Old Wiki Data

From Students for a Democratic Society

This is what i managed to pull out of the old sds wiki database. it is pretty ugly, see if you can get something constructive out of it.

LOCK TABLES `w1_searchindex` WRITE; /*!40000 ALTER TABLE `w1_searchindex` DISABLE KEYS */; INSERT INTO `w1_searchindex` (`si_page`, `si_title`, `si_text`) VALUES (1,'main page',' join_sds frame sds member tabling welcome to students for a democratic society society\'s sdswiki project the sdswiki project is a project within students for a democratic society open to sds members that is designed as a place where sdsers can share information work on collective documents write our own history share lessons learned in grassroots movement work and upload pictures audio and video how do i join how do i join how do i join to join and contribute to sdswiki pages simply click here to register only registered users who have confirmed their e-mail addresses can edit pages all users must agree to the terms and conditions if you have questions go to the help contents help page navigating the sdswiki project navigating the sdswiki project navigating the sdswiki project check out the table of contents check out the table of contents check out the table of contents want a list of all the pages on sdswiki click special allpages here want to see what is going on in sds visit the sds_calendar sds calendar you can view sds events post your own and update old events if you are feeling really consider writing a writeup of a past sds event you have attended to share your lessons with others eventually we will have paged that list all of our images events audio video reportbacks and news articles about us stay tuned news news news winter retreat 2009 sds winter retreat in athens ohio january 3rd and 4th 2009 the retreat is an opportunity for sdsers from all over the country to come together to discuss sds in 2009 how we can grow and improve the agenda of this retreat is still in the works so much more will be discussed including the economic crisis state of the movement obama the student power for accessible education campaign the national working committee structure chapter support and sharing organizing skills click here to register - we want as many sds members as possible to be a part of this process so if you are interested you should come we have travel stipends available for folks and chapters who may needs them and we have set up a rideshare board for folks who can provide or need transportation for more information about travel stipends contact alex at activistalex gmail com lots more info at the winter retreat 2009 wiki page and we\'re on facebook results of national ratification 2008 the national working committee has been ratified results of national ratification 2008 the national working committee has been ratified results of national ratification 2008 the national working committee has been ratified the vote was 44 for 12 against 3 abstentions 78 57 for abstentions do not count passes now that we have a national structure it is up to us to make it work we would like to encourage everyone especially those with reservations about the national structure to hop on a national working committee conference call all sds members are welcome to be on the calls voice their opinions and make proposals the nwc list is you can find the list of nwc members and a lot more on the wiki town hall listserv space for members to discuss issues in an open framework student power for accessible education organizing guide student power for accessible education organizing guide student power for accessible education organizing guide do you want to grow or start a chapter care to help build a popular revolutionary student movement would you like to fight student debt and democratize schools across america then read this organizing guide distribute it as widely as possible itu8e28099s designed for experienced organizers as well as the everyday not-yet-radicalized typical student pass it out to folks who have never heard of sds and schools that donu8e28099t have chapters yet - watch as campuses become organized and oppressive systems collapse before your eyes there are two versions of the guide one is for online viewing only and one is for print only requires double-sided printer if you try to print the online version or vice versa the guide will make less sense than bailing out rich folks during an economic recession to access the guides go to the websites below enter the letters on the top right of the screen then wait for the countdown to finish and click free download online viewing version double-sided printout handbook version join the brand new website working group join the brand new website working group join the brand new website working group this exciting new working group is off and running - weu8e28099re redesigning and reorganizing the website switching to a new server and all sorts of other things that are long overdue if youu8e28099re a techie computer nerd programmer graphic designer or just someone who cares about the national sds website get involved join the google group here - sds in trouble it it\'s the legal support working group to the rescue sds in trouble it it\'s the legal support working group to the rescue sds in trouble it it\'s the legal support working group to the rescue as sds becomes more powerful more effective and more daring weu8e28099re sure to get attention from the powers that be and not always in a good way the 2008 republican national convention protest saw scores of arrests and incidents of police brutality; sdsers were arrested over the summer doing work to halt the neoliberal nafta superhighway; we even saw students arrested on their own campuses doing street theater against the iraq war incidents like these drag us into a system that is frightening hard to understand isolating and designed to break our spirits and ruin our good work the sds legal support working group has been created to help provide emotional support resources fundraising publicity and anything else needed to sds its chapters its members and its allies who are caught up in legal dramau8e28093whether it be a protest arrest or even your schoolu8e28099s judicial review process sign on to our super low-traffic e-mail list for notices about legal situations as they happen and to plan out coordinated responses that help those of us who are targeted by authority feel loved and found not guilty discussion only takes place on an as-needed basis so never fear you wonu8e28099t be trapped into conference calls and e-mail spam find contact an sds chapter find contact an sds chapter find contact an sds chapter check out the list of sds chapters to find and contact the nearest sds chapter or to add your chapter to the list there is also a companion page for list of chapters starting up or inactive chapters starting up or inactive new organizers new organizers new organizers organizing resources for sds organizers organizers_manual click here check out this guide to starting a chapter organizing at a community or junior college there is a manual for that started community_college_organizing here organizing in high school check out the high school organizing guide or are you in a small town got that covered too small town organizing here visibility project visibility project visibility project the working group visibility project visibility project is ecstatic to bring you 2 offerings to help make sds work more visible and accessible 1 the sds national announcements listserv send your announcements to sdsannouncements googlegroups com 2 the sds national calendar press the little google calendar button on the bottom right of the screen to subscribe help make more great stuff like this happen by getting involved chapter communications chapter communications chapter communications the new chapter communications working group is transforming the way sds members and chapters communicate with each other by creating a new phone-based system of chapter contacts check out the new sds chapters blog and the sds chapters map coming soon this working group needs your help so volunteer to be a contact by emailing mike da cruz of brown sds - mike dacruz gmail com and or signing up for the listserv news bulletin news bulletin news bulletin issue # 6 of the sds news bulletin - its here print and distribute to your chapter campus and community the sds news bulletin working group worked hard to bring you our sixth issue it wasn\'t easy but with your help we\'ve filled it whether you want a report from the national convention or an answer to the question where do we go from here this newest bulletin has got it all now here here\'s the result download now - you will need to have adobe acrobat reader installed on your computer to view the pdf file which is free software you can download here enjoy and distribute widely send us your stuff to be published in issue 7 sds bulletin gmail com want to join the bulletin working group we desperately need more participation in the working group to continue to bring your chapter this quality sds-made outreach and education tool get involved by signing up for our email listserv collective liberation collective liberation collective liberation as a radical organization sds is not immune to divisions along class race gender sexual orientation gender identity age or other lines and so collective liberation is a major focus within sds some important articles related to oppression and privilege within the movement can be found on the women women\'s caucus page and the people of color caucus has made two important statements at the 2006 and 2007 national conventions available statement from the people of color caucus here what is students for a democratic society what is students for a democratic society what is students for a democratic society students for a democratic society sds is an association of young people of the left it seeks to create a sustained community of educational and political concern one bringing together liberals radicals and revolutionaries activists and scholars students staff and faculty it maintains a vision of democratic society where at all levels the people have control of the decisions which affect them and the resources on which they are dependent it seeks a relevance through the continual focus on realities and on programs necessary to effect change at the most basic levels of economic political and social organization it feels the urgency to put forth a radical democratic program whose methods embody the democratic vision sds is an education and social action organization dedicated to increasing democracy in all phases of our common life it seeks to promote the active participation of young people in the formation of a movement to build a society free from poverty ignorance war exploitation racism sexism classism homophobia and environmental destruction '),(1371,'sdsysop',' test hi there '),(1372,'anti-sds',' '),(1373,'terms and conditions',' all users agree to the terms and conditions listed here violation of terms and conditions is grounds for deletion of account registration registration registration # registration is open to members of students for a democratic society and its affiliated projects # only registered users can edit pages # when registering use your real name if possible edit your user_talk page with content about yourself this is meant to increase accountability and communication among members of sds you can find your user talk page by going to the top right side of your internet browser # when registering you must provide a valid e-mail address once you register you must confirm your e-mail address before you can edit pages note sdswiki currently defines a member as someone who is active as a student or youth in either an sds chapter or an official sds project civility and etiquette civility and etiquette civility and etiquette # all users must be respectful and follow general principles of sdswiki civility civility and sdswiki etiquette etiquette # we understand that wiki software is not perfect- it tends to functionally favor those users with instituional social privilege we ask that all users be considerate of other voices especially of people facing various forms of institutional oppression # users who abuse or exploit the resources of the project will not be tolerated # in keeping with our commitment to fighting ignorance exploitation and oppression including but not limited to racism sexism homophobia transphobia classism and authoritarianism users who exhibit such behavior will be immediately banned editing editing editing # only registered users can edit pages # all users who engage in destruction of sdswiki resources or pages will be immediately banned '),(1367,'about',' test '),(1368,'privacy policy',' test '),(1369,'general disclaimer',' this is a site for members of students for a democratic society '),(1370,'sdsysop',' consult the user user\'s guide for information on using the wiki software getting started getting started getting started configuration settings list mediawiki faq mediawiki release mailing list '),(1374,'join sds',' join sds picture '),(1375,'etiquette',' sdswiki strongly depends on the etiquette of our members to remain functional and friendly please follow these guidelines to keep the community friendly etiquette on sdswiki etiquette on sdswiki etiquette on sdswiki always assume good faith donu8e28099t bite the newcomers be polite to everyone don\'t ignore other peoples questions if you dont know the answer admit it be civil apologize if you do another person a wrong forgive and forget see your own biases and control them help solve disagreements between others remember sdswiki what sdswiki is not what sdswiki is not category sdswiki culture '),(1376,'civility',' civility is a rule for the conduct of edits comments and talk page discussions on all sdswiki projects whereas incivility is roughly defined as personally targeted behavior that causes an atmosphere of greater conflict and stress our rule of civility states plainly that people must act with civility toward one another a civility policy is a reasonable way to delimit acceptable conduct from the unacceptable the problem the problem the problem many people forget that criticizing an edit is easily conflated with insulting the person who made it u8e28094 and so they are unnecessarily harsh on the giving end and unnecessarily sensitive on the receiving end textual communication on the internet does not transmit the nuances of verbal conversation so a small facetious comment can be easily misinterpreted what starts with one uncivil remark becomes an exchange of those same during which people are no longer interested in improving articles and instead focus on triumphing over the enemy this is not what sdswiki is about examples examples examples petty examples that contribute to an uncivil environment rudeness judgmental tone in edit summaries fixed sloppy spelling snipped rambling crap belittling contributors because of their language skills or word choice ill-considered accusations of impropriety of one kind or another starting a comment with not to make this personal but calling someone a liar or accusing him her of slander or libel even if true such remarks tend to aggravate rather than resolve a dispute more serious examples include wiktionary taunt taunting wikipedia wikipedia no personal attacks personal attacks racial ethnic and religious slurs wikipedia profanity profanity directed at another contributor lies defacing user pages giving users derogatory names via pagemove trolling calling for unjustified bans or blocks incivility happens for example when you are quietly creating a new page and another user tells you if you\'re going to write a pointless page could you spell-check it escalation occurs when you reply mind your own business this style of interaction between editors drives away contributors distracts others from more important matters and weakens the entire community when and why does it happen when and why does it happen when and why does it happen during an edit war when people have different opinions or when there is a conflict over sharing power when the community grows larger each editor does not know all the others and may not perceive the importance of each individual to the project u8e28094 so they don\'t worry about maintaining relationships that don\'t exist reputation does not count as much as in a smaller community sometimes a particularly impolite user joins the project this can also aggravate other editors into being impolite themselves most of the time insults are used in the heat of the moment during a longer conflict they are essentially a way to end the discussion often the person who made the insult regrets having used such words afterwards this in itself is a good reason to remove or wikipedia wikipedia refactoring refactor the offending words in other cases the offender is doing it on purpose either to distract the opponent s from the issue or simply to drive them away from working on the article or even from the project or to push them to commit an even greater breach in civility which might result in ostracism or banning in those cases it is far less likely that the offender will have any regrets and apologize it should be noted that some editors deliberately push others to the point of breaching civility without committing such a breach themselves why is it bad why is it bad why is it bad because it makes people unhappy resulting in discouragement and departure because it makes people angry resulting in non-constructive or even uncivil behavior themselves further escalating the level of incivility because it puts people on the defensive closing their minds to other ideas and preventing a wikipedia wikipedia consensus consensus from forming because people lose good faith resulting in even less ability to resolve the current conflict u8e28094 or the next one general suggestions general suggestions general suggestions preventing incivility within sdswiki preventing incivility within sdswiki preventing incivility within sdswiki prevent edit wars and conflict between individuals constraints on editing are set by the project u8e28094 essentially a community answer force delays between answers to give time to editors to calm down and recover and to avoid further escalation of a conflict protecting pages or temporary blocks of editors in case of conflict use positive feedback praising those who do not respond to incivility with incivility apply peer pressure voicing displeasure each time rudeness or incivility happens solve the root of the conflict between the offender and the other editor s or the community u8e28094 or find a compromise use negative feedback suggesting that an editor involved in conflict should leave a conflict or even temporarily avoid all controversial areas in sdswiki it may be worthwhile making such suggestions to both sides of the conflict block certain users from editing specific pages that often trigger incivility create and enforce a new rule u8e28094 based on use of certain words u8e28094 that will allow temporary blocking or banning an editor using them more than a certain number of times filter emails by the offender or filter mail based on certain keywords and reject emails to the sdswiki mailing list with those words accepting that incivility and rudeness can\'t be entirely avoided in such a project and not responding in kind giving awards for good edits reducing the impact reducing the impact reducing the impact balance each uncivil comment by providing a soothing or constructive comment do not answer offensive comments forget about them forgive the editor do not escalate the conflict an individual approach ignore incivility operate as if the offender does not exist set up a wall between the offender and the community revert edits with a veil of invisibility &bot 1 to reduce the impact of the offensive words used in edit summaries the comment box walk away just go edit somewhere else for a while and return when tempers have cooled removing uncivil comments removing uncivil comments removing uncivil comments strike offensive words or replace them with milder ones on talk pages this is often seen as controversial as is refactoring other people people\'s words remove offensive comments on talk pages since they remain in the page history anyone can find them again or refer to them later on revert an edit with &bot 1 so that the edit made by the offender appears invisible in recent changes do-able on ip contributions requires technical help for logged-in user delete entirely and permanently an edit made by the offender requires technical help permanently delete an offensive comment made on the mailing lists requires technical help replace a comment made in an edit summary by another less offensive comment requires technical help explain incivility explain incivility explain incivility some editors are badly shaken by uncivil words directed towards them and can\'t focus on the source of the conflict itself it may help to point out to them why unpleasant words were used and acknowledge that while incivility is wrong the ideas behind the comment may be valid the offended person may realize that the words were not always meant literally and could decide to forgive and forget them it can be helpful to point out breaches of civility even when done on purpose to hurt as it might help the disputant to refocus on the issue controversial suggest apologizing suggest apologizing suggest apologizing the apology is a form of ritual exchange between both parties where words are said that allow reconciliation for some people it may be crucial to receive an wikipedia apology apology from those who have offended them for this reason a sincere apology is often the key to the resolution of a conflict an apology is a symbol of forgiveness an apology is very much recommended when one person person\'s perceived incivility has offended another category sdswiki policy '),(1377,'please do not bite the newcomers',' experience comes with time too often online collaborations turn into social cliques where outsiders are disparaged and those not already in the know are actively discouraged from participating when you see a new post on an old topic don\'t attack the poster as ignorant naive or of dubious parentage simply direct them to the information they are seeking treat each new member with great respect each new member offers new knowledge skills and specialties unless they are obviously trying to be malicious give them a link to a page that offers help and donu8e28099t discourage them march 26 2007 everyone at sdswiki is a newcomer we are all exploring how to use wiki technology in support of education we need a culture of thoughtful diplomatic honesty diplomacy consists of combining honesty and politeness see also see also see also sdswiki assume good faith category sdswiki policy '),(1378,'230px-international tidyman svg',' '),(1379,'vandalism',' 230px-international_tidyman svg right don\'t feed the trolls 230px in a wiki vandalism is a type of behavior that is inherently disruptive or destructive to the aims of the project typical types of vandalism include writing obscene or nonsense content on pages with the intent to disrupt unjustifiedly removing significant quanitities of content from pages moving pages to obscure or inappropriate titles repeatedly replacing content in articles with clearly incorrect or misleading information sdswiki vandalism#types of vandalism other types of vandalism at sdswiki we consider sdswiki shrine vandalism no big deal it it\'s a nuisance that needs to be taken care of but it it\'s not something excessive resources are devoted to to that end a few users watch the list of recent changes to look out for vandal edits what can you do what can you do what can you do if you find a page vandalized take a moment and revert the change you can do that by clicking on the tab named history selecting the version just prior to the vandal attack click on the edit tab and click on save preferably you also indicate in your edit summary what the purpose of the edit was — commonly used summaries include revert vandalism or rvv if you find vandalism you can\'t deal with yourself or if the same user is repeatedly engaging in vandalism you might want to leave a note at sdswiki request custodian action custodians are users with special tools that enable them to block users and protect pages from editing you can also find custodians in the sdswiki chat sdswiki chat room guidelines guidelines guidelines guidelines are still being proposed please offer your opinion here vandalism should be reverted on sight remember that the definition of vandalism includes meaningless edits page blanking and addition of profanity blasphemy however attacks against other editors are not dealt with under these guidelines warnings warnings warnings see category user warning templates blocked users blocked users blocked users see category user block templates category sdswiki '),(1380,'itsukushimatorii7381',' '),(1381,'shrine',' itsukushimatorii7381 thumb right sdswiki does not erect shrines for vandals at sdswiki vandalism is considered a nuisance it it\'s something that needs to be dealt with but which is not a big deal as a result sdswiki erects no shrines for vandals specifics specifics specifics users who are blocked as vandals will have their user page protected from editing or deleted specifically there will be no templates posted for blocked users nor will any vandal-specific templates be used to adorn user pages of vandal sock puppets vandals should not have anything to point at that shows they have received attention obvious repeated vandals are blocked on sight e g page movers page blankers obscenity writers if there are doubts a comment should be left on the talk page to offer the user an opportunity to respond the user page is deleted or at least protected from editing if there is useful content there no publicly accessible pages will be created to document long term abuse by vandals if there is need to document such things for the purpose of training custodians a page can be created and subsequently deleted custodians will be able to view the page by using special undelete pagename philosophy philosophy philosophy the primary motive for many vandals is attention if individuals move pages to inappropriate titles blank articles or write obscene words propose pages for speedy deletion without merit or whatever else vandals do it it\'s to gain attention it it\'s funny to see people stop their work and take care of what they did it it\'s entertaining to show friends what one has done on pages that many other people visit disruption is cool by refusing to acknowledge individual vandals we take away what they crave most category sdswiki policy '),(1382,'assume good faith',' to assume good faith is a fundamental principle on sdswiki as we allow anyone to edit it follows that we assume that most people who work on the project are trying to help it not hurt it if this weren\'t true a project like sdswiki would be doomed from the beginning this principle is also called the principle of first trust when you can reasonably assume that a mistake someone made was a well-intentioned attempt to further the goals of the project correct it without criticizing when you disagree with someone remember that they probably believe that they are helping the project consider using sdswiki talk page talk page pages to explain yourself and give others the opportunity to do the same this can avoid misunderstandings and prevent problems from escalating newcomers unaware of sdswiki sdswiki\'s unique culture and the mechanics of sdswiki editing often make mistakes or fail to respect community norms it is not uncommon for a newcomer to believe that an unfamiliar policy should be changed to match their experience elsewhere similarly many newcomers bring with them experience or expertise for which they expect immediate respect behaviors arising from these perspectives are not malicious obviously editors are no longer expected to assume good faith when despite the best possible construction we can place upon the actions of another it is clear that they do not wish to serve the project project\'s goals actions inconsistent with good faith include vandalism sockpuppetry and other clear instances of intentional deceit assuming good faith also does not mean that no action by editors should be criticized but instead that criticism should not be attributed to malice unless there is specific evidence of malice accusing the other side in a conflict of not assuming good faith without showing reasonable supporting evidence is another form of failing to assume good faith see also see also see also sdswiki please do not bite the newcomers please do not bite the newcomers '),(1383,'contents',' -- resource departments -- id departments cellspacing 0 cellpadding 0 style width 100 ; border 2px #b8c7d9 solid; - colspan 2 style background #cedff2; text-align center; border-bottom 1px #b8c7d9 solid; guidelines help and resources -- 3 line spacing of h2 is important for subsection edit links to work correctly please do not fix -- sdswiki is staffed by a small number of sdswiki who writes sdswiki volunteers - style width 50 ; background #f5faff; padding 1 2em; valign top -- left column -- help help help help contents sdswiki help - browse help pages sdswiki questions where to ask questions sdswiki help desk help desk - ask a question about anything editing editing editing the sdswiki manual of style manual of style guidelines and sdswiki tutorial tutorial how to get started on the sds wiki how to get started on the sds wiki how to sdswiki contributing to sdswiki contribute to sdswiki how to sdswiki adding content add content how to sdswiki how to embed youtube videos add youtube videos how to sdswiki guide to improving materials improve materials how to sdswiki how to produce great materials produce great material a list of sdswiki template messages template messages the sdswiki list of images list of images that have been uploaded to sdswiki what special specialpages special pages are wikipedia tools tools for editing policies and guidelines policies and guidelines policies and guidelines sdswiki has some sdswiki policies policies sdswiki list of guidelines guidelines conventions and traditions this is a brief sampling of some of the most important policies and guidelines apply both to materials and how to work with fellow editors for easy access the sdswiki shortcuts shortcuts to the pages are also listed article standards article standards article standards width 92 style padding-left 1 5em; padding-right 1em; background-color transparent; sdswiki be bold be bold align right sw bb  •  sw bold - sdswiki cite sources citing sources align right sw cite  •  sw ref - sdswiki copyrights copyrights align right sw c - sdswiki external links external links align right sw el - sdswiki image use policy image use align right sw iup - sdswiki verifiability include only verifiable information align right sw v  •  sw ver - sdswiki manual of style manual of style align right sw mos  •  sw style - sdswiki what sdswiki is not what sdswiki is not align right sw wwin  •  sw not working with others working with others working with others width 92 style padding-left 1 5em; padding-right 1em; background-color transparent; sdswiki assume good faith assume good faith align right sw agf  •  sw faith - sdswiki civility civility and sdswiki etiquette etiquette align right sw civil  •  sw eq - sdswiki consensus consensus align right sw con - sdswiki please do not bite the newcomers don\'t bite the newcomers align right sw bite - sdswiki resolving disputes resolving disputes align right sw dr - sdswiki vandalism vandalism align right sw vand  •  sw vd style width 50 ; background #f5faff; border-left 1px solid #cedff2; padding 1 2em; valign top -- right column -- resources resources resources new user information sdswiki welcome 2c_newcomers welcome · sdswiki introduction new user tutorial · sdswiki sandbox sandbox · help contents help · sdswiki what sdswiki is not what sdswiki is not · sdswiki glossary glossary · sdswiki why create an account account benefits ways to communicate sdswiki talk page discussion pages · sdswiki mailing list mailing list sdswiki-l please to the list or view the archives · sdswiki chat irc chat · sdswiki user page user pages · sdswiki current surveys surveys · sdswiki notices for custodians custodians noticeboard · sdswiki requests for feedback requests for feedback community support groups and programs sdswiki welcoming committee welcoming committee · template barnstarpages sdswiki awards program · sdswiki barnstars barnstars · common procedures sdswiki featured featured content · sdswiki good content good content · sdswiki requests for feedback requests for feedback · sdswiki requests for deletion deleting a page sdswiki deletion policy full policy · sdswiki requested moves moving a page sdswiki naming conventions naming policies · sdswiki requests for page protection protecting a page sdswiki protection policy full policy · sdswiki how to revert a page to an earlier version reverting a page · sdswiki candidates for custodianship custodian nominations m· category sdswiki administration category-based access to administration how to resolve conflicts sdswiki staying cool when the editing gets hot stay cool · sdswiki please do not bite the newcomers be nice to newcomers · community information sdswiki about about sdswiki · sdswiki administration faq administrators · category sdswiki culture culture · category sdswiki community portal category sdswiki portals community portal '),(1384,'creative-commons-a-nc',' '),(1385,'jonathan',' i\'m jonathan mcintosh boston sds '),(1386,'brian kelly 2007',' '),(1387,'briankelly',' brian_kelly_2007 right me 200px hey i\'m brian kelly currently of pace university and new york city sds '),(1388,'meaghan',' hi i\'m meaghan from pace sds and nyc sds brian made me make this and he can be quite frightening so i complied '),(1389,'aricmiller',' yo it it\'s aric milla okay local city on the strait crew motor city \'students deemed sexy\' tele 248 719 3557 facebook asap magazing eee mail miller aric gmail com l8ters '),(1390,'radical blogs',' radical blogs org is a developing project of sds students for a democratic society sds it was designed to give radicals a place to blog and connect with other radical and progressive bloggers around the world its aim is to build a community of activists that can help rebuild the left in the united states and beyond radical blogs org is run on wordpress an opensource blog publishing system and administered by leftists from around the united states external links external links external links radical blogs homepage national sds home page wordpress homepage '),(1391,'thisdateinrecentyears',' class toccolours cellpadding 4 cellspacing 0 style float right; margin-left 1em; text-align center; - style background #ccccff; pagename in recent years - month 2007#2007_ month _ #expr day 1 2007 #time l day month 2007 - #ifexpr monthnumber month 6 month 2006#2006_ month _ #expr day 1 month 2006# day month 2006 2006 #time l day month 2006 - month day 2005 2005 #time l day month 2005 - month day 2004 2004 #time l day month 2004 - month day 2003 2003 #time l day month 2003 - month 2002 2002 #time l day month 2002 - month 2001 2001 #time l day month 2001 - month 2000 2000 #time l day month 2000 - month 1999 1999 #time l day month 1999 - 1998# month 1998 #time l day month 1998 - 1997# month 1997 #time l day month 1997 - 1996# month 1996 #time l day month 1996 - 1995# month 1995 #time l day month 1995 '),(1392,'monthssource',' january january 1 1 january 2 2 january 3 3 january 4 4 january 5 5 january 6 6 january 7 7 january 8 8 january 9 9 january 10 10 january 11 11 january 12 12 january 13 13 january 14 14 january 15 15 january 16 16 january 17 17 january 18 18 january 19 19 january 20 20 january 21 21 january 22 22 january 23 23 january 24 24 january 25 25 january 26 26 january 27 27 january 28 28 january 29 29 january 30 30 january 31 31 - february february 1 1 february 2 2 february 3 3 february 4 4 february 5 5 february 6 6 february 7 7 february 8 8 february 9 9 february 10 10 february 11 11 february 12 12 february 13 13 february 14 14 february 15 15 february 16 16 february 17 17 february 18 18 february 19 19 february 20 20 february 21 21 february 22 22 february 23 23 february 24 24 february 25 25 february 26 26 february 27 27 february 28 28 february 29 29 february 30 30 - march march 1 1 march 2 2 march 3 3 march 4 4 march 5 5 march 6 6 march 7 7 march 8 8 march 9 9 march 10 10 march 11 11 march 12 12 march 13 13 march 14 14 march 15 15 march 16 16 march 17 17 march 18 18 march 19 19 march 20 20 march 21 21 march 22 22 march 23 23 march 24 24 march 25 25 march 26 26 march 27 27 march 28 28 march 29 29 march 30 30 march 31 31 - april april 1 1 april 2 2 april 3 3 april 4 4 april 5 5 april 6 6 april 7 7 april 8 8 april 9 9 april 10 10 april 11 11 april 12 12 april 13 13 april 14 14 april 15 15 april 16 16 april 17 17 april 18 18 april 19 19 april 20 20 april 21 21 april 22 22 april 23 23 april 24 24 april 25 25 april 26 26 april 27 27 april 28 28 april 29 29 april 30 30 - may may 1 1 may 2 2 may 3 3 may 4 4 may 5 5 may 6 6 may 7 7 may 8 8 may 9 9 may 10 10 may 11 11 may 12 12 may 13 13 may 14 14 may 15 15 may 16 16 may 17 17 may 18 18 may 19 19 may 20 20 may 21 21 may 22 22 may 23 23 may 24 24 may 25 25 may 26 26 may 27 27 may 28 28 may 29 29 may 30 30 may 31 31 - june june 1 1 june 2 2 june 3 3 june 4 4 june 5 5 june 6 6 june 7 7 june 8 8 june 9 9 june 10 10 june 11 11 june 12 12 june 13 13 june 14 14 june 15 15 june 16 16 june 17 17 june 18 18 june 19 19 june 20 20 june 21 21 june 22 22 june 23 23 june 24 24 june 25 25 june 26 26 june 27 27 june 28 28 june 29 29 june 30 30 - july july 1 1 july 2 2 july 3 3 july 4 4 july 5 5 july 6 6 july 7 7 july 8 8 july 9 9 july 10 10 july 11 11 july 12 12 july 13 13 july 14 14 july 15 15 july 16 16 july 17 17 july 18 18 july 19 19 july 20 20 july 21 21 july 22 22 july 23 23 july 24 24 july 25 25 july 26 26 july 27 27 july 28 28 july 29 29 july 30 30 july 31 31 - august august 1 1 august 2 2 august 3 3 august 4 4 august 5 5 august 6 6 august 7 7 august 8 8 august 9 9 august 10 10 august 11 11 august 12 12 august 13 13 august 14 14 august 15 15 august 16 16 august 17 17 august 18 18 august 19 19 august 20 20 august 21 21 august 22 22 august 23 23 august 24 24 august 25 25 august 26 26 august 27 27 august 28 28 august 29 29 august 30 30 august 31 31 - september september 1 1 september 2 2 september 3 3 september 4 4 september 5 5 september 6 6 september 7 7 september 8 8 september 9 9 september 10 10 september 11 11 september 12 12 september 13 13 september 14 14 september 15 15 september 16 16 september 17 17 september 18 18 september 19 19 september 20 20 september 21 21 september 22 22 september 23 23 september 24 24 september 25 25 september 26 26 september 27 27 september 28 28 september 29 29 september 30 30 - october october 1 1 october 2 2 october 3 3 october 4 4 october 5 5 october 6 6 october 7 7 october 8 8 october 9 9 october 10 10 october 11 11 october 12 12 october 13 13 october 14 14 october 15 15 october 16 16 october 17 17 october 18 18 october 19 19 october 20 20 october 21 21 october 22 22 october 23 23 october 24 24 october 25 25 october 26 26 october 27 27 october 28 28 october 29 29 october 30 30 october 31 31 - november november 1 1 november 2 2 november 3 3 november 4 4 november 5 5 november 6 6 november 7 7 november 8 8 november 9 9 november 10 10 november 11 11 november 12 12 november 13 13 november 14 14 november 15 15 november 16 16 november 17 17 november 18 18 november 19 19 november 20 20 november 21 21 november 22 22 november 23 23 november 24 24 november 25 25 november 26 26 november 27 27 november 28 28 november 29 29 november 30 30 - december      december 1 1 december 2 2 december 3 3 december 4 4 december 5 5 december 6 6 december 7 7 december 8 8 december 9 9 december 10 10 december 11 11 december 12 12 december 13 13 december 14 14 december 15 15 december 16 16 december 17 17 december 18 18 december 19 19 december 20 20 december 21 21 december 22 22 december 23 23 december 24 24 december 25 25 december 26 26 december 27 27 december 28 28 december 29 29 december 30 30 december 31 31 '),(1393,'months',' border 0 class toccolours style margin 0 auto align center align center - colspan 2 months and days of the year - monthssource eu txantiloi hil aurkibidea fr modu8c3a8le dates ia patrono menses '),(1394,'marchcalendar2007source',' class toccolours style float float ; margin-left 1em; text-align center; cellpadding 2 cellspacing 0 - style background color ; align center 1a february 3 colspan 5 1a march 3 2 march 3 align center 1a april 3 - style background color2 ; width 14 su width 14 mo width 14 tu width 14 we width 14 th width 14 fr width 14 sa - colspan 4   1 march 1 4 1 1 march 2 4 2 1 march 3 4 