Jacobin Radio

Latest Episodes:

Jacobin Radio w/ Suzi Weissman: John Logan and Veena Dubal Jan 25, 2021

Show notes

In this episode: John Logan on organizing at Amazon in Alabama and Veena Dubal on anti-worker Proposition 22 going national and global.
Suzi talks to John Logan, labor historian at San Francisco State, about the organizing initiative of Amazon workers in Alabama, taking on a notoriously anti-union company -- in the midst of a pandemic. The implications for this struggle are nothing less than historic, and titanic: taking on Amazon is akin to what it was to take on General Motors in the 1930s, with the same implication for capital-labor relations in contemporary capitalism. We also get John Logan’s views of President Biden’s promising labor-friendly measures and appointments.

Veena Dubal, Law Professor at UC Hastings joins us to talk about the exploitative condition of precarious platform workers, particularly in the ride-share companies. She says the passage of Prop 22 in California has emboldened these companies to go national, and is a grim precedent that poses extreme danger to workers everywhere. Veena strikes a note of hope for the new administration so far, but affirms that organizing will be the key.

Long Reads: Kieran Durkin on Erich Fromm, Marxist Humanism, and the Revolution of Hope Jan 23, 2021

Show notes

Long Reads is a Jacobin podcast looking in-depth at political topics and thinkers, both contemporary and historical, with the magazine’s longform writers. Hosted by Features Editor Daniel Finn.

Our guest for this episode is Kieran Durkin. Kieran is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie global fellow at University of York, and a visiting scholar at University of California Santa Barbara. He is the author of The Radical Humanism of Erich Fromm and co-editor of Erich Fromm’s Critical Theory: Hope, Humanism, and the Future.

Read Kieran's essay here: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/08/erich-fromm-frankfurt-school-marxism-weimar-germany

Produced by Conor Gillies, music by Knxwledge.

A World to Win: Remembering Leo Panitch w/ Sam Gindin and Max Shanly Jan 22, 2021

Show notes

This week, in a special episode of A World to Win, we remember the brilliant Marxist thinker, writer and public intellectual Leo Panitch.

Grace talks to Max Shanly, Labour Party activist and long-time friend of Leo, and Sam Gindin, former director of research for the Canadian Auto Workers’ Union and Leo’s collaborator, including on his magnum opus The Making of Global Capitalism.

Several of Leo Panitch’s books and many of his essays are available for free through the Socialist Register. He was also a member of Tribune‘s advisory board – read his writings for us and our obituary for him here.

Remember that you can support our work on the show by becoming a Patron.

Thanks to our producer Conor Gillies and the Lipman-Miliband Trust for making this episode possible.

Jacobin Show: Jane McAlevey on Organizing the Working Class Under a Biden Presidency Jan 21, 2021

Show notes

Every Wednesday at 6 PM ET, Jen Pan, Ariella Thornhill, and Paul Prescod host a new episode of The Jacobin Show, offering socialist perspectives on class and capitalism in the twenty-first century, the failures of liberalism, and the prospects of rebuilding a left labor movement in the US. This is the audio version of the broadcast on January 20, 2021.

Labor organizer Jane McAlevey joins us to discuss strategies for building a working class movement under a Biden presidency. And we cover the Biden inauguration, new initiatives to tax the rich, and the difference between political power and vigilante violence. Jane McAlevey has been an organizer and negotiator in the labor movement for over twenty years. She is also the strikes correspondent for the Nation, senior policy fellow at the UC Berkeley Labor Center, and author of the books Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell), No Shortcuts, and A Collective Bargain.

Introducing... the Jacobin Sports Show! Jan 21, 2021

Show notes

For a limited time, the Jacobin Radio feed presents a new podcast called the Jacobin Sports Show! Co-hosts Matthew Miranda and Jonah Birch discuss the most meaningful stories from around the world of sports, both on and off the field. You can subscribe—and catch up on the first episode—on Apple, Spotify, or other platforms listed here: https://anchor.fm/jacobinsports/

This is the second episode, in which Matthew and Jonah are joined by Dave Zirin (@EdgeOfSports) to discuss the recent NBA trade in which the Nets acquired James Harden, joining Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving in Brooklyn. They discuss the news, compare other famous high-scoring trios, and chat about a sports-film crossover with the new Regina King movie "One Night In Miami...", which portrays the NFL player Jim Brown (who Dave wrote a book about) in conversation with Sam Cooke, Muhammad Ali, and Malcolm X. Plus: A preview of Zirin's upcoming project, The Kaepernick Effect.

