File:Tom Hayden.jpg

The Port Huron Statement -- which brought the term “participatory democracy” into the common parlance -- begins in words familiar to most anyone who was active in the era. “We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit.” It concludes: “If we appear to seek the unattainable, as it has been said, then let it be known that we do so to avoid the unimaginable.”

Reflecting on the Port Huron Statement, Hayden said in a KOOP-FM interview in 2009 that "these crazy, inspired, visionary documents often come from the young and liberated and innocent. Most of us who wrote it were 21 years old and it remains to be seen whether such a document materializes again..." But, he added, "It’s a little uncanny how the words of the Port Huron Statement echo today, as it’s used in classes and a lot of the students can’t tell when it was written."

Hayden later organized the grassroots Campaign for Economic Democracy in California, and served for 18 years in the California State Assembly and Senate. At that time, The Sacramento Bee called Hayden “the conscience of the Senate.”

Hayden: “My philosophy is that there’s no one prescription for the vast diversity of protesters, progressives, and radicals, and movement activists in this country..."

He believes we should take a "pluralistic approach where we should look to the federal government to protect certain basic standards but also allow cities and states to take more progressive steps where they can, so that we’re not bound by the lowest possible standard."

"You could start with state initiatives, the way California has done for decades, on energy efficiency, on solar power, anti-Nuke, and fuel efficiency standards for automobiles. And linking up with other states, they begin to create a powerful political and economic force for an alternative," he said. "I think we win by building progressive power in certain areas of the country and then eventually the federal government is forced to go along."

Hayden suggests "we should study more how our victories are won and how our defeats are suffered, and learn more about the interaction between social movements and electoral politics and this president... We’ve had a couple of years to see what works and what doesn’t and we need to move forward…"

http://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Tom_Hayden-Green_Politics...In_Memory

File:Politics of the Spirit A Dream of Calif by Tom Hayden-1994-1.pdf

http://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/California_out_in_front_in_a_Green_future

File:Lost Gospel of the Earth by Tom Hayden LATimes-1.pdf

File:Lost Gospel of the Earth by Tom Hayden LATimes-2.pdf

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