The single-payer insurance model is the basis of the health care systems of other advanced industrial nations such as the United Kingdom and Canada, so what accounts for the apparent impracticality of achieving this reform in the United States? If the single-payer system is so much more rational and humane than the alternatives, why does it play such a marginal role in American politics? And if one is seriously committed to this reform, how might the situation change? Joining us on Radical Minds to discuss these questions and more is Helen Redmond, a medical social worker, independent journalist and a member of the Chicago Single Payer Action Network and the International Socialist Organization.
Interview conducted on April 24th, 2012 on the Radical Minds radio show.
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)
Platypus International Convention 2012
The 1990s-2000s: combined legacies of the recent history of the Left for today.
The two decades of the 1990s 2000s form a cycle containing certain common as well as differing concerns. The second decade of the 21st century has begun under the mixed legacy of recent history, presenting important problems needing to be worked through, moving forward.
For Platypus’ 2012 international convention, two plenary panels will ask speakers from various perspectives to bring their experience of the Left’s recent history to bear on today’s political possibilities and challenges.
Registration $20
To register visit:
http://
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PUBLIC PROGRAM
Friday, March 30
Workshops: Differing Perspectives on the Left (2:30-5:30pm)
Opening Plenary: The ‘90s Left Today (7:00-9:00pm)
Saturday, March 31
Workshops: Differing Perspectives on the Left (10:00am-12:00pm)
Panel discussions: Lessons from the recent history of the Left (1:00pm-4:30pm)
- Panel 1: Defining Democracy: the Labor Movement and #Occupy
- Panel 2: Changes in Art and Society: A view from the present
- Panel 3: Politicizing G8 and NATO: Rulers, Domination, and Emancipation
- Panel 4: Whence Anarchism? The historical conjuncture of #Occupy
Closing Plenary: The ‘00s Left Today (7:30-9:30pm)
Sunday, April 1
Platypus Plenary: Why I joined Platypus (11:00am-12:30pm)
Platypus President's Report: 1873-1973: The century of Marxism (1-1:30pm)
On February 28, 2012, the radio program Radical Minds on WHPK-FM Chicago broadcast an interview with Mary Gabriel, the author of Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2011). The interview was conducted by Spencer A. Leonard of the Platypus Affiliated Society.
Transcript in Platypus Review #47:
Live broadcast: www.livestream.com/platypus1917
Saturday, December 17, 2011
9AM U.S./Canada PST / 10AM MST / 11AM CST / 12PM EST;
and 17:00 London / 18:00 Frankfurt and Berlin /
19:00 Thessaloniki / 22:30 Delhi / 02:00 Seoul
If you are in Chicago:
Saturday, 11am | 17 December 2011 |School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 112 S. Michigan Ave. room 919
Please join Platypus for a brief introduction to and discussion about the relevance of Lenin today, in anticipation of our Winter-Spring 2012 primary Marxist reading group, on the history of revolutionary Marxism, centered on the writings of Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky, and Adorno.
The Encyclopedia Britannica's entry on Lenin states that,
"If the Bolshevik Revolution is -- as some people have called it -- the most significant political event of the 20th century, then Lenin must for good or ill be considered the century's most significant political leader. Not only in the scholarly circles of the former Soviet Union, but even among many non-Communist scholars, he has been regarded as both the greatest revolutionary leader and revolutionary statesman in history, as well as the greatest revolutionary thinker since Marx."
Lenin is the most controversial figure in the history of Marxism, and perhaps one of the most controversial figures in all of history. As such, he is an impossible figure for sober consideration, without polemic. Nevertheless, it has become impossible, also, after Lenin, to consider Marxism without reference to him. Broadly, Marxism is divided into avowedly "Leninist" and "anti-Leninist" tendencies. In what ways was Lenin either an advance or a calamity for Marxism? But there is another way of approaching Lenin, which is as an expression of the historical crisis of Marxism. In other words, Lenin as a historical figure is unavoidably significant as manifesting a crisis of Marxism. The question is how Lenin provided the basis for advancing that crisis, how the polarization around Lenin could provide the basis for advancing the potential transformation of Marxism, in terms of resolving certain problems.
The Frankfurt School Critical Theorist Theodor Adorno, in his 1966 book Negative Dialectics, wrote of the degeneration of Marxism due to "dogmatization and thought-taboos." There is no other figure in the history of Marxism who has been subject to such "dogmatization and thought-taboos" as much as Lenin.
It is important to note as well that Adorno himself sought to remain, as he put it, "faithful to Marx, Engels and Lenin, while keeping up with culture at its most advanced," to which his colleague Max Horkheimer replied, simply, "Who would not subscribe to that?"
Today, such a proposition seems especially implausible, in many ways. Yet perhaps the memory of Lenin haunts us still, however obscurely.
The discussion will be broadcast live on the web. Additionally, a recording will be made available after the event.
Recommended background readings:
"1917"
http://platypus1917.org/2009/11/18/the-decline-of-the-left-in-the-20th-century-1917/
"Lenin's liberalism"
http://platypus1917.org/2011/06/01/lenin%E2%80%99s-liberalism/
"Lenin's politics"
http://platypus1917.org/2011/09/25/lenins-politics/
