The Battle on Wall Street? Film Screening Mini-Series

A film screening series in two parts:

Part 1: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010)

“Want to know what the mother of all bubbles was? Came out of nowhere, by chance. They called it the Cambrian Explosion. It happened around 530 million years ago. And, over the next 70-80 million years, the rate of evolution accelerated so fast that we came along, the human race. They still can’t explain how that happened, except that it happened. Some people say it was by chance. Others, design. But who really knows?”

Dalhousie Grad House: TU 11.1.2011 | 6PM |1252 Lemarchant Street (across from SUB, map)

Please read the article “Finance capital: Why financial capitalism is no more ‘fictitious’ than any other kind” by the Platypus Historians Group (Platypus Review issue #7, October 2008)

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Part 2: Battle in Seattle (2007)

“I don’t blame you. I mean, I do, but — sh**, you’re not the problem. You’re just doing your job, I guess. The people I’m really trying to fight are the ones who destroy so much, and they hurt so many lives. Not just one. Literally, millions. And no one ever points a gun at them. You know, they just seem so — unaccountable. Untouchable. Just seems kind of f***ed that you’re — you and me are the ones that have to fight each other.”

Dalhousie Grad House: TU 11.8.2011 | 6PM

Please read the article "Whither Marxism? Why the occupation movement recalls Seattle 1999" (October 15, 2011)

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The recent #occupy protests protests depart significantly from the anti-war politics that has defined activism on the Left for the past decade. Slogans decrying corporate greed now dominate the picket signs that until recently were used to condemn U.S. imperialism. However, does this spreading protest movement signal a new era of activism in the U.S.? Or, are these recent demonstrations expressing old and familiar discontents? Perhaps, as the role of Adbusters suggests, something of the 1990s has come back into vogue, bringing back to the fore the age-old hatred of the bankers and impersonal financial institutions, and opposition to neoliberal globalization, now in crisis. The spirit of the 1999 Seattle protest against the World Trade Organization seems to have returned, with a vengeance.

Please join Platypus in considering the historical sources of the ongoing anti-Wall Street protests through the lens of two recent films that highlight the popular imagination of contemporary Capitalism and its discontents.

Contact: dalhousie@platypus1917.org