Word: sds
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...SDS education does not mean indoctrination in a party line. At best the group would claim a "somewhat coherent overview" of what must be done to change American society. This step-down from dogma again sets off the generation of the 60's. The radicals of the 50's, similar to their predecessors of the 30's, held an almost Stalinist conception of leadership whereby a few key leaders would give the group its doctrine. These earlier radicals view the lack of ideology as the main weakness of the New Left. To them, SDS is "hung up on problems...
...structure of SDS at Harvard, although based upon theories of democratic decision-making, also indicates a reaction against the Stalinists of the 30's. The Harvard Chapter has no less than four co-chairmen. Separate committees study and act on Vietnam, Labor, Civil Rights, South Africa, and University Reform. The executive committee theoretically consists of only the chairmen of the various committees, but in practice, anyone may attend executive committee meetings...
...SDS theory of participatory democracy has its roots in the American Constitutional Convention of 1789, as the founders of SDS observed during the Port Huron Conference of 1962. Madison, citing Montesquieu, wrote in The Federalist Papers that only small nations could remain truly democratic. In a large country, one big faction might blot out the rights of a slightly smaller faction by means of a simple majority. The New Leftists, accordingly, believe that the United States has grown too large to rely on the simple majority alone and that consensus politics must return if justice is to be maintained...
...theory, an SDS education supplies the common viewpoint which makes such a consensus possible, but the theory clearly breaks down in practice. At a two day regional meeting of SDS last December, the large assembly failed to take a position on a proposal to carry the war protest to groups off campus. The program did take place during the spring semester, but not in the organized fashion the leaders had envisioned...
...call for more cautious politics. The consensus theory thus imposes a limit on the number of concerns upon which a New Left group can focus. The young Democrats (YD's), by contrast, were able to discuss such issues as foreign aid and birth control as well as the standard SDS topics of Civil Rights and Vietnam during the current year...