platypus

[black magick hustla]

whats the deal with this guys. a lot of people hate on them a lot. why? i read the spartacists polemic but idk if i want to believe it because they are crazy.

[which doctor]

These would be the best introductory texts.

Introducing Platypus (http://platypus1917.org/2009/06/12/the-platypus-synthesis-introducing-platypus)

Four types of ambiguity (http://platypus1917.org/2009/06/14/the-platypus-synthesis-four-types-of-ambiguity)

History, theory (http://platypus1917.org/2009/06/14/the-platypus-synthesis-history-theory)

What is to be done? (http://platypus1917.org/2009/06/14/the-platypus-synthesis-what-is-to-be-done)

[The Ungovernable Farce]

Wow, snap, I just went on which doctor's profile to ask pretty much the exact same question.

[which doctor]

here's another lulzworthy knee-jerk angry reaction: http://www.principiadialectica.co.uk/blog/?p=687

[RED DAVE]

Having read a few of the linked documents, it seems that what we have here is an excuse to talk and bullshit and not act.

The Left is not dead. To start with that premise is kind of like a doctor deciding that because their patient is short of breath or has an irregular heartbeat, the patient is dead.

RED DAVE

[The Ungovernable Farce]

here's another lulzworthy knee-jerk angry reaction: http://www.principiadialectica.co.uk/blog/?p=687
Principia Dialectica are craaazy, though. I've been in the same room as one of them, it was a memorable experience.

[black magick hustla]

Principia Dialectica are craaazy, though. I've been in the same room as one of them, it was a memorable experience.
are they all angry grad students in some worthless sociology department?????????

[Die Neue Zeit]

Louis Proyect's newest volley of shots is aimed at Platypus:

http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2010/04/25/q-what-is-a-platypus-a-an-american-eustonite/

[Os Cangaceiros]

I read some of their material once and was somewhat impressed. I liked how it wasn't just an angry polemic against the imperialist bourgeoisie, as so many other Left publications I've read are. (Or maybe my standards were just exceptionally low, seeing as the RCP's Revolution was the only leftist paper that was available on my campus.)

[which doctor]

Louis Proyect's newest volley of shots is aimed at Platypus:

http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2010/04/25/q-what-is-a-platypus-a-an-american-eustonite/
Did you hear what Doug Henwood had to say about Chris Cutrone on the LBO listserv?

[black magick hustla]

also does chris cutrone smoke tons of weed???????? why has he been in grad school since 1999. jesus

[Palingenisis]

Why do most working class people have a disgust for students?

As a working class kid who has never been to university I share that disgust even though a lot of it seems irrational.

[Palingenisis]

Didnt some trots in the 70s actually see students as "revolutionary force"?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Alas, yes, hence the idiocy of Student Left politics. They can't even see past "free tuition" to advocate training income (http://www.revleft.com/vb/reinventing-education-replace-t125147/index.html).

[black magick hustla]

Why do most working class people have a disgust for students?

As a working class kid who has never been to university I share that disgust even though a lot of it seems irrational.

isnt college free in the uk?

well tbh thje platypi come from really expensive private campuses so i can see the disdain. but grad students are generally poor and make less than a janitor, however they can namedrop derrida while working as a barista

[Palingenisis]

Or do some people here that university students along with secondary school teachers are actually working class?

[black magick hustla]

Or do some people here that university students along with secondary school teachers are actually working class?

i think most university students and teachers are working class

[Palingenisis]

isnt college free in the uk?


I dont live in the UK.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Why do most working class people have a disgust for students?

As a working class kid who has never been to university I share that disgust even though a lot of it seems irrational.

I never experienced a great deal of disgust from working class people when I was in school. That's without mentioning the fact that most of the kids at my college fell under the broad definition of "working class", including myself, since I financed my education through my work and school grants.

Maybe it's different where you live, though.

[Palingenisis]

I never experienced a great deal of disgust from working class people when I was in school. That's without mentioning the fact that most of the kids at my college fell under the broad definition of "working class", including myself, since I financed my education through my work and school grants.

Maybe it's different where you live, though.

Well I am presuming you are from states...Its different here.

First off there is a huge difference between "college" and University here.

Secondly a lot more people learn a trade...Joinery, plumbing, etc straight after school rather than going to "college" or University.

[Palingenisis]

i think most university students and teachers are working class

Yeah and of course the Naxalites and the Zapatistas arent working class? :rolleyes:


Left-Coms have in reality a lot more redeeming features than Trots but y'all seem desperate to catch up with them in the worthless reactionary stakes....(Yeah I know more neg rep coming my way...).

[Os Cangaceiros]

Well I am presuming you are from states...Its different here.

First off there is a huge difference between "college" and University here.

Secondly a lot more people learn a trade...Joinery, plumbing, etc straight after school rather than going to "college" or University.

Why the fuck are you putting "college" in quotes? :blink:

"University" is called college by people here. I went to the State University of New York, and everyone calls it college.

:rolleyes:

[Palingenisis]

Why the fuck are you putting "college" in quotes? :blink:

"University" is called college by people here. I went to the State University of New York, and everyone calls it college.

:rolleyes:

A University is a serious place like Yale or Havard or something like that...The local place where people get "Business degrees" and than go off to shuffle paper in some office is hardly the same thing...Is it?

[Os Cangaceiros]

A University is a serious place like Yale or Havard or something like that...The local place where people get "Business degrees" and than go off to shuffle paper in some office is hardly the same thing...Is it?

Well, actually my school was considered one of the best medical schools on the east coast, so I'm not sure what you're talking about.

[black magick hustla]

Yeah and of course the Naxalites and the Zapatistas arent working class? :rolleyes:

i think it depends. i dont think small landowning peasants are working class. agricultural workers are a different phenomenon though

[quote]
Left-Coms have in reality a lot more redeeming features than Trots but y'all seem desperate to catch up with them in the worthless reactionary stakes....(Yeah I know more neg rep coming my way...).
?

[Palingenisis]

Well, actually my school was considered one of the best medical schools on the east coast, so I'm not sure what you're talking about.

Here "college" generally means joke third level education...While university refers to serious third level education...Thats what Im talking about it.

[9]

Man, this thread sure got off topic quick...

Regarding Platypus, I am curious about what is their relationship to the views of Moishe Postone. And following from that, what is their view on Zionism?

[Proletarian Ultra]

whats the deal with this guys. a lot of people hate on them a lot. why? i read the spartacists polemic but idk if i want to believe it because they are crazy.

Platypus is an exciting new Labor Zionist book club that does some lulzy IRL trolling of left-wing causes.

Here's a recent pic from one of their "Adorno lunch bunch" symposia:

http://mazinx.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/brave_idf_soldier1.jpg

[Barry Lyndon]

I despise Platypus because I joined their reading/discussion group, being a young Marxist college student interested in intellectual conversation with like-minded individuals. Or, at least, what I thought were like minded individuals.
What I instead discovered instead nauseated me. At their Chicago citywide meeting, the fare consisted of spending 20 minutes sneering, laughing, and making insulting remarks about the protesters who were occupying NYU at the time. It wasn't even a helpful criticism of their tactics, it was just derogatory attacks on student activism in general as well as anarchists, even though they knew their was an anarchist in the room. Chris Cutrone, one of the editors of the review, then went on to describe a local chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, which I am active in, as local Hamas cell. When I challenged him, he backed off a little, saying their were not Hamas, but "soft Islamists"(a term he uses in his obsessive articles about Iran). After the meeting broke up, I spent another 20-30 minutes arguing with a rabid Zionist who was defending the Israeli massacre in Gaza, because all Arabs were Nazis. No one contradicted him or intervened on my behalf, but smiled and laughed while he stood there justifying ethnic cleansing. The conversation turned to Latin America, and one member compared Hugo Chavez to Josef Stalin. That was too much for me, I stormed off.

That is why I hate Platypus. They are not socialists, they are not Marxists, they are not even progressive. They follow a bizarre right-wing inversion of Trotskyism. They have articles extolling the American occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq as progressive, they denounce the Cuban and Bolivarian revolutions and parrot right-wing propaganda about both of them, they dismiss all student activists as idiotic and childish, their editor has lied on camera claiming that there is no hunger in Gaza under the Israeli blockade. They claim that the Russian revolution was worthless, almost a 'total disaster from the start'(Cutrone). From start to finish, they are anti-socialist, anti-labor, anti-Third World, racist, snobbish elitist liars, who hate the left and everything it stands for because they have convinced themselves that 'The Left is dead', which they chant like a religious mantra.
And wherever they show up, and I know who they are, I will show up to expose their lies.

And no, I am not part of the Spartacist League, and never have been. I didn't even know who Platypus was until I joined them. So don't trot out that excuse to brush off and ignore what I have just said.

[black magick hustla]

Which are these articles?

tbh i sometimes sneer at student activists because idk some of them are good people but they have this whole gross cultural ghetto going on around and this superhero complex that is a bit nauseating.

