Jacobin Radio

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The Dig: Making Sense of Soros Aug 11, 2018

Show notes

That right-wing people in the US and Europe have made George Soros the answer to so many troubling questions is not very surprising: he's a billionaire, he's Jewish and, unlike most of his cohort, he is an intellectual who spends much of his money on substantively progressive causes. Daniel Bessner's essay on him in n+1, however, not only sketches out the Right's obsessions but also offers a detailed analysis of Soros as a thinker and philanthropist — coming to the conclusion that Soros's hope for an open and pluralistic society will be forever doomed if we continue to live under the very capitalist system that made him so spectacularly rich. Here's Soros's response in the Guardian.

Live recording of The Dig coming up in New York City. Friday, August 17, 7 PM at Verso Books (20 Jay Street in Brooklyn). It's called Blockadia and Beyond: Left climate politics for the 21st century https://www.facebook.com/events/2042636042656908/?active_tab=about!

Thanks to Verso Books. Check out eThe Amateur: The Pleasures of Doing What You Love by Andy Merrifield versobooks.com/books/2765-the-amateur.

Support this podcast with your $ at patreon.com/TheDig to receive our weekly newsletter!

Behind the News: Globalization, Trump, and the American Empire Aug 10, 2018

Show notes

Adam Tooze and Leo Panitch, separately, on globalization, Trump, the American empire, declinism, etc. Tooze is a professor of history at Columbia University and serves as director of the European Institute. His new book Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World is out this week. Panitch is a professor of political science at York University and the author of many books, including The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy Of American Empire.

The Dig: Boots Riley on Sorry to Bother You and Communism Aug 09, 2018

Show notes

Sorry to Bother You is a hilarious film about the dead-serious shittiness of life under neoliberalism's flexibilized and precarious labor regime, a system teetering upon a thin line between free labor exploitation and a form of expropriation reminiscent of full-on slave labor — all at the mercy of the thinly veiled barbarity of Palo Alto-style techno-utopianism. It's about how capitalist society divides and conquers friends and family to claim not only our obedience but also our very souls, and about how the task of left organizing is to see through that game and fight together. Dan's guest today is Boots Riley, who wrote and directed the film and also fronts the left-wing hip-hop group The Coup.

Thanks to Verso Books. Check out Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis by George Monbiot versobooks.com/books/2732-out-of-the-wreckage And October: The Story of the Russian Revolution by China Miéville versobooks.com/books/2731-october.Support this podcast with your $ at patreon.com/TheDig to receive our weekly newsletter

The Dig: Kerri Harris Runs for Delaware Upset Aug 03, 2018

Show notes

If Kerri Evelyn Harris wins in Delaware, she will have knocked out an incumbent US Senator. And that would be a really big deal. Harris, a left candidate backed by Justice Democrats, is Dan's guest today. She is the latest candidate putting forward the bold proposition that in a democracy, ordinary people should govern themselves — particularly since well-credentialed incumbents like her opponent, Senator Tom Carper, so often do the bidding of corporate interests.

Thanks to Verso Books. Check out Radical Technologies: The Design of Everyday Life by Adam Greenfield versobooks.com/books/2742-radical-technologies. And support this podcast with your $ at patreon.com/TheDig to receive our weekly newsletter!

Jacobin Radio: Russiagate Aug 01, 2018

Show notes

Suzi talks to Jacobin's executive editor, Seth Ackerman, and editor of Critique (and Russia expert) Hillel Ticktin, about the actual state of US-Russia relations and how they are portrayed. Seth Ackerman skewers mainstream-media reporting on Russia and asks why there is such a divergence between the substance and fact of US Russia policy — and what the media obsession and hysteria over the supposed Russian threat represents. Hillel Ticktin asks why the US has been so harsh on Russia, when Putin represents a Christian capitalist, if authoritarian, politics? We’ll get his take on what is behind making Russia our archenemy once again, now that it no longer pretends to be communist, and is indeed a fraction of what it was industrially, in terms of its population, and its strength.

