SDS founder Tom Hayden talks Occupy

Democracy Now!:

We speak with Tom Hayden, principal author of the Port Huron Statement 50 years ago, the founding document of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). The Statement advocated for participatory democracy and helped launch the student movement of the 1960s. Tens of thousands of copies of the 25,000-word document were printed in booklet form. "It must have been something in the air, something blowing in the wind, and we wanted to write an agenda for our generation," Hayden says. The youth-led movement changed the very language of politics, and its impact is still being felt today. "The logic of an occupation, I think, is if you feel voiceless about a burning issue of great, great importance, and the institutions have failed you, the only way to get leverage for your voice is to occupy their space in order to get their attention," Hayden says. "This goes way back to occupations of factories in the ’30s. ... Occupy Wall Street is only the latest stage."