Barry Lyndon
14th June 2010, 21:21
I was actually invited somehow to the Platypus Review Convention in Chicago. They attached their schedule to the e-mail:
9:30AM: BREAKFAST
13TH FLOOR LOUNGE
10AM: WORKSHOPS
IS THE BOLIVARIAN REVOLUTION ON THE LEFT?
MARCO TORRES
In this workshop, Marco Torres will consider the political character of Hugo Chavez’s “Bolivarian Revolution,” beginning with the questions: What does it mean that this project “21st century socialism” suddenly came into being in a country without a tradition of radical labor movements and with such disorganized and conservative Leftist political parties? What does it mean that in the mid 2000s a majority of the population of one of the wealthiest countries in Latin America identify themselves with a socialist project when in the 1990s such a shift would have been unthinkable? Most importantly, what does it mean for the self-avowed socialist Left outside of Venezuela to engage in “solidarity” with this movement?
11 AM: ADORNO’S LENINISM
CHRISTOPHER CUTRONE
Why is Adorno’s thought critical for reconstituting an authentic Left in the present? What is the significance for Adorno in the Platypus project of critical reconsideration of the history of the Left and its failures. Adorno is best remembered for his searing critique of the 1960s “New Left” at the end of his life, warning of “red fascism” and critiquing the recrudescence of anarchism. But what this may obscure is Adorno’s critique of the 1920s-30s “Old Left,” Adorno’s understanding of the failure of Marxism, which was based on insights owing to the Bolshevik Revolution and its theoretical digestion by Lukacs and Korsch in the aftermath of the failure of the German Revolution. Looking at several of Adorno’s writings reflecting on this problematic legacy, from the mid-1940s (“Reflections on Class Theory” and “Imaginative Excesses”) and late 1960s (“Marginalia to Theory and Praxis” and “Resignation,” as well as his 1969 correspondence with Marcuse), respectively, it is possible to recover a Marxian theory of consciousness traceable through what Lenin meant to Adorno. Such recovery of Adorno’s Leninism can help define the contours of problems any purported “Left” would face today in overcoming the unfulfilled tasks bequeathed to the present by the failures of both the Old and New Lefts in theory and practice.
12:00 PM: Lunch
1:00 PM: LABOR IN THE ABSENCE OF THE LEFT
JACK LESNIEWSKI, JORGE MUJICA & WILLIAM PELZ. MODERATED BY TANA FORRESTER
RM 1307
This panel will explore how the absence of the Left affects the politics of organized labor and the trajectory of the immigrants’ rights movement. Panelists will be asked to reflect on the politics surrounding workers’ rights in the US and specifically analyze the resurgence of the May Day protests. Why is it that the May Day protests take on the appearance of grasping at a contemporary political impossibility “no person is illegal” while at the same time demanding too little “ the right to be treated like every other worker”? Panelists will be asked to consider why organized labor seems to allow May Day to be a niche event, a day when union members are encouraged to show solidarity with immigrant workers, to demand that immigrant workers, undocumented and documented, be subjected to the same labor laws as citizens. What is it about our current political moment that does not allow for organized labor to put forth political demands such as debt relief, reformed public schools, free public university education or substantive paternity leave laws in conjunction with a demand for parity for immigrant workers?
3 PM: THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT: ANTI-IMPERIALIST? INCLUSIVE? CONSEQUENTIAL?
MAGDA CASTANEDA, FRED MECKLENBURG, E. WILSON & JEREMY COHAN
RM TBA
A panel discussion with members of the Cultural Diversity Committee of the Chicago M-20 Anti-War Coalition: Magda Castaneda, Committee Against Militarization of our Youth; E. Wilson, Loyola University Social Justice Program; and Fred Mecklenburg, News & Letters. It will take up the relation between historic and current anti-war movements and struggles against racism at home in a context of global capitalism. What has been done? What needs rethinking?
5 PM: Dinner
6 PM: NEW LEFT REGRESS: THE MILITANT TURN IN THE LATE 1960S
GREG GABRELLAS, ATIYA KHAN, PAM C. NOGALES C., SPENCER LEONARD
The late 1960s and early 1970s witnessed the rise of a new militancy and sectarianism on the Left. Whether in the case of the Black Panthers, the Weather Underground, the Gay Liberation Front, or many other currents on the Left, developments from that time did much to shape the New Left’s legacy as it comes down to the present. This panel seeks to move beyond the usual antinomies of unity versus fragmentation and idealism versus sectarianism that typically shape the discussion of the political trajectories of the period. Instead, it will attempt to grasp these turn of the decade developments as the results of long-standing problems inherited and confronted, yet ultimately abandoned and left unresolved by the New Left.
I responded with my own schedule for the convention:
Saturday
9:30 AM: Breakfast
10 AM: Listen to an insufferable asshole compare Hugo Chavez to Stalin and demonstrate that non-whites are incapable of creating emancipatory politics, but can only be led by demagogues who dupe stupid, illiterate peasants.
11 AM: Nap time while Chris Cutrone lectures about Adorno.
12 PM: Lunch
1 PM: Panel Discussion- White art students who can afford to go to graduate school for 11 years in a row attack immigrants, labor unions, and activism in general. Anyone shouting 'Si Se Puede!' at this gathering will have duct tape applied to their mouth, The theroretical merits of the Minutemen.
3PM: Panel Discussion- Recitation of Christopher Hitchens's Little Red Book.
