Participatory Democracy From the 1960s and SDS into the Future On-line
	     By Michael Hauben <hauben@columbia.edu>

	The 1960s was a time of people around the world struggling for
more of a say in the decisions of their society. The emergence of the

personal computer in the late 70s and early 80s and the longer
gestation of the new forms of people-controlled communication
facilitated by the Internet and Usenet in the late 80s and today are
the direct descendents of 1960s.

     The era of the 1960s was a special time in America. Masses of
people realized their own potential to affect how the world around
them worked. People rose up to protest the ways of society which were
out of their control, whether to fight against racial segregation, or 

to gain more power for students in the university setting. The "Port 
Huron Statement" created by the Students for a Democratic Society
(SDS) was a document which helped set the mood for the decade.

     By the 1970s, some of the people who were directly involved in 
student protests continued their efforts to bring power to the people 
by developing and spreading computer power in a form accessible and 
affordable to individuals. The personal computer movement of the 1970s 
created the personal computer. By the mid 1980s they forced the 
corporations to produce computers which everyone could afford. The new 
communications media of the Internet grew out of the ARPANET research
that started in 1969 and Usenet which was born in 1979. These
communications advances coupled with the availability of computers
transforms the spirit of the 1960s into an achievable goal for our
times. 

SDS and THE NEED FOR PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY

     The early members of SDS found a real problem in American 
Society. They felt that the United States was a democracy that never 
existed, or rather which was transformed into a representative system 
after the constitutional convention. The United States society is 
called a democracy, but had ceased being democratic after the early 
beginnings of American society. SDS felt it is crucial for people to 
have a part in how their society is governed. SDS leaders had an 
understanding of democratic forms which did not function 
democratically in the 1960s nor do they today. This is a real problem 
which the leaders and members of SDS intuitively understood and worked 
to change. 

     An important part of the SDS program included the understanding
of the need for a medium to make it possible for a community of active
citizens to discuss and debate the issues affecting their lives. While
not available in the 1960s, such a medium exists today in the 1990s.
The seeds for the revival of the 1960s SDS vision of how to bring
about a more democratic society now exists in the personal computer
and the Net. These seeds will be an important element in the battle
for winning control for people as we approach the new millennium.

THE PORT HURON STATEMENT and DEEP PROBLEMS WITH AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

     The Port Huron Statement was the foundation on which to build a 
movement for participatory democracy in the 1960s. In June 1962, an
SDS national convention was held in a UAW camp located in the 
backwoods of Port Huron, Michigan. The original text of the Port Huron 
Statement was drafted by Tom Hayden, who was then SDS Field Secretary. 
The Statement sets out the theory of SDS's criticism of American 
society. The Port Huron convention was itself a concrete living 
example of the practice of participatory democracy.

     The Port Huron Statement was originally thought of as a
manifesto, but SDS members moved instead to call it a "statement". It
was prefixed by an introductory note describing how it was to be a
document that should develop and change with experience:

"This document represents the results of several months of 
writing and discussion among the membership, a draft paper, 
and revision by the Students for a Democratic Society 
national convention meeting in Port Huron, Michigan, June 
11-15, 1962. It is presented as a document with which SDS 
officially identifies, but also as a living document open to
change with our times and experiences. It is a beginning: in 
our own debate and education, in our dialogue with society." 
                    (Port Huron Statement in Miller, p. 329) 

     This note is important in that it signifies that the SDS document
was not defining the definite solution to the problems of society, but
was making suggestions that would be open to experiences towards a
better understanding. This openness is an important precursor to
practicing participatory democracy by asking for the opinions of
everyone and treating these various opinions equally.

     The first serious problem inherent in American society identified 
by the Port Huron Statement is the myth of a functioning democracy:

"For Americans concerned with the development of democratic
societies, the anti-colonial movements and revolutions in the
emerging nations pose serious problems. We need to face the problems
with humanity; after 180 years of constitutional government we are
still striving for democracy in our own society." 
                    (Port Huron Statement in Miller, p. 361)

     This lack of democracy in American society contributes to the 
political disillusionment of the population. Tom Hayden and SDS were 
deeply influenced by the writings of C. Wright Mills, a philosopher who 
was a Professor at Columbia University until his death early in 1962. Mills' 
thesis was that the "the idea of the community of publics" which make 
up a democracy had disappeared as people increasingly got further away 
from politics. Mills felt that the disengagement of people from the 
State had resulted in control being given to a few who in the 1960s 
were no longer valid representatives of the American people. In his book 
about SDS, "Democracy is in the Streets", James Miller wrote:

