*As an introductory note, in reading in our textbooks about this, I noticed Tom Hayden[1]as being the principle author, and knew the name sounded familiar. I had a vague sense that he had gone on in later life to be a politician, maybe a Senator. So I've included a link to what I found when “Googling” him. It's just a Wikipedia article, so not “scholarly”, but it gives a good overview for anyone interested. I was partially correct- he was a California State Senator, but perhaps more notably he was also once married to Jane Fonda...

The Port Huron Statement [2] was a manifesto, of sorts, for the New Left as a whole, and more specifically for the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). As stated in the last sentence, it was an effort to elucidate their “central values”. The SDS, as editor Brian Ward states in the introduction, “offered a sustained critique of American politics, domestic values, and foreign policy” during its time of influence in the Sixties.

The basic principles of the work all center around the opening premise- that America at this time (1962) had become complacent. In other words, overly content with itself, yet either not aware or not wanting to face some very real problems in its midst. The main two referenced were the racial problems (of the South and larger northern cities); and the Cold War stand-off between the US and the USSR, with the ever-present danger of nuclear warfare. A few others are mentioned briefly- all paradoxes that existed at the time in national society: new technologies/yet demeaning work conditions, starvation in many areas of the planet/yet America's upper-class living in luxury, and the looming threat of overpopulation/yet rampant exploitation of the planet's resources.

I feel that the Port Huron Statement did an exemplary job of detailing some of America's problems. However, the proposed ways to fix them were generally both vague and naïve. Some examples: that “politics be seen positively, as the art of collectively creating...acceptable...social relations”. Or, “that work should involve incentives worthier than money or survival”. Fine- but how do you accomplish that?

The Port Huron Statement was divided into two sections: “Agenda for a Generation” and “Values”. What's missing is maybe the most important, and that would have been “Solutions”.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Hayden

[2] Students for a Democratic Society. "The Port Huron Statement, 1962". The

            1960s :A Documentary Reader. Ward, Brian ed. West Sussex UK: Wiley-

            Blackwell. 2010. 90-95. Print.