The Platypus Affiliated Society in Boston presents
A Public Forum
The 3 Rs: Reform, Revolution, and "Resistance"
— the problematic forms of "anticapitalism" today —
Monday 16 April 2012, 6:30-8:30PM
Encuentro 5, 33 Harrison Ave, 5th floor, Boston, MA 02111 (map)
"Reform, Revolution, Resistance":  what kind of weight do these categories hold for the Left today? How are they used, to where do they point, and what is their history? The discussion concerns a question that has renewed immediacy in light of the Occupy movement.
Location - Encuentro 5,  33 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA 02111. (map)
Time - Monday, April 16, 2012 | 6:30pm until 8:30pm
http://www.facebook.com/events/423855730963519/
Speakers:
Gayge (Common Struggle Libertarian Communist Federation)
Joe Ramsey (Kasama Project)
Laura Lee Schmidt (Platypus)
J. Phil Thompson (MIT)
Jeff Booth (Socialist Alternative)
For more details, contact at boston@platypus1917.org. Latest updates can be found on our Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/groups/146774129298/
RSVP for the event here:Â http://www.facebook.com/events/423855730963519/
"[After the 1960s, the] underlying despair with regard to the real efficacy of political will, of political agency [. . .] in a historical situation of heightened helplessness [. . .] became a self-constitution as outsider, as other [. . .] focused on the bureaucratic stasis of the [Fordist/late 20th Century] world: it echoed the destruction of that world by the dynamics of capital [with the neo-liberal turn after 1973, and especially after 1989].
The idea of a fundamental transformation became bracketed and, instead, was replaced by the more ambiguous notion of 'resistance.' The notion of resistance, however, says little about the nature of that which is being resisted or of the politics of the resistance involved — that is, the character of determinate forms of critique, opposition, rebellion, and 'revolution.' The notion of 'resistance' frequently expresses a deeply dualistic worldview that tends to reify both the system of domination and the idea of agency.
'Resistance' is rarely based on a reflexive analysis of possibilities for fundamental change that are both generated and suppressed by [the] dynamic heteronomous order [of capital]. ['Resistance'] is an undialectical category that does not grasp its own conditions of possibility; that is, it fails to grasp the dynamic historical context of which it is a part."
— Moishe Postone, "History and Helplessness: Mass Mobilization and Contemporary Forms of Anticapitalism" (Public Culture 18:1, 2006)
A public forum with students, activists and organizers from across the globe held on April 2nd, 2012.
Transcript in Platypus Review #48 (Click below):
From teach-ins in the UK, occupations in Austria and Germany and protests in the Netherlands and Greece, responses to the economic downturn are international in character. These new developments require coordination across global networks and it is why Platypus at U. Chicago is organizing a series of international panels that we hope can take place in Universities across the world where Platypus student members havebeen able to forge connections.
We hope that this panel will be an opportunity to report on activity and form new connections across international efforts. Panelists will report on the state of the Left in their respected regions and reflect on their experience as organizers while helping formulate what the next steps in organizing and planning could look like in the months ahead.
Panelists:
Haseeb Ahmed(Maastricht)
Valentin Badura(Austria)
Cengiz Kulac (Austria)
Moritz Roeger (Germany)
Jerzy Sobotta (Germany)
Thodoris Velissaris(Greece)
Moderated by Pam C. Nogales C. (Platypus)
A presentation by Chris Cutrone, President of the Platypus Affiliated Society, delivered on April 1st, 2012 as part of the 2012 Platypus Affiliated International Convention held at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, upon the subject of the death of Marxism and the emergence of neo-liberalism and neo-anarchism.
Transcript in Platypus Review #47 (Click below):
Panel held on March 31st, 2012 at the Fourth Annual Platypus International Convention, School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Panel questions:
- What's wrong with the G8/NATO? On what grounds should the G8/NATO be politicized? To what extent is social domination reducible to or expressed by the G8/NATO?
- If the G8/NATO perpetuates a global status quo, what would a world without these institutions look like? Would global bodies function in an emancipated world? If so, how?
- How do you assess the necessity and efficacy of activist resistance to the G8/NATO? How would a local repeat of the Battle of Seattle advance the cause of emancipation?
- What is the relationship between the Occupy movement and the G8/NATO protests? If Occupy adopts the alter-globalization model of regular summit confrontations, does this shift indicate progress or regress compared to last fall's strategy of constant occupation?
Panelists:
Fred Mecklenburg (News and Letters)
John Sargis (Inclusive Democracy Collective)
Bernard Harcourt (University of Chicago)
At the fourth annual international convention of the Platypus Affiliated Society, speakers from various perspectives were asked to bring their experience of the Left’s recent history to bear on today’s political possibilities and challenges as part of the "Differing Perspectives on the Left" workshop series.
A workshop on the First of May Anarchist Alliance with Michael Staudenmaier held on March 31st, 2012.
