The famous 1962 Port Huron Statement by the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) introduced the concept of participatory democracy to popular discourse and practice. In Inspiring Participatory Democracy Tom Hayden, one of the principal architects of the statement, analyses its historical impact and relevance to today's movements. Inspiring Participatory Democracy includes the full transcript of the Port Huron statment and shows how it played an important role in the movements for black civil rights, against the Vietnam war and for the Freedom of Information Act. Published during the year of Port Huron's 50th anniversary, Inspiring Participatory Democracy will be of great interest to readers interested in social history, politics and social activism.

Created by Students for a Democratic Society in a small Michigan town in 1962, the Port Huron Statement has been called "the most ambitious, the most specific, and the most eloquent manifesto in the history of the American Left." Now, fifty years after its drafting, principal architect Tom Hayden and the other SDS contributors revisit this seminal document and provide an original and comprehensive analysis of its historical impact andits increasing relevance to today's movements. Central to legacy of the Port Huron Statement is the fact that it introduced the concept of participatory democracy to popular discourse and practice. It made sense of the fact that ordinary people were making history and not waiting for parties or traditional organizations. That vision of a half-century ago is at the core of today's social movements. In fact, the first principle declared by the Occupy Wall Street was for a "transparent and direct participatory democracy." Along with the full transcript of the Port Huron Statement, chapters written by the original framers tie its genesis to the direct action of the Freedom Riders in the segregated South and explore its influence in numerous social movements that have arisen since its creation. Including themes and events ignored by popular history and journalism, Inspiring Participatory Democracy illustrates how the PHS played a catalytic role in democratic reforms such as the expansion of civil and voting rights, ending the Vietnam War and military draft, oversight of the CIA and FBI, enacting environmental protection legislation, and the Freedom of Information Act. Published during the year of Port Huron's 50th anniversary and celebrated at campuses nationwide, Inspiring Participatory Democracy will be of great interest to readers interested in our social history, politics, and social activism.

Barack Obama would not be possible without the Sixties, Tom Hayden writes in his unique and compelling new book. Obama was conceived because of changing mores on interracial marriage; was electable because of the civil rights movement and voting rights laws; and was successful because of a new social movement that applied participatory democracy online and door to door. Hayden shows that movements throughout history triumph over Machiavellians, gaining social reforms while leaving both revolutionaries and reactionaries frustrated. Only the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King prevented the Sixties from ending with a progressive presidency propelled into power by social movement activism, Hayden says. But the Sixties did leave a critical print on America, from civil rights laws to the birth of the environmental movement, and forced open the political process to women and people of color. Hayden portrays the Reagan and Bush eras as counter-movements against the Sixties which ultimately failed, and the Obama presidency as a delayed achievement. Chicago s Grant Park was consciously chosen for Obama s 2008 victory celebration, according to campaign manager David Axelrod, to symbolically overcome the damage done to American idealism forty years before. Hayden s carefully researched history includes formidable, if sometimes forgotten, coverage of Sixties achievements as well as a valuable dateline for activists, journalists and historians as the fiftieth anniversary of every episode of that decade approaches. While accepting President Obama s centrist positioning, Hayden reminds the new president that the peace movement was critical to his 2008 victory and only a radical populism will make his economic recovery, green jobs and health care promises come to fruition. Features of this text: "

Not long after co-authoring The Port Huron Statement, the charter document of sixties activism, Tom Hayden completed, at the University of Michigan, an intellectual biography of eminent scholar C. Wright Mills. It is published here for the first time, along with newly written essays by Hayden and by prominent social theorists who are experts on Mills and his ongoing influence today. Hayden cogently traces Mills' scholarship and his progressive activism to the events and thinkers of earlier generations. Ideas in major books by Mills (The Power Elite, New Men of Power, White Collar, Character and Social Structure, The Sociological Imagination) can now be better understood in light of the influences of Mills during and before his time, including the impact of two world wars, the Great Depression and the New Deal, the failures of the Soviet state, and changing relations between workers and industry in America and worldwide. The book thus brings us a new and much more complete understanding Mills's political theories and philosophy. With only one previous biography of Mills in print, this book is a major contribution to our understanding of C. Wright Mills in American intellectual life.

Not long after co-authoring The Port Huron Statement, the charter document of sixties activism, Tom Hayden completed, at the University of Michigan, an intellectual biography of eminent scholar C. Wright Mills. It is published here for the first time, along with newly written essays by Hayden and by prominent social theorists who are experts on Mills and his ongoing influence today. Hayden cogently traces Mills' scholarship and his progressive activism to the events and thinkers of earlier generations. Ideas in major books by Mills (The Power Elite, New Men of Power, White Collar, Character and Social Structure, The Sociological Imagination) can now be better understood in light of the influences of Mills during and before his time, including the impact of two world wars, the Great Depression and the New Deal, the failures of the Soviet state, and changing relations between workers and industry in America and worldwide. The book thus brings us a new and much more complete understanding Mills's political theories and philosophy. With only one previous biography of Mills in print, this book is a major contribution to our understanding of C. Wright Mills in American intellectual life.

