Blogging For Choice IV

As we approach the twentieth anniversary of the Regina vs. Morgentaler Supreme Court decision the papers are full of coverage of this monumental legal and legislative decision. Colby Cosh in todays National Post chastises the right wing moralists like Frum and Kay who whined about this in the same pages recently. He declares the court decision a victory for Anarchy, Cosh is a libertarian after all. And tongue in cheek he correctly points out the decision left it up to the State to now decide what laws around abortion it wanted to create, and the State in its wisdom decided to abdicate.

Even Justice Bertha Wilson, whose solitary contribution to the majority finding became the cornerstone of a feminist legacy, was unambiguous about this. She described the protection of the fetus as "a perfectly valid legislative objective," offered that "The value to be placed on the fetus as potential life is directly related to the stage of its development during gestation" and said that "The precise point in the development of the foetus at which the state's interest in its protection becomes 'compelling' should be left to the informed judgment of the legislature, which is in a position to receive submissions on the subject from all the relevant disciplines." Do those sound like the words of an estrogen-crazed baby-devourer?

All the court really did was get rid of a senseless morass of dilatory regulation whereby a woman's choice was limited not by a real, rational guideline, but by the local availability of willing physician-monopolists and the whims of hospital committees. The position taken by moderate pro-lifers today is, ironically, more or less exactly that of Bertha Wilson: i.e., that there should probably be some legislative decision, binding upon the whole country, concerning the exact moment when a fetus becomes an individual person for medical purposes. Only a radical, total opponent of abortion could conceivably advocate returning to the broken pre-1988 system, and only as a sly, unfair means of saving some fetal lives.

And this fact really confirms the fundamental wisdom of the Morgentaler decision. The overturning of the old legal regime was decided on a 4-2 vote, with Justices W.R. McIntyre and Gerard La Forest in dissent. The pair wrote that "there is no evidence or indication of general acceptance of the concept of abortion at will in our society." This must now stand as one of the great inadvertent jests in the history of the court. For the 20 years since their statement, abortion at the will of the mother is just what we have had. The number of people who have proven themselves actually willing to do something about the situation, as opposed to merely inveighing against it as an occasion for outraged verbiage, is minuscule. Domestic politicians of all parties recoil in fear, almost uniformly, at the suggestion that any abortion might ever be prevented by the force of law. And even criticism from other Western countries, which all regulate abortion themselves, has been rare verging on nonexistent.

This is where we are. This is what we wanted, whether we admit it to ourselves or not. And this is as it should be, with the final decision in the hands of the one who must chance the hazards and agony of birth. Long live Morgentaler! Long live anarchy!

As usual the fetus fetishists who proclaim their love of life decided to threaten Dr. Morgentaler's life, again, at the public meeting where the 20th Anniversary decision was being celebrated last night.

Morgentaler escorted from gathering marking 20th anniversary of historic abortion ruling

Jan 26, 2008

Two standing ovations and one death threat.

That's the reception Dr. Henry Morgentaler received at a University of Toronto symposium yesterday marking the 20th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court ruling overturning Canada's abortion law.

"Over the past 37 years I have dedicated myself to the struggle to achieve rights to reproductive freedom and to provide facilities for women," Morgentaler told the symposium, held by the law faculty. "This struggle gave meaning to my life."

He said the Jan. 28, 1988, decision was the impetus for him and other physicians to establish abortion clinics across Canada.

"I am proud to have played such a pivotal role in the decision."

Ah yes and here is the contradiction the very Progressive and Left Wing forces that have supported Morgentaler then and over the years are the same folks who oppose the privatization of Health Care, which is what has made Morgentaler's business prosper over the years.

Morgentaler Clinics provide private health care, the state in its wisdom abandoned any legislation that would provide for abortions being fully funded and delivered in a local hospital. That's the other side of the anarchy coin of abortion in Canada. The Supreme court flipped that coin to the State and the State refused to make a call. The result is in effect no real choice for women, either give birth or pay for an abortion out of pocket.

"The Morgentaler decision was huge in that it has undoubtedly saved the lives and protected the health of countless women," said Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation (NAF). "No longer did women have to jeopardize their lives or health in order to end an unwanted pregnancy."

The NAF represents abortion providers in Canada and the United States and works to ensure abortion is safe, legal and accessible to promote health and justice for women, she said.

The decision also allowed for abortions to be a publicly funded medical procedure. However, Saporta said many women still face barriers in accessing therapeutic abortion services, particularly because it is not on the interprovincial billing agreement.

Women living in rural areas, such as Chatham-Kent, have difficulty accessing abortion clinics because the majority of abortion care is located in urban centres.

"Some women are traveling 60 miles or more. It can often be a significant barrier for some women that cannot be overcome," said Saporta, adding the closest abortion clinics are in London,Toronto and Detroit.

There are no therapeutic abortion clinics currently operating in Chatham-Kent, however the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance does perform medical abortions if it is necessary for the health of the mother.

"The obstetricians and gynecologists within Chatham-Kent do not include abortions within their scope of practice," said Kim Bossy, director of communications and community relations at CKHA.

The Chatham-Kent Public Health Unit provides women with information on options available to them regarding unwanted pregnancies and remains neutral in the decision, said Kelly Farrugia, school age health program manager.

"Our policy is to review all the options for unplanned pregnancies," she said. "I think every woman has their own reasons why they choose the option they do."

The Morgentaler decision: Choice? What choice?
Two decades after the landmark ruling on abortion rights, poor access and a lack of treatment alternatives still hamper a woman's ability to choose

ANDRÉ PICARD

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

January 24, 2008

While there are, theoretically, no restrictions on abortion, the number of abortions has not increased.

In fact, the number of abortions has held steady over all, and the teen abortion rate has actually fallen.

Each year in Canada, there are about 330,000 lives births and 110,000 abortions.

Despite what you see in Hollywood movies, the vast majority of those having abortions are not teens, but women in their 20s and 30s. They have, almost universally, exercised their freedom of choice judiciously, law or no law.

While the highest court ruled that the state has no place in the uteruses of the nation, the state does have a role in the provision of medically necessary health services, of which abortion is one.

Yet our health system - from the politicians who oversee it to the policy makers and administrators through to the physicians and nurses who should provide non-judgmental care in public institutions - has largely failed women who seek abortions.

The failings are many and varied, but revolve principally around lack of access to timely care.

In short, the arbitrary rules that have crept into the system in the past two decades make a mockery of the Supreme Court ruling.

In Canada, fewer than one in five hospitals perform abortions. One province, Prince Edward Island, offers no abortion services at all. Another, New Brunswick, has created unjustified (and likely unconstitutional) barriers to access, requiring referrals from two doctors.

In the nation's capital, Ottawa, the wait time for an abortion stretches to six weeks, a perversity. (If there is one area of care for which there should be a wait-time guarantee, it is abortion, obviously a time-sensitive procedure.)

But the greatest injustice is that faced by Canadian women living outside major metropolitan centres, particularly those in the North.