[black magick hustla]

can someone link me to these crazy articles please? i mean because those are some pretty awful accusations

[9]

@ Barry Lindon:

Yes, I think you should link the articles as well. It isn’t because I doubt that they'd take these positions; actually, it is quite what I imagine. But you’ve said some pretty baseless, obnoxious bullshit (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1731110&postcount=131) elsewhere, so I’d think you should produce some evidence before people will take an anecdote from you very seriously.

[Barry Lyndon]

I can't find all of them at the moment, but here are two particularly bad ones, both endorsing the American occupation of Afghanistan as progressive:

http://platypus1917.org/2009/02/01/afghanistan-internationalism-and-the-left-an-interview-with-terry-glavin/

Critical sentence from this article:

" Today, the US, NATO and ISAF is in the fight in Afghanistan, and with the exception of the Americans’ disgraceful appeasements of the Pakistan military and intelligence complex, the armies of the West are, in fact, on the right side. I really think it’s important to acknowledge that, to get over it. The Taliban are not the Vietcong. The Sixties are over. It actually is possible for the American military to be on the right side of a struggle, and as some wag said, “It would be lovely if the Nelson Mandela Appreciation Society had the means to take on the job, but until that happens, I’m afraid we’re going to have to settle for the 101st Airborne Division.” "

http://platypus1917.org/2009/02/03/nothing-left-to-say-a-critique-of-the-guardian’s-coverage-of-the-2008-mumbai-attacks/

Critical sentence from this article:
"Moreover, as most Leftists would doubtless be loathe to admit, the very prospect of reconstituting Leftist politics in South Asia rides to no small extent on the ability of the U.S. and NATO to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

[Invincible Summer]

A University is a serious place like Yale or Havard or something like that...The local place where people get "Business degrees" and than go off to shuffle paper in some office is hardly the same thing...Is it?


Here "college" generally means joke third level education...While university refers to serious third level education...Thats what Im talking about it.


I think you're giving university students more credit than they deserve. I'm sure someone like me who graduates with a sociology degree doesn't feel like their education was very "serious" and worth more than any other certification you can get from a college.

in fact, I know lots of people who say they feel they'll need to go to a college and get a degree in "something real" like IT or something because university liberal arts stuff is not really employable.


Sort of off-topic but I just wanted to say that.




And no, I am not part of the Spartacist League, and never have been. I didn't even know who Platypus was until I joined them. So don't trot out that excuse to brush off and ignore what I have just said.

LOL :laugh:

[Proletarian Ultra]

I can't find all of them at the moment, but here are two particularly bad ones, both endorsing the American occupation of Afghanistan as progressive:

There's also the disgusting profile of Christopher Hitchens (http://platypus1917.org/2009/03/15/going-it-alone-christopher-hitchens-and-the-death-of-the-left/), which ostentatiously fails to criticize his rampant neoconnery, except like so:


Hitchens’s greatest shortcoming is not the position he has taken on Iraq, as this amounts chiefly to a confession of political futility. Nor is it his bullying and hectoring tone, which, though it occasionally rings false, is typically reserved for those who deserve it. Rather, his greatest shortcoming is in his sclerotic Marxism,

WTF???? Bad theory is worse than support for a genocidal war of aggression? And support for a genocidal war of aggression is a "shortcoming" only because it "amounts chiefly to a confession of political futility?" Infamy!

[Barry Lyndon]

Quoting the movie 'Troy': "Is there no one else? IS THERE NO ONE ELSE?"

[which doctor]

Barry, most of your accusations aren't even worth addressing. Clearly you're enamored with third-worldist resistance 'politics', as evidenced by your ho chi minh avatar, among a bunch of your other posts, but the real problem is how you just descend into baseless string of adjectives. There is clearly a sizable anti-platypus contingency, but their characterizations of what exactly's wrong with platypus really hit all over the board, and what they fail to offer is any constructive critique. But what better could one expect from the walking dead.

Also, what you fail to understand is that the Platypus Review is an open submission journal. Anyone from across the 'left' political spectrum can submit an article. The articles don't necessarily represent platypus. This is a common mistake people make, which is why more is going to be done in the future to seperate the review from the organization.

[Wanted Man]

They seem utterly uninteresting. Why bother?

I mean, red alert, may day, folks. A bunch of private school boys are trying to combine Marxism with supporting the Afghanistan War. Holy shit, battle stations, we've got to defend the left from this threat. :rolleyes:

[Barry Lyndon]

Barry, most of your accusations aren't even worth addressing. Clearly you're enamored with third-worldist resistance 'politics', as evidenced by your ho chi minh avatar, among a bunch of your other posts, but the real problem is how you just descend into baseless string of adjectives. There is clearly a sizable anti-platypus contingency, but their characterizations of what exactly's wrong with platypus really hit all over the board, and what they fail to offer is any constructive critique. But what better could one expect from the walking dead.

Also, what you fail to understand is that the Platypus Review is an open submission journal. Anyone from across the 'left' political spectrum can submit an article. The articles don't necessarily represent platypus. This is a common mistake people make, which is why more is going to be done in the future to seperate the review from the organization.

Better third-worldist resistance politics then first-worldist non-resistance, Lady Gaga.

Your newsletter is caught with its pants down spouting pro-imperialist garbage, so you won't address any of the links I just posted, but just blandly suggest that your open to a 'range of opinions'. Really? What an insightful range of opinions- the US military is a force for liberation in Afghanistan and Iraq, Christopher Hitchens is a Marxist, etc. etc. So I guess we should have the opinions of neo-Nazis, Tea Partiers, the Taliban and the Westboro Baptist Church in a so-called Marxist newsletter? I mean, their just 'points of view'.

[Devrim]

Why do most working class people have a disgust for students?

As a working class kid who has never been to university I share that disgust even though a lot of it seems irrational.

I think that you have to look at it in a historical context. Nowadays a lot of working class people do go to university. When I was a lad, it was quite rare (I left school at 15), and the generation before me, it was almost non-existent.

I imagine the resentment of students amongst the working class is far less than it used to be.


Didnt some trots in the 70s actually see students as "revolutionary force"?

I think more than Trotskyists. Some Maoists too. Of course it was probably not unconnected to they being students themselves.


isnt college free in the uk?

Not any more though it is nowhere near as expensive as the US. It used to be. In fact students used to be paid a means tested grant, be able to claim 'housing benefit' (rent) from the municipality, and sign on the dole during holidays.


Or do some people here that university students along with secondary school teachers are actually working class?

I think that secondary school teachers are workers, and that most students today are working class.


First off there is a huge difference between "college" and University here.

Secondly a lot more people learn a trade...Joinery, plumbing, etc straight after school rather than going to "college" or University.

College does have a different meaning in the US and the UK. I believe that those trades include secondary school teacher though.


Yeah and of course the Naxalites and the Zapatistas arent working class? :rolleyes:

Are they workers' movements or peasant movements (not agricultural laboureres) led by the disenchanted, university educated, socilogical 'middle class'?


I dont live in the UK.

Where do you live? I thought you lived in Northern Ireland.

Devrim

[Devrim]

Also, what you fail to understand is that the Platypus Review is an open submission journal. Anyone from across the 'left' political spectrum can submit an article. The articles don't necessarily represent platypus. This is a common mistake people make, which is why more is going to be done in the future to seperate the review from the organization.

What are its politics then. Does it support the US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan?

Devrim

[black magick hustla]

They seem utterly uninteresting. Why bother?


idk. they seem to be in all left american blogs this days. a friend mentioned it to me the other day (he pointed out that the founder has been a grad student for like 11 years lol), i thought they had mildly interesting positions because they didn't engage in left nationalist politics. but that might be because they might be proto neocons. they also ride the frankfurt schools petrified dicks a lot

[Palingenisis]

I think that you have to look at it in a historical context. Nowadays a lot of working class people do go to university. When I was a lad, it was quite rare (I left school at 15), and the generation before me, it was almost non-existent.

I imagine the resentment of students amongst the working class is far less than it used to be.

Where do you live? I thought you lived in Northern Ireland.

Devrim

I dont think thats it entirely...I know one or two middle class people who also cant stand students...Its more to do with the disconnect from reality and posing that a lot of them seem to do...An interest in ideas because they are "cool" or pretty or give someone an "identity" as opposed to whether they actually help us to understand the world around us though not confined to them is something students excel at.

The only "Maoists" Ive come across who see students as some revolutionary base are a weird "revengist", psuedo-Lin Biaoist grouping in the USA who put out some pretty surreal videos. They though see the entire white working class as actual enemies to be hated. However superfically their politics are different I see that group as connected to the "Anti-Germans"...basically the same hatred of humanity and particularly the boring proles by disconnected students along with hero-whorship of violent "saviours" who they make believe are the complete opposite to their parents, the annoying bouncer, etc.

I dont think any real Maoist group saw students as some type of revolutionary class though.

