night and prejudice we thought before. >> host: will the presidential election ultimately be decided on the issues to write about in this poker economic issues issues are a mix thereof? >> guest: and mix thereof, but the social issues should stay front and center and if they don't, it's because republicans want to start talking about it because they know how unpopular views are. that's going to be incumbent upon democrats to keep front and center. >> host: her book is called "delirium." find it wherever you buy your books. >> host: it's time for our final panel session. let me tell you that the panel. just over our shoulder here on location at her studio. the panelists includes tom hayden, abe peck and robert scheer. we will begin coverage right now. thanks for being with us. [inaudible conversations] >> you know the rules. please silence all cell phones. there's a book signing follows the session. book signing as insane area seven. all three panelists has books to be signed. personal recording of the session in other sessions are not allowed. i am jon wiener, monitor of the session. i pray for the nation magazine, america's oldest weekly and i host before report and keep esq radio for the 99%. we are here today because it's the 50th anniversary of the port huron statement, the document of students for democratic society, which called for participatory democracy and all parts of life. and that means we are here today because of tom hayden who drafted the port huron statement. [applause] so 50 years later, tom is still a leading voice for ending the wars in afghanistan, pakistan, iraq. he saw for ending sweatshops for ending the environment and for reforming politics are more participatory democracy. he currently writes for the nation, which has a cover story by tom, participatory democracy for port huron to wall street. he organizes and travels and speaks against the current wars has found her interact. the peace and justice resource center in culver city. tom is the author and editor of the 19 vets, especially notable is his memoir now under the title rabble of "the new york times" named one of the best books of the year. before that in 1982 tom was elected to the california state assembly. he served 18 years in home. before that in the 70s, tom organized the campaign for economic democracy, grassroots organizing effort which won dozens of local offices and shut down the nuclear power plant for a referendum for the first time. before that of course was chicago 68, demonstrations at the democratic national convention, which led to time been put on trial by the nixon administration and 69, charged with conspiracy and indictments and eventually acquitted on all charges. before that in 65, tom traveled to hanoi to promote peace talks. before that in 64 as a community organizer in newark. before that in the early 60s was a freedom writer beat in rural georgia and mississippi for direct action civil rights work and before that, in 1962, 50 years ago, tom drafted the port huron statement. that seems like this is the right time and right place to sit thank you, tom hayden. [applause] our format is 10 minutes from each speaker in the first round. >> thanks, john. nice to see all of you. but me just briefly tried to cover some ground here. it's startling to me that this was 50 years ago, especially if you read the september 17 occupy wall street manifesto that calls for a direct participatory democracy. so it is a concept that is detached from its authors, but 50 of us who gathered in port huron. this seems to arise when institutions are unrepresentative enough and burdens are crashing enough that people take matters into their own hands, organize and take action and participatory democracy in my view of the very long future because it has been the propelling force behind so many social movements. i see it in my ucla student i taught this winter quarter who are like the freedom riders. these are young, undocumented undergraduates old enough to make daring enough to come out of the closet and say it, i am undocumented. respect me or deport me. it is that kind of it is that kind of action that reminds me of the freedom section that reminds me of the freedom rights. i see it more in wisconsin. my whole family is from wisconsin, where everything about participatory democracy is on display. the young people outside the institutional process that started it, the occupation of the capital, the demonstrations at the 100,000 people in freezing weather, again and again and again the collection of hundreds of thousands of signatures to recall scott walker is not over. [applause] but they've even managed what we've tried to do, which was to move the more liberal democrats to stand for some income to stand for ideals and a whole bunch of them come as you know, walked out of the capitol in support of the strike and the occupiers. so i see it again and again appearing because of the dynamic. i want to say a little more about it and locate why and how it was written. the two words came to me from professor arnold kaufmann in the university of michigan. i think we picked it up or gave it to her collaborated with the sala baker, who was the advisor to the student nonviolent coordinating committee attributed to john dewey the philosopher and probably goes back to henry david thoreau, saint cast though, but so what your whole life, not merely in strip of paper. so it began with the freedom rights in the south that galvanized students around the country, where young people took a virtual flood of japan, once and for all segregation in the deep south, which was the basis on which races dixiecrat rule over congress can the majority of the committees of congress were dominated by the southerners. and it's no action that i began drafting the notes for port huron after a freedom ride and albany georgia jail cell. so the first notion was direct action, putting your body on the line but there is a political concept goes into it at the same time. through voting rights you could undermine dixiecrat power, mobilize the black vote, and the racist domination of the democratic party and the congress and the weekend a liberal to progressive, even radical constituency of labor, civil rights groups, peace advocates, democratic party liberals. the farmworkers were first being organized at the same time and the southwest and the purpose is by raising this domestic democratic constituencies, demanding participation and the decisions that affected our lives, we could begin to end the cold war whose secrecy and terrorism dominated our lives. so completely and concluding the spending