Jacobin Radio

Latest Episodes:

Michael and Us: Studio Sucky (Continued) w/ Will Menaker Jul 09, 2024

Show notes

It's Studio 60 vs the unions in Episode 17 ("The Disaster Show") of Aaron Sorkin's STUDIO 60 ON THE SUNSET STRIP. We're pleased to welcome Will Menaker (of Chapo Trap House and Movie Mindset fame) to help us make sense of Sorkin's perspective on organized labor. PLUS: So have you heard about Joe Biden?

This is an unlocked episode from our ongoing Patreon series about Studio 60.

Behind the News: Hamas Unbeaten w/ Robert Pape Jul 08, 2024

Show notes

Robert Pape, author of a recent piece in Foreign Affairs, talks about how, despite Israel’s murderous onslaught on Gaza, Hamas is winning. Wanda Bertram discusses how US incarceration rates stack up against the rest of the world (massively) and other news on crime and punishment. See the Prison Policy Initiative's 2024 report: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/global/2024.html

Behind the News, hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global. Find the archive online: https://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/radio.html

The Dig: Thawra Ep. 14 - The Palestinian Revolution Jul 07, 2024

Show notes

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the FOURTEENTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment covers the rise of the Palestinian Revolution and then its explosion after the Arab defeat in the June War of 1967 with Israel. Fatah, the Popular Front for the Liberation and Palestine, and other factions launched an armed guerrilla struggle against Israel, engaging the Palestinian people in a full-scale mobilization for their liberation. Also: Ba'athists Aḥmad Ḥasan al-Bakr and Saddam Hussein seized power in Iraq, as did Muammar Gaddafi’s Free Officers in Libya.

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Buy Love in the Time of Self-Publishing at Princeton.press/love

Jacobin Radio: Debate Debriefing w/ Robert Brenner & Marc Cooper Jul 02, 2024

Show notes

Journalist Marc Cooper and historian Robert Brenner join Suzi in conversation following the painful first presidential debate held on June 27. Most of the immediate post mortems are panicked responses and calls for Biden to step out of the race. We go beneath the surface to parse the issues discussed or omitted, and ask what they think is now possible in the remaining months before the election. We also look at the way CNN handled, or mishandled, the debate itself, with no attempt to fact check or challenge falsehoods. Finally we look at the danger of a possible second Trump term for the US and the world.

Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, and protest movements.

Michael and Us: The Search for Sonny Skies Jun 29, 2024

Show notes

You can go looking for the zeitgeist, but only the zeitgeist can find you. That's what the makers of countless pieces of failed Oscar bait have learned. In this special episode, we run through some of the most legendary failed Oscar bait of the last 25 years and speculate why they didn't catch anything. PLUS: presidential libraries, the Obama Foundation, and an autobiographical novel from an unlikely Hollywood star.

Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage.

Jacobin Radio: Surprise Elections in France & Britain w/ Sebastian Budgen Jun 27, 2024

Show notes

Sebastian Budgen, Editorial Director of Verso Books, splits his time between London and Paris. He joins us to discuss the surprising elections called in each country.

In the UK, Rishi Sunak called a general election for July 4 at what seems like the worst time for Tory rule. And across the pond, Emmanuel Macron called a snap election in France for June 30 and July 7 after Marine Le Pen’s far right Rassemblement National swept the European elections on June 9. He didn’t have to do it, any more than Sunak did, though Macron’s government isn’t teetering like Sunak’s.

Why now? Conventional wisdom holds that Macron called the election after the right trounced the center in the European elections because he was certain the divisions in the left would make him the rational choice, apparently betting that the center can hold. But the left responded to this new reality, getting its act together and forming a New Popular Front consisting of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Insoumise, the Parti Socialiste, the Greens, and the Communist Party. According to the NYT on June 21, the new coalition is increasingly well-positioned to form a new government that could weaken Macron’s grip on power.

In the UK, PM Rishi Sunak called a general election for July 4 at a terrible time for his government. Whereas Macron is unpopular, Sunak’s Tories are falling apart after fourteen years in power. What’s behind both these elections? What are the possible outcomes? To get a deeper analysis and perspective, we turn to Sebastian Budgen in Paris.

Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, and protest movements.

Behind the News: Israel and the Arab States w/ Steven Simon Jun 24, 2024

Show notes

Steven Simon discusses Israel and the Arab states’ relations with it. Jennifer Berkshire, co-author of The Education Wars, talks about the right wing’s latest educational ploys.

See Marcus Brown’s website, mentioned in the show intro: https://arslaverytrails.com/

Michael and Us: Cinematic Civics Lesson Jun 22, 2024

Show notes

When our politicians fail us, can journalism save us? We revisit George Clooney's GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK (2005), about Edward R. Murrow's battle with Joseph McCarthy, and get a lesson in how the liberal imagination remembers the Red Scare. PLUS: the rise of A.I. in the arts and the state of the center-left in Europe.

"Liberals, I Do Despise" by Adolph Reed Jr. - https://www.commondreams.org/views/2009/12/09/liberals-i-do-despise

"On Smarm" by Tom Scocca - https://www.gawkerarchives.com/on-smarm-1476594977

"Europe Is Warning Us" by Grace Blakeley - https://tribunemag.co.uk/2024/06/europe-is-warning-us

Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage.

Long Reads: Europe's New Right-Wing Bloc w/ David Broder Jun 21, 2024

Show notes

Elections for the European Union happened two weeks ago. Although turnout was just over 50 percent, the elections have already resulted in some dramatic consequences for European politics. The largest single group in the new parliament will be the European People’s Party, the main bloc of the center right. Ursula von der Leyen, the German president of the European Commission, is a prominent figure in the EPP. She and the EPP leader Manfred Weber have both indicated that they would be open to forming an alliance with sections of the far right.

In France and Italy, far-right parties have already supplanted the traditional conservatives as the dominant right-wing force. The French party of Marine Le Pen came first in the election, prompting Emmanuel Macron to call a snap election for early next month.

Jacobin’s European editor David Broder joins Long Reads for a conversation about European politics after the election. David has written two books about the rise of right-wing nationalism in Italy, First They Took Rome and Mussolini’s Grandchildren. He’s also written many articles about European politics for publications like the New Statesman and the New York Times, as well as Jacobin, of course.

Find David's coverage on the Jacobin site, including his latest, "Europe’s Center Is Holding — by Integrating the Far Right": https://jacobin.com/2024/06/eu-parliament-elections-far-right-center

Also see the William Bouchardon article mentioned by David, "Marine Le Pen Is Seducing France’s Business Elite": https://jacobin.com/2024/06/marine-le-pen-france-business-elite

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. Produced by Conor Gillies, music by Knxwledge.

The Dig: Thawra Ep. 13 - Revolutionary Arabia Jun 20, 2024

Show notes

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the THIRTEENTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment covers the armed left-wing revolutionary movements that challenged British imperial power across Southern Arabia, with the National Liberation Front taking over South Yemen and Dhufari rebels in Oman waging a liberation war against the Sultan. Today’s alliance of reactionary Gulf monarchies was not inevitable; they were made by colonial power, and Arab revolutionaries in the 1960s and 70s mounted a major effort to overthrow them.

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