Newspaper Page Text
THE CLUSTER. APRIL 2*, 1SW-PAGE T
Abbie Hoffman (1936-1989): A Remembrance
Abbie Hoffman visited Mercer
University in October, 1986 to give
to Insight Lecture. After dinner at
the Alumni House with some
students, we headed toward the
WiUet Science Center, where he
was to speak. As we walked along
College Street past the dormitories
tod the Student Center, Abbie
looked around as if something were
ousting. Then he said: “Reporters.
The local press. Where are they?
Isn't anyone going to cover this?”
"Not likely." I said. "You just
might have to start from scratch
tonight.*’ But, as it turned out, he
intended to do that all along.
He spoke for two and a half
boon that night, although he was
originally scheduled only for a one-
hour talk, with a half-hour
question-and-answer period to
follow. I like to believe be sensed
we needed more of him and what
he represented than did most
undergraduate schools in the 80s.
But. of course, that wasn't true,
either. Abbie would have talked all
night no matter where he happen
ed to be and no matter what the
decade. He gave a capsule history
of the 60s protest movement
against the Vietnam war. discuss
ed 80s ecology issues and United
States policy in Latin /
South Africa, he ta about
Watergate, the CIA. domestic spy
ing, militarism, the Chicago Seven
trial, and more.
It was his standard boondock -
campus 80s aria. He said almost
nothing he hadn't said before or
that one couldn’t have found near
ly word-for-word in the
autobiography (Soon To Be A Ma
jor Motion Picture) he published
the year he came out of hiding.
True, there was more about
Nicaragua, which he'd recently
visited, and a good deal about
disinvestment in South Africa,
which was also a hot topic at the
time. (In the spring of '86, students
had built symbolic shanty-towns on
many college campuses to protest
against apartheid and indirect
university support of that system
through investment portfolios). But
no one left early, as you might ex
pect. The well-scrubbed audience
stayed put. It was as if the style and
energy of a 60s teach-in had come
back through a time-warp. And
there it was, in the flesh-the only
possible answer to the self-
complacent platitudes of student
life at the height of the Reagan era.
Abbie, the 60s hold-over, was
well aware of the paradox he came
to represent. He could have talked
at length that night on just one of
many topics: the politics of the drug
culture (see his latest bock. Steal
this Urine Test), electoral
strategies, the media i'i American
life, the encroachment of govem-
Abbie Hoffman
ment on civil liberties. Still, he
knew, as he wrote to Amu in To
America With Love, that you don’t
use the word "pet-tups" when you
want to sun a revolution. You
begin by raising consciousness; you
crystallize a vision. You drop real
money from the visitors' balcony
onto the floor of the New York
Stock Exchange and bnng business
to a halt while the traders scram
ble for the cash. You run a pig for
president. You put the system--and
Judge Julius Hoffman-on trial
when it attempts to stop you. You
challenge the CIA’s "right" to
recruit on campuses with the more
basic right of free speech and
assembly. And even though it often
appears that nothing changes, you
keep making the same point over
and over again: that a system bas
ed on power and greed is dumb and
dangerous.
He said it best when he observ
ed how embarassing it was to try
to start a revolution and end up on
the best-seller list. And here at
Mercer University, where the
noblest radical impulse among a
few faculty and students derives
from the Anabaptist challenge to
authority over four centuries ago,
he found, for one evening, a sym
pathetic audience. Between the
Christian Brethren of the 16th
century-radicals who also went to
Jrial and put their lives on the linc-
-who would swear no civil oaths
that preempted their faith-and that
audience three years ago, there
was. I think, a connection. And. for
a few hours. Abbie was definitely
a pan of it, or it of him^Or maybe
both, an underground empathy If
the tradition here lacked a Marcuse
or a Maslow, presences who were
a part of my own and Abbie’s con
temporary background, perhaps it
made up for it in other ways. When
you question authority for four
hundred years, there has to be such
a resonance, even though in con-
By Stephen Bluestone
temporary America questioning of
that kind seems to live permanent
ly underground.
After the lecture. Abbie went off
in search of the local counter
culture. There isn't any here, of
course, if you set aside one or two
classrooms in which a few limited
voices cry out from time to time
against the flourishing Sunbelt
wasteland. But Abbie preferred the
energy and company of students
half his age in their own after-hours
social habitat to anything else
available. He knew where the live
ly action was. And he talked, kept
talking, all night. And I suddenly
found myself comparing notes with
him while he floated in a sea of
children, their bodies identical to
our own. twenty-five years earlier
Yeats came to mind, but that was
wrong. Those Irish schoolchildren
couldn't have known how wild that
old man really was; he wore a
public mask all his life. Also, for
what it mattered, he did his best
work after the age of sixty. Abbie,
too. had worn a mask, but only
because he had to And even then
it didn't fit; there he is. after all.
presumably in hiding, in that
photograph with Senator'
Monymhan
But now. three years later, Ab-
Contlnued on page 9
fflnttt mi (fluster
Editor-In-Chief Paul Alexander
'lanaging Editor Donna M. lUoe
Associate Editor James P. Cook
News Editor Charlie Smith
Opinion Page Editor Ron Light
Features Editor Susannah Vass
Entertainment Editor Christopher Kirby
Sports Editor Robbie Turaley
Business Manager Billy W alker
Advhor Gary Blackburn
Chief Atlanta Correspoodant Bo Shippen
Technical Consultant David Tucker
Chief Photographer Kelly Finley
Artist Eric O’dell
Columnists Eddie Sanford.
Roland Ochoa, Leighton Moore.
Christopher Sheets, Ben Brooks
and Joey Bishop
Advertising Representatives Rhonda Godwin,
and Ray Berger
Photographers
David Potter, Dan Pritchett
Staff Writers
DmrreU Butler, Eddie Sanford, Rob Sumowski.
Susan Glinon, Michelle Renn, Sarah Cambrige.
Dianne Laabert, Jennifer Stone and Jeanna Simons
htortm: Box A, Mercer. Office located on third floor of the
Student Center. 744-2*71.
welcomes letters to the editor. They
oe concise and typewritten. Letters roust be signed
I be accompanied by a current address and
phone number. Letters should be addressed to the
(or-ln-Chkf.
npTOMd la The Mercer Clutter «rr tbwe of 11k
*dhor or the writer at the article and art oat Mtaunl) lho«
of the untverdty or Modest body.
U Ffc INI
UEU
©190?B?
_
Gfzce mwG
On*, 1 ftr ***.
r"y «<* C LY°“ r5 «. umT? is icdjr you to
Vuldv,
PS r r\L Cr *-l
■* *&£££"
*
*a i.<« hih>