Thursday, January 01, 2009

"STEAL THIS BOOK"

Here's a popular classic: STEAL THIS BOOK By Abbie Hoffman.

It's about grifting and stealing your way through life. That seems to me an unloving attitude towards your fellow man, not to mention an admission that you can't pay your own way.
But wait, there's a morality:
"Our moral dictionary says no heisting from each other. To steal from a brother or sister is evil. To not steal from the institutions that are the pillars of the Pig Empire is equally immoral."

... Though the very first chapter is about how to steal from restaurants, so clearly people who own or work in restaurants are not brothers or sisters, but "pillars of the Pig Empire".

"There are still some places where you can get all you can eat for a fixed price. The best of these places are in Las Vegas. Sew a plastic bag onto your tee-shirt or belt and wear a loose-fitting jacket or coat to cover any noticeable bulge. Fried chicken is the best and the easiest to pocket, or should we say bag. Another trick is to pour your second free cup of hot coffee into the plastic bag sewed inside your pocket and take it with you."

Good lord, what a fucking pathetic life that sounds like.

When looking at Abbie Hoffman (male), he looks to me like somebody who may have had some worthwhile things to say, but who was a person who was deeply mired in a viewpoint of intense conflict with most of the world. (The book contains advice on how to get armor and weapons for conflicts with police!) If you see it that way, that's what you see. Self-fulfilling prophesy.

3 comments:

The Dissonance said...

Some people spend more time stealing and 'livin' for free' that you have to wonder what their life would be like if they invested that time into education, family and friends.

Ray said...

Here's the entry in Wikipedia about Hoffman.

Anonymous said...

You really need to look at the times; and Hoffmann was noted for a certain "satirical bent".

It's akin to the recent non-issue in the US election. In context, some of both Hoffmann and Bill Ayers, Beradine Dohrn, is easier to understand. A very unpopular war, then, and a very repressive approach to the dissent; things got a little out of hand on both sides.

Hoffmann was at the least, not boring.

Eolake, unusual reading choices.

Bron