Virtually every hospital and clinic offering abortion services in Canada is located within 150 kilometres of the U.S. border, and there is not a single abortion provider north of the Trans-Canada Highway in Ontario.

A woman in northern Manitoba, for example, needs to travel about 20 hours to access the nearest in-province abortion provider. For women in the three territories, travel can be an insurmountable obstacle.

Abortion should be covered by medicare but, in reality, it is expensive. If a woman opts for an abortion in a private clinic - something that is often necessary given the lack of service offered in hospitals - she must pay out of pocket and be reimbursed. (This policy was recently struck down by the courts in Quebec, which deemed that medicare should foot the bill, regardless of where the procedure is done.)

Worse yet, if a woman travels out of province or to the United States - which, again, many women are forced to do because of lack of timely access domestically - she will not be reimbursed at all.

Further, Canadian women wanting to terminate a pregnancy have no option other than surgical abortion.

Drug-induced abortion - the method of choice of about one-third of women in Europe and the United States - is not even available in Canada. Mifepristone (brand name Mifeprex, also known as RU-486) is a safe, proven alternative, and its lack of availability in Canada is a scandal.

Between the legalization of abortion in 1969 and its complete decriminalization in 1988, women fought many tough battles.

NO ACCESS, NO CHOICE

Abortion

CHLOÉ FEDIO / Vue Weekly

In 1983, political activist Judy Rebick became the unintended victim of assault when a man brandishing garden shears lunged at Dr Henry Morgentaler at the opening of his Toronto abortion clinic. She blocked the attack and Dr Morgentaler emerged unscathed, but the incident is just one of several threats Rebick has endured because of her involvement in the pro-choice movement.

Despite it all, Rebick refused to be intimidated in the debate that continues to elicit contention to this day.

“I learned a lot from Dr Morgentaler, because he’d gone to jail—he almost died in jail. He was constantly a target of attack, constantly a target of threats and so on, and his attitude was, if you do this work this is part of the price you pay,” Rebick said.

Rebick was part of the Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics, the group that encouraged and helped Dr Morgentaler open his Toronto clinic.

“It’s probably one of the proudest things I’ve done in my life. There is a certain amount of courage involved, but it was also such a splendid victory,” said Rebick. “When we started, everyone was against us—the courts were against us, the cops, the government. It was really a magnificent battle.”

In 1969, Dr Morgentaler broke the law to open Canada’s first abortion clinic in Montréal, becoming one of the country’s most controversial figures. But it was only after police raided his newly-opened Toronto clinic in 1983 that he became the central figure in an historic case that paved the way for reproductive rights in Canada.

Before the decision, abortion was only legal in a hospital, and only if approved by a three-doctor therapeutic abortion committee. But on Jan 28, 1988, the Supreme Court struck down that law as unconstitutional, ruling that it infringed upon a woman's right to “life, liberty and security of person.”

But 20 years after the lifting of federal legal restrictions on abortion, women across the country still face significant challenges in accessing the procedure.

Patricia Larue, executive director of Canadians for Choice, a non-profit charitable organization based out of Ottawa, explained that abortion services in Canada are concentrated in urban areas, forcing many women to travel great distances to gain access to the procedure.

“Most of the places that offer abortion services—clinics or hospitals—are located in the south of the country, about 100 kilometres north of the American border. So for women living in the north, or even central Canada, it’s really difficult to have access to a place where they can go for an abortion,” Larue said.

Edmonton is the sixth largest metropolitan region in Canada, with a population of over one million, but there’s only one abortion clinic in the area. In May 2005, the Royal Alexandra Hospital stopped performing the procedure, leaving the Edmonton Morgentaler Clinic with the brunt of the responsibility in northern Alberta. Dr Christa Delacruz, who operates out of Grande Prairie, also provides abortions, but access outside of the major urban centres of Edmonton and Calgary is extremely limited.

Larry Brockman, the executive director of Planned Parenthood Edmonton, explained that having a single abortion provider in Edmonton can cause a backlog, increasing wait times for women seeking the service. He said the single point of access can also allow anti-abortion groups to concentrate their efforts.

“There is from time to time, lobbying or civil action that takes place that attempts to block access of women to abortion,” Brockman said. “It’s a concern that now it’s reduced to one site—it’s a little easier for protest groups to focus on one site.”

Corrie Mekar works on the front lines at Planned Parenthood Edmonton, dealing directly with women who are considering an abortion. She said the recent surge in population, coupled with the single point of access, is causing a strain on abortion services in Edmonton.

“You can kind of talk about abortion in terms of every other type of service that’s out here in Edmonton right now, with the influx of people coming in,” Mekar said. “Our population has exploded because of the economic boom, and because of that I think they’re having trouble with health everywhere, and this is no different.”

Since Jul 1, 1996, all abortion fees in Alberta are covered for any woman with Alberta Health Care or Saskatchewan Health Care coverage. But Brockman explained that women from other Canadian provinces sometimes face challenges with coverage in Alberta, while recent immigrants are left to foot the bill on their own.

Howard May, spokesperson for Alberta Health and Wellness, explained that Alberta Health Care covers the doctor’s fees and hospital costs of medically required abortion outside the province, but won’t cover the facility fee if the abortion is done in a private clinic. He said that under federal legislation, abortions are not included in the multi-province reciprocal billing agreement.

“The rationale behind the exclusion from the reciprocal agreements is that provinces and territories have different rules and regulations regarding the coverage of abortions,” said May. “Some will only cover the costs if the abortion is provided in a hospital. Others require the recommendation of two physicians.”

The cost of an abortion at the Edmonton Morgentaler Clinic ranges from $400 to $800, depending on how far along a woman is in her pregnancy.

There is an alternative, it is for public hospitals to adopt the Morgentaler method and provide fully paid for abortions including pre and post therapeutic consultations. That is the new struggle facing us twenty years later.

Let us not cheer Dr. Morgentaler who acted out of his own self interest and has gained wealth and fame as result and who has undermined the public health system in Canada as a result of the Supreme Court decision.

The Morgentaler decision in effect left women with no choice but of paying for abortions out of their own pocket, furthering the femininzation of poverty. Those who can afford do so, those who cannot have their choices restricted. Which is why you see no real increase in abortions in Canada over the past twenty years.

The struggle continues, and it is the struggle for womens reproductive rights; not just the struggle for abortion or to defend Dr. Morgentaler, as the struggle for reproductive rights was reduced to for twenty years before the SCC decision.

The struggle for womens reproductive rights is the struggle for more than just the right to abortion as I have outlined in my first post.

And that struggle can only be won without and despite Dr. Morgentaler. It is time for the Progressive and Left activists to divorce themselves from Morgentaler and his legacy; the privatization of health care.


SEE:


Blogging For Choice III

Blogging For Choice II

Blogging For Choice


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Blogging For Choice III

As follow up on my previous Blogging For Choice articles; I and II here is more evidence that the Supreme Courts decision over abortion left the door open to privatization of health care in Canada, in particular the privatization of abortion services.

That meant a restriction of genuine choice for women who need or want abortions to using Morgentaler Clinics or else leaving their provinces for clinics in other provinces or in the U.S.

