It’s roughly the 50 year anniversary of the Chicago Democratic convention and the police attack on the counterculture protesters. As a response to the event, the Yippie! party secured free air time through campaign “Equal Time” legislation. They made some of the time available to the ACLU, some to an anti-war group and used about 15 minutes for this gem of a protest parody campaign video. It features appearances by Alan Ginsburg, Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman and music by Phil Ochs. It also memorializes Mayor Daley’s Yogi Berra-like remark that “the policeman isn’t there to create disorder; the policeman is there to preserve disorder.”
The quality is marginal, but it’s worth a watch. This version has about ten seconds of audio deleted around the 1:40 minute mark right where Ginsburg appears. I’m guessing someone was concerned about a DMCA take down since there’s another version on YouTube that does have the audio and Ginsburg begins to chant “AUM” and a chorus morphs it into “dreaming of a white Christmas”! Gotta love that sense of humor!
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