Jacobin Radio

Latest Episodes:

The Dig: Taming Free Speech w/ Laura Weinrib Sep 25, 2022

Show notes

Featuring Laura Weinrib on The Taming of Free Speech: America’s Civil Liberties Compromise. Did you know that the ACLU was founded as a radical labor organization allied with the IWW? Weinrib traces the rise of the modern civil liberties movement, and modern constitutional liberalism more broadly, from World War I through the New Deal. She explains how the ACLU went from defending free speech as a means to revolutionary ends to a liberal position exalting free speech as an end unto itself—including the anti-union speech of bosses and the political speech of corporations.

Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig

Check out

Atomic Days: The Untold Story of the Most Toxic Place in America by Joshua Frank haymarketbooks.org/books/1940-atomic-days

Abolishing State Violence: A World Beyond Bombs, Borders, and Cages by Ray Acheson haymarketbooks.org/books/1883-abolishing-state-violence

Long Reads: Elizabeth Schmidt on Somalia and the Superpowers Sep 24, 2022

Show notes

Elizabeth Schmidt joins Long Reads for a discussion about Somalia's modern history of politics, crisis, and foreign intervention. Elizabeth is professor emeritus of history at Loyola University Maryland and the author of six books about Africa, including Foreign Intervention in Africa After the Cold War: Sovereignty, Responsibility, and the War on Terror.

Read her piece, "US Interference in Somalia Has Been a Disaster for Somalis," here: https://jacobin.com/2022/08/somalia-siad-barre-islamists-us-military

Get a year-long subscription to Jacobin, including our new issue, "Inflation," for $20: https://bit.ly/jacobinradio

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.

Jacobin Show: Can We Red the Fed? w/ Samir Sonti Sep 22, 2022

Show notes

Samir Sonti joins us to talk about why the Federal Reserve has so much power over the economy and why its typical response to inflation is bad for workers. But does it need to be? We're also joined by Matt Bruenig to explain the real state of childhood poverty and what we should do to erase it. Our own Paul Prescod breaks down the state of the rail worker contract negations and whether a strike is still on the horizon. Finally, Jen Pan and Cale Brooks decipher some new polling numbers that say popular opinions of both capitalism and socialism have declined.

0:00 opening segment

13:45 Paul interview

40:00 Matt interview

49:30 Samir interview

Get the new Jacobin issue, "Inflation," by subscribing here for $20: https://bit.ly/JACOBINRADIO

The Jacobin Show is a weekly YouTube show offering socialist perspectives on class and capitalism in the twenty-first century, the failures of liberalism, and the prospects of rebuilding a left labor movement in the US. Music by Zonkey. This is the podcast version of the episode from September 21, 2022. Join us in New York for the "Inflation" issue release party on October 5th, featuring a live interview with Adam Tooze.

A World to Win: Seizing the State w/ Ruth Wilson Gilmore Sep 21, 2022

Show notes

Grace speaks to Ruth Wilson Gilmore, prison abolitionist, scholar, and professor of geography at the City University of New York. She is the author of several books, including Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California and, most recently, Abolition Geography: Essays Toward Liberation. They discuss who is profiting from the criminal justice system, how existing institutions within the system serve to support and reinforce capitalist social relations, and what a socialist conception of justice looks like.

A World to Win is a podcast from Grace Blakeley and Tribune bringing you a weekly dose of socialist news, theory, and action with guests from around the world. Thanks to our producer Conor Gillies and to the Lipman-Miliband Trust for making this episode possible.

Jacobin Radio w/ Suzi Weissman: Rail Worker Struggle w/ Nelson Lichtenstein Sep 20, 2022

Show notes

Suzi talks to UCSB labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein to get his analysis of the impending rail strike and the tentative deal reached to prevent it by labor leaders, the government, and the freight rail companies. The workers are demanding paid sick days and more predictable and humane schedules, but they weren’t at the table forging the tentative agreement. They are, however, the ones who will decide whether or not to ratify or reject the deal. Nelson says rail workers are shaking up labor once again: his title for the op-ed that appeared in the LA Times on September 15 was “We need a railroad strike!”

Suzi then talks to Ukrainian writer and documentary filmmaker Anatoli Ulyanov about his LeftEast article, “The Superfluous People of Eastern Ukraine.” Anatoli addresses a crucial question about what happens once the war ends, however that may turn out, when the question of reintegrating the Donbas—not just territory but people—becomes primary. He extends his analysis to include all those who will be strangers in their own country.

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

Michael and Us: Coronation Training Montage Sep 19, 2022

Show notes

We mark Queen Elizabeth's passing by looking at towering work of royalist kitsch, THE KING'S SPEECH (2010). We discuss how this Oscar-winner humanizes the monarchy in order to uphold it.

See Luke speak at the Toronto International Festival of Authors on September 27 - https://festivalofauthors.ca/event/critical-conversation-new-working-class/

Hear Will on Canadaland - https://www.canadaland.com/podcast/815-our-royals-our-elves/

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

Behind the News: Pain and Power w/ Arielle Angel Sep 19, 2022

Show notes

Doug discusses child poverty: How much was it down, really? Then Mario Pino offers another view of the Chilean constitutional referendum. Finally, Arielle Angel, editor of Jewish Currents and author of a new article, "Beyond Grievance," explores the problems with organizing politics around pain and the issues of "foregrounding grievance in the name of justice."

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: Emancipation Circuit w/ Thulani Davis Sep 18, 2022

Show notes

Featuring Thulani Davis on The Emancipation Circuit: Black Activism Forging a Culture of Freedom, a monumental history of freedpeople organizing amid the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig

Check out A Spectre, Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto by China Miéville haymarketbooks.org/books/1990-a-spectre-haunting

Jacobin Radio w/ Suzi Weissman: Chile Rejects New Constitution Sep 16, 2022

Show notes

Suzi talks to Pablo Abufom and Oscar Mendoza to get their analysis of the monumental defeat in Chile on Sunday, September 4, when Chileans went to the polls to approve or reject a new progressive Constitution, born in response to the massive social protest movement and revolt in October 2019. The demand that grew out of that movement was for a new Constitution to replace the reactionary Pinochet constitution imposed in a fraudulent plebiscite in 1980. A Constituent Assembly was elected, representing the most diverse sectors of the population, specifically excluding the traditional political class. Sadly it was rejected, in fact trounced. Pablo Abufom and Oscar Mendoza each analyze the scope and meaning of the ‘rechazo’ or rejection, and look at what happens next.

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

Jacobin Show: Is Culture Dead? w/ Catherine Liu & Eileen Jones Sep 15, 2022

Show notes

We're joined by the left's preeminent cultural critics, Catherine Liu and Eileen Jones, to assess why cultural production is so awful right now and what its root causes are. We also have professor René Rojas to help us understand why the progressive constitution in Chile failed horribly after years of mounting social pressure. Jen Pan examines some new independent union alternatives and why they don't stack up to traditional labor power. Finally, we pay tribute to Barbara Ehrenreich, one of our finest socialists of the modern era, who sadly passed earlier in the month.

1:00 tribute to Barbara Ehrenreich

8:20 interview with Rene Rojas

36:30 Jen’s segment on "pseudo-unions"

42:50 interview with Catherine Liu and Eileen Jones

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