5 PM: Dinner.
6 PM: Closing Plenary: Why the Black Panthers, American Indian Movement militants, the Young Lords, 4 students at Kent State and 3 million Vietnamese deserved to die because they did not read and appreciate Adorno. :rolleyes:
9:30AM: BREAKFAST
13TH FLOOR LOUNGE
10AM: WORKSHOPS
IS THE BOLIVARIAN REVOLUTION ON THE LEFT?
MARCO TORRES
In this workshop, Marco Torres will consider the political character of Hugo Chavez’s “Bolivarian Revolution,” beginning with the questions: What does it mean that this project “21st century socialism” suddenly came into being in a country without a tradition of radical labor movements and with such disorganized and conservative Leftist political parties? What does it mean that in the mid 2000s a majority of the population of one of the wealthiest countries in Latin America identify themselves with a socialist project when in the 1990s such a shift would have been unthinkable? Most importantly, what does it mean for the self-avowed socialist Left outside of Venezuela to engage in “solidarity” with this movement?
11 AM: ADORNO’S LENINISM
CHRISTOPHER CUTRONE
Why is Adorno’s thought critical for reconstituting an authentic Left in the present? What is the significance for Adorno in the Platypus project of critical reconsideration of the history of the Left and its failures. Adorno is best remembered for his searing critique of the 1960s “New Left” at the end of his life, warning of “red fascism” and critiquing the recrudescence of anarchism. But what this may obscure is Adorno’s critique of the 1920s-30s “Old Left,” Adorno’s understanding of the failure of Marxism, which was based on insights owing to the Bolshevik Revolution and its theoretical digestion by Lukacs and Korsch in the aftermath of the failure of the German Revolution. Looking at several of Adorno’s writings reflecting on this problematic legacy, from the mid-1940s (“Reflections on Class Theory” and “Imaginative Excesses”) and late 1960s (“Marginalia to Theory and Praxis” and “Resignation,” as well as his 1969 correspondence with Marcuse), respectively, it is possible to recover a Marxian theory of consciousness traceable through what Lenin meant to Adorno. Such recovery of Adorno’s Leninism can help define the contours of problems any purported “Left” would face today in overcoming the unfulfilled tasks bequeathed to the present by the failures of both the Old and New Lefts in theory and practice.
12:00 PM: Lunch
1:00 PM: LABOR IN THE ABSENCE OF THE LEFT
JACK LESNIEWSKI, JORGE MUJICA & WILLIAM PELZ. MODERATED BY TANA FORRESTER
RM 1307
This panel will explore how the absence of the Left affects the politics of organized labor and the trajectory of the immigrants’ rights movement. Panelists will be asked to reflect on the politics surrounding workers’ rights in the US and specifically analyze the resurgence of the May Day protests. Why is it that the May Day protests take on the appearance of grasping at a contemporary political impossibility “no person is illegal” while at the same time demanding too little “ the right to be treated like every other worker”? Panelists will be asked to consider why organized labor seems to allow May Day to be a niche event, a day when union members are encouraged to show solidarity with immigrant workers, to demand that immigrant workers, undocumented and documented, be subjected to the same labor laws as citizens. What is it about our current political moment that does not allow for organized labor to put forth political demands such as debt relief, reformed public schools, free public university education or substantive paternity leave laws in conjunction with a demand for parity for immigrant workers?
3 PM: THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT: ANTI-IMPERIALIST? INCLUSIVE? CONSEQUENTIAL?
MAGDA CASTANEDA, FRED MECKLENBURG, E. WILSON & JEREMY COHAN
RM TBA
A panel discussion with members of the Cultural Diversity Committee of the Chicago M-20 Anti-War Coalition: Magda Castaneda, Committee Against Militarization of our Youth; E. Wilson, Loyola University Social Justice Program; and Fred Mecklenburg, News & Letters. It will take up the relation between historic and current anti-war movements and struggles against racism at home in a context of global capitalism. What has been done? What needs rethinking?
5 PM: Dinner
6 PM: NEW LEFT REGRESS: THE MILITANT TURN IN THE LATE 1960S
GREG GABRELLAS, ATIYA KHAN, PAM C. NOGALES C., SPENCER LEONARD
The late 1960s and early 1970s witnessed the rise of a new militancy and sectarianism on the Left. Whether in the case of the Black Panthers, the Weather Underground, the Gay Liberation Front, or many other currents on the Left, developments from that time did much to shape the New Left’s legacy as it comes down to the present. This panel seeks to move beyond the usual antinomies of unity versus fragmentation and idealism versus sectarianism that typically shape the discussion of the political trajectories of the period. Instead, it will attempt to grasp these turn of the decade developments as the results of long-standing problems inherited and confronted, yet ultimately abandoned and left unresolved by the New Left.
I responded with my own schedule for the convention:
Saturday
9:30 AM: Breakfast
10 AM: Listen to an insufferable asshole compare Hugo Chavez to Stalin and demonstrate that non-whites are incapable of creating emancipatory politics, but can only be led by demagogues who dupe stupid, illiterate peasants.
11 AM: Nap time while Chris Cutrone lectures about Adorno.
12 PM: Lunch
1 PM: Panel Discussion- White art students who can afford to go to graduate school for 11 years in a row attack immigrants, labor unions, and activism in general. Anyone shouting 'Si Se Puede!' at this gathering will have duct tape applied to their mouth, The theroretical merits of the Minutemen.
3PM: Panel Discussion- Recitation of Christopher Hitchens's Little Red Book.
5 PM: Dinner.
6 PM: Closing Plenary: Why the Black Panthers, American Indian Movement militants, the Young Lords, 4 students at Kent State and 3 million Vietnamese deserved to die because they did not read and appreciate Adorno. :rolleyes: