On this episode of Sh*t Platypus Says, we have a report on the yellow vest protests with our members Ciat and Teo, both currently in Paris. They share their reflections on the mass demonstrations, the on-going crisis of neoliberalism and the confused responses by the left. After, your hosts, Laurie, Suzy and Pam talk about the memory of the 2008 financial crisis in popular culture and discuss some of the changes they foresee for labor & capital relations in the coming years. Finally, if you still don't know what happened in 2008, let our resident financial genius, Wentai, break it down for you at the end of our episode.

Questions, suggestions and smart-ass commentary always welcome! E-mail us at shitplatypussays@gmail.com

We recommend, from the Platypus Review archives:
"A cry of protest before accommodation? The dialectic of emancipation and domination" by Chris Cutrone, from Platypus Review 42 (December 2011 – January 2012) platypus1917.org/2011/12/01/cry-o…e-accommodation/

Hosted by Pamela Nogales, Laurie Rojas & Suzy V.

We say goodbye to 2018 by discussing The Young Karl Marx (Le Jeune Marx), Raoul Peck’s film commemorating 200 years of Karl Marx’s birth. We unpack the lame (so-called) film critiques by those on the left. In the main segment, we take up the question “What is Socialism?”, featuring responses by members of Platypus, listeners of the podcast, fellow travelers and some dude... including, Chris Cutrone, Erin Hagood, Ben Waite, Raul Cajias, & Sammy Medina. Throughout, Rosa Luxemburg, Leon Trotsky, Vladimir Lenin & Karl Marx, help us with the heavy lifting.

Send us your questions, comments and requests for SPS in the new year! E-mail us at: shitplatypussays@gmail.com

Platypus Review article referenced:
- The birth of a revolution? An interview with Mary Gabriel on Love and Capital, by Spencer Leonard
platypus1917.org/2012/06/07/the-b…of-a-revolution/
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. What follows is an edited transcript of their conversation. Original recording from Radical Minds interview can be found here: tinyurl.com/y8phrnwt

Hosted by Pamela Nogales, Laurie Rojas​ and Suzy V​.

Teach-in on Trotskyism by Padraig Macguire, held at the London School of Economics on December 13, 2018. Part of a two-part series on "What is Marxism?"

Suzy Vogenthaler, David Faes and Pamela Nogales dispel the liberal confusion over the Obama administration's reforms for trans-people. Laurie and Pamela sit with Dorna Darabi for a report of the recent anti-AFD protest in Berlin with over 150,000 participants. And Stefan Hain and Betül Yildrim talk to Pamela at the Freie University coffee break about the divisions within Die Linke, the decline of the Social Democratic Party and German politics after Merkel.

For more on trans politics see David Faes's articles for the new Platypus Review, issue 111.
(1) "Transgender liberation? A movement whose time has passed"
platypus1917.org/2018/11/02/trans…time-has-passed/
(2) "#MeToo and the millennial sex panic"
platypus1917.org/2018/11/02/metoo…nnial-sex-panic/

For more on the German left listen to the recording of our panel in Frankfurt, from 07.12.2017, entitled "What is Socialism?" Speakers were invited to reflect on the history of social democracy from a leftist perspective: how are social democracy and social revolution today still connected? What does Social Democracy stand for politically? The following were invited: Hans-Gerd Öfinger (International Marxist Tendency), André Leisewitz (Journal Marxist Renewal), Martin Veith (Institute for Syndicalism Research), Lukas Schneider (Jusos Frankfurt) and Christoph Spehr (Die LINKE). Edited transcript linked below as well as the panel audio recording are both in German.
platypus1917.org/2018/09/15/podiu…ist-sozialismus/

Hosted by Pamela Nogales, Laurie Rojas and Suzy V.