priorities for congress. there was a political strategy to realign the political system that was connected to direct action and the concept. this is 62 mets 62 and much was left out of the free speech movement had not occurred yet. betty for dan had not written the feminine mystique. the national organization for women has not been formed. rachel carson had not been published on the environment. by american advisers, not yet a combat war. one is while we denounced the teeter ships supported by the united states including south vietnam, we did not anticipate at the time that there would be a draft for vietnam that johnson would campaign on a promise not to send young men to southeast asia and turn around and send 100,000 in the first year and would escalate to 500,000. that would lead to draft resistance, polarization, further denial of domestic priorities, black uprisings in many cities and more than anything else, to act the possibilities of domestic economic reform. secondly, the assassination of john kennedy. and the time i have, there's little to say except that it was not part of anything that we were taught about history or american politics or social change. it was not in the model that leaders of the assassinated. not once, but again and again and again. in our view, food push the kennedy administration. after we took the statements immediately after it was published in our naïveté and suits and ties, thinking that the civil rights movement would move the attorney general and president gradually towards reconsidering the cold war. and john kennedy did so in a very famous beach, just before he was killed. so the assassination factor destabilized us and made a lot of visio that we were not has-beens, but my defense was jack newfield once that. sectarian and some -- the statement soon got treated her at the next generation of young activists is to reform the two which i can only say yes, we wanted reform, but there came a kind of sick carrying a sign that included multiple varieties of marxism and faction fighting. and forth at the counterintelligence programs at the police and the fbi that made everybody suspicious, but a lot of people in jail, cost a lot of people billman and so on. i'm done there. i want to emphasize that i think it might be worth your time to read the nation article here on the stage somewhere to be distributed because i believe looking back and i didn't think this site years ago, but i believe that now that participatory democracy may be the overall concept that could unify liberals on the left than even some libertarians when you look at the other ideological alternatives before us. it is a broughton of concept to include social in the hands, politicians, progressive business people, journalists. everybody -- this is that arnold kaufmann said in a hand here. he said the idea is a moral one. the statement is the value section to the front. a moral one because every human being's dignity requires the ability to participate and not be that dems of all the decisions that are being made controlling their lives by remote forces, whether it's the military, corporations, politicians or the media. and in that sense, i think it has a longevity that i never anticipated. perhaps the port huron statement made us, not the other way around because of his time at that time for that idea to be manifest again. thanks. [applause] >> and assigning area with copies of the port huron statement that tom will sign at the end. also have copies of the special issue of the nation magazine at the port huron statement in the stream for those who are interested in copies of the terrific article. our next speaker is abe peck. abe is a chicago guy. starting out in 1967 the work of the chicago seats as editor of the underground paper. then he worked as a longtime associate editor at a tribune of "rolling stone." he wrote the book on the underground press at the great title, uncovering the 60s, the life and times of the underground press for "the new york times" calls it the definitive of the subject. it is reporter, editor and columnist for chicago daily news and "chicago sun-times," where he went to illinois associated press awards and he was subsequently inducted into the chicago journalism hall of fame for his work there. then he worked for 27 years as a full-time professor at the mcgill school of journalism at northwestern university, just recently said down and retire to santa barbara, the remains involved and co-edited until a immediate engagement, the one featured today in the book festival assigning area. he has worked with more than 100 magazines, websites, portals and newspapers. we welcome to "the l.a. times" festival of books, abe peck. >> thank you. [applause] thank you. as tom said, great to see a turnout like this for this birthday party. i'm the guy in the middle. like bob scheer i was born in the bronx, but it came to california a little late and not as a full timer until four years ago. this is my third tour of duty in california and just a background, the first was the summer of love. yes i am a human cliché. five guys in a band coming from the box to seeker pays the future and featuring cisco. i was on the psychedelic side of the bay -- i was on the political side of the bay. okay, good. see you after class. later that year i became an underground press editors john mentioned in the next year i met tom in the streets and the next year after that, the day after woodstock, guess because and that psychedelic cliché, i got back to chicago and spent four months with tom across a crowded room covering for the under or impress. by the time i reached "rolling stone" in the mid-70s, the big ethical story was actually patty hearst experiencing by brandon at the movement we called the 60s. and now that i live in santa barbara i mention this because they teach periodically at northwestern in evanston, illinois. this quarter i am professor friday. i find on thursdays, come back on saturdays. and the reason i tell you this is this week my airplane reach port huron. i have to tell you three big responses. the first was the statement is exhilarating and i'll explain what they mean by that. the second was disappointing perhaps not for the reasons you need. the third and perhaps most important is i was hopeful at this time we really needed that. any talk about each quickly. first of all, under the acceleration: comment being systematic may not sound peppy and wild and wonderful, but these days it's a political battle. but in a systematic document is a real pleasure and thank you, tom and other contributors, too. this is a document spurred