[News] Remembering the 1968 Democratic Convention

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Where is Pigasus now?

http://www.counterpunch.org/

August 28, 2008


Remembering the 1968 Democratic Convention


The Battle of Chicago

By JUDY GUMBO ALBERT

Forty years ago this week I was in Chicago at the 
Democratic Convention– not as a delegate but as a 
member of the theatrical, countercultural, 
media-savvy  protest group known as the Yippies. 
Then, as now, the Democratic Party was severely 
internally divided -- about race rather than 
gender, but especially over the war in Vietnam. 
We – Yippie leaders Abbie and Anita Hoffman, 
Jerry Rubin and Nancy Kurshan, my then boyfriend 
and later husband Stew Albert, the folksinger 
Phil Ochs and journalist Paul Krassner -- came to 
the Convention to hold a Festival of Life and 
nominate a pig for president. Our candidate, 
Pigasus, would, we believed, be infinitely more 
attractive to young people than the Democrat’s 
pro-war candidate Hubert Humphrey.   Abbie, 
Anita, Jerry, Phil and Stew are all gone now, 
and, although I don’t expect the events described 
here to occur in Denver, our country is, as in 
1968, engaged in an immoral and illegal war 
overseas that has been used by our current 
elected officials to put more draconian 
restrictions on dissent and freedom of speech 
than I once faced confronting the Democrats in 
Chicago. What follows is my recollection of those events.

It’s always the old
Who lead us to the war
It’s always the young who fall
But look at all we’ve won
With a saber and a gun
Tell me is it worth it all?
I ain’t marchin’ any more
No I ain’t marchin’ anymore

Phil Ochs

WARNING
LOCAL COPS ARE ARMED AND CONSIDERED DANGEROUS. (Yippie flyer)

Abbie always said we didn’t come to Chicago to 
oppose the Democrats, we came to oppose the war. 
Well before the convention is due to begin, 
Abbie, Jerry, Stew and Paul have been negotiating 
with Chicago Mayor Daley’s officials for permits. 
Permits to march and permits to sleep in the 
park. Permits for rallies and permits for the 
Festival of Life. Mayor Daley refuses to meet 
with them and sends a lower-level functionary, 
Deputy Mayor David Stahl, who both Abbie and 
Jerry ridicule because of his last name. But it’s 
no joke. All Stahl does is stall.

Abbie, Paul, Jerry and Stew are not the only 
players in the Chicago permit drama. That honor 
also goes to Tom Hayden, founder of the decade’s 
major student anti war organization Students for 
a Democratic Society,  Rennie Davis, a well-known 
anti-war activist whose blood will be spilled a 
few days later, and Dave Dellinger, a much 
beloved and older (meaning in his 50’s) pacifist 
and advocate for non-violent civil 
disobedience.  They are the leaders of the 
larger, more traditional (traditional, that is, 
compared to the Yippies) anti-war organization 
called the National Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam or MOBE.

The MOBE is predicting thousands of young 
mainstream “Clean for Gene” supporters of 
anti-war presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy 
will descend on Chicago, while we Yippies use the 
underground press to try and attract 
countercultural youth with an imaginary scheme to 
put LSD in the drinking water. This act, FYI, is 
physically impossible; given the amount of LSD 
needed to make any difference. I know, I once put 
hundreds of packets red dye in the reflecting 
pool in Washington DC to protest the war and it just dissipated.

For the sake of historical accuracy, I will also 
disclose that we Yippies claim we’re going to 
fuck on the beaches and burn Chicago to the 
ground. Ok, so, this sounds a little over the top 
threatening, but why would anyone in their right 
mind actually take Yippie seriously?

Mayor Daley is not a Yippie.

Nor is FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.

By the time we roll into town, police forces from 
all over the state have been brought in, the cops 
are wired, the National Guard is mobilized, and 
tension is extremely high. Stew always believed 
that Mayor Daley, a Democrat, was set up by FBI 
Director J. Edgar Hoover to overreact to our 
Yippie exaggerations, so Americans would watch 
approvingly on television as hippies and anti-war 
demonstrators are rightfully put down and Richard 
Nixon gets elected as a law and order candidate.

