Leftist Infighting: The Ship

[leftist-infighting]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 1/1 Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Tom Hayden/Abbie Hoffman

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it did take me a year and a half but i did eventually, as promised, finish and post some abbie/tom fic, lol

[leftist-infighting]

a variation on a classic... idk what i’m even doing with my weekends anymore

[leftist-infighting]

Conspiracy Office + Set Details

[leftist-infighting]

Abbie Hoffman vs. Sacha Baron Cohen as Abbie Hoffman

[abbiehoffman]

Kate was at the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation in Holland, PA one blistery March day of 1988.  While standing in line waiting for her turn, Kate happened to glance around and notice none other than Abbie Hoffman.  Being a true fan, she immediately went over and engaged him in conversation.  She had wanted his autograph for quite a while and began talking about his political and social activist plights as well as his role in co-founding the Youth International Party (“Yippies”).  As the clerk had called for the next in line, disturbing their discussion; Kate reminded Abbie of her interest in his autograph.  When Abbie asked her for a slip of paper to autograph, Kate stared blankly and empty handed at him.  He just kind of smirked and reaching into his pocket produced his check book and began to write a check.  As he handed the check to Kate she looked at it and then back at Abbie dumbfounded with eyes agape.  He simply said to her “You’ve mentioned that you’ve always wanted my autograph.  Well, now you have it.  Unless, of course, you cash that check.”  He then turned and walked away.

At that time, Kate had a friend who worked in New York at Manufacturers Hanover – the bank on which the check was drawn.  It was confirmed that it was indeed Mr. Hoffman’s account and that is was active.  Kate never cashed the check, and here it is…

[bespokeredmayne]

Getting technical

We pick this Frank Ockenfels 3 photo of Eddie Redmayne for The Hollywood Reporter last year for this week’s Man Crush Monday portrait.

The backstory of how the shoot of Eddie and his fellow cast members from The Trial of the Chicago 7 came together from across the globe during pandemic conditions is epic. Read it here:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/behind-the-scenes-of-hollywood-reporters-pandemic-era-photo-shoots

[leftist-infighting]

This video showed up in my recommendations with the title “Only View This If You Liked Abbie Hoffman”. If you insist, YouTube.

[leonardcohenofficial]

a (hysterical) section of phil ochs’s testimony from the trial of the chicago 7, december 1969

[iwouldvebeendrake01]

Sacha Baron Cohen as Abbie Hoffman in The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020)

[eddieredmayneargentinablog]

“Thank you to the Screen Actors Guild for recognizing us. And to these incredible actors for providing me with an acting masterclass everyday.” – Sacha Baron Cohen on the incredible SAG Award winning ensemble cast of #TrialOfTheChicago7.

Posted by Sasha Baron Cohen in his own Instagram (April 5, 2021)

Congratulations to all!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sacha Baron Cohen (@sachabaroncohen)

[wtframe]

If blood is gonna flow let it flow all over the city!

The Trial of the Chicago 7 Dir. Aaron Sorkin

[leftist-infighting]

“I don’t know these guys.” Abbie Hoffman joins Tom Hayden and Rennie Davis for a press conference on September 18th, 1968.

[leftist-infighting]

Hayden, Davis, and Froines made up one force within the conspiracy; Rubin, Weiner, and myself the opposing tendency. It's no accident the two factions broke on religious grounds. There were other divisions. Our faction was composed of dopers; they drank liquor. (Rennie was a swing vote on this issue.) We were the hairy, hedonistic hippies, they the tough-nosed, intellectual politicians. It was also interesting that Dellinger was seen by much of the country as Jewish (he even got a few anti-Semitic letters), and he enjoyed puffing a little grass with us every once in a while. We even split on eating habits. For them roast beef rare was exotic, for us every meal seemed like the last and we indulged. In psychoanalytic terms, they were anal retentive, we were orally fixated. Murray Kempton once wrote that "There were two kinds of people, those who liked Hayden and those who liked Hoffman." I think these were some of the differences he meant. In its way, the split served to keep the whole show afloat. Like perfectly balanced see-saw mates, the differences afforded us the ability to reach different kinds of people, and we became a kind of political version of the Beatles, each framing the events from his own perspective and producing a total "gestalt" in the process.