"Politics became a spectator sport. The support of voters 
was marshaled through advertising campaigns, not direct 
participation in reasoned debate. A citizen's chief sources 
of political information, the mass media, typically 
assaulted him with a barrage of distracting commercial commons, 
feeble entertainments and hand-me-down glosses on complicated 
issues." (Miller, p. 85)

     Such fundamental problems with democracy continue today in the 
middle of the 1990s. In the Port Huron Statement, SDS was successful in 
identifying and understanding the problems which still plague us 
today. This is a necessary first step to working towards a solution. 
The students involved with SDS understood people were tired of the 
problems and wanted to make changes in society. The Port Huron 
Statement was written to address these concerns: 

"...do they not as well produce a yearning to believe there 
is an alternative to the present, that something can be done to 
change circumstances in the school, the workplaces, the 
bureaucracies, the government? It is to this latter yearning, at 
once the spark and engine of change, that we direct our present 
appeal. The search for a truly democratic alternatives to the 
present, and a commitment to social experimentation with them, is 
a worthy and fulfilling human enterprise, one which moves us, and 
we hope, others today." 
               (SDS, "The Introduction, Agenda for Change", p. 331)

     Describing how the separation of people from power is the means 
used to keep people uninterested and apathetic, the Port Huron 
Statement explains:

"The apathy is, first, subjective -- the felt powerlessness 
of ordinary people, the resignation before the enormity of 
events. But subjective apathy is encouraged by the objective 
American situation -- the actual structural separation of 
people from power, from relevant knowledge, from pinnacles 
of decision-making. Just as the university influences the 
student way of life, so do major social institutions create 
the circumstances which the isolated citizen will try 
hopelessly to understand the world and himself." 
               ("The Society Beyond" in the Port Huron Statement,
               in Miller, p. 336)

     The Statement analyzes the personal disconnection to society and 
its effect:

"The very isolation of the individual -- from power and community 
and ability to aspire -- means the rise of democracy without 
publics. With the great mass of people structurally remote and 
psychologically hesitant with respect to democratic institutions, 
those institutions themselves attenuate and become, in the fashion 
of the vicious cycle, progressively less accessible to those few 
who aspire to serious participation in social affairs. The vital 
democratic connection between community and leadership, between 
the mass and the several elites, has been so wrenched and 
perverted that disastrous policies go unchallenged time and 
again." 
                    (Port Huron Statement in Miller, p. 336)

     The Statement describes how it is typical for people to get 
frustrated and quit going along with the electoral system as 
something which works. The problem has continued, as we now have all 
time lows in voter turn-outs for national and local elections. In a 
section titled Politics Without Publics, the Statement explains:

"The American voter is buffeted from all directions by
pseudo-problems, by the the structurally initiated sense 
that nothing political is subject to human mastery. Worried 
by his mundane problems which never get solved, but 
constrained by the common belief that politics is an 
agonizingly slow accommodation of views, he quits all
pretense of bothering." 
                         (Port Huron Statement in Miller, p. 337)

     Students in SDS did not let these real problems discourage
their efforts to work for a better future. They wanted to be part of the 
forces to defeat the problems. The Port Huron Statement contains an 
understanding that people are inherently good and can deal with the 
problems that were described. This understanding is conveyed in the 
Values section of the Statement:

"Men have unrealized potential for self-cultivation, self-
direction, self-understanding, and creativity. It is this
potential that we regard as crucial and to which we appeal, 
not to the human potential for violence, unreason, and 
submission to authority. The goal of man and society should 
be human independence: a concern not with the image of 
popularity but with finding a meaning in life that is 
personally authentic; a quality of mind not compulsively
driven by a sense of powerlessness, nor one which 
unthinkingly adopts status values, nor one which represses 
all threats to its habits, but one which easily unites the 
fragmented parts of personal history, one which openly faces 
problems which are troubling and unresolved; one with an 
intuitive awareness of possibilities, an active sense 
of curiosity, an ability and willingness to learn." 
                         (Port Huron Statement in Miller, p. 332)

PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY
     Those participating in the Port Huron convention came away with a 
sense of the importance of participatory democracy. This sense was in 
the air in several ways. The convention itself embodied participatory 
democracy through the discussion and debate over the text of the Statement 
as several people later explained. The Port Huron Statement called for 
the implementation of participatory democracy as a way to bring people 
back into decisions about the country in general, and their individual 
lives, in particular. One of Tom Hayden's professors at University of 
Michigan, Arnold Kaufman, came to speak about his thoughts and use of 
phrase 'participatory democracy.'

