Jacobin Radio

Tim Shorrock (Nation page here) on the US conflict with North Korea. Then, Vijay Prashad, director of the Tricontinental Institute, on Modi’s recent victory in India.

Dan has in-depth discussion on Bernie's approach to race and what he must do to win over Black voters with Malaika Jabali and Wendi Muse. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Sanders isn't unpopular with Black voters. In fact, he has done rather well with young Black people. But to win the primary and beat Biden, he must do a lot better. In particular, Malaika and Wendi argue that Bernie must integrate racial justice into the core of his class struggle agenda, rather than emphasizing it as a separate and siloed issue.Read Dan's critique of Bernie's immigration agenda jacobinmag.com/2019/04/bernie-sanders-immigrant-rights-border-policyThanks to Verso. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.comGo to the Socialism 2019 conference in Chicago July 4-7! Register for the early-bird rate now at socialismconference.org Support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Here, before a live audience at United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) headquarters, Suzi talks to Canadian sociologist and labor activist Barry Eidlin about socialist politics and the many issues facing radicals oriented to the working class. The interview is followed by a lively, well informed discussion from the largely DSA audience. The result is a remarkable “town hall” meeting that could serve as a primer for socialist politics in the present moment. Some of the issues discussed: the Democratic Party vs. Canada’s labor party or NDP (New Democratic Party); the potential of today’s labor upsurge and teachers' strike wave; the labor bureaucracy and the rank-and-file strategy required to combat it; how to develop a “militant minority” within the workers' movement; the relationship between organizing in the traditional industrial working class and new struggles oriented around problems of social reproduction; and how to relate to Bernie Sanders, the Democratic Party, and electoral politics.

What should the Left say about borders? Free flow of people across borders has always been a key topic for leftists, perhaps never more so than right now — especially given the realities of climate change. Some on the Left advance a maximalist demand of completely open borders; others (including, recently, Sen. Bernie Sanders) argue that social-democratic policies like Medicare for All require some restriction on the flow of people who can enter a country and access those goods. Suzy Lee is no fan of the latter argument. In "The Case for Open Borders" in the Winter 2019 issue of our journal Catalyst, she argues that the Left can't give any credence to restrictionist arguments by accepting the need to restrict people from entering the US or any other country. You can read Suzy Lee's essay "The Case for Open Borders" here: https://catalyst-<wbr />journal.com/vol2/no4/the-case-<wbr />for-open-borders You can also read Daniel Denvir's piece in Jacobin, "How Bernie Should Talk About Borders": https://www.<wbr />jacobinmag.com/2019/04/bernie-<wbr />sanders-immigrant-rights-<wbr />border-policy And you can subscribe to Jacobin at https://www.jacobinmag.com/<wbr />subscribe

DSA's explosive growth continues; it has already, in a few short years, become the center of a renewed American socialist movement. Dan interviews Doug Henwood, who recently published a lengthy article in The New Republic entitled "The Socialist Network: Inside DSA's struggle to move into the political mainstream."Check out Lisa Duggan's Mean Girl: Ayn Rand and the Culture of Greeducpress.edu/book/9780520294776/mean-girlGo to the Socialism 2019 conference in Chicago July 4-7! Register for the early-bird rate now at socialismconference.orgSupport this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Three interviews: historian Seth Rockman, scholars Crystal Eddins and Zachary Sell, and public historians Akeia Benard, Joey La Neve DeFrancesco, Elon Cook Lee and Marco McWilliams.Dan conducted six interviews on capitalism and slavery at The Dig’s recent Slavery’s Hinterlands symposium here in Rhode Island. This second of two episodes begins with Seth Rockman on the role of slavery in American capitalism. Then, scholars Crystal Eddins and Zachary Sell on revolution and counter-revolution across the racial capitalist global order. Finally, public historians Akeia Benard, Joey La Neve DeFrancesco, Elon Cook Lee and Marco McWilliams on teaching slavery today.Go to the Socialism 2019 conference in Chicago July 4-7! Register for the early-bird rate now at socialismconference.orgCheck out Next Left, a new podcast from The Nation magazine. Their first interview is with Rep. Ilhan Omar. thenation.com/next-left/Support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Socialism: The Movie with Yael Bridge Yael Bridge is one of the filmmakers behind the forthcoming documentary Socialism: An American Story. She talks with Micah about what she's trying to do with the film as well as her own transformation from a liberal into a socialist through the Bernie Sanders campaign. You can read more about Socialism: An American Story and chip in a donation for it here: https://www.kickstarter.<wbr />com/projects/socialismmovie/<wbr />socialism-an-american-story-<wbr />post-production

