Jacobin Radio

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor returns to The Dig to discuss her new book How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective. Forty years ago, a group of black feminists coined the term “identity politics” in the Combahee River Collective Statement. For them, it was a way to identify the various ways that capitalism, racism, patriarchy, and homophobia created a set of interlocking oppressions. And the point of identifying how those systems operated together was not to create an itemized politics of particularity, as is too often the case today, but rather to create a framework for solidarity. Thanks to our sponsors at Verso Books. Check out Futures of Black Radicalism and support this podcast with $ at Patreon.com/TheDig.

Journalists Robert Scheer, and Marc Cooper join Suzi Weissman in a wide-ranging discussion on "Media and Democracy: From the Vietnam War to the Consolidation of Alternative Facts in the Digital Era," that was recently held at the REDCAT theater in Los Angeles. Suzi Weissman looks at what was behind the social conflicts of the 1960s and the present. Robert Scheer, renowned journalist and former editor of Ramparts, tells the story of Ramparts and provides an inside look at how the war was conducted, including the widespread secrecy and surveillance of the FBI in an attempt to crush dissent. Journalist Marc Cooper looks at media delivery in the present digital era of democratized information that has introduced new potential as well as new dangers.

A lengthy interview with historian Barbara Fields and sociologist Karen Fields on their seminal essay collection Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life. Dan talks to the sister scholars about the book; how Ta-Nehisi Coates’s primordialist view of white racism spells defeat; how racism serves the interest of capitalist class war, how endless debates over Rachel Dolezal distract us from that fact; and a whole ton more. This is over two hours, so you might want to bite it off on a few chunks, or on a long drive. Thanks to our sponsors at Verso. Check out Tear Gas: From the Battlefields of WWI to the Streets of Today by Anna Feigenbaum. And support your (favorite?) left-wing podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig!

Journalist Ryan Cooper talks about the new paper he wrote with Matt Bruenig, founder of the People's Policy Project, a new left-wing think tank. "Foreclosed: Destruction of Black Wealth During the Obama Presidency" details how the Wall Street-induced foreclosure epidemic wiped out huge swaths of black wealth — and how Obama could have taken multiple actions to save most homes but did not. Check out the report and this article about it. Thanks to our supporters at Verso Books. Check out Radical Happiness: Moments of Collective Joy by Lynne Segal. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig.

The prospect of nuclear war with North Korea sits near the top of the list of things that have been unthinkably bad about Donald Trump’s presidency. But the conflict with North Korea didn’t begin with Trump. It’s critical that we understand the Koreas and their historical context right now. Journalist Tim Shorrock breaks it all down — North Korea, South Korea, the role of the US, and others — from World War II to the present. And he argues that peace is possible, but it can only achieved through engagement between North and South, not through bellicose US intervention. Thanks to Verso Books for their support. Check out Tear Gas: From the Battlefields of WWI to the Streets of Today by Anna Feigenbaum at versobooks.com/books/2109-tear-gas. And please support us with $ at Patreon.com/TheDig.

Author and economist Dr. Jack Rasmus dissects the Trump/Ryan/McConnell Tax (Cut) Plan, that he says will only increase financial instability and economic fragility. It is neoliberalism on steroids. Then, Professor Victor Pickard discusses FCC Chair Ajit Pai's intention to repeal net neutrality protections that will threaten public access to information by limiting content and speed. He's hopeful that massive resistance can push back against this radical corporate agenda.

Corey Robin, whose The Reactionary Mind has just been issued in an updated edition, on the Right from Burke to Trump. While most people on the Left fear and demonize the Right, they aren't interested in its ideas. Robin, however, takes them very seriously and analyzes their ideas for us.

Robert Reich, Bill Clinton’s Labor Secretary, explains one of Clintonism’s most dreadful results: President Trump. The new film Saving Capitalism, available on Netflix, is Reich’s quasi-autobiographical documentary about the origins of contemporary political-economic inequality. The premise that capitalism ought to be saved notwithstanding, Reich offers firsthand insight into Clinton’s rightward rush into the arms of Corporate America. Thanks to our sponsors at Verso Books. Check out Radical Happiness: Moments of Collective Joy by Lynne Segal versobooks.com/books/2576-radical-happiness And support us with your $ at Patreon.com/TheDig. We can’t do it without you.

