<Li> "We regard men as infinitely precious and possessed of unfulfilled capacities for reason, freedom, and love ." </Li> <Li> "The decline of utopia and hope is in fact one of the defining features of social life today . The reasons are various: the dreams of the older left were perverted by Stalinism and never recreated...the horrors of the twentieth century, symbolized in the gas - ovens and concentration camps and atom bombs, have blasted hopefulness . To be idealistic is to be considered apocalyptic, deluded ." </Li> <Li> "The apathy here 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...The American political system is not the democratic model of which its glorifiers speak . In actuality it frustrates democracy by confusing the individual citizen, paralyzing policy discussion, and consolidating the irresponsible power of military and business interests ." </Li> <Ul> <Li> In the movie The Big Lebowski, the aging, stoner hippie played by Jeff Bridges known as "the Dude" claims that he helped write "the original" Port Huron Statement, "not the compromised second draft". The Dude also claims to have been a member of the "Seattle 7", a reference to the Seattle Liberation Front . </Li> </Ul>

Students for a democratic society the port huron statement summary