Dave Zirin is a sports editor for The Nation, creator of the podcast and blog The Edge of Sports, and author of several books including, most recently, Jim Brown: Last Man Standing.

Follow the Jacobin Sports Show on Twitter! @JacobinSports

Email us: jacobinsports@gmail.com

Behind the News: Jodi Dean and Quinn Slobodian Jan 20, 2021

Show notes

Host Doug Henwood covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global. Doug speaks with Jodi Dean on Trump and American fascism. Plus, a conversation with Quinn Slobodian, co-author of this article, on Querdenken, the eclectic German anti-mask movement that joins hippies and petty capitalists.

Michael and Us: Everything's Just Great Jan 20, 2021

Show notes

A podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world. Hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage.

After the upheaval of 1968, Jean-Luc Godard said goodbye to commercial cinema to create a new kind of radical Marxist filmmaking. With TOUT VA BIEN (1972), Godard and his filmmaking partner Jean-Pierre Gorin tried to meet the audience halfway. Taking place in a moment when the student protests, the French New Wave, and even Godard's own militant phase were receding from view, this fascinating Brechtian exercise starring Jane Fonda and Yves Montand may or may not have room for optimism. PLUS: bold predictions about the incoming Biden administration, and the politics of another cinematic legend: James Bond.
Check out our Patreon for exclusive bonus episodes: https://www.patreon.com/michaelandus

The Dig: Resource Radicals with Thea Riofrancos Jan 20, 2021

Show notes

Dan interviews Thea Riofrancos on how Ecuador's Pink Tide government was constrained by an unequal world system and on the conflict over mining that erupted between leftist President Rafael Correa and the Indigenous movement that laid the groundwork for his rise to power.

Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig

Join a Dig book club at thedigradio.com/dig-book-club

Jacobin Radio w/ Suzi Weissman: John Nichols and Eric Alterman Jan 19, 2021

Show notes

Suzi speaks with John Nichols on Trump, the GOP & Impeachment and Eric Alterman on the fundamentals that define our current media ecosystem.

John Nichols discusses President Trump’s second impeachment for inciting a seditious mob to attack the US Capitol, after failing to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. John makes the case that it is not just Trump, but also his Congressional backers who have to be held accountable. They continue to embrace Trump’s lies, and largely refuse to sanction him. Nichols argues against the developing consensus that the Republican Party is fracturing, and insists that despite a handful of defections, the Republican Party is still Trump’s Party.

Eric Alterman has covered the media in The Nation for nearly 25 years and his latest column focuses on the main ideas he has been trying to get across overall. He writes that the titanic changes that have taken place in the media ecosystem make it easy to get lost in the frenzy and miss what is really essential: the underlying structures of power that are generally not seen, and which ensure that the system is the opposite of democratic. Eric calls these the “structural failings that underlie our politics” and says we have to Look Beyond the Media Frenzy and Focus on the Fundamentals -- the title of his last column – and we get him to explain.

Weekends: Slavoj Žižek on Biden, Race, and What It Will Take to Stop the Pandemic Jan 18, 2021

Show notes

Every Saturday at 1 PM ET, Ana Kasparian and Nando Vila broadcast live from the Jacobin YouTube channel. Weekends features free-flowing and humorous commentary on current events and political strategy. This is the podcast version of the show from January 16, 2021.

We’re talking about the COVID-19 vaccine rollout and its effects on the prison population, what Biden’s spending proposal does and doesn’t include, and we’ll hear from Slavoj Žižek on what it will take to end the pandemic.
Žižek is a maverick philosopher and the author of over thirty books. He is also researcher at the the University of Ljubljana Faculty of Arts, international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities of the University of London, global eminent scholar at Kyung Hee University in Seoul, and global distinguished professor at New York University.

Read his essay in Jacobin: https://jacobinmag.com/2020/12/slavoj-zizek-socialism-great-reset

Join the Verso book club: https://www.versobooks.com/bookclub
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