Eric Blanc, author of Red State Revolt, on the teachers' strikes. Then, Catherine Kaiman, environmental lawyer, on community-based reparations (paper here).

Three interviews: historians Linford Fisher, Christy Clark-Pujara and Joanne Melish, and Emily Owens.Dan conducted six interviews on capitalism and slavery at The Dig's recent Slavery's Hinterlands symposium here in Rhode Island. This first of two episodes begins with historian Linford Fisher, who explains that the English settlement of North America was a settler-colonial project that required genocidally dispossessing indigenous people of their lands. What you might not know is that a central tactic for that dispossession, in New England and Virginia alike, was the threat and actual enslavement of native people, including the widespread practice of forcing native youth to labor in English homes. Then historians Christy Clark-Pujara and Joanne Melish, who pick up where Fisher leaves off: slavery wasn't the South's peculiar institution; it was the bedrock of the northern economy. And finally, historian Emily Owens on sexual labor under slavery: what, Owens' work explores, did slavery and freedom mean for women for whom, in brothels or the home, sex was work? On the next episode, Dan has two more interviews looking at the big picture questions of slavery, capitalism, revolution and colonialism, and an interview with a group of public historians who teach about slavery today.Thanks to n+1. To get 25% off a one-year subscription, go to nplusonemag.com/thedig and enter THEDIG at checkoutPlease support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Chicago recently made international headlines for the victories of six — six!! — members of the Democratic Socialists of America running for city council. It’s an astonishing victory, the biggest socialist victory in any American city in probably a century. These victories matter both for Chicago, which has seen growing working-class pushback to neoliberalism in recent years, but also for socialist organizers in cities around the country, who can learn from how Chicago won so many elections on a left platform. One of the six victors in the April elections was Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, who represents Chicago's 35th Ward, a gentrifying area on the city’s northwest side. Carlos was the only incumbent socialist city council member (or “alderman”); despite being attacked repeatedly by the area’s wealthy real-estate developers, he won re-election comfortably. You can read my interview with Carlos from two years ago, when he was kicked off a gubernatorial ticket for his support of Palestine (which we mention in our discussion) here:https://www.jacobinmag.com/<wbr />2017/09/carlos-rosa-chicago-<wbr />bds-democratic-party And you can read my piece in the Guardian on the Chicago electoral victories here:https://www.theguardian.com/<wbr />commentisfree/2019/apr/03/<wbr />americas-socialist-surge-<wbr />chicago

Donna Haraway's work defies disciplines, combining insights from both biology and feminist thought, and drawing on her own involvement in political projects organized around feminism and radical science. Haraway’s most recent book, Staying With the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, takes up these questions as the fragility of earth’s webs of life is becoming frighteningly and increasingly apparent. What are the ethical and political demands in the face of the most pressing threat of our era—catastrophic climate change? To stay with the trouble, Haraway argues, is to reject technofixes that will save us from doom on the one hand, and on the other, to reject the pessimistic idea that “it’s too late” to make the world better. The book outlines a view of what Haraway calls “multispecies flourishing” and the obstacles to achieving it through theoretical insights and speculative fiction imaginings. Interviewed by Jacobin editorial board member Alyssa Battistoni.Thanks to n+1. To get 25% of a one-year subscription, go to nplusonemag.com/thedig and enter THEDIG at checkoutPlease support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDigAlyssa's piece on Haraway for n+1: nplusonemag.com/issue-28/reviews/monstrous-duplicated-potentSophie Lewis's critique of Haraway and population politics: viewpointmag.com/2017/05/08/cthulhu-plays-no-role-for-meThe Leap Manifesto: leapmanifesto.org/en/the-leap-manifestoThe Xenofeminist Manifesto: laboriacuboniks.net