I live in the Free State but Ive a lot of connections to the occupied six counties.

[Palingenisis]

idk. they seem to be in all left american blogs this days. a friend mentioned it to me the other day (he pointed out that the founder has been a grad student for like 11 years lol), i thought they had mildly interesting positions because they didn't engage in left nationalist politics. but that might be because they might be proto neocons. they also ride the frankfurt schools petrified dicks a lot

I find Adorno can be pretty annoying in his smuggness a lot of the time but outside of that what have you against the Frankfurt school...Is it because they are big bad "Stalinist" or something?

[Proletarian Ultra]

There is clearly a sizable anti-platypus contingency, but their characterizations of what exactly's wrong with platypus really hit all over the board, and what they fail to offer is any constructive critique. But what better could one expect from the walking dead.

No. We have no constructive critique to offer whatsoever. Because our characterization of Platypus is not all over the board but very specific: you're apologists for wars of aggression by the US and its allies. There's really nothing constructive to be said about that.


Also, what you fail to understand is that the Platypus Review is an open submission journal. Anyone from across the 'left' political spectrum can submit an article. The articles don't necessarily represent platypus. This is a common mistake people make, which is why more is going to be done in the future to seperate the review from the organization.

Oh stop. Really. "We have no official line." Ooh. "Platypus Review is open submission." Ah. As if there isn't a consistent Islamophobic, anti-anti-war thrust behind your work.

[Barry Lyndon]

They seem utterly uninteresting. Why bother?

I mean, red alert, may day, folks. A bunch of private school boys are trying to combine Marxism with supporting the Afghanistan War. Holy shit, battle stations, we've got to defend the left from this threat. :rolleyes:

The reason Iv'e gotten so pissed off about Platypus is that, given how small and weak the radical left is in the United States in general, a small group like Platypus can have a disproportionate detrimental impact in confusing, misleading, and demoralizing radicalized American college students. Their most insidious strategy is to make anti-imperialism out to be one of the American Left's supposed 'problems', even going so far as to misrepresent and lie about Lenin's theories of imperialism, claiming that Lenin's anti-imperialism was 'highly qualified', when in fact he made it clear that it was a unconditional, central part of being a Marxist. The fact is, the problem is not that there is too much anti-imperialism on the left(by which I am talking in the broadest terms and include liberals and progressives), it is that there is far too little, as evidenced by much of the left's continued tailing of the overtly imperialist Democrats.

[Wanted Man]

idk. they seem to be in all left american blogs this days. a friend mentioned it to me the other day (he pointed out that the founder has been a grad student for like 11 years lol), i thought they had mildly interesting positions because they didn't engage in left nationalist politics. but that might be because they might be proto neocons. they also ride the frankfurt schools petrified dicks a lot

But then again, how much stock would you put into "all left american blogs"? Someone linked to responses by "Principa Dialectica" and "Louis Proyect"; both of them are hardly any better. Especially the former seemed completely hysterical and detached. Most of the time, it's unclear what they're even talking about. It kind of reminds one of a couple of old men flinging archaic insults at each other.


The reason Iv'e gotten so pissed off about Platypus is that, given how small and weak the radical left is in the United States in general, a small group like Platypus can have a disproportionate detrimental impact in confusing, misleading, and demoralizing radicalized American college students. Their most insidious strategy is to make anti-imperialism out to be one of the American Left's supposed 'problems', even going so far as to misrepresent and lie about Lenin's theories of imperialism, claiming that Lenin's anti-imperialism was 'highly qualified', when in fact he made it clear that it was a unconditional, central part of being a Marxist. The fact is, the problem is not that there is too much anti-imperialism on the left(by which I am talking in the broadest terms and include liberals and progressives), it is that there is far too little, as evidenced by much of the left's continued tailing of the overtly imperialist Democrats.

Fair enough, but I still fail to see the major threat from them. Do you think that there was ever a historical period in which universities did not have "provocative" bourgeois thinkers trying to appropriate "marxism" as some kind of intellectual hobby?

Also:


What I instead discovered instead nauseated me. At their Chicago citywide meeting, the fare consisted of spending 20 minutes sneering, laughing, and making insulting remarks about the protesters who were occupying NYU at the time. It wasn't even a helpful criticism of their tactics, it was just derogatory attacks on student activism in general as well as anarchists, even though they knew their was an anarchist in the room.

Perhaps next time a university is occupied, Platypus could call the cops, like Adorno once did. Ain't no better way of saying "Get those damn kids off my lawn". After all, universities need to be kept for the elite, so that there is enough feeding ground for "marxists" who want to back the Iraq War or whatevs.

[The Ungovernable Farce]

are they all angry grad students in some worthless sociology department?????????
Nah, the one I met was a crazy old man who gave the impression that he'd met Guy Debord once in the 60s and hoped that if he insulted everyone enough he might get to be an important thinker too. I could be misremembering, since this was nearly a year ago now, but I'm pretty sure he fell asleep during one of the discussions, was pretty funny.

Why do most working class people have a disgust for students?

As a working class kid who has never been to university I share that disgust even though a lot of it seems irrational.
I have a disgust for a lot of students, and I've been to uni.


Also, what you fail to understand is that the Platypus Review is an open submission journal. Anyone from across the 'left' political spectrum can submit an article. The articles don't necessarily represent platypus. This is a common mistake people make, which is why more is going to be done in the future to seperate the review from the organization.
Like Devrim, I'd be interested to know what the positions of the Platypus organisation are. This isn't some attempt to entrap you, since I have no love for "the left", or "the anti-imperialist resistance", I'm genuinely curious.

[Palingenisis]

Actually I think the Sparts are on the nail so to speak in their criticism of them...

I dont see politics as a "battle of ideas", to me it comes down ultimately to a class war. I dont care about the left as such, I care about the working class (globally though I have no probs admitting my patriotism).

[Ravachol]

Critical sentence from this article:
(...)the armies of the West are, in fact, on the right side. I really think it’s important to acknowledge that, to get over it. The Taliban are not the Vietcong. The Sixties are over. It actually is possible for the American military to be on the right side of a struggle, and as some wag said, “It would be lovely if the Nelson Mandela Appreciation Society had the means to take on the job, but until that happens, I’m afraid we’re going to have to settle for the 101st Airborne Division.” "


Never mind whatever this 'the West' they refer to is, apart from that scentences like "The Taliban are not the Vietcong. The Sixties are over" make me wonder what kind of university this nutjob is attending :confused: There is no class perspective AT ALL in that sentence, in fact it merges class-blurring cultural identity politics like 'the West' with silly ad hominems and 'keen and orginal' observations like 'the taliban are not the Vietcong' :rolleyes:



Critical sentence from this article:
"Moreover, as most Leftists would doubtless be loathe to admit, the very prospect of reconstituting Leftist politics in South Asia rides to no small extent on the ability of the U.S. and NATO to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

Haha. Imagine someone claimed the success of the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 rode 'to no small extent' on the ability of the German Empire to defeat the Tsarist armies. :rolleyes:

All the weirder though that Which Doctor is in Palatypus seeing as his posts and analyses are generally pretty solid.



Nah, the one I met was a crazy old man who gave the impression that he'd met Guy Debord once in the 60s and hoped that if he insulted everyone enough he might get to be an important thinker too. I could be misremembering, since this was nearly a year ago now, but I'm pretty sure he fell asleep during one of the discussions, was pretty funny.


Haha I love how these kind of people show up now and then. They make politics worth your while so much more :laugh:

[The Douche]

All the weirder though that Which Doctor is in Palatypus seeing as his posts and analyses are generally pretty solid.


I would say that which doctor as more solid politics because he is probably involved more actively in the communist movement than some of those in platypus. The group is essentially just an intellectual organization, and I think a lot of the more vocal members are sort of the burnt out ex-militant types.

I think that can explain a lot about some of the shitty positions they come out with, because they are isolated from the political realities they discuss.

For instance, I have a professor who you could describe as a "philosophical anarchist", a while back a couple of us were arguing about white privilege, a student was arguing against affirmitave action and I was defending it. The professor attempted to point out the illogicality of an anarchist defending the state. He has that position because he can ignore the political reality of the situation and just "oppose the state".

[Palingenisis]

Are they in any way connected to the Anti-Germans?

[9]

Are they in any way connected to the Anti-Germans?


Yeah, this was sort of my question as well. There is a professor at the University of Chicago (Platypus stomping ground) called Moishe Postone (see here (http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2010/02/05/zionism-anti-semitism-and-left)) who has been very influential with the Anti-Germans.
I can’t remember why now, but at some point I’d gotten the impression from somewhere that Postone was connected to Platypus, or that Platypus had some connection to him. It is possible I am mistaken, though, but there certainly seems to be a parallel in some of their politics.

[Palingenisis]

Yeah, this was sort of my question as well. There is a professor at the University of Chicago (Platypus stomping ground) called Moishe Postone (see here (http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2010/02/05/zionism-anti-semitism-and-left)) who has been very influential with the Anti-Germans.
I can’t remember why now, but at some point I’d gotten the impression from somewhere that Postone was connected to Platypus, or that Platypus had some connection to him. It is possible I am mistaken, though, but there certainly seems to be a parallel in some of their politics.

Another thing that seems to unite both Platypus and the Anti-Germans is that they dont seem to see the demand for Communism emerging out of class struggle but as a "moral idea" almost that has no real essential connection to the "class war"...Almost the flip side of the economist/syndicalist tendencies we see in other places.

[000]

Their most insidious strategy is to make anti-imperialism out to be one of the American Left's supposed 'problems', even going so far as to misrepresent and lie about Lenin's theories of imperialism, claiming that Lenin's anti-imperialism was 'highly qualified', when in fact he made it clear that it was a unconditional, central part of being a Marxist.

"At first Marx thought that Ireland would not be liberated by the national movement of the oppressed nation, but by the working-class movement of the oppressor nation. Marx did not make an Absolute of the national movement, knowing, as he did, that only the victory of the working class can bring about the complete liberation of all nationalities. It is impossible to estimate beforehand all the possible relations between the bourgeois liberation movements of the oppressed nations and the proletarian emancipation movement of the oppressor nation (the very problem which today makes the national question in Russia so difficult)."

'With regard to the more backward states and nations, in which feudal or patriarchal and patriarchal-peasant relations predominate, it is particularly important to bear in mind: First, that all Communist parties must assist the bourgeois-democratic liberation movement in these countries, and that the duty of rendering the most active assistance rests primarily with the workers of the country the backward nation is colonially or financially dependent on; the need for a determined struggle against attempts to give a communist colouring to bourgeois-democratic liberation trends in the backward countries; the Communist International should support bourgeois-democratic national movements in colonial and backward countries only on condition that, in these countries, the elements of future proletarian parties, which will be communist not only in name, are brought together and trained to understand their special tasks, i.e., those of the struggle against the bourgeois-democratic movements within their own nations. The Communist International must enter into a temporary alliance with bourgeois democracy in the colonial and backward countries, but should not merge with it, and should under all circumstances uphold the independence of the proletarian movement even if it is in its most embryonic form.'

-Lenin.

This seems quite qualified, and almost contrary to your exact words that it was a central principle to being a Marxist Lenin wrote 'Marx did not make an Absolute of the national movement.'

[Barry Lyndon]

"At first Marx thought that Ireland would not be liberated by the national movement of the oppressed nation, but by the working-class movement of the oppressor nation. Marx did not make an Absolute of the national movement, knowing, as he did, that only the victory of the working class can bring about the complete liberation of all nationalities. It is impossible to estimate beforehand all the possible relations between the bourgeois liberation movements of the oppressed nations and the proletarian emancipation movement of the oppressor nation (the very problem which today makes the national question in Russia so difficult)."

'With regard to the more backward states and nations, in which feudal or patriarchal and patriarchal-peasant relations predominate, it is particularly important to bear in mind: First, that all Communist parties must assist the bourgeois-democratic liberation movement in these countries, and that the duty of rendering the most active assistance rests primarily with the workers of the country the backward nation is colonially or financially dependent on; the need for a determined struggle against attempts to give a communist colouring to bourgeois-democratic liberation trends in the backward countries; the Communist International should support bourgeois-democratic national movements in colonial and backward countries only on condition that, in these countries, the elements of future proletarian parties, which will be communist not only in name, are brought together and trained to understand their special tasks, i.e., those of the struggle against the bourgeois-democratic movements within their own nations. The Communist International must enter into a temporary alliance with bourgeois democracy in the colonial and backward countries, but should not merge with it, and should under all circumstances uphold the independence of the proletarian movement even if it is in its most embryonic form.'

-Lenin.

This seems quite qualified, and almost contrary to your exact words that it was a central principle to being a Marxist Lenin wrote 'Marx did not make an Absolute of the national movement.'

Sure, I totally agree with this quote, thanks for providing it. I meant to say that Lenin's anti-imperialism was not highly qualified in terms of opposing imperialism itself, in other words, while tactically Lenin was very specific in terms of supporting the more progressive and if possible revolutionary elements in national liberation movements, he was unqualified in that he never advocated supporting imperialism over an anti-imperialist movement on the grounds that the former was more 'progressive' then the latter. Lenin rightly recognized that imperialism, by its nature, was always reactionary because its function was to preserve capitalism.

Platypus, however, leaves this part of Lenin's analysis out. Chris Cutrone's calls Lenin's opposition to imperialism itself 'highly qualified'. They reduce situations in Iraq, Palestine, and Afghanistan to simple dichotomies between US imperialism and Islamic fundamentalism, in order to justify their back-handed(or not so back-handed in some cases) support of US imperialism. Thus in their articles you will find virtually no mention of anti-imperialist and revolutionary forces in those countries that Marxists should support, such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, and the Iraqi trade unionists(they do give some token recognition to them, but very little).

An example of this was when I was debating Palestine with a group of them, and they were talking about how the Palestinian national movement was dominated by Hamas so the Palestinian cause can't be supported by leftists, and I brought up the PFLP, and their reply was that the PFLP was 'virtually non-existent'. Just a few months later, the PFLP had a political rally marking their 43rd anniversary in Gaza City, and nearly 100,000 people showed up to demonstrate support. Given that the entire population of the Gaza Strip is 1.5 million, thats not a insignifigant number. Platypus was either ignorant of the situation in Palestine or they were lying to cover up their closet Zionism.

Yes, the open Zionist in Platypus in Chicago is a 'Anti-Deutsch' adherent, btw.

[Barry Lyndon]

Yeah, this was sort of my question as well. There is a professor at the University of Chicago (Platypus stomping ground) called Moishe Postone (see here (http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2010/02/05/zionism-anti-semitism-and-left)) who has been very influential with the Anti-Germans.
I can’t remember why now, but at some point I’d gotten the impression from somewhere that Postone was connected to Platypus, or that Platypus had some connection to him. It is possible I am mistaken, though, but there certainly seems to be a parallel in some of their politics.

The worst part of the interview is this, IMHO:
"Between 1967 and 2000, the left in Israel had always argued that what the Palestinians wanted was self-determination, and that the right-wing notion that they wanted to eradicate Israel was a fantasy. Unfortunately that fantasy was shown in 2000 not to be a fantasy, which has strengthened the right immeasurably in its attempts to prevent the coming into being of a Palestinian state."

So, once again, a so-called leftist finds a way to blame the Palestinians themselves for their continued occupation and misery. It's the 'oh the good old Israeli left was about to end the occupation but the crazy Arabs ruined it' argument. He also completely misrepresents the initial intifada in 2000, which was explicitly anti-occupation. He doesn't seem to recognize that the Zionist colonial project would have continued regardless of how conciliatory the Palestinians behaved, and that the Israeli left is not anti-occupation for the most part but in fact provides left cover for it. The whole Israeli political spectrum is so far to the right that left groups like Peace Now supported the 2006 attack on Lebanon for instance.

[which doctor]

I don't have time to address all of these questions, but I will make a few points. An initial misunderstanding and apprehension towards platypus is expected, hence the name. The intent is to be provocative and disorienting, and to function in a capacity of self-criticism. The accusations made against them have been pretty wild. People like khad will have you believe that platypus is a white-supremacist organization. But if anyone is willing to put forward a substantial, intelligent critique of platypus, I can assure they would be more than willing to publish it in the review or hold a public debate. So far there have been no takers...just hecklers.


Does it support the US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan?

Devrim
This question is a non-starter. For one thing, US imperialism will continue whether they have the support of platypus or not, and that's precisely the problem, that there exists no Left alternative in Iraq or Afghanistan. When the principle of anti-imperialism was introduced in World War I, there was a lot more at stake then there is now. They weren't taking a moral position, they were concerned about the disintegration of the European labor movement. In a place like Afganistan, what is at stake is the country falling into the hands of the Taliban to become an even more reactionary, semi-feudal hell hole, especially in regards to political freedom, which has generally been regarded as a precondition for the adequate development of a mass socialist movement. Barry Lyndon posted a quote (I suggest you look at the context of it if you want to understand it better) from Spencer's article on the Mumbai bombings, and I will defend his position that the creation of a left alternative in Afganistan hinges on the defeat of the Taliban. Unfortunetely, we live in such a miserable time, that there is no adequate leftist apparatus to do this at the moment. It's hardly pro-imperialism, it's realizing that we live in the worst possible historical moment the international left has ever been in. The possibility for the realization of international socialism is lower on the radar than it ever has been, and this is precisely the problem for platypus, and why it is so critical of the existing left. To that effect, platypus as an organization doesn't necessarily take political positions, especially when, in this historical moment, they amount to little more than a fetishization of of principle and have largely degenerated into useless rhetoric. That's not to say there isn't a certain amount ideological cohesion within the organziation, and I can assure you they are all communists interested in starting the project of communism back up again. Theoretical influences include Marx-Engels, Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky, Lukacs, Korsch, Benjamin, and Adorno.

