Panel hosted by the Marxist Humanist Initiative at the Left Forum in New York City. The discussion was moderated by MHI member Ravi Bali.
Speakers:
Daphne Lawless, Fightback
Brendan Cooney, MHI
Chris Cutrone, Platypus Affiliated Society
Anne Jaclard, MHI
Bill Weinberg, CounterVortex
Tens of millions of Americans and people around the world, including some of “the left,” have regarded Trump and Trumpism as exceptional threats to our well-being that must be resisted tooth-and-nail. But others have argued that anti-Trumpism is a problem, that concerns about Trumpism are a distraction from struggles against neo-liberalism and U.S. state power, and/or that the left should reach out to Trump’s anti-establishment and populist base. This debate featured speakers with different positions on these and related questions. Among the issues considered was whether or not the positions one opposes are genuinely “of the left.”
Held June 6, 2018 at the Left Forum at John Jay College in New York City. The panel was moderated by Platypus member Allison Hewitt Ward.
Speakers:
Jack Devine, Democratic Socialists of America
Jim Creegan, Weekly Worker
Erin Hagood, Platypus Affiliated Society
Held June 1, 2018 at the Left Forum at John Jay College in New York.
Panelists:
Spencer Leonard - Platypus Affiliated Society
Terrell Carver - Professor of Political Theory at the University of Bristol
Christoph Lichtenberg - International Bolshevik Tendency
Description:
This year marked the 200th birthday of Karl Marx, than whom, as even his ideological opponent Isaiah Berlin had to admit, "no thinker in the nineteenth century has had so direct, deliberate and powerful an influence upon mankind." This panel seeks to bring together intellectuals committed to exploring Marx’s legacy in this post-Marxist age, those who, once more, seek somehow to bring that legacy to bear upon the world. Accordingly, we want to raise the question: What is the legacy of Marx’s life as a revolutionary intellectual -- that is, the legacy of the political writings and activities he contributed to the workers’ movement for socialism?
