Watch "The Trial of the Chicago 7" on Netflix ..

[Le Roi de Pot]

Last edited Sun Oct 18, 2020, 12:48 PM - Edit history (1)

What a fantastic movie .. and scary how we are headed in that direction...


Where has that generation gone .. we (Gen X) are so self involved in comparison

[Satch59]

1. It was fantastic!

And sadly many similarities to today which was frightening. I love court room drama and this had it all...well done Sorkin!!

[Voltaire2]

2. We never left "that direction".

Where we were at in 1968 is where we are today. In fact where are now is worse.

There was a very brief post watergate reform era. Then Reagan begat Bush begat Bush begat Trump.

In 68 Nazis were unacceptable. The right had to at least pretend to be anti fascist. In 2020 they are in control of the government.

[jalan48]

7. +1

The country (or the media's portrayal of it) has moved steadily to the right since the 60's. Calling needed social change "Socialism" has served to enhance the power of corporations, the wealthy and other special interests who have no interest in seeing their tax rate increased.

[malaise]

16. Great post

The basic social good agenda is now called socialism

[MoonRiver]

3. I thought it was a great movie, but

my husband was literally there, in front of the restaurant where the police violence took place. He said things were a lot different from what the movie presented. According to him, there were no windows on that level of the restaurant, which is why he and other protesters sought refuge inside. He saw several protesters being viciously beaten by police, and the horror is still with him.

[Voltaire2]

8. hmmm - I was there too, but I have a different recollection, plus there is a photograph.

The window is barely visible underneath the Haymarket Lounge sign.

I was very near the window. Hundreds of people were being pressed up against it as the 'police' had everyone surrounded and were beating inwards.

Then the window imploded and people literally squirted into the lounge.

If your husband was a bit to the left of the window he might have had a different experience.

[MoonRiver]

9. I wasn't there, but perhaps his perspective was different.

Anyway, as I mentioned, I loved the movie. I was a teenager at the time, but actually met Abby Hoffman at an anti-war event.

[Voltaire2]

11. it was odd seeing their re-creation of events

so now I have three versions: my memories, the version presented in the movie, and your husbands recollections.

I know enough to know that memories are vastly flawed. But the photo agrees with me

Any how, the movie account where just the leaders were trapped there is nonsense, and I have no idea why they went with that. The photo is pretty famous.

[former9thward]

14. Your version is correct.

The Haymarket window facing Michigan Ave was even with the street. And when it broke there were no 'leaders' present.

[Le Roi de Pot]

10. I wasn't even born then..

Thank you both for keeping up the good fight

[beachbumbob]

4. we retired

having lived thru the mess of the 60's, the current state of america not so scary as I watched American BURN, people killed in the streets and the ugly face of racism being exposed for the first time in America to the general population. Throw in the draft, Vietnam and a useless war.

[asiliveandbreathe]

5. Tom Hayden, a political giant...as well as Abby Hoffman and Bobby Seale..

I have made it a mission for myself to read Tom Hayden's Port Huron Statement..

called for the growth and implementation of participatory democracy across college campuses, in the South, and in inner cities. The writers of the document believed that ordinary citizens, particularly students, could create change through non-violent means..

and Bobby Seale, alive to this day, just wanted equality for the Black community..is this too much to ask..

We Want Education For Our People That Exposes the True Nature Of This Decadent American Society.
We Want Education That Teaches Us Our True History and Our Role In The Present-Day Society.

We Want An Immediate End To Police Brutality And Murder Of Black People.

And so much more, just need to do research...VN took 50,000+ men of our generation..and turned me into a pacifist..2 brothers served in VN..they are okay..

I was 21 in 1968..my second son born in April..my oldest son born '66, I keep asking myself "where the hell were you when all this was going down"..this "Trial of the Chicago 7" is superb....everyone can learn from it!

[smirkymonkey]

6. Thanks for the suggestion!

Going on the list!

[ancianita]

12. I did! I can't believe how the issues of those days are still with us.

This movie needed to be made to remind younger Americans that we boomers did fight hard.

The Hoffman/Hayden conflicts Sorkin brought up were important. What boomers learned -- that a trial can be political, that a judge can be incompetent, belligerent, not allow due process and thereby conduct mistrials -- further deepened our stands against the "law and order" types up to today.

I was 20, with a husband about to be sent as an officer to Vietnam (oh, the horrors of those draft protest days).

I kept up with the trial through the news, since no film footage of it was on tv. I was worried. William Kunstler barely managed to damp down the Hoffman/Rubin responses to the judge, and yet we loved him and considered him America's top lawyer because of his 24 contempt of court charges.

And of course I stole Hoffman's book. He was forever after that my hero in my 20's.

I was told by one of my African National Congress friends that when an activist like Hoffman is reported to have committed suicide, not to believe it. That if any police or news said my friend committed suicide, to never believe them. What happened to Hampton was bad PR for the police and FBI for years, and most of us who knew Hoffman knew that he would never commit suicide -- he was stalked, hunted, on the run, he went underground -- Hoffman was "suicided."

[former9thward]

13. At the time of his death Hoffman was not "stalked, hunted, on the run, he went underground"

He surfaced in 1980 and received a whole 4 months on his distribution of cocaine charge. When he committed suicide 9 years later he had taken 150 tablets of phenobarbital. He had been diagnosed as a bi-polar years before.

I think he committed suicide because he was no longer relevant and no one really cared about his activities anymore. He had hit 50 and was depressed since he had told us "not to trust anyone over 30". Sometimes things are what they are...

[ancianita]

17. No, not at that exact time. Sure, they laid off him for awhile to manipulate him into surfacing.

I understand your disagreement, but I'm not convinced.

I read his two books written while he was underground (I was in Chicago by 1973), read everything he was learning about how the FBI operated then, and know the Fred Hampton and COINTELPRO "news" of those days, and what came out later. As much as anyone not his friend or family, I kept up with him faithfully from the days of rage up to his death.

The cocaine distribution was also reported in the alternative press as bogus. Cocaine was all over the country, then. And Nixon's War On Drugs was used as much as the pretext for law enforcement abuse in the 70's as now. I'll err on the side of FBI violence, and that they tried to ruin his life, then when he got depressed, they killed him. I knew too many people than who didn't believe the official story, either.

You don't know for a fact that what was official news was "things are what they are." You read official stories just like I did.

Believe what you want. The 70's were too rough for me to forget.

[Mossfern]

15. My first "taste" of tear gas

during a demonstration in D.C.

I was also at the Grand Central Station Yip-in.
I volunteered for Eugene McCarthy's campaign even though I was not able to vote.
The voting age then was 21 and I was 20.