- Platypus Review #110 is out!Issue #110 of the Platypus Review is now online. This issue features Reid Kane's analysis of Bernie Sanders' relationship with Eugene Debs, interviews with composer Frederic Rzewski and activist David McReynolds, M. A. Torres on the Mexican election, and a transcript of the Second Amendment and the Left panel hosted by Platypus UCSC in May 2018.
Marxism in the Age of Trump - new book!Trump’s victory is the beginning not the end of a process of transforming the Republican Party as well as mainstream politics more generally that is his avowed goal. So the question is the transformation of democracy—of how liberal democratic politics is conducted. This was bound to change, with or without Trump. Now, with Trump, the issue is posed point-blank. There’s no avoiding the crisis of neoliberalism.
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On June 4, 2018 Stephanie Gomez and Erin Hagood of the Platypus Affiliated Society conducted an interview with David McReynolds. The interview was broadcast on an episode of “Radical Minds” on WHPK 88.5-FM Chicago. David McReynolds was a key figure in the Socialist and Pacifist movements in the United States throughout his life. He passed shortly after this interview was conducted in his apartment in New York. What follows is an edited transcript of the interview.
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The Mexican general election of July 1, 2018 may be described, without exaggeration, as the broadest, most authentic expression of electoral democracy in the country’s history. Fifty-seven million voters—more than 60% of the electorate—cast their ballot in a contest for more than 3,400 offices at all levels of government: by far the largest number of votes ever cast for the largest number of candidates in the country’s history.
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AFTER RISING UP THE RANKS of the labor movement in the 1870s and 80s, Debs was courted by the Democratic Party of Indiana to run for state legislature in 1884, and handily won the election. Yet his career as a Democratic Party politician was short-lived.
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A letter from Frederic Rzewski published with permission as introduction to the edited transcript of an interview conducted by Jim Igor Kallenberg on August 22, 2018. Frederic Rzewski is an American composer and pianist.
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On May 11, 2018, the Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a panel discussion, The Second Amendment and the Left, at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). Speaking at the event were Evan Hetland, member of Platypus; Mike Rotkin, former lecturer at UCSC and ex-mayor of Santa Cruz; Bruce Thompson, lecturer of history at UCSC; and Dayton Andrews, representing Redneck Revolt. The panel was moderated by Duyminh Tran. What follows is an edited transcript of their conversation.
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Hans Jürgen Urban trat 1984 in die IG Metall ein und ist seit 2007 geschäftsführendes Vorstandsmitglied. Die Fragen im Interview wurden von Daniel Schultz und Anne Franz erarbeitet. Das Interview selbst führte Daniel Schultz. Beide sind Mitglieder der Platypus Affiliated Society.
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Am 07.12.2017 organisierte Platypus eine Podiumsdiskussion in Frankfurt mit dem Titel „Was ist Sozialismus? Zur internationalen Sozialdemokratie“. Die Podiumssprecher wurden dazu eingeladen, die Geschichte der Sozialdemokratie aus linker Perspektive zu reflektieren: Wie sind Sozialdemokratie und soziale Revolution heute, in Anbetracht der Geschichte, noch verbunden? Wofür steht die Sozialdemokratie politisch? Es wurden eingeladen: Hans-Gerd Öfinger (International Marxist Tendency), André Leisewitz (Zeitschrift Marxistische Erneuerung), Martin Veith (Institut für Syndikalismusforschung), Lukas Schneider (Jusos Frankfurt) und Christoph Spehr (Die LINKE).
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