If we want to transform the United States in a socialist direction, we're going to need to do much more than elect Bernie Sanders as president. Nobody harps on this point more than Bernie himself. You can see it in his "not me, us" campaign slogan, or his emphasis in stump speeches on how massive industries like health insurance companies would mobilize against Medicare for All. President Bernie couldn't do much without a mass working-class movement at his back. But that doesn't mean that such a movement and the Sanders campaign are two separate things — Bernie's campaign can help and has already helped bring those movements into being. Micah talks with Jacobin staff writer Meagan Day about it. You can read Meagan's article "Bernie Sanders Wants You to Fight" here: https://www.jacobinmag.<wbr />com/2019/03/bernie-sanders-<wbr />movements-not-me-us And you can read her article "Wielding the Imperial Presidency" in the new print issue of Jacobin or here: https://jacobinmag.com/<wbr />2019/02/wielding-the-imperial-<wbr />presidency Subscribe to Jacobin: https://jacobinmag.<wbr />com/subscribe

What is gentrification? It isn't just about what was once known as the hipster and is still known as the artist, the telltale warning signs of impending demographic change. It's part of an entire political-economic order that has made real estate global capitalism's most prized asset for storing wealth—one that has helped bend place-based urban governments to the will of mobile, and thus more powerful, capital. Dan interviews Samuel Stein on his book, Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State.Come to The Dig's Slavery's Hinterlands symposium Thursday through Saturday in Rhode Island: facebook.com/events/661508874305008/Check out the English transcript of last week's Spanish-language interview with Communist Chilean Mayor Daniel Jadue jacobinmag.com/2019/04/communist-party-chile-left-governance-recoletaThanks to Verso. Check out their massive left-wing book selection at www.versobooks.comPlease support us with your cash at Patreon.com/TheDig

Alan Minsky, producer of Jacobin Radio, is the guest on this episode. He wears multiple hats and one of them is Executive Director of Progressive Democrats of America (PDA). We talk about the Democratic primary field, and Alan reports on conversations he had on his recent trip to the European Parliament as part of a contingent of the American left. Then, a conversation with Mitch Abidor, translator of Victor Serge's just-published Notebooks, about the Belgian-Russian anarcho-Bolshevik and lifelong Left Oppositionist, who was one of the great writer-thinker-activists of the twentieth century. Serge's contribution is especially attractive today because he never compromised his commitment to the creation of a society that defends human freedom, enhances human dignity, and improves the human condition — and insisted that democracy was at the heart of the socialist project. This makes him both a contemporary as well as a man for our future. Serge’s life as a maverick and renegade relegated him to the margins. He was always poor. His last exile was in Mexico, and a rich trove of his daily writings, his notebooks, were discovered in Mexico in 2003. They were published in France in 2012, and NYRB has just published the English translation. We are fortunate today to speak to the translator, Mitch Abidor.

It's the first episode of The Vast Majority, which will be bringing you conversations on American and international politics from a socialist perspective. So who better to have on than Bhaskar Sunkara, Jacobin's editor, publisher, and founder. Bhaskar is the author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality, which is out today, April 30. Micah talked to Bhaskar about the state of the socialist movement, socialism’s relationship to liberalism and markets, and Bhaskar’s utopian vision of a Buffalo Wild Wings on every corner.You can order The Socialist Manifesto from your bookseller of choice or your local bookstore. And you can read Bhaskar's editorial "The Exercise of Power," where he talks about "class-struggle social democracy," in the latest issue of Jacobin: https://jacobinmag.<wbr />com/2019/02/the-exercise-of-<wbr />power

It's a new podcast from Jacobin: The Vast Majority, hosted by Micah Uetricht. We'll be talking to authors from Jacobin and its sister publications like Catalyst and Tribune in the UK, plus whoever else is thinking and doing important work on the Left. The first episode will be out April 30.

