AN INTERVIEW WITH ABBIE HOFFMAN
I first met Abbie at URI campus.
He was not stoned. Surprising
thinking he’d just finished
plugging his new book, “Steal This
Urine Test”.
He was lecturing about the
upcoming Student Convention at
Rutgers this February. The crowd
was — I dunno, about 600 people.
They expected over a thousand, but
no one showed up cause it was a
Thursday nite and you know how that
goes at college. The kegs start
about 4pm thursday and go til
sunday morning around 1am.
Anyways, those who gave up the
keggin for a day got to see quite
the riot. He was cussin and rantin
and ravin about how much Raygun
Reagan’s gonna fuck things up on
his way out. You know, make a
parking lot out of Iran, spend all
our money, fuck fawn hall, etc,
etc.
I asked him if the newspapers had
the right to say we’re at war right
now, and he said, “if you call
10,000 guatemalan Indians dying
every month by american bullets a
war, go for it.”
Abbie’s tryin to get a bunch of
us college aged people down to
Rutgers University this february
and we’re all gonna lock ourselves
in this building for three days and
rewrite the U.S.
constitution.
Then we’re gonna get this
highschool girl to stand up in the
Middle of the presidential debates
next year and demand that if the US
doesnt vote on the new Constitution
before we vote for a new president,
40,000 fuckin teenagers are gonna
blow up every large city in the US
in the next three weeks.
Well, ok, not that harsh, but
they’re gonna stand up and take
notice when a bunch of “heads” have
the brains to all of a sudden do
something just as politically
radical; get involved!!! So,
anyways, Abbie takes me and a
couple kids to this bar in
Wakefield and gets us cocked. Then
we ask him questions and he ignores
us and watches the Chicago Bears
get the shit kicked out of them on
a 19inch tv.
After the game we talk politics
again. We ask him who he’s
following for the 88 election, and
he tells us “who the fuck cares.”
“Politics is every day, man,”
Abbie says. “Not just who’s gonna
win in four years, or who should be
town counselor. Politics is your
roomates, your friends, your stupid
teachers that have no clue.”
“Well how the hell do we get the
rest of America involved.”
“It’s not a thing of the rest of
em. The average person in amerika
could give a shit about this.
They’re busy working at the
shipbuilding plant, coming home and
watching Three’s Company, beating
their wife, and kicking their
dog.
Abbie’s a radical fuckin dude,
that’s all I have to say. He’s the
first person I’ve met who isn’t
afraid to tell a cop he’s a pig
right to his face.
You know, the only person alive
with the balls to walk into the
Philadelphia Utilities company and
say,
“you charge too much fuckin
money. Rip up the wiring to my
house, I’m buildin a fuckin
windmill.”
HE DID.
the end, julie. all right?
OK, I was at a Dunkin Donuts and
I wrote that part right from my
head. Here’s some exact quotes from
my notes which I didnt have with me
at the time.
HOW CAN OUR YOUTH GET SOME
IMMEDIATE RESULTS IN AN AMERICA
WHERE KIDS ARE APATHETIC? THEY
THINK THERE’S NOTHING THEY CAN DO
IN THE POLITICAL PROCESS.
Rutgers. Rutgers is where you have
to go. Right now there are about
3,000 students around calling
themselves activists.
I know, because I see more
activists than anybody in the
country. My own kids are activists,
I see them all the time.
BUT WHAT ABOUT SOMEONE WHO WANTS TO
GET MORE INVOLVED THAN FOR ONE
EVENT; ONCE A YEAR SAY, OR EVERY 4
YEARS.
Politics is not something you go to
the booth and pull the party lever
for. It’s something you do every
day.
HOW CAN A BUDDING JOURNALIST HELP
THE YOUTH SEE THAT.
Listen, you’ve gotta get people
thinking that politics is a way of
life. The way they act all the
time. Then you’ve gotta get em
thinkin, “forget about the
president; let’s talk about the
city council…
HOW DO YOU GET THE GENERAL PUBLIC
MORE AWARE.
The general public is not involved.
The General Public doesnt make
change.
First thing you do is knock out
of your vocabulary and mind, the
idea of nobody and everybody.
Because you’re not taking gallup
polls all the time. You’re talking
to your roomate, your friends.
For social change, you need that’s all.
HOW DO I PREPARE FOR RUTGERS
The philadelphia electric company
is upset with me because I’m not
just blowin windmills. They know
I’m one fuck of an organizer. And
I’m willing to risk everything.
That’s the mentality you gotta
develop. Not who you gonna vote
for. You’ve gotta say, how do we
get block booking now or how do we
get the cars together, what points
are we gonna raise, are we just
gonna go there to bullshit to argue
that local organizing’s more
important or we need a black woman
lesbian leader the first time who’s
against a vegitarian cabbage kid
supporting arms struggle; is that
what you’re gonna do? Stay home!!!
If you’re gonna go to really
wrestle with the problems of
decision making, of leadership,
with some idea of politics and how
it works, a give and take, a
compromise, then you go to Rutgers
and build the organization. You
will change how the world looks at
young people in America. And you’ll
change history.
DO YOU THINK THE PRESS SHOULD BE
ALLOWED TO SAY WE’RE AT WAR RIGHT
NOW?
Think about 1 million Indians in
Guatemala killed or driven out of
their homes; are we at war?
DO YOU THINK CENSORSHIP IS OK.
I do think at times of war, the
reality overcomes some of your
ideals; but write away.
p a p
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