None other than the revolutionary comic (or was that the comic revolutionary?).
Abbott Howard "Abbie" Hoffman (November 30, 1936 – April 12, 1989) was a social and political activist in the United States, co-founder of the Youth International Party ("Yippies"), and later, a fugitive from the law, who lived under an alias following a conviction for dealing cocaine.
During the Vietnam War, Hoffman was an anti-war activist who used deliberately comical and theatrical tactics, such as a mass demonstration in which over 50,000 people unsuccessfully attempted to levitate The Pentagon using psychic energy. Hoffman was also successful at turning many "flower children" into political activists.[1] Another wartime trick was his announcement that the newest high was bananas inserted rectally. His hope was that pentagon scientists would try this.
One of Hoffman's protests was on August 24, 1967; when he led a group opposed to capitalism (and other things, including the Vietnam War) in the gallery of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The protestors threw fistfuls of (mostly fake) dollar bills down to the traders below, who began to scramble frantically to grab the money, as fast as they could. Hoffman claimed to be pointing out that, metaphorically, that's what NYSE traders "were already doing". The NYSE then installed barriers in the gallery, to prevent this kind of protest from interfering with trading again. -
Wikipedia.orgIf you ever get the chance to see
Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8 (1987) or
Steal This Movie (2000), do it. See both. The first one should be required in every high school civics class in America.
The book he was referring to was
Steal This Book , which many did.
I view it as a posthumous tribute to Abbie that, according to the Internet Movie Database,
Steal This Movie became the
second most stolen film in America, the first being Clerks(1994).
Good job, Babs.