*This episode of The Dig is a special Dig in Spanish. Visit Jacobin for a transcript in English. Este episodio de The Dig es un Dig especial en español. Entra a Jacobin para una transcripción en inglés.* Cuando se piensa en Chile desde el extranjero, generalmente surge la imagen de su pasado reciente marcado por la dictadura cívico–militar. Y esto con toda razón. El legado del régimen genocida de Pinochet todavía está presente en todas partes—en la memoria personal y colectiva, en las leyes y en una constitución profundamente neoliberal que sigue condenando al sistema político a un bipartidismo e impide las transformaciones deseadas por la soberanía popular. Daniel Jadue, el alcalde de la comuna de Recoleta, ubicada en la Región Metropolitana del Gran Santiago, se ha entregado a la empresa de construir en su territorio un laboratorio del comunismo del presente y del futuro. Junto a su equipo ha abierto una farmacia popular, una óptica popular y una linda librería popular. Todos estos servicios de primera necesidad venden sus productos a precios bajos y justos desafiando con ello a un mercado supuestamente autoregulado que en Chile sólo ha demostrado funcionar más bien estimulando prácticas de monopolio—un capitalismo salvaje. Si nos estas escuchando hoy por primera vez con este episodio especial en español y también hablas inglés, por favor revisa nuestro archivo que contiene muchísimas entrevistas con intelectuales y activistas de la izquierda: blubrry.com/thedig/

Rossana Rodriguez on her successful campaign as a socialist for the Chicago city council, where she will join five other socialists. Then, Benjamin Fogel, author of this and this, on the lunacy of Bolsonaro's early months as president of Brazil.

The US has played a major role in fomenting violence across Yemen, backing the Saudi and United Arab Emirates-led forces attacking the country while also conducting a direct war against Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula under the guise of counterterrorism. But while it's understandable that US involvement is the top focus for the American left, understanding the war in Yemen requires a much broader analysis. The Yemeni conflict not only includes multiple outside actors but also multiple groups of Yemenis pursuing different outcomes, rooted in a complex history that few outside of Yemen understand. Explaining that context is what this show, in partnership with the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP), is all about. This special episode includes two interviews with contributors to Middle East Report, MERIP's print publication. First, up is Yemeni journalist Afrah Nasser and political scientist Stacey Philbrick Yadav; and then, Dan speaks with political-economist Adam Hanieh. Check out The Fight for Yemen, the latest issue of Middle East Report at merip.org/magazine/<wbr />289 Thanks to Verso. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.org Please support this podcast with your cash at Patreon.com/TheDig <style></style>

<font color="#000000">Our guest Yoav Peled argues that Netanyahu i</font>s the only issue in the April 9 election. <font color="#000000">Netanyahu is under indictment for one case of bribery and two cases of fraud, but Yoav says </font><font color="#000000">he is likely to win even though his party and their bloc </font>—<font color="#000000"> with far-right, racist and religious parties </font>—<font color="#000000"> is more or less tied with the anti-Bibi “Blue an</font>d White” coalition or bloc. Yoav also discusses his new book, The Religionization of Israeli Society— <font color="#000000">which sheds light on how the country has moved from secular Zionism to an increasingly far-right expansionist religious Zionism, and how that helps us understand the election, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict </font>—<font color="#000000"> and the relation between culture, politics, nationalism, secularization, and new social movements. </font> <font color="#000000">Suzi then talks to</font>Micah Uetricht in Chicago, where 5–6 socialists <font color="#000000">were just elected to the City Council. Micah argues they will have outsize influence in determining the political issues </font>— <font color="#000000">much as we have seen nationally with the election of democratic socialists to Congress. In his aptly titled article in</font> the Guardian<font color="#000000">“America's socialist surge is going strong in Chicago” Micah writes that the socialist victories in Chicago were not a fluke, people are miserable with the status quo of austerity </font>— and if Chicago’s elections are any indication, it just may be that people are ready to try socialism.

Jason Wilson on how cops are more interested in surveilling the Left than the Right (article here; Will Parrish article here). Then, Todd Chretien reflects on the forty-two-year history of the International Socialist Organization, which dissolved itself at the end of March.