Many Canadian women lack access to reproductive health services

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Blogging For Choice II

I got chastised for having assumed that Blogging For Choice was all that was occurring around the upcoming 20th Anniversary of the Morgentaler Decision that saw the Supreme Court abandon all laws aground abortion.

I stand corrected it appears there will be blogging bursts and public events occurring around this. In fact Antonia Zerbisias kicked it off on her blog last weekend

However one of points which I raised in my post and my comments in response to my commentators remained unanswered. So I will ask it again. Why is it that 20 years later Morgentaler has a great private medical business going, and women still do not have access to publicly funded abortions.

Toronto, Friday, January 25, 7:30pm. Fundraising Reception for National Abortion Federation Canada ’s Patient Assistance Fund. Many women lack the resources to pay for costs associated with abortion care, such as transportation, childcare, and medications. Also, some women cannot access medical coverage and require financial support. Donations to this fund will allow NAF Canada to provide financial assistance when it is urgently needed.

And once this money is raised will it be used to lobby for womens right to free publicly provided abortions? No of course not it will be used to top up Morgentaler's private clinic fees. The Left and the Womens movement need to move beyond supporting Morgentaler and demand fully funded abortions to be provided by public hospitals.

On the other hand the libertarian right need to advocate for choice, after all thats the credo of the right, by defending a woman's right to choose against their social conservative allies and defend Dr. Morgentaler since his clinics provide an example of a privatized alternative to the public system that has worked quite effectively for twenty years.

That is the real debate that would move this beyond the moral pretenses of the religious right which have shaped the debate since the Supreme Court decision twenty years ago.

Twenty years ago the movement for Womens Reproductive rights got side tracked into a single issue campaign around abortion and then that became reduced to the defense of Dr. Morgentaler. An honest assessment of that needs to be done twenty years later by the Feminist movement, the Left and the Libertarians.

A possible reconciliation between these two apparently contradictory positions would be the creation of co-operative Womens Health Clinic. Medical practitioners would be on salary, workers in the centre would be on the co-op board, a combination of Doctors and Nurse Practitioners, as well as specialists Gyn-Ob would work in the clinics as well as Mid Wives. The centre would provide contraceptive and family planning information, natural child birth options as well as a full delivery centre and abortion services. As well a health spa could be part of the services provided, using the European methods of non-osteopathic therapies, as well as having certified acupuncturists, massage therapists and naturopath's available. In other words a holistic approach to womens health and especially reproductive health.Those services could be covered by benefit plans when not covered by Medicare. Extra costs that are not covered by medicare, benefit plans, or third party insurance, could then be covered by annual membership fee.

Finally let us look at the root of the problem of abortion. The failure of contraception and family planning.

Here is an interesting post I came across that points out a significant challenge to popular misconceptions about teen pregnancy.

Teen Pregnancy Does Not Perpetuate Poverty

I just read an interesting article about a study by Frank Furstenberg that shows that teen motherhood does not perpetuate poverty.

According to the 30-year-study, postponing motherhood does not have a significant impact on a person’s chances of escaping poverty. For all intents and purposes, impoverished girls who bear children tend to do just as well economically and educationally as the ones who do not.

In other words, poor teens tend to get pregnant more often, but teenagers who get pregnant have the same odds of educational and financial success as the ones who do not.

Mainly, the economic conditions in which a person grows up determine their odds of ending up poor. Whether or not the person gets pregnant as a teenager has little affect.

Although the findings go against the common perception, I guess it makes sense. A poor girl will likely end up in poverty later in life regardless of whether or not she gets pregnant as a teenager. A wealthy girl’s parents can still ensure her success with their money even when the girl gets pregnant as a teenager.

I still see teen pregnancy as a significant mistake, but we have such a classist society that making mistakes has little statistical effect on who ends up poor and who does not. While we need to help people not make mistakes, we have to find a way to eliminate the classism of our society to ever end poverty.

Jamie Lee Spears is a perfect example of the challenge of teen pregnancy, and of unplanned unwanted pregnancies. But unlike working class and poor teen age girls, she is rich. Of course that does not mean she will make a good or responsible mother, just look at her sister.

However her pop star status makes it seem like its a lesser sin to have pre-marital sex if you are willing to stay pregnant and keep your child. This leads to a social acceptance of teen pregnancy, rather than teen sex per se, that is teen sex with protection to avoid pregnancy. That would never do. She of course has become a poster girl for the right wing anti-abortion hypocrites.

The Anti-Abortion movement opposes all forms of family planning and contraception, they oppose public health and sex eduction as well a relationship education based on humanistic principles. They demand sex education be moral education based on their particular religious view in opposition to ethical humanist sexuality/relationship education.

They push abstinence as an alternative to contraception, in perpetual denial that teens are sexually active. They deny the pleasure principle which challenges their ideology of sex for reproduction only. They hate the sexual revolution that occurred in the sixties with advent of the development of the birth control bill, which allowed for sex for pleasure rather than reproduction. In fact they continually blame the sexual revolution and the pleasure principle it embraced as the cause of all social evils.In doing so the followers of the patriarchal Abrahamic religions deny the fact that in their holy book the pleasure principle was first espoused.


And here again is where the Left and the Libertarian wings of feminism can align; the need for making informed responsible choices. The right loves choice and of course responsibility, versus rights. Yet when it comes to human sexuality and relationships they deny the very information needed and access to contraception, that would allow for an informed responsible decisions by anyone intending on having sex. Hence their continued attacks on planned parenthood.

Thus they create the conditions for the continued emotional plague where we see teens taking the lives of other teens because of their emotional immaturity in dealing with jealousy, or we see young women giving birth in denial and abandoning their babies. Such is the moral consequence of the anti-abortion advocates of abstinence, which is simply denial of reality. Teens and adults have sex, for pleasure, not for procreation.

Only the liberation of the natural capacity for love in human beings

can master their sadistic destructiveness.

Wilhelm Reich, on Sigmund Freud's hope

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Blogging For Choice

This is a belated Blogging For Choice article. Yesterday members of the Progressive Bloggers joined their American counterparts in Blogging For Choice.

While Americans focus on Roe vs Wade in Canada the Supreme Court ruled more broadly in abolishing abortion as a crime. This year is the 20th anniversary of that decision. And it took an American campaign to draw Canadian bloggers attention to this fact. While the media have covered the 2oth Anniversary of this historic decision the Pro Choice movement in Canada, such as it is, remains silent, and politically absent from the ensuing debate.

On the other hand the Anti-Choice advocates have used it to renew calls for the Federal Government to limit abortions using the back door of a private members bill to make it a double crime of murder when a mother and her unborn child are both killed.

Any reference to this latest attack on a womans right to chose abortion was sadly lacking in most of the posts at Progressive Bloggers. Focusing again on Roe vs. Wade rather than the 1988 Canadian decision. At least the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada has provided some talking points on "Unborn Victims of Violence Act."

