Jacobin Radio

Latest Episodes:

Behind the News: Police Surveillance; ISO Apr 10, 2019

Show notes

Jason Wilson on how cops are more interested in surveilling the Left than the Right (article here; Will Parrish article here). Then, Todd Chretien reflects on the forty-two-year history of the International Socialist Organization, which dissolved itself at the end of March.

The Dig: Chinese Class Conflict with Jenny Chan Apr 10, 2019

Show notes

In the US, China is often viewed at best as a nefarious and enigmatic rival and at worst as a civilizational enemy. But these stories of national rivalry that permeate both major parties and the mainstream media function as a mystification, shrouding the global supply chain that connects capitalist exploitation from East to West. When we cut through the noise, a rather different picture emerges: China is home to a massive portion of the world's working-class, a class that is struggling against the combined forces of state and global capital for dignified lives. And these struggles, contrary to conventional wisdom, are deeply connected, rather than opposed to, worker struggles in the West. Dan interviews sociologist Jenny Chan on China's class conflict and labor movement.

Thanks to Verso Books. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.com

Please support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

The Dig: Against Idiocy with Kafui Attoh Apr 05, 2019

Show notes

Car dominance, public transit austerity, and the neoliberal political-economy within which both are embedded have fomented what Marx called idiocy, in its classical sense of privatized social isolation. Dan talks to geographer Kafui Attoh, the author of Rights in Transit: Public Transportation and the Right to the City in California's East Bay, about the political-economy of public transit and why the fight for transportation justice must be part of a broader struggle for the right to the city.

André Gorz's "The social ideology of the motorcar" unevenearth.org/2018/08/the-social-ideology-of-the-motorcar/

Two upcoming live Dig tapings in Providence!

April 23: Dan interviews Sam Stein on his book Capital City facebook.com/events/2164662790291372/

May 2-4: Slavery’s Hinterlands: Capitalism and bondage in Rhode Island and across the Atlantic world facebook.com/events/661508874305008/

And check out the Philadelphia Socialist Feminist Convergence, April 26-28 socfemphilly.wordpress.com

Thanks to Verso Books. Peruse their massive selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.com

Jacobin Radio: Bolsonaro Comes to D.C. Mar 27, 2019

Show notes

Suzi talks to political economist Pedro Paulo Zahluth Bastos about the Trump-Bolsonaro love fest in D.C. last week, and the new Brazilian-US relationship. Bolsonaro was "summoned" to Washington to support a US invasion of Venezuela under the pretext of "exporting democracy," and we ask Pedro Paulo how that will go over in Brazil — and note the irony that Bolsonaro is a staunch defender of military dictatorships and no lover of democracy. We also get Pedro Paulo's view of Brazilian politics and economics under their new tweeter in chief — who campaigned as a murderous, homophobic, anti-feminist, declaring open season on the Left and on the Amazon rainforest, but governs as an extreme neoliberal.

The Dig: Strike! with Jane McAlevey Mar 27, 2019

Show notes

The strike is back, and big time. Teachers in particular have been walking off the job not only to demand higher wages but also to fight for an end to privatization and for a transformation of the educational system for their students. These strikes, often led by women, are no doubt inspiring, and they have won important victories for workers and the communities they serve. We are, in other words, beginning to head in the right direction—but we're not heading there even close to fast enough. Winning working class power is not only necessary to meet people's immediate material needs. It is necessary if we are to accomplish a profound democratization of this country, which is what we must do if we are to implement a just energy transition that heads off what scientists have determined to be imminent climate catastrophe. Dan talks to Jane McAlevey about the labor movement and strikes.

Jane's Catalystarticle The Strike as the Ultimate Structure Test.

And her Jacobinarticle Organizing to Win a Green New Deal.

Thanks to Verso. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.com

Please support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Behind the News: Tony Wood on Russia Mar 25, 2019

Show notes

Tony Wood, author of Russia Without Putin, on contemporary Russia and Putin.

The Dig: Why Socialism Wins in Chicago Mar 23, 2019

Show notes

Four of the five candidates endorsed by the Chicago Democratic Socialists of America either won outright or advanced to the runoff election on April 2, leading to talk of a Socialist Caucus on the city council. And other progressive candidates throughout the city knocked off corporate-friendly incumbents. Dan passes the mic to guest host Micah Uetricht for an interview with United Working Families Executive Director Emma Tai and In These Times web editor Miles Kampf-Lassin on how years of grassroots organizing—and partnerships between labor and community groups and socialists—can produce a sea change in urban politics.

Thanks to Verso. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.com

Please support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

The Dig: End of the Myth with Greg Grandin Mar 20, 2019

Show notes

American liberty has since its foundation relied upon the dispossession of indigenous people and Mexicans, upon African enslavement and, ultimately, upon the constant fleeing outward that created an empire that none dare call by its name. As historian Greg Grandin writes in The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America, this expansionist project has finally lost its ideological and material vitality, no longer able to neatly reconcile centuries of mounting contradictions. And so politics returned to the border as American expansion hit a wall—figuratively and, as Trump has demanded, very literally. "Trumpism," Grandin writes, "is extremism turned inward, all-consuming and self-devouring. There is no 'divine, messianic' crusade that can harness and redirect passions outward. Expansion, in any form, can no longer satisfy interests, reconcile contradictions, dilute the factions, or redirect the anger."

Thanks to University of California Press. Check out No Go WorldL How Fear Is Redrawing Our Maps and Infecting Our Politics by Ruben Andersson ucpress.edu/book/9780520294608/no-go-world

And thanks to Verso. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.com

Please support this podcast with your money at patreon.com/TheDig

Behind the News: Feminism for the 99%; Capital City Mar 20, 2019

Show notes

Cinzia Arruzza and Tithi Bhattacharya, authors (along with Nancy Fraser) of Feminism for the 99%, on a truly transformative feminism. Then, Sam Stein, author of Capital City, on bourgeois urban planning, with an emphasis on NYC.

Behind the News: New Deals Past and Present; Left Internationalism Mar 18, 2019

Show notes

Richard Walker, geographer and director of the Living New Deal project, on what the original New Deal can teach the Green one. Then, Aziz Rana on the need for a left internationalism.

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