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Thursday | October 18, 2012 | 7-9 PM

// Kimmel Center, Room 914 NYU
// 60 Washington Square S.
// New York, NY

A year, a month, and a day ago marked the official beginning of an ostensibly new, post-Obama phase of radical politics in America.

The longer prehistory of Occupy has been variously traced back to anti-austerity protests in Europe, the Arab Spring, and the London riots — with some of its roots stretching all the way to alter-globalization in the late 1990s. Occupy can be understood both in this broader context of radicalization going on throughout the world at the time and as a phenomenon in its own right.

Today Occupy stands at a crossroads. Our moment provides a brief vantage point from which one might reflect upon what the Occupy movement has been to date (its victories, its failures, its enduring impact), whether it still exists at present, and — if so so — what are the tasks that remain for it to fulfill moving forward?

A little over a month on from #S17, and only three weeks before the US elections, we in the Platypus Affiliated Society thus ask our panelists to consider:

1. What kinds of social transformation has Occupy brought about? What kinds of social conflicts remain unresolved? Where has it triumphed, and where has it fallen short?

2. How, if at all, has Occupy changed your political outlook? Has it modified the kinds of goals you hope to achieve through your activism? And has your approach toward organizing a mass movement in order to achieve these goals shifted at all?

3. What sort of new political possibilities has Occupy opened up that beforehand seemed impossible? Conversely, is there anything once felt had been politically possible at Occupy's outset but now no longer feel is possible?

This event is free and open to the public.

HOSTED BY:

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.

For a media index of past Platypus events on Occupy, feel free to check out our online archive of video, audio, and writings on the movement.

MODERATOR:

Lisa Montanarelli (Writers for the 99%, Platypus Affiliated Society) is an author and activist who participated in the occupation of Zuccotti Park and collaborated with more than 50 other writers and researchers on the book Occupying Wall Street. She has since become a member of Platypus.

FEATURED PANELISTS:

Fritz Tucker (Occupier, journalist) is a native Brooklynite, writer, activist, theorist, and researcher of people's movements the world over, from the US to Nepal.  Last year he authored the article "A Chill Descends on Occupy Wall Street: The Leaders of an Allegedly Leaderless Movement."

Victoria Sobel (Media & Finance working groups) is an activist and major organizer within the Occupy movement in New York, especially during its two months in Zuccotti Park.

Nicholas Mirzoeff (Strike Debt, NYU) is professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University. and lead organizer of Strike Debt, a prominent outgrowth of the Occupy movement.

David Haack (Occupy Your Workplace) is an underemployed artist an anticorporate activist who lives in New York City.  He is also a leading organizer within the Occupy Your Workplace working group, and author of "How the Occupy movement won me over" (published in Britain's The Guardian) and "The New Left Zombie is Dead! Long Live Occupy!" (published in Platypus Review 45).

Victoria Campbell (Occupier, Pacifica's Occupy Wall Street Radio show on WBAI) is an artist and activist involved with Occupy Wall Street, also a host on Pacifica's Occupy Wall Street Radio show.

Poster for "A Year, a Month, and a Day: Looking back on Occupy"

In the mid-19th century, Marx and Engels famously observed in the Communist Manifesto that a specter was haunting Europe: the specter of Communism. 160 years later, it is Marxism itself that haunts us.

In the 21st century, it seems that the Left abandoned Marxism as a path to freedom. But Marx critically intervened in his own moment and emboldened leftists to challenge society; is the Left not tasked with this today? Has the Left resolved the problems posed by Marx, and thus moved on?

With Platypus Affiliated Society member Pac Pobric. Held at New York University on September 20, 2012.

Join our "Does Marxism really matter?" on our Facebook event page.

With Pac Pobric, assistant editor of the Platypus Review, contributing editor, 491, contributor, On-Verge

event details

Thursday, September 20 
// 7:00 pm
NYU Kimmel Student Center, Room 907
// 60 Washington Square South

There will be free food.

Contact: Brian Hioe 
// bch250@nyu.edu
// cell: 845-492-1622

In the mid-19th century, Marx and Engels famously observed in the Communist Manifesto that a ‘specter’ was haunting Europe — the specter of Communism. 160 years later, it is ‘Marxism’ itself that haunts us.

In the 21st century, it seems that the Left abandoned Marxism as a path to freedom. But Marx critically intervened in his own moment and emboldened leftists to challenge society; is the Left not tasked with this today? Has the Left resolved the problems posed by Marx, and thus moved on?

Audio from our last teach-in:

Does Marxism really matter? Poster designed by Chris Mansour

Richard Rubin
Lecture 7:
1953-1963

Part of the Summer 2012 Platypus Affiliated Society Primary Reading Group Lecture Series: Trotsky and Trotskyism

• recommended / + supplemental reading

Week 7 Readings:

+ Cornelius Castoriadis, “The workers and organization” (1959)
• Cliff Slaughter, “What is revolutionary leadership?” (1960)
• Revolutionary Tendency of the Socialist Workers Party/U.S., “In defense of a revolutionary perspective” (1962)
+ Tony Cliff, “The coming Russian revolution” (final chapter of Russia: A Marxist Analysis, 1964)
+ Hal Draper, “The two souls of socialism” (1966)
+ Isaac Deutscher, “Marxism in our time” (1965)
+ Murray Bookchin, “Listen, Marxist!” (1969)
• Spartacist League, “Genesis of Pabloism” (1972)

Richard Rubin
Lecture 6
1940-1953

Part of the Summer 2012 Platypus Affiliated Society Primary Reading Group Lecture Series: Trotsky and Trotskyism

• recommended / + supplemental reading

Week Six Readings:
+ James Cannon, “The coming American revolution” (1946)
+ C.L.R. James, Raya Dunayevskaya, et al., “Program of the minority tendency of the Workers Party/U.S.” (1946)
+ C.L.R. James, “Dialectical materialism and the fate of humanity” (1947)
+ Herbert Marcuse, “33 Theses” (1947)
+ Earl Browder and Max Shachtman with C. Wright Mills, “Is Russia a socialist community?” (1950)
+ Ernest Mandel, “The theory of ‘state capitalism’” (1951)
+ Michel Pablo, “On the duration and the nature of the period of transition from capitalism to socialism” (1951)
+ Pablo, “Where are we going?” (1953)