Which is, in fact, what comes to pass. Mayor Daley denies all permits.

In fact, six months before the Convention, Mayor 
Daley had issued a "shoot to kill" order for demonstrators.

At most, 15,000 demonstrators show up for 
Convention week in Chicago. Perhaps it’s closer 
to 5,000. We never really find out.

Thursday, August 22, 2008

Our decision to run a pig for President leads to 
a giant internal Yippie fight.

Abbie, Anita and Paul want a tiny cute 
pig.  Jerry gets incensed. It violates his sense 
of effective Yippie marketing: to adequately 
represent the candidates and all they stand for, 
the Yippie pig needs to be big, fat, ugly and 
mean. Jerry calls a meeting and, disregarding 
Stew’s advice to let it be, reads a statement out 
loud to Abbie, Anita and Paul, denouncing Abbie 
as a media-hungry “ego tripper”. Jerry even 
threatens to hand his statement out as a leaflet 
in Lincoln Park, if Abbie doesn’t relent about the size of the Yippie pig.

This is what a serious ideological split in the 
Yippies comes down to – the girth and poundage of our presidential candidate.

I’m embarrassed for Jerry.  I don’t understand 
the depths of his passion against Abbie but I 
know Abbie is fully capable of responding in 
kind. Never having experienced a dysfunctional 
family with two highly competitive male siblings, 
it seems to me that this is a really terrible 
precursor for the kind of society we Yippies are trying to create.

For the rest of the convention Abbie and Jerry 
aren’t on speaking terms.   But in some similarly 
familiar family way, this fight doesn’t destroy their friendship. Abbie says:

We would not let a personal fight upset anything. 
Besides, we were both so dedicated that I, at 
least, realized that Jerry would cry at my 
funeral and make the right speech, and that I would do the same for him.

As, indeed, Jerry does cry  after Abbie commits suicide in 1989.

Jerry recruits Stew, me, Nancy, Phil, and Yippie 
tai chi expert Wolf Lowenthal to go out to the 
nearby Illinois countryside and purchase the 
largest, smelliest, most repulsive hog we can 
find. His (or more likely her) name will be Pigasus.

After we pick out what looks to be a reasonably 
friendly 200 pound hog, the farmer makes us get 
into the pigpen and catch her ourselves. I’ll 
never forget how hysterically funny that was –all 
of us falling, slipping and sliding, covered in 
mud and pig poop. Phil, being more fastidious, 
declines to participate but he’s the one who pays 
the farmer.  Somehow we manage to load Pigasus 
into our truck and take her back to Chicago for a 
press conference at the Civil Center the next day.

On our way back, with occasional oinking in the 
background, Jerry advocates, in his forceful, 
Jerry, ad-man way, that the Yippies demand 
Pigasus get treated as a legitimate candidate, 
with secret service protection and foreign policy 
briefings. Pigasus’ platform, according to Jerry, 
will be that everyone in the world be allowed to 
vote in our election because America controls the world.

Today America may no longer be the world’s only 
superpower, but I believe we Yippies were among 
the first to recognize the global reach of 
American elections. Perhaps Jerry’s platform for Pigasus was right.

Friday, August 23, 2008. a.m.

Chicago Civil Center is jammed with local and 
national media. As soon as Jerry, Stew and Wolf 
take Pigasus out of the truck, she’s arrested 
along with all her human companions, in front of 
television cameras, photographers and the press – 
a genuine, perfect Yippie media moment. Later, as 
a jailed Stew and Jerry await arraignment, a fat 
burly Chicago cop comes up to them and says: “ 
Boys, I have some bad news for you. The pig squealed.”

We never see Pigasus again. Rumor has it she was 
sacrificed and eaten at a Chicago cop’s barbeque.

Rest in Peace Pigasus: you served everyone well.

It’s a rare thing you gave us – allowing nice 
Jewish girls and boys to get so intimate with pork.

Sunday, August 25, 1968. a.m.

We demand a society built along the alternative 
community in Lincoln Park, a society based on 
humanitarian cooperation and equality, a society 
which allows and promotes the creativity present 
in all people and especially our youth.

