I was an activist and organizer in the antiwar and civil rights movements of the 1960s and '70s - movements that are reborn today in the Occupy protests. I hope today's activists can learn from our experience.

I was in Students for a Democratic Society and was affiliated with the Weather Underground. As a member of Weather's aboveground support network, I worked to forge bonds between clandestine and public activists. I ran bail bond money when people got arrested and the donors wanted anonymity. I helped a brave man find a place to hide from the police. I studied martial arts and practiced target shooting. I lived communally with other organizers. I taunted policemen and got arrested. I did not want to grow up in a country that did what the United States was doing in Southeast Asia - it looked like genocide.

I worked with the Weathermen because I wanted to provide underground operatives with a reality check from my perspective as an aboveground activist. I hoped to build a movement prepared to shield activists from unwarranted repression for exercising their constitutional rights. I wanted to be militant. I did not object to the Weathermen's small explosions in public buildings as long as no one was hurt. Perhaps that was a mistake.

In the aboveground movement, we educated people about the Vietnam War and organized opportunities for people to protest. We did guerrilla theater, sit-ins, teach-ins, marches and rallies. We worked on legal defense of Black Panthers. We demonstrated in Washington and went skinny-dipping in the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall.

It was a very different time in America and the world. There was affluence for many and a robust economy, not the economic disaster that Occupy addresses. Our issues were civil rights and the war, and the draft that would force us to risk our lives in an unjust conflict. Yet I feel magnetically drawn to Occupy. I want to tell you some things I learned from our experience because I want Occupy to succeed.

First: Don't make the police the main issue. This is not a military situation. Violence alienates people. Most people have little property, and they want what little they have protected. If you have to smash windows and provoke police to be part of a movement, how many will join?

The antiwar movement turned to violence out of frustration. It began similarly to Occupy. Our principle was participatory democracy; no hierarchies, no leaders. Our slogan was "Let the People Decide." Occupy even outdoes us in the use of consensus-based decision making.

We used peaceful means for years until it appeared Washington was ignoring the voice of a majority against the war. Hundreds of thousands demonstrated. How many would it take? Some of us turned to rioting and destruction. That brought bigger headlines, but a smaller movement. That was not our only choice. I hope Occupy will be more imaginative than we were.

Second: Keep reaching out to grow and diversify. Occupy is brand-new, and it's doing amazingly well. It's springing up all over the United States and internationally - fast. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted a nonbinding resolution of support. The Central Labor Council has voiced support. Mayoral candidates offered support.

Get out into the neighborhoods and diverse communities with leaflets. Talk to people. Show them a friendly human face of the movement in person. Occupy needs numbers. We can't hire lobbyists. Growth will have the additional benefit of isolating provocative types.

Third: Think twice about occupations as a long-term tactic. There are many other possibilities. Occupations can create strong bonds among the occupiers, but they require resources that might be better used for outreach.

Property rights are not the issue here; maybe someday, but not today. In the '60s we had trouble ending occupations. The police usually ended them for us with billy clubs and handcuffs. The U.S. military has also learned that holding territory requires huge numbers of soldiers and materiel.

Occupy can learn more methods from the Arab Spring, too; highly mobile demonstrations, for instance, organized using social media. Stay flexible. Be like a river that keeps flowing. If it stops, it dries up.

Occupy needs to get ready to grow rapidly, to educate and find roles for new recruits. It needs to develop both the political and cultural dimensions of the protest. This synergy was potent for us 50 years ago.

The movements of my youth changed America and left an unfinished agenda of social and economic rights for the current generation to take up. Occupy is our opportunity to move that agenda. Seize the day!