ACTION SPEAKS Plumbing the impact of student radicals BY STEVEN STYCOS

Student radicalism will be the subject of the Action Speaks discussion series at AS220, 115 Empire St., Providence, at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, October 28. Thomas Frank, editor of the political satire magazine the Baffler, and Brown University historian Paul Buhle will discuss the Port Huron Statement, the 1962 declaration of the newly formed leftist group Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Highlights from Action Speaks, which highlights under-appreciated days that changed America, will be broadcast on WRNI-AM (1290) at 7 p.m. on Sunday, November 2. (The Phoenix is a cosponsor of Action Speaks.)

Buhle joined SDS in 1965 as a University of Illinois student. His most recent book, which he edited with John McMillian, is The New Left Revisited (Temple University Press, 2003).

Q: Why should anyone care about the Port Huron Statement?

A: Because today college-age youth, in many ways, are asking the same questions about their world, and how they can help society avert disaster, and find a more cooperative way forward. The Cold War statements of 1962 and the [Cuban] missile crisis seem eerily familiar to the Iraq quagmire, with no obvious way out. Many young people feel dissatisfied, but don’t know what to do about it.

Q: The Port Huron Statement criticizes American campus life, calling it, "A place of commitment to business as usual, getting ahead, playing it cool." Is the situation better or worse today than in 1962?

A: In some ways better, because 1962 was still shaded by McCarthyism and fears by young professors that they would not be hired and retained, and by graduate students and undergrads that their careers would be harmed by doing anything. Now, [there is] more intellectual freedom, but many signs of a potential crackdown.

Q: The Port Huron Statement describes American democracy as "apathetic and manipulated rather than ‘of, by and for the people.’ " Is that true today?

A: Sounds up to date, doesn’t it? Today’s students will have trouble saying it better.

Q: The Port Huron Statement calls for the creation of a new left, encompassing everyone from liberals to socialists. Is that still necessary?

A: What could I possibly say other than, "More than ever." People seem to be forming committees named ABL, Anybody But Lieberman. Because Lieberman best represents the one-party system. As entertainment entrepreneur Danny Goldberg has said, "If the Democrats were to wish to have a candidate that no one under 30 would vote for, they couldn’t choose better than Joe Lieberman."

Q: The Port Huron Statement calls for a commitment to non-violence. Is the world a more or less violent place than in 1962?

A: The world has continued to become a more violent place. The vegan sentiment common among young radicals symbolizes the continuing commitment to non-violence in all regards.

Q: Prior to the United States attacking Iraq, you called campus anti-war demonstrations the most extensive student activism since the Vietnam War. Has that activism faded?

A: We’re at a standstill now. Opposition is just as great, but students and professors aren’t sure what to do about the occupation. And in that way, campuses have a similar sentiment to entire populations in the rest of the world, from Latin America to Asia.

Q: The decline of SDS is usually attributed to "factionalism." What happened?

A: The most pernicious or leading narrative that the book [The New Left Revisited] seeks to destroy [is] — that the first half [of the 1960s] was good and the second half was terrible. The second worst myth is that only Columbia, Berkeley, and Madison were important. The campus movement was across the whole country, was very multi-racial, and developed at different campuses at very different rates, but had one thing in common — belief in large-scale transformation of American Society. SDS could not accomplish that aim and fell back in upon itself.