(2006) On August 25th, 1968, the Democrat National Convention took place at the Hilton Hotel in Chicago where Mayor Richard J. Daley welcomed the delegates; at the same time the National Mobilization Against the War (MOBE) and the Youth International Party (aka Yippies) prepared to peacefully protest (though expecting the authorities would initiate aggression) President Lyndon B. Johnson's war in Vietnam.

During 1968, President Johnson had increased the number of troops from 75,000 to 125,000 in Vietnam, where already over 19,000 US soldiers and marines had died; he called for a national draft of 35,000 young American males each month. Also that year Dr Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated (resulting in riots and burning in Chicago) as was Democratic candidate for president Bobby Kennedy.

Using archival footage along with animation of courtroom scenes and elsewhere, director/writer/co-producer Brett Morgen adapted transcripts from the case, which began in September 1969, before the US District Court in Chicago, presided over by 74-year-old Judge Julius J. Hoffman (no relation to Abbie), The United States of America vs David T. Dellinger, Rennard C. Davis, Thomas F. Hayden, Abbot H. Hoffman, Jerry C. Rubin, Lee Weiner, John F. Froines, and Bobby G. Seale, employing voice-overs (including Mark Ruffalo, Hank Azaria, and Nick Nolte), to recreate the turbulent events of the violent clash of police and guardsmen with the anti-war protesters, and the aftermath of legal proceedings. This documentary is rated R for revolution, radicals, and "Right on!"

US District Attorney Thomas Foran alleged that the defendants had lured young people to Chicago, using the unpopularity of the war, to foment discord without city permits, causing undue stress on city resources. Asking for assistance from the Illinois Army National Guard to back up his city police, Mayor Daley pronounced the anti-war protesters as "a lawless, violent group of terrorists." On camera a woman expressed her opinion that "the hard-core leadership are Communists." But with guns, teargas, bayonets, tanks, mace, helicopters, artillery arrayed against the unarmed demonstrators, CBS's news anchor Walter Cronkite commented on the "police state" in Chicago.

Though he had only been in the city a few hours during the events, Bobby Seale, national chairman of the Black Panther Party, was added to the seven other Caucasian defendants. Attorney William Kunstler, acting as their legal counsel - though Bobby Seale demanded (but was denied) permission to represent himself - argued that the violence, symbolized by wielded nightsticks, was a "riot engineered by the police."

The trial soon became political theater with lots of silliness, provocation, and antagonism. Yippie Abbie Hoffman announced that "war is a by-product of the capitalist system." Tom Hayden had been arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct for letting air out of a police car's tires. Early attempts at avoiding foul language, saying "a four-letter word that begins with F" and "MFers," degenerated into free expression of profanity and obscenities on the witness stand and from the defendants.

Two undercover cops (one male and one female) testified, accusing the defendants of wanting to sow disruption and even kill police. Asked under oath if she had seen any law-enforcement official striking or beating protesters - "Did you see any policeman do anything wrong?" - the undercover officer answered, "No, sir"; immediately follows film showing cops beating kids in the streets, bloodying their heads with billy clubs, punching them, dragging them to paddywagons.

Author Norman Mailer and beat-poet Allen Ginsberg took the witness stand. Judge Hoffman finally ordered Bobby Seal bound and gagged for repeatedly demanding his constitutional rights.

Split-screen comparisons contrast the DNC meetings with the protests in Lincoln Park. The crowd outside chanted: "What do we want?" "Revolution!" "When do we want it?" Now!" Refusing the police order to evacuate the park between 11pm and 4am, demonstrators employing guerrilla theater, cried, "Hell, no, we won't go!" as police and guardsmen charged them. Rennie Davis of MOBE organized a rally and David Dellinger negotiated for a march on the Amphitheater in Grant Park in hopes of staging a demonstration to "stop the massive violence in Vietnam." The rallying cry is "Peace Now!" Denied permission, surrounded by soldiers and police, the demonstrators began singing "This Land Is Your Land."

Hoffman, Rubin, and others used their time outside of court for speaking engagements to raise money for their defense; what happened in the streets of Chicago was being repeated in a court of law. "This generation is going to take this country back by any means necessary."

Spoiler alert: All eight were found guilty of various offenses and sentenced from a few months in jail to four years (for Kunstler). However, in 1972 all charges were reversed.

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Copyright © 2008 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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