And I would also like to add, contrary to Barry Lyndon, that platypus has indeed engaged with many left organizations in the middle east, including labour organizations, womens groups, and the worker-communist parties both of iran and iraq.


Yeah, this was sort of my question as well. There is a professor at the University of Chicago (Platypus stomping ground) called Moishe Postone (see here (http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2010/02/05/zionism-anti-semitism-and-left)) who has been very influential with the Anti-Germans.
I can’t remember why now, but at some point I’d gotten the impression from somewhere that Postone was connected to Platypus, or that Platypus had some connection to him. It is possible I am mistaken, though, but there certainly seems to be a parallel in some of their politics.There are several members who are students of Moishe Postone; it's what you get for being a marxist in the U of C history department, so there is some degree of influence, but there are also profound differences, and Moishe Postone actually really hates platypus.

[black magick hustla]

This question is a non-starter. For one thing, US imperialism will continue whether they have the support of platypus or not, and that's precisely the problem, that there exists no Left alternative in Iraq or Afghanistan. When the principle of anti-imperialism was introduced in World War I, there was a lot more at stake then there is now.
i think the point of a communist group is that it serves as a pole for people who are against the prevailing state of the world, whether if in this hard times it will "help" or not. a communist organization is not necessarily about immediate demands.





In a place like Afganistan, what is at stake is the country falling into the hands of the Taliban to become an even more reactionary, semi-feudal hell hole, especially in regards to political freedom, which has generally been regarded as a precondition for the adequate development of a mass socialist movement.

i dont think Afghanistan can surpass "feudalism" (which is not, in the same sense detroit is not outside american capitalism even if it remains in its margins) by switching bosses.



The possibility for the realization of international socialism is lower on the radar than it ever has been,

i think the "possibility for international socialism" was lower just after WW II, where the whole world working class got lobotomized into killing each other in an imperialist war than today. maybe the rhetoric of left wing bosses is lacking. maybe there arent that many stalinists discussing in television vis a vis with right wingers anymore. however, we communists dont really care what the latest windbag pundit is saying in television. there is the class struggle in mexico, egypt, france, turkey, india ... we communists have nothing to do with the left and its eternal battle with the right.

[Proletarian Ultra]

And I would also like to add, contrary to Barry Lyndon, that platypus has indeed engaged with many left organizations in the middle east, including labour organizations, womens groups, and the worker-communist parties both of iran and iraq.

Hey! So has the US State Department!



This question is a non-starter. For one thing, US imperialism will continue whether they have the support of platypus or not, and that's precisely the problem, that there exists no Left alternative in Iraq or Afghanistan. When the principle of anti-imperialism was introduced in World War I, there was a lot more at stake then there is now. They weren't taking a moral position, they were concerned about the disintegration of the European labor movement. In a place like Afganistan, what is at stake is the country falling into the hands of the Taliban to become an even more reactionary, semi-feudal hell hole, especially in regards to political freedom, which has generally been regarded as a precondition for the adequate development of a mass socialist movement. Barry Lyndon posted a quote (I suggest you look at the context of it if you want to understand it better) from Spencer's article on the Mumbai bombings, and I will defend his position that the creation of a left alternative in Afganistan hinges on the defeat of the Taliban. Unfortunetely, we live in such a miserable time, that there is no adequate leftist apparatus to do this at the moment. It's hardly pro-imperialism, it's realizing that we live in the worst possible historical moment the international left has ever been in. The possibility for the realization of international socialism is lower on the radar than it ever has been, and this is precisely the problem for platypus, and why it is so critical of the existing left. To that effect, platypus as an organization doesn't necessarily take political positions, especially when, in this historical moment, they amount to little more than a fetishization of of principle and have largely degenerated into useless rhetoric. That's not to say there isn't a certain amount ideological cohesion within the organziation, and I can assure you they are all communists interested in starting the project of communism back up again. Theoretical influences include Marx-Engels, Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky, Lukacs, Korsch, Benjamin, and Adorno.

Typical Platypus response. You're asked a simple question and then give a long roundabout answer which basically amounts to "fuck yeah" without saying "fuck yeah." And then you wave around a bunch of name-drops to confuse the issue.


It's hardly pro-imperialism, it's realizing that we live in the worst possible historical moment the international left has ever been in. The possibility for the realization of international socialism is lower on the radar than it ever has been, and this is precisely the problem for platypus, and why it is so critical of the existing left.

Hey that's an awesome analysis of current events - in the early-to-mid '90s.

http://www.rankia.com/blog/familyoffice/uploaded_images/ortega-chavez-morales-750870.jpg Latin America
http://naxalwar.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/nepali-maoists_24014s.jpg Nepal
http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2008/05/07/640_03.jpg Los Angeles
http://www.internationalist.org/ilwuportstrikeb0805.jpg Los Angeles again
http://underthebutton.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/08thailand_395.jpg Thailand
http://cdn.wn.com/ph/img/28/11/93d7496d8031119c2f82095dbb9c-grande.jpg India
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/images/2009/0608/231838_1.jpg Ireland
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/1/29/1233244598135/Gallery-Frances-Unions-St-014.jpg France
http://www.marxist.com/images/stories/germany/Linke_Demo_gg_UEw-Staat.jpg Germany
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_M5mQhY1RgcI/SGJbjdSNODI/AAAAAAAAAjg/TC6b37LeZJc/s400/che.jpg Texas
http://libcom.org/files/images/news/may_1st_athens_protest__03_hds9g1.jpg Greece

Your whole premise is totally fucked.

[which doctor]

If you really think South American pseudo-socialism that panders to identity politics, third-world people's wars, immigrants rights marches, unions that only represent a fraction of the work-force they once did, obama volunteers with che posters on their walls, and fetished police confrontation that poses as politics really pose an adequate solution to overcoming international capitalism, then I pity your imagination. Why not throw in a picture of some organic vegetables?


Typical Platypus response. You're asked a simple question and then give a long roundabout answer which basically amounts to "fuck yeah" without saying "fuck yeah." And then you wave around a bunch of name-drops to confuse the issue.
Hey! So has the US State Department!Hey! Nice way to dodge an actual argument!

[Barry Lyndon]

Hey! So has the US State Department!




Typical Platypus response. You're asked a simple question and then give a long roundabout answer which basically amounts to "fuck yeah" without saying "fuck yeah." And then you wave around a bunch of name-drops to confuse the issue.



Hey that's an awesome analysis of current events - in the early-to-mid '90s.

http://www.rankia.com/blog/familyoffice/uploaded_images/ortega-chavez-morales-750870.jpg Latin America
http://naxalwar.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/nepali-maoists_24014s.jpg Nepal
http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2008/05/07/640_03.jpg Los Angeles
http://www.internationalist.org/ilwuportstrikeb0805.jpg Los Angeles again
http://underthebutton.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/08thailand_395.jpg Thailand
http://www.marxist.com/images/stories/germany/Linke_Demo_gg_UEw-Staat.jpg Germany
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_M5mQhY1RgcI/SGJbjdSNODI/AAAAAAAAAjg/TC6b37LeZJc/s400/che.jpg Texas
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SPGF05YbxeE/SIng3H0v4wI/AAAAAAAAAEU/nwIYin4y4_Q/s320/8-6-06_greece_anarchists_students__002_.jpg Greece

Your whole premise is totally fucked.

But PT Cruz, haven't you heard? They aren't the 'true' left-their all fakers! The left is dead! All those millions of people are 'incoherent' because they haven't read Adorno! They haven't accepted the 'critique' and leadership of a tiny elite of University of Chicago/Loyola art students!

Thanks for writing this excellent response, saved me the trouble of doing it myself.

[khad]

But PT Cruz, haven't you heard? They aren't the 'true' left-their all fakers! The left is dead! All those millions of people are 'incoherent' because they haven't read Adorno! They haven't accepted the 'critique' and leadership of a tiny elite of University of Chicago/Loyola art students!

Thanks for writing this excellent response, saved me the trouble of doing it myself.
I actually met Moishe Postone a few times, though I doubt he recalls me. Even his friends in his department readily admit that the man "doesn't have an activist bone in his entire body."

[Barry Lyndon]

If you really think South American pseudo-socialism that panders to identity politics, third-world people's wars, immigrants rights marches, unions that only represent a fraction of the work-force they once did, obama volunteers with che posters on their walls, and fetished police confrontation that poses as politics really pose an adequate solution to overcoming international capitalism, then I pity your imagination. Why not throw in a picture of some organic vegetables?

