Excerpts from Journal of the Silent Majority:
“The anarchists of the student movement were the Yippies led by Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman. The Youth International Party was the anarchist spin-off of the SDS and to the left of the Weathermen and was created in 1967 by Hoffman, Rubin, Ed Sanders, and Paul Krassne. The Yippies came into the national spotlight when they decided to go across interstate lines to incite riots at the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention by throwing rocks, eggs, and balloons filled with urine and paint to disrupt the convention. Events started with the dynamiting of a police memorial and the promise to kill policemen and tear Chicago apart using bricks, clubs, chains, and re-bar “to bring the war (Vietnam) home.” Poisoning the Chicago water supply was just a side threat.
What revolutionary period would be without its most famous trial? The Russian university students had their Trial of the 50 and the more famous Trial of the 193. One hundred years later we had our own anarchist version of the same thing, the Chicago 8 Trial. Defendants were Abbie Hoffman, Rennie Davis, old Left David Dellinger, John Froines, Tom Hayden, Lee Weiner, and Jerry Rubin. Defending them was William Kunstler. They were charged with conspiring to incite rioting during the “Days of Rage.”
In the demonstrations and trial that followed in 1969, the Chicago 8 Trial became a media event and circus for the Left. The trial’s proceedings were treated lightly by the Media and most of us knew that they would get off because that was the norm. Not one served a day in jail. In reading transcripts and listening to the trial’s recordings it actually was a lighthearted event. Allen Ginsberg would try to explain what his role was when he was “ooommming” to the crowds before the riots began. The prosecution was puzzled by what a Be-in meant so the defendants would have to explain it to the ignorant prosecutor. Point 15 of the Yippie demands concerned the right and duty of everyone to have non-stop sex. It was revealed to the world that when the defendants were previously at the Pentagon, they made a deal with the authorities to levitate the building ten feet instead of 300 feet. It was all a big joke and a lot of fun. Unfortunately, it was a mask that hid the violence the Yippies planned.”
