[act-ma] FW: INVITATION: Manifesto for Now, Port Huron+50, June 14-17

[James in Cambridge]

[Alan Haber was a key founder, and the first President, of SDS, who "recruited" Tom Hayden to put the finishing touches                on the extensive, broad, drafting process that led to the Port Huron Statement, 50 years ago this year.  cheers* James]
      
From: megiddo at umich.eduSubject: INVITATION: Manifesto for Now, Port Huron+50, June 14-17
Date: Sat, 9 Jun 2012 05:57:38 -0400

LinkLanguage --> http://bit.ly/manifesto4now and http://bit.ly/manifesto4nowwiki
this is a beginning of thinking together.YES!Next week,  fifty years ago, a we gathered to consider who we were, what we wanted to do, what we thought. Were we a we? What was a winning plan and how to make it happen? Is there one? Are we hopeful? That was the Students for a Democratic Society convention near Port Huron,  Michigan,  June 11-15, 1962, when we considered a "draft" manifesto, and produced, after more editing, what came to be called "the Port Huron Statement."Now, next week, we are gathering, in the spirit of that 50 year ago audacity to presume manifesto, in our multi generations, old and young and in-betweens, and in our global reachings, and our many identities, to consider, "what would be a manifesto for now?"Physically and face to face, this gathering will be in Ann Arbor, Michigan, at 310 South Ashley Street, from June 14 to June 17. Thursday evening potluck social, 6pm, 7:30 opening, through Sunday afternoon.Remotely, via a "wiki" and  "port huron+50 blog," (links above), we invite a wider gathering. We call this "thinking together"The initial we, within the bigger us, who are calling this thinking together, call ourselves "Movement for a Democratic Society" carrying the "participatory democracy" spirit of the sds, encouraging radical thinking, movement building and local organizing.Thinking together is not easy. Thinking alone is not easy. Let us reason together was an ancient call for sanity in the midst of disaster. What is to done? is another posing of the question, and undone?I see this gathering time as like bringing in, inviting in the harvest, the winter wheat, barley and rice, grains of sustainence. spring greens and fruits of labor. hoping for some good spices, herbs and condiments, and a stone or two for the soups.  A few days together should produce some recipes worth sharing.We are not beginning, as in 1962, with a written draft from which to work, but with ourselves, face to face and remotely, each offering perspectives and facets of the picture we will come to imagine as the product of this undertaking.I hope by Sunday afternoon we will have a plan of how to follow-up, edit and share what has come to focus. One intention is to prepare some activist input into the University of Michigan academic conference on the Port Huron Statement @50, scheduled from October 30-November 2, 2012 in Ann Arbor.We are not expecting finished drafts of perfect statements, connecting all the dots. The joy will be in thinking together the many little pieces, the dots, dashes and flashes, rough cut.I hope you will participate.  Please extend this invitation to others you know who would be interested.Alan Haber734 761 7967LinkLanguage --> http://bit.ly/manifesto4now and http://bit.ly/manifesto4nowwiki 		 	   		  
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