A Platypus panel at NYU, Kimmel Center, room 808
Panelists (in speaking order):
R.L. Stephens (Labor organizer and editor of The Orchestrated Pulse)
Benjamin Serby (volunteer-organizer, Team Bernie NY and PhD Candidate in US History, Columbia)
Howie Hawkins (Green Party, USA)
Karl Belin (Socialist worker from Pittsburgh, labor organizer
Moderated by Tana Forrester (Platypus).
The Left has for over a generation -- for more than 40 years, since the crisis of 1973 -- placed its hopes in the Democratic and Labour Parties to reverse or slow neoliberal capitalism -- the move to trans-national trade agreements, the movement of capital and labor, and austerity. The post-2008 crisis of neoliberalism, despite phenomena such as SYRIZA, Occupy Wall Street, the Arab Spring and anti-austerity protests more generally, Bernie Sanders's candidacy, and Jeremy Corbyn's Labour leadership, has found expression on the avowed Right, through UKIP, Brexit, the U.K. Conservatives' move to "Red Toryism" and now Donald Trump's election. The old neoliberal consensus is falling apart, and change is palpably in the air. Margaret Thatcher's infamous phrase "There Is No Alternative" has been proven wrong. What can the Left do to advance the struggle for socialism under such circumstances?
Recent generations of marginalized radicals have been forced to grapple with an impossible choice: they must either submit to a “realistic” electoral compromise with the status quo, often in the form of “lesser evilism,” or they must vote for a third-party candidate, hoping that by making their platform public the winning party could be pushed leftward. Alternatively, out of exhaustion with this impasse, they may choose not to vote, advocating instead a principled abstention from electoral politics.
What lessons can the Left draw from the history of mass electoral parties for socialism to create more emancipatory choices in the future? How do we reimagine the role of electoral campaigns for Leftist politics today? Given that a significant number of working people in America have left the Democratic Party, what is possible?
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This event is free and open to the public. All are welcome.
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The Platypus Affiliated Society, established in December 2006, organizes reading groups, public fora, research and journalism focused on problems and tasks inherited from the “Old” (1920s-30s), “New” (1960s-70s) and post-political (1980s-90s) Left for the possibilities of emancipatory politics today.
http://platypus1917.com/newyork
Gespräch mit Hans-Gerd Öfinger ( "Der Funke", deutsche Sektion der "International Marxist Tendency"), der über die Schwierigkeiten der Kräfte des Trotzkismus in den 1930er, 1940er und 1950er Jahren bei der Erfassung der neuen Weltlage und Verteidigung der grundlegenden Ideen, zu den Ursachen von Spaltungen und den unterschiedlichen Einschätzungen hierzu, darüber hinaus über Ted Grant als "Pionier des britischen Trotzkismus" und die historische Basis, auf die sich die IMT stützt, einen kleinen Votrag halten wird. Im Anschluss besteht die Möglichkeit für Anmerkungen, Rückfragen und eine Diskussion.
Veranstaltet von der Platypus Affiliated Society Frankfurt, Dezember 22, 2016.
Teach-in on anti-Trump-ism and its implications for the left, held by Platypus members Nunzia Faes and Clint Montgomery in Frankfurt, Germany on November 11, 2016.
The accusations against Donald Trump of racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia and even fascism have been front and center for Republicans, liberals and leftists alike, while at the same time it is recognized that it was millions of former Obama voters who put him over the edge.
Many of the policies Trump called for already existed. For instance, surveillance and increased scrutiny of Muslim immigrants in the “War on Terror,” the war against ISIS, the wall on the border with Mexico, the mass deportations of “illegal” immigrants, and proposals for a super-exploitative guest-worker immigration program. Since the election, many of his strongly worded rhetoric has been removed from his platform entirely. Leaders of the Democratic Party such as Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have conceded support for Trump on his policies meant to help American workers and to "drain the swamp" by getting finance out of politics. Meanwhile, many on the Left call for the dismantling of the Democratic Party, as a corporate fundraising machine that doesn’t speak to the needs of working people, to start anew. However what this means for them is the reinvigoration of the Democratic Party, which, based on the statements of Warren and Sanders, will now be led by President Trump.
During the campaign season itself the far left was divided between a strong anti-Trump, lesser evil endorsement of the Democrat establishment candidate and those who, too aware of what that neoliberal, imperialist establishment politics meant for people in America and around the world, could only stand helpless before the absence of anything outside the reality of Trump versus Clinton.
What is clear is that there is now no opposition to the status quo from the Left in America with power independent of the Democrat Party. In light of this fact, any future Left must keep firmly in view that its diagnosis of the Trump phenomenon--whether it is whitelash, proto-fascism, or neoliberal discontent--is at once its answer to what it represents. What sort of answers could the Left offer to oppose the establishment from the Left?"
Held at the University of Illinois at Chicago on November 7, 2016.
Panelists:
Ralph Cintron, professor of English and Latino and Latin American Studies at UIC
Jorge Mujica, Chicago Socialist Campaign and Moviemiento 10 de Marzo
Jacqueline Stevens, professor of Political Science at Northwestern
Description:
Neo-liberalism, as the current organization of capitalism, promised to overcome the crisis of the Keynesian-Fordist states through the attainment of a free, cosmopolitan society. Yet, the weight of national borders continues to be felt. While capital can easily move to a home where it is profitable, workers find their movement more stifled. From Brexit to the US presidential elections, immigration has become unavoidable in political discourse: some politicians have promised comprehensive immigration reform, while others have considered the undocumented culpable for the decline of the nation's economy and sovereignty. In each case, a crisis of Neo-liberalism is registered - but what is the meaning of the question to the Left and its attempts to change the world?
Famously, the Communist Manifesto says "the working men have no country." The incessant drive to realize profit sends capital all over the world, uprooting established relations and dynamizing the global economy. Workers are forced to consider themselves internationally in the fight against capital. Further, immigration might even centralize the gravediggers of capitalism.
However, if this process is not grasped by the workers, it offers an opportunity for the capitalists to secure their reign. The precarity of immigrants can be exploited by the ruling class to split the proletariat and contain their political struggle - that is, unless there is a Left to lead.
Questions:
- How has the Left approached the question of immigration historically? What opportunities exist in the immigrant rights movement today for an emancipatory politics?
- How has immigration related to other demands made by the Left?
- What role can Left organizations - civil and/or political - play in immigration politics?
