Hoffman Criticizes Chicago Court, But Says Trial Is 'A Lot of Fun'

Yippie Abbie Hoffman told a Harvard audience last night that his trial for conspiracy to incite riot "is sort of the way fascism is going to come-or is already here."

"They take away your buttons." he explained. "They take away your cake, and your jelly beans. And it's the only trial in America where you're searched for hair."

Hoffman delighted the 700 people who had come for a discussion of "political repression in the United States" with tales of his unconventional exploits and his imitations of federal Judge Julius J. Hoffman.

Judge Hoffman is conducting the trial of "The Chicago Eight" -Abbie Hoffman and seven others, including Mobilization director David Dellinger and Black Panther Party leader Bobby Seale-who are accused of conspiring to cross state lines to incite a riot in Chicago last summer.

"The trial is a lot of fun." Hoffman told the Lowell Lecture Hall crowd. "Fun's our offensive weapon... If you ain't crazy, you ain't gonna understand what's going on in the country today. They've got Shirley Temple in the UN. That's a fucking bumper sticker, that ain't reality."

Hoffman also described how he once wore the American flag to a hearing of the House Un-American Activities Committee, and mocked Judge "Julius the Just" and his "Geritol Courtroom."

Constant Contempt

"Every minute we're in there we're in contempt of the trial and the whole system that makes it possible," he said.

"We're for a revolution and for the destruction of all the institutions we have come to know in the last few years and have come to hate." he added.

Trial counsel Leonard Weinglass, who also spoke, called the Chicago proceedings" an incredible exercise." Erie Sykes of the National Lawyers Guild, which sponsored the meeting, announced plans for demonstrations against the trial at federal courthouses November 13 and in Washington November 15.

Weiglass mentioned the vagueness of the indictment and the apparent bias of the judge at the Chicago trial.