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<font size=5 color="#FF0000"><i>Where is Pigasus now?<br><br>
</i></font><font size=3>
<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/</a><br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>August 28, 2008<br><br>
</font><h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><b>Remembering the
1968 Democratic Convention <br><br>
<br>
</i></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#990000">The
Battle of Chicago
</b></font></h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>By JUDY GUMBO
ALBERT <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=6 color="#990000">F</font>
<font face="Verdana" size=2>orty 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. <br><br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd>It’s always the old<br>
<dd>Who lead us to the war<br>
<dd>It’s always the young who fall<br>
<dd>But look at all we’ve won<br>
<dd>With a saber and a gun<br>
<dd>Tell me is it worth it all?<br>
<dd>I ain’t marchin’ any more<br>
<dd>No I ain’t marchin’ anymore<br><br>
<dd>Phil Ochs<br><br>
<dd>WARNING…LOCAL COPS ARE ARMED AND CONSIDERED DANGEROUS. (Yippie flyer)
<br><br>
</dl>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.<br><br>
Abbie, Paul, Jerry and Stew are not the only players in the Chicago
permit drama. That honor also goes to Tom Hayden, </b>founder of the
decade’s major student anti war organization Students for a Democratic
Society, </b>Rennie Davis, </b>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.<br>
<br>
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. <br><br>
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? <br><br>
Mayor Daley is not a Yippie.<br><br>
Nor is FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
Which is, in fact, what comes to pass. Mayor Daley denies all permits.
<br><br>
In fact, six months before the Convention, Mayor Daley had issued a
"shoot to kill" order for demonstrators. <br><br>
At most, 15,000 demonstrators show up for Convention week in Chicago.
Perhaps it’s closer to 5,000. We never really find out. <br><br>
<font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">Thursday, August 22,
2008<br><br>
</b></font>Our decision to run a pig for President leads to a giant
internal Yippie fight. <br><br>
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. <br>
<br>
This is what a serious ideological split in the Yippies comes down to –
the girth and poundage of our presidential candidate.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>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.<br><br>
</dl>As, indeed, Jerry does cry after Abbie commits suicide in
1989.<br><br>
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.</i> <br><br>
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.
<br><br>
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. <br><br>
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.<br><br>
<font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">Friday, August 23, 2008.
a.m.<br><br>
</b></font>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.”<br><br>
We never see Pigasus again. Rumor has it she was sacrificed and eaten at
a Chicago cop’s barbeque.<br><br>
Rest in Peace Pigasus: you served everyone well.<br><br>
It’s a rare thing you gave us – allowing nice Jewish girls and boys to
get so intimate with pork. <br><br>
<font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">Sunday, August 25, 1968.
a.m.<br><br>
</b></font>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. <br><br>
(Yippie flyer written by Abbie for Lincoln Park detailing 18 Yippie
points for our ideological platform and program)<br><br>
Today is the day scheduled for our Yippie Festival of Life, as a counter
to what we call the Democratic “Convention of Death.” <br><br>
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. <br><br>
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:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>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. <br><br>
</dl>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.<br><br>
No uniformed cops are to be seen anywhere in the vicinity. <br><br>
I’m not usually afraid of blood. Doesn’t matter. I panic. <br><br>
So does Abbie.<br><br>
Stew’s a little woozy and sits down on the grass. <br><br>
‘You’re bleeding,” I tell Stew. As if he didn’t know that.<br><br>
Isn’t it amazing the stupid things you say in a crisis?<br><br>
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.<br><br>
Stew’s is the first blood to be shed in Lincoln Park that Convention
week.<br><br>
<font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">Sunday, August 25, 1968,
p.m.</b> <br><br>
</font>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.<br><br>
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. <br><br>
I’m in the middle of a live action war documentary. <br><br>
Stew and I, Jerry and Nancy stand up quickly. By now we smell something
strange, toxic and burning -- tear gas. <br><br>
The line advances.<br><br>
It’s the scariest thing imaginable.<br><br>
Except I don’t feel scared.<br><br>
I ‘m exhilarated..<br><br>
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. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
It’s difficult to breathe. I choke up; tears run down my face. Everything
is in slow-motion.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
I feel protected.<br><br>
I feel courageous. <br><br>
I am powerful.<br><br>
I’m fighting for what I believe.<br><br>
This is fun!<br><br>
Over a ridge and down in a small valley ahead of me, I see Allan
Ginsberg, author of the epic poem Howl</i>, in which he saw the best
minds of my generation destroyed by madness. </i> 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….<br><br>
Allen is a Yippie and we run toward him. <br><br>
“Boy, he’s not going to last very long</i>”, I think to myself.