(Yippie flyer written by Abbie for Lincoln Park 
detailing 18 Yippie points for our ideological platform and program)

Today is the day scheduled for our Yippie 
Festival of Life, as a counter to what we call 
the Democratic “Convention of Death.”

Among the missing in Lincoln Park are the bands 
-- scared off, because all the major media, 
mainstream and alternative, are predicting riots. 
Abbie is especially angry. He feels betrayed; he 
thought many of the famous musicians he invited were his friends.

The only band to show up is the MC-5, a macho, 
overtly political, hard rock band out of Ann 
Arbor, managed by Yippie John Sinclair.  Abbie, 
who is an excellent promoter but not especially a 
promoter of rock concerts, neglects to provide 
electricity, so well known poet and guitar player 
Ed Sanders helps the MC5 plug an orange 300 foot 
extension cord into a nearby hot dog stand. MC5 founder Wayne Kramer remembers:

At one point there were Chicago police 
helicopters hovering over us. We were doing this 
very experimental piece that’s out of time and 
out of key – space music – and I’m playing this 
feedback, and the helicopter is coming in – 
whomp, whomp, whomp. And it was all just perfect. 
But the minute we stopped playing the 
altercations started to break out. The police 
kind of ratcheted up their assault on people.

Immediately after they finish, the MC5 leave the 
Park as quickly as possible. I’m standing with 
Stew and Abbie close by the truck where the band 
had played, when Abbie hears over his 
walkie-talkie that the cops are entering the park 
some distance away.  I look over at Stew and – o 
my god -- blood is running down through his blond curls and over his forehead.

No uniformed cops are to be seen anywhere in the vicinity.

I’m not usually afraid of blood.  Doesn’t matter. I panic.

So does Abbie.

Stew’s a little woozy and sits down on the grass.

‘You’re bleeding,” I tell Stew. As if he didn’t know that.

Isn’t it amazing the stupid things you say in a crisis?

Abbie has the presence of mind to persuade the 
medics to take Stew to the hospital; his wound 
requires six stitches to close.  The doctors tell 
Stew the wound was likely made by a 
blackjack.  We figured it had to be an undercover cop.

Stew’s is the first blood to be shed in Lincoln Park that Convention week.

Sunday, August 25, 1968, p.m.

All day long, Park employees are putting up signs 
saying there will be an 11 p.m. curfew. Stew, his 
head bandaged but in great spirits, and I and the 
rest of the Yippies are determined to ignore it.

By 11 it’s pitch dark. Except that behind us, 
over the rolling hills of the park and through a 
few tall trees, you can make out something 
approaching. Then, over a hill, silhouetted 
against the darkness and trees, backlit by huge 
tall glowing lights, swirling at least 8 feet off 
the ground, comes a dense white/grey fog in front 
of which a line of ghostly cops has materialized, marching in formation.

I’m in the middle of a live action war documentary.

Stew and I, Jerry and Nancy stand up quickly. By 
now we smell something strange, toxic and burning -- tear gas.

The line advances.

It’s the scariest thing imaginable.

Except I don’t feel scared.

I ‘m exhilarated..

We’d learned earlier in the day to carry 
bandannas and scarves to put over our mouths to 
be able to breathe, but the grey, floating gas 
burns inside our noses, sticks to the bandannas 
and to our clothing. The bandannas are useless.

Jerry and Nancy disappear. No yelling or 
screaming, the silence is eerie.  The line of 
cops moves in closer behind us, the fog gets 
thicker, like a San Francisco fog gone bad.  I 
observe other protestors, their silhouettes 
illuminated against the gas, running in the distance.

It’s difficult to breathe. I choke up; tears run 
down my face. Everything is in slow-motion.

But I’m not afraid. Stew is looking out for me, 
we’re running, together, side by side, propelled 
by an urgent imperative to get away. The tear gas 
unites us in a brand new kind of intimacy and commitment.

I feel protected.

I feel courageous.

I am powerful.

I’m fighting for what I believe.

This is fun!