     Miller writes that in a 1960 essay, "Participatory Democracy and
Human Nature", Kaufman had described a society in which every member
had a "direct responsibility for decisions." The "main justifying
function" of participatory democracy, quotes Miller, "is and always
has been, not the extent to which it protects or stabilizes a
community, but the contribution it can make to the development of
human powers of thought, feeling and action. In this respect, it
differs, and differs quite fundamentally, from a representative system
incorporating all sorts of institutional features designed to
safeguard human rights and ensure social order." (Miller, p. 94)

    "Participation" explained Kaufman, "means both personal 
initiative --  that men feel obliged to help resolve social problems 
-- and social opportunity -- that society feels obliged to maximize 
the possibility for personal initiative to find creative outlets." 
(Miller, p. 95)

     A participant at the Port Huron Conference, Richard Flacks 
remembers Arnold Kaufman speaking at the convention,
 "At one point, he declared that our job as citizens was not to
role-play the President. Our job was to put forth our own
perspective. That was the real meaning of democracy--press for your
own perspective as you see it, not trying to be a statesman
understanding the big picture." (Miller, p. 111)

     After identifying participatory democracy as the means of how to 
wrest control back from corporate and government bureaucracies, the 
next step was to identify the means to having participatory democracy. 
In the "Values" section of The Port Huron Statement, the means 
proposed is a new media that would make this possible:

"As a social system 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; the society be organized to encourage
independence in men and provide the media for their common
participation." (Port Huron Statement in Miller, p. 333)

     Others in SDS further detailed their understandings of 
participatory democracy to mean people becoming active and committed 
to playing more of a public role. Miller documents Al Haber's idea of 
democracy as "a model, another way of organizing society." The 
emphasis was on a charge to action. It was how to be out there 
doing. Rather than an ideology or a theory." (Miller, pp. 143-144) 

	Tom Hayden, Miller writes, understood participatory democracy
to mean:

"number one, action; we believed in action. We had behind us the
so-called decade of apathy; we were emerging from apathy. What's the
opposite of apathy? Active participation. Citizenship. Making
history. Secondly, we were very directly influenced by the civil
rights movement in its student phase, which believed that by
personally committing yourself and taking risks, you could enter
history and try to change it after a hundred years of segregation.  And
so it was this element of participation in democracy that was
important. Voting was not enough. Having a democracy in which you
have an apathetic citizenship, spoon-fed information by a monolithic
media, periodically voting, was very weak, a declining form of
democracy. And we believed, as an end in itself, to make the human
being whole by becoming an actor in history instead of just a passive
object. Not only as an end in itself, but as a means to change, the
idea of participatory democracy was our central focus." (Miller,
p. 144)

Another member of SDS, Sharon Jeffrey understood "Participatory" to
mean "involved in decisions." She continued, "And I definitely wanted
to be involved in decisions that were going to affect me! How could I
let anyone make a decision about me that I wasn't involved in?"
(Miller, p. 144) 

     It is important to see the value of participatory democracy
as a common understanding among both the leaders and members of
SDS. While the Port Huron Statement contained other criticisms and
thoughts, its major contribution was to highlight the need to more
actively involve the citizens of the United States in the daily
political process to correct some of the wrongs which passivity had
allowed to build. Richard Flacks summarizes this in his article, 
"On the Uses of Participatory Democracy": 

"The most frequently heard phrase for defining participatory democracy is 
that 'men must share in the decisions which affect their lives.' in other 
words, participatory democrats take seriously a vision of man as citizen: 
and by taking seriously such a vision, they seek to extend the conception 
of citizenship beyond the conventional political sphere to all 
institutions. Other ways of stating the core values are to assert the 
following: each man has responsibility for the action of the institutions 
in which he is embedded ...." (Flacks, pp. 397-398)

THE NEED FOR COMMUNITY FOR PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY

	The leaders of SDS strove to create forms of participatory
democracy within its structure and organization as a prototype and as
leadership for the student protest movement and society in general.
Al Haber, the University of Michigan graduate student who was the 
first SDS national officer, describes the need for a communication 
system to provide the foundation for the movement: 


     "The challenge ahead is to appraise and evolve radical alternatives 
to the inadequate society of today, and to develop an institutionalized 
communication system that will give perspective to our immediate actions. 
We will then have the groundwork for a radical student movement in 
America." (Sale, p. 25)

	He understood the general society would be the last place to
approach. There was a need to start smaller among the element of
society that was becoming more active in the 1960s or the
students. Haber outlined his idea of where to start:

"We do not now have such a public [interaction in a functioning
community] in America. Perhaps, among the students, we are beginning
to approach it on the left. It is now the major task before liberals,
radicals, socialists and democrats. It is a task in which the SDS
should play a major role." (Miller, p.69)

	The Port Huron Statement defines 'community' to mean:

"Human relations should involve fraternity and honesty. Human 
interdependence is a contemporary fact; .... Personal links between 
man and man are needed.'" (SDS, p. 332)

	Prior to his full time involvement with SDS, Hayden wrote an
article for the Michigan Daily describing how democratic decision
making is a necessary first step towards creating community. 
Hayden's focus was on the University when he wrote, "If decisions are
the sole work of an isolated few rather than of a participating many,
alienation from the University complex will emerge, because the
University will be just that: a complex, not a community." However,
this sentiment persisted in Hayden's and others thoughts
about community and democracy for the whole country. (Miller, p. 54)

	This feeling about community is represented in the Port Huron
Statement's conclusion. The Statement calls for the communal sharing
of problems to see that they are public and not private problems. Only
by communicating and and sharing these problems through a community
will it be a chance to solve them together. SDS called for the new
left to "transform modern complexity into issues that 
can be understood and felt close-up by every human being." The
statement continues, "It must give form to the feelings of
helplessness and indifference, so people may see the political, social
an economic sources of their private troubles and organize to change
society...'" (Port Huron Statement, p. 374 of Miller)

	The theory of participatory democracy was engaging. However,
the actual practice of giving everyone a say within the SDS structures
made the value of participatory democracy clear. The Port Huron
Convention was a real life example of how the principles were
refreshing and capable of bringing American citizens back into
political process. The community created among SDS members brought
this new spirit to light. C. Wright Mills writings spoke about "the
scattered little circles of face-to-face citizens discussing their
public business." Al Haber's hope for this to happen among students
was demonstrated at Port Huron. SDS members saw this as proof of
Mill's hope for democracy. This was to be the first example of many
among SDS gatherings and meetings. Richard Flacks highlighted what
made Port Huron special. He found a "mutual discovery of like minds."
Flacks continued, "You felt isolated before, because you had these
political interests and values and suddenly you were discovering not
only like minds, but the possibility of actually creating something
together." It was also exciting because, "it was our thing: we were
there at the beginning." (Miller, p. 118)

THE MEANS FOR CHANGE

	SDS succeeded in doing several things. First, they
clearly identified the crucial problem in American democracy. Next,
they came up with an understanding of what theory would make a
difference. All that remained was to find the means to make this change
manifest. They discovered how to create changes in their own lives and
these changes affected the world around them. However, something more
was needed to bring change to all of American society.

	Al Haber understood this something more would be an open
communication system or media which people could use to communicate.
He understood that, "the challenge ahead is to appraise and
evolve radical alternatives to the inadequate society of today, and to
develop an institutionalized communication system that will give
perspective to our immediate actions." (Sale, p. 25) This system would
lay the "the groundwork for a radical student movement in America."
(Sale, p. 25) Haber and Hayden understood SDS to be this, "a national
communications network" (Miller, p. 72) 

	While many people made their voices heard and produced a real
effect on the world in the 1960s, lasting structural changes were not
established. The real problems outlined earlier continued in the 1970s
and afterwards. A national, or even international, public
communications network needed to be built to keep the public's voice
out in the open.

	Members of SDS partially understood this, and put
forth the following two points in the Port Huron Statement section on
"Towards American Democracy": 

  - "Mechanisms of voluntary association must be created through which
political information can be imparted and political participation
encouraged." 

  - "The allocation of resources must be based on social needs. A truly
'public sector' must be established, and its nature debated and
planned." (PHS, in Miller, p. 362)

INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK - OR THE NET

	This network and the means to access it began developing
towards the end of the 1960s. Two milestones in the genesis were 1969
when the first ARPANET node was installed and in 1979 when Usenet
started. Both are pioneering experiments in using computers to
facilitate human communication in a fundamentally different way than
already existing public communications networks like the telephone or
television networks. The ARPANET, which was a prototype for today's
Internet, and Usenet, which continues to grow and expand around the world,
are parts of the Net, or the worldwide global computer communication
networks. Another important step towards the development of an
international communication network was the personal computer
movement, which took place in the middle to late 1970s. This movement
created the personal computer which makes it affordable for an
individual to purchase the means to connect to this public network.

	However, the network can not simply be created. SDS understood
that "democracy and freedom do not magically occur,
but have roots in historical experience; they cannot always be
demanded for any society at any time, but must be nurtured and
facilitated." (SDS, Port Huron Statement, in Miller, p. 361)

	Participants on the ARPANET, Internet and Usenet inherently
understood this, and built a social and knowledge network from the
ground up. As Usenet was created to help students who did not have
access to the ARPANET, or a chance to communicate in a similar way,
they came to it in full force. In "Culture and Communication: The
Interplay in the New Public Commons", Michael Hauben writes that the
on-line user is part of a global culture and considers him or herself
to be a global citizen. This global citizen is a net citizen, or a
Netizen. The world which has developed is based on communal effort to
make a cooperative community. Those who have become Netizens have
gained more control of their lives and the world around them. However,
access to this world needs to spread in order to have the largest
possible effect for the most number of people. In addition, as some
efforts to spread the Net become more commercial, some of the values
important to the Net are being challenged.

	A recent speech I was invited to present at a conference on
"the Netizen Revolution and the Regional Information Infrastructure"
in Beppu, Japan helps to bring the world of the Netizen into
perspective with the ideas of participatory democracy,

"Netizens are not just anyone who comes on-line, and they are
especially not people who come on-line for isolated gain or profit.
They are not people who come to the Net thinking it is a
service. Rather they are people who understand it takes effort and
action on each and everyones part to make the Net a regenerative and
vibrant community and resource. Netizens are people who decide to
devote time and effort into making the Net, this new part of our
world, a better place." (Hauben, Hypernetwork '95 speech)

	The Net is a technological and social development which is in
the spirit of the theory clearly defined by the Students for a
Democratic Society. This understanding could help in the fight to keep
the Net a uncommercialized public commons (Felsenstein). This many to
many medium provides the tools necessary to bring the open commons
needed to make participatory democracy a reality. It is important now
to spread access to this medium to all who understand they could
benefit.

	The Net brings power to people's lives because it is a public
forum. The airing of real problems and concerns in the open brings
help towards the solution and makes those responsible accountable to
the general public. The Net is the public distribution of people's
muckraking and whistle blowing. It is also just a damn good way for
people to come together to communicate about common interests and to
come into contact with people with similar and differing ideas.

	The lack of control over the events surrounding an individual's
life was a common concern of protesters in the 1960s. The Port Huron
Statement gave this as a reason for the reforms SDS was calling
for. The section titled "The Society Beyond" included that "Americans
are in withdrawal from public life, from any collective efforts at
directing their own affairs." (PHS, in Miller, p. 335) 

	Hayden echoed C. Wright Mills when he wrote, "What experience
we have is our own, not vicarious or inherited." Hayden continued, "We
keep believing that people need to control, or try to control, their
work and their life. Otherwise, they are without intensity, without
the subjective creative consciousness of themselves which is the root
of free and secure feeling. It may be too much to believe, we don't
know." (Miller, p. 262)

	The desire to bring more control into people's daily life was
a common goal of student protest in the 1960s. Mario Savio, active in
the Berkeley Free Speech movement, "believed that the students, who
paid the university to educate them, should have the the power to
influence decisions concerning their university lives." (Haskins and
Benson, p. 55) This desire was also a common motivator of the personal
computer movement. 

THE PERSONAL COMPUTER MOVEMENT

	The personal computer movement immediately picked up after the
protest movements of the 1960s died down. Hobbiest computer enthusiasts
wanted to provide access to computing power to the people. People
across the United States picked up circuit boards and worked on making
a personal mini-computer or mainframe which previously only large
corporations and educational institutions could afford. Magazines,
such as Creative Computing, Byte and Dr. Dobbs' Journal, and clubs,
such as the Homebrew Club, formed cooperative communities of people
working towards solving the technical problems of building a personal
and inexpensive computer.

