Founded in Chicago in August 2006, the Movement for a Democratic Society (MDS) describes itself as "a global association of people on the left" that "seeks to create a sustained community of educational and political concern and actions." "[B]ringing together liberals and radicals, activists and scholars, students, faculty and workers in all trades," MDS's "continual focus" is "to effect change at the most basic levels of economic, political, and social organization" by means of "a radical, democratic program counter-posed to authoritarian movements." MDS acts as both mentor and financial support for the newly revived Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the ideological descendant of the 1960s organization bearing that same name. Many MDS members are veterans of the New Left whose heyday was the Sixties and Seventies.
Key players in MDS's founding included the historian Paul Buhle, communist-turned-anarchist Thomas Good, and former SDS and Weatherman member Bruce Rubenstein.
The former Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers is also involved with MDS, though he has not been officially listed as a board member. In November 2007 Ayers spoke at an MDS "Convergence" in Chicago, and he has referred to MDS’s activities as "our work."
Also in 2008, MDS drafted an “Iran Pledge of Resistance,” calling on Americans to oppose any plans the Bush administration might have had to invade Iran for the purpose of destroying its nuclear-weapons production facilities. The pledge read, in part:
“The Bush regime lied knowingly, openly and repeatedly in order to justify waging aggressive war against Iraq and its subsequent occupation. Hence, its current propaganda campaign attempting to demonize and justify war with Iran has no credibility and is a source of great concern. Past U.S. governments are guilty of a long series of assaults on Iran.”