3 - 1 march 4 4 4 1 march 5 4 5 1 march 6 4 6 1 march 7 4 7 1 march 8 4 8 1 march 9 4 9 1 march 10 4 10 - 1 march 11 4 11 1 march 12 4 12 1 march 13 4 13 1 march 14 4 14 1 march 15 4 15 1 march 16 4 16 1 march 17 4 17 - 1 march 18 4 18 1 march 19 4 19 1 march 20 4 20 1 march 21 4 21 1 march 22 4 22 1 march 23 4 23 1 march 24 4 24 - 1 march 25 4 25 1 march 26 4 26 1 march 27 4 27 1 march 28 4 28 1 march 29 4 29 1 march 30 4 30 1 march 31 4 31 - colspan 7   - style background color2 colspan 7 endnote '),(1395,'marchcalendar2007',' marchcalendar2007source 1 1a 2 3 2007 4 5 float right color #ccccff color2 #ccccff endnote 2007 mmvii this template is sourced from tl marchcalendar2007source and derived from the templates for the months of 2006 legend legend legend the left arrows link to february 2007 once itu8e28099s created ; the month display links to march 2007 ditto ; the right arrows link to april 2007 ditto ; the days link to each dayu8e28099s respective article the roman numerals link to the 2007 2007 mmvii article without looking redundant with the arabic-numeral expression of the year at the top '),(1396,'marchcalendar',' marchcalendar currentyear eu txantiloi martxo zh template marchcalendar '),(1397,'monthnumber',' #if 1 #switch lc 1 january jan 1 february feb 2 march mar 3 apr april 4 may 5 june jun 6 july jul 7 august aug 8 september sep 9 october oct 10 november nov 11 december dec 12 #ifexpr 1 0 #ifexpr 1 round 0 1 #expr 12- 0 5- 1 round 0 mod 12 #expr 12- 11 5- 1 round 0 mod 12 #expr 10 5 1 round 0 mod 12 1 missing required parameter 1 month doc '),(1398,'monthnumber doc',' this template documentation is transcluded from fullpagename doc fullurl fullpagenamee doc action edit edit -- edit template documentation below this line -- this template returns the cyclic integer month number between 1 and 12 of the month whose real number is in parameter alternatively the month can be given with its english name complete or abbreviated to 3 characters with capitals or small letters ; syntax monthnumber month the month value is interpreted modulo 12 extra leading zeroes are ignored negative numbers are accepted all numbers are rounded to floor ; examples for all standard english month names monthnumber january returns monthnumber january monthnumber february returns monthnumber february monthnumber march returns monthnumber march monthnumber april returns monthnumber april monthnumber may returns monthnumber may monthnumber june returns monthnumber june monthnumber july returns monthnumber july monthnumber august returns monthnumber august monthnumber september returns monthnumber september monthnumber october returns monthnumber october monthnumber november returns monthnumber november monthnumber december returns monthnumber december ; examples for all abbreviated english month names monthnumber jan returns monthnumber jan monthnumber feb returns monthnumber feb monthnumber mar returns monthnumber mar monthnumber apr returns monthnumber apr monthnumber may returns monthnumber may monthnumber jun returns monthnumber jun monthnumber jul returns monthnumber jul monthnumber aug returns monthnumber aug monthnumber sep returns monthnumber sep monthnumber oct returns monthnumber oct monthnumber nov returns monthnumber nov monthnumber dec returns monthnumber dec ; examples for all standard month numbers monthnumber 1 returns monthnumber 1 monthnumber 2 returns monthnumber 2 monthnumber 3 returns monthnumber 3 monthnumber 4 returns monthnumber 4 monthnumber 5 returns monthnumber 5 monthnumber 6 returns monthnumber 6 monthnumber 7 returns monthnumber 7 monthnumber 8 returns monthnumber 8 monthnumber 9 returns monthnumber 9 monthnumber 10 returns monthnumber 10 monthnumber 11 returns monthnumber 11 monthnumber 12 returns monthnumber 12 ; examples for month numbers with extra leading zero monthnumber 01 returns monthnumber 01 monthnumber 02 returns monthnumber 02 monthnumber 03 returns monthnumber 03 monthnumber 04 returns monthnumber 04 monthnumber 05 returns monthnumber 05 monthnumber 06 returns monthnumber 06 monthnumber 07 returns monthnumber 07 monthnumber 08 returns monthnumber 08 monthnumber 09 returns monthnumber 09 ; examples for month number underflows and overflows from computed values monthnumber -1200 returns monthnumber -1200 monthnumber -1201 returns monthnumber -1201 monthnumber -1212 returns monthnumber -1212 monthnumber -12 returns monthnumber -12 monthnumber -11 returns monthnumber -11 monthnumber -10 returns monthnumber -10 monthnumber -9 returns monthnumber -9 monthnumber -8 returns monthnumber -8 monthnumber -7 returns monthnumber -7 monthnumber -6 returns monthnumber -6 monthnumber -5 returns monthnumber -5 monthnumber -4 returns monthnumber -4 monthnumber -3 returns monthnumber -3 monthnumber -2 returns monthnumber -2 monthnumber -1 returns monthnumber -1 monthnumber -0 9999 returns monthnumber -0 9999 monthnumber -0 5 returns monthnumber -0 5 monthnumber -0 0001 returns monthnumber -0 0001 monthnumber 0 returns monthnumber 0 monthnumber 0 0001 returns monthnumber 0 0001 monthnumber 0 5 returns monthnumber 0 monthnumber 0 9999 returns monthnumber 0 9999 monthnumber 12 0001 returns monthnumber 12 0001 monthnumber 12 5 returns monthnumber 12 5 monthnumber 12 9999 returns monthnumber 12 9999 monthnumber 13 returns monthnumber 13 monthnumber 14 returns monthnumber 14 monthnumber 24 returns monthnumber 24 monthnumber 1200 returns monthnumber 1200 monthnumber 1201 returns monthnumber 1201 monthnumber 1212 returns monthnumber 1212 ; example for invalid month name monthnumber xxx returns monthnumber xxx ; see also template monthname template monthabbrev template month -- add categories below this line -- category date-computing templates pagename -- add interwikis below this line -- fr modu8c3a8le monthnumber '),(1399,'sds calendar',' hi welcome to the sds calendar check out the national sds google calendar '),(1400,'how to embed youtube videos',' usage you may embed youtube content to any article to do so simply add this text to the body of your page where you\'d like the video to appear <youtube v ayoutubeid > where ayoutubeid should be replaced with the id of the video to embed that that\'s it '),(1401,'sds calendar calendar sds calendar 5-5-2007 - event 1',' remembering tomorrow from sds to life after capitalism speakers michael albert noam chomsky moderated by amy goodman time 2-5 pm location mit in room 26-100 77 mass avenue cambridge ma an event exploring past and present efforts to change the world coinciding with the release of michael albert albert\'s memoir remembering tomorrow this is a gathering of friends activists organizers and interested parties from across generations to share lessons from the past prospects for the present and hopes for the future featuring keynote speakers michael albert and noam chomsky we\'ll explore lessons drawn from early days of 60 60\'s sds anti-war civil rights and feminist movements to today today\'s student radicalism alternative media institution and movement building join us for this evening event at mit to strategize and envision efforts to win another world michael albert is a leading critic on political economy u s foreign policy and mass media open to the general public cost free sponsor s mit western hemisphere project mit arab student organization zmag znet seven stories press for more information contact chris spannos 508-548-9063 chris spannos zmag org '),(1402,'welcoming committee',' national working groups the welcoming committee is a group that welcomes new members to sds they do this by emailing and or calling new members and filling them in on sds and by trying to build relationships with new organizers to create a supportive and accessible atmosphere at the moment the welcoming committee organizes by two methods the google groups page and weekly or biweekly conference calls or conference webchats responsibilities are divided up by region and by organizing situation high school community college etc we are also working to compile a welcoming packet with basic information organizing resources flier templates or more to get involved with the welcoming committee either to help greet new folks or to help create a welcoming packet please join the google group or email the list at sdswelcome googlegroups com the contact person for this group is chloe briede gmu sds zoetalysse gmail com '),(1403,'robkorobkin',' hey i\'m an organizer with the stand collective at haverford college near philly all power to the people '),(1404,'tacoma march 2007',' olympia frame tacoma protests tacoma wa - march 13 2007 tacoma sds took part in a civil disobedience on sunday march 11 2007 in response to the police riot that occurred on friday march 9 on that friday protesters were nonviolently demonstrating when police attacked the activists - with rubber bullets and tear gas protesters were tear-gassed several times without provocation no barricades were thrown despite police claims some of the victims of the police riot were arrested and charged with assault - adding insult to injury independent filmmakers in tacoma captured much of this on tape caitlin esworthy and jeff berryhill interviewed on hannity and colmes pre-riot film is not a crime video response to police actions private investigation in response to film is not a crime police riot 1 police riot 2 response to police and major media allegations of violence civil disobedience guerrilla news network story '),(1405,'olympia',' shot of olympia tacoma riot from guerrilla news network '),(1406,'tacoma',' '),(1407,'an open letter to sds on national structure',' a number of individuals within the sds network have recently come out against the idea of building a national organizational structure as we understand it they have posed the choice facing sds as essentially being one between building vibrant autonomous campus chapters or a strong national organization we believe this is a false choice not only is it possible to build both but individual chapters can only benefit from being part of a strong national network if the strength of a national organization stems from the power of its base given the dismal and often brutal legacy of left-wing political organizations in the 20th century it is fitting that many people within sds would be wary of building a national organization but the nation-state we live in is home to the best-organized and most brutal ruling class in the world if weu8e28099re serious about social change the question is not whether we build an organization but how to build a different kind of organization one that embodies the idea of participatory democracy and where power goes from the base chapters up rather than from the top down are we going to contest power with one hand tied behind our backs coordinating only intermittently and on an ad-hoc basis or build the kind of infrastructure necessary to articulate an alternative on the national level another world is possible but the route to it is collective actionu8e28094and without sustainable organization effective collective action is impossible the rulers of the world would love for us to remain ineffective and confined to small radical or activist u8e2809cscenesu8e2809d but one of the many important tasks of sds should be to help break the student wing of the movement out of this impasse this entails not railing at other groups for not being radical enough or being what we consider more authoritarian but building bases and coalitions providing a vision of how to move forward and using concrete effective tactics that put this vision into practice what we have encountered on our campuses is not a sense of apathy but of disillusionment people care about the world they live in and once again believe that a better world is possible but they also feel powerless to change it by effective organizing we can show people their own power each campus and location is different and organizing must accordingly take a different form at each in order to be relevant and effective however many policies such as the iraq war or the corporatization of the university are national in scope and an effective opposition to them must be articulated on this level while many national organizations have historically been too centralized which we should be on guard against representative institutions and centralization are not inherently negative an accurate sense of the state of the campuses and the possibilities for organizing can only come from actual attempts to organize on various campuses across the country not any abstract analysis centralizing and disseminating this information will help allow all chapters to grow by more equitably distributing our shared experiences instead of chapters being thought of as the local units of a national organization the national and regional organization should be conceived of as a tool to help develop chapters effectively their role should be to facilitate the sharing of experiences and skills make sure no chapter is isolated and articulate a strategy and analysis on the national levelu8e28094both coming out of and being put into practice by the local chapters building a national organization would also allow us to make leadership accountable and develop the leadership capacities of all members in any group there are differences in political education articulateness confidence available time experience etc in an unstructured national network such as sds this means the emergence of an ad-hoc effective leadership of those who talk to the press and coordinate among chaptersu8e28094a process perhaps best described by 2nd-wave feminist jo freeman in her essay on the u8e2809ctyranny of structurelessnessu8e2809d refusing to build a national organization doesnu8e28099t mean that hierarchy and divisions will somehow be abolished; it means that there is no institutionalized way to choose develop and make accountable the leaders who do emergeu8e28094thus far mostly white males democracy in practice if we return to the greek u8e2809cdemocracyu8e2809d literally means something like u8e2809crule of the peopleu8e2809d but in popular discourse u8e2809cdemocracyu8e2809d has been defined in terms of a procedure competitive fair elections thus we get u8e2809crepresentative democracyu8e2809d a phenomenon that is neither genuinely representative nor democratic we believe that students for a democratic society should stand for an alternate participatory conception of democracy this is an understanding of democracy as a practice not a procedure people democratically making the decisions and structures that affect their lives such a vision will be difficult to implement in a large complex society however we think it betrays a distinct lack of confidence in this vision of participatory democracy to forsake building a national structure for sds if we canu8e28099t build an organization that genuinely embodies participatory democracy among a network of thousands of people committed to the idea how can we seriously propose participatory democracy as a workable model for even a small city or neighborhood we believe that one of the tasks of sds is to explore a different way of organizing society and provide an example of a new world within the shell of the old any constitution adopted should be viewed only as an outline within which such an experiment in bottom-up democracy can occur its true nature will appear in its interpretation in practice endorsers matt wasserman reed college sds adam sanchez lewis & clark college sds brian kelly pace university sds pat korte new school sds robin blanc reed college sds babken dergrigorian ucla sds to endorse this statement send your information to adam lclark edu posted by adam sanchez on march 27 2007 organizers manual '),(1408,'left forum',' left forum '),(1409,'left forum 2006',' left forum 2006 '),(1410,'left forum 2007',' left forum 2007 '),(1411,'next left notes',' next left notes nln is an independent publication that is fiercely new left and anti-authoritarian unlike the corporate press which claims no bias really we wear our bias on our collective sleeves we are for participatory democracy and direct action like the magazine that inspired nln - new left notes voice of sds in the 1960s - our political persuasion is simple let the people decide our role in the movement for a democratic society is to cover the new left actions conferences and all other aspects of the struggle weu8e28099ll see you in the streets editorial staff editorial staff editorial staff thomas good is the editor of nln he started the project in 2004 when he was an organizer with the direct action tendency a lifelong new leftist he helped re-member students for a democratic society - along with alan haber pat korte jessica rapchik and paul buhle nln is now an unofficial organ of sds mds after the sds 2006 national convention nln expanded - forming an editorial collective that includes paul buhle longtime editor of radical america and a member of sds mds works on several sds projects including the radical education project paul is a senior lecturer in american civilization at brown university in providence ri he feels that madison wisconsin is the center of the universe clearly he has never spent time in ann arbor pb is a senior contributing editor at nln alison van doren is an organizer with the university of central florida ucf sds in orlando ali is a contributing editor at next left notes and very active in her sds chapter which is one of the busiest in the us brian kelly is an organizer with sds pace university and an active member of sds nyc he is often found at the root of the problem and is a contributing editor at nln jay jurie is an associate professor of public administration and faculty advisor to the sds chapter at the university of central florida not surprisingly he advocates for fundamental social change jay is a contributing editor millicent hadjivassiliou and patrick edelbacher are organizers with tacoma sds they publish an sds zine in washington state and are contributing editors to nln phil jasen is an organizer with university of central florida ucf sds one of the most active chapters in the organization phil is the regional organizer for the state of florida and a contributing editor at nln devra morice and kati ketz are the newest members of the nln team bios forthcoming external links external links external links next left notes '),(1412,'oldsds history',' history from the original sds '),(1413,'sds1 history',' the students for a democratic society sds was historically a student activist movement in the united states that was one of the main iconic representations of the country country\'s new left the organization developed and expanded rapidly in the mid-1960s before dissolving at its last convention in 1969 sds was the organizational high point for student radicalism in the united states and has been an important influence on student organizing in the decades since its collapse participatory democracy direct action radicalism student power shoestring budgets and its organizational structure are all present in varying degrees in current national student activist groups though various organizations have been formed in subsequent years as proposed national networks for left-wing student organizing none has approached the scale of sds and most have lasted a few years at best origins origins origins the students for a democratic society developed from the youth branch of a socialist educational organization known as the league for industrial democracy lid which descended from the intercollegiate socialist society started in 1905 sds held its first meeting in 1960 at ann arbor michigan where robert alan haber was elected president its political manifesto known as the sds1 port huron statement port huron statement was adopted at the organization organization\'s first convention in 1962 based on an earlier draft by staff member tom hayden this manifesto criticized the political system of the united states for failing to achieve international peace and for failing to address social ills in contemporary society it also advocated non-violent civil disobedience as the means by which student youth could bring forth a participatory democracy at port huron hayden clashed with irving howe and michael harrington over the perceived potential for totalitarianism hayden said while the draft sds1 port huron statement port huron statement included a strong denunciation of the soviet union it wasn\'t enough for lid leaders like michael harrington they wanted absolute clarity for example that the united states was blameless for the nuclear arms race in truth they seemed threatened by the independence of the new wave of student activism early years 1962u8e280931965 early years 1962u8e280931965 early years 1962u8e280931965 in the academic year 1962-1963 the president was tom hayden the vice president was paul booth sds activist paul booth and the national secretary was jim monsonis there were nine chapters with at most about 1000 members the national office no in new york city consisted of a few desks some broken chairs a couple of file cabinets and a few typewriters as student group with a strong belief in decentralization and a distrust for most organization the sds did not have a strong central bureaucracy the three stalwarts at the office don mckelvey steve max and national secretary jim monsonis worked long hours for little pay to service the local chapters and to help establish new ones procedures and methods were experimental even during the cuban missile crisis in october little could be accomplished most activity was oriented toward civil rights issues and the student nonviolent coordinating committee played a key role in inspiring sds by the end of the school year there were over 200 delegates at the annual convention at pine hill new york from 32 different colleges and universities it was then decided to give more power to the chapters who would then send delegates to the national council nc which would meet quarterly to handle the on-going activities also in the spirit of participatory democracy a consensus was reached to elect new officers each year lee webb of boston university was chosen as national secretary and todd gitlin of harvard university was made president some continuity was preserved by retaining paul booth as vice president the search began for something to challenge the idealistic budding activists it was at this time that the black power movement was first gaining some momentum although stokely carmichael would make the movement more mainstream in 1966 the movement made it impolitic for white activists such as those in sds to presume to lead protests for black civil rights instead sds would try to organize white unemployed youths through a newly established program they called the economic research and action project erap this into the ghetto move failed miserably at first but at least it was doing something and many young idealists were drawn to sds because of it at the summer convention in 1964 there was a split between those who were campus oriented and the erap supporters most of the old guard were erap supporters but the campus activists were growing paul potter was elected president and by the end of summer there were ten erap programs in place with about 125 student volunteers c clark kissinger of shimer college in illinois was elected as national secretary and he put the no on a much more business-like basis he and his assistant helen garvey mailed out the literature list the newsletters and the news of chapter chapter\'s activities to a growing membership list kissinger also worked to smooth the relationship with the lid a small faction of sds that was interested in change through conventional electoral politics established a program called the political education project pep this was never very large and it was opposed by the mainstream sdsers who were mostly opposed to such traditional old fashioned activity and were looking for something new that worked the johnson landslide victory in november played its part as well and pep soon withered away a peace research and education project prep met a similar fate meanwhile the local chapters got into all sorts of projects from university reform community-university relations and now in a small way the issue of the conscription draft and vietnam then on october 1 the university of california berkeley exploded into the dramatic and prolonged agony that was the free speech movement led by a charismatic friends of student nonviolent coordinating committee sncc student activist named mario savio upwards of three thousand students surrounded a police car in which a student arrested for setting up a card table in defiance of a ban by the university was being taken away the sit-down prevented the police car from moving for 36 hours the demonstrations meetings and strikes that resulted all but shut the university down hundreds of students were arrested the pundits analyzed and the establishment foundered with incomprehension future sds members all over the country watched and learned from protest to resistance 1965u8e280931968 from protest to resistance 1965u8e280931968 from protest to resistance 1965u8e280931968 image join sds jpg frame left a volunteer takes on new members in february of 1965 united states president lyndon johnson dramatically escalated the war in vietnam by bombing north vietnam and introducing ground troops directly involved in fighting the viet cong in the south prior to this there had been 23 000 advisers in vietnam the draft became a very real factor in the lives of students in america campus chapters of sds all over the country started to lead small localized demonstrations against the war and the no became the focal group that organized the march against the war in washington on april 17 endorsements came from nearly all of the other peace groups and leading personalities there was significant increase in income and by the end of march there were 52 chapters the media began to cover the organization and the new left however the call for the march and the openness of the organization in allowing other groups even communism communist front groups or communists themselves to join in caused great strains with the lid and some other old left organizations the first teach-in against the war was held in the university of michigan soon hundreds more all over the country were held the demonstration in washington dc attracted about 25 000 anti-war protesters and sds became the leading student group against the war on most u s campuses representing its move into the heartland the 1965 summer convention was held at kewadin a small camp in northern michigan moreover its national office which was previously located in manhattan was moved to chicago at about the same time the rapid growth of the membership during the preceding year brought with it a new breed with a new style for the first time at an sds meeting people smoked marijuana; pancho villa mustaches those droopy westernu8e28091movie addenda that eventually became a new left clichu8c3a9 made their first appearance in quantity; blue workshirts denim jackets and boots were worn by both men and women these were people generally raised outside of the east many from the midwest and southwest and their ruralistic dress reflected a different tradition one more aligned to the frontier more violent more individualistic more bareu8e28091knuckled and callusu8e28091handed than that of the early sdsers they were nonu8e28091jewish nonintellectual nonurban from a nonprofessional class and often without any family tradition of political involvement much less radicalism they tended to be not only ignorant of the history of the left and its current halfu8e28091life in new york city but downright uninterested the convention elected an akron ohio student carl oglesby president and jeff shero vice president the convention voted to remove the anti-communism anti-communist exclusion clauses from the sds constitution declined to provide for any national program and increased the reliance on local initiatives at the chapters as a result the national office office\'s leadership fell into ineffectual chaos nationally the sds continued to use the draft as an important issue for students and over the rest of the academic year began to attack university complicity in it as the universities had begun to supply student student\'s class rankings used to determine who was to be drafted the university of chicago chicago\'s administration building was taken over in a three day sit-in in may rank protests and sit-ins spread to many other universities in december 1965 long-time sds members held a conference at the university of illinois at champaign-urbana the most important initial goal of that conference was to educate the roughly 30 000 new sds members who had joined because of sds sds\'s antiwar campaign this element of the conference was largely unsuccessful however this conference led to a major discussion of a paper submitted to the conference sex and caste by casey hayden and mary king two long-time civil rights activists ultimately many women left the main discussion and devoted hours to reviewing and discussing hayden and king king\'s memorandum voicing their complaints about being exploited for labor and sex as mothers and women activists and organizers discontent with sexism in the movement would continue and lead to the women women\'s liberation women women\'s liberation movement by 1967-68 the summer convention of 1966 was moved even farther west this time to clear lake iowa clear lake iowa the prairie people continued to increase their influence nick egleson was chosen as president and carl davidson was elected vice president greg calvert recently a history instructor at iowa state university was chosen as national secretary it was at this convention that members of progressive labor party pl began to make their presence known for the first time entry by progressive labor entry by progressive labor entry by progressive labor progressive labor was an offshoot of the communist party of the united states of america cpusa it had split from the cpusa in 1961 over its orientation toward the communist party of the soviet union and soviet premier nikita khruschev it took up the line of the communist party of china china\'s chairman mao zedong condemning the soviet leadership as revisionist the official ideological direction of pl and other pro-china forces of the time was that of marxism-leninism-mao zedong thought not maoism the youth wing of pl the may 2 movement was by 1964 able to organize anti-vietnam war rallies but had difficulty organizing campus clubs the may 2 movement was thus dissolved and members moved toward sds the old left inclination of the pl members who entered sds which rejected the growing youth counterculture forbidding drugs pre-marital sex and compulsory heterosexual lifestyle pushed them into stark relief with the rest of sds their discipline and anti-capitalist militancy did however make a distinct impact on sds as a whole a number of sds\'ers joined in pl-supported efforts to build in the labor movement even if they did not join pl itself rebellions on the campuses rebellions on the campuses rebellions on the campuses the 1966 convention also marked an even greater turn towards organization around campus issues by local chapters with the no cast in a strictly supporting role campus issues ranged from bad food powerless student governments various in loco parentis manifestations on campus recruiting for the military and again ranking for the draft campuses around the country were in a state of unprecedented ferment and activism despite the absence of a politically effective campus sds chapter berkeley again became a center of particularly dramatic radical upheaval over the university university\'s repressive anti-free-speech actions and an effective student strike with very wide support occurred even harvard endured an upheaval engendered by a visit there of secretary of defense robert mcnamara the winter and spring of 1967 saw an escalation of the militancy of the protests at many campuses sdsers and self-styled radicals were even elected into the student government at a few places demonstrations against dow chemical company and other campus recruiters were widespread and ranking and the draft issues grew in scale the federal bureau of investigation fbi mainly through its secret cointelpro and other law enforcement agencies were often exposed as having spies and informers in the chapters harassment by the authorities was also on the rise the no became distinctly more effective in this period and the three officers actually visited most of the chapters as well new left notes became a potent vehicle for promoting some coherence and solidarity among the chapters the anti-war movement really began to take hold among university students national convention 1967 national convention 1967 national convention 1967 the 1967 convention took an egalitarianism egalitarian turn by eliminating the presidential and vice-presidential offices and replacing them with a national secretary 20 year old mike spiegel an education secretary texan bob pardun and an interu8e28091organizational secretary former vp carl davidson a clear direction for a national program was not set but they did manage to pass strong resolutions on the draft resistance within the army itself and they made a call for immediate withdrawal from vietnam in addition a women women\'s liberation resolution on the issue of male chauvinism was passed by conference attendees for the first time however the resolution left many members disappointed not only because it was watered-down by amendments but because the debate was punctuated by hoots and catcalls adding insult to injury the resolution was printed in sds sds\'s new left notes alongside a cartoon of a young woman with earings polkadot minidress and matching visible panties gitlin p 371; evans pp 190-92 nln 7 10 67 by august 1967 what became the women women\'s liberation women women\'s liberation movement was forming through regular meetings held in women women\'s apartments that fall saw a great escalation of the anti-war actions of the new left the school year started with a large demonstration against university complicity in the war in allowing dow recruiters on campus at the university of wisconsin in madison on october 17 peaceful at first the demonstrations turned to a sit-in that was violently dispersed by the madison police and riot squad resulting in many injuries and arrests a mass rally and a student strike then closed the university for several days a coordinated series of demonstrations against the draft led by members of the resistance the war resisters league and sds added fuel to the fire of resistance after conventional civil rights tactics of peaceful pickets seemed to have failed the oakland california stop the draft week ended in mass hit and run skirmishes with the police the huge 100 000 people october 21 march on the pentagon saw hundreds arrested and injured night-time raids on draft offices began to spread climax and disintegration 1968u8e280931969 climax and disintegration 1968u8e280931969 climax and disintegration 1968u8e280931969 in the spring of 1968 national sds activists led an effort on the campuses called ten days of resistance and local chapters cooperated with the student mobilization committee in rallies marches sit-ins and teach-ins which culminated in a one-day strike on april 26 about a million students stayed away from classes that day the largest ever student strike in the history of the united states it was largely ignored by the new york city-based national media which was intensely focused on the student shutdown of columbia university in nyc which was led by an inter-racial alliance of columbia sds chapter activists and student afro society activists as a result of the mass media publicity given to columbia sds activists such as columbia sds chairperson mark rudd during the columbia student revolt sds was put on the map politically and sds became a household name in the united states for a few years; and membership in sds chapters around the united states increased dramatically during the 1968-69 academic year sds members from austin texas participated in a mass demonstration in san antonio texas in april of 1969 at the kings river parade san antonio sncc members called the demonstration to protest the killing of bobby joe phillips by san antonio police officers 1969 convention chicago 1969 convention chicago 1969 convention chicago sdsoustsplp thumbnail 200px right cover of the guardian newspaper covering the ejection of progressive labor at the 1969 convention in chicago at the time the belief was that sds continue without the plp; in truth it broke up in the summer of 1969 the ninth sds national convention was held at the chicago coliseum with some 2000 people attending many factions of the movement were actually present and set up their literature tables all around the edges of the cavernous hall the young socialist alliance industrial workers of the world spartacist league marxists and marxist-leninists of various sorts all together with various law-enforcement spies and informers contributed to the air of impending expectations each of the delegates were given the convention issue of new left notes which contained a manifesto you don\'t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows this manifesto had been first presented at the spring 1969 sds national council meeting in austin texas the document had been written by an eleven-member committee that included mark rudd bernardine dohrn and john jacobs the convention quickly fell into disarray as two equally matched main factions emerged the progressive labor-led worker student alliance faction and the revolutionary youth movement rym at the convention the two factions represented the two main poles of a number of political disputes over the direction of sds many of which had began to come to a head the prior year principally the two factions held contradictory positions on the question of national liberation and black liberation in the prelude to the convention progressive labor published the poemic revolutionaries must fight nationalism in its magazine the polemic condemned the vietnamese liberation struggle as bourgeois and revisionist ; this was taken as a betrayal of the idea of national liberation against imperialist forces the polemic also condemned a number of black revolutionaries including robert f williams malcolm x and amiri baraka then still known as leroi jones and the entire black panther party -- figures admired if not influential on several of the individuals in rym this was taken as chauvinist if not outright racist by the rym forces see also white blindspot by ted allen a rym supporter for elements of what was to be the rym position against pl the split between rym and the pl-led wsa was to become cause for a split on the floor of the convention the revolutionary youth movement was to be flanked by the black panther party young lords party and brown berets in the prelude to the split a well-known incident on the floor of the convention would see a black panther reputedly chaka walls of the illinois branch endorse the idea of pussy power allegedly stating that a woman woman\'s position in the movement was prone leading pl to capitalize off the incident a cooling off period in which rym which included the national office and several other influential figures in sds and the pl-led wsa forces caucused among themselves returning from the caucuses bernadine dohrn announced that pl was to be expelled the rym itself would not last long; a marriage of convenience among various forces opposed to pl it would itself split former sds\'ers after 1969 former sds\'ers after 1969 former sds\'ers after 1969 a few early sds leaders went on to careers as democratic party politicians including tom hayden who is still active in politics and writing hayden is a former member of the california state senate and is well-known as the former husband of actress jane fonda a prolific author and a former candidate for offices such as governor of california mayor of los angeles and united states senator the pl-led worker student alliance operated a rump version of sds past 1969 in concert with a number of smaller organizations the rym divided in their own ranks after the 1969 national convention were both unable and unwilling to continue operating sds as it had for the past decade national office members who had access to sds sds\'s resources seized them wary of allowing them into the hands of pl rym rym\'s divisions split the organization into two factions the first rym i would become weatherman then weather underground organization wuo having eclectic influences it would gain notoriety through its profession of urban armed struggle through a string of bombings throughout the 1970 1970\'s the wuo built a political front the prairie fire organizing committee in 1975; the organization is still active