Every year at the Platypus International Convention, speakers from various perspectives are asked to bring their experience of the Left’s recent history to bear on today’s political possibilities and challenges as part of the “Differing Perspectives on the Left” workshop series.
A workshop with TOP B3rlin (Bender) held on April 5, 2014, at the Sixth Platypus International Convention.
Platypus President's report by Chris Cutrone at the third annual Platypus Affiliated Society international convention, Chicago, May 1, 2011.
The usual ways of categorizing various trends on the "Left" today have become less useful for distinguishing politically and indicating potential future developments. Trends have defied historical or expected trajectories -- if these in fact ever applied properly -- and so call for a new and different approach to sort out what we're dealing with today and are likely to encounter going forward. Platypus has been rightly recognized (if only occasionally and intermittently) for traversing if not transcending these categories in the approach of our project. Other sets of categories that can be usefully problematized by the "anti-fascist" vs. "anti-imperialist" division are: 1.) socialist vs. liberal; 2.) libertarian vs. authoritarian; and 3.) anti-Stalinist vs. Stalinist.
