Overview of all pages with the tags #Bernie Sanders

The Millennial Left is dead

October 1, 2017 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

Those who demand guarantees in advance should in general renounce revolutionary politics. The causes for the downfall of the Social Democracy and of official Communism must be sought not in Marxist theory and not in the bad qualities of those people who applied it, but in the concrete conditions of the historical process. It is not a question of counterposing abstract principles, but rather of the struggle of living social forces, with its inevitable ups and downs, with the degeneration of organizations, with the passing of entire generations into discard, and with the necessity which therefore arises of mobilizing fresh forces on a new historical stage. [Read More]

Millenials Barack Obama Bernie Sanders Donald Trump Black Lives Matter Occupy Wall Street

The crisis of neoliberalism

May 3, 2017 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

On February 18th, 2017, as part of its third European Conference, the Platypus Affiliated Society organized a panel discussion, “The Crisis of Neoliberalism,” at the University of Vienna. The event brought together the following speakers: Chris Cutrone, President of Platypus; John Milios, former chief economic advisor of SYRIZA; Emmanuel Tomaselli, of the International Marxist Tendency; and Boris Kagarlitsky, of the Institute for Globalization Studies and Social Movements in Moscow. What follows is an edited transcript of their discussion. [Read More]

Bernie Sanders Jeremy Corbyn neoliberalism SYRIZA

Paralysis of will

Bernie Sanders's capitulation

September 6, 2016 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

THE U.S. DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONVENTION in Philadelphia ended with a big schism that divides not only the supporters of Hillary Clinton from her opponents, but also Bernie Sanders from the movement he led until not very long ago. The senator from Vermont who attracted thousands across America to his rallies and ignited them with his speeches looked helpless – even ridiculous – in Philadelphia. In a matter of seconds, his speech endorsing Hillary turned a charismatic leader who embodied the hopes of millions into a pathetic old man who does not understand what is happening around him. [Read More]

Bernie Sanders Donald Trump /2016 American Presidential Election Democratic Party

Who's afraid of Donald Trump?

July 11, 2016 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

AGAINST THE BACKDROP of the numerous discussions of the political agenda, appearance, and vocabulary of the candidates running in the American presidential election, there is almost no demand for one subject: What is the class nature and mass social base of each politician? This approach comes naturally to the right-wing and liberal media, but why is it completely alien to the Left? The reason seems to be that the answers we would get if we were to consider this issue seriously would not be palatable for everyone on the Left. [Read More]

Donald Trump Bernie Sanders /2016 American Presidential Election

Sanders, the Democrats, and the Left

May 3, 2016 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

ON APRIL 2, 2016, during its eighth international convention in Chicago, Illinois, Platypus brought together Jason Schulman of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and Bernard Sampson of the Communist Party, USA (CPUSA), to discuss how the electoral campaign of Bernie Sanders matters for the Left. Coeditor of the socialist journal New Politics, Jason Schulman’s latest book is Neoliberal Labour Governments and the Union Response: The Politics of the End of Labourism. [Read More]

Bernie Sanders DSA CPUSA Hilary Clinton Democratic Party /2016 American Presidential Election

The Sandernistas

Postscript on the March 15 primaries

March 30, 2016 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

Coda to “The Sandernistas: The Final Triumph of the 1980s,” Platypus Review 82 (December 2015). THE PRIMARY ELECTIONS for the nomination of the Democrat and Republican candidates for President have demonstrated the depth and extent of the disarray of the two parties. Sanders has successfully challenged Hillary and has gone beyond being a mere messenger of protest to become a real contender for the Democratic Party nomination. But this has been on the basis of the Democrats’ established constituencies and so has limited Sanders’s reach. [Read More]

Bernie Sanders /2016 American Presidential Election

The 2016 elections

A response to Baszak and Henwood

March 30, 2016 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

IN HIS FEBRUARY 2016 review of Doug Henwood’s new book, My Turn: Hillary targets the presidency, Gregor Baszak summarizes Henwood’s disdain for Hillary Clinton and his ambivalence toward Bernie Sanders. (See Gregor Baszak, “Book Review: Doug Henwood, My Turn: Hillary Targets the Presidency,” Platypus Review 83, February 2016. Available online at 2016/01/30/book-review-doug-henwood-my-turn-hillary-targets-the-presidency-new-york-or-books-2016/) Baszak concludes the Sanders campaign is another step toward liquidating the Left into the Democratic Party, what some call the “graveyard of social movements. [Read More]

Bernie Sanders Hillary Clinton /2016 American Presidential Election

The Sandernistas

The final triumph of the 1980s

December 17, 2015 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

THE CAMPAIGN CYCLE for the 2016 general election in the U.S. has been characterized by some throwbacks to the 1980s, most notably in the two major party challengers, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Most remarkably, the Sanders campaign has introduced the word “socialism” into mainstream political discourse. It’s clear that what socialism means in Sanders’s mouth, however, is New Deal liberalism – despite the poster of Eugene V. Debs that hangs in Sanders’s Senate office. [Read More]

Bernie Sanders Liberalism New Deal /2016 American Presidential Election