if lesser known than its since-dissolved sponsor the second splinter of rym rym ii had within it a number of factions which would go in a number of different directions in the subsequent decades and gave rise to a number of groups the largest splinter the bay area revolutionary union baru would continue growing to become the revolutionary union ru the ru later split between the revolutionary communist party rcp and the revolutionary workers headquarters rwhq the former still exists under the same name today; the latter would merge with other rym ii-descended organizations the proletarian unity league organization for revolutionary unity and amilcar cabral-paul robeson collective and organizations composed of rym ii allies of the oppressed nationality milieu such as the socialist organizing network to form freedom road socialist organization another splinter was the october league the league then became the communist party marxist-leninist cpml this party had the distinction of winning the franchise -- official recognition as a fraternal party of the communist party of china a small but influential group of rym ii vets was the sojourner truth organization sto whose members included noel ignatiev formerly ignatin and theodore ted allen the sto sto\'s anti-racism and development of the concept of white-skin privilege became influential over not only marxists but anarchists in the love and rage network federation revival 2006u8e28093present revival 2006u8e28093present revival 2006u8e28093present image sds ucf bush jpg right thumb 200px university of central florida sds members demonstrate during a speech by governor jeb bush beginning january 2006 a movement to revive the sds took shape a small group of sds veterans robert alan haber tom good paul buhle have joined with a connecticut high school student pat korte to call for a new formation of sds in response to the lack of a multi-issue organization capable of fighting for civil rights and against war several chapters at various colleges were subsequently formed on martin luther king day of 2006 these chapters banded together to issue a press release that stated their intentions to reform the national sds organization in the press release the sds called for the organization organization\'s first national convention since 1969 to be held in the summer of 2006 and to have it preceded by a series of regional conferences occurring during the memorial day weekend these regional conferences would not also be the first of their kind to be held since 1969 however as on april 23 2006 the sds held a northeast regional conference at brown university since its revival sds has organized and participated in numerous actions against the iraq war and made clear its opposition to any possible military action against iran by the us the pace university chapter of sds protested against a speech by bill clinton held at the university university\'s pleasantville campus prompting the university to hand over two students lauren giaccone and brian kelly to the united states secret service after the threatened expulsion of the two protesters pace sds began a movement in march 2006 protesting the university university\'s actions on march 19 2006 the anniversary of the invasion of iraq by the us sds co-sponsored a march in new york city against the war seventeen people were arrested at the times square recruitment center including several sds members on march 28 2006 the new school university sds chapter joined other new york sdsers to support the french students fighting the first employment contract and released a statement of solidarity beginning in march and continuing into april and may sds chapters across the country participated in the immigrant rights movement on april 29 2006 sds composed a large portion of the anti-authoritarian bloc at march for peace justice and democracy in manhattan ny the march was sponsored by united for peace and justice in the spring of 2006 several sds chapters launched a campaign called harass the brass the campaign calls for sds chapters across the country to declare war on war as of july 2006 there were 150 sds chapters located around the country and over 1000 members the newly formed sds held its first national convention from august 4 to august 7 2006 at the university of chicago on january 27 2007 sds participated in a large january 27 2007 anti-war protest anti-war protest in washington d c as part of an autonomous bloc that fluctuated between 300-1000 participants charging the steps of the capitol building twice and engaging in a direct action march through city streets the first time the bloc was capable of breaking through several lines of police and members were broken free from arrest the second charge made it to the front steps of the capitol resulting in tension between police and demonstrators on march 12 2007 one week before the anniversary of the invasion of iraq by the us the new school chapter of sds held a campus moratorium against the iraq war students left classes and proceeded down 5th avenue to the chambers street military recruitment center where they met with the pace university chapter of sds the students rushed the recruitment center barricaded the door and held a sit-in effectively closing the recruitment center for about two hours twenty members of sds were arrested and charged with criminal tresspassing a misdemeanor on march 17 2007 sds groups from across the country met and participated in the march 17 2007 anti-war protest march on the pentagon in which the sds contingent along with allies occupied a bridge near the pentagon at least two were arrested on march 20 2007 83 sds chapters from around the country held coordinated actions against the iraq war popular culture popular culture popular culture in the movie forrest gump a small reference to sds from berkeley when forrest was out of vietnam receiving his congressional medal of honor jenny jenny\'s current boyfriend wesley was part of sds the 2007 film across the universe makes many references to sds logos slogans posters and tactics the april 1968 columbia university takeover is recreated with meticulous detail and the march 6 1970 11th st townhouse bomb-making accident is aluded to unmistakably further reading further reading further reading archives students for a democratic society s d s records 1965-74 may 4 collection -- box 107 kent state university libraries and media services department of special collections and archives online guide retrieved april 12 2005 students for a democratic society period 1962-1970 period 1962-1970 total size 0 5 m international institute of social history online guide retrieved april 12 2005 articles articles articles alper mark the legacy of s d s and its relevance to today today\'s activists electronic worker direct action tendency socialist party usa retrieved april 12 2005 murray bookchin bookchin murray anarchy and organization a letter to the left reprinted from new left notes january 15 1969 retrieved april 12 2005 the essay originally was written in reply to an attack by huey newton on anarchist forms of organization maines billy second coming the infamous sds is back and now it it\'s local orlando weekley november 23 2006 new sds new sds new sds knight alexander the rebirth of students for a democratic society sds monthly review mrzine august 9 2006 christopher phelps phelps christopher the new sds the nation 16 april 2007 the students are stirring a campus antiwar movement begins to make its mark mrzine interview on sds sds\'s march 20 day of student action against the war with unc-asheville sds member kati ketz sds march 20 national day of action thousands of students walk out take to streets article on march 20 day of action from fight back news books and references books and references books and references adelson alan sds new york charles scribener scribener\'s sons 1972 isbn 0-684-12393-2 evans sara personal politics the roots of women women\'s liberation in the civil rights movement and the new left new york knopf publishing 1980 isbn 0-394-74228-1 gitlin todd sixties years of hope days of rage new york bantam 1987 isbn 0-553-34601-6 heath g louis ed vandals in the bomb factory the history and literature of the students for a democratic society metuchin n j scarecrow press 1976 halstead fred out now a participant participant\'s account of the movement in the united states against the vietnam war 759 pages hardcover edition publisher anchor foundation; reprint edition june 1 1978 isbn 0-913460-47-8 rebecca e klatch klatch rebecca e a generation divided the new left the new right and the 1960s berkeley university of california press 1999 pardun robert prairie radical a journey through the sixties shire press august 1 2001 376 pages isbn 0-918828-20-1 sds publications sds publications sds publications davidson carl toward a student syndicalist movement or university reform revisited chicago students for a democratic society ca 1967 mimeographed 7 p david gilbert gilbert david and david loud u s imperialism chicago students for a democratic society 1968 wraps 33 p haber al and dick flacks peace power and the university prepared for students for a democratic society and the peace research and education project ann arbor peace research and education project 1963 mimeographed 12 p james mike getting ready for the firing line join community union chicago students for a democratic society march 1968 stapled softcover 8p photos by nancy hollander tom malear of the chicago film coop todd gitlin & les jordan scef reprinted from the activist spring 1967 introduction for this pamphlet by mike james lemisch jessie towards a democratic history ann arbor & chicago radical education project students for a democratic society 1967 radical education project occasional paper 8 p staughton lynd lynd staughton the new radicals and participatory democracy chicago students for a democratic society 1965 10 p carl oglesby oglesby carl the speech given by carl oglesby president students for a democratic society at the nov 27 1965 march on washington to end the war in vietnam chicago students for a democratic society ca 1965 8 1 2 x 11 in mimeographed 8 p olinick michael the campus press distributed by students for a democratic society for the liberal study group national student association 1962 13 p oppenheimer martin alienation or participation the sociology of participatory democracy n p students of a democratic society s d s 1966 7 pages 1st edition stapled booklet students for a democratic society s d s fight racism boston students for a democratic society n d 1969 28pp 1st edition stapled softcover students for a democratic society new left notes chicago vol 1 # 1 1965 - vol 4 # 31 october 2 1969 students for a democratic society progressive labor sds new left notes vol 5 no 15 july 6 1970 - boston 1970 u s government publications u s government publications u s government publications u s house of representatives investigation of students for a democratic society part 2 kent state university hearings before the committee on internal security house of representatives; 91st congress 2nd session june 24 and 25 1969 washington u s government printing office 1969 u s house of representatives investigation of students for a democratic society part 3-a george washington university ; hearings before the committee on internal security house of representatives; 91st congress 2nd session july 22 1969 washington u s government printing office 1969 u s house of representatives student views toward u s policy in southeast asia; hearings before an ad hoc committee of members of the house of representatives; 91st congress 2nd session july 22 1969 washington u s government printng office 1969 u s president commission on campus unrest report this publication is often referred to as the scranton report issued in 1970 external links external links external links radical education project sds and weather underground documents compiled by next left notes a journal edited by several former and current sds members sds historical documents and other links shut it down includes port huron statement sds the last hurrah an account of chicago 1969 written by an undercover federal agent and the revolutionary youth movement mission statement university of washington libraries digital collections - vietnam era ephemera this collection contains leaflets and newspapers that were distributed on the university of washington campus during the decades of the 1960s and 1970s they reflect the social environment and political activities of the youth movement in seattle during that period new sds new sds new sds national sds home page the organizer - national sds blog national sds web forum list of sds chapters us sds march 20 day of action '),(1414,'sds1 port huron statement',' although tom hayden drafted the port huron statement as indicated in the introductory note the student discussed it extensively over several days and amended hayden hayden\'s draft many times the most serious controversies actually involved older men that were not students including michael harrington and the leadership of the league for industrial democracy sds sds\'s parent organization despite what the introductory note states the statement was actually adopted by a vote of the convention on june 16 1962 because the june 15 session stretched all night and well past sunrise related topics influences on the port huron statement immediate reaction to the port huron statement significance of the port huron statement publication history the port huron statement of the students for a democratic society the port huron statement of the students for a democratic society the port huron statement of the students for a democratic society table of contents introductory note this document represents the results of several months of writing and discussion among the membership a draft paper and revision by the students for a democratic society national convention meeting in port huron michigan june 11-15 1962 it is represented as a document with which sds officially identifies but also as a living document open to change with our times and experiences it is a beginning in our own debate and education in our dialogue with society published and distributed by students for a democratic society 112 east 19 street new york 3 new york gramercy 3-2181 introduction agenda for a generation we are people of this generation bred in at least modest comfort housed now in universities looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit when we were kids the united states was the wealthiest and strongest country in the world the only one with the atom bomb the least scarred by modern war an initiator of the united nations that we thought would distribute western influence throughout the world freedom and equality for each individual government of by and for the people -- these american values we found good principles by which we could live as men many of us began maturing in complacency as we grew however our comfort was penetrated by events too troubling to dismiss first the permeating and victimizing fact of human degradation symbolized by the southern struggle against racial bigotry compelled most of us from silence to activism second the enclosing fact of the cold war symbolized by the presence of the bomb brought awareness that we ourselves and our friends and millions of abstract others we knew more directly because of our common peril might die at any time we might deliberately ignore or avoid or fail to feel all other human problems but not these two for these were too immediate and crushing in their impact too challenging in the demand that we as individuals take the responsibility for encounter and resolution while these and other problems either directly oppressed us or rankled our consciences and became our own subjective concerns we began to see complicated and disturbing paradoxes in our surrounding america the declaration all men are created equal rang hollow before the facts of negro life in the south and the big cities of the north the proclaimed peaceful intentions of the united states contradicted its economic and military investments in the cold war status quo we witnessed and continue to witness other paradoxes with nuclear energy whole cities can easily be powered yet the dominant nationstates seem more likely to unleash destruction greater than that incurred in all wars of human history although our own technology is destroying old and creating new forms of social organization men still tolerate meaningless work and idleness while two-thirds of mankind suffers undernourishment our own upper classes revel amidst superfluous abundance although world population is expected to double in forty years the nations still tolerate anarchy as a major principle of international conduct and uncontrolled exploitation governs the sapping of the earth earth\'s physical resources although mankind desperately needs revolutionary leadership america rests in national stalemate its goals ambiguous and tradition-bound instead of informed and clear its democratic system apathetic and manipulated rather than of by and for the people not only did tarnish appear on our image of american virtue not only did disillusion occur when the hypocrisy of american ideals was discovered but we began to sense that what we had originally seen as the american golden age was actually the decline of an era the worldwide outbreak of revolution against colonialism and imperialism the entrenchment of totalitarian states the menace of war overpopulation international disorder supertechnology -- these trends were testing the tenacity of our own commitment to democracy and freedom and our abilities to visualize their application to a world in upheaval our work is guided by the sense that we may be the last generation in the experiment with living but we are a minority -- the vast majority of our people regard the temporary equilibriums of our society and world as eternally-functional parts in this is perhaps the outstanding paradox we ourselves are imbued with urgency yet the message of our society is that there is no viable alternative to the present beneath the reassuring tones of the politicians beneath the common opinion that america will muddle through beneath the stagnation of those who have closed their minds to the future is the pervading feeling that there simply are no alternatives that our times have witnessed the exhaustion not only of utopias but of any new departures as well feeling the press of complexity upon the emptiness of life people are fearful of the thought that at any moment things might thrust out of control they fear change itself since change might smash whatever invisible framework seems to hold back chaos for them now for most americans all crusades are suspect threatening the fact that each individual sees apathy in his fellows perpetuates the common reluctance to organize for change the dominant institutions are complex enough to blunt the minds of their potential critics and entrenched enough to swiftly dissipate or entirely repel the energies of protest and reform thus limiting human expectancies then too we are a materially improved society and by our own improvements we seem to have weakened the case for further change some would have us believe that americans feel contentment amidst prosperity -- but might it not better be called a glaze above deeplyfelt anxieties about their role in the new world and if these anxieties produce a developed indifference to human affairs do they not as well produce a yearning to believe there is an alternative to the present that something can be done to change circumstances in the school the workplaces the bureaucracies the government it is to this latter yearning at once the spark and engine of change that we direct our present appeal the search for truly democratic alternatives to the present and a commitment to social experimentation with them is a worthy and fulfilling human enterprise one which moves us and we hope others today on such a basis do we offer this document of our convictions and analysis as an effort in understanding and changing the conditions of humanity in the late twentieth century an effort rooted in the ancient still unfulfilled conception of man attaining determining influence over his circumstances of life values making values explicit -- an initial task in establishing alternatives - is an activity that has been devalued and corrupted the conventional moral terms of the age the politician moralities -- free world people people\'s democracies -- reflect realities poorly if at all and seem to function more as ruling myths than as descriptive principles but neither has our experience in the universities brought as moral enlightenment our professors and administrators sacrifice controversy to public relations; their curriculums change more slowly than the living events of the world; their skills and silence are purchased by investors in the arms race; passion is called unscholastic the questions we might want raised -- what is really important can we live in a different and better way if we wanted to change society how would we do it -- are not thought to be questions of a fruitful empirical nature and thus are brushed aside unlike youth in other countries we are used to moral leadership being exercised and moral dimensions being clarified by our elders but today for us not even the liberal and socialist preachments of the past seem adequate to the forms of the present consider the old slogans; capitalism cannot reform itself united front against fascism general strike all out on may day or more recently no cooperation with commies and fellow travellers ideologies are exhausted bipartisanship no utopias these are incomplete and there are few new prophets it has been said that our liberal and socialist predecessors were plagued by vision without program while our own generation is plagued by program without vision all around us there is astute grasp of method technique -- the committee the ad hoc group the lobbyist that hard and soft sell the make the projected image -- but if pressed critically such expertise is incompetent to explain its implicit ideals it is highly fashionable to identify oneself by old categories or by naming a respected political figure or by explaining how we would vote on various issues theoretic chaos has replaced the idealistic thinking of old -- and unable to reconstitute theoretic order men have condemned idealism itself doubt has replaced hopefulness -- and men act out a defeatism that is labeled realistic the decline of utopia and hope is in fact one of the defining features of social life today the reasons are various the dreams of the older left were perverted by stalinism and never recreated; the congressional stalemate makes men narrow their view of the possible; the specialization of human activity leaves little room for sweeping thought; the horrors of the twentieth century symbolized in the gas-ovens and concentration camps and atom bombs have blasted hopefulness to be idealistic is to be considered apocalyptic deluded to have no serious aspirations on the contrary is to be toughminded in suggesting social goals and values therefore we are aware of entering a sphere of some disrepute perhaps matured by the past we have no sure formulas no closed theories -- but that does not mean values are beyond discussion and tentative determination a first task of any social movement is to convenience people that the search for orienting theories and the creation of human values is complex but worthwhile we are aware that to avoid platitudes we must analyze the concrete conditions of social order but to direct such an analysis we must use the guideposts of basic principles our own social values involve conceptions of human beings human relationships and social systems we regard men as infinitely precious and possessed of unfulfilled capacities for reason freedom and love in affirming these principles we are aware of countering perhaps the dominant conceptions of man in the twentieth century that he is a thing to be manipulated and that he is inherently incapable of directing his own affairs we oppose the depersonalization that reduces human beings to the status of things -- if anything the brutalities of the twentieth century teach that means and ends are intimately related that vague appeals to posterity cannot justify the mutilations of the present we oppose too the doctrine of human incompetence because it rests essentially on the modern fact that men have been competently manipulated into incompetence -- we see little reason why men cannot meet with increasing skill the complexities and responsibilities of their situation if society is organized not for minority but for majority participation in decision-making men have unrealized potential for self-cultivation self-direction self-understanding and creativity it is this potential that we regard as crucial and to which we appeal not to the human potentiality for violence unreason and submission to authority the goal of man and society should be human independence a concern not with image of popularity but with finding a meaning in life that is personally authentic a quality of mind not compulsively driven by a sense of powerlessness nor one which unthinkingly adopts status values nor one which represses all threats to its habits but one which has full spontaneous access to present and past experiences one which easily unites the fragmented parts of personal history one which openly faces problems which are troubling and unresolved one with an intuitive awareness of possibilities an active sense of curiosity an ability and willingness to learn this kind of independence does not mean egoistic individualism -- the object is not to have one one\'s way so much as it is to have a way that is one one\'s own nor do we deify man -- we merely have faith in his potential human relationships should involve fraternity and honesty human interdependence is contemporary fact; human brotherhood must be willed however as a condition of future survival and as the most appropriate form of social relations personal links between man and man are needed especially to go beyond the partial and fragmentary bonds of function that bind men only as worker to worker employer to employee teacher to student american to russian loneliness estrangement isolation describe the vast distance between man and man today these dominant tendencies cannot be overcome by better personnel management nor by improved gadgets but only when a love of man overcomes the idolatrous worship of things by man as the individualism we affirm is not egoism the selflessness we affirm is not self-elimination on the contrary we believe in generosity of a kind that imprints one one\'s unique individual qualities in the relation to other men and to all human activity further to dislike isolation is not to favor the abolition of privacy; the latter differs from isolation in that it occurs or is abolished according to individual will finally we would replace power and personal uniqueness rooted in possession privilege or circumstance by power and uniqueness rooted in love reflectiveness reason and creativity as a social system we seek the establishment of a democracy of individual participation governed by two central aims that the individual share in those social decisions determining the quality and direction of his life; that society be organized to encourage independence in men and provide the media for their common participation in a participatory democracy the political life would be based in several root principles that decision-making of basic social consequence be carried on by public groupings; that politics be seen positively as the art of collectively creating an acceptable pattern of social relations; that politics has the function of bringing people out of isolation and into community thus being a necessary though not sufficient means of finding meaning in personal life; that the political order should serve to clarify problems in a way instrumental to their solution; it should provide outlets for the expression of personal grievance and aspiration; opposing views should be organized so as to illuminate choices and facilities the attainment of goals; channels should be commonly available to related men to knowledge and to power so that private problems -- from bad recreation facilities to personal alienation -- are formulated as general issues the economic sphere would have as its basis the principles that work should involve incentives worthier than money or survival it should be educative not stultifying; creative not mechanical; selfdirect not manipulated encouraging independence; a respect for others a sense of dignity and a willingness to accept social responsibility since it is this experience that has crucial influence on habits perceptions and individual ethics; that the economic experience is so personally decisive that the individual must share in its full determination; that the economy itself is of such social importance that its major resources and means of production should be open to democratic participation and subject to democratic social regulation like the political and economic ones major social institutions -- cultural education rehabilitative and others -- should be generally organized with the well-being and dignity of man as the essential measure of success in social change or interchange we find violence to be abhorrent because it requires generally the transformation of the target be it a human being or a community of people into a depersonalized object of hate it is imperative that the means of violence be abolished and the institutions -- local national international -- that encourage nonviolence as a condition of conflict be developed these are our central values in skeletal form it remains vital to understand their denial or attainment in the context of the modern world the students in the last few years thousands of american students demonstrated that they at least felt the urgency of the times they moved actively and directly against racial injustices the threat of war violations of individual rights of conscience and less frequently against economic manipulation they succeeded in restoring a small measure of controversy to the campuses after the stillness of the mccarthy period they succeeded too in gaining some concessions from the people and institutions they opposed especially in the fight against racial bigotry the significance of these scattered movements lies not in their success or failure in gaining objectives -- at least not yet nor does the significance lie in the intellectual competence or maturity of the students involved -- as some pedantic elders allege the significance is in the fact the students are breaking the crust of apathy and overcoming the inner alienation that remain the defining characteristics of american college life if student movements for change are rarities still on the campus scene what is commonplace there the real campus the familiar campus is a place of private people engaged in their notorious inner emigration it is a place of commitment to business-as-usual getting ahead playing it cool it is a place of mass affirmation of the twist but mass reluctance toward the controversial public stance rules are accepted as inevitable bureaucracy as just circumstances irrelevance as scholarship selflessness as martyrdom politics as just another way to make people and an unprofitable one too almost no students value activity as a citizen passive in public they are hardly more idealistic in arranging their private lives gallup concludes they will settle for low success and won\'t risk high failure there is not much willingness to take risks not even in business no setting of dangerous goals no real conception of personal identity except one manufactured in the image of others no real urge for personal fulfillment except to be almost as successful as the very successful people attention is being paid to social status the quality of shirt collars meeting people getting wives or husbands making solid contacts for later on ; much too is paid to academic status grades honors the med school rat-race but neglected generally is real intellectual status the personal cultivation of the mind students don\'t even give a damn about the apathy one has said apathy toward apathy begets a privately-constructed universe a place of systematic study schedules two nights each week for beer a girl or two and early marriage; a framework infused with personality warmth and under control no matter how unsatisfying otherwise under these conditions university life loses all relevance to some four hundred thousand of our classmates leave college every year but apathy is not simply an attitude; it is a product of social institutions and of the structure and organization of higher education itself the extracurricular life is ordered according to in loco parentis theory which ratifies the administration as the moral guardian of the young the accompanying let let\'s pretend theory of student extracurricular affairs validates student government as a training center for those who want to spend their lives in political pretense and discourages initiative from more articulate honest and sensitive students the bounds and style of controversy are delimited before controversy begins the university prepares the student for citizenship through perpetual rehearsals and usually through emasculation of what creative spirit there is in the individual the academic life contains reinforcing counterparts to the way in which extracurricular life is organized the academic world is founded in a teacher-student relation analogous to the parent-child relation which characterizes in loco parentis further academia includes a radical separation of student from the material of study that which is studied the social reality is objectified to sterility dividing the student from life -- just as he is restrained in active involvement by the deans controlling student government the specialization of function and knowledge admittedly necessary to our complex technological and social structure has produced and exaggerated compartmentalization of study and understanding this has contributed to an overly parochial view by faculty of the role of its research and scholarship; a discontinuous and truncated understanding by students of the surrounding social order; a loss of personal attachment by nearly all to the worth of study as a humanistic enterprise there is finally the cumbersome academic bureaucracy extending throughout the academic as well as extracurricular structures contributing to the sense of outer complexity and inner powerlessness that transforms so many students from honest searching to ratification of convention and worse to a numbness of present and future catastrophes the size and financing systems of the university enhance the permanent trusteeship of the administrative bureaucracy their power leading to a shift to the value standards of business and administrative mentality within the university huge foundations and other private financial interests shape under-financed colleges and universities not only making them more commercial but less disposed to diagnose society critically less open to dissent many social and physical scientists neglecting the liberating heritage of higher learning develop human relations or morale-producing techniques for the corporate economy while others exercise their intellectual skills to accelerate the arms race tragically the university could serve as a significant source of social criticism and an initiator of new modes and molders of attitudes but the actual intellectual effect of the college experience is hardly distinguishable from that of any other communications channel -- say a television set -- passing on the stock truths of the day students leave college somewhat more tolerant than when they arrived but basically unchallenged in their values and political orientations with administrators ordering the institutions and faculty the curriculum the student learns by his isolation to accept elite rule within the university which prepares him to accept later forms of minority control the real function of the educational system -- as opposed to its more rhetorical function of searching for truth -- is to impart the key information and styles that will help the student get by modestly but comfortably in the big society beyond the society beyond look beyond the campus to america itself that student life is more intellectual and perhaps more comfortable does not obscure the fact that the fundamental qualities of life on the campus reflect the habits of society at large the fraternity president is seen at the junior manager levels; the sorority queen has gone to grosse pointe the serious poet burns for a place any place or work; the once-serious and never serious poets work at the advertising agencies the desperation of people threatened by forces about which they know little and of which they can say less; the cheerful emptiness of people giving up all hope of changing things; the faceless ones polled by gallup who listed international affairs fourteenth on their list of problems but who also expected thermonuclear war in the next few years in these and other forms americans are in withdrawal from public life from any collective effort at directing their own affairs some regard this national doldrums as a sign of healthy approval of the established order -- but is it approval by consent or manipulated acquiescence others declare that the people are withdrawn because compelling issues are fast disappearing -- perhaps there are fewer breadlines in america but is jim crow gone is there enough work and work more fulfilling is world war a diminishing threat and what of the revolutionary new peoples still others think the national quietude is a necessary consequence of the need for elites to resolve complex and specialized problems of modern industrial society -- but then why should business elites help decide foreign policy and who controls the elites anyway and are they solving mankind mankind\'s problems others finally shrug knowingly and announce that full democracy never worked anywhere in the past -- but why lump qualitatively different civilizations together and how can a social order work well if its best thinkers are skeptics and is man really doomed forever to the domination of today there are no convincing apologies for the contemporary malaise while the world tumbles toward the final war while men in other nations are trying desperately to alter events while the very future qua future is uncertain -- america is without community impulse without the inner momentum necessary for an age when societies cannot successfully perpetuate themselves by their military weapons when democracy must be viable because of its quality of life not its quantity of rockets the apathy here is first subjective -- the felt powerlessness of ordinary people the resignation before the enormity of events but subjective apathy is encouraged by the objective american situation -- the actual structural separation of people from power from relevant knowledge from pinnacles of decision-making just as the university influences the student way of life so do major social institutions create the circumstances in which the isolated citizen will try hopelessly to understand his world and himself the very isolation of the individual -- from power and community and ability to aspire -- means the rise of a democracy without publics with the great mass of people structurally remote and psychologically hesitant with respect to democratic institutions those institutions themselves attenuate and become in the fashion of the vicious circle progressively less accessible to those few who aspire to serious participation in social affairs the vital democratic connection between community and leadership between the mass and the several elites has been so wrenched and perverted that disastrous policies go unchallenged time and again politics without publics the american political system is not the democratic model of which its glorifiers speak in actuality it frustrates democracy by confusing the individual citizen paralyzing policy discussion and consolidating the irresponsible power of military and business interests a crucial feature of the political apparatus in america is that greater differences are harbored within each major party than the differences existing between them instead of two parties presenting distinctive and significant differences of approach what dominates the system if a natural interlocking of democrats from southern states with the more conservative elements of the republican party this arrangement of forces is blessed by the seniority system of congress which guarantees congressional committee domination by conservatives -- ten of 17 committees in the senate and 13 of 21 in house of representatives