Jacobin Radio

On June 5, Boris Kagarlitsky’s appeal against a five-year prison sentence was rejected by the Russian Supreme Court's Military Chamber. Kagarlitsky must now serve his sentence in a penal colony in Torzhok some 155 miles northwest of Moscow. The decision was unjust, but not unexpected.Kagarlitsky spent nearly five months in pre-trial detention, charged with "justifying terrorism" for ironic remarks he made on his social media channel after the explosion on the Crimean Bridge in 2022. He was freed after a military court handed him a fine in December. But in February 2024, there was an unexpected appeal trial at a military court of appeals where the prosecutors overturned the December verdict that freed him, citing excessive leniency.During the June 5 appeal hearing, Kagarlitsky explained that the title of the offending YouTube video, “Explosive Congratulations for Mostik the Cat” — a reference to a real cat that lived on the Crimea bridge — was “an extremely unfortunate joke.” He argued that his jail term was disproportionate to the offense. Kagarlitsky’s attorney plans to appeal the verdict with Russia’s Constitutional Court on the grounds that his client received “excessive” punishment.The case against Boris Kagarlitsky is indicative: He received five years not for the content of the video, but for the words of its title. The judges’ cruel decision reflects the determination of the Putin regime to crush domestic opposition to its war on Ukraine. This is a state bent on suppressing all forms of criticism, jokes included. In this context, the basic democratic and legal rights of anti-war activists like Boris Kagarlitsky and thousands of others count for very little.Boris Kagarlitsky is in prison for courageously speaking out against the war in Ukraine. He is the victim of a gross but entirely deliberate miscarriage of justice and has become a symbol of the struggle for the right to freedom of expression. He is a political prisoner and prisoner of conscience.Ilya Budraitskis, another Putin critic, was dismissed from his job at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences and forced to flee Russia to avoid arrest for his active critique of the war in Ukraine and consistent opposition to Putin’s regime. He joins us with his take on the fate of opposition in Russia and the case of Boris Kagarlitsky in general.Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, and protest movements.

Siddhartha Deb, author of Twilight Prisoners, dives into the Hindu right and its poor showing in India’s elections. Sean Jacobs, professor at the New School and publisher of Africa Is a Country, explains the ANC’s poor showing in South Africa’s elections.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

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the TWELFTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment tells the story of Saudi Arabia, a country whose reactionary, US-aligned trajectory was throughout the 1950s and 60s challenged by labor strikes, dissident currents, rebellious princes, and an anticolonial oil minister. But Saudi royal conservatism asserted itself and a friendship with Nasser’s Egypt turned into conflict. Ultimately both countries got drawn into North Yemen’s civil war, which sapped Egypt’s military strength ahead of the 1967 war with Israel. Plus: radical politics against British colonial power in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the Trucial States.   Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com Buy tickets for live Dig with Jeremy Corbyn in London: unionchapel.org.uk/venue/whats-on/versothe-dig-live-podcast-with-jeremy-corbyn-laleh-khalili Buy Twilight Prisoners at Haymarketbooks.com  Buy Automatic Fetish at Versobooks.com

This is another special episode of Long Reads about the Israeli war on Gaza.On Thursday, June 6th, we spoke with Akbar Shahid Ahmed of the Huffington Post. Akbar previously spoke with us in early January about the role of the Biden administration. Five months later, with the Israeli government now on trial for genocide while the attack on Rafah has begun, it’s time for another look at Biden’s tenacious support for Israel.Find Akbar's coverage here: https://www.huffpost.com/author/akbar-shahid-ahmedLong 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.

Suzi talks to Isabel Kain at UC Santa Cruz, Marie Salem at UCLA, and Anna Weiss at USC — all UAW academic workers — about the unprecedented labor action on their campuses and the violent response from police called in by their administrations. We recorded the interview with Isabel at UCSC as the police in riot gear moved into the campus. Santa Cruz was the first to go on strike and unlike the other UC campuses, the administration was passive and did not call in the police. Until 1am on May 31. At the heart of the action is the war in Gaza, which has inflicted unspeakable suffering and carnage, provoking widespread actions in solidarity with Palestine on campuses. New movements organized in encampments have demanded an immediate ceasefire and university divestment from companies tied to Israel’s war and occupation. The response from the administration at UCLA in particular was brutal. They called in police who assaulted the encampment and stood back when a mob of white nationalists and neo-Nazis joined forces with Zionists to attack the camp, whose residents included a large number of Jewish students. Outraged grad students at UC, organized in UAW Local 4811, have launched a strike, turning the right to protest and freedom of speech into a labor issue. The local represents some 48,000 postdocs, teaching assistants, academic and student researchers across the UC system. At USC, academic workers filed an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) after five grad student members were arrested on campus during the crackdown on the protests. We get the story. Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, and protest movements.