The drug war is a cause of, not solution to, the overdose crisis. Law and public health scholar @LeoBeletsky explains the origins of the opioid overdose crisis and how drug prohibition, policing, interdiction and incarceration are at its root — and continue to help make opioid use so deadly. Thanks to our supporters at Verso Books. Check out Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis by George Monbiot versobooks.com/books/2571-out-of-the-wreckage Support us with your $ at Patreon.com/TheDig. We can’t do this without our listeners!

We’ve got a bonus episode for you today, which is audio from a debate between Alex Vitale — a recent guest on this show, sociologist and author of The End of Policing — and Heather Mac Donald, one of the leading intellectual champions of urban neoconservativism, over-policing, and mass incarceration at the Manhattan Institute. In a short intro, Dan explains why he’s rooting for one of these two individuals and why that person decisively wins. Thanks to our sponsors at Verso Books. We work really hard and don’t paywall a thing: support this podcast with $ at Patreon.com/TheDig

Ethnographer Kristen Ghodsee returns to the show to discuss Red Hangover, her new book on the traumas of post-Communist life in Eastern Europe. Unique for an academic text, the book is a series of essays with fictional sketches that evoke the complexities of life under Communism and the poverty and displacement that came with its demise.

The GOP tax plan is a monstrous giveaway to corporate America but it might not pass thanks to the same contradictions within the Republican coalition that repeatedly sunk efforts to repeal Obamacare, as journalist @ArthurDelaneyHP explains. Thanks to our supporters at Verso Books. Check out Extreme Cities: The Peril and Promise of Urban Life in the Age of Climate Change by Ashley Dawson versobooks.com/books/2558-extreme-cities Support us with your $ at patreon.com/TheDig

Trump's demagogic rhetoric on MS-13 is designed to obscure the truth about the reality and origins of mass Central American migration: the roots of migration from Central America lie in significant part in the violence unleashed by US-backed dirty wars and deportations of alleged gang members. The demonization of Central American gangs functions to distract the public from US complicity and legitimate a cruel deportation machine. Dan's guest, political scientist Noelle Brigden, has spent years researching on the migrant trail. For more background, check out Dan's Washington Post op-ed washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/07/20/deporting-people-made-central-americas-gangs-more-deportation-wont-help Thanks to our sponsors at Verso Books. Check out Violent Borders: Refugees and the Right to Move by Reece Jones. And please hook us up with some $ at patreon.com/TheDig

Norman Solomon on the findings of a recently released report he co-authored, "Autopsy: The Democratic Party in Crisis." It examines the continuing crises within the Democratic Party with the aim of stimulating a nationwide discussion and a stimulus for action of the kind that challenges the nature of the party. Then, Guardian columnist Alissa Quart on her recent article, "What's the common denominator among sexual harassers? Too often, it's money," which looks at sexual harassment's roots in inequality and power imbalances.

Last week was a bad week for Republicans and a good week for Democrats — and for democratic socialists. It’s now pretty clear that Republicans will pay a price for the fact that large numbers of Americans detest our dotard-in-chief. But last week’s election once again fails to offer any sort of definitive answer to the long-running debate between the Left and the corporate Democratic establishment over who is best poised to beat Republicans. The coming anti-Republican wave is an opportunity that the Left must seize. Dan's guests are DSA member Lee Carter, who took out the Republican whip to win Virginia’s 50th House District, and David Duhalde, DSA’s Deputy Director. Thanks to our sponsors at Verso Books. Check out Age of Folly: America Abandons Its Democracy by Lewis H. Lapham versobooks.com/books/2517-age-of-folly Also, support us with $ at patreon.com/TheDig

Brooke Harrington, author of Capital Without Borders, on the offshore wealth racket and the Paradise Papers. Then Kali Akuno, co-editor of Jackson Rising and a co-founder of Cooperation Jackson, on building a green municipal socialism in Jackson, Mississippi.

Historian Kelly Lytle Hernández tells the story of human caging in Los Angeles, from the Spanish Conquest to the mid-twentieth century, in her new book City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, 1771-1965. It's a story of indigenous exploitation and elimination, immigrant detention and deportation, and the suppression of cross-border revolutionary movements. Thanks to our sponsors at Verso Books. Check out Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis by George Monbiot versobooks.com/books/2<wbr />571-out-of-the-wreckage Support us with your $ at patreon.com/TheDig.

