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Jacobin Radio: Remembering Mike Davis (Part 2) Jan 09, 2023

Show notes

Today Suzi brings part two of our tribute to Mike Davis, who died on October 25. Mike was a prolific writer, historian, political activist, urban theorist, and author of dozens of books, many featured here on this podcast.

We begin with an interview from July 1986 just after Mike completed his first book, Prisoners of the American Dream, published on the centenary of May Day 1886. Mike discusses the political economy of Reaganism, or Reaganomics, which began with a frontal attack on organized labor. He also explains what makes the American working class different. The second interview, from February 1988, coincided with the Justice for Janitors campaign. David Diaz joins Mike in the discussion on Los Angeles politics, looking at what redevelopment in the city had wrought. LA, like the rest of the country, was switching from a manufacturing to a service economy, though manufacturing continued using very low-wage immigrant labor. Non-union workers could not afford the cost of housing, and the lack of affordable rents fed the growing homeless crisis. We get a preview of Mike’s lifelong concerns about LA and workers fighting for a life with dignity and livable wages. We follow with a newer interview with Mike Davis and co-author Jon Wiener discussing their compelling 2020 history of LA in the 1960s, a hotbed of political, social and cultural upheaval and rebellion, Set the Night on Fire.

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

Michael and Us: 3rd Annual Year-in-Review Extravaganza Jan 04, 2023

Show notes

As we enter 2023, it's time for our annual look back on the movies that defined our podcast over the past 12 months. In our third Year-in-Review Extravaganza, we're handing out awards for Best Movie, Worst Movie, Best End-of-History Movie, Thing We Liked Growing Up That Holds Up Relatively Well, Best Tubi Movie, and more. Will Alexandra Pelosi win an award? Will Dinesh D'Souza go home empty-handed? What about Trump vs. the Illuminati? Tune in to find out!

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

The Dig: The Capitalist Conjuncture w/ Tim Barker Dec 31, 2022

Show notes

Featuring historian Tim Barker on monetary politics, inflation, and the general capitalist conjuncture. The second of a two-part interview.

Check out my July 2021 interview with Barker if you want a more expansive primer on inflation thedigradio.com/podcast/inflation-politics-with-tim-barker

Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig

Check out our brilliant newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com

Get After Life: A Collective History of Loss and Redemption in Pandemic America haymarketbooks.org/books/1927-after-life

Jacobin Radio: Remembering Mike Davis (Part 1) Dec 28, 2022

Show notes

We pay tribute to Mike Davis, who died on October 25. Mike was a prolific writer, historian, political activist, urban theorist, and author of dozens of books. There has been an avalanche of tributes and obituaries, a testament to Mike’s powerful and distinctive influence, his generosity, his tireless life as a fighter against everything that diminishes human dignity and ravages the planet. He was also a dear friend and a friend of this podcast: I counted at least 30 interviews with him over the years.

We'll hear from those conversations: first, a 2005 interview just a week after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast; and then, two interviews, a decade apart, on the intensifying California wildfires and his famous argument for “letting Malibu burn.” Finally, we round out this podcast episode with an interview with Mike from March 22, 2020, just at the beginning of the COVID lockdown. Fifteen years earlier, his book The Monster at Our Door warned of a coming global threat of viral catastrophe. In this interview, Mike considered the coronavirus pandemic as the familiar monster now at our door, a biological crisis that poses huge challenges for neoliberal global capitalism. Mike called it a "medical Katrina," one that exposes the woeful unpreparedness of our disinvested public health system as well as the stark class divide of health care in the US.

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

Behind the News: Tech, AI, and Luddism w/ Edward Ongweso Jr Dec 27, 2022

Show notes

Kathryn Joyce discusses the far right and its internal battles. Doug then interviews Edward Ongweso Jr about tech, AI, and Luddism.

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 here: https://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html

The Dig: Monetary Politics w/ Tim Barker Dec 22, 2022

Show notes

Featuring historian Tim Barker on the state of monetary politics amid the current fight over inflation.

Check out my July 2021 interview with Barker if you want a more expansive primer on inflation thedigradio.com/podcast/inflation-politics-with-tim-barker

Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig

Check out our brilliant newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com

Long Reads: Pepijn Brandon on Revolution in the Netherlands (Part 1) Dec 22, 2022

Show notes

The Dutch Revolt of the sixteenth century defeated the Spanish monarchy, the great European superpower of its day. It may not be as well remembered as the English Civil War or the French Revolution. But it was a watershed moment in the development of modern Europe.

Pepijn Brandon joins Long Reads to discuss the Dutch Revolt. He’s an historian at VU University in Amsterdam and the author of War, Capital, and the Dutch State. This is the first part of a two-part interview.

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.

Get an audiobook from Pluto Press before the end of December and you'll be entered to win a set of their entire collection: tiny.one/jacobin

And join the Left Book Club at a discount by using the code WINFREE at leftbookclub.com

Michael and Us: House of Pelosi Dec 20, 2022

Show notes

The 20-year filmmaking career of Alexandra Pelosi has been building up to this moment: a hagiographic documentary portrait of her mother, the outgoing U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. We watched PELOSI IN THE HOUSE (2022).

"Nancy Pelosi’s Daughter Makes Awful Documentaries Fawning Over the Establishment" by Will Sloan - https://jacobin.com/2022/12/nancy-alexandra-pelosi-documentary-filmmaking-establishment

"Nancy Pelosi Delivered Little for the Left, but We Might Miss Her Anyway" by Branko Marcetic - https://jacobin.com/2022/11/nancy-pelosi-house-speaker-democratic-party-center

"The Obamanauts" by Corey Robin - https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/the-obamanauts

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

Behind the News: Railroad Union Struggle w/ Ryan Grim Dec 19, 2022

Show notes

Doug interviews Intercept reporter Ryan Grim, author of a recent article on railroad unions, about the fight between workers and bosses in the rail industry. Then we hear from economist Sanjay Reddy, who discusses the fight between adjuncts and bosses in the neoliberal university.

The Dig: New Deal Ruins w/ Edward Goetz Dec 17, 2022

Show notes

Featuring Edward Goetz on his book New Deal Ruins: Race, Economic Justice, and Public Housing Policy. Goetz tells the story of American public housing and then its destruction and dismantling, which took off in the 1980s and accelerated during the 90s under the Clinton Administration’s Hope VI program.

Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig and get our weekly newsletter by email plus swag.

Check out Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Firehaymarketbooks.org/books/1861-light-in-gaza

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