Barack Obama would not be possible without the Sixties, Tom Hayden writes in his unique and compelling new book. Obama was conceived because of changing mores on interracial marriage; was electable because of the civil rights movement and voting rights laws; and was successful because of a new social movement that applied participatory democracy online and door to door. Hayden shows that movements throughout history triumph over Machiavellians, gaining social reforms while leaving both revolutionaries and reactionaries frustrated. Only the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King prevented the Sixties from ending with a progressive presidency propelled into power by social movement activism, Hayden says. But the Sixties did leave a critical print on America, from civil rights laws to the birth of the environmental movement, and forced open the political process to women and people of color. Hayden portrays the Reagan and Bush eras as counter-movements against the Sixties which ultimately failed, and the Obama presidency as a delayed achievement. Chicago s Grant Park was consciously chosen for Obama s 2008 victory celebration, according to campaign manager David Axelrod, to symbolically overcome the damage done to American idealism forty years before. Hayden s carefully researched history includes formidable, if sometimes forgotten, coverage of Sixties achievements as well as a valuable dateline for activists, journalists and historians as the fiftieth anniversary of every episode of that decade approaches. While accepting President Obama s centrist positioning, Hayden reminds the new president that the peace movement was critical to his 2008 victory and only a radical populism will make his economic recovery, green jobs and health care promises come to fruition. Features of this text: "

In "Rebel: A Personal History of the 1960s," Tom Hayden, a seminal figure in the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s, documents a period in U.S. history of major social and political change. Including excerpts from FBI files, speeches, and journal entries, "Rebel" provides wisdom to a new generation for whom the belief in non-violence and social change is as relevant as ever.

The Free Speech Movement in Berkeley, Calfiornia was pivotal in shaping 1960s America. Led by Mario Savio and other young veterans of the civil rights movement, student activists organized what was to that point the most tumultuous student rebellion in American history. Mass sit-ins, a nonviolent blockade around a police car, occupations of the campus administration building, and a student strike united thousands of students to champion the right of students to free speech and unrestricted political advocacy on campus.
This compendium of influential speeches and previously unknown writings offers insight and perspective into the disruptive yet nonviolent civil disobedience tactics used by Savio. "The Essential Mario Savio" is the perfect introduction to an American icon and to one of the most important social movements of the post-war period in the United States.

Fracked In The Barnett Shale (second edition) is a detailed, scholarly analysis of the issues surrounding the fracking debate. The foremost aim of this 400-page publication is to be a resource to communities who are considering pending or future fracking activity.

This wide-ranging, insightful book will make readers keenly aware of the media's power, while underscoring the role that we all play in fostering a media climate that cultivates a greater sense of humanity, cooperation, and fulfillment of human potential.
What role do the media have in creating the conditions for atrocities such as occurred in Rwanda? Conversely, can the media be used to preserve democracy and safeguard the human rights of all citizens in a diverse society? How will the media, now global in scope, affect the fate of the planet itself?
The author explores these intriguing questions and more in this in-depth examination of the media's power to either help or harm. She begins by documenting how the media were used to spread a contagion of hate in three deadly conflicts: Rwanda, Nazi Germany, and the former Yugoslavia. She then turns to areas of the world where the media acted constructively--by aiding the peace process in Northern Ireland, rebuilding democracy in Chile, bridging ethnic divides in South Africa, improving the lot of women in Senegal, and boosting transparency and democratization in Mexico and Taiwan. Finally, she explains how the media interact with psychological and cultural forces to impact perceptions, fears, peer-pressure, "groupthink," and the creation of heroes and villains.

'Street Wars' highlights current law enforcement policies in America which actively contribute to the continuance of gang culture in cities such as Los Angeles. Tom Hayden advocates a new deal for inner city youth to rescue them from the conditions & attitudes which make gang membership attractive.

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 . . ." --from the "PORT HURON STATEMENT"

Four key periods in American history have most influenced what America is like today: the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War II, and the 1960s. No document better frames and explains the 1960s than the "PORT HURON STATEMENT,"

The statement was a generational call for direct participatory democracy in which Americans would have greater say over the decisions affecting their lives. It called for the extension of democratic principles to the workplace as well as the electoral arena. It opposed the dominance of the military-industrial complex with the hope that social movements could reform the Democrats as a party of progressive opposition. In its vision greater democracy would lessen individuals' alienation.

The manifesto's 1962 publication preceded the phenomena of the counter-culture, hippies and back-to-the-land. It is truly the intellectual roots of the social change of the 1960s and its impact is still being felt in 2005. In "The Big Lebowksi," the character played by Jeff Bridges claimed authorship; it was condemned by right-wing justice Robert Bork, recalled with nostalgia by Garry Wills and E.J. Dionne, and sections have been printed in countless readers on American history.

The electrifying effect the Zapatista peasant rebellion has had on leading figures in the intellectual, political, and literary world since the Zapatistas woke them up on New Year's Day, 1994, has provided inspiration for activists all over the world. A remarkable synergy has also developed between leading writers, novelists, and journalists and Subcomandante Marcos, the enigmatic, pipe-smoking and balaclavered leader of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, who seems like a character out of a "magical realism" novel. This reader includes a wide sampling of the best of the writing to emerge on the subject. The book is a journey through an insurgent and magical world of culture and politics, where celebrants and critics debate what Carlos Fuentes has described as the world's first'post-communist rebellion.' Included are essays by Paco Taibo II, Octavio Paz, Carlos Fuentes, Elena Poniatowska, Ilan Stavans, Carlos Monsivais, Jorge Castenada, Jose Saramago, John Berger, Marc Cooper, Andrew Kopkind, Bill Weinberg, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Alma Guillermoprieto and Eduardo Galeano.

The Free Speech Movement in Berkeley, Calfiornia was pivotal in shaping 1960s America. Led by Mario Savio and other young veterans of the civil rights movement, student activists organized what was to that point the most tumultuous student rebellion in American history. Mass sit-ins, a nonviolent blockade around a police car, occupations of the campus administration building, and a student strike united thousands of students to champion the right of students to free speech and unrestricted political advocacy on campus.
This compendium of influential speeches and previously unknown writings offers insight and perspective into the disruptive yet nonviolent civil disobedience tactics used by Savio. "The Essential Mario Savio" is the perfect introduction to an American icon and to one of the most important social movements of the post-war period in the United States.