Abbie Hoffman, �Square Dancing in the Ice Age�
I have to say one thing about this entire project I�ve undertaken � it�s getting me through a lot of books that have sat on my shelf and stunk for a number of years. Several of these books should have sat there and rotted, preferably somewhere else than in my room. But others � like this one � I wish I hadn�t let languish for so long.
Truth is, I was skeptical about this book. I certainly had never heard of it before, even though I�ve read at least one biography on Hoffman that I can remember. But the real reason I was reluctant to start it was that it was written after Hoffman�s self-professed mystical era had passed, and I get enough rehashing of the so-called glory days of the sixties from various professors at school.
So many other �radicals� have melted into quasi-celebrity status that I scarcely look at these people anymore for inspiration. I mean, fucking Bobby Seale from the Black Panthers sells barbecue equipment now. The good revolutionaries are the ones who got offed before they could get sponsored.
But then I forget that Hoffman got offed himself. (If you think I buy that manic depressive suicide story, or worse, you buy it, then we have nothing to talk about.) As I read these essays from a man who is older and wiser, I am struck by the sincerity of his actions. The fact that most references to Abbie that appear in the last decade only mention his early yippie days is a sad sense of misdirected nostalgia.
Though I�ve mentioned this before in a previous Abbie Hoffman review, I�m going to do it again: There�s a video at the San Jose Main Library titled �The Last Debate,� featuring Hoffman against his former partner in crime, Jerry Rubin. Anybody who lives in San Jose ought to check this out and they�ll see what I mean. Being as old as I am and seeing so many people slide slowly into a comfortable existence filled with many the late night of television watching, Hoffman was and is truly a much-needed inspiration.
Most interesting about this book is that Hoffman puts a lid on his own actions for the most part, utilizing his name to get people reading about others who are utilizing their talents to try and make a difference.
This is both good and bad. It�s good because I doubt I would have heard about these people in the first place. People like Philip Agee, a former CIA agent who wrote a book about their deceptive and illegal tactics and was subsequently forced into exile. Or a German reporter named Gunther Wallraff who, if I can ever find English translations of his books, may prove to be my new journalistic hero.
Get this � Wallraff contacted members of the Portugal government and passed himself off as a right wing bureaucrat. He convinced a Portugal General by the name of Ant�nio Sp�nola to come to Germany, whereupon Sp�nola detailed an international coup currently under aid by the CIA. He exposed the entire affair.
Fucking brilliant.
All this is bad, however, because while I have finally (I think) finished all the Abbie Hoffman books left to read, I now have two other authors that I�m seeking out.
Like I don�t have enough to read already.