Oh, you mean things like the creation of thousands of workers councils, factories under workers management, nationalized food market, the formation of workers and peasants militias, healthcare, education, the empowerment of indigenous peoples and the formation of an anti-imperialist alliance across Latin America is 'pandering to identity politics'? As opposed to what kind of identity politics? Your white pro-imperialist identity politics?
'Third world peoples wars'- like that is somehow non-revolutionary in and of itself. I guess it would be to a racist like yourself who hates the Third World and doesn't think the people there have any sort of political agency. I'd like to see you in the Indian jungle with an Ak-47 fighting police who had just been "doing their job"(to quote you in another thread)-raping your sister and burning your village to the ground.
Look, no one is denying that the radical left, particularly in the United States, is still very weak. But it is NOT at its lowest point in history like you are asserting. That is demonstrably false and the only reason you would perpetuate that lie is to justify your capitulation to capitalism.
You accuse others of 'fetishism', but Platypus are the ultimate fetishists, who spend their days holding boring academic forums where they wank in a circle about the 'death of left', fetishizing pessimism, resignation, and defeat, while wallowing in a preverse schedenfruede of other leftists failures and shortcomings while offering no constructive critique and suggestions for how to do better. Che Guevara once noted that those on the Left who cheered others liberations struggles but did not conduct their own were like plebians cheering on the gladiators in the Colusseum. Platypus doesn't even do that, it sneers at and derides others who are often making incredible sacrifices while itself living comfortably in bourgeois college campuses.

[Proletarian Ultra]

If you really think South American pseudo-socialism that panders to identity politics, third-world people's wars, immigrants rights marches, unions that only represent a fraction of the work-force they once did, obama volunteers with che posters on their walls, and fetished police confrontation that poses as politics really pose an adequate solution to overcoming international capitalism, then I pity your imagination. Why not throw in a picture of some organic vegetables?

You know, I was just gonna slag you off with something about reading shitty German cultural criticism whilst gazing longingly at the Ariel Sharon Uncensored Swimsuit Calendar...but then I realized you never actually contradicted my point. The proposition "the Left is inadequate" is very different from "the Left is dead."

My point stands. Your premise is 20 years out of date. Oh, and...

http://www.megaphonemagazine.com/files/images/Pages-18-19-Food-not-Bombs-3.png


Hey! Nice way to dodge an actual argument!

No, seriously.

Maoist guerillas suck.
Latin American left-populism sucks.
The Afghan war is on the side of angels.
Greeks should calm the fuck down about the IMF.
We should engage with civil society groups to counteract Islamic radicalism.

Every one of those positions is in perfect harmony with the State Department line. We've seen this before (http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rqpukALsShsJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democrats_USA+state+department+socialists&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us).

[which doctor]

So I'm a pro-imperialist, white supremacist, jew loving, neoconservative trotskyist, CIA funded, authoritarian leninist, anti-communist, self-fellating art student pseudo-intellectual.

What can I say, you hit the nail on the head.

meanwhile back in the real world...

[Barry Lyndon]

So I'm a pro-imperialist, white supremacist, jew loving, neoconservative trotskyist, CIA funded, authoritarian leninist, anti-communist, self-fellating art student pseudo-intellectual.

What can I say, you hit the nail on the head.

meanwhile back to reality...

Take out the 'Jew loving' bit, asshole. Stop insinuating that we are anti-Semitic. Besides that, everything else in that description is accurate.

[Proletarian Ultra]

Take out the 'Jew loving' bit, asshole. Stop insinuating that we are anti-Semitic. Besides that, everything else in that description is accurate.

I don't think which doctor is a pseudo-intellectual. "Who's genuine intelligentsia and who's not" is a game I'm disinclined to play.

He's got a fine grasp of Marxist theory and history. I'm happy to count him and most of the Platypus gang as intellectuals. I also count them as right-wing social democrats.

[Barry Lyndon]

The situation of women in Afghanistan under the benevolent wing of the US military that Platypus supports(or, er, 'has no position on'). A brave female parlimentrian, Malalai Joya, is expelled for denouncing the Afghan 'democracy' run by US-backed warlords:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLC1KBrwbck

"No nation can donate liberation to another nation"-Malalai Joya.

[khad]

So I'm a pro-imperialist, white supremacist, jew loving, neoconservative trotskyist, CIA funded, authoritarian leninist, anti-communist, self-fellating art student pseudo-intellectual.

What can I say, you hit the nail on the head.

meanwhile back in the real world...

...you're a pro-imperialist, white supremacist, neoconservative trotskyist, CIA funded, authoritarian leninist, anti-communist, self-fellating art student pseudo-intellectual.

[Glenn Beck]

So I'm a pro-imperialist, white supremacist, jew loving, neoconservative trotskyist, CIA funded, authoritarian leninist, anti-communist, self-fellating art student pseudo-intellectual.

What can I say, you hit the nail on the head.

meanwhile back in the real world...


Ah yes, the random insinuations of anti-Semitism. If anti-imperialists are Jews then "anti-Semitism" is the blood libel.

oh and


Also, what you fail to understand is that the Platypus Review is an open submission journal. Anyone from across the 'left' political spectrum can submit an article. The articles don't necessarily represent platypus. This is a common mistake people make, which is why more is going to be done in the future to seperate the review from the organization.

It's a "common mistake" to assume that a fucking journal has editors that select articles they find "of interest", and that what they find "of interest" reflects quite clearly on their political stances, given that it's I don't know, a fucking political journal?

Seriously dude, that is so weak

[Die Neue Zeit]

Before coming to a firm decision, I would like to know Platypus's approach to a political program, despite its reticence towards political action in general.

[Devrim]

This question is a non-starter. For one thing, US imperialism will continue whether they have the support of platypus or not, and that's precisely the problem, that there exists no Left alternative in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The reason I asked the question was that a lot of people were going on about what you said, and I thought I'd rather here it from the horses mouth. It is certainly easier than wading through loads of texts.

I have major disagreements with what you are saying, which I will come to later, but first I'd like to address the tone of the thread:


Take out the 'Jew loving' bit, asshole. Stop insinuating that we are anti-Semitic. Besides that, everything else in that description is accurate.


...you're a pro-imperialist, white supremacist, neoconservative trotskyist, CIA funded, authoritarian leninist, anti-communist, self-fellating art student pseudo-intellectual.

To be fair the second poster was using a comment that WD had already self-mockingly said, but taken as a whole through the thread, I really find it difficult to understand how you relate to people. What do you do when you meet people who you disagree with? Do you loudly denounce them in this sort of tone? It is hardly going to win people round to your ideas. I disagree profoundly with this position on the Middle East and intervention, but I am prepared to discuss it with him. I meet lots of people who think that the US occupation of Afghanistan is a better alternative to Taliban rule, not because they are pro-US imperialism, but because they are genuinely worried about militant Islamicism, and I live in a Muslim country where workers still respect people because they are communists. I am sure that you meet many more than me. How do you engage with them, by denouncing or discussing?

Anyway, back to the point:

I think the first point is that US imperialism has been shown not to have a progressive role. You write:


In a place like Afganistan, what is at stake is the country falling into the hands of the Taliban to become an even more reactionary, semi-feudal hell hole, especially in regards to political freedom, which has generally been regarded as a precondition for the adequate development of a mass socialist movement.

When the US went into Iraq, people were told that it was in the name of freedom, and let's be clear about it; Saddam was not a nice man, or any friend of the working class. He was a butcher. However, to pretend that what we have now in Iraq is in any way better for the working class would be nothing more than a deceitful lie, no work, lack of basic infrastructure, such as water and electricity, not to mention Islamic terror gangs, ethnic strife and continual bombings. Life is in no way better for the working class in general or for building a socialist alternative. Many people were taken in by the 'freedom and democracy attitude'. To make the mistake once given the US' record in the region is bad enough. To make it twice is unforgivable. The US is a country that caused a lot of the mess in Afghanistan in the first place with it support of Islamic gangs. It is the country that after guaranteeing the safety of civilians after Israel entered Beirut stood by and watched through the massacres of Sabra and Shatila. I could go on, but I think that you get my point. There is nothing at all progressive about US intervention, and I for one don't think that they will bring about a society where 'the pre-conditions for a mass socialist movement exist'.

What can socialists in the major imperialist countries do. In my opinion they must opposes any interventions whether it be in the name of 'democracy' 'freedom', 'women's rights' or whatever. That doesn't mean supporting Islamicists or other nationalist groups, but it does mean a principled opposition to the imperialist manoeuvres of the major powers. The US bombing and murdering people, it no way helps to build a socialist alternative.


Barry Lyndon posted a quote (I suggest you look at the context of it if you want to understand it better) from Spencer's article on the Mumbai bombings, and I will defend his position that the creation of a left alternative in Afganistan hinges on the defeat of the Taliban. Unfortunetely, we live in such a miserable time, that there is no adequate leftist apparatus to do this at the moment.

The first question here is whether you think the US has the ability to defeat the Taliban. Personally I don't. I think that it does have the ability to fight a war there for the next few decades though, which in my opinion will strengthen the Taliban, and further hinder the development of any working class alternative. The left in Afghanistan is not only week because of the Taliban though. One of the other reasons is that Afghanistan is a country with a tiny working class. We can't just expect an indigenous left to pop up in a country torn by war with a tiny working class. In my opinion the prospects for building a working class movement in Afghanistan rest on the strength of the working class within the region as a whole, particularly Iran, which does have a strong workers movement, and speaks the same language as the majority of Afghans. Then of course, I am sure that the threat of US intervention in Iran will do wonders to develop that movement, and in no way lead to workers' supporting what is a viscously anti-working class regime.


it's realizing that we live in the worst possible historical moment the international left has ever been in.

First this is complete hyperbole. Do you real think that it is worse than the 1930's. Secondly, I personally don't think that the situation in today is anywhere as bad as it was in the 1990s, which were terrible years. I suppose it depends what you look at. If you look at the leftist groups it may look pretty bad, but if you look at workers' struggles we have been seeing an increase, however small, over the past seven or so years. Is the working class still week, because that is what I care about, not the left? Absolutely, this is not the 1970s, but it is not the 1990s either. There are real signs of improvement.

The talk of the 'left being dead' is untrue. We look on the left in very different ways though. We see the leftist groups, however well intentioned their members maybe, as being an anti-working class force, which effectivly tries to mobilise workers behind different capitalist factions. Also I don't see your group as being much different. You are just supporting a different state.


But if anyone is willing to put forward a substantial, intelligent critique of platypus, I can assure they would be more than willing to publish it in the review or hold a public debate. So far there have been no takers...just hecklers.

If you will publish it, I will take it. How many words?

Devrim

[Alf]

http://en.internationalism.org/inter/148/lessons-60s

Our comrades in the US sent this contribution to a meeting called by Platypus a few years back. At that point our section seems to have considerered them to be a group in evolution, but I don't know what has happened since then. The article isn't really about Platypus but about the significance of the 60s, the theme of the meeting. There is a comment at the end of the article by a poster who shares a lot of our positions, expressing a very negative view of the group.

[which doctor]

Take out the 'Jew loving' bit, asshole. Stop insinuating that we are anti-Semitic. Besides that, everything else in that description is accurate.
I wouldn't have mentioned jew-loving if PT Cruz hadn't mentioned my "Ariel Sharon Uncensored Swimsuit Calendar"

I'm sorry, but besides Devrim, who's really the only one in this thread willing to put forward an actual argument, the childish responses in this thread only serve to reinforce the point that the left really is dead. If people like Barry Lyndon, khad, PT Cruz, Glenn Beck, etc. are trying to argue otherwise, they're doing a really shitty job. Consistent comparisons to the state department? Give me a fucking break. Posting pictures and calling it an 'excellent response'? Can't you do better? Putting words in my mouth, as PT Cruz so eloquently did, is that all you have to offer? Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for khad to point out a single occurrence when I or platypus have ever argued for the supremacy of the white race. With the exception of a small minority of posters, the quality of debate in this thread is just awful, though I can't say I'm entirely surprised.


Before coming to a firm decision, I would like to know Platypus's approach to a political program, despite its reticence towards political action in general.
There is no approach to a political program at this point, because we don't think another 'political program' is what the left needs at this point.


It's a "common mistake" to assume that a fucking journal has editors that select articles they find "of interest", and that what they find "of interest" reflects quite clearly on their political stances, given that it's I don't know, a fucking political journal?

Seriously dude, that is so weak
What part of 'open submission' can't you get through your thick skull? The review has published numerous articles by people they don't agree with, and they make a point of doing this. The idea is to create an atmoshpere of debate and ideological clarification, but judging by the content of this thread, that's clearly something you guys don't want.

Excerpt of PR editorial statement: The Platypus Review is motivated by its sense that the Left is disoriented. We seek to be a forum among a variety of tendencies and approaches on the Left - not out of a concern with inclusion for its own sake, but rather to provoke disagreement and to open shared goals as sites of contestation. . . The Platypus Review hopes to create and sustain a space for interrogating and clarifying positions and orientations currently represented on the Left, a space in which questions may be raised and discussions exhibit a genuine commitment to this project, all kinds of content will be considered for publication.

The point is hardly to only publish articles that the editors agree with. If we did that, then why would we both to make a point of publishing our responses in disagreement?

[gorillafuck]

What is Platypus?

[syndicat]

This thread really degenerated.

anyway, which doctor wrote:

For one thing, US imperialism will continue whether they have the support of platypus or not, and that's precisely the problem, that there exists no Left alternative in Iraq or Afghanistan. When the principle of anti-imperialism was introduced in World War I, there was a lot more at stake then there is now. They weren't taking a moral position, they were concerned about the disintegration of the European labor movement. In a place like Afganistan, what is at stake is the country falling into the hands of the Taliban to become an even more reactionary, semi-feudal hell hole, especially in regards to political freedom, which has generally been regarded as a precondition for the adequate development of a mass socialist movement. Barry Lyndon posted a quote (I suggest you look at the context of it if you want to understand it better) from Spencer's article on the Mumbai bombings, and I will defend his position that the creation of a left alternative in Afganistan hinges on the defeat of the Taliban.

This is the classic social democratic slippery slope fallacy for defence or support of imperialism. Why does RAWA oppose U.S. presence in Afghanistan for example? \

But there doesn't have to be a "left alternative" we support someplace to oppose imperialist intervention there. Imperialism is a system of economic and military domination of weaker countries by the capitalist core countries, with U.S. as chief butt kicker. American foreign policy's main aim has always been to oppose any form of nationalism (such as that of the Soviet-supported regime overthrown by U.S. supplied Afghan warlords in '80s), so as to ensure that everywhere on the planet big capital has complete freedom to enter and exploit the labor, resources and markets of any country. It can be Arab fascist state capitalism (Saddam H.), Islamic statism, Leninist state bureaucratic rule, Third World nationalist, whatever. Supporting U.S. interventiona anywhere does not weaken but strengthens imperialism because it allows them to hide behind their various pseudo-humanitarian or pseduo-democratic rationales.


Or do some people here that university students along with secondary school teachers are actually working class?

About three fourths of the students at the 146 most selective private colleges and PhD granting public universities in the USA are from the elite classes, with average family income at $120,000. The percentage of low income students who graduate with four year or higher degrees from any college in USA is 6 percent...the same as it was in 1970. The proportion of working class students at major PhD-granting public universities in the USA has declined since the '70s. All of this is in Peter Sacks, Tearing Down the Gates.

As to high school teachers, they don't seem to me to have significant control over other workers or participage in management of schools, so I'd have to place them in the skilled section of the working class, along with, say, librarians, dental hygienists, RNs, aircraft mechanics, electronic techs, computer system admins, computer programmers. My estimate is that this "skilled section" is about a fifth of the working class in the USA.

I don't think the left is dead. That would be hyperbole. It's weak. That is quite certain. The numbers of revolutionary activists in the USA today are fewer than, say, the early '70s, but I would add that it's my impression that the numbers are rising again, among the younger generation, for possibly the first time since the '70s.

It's also a strange thing to say when you consider that public opinion surveys indicate a change in a progressive direction in public opinion, especially among young adults in the USA. Although this seems sort of inchoate now, it suggests there is an opening to the left.

When Platypus was brought up in a previous thread, I did check out some of their articles. The one's I read struck me as well argued...obviously written by someone with a lot of education, without being pedantic or overly academic in style...but rather social democratic in orientation. My brand of libertarian syndicalist socialism would be outside their universe of attention, as would, say, the radical politics found in grassroots movements...which suggests a failure to look carefully at the actual class struggle.

[Die Neue Zeit]

There is no approach to a political program at this point, because we don't think another 'political program' is what the left needs at this point.

Without a revolutionary program there can be no revolutionary movement. This was proven positively first by the Eisenach program of the Social-Democratic Workers Party of Germany (one of the SPD's precursors).

You should research the history of the French Workers Party and the program co-authored by Marx and Guesde. The workers movement there was beginning to reforge after the defeat of the Paris Commune, but that party became a mass party later on after a program was adopted.

[Trotskyist programs are too economistic to be revolutionary.]

Platypus's approach is one of excessive criticism and questioning, but little in the way of political solutions.

[syndicat]

isn't that putting the cart before the horse? there are certain very basic questions that have to examined first. What is the aim, what is our vision of the change we seek? what is our strategy for getting there? How can an authentic left activist presence be revived? What is the role for revolutionary activists? what are the basic fault lines in society that social movements develop around? what suggestions do we have as to how these movements can be strenghtened? how do we see them moving in an anticapitalist direction?

you can't really arrive at a program before you've addressed strategy and vision, and the movement building orientation.

[blake 3:17]

If you really think South American pseudo-socialism that panders to identity politics, third-world people's wars, immigrants rights marches, unions that only represent a fraction of the work-force they once did, obama volunteers with che posters on their walls, and fetished police confrontation that poses as politics really pose an adequate solution to overcoming international capitalism, then I pity your imagination. Why not throw in a picture of some organic vegetables?