The Dig: Stop Whore Stigma with Melissa Gira Grant Aug 01, 2018

Show notes

The SESTA/FOSTA law purportedly aims to curb sex trafficking. But as my guest Melissa Gira Grant explains, it actually denies sex workers access to online platforms to more safely conduct their business. It received just two "no" votes in the Senate: from Rand Paul and Ron Wyden. It's a problem of hegemony: prohibition has long been plain common sense. So, it's our job to change that. The first step is to make it clear that there is dissent, and that prohibition is self-evidently neither good policy nor good politics.

Thanks to Verso Books. Check out Mistaken Identity: Race and Class in the Age of Trump by Asad Haider versobooks.com/books/2716-mistaken-identity and The Amateur: The Pleasures of Doing What You Love by Andy Merrifield versobooks.com/books/2765-the-amateur.

Support this podcast with your $ at patreon.com/TheDig to receive our weekly newsletter!

The Dig: Kaniela Ing is Fighting for Aloha Jul 27, 2018

Show notes

Kaniela Ing (kanielaing.com) is a DSA member running in Hawaii's 1st Congressional District, calling for an end to imperialism and rule by the wealthy, and for housing rights, a green New Deal, Medicare for All, and free college. And he's Dan’s guest. Ocasio-Cortez became an overnight celebrity when she defeated Joe Crowley. But what's most important is that you know who these candidates are before election day — because that's when they most need your help.

Thanks to Verso Books. Check out Radical Technologies: The Design of Everyday Life by Adam Greenfield versobooks.com/books/2742-radical-technologies.

Support this podcast with your $ at patreon.com/TheDig to receive our weekly newsletter!

The Dig: A Post-Janus Plan for Labor Jul 25, 2018

Show notes

Janus was an entirely expected and atrocious decision. The conservative business interests that successfully obliterated private sector unions hope it will do the same to their public sector counterparts. Chris Maisano, a contributing editor at Jacobin, argues that labor has no choice but to return to its militant roots if it hopes to survive. In other words, to survive, labor has to fight for a lot more than mere survival.

Live Dig show in NYC on 8/17! Blockadia and Beyond: Left climate politics for the 21st century: facebook.com/events/2042636042656908/?active_tab=about.

Support this podcast with your $ and receive our weekly newsletter and lefty books at patreon.com/TheDig!

Behind the News: The Hammond Pardons; AMLO Jul 23, 2018

Show notes

Journalist Jason Wilson on Trump's pardoning of Oregon ranchers Dwight Lincoln Hammond Jr. and his son, Steven Hammond, as well as on the recent right-wing riot in Portland. Then, sociologist Christy Thornton analyzes AMLO’s victory in Mexico’s election.

The Dig: Mistaking Identity Politics Jul 18, 2018

Show notes

Checking your privilege. Invisible knapsacks. Intersectionality. In his new book from Verso, Mistaken Identity: Race and Class in the Age of Trump, Asad Haider questions the terms and concepts that underpin much liberal and left conversation about race and racism, exploring critiques advanced by the black radical tradition to mount a thoroughgoing demolition of what we now refer to as "identity politics" — something that had a quite different meaning when it was first coined by the black, radical lesbian feminists of the Combahee River Collective. This is not a book that dismisses racism and sexism. Quite to the contrary. Haider shows that we can only confront and defeat oppressions like racism and sexism if we recognize their relationship to the capitalist exploitation of the working class as a whole. The corollary is also true: capitalism can never be defeated without recognizing and fighting the various oppressions that help sustain it.

Thanks to Verso Books. Check out We Built the Wall: How the US Keeps Out Asylum Seekers from Mexico, Central America and Beyond by Eileen Truax (versobooks.com/books/2606-we-built-the-wall) and Old Gods, New Enigmas: Marx’s Lost Theory by Mike Davis (versobooks.com/books/2779-old-gods-new-enigmas).

And support this podcast with $ and access our weekly newsletter at patreon.com/TheDig

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