Aziz Rana, author of The Constitutional Bind: How Americans Came to Idolize a Document that Fails Them, analyzes how our founding document constrains democracy but we worship it anyway.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

Featuring Dylan Saba and Waleed Shahid on how Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the mass solidarity movement opposing it are transforming US politics. This anti-imperialist internationalist moment marks a profound turning point for the American left. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com Buy tickets for live Dig with Jeremy Corbyn in London: unionchapel.org.uk/venue/whats-on/versothe-dig-live-podcast-with-jeremy-corbyn-laleh-khalili The Socialism Conference will be held in Chicago from Aug 30 - Sept 2. Learn more and register at socialismconference.org (early bird discount until 6/28!)  Buy Unbuild Walls at haymarketbooks.org

The Russian Marxist Boris Kagarlitsky last spoke to us shortly after his release from nearly five months in prison. He was arrested on far-fetched charges of "justifying terrorism" for ironic remarks he made on his social media channel after the explosion on the Crimean Bridge in 2022. Boris was freed after a military court handed him a fine in December 2023, and spoke to Suzi two weeks later in the interview you are about to hear.Barely two months after Boris’s release there was an unexpected appeal trial at a military court in February 2024, and the prosecutors overturned the December verdict that freed him, citing "excessive leniency." He was sentenced to five years in a general regime penal colony and whisked from the courtroom to prison. Now three months later, after several moves, Boris has arrived at his final place of detention, Penal Colony No. 4 in Torzhok, 155 miles northwest of Moscow.Once again, Boris requires our solidarity. His final appeal will be heard on June 5 by Russia’s Supreme Court. An international petition has garnered more than 16,000 signatures calling for his release and all anti-war political prisoners. President Putin’s government is using anti-terror laws to step up its already draconian repression of dissent at home and in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine. More than 20,000 Russians have been detained and more than 1,000 have been put on trial.In an open letter from prison, Boris wrote, "Under today’s conditions, when political action and self-organization in our country have become extremely difficult, helping our co-thinkers who have been imprisoned is not just humanitarian activity, but also an important political gesture, an act of practical solidarity." He has brought his incisive analysis to these airwaves for more than three decades.The petition demanding the immediate and unconditional release of Boris Kagarlitsky and all other anti-war prisoners can be found at freeboris.info. This interview was originally broadcast in January.Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, and protest movements.

Mouin Rabbani discusses Israel's war on Gaza and the broader context of the conflict. Stefanie Stantcheva discusses her recent economicpapers about why people hate inflation.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

When Immanuel Wallerstein died in 2019, he was one of the most influential thinkers about the crisis-ridden development of global capitalism. People who might never have read one of his books will still find themselves referring to the core and the periphery of the capitalist world-system.Gregory Williams joins Long Reads to take a deeper look today at Wallerstein’s life and work as a radical intellectual. Gregory is a professor of political science and international relations at Simmons University in Boston. He’s also the author of Contesting the Global Order: The Radical Political Economy of Perry Anderson and Immanuel Wallerstein.Read Gregory's piece for Jacobin, "Immanuel Wallerstein’s Work Can Help Us Understand the Deepening Crises of Capitalism" here: https://jacobin.com/2023/12/immanuel-wallerstein-world-systems-theory-development-cycles-capitalism-crisis-historyLong 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.

