What do you think Abbie Hoffman would do to stop the Koch brothers?

[HolyCity2012]

Run time: 02:05 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMkl_biRJNE   Posted on YouTube: April 25, 2011 By YouTube Member: bravenewfoundation Views on YouTube: 49   Posted on DU: April 25, 2011 By DU Member: HolyCity2012 Views on DU: 2484

 
Abbie Hoffman levitated the Pentagon, brought down Lyndon B. Johnson, shamed Richard Nixon and challenged Wall Street. His legacy lives on, tell Brave New Foundation what you think Abbie Hoffman would do to stop the Koch brothers at http://facebook.com/kochbrothers

[TheEuclideanOne]

1. Sorry HolyCity2012, but what is this exactly?

It is definitely interesting and the same things I hear in this video reflect what is happening today. My question is ... What is this?!?! Is it a Movie coming out, just a philosophical question or some video on the website that it points to? Please elaborate. You have my attention. :)

[HolyCity2012]

3. fair enough

Brave New Foundation, the production company responsible for "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices", "Iraq For Sale: The War Profiteers" and several other ground breaking documentaries is asking for ideas for a new project. BNF tries to be as hands on as possible and wants your input. They are the media company that is doing it's best to expose the Koch brothers.

The clips featured in this video are from "Steal This Movie" a dramatized biography of Abbie Hoffman which was released several years ago.

I will add some links to this reply section to some of the BNF productions that are available online.

I think I can also find "steal this movie" online, for free!

[ooglymoogly]

23. Can't wait to see this production....here is a side bar to this story you all should see.

I would doubt that this part of the story was included, but of course won't know for sure until I see it. It is a part that will always be a macabre sidebar to the story of this flamboyant hero to whom we all owe plenty. Perhaps, if it has not already, this story will end up in Madam Tussaud's wax museum in Paris.

There was a scar on Abbie's legacy that fairly or unfairly will always be connected to Abbie's and is a fascinating story in its own right, though by no means heroic in any way; sensational is the better description in that it is more akin to the Lizzy Borden sensation. Like the Borden sensation of the macabre it is a story that will never die.

Here is a little synopsis from a site I do not know, nor can I vouch for it's overall thrust, (whether right or left) religious or otherwise) but I know for a fact and can vouch for, the veracity of this page.

It came up on a google search...It is a fascinating sidebar to Abbi Hoffman's story, as these two ran together and were from all appearances best friends with other "heroes" of that important time of innocent bravery, Woodstocks and flowers.

Important in that we would have long ago been under the yoke of fascism had those times not knocked our intrepid overlords for a loop.

The saga brings once again, a favorite Senator we love to hate, Arlen Specter, into these screaming pictures. Pictures of some of the darkness of these times, where true heroes roamed the streets alongside the dastardly. Its a 3 or 4 minute jaunt through a few moments of those troubled times while not delving too deeply into any of the pictures chronicling the story.

I knew some of the family members involved; so it is of particular interest to me and I am sure anyone with a head will also be fascinated.

http://blockyourid.com/~gbpprorg/judicial-inc/Ira_einhorn.htm

I advise anyone reading this to not miss this short pictorial diversion down the darker side of memory lane.

[HolyCity2012]

26. Steal This Movie!

Steal This Movie (2000) is an American biographical film of 1960s radical figure Abbie Hoffman. It was directed by Robert Greenwald and the screenplay was written by Bruce Graham. It is based on a number of books including To america with Love: Letters From the Underground by Anita and Abbie Hoffman: American Rebel by Marty Jezer. The film follows Abbie Hoffman's (Vincent D'Onofrio) relationship with his second wife Anita (Janeane Garofalo) and their awakening and subsequent conversion to an activist life. The title of the film is a play on Hoffman's 1970 counter-culture guidebook titled Steal This Book.

[ooglymoogly]

27. Just ordered it. Again I can't wait. Did you go to the site highlighted on my post?.

would like to hear what you think, though I'm guessing you know this story as well as I.

[lutherj]

2. WWAHD?

What will *we* do? I think it's time to start talking about climate change denial (especially when motivated by profit) as a crime against nature and a crime against humanity. Consider the devastation that will happen due to climate change and it exceeds the crimes of those we hanged at Nuremberg. It's a crime that transcends history. Literally. We should put people like the Koch brothers on notice that the rest of us will make sure that they and their descendants will be very uncomfortable in the future they are creating for all of us. Just put the meme out there. Once the genie is out of the bottle you can't put it back.

(Posted on FB)

[HolyCity2012]

4. YEAH!

That's the spirit!

[KurtNYC]

5. Hoffman was not as flip as that actor portrays him

check this 90 sec clip of the real deal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTJ6Jw63_hA

[HolyCity2012]

6. thanks a lot accuracy police

Maybe you are not familiar with the art of acting?

[KurtNYC]

9. It's annoying -- Lenny Bruce once told a cop who was taking notes

during his stand up act "you're going to get be busted by doing my act for a judge." And I think this is similar. Hoffman's genius was his ability to bait the media with the promise of being able to make him look stupid but then get his message out anyway. He was very calculating and he was addicted to politics as evidence by his life in exile (where he couldn't help himself and got involved in local politics).

