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The Dig: It’s Iron Stache Feb 21, 2018

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Dan talks to Randy Bryce, the Berniecrat ironworker taking on Paul Ryan, about how he plans to knockout the House Speaker, Scott Walker’s decimation of unions, and Foxconn’s con against the people of Wisconsin. Thanks to our supporters at Verso Books and University of California Press. Check out Climate Leviathan: A Political Theory of Our Planetary Future by Geoff Mann and Joel Wainwright versobooks.com/books/2545-climate-leviathan and Healing from Hate: How Young Men Get Into—and Out of—Violent Extremism ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520292635 Support us with your cash at patreon.com/TheDig!

The Dig: Aziz Rana on the Cold War’s Late Demise Feb 14, 2018

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What if the Cold War only just ended in November 2016, as Donald Trump grotesquely encircled and then captured the presidency, finding it, to his surprise, unguarded? The Cold War proper, of course, ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union. But Aziz Rana, making his second Dig appearance, argues that it was a lot more than the conflict with the Evil Empire. It was a domestic order that, he writes in the latest issue of n+1, “concerned everything from the genius of America’s domestic institutions to the indispensability of its global role. These judgments gave coherence to the country’s national identity—allowing both Barack Obama and Bill Kristol to wax poetic about America’s special destiny as a global hegemon—and legitimacy to its economic policy. But with the 2016 election, the cold-war paradigm finally shattered.” Check out Aziz’s article here https://nplusonemag.com/issue-30/politics/goodbye-cold-war/. Thanks to our supporters at Verso and University of California Press Check out The New Spirit of Capitalism versobooks.com/books/2513-the-new-spirit-of-capitalism andAmerican Islamophobia ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520297791!

Behind the News: The Right on the Offense Feb 13, 2018

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Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University David Palumbo-Liu on the right-wing attacks on him and the question of academic freedom. The Stanford Politics article on the Thiel network Palumbo-Liu references is here. Then, Professor of Political Science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges Jodi Dean on how to think about Trump.<o:p></o:p>

Behind the News: Our Chaotic, Militarized Present Feb 13, 2018

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Doug Henwood on stock market madness (longer version is here). Then Yasha Levine, author of Surveillance Valley, joins Doug to talk about the military and intelligence roots of the internet, which live on today (hi NSA!).

The Dig: Frances Fox Piven on Why Movements Matter Feb 07, 2018

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Four decades ago, Frances Fox Piven and her husband Richard Cloward published Poor People's Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail, a classic, clear-eyed analysis of just what the title suggests. Piven, a legendary scholar and activist, talks to Dan about her life, Occupy, Bernie, the Democratic Party, anti-war movements, black bloc, mass incarceration, and more. (Also: Dan’s voice sounds a little different because he had to record in a different room.) Thanks to Verso Books and University of California Press. Check out The Great Cowboy Strike: Bullets, Ballots and Class Conflicts in the American West by Mark A. Lause versobooks.com/books/2592-the-great-cowboy-strike and Chicago on the Make: Power and Inequality in a Modern City by Andrew J. Diamond ucpress.edu/ebook.php?isbn=9780520961715.

The Dig: Baltimore’s Crisis Continues with Lester Spence Feb 03, 2018

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The uprising following the police killing of Freddie Gray drew national media attention to Baltimore and the abusive law enforcement agents that discipline and control those most exploited and excluded by contemporary American capitalism. As is often the case, however, the focus shifted elsewhere soon after disturbances in the street came to end. Political scientist Lester Spence recently wrote an article about why children were freezing in Baltimore public schools: the heating didn’t work, something that can only be made sense of when viewed in the longer history of capital flight, racial and class segregation, and the rise of a service-economy carceral state: jacobinmag.com/2018/01/baltimore-freezing-schools-children-racism-austerity. Thanks to Verso for their support. Check out The New Spirit of Capitalism by Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello versobooks.com/books/2513-the-new-spirit-of-capitalism Support this podcast with $ at patreon.com/TheDig!

The Dig: Building an American Empire with Paul Frymer Jan 31, 2018

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We are living on land from which indigenous people, over hundreds of years, have been violently removed. Almost everyone knows this — yet it’s rarely mentioned in stories that Americans tell themselves about who we are as a country and how we got here. Dan’s guest is Paul Frymer, a professor of politics and director of the Program in Law and Public Affairs at Princeton University. In his recent book, Building an American Empire: The Era of Territorial and Political Expansion, he provides a close study of the empire America built in the late-eighteenth and nineteenth century, a project of geographic expansion facilitated and also limited by the demands of racial engineering. Thanks to Verso Books. Check out The Great Cowboy Strike: Bullets, Ballots and Class Conflicts in the American West by Mark A. Lause versobooks.com/books/2592-the-great-cowboy-strike. And from University of California Press, Destroying Yemen: What Chaos in Arabia Tells Us about the World by Isa Blumi ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520296145!

Behind the News: Trump and the Global Left; Feminism and Economics Jan 30, 2018

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Author Vijay Prashad, professor of international studies at Trinity College, on Syria, Trump, and the state of the global left. Then, Jennifer Cohen, assistant professor of international studies at Miami University, joins the show to discuss feminism and economics, and a recent article in the New York Times.

The Dig: Why Democrats Fought Then Folded on DACA with Jeff Stein Jan 25, 2018

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Excitement that Democrats had developed a spine in the fight for Dreamers reverted to familiar despondency and fury when they capitulated and voted to reopen the government on Monday. Washington Post reporter Jeff Stein offers his analysis of the role that the media and the Democratic Party’s right flank played in pushing senators to fold. This interview was recorded Tuesday and posted early because things are moving fast.Thanks to Verso Books for their support. Check out Europe’s Fault Lines: Racism and the Rise of the Right by Liz Fekete versobooks.com/books/2555-europe-s-fault-lines. And please support us with $ at patreon.com/TheDig!

The Dig: The Militant '70s Labor Movement You Never Heard Of Jan 24, 2018

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Everyone agrees that the 1970s were the beginning of the end of capitalism as we had known it since the New Deal. But historian Lane Windham makes it clear that it wasn’t for a lack of worker struggle in her new book, Knocking on Labor’s Door: Union Organizing in the 1970s and the Roots of a New Economic Divide. In case studies of union fights in department stores, shipyards, offices, and textile mills, Windham explains that women and workers of color seized the civil rights victories of the 1960s to fight for economic rights in the '70s. Thank you to Verso and University of California Press. Check out The Age of Jihad: Islamic State and the Great War for the Middle East by Patrick Cockburn versobooks.com/books/2518-the-age-of-jihad and Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom by Norman Finkelstein ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520295711 Support this podcast with $ at patreon.com/TheDig!

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