Dialectics of Defeat

Towards a Theory of Historical Regression

 April 18, 2009  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

Panel presentation by the Platypus Affiliated Society at Left Forum 2009: “Turning Points,” Pace University, NYC, April 17-19, 2009. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Transcript Panelists Benjamin Blumberg (Chair) Chris Cutrone Atiya Khan Spencer A. Leonard Richard Rubin Description The panelists elucidate significant moments in the progressive separation of theory and practice in the 20 and 21st Century history of Leftist politics: 2001 (Spencer A. [Read More]
About Platypus  Left Forum  Left Forum 2009  1917  1933  1968  2001  Dialectics  Historical regression  Pace University 

Progress or Regress?

The Future of the Left under Obama

 December 6, 2008  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

The Platypus Affiliated Society in New York organized a moderated panel discussion and audience Q & A to critically evaluate the widespread assumption that the election of Barack Obama presents an opportunity for today’s Leftists. Asking how opportunity can be distinguished from opportunism, Platypus invited several intellectuals and activists to publicly think through the foreseeable pitfalls and potentials posed by the passing of the Bush-era into the age of Obama. [Read More]
/2008 election  Barack Obama  Democrat  Democratic Party  Democrats  Electoral politics  George Bush 

The 3 Rs: Reform, Revolution, and "Resistance"

The Problematic Forms of "Anticapitalism" Today

 November 6, 2007  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

A moderated panel discussion and audience Q & A on problems of strategies and tactics on the Left today, held on November 6, 2007, at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Transcripted in Platypus Review #4 Panelists Michael Albert (Z Magazine, author of Parecon: Life After Capitalism) Chris Cutrone (Platypus) Stephen Duncombe (Gallatin School of New York University, editor of Cultural Resistance Reader) [Read More]
3rs  Anti-capitalism  Reform  Resistance  Revolution 

History of the Left

Session IV: 1930s and 1940s

 August 26, 2007  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

A lecture by Platypus Affiliated Society member Chris Cutrone on the history of the Left between the 1930s and 1940s, given on August 26, 2007. Part of the History of the Left lecture series held in the summer of 2007.

Audio Recording

History of the Left

Session III: 1917 to 1939

 August 19, 2007  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

A lecture by Platypus Affiliated Society member Chris Cutrone on the history of the Left between 1917 to 1939, given on August 19, 2007. Part of the History of the Left lecture series held in the summer of 2007.

Audio Recording

1905  1919 

History of the Left

Session III: 1905 to 1919

 August 19, 2007  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

A lecture by Platypus Affiliated Society member Chris Cutrone on the history of the Left between 1905 to 1919, given on August 19, 2007. Part of the History of the Left lecture series held in the summer of 2007.

Audio Recording

History of the Left

Session II: 1917

 August 7, 2007  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

A lecture by Platypus Affiliated Society member Chris Cutrone on the history of the Left that led up to the 1917 Russian Revolution, given on August 12, 2007. Part of the History of the Left lecture series held in the summer of 2007.

Audio Recording

1917 

"Imperialism"

What is it? Why Should We Be Against It?

 January 30, 2007  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

However difficult the task of grasping and confronting global capital might be, it is crucially important that a global internationalism be recovered and reformulated… The Left should be very careful about constituting a form of politics that, from the standpoint of human emancipation, would be questionable, at the very best, however many people it may rouse. —Moishe Postone, “History and Helplessness” (2006) A moderated panel discussion and audience Q & A on issues of global capital, imperialism and war, possibilities for progressive political opposition, and the problems and tasks for the Left in the post-Cold War and post-9/11 world raised by the invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. [Read More]
Afghanistan  Imperialism  International Socialist Organization  Iraq  Iraq War  ISO  News and Letters  OpenDemocracy.net  Platypus Affiliated Society  SDS  Students for a Democratic Society  War in Afghanistan