The Yippies: A Social Movement In The United States

When thinking of the social movements that took place throughout the sixties, it can be difficult to focus on just one due to the array of people and movements that wanted a change in the United States. Many movements shared similar ideals and visions but one movement in particular, The Youth International Party, took their vision to a new level; one of "political theater." The Youth International Party, better known as the Yippies, a derivative of the former name and the "hippie" movement also popular throughout the sixties were a "highly theatrical far left political party" that emerged in the United States in 1967. Their movement had no formal membership or official hierarchy but rather consisted of mainly rebellious teens and young adults
In May of 1969 fellow "member" Jerry Rubin published the appropriately titled; sixteen page "Yippie Manifesto" to share the Youth International Party's ideas, logic and beliefs.
• We say: "DO IT, DO IT. DO WHATEVER YOU WANT TO DO."
• "We do not advocate political solutions that you can vote for. You are never going to be able to vote for the revolution. Get that hope out of your mind."
• "We should be very realistic and demand the impossible. Food, housing, clothing, medicine, and color TV free for all!"
• "The religion of the Yippies is: "RISE UP AND ABANDON THE CREEPING MEATBALL!"
• "Scratch a professor deep and you find a cop!" (Obviously anti-organized education)
• "We do not own our own bodies. We fight to regain our bodies…to make love in the parks, say "fuck" on television, do what we want to do whenever we want to do it."
• "We offer: sex, drugs, rebellion, heroism, brotherhood."
• "Don't trust anyone over 30!" say the Yippies - a much-quoted warning.
• "Prohibitions should be prohibited. Rules are made to be broken."
• Never say "no."
• The Yippies say: "PROPERTY IS THEFT. What America got, she
Among their public activities they demonstrated to end the war in Vietnam, held a "Yip-In" at Grand Central Station in New York City, threw money from the balcony at greedy stock brokers on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, put on the first marijuana "Smoke-In" and with poet, Allen Ginsberg, attempted to levitate the Pentagon upwards into a beautiful Washington D.C. October afternoon. Other acts of "political theater" included mailing 3,000 marijuana joints to random strangers in the phone book and posting "See Canada Now" signs on the walls of Army recruiting booths. The Yippies were intent on exposing the flaws that they saw in American society by being radicals with a sense of humor. I believe these actions by the Yippies in effect "killed two birds with one stone" so to speak. First off, they had grounds on which they based their demands for a societal change as presented in Hoffman's document, Revolution Toward a Free Society, Yippie, by A. Yippie, "This is a personal statement. There are no spokesmen for the Yippies. We are all our own leaders. We realize this list of demands is inconsistent. They are not really demands. For people to make demands of the Democratic Party is an exercise in wasted wish fulfillment. If we have a demand, it is simply and emphatically