Symptomology

Historical transformations in social-political context

Symptomology

 May 15, 2009  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society  • Other languages: Ελληνικά

Marx ridiculed the idea of having to “prove” the labor theory of value. If Marxian theory proved to be the means whereby the real relations of bourgeois society could be demonstrated in their movement, where they came from, what they were, and where they were going, that was the proof of the theory. Neither Hegel nor Marx understood any other “scientific” proof. The more concrete the negation of the need, the more abstract, empty and flamboyant becomes the subjective mediation. [Read More]
/20th Century  Crisis  Critical theory  David Harvey  Karl Marx  Marxism  Michel Foucault  Neo-liberalism  New Left  Barack Obama  Reflections 

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 

Obama and Clinton

"Third Way" politics and the "Left"

 December 1, 2008  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

FOR THE “LEFT” that is critical of him, the most common comparison made of Obama is to Bill Clinton. This critique of Obama, as of Clinton, denounces his “Centrism,” the trajectory he appears to continue from the “new” Democratic Party of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) expressed by Clinton and Gore’s election in 1992. Clinton’s election was seen as part of the triumph of “Third Way” politics that contemporaneously found expression in Tony Blair’s “New” Labour Party in Britain. [Read More]
Bill Clinton  Consciousness  Critical theory  Depoliticization  Emancipation  Marxism  Movement  Neo-liberalism  Barack Obama  Politics  Profiles  Rosa Luxemburg  Socialism  The Left  Third Way  Workers 

Obama: three comparisons: MLK, JFK, FDR

The coming sharp turn to the *Right*

 November 1, 2008  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

IN PREVIOUS ARTICLES I have addressed the Presidential campaign of Barack Obama in terms of the historical precedents of MLK, Jr. (the end of “black politics”) and JFK (Iraq and the election). Now I wish to address the final and perhaps most important but problematic comparison that might be available, FDR. MLK, Jr., JFK and FDR span the political imagination of the preceding generation, the “baby-boomers” who came of age in the 1960s, the time of the “New Left. [Read More]
Franklin Roosevelt  History  History of the Left  John F. Kennedy  Martin Luther King  Barack Obama 

Iraq and the election

The fog of "anti-war" politics

 October 1, 2008  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

BARACK OBAMA HAD, UNTIL RECENTLY, made his campaign for President of the United States a referendum on the invasion and occupation of Iraq. In the Democratic Party primaries, Obama attacked Hillary Clinton for her vote in favor of the invasion. Among Republican contenders, John McCain went out of his way to appear as the candidate most supportive of the Bush administration’s policy in Iraq. Looking towards the general election, it is over Iraq that the candidates have been most clearly opposed: Obama has sought to distinguish himself most sharply from McCain on Iraq, emphasizing their differences in judgment. [Read More]
Adolph Reed  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad  ANSWER  Anti-imperialism  Anti-war  Ba'athism  Bill Clinton  Bush administration  Democracy  Democrats  Election  History  History of the Left  Imperialism  Iran  Iraq  ISO  Joe Biden  Kurds  Liberalism  NATO  Barack Obama  Occupation  Politics  RCP (USA)  Republicans  Saddam Hussein  Saudi Arabia  Shia  Sunni  The Left  The Right  U.N  Vietnam  World Can't Wait 

The Hundred Days campaign: the present and future of SDS

 September 1, 2008  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

FROM JULY 24 UNTIL JULY 28 2008, the new Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) had its third annual national convention in College Park, Maryland. At the convention, national campaigns were presented and voted on by the attendees. A major campaign introduced at the convention was the Hundred Days campaign, which seeks to organize and engage newly politicized Americans in politics beyond the campaign season. During the first one hundred days of the next administration the campaign will organize two nationwide weeks of action to ensure that the people remain involved in politics after the election cycle. [Read More]
Anarchism  Anti-capitalism  Ben Shepard  Capitalism  Chicago  Dave Shukla  Democracy  Democratic society  FRSO  Hope  Hundred Days campaign  Ideology  Left Forum  Liberalism  Maoism  Marxism  Movement  New SDS  New York  Barack Obama  Organization  Power  Process  Protest  Sectarianism  Socialism  Split  Structure  Students  The Left 

Obama: Progress in regress

The end of "black politics"

 September 1, 2008  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

THE ELECTION OF BARACK OBAMA will be an event. But it has proven confusing for most on the “Left,” who claim to want to overcome anti-black racism and achieve social justice. Rejection of Obama on this basis has been as significant as the embrace of his candidacy. There is as much anxiety as hope stirred by Obama, especially regarding the significance of his blackness. For instance, the usually discerning and astute black political scientist and critical intellectual commentator Adolph L. [Read More]
1960s  Barack Obama  Profiles  Race