Jacobin Radio

Latest Episodes:

The Dig: Yellow Vests with Danièle Obono and Jerome Roos Dec 15, 2018

Show notes

There has been no greater exemplar of zombie neoliberalism in power than French President Emanuel Macron's imperial technocracy. Now, with the rise of the Yellow Vest (Gilets jaunes) movement, there no clearer evidence that zombie neoliberalism is bound to fail. This crisis cannot be solved with the centrist policies and politics that caused it in the first place. But where will the movement head, and who will benefit politically?And what does this reveal about neoliberal approaches to the climate crisis? Dan's guests are Danièle Obono, a French member of parliament with the left-wing party la France Insoumise, or France Unbowed, and ROAR magazine editor Jerome Roos.

Read Jerome's article in ROAR: roarmag.org/essays/gilets-jaunes-blown-old-political-categories/

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

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

The Dig: Bad Objects with Andrea Long Chu and Marissa Brostoff Dec 12, 2018

Show notes

Marissa Brostoff and Andrea Long Chu discuss Sex and the City and the X-Files, unraveling the tangled history of Marxism and queer theory, Cynthia Nixon the democratic socialist versus Miranda the straight corporate lawyer misrecognized as a lesbian, feminism as consumption in Giuliani's New York, the remarkable resilience of heterosexuality, the Cold War's paranoiac aftershocks, history's startling return, the alt-right’s nostalgia for postmodernism, the takeover of reality by reality TV, men with tinfoil hats decrying the deep state from the heights of power, and the possibilities of stitching socialism and queer politics together into a robust movement for human liberation.

Thank you 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!

Behind the News: Gun Politics Dec 10, 2018

Show notes

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment, on the politics of guns.

Jacobin Radio: GM Shutters Plants; Life at the US-Mexico Border Dec 05, 2018

Show notes

Suzi speaks first with Mike Parker, author, rabble-rouser, and union activist, who worked for thirty-tow years in auto in Detroit, about what is behind GM’s decision to close five plants, four in the US and one in Canada, affecting some 15,000 workers and their families as well as the towns and cities from Lordstown in Ohio to Detroit in Michigan. Ed Broadbent, former NDP Leader and Member of Parliament from 1975–1989, brings the Canadian perspective and reaction. Ed hails from Oshawa, Ontario, the site of the GM plant in Canada to be closed. His father was a clerk at GM and his still living uncle, at 104, was on the GM picket line in Oshawa in 1937 in the strike that brought industrial unions to Canada. We hear what Ed, described as the “best Prime Minister Canada never had,” thinks the political leaders should be doing now that GM — bailed out with billions from Canada — has turned its back on its workers. Plus: LA Taco’s editor Daniel Hernandez, just back from Tijuana, reports on the harrowing conditions inside the migrant refugee camp <font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">near the US-Mexico border, where thousands are sheltering, with hopes of entering the US. </font>

The Dig: Haddad and Varoufakis Fighting Right-Wing Populism Dec 05, 2018

Show notes

On Saturday, Dan was in New York to interview Fernando Haddad and Yanis Varoufakis. Haddad is the former Workers Party mayor of São Paulo who recently lost Brazil's presidential election to far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro. Varoufakis was the Greek Finance minister who tried and failed to fight the Troika's imposition of austerity and today is a leader of the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025. Unsurprisingly, their topic was the fight against right-wing populism.

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: The Left Knows No Borders with Richard Seymour Nov 29, 2018

Show notes

How unlucky it was for Angela Nagle to make her so-called left case against immigration the same week that Hillary Clinton reprised her neoliberal case for border crackdowns. In reality, solidarity with immigrant workers has long been a core tenant for much of the socialist left and labor movement, while neoliberalism, despite pretenses to the contrary, has always been implemented alongside repression. Dan interviews Richard Seymour, a founding editor of Salvage, who has done some excellent work on left politics and migration:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/to-win-argument-22956541

https://www.patreon.com/posts/reinventing-anti-20945069

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: Jeff Sessions's Brutal Legacy Nov 25, 2018

Show notes

Guns in general, and American gun culture in particular, have created a horrific bloodbath. But much of the liberal gun control movement has, in concert with the NRA and Republican right, worked to make the war on guns a central facet of mass incarceration. The upshot is that we have the worst of both worlds: a society flooded with guns, where the paradigmatic white "good guy with a gun" treasures his weapons as a bedrock constitutional right even as the supposed "bad guys with a gun," often black men with a felony record, are mercilessly prosecuted for carrying. Dan talks to reporter George Joseph, who has a new piece up at Slate on former Attorney General Jeff Sessions's war on guns, which has led to a sharp increase in federal gun prosecutions — often hitting ordinary black men with felony records who are simply carrying for their own protection.

Thanks to University of California Press. Check out their excellent catalog of books at ucpress.edu.

Support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig!

The Dig: Barbara Ransby on Black Lives Matter Nov 21, 2018

Show notes

Black Lives Matter is a poignant slogan and a powerful force for social transformation. It’s also shorthand for a huge array of organizations, mostly led by people that you've never heard of, working the daily hard grind of ordinary organizing that stitches together spectacular mass actions into a movement. That's the subject of the new book Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the Twenty-First Century by Dan’s guest, historian and activist Barbara Ransby.

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

Please support The Dig with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig!

Jacobin Radio: Fires Raging in California Nov 21, 2018

Show notes

A look at the fires raging across California, and the impending teacher’s strike. Suzi talks to urban theorist Mike Davis for his “Tale of Two Fires,” contrasting the Paradise and Malibu conflagrations, which he says is like comparing two Californias. She then talks to United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) president Alex Caputo Pearl who addresses another sort of fire, this one threatening public education. Alex explains the issues behind the historic 98 percent strike-authorization vote from the UTLA membership, issues that go to the heart of the competing visions for public education from the union (UTLA), and the district (LAUSD, the second-largest in the country) that is in austerity and downsizing mode, while the union is pushing for smaller classes, more funding, more staff, and the needs of students and education as a whole.

The Dig: A History of Neoliberalism with Quinn Slobodian Nov 14, 2018

Show notes

Neoliberalism: we all hate it, but what does it mean? Dan talks to intellectual historian Quinn Slobodian about his book Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism, which tells the story of neoliberalism's Geneva School — including Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, and Wilhelm Röpke — and their vision for a new imperial order establishing rules to protect the market from political interference. It's a movement that begins with nostalgia for the bygone Habsburg Empire, moves on to fights against the decolonized world's efforts to create a New International Economic Order, and plays a key role in forming the European Economic Community and the WTO.

Live Dig interview in NYC with Yanis Varoufakis on Challenging the New Right-Populism. Saturday December 1, 6pm at the New School's Arnhold Hall at the Theresa Lang Student Center.

Thanks to Verso Books and University of California Press. Check out their titles at www.versobooks.com and ucpress.edu.

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

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected