Panel held on March 31st, 2012 at the Fourth Annual Platypus International Convention, School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

In 2009 President Obama's auto bailouts became a major flashpoint between the left and the mainstream of the labor movement. The majority of the left, including UAW dissidents, felt the auto bailouts were a missed opportunity to retool our manufacturing base, and a miserable half-measure.

On the other hand, mainstream labor leaders, and a consistent majority of polled union members, endorsed Obama's plan and explanation that the bailouts were an extraordinary measure and that government support for union ownership of firms was generally inappropriate. In 2009 an absolute majority of Americans opposed the auto bailouts altogether by an average 3 to 2 margin.

What does #Occupy's demand for "more democracy" in the labor movement mean in this context, where the majority of members did not support a comprehensive intervention into the affairs of GM and Chrysler?

Panelists:
John Peterson (International Marxist Tendency)
David Moberg (In These Times)
James Manos (Occupy Chicago Labor Committee)

Panel held on March 31st, 2012 at the Fourth Annual Platypus International Convention, School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

#Occupy represents one of the most significant prospects and challenges for the Left in the past decade. Working through the politics of #Occupy is a delicate matter. In some ways, the increasing influence of anarchism upon the Left since the rise of the anti-globalization movement of the 1990's continues to be visible in #Occupy (horizontal organizational structures, repurposing of public property, an emphasis on alternative forms of community and production "autonomously" produced within capitalism). At the same time, #Occupy has shied from imitating past protests directly (e.g. the lesser adoption of black bloc tactics) largely in favour of ambiguous claims about the unity of the 99% for a fairer world.

We hope this panel can work through what anarchism means for occupy, and, more broadly, to what extent revolutionary perspectives can and should be integrated into Occupy. This means clarifying the conflicts that exist within anarchism as a politics, recognizing those aspects of anti-capitalist politics which seem to have by osmosis found themselves within #Occupy's organization, and to which strains of revolutionary thought it seems to be resistant.

Can #Occupy pave the way for insurrection and revolution?

Panelists

John Slavin (Industrial Workers of the World, 4 Star Anarchist Organization)
Daniel Dulce (Crimethinc)
Kelvin Ho (Occupy Chicago)
Sara Whitford (Formerly Occupy Chicago)

Live broadcast: www.livestream.com/platypus1917

Saturday, December 17, 2011
9AM U.S./Canada PST / 10AM MST / 11AM CST / 12PM EST;
and 17:00 London / 18:00 Frankfurt and Berlin /
19:00 Thessaloniki / 22:30 Delhi / 02:00 Seoul

If you are in Chicago:
Saturday, 11am | 17 December 2011 |School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 112 S. Michigan Ave. room 919

Please join Platypus for a brief introduction to and discussion about the relevance of Lenin today, in anticipation of our Winter-Spring 2012 primary Marxist reading group, on the history of revolutionary Marxism, centered on the writings of Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky, and Adorno.

The Encyclopedia Britannica's entry on Lenin states that,

"If the Bolshevik Revolution is -- as some people have called it -- the most significant political event of the 20th century, then Lenin must for good or ill be considered the century's most significant political leader. Not only in the scholarly circles of the former Soviet Union, but even among many non-Communist scholars, he has been regarded as both the greatest revolutionary leader and revolutionary statesman in history, as well as the greatest revolutionary thinker since Marx."

Lenin is the most controversial figure in the history of Marxism, and perhaps one of the most controversial figures in all of history. As such, he is an impossible figure for sober consideration, without polemic. Nevertheless, it has become impossible, also, after Lenin, to consider Marxism without reference to him. Broadly, Marxism is divided into avowedly "Leninist" and "anti-Leninist" tendencies. In what ways was Lenin either an advance or a calamity for Marxism? But there is another way of approaching Lenin, which is as an expression of the historical crisis of Marxism. In other words, Lenin as a historical figure is unavoidably significant as manifesting a crisis of Marxism. The question is how Lenin provided the basis for advancing that crisis, how the polarization around Lenin could provide the basis for advancing the potential transformation of Marxism, in terms of resolving certain problems.

The Frankfurt School Critical Theorist Theodor Adorno, in his 1966 book Negative Dialectics, wrote of the degeneration of Marxism due to "dogmatization and thought-taboos." There is no other figure in the history of Marxism who has been subject to such "dogmatization and thought-taboos" as much as Lenin.

It is important to note as well that Adorno himself sought to remain, as he put it, "faithful to Marx, Engels and Lenin, while keeping up with culture at its most advanced," to which his colleague Max Horkheimer replied, simply, "Who would not subscribe to that?"

Today, such a proposition seems especially implausible, in many ways. Yet perhaps the memory of Lenin haunts us still, however obscurely.

The discussion will be broadcast live on the web. Additionally, a recording will be made available after the event.

Recommended background readings:

"1917"
http://platypus1917.org/2009/11/18/the-decline-of-the-left-in-the-20th-century-1917/

"Lenin's liberalism"
http://platypus1917.org/2011/06/01/lenin%E2%80%99s-liberalism/

"Lenin's politics"
http://platypus1917.org/2011/09/25/lenins-politics/