are chaired currently by dixiecrats the party overlap however is not the only structural antagonist of democracy in politics first the localized nature of the party system does not encourage discussion of national and international issues thus problems are not raised by and for people and political representatives usually are unfettered from any responsibilities to the general public except those regarding parochial matters second whole constituencies are divested of the full political power they might have many negroes in the south are prevented from voting migrant workers are disenfranchised by various residence requirements some urban and suburban dwellers are victimized by gerrymandering and poor people are too often without the power to obtain political representation third the focus of political attention is significantly distorted by the enormous lobby force composed predominantly of business interests spending hundreds of millions each year in an attempt to conform facts about productivity agriculture defense and social services to the wants of private economic groupings what emerges from the party contradictions and insulation of privatelyheld power is the organized political stalemate calcification dominates flexibility as the principle of parliamentary organization frustration is the expectancy of legislators intending liberal reform and congress becomes less and less central to national decision-making especially in the area of foreign policy in this context confusion and blurring is built into the formulation of issues long-range priorities are not discussed in the rational manner needed for policymaking the politics of personality and image become a more important mechanism than the construction of issues in a way that affords each voter a challenging and real option the american voter is buffeted from all directions by pseudo-problems by the structurally-initiated sense that nothing political is subject to human mastery worried by his mundane problems which never get solved but constrained by the common belief that politics is an agonizingly slow accommodation of views he quits all pretense of bothering a most alarming fact is that few if any politicians are calling for changes in these conditions only a handful even are calling on the president to live up to platform pledges; no one is demanding structural changes such as the shuttling of southern democrats out of the democratic party rather than protesting the state of politics most politicians are reinforcing and aggravating that state while in practice they rig public opinion to suit their own interests in word and ritual they enshrine the sovereign public and call for more and more letters their speeches and campaign actions are banal based on a degrading conception of what people want to hear they respond not to dialogue but to pressure and knowing this the ordinary citizen sees even greater inclination to shun the political sphere the politicians is usually a trumpeter to citizenship and service to the nation but since he is unwilling to seriously rearrange power relationships his trumpetings only increase apathy by creating no outlets much of the time the call to service is justified not in idealistic terms but in the crasser terms of defending the free world from communism -- thus making future idealistic impulses harder to justify in anything but cold war terms in such a setting of status quo politics where most if not all government activity is rationalized in cold war anti-communist terms it is somewhat natural that discontented super-patriotic groups would emerge through political channels and explain their ultra-conservatism as the best means of victory over communism they have become a politically influential force within the republican party at a national level through senator goldwater and at a local level through their important social and economic roles their political views are defined generally as the opposite of the supposed views of communists complete individual freedom in the economic sphere non-participation by the government in the machinery of production but actually anticommunism becomes an umbrella by which to protest liberalism internationalism welfarism the active civil rights and labor movements it is to the disgrace of the united states that such a movement should become a prominent kind of public participation in the modern world -- but ironically it is somewhat to the interests of the united states that such a movement should be a public constituency pointed toward realignment of the political parties demanding a conservative republican party in the south and an exclusion of the leftist elements of the national gop the economy american capitalism today advertises itself as the welfare state many of us comfortably expect pensions medical care unemployment compensation and other social services in our lifetimes even with one-fourth of our productive capacity unused the majority of americans are living in relative comfort -- although their nagging incentive to keep up makes them continually dissatisfied with their possessions in many places unrestrained bosses uncontrolled machines and sweatshop conditions have been reformed or abolished and suffering tremendously relieved but in spite of the benign yet obscuring effects of the new deal reforms and the reassuring phrases of government economists and politicians the paradoxes and myths of the economy are sufficient to irritate our complacency and reveal to us some essential causes of the american malaise we live amidst a national celebration of economic prosperity while poverty and deprivation remain an unbreakable way of life for millions in the affluent society including many of our own generation we hear glib reference to the welfare state free enterprise and shareholder shareholder\'s democracy while military defense is the main item of public spending and obvious oligopoly and other forms of minority rule defy real individual initiative or popular control work too is often unfulfilling and victimizing accepted as a channel to status or plenty if not a way to pay the bills rarely as a means of understanding and controlling self and events in work and leisure the individual is regulated as part of the system a consuming unit bombarded by hardsell soft-sell lies and semi-true appeals and his basest drives he is always told what he is supposed to enjoy while being told too that he is a free man because of free enterprise the remote control economy we are subject to a remote control economy which excludes the mass of individual units -- the people -- from basic decisions affecting the nature and organization of work rewards and opportunities the modern concentration of wealth is fantastic the wealthiest one percent of americans own more than 80 percent of all personal shares of stock from world war ii until the mid-fifties the 50 biggest corporations increased their manufacturing production from 17 to 23 percent of the national total and the share of the largest 200 companies rose from 30 to 37 percent to regard the various decisions of these elites as purely economic is short-sighted their decisions affect in a momentous way the entire fabric of social life in america foreign investments influence political policies in under-developed areas -- and our efforts to build a profitable capitalist world blind our foreign policy to mankind mankind\'s needs and destiny the drive for sales spurs phenomenal advertising efforts; the ethical drug industry for instance spent more than 750 million on promotions in 1960 nearly for times the amount available to all american medical schools for their educational programs the arts too are organized substantially according to their commercial appeal aesthetic values are subordinated to exchange values and writers swiftly learn to consider the commercial market as much as the humanistic marketplace of ideas the tendency to over-production to gluts of surplus commodities encourages market research techniques to deliberately create pseudo-needs in consumers -- we learn to buy smart things regardless of their utility -- and introduces wasteful planned obsolescence as a permanent feature of business strategy while real social needs accumulate as rapidly as profits it becomes evident that money instead of dignity of character remains a pivotal american value and profitability instead of social use a pivotal standard in determining priorities of resource allocation within existing arrangements the american business community cannot be said to encourage a democratic process nationally economic minorities not responsible to a public in any democratic fashion make decisions of a more profound importance than even those made by congress such a claim is usually dismissed by respectful and knowing citations of the ways in which government asserts itself as keeper of the public interest at times of business irresponsibility but the real as opposed to the mythical range of government control of the economy includes only # some limited regulatory powers -- which usually just ratify industry policies or serve as palliatives at the margins of significant business activity; # a fiscal policy build upon defense expenditures as pump-priming public works -- without a significant emphasis on peaceful public works to meet social priorities and alleviate personal hardships; # limited fiscal and monetary weapons which are rigid and have only minor effects and are greatly limited by corporate veto tax cuts and reforms; interest rate control used generally to tug on investment by hurting the little investor most ; tariffs which protect noncompetitive industries with political power and which keep less-favored nations out of the large trade mainstream as the removal of barriers reciprocally with the common market may do disastrously to emerging countries outside of europe; wage arbitration the use of government coercion in the name of public interest to hide the tensions between workers and business production controllers; price controls which further maintains the status quo of big ownership and flushes out little investors for the sake of stability ; # very limited poverty-solving which is designed for the organized working class but not the shut-out poverty-stricken migrants farm workers the indigent unaware of medical care or the lower-middle class person riddled with medical bills the unhireables of minority groups or workers over 45 years of age etc # regional development programs -- such as the area redevelopment act which have been only trickle down welfare programs without broad authority for regional planning and development and public works spending the federal highway program has been more significant than the depressed areas program in meeting the needs of people but is generally too remote and does not reach the vicious circle of poverty itself in short the theory of government countervailing business neglects the extent to which government influence is marginal to the basic production decisions the basic decision-making environment of society the basic structure or distribution and allocation which is still determined by major corporations with power and wealth concentrated among the few a conscious conspiracy -- as in the case of pricerigging in the electrical industry -- is by no means generally or continuously operative but power undeniably does rest in comparative insulation from the public and its political representatives the military-industrial complex the most spectacular and important creation of the authoritarian and oligopolistic structure of economic decision-making in america is the institution called the militaryindustrial complex by former president eisenhower the powerful congruence of interest and structure among military and business elites which affects so much of our development and destiny not only is ours the first generation to live with the possibility of world-wide cataclysm -- it is the first to experience the actual social preparation for cataclysm the general militarization of american society in 1948 congress established universal military training the first peacetime conscription the military became a permanent institution four years earlier general motor motor\'s charles e wilson had heralded the creation of what he called the permanent war economy the continuous use of military spending as a solution to economic problems unsolved before the post-war boom most notably the problem of the seventeen million jobless after eight years of the new deal this has left a hidden crisis in the allocation of resources by the american economy since our childhood these two trends -- the rise of the military and the installation of a defense-based economy -- have grown fantastically the department of defense ironically the world world\'s largest single organization is worth 160 billion owns 32 million acres of america and employs half the 7 5 million persons directly dependent on the military for subsistence has an 11 billion payroll which is larger than the net annual income of all american corporations defense spending in the eisenhower era totaled 350 billions and president kennedy entered office pledged to go even beyond the present defense allocation of sixty cents from every public dollar spent except for a war-induced boom immediately after our side bombed hiroshima american economic prosperity has coincided with a growing dependence on military outlay -- from 1941 to 1959 america america\'s gross national product of 5 25 trillion included 700 billion in goods and services purchased for the defense effort about one-seventh of the accumulated gnp this pattern has included the steady concentration of military spending among a few corporations in 1961 86 percent of defense department contracts were awarded without competition the ordnance industry of 100 000 people is completely engaged in military work; in the aircraft industry 94 percent of 750 000 workers are linked to the war economy; shipbuilding radio and communications equipment industries commit forty percent of their work to defense; iron and steel petroleum metal-stamping and machine shop products motors and generators tools and hardware copper aluminum and machine tools industries all devote at least 10 percent of their work to the same cause the intermingling of big military and big industry is evidenced in the 1 400 former officers working for the 100 corporations who received nearly all the 21 billion spent in procurement by the defense department in 1961 the overlap is most poignantly clear in the case of general dynamics the company which received the best 1961 contracts employed the most retired officers 187 and is directed by a former secretary of the army a fortune magazine profile of general dynamics said the unique group of men who run dynamics are only incidentally in rivalry with other u s manufacturers with many of whom they actually act in concert their chief competitor is the ussr the core of general dynamics corporate philosophy is the conviction that national defense is a more or less permanent business little has changed since wilson wilson\'s proud declaration of the permanent war economy back in the 1944 days when the top 200 corporations possessed 80 percent of all active prime war-supply contracts military industrial politics the military and its supporting business foundation have found numerous forms of political expression and we have heard their din endlessly there has not been a major congressional split on the issue of continued defense spending spirals in our lifetime the triangular relation of the business military and political arenas cannot be better expressed than in dixiecrat carl vinson vinson\'s remarks as his house armed services committee reported out a military construction bill of 808 million throughout the 50 states for 1960-61 there is something in this bill for everyone he announced president kennedy had earlier acknowledged the valuable anti-recession features of the bill imagine on the other hand 808 million suggested as an anti-recession measure but being poured into programs of social welfare the impossibility of receiving support for such a measure identifies a crucial feature of defense spending it is beneficial to private enterprise while welfare spending is not defense spending does not compete with the private sector; it contains a natural obsolescence; its confidential nature permits easier boondoggling; the tax burdens to which it leads can be shunted from corporation to consumer as a cost of production welfare spending however involves the government in competition with private corporations and contractors; it conflicts with immediate interests of private pressure groups; it leads to taxes on business think of the opposition of private power companies to current proposals for river and valley development or the hostility of the real estate lobby to urban renewal; or the attitude of the american medical association to a paltry medical care bill; or of all business lobbyists to foreign aid; these are the pressures leading to the schizophrenic public-military private-civilian economy of our epoch the politicians of course take the line of least resistance and thickest support warfare instead of welfare is easiest to stand up for after all the free world is at stake and our constituency constituency\'s investments too automation abundance and challenge but while the economy remains relatively static in its setting of priorities and allocation of resources new conditions are emerging with enormous implications the revolution of automation and the replacement of scarcity by the potential of material abundance automation the process of machines replacing men in performing sensory motoric and complex logical tasks is transforming society in ways that are scarcely comprehensible by 1959 industrial production regained its 1957 pre-recession level -- but with 750 000 fewer workers required in the fifties as a whole national production enlarged by 43 percent but the number of factory employees remained stationary seventenths of one percent higher than in 1947 automation is destroying whole categories of work -- impersonal thinkers have efficiently labeled this structural unemployment -- in blue-collar service and even middle management occupations in addition it is eliminating employment opportunities for a youth force that numbers one million more than it did in 1950 and rendering work far more difficult both to find and do for people in the forties and up the consequences of this economic drama strengthened by the force of post-war recessions are momentous five million becomes an acceptable unemployment tabulation and misery uprootedness and anxiety become the lot of increasing numbers of americans but while automation is creating social dislocation of a stunning kind it paradoxically is imparting the opportunity for men the world around to rise in dignity from their knees the dominant optimistic economic fact of this epoch is that fewer hands are needed now in actual production although more goods and services are a real potentiality the world could be fed poverty abolished the great public needs could be met the brutish world of darwinian scarcity could be brushed away all men could have more time to pursue their leisure drudgery in work could be cut to a minimum education could become more of a continuing process for all people both public and personal needs could be met rationally but only in a system with selfish production motives and elitist control a system which is less welfare than war-based undemocratic rather than stockholder participative as sold to us does the potentiality for abundance become a curse and a cruel irony 1 automation brings unemployment instead of mere leisure for all and greater achievement of needs for all people in the world -- a crisis instead of economic utopia instead of being introduced into a social system in a planned and equitable way automation is initiated according to its profitability american telephone and telegraph holds back modern telephone equipment invented with public research funds until present equipment is financially unprofitable colleges develop teaching machines mass-class techniques and tv education to replace teachers not to proliferate knowledge or to assist the qualified professors now but to cut costs in education and make the academic community more efficient and less wasteful technology which could be a blessing to society becomes more and more a sinister threat to humanistic and rational enterprise 2 hard-core poverty exists just beyond the neon lights of affluence and the have-nots may be driven still further from opportunity as the high-technology society demands better education to get into the production mainstream and more capital investment to get into business poverty is shameful in that it herds people by race region and previous condition of infortune into uneconomic classes in the so-called free society -- the marginal worker is made more insecure by automation and high education requirements heavier competition for jobs maintaining low wages or a high level of unemployment people in the rut of poverty are strikingly unable to overcome the collection of forces working against them poor health bad neighborhoods miserable schools inadequate welfare services unemployment and underemployment weak politician and union organization 3 surplus and potential plenty are waste domestically and producers suffer impoverishment because the real needs of the world and of our society are not reflected in the market our huge bins of decomposing grain are classic american examples as is the steel industry which in the summer of 1962 is producing at 53 percent of capacity the stance of labor amidst all this what of organized labor the historic institutional representative of the exploited the presumed countervailing power against the excesses of big business the contemporary social assault on the labor movement is of crisis proportions to the average american big labor is a growing cancer equal in impact to big business -- nothing could be more distorted even granting a sizable union bureaucracy but in addition to public exaggerations the labor crisis can be measured in several ways first the high expectations of the newborn afl-cio of 30 million members by 1965 are suffering a reverse unimaginable five years ago the demise of the dream of organizing the unorganized is dramatically reflected in the afl-cio decision just two years after its creation to slash its organizing staff in half from 15 million members when the afl and the cio merged the total has slipped to 13 5 million during the post-war generation union membership nationally has increased by four million -- but the total number of workers has jumped by 13 million today only 40 percent of all non-agricultural workers are protected by any form or organization second organizing conditions are going to worsen where labor now is strongest -- in industries -- automation is leading to an attrition of available work as the number of jobs dwindles so does labor labor\'s power of bargaining since management can handle a strike in an automated plant more easily than the older mass-operated ones more important perhaps the american economy has changed radically in the last decade as suddenly the number of workers producing goods became fewer than the number in nonproductive areas -- government trade finance services utilities transportation since world war ii white collar and service jobs have grown twice as fast as have blue collar production jobs labor has almost no organization in the expanding occupational areas of the new economy but almost all of its entrenched strength in contracting areas as big government hires more as business seeks more office workers and skilled technicians and as growing commercial america demands new hotels service stations and the like the conditions will become graver still further there is continuing hostility to labor by the southern states and their industrial interests -- meaning runaway plants cheap labor threatening the organized trade union movement and opposition from dixiecrats to favorable labor legislation in congress finally there is indication that big business for the sake of public relations if nothing more has acknowledged labor labor\'s right to exist but has deliberately tried to contain labor at its present strength preventing strong unions from helping weaker ones or from spreading or unorganized sectors of the economy business is aided in its efforts by proliferation of right-to-work laws at state levels especially in areas where labor is without organizing strength to begin with and anti-labor legislation in congress in the midst of these besetting crises labor itself faces its own problems of vision and program historically there can be no doubt as to its worth in american politics -- what progress there has been in meeting human needs in this century rests greatly with the labor movement and to a considerable extent the social democracy for which labor has fought externally is reflected in its own essentially democratic character representing millions of people no millions of dollars; demanding their welfare not eternal profit today labor remains the most liberal mainstream institution -- but often its liberalism represents vestigial commitments self-interestedness unradicalism in some measure labor has succumbed to institutionalization its social idealism waning under the tendencies of bureaucracy materialism business ethics the successes of the last generation perhaps have braked rather than accelerated labor labor\'s zeal for change even the house of labor has bay windows not only is this true of the labor elites but as well of some of the rank-and-file many of the latter are indifferent unionists uninterested in meetings alienated from the complexities of the labor-management negotiating apparatus lulled to comfort by the accessibility of luxury and the opportunity of long-term contracts union democracy is not simply inhibited by labor leader elitism but by the unrelated problem of rankand -file apathy to the tradition of unionism the crisis of labor is reflected in the coexistence within the unions of militant negro discontents and discriminatory locals sweeping critics of the obscuring public interest marginal tinkering of government and willing handmaidens of conservative political leadership austere sacrificers and business-like operators visionaries and anachronisms -- tensions between extremes that keep alive the possibilities for a more militant unionism too there are seeds of rebirth in the organizational crisis itself the technologically unemployed the unorganized white collar men and women the migrants and farm workers the unprotected negroes the poor all of whom are isolated now from the power structure of the economy but who are the potential base for a broader and more forceful unionism horizon in summary a more reformed more human capitalism functioning at three-fourths capacity while one-third of america and two-thirds of the world goes needy domination of politics and the economy by fantastically rich elites accommodation and limited effectiveness by the labor movement hard-core poverty and unemployment automation confirming the dark ascension of machine over man instead of shared abundance technological change being introduced into the economy by the criteria of profitability -- this has been our inheritance however inadequate it has instilled quiescence in liberal hearts -- partly reflecting the extent to which misery has been over-come but also the eclipse of social ideals though many of us are affluent poverty waste elitism manipulation are too manifest to go unnoticed too clearly unnecessary to go accepted to change the cold war status quo and other social evils concern with the challenges to the american economic machine must expand now as a truly better social state becomes visible a new poverty impends a poverty of vision and a poverty of political action to make that vision reality without new vision the failure to achieve our potentialities will spell the inability of our society to endure in a world of obvious crying needs and rapid change the individual in the warfare state business and politics when significantly militarized affect the whole living condition of each american citizen worker and family depend on the cold war for life half of all research and development is concentrated on military ends the press mimics conventional cold war opinion in its editorials in less than a full generation most americans accept the military-industrial structure as the way things are war is still pictured as one more kind of diplomacy perhaps a gloriously satisfying kind our saturation and atomic bombings of germany and japan are little more than memories of past policy necessities that preceded the wonderful economic boom of 1946 the facts that our once-revolutionary 20 000 ton hiroshima bomb is now paled by 50 megaton weapons that our lifetime has included the creation of intercontinental ballistic missiles that greater weapons are to follow that weapons refinement is more rapid than the development of weapons of defense that soon a dozen or more nations will have the bomb that one simple miscalculation could incinerate mankind these orienting facts are but remotely felt a shell of moral callous separates the citizen from sensitivity of the common peril this is the result of a lifetime saturation with horror after all some ask where could we begin even if we wanted to after all others declare we can only assume things are in the best of hands a coed at the university of kentucky says we regard peace and war as fairy tales and a child has asked in helplessness perhaps for us all daddy why is there a cold war past senselessness permits present brutality; present brutality is prelude to future deeds of still greater inhumanity; that is the moral history of the twentieth century from the first world war to the present a half-century of accelerating destruction has flattened out the individual individual\'s ability to make moral distinction it has made people understandably give up it has forced private worry and public silence to a decisive extent the means of defense the military technology itself determines the political and social character of the state being defended -- that is defense mechanism themselves in the nuclear age alter the character of the system that creates them for protection so it has been with american as her democratic institutions and habits have shriveled in almost direct proportion to the growth of her armaments decisions about military strategy including the monstrous decision to go to war are more and more the property of the military and the industrial arms race machine with the politicians assuming a ratifying role instead of a determining one this is increasingly a fact not just because of the installation of the permanent military but because of constant revolutions in military technology the new technologies allegedly require military expertise scientific comprehension and the mantle of secrecy as congress relies more and more on the joint chiefs of staff the existing chasm between people and decision-makers becomes irreconcilably wide and more alienating in its effects a necessary part of the military effort is propaganda to sell the need for congressional appropriations to conceal various business scandals and to convince the american people that the arms race is important enough to sacrifice civil liberties and social welfare so confusion prevails about the national needs while the three major services and the industrial allies jockey for power -- the air force tending to support bombers and missilery the navy polaris and carriers the army conventional ground forces and invulnerable nuclear arsenals and all three feigning unity and support of the policy of weapons and agglomeration called the mix strategies are advocated on the basis of power and profit usually more so than on the basis of national military needs in the meantime congressional investigating committees -- most notably the house un-american activities committee and the senate judiciary committee -- attempt to curb the little dissent that finds its way into off-beat magazines a huge militant anticommunist brigade throws in its support patriotically willing to do anything to achieve total victory in the cold war; the government advocates peaceful confrontation with international communism then utterly pillories and outlaws the tiny american communist party university professors withdraw prudently from public issues; the very style of social science writing becomes more qualified needs in housing education minority rights health care land redevelopment hourly wages all are subordinated -- though a political tear is shed gratuitously -- to the primary objective of the military and economic strength of the free world what are the governing policies which supposedly justify all this human sacrifice and waste with few exceptions they have reflected the quandaries and confusion stagnation and anxiety of a stalemated nation in a turbulent world they have shown a slowness sometimes a sheer inability to react to a sequence of new problems of these problems two of the newest are foremost the existence of poised nuclear weapons and the revolutions against the former colonial powers in the both areas the soviet union and the various national communist movements have aggravated internation relations in inhuman and undesirable ways but hardly so much as to blame only communism for the present menacing situation deterrence policy the accumulation of nuclear arsenals the threat of accidental war the possibility of limited war becoming illimitable holocaust the impossibility of achieving final arms superiority or invulnerability the approaching nativity of a cluster of infant atomic powers; all of these events are tending to undermine traditional concepts of power relations among nations war can no longer be considered as an effective instrument of foreign policy a means of strengthening alliances adjusting the balance of power maintaining national sovereignty or preserving human values war is no longer simply a forceful extension of foreign policy; it can obtain no constructive ends in the modern world soviet or american megatonnage is sufficient to destroy all existing social structures as well as value systems missiles have figuratively thumbed their nosecones at national boundaries but america like other countries still operates by means of national defense and deterrence systems these are seen to be useful so long as they are never fully used unless we as a national entity can convince russia that we are willing to commit the most heinous action in human history we will be forced to commit it deterrence advocates all of them prepared at least to threaten mass extermination advance arguments of several kinds at one pole are the minority of open partisans of preventive war -- who falsely assume the inevitability of violent conflict and assert the lunatic efficacy of striking the first blow assuming that it will be easier to recover after thermonuclear war than to recover now from the grip of the cold war somewhat more reluctant to advocate initiating a war but perhaps more disturbing for their numbers within the kennedy administration are the many advocates of the counterforce theory of aiming strategic nuclear weapons at military installations -- though this might save more lives than a preventive war it would require drastic provocative and perhaps impossible social change to separate many cities from weapons sites it would be impossible to ensure the immunity of cities after one or two counterforce nuclear exchanges it would generate a perpetual arms race for less vulnerability and greater weapons power and mobility it would make outer space a region subject to militarization and accelerate the suspicions and arms build-ups which are incentives to precipitate nuclear action others would support fighting limited wars which use conventional all but atomic weapons backed by deterrents so mighty that both sides would fear to use them -- although underestimating the implications of numerous new atomic powers on the world stage the extreme difficulty of anchoring international order with weapons of only transient invulnerability the potential tendency for a losing side to push limited protracted fighting on the soil of underdeveloped countries still other deterrence artists propose limited clearly defensive and retaliatory nuclear capacity always potent enough to deter an opponent opponent\'s aggressive designs -- the best of deterrence stratagems but inadequate when it rests on the equation of an arms stalemate with international stability all the deterrence theories suffer in several common ways they allow insufficient attention to preserving extending and enriching democratic values such matters being subordinate rather than governing in the process of conducting foreign policy second they inadequately realize the inherent instabilities of the continuing arms race and balance of fear third they operationally tend to eclipse interest and action towards disarmament by solidifying economic political and even moral investments in continuation of tensions fourth they offer a disinterested and even patriotic rationale for the boondoggling belligerence and privilege of military and economic elites finally deterrence stratagems invariably understate or dismiss the relatedness of various dangers; they inevitably lend tolerability to the idea of war by neglecting the dynamic interaction of problems -- such as the menace of accidental war the probable future tensions surrounding the emergence of ex-colonial nations the imminence of several new nations joining the nuclear club the destabilizing potential of technological breakthrough by either arms race contestant the threat of chinese atomic might the fact that recovery after world war iii would involve not only human survivors but as well a huge and fragile social structure and culture which would be decimated perhaps irreparably by total war such a harsh critique of what we are doing as a nation by no means implies that sole blame for the cold war rests on the united states both sides have behaved irresponsibly -- the russians by an exaggerated lack of trust and by much dependence on aggressive military strategists rather than on proponents of nonviolent conflict and coexistence but we do contend as americans concerned with the conduct of our representative institutions that our government has blamed the cold war stalemate on nearly everything but its own hesitations its own anachronistic dependence on weapons to be sure there is more to disarmament than wishing for it there are inadequacies in international rule-making institutions -- which could be corrected there are faulty inspection mechanisms -- which could be perfected by disinterested scientists there is russian intransigency and evasiveness -- which do not erase the fact that the soviet union because of a strained economy an expectant population fears of chinese potential and interest in the colonial revolution is increasingly disposed to real disarmament with real controls but there is too our own reluctance to face the uncertain world beyond the cold war our own shocking assumption that the risks of the present are fewer than the risks of a policy re-orientation to disarmament our own unwillingness to face the implementation of our rhetorical commitments to peace and freedom today the world alternatively drifts and plunges towards a terrible war when vision and change are required our government pursues a policy of macabre dead-end dimensions -- conditioned but not justified by actions of the soviet bloc ironically the war which seems to close will not be fought between the united states and russia not externally between two national entities but as an international civil war throughout the unrespected and unprotected human civitas which spans the world the colonial revolution while weapons have accelerated man man\'s opportunity for self-destruction the counter-impulse to life and creation are superbly manifest in the revolutionary feelings of many asian african and latin american peoples against the individual initiative and aspiration and social sense of organicism characteristic of these upsurges the american apathy and stalemate stand in embarrassing contrast it is difficult today to give human meaning to the welter of facts that surrounds us that is why it is especially hard to understand the facts of underdevelopment in india man and beast together produced 65 percent of the nation nation\'s economic energy in a recent year and of the remaining 35 percent of inanimately produced power almost three-fourths was obtained by burning dung but in the united states human and animal power together account for only one percent of the national economic energy -- that is what stands humanly behind the vague term industrialization even to maintain