The Pro-Choice movement basically died twenty years ago with the SC decision. Feminists in CARAL the Canadian counter part to NARAL the American Pro Choice lobby, folded up their Abortion Rights tent and moved on to other issues; pornography, violence against women, etc.

And what did Canadian women get with the SC decision, well not access to publicly funded abortion that's for sure. What they got was privatized abortion clinics run by Dr. Morgentaler. In fact Morgentaler has always been an advocate for privatized medicine, he has always claimed his clinics deliver abortion services better than public hospitals. Ironic that. And where provinces or publicly funded hospitals did not provide abortion services, such as those hospitals run by the Catholic Church, Canadian women were still forced to go to the U.S. to get abortions.

Such was the case in Alberta for many years, and still is today. There are no abortions done in Alberta hospitals, instead Alberta Health Care contracts out the operation to Morgentaler's clinics, but does not pay his full fee.

There is an irony for you. Morgentaler has long advocated the neo-con idea of private medical services being better than publicly provided ones, his right wing opponents, as well as his feminist proponents, miss his nuanced fiscal conservatism. The right wing abandons its fiscal conservatism in favour of a political morality driven by the Church. The left wing mutes any criticism of Morgentalers pro privatization pitch because they favour a womans right to choose.

Well heck why not support the right to choose home-schooling, or the right to choose to belong to a union, or well you get the idea. Logical consistency on either side of the debate is seriously lacking.

The failure of the libertarian right in Canada was to allow the social conservatives to take this issue from them. Instead of defending a womans right to choose, and to embrace Morgentaler's private clinic alternative they instead abandoned themselves to the neo-cons and paleo-cons.

The failure of the Left and the Feminist movement was to embrace abortion and Morgentaler as single issues. Once the Supreme Court decision passed, there was no cause any longer. Instead of broadening the Pro Choice movement to include all aspects of womens reproductive rights including the right to sex education, contraception, birthing alternatives such as mid-wifery, etc. Instead as we have seen CARAL devolved into the Abortion Rights Coalition.

Womens Reproductive Rights are far broader than just abortion. It includes also the right to choose birthing options. Provinces that had restrictive access to abortion also in many cases failed to paid for Midwives. Such was the case in Alberta for many years. Linking these two issues together shows that womens health is a public health issue. The right to publicly funded medical services.

Various benefit plans in unionized work places are also affected when it comes to womens reproductive choices. Those that cover Catholic public services and public sector workers will not allow payment for contraceptives or abortions, leaving women to have to pay out of pocket for these essential medical services. Yet unions are silent on this issue afraid to challenge the service providers because of the ensuing controversial debate it will cause in the membership.

We may have come a long way twenty years ago, but in the ensuing twenty years we have not gone anywhere when it comes to providing publicly funded abortions in our hospitals.

In effect what this has meant is that in Canada there are more third month terminations than ever before. And issue that the social conservatives make much hay with. Or attempt to. Not because of the Supreme Court decision but because the left and feminist movement abandoned the fight to demand publicly funded abortions be covered by medicare and preformed in our publicly funded hospitals rather than in Morgentaler's private clinics.

The Libertarian Right in Canada abandoned the fight in the right wing mileux as well, they abandoned a key individual right, a woman's right to choose, in order to align with their neo-con and social conservative allies to gain political power at any cost. As can be seen with the launch of this new non-religious right wing anti-abortion lobby.


The right to choose is broader than just the right to choose an abortion it is the right to choose to have sex or not, to have safe sex, to have access to public humanist sex education, to have access to contraception for men and women, to have birthing choices, to have the right to have reproductive medical services fully paid for by Medicare or by benefit plans, etc. A new movement is needed in Canada to demand these rights a movement of the libertarian Left and Right.

"Love, work and knowledge are the well-springs of our life. They should also govern it."

- Wilhelm Reich

See:

Feminizing the Proletariat

Whose Family Values?

The Sexual Revolution Continues

Unsafe Abortions Continue

God Is Pro Abortion

Abortion, Adoption, or Abandonment

Procreation To Save The White Race

Abortion Not A Sin

Pro Life?

Grandmother of Second Wave Feminism Dies

Right to Life = Right To Work


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Henry Morgentaler, abortion, contraception, birth, mortality, Roe vs. Wade, sex, Supreme Court of Canada, sin, murder, embryo, 1988, fetus, fetal, Christianity, Catholic, anti-choice, safe sex, womens health, libertarian feminism, anti-abortion,
women, education, birth contol, contraception, single mothers, US High School dropouts, children, family, family planning, India, USA, feminism,

Smearing Paul

I came across this article on Ron Paul being associated with the American Nazi party, posted on Indymedia. It is innuendo and a drive by smear.

Like this one or this one. We can expect to see more of them in the coming days resurfacing as Paul's campaign gains momentum and becomes more visible in the MSM.

Now the smear campaign makes it into the main stream press. It began last fall and gained more attention during the New Hampshire primary .The smear campaign comes from the left and the right.

First, the New York Times claims that Ron Paul is in cahoots with KKK racists. Then they retract the story because the paper failed to properly investigate its own story. Jamie Kirchick of the pro-war publication "New Republic", owned in part by Roger Hertog (a neoconservative), went on Tucker Carlson's show tonight to supposedly prove that Ron Paul is a racist, that he called Martin Luther King horrible things and is a secessionist (i.e. he probably supports slavery as well).

On the Tucker Carlson Show, The New Republic’s Jamie Kirchick accused Ron Paul of engaging in a massive conspiracy to propagate a racist agenda by speaking to white supremacists in code. He explained that when regular viewers and Paul supporters think they are hearing a typical stump speech or a press interview, they are actually the witless pawns of Paul and his real, intended audience. Sure, it sounds like Paul is spreading a message of freedom and liberty, but Kirchick insists that Paul has woven an encoded message of hate into his live-and-let-live platform. Kirchick did not explain how he managed to crack the code. Nor did he explain why Paul chooses to spread his message this way rather than, you know…using telephones.

Alyssa Lopez | January 8, 2008, 1:40am | #James Kirchick is a Giuliani supporter

Of course American politics is the politics of conspiracy and conspiracy theories, has been since the founding of the republic. You can't have a revolution after all without a conspiracy of equals.

And of course Paul like other fringe political candidates has support amongst well the fringe, where conspiracy theories abound like jelly beans. And some of these folks are racist, antisemitic, red necks. But that doesn't mean Paul is.
After all he is a genuine libertarian not a poser like Ted Morton.

But to smear his libertarian politics as racist or Nazi is to misunderstand American libertarianism. It is a desperate attempt to equate libertarianism with secessionist white nationalism, etc. deliberately divorcing it from its roots in the traditions of Lysander Spooner, Josiah Warren, Benjamin Tucker,Lucy Parsons, Voltairine de Cleyre , Emma Goldman, etc.

And later in the Sixties with the New Left Alliance of Murray Rothbard and Sam Konkin with the likes of Carl Davidson and Carl Oglesby of the SDS. This is tradition that Paul comes from, not the Ayn Rand Objectivism of the right wing conservative establishment as exemplified by Allan Greenspan.