Journalist @melissagira eviscerates a newspaper investigation that conflates sex work with trafficking. She examines how reporters unwittingly fall into a savior complex, which ends up criminalizing workers in the name of defending women's dignity. Thanks to our sponsors at Verso Books. Check out Futures of Black Radicalism https://www.versobooks.com/books/2438-futures-of-black-radicalism. And support us on Patreon.com/TheDig with some cash.

The Intercept's Ryan Grim on the the state of the GOP, which despite recent losses in this week's elections, controls all three branches of the federal government and is currently trying to pass a tax bill. Then, Rachel Sherman, author of Uneasy Street, on the consciousness of the rich.

Kate Wagner of McMansion Hell on those abominable things dotting the American landscape. Then, Donna Minkowitz, author of this article, reports on her visit to the genteel white supremacists of AmRen.

Centrist business elites believe in an America that doesn't exist. Two guests this episode: first, @mollyesque talks about her piece "On Safari in Trump's America" for The Atlantic. Her article follows the centrist organization Third Way on a “listening tour” of the real America. Then @EricLevitz (35:52), who just published on op-ed in the New York Timesentitled “America is not ‘center-right," sorts through research to argue that what Americans often mean when they say they are “moderate” is not the combination of superficial social progressivism and neoliberalism that Wall-Street-aligned Third Way types think they mean. Thanks to our supporters at Verso Books. Check out Grand Hotel Abyss: The Lives of the Frankfurt School by Stuart Jeffries versobooks.com/books/<wbr />2501-grand-hotel-abyss Support us with $ at patreon.com/TheDig

Writer and author Andy Durgan discusses the fast-moving events taking place in Catalonia. This past week, Catalonia declared independence, and the Spanish government is moving quickly to repress the independence movement's political leaders and keep the region within its fold. Then, journalist Michael Sainato joins Suzi to talk about the post-2016 election fights within the Democratic Party, and what they mean for the next wave of election cycles.

Why have the size of American police departments grown so dramatically in recent decades, even as crime rates have fallen? One factor may have been the growing centrality of real estate for urban economies, according to a new article published in the journal Social Forces by Adam Goldstein, a professor of sociology at Princeton, and Brenden Beck, a PhD student in sociology at CUNY. Thanks to our sponsors at Verso Books. Check out The End of Policingby Alex Vitale versobooks.com/books/<wbr />2426-the-end-of-policing Support us with $ at patreon.com/TheDig

Aziz Rana discusses his pivotal book, The Two Faces of American Freedom. Rana overturns conventional accounts of American history, from settlement and Revolution to the Populists and the present day. In reality, settler-colonialism, empire, and a brutally exploitative economic system grounded in racial subjugation have always been at the core of the American project. But radical thinkers and movements have consistently stepped forward at critical junctures to propose transformative alternatives that would make American freedom universal. Rana's most brilliant move is to ultimately make a devastatingly critical account of American history hopeful and optimistic. Thanks to our supporters at Verso Books. Check out Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump versobooks.com/books/<wbr />2535-alt-america Support us with $ at patreon.com/TheDig

Benjamin Opratko, a fellow at Humboldt University in Berlin who teaches at the University of Vienna, on the rise of the far right in Austria. On Sunday, October 16, Austria held elections, and the two right-wing parties will form a government (you can read Opratko's Jacobinarticles for more on this subject). Then Steven Teles, author of The Captured Economy, launches a hybrid "liberalitarian" attack on rent-seeking.

The exposure of Weinstein's predations has reignited widespread fury over the longstanding problem of sexual harassment and assault—especially in the workplace. Jacobin editor @alexnpress discusses two new pieces she wrote on how dealing with these problems as individuals only ends up harming individual women and why women must organize to fight back. Support us on Patreon.com/TheDig with some cash.

Corey Robin points to a tension that has defined conservatism from the get-go, between two competing conceptions of virtue and nobility: one defined by political and military distinction and another by entrepreneurial acumen and accumulated wealth. Robin parses how Trump fits into this dynamic history, in part by taking a look back to seminal conservative thinkers like Edmund Burke and Friedrich Hayek. Support us with $ at patreon.com/TheDig Listen to Dan's first interview with Corey: blubrry.com/thedig/22226639/corey-robin-on-the-reactionaries-minds-under-trump/

Dan was on a panel last week on ending the war on drug dealers at the Drug Policy Alliance conference in Atlanta. The panel was moderated by asha bandele and included Daryl Atkinson, Constanza Sánchez Avilé, Lyn Ulbrich, Kemba Smith and Dan. Thanks for listening. Support us at patreon.com/TheDig.