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the ELEVENTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment tells the story of the destruction of the two giant revolutionary projects of 1958: the union of Egypt and Syria under Nasser’s United Arab Republic and Iraq’s July Revolution that brought Qasim alongside communist allies to power. The rival radical projects of pan-Arabism and communism suffered huge blows. So did Nasser and Qasim, the era’s most significant Arab anti-imperialist leaders. Meanwhile, the Ba’ath, once ideological and idealistic, became increasingly dominated by military men who made the party into an instrument for raw domination.  Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com Buy tickets for live Dig with Jeremy Corbyn in London: unionchapel.org.uk/venue/whats-on/versothe-dig-live-podcast-with-jeremy-corbyn-laleh-khalili Buy Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom at Versobooks.com  Subscribe to Dissent magazine in print or online at dissentmagazine.org/subscribe

Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee scored a smashing victory on April 19, when they voted by a 3-1 margin to join the UAW. That makes Tennessee Volkswagen the first auto plant in the South to unionize by election since the 1940s. While the recent victory was overwhelming, it came only after two bitter organizing defeats for the VW Chattanooga workers, first in 2014 and then in 2019. The organizing victory at VW is one of the single most important wins for U.S. labor in decades, and potentially the start of a much bigger turnaround.Guest host Barry Eidlin talks to auto workers Yolanda Peoples, Renee Berry, and Victor Vaughn — all deeply involved in the organizing campaign at the Volkswagen Chattanooga plant — about how they organized, how they won, and what comes next.Barry talked to the Chattanooga workers before the union vote count at the Mercedes plant in Vance, Alabama on May 17. While the Volkswagen organizing drive was an amazing success, the workers lost at the Mercedes plant in nearby Alabama, where 56% of workers voted against unionizing after a sophisticated anti-union drive by management with an assist from anti-union local and state officials.Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, and protest movements.

Annelle Sheline talks about her resignation from the State Department as a protest against the war on Gaza. See her statement on Yahoo! News. Plus: Daniel Bessner, author of a recent Harper's cover story, discusses the debasement of screenwriting in Hollywood.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

After inhabiting the White House but before examining the Newsroom, Aaron Sorkin created a show that sought nothing less than to fix the most important American institution of them all: Saturday Night Live. We launch what will eventually become a multi-episode discussion of STUDIO 60 ON THE SUNSET STRIP (2006-7). Catch parts two and three on Patreon.Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage.

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the TENTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment tells the story of Iraq’s 1958 July Revolution: a Free Officers’ coup overthrew the imperialist-aligned Hashemite monarchy and brought nationalist Abdul-Karim Qasim to power alongside a surging Communist Party. Revolutionary currents soon turned against one another, however, as did Qasim and Nasser. Conflict stemmed from serious political and strategic differences, but also petty rivalries and bitter feuds. And in Iraq, class conflict often appeared dressed up in the sectarian and ethnic modalities through which class was lived.  Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com Subscribe to a year of Jacobin for only $15— a special offer for Dig listeners! bit.ly/digjacobin   Buy The Black Antifascist Tradition at haymarketbooks.org

Quinn Slobodian, who recently wrote a paper about Peter Brimelow, discusses the white supremacist wing of neoliberalism. Derek Seidman looks into the Alabama corporate elite and its terror at the incursion of the UAW. See his recentarticles for Truthout.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

Adam Federman, author of a recent feature for In These Times, talks about the criminalization of protest. Kay Gabriel, who wrote a piece about anti-trans panic for n+1, explains how the right is using that panic to make war on public schools and teachers’ unions.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

In the election year of 2004, an ultraviolent subtitled right-wing Christian movie became a genuine cultural phenomenon and political lightning-rod. We finally discuss THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST (2004) and theology according to Mel Gibson. PLUS: the White House Correspondents Dinner, the Columbia encampment, and the one optimistic takeaway of a discouraging week."This Is How Power Protects Itself" by Jack Mirkinson - https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/columbia-ccny-cuny-protest-nypd-police-brutality/"Mel Gibson's Martyrdom Complex" by Frank Rich - https://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/03/movies/mel-gibson-s-martyrdom-complex.html"The Gospel According to Mel" by Christopher Hitchens - https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2004/03/hitchens-201102The Mel Gibson/Diane Sawyer interview - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ecnfe530IEMichael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage.

