The death agony of meritocracy

The death agony of meritocracy

 September 4, 2018  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

FORTY-FIVE MILLION AMERICANS collectively owe upward of $1.4 trillion in student loan debt. Yet there is no need to worry. The magic of the free market has a solution for all of your problems. On July 10, 2018, “Paid Off” premiered on TruTV, a new game show that offers contestants a chance to escape a lifetime of debt peonage. “We’re capitalists. That’s just the way it is.” Less than 17 months after Nancy Pelosi’s Margaret Thatcher impersonation, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has shaken the foundation of the United States’ political class. [Read More]
Democratic Socialists of America  Student Debt  Debt  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez  Poverty 

No Nazis on Rocky Top?

Anti-racism in the age of Trump

No Nazis on Rocky Top?

 June 1, 2018  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

On February 17, 2018, the white-nationalist Traditionalist Workers’ Party (TWP) held a rally on the campus of the University of Tennessee. The rally was led by Matthew Heimbach, a central organizer of the Unite the Right rally held in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017 in opposition to the planned removal of a public statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee. The TWP’s February 2018 rally on the University of Tennessee (UT) campus drew about 45 white nationalists, about 250 protesters, and about 200 law enforcement officers. [Read More]
The Platypus Review  Anti-fascism  Racism  Anti-racism  Free speech  Democratic Socialists of America  Traditionalist Workers' Party  Appalachian Anti-Racist Action Tea Party 

Anti-fascism in the age of Trump

Anti-fascism in the age of Trump

 June 1, 2018  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

On October 17, 2017, the Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a panel discussion entitled “Anti-fascism in the Age of Trump” at Berkeley City College. The event’s speakers were Eugene Ruyle of Peace and Freedom (Democratic Socialists of America), Luma Nichol of Freedom Socialist Party, Victoria Fierce of East Bay for Everyone (Democratic Socialists of America), and Ramsey Kanaan of PM Press and founder of AK Press. The event was moderated by William Lushbough of Platypus. [Read More]
The Platypus Review  Anti-fascism  Free Speech  Racism  Anti-racism  Democratic Socialists of America  Freedom Socialist Party  PM Press 

The death of Social Democracy

The death of Social Democracy

 July 11, 2016  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

IN APRIL, the Platypus Affiliated Society held its Eighth Annual International Convention, based on the question, “What is socialism?” On April 2, 2016, Platypus held the convention’s closing plenary, “The Death of Social Democracy,” a discussion and Q & A moderated by Pam Nogales of Platypus, with the following panelists: Jason Schulman of the Democratic Socialists of America; Christoph Lichtenberg of the International Bolshevik Tendency; Brian Tokar, former director and current board member of the Institute for Social Ecology; and William Pelz, director of the Institute of Working Class History. [Read More]
Social Democracy  Democratic Socialists of America  International Bolshevik Tendency  Institute of Working Class History  Institute for Social Ecology 

Workshop: Bernie Sanders Campaign

Platypus 2016 convention

 June 18, 2016  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

Workshop on the Bernie Sanders Campaign, with Bernard Sampson (CPUSA) and Jason Schulman (DSA), held on Saturday April 2, 2016, at the Platypus International Convention 2016.

Audio Recording

Platypus International Convention  Platypus International Convention 2016  CPUSA  DSA  Communist Party USA  Democratic Socialists of America 

Democratic Socialists of America

Differing Perspectives on the Left

 April 5, 2014  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

A workshop with the Democratic Socialists of America (Joseph Schwartz (Temple University) and Bill Barclay) held on April 5, 2014, at the Sixth Platypus International Convention. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Every year at the Platypus International Convention, speakers from various perspectives are asked to bring their experience of the Left’s recent history to bear on today’s political possibilities and challenges as part of the “Differing Perspectives on the Left” workshop series. [Read More]
Platypus International Convention 2014  Democratic Socialists of America  Marxism  Platypus  Socialism 

Democracy and the Left, New York

 February 25, 2014  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

A panel event held at the School for Visual Arts on February 25, 2014. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Panelists Alan Akrivos (Socialist Alternative) Dick Howard (Stony Brook) Alan Milchman (Internationalist Perspective) Joseph Schwartz (DSA) Description From the financial crisis and the bank bail-outs to the question of “sovereign debt”; from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street; from the struggle for a unified European-wide policy to the elections in Greece and Egypt that seem to have threatened so much and promised so little – the need to go beyond mere “protest” has asserted itself: political revolution is in the air, again. [Read More]
Democracy and the Left  Democratic Socialists of America  DSA  Internationalist Perspective  Socialist Alternative 

The Politics of Work

Chicago

 November 6, 2013  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

A panel event held on November 5, 2013, at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Panelists Bill Barclay Democratic Socialists of America/Chicago Political Economy Group Lenny Brody Justice Party/Network for Revolutionary Change Leon Fink Professor of labor history, University of Illinois at Chicago Description Capital is not a book about politics, and not even a book about labour: it is a book about unemployment. [Read More]
Chicago Political Economy Group  Democratic Socialists of America  Justice party  Labor  Karl Marx  Marxism  Network for Revolutionary Change  Work