It is the same smear that has been used against other anarchists be it Proudhon, who was accused of antisemitism and mysogny, or Bakunin, again antisemitism. Or Aleister Crowley, who deliberately and with calculated glee made outrageous sexist and racist statements to upset the staid Edwardian bourgeois. Rather than argue their ideas, one focuses on their political foibles. In Bakunin's case his fatal alliance with Nechayev. Antisemitism is also a smear that has been used against Marx to devalue his theories. It is the oldest canard and apparently still a useful one.

This smear campaign against Paul can be seen in the same light. On the right it is the desperation of the War Mongering Imperialist establishment. On the left it is fear of his growing popularity amongst the anti-war left, progressives and liberals.

Ron Paul Statement on The New Republic Article Regarding Old Newsletters

Tue Jan 8, 2008 4:26pm EST

ARLINGTON, Va.--(Business Wire)--
In response to an article published by The New Republic,
Ron Paul issued the following statement:

"The quotations in The New Republic article are not mine and do
not represent what I believe or have ever believed. I have never
uttered such words and denounce such small-minded thoughts.

"In fact, I have always agreed with Martin Luther King, Jr. that
we should only be concerned with the content of a person's character,
not the color of their skin. As I stated on the floor of the U.S.
House on April 20, 1999: 'I rise in great respect for the courage and
high ideals of Rosa Parks who stood steadfastly for the rights of
individuals against unjust laws and oppressive governmental policies.'

"This story is old news and has been rehashed for over a decade.
It's once again being resurrected for obvious political reasons on the
day of the New Hampshire primary.

"When I was out of Congress and practicing medicine full-time, a
newsletter was published under my name that I did not edit. Several
writers contributed to the product. For over a decade, I have
publically taken moral responsibility for not paying closer attention
to what went out under my name."

d blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Bemjamin Tucker, Liberty, Lysander Spooner, Godwin, Constitution, law, libertarian, anarchism, invdidualist-anarchist, Proudhon, mutualist, mutualism, anarchist-law, Ayn Rand, Republicans, US Presidential race, Ron Paul, US, libertarian, Democrats,

Forty Years Ago

Happy New Year

2008 is the Fortieth Anniversary of the 1968 Revolution.

And once again the Amerikan Empire is in the throes of a foreign war and a Presidential Election. While a new activist movement has arisen in opposition to Imperialism, Globalization and Capitalism. What goes around comes around....Of course some folks dread that.

Tet Offensive



The Tet Offensive (Tet Mau Than) or Tong Cong Kich/Tong Khoi Nghia (General Offensive, General Uprising) was a three-phase military campaign launched between 30 January and 23 September 1968, by the combined forces of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF, or derogatively, Viet Cong) and the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) during the Vietnam War (1955-1975). The purpose of the operations, which were unprecedented in their magnitude and ferocity, was to strike military and civilian command and control centers throughout the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) and to spark a general uprising among the population that would then topple the Saigon government, thus ending the war in a single blow.

Paris

Constraints imposed on pleasure incite the pleasure of living without constraints.

The more I make love, the more I want to make revolution.
The more I make revolution, the more I want to make love.

Communiqué

Comrades,

Considering that the Sud-Aviation factory at Nantes has been occupied for two days by the workers and students of that city,

and that today the movement is spreading to several factories (Nouvelles Messageries de la Presse Parisienne in Paris, Renault in Cléon, etc.),

THE SORBONNE OCCUPATION COMMITTEE calls for

the immediate occupation of all the factories in France and the formation of Workers Councils.

Comrades, spread and reproduce this appeal as quickly as possible.

Sorbonne, 16 May 1968, 3:30 pm

" The only safeguard against authority and rigidity setting-in is a playful attitude."
Raoul Vaneigem.

Chicago





Chicago: demonstrators gather at grant park (Aug. 1968).
photo: Fred W. McDarrah

Theatre of fear: one on the aisle A view from the Chicago Democratic Convention riots by Richard Goldstein

"You afraid?" I asked a kid from California. He zipped his army jacket up to his neck, and filled his palm with a wad of Vaseline. "I dunno," he answered. "My toes feel cold, but my ears are burning."

We were standing together in Lincoln Park, not long after curfew on Tuesday night, watching an unbroken line of police. Around us were 1000 insurgents: hippies, Marxists, tourists, reporters, Panthers, Angels, and a phalanx of concerned ministers, gathered around a 12-foot cross. Occasionally a cluster of kids would break away from the rally to watch the formation in the distance. They spoke quietly, rubbing cream on their faces, and knotting dampened undershirts around their mouths. Not all their accoutrements were defensive. I saw saps and smoke bombs, steel-tipped boots and fistfuls of tacks. My friend pulled out a small canister from his pocket. "Liquid pepper," he explained.

Watching these kids gather sticks and stones, I realized how far we have come from that mythical summer when everyone dropped acid, sat under a tree, and communed. If there were any flower children left in America, they had heeded the underground press, and stayed home. Those who came fully anticipated confrontation. There were few virgins to violence in the crowd tonight. Most had seen—if not shed—blood, and that baptism had given them a determination of sorts. The spirit of Lincoln Park was to make revolution the way you make love—ambivalently, perhaps but for real.

The cops advanced at 12:40 a.m., behind two massive floodlight-trucks. They also had the fear; you could see it in their eyes (wide and wet) and their mouths. All week, you watched them cruise the city—never alone and never unarmed. At night, you heard their sirens in the streets, and all day, their helicopters in the sky. On duty, the average Chicago cop was a walking arsenal—with a shotgun in one hand, a riot baton (long and heavy with steel tips) in the other, and an assortment of pistols, nightsticks, and ominous canisters in his belt. At first, all that equipment seemed flattering. But then you saw under the helmets, and the phallic weaponry, and you felt the fear again. Immigrant to stranger, cop to civilian, old man to kid. The fear that brought the people of Chicago out into the streets during Martin Luther King's open housing march, now reflected in the fists of these cops. The fear that made the people of Gage Park spit at priests, and throw stones at nuns, now authorized to kill. And you realized that the cops weren't putting on that display for you; no—a cop's gun is his security blanket, just as Vaseline was yours.

Then the lights shone brilliant orange and the tear gas guns exploded putt-putt-puttutt, and the ministers dipped their cross into a halo of smothering fog. The gas hit like a great wall of pepper and you ran coughing into the streets, where you knew there would be rocks to throw and windows to smash and something to feel besides fear.

The soldiers stood on all the bridges, sealing off Grant Park from the city streets. The kids couldn't be gassed anymore, because the wind was blowing fumes across the guarded bridges and into every open pore of the Conrad Hilton, and the hotel was filled with good people who had tears in their eyes. So the soldiers just stood with their empty guns poised against the tide. And they were frowning at the kids who shouted "put down your guns; join us." A few hid flowers in their uniforms, and some smiled, but mostly, they stood posing for their own death masks.

"Wouldn't you rather hold a girl than a gun?" asked one kid with his arm around two willing chicks.