<br><br>
The gas is getting very, very strong and potent.<br><br>
A few seconds after we run past, Allen’s group is forced to
scatter.<br><br>
So much for mantras, gentle poets, and non-violent, loving spiritual
practice.<br><br>
Were the Chicago cops fulfilling their personal piggy karma? <br><br>
<font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">Monday, August 26,
2008<br><br>
</b></font>
<dl>
<dd>They spread their sheets upon the ground just like a wandering
tribe<br>
<dd>And the wise men walked in their Robespierre robes<br>
<dd>Through Lincoln park the dark was turning<br>
<dd>The towers trapped and trembling, and the boats were tossed
about<br>
<dd>When the fog rolled in and the gas rolled out<br>
<dd>In Lincoln Park the dark was burning<br><br>
<dd>"William Butler Yeats visits Lincoln Park" by Phil
Ochs<br><br>
<br>
</dl>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. <br><br>
Someone says that this particular type of teargas has been outlawed for
use in Vietnam. <br><br>
That may be just a Yippie urban legend.<br><br>
Someone else says the lights were mounted on garbage trucks. Which turns
out to be true. <br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
The battle of Chicago has begun. <br><br>
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.”</i> No curfew for us – the park belongs to the people.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
But not just demonstrators, now the police are singling out reporters
wearing business suits; reporters with credentials who they will club and
beat bloody.<br><br>
I throw my 2” bottle of tempera paint at the offending police car.
<br><br>
Doing that is pretty scary. <br><br>
My bottle bounces off the roof. <br><br>
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.<br><br>
I’m actually euphoric.<br><br>
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. <br>
I never turn back.<br><br>
<font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">Early Wednesday August 28,
2008<br><br>
</b></font>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</i>. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
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.<br><br>
However, I’m also confident that one or two of us did yell “baby killer’.
<br><br>
After all, there will always be a person to fit the stereotype. <br>
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.<br><br>
Unless of course you’re Lt. William Calley.<br>
Who actually massacred babies in the village of Mi Lai. <br>
Like I said, you can always find a person to fit the stereotype.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.
<br><br>
Phil never complies.<br><br>
Phil was born in El Paso Texas and really loves America. <br>
Even when he’s being gassed along with the rest of us. <br>
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.”
<br><br>
Many nod.<br><br>
“I once spent $20 to go to one of your concerts</i>” one complains. “I’ll
never do that again.”</i> <br><br>
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.<br><br>
Phil believes in democracy.<br><br>
Phil shows me what it means to be an American patriot.<br><br>
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.” <br><br>
</i>And we in turn chanted: The whole world is watching.”<br><br>
</i>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.<br><br>
At 11 p.m. we turn on the television to watch ourselves on the local
news. <br><br>
We are Yippies after all. <br><br>
Judy Gumbo Albert </b>is an original member of the 1960s
countercultural anti-war group known as the Yippies. Judy is co-
author of
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0275917819/counterpunchmaga">
The Sixties Papers: Documents of a Rebellious Decade</a></u> (Greenwood
Press, 1984) and The Conspiracy Trial</u></i> (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
<a href="mailto:judygumboalbert@gmail.com">judygumboalbert@gmail.com</a>
.<br><br>
<br><br>
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