Over a ridge and down in a small valley ahead of 
me, I see Allan Ginsberg, author of the epic poem 
Howl, in which he saw the best minds of my 
generation destroyed by madness.  Allen is 
sitting on the grass, lotus position, balding, 
long curly dark hair, in a circle with about a 
dozen friends and acolytes. Ommmmmm
..they chant 
the mantra together as if to remind the universe 
that even in the midst of chaos all life is 
interconnected, and its soothing sound echoes through the tear gas 
.Ommmmmmm
.

Allen is a Yippie and we run toward him.

“Boy, he’s not going to last very long”, I think to myself.

The gas is getting very, very strong and potent.

A few seconds after we run past, Allen’s group is forced to scatter.

So much for mantras, gentle poets, and non-violent, loving spiritual practice.

Were the Chicago cops fulfilling their personal piggy karma?

Monday, August 26, 2008

They spread their sheets upon the ground just like a wandering tribe
And the wise men walked in their Robespierre robes
Through Lincoln park the dark was turning
The towers trapped and trembling, and the boats were tossed about
When the fog rolled in and the gas rolled out
In Lincoln Park the dark was burning

"William Butler Yeats visits Lincoln Park" by Phil Ochs


The next day all of us – Abbie, Anita, Paul, 
Jerry, Nancy, Stew, Phil me and the other Yippies 
meet up back in Lincoln Park. Wheezing, 
bedraggled and a little shocked, but, by now, 
also pretty angry and elated, we endlessly 
re-hash the previous night. Everyone believes 
this could have been avoided if permits had been 
issued. No one knows whether or not tanks were 
used. Our clothes still reek, our eyes are still sore red and puffy.

Someone says that this particular type of teargas 
has been outlawed for use in Vietnam.

That may be just a Yippie urban legend.

Someone else says the lights were mounted on 
garbage trucks. Which turns out to be true.

Nancy, Anita and I bring small cans of tempera 
paint to make protest signs. We can’t think of 
anything else to do. Wolf Lowenthal and Abbie 
lead groups of demonstrators in practicing 
tai-chi, we shout WA-SHOI together in the vain 
hope we’ll be able to get away as a crowd.  Jerry 
and Stew try to come up with a strategy for 
dealing with the coming curfew, nothing seems appropriate.

We’re don’t feel afraid, or depressed. At least I 
don’t.  Or maybe all of us are in denial and none 
of us are showing it. Instead we’re almost 
manically exhilarated, we tell war stories of how 
we got away, of how striking black bus drivers 
gave us the Black power fist sign, of seeing a 
few policemen beat an ignominious retreat.

The battle of Chicago has begun.

Some time after dark a police bullhorn orders us 
to leave Lincoln Park or violate curfew. The 
Yippie gang, Stew and I and about 1000 other 
protesters jeer, hoot, holler, jump up and down 
and chant an old anti-draft slogan, which feels 
perfectly appropriate,: “Hell No, We Won’t Go.” 
No curfew for us – the park belongs to the people.

Then, for some reason, a cop car drives into 
Lincoln Park. It’s a total provocation. So 
hundreds of us immediately surround it. 
Naturally, and also immediately, the police use 
this as an excuse to invade the park to rescue their comrades and attack us.

But not just demonstrators, now the police are 
singling out reporters wearing business suits; 
reporters with credentials who they will club and beat bloody.

I throw my 2” bottle of tempera paint at the offending police car.

Doing that is pretty scary.

My bottle bounces off the roof.

Which makes me really happy. Usually I throw like 
the girl I am. At least this time I actually 
manage to hit something. This tiny act of 
confronting authority somehow overcomes any fear 
I have left and, for the first time in my life, I feel truly free.

I’m actually euphoric.

Forty years later, this is what I’ve come to 
understand about my time in Lincoln Park: In 
every woman’s life, opportunities will arise to 
face your fears. I’m not suggesting throwing a 
can of paint at a police car – only that it is 
very important to recognize when you’re actually 
in that unique “face my fear” moment.  In such 
circumstances, take action. Don’t delay. Don’t 
procrastinate. Don’t over think the consequences. 
By facing your fear, you will discover inside 
yourself the courage to put your life– and your 
freedom -- into your own hands.
I never turn back.