"You don't understand," the soldier stammered, moving his tongue across his lips. "It's orders. We have to be here."

That was Wednesday—nomination day—and the city was braced for escalation. At the afternoon rally, an American flag was hauled down, and the police responded by wading into the center of the crowd, with clubs flying. The kids built barricades of vacated benches, pelted the police with branches, and tossed plastic bags of cow's blood over their heads. . . .

With every semblance of press identification I owned pinned to my shirt, I set out across the mall. But most of the crowd had the same idea. Across on Michigan Avenue, I could hear the shouts of demonstrators who were re-grouping at the Hilton. I stopped to wet my undershirt in a fountain and ran down the street. My hands were shaking with anticipation and I could no longer close my eyes without seeing helmets and hearing chants. So my body was committed, but my head remained aloof.




Czechoslovakia

The Soviet Invasion
of Czechoslovakia: August 1968

Materials from
the Labadie Collection
of Social Protest Material

Soviet tank in front of the Czechoslovak Radio building, photo: CTK

In the morning hours of August 21, 1968, the Soviet army invaded Czechoslovakia along with troops from four other Warsaw Pact countries. The occupation was the beginning of the end for the Czechoslovak reform movement known as the Prague Spring.

This web site contains material from the days immediately following the invasion, and they reflect the atmosphere in Czechoslovakia at the time: tense, chaotic, uncertain, full of pathos, fear, and expectation...

SDS: Anarchist Libertarian Alliance

SDS Bulletin - July, 1964 (Vol 2, Nr 10) New Left Notes - May 13, 1968 (Vol 3, Nr 17) New Left Notes - March 8, 1969 (Vol 4, Nr 9)

• Bookchin, Murray. Anarchy and Organization: A Letter To The Left. Reprinted from New Left Notes. January 15, 1969. Retrieved April 12, 2005. "The essay originally was written in reply to an attack by Huey Newton on anarchist forms of organization."

First-phase SDSers hadn’t talked much about values. But as anti-war activity heated up during the second phase, SDSers were looking for new worldviews, indulging in new tastes and lifestyles. Pardun, for whom LSD was practically religion, took the hippie lifestyle as a facet of the movement.

But neither critique nor lifestyle, without political gains, were enough by late 1967, when second-phase leaders began to worry about the realism of their project. Pardun puts its succinctly: "Protesting the war," he writes, "assumed that it was a mistake and that if we could convince the war makers of that then the war would end."

Escalations in ground forces and bombing–his book recounts them, brigade by brigade, ton by ton–told SDS that the war wasn’t simply a "mistake" and that hawks would not be persuaded–until and unless doves could take power away from them.

Several prairie leaders, notably Carl Oglesby, Greg Calvert, and Carl Davidson, began to concoct theories to deal with the task. Three elements were common to their formulations: the notion of a "New Working Class," of "resistance," and of youth as a powerful and independent force. The "New Working Class" was a highly technical, white-collar proletariat, whose members, proponents of the theory insisted, were going to replace the blue-collar industrial workforce. "Resistance" was a vaguer idea, which took practical form in a campaign to sabotage and derail the military draft. Youth were "revolutionary" because they weren’t sworn to doctrines about racial supremacy and My Country, Right or Wrong. They also smoked pot.

Consciousness and Social Life - Google Books Result

by David H. DeGrood - 1976 - Philosophy - 112 pages
Now Karl Marx was being referred to, help! theory!45 By the Summer of 1967 ... the Spring of 1968 opportunists such as Carl Oglesby were urging SDS to drop ...

Building a New Libertarian Movement

[The following, which I co-authored with the late Samuel Edward Konkin III, originally appeared in slightly different form under the title “Smashing the State for Fun & Profit!” in Tactics of the Movement of the Libertarian Left (Vol. 5, No. 1), May Day 2001. I offer it here as a clarification of “Libertarian Leftism,” an illuminating piece of political revisionist history, and a contribution to Tom Knapp’s ongoing Symposium on Building a New Libertarian Movement. I apologize for its length.]
What was the New Left in 1965 was conducive to an alliance with Libertarians. Indeed, the New Left and the nascent Libertarian Movement reached out for each other to battle the common enemy, Corporate Liberal Imperial Leviathan. Libertarian Movement founder Murray N. Rothbard traded votes with Maoists at New York Peace & Freedom Party conventions. Rothbard and historian Leonard Liggio started Left and Right: A Journal of Libertarian Thought to help forge a Libertarian alliance with the New Left. Carl Oglesby, 1965 president of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), wrote an analysis of the U.S. Empire, Containment and Change, in which his prescription for defeating the Empire called explicitly for a coalition with the Libertarian “Old Right” as led by Rothbard and Liggio. And Karl Hess, speechwriter for the Goldwater presidential campaign in 1964, determined by 1968 that he had more in common with the New Left than Buckley’s Right and penned his stirring “Death of Politics” Libertarian manifesto for Playboy magazine.

But those “Old Left” commune-statists were not, to use that familiar Trotskyist phrase, “decisively defeated on the proletarian terrain.” By the time of its 1969 convention, SDS expelled its anarchists and split between Maoists and WeatherMaoists. After a brief exhibition of street violence, the “vanguard” collapsed underground with an occasional eruption over the years. Also in 1969, Libertarian Rightists, inspired by Rothbard and led by Hess, walked out of the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) convention to join the New Left. And unfortunately, even the first Libertarian Con that year in New York, which brought together disenfranchised SDS decentralists and YAF free-marketeers, also split — not on Left-Right lines but on revolutionary rage vs. quite academic movement-building lines.

YIPPIE!



The Youth International Party (whose adherents were known as Yippies, a variant on "Hippies") was a highly theatrical political party established in the United States in 1967. An offshoot of the free speech and anti-war movements of the 1960s, the Yippies presented a more radically youth-oriented and countercultural alternative to those movements. They employed theatrical gestures—such as advancing a pig ("Pigasus the Immortal") as a candidate for President in 1968—to mock the social status quo.They have been described as a highly theatrical youth movement of “symbolic politics.”


It was during the conventions in 1968 that the Yippies really made a national splash.

At the turbulent Democratic gathering in Chicago, Yippie founders Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin presented their candidate for president – "Pigasus the Immortal," a real pig.

But the scene at the convention turned ugly as Chicago police, and then the National Guard, clashed with antiwar protesters. In the aftermath, Hoffman and Rubin were among seven protesters arrested and charged with conspiring to incite violence.

During the trial of the so-called "Chicago Seven," Hoffman and Rubin continued to play to the media, one day showing up for court in judicial robes. Ultimately, the charges against the defendants were dismissed.

Paul Krassner, who was among the founding members of the Yippies with Hoffman and Rubin, said the party came about because "the whole antiwar effort seemed dreary. .. We wanted to add some color and fun to the demonstrations."

Abbie Hoffman.