	Several pioneers of the personal computer movement contributed
to the tenth anniversary issue of Creative Computing Magazine. Some of
their impressions follow:

"The people involved were people with vision, people who stubbornly
clung to the idea that the computers could offer individuals
advantages previously available only to large corporations. ..."
(Leyland, p. 111)

"Computer power was meant for the people. In the early 70s
computer cults were being formed across the country. Sol Libes on the
East Coast and Gordon French in the West were organizing computer
enthusiasts into clubs...." (Terrell, p. 100)

"We didn't have many things you take for granted today, but we
did have a feeling of excitement and adventure. A feeling that we were
the pioneers in a new era in which small computers would free everyone
from much of the drudgery of everyday life. A feeling that we were
secretly taking control of information and power jealously guarded by
the Fortune 500 owners of multi-million dollar IBM mainframes. A
feeling that the world would never be the same once "hobby computers"
really caught on." (Marsh, p. 110)

"There was a strong feeling [at the Homebrew Club] that we were
subversives. We were subverting the way the giant corporations had run
things. We were upsetting the establishment, forcing our mores into
the industry. I was amazed that we could continue to meet without
people arriving with bayonets to arrest the lot of us." (

THE NET and CONCLUSION

        The development of the Internet and of Usenet is an investment
in a strong force towards making direct democracy a reality. These new
technologies present the chance to overcome the obstacles preventing
the implementation of direct democracy. Online communication forums
also make possible the discussion necessary to identify today's
fundamental questions. One criticism is that it would be impossible to
assemble the body politic in person at a single time. The Net allows
for a meeting which takes place on each person's own time, rather than
all at one time. Usenet newsgroups are discussion forums where
questions are raised, and people can leave comments when convenient,
rather than at a particular time and at a particular place. As a
computer discussion forum, individuals can connect from their own
computers, or from publicly accessible computers across the nation to
participate in a particular debate. The discussion takes place in one
concrete time and place, while the discussants can be
dispersed. Current Usenet newsgroups and mailing lists prove that
citizens can both do their daily jobs and participate in discussions
that interest them within their daily schedules. 

        Another criticism was that people would not be able to
communicate peacefully after assembling. Online discussions do not
have the same characteristics as in-person meetings. As people connect
to the discussion forum when they wish, and when they have time, they
can be thoughtful in their responses to the discussion. Whereas in a
traditional meeting, participants have to think quickly to respond. In
addition, online discussions allow everyone to have a say, whereas
finite length meetings only allow a certain number of people to have
their say. Online meetings allow everyone to contribute their thoughts
in a message, which is then accessible to whomever else is reading and
participating in the discussion.

        These new communication technologies hold the potential for the
implementation of direct democracy in a country as long as the necessary
computer and communications infrastructure are installed. Future
advancement towards a more responsible government is possible with these
new technologies. While the future is discussed and planned for, it will
also be possible to use these technologies to assist in the citizen
participation in government. Netizens are watching various government
institutions on various newsgroups and mailing lists throughout the
global computer communications network. People's thoughts about and
criticisms of their respective governments are being aired on the
currently uncensored networks.

        These networks can revitalize the concept of a democratic
"Town Meeting" via online communication and discussion. Discussions
involve people interacting with others. Voting involves the isolated
thoughts of an individual on an issue, and then his or her acting on
those thoughts in a private vote. In society where people live
together, it is important for people to communicate with each other
about their situations to best understand the world from the broadest
possible viewpoint.

	The individuals involved with SDS, the personal computer
movement and the pioneers involved with the development of the Net
understood they were a part of history. This spirit helped them to
push forward in the hard struggle needed to bring the movements to
fruition. The invention of the personal computer was one step that
made it possible for people to afford the means to connect to the
Net. The Internet has just begun to emerge as a tool available to the
public. It is important that the combination of the personal computer
and the Net be spread and made widely available at low or no costs to
people around the world. It is important to understand the tradition
which these developments have come from, in order to truly understand
their value to society and to make them widely available. With the
hope connected to this new public communications medium, I encourage
people to take up the struggle which continues in the great American
radical tradition.


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