I'd stand for all that over the pro empire junk Platypus spews. Actually I'd just stand for it. Platypus is just rightwing American social democracy devoid of a base.

[blake 3:17]

From Chris Cutrone:
In the 1960s, Davis had studied with members of the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, in Frankfurt, Germany with Theodor Adorno and subsequently in San Diego with Herbert Marcuse. Adorno had discouraged Davis from leaving her studies to participate in student activism while Marcuse had encouraged this. (1) But we might say retrospectively today that had Davis heeded Adorno’s advice instead and given herself the opportunity for a more thorough critical investigation of the role of changes in capitalism in how historical changes such as the transformation and amelioration of anti-black racism could be understood more adequately and hence politically effectively, then Angela Davis, along with other radical intellectuals like her, could have contributed to better thinking and politics that might have helped us avoid the present situation in which one is left with the unsatisfying choice between proclaiming the historical end of racism and trying to address present social-political problems with antiquated and inadequate categories like “race.”

Yeah awesome. If Davis had divorced herself from social struggle she would've been a better philospher. Gustave Courbet could've skipped the Paris Commune and made some more wonderful paintings.

Oh, but socialism implies the social... Individuals relate to various forms of collectives... Oh.

I just found the Platypus interview with freaking Terry Glavin -- psycho kook. He's further to the right than Right Tories... Yuck.

[Barry Lyndon]

I wouldn't have mentioned jew-loving if PT Cruz hadn't mentioned my "Ariel Sharon Uncensored Swimsuit Calendar"

I'm sorry, but besides Devrim, who's really the only one in this thread willing to put forward an actual argument, the childish responses in this thread only serve to reinforce the point that the left really is dead. If people like Barry Lyndon, khad, PT Cruz, Glenn Beck, etc. are trying to argue otherwise, they're doing a really shitty job. Consistent comparisons to the state department? Give me a fucking break. Posting pictures and calling it an 'excellent response'? Can't you do better? Putting words in my mouth, as PT Cruz so eloquently did, is that all you have to offer? Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for khad to point out a single occurrence when I or platypus have ever argued for the supremacy of the white race. With the exception of a small minority of posters, the quality of debate in this thread is just awful, though I can't say I'm entirely surprised.


There is no approach to a political program at this point, because we don't think another 'political program' is what the left needs at this point.


What part of 'open submission' can't you get through your thick skull? The review has published numerous articles by people they don't agree with, and they make a point of doing this. The idea is to create an atmoshpere of debate and ideological clarification, but judging by the content of this thread, that's clearly something you guys don't want.

Excerpt of PR editorial statement: The Platypus Review is motivated by its sense that the Left is disoriented. We seek to be a forum among a variety of tendencies and approaches on the Left - not out of a concern with inclusion for its own sake, but rather to provoke disagreement and to open shared goals as sites of contestation. . . The Platypus Review hopes to create and sustain a space for interrogating and clarifying positions and orientations currently represented on the Left, a space in which questions may be raised and discussions exhibit a genuine commitment to this project, all kinds of content will be considered for publication.

The point is hardly to only publish articles that the editors agree with. If we did that, then why would we both to make a point of publishing our responses in disagreement?

Cruz makes a remark about your closet Zionism, you interpret that as 'Jew-loving', thereby equating Jews with Zionists. That just shows how 'Marxist' you are, your a regular Alan Dershowitz. You should take a look at what Trotsky had to say about Zionists back in the 1930's, even then he knew they were up to no good.

Could you please tell me what you mean by 'the Left'? If by the 'Left' you meant in the United States, I would actually be inclined to agree with you insofar in terms of both organization and ideology, the radical left in the US is dead or close to death. But in an international sense, you are wrong.

Yes, sometimes pictures can be an adequate form of argumentation. Ever heard the expression 'a picture is worth a thousand words'? Your insistence that the Left is at the lowest point in history is flatly contradicted by the images of large numbers of people mobilizing under the banners of anti-capitalism in South America, South Asia, and Europe. You may disagree with those groups ideology and strategy, but you cannot say that they are not the 'Left', period.

Of course you don't openly argue for the supremacy of the white race-you don't have to. All you have to do is tail after the accepted mainstream liberal doctrine of 'humanitarian intervention' in Afghanistan and Iraq, which at its core presumes that certain groups of people, who just happen to be non-white, are incapable of running their own societies and solving their own problems. And meanwhile, you ignore the pleas of genuine Left groups in that part of the world such as the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, who want US forces to leave Afghanistan. I daresay that they are in far more immediate danger of being killed by Islamic fundamentalists then you are. But they recognize that foreign occupiers are strengthening, not weakening, reactionary forces in their society. So much for 'engaging' such groups.

And you can't bullshit me, whichdoctor, Ive been in your groups meetings. It's not debate and discussion, its intellectual incest of self-exaltation and patting each other on the back, a 'look how enlightened we are' atmosphere. When I disagreed with Platypus honcho Chris Cutrone on a number of issues, the whole editorial board ganged up on me or remained silent. No one spoke up to contradict him about anything in an hour and a half meeting. There is a very strict party line on your positions. The reason you refuse to forthrightly state your positions and instead drown them in a sea of obfuscatory double-talk is because most leftists would be utterly disgusted if they discovered what your positions actually were.

I would be willing to back up that I really was at Platypus meetings by referring you to Platypi who know me, but I'm unwilling to compromise my identity, least of all with the likes of you, who would probably relay it to Homeland Security.

[Wanted Man]

There is a very strict party line on your positions. The reason you refuse to forthrightly state your positions and instead drown them in a sea of obfuscatory double-talk is because most leftists would be utterly disgusted if they discovered what your positions actually were.

Yes, this can quite clearly be noticed from all of which doctor's recent posts. Apparently, the mark of the true intellectual is to avoid straight talk whenever possible. That is why complaints like this:


I'm sorry, but besides Devrim, who's really the only one in this thread willing to put forward an actual argument, the childish responses in this thread only serve to reinforce the point that the left really is dead. If people like Barry Lyndon, khad, PT Cruz, Glenn Beck, etc. are trying to argue otherwise, they're doing a really shitty job. Consistent comparisons to the state department? Give me a fucking break. Posting pictures and calling it an 'excellent response'? Can't you do better? Putting words in my mouth, as PT Cruz so eloquently did, is that all you have to offer? Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for khad to point out a single occurrence when I or platypus have ever argued for the supremacy of the white race. With the exception of a small minority of posters, the quality of debate in this thread is just awful, though I can't say I'm entirely surprised.

...are almost completely ungrounded; they certainly don't say much about whether "the left" is alive or dead. The people of Platypus ask their opponents to seriously engage with them, because they care about the left. This can be compared to creationists asking that schools "Teach the Controversy" out of some supposed dedication to science (comparison shamelessly stolen from Louis Proyect).

[Die Neue Zeit]

isn't that putting the cart before the horse? there are certain very basic questions that have to examined first. What is the aim, what is our vision of the change we seek? what is our strategy for getting there? How can an authentic left activist presence be revived? What is the role for revolutionary activists? what are the basic fault lines in society that social movements develop around? what suggestions do we have as to how these movements can be strenghtened? how do we see them moving in an anticapitalist direction?

you can't really arrive at a program before you've addressed strategy and vision, and the movement building orientation.

If you actually had a copy of my programmatic work, you'd realize what's proposed is much shorter than you think.

Aims and visions don't have to be so elaborate (one paragraph), and even the rev-centrist strategy suggested in my draft takes up two or three paragraphs at most (the party emphasis as part of the basic principles and the politics emphasis as part of the democracy question).

[blake 3:17]

When the principle of anti-imperialism was introduced in World War I, there was a lot more at stake then there is now.

What planet are you on?

[which doctor]

What planet are you on?
I have no clue what you're trying to get at.

International socialist revolution in the places where capital was most advanced was at stake during WWI. Then the damn SPD went and fucked things up...

I don't think an uncritical anti-imperialist categorical imperative applies.

[Barry Lyndon]

I have no clue what you're trying to get at.

International socialist revolution in the places where capital was most advanced was at stake during WWI. Then the damn SPD went and fucked things up...

I don't think an uncritical anti-imperialist categorical imperative applies.

'A lot more at stake' is Platypusese for 'a ton of white people's lives were on the line then, so it mattered'. Now, those waging active revolutionary struggles(with some exceptions) are almost entirely non-white, so it doesn't matter anymore.

Anti-imperialism is disposable for whichdoctor. It's not his family, not his home, not his country. The SPD 'fucked things up' because it lined up behind its 'own' bourgieosie's imperialist war, just like Platypus does now.

[Barry Lyndon]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm-eFgklEaI

More evidence of what a bunch of liars Platypus are, if you needed any more.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Seems to be some animosity in this thread.