The 90s and 2000's Left Today

Panel held on March 31st, 2012 at the Fourth Annual Platypus International Convention, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Panelists Daniel Dulce (Crimthinc) Thodoris Velissaris (Platypus) Nick Kreitman (Platypus, Formerly new SDS) Mike Ely (Kasama) Joshua Moufawad-Paul (Supporter, Parti communiste revolutionnaire - Revolutionary Communist Party (Canada) Description The two decades of the 1990s-2000s form a cycle containing certain common as well as differing concerns. [Read More]

Ideology and the student left

Ideology and the student left
THE PLATYPUS AFFILIATED SOCIETY hosted a panel discussion on the Politics of the Contemporary Student Left at the U.S. Social Forum (USSF) in Detroit on June 26, 2010. Moderated by Laurie Rojas, assistant editor for The Platypus Review, the panel consisted of Will Klatt, member of the new Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and organizer for Service Employees International Union (SEIU); Luis Brennan, a student organizer at University of Chicago and former member of the new SDS; Aaron Petcov, formerly of the new SDS and currently a member of the Organization for a Free Society (OFS); and Ashley Weger, an organizer for Platypus and a former organizer for UNITE HERE. [Read More]

Imperialism: What is it, why should we be against it?

Imperialism: What is it, why should we be against it?
ON JANUARY 30, 2007, Platypus hosted its first public forum, “Imperialism: What is it – Why should we be Against it?” The panel consisted of Adam Turl of the International Socialist Organization (ISO), Kevin Anderson of the Marxist-Humanist group News and Letters, Nick Kreitman of the new Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Danny Postel of Open Democracy, and Chris Cutrone of Platypus. What follows is an edited transcript of this event; the full video can be found online at the above link. [Read More]

Ideology and the Student Left

The Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a panel discussion on the Politics of the Contemporary Student Left at the U.S. Social Forum (USSF) in Detroit on June 26, 2010. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Transcript in Platypus Review #27 Panelists Will Klatt, member of the new Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and organizer for Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Luis Brennan, student organizer at University of Chicago and former member of the new SDS [Read More]

The New School occupation and the direction of student politics

THE OCCUPATION OF THE NEW SCHOOL Graduate Faculty building on 65 5th Ave. began in the late evening on December 17, 2008 and lasted over thirty hours. In the build-up to the action, differences arose respecting the aims and potential effectiveness of an occupation. Against both a negotiating committee and concrete demands, a group calling itself the “Autonomous Faction of Non-cooperation Against the Division of Labor,” pushed to extend the occupation. [Read More]

Red-baiting and ideology

The new SDS

TO THE EDITORS OF THE PLATYPUS REVIEW: I am not now, nor have I ever been, either a Maoist or sympathetic to Maoism. I am also not a member of SDS. I was outraged however, by the blatant red-baiting of Rachel Haut in a recent Platypus Review Interview and disturbed that it seems to have gone unchallenged by PR. Rachel Haut was quoted as saying: “To say that the Maoists can be part of the ideological debate would mean to condone them being in this organization, which is something I don’t do. [Read More]

Five questions to the student Left

AN INTERVIEW WITH SDS MEMBER Rachel Haut published in the September issue of this publication provoked widespread comment in radical circles.1 We welcome the discussion but worry that it remains ensconced within the sterile jargon and petty antinomies of the actually-existing-Left. More fundamental questions exist than, say, the position of sectarian groups within the SDS – questions that unsettle the comfortable assumptions of radical politics. There’s a temptation to think such of questioning as an irrelevant, academic obstruction to real action. [Read More]

The Hundred Days campaign: the present and future of SDS

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]

Process point

STUMBLING INTO THE WARS RESISTERS OFFICE, I found Josh Russell and Madeline Gardner wearing headsets and pacing. It was a week before the convention and they were having yet another discussion as to whether or not the planning committee had the authority to decide whether or not they had the right to make any decisions. In the words of Lisa Fithian, we were processing ourselves to death. The new Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) seem to take their namesake seriously. [Read More]