In the US, China is often viewed at best as a nefarious and enigmatic rival and at worst as a civilizational enemy. But these stories of national rivalry that permeate both major parties and the mainstream media function as a mystification, shrouding the global supply chain that connects capitalist exploitation from East to West. When we cut through the noise, a rather different picture emerges: China is home to a massive portion of the world's working-class, a class that is struggling against the combined forces of state and global capital for dignified lives. And these struggles, contrary to conventional wisdom, are deeply connected, rather than opposed to, worker struggles in the West. Dan interviews sociologist Jenny Chan on China's class conflict and labor movement.Thanks to Verso Books. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.comPlease support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Car dominance, public transit austerity, and the neoliberal political-economy within which both are embedded have fomented what Marx called idiocy, in its classical sense of privatized social isolation. Dan talks to geographer Kafui Attoh, the author of Rights in Transit: Public Transportation and the Right to the City in California's East Bay, about the political-economy of public transit and why the fight for transportation justice must be part of a broader struggle for the right to the city.André Gorz's "The social ideology of the motorcar" unevenearth.org/2018/08/the-social-ideology-of-the-motorcar/Two upcoming live Dig tapings in Providence!April 23: Dan interviews Sam Stein on his book Capital City facebook.com/events/2164662790291372/May 2-4: Slavery’s Hinterlands: Capitalism and bondage in Rhode Island and across the Atlantic world facebook.com/events/661508874305008/And check out the Philadelphia Socialist Feminist Convergence, April 26-28 socfemphilly.wordpress.comThanks to Verso Books. Peruse their massive selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.com

Suzi talks to political economist Pedro Paulo Zahluth Bastos about the Trump-Bolsonaro love fest in D.C. last week, and the new Brazilian-US relationship. Bolsonaro was "summoned" to Washington to support a US invasion of Venezuela under the pretext of "exporting democracy," and we ask Pedro Paulo how that will go over in Brazil — and note the irony that Bolsonaro is a staunch defender of military dictatorships and no lover of democracy. We also get Pedro Paulo's view of Brazilian politics and economics under their new tweeter in chief — who campaigned as a murderous, homophobic, anti-feminist, declaring open season on the Left and on the Amazon rainforest, but governs as an extreme neoliberal.

The strike is back, and big time. Teachers in particular have been walking off the job not only to demand higher wages but also to fight for an end to privatization and for a transformation of the educational system for their students. These strikes, often led by women, are no doubt inspiring, and they have won important victories for workers and the communities they serve. We are, in other words, beginning to head in the right direction—but we're not heading there even close to fast enough. Winning working class power is not only necessary to meet people's immediate material needs. It is necessary if we are to accomplish a profound democratization of this country, which is what we must do if we are to implement a just energy transition that heads off what scientists have determined to be imminent climate catastrophe. Dan talks to Jane McAlevey about the labor movement and strikes.Jane's Catalystarticle The Strike as the Ultimate Structure Test.And her Jacobinarticle Organizing to Win a Green New Deal.Thanks to Verso. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.comPlease support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Tony Wood, author of Russia Without Putin, on contemporary Russia and Putin.

Four of the five candidates endorsed by the Chicago Democratic Socialists of America either won outright or advanced to the runoff election on April 2, leading to talk of a Socialist Caucus on the city council. And other progressive candidates throughout the city knocked off corporate-friendly incumbents. Dan passes the mic to guest host Micah Uetricht for an interview with United Working Families Executive Director Emma Tai and In These Times web editor Miles Kampf-Lassin on how years of grassroots organizing—and partnerships between labor and community groups and socialists—can produce a sea change in urban politics.Thanks to Verso. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.comPlease support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

American liberty has since its foundation relied upon the dispossession of indigenous people and Mexicans, upon African enslavement and, ultimately, upon the constant fleeing outward that created an empire that none dare call by its name. As historian Greg Grandin writes in The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America, this expansionist project has finally lost its ideological and material vitality, no longer able to neatly reconcile centuries of mounting contradictions. And so politics returned to the border as American expansion hit a wall—figuratively and, as Trump has demanded, very literally. "Trumpism," Grandin writes, "is extremism turned inward, all-consuming and self-devouring. There is no 'divine, messianic' crusade that can harness and redirect passions outward. Expansion, in any form, can no longer satisfy interests, reconcile contradictions, dilute the factions, or redirect the anger."Thanks to University of California Press. Check out No Go WorldL How Fear Is Redrawing Our Maps and Infecting Our Politics by Ruben Andersson ucpress.edu/book/9780520294608/no-go-worldAnd thanks to Verso. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.comPlease support this podcast with your money at patreon.com/TheDig