Early Wednesday August 28, 2008

It’s 1 a.m.  The park side of Michigan Avenue, 
across from the Hilton Hotel on where the 
delegates are staying, is lined with young 
National Guardsmen pointing their bayoneted 
rifles toward the sky. .As soon as Stew and I see 
the Guard coming, we and a few thousand others 
start yelling and screaming: Join us, Join us.

For the record, Stew and I never yelled “baby 
killer” at anyone. Neither did anyone we knew. 
Nor, in all my years as an anti-war activist, did 
I ever hear anyone yell that. Plus I never got 
reports of anyone yelling that or overheard anyone say they saw it happen.

I’ve come to believe that the image of protestors 
yelling “baby-killer” at GIs is a stereotype 
perpetrated by red-meat conservatives to swift boat the anti-war movement.

However, I’m also confident that one or two of us did yell “baby killer’.

After all, there will always be a person to fit the stereotype.
To any military person who, actually and in 
reality, was wrongly yelled at forty years ago by 
an anti-war activist, I want to apologize on 
behalf of the 1960s anti-war movement.

Unless of course you’re Lt. William Calley.
Who actually massacred babies in the village of Mi Lai.
Like I said, you can always find a person to fit the stereotype.

Above the lines of Guardsmen, facing the 
demonstrators, room lights are blazing on the 
many floors of the Hilton Hotel, while delegates 
in fancy coats and women in long dresses and fur 
stoles enter and exit the front lobby. I bet 
those delegates never imagined that when they 
paid extra money to reserve a room with a Park 
view, it came, free of charge, with 
demonstrators, National Guard, spotlights and tear gas.

Together Phil Ochs and I walk the lines of 
national guardsmen. Phil is wearing his usual 
slacks and suit jacket with an American Flag 
pin.  On the inside where it can’t be seen unless 
he shows it to you, Phil also wears a peace 
button. Jerry teases Phil about this incessantly, 
insistent, in his intense Jerry Rubin way, that 
Phil show his true colors by wearing his peace 
sign on the outside, and flag pin on the inside.

Phil never complies.

Phil was born in El Paso Texas and really loves America.
Even when he’s being gassed along with the rest of us.
As we walk, Phil introduces himself to the 
impressed guardsmen and asks if they’ve ever 
heard his songs. Like “I Ain’t Marching Anymore.”

Many nod.

“I once spent $20 to go to one of your concerts” 
one complains. “I’ll never do that again.”

In 1968, $20 was a lot of money. Phil stops and 
talks directly to the guy, explaining why he is 
opposed to the war. The Guardsman starts to 
smile, and even lowers his rifle a little bit, 
very appreciative that a celebrity like Phil is 
speaking to him like a real person.

Phil believes in democracy.

Phil shows me what it means to be an American patriot.

The riots, gassing and beating of demonstrators 
protesting a disastrous war at the Democratic 
Convention in Chicago 1968 became a turning point 
in the history of American dissent. Many 
Americans, who already disapproved of the Vietnam 
War, were shocked and horrified at what they 
witnessed taking place on the streets of Chicago. 
Walter Cronkite, the most famous news anchor of 
the day observed: “They’re beating our children.”

And we in turn chanted: The whole world is watching.”

When Stew and I grow tired of the fighting, we 
make our way around the police lines, followed at 
some not too discreet distance by a relentless 
crew of plain-clothed cops.  Back home, we jump 
into bed and make love that feels especially 
delicate, sweet and tender because, who knows, it 
could be our last time.  Tomorrow we may be in jail or perhaps even dead.

At 11 p.m. we turn on the television to watch ourselves on the local news.

We are Yippies after all.

Judy Gumbo Albert  is an original member of the 
1960s countercultural anti-war group known as the 
Yippies.  Judy is co- author of 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0275917819/counterpunchmaga>The 
Sixties Papers: Documents of a Rebellious Decade 
(Greenwood Press, 1984) and The Conspiracy Trial 
(Bobbs Merrill, 1970). For many years she was an 
award winning fundraiser for Planned Parenthood. 
She is currently living in Berkeley, California, 
retired with no pension, and is writing a memoir 
titled "Yippie Girl" of which this is an excerpt. 
Judy can be reached at 
<mailto:judygumboalbert at gmail.com>judygumboalbert at gmail.com.




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