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 <
enough people> 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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