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the NINTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment covers the creation of a Palestinian national liberation movement throughout the 1950s by a people dispersed by the Nakba: organizations, alliances, and theories of change assembled in the universities, cities, and refugee camps surrounding Palestine. We end with the 1959 foundation of Fatah, the first organization for Palestinians led by Palestinians focused first and foremost on Palestinian liberation. This is the story of the beginning of the Palestinian national liberation movement as we have come to know it today.  Buy How to Abolish Prisons: Lessons from the Movement against Imprisonment at haymarketbooks.org  Buy States of the Earth: An Ecological and Racial History of Secularization at Versobooks.com  Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com Spread the word about Thawra thedigradio.com/Thawra

During the 1990s, the government of Slobodan Milošević led Serbia into another Balkan war. His allies in Bosnia were responsible for a litany of war crimes, including the massacre at Srebrenica. The war left Serbia itself isolated and impoverished. A protest movement drove Milošević from power in 2000.Two decades later, Serbia has a president who served under Milošević and supported the wars in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo. Where is Serbia going under the rule of Aleksandar Vučić?Lily Lynch, an American journalist who’s been reporting from Belgrade over the last decade, joins to discuss. She’s the editor of Balkanist magazine and she’s written for publications such as New Left Review and the New Statesman.This week only, Jacobin is offering a special May Day rate on subscriptions. Get a year of the print magazine for just $10! Use code MAYDAY2024: https://jacobin.com/subscribe/?code=MAYDAY2024Long 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 is celebrating International Workers’ Day once again with solidarity subscriptions! Since our founding in 2010, we’ve aimed to reach millions with democratic socialist perspectives on politics, economics, and culture. Our work online — be it podcasts, video, or daily articles — is sustained first and foremost through magazine subscriptions. On May 1st, and a few days after, you can use the code MAYDAY2024 at checkout to get a yearlong digital subscription for just $1, or $10 for the print magazine. This offer also applies to gift subscriptions.Subscribe here: https://jacobin.com/subscribe/?code=MAYDAY2024NYC listeners: May 1st (this evening) at 7pm, we're hosting a roundtable talk at The People's Forum about the future of the US labor movement, featuring Alex Press, Paul Prescod, Anthony Rosario, and Nick Livick. The event is free, but please RSVP here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/jacobin-may-day-event-whats-next-for-us-labor-tickets-884360575287

Jodi Dean talks about being suspended from teaching at Hobart and William Smith Colleges for writing an article the administration didn’t like. Keri Leigh Merritt, who recently wrote an essay for Aeon, discusses the lingering effects of antebellum Southern society. Finally, we hear excerpts from an interview first broadcast in June 2023 with Samuel Bazzi, co-author of a paper about the postbellum South, on the effects of white migration out of the region.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

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the EIGHTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. A compact introduction to the Movement of Arab Nationalists, which in the 1950s built a presence that stretched across the region, from Beirut and Jordan to Cairo and the Gulf—becoming a truly powerful force in Kuwait. Led in significant part by Palestinians, its early history offers a ground-level look at the organizational and theoretical currents shaping radical Arab politics. It is also the backstory for key Marxist groups that later grew out of the Movement: the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, South Yemen’s National Liberation Front, and the Dhofar Liberation Front. Buy Future of Denial at versobooks.com  On May 1st, subscribe to a year of Jacobin's digital publication for just $1, or a year of Jacobin in print for only $10: jacobin.com/subscribe/?code=MAYDAYDIG Or this link for a gift: jacobin.com/subscribe/?type=gift&level=standard-digital&?code=MAYDAYDIG Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com Spread the word about Thawra thedigradio.com/Thawra

At the end of last year, the French politician Jacques Delors died at the age of 98. Delors is best remembered for his time as president of the European Commission from the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s. During that time, the European Community became the European Union. The Delors Commission also laid the groundwork for the single currency through the Maastricht Treaty. One of the main ideas associated with Delors was the concept of a “social Europe.”Our guest today is Aurelie Dianara. She’s a research fellow at the University of Évry in Paris. Her book Social Europe, the Road not Taken: The Left and European Integration in the Long 1970s was published in 2022.As Aurelie explains, the idea of “social Europe” originated in the crisis of global capitalism during the 1970s. When it was taken up by Delors and his Commission, it lost its radical connotations and eventually became an alibi for the neoliberal framework of the Eurozone.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.

Yanis Varoufakis talks about being banned in Germany for supporting the Palestinian cause, and then about the transformation he analyzes in his new book, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism.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

Featuring Noura Erakat, Avi Shlaim, Ussama Makdisi, Ilan Pappé, Ghada Ageel Hamdan, and Abdel Razzaq Takriti on the ongoing Israeli genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Recorded at the World Academic Forum for Palestine in Houston. We’ll be back next week with episode eight of Thawra, our rolling series on 20th century Arab radicalisms. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Donate to Palestine Legal palestinelegal.org/donate Watch more from the World Academic Forum for Palestine youtube.com/c/haymarketbooks Check out our vast archives and newsletters at thedigradio.com Buy An Enemy Such As This at haymarketbooks.org  Buy The Jail is Everywhere at versobooks.com

By the third entry of the God's Not Dead franchise, its creative team had clearly started listening to their critics. The result was a kinder, gentler right-wing Evangelical Christian drama that sought to heal divides... and failed at the box office. We welcome back New Republic writer and our resident God's Not Dead correspondent Alex Shephard to discuss GOD'S NOT DEAD: A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS (2018).Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage.