View adrastosno's map

Taken in (See more photos here)

Yippie Workshop Speech by Abbie Hoffman (1968)

Cops are like Yippies-you can never find the leaders... You just let 'em know that you're stronger psychically than they are. And you are, because you came here for nothin' and they're holdin' on to their fuckin' pig jobs 'cause of that little fuckin' paycheck and workin' themselves up, you know. Up to what? To a fuckin' ulcer. Sergeant. We got them by the balls. The whole thing about guerrilla theatre is gettin' them to believe it. Right.

Theatre, guerrilla theatre, can be used as defense and as an offensive weapon. I mean, I think like people could survive naked, see. I think you could take all your fuckin' clothes off, a cop won't hit ya. You jump in Lake Michigan, he won't go after you, but people are too chickenshit to do that. It can be used as an offensive and defensive weapon, like blood. We had a demonstration in New York. We had seven gallons of blood in little plastic bags. You know, if you convince 'em you're crazy enough, they won't hurt ya. With the blood thing, cop goes to hit you, right, you have a bag of blood in your hand. He lifts h is stick up, you take your bag of blood and go whack over your own head. All this blood pours out, see. Fuckin' cop standin'. Now that says a whole lot more than a picket sign that says end the war in wherever the fuck it is you know. I mean in that demonstration, there was a fuckin' war there. People came down and looked and said holy shit I don't know what it is, blood all over the fuckin' place, smokebombs goin' off, flares, you know, tape recorders with the sounds of machine guns, cops on horses tramplin' Christmas shoppers. It was a fuckin' war. And they say, right, I know what the fuck you're talkin' about. You're talkin' about war. What the fuck has a picket line got to do with war? But people that are into a very literal bag, like that heavy word scene, you know, don't understand the use of communication in this country and the use of media. I mean, if they give a ten-page speech against imperialism, everybody listens and understands and says yeah. But you throw fuckin' money out on the Stock Exchange, and people get that right away. And they say, right, I understand what that's about. And if they don't know what you're doin', fuck 'em. Who cares? Take this, see, you use blank space as information. You carry a sign that says END THE. You don't need the next word, you just carry a sign that says END, you know. That's enough. I mean the Yippie symbol is Y. So you say, why, man, why, why? Join the Y, bring your sneakers, bring your helmet, right, bring your thing, whatever you got. Y, you say to the Democrats, baby, Y that's not a V it's a Y. You can do a whole lotta shit. Steal it, steal the V, it's a Y. It's up the revolution like that. Keeping your cool and having good wits is your strongest defense.

If you don't want it on TV, write the work "FUCK" on your head, see, and that won't get on TV, right? But that's where theatre is at, it's TV. I mean our thing's for TV. We don't want to get on Meet the Press. What's that shit? We want Ed Sullivan, Johnny Carson show, we want the shit where people are lookin' at it and diggin' it. They're talking about reachin' the troops in Viet Nam so they write in The Guardian! [An independent radical newsweekly published in New York.] That's groovy. I've met a lot of soldiers who read The Guardian, you know. But we've had articles in Jaguar magazine, Cavalier, you know, National Enquirer interviews the Queen of the Yippies, someone nobody ever heard of and she runs a whole riff about the Yippies and Viet Nam or whatever her thing is and the soldiers get it and dig it and smoke a little grass and say yeah I can see where she's at. That's why the long hair. I mean shit, you know, long hair is just another prop. You go on TV and you can say anything you want but the people are lookin' at you and they're lookin' at the cat next to you like David Susskind or some guy like that and they're sayin' hey man there's a choice, I can see it loud and clear. But when they look at a guy from the Mobilization [against the War in Vietnam] and they look at David Susskind, they say well I don't know, they seem to be doing the same thing, can't understand what they're doin'. See, Madison Avenue people think like that. That's why a lot SDS's don't like what we're doin'. 'Cause they say we're like exploiting; we're usin' the tools of Madison Ave. But that's because Madison Ave. is effective in what it does. They know what the fuck they're doin'. Meet the Press, Face the Nation, Issues and Answers-all those bullshit shows, you know, where you get a Democrat and a Republican arguin' right back and forth, this and that, this and that, yeah yeah. But at the end of the show nobody changes their fuckin' mind, you see. But they're tryin' to push Brillo, you see, that's good, you ought to use Brillo, see, and 'bout every ten minutes on will come a three-minute thing of Brillo. Brillo is a revolution, man, Brillo is sex, Brillo is fun, Brillo is bl bl bl bl bl bl bl bl. At the end of the show people ain't fuckin' switchin' from Democrat to Republicans or Commies, you know, the right-wingers or any of that shit. They're buying Brillo! And the reason they have those boring shows is because they don't want to get out any information that'll interfere with Brillo. I mean, can you imagine if they had the Beatles goin' zing zing zing zing zing zing zing, all that jump and shout, you know, and all of a sudden they put on an ad where the guy comes on very straight: "You ought to buy Brillo because it's rationally the correct decision and it's part of the American political process and it's the right way to do things." You know, fuck, they'll buy the Beatles, they won't buy the Brillo.

We taped a thing for the David Susskind Show. As he said the word hippie, a live duck came out with "HIPPIE" painted on it. The duck flew up in the air and shat on the floor and ran all around the room. The only hippie in the room, there he is. And David went crazy. 'Cause David, see, he's New York Times head, he's not Daily News freak. And he said the duck is out and blew it. We said, we'll see you David, goodnight. He say, oh no no. We'll leave the duck in. And we watched the show later when it came on, and the fuckin' duck was all gone. He done never existed. And I called up Susskind and went quack quack quack, you motherfucker, that was the best piece of information: that was a hippie. And everything we did, see, non-verbally, he cut out. Like he said, "How do you eat?" and we fed all the people, you know. But he cut that out. He wants to deal with the words. You know, let's play word games, let's analyze it. Soon as you analyze it, it's dead, it's over. You read a book and say well now I understand it, and go back to sleep.

The media distorts. But it always works to our advantage. They say there's low numbers, right? 4000, 5000 people here. That's groovy. Think of it, 4000 people causin' all this trouble. If you asked me, red say there are four Yippies. I'd say we're bringin' another four on Wednesday. That's good, that freaks 'em out. They're lookin' around. Only four. I mean I saw that trip with the right wing and the Communist conspiracy. You know, you'd have 5000 people out there at the HUAC demonstrations eight years ago in San Francisco and they'd say there are five Communists in the crowd, you know. And they did it all. You say, man that's pretty cool. So you just play on their paranoia like that. Yeah, there're four guys out around there doin' a thing. So distortion's gonna backfire on them, 'cause all of a sudden Wednesday by magic there are gonna be 200,000 fuckin' people marchin' on that amphitheater. That's how many we're gonna have. And they'll say, "Wow. From 4000 up to 200,000. Those extra four Yippies did a hell of a good job." I dig that, see. I'm not interested in explainin' my way of life to straight people or people that aren't interested. They never gonna understand it anyway and I couldn't explain it anyway. All I know is, in terms of images and how words are used as images to shape your environment, the New York Times is death to us. That's the worst fuckin' paper as far as the Yippies are concerned. They say, "Members of the so-called Youth International Party held a demonstration today." That ain't nothin'. What fuckin' people read that? They fall asleep. 'Cause the New York Times has all the news that's fit to print, you know, so once they have all the news, what do the people have to do? They just read the New York Times and drink their coffee and go back to work, you know. But the Daily News, that's a TV set. Look at it, I mean look at the picture right up front and the way they blast those headlines. You know, "Yippies, sex-loving, dope-loving, commie, beatnik, hippie, freako, weirdos." That's groovy, man, that's a whole life style, that's a whole thing to be, man. I mean you want to get in on that.

