Levitating the Pentagon: Rebellion

“In 1967, Abbie Hoffman and hundreds of fellow anti-war protesters encircled the Pentagon in a mock-ceremonious exorcism. Hoffman’s plan was to lift that squat office building 300 feet, give it a whirl, and toss out the demons but, after he was arrested for littering, the GSO administrator told Hoffman he was only authorized to lift it ten feet. Nevertheless, several of the protestors (on LSD, like their leader) claimed to see it rise out of sight. Others saw it sink into Foggy Bottom.”—By Skip Eisiminger

Skip the B.S.

By Skip Eisiminger

“While starving peasants were left to beg,/the czar drizzled salt on a Fabergé egg.”—The Wordspinner

“The Red Guards declared that red would mean go—/the hue of revolt shouldn’t cry, ‘Whoa!’”—The Wordspinner

CLEMSON South Carolina—(Weekly Hubris)—10/13/2014—In 1967, Abbie Hoffman and hundreds of fellow anti-war protesters encircled the Pentagon in a mock-ceremonious exorcism. Hoffman’s plan was to lift that squat office building 300 feet, give it a whirl, and toss out the demons but, after he was arrested for littering, the GSO administrator told Hoffman he was only authorized to lift it ten feet. Nevertheless, several of the protestors (on LSD, like their leader) claimed to see it rise out of sight. Others saw it sink into Foggy Bottom.

Yet, as Allen Ginsberg pointed out in 1971, Hoffman’s street theater was successful in a real sense because, as Daniel Ellsberg watched the police brutally disperse the demonstrators, he decided to make the “Pentagon Papers” public, an act of civil disobedience which ultimately led to America’s withdrawal from Viet Nam. Said Ginsberg, “The authority of the Pentagon [had been] demystified . . . .” The rebels had won.

Whether it’s successful or not, revolt in some form is as much a human right as freedom and dignity are self-evident values. Benjamin Franklin wrote that “rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God,” and Thomas Jefferson agreed, adding that the “liberty tree” needed an occasional infusion of blood. Bowing to the pressure of these patriots and others, the authors of the Constitution guaranteed citizens the right to petition their government.Taking all of this to heart, Henry David Thoreau argued, “If an injustice is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.” Thoreau’s near contemporary, the poet Algernon Swinburne, called popular revolt “the divine right of insurrection.” And if those roots of justification are not deep enough, Jewish Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas said that if he’d been living in Nazi Germany, he would have had every right to break the law à la Dietrich Bonhöffer or the nameless patriots who joined the underground.

As the 60s bumper sticker stated, “Sacred cows make the best hamburger.” I realize that a vegan might dump organic ink on my leather shoes for this reminder, but that’s her inalienable right. What I must avoid at all costs is the sheepish behavior I witnessed at an Advanced Placement reading in Florida.

For days, we readers were cautioned to wear our identifying badges wherever we went. Like most, I wore mine dutifully despite the inconvenience of this plastic card dangling from my neck while reading or juggling a cafeteria tray. After quitting time, however, I figured I was free to present myself in the local bars and restaurants as I saw fit, regardless of the chief reader’s warning. One evening after supper, three of my fellow readers and I took a walk on Daytona’s broad beach, where among the people we saw was another reader emerging from the surf. Though we’d never seen her in a bathing suit, with her identity card pinned to a bra strap, she was unmistakable. In short order, the four of us also recognized the limits of obedience.

In Stanley Milgram’s infamous “obedience to authority” experiment, he once induced 93 percent of a population to deliver unto some poor soul 450 volts, all the voltage his generator was capable of. The Yale psychologist’s rationalization was, “The experiment depends on it.” Before the shocking began, Milgram, in a crisp lab coat, explained that he wished to study the effects of pain on learning. Starting at 150 volts, the victim, really an actor, explained that he had a heart condition; at 270 volts, he released the first of five agonized screams and, at 350 volts, he slumped silently in his seat.

Sometimes, circumstances demand that we stand up and declare, “To hell with science—I’m not punishing this man anymore,” but only a handful of our fellows has ever had the courage to do this.

Of course, I love to imagine how I would have told Milgram off if I’d been one of his subjects, but such scenes in my past are admittedly rare. I suppose my most dramatic rebellion occurred when I told the dean of students at Georgia Tech that I’d had it with the civil engineering curriculum, mandatory ROTC, and an English class in which we did not read. I then left the campus and walked about 20 blocks to an army enlistment office. My mother wept when she learned of what I’d done, and Dad said I was “a rebel without a clue,” but my belated adolescent rebellion is one of the best things I ever did for myself. If I ever had any regrets, and I’m sure there were some, I’ve buried them deep in my lizard core.

The year I was discharged from the army, I recall seeing signs urging soldiers to “Re-up and see Southeast Asia.” I had only the faintest idea of what was going on anywhere in Asia in 1963, but I politely turned down the captain’s offer to re-enlist, for I was then married and a hostage to fortune. Back in college, I was torn between supporting my buddies who’d gone to war and burning my draft card. When a campus anti-war protest was organized, I showed up to displace some of the ugliness the war had created by reading a few poems. But other than writing some letters to the local newspaper and leading a failed drive to stop undergraduates from evaluating senior staff, the closest thing to rebellion in my adult life came in the form of a “Latin” quotation that I posted: “Illegitimus non carborundum est.” In 40 years, no one ever asked me what it meant, and now I know why. I thought it means, “Don’t let the bastards grind you down,” when, in fact, it means, “The unlawful are not silicon carbide.” Some rebellion.

Though Barbara Ehrenreich has argued that “hell-raising” is a component of revolution, I’ve always admired the subtler forms like the recent “yarn bombing” of a “Stop” sign that an irate knitter transformed into “Yield.”

On a larger stage, the Irish rocker-rebel Sinead O’Connor was roundly criticized in 1992 for desecrating the Pope’s picture while hosting “Saturday Night Live.” But, as she explained a few weeks later in Time(circulation: three million plus), “If I hadn’t torn the picture, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” Shredding the Pope’s picture before the world wasn’t subtle, but her condemnation of a church that had turned a blind eye on child molestation for centuries was suddenly much discussed.

Just as one cannot clear a broad chasm in two or more jumps, there are no mulligans in chasm jumping. If a hungry mob burns the bakery, there’s no bread today or tomorrow. If they burn the mill, there’s no work for management or labor. If they burn the courthouse and the law school, justice will be as plentiful as bread and work.

Nevertheless, if exercising one’s personal veto risks anarchy, and the failure to rebel risks tyranny, call me an anarchist. For as e. e. Cummings and his Private Olaf tried to say before they were throttled, “There is some shit I will not eat.”

“i sing of Olaf glad and big”

e. e. cummings

XXX

i sing of Olaf glad and big
whose warmest heart recoiled at war:
a conscientious object-or

his wellbelovéd colonel(trig
westpointer most succinctly bred)
took erring Olaf soon in hand;
but–though an host of overjoyed
noncoms(first knocking on the head
him)do through icy waters roll
that helplessness which others stroke
with brushes recently employed
anent this muddy toiletbowl,
while kindred intellects evoke
allegiance per blunt instruments–
Olaf(being to all intents
a corpse and wanting any rag
upon what God unto him gave)
responds,without getting annoyed
“I will not kiss your fucking flag”

Note: The image illustrating this essay derives from https://pasttensevancouver.wordpress.com/tag/abbie-hoffman/.