Richard, great post! Abbie Hoffman was indeed a genius pioneer of reality-based, multi-dimensional PR, and Chicago 1968 was his masterpiece. His descendents are numerous and active today (see WTO Seattle among other more recent examples). But the problem with such a deeply personalizing, experiential style is the law of unintended consequences, or backlash. After all, who was elected President in 1968?

Richard -
Farber's insights about generational differences in the way we process information is extremely valuable. As communicators, we probably do a better job of considering the impact of historical references and cultural experiences with different age groups than we do with the way information is actually processed. For example, I grew up writing papers longhand, so when I began working on a Wang Word Processor (over 20 years ago) writing speeches for my CEO, I found it to be a real transition to think through a keyboard versus pen to paper. There's something to be said for the way we receive information and are inclined to act on it. Thanks for the great reference!

Richard -
I enjoyed your post. While only eight years old at the time, I'd listened to my share of the MC5 by July '68 thanks to older siblings.

Let's not forget it was Abbie Hoffman who organized antiwar protesters in an attempt to levitate the Pentagon driving out evil spirits! I can't help but wonder what kind of theatre, spectacle he'd be involved in this election year.

And what was chanted by antiwar demonstrators that became a catch-phrase?
"The whole world is watching"

Richard,

Like Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin was a born with "a flair for the public gesture" and a streak of P. T. Barnum which he used brilliantly to advance the Yippie agenda and other causes later in his life. It's worth remembering that in the '80's, after trading in his radical playbook and embracing capitalism, Jerry Rubin pioneered social networking. The following is excerpted from Rubin's NY Times obit:

"Mr. Rubin was prominent in the riotous protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which led to the famously unruly trial, in 1969 and 1970, of him and six other radical defendants -- the group known as the Chicago Seven. At the trial he showed up wearing judge's robes covering a blue Chicago police shirt.

"After the 1960's, Mr. Rubin wrote, lectured, sought self-improvement and then worked in New York on Wall Street and as an entrepreneur. In the 1980's, he became known for his promotion of "networking," bringing together ambitious young professionals at parties at the Palladium nightclub in Manhattan. Transformed from protester to businessman but still demonstrating a flair for the public gesture, he held a series of public "Yippie vs. Yuppie" debates with Abbie Hoffman, another former leader of the Yippies, who committed suicide in 1989.

"Looking back years later at the 1960's, Mr. Rubin called himself one of "the anti-capitalistic comics of the 1960's" who used street theater to pursue, without much success, "the radical dream of transforming the system from outside."

"He once campaigned to elect a pig as President the United States, and in 1967 he dropped dollar bills onto the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

"Though he later renounced his anti-capitalism, he defended his fervent opposition to the Vietnam War. "Our nationwide campaign to build public opposition to the Vietnam War succeeded, and the war ended," he wrote in an article in 1990.

"The Chicago Seven trial produced some of the most bizarre courtroom scenes in American jurisprudence. Mr. Rubin and other defendants -- Mr. Hoffman, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, David Dellinger, John Froines and Lee Weiner -- all charged with conspiracy to disrupt the Democratic convention, taunted the iron-willed judge, Julius J. Hoffman. The judge ordered an eighth defendant, Bobby Seale, tried separately because he was so disruptive.

"During the trial, which was in Federal District Court, Judge Hoffman aimed sarcastic remarks and occasional tirades at the defendants and their lawyers, including William Kunstler. The defendants chewed jelly beans at first and later screamed insults at the prosecutors and the judge, whom Mr. Rubin denounced as "the laughingstock of the world."

"In 1978, Mr. Rubin, a son of a Cincinnati truck driver who became an official in the teamsters' union, married Mimi Leonard, a former debutante who worked for ABC-TV in New York. They lived in a posh apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

"With the passage of time, Mr. Rubin became "a buttoned-down entrepreneur for the 1980's," as one cultural critic put it. A watershed of sorts came in 1980, when he wrote that while he still had "many of the same criticisms and same values" as in the 1960's, he had learned "that the individual who signs the check has the ultimate power."

"I know that I can be more effective today wearing a suit and tie and working on Wall Street than I can be dancing outside the walls of power," he said.

"Indeed, he worked briefly for the Wall Street firm of John Muir & Company and went on to make a new name for himself promoting networking.

By 1985, Mr. Rubin's soirees at the Palladium on East 14th Street were bringing together thousands of networkers. "I don't like to use the word, but every Yuppie in New York comes," he told an interviewer.

"In 1991 he moved to Los Angeles, where his business activities included marketing a nutritional drink named Wow! Forbes magazine reported in 1992 that Mr. Rubin said he was making $60,000 a month as a distributor for Omnitrition International, a Texas company that sold powdered mixes for Wow! and other beverages."

By ERIC PACE, NY Times
Published: November 30, 1994