Abbie Hoffman, Soon to Be a Major Motion Picture (1980)

[usergrantaire]

EDDIE REDMAYNE as Tom Hayden in The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020)

[leftist-infighting]

Abbie Hoffman reacts to Tom Hayden’s answers at a press conference on October 14th, 1969.

[leftist-infighting]

Tom Hayden was the only central figure who claimed he did not want to be on trial. He considered his work more important and made it clear at the beginning that he would not go off speaking or raise any money for the defense. If all of us had that touch of arrogance needed to be activists, Hayden had a double scoop. He made me thankful there was more than one foxhole on our side of the barricades. He had a movement reputation for sending others to face the cops while he ducked out the back door. He avoided all collective decisions where he could be outvoted. He was absolutely without humor. Tom and Jerry fought like the cartoon characters that shared their names, with the rest of us shuttling back and forth to hold our fragile unity together. I wanted to see us harness all the focus and energy directed toward the trial into an all-embracing left organization. Everyone but Tom more or less favored the idea, and he effectively torpedoed all efforts at unity. During the most climactic moment of the trial, the judge, upset over a newspaper account of a Dellinger speech, ordered Dave’s bail terminated. As Dave got dragged off to jail, pandemonium broke out in the courtroom. Later that night we held out most important strategy meeting. Jerry and I argued strongly for standing with Dave and not letting the trial proceed until he was released. Tom’s position was that since Dave was a pacifist, he wanted to end up in jail anyway and we shouldn’t interfere. His reasoning was as cold-blooded as any I had ever heard. Later, after the verdict and when we were all in jail, another incident demonstrated Hayden’s ability to turn fellow comrades into objects. The hour was approaching for our ritualistic haircuts. In my pre-sentencing speech I had alluded to this symbolic act. “Tonight the guards will sheer or heads and sell the hair outside the prison wall,” I had said. Now that prophecy was coming to collect its truth. I fought them every inch of the way, kicking, spitting, cursing. Two guards had to drag me, handcuffed and in leg irons, down four flights of stairs. Tom was so blasé. To him the counter-culture was a joke. He hated grass and rock music. He wore his hair long for “political” reasons. They brought in more guards for me. They stretched me on the barbershop floor. I kicked and screamed. The barber, himself a convict, had tears in his eyes. It was a powerful scene. Tom was happily fixing his assimilated hairdo in the mirror. He kept saying that I shouldn’t make such a fuss, just let them do what they had to do. Both prisoners of war, we had opposite ideas about how to cope with the situation.

Abbie Hoffman, Soon to Be a Major Motion Picture (1980)

[leftist-infighting]

My next gesture came as the prosecutor introduced us to the jury. I followed Hayden. He had risen and saluted the jury with a raised fist. The judge jumped on it, cautioning the jury to disregard the menacing fist waved at them by defendant Hayden. Tom argued, but he was not really a match for the judge on this level. When I was introduced next, I rose and blew the jury a kiss. "The jury will disregard the kiss blown by defendant Hoffman," intoned the judge. Of course, one of the courtroom's biggest jokes is when the judge tells a jury to disregard something they've seen or heard. (I can still see the twelve gaping mouths and twenty-four bulging eyes starting at Seale chained and gagged before the jury and the judge instructing them not to notice.) The kiss, by the way, was a real gentle, playful kiss. Hand held horizontal to the floor, below the puckered lips. It was blown across the room. The TV cartoon that night had a string of valentine hearts streaming toward the jury.

Abbie Hoffman, Soon to Be a Major Motion Picture (1980)