the misery of asia today at a constant level will require a rate of growth tripling the national income and the aggregate production in asian countries by the end of the century for asians to have the unacceptable 1950 standard of europeans less than 2 000 per year for a family national production must increase 21-fold by the end the century and that monstrous feat only to reach a level that europeans find intolerable what has america done during the years 1955-57 our total expenditures in economic aid were equal to one-tenth of one percent of our total gross national product prior to that time it was less; since then it has been a fraction higher immediate social and economic development is needed -- we have helped little seeming to prefer to create a growing gap between have and have not rather than to usher in social revolutions which would threaten our investors and out military alliances the new nations want to avoid power entanglements that will open their countries to foreign domination -- and we have often demanded loyalty oaths they do not see the relevence of uncontrolled free enterprise in societies without accumulated capital and a significant middle class -- and we have looked calumniously on those who would not try our way they seek empathy -- and we have sided with the old colonialists who now are trying to take credit for giving all the freedom that has been wrested from them or we empathize when pressure absolutely demands it with rare variation american foreign policy in the fifties was guided by a concern for foreign investment and a negative anti-communist political stance linked to a series of military alliances both undergirded by military threat we participated unilaterally -- usually through the central intelligence agency -- in revolutions against governments in laos guatemala cuba egypt iran we permitted economic investment to decisively affect our foreign policy fruit in cuba oil in the middle east diamonds and gold in south africa with whom we trade more than with any african nation more exactly america america\'s foreign market in the late fifties including exports of goods and services plus overseas sales by american firms averaged about 60 billion annually this represented twice the investment of 1950 and it is predicted that the same rates of increase will continue the reason is obvious fortune said in 1958 foreign earnings will be more than double in four years more than twice the probable gain in domestic profits these investments are concentrated primarily in the middle east and latin america neither region being an impressive candidate for the long-run stability political caution and lower-class tolerance that american investors typically demand our pugnacious anti-communism and protection of interests has led us to an alliance inappropriately called the free world it included four major parliamentary democracies ourselves canada great britain and india it also has included through the years batista franco verwoerd salazar de gaulle boun oum ngo diem chiang kai shek trujillo the somozas saud ydigoras -- all of these non-democrats separating us deeply from the colonial revolutions since the kennedy administration began the american government seems to have initiated policy changes in the colonial and underdeveloped areas it accepted neutralism as a tolerable principle; it sided more than once with the angolans in the united nations; it invited souvanna phouma to return to laos after having overthrown his neutralist government there; it implemented the alliance for progress that president eisenhower proposed when latin america appeared on the verge of socialist revolutions; it made derogatory statements about the trujillos; it cautiously suggested that a democratic socialist government in british guiana might be necessary to support; in inaugural oratory it suggested that a moral imperative was involved in sharing the world world\'s resources with those who have been previously dominated these were hardly sufficient to heal the scars of past activity and present associations but nevertheless they were motions away from the fifties but quite unexpectedly the president ordered the cuban invations and while the american press railed about how we had been shamed and defied by that monster castro the colonial peoples of the world wondered whether our foreign policy had really changed from its old imperialist ways we had never supported castro even on the eve of his taking power and had announced early that the conduct of the castro government toward foreign private enterprise in cuba would be a main state department concern any heralded changes in our foreign policy are now further suspect in the wake of the punta del este foreign minister minister\'s conference where the five countries representing most of latin america refused to cooperate in our plans to further isolate the castro government ever since the colonial revolution began american policy makers have reacted to new problems with old gunboat remedies often thinly disguised the feeble but desirable efforts of the kennedy administration to be more flexible are coming perhaps too late and are of too little significance to really change the historical thrust of our policies the hunger problem is increasing rapidly mostly as a result of the worldwide population explosion that cancels out the meager triumphs gained so far over starvation the threat of population to economic growth is simply documented in 1960-70 population in africa south of the sahara will increase 14 percent; in south asia and the far east by 22 percent; in north africa 26 percent; in the middle east by 27 percent; in latin america 29 percent population explosion no matter how devastating is neutral but how long will it take to create a relation of thrust between america and the newly-developing societies how long to change our policies and what length of time do we have the world is in transformation but america is not it can race to industrialize the world tolerating occasional authoritarianisms socialisms neutralisms along the way -- or it can slow the pace of the inevitable and default to the eager and self-interested soviets and much more importantly to mankind itself only mystics would guess we have opted thoroughly for the first consider what our people think of this the most urgent issue on the human agenda fed by a bellicose press manipulated by economic and political opponents of change drifting in their own history they grumble about the foreign aid waste or about that beatnik down in cuba or how things will get us by thinking confidently albeit in the usual bewilderment that americans can go right on like always five percent of mankind producing forty percent of its goods anti-communism an unreasoning anti-communism has become a major social problem for those who want to construct a more democratic america mccarthyism and other forms of exaggerated and conservative anti-communism seriously weaken democratic institutions and spawn movements contrary to the interests of basic freedoms and peace in such an atmosphere even the most intelligent of americans fear to join political organizations sign petitions speak out on serious issues militaristic policies are easily sold to a public fearful of a democratic enemy political debate is restricted thought is standardized action is inhibited by the demands of unity and oneness in the face of the declared danger even many liberals and socialists share static and repititious participation in the anti-communist crusade and often discourage tentative inquiring discussion about the russian question within their ranks -- often by employing stalinist stalinoid trotskyite and other epithets in an oversimplifying way to discredit opposition thus much of the american anti-communism takes on the characteristics of paranoia not only does it lead to the perversion of democracy and to the political stagnation of a warfare society but it also has the unintended consequence of preventing an honest and effective approach to the issues such an approach would require public analysis and debate of world politics but almost nowhere in politics is such a rational analysis possible to make it would seem reasonable to expect that in america the basic issues of the cold war should be rationally and fully debated between persons of every opinion -- on television on platforms and through other media it would seem too that there should be a way for the person or an organization to oppose communism without contributing to the common fear of associations and public actions but these things do not happen; instead there is finger-pointing and comical debate about the most serious of issues this trend of events on the domestic scene towards greater irrationality on major questions moves us to greater concern than does the internal threat of domestic communism democracy we are convinced requires every effort to set in peaceful opposition the basic viewpoints of the day; only by conscious determined though difficult efforts in this direction will the issue of communism be met appropriately communism and foreign policy as democrats we are in basic opposition to the communist system the soviet union as a system rests on the total suppression of organized opposition as well as on a vision of the future in the name of which much human life has been sacrificed and numerous small and large denials of human dignity rationalized the communist party has equated falsely the triumph of true socialism with centralized bureaucracy the soviet state lacks independent labor organizations and other liberties we consider basic and despite certain reforms the system remains almost totally divorced from the image officially promulgated by the party communist parties throughout the rest of the world are generally undemocratic in internal structure and mode of action moreover in most cases they subordinate radical programs to requirements of soviet foreign policy the communist movement has failed in every sense to achieve its stated intentions of leading a worldwide movement for human emancipation but present trends in american anti-communism are not sufficient for the creation of appropriate policies with which to relate to and counter communist movements in the world in no instance is this better illustrated than in our basic national policy-making assumption that the soviet union is inherently expansionist and aggressive prepared to dominate the rest of the world by military means on this assumption rests the monstrous american structure of military preparedness ; because of it we sacrifice values and social programs to the alleged needs of military power but the assumption itself is certainly open to question and debate to be sure the soviet state has used force and the threat of force to promote or defend its perceived national interests but the typical american response has been to equate the use of force -- which in many cases might be dispassionately interpreted as a conservative albeit brutal action -- with the initiation of a worldwide military onslaught in addition the russian-chinese conflicts and the emergency throughout the communist movement call for a re-evaluation of any monolithic interpretations and the apparent soviet disinterest in building a first-strike arsenal of weapons challenges the weight given to protection against surprise attack in formulations of american policy toward the soviets almost without regard to one one\'s conception of the dynamics of soviet society and foreign policy it is evident that the american military response has been more effective in deterring the growth of democracy than communism moreover our prevailing policies make difficult the encouragement of skepticism anti-war or pro-democratic attitudes in the communist systems america has done a great deal to foment the easier opposite tendency in russia suspicion suppression and stiff military resistance we have established a system of military alliances which of even dubious deterrence value it is reasonable of suggest the berlin and laos have been earth-shaking situations partly because rival systems of deterrence make impossible the withdrawal of threats the status quo is not cemented by mutual threat but by mutual fear of receeding from pugnacity -- since the latter course would undermine the credibility of our deterring system simultaneously while billions in military aid were propping up right-wing laotian formosan iranian and other regimes american leadership never developed a purely political policy for offering concrete alternatives to either communism or the status quo for colonial revolutions the results have been fulfillment of the communist belief that capitalism is stagnant its only defense being dangerous military adventurism; destabilizing incidents in numerous developing countries; an image of america allied with corrupt oligarchies counterposed to the russian-chinese image of rapid though brutal economic development again and again america mistakes the static area of defense rather than the dynamic area of development as the master need of two-thirds of mankind our paranoia about the soviet union has made us incapable of achieving agreements absolutely necessary for disarmament and the preservation of peace we are hardly able to see the possibility that the soviet union though not peace loving may be seriously interested in disarmament infinite possibilities for both tragedy and progress lie before us on the one hand we can continue to be afraid and out of fear commit suicide on the other hand we can develop a fresh and creative approach to world problems which will help to create democracy at home and establish conditions for its growth elsewhere in the world discrimination our america is still white consider the plight statistically of its greatest nonconformists the nonwhites a census bureau designation 1 literacy one of every four nonwhites is functionally illiterate; half do not complete elementary school; one in five finishes high school or better but one in twenty whites is functionally illiterate; four of five finish elementary school; half go through high school or better 2 salary in 1959 a nonwhite worker could expect to average 2 844 annually; a nonwhite family including a college-educated father could expect to make 5 654 collectively but a white worker could expect to make 4 487 if he worked alone; with a college degree and a family of helpers he could expect 7 373 the approximate negro-white wage ratio has remained nearly level for generations with the exception of the world war ii employment boom which opened many better jobs to exploited groups 3 work more than half of all nonwhites work at laboring or service jobs including one-fourth of those with college degrees; one in 20 works in a professional or managerial capacity fewer than one in five of all whites are laboring or service workers including one in every 100 of the college-educated; one in four is in professional or managerial work 4 unemployment within the 1960 labor force of approximately 72 million one of every 10 nonwhites was unemployed only one of every 20 whites suffered that condition 5 housing the census classifies 57 percent of all nonwhite houses substandard but only 27 percent of white-owned units so exist 6 education more than fifty percent of america america\'s nonwhite high school students never graduate the vocational and professional spread of curriculum categories offered nonwhites is 16 as opposed to the 41 occupations offered to the white student furthermore in spite of the 1954 supreme court decision 80 percent of all nonwhites educated actually or virtually are educated under segregated conditions and only one of 20 nonwhite students goes to college as opposed to the 1 10 ratio for white students 7 voting while the white community is registered above two-thirds of its potential the nonwhite population is registered below one-third of its capacity with even greater distortion in areas of the deep south even against this background some will say progress is being made the facts bely it however unless it is assumed that america has another century to deal with its racial inequalities others more pompous will blame the situation on those people people\'s inability to pick themselves up not understanding the automatic way in which such a system can frustrate reform efforts and diminish the aspirations of the oppressed the one-party system in the south attached to the dixiecrat-republican complex nationally cuts off the negro negro\'s independent powers as a citizen discrimination in employment along with labor labor\'s accomodation to the lily-white hiring practises guarantees the lowest slot in the economic order to the nonwhite north or south these oppressed are conditioned by their inheritance and their surroundings to expect more of the same in housing schools recreation travel all their potential is circumscribed thwarted and often extinguished automation grinds up job opportunities and ineffective or non-existent retraining programs make the already-handicapped nonwhite even less equipped to participate in technological progress horatio alger americans typically believe that the nonwhites are being accepted and rising gradually they see more negroes on television and so assume that negroes are better off they hear the president talking about negroes and so assume they are politically represented they are aware of black peoples in the united nations and so assume that the world is generally moving toward integration they don\'t drive through the south or through the slum areas of the big cities so they assume that squalor and naked exploitation are disappearing they express generalities about time and gradualism to hide the fact that they don\'t know what is happening the advancement of the negro and other nonwhites in america has not been altogether by means of the crusades of liberalism but rather through unavoidable changes in social structure the economic pressures of world war ii opened new jobs new mobility new insights to southern negroes who then began great migrations from the south to the bigger urban areas of the north where their absolute wage was greater though unchanged in relation to the white man of the same stratum more important than the world war ii openings was the colonial revolution the world-wide upsurge of dark peoples against white colonial domination stirred the separation and created an urgancy among american negroes while simultaneously it threatened the power structure of the united states enough to produce concessions to the negro produced by outer pressure from the newly-moving peoples rather than by the internal conscience of the federal government the gains were keyed to improving the american image more than to reconstructing the society that prospered on top of its minorities thus the historic supreme court decision of 1954 theoretically desegregating southern schools was more a proclamation than a harbinger of social change -- and is reflected as such in the fraction of southern school districts which have desegregated with federal officials doing little to spur the process it has been said that the kennedy administration did more in two years than the eisenhower administration did in eight of this there can be no doubt but it is analogous to comparing whispers to silence when positively stentorian tones are demanded president kennedy lept ahead of the eisenhower record when he made his second reference to the racial problem; eisenhower did not utter a meaningful public statement until his last month in office when he mentioned the blemish of bigotry to avoid conflict with the dixiecrat-republican alliance president kennedy has developed a civil rights philosophy of enforcement not enactment implying that existing statuatory tools are sufficient to change the lot of the negro so far he has employed executive power usefully to appoint negroes to various offices and seems interested in seeing the southern negro registered to vote on the other hand he has appointed at least four segregationist judges in areas where voter registration is a desperate need only two civil rights bills one to abolish the poll tax in five states and another to prevent unfair use of literacy tests in registration have been proposed -- the president giving active support to neither but even this legislation lethargically supported then defeated was intended to extend only to federal elections more important the kennedy interest in voter registration has not been supplemented with interest in giving the southern negro the economic protection that only trade unions can provide it seems evident that the president is attempting to win the negro permanently to the democratic party without basically disturbing the reactionary one-party oligarchy in the south moreover the administration is decidedly cool a phrase of robert kennedy kennedy\'s toward mass nonviolent movements in the south though by the support of racist dixiecrats the administration makes impossible gradual action through conventional channels the federal bureau of investigation in the south is composed of southerners and their intervention in situations of racial tension is always after the incident not before kennedy has refused to enforce the legal prerogative to keep federal marshals active in southern areas before during and after any situations this would invite negroes to exercise their rights and it would infuriate the southerners in congress because of its insulting features while corrupt politicians together with business interests happy with the absence of organized labor in southern states and with the 50 billion in profits that results from paying the negro half a white wage stymie and slow fundamental progress it remains to be appreciated that the ultimate wages of discrimination are paid by individuals and not by the state indeed the other sides of the economic political and sociological coins of racism represent their more profound implications in the private lives liberties and pursuits of happiness of the citizen while hungry nonwhites the world around assume rightful dominance the majority of americans fight to keep integrated housing out of the suburbs while a fully interracial world becomes a biological probability most americans persist in opposing marriage between the races while cultures generally interpenetrate white america is ignorant still of nonwhite america -- and perhaps glad of it the white lives almost completely within his immediate close-up world where things are tolerable there are no negroes except on the bus corner going to and from work and where it is important that daughter marry right white like might makes right in america today not knowing the nonwhite however the white knows something less than himself not comfortable around different people he reclines in whiteness instead of preparing for diversity refusing to yield objective social freedoms to the nonwhite the white loses his personal subjective freedom by turning away from all these damn causes white american ethnocentrism at home and abroad reflect most sharply the self-deprivation suffered by the majority of our country which effectively makes it an isolated minority in the world community of culture and fellowship the awe inspired by the pervasiveness of racism in american life is only matched by the marvel of its historical span in american traditions the national heritage of racial discrimination via slavery has been a part of america since christopher columbus advent on the new continent as such racism not only antedates the republic and the thirteen colonies but even the use of the english language in this hemisphere and it is well that we keep this as a background when trying to understand why racism stands as such a steadfast pillar in the culture and custom of the country racial-xenophobia is reflected in the admission of various racial stocks to the country from the nineteenth century oriental exclusion acts to the most recent up-dating of the walter-mccarren immigration acts the nation has shown a continuous contemptuous regard for nonwhites more recently the tragedies of hiroshima and korematsu and our cooperation with western europe in the united nations add treatment to the thoroughness of racist overtones in national life but the right to refuse service to anyone is no longer reserved to the americans the minority groups internationally are changing place what is needed how to end the cold war how to increase democracy in america these are the decisive issues confronting liberal and socialist forces today to us the issues are intimately related the struggle for one invariably being a struggle for the other what policy and structural alternatives are needed to obtain these ends 1 universal controlled disarmament must replace deterrence and arms control as the national defense goal the strategy of mutual threat can only temporarily prevent thermonuclear war and it cannot but erode democratic institutions here while consolidating oppressive institutions in the soviet union yet american leadership while giving rhetorical due to the ideal of disarmament persists in accepting mixed deterrence as its policy formula under kennedy we have seen first-strike and second-strike weapons counter-military and counter-population inventions tactical atomic weapons and guerilla warriors etc the convenient rationalization that our weapons potpourri will confuse the enemy into fear of misbehaving is absurd and threatening our own intentions once clearly retaliatory are now ambiguous since the president has indicated we might in certain circumstances be the first to use nuclear weapons we can expect that russia will become more anxious herself and perhaps even prepare to preempt us and we expecting the worst from the russians will nervously consider preemption ourselves the symmetry of threat and counter-threat lead not to stability but to the edge of hell it is necessary that america make disarmament not nuclear deterrence credible to the soviets and to the world that is disarmament should be continually avowed as a national goal; concrete plans should be presented at conference tables; real machinery for a disarming and disarmed world -- national and international -- should be created while the disarming process itself goes on the long-standing idea of unilateral initiative should be implemented as a basic feature of american disarmament strategy initiatives that are graduated in their potential accompanied by invitations to reciprocate when done regardless of reciprocation openly _______ significant period of future time their ____ should not be to strip america of weapon _____ produce a climate in which disarmament can be ________ with less mutual hostility and threat they might include a unilateral nuclear test moratorium withdrawal of several bases near the soviet union proposals to experiment in disarmament by stabilization of zone of controversy; cessation of all apparent first-strike preparations such as the development of 41 polaris by 1963 while naval theorists state that about 45 constitutes a provocative force; inviting a special united nations agency to observe and inspect the launchings of all american flights into outer space; and numerous others there is no simple formula for the content of an actual disarmament treaty it should be phased perhaps on a region-by-region basis the conventional weapons first it should be conclusive not open-ended in its projection it should be controlled national inspection systems are adequate at first but should be soon replaced by international devices and teams it should be more than denuding world or at least regional enforcement agencies an international civil service and inspection service and other supranational groups must come into reality under the united nations 2 disarmament should be see as a political issue not a technical problem should this year year\'s geneva negotiations have resulted by magic in a disarmament agreement the united states senate would have refused to ratify it a domestic depression would have begun instantly and every fiber of american life would be wrenched drastically these are indications not only of our unpreparedness for disarmament but also that disarmament is not just another policy shift disarmament means a deliberate shift in most of our domestic and foreign policy -1 it will involve major changes in economic direction government intervention in new areas government regulation of certain industrial price and investment practices to prevent inflation full use of national productive capacities and employment for every person in a dramatically expanding economy all are to be expected as the price of peace -2 it will involve the simultaneous creation of international rulemaking and enforcement machinery beginning under the united nations and the gradual transfer of sovereignties -- such as national armies and national determination of international law -- to such machinery -3 it will involve the initiation of an explicitly political -- as opposed to military -- foreign policy on the part of the two major superstates neither has formulated the political terms in which they would conduct their behavior in a disarming or disarmed world neither dares to disarm until such an understanding is reached -4 a crucial feature of this political understanding must be the acceptance of status quo possessions according to the universality principle all present national entities -- including the vietnams the koreans the chinas and the germanys -- should be members of the united nations as sovereign no matter how desirable states russia cannot be expected to negotiate disarmament treaties for the chinese we should not feed chinese fanaticism with our encirclement but chinese stomachs with the aim of making war contrary to chinese policy interests every day that we support anti-communist tyrants but refuse to even allow the chinese communists representation in the united nations marks a greater separation of our ideals and our actions and it makes more likely bitter future relations with the chinese second we should recognize that an authoritarian germany germany\'s insistence on reunification while knowing the impossibility of achieving it with peaceful means could only generate increasing frustrations among the population and nationalist sentiments which frighten its eastern neighbors who have historical reasons to suspect germanic intentions president kennedy himself told the editor of izvestia that he fears an independent germany with nuclear arms but american policies have not demonstrated cognisance of the fact that chancellor adenauer too is interested in continued east-west tensions over the germany and berlin problems and nuclear arms precisely because this is the rationale for extending his domestic power and his influence upon the nato-common market alliance a world war over berlin would be absurd anyone concurring with such a proposition should demand that the west cease its contradictory advocacy of reunification of germany through free elections and a rearmed germany in nato it is a dangerous illusion to assume that russia will hand over east germany to a rearmed re-united germany which will enter the western camp although this germany might have a social democratic majority which could prevent a reassertion of german nationalism we have to recognize that the cold war and the incorporation of germany into the two power blocs was a decision of both moscow and washington of both adenauer and ulbricht the immediate responsibility for the berlin wall is ulbricht ulbricht\'s but it had to be expected that a regime which was bad enough to make people flee is also bad enough to prevent them from fleeing the inhumanity of the berlin wall is an ironic symbol of the irrationality of the cold war which keeps adenauer and ulbricht in power a reduction of the tension over berlin if by internationalization or by recognition of the status quo and reducing provocations is a necessary but equally temporary measure which could not ultimately reduce the basic cold war tension to which berlin owes its precarious situation the berlin problem cannot be solved without reducing tensions in europe possibly by a bilateral military disengagement and creating a neutralized buffer zone even if washington and moscow were in favor disengagement both adenauer and ulbricht would never agree to it because cold war keeps their parties in power until their regimes departure from the scene of history the berlin status quo will have to be maintained while minimizing the tensions necessarily arising from it russia cannot expect the united states to tolerate its capture by the ulbricht regime but neither can america expect to be in a position to indefinitely use berlin as a fortress within the communist world as a fair and bilateral disengagement in central europe seems to be impossible for the time being a mutual recognition of the berlin status quo that is of west berlin berlin\'s and east germany germany\'s security is needed and it seems to be possible although the totalitarian regime of east germany and the authoritarian leadership of west germany until now succeeded in frustrating all attempts to minimize the dangerous tensions of cold war the strategy of securing the status quo of the two power blocs until it is possible to depolarize the world by creating neutralist regions in all trouble zones seems to be the only way to guarantee peace at this time 4 experiments in disengagement and demilitarization must be conducted as part of the total disarming process these disarmament experiments can be of several kinds so long as they are consistent with the principles of containing the arms race and isolating specific sectors of the world from the cold war power-play first it is imperative that no more nations be supplied with or locally produce nuclear weapons a 1959 report of the national academy of arts and sciences predicted that 19 nations would be so armed in the near future should this prediction be fulfilled the prospects of war would be unimaginably expanded for this reason the united states great britain and the soviet union should band against france which wants its own independent deterrent and seek through united nations or other machinery the effective prevention of the spread of atomic weapons this would involve not only declarations of denuclearization in whole areas of latin america africa asia and europe but would attempt to create inspection machinery to guarantee the peaceful use of atomic energy second the united states should reconsider its increasingly outmoded european defense framework the north atlantic treaty organization since its creation in 1949 nato has assumed increased strength in overall determination of western military policy but has become less and less relevant to its original purpose which was the defense of central europe to be sure after the czech coup of 1948 it might have appeared that the soviet union was on the verge of a full-scale assault on europe but that onslaught has not materialized not so much because of nato nato\'s existence but because of the general unimportance of much of central europe to the soviets today when even american-based icbms could smash russia minutes after an invasion of europe when the soviets have no reason to embark on such an invasion and when thaw sectors are desperately needed to brake the arms race one of at least threatening but most promising courses for american would be toward the gradual diminishment of the nato forces coupled with the negotiated disengagement of parts of central europe it is especially crucial that this be done while america is entering into favorable trade relations with the european economic community such a gesture combining economic ambition with less dependence on the military would demonstrate the kind of competitive co-existence america intends to conduct with the communist-bloc nations if the disengaged states were the two germanies poland and czechoslovakia several other benefits would accrue first the united states would be breaking with the lip-service commitment to liberation of eastern europe which has contributed so much to russian fears and intransigence while doing too little about actual liberation but the end of liberation as a proposed policy would not signal the end of american concern for the oppressed in east europe on the contrary disengagement would be a real rather than a rhetorical effort to ease military tensions thus undermining the russian argument for tighter controls in east europe based on the menace of capitalist encirclement this policy geared to the needs of democratic elements in the satellites would develop a real bridge between east and west across the two most pro-western russian satellites the russians in the past have indicated some interest in such a plan including the demilitarization of the warsaw pact countries their interest should be publicly tested if disengagement could be achieved a major zone could be removed from the cold war the german problem would be materially diminished and the need for nato would diminish and attitudes favorable to disarming would be generated needless to say those proposals are much different than what is currently being practised and praised american military strategists are slowly acceeding to the nato demand for an independent deterrent based on the fear that america might not defend europe from military attack these tendencies strike just the opposite chords in russia than those which would be struck by disengagement themes the chords of military alertness based on the fact that nato bulwarked by the german wehrmacht is preparing to attack eastern europe or the soviet union thus the alarm which underlies the nato proposal for an independent deterrent is likely itself to bring into existence the very russian posture that was the original cause of fear armaments spiral and belligerence will carry the day not disengagement and negotiation the industrialization of the world many americans are prone to think of the industrialization of the newlydeveloped countries as a modern form of american noblesse undertaken sacrificially for the benefit of others on the contrary the task of world industrialization of eliminating the disparity between have and have-not nations is as important as any issue facing america the colonial revolution signals the end of an era for the old western powers and a time of new beginnings for most of the people of the earth in the course of these upheavals many problems will emerge american policies must be revised or accelerated in several ways 1 the united states principal goal should be creating a world where hunger poverty disease ignorance violence and exploitation are replaced as central features by abundance reason love and international cooperation to many this will seem the product of juvenile hallucination but we insist it is a more realistic goal than is a world of nuclear stalemate some will say this is a hope beyond all bounds but is far better to us to have positive vision than a hard headed resignation some will sympathize but claim it is impossible if so then we not fate are the responsible ones for we have the means at our disposal we should not give up the attempt for fear of failure 2 we should undertake here and now a fifty-year effort to prepare for all nations the conditions of industrialization even with far more capital and skill than we now import to emerging areas serious prophets expect that two generations will pass before accelerating industrialism is a worldwide act the needs are numerous every nation must build an adequate intrastructure transportation communication land resources waterways for future industrial growth; there must be industries suited to the rapid development of differing raw materials and other resources; education must begin on a continuing basis for everyone in the society especially including engineering and technical training; technical assistance from outside sources must be adequate to meet present and long-term needs; atomic power plants must spring up to make electrical energy available with america america\'s idle productive capacity it is possible to begin this process immediately without changing our military allocations this might catalyze a peace race since it would demand a response of such magnitude from the soviet union that arms spending and coexistence spending would become strenuous perhaps impossible for the soviets to carry on simultaneously 3 we should not depend significantly on private enterprise to do the job many important projects will not be profitable enough to entice the investment of private capital the total amount required is far beyond the resources of corporate and philanthropic concerns the new nations are suspicious legitimately of foreign enterprises dominating their national life world industrialization is too huge an undertaking to be formulated or carried out by private interests foreign economic assistance is a national problem requiring long range