by the shadow of the bomb as i look some of us are old enough to remember hiding under our desks, which were going to save us a 20-megaton explosion because they would make a special word. the document also talks about the permeating -- the permeate and then victimizing fat of human degradation. that was the south and people like tom going down to the south to be free riders and i still remember i didn't go to the march march on washington initiative. but the document this really quickly began systematically for racial inequality to economic inequality. from the able too the colonial revolution signals the end of an era for the western power and to college the hypocrisy of an american ideal, but it asked america to be better. overall again it's written from a very interesting point of view. it's written for what the document calls strategic discomfort. it's a document it's kind of antsy when it starts. you know, it talks about our work is guided by the sense that we may be the last generation and the very first being children of converts an uncertain. it confesses his own uncertainty. other students of sociology starting loneliness and community and part of any organization into addition of what side that these organizations brought to us. it's a smart document as someone who teaches writing, it's amazing because any document written by collaborators that reads this welles deserves a shout out. one that is just as true now as politics about publix, a very important phrase. looking for a change in a way to does the wood and was one of reached out to labor and a lot of young people do not do. deposited student says the agent of change. along with very black and white people full text another is sure to. he talked about this almost class of people called students who do something university and use it as a place to make change her call for universal control disarmament and laid out reforms for sweeping anti-property programs to prove that the mental health treatment in prisons. later on at the very end of the document the word militant in movement appeared, but the document is trying to figure out a way to make change. can they sell courses of action and peer at the university will be the place this takes place and lo and behold universities in the 60s became -- i don't know what you want to call them, homes, basins for change. the idea of wresting control of, the educational process and bureaucracy bother us well for the speech movement. part of the things i do in my work, which is not a political thing, but in this political document does the same thing. early in the port huron statement is a statement of values and that is super crucial to the whole nature of the document. it recognizes that in that in no short formulas, no close theories. it calls for building change around reason, freedom and a very special word that i counted at least three times in the document, love. 1962, political document talking about love and i think it's very important. a critique of anti-communist than into the almost communist them, really trying to find its place. again, it is not a political document. it is something bigger about that. talks about the depersonalization that reduces human beings to the status of things. how timely. it talks about finding meaning in life that is personally authentic get beyond egotistic individualism and in the nation piece said quite simply wanted to live like them, speaking of his colleagues. these are people and early 20s. students are breaking the crest of apathy. talks about a remote control economy, talks about the 1% truth of the time. talks about how acidic bodies are subordinated to exchange values and even automation just coming into the mainstream of social dislocation and opportunity. so it's really quite a striking document i think. alice tom mentioned, the port huron statement display on the environment, perhaps culture but by way people only, feminism was absent. overshadowed by phrase is perhaps that fraternity, independents and men. but to my mind, and also the kind of psychedelic size, consciousness sides of the 60s may not be in there strikingly. but that is 2020 hindsight. in 1962, this is a very forward-looking, very interesting and very important document. so my real disappointment the following. one is that the document and could not survive until into the 60s. it was brought into play by the things you've just laid out. i won't go into them again. we find that to be important and yet overtaken by events. the second disappointment is the biggest one is so many problems noted in the port huron statement are still with us. the green revolution says billions spent in poverty worldwide economic inequality has a black president rather than by people who can't vote, but we still have tremendous political problem for nuclear water still have yours. so occupy wall street commotion sure thomas mentioned in mentioned in his piece above will probably mention has much merit and the sensitivities in part or in response to sit hairiness than that later developed after the port huron statement. and perhaps it has to find its own way, perhaps it can generate a statement. i said i was hopeful at the end. a finnish return statement is to play me and did yesterday nsa disembarked at home are positively about the potential for beating back bio from the dixiecrat republicans coalition of today, not 50 years ago and for energizing the disenchantment that many of us who calls themselves progressives, left still feel. the statement at the end of the statement said there is perhaps a good reason to be optimistic of the above analysis. the gray band of young people in michigan that outcome of so much good came at the statement is so much remains to be done. [applause] well, he was for my job as moderator becomes a little superfluous. there's one person who does not need an introduction at "the l.a. times" festival of books, it's robert scheer. [applause] is there anyone here who read truth did or listens to truth did radio or left right and center and keep your debut? bob, just won the society of professional journalists award for best online columnist of the year. that's a very big one. [applause] and in case you haven't heard, truth dig has one for webby for best political blog. via has been a journalist for 30 years. just briefly in case you haven't heard communist vietnam correspondent, managing editor and editor-in-chief of ramparts magazine from 54 to 59. [applause] hold your applause. from 76 to 93 he was national correspondent for "the l.a. times" and in 1993 launched nationally syndicated column based at the times,