�Contempt: Transcript of the Contempt Citations, Sentences, and Responses of the Chicago Conspiracy 10�
I read the bulk of this while at my relatives� house over Thanksgiving and kept insisting I wasn�t reading it for the content, but only to use it as a prop. After all, the �Contempt� line is in huge bold red letters.
But I did buy this for the content. After all, Abbie Hoffman is the only hippie I can stand, and even he hated hippies. Why wouldn�t I want to read about his sentencing hearing, along with Bobby Seale (who would probably be furious to find out I was listed as a CostCo business owner, under the name �The Black Panthers�).
And the book starts out great, so great, in fact, that I can�t fault all those university professors who bemoan the lack of activism today in comparison with what they saw in the sixties. I have no love for the sixties political generation. The way I see it, they (the politically active 60s movement) had a real stranglehold on the body politic, but they pissed it all away when they were co-opted by everybody who thought it would be �groovy� to hang out in SF and smoke pot and take acid.
The hippies went from being a viable political voice to being a joke, going to shitty rock concerts and running around naked. Not that I have a problem with being naked, but seeing these professors talk about it now is kind of nauseating. These are not people that I want to visualize without clothes.
But that�s not what bothers me about the hippies. What does bother me is that they lost their focus, probably because they were too busy being naked and going to crappy Dead shows. It�s already been well documented that the CIA, who was attempting mind-controlling experiments, introduced LSD. Well, they say the experiments failed, but I think the other way. They didn�t make the hippies into killing pro-war machines, but they did turn them into one big joke.
It�s hard to visualize how truly pathetic the hippies finally became (that is, if the smell about them weren�t so bad) when you read this book. When you read the statements of Bobby Seale, You practically want to cheer him along.
Consider this exchange between Seale and Justice Hoffman (no relation to Abbie) for the Chicago 10 trial (more commonly known ad the Chicago 7, because Seale was eventually given his own separate trial, and the two lawyers were eventually charged with contempt):
SEALE (to the court): You are a racist, a fascist and a pig.
THE COURT: Mr. Marshall, will you instruct him to sit down?
THE MARSHALL: Sit Down.
SEALE: Why don�t you knock me in the mouth? Try that.
Instead of knocking him in the mouth, the court instructed him to be bound with handcuffs, rope and duct tape to his chair, with several layers of tape over his mouth. And this part is the inspiration, because he wasn�t being unreasonable. Seale was charged with Abbie Hoffman and the rest, even though he wasn�t affiliated with them. And so Bobby demanded his own lawyer, who wasn�t available for two weeks. Bobby then said he wanted to represent himself, a constitutional right, but was denied that as well, probably because Bobby kept calling the court racist fascist pigs.
But Bobby still kept screaming, even after being bound and gagged to a chair. Now that is a revolutionary, rather than some dumb cracker who likes dope and the chance of some free love. I have a lot of respect for upstarts, but I always sway toward the ones who were almost obnoxious in their behavior. I�ll take Malcolm X over Martin Luther King any day.
Eventually, Bobby was given the separate trial he wanted. And it�s almost too bad, because the rest of this group shined the hardest when he was there, willing to kick and scream. After he was gone, they seem meek by comparison. This is even shown in their contempt citations. Bobby Seale regularly received fines of 3 to 6 months in jail for contempt charges, while the rest of them (all white, by-the-by) received piddly sentences of 1 to 3 days.
The best entertainment for the remainder of the book comes from the Prosecutor, Mr. Foran, who felt compelled to tattle on any indiscretion committed at the Defense table, and comes off worse than any nine year old nephew you may have ever met in your life.
Unfortunately, as these are transcripts, there is a lot of repetition. People get agitated when one is speaking vehemently, and this is where most of the contempt charges stem from. So over and over, we get to read the same outburst from different angles. By putting Bobby Seale at the beginning, we lose all momentum when his chapter ends, because nobody has his fiery style, not even Abbie Hoffman.
But still, knowing that Jerry Rubin grew up to be a yuppie scumbag, what happened to the others involved with this trial?
- Bobby Seale - Still politically active, but almost as a joke, not helped by his 1999 endeavor �The BobbyQue,� a BBQ set not unlike the George Forman Grill.
- John Froines - UCLA professor. Ooh, tres rebellious!
- David Dellinger - Still appears at rallies, mostly as a testament to the dedication of the left. Now collects independent donations for his retirement.
- Tom Hayden - Married and divorced Jane Fonda. Became state senator of California in 1996.
- Rennie Davis - became a venture capitalist and lecturer on meditation and self-awareness.
- Lee Weiner - Occasionally makes appearances, but mostly seems to be a recluse, judging on what I could find about him.
- Abbie Hoffman - found dead in 1989, an apparent suicide. To quote Chuck D, �I ain�t buying it.�
And then there is Jerry Rubin. Rubin always played second fiddle to Hoffman, who was more intelligent and restrained. Rubin, in comparison, was full of one-liners that didn�t make sense, like a kid who just discovered Sex Pistols slogans. Rubin turned into a yuppie in the 80s. He debated Hoffman one final time, and made a total ass out of himself.
He then died in 1994, after being stuck by a car while jaywalking. So perhaps he was the ultimate rebel after all.