Suzi Weissman switches seats with Robert Brenner: she is the guest and he does the interviewing. The program begins with a talk Suzi gave recently in Berkeley: "One Hundred Years Since October: When the Russian Working Class Opened the Possibilities For Humanity." Robert and Suzi then discuss the significance of October 1917, when workers took power with profoundly democratic institutions of popular control from below in the Russian empire, creating the Soviet Union.

Isabel Hilton, editor of ChinaDialogue.net, discusses recent developments at the Chinese Communist Party Congress. Then, Doug is joined by Alex Vitale, author The End of Policing, who addresses how we cure ourselves of the cop sickness.

Since Bernie Sanders's success in the 2016 Democratic primary, much of the Left, from progressive Democrats to socialists, has had its sights set on something we had long at least implicitly assumed was impossible: state power and governing. The question now is how to take power, and the Left is consumed by debates over how and whether to engage with the Democratic Party or, in a more limited fashion, with the Democratic Party's ballot line. Joe Dinkin of the Working Families Party talks to Dan about the promise and pitfalls of fighting within the Democratic Party. Support us at Patreon.com/thedig.

In his new book The End of Policing Brooklyn College sociologist @avitale makes the case that technocratic reforms won't fix American policing. In reality, we can only fix policing by ending the carceral state and defeating neoliberalism. Thanks to Verso Books for their support. Check out Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump by David Neiwert versobooks.com/<wbr />books/2535-alt-america Support us with your $$ at patreon.com/thedig

An extended interview with former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis on his new book, Adults in the Room, the story of his surreal negotiations with Greece’s creditors

Chapo went on The Dig. Dan talks to@cushbombabout optimism, pessimism, Manitowoc, reptilians, why the internet might be mostly bad, and Dan’s personal connection to the PizzaGate coverup. Toss us some cash love atPatreon.com/thedigand check outThe End of Policing by Alex Vitale, from our sponsors at Verso Books.

<font size="4">Suzi Weissman talks to</font><font size="4">Einde O’Callaghan, a teacher and member of Die Linke, about Germany’s recent election, in which the far-right AfD gained 94 seats in Parliament, making it larger and more influential than the left-wing Die Linke. Then, Richard Lichtman joins us to discuss the notion (and failures) of democracy in the current period. How do we characterize a system that has the form of democracy but not the substance? Has this always been the case or is there something new in the era of Trump?</font> <img src="https://ssl.gstatic.com/ui/v1/icons/mail/images/cleardot.gif" />

Former Ohio State Senator Nina Turner talks about being horrified by Trump, why single-payer is suddenly hot among likely 2020 Democratic contenders, and the work that Our Revolution is doing nationwide to fight the Democratic Party's neoliberal leadership. Thanks to our supporters at Verso Books, who just published Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis by George Monbiot. Also, catch me in Atlanta at the International Drug Policy Reform conference on October 14.

Prevailing debate obscures the fact that we already have a form of gun control in the United States. As legal scholar Ben Levin explains, the problem is that it’s a form of gun control that is mostly about locking up poor black men in huge numbers. The Left should demand a society without readily available weapons of war on the streets and a society without mass incarceration. Thanks to our supporters at University of California Press. Check out their new title Race and America's Long War from Nikhil Pal Singh. And check out Dan's Jacobin article on carceral gun control here. Also, catch Dan in Atlanta at the International Drug Policy Reform conference on October 14.

First, author Joel Schalit explores the rise of the right in Germany. Then, Professor Marisol LeBrón talks about the role of debt and austerity in impairing Puerto Rico's hurricane recovery. And finally, Shawna Potter of the band War on Women, on being a feminist punk rocker.

Here's Dan's full interview with civil rights attorney and Democratic nominee for Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner. You heard some of it yesterday on the first in a four-part series on mass incarceration that we are co-producing with Cited, a podcast out of the University of British Columbia. Sponsorship from Harvard Law's Fair Punishment Project (sign up for their newsletter: http://eepurl.com/<wbr />cZMccH) and The University of Washington Center for Human Rights.