ABBIE HOFFMAN

1936-1989

This site is dedicated to the memory and spirit of Abbie Hoffman.

"Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit."

Abbie Hoffman

Soon to be a Major Motion Picture

abbie hoffman by Alex Burns (alex@disinfo.com) - May 29, 2001

Abbie Hoffman (1936-1989) was a complex and deeply paradoxical social activist and media celebrity, whose legendary culture-jamming exploits have come to characterise the period's para-political turmoil and counter-culture. His early 1950s experiences as a Brandeis student and sexual experienced aesthete marked Hoffman as a future American Rebel (Outsider). Under the tutelage of famous humanist psychologist Abraham Maslow, Hoffman conceived of political protest as a positive and life-affirming self-actualising process. During the early 1960s, Hoffman was involved with civil rights activism as an organiser in Mississipi for the Student Non-violent Co-ordinating Committee. In San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, Hoffman became involved with the Diggers (actors turned social activists), distributing free food and organising accomodation. He first came to national exposure with Jerry Rubin during the infamous 1967 New York Stock Exchange "money-burning" incident. Through his involvement with anti-Vietnam War protests and the Chicago Eight trial which resulted from 1968 Chicago Democratic convention riots, Hoffman became a counter-culture icon and the face of American radical dissidence. Hoffman mixed with many of the leading protesters, including John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Tom Hayden, Timothy Leary and G. Gordon Liddy, and was notable for fusing creativity with righteous fury and savage humour. He pioneered many tactics of guerilla survival and personal autonomy. Drifting into an outlaw life-style, Hoffman was implicated in a 1973 cocaine deal gone wrong, and busted by undercover agents. Fleeing, Hoffman lived underground for six years, working on environmental campaigns. Re-surfacing in 1980, Hoffman served a brief prison sentence, before returning to social activism. Hoffman battled many fronts, but his demons were largely personal, in an environment that had dramatically changed since the demise of the Counter-culture. Psychosis, substance abuse and relationship breakdowns created a messy personal life. The rise of the Moral Majority as a political force, increased on-campus student conservatism and a critical re-appraisal of New Left radicalism countered his many attempts to re-mobilise university campus and environmental progressive forces into raising hell. Hoffman also encountered a media backlash against his clown persona and culture-jamming legacy, as many critics claimed that he had betrayed his earlier ideals. But despite his deep flaws, Hoffman remained committed to progressive campaigning, and criticised the Reagan administration's War on Some Drugs. Hoffman's social revolution ideals were finally realised through the 1989 collapse of Eastern European 'puppet' Communist states, but plagued by manic depression, Hoffman had died by suicide. Sadly, he did not live to see the resurgence of his ideas and radicial dissidence in the 1990s by a variety of individuals and progressive foundations. Hoffman's legacy has been chronicled in several excellent biographies: Marty Jezer's American Rebel (1992); Damien Simon and Jack Hoffman's Run Run Run (1994); Jonah Raskin's For the Hell of It and Larry 'Ratso' Sloman's Steal This Dream (1998).

Who is Jerry Rubin?
the co-founder of the Yippies



Jerry C. Rubin was perhaps the most outlandish figure to ever defended American civil liberties. A revolutionary and anti-war activist, his voice and zany stunts were heard and seen throughout the world. Rubin was a master of media sensationalism, exposing American injustice through outrageous spectacles and whimsical press conferences. His outrageousness and free style made him a household name, and soon every politician's worst nightmare.

During the 70's Rubin reflected about his past deeds and thoughts. In essays he would admit his wrongs, explaining how sexism, homophobia, racism, and drug abuse shaped his beliefs. Once believing homosexuality was a sick behavior, he now understood it as a valid sexual expression. He also thanked women for the role they played in creating his public image: women were the ones who typed his manuscripts, handled his clerical work, and labored behind the scenes. He abandoned his "Kill You Parents" mantra and encouraged people to accept the "Love Your Parents" wisdom.

In the 80's Rubin slowly removed himself from the media spotlight, complaining, "To live inside a media image is like a prison. Living for your image means sacrificing your true self." He made a few guest appearances with Abbie Hoffman and appeared in the movies "Growing Up in America" (1987), "Rude Awakening" (1989), and "Panther" (released 1995).

Rubin died on November 28, 1994 when he was struck by a car while jay walking in Los Angeles. He was buried at Hillside Memorial Park in Culver City, California.

Anita Hoffman: 16 March, 1942 - December 27, 1998

The Yippies didn't just want to sit around and smoke pot. They sought to pull Uncle Sam's pants down in public, to show that revolution could be conducted in a spirit of festive nonviolence.

Dubbing her the "Queen of the Yippies," the U.K.'s Economist (not exactly a radical publication) had this to say of Anita Hoffman and her husband Abbie: "Perhaps the most famous song of the 1960s was Bob Dylan's 'The Times They Are A'Changin'', in which 'senators, congressmen' and others stuck in the past were warned of the 'battle outside raging.' No one fought the battle with more enthusiasm than the Hoffmans, Abbie and Anita."

> The Hoffmans became the symbols of an era of resistance against racism, capitalism and war.

Steal this millennium!
Yippie Stew Albert sits down with R.U. Sirius to plan the revolution and remember Abbie Hoffman.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By R.U. Sirius

Stew Lives!

Activist Stew Albert's quest for social and economic justice found its path in the Yippie movement of the late 1960s

By Michael Simmons

Photo by Judy Gumbo Albert

HUNGRY FOR JUSTICE: Yippie Stew Albert, 1939-2006.

"My politics have not changed."

So read the simple blog entry by Stew Albert on Jan. 28. Two days later, he died in his sleep at his home in Portland, Ore., surrounded by his wife Judy Albert, daughter Jessica and friends. Suffering from cancer and unable to write at length, he was clearly determined to make a statement - a last stand - that blended the legendary Yippie's defiance and wit. As if his politics would ever change!

For the Yippies - the Youth International Party - the word "party" meant both political group and outrageously good times. The Yippies merged leftwing activism and freak culture in the late 1960s. One of the "non-leaders" along with Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and Paul Krassner was another party animal - equally irresponsible for the chaos and comedy: Stew Albert, a fierce soldier for justice as well as a subversive prankster.

Yippies on Wall Street (1)

This guy was not a YIPPIE!



SEE

Gay Old Communists

The Summer of Love

40 Years Later; The Society of the Spectacle

Year of the Pig

Black and Redmonton

Paul Goodman

Military Industrial Complex

SOME REMARKS ON WAR SPIRIT

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