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centered  yuppie is absolutely outdated, that a new age is on the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.