Black Lives Matter

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]

A panel hosted by the Platypus Affiliated Society, in conjunction with the SVA Black Student Union, on 11 March 2015, at the School of Visual Arts, New York. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Panelists Benjamin Blumberg (Platypus Affiliated Society) Eljeer Hawkins (Socialist Alternative/CWI) Dread Scott (Artist) Moderated by Allison Hewitt Ward (Platypus). Introduced by Tiffany Freeman (SVA Black Student Union). Description The widely publicized killings of black men by police and the resulting movement with its slogan “Black Lives Matter” puts back on the agenda of a beleaguered American Left a seemingly perennial question, one that evokes a long history of struggle, longing, and disappointment. [Read More]