In the late 1960s, criminologists like Todd Clear predicted America would soon start closing its prisons. They couldn't have been more wrong. Interviews with Clear, formerly incarcerated poet and legal scholar Dwayne Betts, and civil rights attorney and Democratic nominee for Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner.Today's show is the first in a four-part series on mass incarceration that we are co-producing with @citedpodcast, which is out of the University of British Columbia. Special guest hosts are Cited's @Samadeus and scholar Katherine Beckett. Sponsorship from Harvard Law's Fair Punishment Project (sign up for the FPP newsletter: http://eepurl.com/cZMccH) and The University of Washington Center for Human Rights.

Journalist Lukas Hermsmeier on German politics after the recent election, which saw a breakthrough for the AfD, a far-right party, the first to have seats in the German Bundestag since the Nazi era. Then, the writer Margaret Corvid discusses the recent UK Labour Party conference.

Today’s Diglet is not really diminutive at all. Dan has two interviews with two separate guests because too much has happened over the past few weeks and there are too many smart people to analyze it all. First, scholar @marisollebron on how Wall Street-imposed austerity set Puerto Rico up for devastation, and why it will be an obstacle to a just recovery. Then, Twitter expert @BrandyLJensen on recent Republican grotesqueries. Donate to Taller Salud in PR at facebook.com/taller.salud, check out puertoricosyllabus.com and support this podcast at patreon.com/thedig

Islamophobia is conventionally regarded as racist and bigoted views about Muslims expressed by ignorant individuals, including the one who somehow became president. But legal and critical race scholar @KhaledBeydoun explains that the reality is more complicated. The War on Terror perpetrated state-backed Islamophobia, which nurtured and bolstered popular anti-Muslim bigotry. Support us at Patreon.com/TheDig. Check out Beydoun's article http://columbialawreview.org/content/islamophobia-toward-a-legal-definition-and-framework/

We look at urban politics from Barcelona to Chicago with Isidro Lopez, PodemosMember of Parliament in Madrid, and Troy LaRaviere, president of the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association. Isidro brings us his analysis of the independence referendum in Catalonia — slated for October 1 but now banned and declared unconstitutional by the Central Government — that has brought tens of thousands to the streets of Barcelona demanding the right to vote. Then, Troy LaRaviere, who is beginning his campaign against Rahm Emmanuel for mayor of Chicago, and taking on the Democratic Party in the process, joins us to to talk about his campaign, his support for the city's public schools and the Chicago Teachers Union, and the fight against charterization and privatization.

For this Diglet, Dan and Eve Peyser discuss What Happened, Hillary Clinton's new book. Eve also talks about spending time with Jill Stein recently, and argues that it's wrongheaded to blame Stein for Trump. Thanks to our supporters at University of California Press. Check out their new title How All Politics Became Reproductive Politics: From Welfare Reform to Foreclosure to Trump.

Andrew Cockburn, author of this article, on the Saudi involvement in 9/11 • Asad Haider, author of this article, on identity, Mark Lilla, and Ta-Nehisi Coates.

September 7, 2017 Christo Sims, author of Disruptive Fixation, on school reform and techno-fetishism • Christian Parenti, author of this article, on climate change and the threat to coastal cities.

Trump is normal in more ways than people care to admit, but he is different in that he parts from the bedrock ideology of American exceptionalism that has governed this country from its violent founding. Foreign policy scholar @stephenwertheim makes the case that the Trump Doctrine could reignite extreme nationalism and militarism but also provides the Left with an opening to finally launch a movement against American Empire. Thanks to University of California Press for their support. Check out their new title A Social Revolution: Politics and the Welfare State in Iran https://www.ucpress.edu/ebook.php?isbn=9780520965843<o:p></o:p> <o:p></o:p>

The so-called Olympic spirit doesn’t match the reality of a highly-corporatized Games that often leaves taxpayers picking up the tab, engenders abusive policing and justifies the remaking of cities for the rich at the expense of ordinary and poor people. Dan’s guests today are Molly Lambert, a writer and member of Los Angeles DSA, and Jules Boykoff, the author of "Power Games: A Political History of the Olympics" from Verso. Support this pod with your money at patreon.com/thedig

On Jacobin Radio today we talk to Christian Parenti, now teaching in the economics program at John Jay College (CUNY) about the catastrophic effects of climate change already upon us — from Harvey to Irma, from Katrina to Houston, to the fires raging around the globe. Christian has written in the new issue ofJacobinon climate change, "Earth Wind, & Fire," about what the near future will look like "If We Fail" to act, but he says that technological solutions already exist, that the State will have to step up — and that brings up the question of political power and social movements.