Cinzia Arruzza and Tithi Bhattacharya, authors (along with Nancy Fraser) of Feminism for the 99%, on a truly transformative feminism. Then, Sam Stein, author of Capital City, on bourgeois urban planning, with an emphasis on NYC.

Richard Walker, geographer and director of the Living New Deal project, on what the original New Deal can teach the Green one. Then, Aziz Rana on the need for a left internationalism.

Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou explains: it's not just that the War on Terror has warped American and European politics and society; it's that the War on Terror and Islamic terrorist groups like ISIS have become mutually-critical facets of a larger, more total global geo-political order. In other words, the terrorists and the national security states waging war against them are dependent upon one another, and together have created a more violent, divided and alienated world.Thanks to University of California Press. Check out Red Round Globe Hot Burning: A Tale at the Crossroads of Commons and Closure, of Love and Terror, of Race and Class, and of Kate and Ned Despard by Peter Linebaugh ucpress.edu/book/9780520299467/red-round-globe-hot-burningAnd to Verso Books. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.comPlease support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Suzi talks to DSAers Jeremy Gong and Magally Miranda Alcazar about the larger issues they are confronting after two years of Trump, a midterm election that saw radical democratic socialists elected to Congress, and the beginning of a second Bernie Sanders campaign for president. How do they see the challenges ahead, in a more favorable national context for Democratic Socialists, thanks to Bernie, AOC, #Red4Ed striking teachers, and the Trump administration’s retrograde policies? Can the Left take over the Democratic Party and should that be their aim? Or should the social-movement work of DSA, independent of the Dems, be their focus? How do they define socialism, and what should socialists do given the structures of our politics and economy?Then, Suzi talks to Randy Shaw about his new book,Generation Priced Out — which is a call to action that addresses the national crisis of housing, city by city, looking at how policy and neglect, as well as economic crisis, has led to skyrocketing rents and home values that have priced out the working and middle class of urban America such that young people today join the exodus from the city or face homelessness because they cannot afford to live in our cities. Generation Priced Out not only tells the stories of those impacted by the national housing crisis in more than a dozen cities, he makes the argument that cities can and must address the housing needs of residents of all income levels — and he offers specific strategies, honed from his own decades of experience as a housing activist to reverse rising economic and racial inequality.

It's irrelevant whether establishment liberals are sincerely aware of the threat posed by climate catastrophe because they are constitutionally hemmed in by a small-bore, technocratic and profoundly neoliberal ideology. But the climate justice movement understands not only the urgency of the problem but also the magnitude of the political-economic response that solving it requires: to fight global warming, according to The Green New Deal, we must transform the unequal, alienating and exploitative system that carbon emissions are rooted in. Dan interviews Green New Deal architect Rhiana Gunn-Wright.Read Jacobin's Green New Deal series jacobinmag.com/series/green-new-dealThanks to Verso. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.comPlease support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Striking women have begun to reclaim feminism as a project of working-class struggle against not only patriarchy's domination of women by men but also against capitalism's domination of the many by the few—a system that sexism serves. As Cinzia Arruzza, Tithi Bhattacharya and Nancy Fraser write in Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto, "Our answer to lean-in feminism is kick-back feminism. We have no interest in breaking the glass ceiling while leaving the vast majority to clean up the shards. Far from celebrating women CEOs who occupy corner offices, we want to get rid of CEOs and corner offices." Dan interviews Tithi Bhattacharya.Thanks to Verso. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.comPlease support this podcast with your money at patreon.com/TheDig

