"The Occupy movement took a turn for the symbolic in Berkeley this week, harkening back to a heritage of protest, social unrest, and progressive causes. And, according to one former member of the Free Speech Movement, which began in the same spot, the implications of the Occupy movement could reverberate for a generation — even if the protesters only force small institutional changes. (...) It’s been 47 years since the start of the Free Speech Movement, which inspired the anti-Vietnam War movement, the hippies, and perhaps even the internet as we know it. Free-speech veteran Lee Felsenstein sees parallels in Occupy to the movement he helped start. (...) “The fundamental thing that was going on with the Free Speech Movement was reclaiming public space, and I have seen this expressed recently with the Occupy movement,” Felsenstein said. During 1964, engineering students like him all over the country were not only watching Cal, but working on ways to connect the campuses together using the first nascent and slow computer network. “One of the effects of the Free Speech Movement, and that outbreak of freedom really, was manifested in the development of the internet,” Felsenstein said. “We see the structure of the internet being an open structure, and open structure is what we were fighting for.” (...) - Amira