planning integration with other domestic and foreign policies and considerable public debate and analysis therefore the federal government should have primary responsibility in this area 4 we should not lock the development process into the cold war we should view it as a way of ending that conflict when president kennedy declared that we must aid those who need aid because it is right he was unimpeachably correct -- now principle must become practice we should reverse the trend of aiding corrupt anti-communist regimes to support dictators like diem while trying to destroy ones like castro will only enforce international cynicism about american principle and is bound to lead to even more authoritarian revolutions especially in latin america where we did not even consider foreign aid until castro had challenged the status quo we should end the distinction between communist hunger and anti-communist hunger to feed only anticommunists is to directly fatten men like boun oum to incur the wrath of real democrats and to distort our own sense of human values we must cease seeing development in terms of communism and capitalism to fight communism by capitalism in the newly-developing areas is to fundamentally misunderstand the international hatred of imperialism and colonialism and to confuse and needs of 19th century industrial america with those of contemporary nations quite fortunately we are edging away from the dullesian either-or foreign policy ultimatum towards an uneasy acceptance of neutralism and nonalignment if we really desire the end of the cold war we should now welcome nonalignment -- that is the creation of whole blocs of nations concerned with growth and with independently trying to break out of the cold war apparatus finally while seeking disarmament as the genuine deterrent we should shift from financial support of military regimes to support of national development real security cannot be gained by propping up military defenses but only through the hastening of political stability economic growth greater social welfare improved education military aid is temporary in nature a shoring up measure that only postpones crisis in addition it tends to divert the allocations of the nation being defended to supplementary military spending pakistan pakistan\'s budget is 70 oriented to defense measures sometimes it actually creates crisis situations as in latin america where we have contributed to the growth of national armies which are opposed generally to sweeping democratization finally if we are really generous it is harder for corrupt governments to exploit unfairly economic aid -- especially if it is to plentiful that rulers cannot blame the absence of real reforms on anything but their own power lusts 5 america should show its commitment to democratic institutions not by withdrawing support from undemocratic regimes but by making domestic democracy exemplary worldwide amusement cynicism and hatred toward the united states as a democracy is not simply a communist propaganda trick but an objectively justifiable phenomenon if respect for democracy is to be international then the significance of democracy must emanate from america shores not from the soft sell of the united states information agency 6 america should agree that public utilities railroads mines and plantations and other basic economic institutions should be in the control of national not foreign agencies the destiny of any country should be determined by its nationals not by outsiders with economic interests within we should encourage our investors to turn over their foreign holdings or at least 50 of the stock to the national governments of the countries involved 7 foreign aid should be given through international agencies primarily the united nations the need is to eliminate political overtones to the extent possible from economic development the use of international agencies with interests transcending those of american or russian self-interest is the feasible means of working on sound development second internationalization will allow more long-range planning integrate development plans adjacent countries and regions may have and eliminate the duplication built into national systems of foreign aid third it would justify more strictness of supervision than is now the case with american foreign aid efforts but with far less chance of suspicion on the part of the developing countries fourth the humiliating hand-out effect would be replaced by the joint participation of all nations in the general development of the earth earth\'s resources and industrial capacities fifth it would eliminate national tensions e g between japan and some southeast asian areas which now impair aid programs by disguising nationalities in the common pooling of funds sixth it would make easier the task of stabilizing the world market prices of basic commodities alleviating the enormous threat that decline in prices of commodity exports might cancel out the gains from foreign aid in the new nations seventh it would improve the possibilities of non-exploitative development especially in creating soft-credit rotating-fund agencies which would not require immediate progress or financial return finally it would enhance the importance of the united nations itself as the disarming process would enhance the un as a rule-enforcement agency 8 democratic theory must confront the problems inherent in social revolutions for americans concerned with the development of democratic societies the anti-colonial movements and revolutions in the emerging nations pose serious problems we need to face these problems with humility after 180 years of constitutional government we are still striving for democracy in our own society we must acknowledge that democracy and freedom do not magically occur but have roots in historical experience; they cannot always be demanded for any society at any time but must be nurtured and facilitated we must avoid the arbitrary projection of anglo-saxon democratic forms onto different cultures instead of democratic capitalism we should anticipate more or less authoritarian variants of socialism and collectivism in many emergent societies but we do not abandon our critical faculties insofar as these regimes represent a genuine realization of national independence and are engaged in constructing social systems which allow for personal meaning and purpose where exploitation once was economic systems which work for the people where once they oppressed them and political systems which allow for the organization and expression of minority opinion and dissent we recognize their revolutionary and positive character americans can contribute to the growth of democracy in such societies not by moralizing nor by indiscriminate prejudgment but by retaining a critical identification with these nations and by helping them to avoid external threats to their independence together with students and radicals in these nations we need to develop a reasonable theory of democracy which is concretely applicable to the cultures and conditions of hungry people towards american democracy every effort to end the cold war and expand the process of world industrialization is an effort hostile to people and institutions whose interests lie in perpetuation of the east-west military threat and the postponement of change in the have not nations of the world every such effort too is bound to establish greater democracy in america the major goals of a domestic effort would be 1 america must abolish its political party stalemate two genuine parties centered around issues and essential values demanding allegiance to party principles shall supplant the current system of organized stalemate which is seriously inadequate to a world in flux it has long been argued that the very overlapping of american parties guarantees that issues will be considered responsibly that progress will be gradual instead of intemperate and that therefore america will remain stable instead of torn by class strife on the contrary the enormous party overlap itself confuses issues and makes responsible presentation of choice to the electorate impossible that guarantees congressional listlessness and the drift of power to military and economic bureaucracies that directs attention away from the more fundamental causes of social stability such as a huge middle class keynesian economic techniques and madison avenue advertising the ideals of political democracy then the imperative need for flexible decision-making apparatus makes a real two-party system an immediate social necessity what is desirable is sufficient party disagreement to dramatize major issues yet sufficient party overlap to guarantee stable transitions from administration to administration every time the president criticizes a recalcitrant congress we must ask that he no longer tolerate the southern conservatives in the democratic party every time in liberal representative complains that we can\'t expect everything at once we must ask if we received much of anything from congress in the last generation every time he refers to circumstances beyond control we must ask why he fraternizes with racist scoundrels every time he speaks of the unpleasantness of personal and party fighting we should insist that pleasantry with dixiecrats is inexcusable when the dark peoples of the world call for american support 2 mechanisms of voluntary association must be created through which political information can be imparted and political participation encouraged political parties even if realigned would not provide adequate outlets for popular involvement institutions should be created that engage people with issues and express political preference not as now with huge business lobbies which exercise undemocratic power but which carry political influence appropriate to private rather than public groupings in national decision-making enterprise private in nature these should be organized around single issues medical care transportation systems reform etc concrete interest labor and minority group organizations multiple issues or general issues these do not exist in america in quantity today if they did exist they would be a significant politicizing and educative force bringing people into touch with public life and affording them means of expression and action today giant lobby representatives of business interests are dominant but not educative the federal government itself should counter the latter forces whose intent is often public deceit for private gain by subsidizing the preparation and decentralized distribution of objective materials on all public issues facing government 3 institutions and practices which stifle dissent should be abolished and the promotion of peaceful dissent should be actively promoted the first amendment freedoms of speech assembly thought religion and press should be seen as guarantees not threats to national security while society has the right to prevent active subversion of its laws and institutions it has the duty as well to promote open discussion of all issues -- otherwise it will be in fact promoting real subversion as the only means to implementing ideas to eliminate the fears and apathy from national life it is necessary that the institutions bred by fear and apathy be rooted out the house un-american activities committee the senate internal security committee the loyalty oaths on federal loans the attorney general general\'s list of subversive organizations the smith and mccarren acts the process of eliminating these blighting institutions is the process of restoring democratic participation their existence is a sign of the decomposition and atrophy of the participation 4 corporations must be made publicly responsible it is not possible to believe that true democracy can exist where a minority utterly controls enormous wealth and power the influence of corporate elites on foreign policy is neither reliable nor democratic; a way must be found to be subordinate private american foreign investment to a democratically-constructed foreign policy the influence of the same giants on domestic life is intolerable as well; a way must be found to direct our economic resources to genuine human needs not the private needs of corporations nor the rigged needs of maneuvered citizenry we can no longer rely on competition of the many to insure that business enterprise is responsive to social needs the many have become the few nor can we trust the corporate bureaucracy to be socially responsible or to develop a corporate conscience that is democratic the community of interest of corporations the anarchic actions of industrial leaders should become structurally responsible to the people -- and truly to the people rather than to an ill-defined and questionable national interest labor and government as presently constituted are not sufficient to regulate corporations a new re-ordering a new calling of responsibility is necessary more than changing work rules we must consider changes in the rules of society by challenging the unchallenged politics of american corporations before the government can really begin to control business in a public interest the public must gain more substantial control of government this demands a movement for political as well as economic realignments we are aware that simple government regulation if achieved would be inadequate without increased worker participation in management decision-making strengthened and independent regulatory power balances of partial and or complete public ownership various means of humanizing the conditions and types of work itself sweeping welfare programs and regional public government authorities these are examples of measures to re-balance the economy toward public -- and individual -- control 5 the allocation of resources must be based on social needs a truly public sector must be established and its nature debated and planned at present the majority of america america\'s public sector the largest part of our public spending is for the military when great social needs are so pressing our concept of government spending is wrapped up in the permanent war economy in fact if war is to be avoided the permanent war economy must be seen as an interim war economy at some point america must return to other mechanisms of economic growth besides public military spending we must plan economically in peace the most likely and least desirable return would be in the form of private enterprise the undesirability lies in the fact of inherent capitalist instability noticeable even with bolstering effects of government intervention in the most recent post-war recessions for example private expenditures for plant and equipment dropped from 16 billion to 11 5 billion while unemployment surged to nearly six million by good fortune investments in construction industries remained level else an economic depression would have occurred this will recur and our growth in national per capita living standards will remain unsensational while the economy stagnates the main private forces of economic expansion cannot guarantee a steady rate of growth nor acceptable recovery from recession -- especially in a demilitarizing world government participation in the economy is essential such participation will inevitably expand enormously because the stable growth of the economy demands increasing public investments yearly our present outpour of more than 500 billion might double in a generation irreversibly involving government solutions and in future recessions the compensatory fiscal action by the government will be the only means of avoiding the twin disasters of greater unemployment and a slackening rate of growth furthermore a close relationship with the european common market will involve competition with numerous planned economies and may aggravate american unemployment unless the economy here is expanding swiftly enough to create new jobs all these tendencies suggest that not only solutions to our present social needs but our future expansion rests upon our willingness to enlarge the public sector greatly unless we choose war as an economic solvent future public spending will be of a non-military nature -- a major intervention into civilian production by the government the issues posed by this development are enormous 1 how should public vs private domain be determined we suggest these criteria 1 when a resource has been discovered or developed with public tax revenues such as a space communications system it should remain a public source not be given away to private enterprise; 2 when monopolization seems inevitable the public should maintain control of an industry; 3 when national objectives contradict seriously with business objectives as to the use of the resource the public need should prevail 3 how should technological advances be introduced into a society by a public process based on publicly-determined needs technological innovations should not be postponed from social use by private corporations in order to protect investment in older equipment 4 how shall the public sector be made public and not the arena of a ruling bureaucracy of public servants by steadfast opposition to bureaucratic coagulation and to definitions of human needs according to problems easiest for computers to solve second the bureaucratic pileups must be at least minimized by local regional and national economic planning -- responding to the interconnection of public problems by comprehensive programs of solution third and most important by experiments in decentralization based on the vision of man as master of his machines and his society the personal capacity to cope with life has been reduced everywhere by the introduction of technology that only minorities of men barely understand how the process can be reversed and we believe it can be -- is one of the greatest sociological and economic tasks before human people today polytechnical schooling with the individual adjusting to several work and life experiences is one method the transfer of certain mechanized tasks back into manual forms allowing men to make whole not partial products is not unimaginable our monster cities based historically on the need for mass labor might now be humanized broken into smaller communities powered by nuclear energy arranged according to community decision these are but a fraction of the opportunities of the new era serious study and deliberate experimentation rooted in a desire for human fraternity may now result in blueprints of civic paradise 5 america should concentrate on its genuine social priorities abolish squalor terminate neglect and establish an environment for people to live in with dignity and creativeness 6 a program against poverty must be just as sweeping as the nature of poverty itself it must not be just palliative but directed to the abolition of the structural circumstances of poverty at a bare minimum it should include a housing act far larger than the one supported by the kennedy administration but one that is geared more to low-and middleincome needs than to the windfall aspirations of small and large private entrepreneurs one that is more sympathetic to the quality of communal life than to the efficiency of city-split highways second medical care must become recognized as a lifetime human right just as vital as food shelter and clothing -- the federal government should guarantee health insurance as a basic social service turning medical treatment into a social habit not just an occasion of crisis fighting sickness among the aged not just by making medical care financially feasible but by reducing sickness among children and younger people third existing institutions should be expanded so the welfare state cares for everyone everyone\'s welfare according to read social security payments should be extended to everyone and should be proportionately greater for the poorest a minimum wage of at least 1 50 should be extended to all workers including the 16 million currently not covered at all equal educational opportunity is an important part of the battle against poverty 7 a full-scale public initiative for civil rights should be undertaken despite the clamor among conservatives and liberals about gradualism property rights and law and order the executive and legislative branches of the federal government should work by enforcement and enactment against any form of exploitation of minority groups no federal cooperation with racism is tolerable -- from financing of schools to the development of federally-supported industry to the social gatherings of the president laws bastcuing school desegregation voting rights and economic protection for negroes are needed right now the moral force of the executive office should be exerted against the dixiecrats specifically and the national complacency about the race question generally especially in the north where one-half of the country country\'s negro people now live civil rights is not a problem to be solved in isolation from other problems the fight against poverty against slums against the stalemated congress against mccarthyism are all fights against the discrimination that is nearly endemic to all areas of american life 8 the promise and problems of long-range federal economic development should be studied more constructively it is an embarrassing paradox that the tennessee valley authority is a wonder to foreign visitors but a radical and barely influential project to most americans the kennedy decision to permit private facilities to transmit power from the 1 billion colorado river storage project is a disastrous one interposing privately-owned transmitters between public-owned power generators and their publicly and cooperatively owned distributors the contracy trend to public ownership of power should be generated in an experimental way the area redevelopment act of 1961 is a first step in recognizing the underdeveloped areas of the united states but is only a drop in the bucket financially and is not keyed to public planning and public works on a broad scale but only to a few loan programs to lure industries and some grants to improve public facilities to lure industries the current public works bill in congress is needed and a more sweeping higher priced program of regional development with a proliferation of tvas in such areas as the appalachian region are needed desperately it has been rejected by mississippi already however because of the improvement it bodes for the unskilled negro worker this program should be enlarged given teeth and pursued rigorously by federal authorities d we must meet the growing complex of city problems; over 90 of americans will live in urban areas in the next two decades juvenile delinquency untended mental illness crime increase slums urban tenantry and uncontrolled housing the isolation of the individual in the city -- all are problems of the city and are major symptoms of the present system of economic priorities and lack of public planning private property control the real estate lobby and a few selfish landowners and businesses is as devastating in the cities as corporations are on the national level but there is no comprehensive way to deal with these problems now midst competing units of government dwindling tax resources suburban escapism saprophitic to the sick central cities high infrastructure costs and on one to pay them the only solutions are national and regional federalism has thus far failed here because states are rural-dominated; the federal government has had to operate by bootlegging and trickle-down measures dominated by private interests and the cities themselves have not been able to catch up with their appendages through annexation or federation a new external challenge is needed not just a department of urban affairs but a thorough national program to help the cities the model city must be projected -- more community decision-making and participation true integration of classes races vocations -- provision for beauty access to nature and the benefits of the central city as well privacy without privatism decentralized units spread horizontally with central regional democratic control -- provision for the basic facility-needs for everyone with units of planned regions and thus public democratic control over the growth of the civic community and the allocation of resources e mental health institutions are in dire need; there were fewer mental hospital beds in relation to the numbers of mentally-ill in 1959 than there were in 1948 public hospitals too are seriously wanting; existing structures alone need an estimated 1 billion for rehabilitation tremendous staff and faculty needs exist as well and there are not enough medical students enrolled today to meet the anticipated needs of the future f our prisons are too often the enforcers of misery they must be either re-oriented to rehabilitative work through public supervision or be abolished for their dehumanizing social effects funds are needed too to make possible a decent prison environment g education is too vital a public problem to be completely entrusted to the province of the various states and local units in fact there is no good reason why america should not progress now toward internationalizing rather than localizing its educational system -- children and young adults studying everywhere in the world through a united nations program would go far to create mutual understanding in the meantime the need for teachers and classrooms in america is fantastic this is an area where minimal requirements hardly should be considered as a goal -- there always are improvements to be made in the educational system e g smaller classes and many more teachers for them programs to subsidize the education of the poor but bright etc h america should eliminate agricultural policies based on scarcity and pent-up surplus in america and foreign countries there exist tremendous needs for more food and balanced diets the federal government should finance small farmers cooperatives strengthen programs of rural electrification and expand policies for the distribution of agricultural surpluses throughout the world by foodfor -peace and related un programming marginal farmers must be helped to either become productive enough to survive industrialized agriculture or given help in making the transition out of agriculture - the current rural area development program must be better coordinated with a massive national area redevelopment program i science should be employed to constructively transform the conditions of life throughout the united states and the world yet at the present time the department of health education and welfare and the national science foundation together spend only 300 million annually for scientific purposes in contrast to the 6 billion spent by the defense department and the atomic energy commission one-half of all research and development in america is directly devoted to military purposes two imbalances must be corrected -- that of military over non-military investigation and that of biological-natural-physical science over the sciences of human behavior our political system must then include planning for the human use of science by anticipating the political consequences of scientific innovation by directing the discovery and exploration of space by adapting science to improved production of food to international communications systems to technical problems of disarmament and so on for the newly-developing nations american science should focus on the study of cheap sources of power housing and building materials mass educational techniques etc further science and scholarship should be seen less as an apparatus of conflicting power blocs but as a bridge toward supranational community the international geophysical year is a model for continuous further cooperation between the science communities of all nations alternatives to helplessness the goals we have set are not realizable next month or even next election -- but that fact justifies neither giving up altogether nor a determination to work only on immediate direct tangible problems both responses are a sign of helplessness fearfulness of visions refusal to hope and tend to bring on the very conditions to be avoided fearing vision we justify rhetoric or myopia fearing hope we reinforce despair the first effort then should be to state a vision what is the perimeter of human possibility in this epoch this we have tried to do the second effort if we are to be politically responsible is to evaluate the prospects for obtaining at least a substantial part of that vision in our epoch what are the social forces that exist or that must exist if we are to be at all successful and what role have we ourselves to play as a social force 1 in exploring the existing social forces note must be taken of the southern civil rights movement as the most heartening because of the justice it insists upon exemplary because it indicates that there can be a passage out of apathy this movement pushed into a brilliant new phase by the montgomery bus boycott and the subsequent nonviolent action of the sit-ins and freedom rides has had three major results first a sense of self-determination has been instilled in millions of oppressed negroes; second the movement has challenged a few thousand liberals to new social idealism; third a series of important concessions have been obtained such as token school desegregation increased administration help new laws desegregation of some public facilities but fundamental social change -- that would break the props from under jim crown -- has not come negro employment opportunity wage levels housing conditions educational privileges -- these remain deplorable and relatively constant each deprivation reinforcing the impact of the others the southern states in the meantime are strengthening the fortresses of the status quo and are beginning to camouflage the fortresses by guile where open bigotry announced its defiance before the white-controlled one-party system remains intact; and even where the republicans are beginning under the pressures of industrialization in the towns and suburbs to show initiative in fostering a two-party system all southern state republican committees save georgia have adopted militant segregationist platforms to attract dixiecrats rural dominance remains a fact in nearly all the southern states although the reapportionment decision of the supreme court portends future power shifts to the cities southern politicians maintain a continuing aversion to the welfare legislation that would aid their people the reins of the southern economy are held by conservative businessmen who view human rights as secondary to property rights a violent anti-communism is rooting itself in the south and threatening even moderate voices add the militaristic tradition of the south and its irrational regional mystique and one must conclude that authoritarian and reactionary tendencies are a rising obstacle to the small voiceless poor and isolated democratic movements the civil rights struggle thus has come to an impasse to this impasse the movement responded this year by entering the sphere of politics insisting on citizenship rights specifically the right to vote the new voter registration stage of protest represents perhaps the first major attempt to exercise the conventional instruments of political democracy in the struggle for racial justice the vote if used strategically by the great mass of now-unregistered negroes theoretically eligible to vote will be decisive factor in changing the quality of southern leadership from low demagoguery to decent statesmanship more important the new emphasis on the vote heralds the use of political means to solve the problems of equality in america and it signals the decline of the short-sighted view that discrimination can be isolated from related social problems since the moral clarity of the civil rights movement has not always been accompanied by precise political vision and sometimes not every by a real political consciousness the new phase is revolutionary in its implication the intermediate goal of the program is to secure and insure a healthy respect and realization of constitutional liberties this is important not only to terminate the civil and private abuses which currently characterize the region but also to prevent the pendulum of oppression from simply swinging to an alternate extreme with a new unsophisticated electorate after the unhappy example of the last reconstruction it is the ultimate objectives of the strategy which promise profound change in the politics of the nation an increased negro voting race in and of itself is not going to dislodge racist controls of the southern power structure; but an accelerating movement through the courts the ballot boxes and especially the jails is the most likely means of shattering the crust of political intransigency and creating a semblence of democratic order on local and state levels linked with pressure from northern liberals to expunge the dixiecrats from the ranks of the democratic party massive negro voting in the south could destroy the vice-like grip reactionary southerners have on the congressional legislative process 2 the broadest movement for peace in several years emerged in 1961-62 in its political orientation and goals it is much less identifiable than the movement for civil rights it includes socialists pacifists liberals scholars militant activists middle-class women some professionals many students a few unionists some have been emotionally single-issue ban the bomb some have been academically obscurantist some have rejected the system sometimes both systems some have attempted too to work within the system amidst these conflicting streams of emphasis however certain basic qualities appear the most important is that the peace movement has operated almost exclusively through peripheral institutions -- almost never through mainstream institutions similarly individuals interested in peace have nonpolitical social roles that cannot be turned to the support of peace activity concretely liberal religious societies anti-war groups voluntary associations ad hoc committees have been the political unit of the peace movement and its human movers have been students teacher housewives secretaries lawyers doctors clergy the units have not been located in spots of major social influence the people have not been able to turn their resources fully to the issues that concern them the results are political ineffectiveness and personal alienation the organizing ability of the peace movement thus is limited to the ability to state and polarize issues it does not have an institution or the forum in which the conflicting interests can be debated the debate goes on in corners; it has little connection with the continuing process of determining allocations of resources this process is not necessarily centralized however much the peace movement is estranged from it national policy though dominated to a large degree by the power elites of the corporations and military is still partially founded in consensus it can be altered when there actually begins a shift in the allocation of resources and the listing of priorities by the people in the institutions which have social influence e g the labor unions and the schools as long as the debates of the peace movement form only a protest rather than an opposition viewpoint within the centers of serious decision- making then it is neither a movement of democratic relevance nor is it likely to have any effectiveness except in educating more outsiders to the issue it is vital to be sure that this educating go on a heartening sign is the recent proliferation of books and journals dealing with peace and war from newly-developing countries ; the possibilities for making politicians responsible to peace constituencies becomes greater but in the long interim before the national political climate is more open to deliberate goal-directed debate about peace issues the dedicated peace movement might well prepare a local base especially by establishing civic committees on the techniques of converting from military to peacetime production to make war and peace relevant to the problems of everyday life by relating it to the backyard shelters the baby fall-out the job military contracts -- and making a turn toward peace seem desirable on these same terms -- is a task the peace movement is just beginning and can profitably continue 3 central to any analysis of the potential for change must be an appraisal of organized labor it would be a-historical to disregard the immense influence of labor in making modern america a decent place in which to live it would be confused to fail to note labor labor\'s presence today as the most liberal of mainstream institutions but it would be irresponsible not to criticize labor for losing much of the idealism that once made it a driving movement those who expected a labor upsurge after the 1955 afl-cio merger can only be dismayed that one year later in the stevenson-eisenhower campaign the afl-cio committee on political education was able to obtain solicited 1 00 contributions from only one of every 24 unionists and prompt only 40 of the rankand -file to vote as a political force labor generally has been unsuccessful in the postwar period of prosperity it has seen the passage of the taft-hartley and landrum-griffin laws and while beginning to receiving slightly favorable national labor relations board rulings it has made little progress against right-to-work laws furthermore it has seen less than adequate action on domestic problems especially unemployment this labor recession has been only partly due to anti-labor politicians and corporations blame should be laid too to labor itself for not mounting an adequate movement labor has too often seen itself as elitist rather than mass-oriented and as a pressure group rather than as an 18-million member body making political demands for all america in the first instance the labor bureaucracy tends to be cynical toward or afraid of rank-and-file involvement in the work of the union resolutions passed at conventions are implemented only by high-level machinations not by mass mobilization of the unionists without a significant base labor labor\'s pressure function is materially reduced since it becomes difficult to hold political figures accountable to a movement that cannot muster a vote from a majority of its members there are some indications however that labor might regain its missing idealism first there are signs within the movement of worker discontent with the economic progress of collective bargaining of occasional splits among union leaders on questions such as nuclear testing or other cold war issues second and more important are the social forces which prompt these feelings of unrest foremost is the permanence of unemployment and the threat of automation but important too is the growth of unorganized ranks in white-collar fields with steady depletion in the already-organized fields third there is the tremendous challenge of the negro movement for support from organized labor the alienation from and disgust with labor hypocrisy among negroes ranging from the naacp to the black muslims crystallized in the formation of the negro american labor council indicates that labor must move more seriously in its attempts to organize on an interracial basis in the south and in large urban centers when this task was broached several years ago jurisdictional disputes prevented action today many of these disputes have been settled -- and the question of a massive organizing campaign is on the labor agenda again these threats and opportunities point to a profound crisis either labor continues to decline as a social force or it must constitute itself as a mass political force demanding not only that society recognize its rights to organize but also a program going beyond desired labor legislation and welfare improvements necessarily this latter role will require rank-and-file involvement it might include greater autonomy and power for political coalitions of the various trade unions in local areas rather than the more stultifying dominance of the international unions now it might include reductions in leaders salaries or rotation from executive office to shop obligations as a means of breaking down the hierarchical tendencies which have detached elite from base and made the highest echelons of labor more like businessmen than workers it would certainly mean an announced independence of the center and dixiecrat wings of the democratic party and a massive organizing drive especially in the south to complement the growing negro political drive there a new politics must include a revitalized labor movement; a movement which sees itself and is regarded by others as a major leader of the breakthrough to a politics of hope and vision labor labor\'s role is no less unique or important in the needs of the future than it was in the past its numbers and