Dan's guest is long-time organizer Jonathan Matthew Smucker, the author of Hegemony How-To: A Roadmap for Radicals. The book is both a critique of the radical left's traditional style of politics and a how-to guide to fighting and winning, from nuts-and-bolts organizing methods to theory. What is wrong with the world and how to change it are two different categories of knowledge, and effective organizing requires that we master the latter.Thanks to Verso Books. Check out their huge collection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.comPlease support us with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Suzi talks to Kate Aronoff about Bernie Sanders’s candidacy, the Green New Deal, and the Democratic Party. Bernie Sanders raised a whopping $6 million the first day he announced his run for president in 2020, making him the most important candidate in the race, and not just because of the money. His 2016 run within the Democratic Party but against its politics has changed the political conversation, brought tens of thousands into the work of politics, elected a new cohort of left Democrats to — and thanks to Bernie, all the candidates are now at least proclaiming support for Medicare for All, striking teachers, and a Green New Deal. As Kate Aronoff puts it, “The types of ideas laughed off in the 2016 primary as magical unicorns are now firmly in the party’s mainstream, even as they make its top brass sweat.”

Daniel Aldana Cohen, author of this article, on the role of housing in a Green New Deal. Then, Joel Whitney, author of this article, on the CIA's history as a purveyor of fake news.

Noah Kulwin, staff writer with Jewish Currents, on why Ilhan Omar’s AIPAC tweets weren't antisemitic. Then, Thea Riofrancos, one of editors of Jacobin's Green New Deal series, on the agenda's scope and politics.

Dan discusses The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte — Marx's take on revolution and reaction in mid-nineteenth-century France, the broader theories he develops about history and the relationship between politics and the class war, and how this all might apply to today — with political sociologist Dylan Riley.Check out Dan's recent NYT op-ed, "The Case Against Border Security."Thanks to NACLA, reporting on the Americas since 1967. Check out their collection of articles on Latin American politics at nacla.org. And thanks, as always, to Verso. Check out their huge collection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.com.Please support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig!

Dan talks to Eric Levitz — who at New York magazine provides the sort of consistently thoughtful and deeply contextualized analysis that is often quite hard to find on mainstream news sites — about the increasingly impossible to reconcile immanent contradictions shaking the Democratic and Republican parties.Thanks to University of California Press. Check out American Prophet: The Life and Work of Carey McWilliams by Peter Richardson, with a foreword from Mike Davis.Please support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig!

What might Bernie 2020 look like, particularly now that almost everyone claims to be for Medicare for All (whatever they might mean by that)? Will Harris's track record as a law-and-order prosecutor doom her, or will her appeal as a woman of color rally a decisive number of votes? And will Biden being exposed as utterly unfit for the 2020 Democratic base send his poll numbers crashing? What impact will AOC have on defining what voters want and demand? Dan discusses all of this and more with Briahna Gray, Dave Weigel, and Waleed Shahid.Thanks to Verso Books. Check out their huge collection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.com.Please support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig.

<font color="#000000">The state of the economy is, despite assertions to the contrary, not strong; it is being plundered by the alliance of top corporate managers, leading financiers and political leaders from both parties. Suzi talks to </font>Robert Brenner on politics and the state of the economy — matters of great confusion if you only pay attention to the business press and politicians, who say the economy is robust, with record low unemployment, rising wages, and the recovery of the stock market. But the Fed stopped raising interest rates, wages are stagnant, precarity and insecurity are the norm, homelessness has exploded, student debt is staggering and suffocating — and teachers are striking to force states to reinvest (stop under-investing) to save public education. So what is the real story, and if the economists and pundits are getting it wrong — why is that the case? Is it cheerleading for the status quo? We get Brenner’s analysis.

