Abbie Hoffman.

Comments

[alkamm]

Perhaps Obama should have a program of Steal your Health care instead of, let's reduce the costs so most people can afford it and those that can't should get help with it.
One thing Abbie knew was that the youth of the nation should guide us. Oscar Wilde agreed. So did the Jewish prophet, Jesus. He wouldn't argue that the youth of America are duped when they pin their hopes for change on a charismatic, intelligent public man.
Abbie was a public man with great courage and resolve, and he understood that street theatre could change a whole generation and needle the generations beyond help just as serious theatre does. Obama will get under the skin of conventional wisdom, and his wit shall make us free, just as Abbie's wit and fearless voice did.
One more thing. Obama inhaled.

[dukewhitey]

I really enjoyed your piece on Hoffman. I'm a junior/senior in college now, but I can never forget my Freshman year summer. A friend of mine at the time(who has and will never attend college) had the greatest book collection ever. That's when I first read revolution for the hell of it, and I spent the better part of that summer on a steady diet of yippie literature.
Me and many of my friends have been seriously inspired by what Hoffman and the rest of you did. So please whenever you see any comments along the lines of," you were funny but you hurt the real movement", know for every dumbass drone who feels that, another is just as inspired as you were by it. Hoffman's words today are often even more relevant because they have shown people of new generations that what the narrow minded find impossible is in fact possible.

Thank you,

Duke Alexander Whitey (the third)
http://dukewhitey.blogspot.com

[JohnEskow]

Duke,
You and your friend are exactly the kind of people that Abbie would've appreciated the most. Keep it up!

John Eskow

[SBlackmun]

Am I the only person in this family who thinks well of Hillary? I'm beginning to feel a little lonely....

Sarah in Santa Barbara

[Durango]

All in all, and I will admit to being intrigued with Abbie Hoffman at the time: I think what he and Rubin and that whole Yippie thing turned out to be very harmful. Funny. But harmful.

[OtayPanky]

Dear John Eskow -

Thank you SO MUCH for your reminisciences. How wonderful to return to those heady days once again.

I'm sure Abbie - invertebrate shit slinger that he was - would have relished Hillary's "kitchen sink" campaigning no end. He loved the guerilla warfare, for sure - and so does our Dear Leader.

And when it came to doing the "us against them" routine, there was no one better than him and his buddy, Jerry Rubin. Only later Jerry left the fold to become one of "them", joining Ben to become one of those ice scream capitalists.

Anyway, like our Dear Leader and her micro-trending pollster Mark Penn, Abbie loved exploiting the cracks in the ass of society for all they were worth. Kill the pigs! And don't trust anyone over 70 (except maybe for Ralph Nader, but that's another story).

It was telling that Abbie aligned with Stokeley Carmichael (Stokeley who?) rather than MLK. No doubt he would have hated Obama for his wimpy, wussy, reach across the aisle kumbaya crap. Hoffman was a man's man - or at least a boy's boy - and so is our Dear Leader!

Sincerely,

Your Friend OTAYPANKY

[Durango]

"invertebrate shit slinger "????????

I think the post showed that: no matter what you might think about Abby Hoffman . . . he had a backbone.

[OtayPanky]

Dear Durango -

Thank you for your keen editorial eye. I think the word I was looking for was inveterate.

Dear Abbie was nothing if not a vertebrate.

Sincerely,

Your Friend OTAYPANKY.

[Herrington]

As one American who has actually been photographed by guys in suits wearing shades, who was tossed out of a University for no apparent reason other than for hanging with people who claimed an SDS connection, well, and occasional protest march, I salute your salute to Hoffman.

If anyone needs a more recent example of what a determined radical can do, see the WTO protests in Seattle of 1999. The city government, the police, the community were shocked. They did not even know what it was about. Now they do, and WTO meetings have had to seek safer, more regimented venues for meeting.

Get the facts out on the table. They are not hard to understand. Its just that no one, like the City of Seatlle did not, knows what is going on.

[Dap]

How about... Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come" ?

Got SOUL?!?

[abbiehoffmansghost]

He wasn't perfect by any stretch, but the man had balls and convictions. He would truly be an outcast today.

[oldpotsmuggler]

Obama don't even have the good sense to call for single payer health care. He could easily say "I know that we're not there yet, but I'll never settle for less than that'. Instead, he goes Hillary lite. Where's that at?

[Hopalongpoppyseed]

I miss Abbie's brash confrontations with the establishment. I have seen in the under 40 supporters of Obama, a confidence to persist in the face of the mockery of establishment triangulators, and something of the spirit of Abbie, who never backed down. Obama Train's a comin.'

[StephenSmoliar]

John, you left out what I always felt was the most salient attribute of Abbie's character, which was his sheer unadulterated CHUTZPAH. Your anecdote about his calling a black tough "whitey" said it all; and the aftermath demonstrated that this was CHUTZPAH with the most positive connotation. Obama may have the audacity, not just of hope but in his rhetoric of change; but CHUTZPAH is the spinal chord without which audacity cannot stand up to adversity. Abbie knew that. My greatest fear is that Obama's background may not have had enough of that adversity to teach him the value of CHUTZPAH.

[Shantee]

As a child of the 60's I agree that Barack is tapping into the same energy, and it's a very exciting time for many of us baby boomers as well to have a Barack Obama as our candidate. I dropped out in the early 80's and resurfaced to volunteer for Barack. If he loses I will drop out again. But I agree I would like to see a little more chutzpah coming from Barack, if for no other reason it could help him knock out Hillary,once and for all.