potential political strength its natural interest in the abolition of exploitation its reach to the grass roots of american society combine to make it the best candidate for the synthesis of the civil rights peace and economic reform movements the creation of bridges is made more difficult by the problems left over from the generation of silence middle class students still the main actors in the embryonic upsurge have yet to overcome their ignorance and even vague hostility for what they see as middle class labor bureaucrats students must open the campus to labor through publications action programs curricula while labor opens its house to students through internships requests for aid on the picket-line with handbills in the public dialogue and politics and the organization of the campus can be a beginning -- teachers unions can be argued as both socially progressive and educationally beneficial university employees can be organized -- and thereby an important element in the education of the student radical but the new politics is still contained; it struggles below the surface of apathy awaiting liberation few anticipate the breakthrough and fewer still exhort labor to begin labor continues to be the most liberal -- and most frustrated -- institution in mainstream america 4 since the democratic party sweep in 1958 there have been exaggerated but real efforts to establish a liberal force in congress not to balance but to at least voice criticism of the conservative mood the most notable of these efforts was the liberal project begun early in 1959 by representative kastenmeier of wisconsin the project was neither disciplined nor very influential but it was concerned at least with confronting basic domestic and foreign problems in concert with sever liberal intellectuals in 1960 five members of the project were defeated at the polls for reasons other than their membership in the project then followed a post mortem publication of the liberal papers materials discussed by the project when it was in existence republican leaders called the book further our than communism the new frontier administration repudiated any connection with the statements some former members of the project even disclaimed their past roles a hopeful beginning came to a shameful end but during the demise of the project a new spirit of democratic party reform was occurring in new york city ithaca massachusetts connecticut texas california and even in mississippi and alabama where negro candidates for congress challenged racist political power some were for peace some for the liberal side of the new frontier some for realignment of the parties -- and in most cases they were supported by students here and there were stirrings of organized discontent with the political stalemate americans for democratic action and the new republic pillars of the liberal community took stands against the president on nuclear testing a split extremely slight thus far developed in organized labor on the same issue the rev martin luther king jr preached against the dixiecrat-republican coalition across the nation 5 from 1960 to 1962 the campuses experienced a revival of idealism among an active few triggered by the impact of the sit-ins students began to struggle for integration civil liberties student rights peace and against the fast-rising right wing revolt as well the liberal students too have felt their urgency thwarted by conventional channels from student governments to congressional committees out of this alienation from existing channels has come the creation of new ones; the most characteristic forms of liberal-radical student organizations are the dozens of campus political parties political journals and peace marches and demonstrations in only a few cases have students built bridges to power an occasional election campaign the sit-ins freedom rides and voter registration activities; in some relatively large northern demonstrations for peace and civil rights and infrequently through the united states national student association whose notable work has not been focused on political change these contemporary social movements -- for peace civil rights civil liberties labor -- have in common certain values and goals the fight for peace is one for a stable and racially integrated world; for an end to the inherently volatile exploitation of most of mankind by irresponsible elites; and for freedom of economic political and cultural organization the fight for civil rights is also one for social welfare for all americans; for free speech and the right to protest; for the shield of economic independence and bargaining power; for a reduction of the arms race which takes national attention and resources away from the problems of domestic injustice labor labor\'s fight for jobs and wages is also one labor; for the right to petition and strike; for world industrialization; for the stability of a peacetime economy instead of the insecurity of the war economy; for expansion of the welfare state the fight for a liberal congress is a fight for a platform from which these concerns can issue and the fight for students for internal democracy in the university is a fight to gain a forum for the issues but these scattered movements have more in common a need for their concerns to be expressed by a political party responsible to their interests that they have no political expression no political channels can be traced in large measure to the existence of a democratic party which tolerates the perverse unity of liberalism and racism prevents the social change wanted by negroes peace protesters labor unions students reform democrats and other liberals worse the party stalemate prevents even the raising of controversy -- a full congressional assault on racial discrimination disengagement in central europe sweeping urban reform disarmament and inspection public regulation of major industries; these and other issues are never heard in the body that is supposed to represent the best thoughts and interests of all americans an imperative task for these publicly disinherited groups then is to demand a democratic party responsible to their interests they must support southern voter registration and negro political candidates and demand that democratic party liberals do the same in the last congress dixiecrats split with northern democrats on 119 of 300 roll-calls mostly on civil rights area redevelopment and foreign aid bills; and breach was much larger than in the previous several sessions labor should begin a major drive in the south in the north reform clubs either independent or democratic should be formed to run against big city regimes on such issues as peace civil rights and urban needs demonstrations should be held at every congressional or convention seating of dixiecrats a massive research and publicity campaign should be initiated showing to every housewife doctor professor and worker the damage done to their interests every day a racist occupies a place in the democratic party where possible the peace movement should challenge the peace credentials of the otherwise-liberals by threatening or actually running candidates against them the university and social change there is perhaps little reason to be optimistic about the above analysis true the dixiecrat-gop coalition is the weakest point in the dominating complex of corporate military and political power but the civil rights and peace and student movements are too poor and socially slighted and the labor movement too quiescent to be counted with enthusiasm from where else can power and vision be summoned we believe that the universities are an overlooked seat of influence first the university is located in a permanent position of social influence its educational function makes it indispensable and automatically makes it a crucial institution in the formation of social attitudes second in an unbelievably complicated world it is the central institution for organizing evaluating and transmitting knowledge third the extent to which academic resources presently is used to buttress immoral social practice is revealed first by the extent to which defense contracts make the universities engineers of the arms race too the use of modern social science as a manipulative tool reveals itself in the human relations consultants to the modern corporation who introduce trivial sops to give laborers feelings of participation or belonging while actually deluding them in order to further exploit their labor and of course the use of motivational research is already infamous as a manipulative aspect of american politics but these social uses of the universities resources also demonstrate the unchangeable reliance by men of power on the men and storehouses of knowledge this makes the university functionally tied to society in new ways revealing new potentialities new levers for change fourth the university is the only mainstream institution that is open to participation by individuals of nearly any viewpoint these at least are facts no matter how dull the teaching how paternalistic the rules how irrelevant the research that goes on social relevance the accessibility to knowledge and internal openness these together make the university a potential base and agency in a movement of social change 1 any new left in america must be in large measure a left with real intellectual skills committed to deliberativeness honesty reflection as working tools the university permits the political life to be an adjunct to the academic one and action to be informed by reason 2 a new left must be distributed in significant social roles throughout the country the universities are distributed in such a manner 3 a new left must consist of younger people who matured in the postwar world and partially be directed to the recruitment of younger people the university is an obvious beginning point 4 a new left must include liberals and socialists the former for their relevance the latter for their sense of thoroughgoing reforms in the system the university is a more sensible place than a political party for these two traditions to begin to discuss their differences and look for political synthesis 5 a new left must start controversy across the land if national policies and national apathy are to be reversed the ideal university is a community of controversy within itself and in its effects on communities beyond 6 a new left must transform modern complexity into issues that can be understood and felt close-up by every human being it must give form to the feelings of helplessness and indifference so that people may see the political social and economic sources of their private troubles and organize to change society in a time of supposed prosperity moral complacency and political manipulation a new left cannot rely on only aching stomachs to be the engine force of social reform the case for change for alternatives that will involve uncomfortable personal efforts must be argued as never before the university is a relevant place for all of these activities but we need not indulge in allusions the university system cannot complete a movement of ordinary people making demands for a better life from its schools and colleges across the nation a militant left might awaken its allies and by beginning the process towards peace civil rights and labor struggles reinsert theory and idealism where too often reign confusion and political barter the power of students and faculty united is not only potential; it has shown its actuality in the south and in the reform movements of the north the bridge to political power though will be built through genuine cooperation locally nationally and internationally between a new left of young people and an awakening community of allies in each community we must look within the university and act with confidence that we can be powerful but we must look outwards to the less exotic but more lasting struggles for justice to turn these possibilities into realities will involve national efforts at university reform by an alliance of students and faculty they must wrest control of the educational process from the administrative bureaucracy they must make fraternal and functional contact with allies in labor civil rights and other liberal forces outside the campus they must import major public issues into the curriculum -- research and teaching on problems of war and peace is an outstanding example they must make debate and controversy not dull pedantic cant the common style for educational life they must consciously build a base for their assault upon the loci of power as students for a democratic society we are committed to stimulating this kind of social movement this kind of vision and program is campus and community across the country if we appear to seek the unattainable it has been said then let it be known that we do so to avoid the unimaginable organizers manual '),(1596,'the most radical idea in america is a long memory part iii',' this is part iii of iii part i part ii sunday afternoon and evening plenary on structure the meat of the matter sunday afternoon and evening plenary on structure the meat of the matter sunday afternoon and evening plenary on structure the meat of the matter the member and the chapter the member and the chapter the member and the chapter the member the structure proposals started with separate proposals for the definition of the member and the chapter this was pretty much a combination of proposal to establish individual and chapter membership requirements robin markle pg 50 and the member & the chapter babken dergrigorian and dave shukla pg 51 these were really the only two documents in which people got to nitpicking and niggling while i definitely understand that urge most of the hour discussing the member seemed remarkablely unproductive to me i had a hard time understanding why people took this issue so seriously did they really expect representatives from the national organization to come down a chapter and point to somebody and say you you have not met these requirements get out of here this excitement over wording seemed to come from two sources to me people who mistook sds structure for law and wanted to get it exactly right and individualist anti-authoritarian anarchists who were repelled at the idea of anything but the chapter having a say over who could be let into a chapter sds structure is not law because sds does not have any violence to back up our decisions and because of this there will always be flexibility when interpreting our rules this period also annoyed me as people did not take the time to think about whether or not their comment was a clarifying question or a concern however there are some important results from the member anyone interested in working in sds has to belong to a local chapter or be in the process of organizing a local chapter nobody can identify themselves as simply part of the national organization or a regional organization also important was the decision to make sure that people over thirty do not hold positions at the regional or national level other that membership is completely open to the digression of the chapter as members are required to either be under the age of thirty be a student affiliated with an institution of learning or join by digression of the chapter the significant amendments were simply changing some words so that they would comply with the demands of the high school and working class caucus the member passed with a vote but unfortunately i do not have the numbers the chapter the chapter the chapter the chapter had many of the same problems as the member people were talking but not really paying attention and others were way too focused on the wording again i am amazed that people would think that somebody from the national organization would come down and say you you only have four people in your chapter you don\'t get any votes but apparently they did think this the really interesting part of the chapter was that it attempted to make a distinction between city and school chapters by saying that a person could only get one vote at a city level either as a city member or as a school member the other important point was that it gave chapters the responsibility to stay in contact with the regional and national level in someone for example each chapter has to respond to the call for ratification the chapter was passed with consensus after a short break we pooled money for pizza and it was announced that we would vote on a revised local organizers come first later in the evening but now we were going to have four presentations on national structure national structure national structure national structure nested council the first presentation was on national structure john cronan pg 44 which i will refer to as nested council so as not to confuse myself and my readers nested council is a very well thought out and elaborate structure which i and many others believed was significantly more advanced than sds could handle at present but was a worthy goal to struggle towards in addition to being complex the structure explicitly called for membership dues and a definitive relationship between chapters and regions regions and the national organization and the national organization and chapters all three of these factors complexity dues and defined relationships within the organization counted against it to many people many of the clarifying questions hinted at this people asked how the delegates were different than representatives how each delegate would relate to their chapter and how could this be implemented before the next convention and also that a single person was presenting an unedited version worked against nested council as a group of people presenting an joint effort was much more encouraging and in the spirit of the convention national secretary national secretary national secretary the next presentation was on secretary proposal nick kreitman pg 47 if nested council was too ambitious then the secretary proposal was too pessimistic the implication of nick nick\'s proposal was that the majority of sdsers could not be trusted to perform tasks at the national level and therefore an interim council was necessary to make all decisions on these tasks and merely seek confirmation from the chapters while upon inspection the document is not nearly as bad as people were whispering it was it was quite obvious that people did not agree with either the reasoning behind it nor the image it produced in people people\'s heads many people did not see how it the proposal was supposed to be an interim organization with the end result being the nested council which is explicitly stated in the text they instead choose to remark that it was leninist or a similar type comment and move on the federation of chapters the federation of chapters the federation of chapters the third proposal had many advantages outside of it it\'s content it was a collaboration of three proposals and its authors were from diverse identities regions and ideologies the federation of chapters as i will refer to it from now on was a conglomeration of national communication regional cooperation local control magi belknap and philip chinn pg 37 chapter federation model mike da cruz and jasper conner pg 38 and sds structure proposal rachel haut pg 34 as time was getting rushed at this point there were few questions about this proposal mainly about the spokes council it was made clear that the spokes council could only make administrative decisions except during emergencies during which it it\'s powers would be temporarily expanded and afterwards all it it\'s decisions made during that time would have to be approved by the national organization as the interactions among the spokes council national caucuses and national working groups is fairly complex i will give an example of how it would work the national organization calls for a large demonstration and charges several working groups with carrying this out let us say that the working groups are media organizing and strategy the working groups begin carrying out their duties the spokes council comprised of members from many different regions and identities are assigned to read the minutes of a particular working group and ensure that they are following the mandate of the national organization the salish sea proposal the salish sea proposal the salish sea proposal the next presentation was a mix of the salish sea proposal nicki vance and millcent hadjivassiliou pg 43 and national structure proposal austin smith pg 48 which i will refer to as the salish sea this proposal was very much playing to the anti-authoritarian individualist anarchist crowd as it called for complete consensus on decisions at regional and national levels and resembled more of a loose network of individual chapters rather than an organization while significantly less elaborate than other proposals the salish sea did not make any attempt to provide guidelines on how sds would make lasting decisions as a national organization instead it put a lot of faith in instantaneous group decisions structure discussion structure discussion structure discussion after the salish sea it was announced that we would try to discuss several other structure proposals later this evening we then broke into ten small groups to discuss what we wanted out of the national organization below is a list of all the items people brought back to the larger group; separated into concrete and abstract concrete legal funds coordinate and fund national actions institutional memory skill shares and leadership development education materials news bulletin distribute trainers and organizers more representation on the list serves and website media structure abstract help win model for society unify and beautify the left an organization that is fun and that people want to be a part of combat institutional oppression an organization that serves not dictates respect and non-sectarianism transparency and accountability rapid response time for actions chapter solidarity prevent informal leadership after we discussed these needs we broke again into to small groups to discuss how these needs could be best met and to wait for dinner to arrive the discussion in my small group was frustrating to me but i think fruitful in the long run i\'m sure that one of the main reasons i was frustrated was simply being on hour 9 of a very long meeting in my small group support was fairly evenly divided between federation of chapters and the salish sea i was a vocal opponent of the salish sea and spent my time in the group trying to convince people to either vote for federation of chapters or nested council the buzz word for discussing national structure was most definitively autonomy everybody wanted chapters to have autonomy but there was significant disagreement about what that entailed i tried to point out how all the proposals guaranteed chapter autonomy but that the salish sea encouraged isolationalism rather than solidarity of chapters after the convention i got into a discussion about how the concern for autonomy in western leftist movements has incorrectly grown out of language from indigenous struggles in south america in indigenous struggles they emphasized being autonomous from the state but in western leftist movements we talk about being autonomous from each other at this point steaz saved the convention i don\'t know why but slightly before the pizza arrived cases of steaz an organic and fair trade certified energy drink were plopped down at all the small groups i know that they were the only thing that kept me going to mid-night and i\'m sure that was the case for other people as well after sdsers rampaged through the pizza there was not enough we returned to the conference room tired and pepped up on caffeine after we got in somebody announced that it was al haber haber\'s birthday i could imagine how excited he was at seeing all this happen the general plan for the evening was to have all 10 small groups give report backs on their discussions and then two members of the facilitation team would keep track of all the similarities of what people wanted and how they wanted to go about it all 10 groups made their presentations and there were many similarities unfortunately the main thing that separated the outcomes of the groups was the way in which they decided to structure their discussion some were completely open discussions others started by focusing on the four proposals and critiquing them others talked about what sds was already doing and how structure could improve it after all the report backs the two members of the facilitation team alex grosskurth and lisa fithian withdrew to talk about what they had recorded provisional structure for 2007-2008 provisional structure for 2007-2008 provisional structure for 2007-2008 while they did we selected the twenty members of the ratification committee which encouraged people as it was an affirmation that we were following up on our decisions around twenty volunteers jumped up onto the stage and were cheered on by the crowd people were especially happy when we discovered that there was representation from all the regions and all caucuses except the gender queer caucus after this there were some announcements; calls for media spokespeople for tomorrow a women women\'s meeting after the plenary etc as alex and lisa were still discussing we continued onto the revised local organizers come first the new proposal was different in two respects the veto power of the local chapter had been changed to weighted value and the respect demanded of outside chapters was widened to local organizers that are not in sds after several concerns were addressed and it was seen that consensus was impossible local organizers come first was voted on and passed at 10 10 pm alex and lisa returned to the audience with the provincial structure for 2007-2008 they said this was a proposal for the national organization that was based on all the report backs of the small groups and the four structural proposals my review of it is that it is mainly a reduplication of the federation of chapters the following is the brief outline of their proposal 1 chapters are regions will continue to functions as before 2 national caucuses and auxiliaries will function to combat oppression within sds 3 national working groups will be formed open to all 4 national spokes council that will monitor working groups there would be working groups for the following categories communication website list serves media bulletin fundraising national events chapter building welcoming training actions national structure the spokes council would have representatives from all regions and caucuses and would rotate on a staggered basis so that information and experience may be carried on effectively the role of the spokes council is for accountability efficiency and transparency the spokes council does not have the authority to make decisions or statements nor can they interfere with regional or chapter organizations all the documents and minutes of the spokes council must be made open to all sdsers while the provincial structure is upon inspection very reasonable and very similar to other structural proposals everyone in the audience was very reasonablely some what surprised that the facilitators would have written their own proposal without telling those gathered and then spring this upon us and expect us to take their proposal seriously is a bit fantastic there were many objections lisa tried to explain her reasoning that we started from a place of unity and having recognized that we have very little time and that there was no one proposal that everybody liked but merging the two most popular will take forever more structural discussion more structural discussion more structural discussion to challenge lisa lisa\'s statement there was a call for a straw poll on the four original structural proposals the results of the straw poll were 39 for nested council 0 for national secretary 57 for federation of chapters 24 for salish sea immediately after this straw poll john cronan author of nested council explained that his nested council was a possibility for the future but not as something that sds could immediately adopt he withdrew his proposal after this there was confusion some called for the authors of federation of chapters consult with the authors of salish sea and make a compromise others said that all who voted for nested council would now vote for federation of chapters as they argued that federation of chapters was mid-way between the nested council and the salish sea others argued that we could not vote for federation of chapters because it was merging of some many documents that there was no final draft mike da cruz one of the federation authors said that a final draft could be available shortly other structure decisions other structure decisions other structure decisions creation of an official sds news bulletin eventually it was somehow decided that all the authors of federation of chapters would leave and attempt to make a final draft while the rest of the plenary would move onto the other structural proposals so we began looking at creation of an official sds news bulletin alex grosskurth pg 33 alex said that the only difference in his latest draft and that in the proposal packet was that representatives from all the caucuses would have to be on the staff of the bulletin the only major concern was whether or not this would include a paper edition of the bulletin alex remained vague after several other smaller questions such as whether the bulletin would be an internal or external document the news bulletin passed with consensus communications communications communications next was the communications proposal matt henry de vlieger pg 55 which is mainly about constructing a virtual office a virtual office being a place were minutes and notes from meetings could be posted the only main concern with communication was about security on things that we wouldn\'t want people outside of sds to read the only real answer was that people would use common sense communication passed with 2 3 majority though there were many abstentions at this point it was 11 30 pm; we had been meeting for 14 hours while we should have broke for the evening we didn\'t for the rest of the night we talked about the media policy for the convention which was a very sour note to end the night media debate media debate media debate just before the intense debate on recording the national convention began some members of the women women\'s caucus began handing out a document titled a manifesta on consent which was a slightly modified document from a policy on consent from antioch college the intense argument on the media policy was a result a variety of different ideas one idea was that this convention is important and should be recorded another idea is that the members at the convention are important and should be protected by secrecy but the idea that had brought this issue to the convention was that the media policy which was that only still photography was permissible during the plenaries no video cameras no tape recorders was set by the national convention working group of course all the national convention working group group\'s decisions were made undemocratically which was way all decisions about the national convention were made eventually it was put to a vote whether or not we should allow the plenary on structure tomorrow to be video recorded people who believed strongly in the ideals of security culture won out and the proposal was defeated at this point it was midnight and the room had to be closed for the night there was a flurry of activity as people tried to clean up everything as quickly as possible some advocates of security culture threw bandanas across their faces so that the wayne state university campus security would not recognize them as they walked out people headed to bars restaurants and the uu church to either talk more about the conference or to try and forget it for a few moments which was impossible sunday morning plenary on structure and action an incomplete end sunday morning plenary on structure and action an incomplete end sunday morning plenary on structure and action an incomplete end i had work on tuesday and i was foolishly hoping that the drive back to boston would take only twelve hours so that if we left at noon we would be home by midnight as monday was scheduled to go to four at the earliest i knew that i would be missing the end of the convention which really pissed me off as i was very interested in hearing what michel albert had to say in his concluding speech i hastily warned jonathan claire and evan about this it was then that i realized that we would be taking on another passenger kelly it was going to be a squeezed car-ride home the plenary started at 9 30 but it was half an hour before we really started talking about the latest draft of the proposal on national structure federation of chapters part ii federation of chapters part ii federation of chapters part ii the first thing we did was outline the three major points of federation of chapters and ask if there were any objections to those these points being the national caucuses the federation of chapters and the national convention then we broke into small groups to formulate questions and possible amendments on those sections as people did this the authors traveled around the room answering clarifying questions all during this time i was practically giddy with joy this proposal which i very much supported looked like it was going to pass after we reconvened there were two proposed amendments both of which were declared unfriendly and failed to sustain a vote to override the authors the first proposed amendment was to grant the spokes council deliberative power over documents provided to them essentially allowing them to edit proposals before sending them to the rest of the organization the second proposed amendment was to take away the veto power of national caucuses i think that the author of this proposed amendment didn\'t fully understand that caucuses only had veto power over actions and proposals that would contribute to their oppression during the pro con section the con arguments consisted of worries that we hadn\'t read the full document that this structure was too complex and assembled too quickly and that caucuses have too much power the check for consensus failed but the vote was overwhelming positive 89 for 9 against and 16 abstentions here is the draft we voted on i was ecstatic as i furiously punched my notes into my laptop for now i could dare to hope that we had created something that would allow us to do tomorrow what we couldn\'t do today a declaration and commitment of support for the iraq moratorium a declaration and commitment of support for the iraq moratorium a declaration and commitment of support for the iraq moratorium by now it was 11 00 am but i wanted to see at least one action proposal daniel tasripin presented his proposal a declaration and commitment of support for the iraq moratorium pg 59 the facilitators had announced that for the action proposal we were going to have an extremely expedited process no questions or concerns and just one pro and one con and then an up and down vote however after daniel presented his piece nobody volunteered to offer a con position support for the iraq moratorium passed with consensus at that point i had to drag myself out of there as i knew it would take longer to get my friends into the car and still longer to get out of the city i made sure that several people knew that i was leaving and that other note takers were still going i look forward to reading what did happen after i left; as i of now i\'ve only heard incomplete sketches epilogue we do this because we have to not because we know why epilogue we do this because we have to not because we know why epilogue we do this because we have to not because we know why i\'m still trying to figure out why i wrote this partially because i can\'t shake the feeling that sds will be important and that it will be important to try and understand what happened at chicago partially because i wanted to see what will happen after i write this partially because i know that i\'m not that good of a speaker so i want something to point to when people ask me what happened there partially because i was there but i wished that so many other people were there as well '),(1597,'the most radical idea in america is a long memory part ii',' this is part ii of iii part i part iii saturday night plenary on process and vision why are we here saturday night plenary on process and vision why are we here saturday night plenary on process and vision why are we here the plenary started late as people dragged themselves out of restaurants into the speaking hall unfortunately discussion was further postponed as a variety of announcements were made both by sdsers and the facilitators fortunately one of the things that was announced the structure for passing proposals which was pretty much followed for the rest of the convention the structure was presentation clarification concerns pro con amendments ask for objections i e check for consensus quick chapter caucus vote once these announcements were finished we got into debate about the resolution and ratification proposal resolution and ratification resolution and ratification resolution and ratification the concerns voiced about the resolution and ratification proposal could be divided into two categories concerns that the proposal does not use entirely consensus based decision making and concerns about the efficiency of the proposal and the likelihood it actually being enacted in so early in sds sds\'s establishment the first concern a line of thought from anti-authoritarian individualist anarchists who incorrectly assume that strengthening the national organization of sds is analogous to strengthening a state-like institution would be brought up throughout the weekend after the initial debates several amendments were added to the proposal these included the re-instatement of the six month deadline for chapters to respond an 80 quorum of chapters and empowering chapters to use whatever decision making method they want to ratify the proposals this amended version was passed with a 2 3 majority people were so happy that they performed the wave upsetting the people insistent on blocking it it was requested later that people not perform the wave after a proposal passes who we are what we are doing who we are what we are doing who we are what we are doing at this point it was 9 10 pm; we had just spent an hour on process and were about to sink our teeth into vision the facilitators stressed that in passing these proposals we should only consider the concepts that the proposals embodied rather than the exact wording the first proposal was a conglomerate of four documents sds for a new generation who we are what we are doing madeline gardner and joshua kahn russell pg 19 for a more inclusive sds kateri woestman and nick martin pg 27 what kind of movement to make a statement on vision and practice kelly lenora lee and michael gould-wartofsky pg 27 and anti-racism as anti-oppression rachel smith and jessica rapchik pg 31 all these proposals were about vision within sds; how we hoped sds would act look and feel like in the future this eager cooperative spirit that lead the writers of these proposals to seek each other out before this plenary so that they could plan this joint presentation would be replicated often throughout the weekend however the presence of this cooperative spirit should not give the impression that opposition was not present throughout the entire convention; both constructive and needless opposition after the presentation of the who we are what we are doing proposal the chosen title for all joint proposals the people of color caucus demanded a meeting to discuss the anti-racism as anti-oppression section while initially saying that they would only be five minutes they returned a half and hour later and demanded that the anti-racism section be dropped as they did not comfortable with this one particular oppression being highlighted in the sds vision statement after this amendment the who we are what we are doing proposal moved to the pro con section the arguments against the proposal fell into two camps concerns that were really about the structure of sds and concerns about the length and content of the document examples of concerns in the former category are this document is the result of informal leadership or because we passed resolutions and ratification we\'re supporting representative democracy not participatory democracy which goes against what we stand for in this vision statement examples of the later are i can\'t vote on this because i haven\'t read it i was not sympathetic for these people at all the majority of the proposals were available on the wiki for quite some time before the convention and they had a long time