Two left-wing Muslim women newly elected to Congress—Palestinian-American Rashida Tlaib and Somali-American Ilhan Omar—are resetting the Congressional debate over Palestine. In response, they have been met with slanderous attacks. On the one hand, this is exciting: we've never had people in Congress not only criticizing Israeli brutality but also supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. On the other hand, the current debate is a sobering reminder of how amongst American elected officials, overwhelming, and nearly unconditional, bipartisan support for Israel remains the norm even as Democratic voters move leftward—and in increasing opposition to the occupation. Dan speaks to organizer Linda Sarsour on the politics of Palestine in flux—and how partisan polarization on the issue is accelerating, and why that's a good thing.Thanks to Verso. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.comPlease support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Alejandro Velasco, Gabriel Hetland and Naomi Schiller on the profound economic, social, and political crisis in Venezuela. More than three million refugees and migrants have fled the country. Opposition figure Juan Guaidó has declared himself president. Trump and other right-wing leaders throughout the Americas quickly recognized him as just that. The US imposed new sanctions on Venezuela's oil and has hinted at the possibility of a military invasion. It's unclear what comes next, but foreign intervention would make an extremely bad situation catastrophic.Meanwhile, many reactionaries throughout the Americas are pointing to Venezuela as proof that socialism cannot work. What is the correct analysis? What does solidarity with the Venezuelan people mean for today's left? These are all extremely complicated and urgent questions. Today, Dan interviews three experts on Venezuela to help answer them.Thanks to Verso. Check out their huge collection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.comPlease support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, a leader of Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel, is on trial in New York. After twice making his way out of Mexican prisons, he was extradited to the United States. This is what counts as a major victory in the never-ending US war on drugs, which the US has in recent decades exported to Mexico. Yet El Chapo's arrest, like that of so many others, has done nothing to stop Mexican drug cartels from continuing to export massive quantities of cocaine and heroin and other drugs. Neither has it caused cartels to pause the murderous bloodbath that they have visited upon the Mexican people. The Mexican state continues to be a corrupt one, and the domestic deployment of a Mexican military deeply implicated in human rights violations is set to continue. And there is still no justice for the disappeared students from Ayotzinapa. Dan interviews legendary Mexican investigative journalist Anabel Hernández.Thanks to Verso. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.comPlease support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

#Red4EdLA: Los Angeles teachers lead the way for the labor movement — striking FOR public education — using the strike weapon to reverse the damage of decades of neoliberal assault on everything public. Suzi talks to Joel Jordan, an education strategist currently coordinating nine of the largest urban teacher unions in California, including UTLA, about the strike strategy behind UTLA’s extraordinary historic victory. Joel lays out how UTLA’s Union Power leadership wielded the strike weapon as part of a long-term strategy explicitly linked to upcoming strikes in Oakland and elsewhere and discusses the limitations the union faced, and the broad support they built and enjoyed.<o:p></o:p>

Alex Caputo-Pearl, president of the Los Angeles teachers’ union and Jane McAlevey, author and organizer, on the union’s great victory in their LA strike, protecting public education against the plutocrats’ attacks

Historian Andrew Bacevich tries to make sense of Trump’s foreign policy. Then, Steven Maher (author of this article) on the rise and fall of GE.

Democracy is the proposition that the people should govern themselves. But who are the people, and how should they govern? Populist movements attempt to answer these questions. In response, establishment figures insist that it is the people and their populism that pose a dangerous threat to democracy. How should we appraise our current populist moment? And how can we distinguish between populism's left and right variants? Dan interviews two experts on populism, political scientists Laura Grattan and Thea Riofrancos.Check out Thea's n+1 essays on populism here:nplusonemag.com/issue-28/politics/democracy-without-the-people-2/nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/zombie-liberalism/nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/populism-without-the-people/Thanks to Verso. Check out their huge collection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.comPlease support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

On this special #RedforEd edition of Jacobin Radio, Suzi speaks with former teacher, member of the School Board, City Council, and State Assembly Jackie Goldberg, who is running in the March 5 special election to the LAUSD School Board. If elected, Jackie will be an experienced and effective progressive voice for public education, opposing the charter school privatizers who were elected with money from the bank-rollers who "have stacked the deck against district public schools.” We talk to Jackie about the strike, the fight to save public education, and how the forces are aligned from Los Angeles to Sacramento to Washington. Suzi also speaks to Eric Blanc, former teacher and author of the forthcoming Red State Revolt:The Teachers Strike Wave and Working Class Politics. Erichas been covering the strike for Jacobinand looks at the larger issues in the UTLA strike, the billionaires arrayed against the LA schools, the dilemma this strike poses for establishment Democrats, and why this fightback is historic.