Aaron Sorkin’s new film, The Trial of the Chicago 7, has brought renewed attention to a landmark event in Chicago and national history.
Opinions have varied as to the film’s stylistic merit, but if you plan to see it, you owe it to yourself to get a deeper and more accurate understanding of the facts and the context.
Tales of Hoffman, a short 2001 documentary demo produced by Matthew Palm and Tom Weinberg with Joel Cohen, Bob Hercules and Jim Morrissette, is a great place to start. It was recommended by Rick Kogan as an alternative to the Sorkin film in his Chicago Tribune review.
1 Comment
One needs a little time to do some deeper response to this version of the trial and the importance of Abbie H
on Judge H.
The major function of the trial from the Governments point of view .. from Johnson the Demo to Nixon the Repo
was to repress, indict push into court and even jail if possible and get them off the street to stop the Anti US
war in Vietnam. The event in Chicago was a united attempt to present opposition to the Democratic Party
Not the Republicans the purpose of the event to demonstrate against the Demo party was to replace Humphrey
with McCarthy anyone other then Johnson’s pick and the usual war mongers in the Demo grouping..
yes Abbies insight good, but was more then a stand up comic… as a director of comedy for years Stand ups make it easy to
continue on with bourgeois society. Abbies exploits – events is the result of the Yippie notion that one could deliver
social messaging and change via the commercial media -TV. Rubin the advertising exec and Paul Krasner the editor and one time
‘stand up comic argued that they could create exploits and it would be delivered by the media to the kids watching.
Trouble is they forgot that the commercial media simply edits, swipes, surrounds it with commercials and commentary that
warps what the Yippie “message” was.. Advertising resistance to the US war in Vietnam and around the world via the
Corporate Bourgeois media –needs a few papers to explain how it’s a tactic that most of the times turns an act of
resistance or opposition to US war interests into a’ joke, trick, blog, a spectacle to be continued by another commercial
for junk food or junk culture wipe out!
Ah men. Kick the can down the road. R.G. Davis
Of course this is a commentary towards increasing the effectiveness of what we can and must try within the Empire.
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