Θέλω να μιλήσω για το νόημα της ιστορίας για κάθε Αριστερά που δηλώνει μαρξιστική.
Εμείς στην οργάνωση Πλατύπους εστιάζουμε στην ιστορία της Αριστεράς επειδή πιστεύουμε ότι η αφήγηση καθενός για την ιστορία αυτή είναι στην πραγματικότητα η θεωρία του για το παρόν. Είτε ρητά είτε όχι, σε κάθε σύλληψη της ιστορίας της Αριστεράς υπάρχει μια αποτίμηση για τον τρόπο κατάληξης στο παρόν. Εστιάζοντας στην ιστορία της Αριστεράς ή υιοθετώντας μια αριστεροκεντρική άποψη τής ιστορίας, υποθέτουμε ότι οι πιο σημαντικοί προσδιορισμοί του παρόντος είναι αποτέλεσμα όσων η Αριστερά ιστορικά έκανε ή απέτυχε να κάνει.
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The election of Barack Obama will be an event. But it has proven confusing for most on the “Left,” who claim to want to overcome anti-black racism and achieve social justice. Rejection of Obama on this basis has been as significant as the embrace of his candidacy. There is as much anxiety as hope stirred by Obama, especially regarding the significance of his blackness.
[. . .]
I would like to respond to Chris Cutrone’s article, "Review: Angela Davis 'How does change happen?'" from the March 2008 issue #3. I agree with Cutrone’s general sentiment that we as a country have failed to productively engage the problem of race, and that an honest critique of capitalism is pretty much absent from American politics. However, one does not necessarily follow the other. I disagree that a discussion of capitalism must necessarily displace a discussion of race, a term which Cutrone disrespectfully frames in quotation marks and describes as a “distraction” and “inadequate category.”
[. . .]
The new Mayday magazine (UK) and Platypus have been in dialogue on the issues of anarchism and Marxism and the state of the "Left" today in light of history.
Principia Dialectica, another new British journal, also has taken note of Platypus, specifically with our interview of Moishe Postone on "Marx after Marxism". In their note of us, Principia Dialectica cites our interview with Postone to say that "Postone's reflections on Lukács are certainly bracing, and enough to challenge any cryogenically frozen leftoid stuck in 1917."
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The following are excerpts from the transcript of a moderated panel discussion and audience Q&A on problems of strategies and tactics on the Left today, organized by the Platypus Affiliated Society. Panelists: Michael Albert (Z Magazine, author of Parecon: Life After Capitalism), Chris Cutrone (Platypus), Stephen Duncombe (Gallatin School of New York University, editor of Cultural Resistance Reader), Brian Holmes (Continental Drift and Université Tangente), and Marisa Holmes (new Students for a Democratic Society).
[. . .]
