A interesting presentation and even more interesting discussion. Good for "Not an Alternative" and "No Space" for providing a space for it to happen in.
Dean, using a lot of Zizek's ideas and even hand gestures, argues that anarchism with its focus on the individual against the collective, the Democratic Party, and liberalism has rendered the left unworkable. She argues for a return to a communist party structure that embraces discipline. This would be done with a critical eye focused on both the successes and failures of 20th century communism. Old ideas would be used for new situations. "The Sovereignty of the People" rather than "The Dictatorship of the Proletariat".
In the audience, someone asks what the uprisings in Egypt mean in this context, having occurred more or less without a vanguardist leadership or a party structure. The discussion then turns into a search for the proletariat. What is the proletariat? Can one be a member of the proletariat if one is a digital user of facebook who contributes free labor to a social media corporation? Is the proletariat even represented in the room among the well-spoken, shabby genteel Brooklyn audience, one person asks? The gap between the intelligentsia and the working class has grown so wide in this country. I believe that there's a sincere longing in that room to reach over that gap to embrace one's brothers and sisters but is the vehicle of a communist party that can't even locate the proletariat the way to begin?