Overview of all pages with the tags #History of the Left

Book review: Karl Korsch, Marxism and Philosophy

September 3, 2009 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

[Marx wrote,] “[Humanity] always sets itself only such problems as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely it will always be found that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or are at least understood to be in the process of emergence.”1 This dictum is not affected by the fact that a problem which supersedes present relations may have been formulated in an anterior epoch. [Read More]

What is a movement?

A discussion on the meaning and direction of Left political "movements" historically and today

August 24, 2009 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

ON OCTOBER 16, 2008, a panel discussion titled What is a Movement? A Discussion on the Meaning and Direction of Left Political “Movements” Historically and Today was held in Chicago. The panelists were Luis Brennan of the new Students for a Democratic Society, Elena Davis of Pomegranate Health Collective, Chuck Hendricks of UNITE/HERE, Jorge Mujica of Movimiento 10 de Marzo, and Richard Rubin of Platypus. The following edited transcript represents only a portion of a more extensive and wide-ranging discussion. [Read More]

Exchanges History of the Left

The role of socialists in the civil war in Sri Lanka

July 1, 2009 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

THE GRUESOME FINALE of Sri Lanka’s 26-year-long civil war drew international attention and considerable concern for the plight of civilians trapped in the war zone. Many people for the first time became aware of a conflict which had already claimed more than 70,000 fatalities. But the publicity tended to obscure rather than clarify the causes of the war, measures that could have been taken earlier to prevent the bloodbath at its climax, and what can be done now to advance democratization in the future. [Read More]

Ceylon Communist Party History of the Left Lanka Sama Samaja Party Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam LSSP Nationalism S. J. V. Chelvanayakam S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike Sinhalese lion Sri Lanka Tamil tigers Tamil United Liberation Front United National Party Velupillai Prabhakaran

Left behind

The working class in the crisis

July 1, 2009 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

ON APRIL 23, 2009, a panel discussion titled Left Behind: The Working Class In The Crisis was held at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The panelists were Abraham Mwaura of United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, who has worked as an organizer at the Republic Windows and Doors Factory; Aaron Hughes, representative at the International Labor Conference, Arbil, Iraq, and member of Iraq Veterans Against the War; James Thindwa, Executive Director of Chicago Jobs with Justice; and Chuck Hendricks, an organizer for the labor union UNITE HERE. [Read More]

Exchanges History of the Left Labor Left Behind Unions Working class

Nothing Left to say

A critique of the Guardian's coverage of the 2008 Mumbai attacks

February 3, 2009 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

This article has been reprinted in Mainstream Weekly. Deep historical precedents HOWEVER SINCERE ITS BACKERS or belligerent its enemies, the “War on Terror” is not and cannot become anti-Islamist. This is not because, as some think, there is no Islamist or Taliban-style fascism on the receiving end of America’s War on Terror. Far from it. The reason is that the prosecutors of the war are only half committed to the selective elimination of certain religious reactionaries. [Read More]

Afghanistan Anti-semitism History of the Left Lashkar-e-taiba Mumbai Mumbai Attacks Pakistan Taliban The Guardian The Left War on Terror India Terrorism

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

Capital in history

The need for a Marxian philosophy of history of the Left

October 1, 2008 | The Platypus Affiliated Society • Other languages: Deutsch, Español, Ελληνικά

The following is a talk given at the Marxist-Humanist Committee public forum on The Crisis in Marxist Thought, hosted by the Platypus Affiliated Society in Chicago on Friday, July 25th, 2008. I want to speak about the meaning of history for any purportedly Marxian Left. We in Platypus focus on the history of the Left because we think that the narrative one tells about this history is in fact one’s theory of the present. [Read More]

1789 1930s 1960s 19th Century Bourgeois Capital Capitalism Class consciousness Crisis Degeneration Domination Friedrich Engels Freedom French Revolution György Lukács Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel History History of the Left Industrial Revolution Karl Korsch Vladimir Lenin Marxism Marxist-Hummanist Committee Modern Moishe Postone Politics Proletariat Regression Revolt of the Third Estate Rosa Luxemburg The Left Theodor W. Adorno Leon Trotsky Walter Benjamin

The dead Left: Trotskyism

September 1, 2008 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

One cannot separate the ability to know the world from the ability to change it, and our capacity to change the world is on a very small scale compared to the heroic days of the Communist International. —James Robertson, founder of the Spartacist League (U.S.), “In Defense of Democratic Centralism” (1973) Zombies and Sectarians WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO SAY, as Platypus does, that “the Left is Dead? [Read More]

History of the Left Trotskyism Leon Trotsky

Requiem for the 60s

Response to a boycott of discussion of "40 years of 1968"

May 1, 2008 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

THE PLATYPUS AFFILIATED SOCIETY in Chicago, in coordination with several chapters of the new Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in Chicago (at the University of Chicago, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Columbia College, Chicago) organized a public forum on “40 years of 1968: the problematic drama of the past in the present,” scheduled for the evening of Thursday, May 8 downtown at the School of the Art Institute. [Read More]

1960s /20th Century History of the Left