Rebels With A Cause

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Tue Mar 20 22:18:53 PST 2001


Bob Morris wrote:
>
> Several things struck me. SDS was considered way
> radical then, and yet, how UNradical the Port Huron
> Statement seems now!

The Port Huron Statement never was radical. The original radical gesture of "Port Huron" SDS (SDS having had a long dull prior history as the student branch of the League for Industrial Democracy [this is not quite accurate]) was that they refused to deny membership to Communists. That marked them off sharply from the anti-communist left of the '50s. By the time I (as a faculty member) linked up with SDS in 66 or so the Port Huron Statement was long forgotten.

Does the documentary reveal how important the PL(Progressive Labor) was in introducing a class perspective to SDS? I never liked PL but it was contributions from PL dominated local chapters to _New Left Notes_ that first introduced me to marxist thought.

I find it curious that you should think of Tom Hayden (a liberal creep) as the "best known member."

Carrol



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