There is a ton of footage of Hoffman available. Too bad they couldn't use it.

[lutherj]

7. Agreed. He also had a much stronger energy and charisma. And a crazy

sense of humor.

[HolyCity2012]

8. OK everybody! NEW PLAN!

Instead of sending BNF a message on Facebook about exposing the Koch brothers we are going to write letters to Vincent D'Onofrio telling him what a shit actor he is and how we especially don't approve of his portrayal of Abbie Hoffman in Robert Greenwalds 2000 release of "Steal This Movie".

Got it?!

[lutherj]

10. Chill out, man. Like your post. Like Vince D'Onofrio. Like Abby Hoffman.

I'm old enough to remember him in the news. Maybe Greenwald knows more about him than I do. I just remember him as a crazy ass live wire. That's all.

[truedelphi]

14. He was one of the original River Keepers.

Even when the government was actively looking for him, the environment was so important to him that he took care of the Hudson River, though he needed a slight disguise to do so.

One of my favorite people ever, Francine Levine, she was close friends with Abby, and she described him as the best person she ever knew. Unfortunately our press had a field day with him, so his kindness, intelligence and other good qualities are not things that most people would remember him for.

[earcandle]

11. why no recs? This is a good thing for our youth, yes?

[ooglymoogly]

25. There is evidence of an unwrecking crew on this our beloved

site that disagrees with just about everything progressives stand for.

[defendandprotect]

12. Well, they've decided to assassiante liberal leadership now -- even before it rises-- !!!

However, similarly, I've been wondering about this question ---

What would the elites/right wing be doing if they had our numbers -- and

if they were the LABOR they depend upon?


Imo, Nixon brought the anti-war movement to a halt with Kent State because they

understood if they didn't do something that dramatic at that time, that the parents

were going to be following the kids into the streets!!

Rather they made parents so fearful for their kids that everyone was pulled back.

[defendandprotect]

13. kr

[drm604]

15. WWAHD?

Maybe he'd find a way to punk the tea partiers; get them out to some huge event (or just usurp one or more of their events) and then make them all look foolish with some sort of street theater.

Maybe have some "scary looking" (to white bigots) black men show up en masse in support of the tea partiers and showing the black power fist which of course is practically identical to the tea party fist, and videotape the frightened reactions of the tea partiers as they react in fear towards people supporting them and showing their own symbols. In other words, expose their racism.

On edit: First hand out free t-shirts displaying the tea party fist to the crowd so that many of them are wearing the same symbol that they later react fearfully towards.

Edited again to add: I should point out that this is relevant to the Koch brothers since they are big (if not exactly public) tea party supporters.

[HolyCity2012]

16. GREAT IDEAS!

tell Brave New Foundation what you think Abbie Hoffman would do to stop the Koch brothers at http://facebook.com/kochbrothers

[drm604]

17. Can you pass it on?

I don't FaceBook.

Plus, I don't think the type of tactics we're talking about should have public exposure ahead of time. They require the element of surprise.

[drm604]

18. We need more things like what Ian Murphy did to Scott Walker

with his fake phone call from "David Koch". It has shown very clearly the power of such stunts.

I don't know that anyone will fall for that same particular stunt again, but I'm sure that we can think of other ways to out their true goals and allegiances.

If we could pull off a series of stunts each of which has the same power as Murphy's phone call imagine what could happen!

Surely corporations can also be punked in this manner.

On edit: Come to think of it, one big corporation, GE, has already been punked!

http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2011/04/13/general-electric-gets-punked-yes-men/

[pacalo]

24. I like all of your ideas!

As caracuristic as Koch's "tea party" is, there should be a ton of possibilities to swing the tide of public opinion against their craziness. They are in the minority but the corporate media is legitimizing them as though they had credible ideas. They need to be delegitimized. We need to think like Hoffman -- mischievous, in-your-face humor -- so that whatever pranks are used will present them as the fools they are.

I like your ideas & I'm going to be thinking about some possibilities, too.

[formercia]

19. He would print millions of little stickers

that say: "Help the Corporate takeover of the US. Buy this product."

then give them out to people to stick on to KOCH Industries products in stores and Home Improvement centers.

[neoralme]

20. I lived in that era. Abbie Hoffman would have already diminished the

Koch Brothers. Bush would have been forced to resign had Hoffman gone after him. As far as tactics, Hoffman would have assembled a group and been at every Koch facility every day with that group. There are no Abbie Hoffman's anymore. One may come as the boomers finally get real angry and start the revolution. Short of that, I don't think so.

[felix_numinous]

21. AH freaked out the freaks

-and effectively did what we need to do---> OVERPOWER THER MESSAGE. We have been good little sheeple and this won't get us anywhere, we will just get dumped in the MSM memory hole if we don't make a bigger stink.

K&R!

[BobbyBoring]

22. Where are the Abbies today??

there were so many young activists in the 60s and 70s and things were actually a lot better then than they are now. Every time I hear something like Gil Scott Herons H2O blues, it sends chills down my spine. Nixon, Agnew, etc were light weights compared to the cons we're dealing with today.

If I was in my 20s or 30s, I'd hit the streets every day. In fact, I'm in my late 50s and I'm ready to go again. The youth in America really needs to get energized NOW. It's you that have the most to lose~