Overview of all pages with the tags #The Platypus Review

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]

No Nazis on Rocky Top?

Anti-racism in the age of Trump

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

Marxism and Feminism

May 5, 2018 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

On February 17, 2018 the Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a discussion at its Fourth Annual European Conference at Goldsmith’s University on the subject of “Marxism and Feminism.” The event’s speakers were Roxanne Baker of the International Bolshevik Tendency; Judith Shapiro, Undergraduate Tutor at the London School of Economics; and Sarah McDonald of the Communist Party of Great Britain. The event was moderated by Erin Hagood of Platypus. What follows is an edited transcript of the discussion, an audio recording of which is available online at the above link. [Read More]

The Platypus Review Feminism Marxism IBT CPGB

1918--2018

The century of counterrevolution

May 5, 2018 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

Presented as the President’s report at the closing plenary of the 10th annual international convention of the Platypus Affiliated Society in Chicago on April 7, 2018. Recently, I came across a 1938 article by the “Left communist” Paul Mattick, Sr., titled “Karl Kautsky: From Marx to Hitler.” In it, Mattick asserted that the reformist social democracy that Kautsky ended up embracing was the harbinger of fascism – of Nazism.1 There is a certain affinity to Friedrich Hayek’s book on The Road to Serfdom (1944), in which a similar argument is made about the affinity of socialism and fascism. [Read More]

The Platypus Review

50 years of 1968

April 1, 2018 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

On February 16 2018, as part of its Fourth European Conference, the Platypus Affiliated Society organized a panel discussion, “50 Years of 1968,” at Goldsmiths University. Moderated by David Faes of Platypus, the event brought together the following speakers: Robert Borba, supporter of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP USA); Judith Shapiro, professor at the London School of Economics, former member of the Spartacist League, and adviser to the Russian Ministry of Finance; Jack Conrad, of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and the Weekly Worker; and Hillel Ticktin, honorary Senior Research Fellow at Glasgow University. [Read More]

The Platypus Review 1968 Stalinism Maoism CPGB RCP (USA) Spartacist League Weekly Worker South Africa China USSR

Critical authoritarianism

November 8, 2016 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

Immanent critique WHENEVER APPROACHING ANY PHENOMENON, Adorno’s procedure is one of immanent dialectical critique. The phenomenon is treated as not accidental or arbitrary but as a necessary form of appearance that points beyond itself, indicating conditions of possibility for change. It is a phenomenon of the necessity for change. The conditions of possibility for change indicated by the phenomenon in question are explored immanently, from within. The possibility for change is indicated by a phenomenon’s self-contradictions, which unfold from within itself, from its own movement, and develop from within its historical moment. [Read More]

Article The Platypus Review /20th Century Marx Marxism The Platypus Review Theodor W. Adorno Walter Benjamin Authoritarianism Authoritarian Personality

Critical authoritarianism

November 8, 2016 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

Immanent critique WHENEVER APPROACHING ANY PHENOMENON, Adorno’s procedure is one of immanent dialectical critique. The phenomenon is treated as not accidental or arbitrary but as a necessary form of appearance that points beyond itself, indicating conditions of possibility for change. It is a phenomenon of the necessity for change. The conditions of possibility for change indicated by the phenomenon in question are explored immanently, from within. The possibility for change is indicated by a phenomenon’s self-contradictions, which unfold from within itself, from its own movement, and develop from within its historical moment. [Read More]

Article The Platypus Review /20th Century Marx Marxism The Platypus Review Theodor W. Adorno Walter Benjamin Authoritarianism Authoritarian Personality

Platypus Houston Reading Group - Fall 2016

September 29, 2016 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

Summer and Fall/Autumn 2016 – Winter 2017 Every Sunday, 3:00-6:00 pm University of Houston, MD Anderson Library, RM 221j I. What is the Left?—What is Marxism? • required / * recommended reading Marx and Engels readings pp. from Robert C. Tucker, ed., Marx-Engels Reader (Norton 2nd ed., 1978) [] Week A. Radical bourgeois philosophy I. Rousseau: Crossroads of society | Aug. 6, 2016 Whoever dares undertake to establish a people’s institutions must feel himself capable of changing, as it were, human nature, of transforming each individual, who by himself is a complete and solitary whole, into a part of a larger whole, from which, in a sense, the individual receives his life and his being, of substituting a limited and mental existence for the physical and independent existence. [Read More]

The Platypus Review

What Does Climate Change? - New York

80 Years of Environmental Politics - Left and Right

December 10, 2015 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Panelists Cora Bergantiños PhD., Socialist Alternative NYC, Postdoctoral Research Scientist at Columbia University Joel Kovel, founder of Ecosocialist Horizons, Author of _The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World?_ Andrew Needham, History NYU, Author of _Power Lines: Phoenix and the Making of the Modern Southwest_ Christian Parenti, Liberal Studies NYU, Author of Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence [Read More]

The Platypus Review Environmentalism Climate Change

What is the Left? What is Marxism? London 2013 Reading Group

November 6, 2013 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

English | Ελληνικό] | [Deutsch] London: Mondays 7PM Goldsmiths College, Richard Hoggart Bldg, Rm356, London Borough of Lewisham, London SE14, UK London Platypus Facebook invitation: http://www.facebook.com/events/148283905314897/ Summer and Fall/Autumn 2013 – Winter 2014 I. What is the Left?—What is Marxism? • required / * recommended reading Marx and Engels readings pp. from Robert C. Tucker, ed., Marx-Engels Reader (Norton 2nd ed., 1978) [] Week 1. What is the Left? I. [Read More]

The Platypus Review