The flu and serious injuries from a car accident didn’t stop Abbie Hoffman from talking for two-and-a-half-hours to an audience at the University of Guelph in September of 1988.

The co-founder of the 1960s counter-culture group the Youth International Party, or Yippies as they were commonly known, had a lot to say.

No surprise, he talked politics. Americans would be electing a President that November in a race that pitted George Bush against Michael Dukakis.

As well he had co-authored, with Jonathan Silvers, An Election Held Hostage which was about to be published in the October edition of Playboy Magazine. The feature discussed the arms for hostage deal and its influence on the Reagan-Carter American presidential election of 1980.

His talk at War Memorial Hall was titled Watergate to Contragate: Criminals in the White House.

Continue reading “Episode 26: Abbie Hoffman, American political activist” →