during the convention to read a printed out version fortunately people did not buy either of these arguments as they voted on the content of the proposals that they had read before or during the convention and the proposal passed go here to see to the final draft of the document however there was some very disrespectful maneuvering during this time including a motion to override the facilitators that was completely uncalled for at this point it was 10 45 at night the rest of the vision proposals were tabled until the next day sunday morning odds and ends sunday morning odds and ends sunday morning odds and ends time had been set aside on sunday morning for caucuses and auxiliaries to meet if they so desired the working class caucus and the class privilege auxiliary met in the morning but i was still in the process of waking up so i didn\'t attend the class privilege auxiliary i was also hesitant to go to a meeting i didn\'t understand was about were we going to make decisions or just talk more about classism with sds however i did attend the men men\'s auxiliary as it was pretty clear that we needed to discuss consent and sexual assault issues as that is what the women women\'s caucus caucus\'s report back was mainly concerned with yesterday the framing of consent and sexual assault within the men men\'s auxiliary was refreshingly different than the way it often portrayed in health classes and school sponsored trainings an early demand in the meeting was that we realize as men that not all men are heterosexual and that women do not have a monopoly on being survivors of sexual assault during the meeting however we had to contend with people people\'s eagerness to produce a statement on consent immediately in the end we resolved to state that we would work with the women women\'s caucus and queer caucus on such a statement it should be noted that the transfolk and gender queer caucus should also be consulted by the time we came to this conclusion it was time to reconvene with the rest of the group i felt bad during the caucus report backs as one of the main points of the class privilege report back was that they needed more people to show up they also stated that any bulletin that sds would make would have to have a paper edition so as to comply with the demands of the working class caucus from yesterday their only other point was that they had discussed the working class caucus caucus\'s demands the working class caucus reported that they felt that they were not being taken seriously within sds and demanded sds to examine it it\'s own classism they reiterated their statement on meetings and actions starting and ending on time and demanded that no major decisions be made outside of the time agree upon the men men\'s auxiliary gave their report back reading the proposal that we had agreed upon unfortunately i do not have any notes of the women women\'s caucus caucus\'s report back i know that they met during lunch on sunday did they actually meet sunday morning after the caucus report backs there were some announcements form the facilitators about how they hope to change their facilitation styles for today and also some opportunity to give some feedback to the facilitators matt and lisa niles had left on saturday said that they would try to use the projector more today encourage more than just two pro con by having people huddle before hand so that they could plan their statements and encouraged people who had amendments to go to the front of the room during concerns so that they could talk directly with the authors and also with others interested in amending the feedback that sdsers offered varied considerably some said that the facilitators were biased in favor of making decisions and moving forward some said that they were biased in keeping the status quo of the convention after this there was a straw poll about people people\'s priorities so that they could adequately plan time for structure vision and action proposals structure was the highest priority followed by action followed by vision after a quick huddle by the facilitators they then announced that the next five vision proposals would just be an up and down vote preceded by clarifications and concerns sunday morning and early afternoon plenary on vision envisioning sds sunday morning and early afternoon plenary on vision envisioning sds sunday morning and early afternoon plenary on vision envisioning sds statement on totalist politics statement on totalist politics statement on totalist politics the first vision proposal was the statement on totalist politics brian kelly pg 11 i was interested in seeing how this proposal was going to proceed as i had the privilege to see the document before brian kelly made it public my main comment about it was suggesting that he explicitly explain what he meant by the term \'totalist\' although if you read the entire document it becomes clear that it means \'holistic\' i only found out after the convention that a significant number of people were initially concerned about the document because they immediately associated \'totalist\' with \'totalitarian\' which given both the nature of brian kelly and his document i found very amusing and actually it was down right ironic because one of the main purposes of the document was to shut out people who would elevate class oppression over other forms of oppression which has traditionally been the rhetoric of totalitarian communists however during the concerns section totalist politics was unopposed by the communists present it passed with a large majority the need for totalist politics became evident soon after the convention as an anonymous report back was posted on the sds wiki explaining how sds was not revolutionary because we did not focus explicitly on class oppression; interestingly the author claimed that they were critiquing us from an anarchist perspective self defense self defense self defense the second vision proposal was self defense nick kreitman pg 24 which was a train wreck of a proposal in many ways the most glaring is that it is actually a structural and action proposal disguised as a vision proposal the second is that it invokes the history of the black panthers in a rather inappropriate way the black panthers advocated self defense because their communities were colonies of white america; college campuses which are the closest things to sds that can be called communities are place of privilege the relationships that these two places have with police are very different from each other while i have nothing against forming cop-watches and the like the necessity of self-defense on a college campus seems to me to be completely unwarranted also the wording of the document seemed to down play sexual assault against both women and lgbtq folks the proposal failed and i have in my notes that nearly all who voted for the proposal were white males resolution that local organizers come first resolution that local organizers come first resolution that local organizers come first the third vision proposal was resolution that local organizers come first daniel meltzer pg 18 and it it\'s initial failure showed to me the importance of internal sds politics daniel is a member of dc sds and dc sds had drawn ire from other sds chapters due to the way that the anti-war marches on january 27th and march 18th of 2007 were handled many sdsers felt that the marches elevated machismo and the appearance of militancy above strategy and at the cost of making sdsers look like idiots thus when a white hetero male member of dc sds came forward with a proposal that essentially would give local chapters complete control over events in their domain many people were quite peeved in my eyes the proposal was to address an issue that daniel had been telling me about for quite some time he had explained to me before january 27th how the large marches in dc are often planned completely by outsiders and therefore end up being completely disrespectful towards local communities and activists these large marches also often put an undue burden on local organizers and activists thus i was not surprised that he had put together this proposal the clarifying questions about the proposal reflected people people\'s concerns about giving absolute power to the local chapter what happens if the local chapter is using tactics that would have a strong effect on the rest of the organization and do you realize that your proposal presupposes the local chapter would be amenable to working with outside chapters the proposal failed to reach consensus the final vote was 53 for 54 against and 12 abstentions i only began recording votes after this time if anybody has records of the votes before this time i would love to have them fortunately after this vote daniel and other dc members began to work with those who had voiced strong opposition in order to make a new proposal that would make everybody happy local organizers come first was down but not out points of unity points of unity points of unity the next proposal was points of unity by the folks from the university of central florida ucf unfortunately their proposal was not in the proposal packet but it is now on the wiki they had divided their proposal into two parts the \'numbered\' sections i e a general outline and the \'lettered parts a slightly more explicit explanation of what the \'numbered\' section should mean as it was a very brief document there was bit of word-smithing about their choice of expression eventually the \'numbered\' section was passed with some changes to the original demand was changed to struggle for and non-hierarchical was changed to horizontal with these changes the \'numbered\' section passed with consensus however the \'lettered parts was rejected 54 for 46 against and 19 abstentions a speaker during the con section i believed summed up the objections well the a a\'s and the b b\'s go into much greater detail that is acceptable for the national convention points of unity was discussed before and after lunch also after lunch was a quick report back from the people of color caucus and the women women\'s caucus the people of color caucus further articulated their reasoning for vetoing anti-racism as anti-oppression they explained how they felt that the section was not complete and after talking to the authors they agreed to withdraw it until a more thorough document made with the people of color caucus could be offered some things that they wanted to be sure were in such a document were a historical analysis of racism within us society and movements race relations not only between blacks and whites but between people of color themselves and how sds will make sure that we make an organization that is respectful to people of color and people of color organizations the women women\'s caucus called for a meeting during plenary because so few women had attended the meeting over lunch however they could not come to an agreement on a statement that some of the women wished to present to the larger group a vision for the future a vision for the future a vision for the future the last vision proposal was a combination of a vision for the future pat korte pg 12 and toward social and economic restoration aaron petcoff and dave shukla pg 25 this combination was titled a vision for the future this was a lengthy document but unlike who we are and what we are doing this was a vision for society writ large i was quite excited about this as i had an opportunity to offer my suggestions to pat while he was on the final draft unfortunately while i had been able to strengthen some of the language for trans-gender folks the main thing that i was concerned about a historical segment on racism and race relations was not added the closest thing was the section on inter-communalism at the convention the question in everybody everybody\'s mind was whether or not this document would be worthy of being compared to the port huron statement however the authors stressed several points this is a living and internal document meant to inspire and inform sds members the point of vision for the future is not to be an organizational statement of our utopia but rather to act as a starting point for the question what kind of world do you want to live in the authors welcomed the idea of next year reading through 100 different drafts of the document from a hundred different chapters people were for the most part receptive to the document; the main objections came in the form of the logistics of sending this to all chapters and expecting them to revise it the final vote was 79 for 35 against and 19 abstentions after the authors again stressed that this was not a mission statement but rather the beginnings of a mission statement and this is an internal document they stepped down a crowd of aspiring singers stepped up and began a short recital of the wobbly wobbly\'s classic solidarity forever this was exactly what i needed and i had a great time singing along i would later learn that other people who didn\'t know the words were slightly put off and that others were down right scarred that several sdsers began waving little red books around i agree unless those were i w w song books that seems very inappropriate and disrespectful to continue reading click here '),(1604,'an anonymous libertarian analysis of the detroit convention',' the most upsetting part of this process was that sdsers passed two ambiguous resolutions in support of business union campaigns which rather obviously came from the maoist sect frso in the brief period allotted for opposition no one mentioned the intellectually bankrupt group behind these resolutions or the historical dead-end of traditional unions this obviously reveals the rather sectarian position of this for lack of a better word ass if he bothered to investigate those resolutions and the people who presented them it would have been clear that frsos fight back and left refoundation didn\'t draft them it was drafted by sds members who were working with chinese staff & workers association which has no formal or informal relation with any freedom road organization cswa is not a business union but a workers center in chinatown which has been organizing workers for over three decades outside of trade unionism the only connection between frso and cswa is that people in frso supported this resolution at the convention so let me be the first to call you out for erroenous comments for which in this document are many -- user shinethepath shinethepath 22 11 8 september 2007 mdt what is upsetting to me about this article aside from the gross misrepresentations is that it is near racist in nature the author calls oppressed nationalities artificial \'identity groups your race or gender or sexual orientation is not something that you choose in life and it is offensive to call them artificial identity groups later in the article the author continues with this strain of though complaining about the unelected national caucuses - not mentioning that these caucuses represent different oppressed groups within society -tko errors in this article errors in this article errors in this article i can assert that there are several incorrect assertions about the organizational ideological affiliations of various persons alluded to in this article the author is certainly entitled to his her own anonymous opinion -- they\'re not entitled to make up their own facts --d tasripin 19 59 19 september 2007 mdt i would also confirm that one of the bigger mistakes of the author is about the two ambiguous resolutions because they are not those of business unionism as a member that has worked with both organizations for the past year chinese staff and workers association cswa and national mobilization against sweatshops nmass the information is wrong these two organizations do not unionize workers rather they organize them despite the fact they have one union but if you noticed for three decades this organization is still a workers center not a union center it has changed workers conditions in chinatown and many books rooted from the labor organizing particularly from authors such as peter kwong for example his book new chinatown or forbidden workers so it isn\'t a business union next tyme check yo\'self son and the two ambiguous resolutions was for the justice will be served campaign nationally anti-sweatshop for service workers and break the chains coalition to repeal employers sanctions user paracite paracite 22 04 22 september 2007 mdt zomg sds supportz scabbing 11 zomg sds supportz scabbing 11 zomg sds supportz scabbing 11 presumably sds would be supporting the bossesu8e28099 effort since after all oppressions are equal so scabbing is now acceptable so long as it is tied to throwing crumbs to one racial or otherwise oppressed group wait what because sds acknowledges that women or black people are oppressed in ways entirely different than the white working class sds would presumably support them scabbing on one another understanding the totality of oppression does not mean actively oppressing one group over another i believe it means entirely the opposite even if it were to mean that sds thinks so this kind of support for scabbing would be halted immediately at the foot of the working class caucus whose existence you seem to seem to purposely obscure caucus members essentially have two votes on issues because they have both a heavy influence over the distribution of funds as well as veto power over decisions made by sds and if it were true that we had some nefarious plot to allow youth the working class women people of color and queer-identifying folks the reigns of our organization would that even be a bad thing shouldn\'t we be looking for direction from oppressed groups you said only the working class through its own efforts can bring about the social revolution to be sure does this not mean that we should look to the working class within sds for direction especially with matters that directly involve their oppression well we do have a working class caucus from which these directions can spring the most upsetting part of this process was that sdsers passed two ambiguous resolutions in support of business union campaigns which rather obviously came from the maoist sect frso apart from the factual fallacies in here i agree that the resolutions were ambiguous there were no actions to support the way they were presented was absurd with the presenters yelling at those who would resolve them and we ended up passing them without any understanding of what they were personally i thought it was more disturbing that the resolution to attend the ufpj march on friday passed despite a supermajority of abstentions they failed to ensure the creation of a decentralized non-bureaucratic and accountable structure; what kind of accountabile exactly do you mean you previously railed against sds being accountable to the working class people of color womyn youth and queers by railing against their ability to caucus is it only accountability to rich white old straight men that counts to you you paint sects in sds with entirely too wide a brush and you are apparently unable to see past your own stereotypes even the anti-organizationalists straw-man in ucf and the pacific nw were mostly interested in the federation proposal even frso fight back actively denounced the chair model that would have given them more power what gets me the most about this analysis is how similar in tone it is to green anarchy magazine magazine\'s analysis without any thought to tact the analysis bandies about insults without any comradeship for an organization you are obviously part of the analysis is entirely irate and without any accountability either though you chose to remain anonymous rather than call yourself a silly tree name like wolverine anyhow if you want to remain anonymous i\'d change your writing style for further projects your hackneyed rhetoric went out of style so long ago that you\'d stick out like a sore thumb if you ever wrote anything with your name on it in fact i think i know who you are already daniel meltzer - anarchist - dc sds user magonistarevolt magonistarevolt 09 42 9 october 2007 mdt a rejoinder a rejoinder a rejoinder as one of the authors of this document i feel compelled to respond to the shameless slanders that it has been subjected to the ludicrous desperation of these attacks affirm our stance and indeed corroborate it for example mr bastone does not have an impartial interest in u8e2809ccorrectingu8e2809d our alleged mistakes he is ideologically defending his belief in maoism quite clear from his analysis of the convention where he recommends a text by mao and uses maoist terminology like u8e2809cright in essenceu8e2809d etc and one of its various offshoots in america frso as for our supposed u8e2809csectarianismu8e2809d we remind readers that u8e2809canarcho-syndicalist deviationsu8e2809d have always been looked down upon by authoritarians of every stripe from lenin and trotsky to mao and guevara and regardless of what mr bastone claims business unionism is quite a simple thing to verify the union will either be organized in a horizontal manner and openly call for the abolition of capitalism like the iww or it will not if not it in this case the cwsa is a business union which in literally all cases have always been a u8e2809chistorical dead-endu8e2809d for proletarians exactly as we claimed as for u8e2809cjustice for jobsu8e2809d campaign the other neutral resolution passed at sds this campaign is openly mentioned with approval on frso freedom roadu8e28099s website i would simply hope this will be taken down to not reveal their entryist plans more than necessary the concerns about racism are raised in the same polemical manner with special hatred given to our espousal of luxemburgu8e28099s formulation that liberation of u8e2809coppressed nationsu8e2809d is simply a u8e2809chumbugu8e2809d itu8e28099s quite clear the anonymous author is quite unsurprisingly in favor of leninu8e28099s analysis as a final comment they note that we complain of the u8e2809cunelected national caucusesu8e2809d and that this is almost bigoted we support the idea of caucuses to help sds function but the current way caucuses function is in the most basic sense of not being elected undemocratic we believe democracy aids sds and conversely non-democratic procedures hurt it but no doubt leninists think differently as for daniel taspirin in his u8e2809cpersonal appealu8e2809d accessible on sdswiki he admits he is now of a u8e2809cmarxist bentu8e2809d that is undoubtedly one of those authoritarian u8e2809cmarxistsu8e2809d who made marx claim that u8e2809ci am not a marxist u8e2809d at any rate he says little of substance except to reveal that yet another member of hunter college-cuny sds is committed to attacking anti-authoritarian thought we libertarians in sds are quite aware of the existence of these types of chapters and are committed to opposing their aspiring plp actions at every step from the clumsy actions of our latter-day rosencrantz and guildenstern who perhaps revealed too much in their hurry to broadcast their decrepit maoist views we can see quite clearly that u8e2809csomething is rottenu8e2809d in the state of the young sds word to the sailors of kronstadt -a note from the friends of debord get over yourself get over yourself get over yourself on some level whatever really you can have whatever opinion you like traven i\'m a marxist and openly so within sds and moreover i don\'t hide behind anonymity feel free to be an anarchist and a part of sds i don\'t think there there\'s any particular reason sds should be viewed as a zero sum game especially when it it\'s not as if we\'re talking about a tremendously huge organization or movement for that matter getting to the point i\'m fine with whatever opinions of sds members going up even the stuff vehemently opposed to marxism -- though i\'ve as much right to speak to the contrary but material that that\'s patently false doesn\'t belong here and i don\'t think anyone should tolerate that your posting has used a very broad brush to paint a number of persons of being a part of organizations and or ideological tendencies that both myself and others can assert they actually have no membership or affiliation to your post is just plain wrong on the facts why don\'t you own up to that moreover beyond being just plain lazy you could after all contacted some of the folks whom you talk shit about let let\'s slow down here do you think you really have all that much to gain by spreading false rumors about people do you think there there\'s anything to be gained by using the same methods as are currently being used to perpetuate the green scare --d tasripin 15 08 21 september 2007 mdt b traven if the person posting under the moniker of \'b traven\' were to realize i in no way deny i am a maoist what is incorrect though is to say i am a member of frso oscl i am certainly not neither where any of the other two members of sds which wrote and presented the resolution in support of chinese staff & workers association that is simply a fact further on the question of business unionism ask the members of iww in nyc about cswa and you will fastly realize it is not a business union your use of the iww iww\'s name to cover up your fallacious comments are abhoring and only will make you less friends in the end just apologize for your mistake and of course lastly not one of the resolutions on structure was presented by a \'leninist\' or \'maoist \' or \'authoritarian \' bother to investigate why don\'t ya the only thing you serve to do is shoot your own little negligible sect in the foot by your lies -- user shinethepath shinethepath 19 18 21 september 2007 mdt and by sect i mean the probably couple of people who are trying to create fake divisions amongst sds folk -- user shinethepath shinethepath 23 27 21 september 2007 mdt we have plenty we have plenty we have plenty i want to thank the authors of this article i found it easily the most interesting of all the convention reflections that have been posted and i am glad it has sparked some discussion here that said i am hesitant to join any online dispute which never seem to end let alone get anywhere i will therefore try and keep my comments brief and try not to respond if i say anything of value it can be expanded upon by others given the significance of the issues this page touches on i hope many people are stumbling across it as i did and i hope many of them will feel the need to add their two cents as i now will i am simply not well-enough informed to address many of the concerns raised but upon reading the above exchange some criticisms do suggest themselves immediately firstly it seems rather odd for bastone to call the article rather sectarian after suggesting we read something by mao called combat liberalism i am sure he knows that sds describes itself as an organization which seeks to create a sustained community of educational and political concern one bringing together liberals radicals and revolutionaries activists and scholars students staff and faculty emphasis added if not that is taken from the main page of this website secondly i am struck and i am certain any casual reader of the above would be struck by the difference in tone taken by the maoists i am referring not to their nastiness their swearing and rudeness but their lack of seriousness their writing seems hurried and incautious for instance i know what bastone had in mind when he wrote the phrase for which in this document are many and yet the phrase makes no sense tasripin completely dodges the rejoinder rejoinder\'s point about marx and authoritarianism part of which is that not all marxists are authoritarian the article quotes rosa luxemburg approvingly a marxist after whom a city square was named in east germany and it uses marxian terminology such as proletariat what he says about the so-called green scare is really quite silly furthermore he assumes he is talking to anarchists feel free to be an anarchist and a part of sds he says and how kind of him to give us his permission he accuses them of being just plain lazy but had he read the article or the rejoinder with any care he would know that they never call themselves anarchists and are rather critical of those present who identified as anarchists if he paid much attention to what they wrote he would know they are really situationists in the article they use the situ term recuperation and the rejoinder is signed friends of debord guy debord was the most prominent member of the situationist international and although he did not consider himself a marxist he is considered enough of one to have his most famous work placed on the marxists org website the real question is what are authoritarians doing in sds if one follows the link from bastone bastone\'s reportback to his blog one finds images of fidel castro huey newton and other stalinists in one blog entry for the bronx bolsheviks he says that he does not merely want more democracy we have plenty we have enough democracy that is not the view of the students for a democratic society sds to quote again from the main page of this website is an education and social action organization dedicated to increasing democracy in all phases of our common life in the next sentence he refers to himself an authoritarian albeit in quotes hardly surprising then that some people wonder if we have learned anything from past mistakes user matthew provonsha matthew provonsha 00 29 22 september 2007 mdt matthew really i\'m not interested in perpetuating some of this silliness all that much further this does need to be said -- name-calling about this or that person as a stalinist authoritarian maoist etc is not a substitute for actual critical thought or serious investigation it makes for great conservative talk show material but not an actual analysis --d tasripin 18 46 22 september 2007 mdt daniel i was not going to respond and say whatever you like after this but i must admit i was stunned and puzzled by the reactions to that post and to the e-mail message i sent out the idea that this is a u8e2809cdebate u8e2809d or that anyone would expect an u8e2809cactual analysisu8e2809d here is a bit absurd i mean i plainly said i just wanted to add my impressions my u8e2809ctwo cents u8e2809d and asked in the e-mail message that others do the same what surprised me was kellyu8e28099s apparent angeru8e28094including falsely accusing me of attacking u8e2809cmarxists for being marxists u8e2809d which suggests he didnu8e28099t even read what i said no wonder the only critical reportback is anonymous user matthew provonsha matthew provonsha 15 49 23 september 2007 mdt matthew i have yet to understand how it is exactly that we\'re being authoritarian here by correcting a number of factual errors here this article was simply wrong on the facts and malicious to boot a number of sds\'ers are angry rightfully about being defamed not only on sds sds\'s own site but now on a fairly high-trafficked movement website support the ideas of this article all you want whatever they are but it it\'s simply abhorrent that people can have their reputations dragged through the mud and actually have people defend that despite all evidence of its false and malicious character we expect this out of right not out of people who are fellow members in this organization who could more easily have used this wiki to contact us than to have wasted this much time toward defaming us thankfully as i have read some of the email exchanges a number of which i was left out of there there\'s a large contingent of folks who simply have no patience for this sort of hackneyed garbage and have condemned it for what it is --d tasripin 13 38 24 september 2007 mdt are there simply no lenghts are there simply no lenghts are there simply no lenghts are there simply no lenghts before you people stop justifying what is patently false matt here is what is at contention this article claims that i and two other members of sds are members of frso this is not true and a member of frso has just confirmed this whether or not i am an authoritarian a term hastily used by sds members is a matter of subjective opinion as i have already stated i am a maoist what is clear though is i am not a frso member what is also clear and false about this article is that it claims that marxist-leninist maoists were behind the structure proposals once again this is false i know for a fact not one self-proclaimed \'leninist\' wrote a structure proposal not one further this \'b traven\' uses the cloak of iww to attack one of the oldest well known worker centers in nyc chinese staff & workers association iww does not have a bad relation with cswa neither considers it a \'business union \' and have supported our campaigns between the two there was in fact mutual support and solidarity on some campaigns what this article serves precisely to do is split such relations and risks the workers movement health in nyc so matt don\'t be so foolish as to actually think this is a question of maoists wanting to stifle this article because it attacks us this article has patently false assumptions with no investigation accusing some people of being \'dupes for maoists ask anyone in nyc if they feel like they are a dupe for me please this is just absurd -- user shinethepath shinethepath 10 58 22 september 2007 mdt yes i\'m an libertarian socialist nyc sdser and i\'m no dupe for comrade freddy this is a pretty silly debate i agree how does correcting or pointing out things that are clearly factually inaccurate have anything at all to do with one one\'s political beliefs practice or anything else for that matter freddy isn\'t in frso and the sky is blue who the hell cares if the sky is blue the point of the conversation is what was said first only a sectarian would respond to clear facts by muddying the conversation with other nonsense let let\'s grow up folks the real enemy is killing folks -- user briankelly briankelly further maoist musings further maoist musings further maoist musings in the space since our last comment we have again been subjected to personal attacks and the one mildly supportive poster has apparently been attacked in much the same manner we see now the beauty of stalinism not only is this about authoritarians being allowed to attack whomsoever they want on however flimsy a pretext everyone else has to agree with them as well as for their supposed u8e2809cfactual correctionu8e2809d itu8e28099s amusing to think that there could ever be so much character assassination over a simple mistake the belligerent mediocrities on display here are about how one would expect authoritarians to act if uncovered just as one would expect authoritarians in an allegedly u8e2809clibertarianu8e2809d organization to try to control the organization and failing that to split it they obviously and self-evidently could care less about horizontal decision making yet some apparently think or expect that an entryist group would admit to infiltration u8e2809cleninists entering an organization with their own agenda whoever heard of such a thing u8e2809d as for us weu8e28099re not babysitters and anyone with an understanding of how these people function can connect the all-too-visible dots elsewhere an unfortunate mistake we are being attributed with claiming structure proposals came from maoists what they mean to say is the two action proposals are in question both of which did involve the maoist mr bastone of course we can afford to politely correct a mistake which is a luxury these individuals believe they canu8e28099t afford as they are in such a difficult position with their hands caught in the cookie jar they ferociously cry u8e2809cthief u8e2809d in a last ditch effort they make a great ado about u8e2809cunityu8e2809d but these sad proceedings demonstrate quite clearly the notorious price that unity with stalinists brings somehow there are those deluded enough to think that the handful of maoists gained by admitting such intellectual rabble will offset the people who will be shocked that sds happily associates itself with the ideological remnants of maou8e28099s squalid dictatorship but one feels even they are a bit uneasy with the u8e2809ccomradelyu8e2809d way this sordid affair has been handled by the overeager attackers as for mr kellyu8e28099s addition itu8e28099s interesting and for those who still trust in the informal leadership group revealing that a self-styled u8e2809clibertarian socialistu8e2809d should be going out of his way to defend an ideological offensive by authoritarian state-capitalists does mr kelly know nothing of leninist history or does he think he has discovered some u8e2809clibertarianu8e2809d maoists who can decipher anything from this delirious gibberish of a post from one of our great leaders he claims that the u8e2809creal enemy is killing folks u8e2809d apparently mr kelly thinks that ongoing maoist insurgencies in nepal or recent ones in peru of which a name like u8e2809cshine the pathu8e2809d reeks of support for the vicious shining path group donu8e28099t kill people and thus their american supporters canu8e28099t possibly be part of the u8e2809creal enemyu8e2809d in closing the only thing u8e2809csillyu8e2809d in this entire discussion has been the farcical way in which history has been repeating itself sds is having itself positioned once more to be merely a vehicle for careerists and maoist sects remember the barcelona may days -friends of debord user known as b traven ---- b traven reminds me of a gorgias here his rhetorical flourishes are many but his actual substance is nothing no one has attacked you on the basis of calling me a maoist i am one and admittingly so and i am not operating underground in sds further you didn\'t just commit a simple mistake you committed quite a few 1 frso oscl or frso fight back did not write one structural proposal neither did any leninist your implication that \'leninists were behind all of this is simply a conspiratorial hackneyed summation if you bothered to actually investigate you will see that the structure proposals were all written by non-leninists 2 not one person who presented the proposals in support of chinese staff and workers association an organization that has relations with sds-nyc and the iww were members of frso oscl or frso fight back 3 the accusation that chinese staff and workers association who have organized undocumented workers in chinatown and through the metropolitan area around new york city is a business union is patently false it also shows your complete contempt for the struggles of people through this country if it doesn\'t fit within your narrow workerist paradigm now you begin to lose patience with everyone here you now begin attacking people you think are a part of the great leadership of sds brian kelley is our great leader who knew your tactics are worse than any spart you only make yourself look worse by defaming the characters of others further in this discussion what this simply boils down to is the very authoritarian principle being used by a supposed libertarian here and a test of our \'liberalism \' posting under anonynmous psuedonyms lets you avoid the discipline to actually report factually and self correct your article to reflect reality instead of your already incredibly naive understanding of the relations and actions within sds you proceed like a bull in a china shop with wreckless regard to what your report back actually states which is why i contend you are either an incredible sectarian cretin of the workerist fetishist variety - explaining why you attack \'artificial\' identity politics but going on using class in the very conception of an identity oh the contradictions bloom - or unknowing \'dupe\' or active agents of the pigs i would agree the possibility of the latter is quite unlikely but not unknown to us in the past especially with a certain degree of liberalism we allow on this wiki this can be quite possible what makes me laugh though is that a workerist-fetishist cretin is a friend of guy debord how did that come to be also your various logically fallacious appeals are quite striking speak about philosophical rabble -- user shinethepath shinethepath 11 31 28 september 2007 mdt what what\'s the point what what\'s the point what what\'s the point mr traven excuse me for assuming you\'re male-socialized based on your combative and aggressive attitude what exactly are you trying to achieve with these continued verbal assaults are you hoping that sds will expel from its ranks anyone and everyone who hasn\'t outwardly condemned chairman mao and all his disciples or are you merely interested in pissing people off and causing much ado about nothing for a situationist you take yourself too seriously also just a thought your arguments might gain more currency if you revealed your name and chapter if you have one towards a world without trolls alex philly '),(1429,'detroit sds',' detroit sds includes wayne state sds and schoolcraft sds website chapters ');