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ON APRIL 6, 2013, a panel on “What is Imperialism? (What Now?)” took place during the Platypus International Convention at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The panel was motivated by the ten-year anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and aimed to discuss whether we are any closer to understanding what imperialism is and the relationship between anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism. This panel brought together Larry Everest from the Revolutionary Communist Party (USA), Joseph Green from Communist Voice, and Paul Demarty of the Communist Party of Great Britain, and was moderated by Lucy Parker of Platypus. [Read More]

ON JULY 3, 2013, at the Goethe Universität in Frankfurt, Germany, Jensen Suther interviewed Axel Honneth, director of the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research and author of numerous books and articles, on behalf of Platypus. Their conversation focused on the problem of “reification,” or the tendency for processes of transformation to appear as, and be treated as if they were, static objects of an immutable nature. Reification was the theme of several writings Honneth delivered as the Tanner Lectures at Berkeley in 2005. [Read More]

ON MAY 28, 2013, a group of environmental activists gathered to protest the demolition of Gezi Park, a small, urban park in central Istanbul. As the municipal authorities intensified their efforts to evict the activists, the number of demonstrators began to grow. On the morning of the 31th, police raided the demonstrators’ camp and resorted to violence, resulting in more than 100 civilian injuries. Even Sırrı Süreyya Önder, a MP, was hospitalized after being hit by a tear gas canister. [Read More]