Heidi Matthews surveys cases against Israel pending at the the World Court. Elijah Wald, author of Jelly Roll Blues, talks about Jelly Roll Morton and the hidden history of early blues music.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

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the SEVENTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment lays out the the US’s Eisenhower Doctrine, which in 1957 inaugurated a new era of imperialism in the Middle East; the Ba’ath Party driving Syria and Egypt into the United Arab Republic, a superstate under Nasser’s rule, in 1958; and, later that year, Eisenhower landing US Marines in Lebanon, the first American combat operation in the region. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig  Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com Buy Burnout: The Emotional Experience of Political Defeat at versobooks.com Subscribe to Jacobin bit.ly/digjacobin

For seven weeks in 1936 and 1937, workers at the General Motors plant in Flint, Michigan held a risky sit-down strike. A true David vs. Goliath story, their strike won recognition for the United Auto Workers and changed labor in the United States forever. With a newer UAW strike fresh in the memory, we discuss the BBC documentary THE GREAT SIT-DOWN (1976).Watch The Great Sit-Down - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2Py_vNt4fcSee Will introduce Gamera: Super Monster at the Fox Theatre in Toronto on April 16 - https://www.foxtheatre.ca/movies/important-cinema-club-gamera-super-monster/"Joe Lieberman? Really?" by Branko Marcetic - https://jacobin.com/2018/07/joe-lieberman-democratic-party-conservative-left"Sam Bankman-Fried will grow old in jail. But don’t forget those who basked in his orbit" by Aditya Chakrabortty - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/28/sam-bankman-fried-jail-ftx-moneyMichael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage.

Trita Parsi explains why Israel is trying to expand its war to Iran and Hezbollah. Natasha Lennard analyzes the Zionist appropriation of leftish “safe space” discourse. And Stefan Yong explores the structure of the global shipping industry in light of the Baltimore bridge disaster.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

J. B. S. Haldane was one of the great scientific minds of the twentieth century. He played an important role in the development of genetics and the theory of evolution. Haldane was also a tireless political campaigner who gravitated towards the communist movement in the 1930s and 40s. His public career makes for a fascinating case study on the relationship between politics and science.Samanth Subramanian joins Long Reads to discuss the life of Haldane. Samanth, a journalist from India who’s now based in London, is the author of several books, including the 2019 biography A Dominant Character: The Radical Science and Restless Politics of J. B. S. Haldane.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 with music by Knxwledge.

Pankaj Mishra, author of a recent article for the London Review of Books, "The Shoah after Gaza," talks about the propaganda-induced debasement of the Holocaust. Nancy Folbre, co-author of a recent report on household economic well-being, discusses assigning a monetary value to care work. 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

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the SIXTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment lays out the intensification of the Cold War across the Middle East. Western imperialist powers attempted to recruit Arab countries to the Baghdad Pact, a Middle Eastern NATO. Nasser rallied the Arab masses in opposition, becoming an anti-imperialist icon. In 1956, Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal. In response, the British, French, and Israelis attacked Egypt. But Nasser and Arab anti-imperialism won the day. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com Buy What Was Neoliberalism at haymarketbooks.org  Buy Abolition: Politics, Practices, Promises, Vol. 1 at haymarketbooks.org

Suzi talks to Ilya Matveev about the recent election in Russia giving Putin a fifth term in power—an election he argues was stage-managed from above. Matveev discusses how the Putin government, with increasing nationalist propaganda, has stepped up repression and persecution of critical voices against the war in Ukraine. He talks about Kremlin policy of silencing independent media, stopping public displays of opposition, and detaining critics with large prison sentences. While the economy hasn’t tanked—the war has provided a source for military Keynesianism—Matveev insists that Putin's ability to order an exact electoral result is a sign of weakness, not stability. The horrific terror attack of March 22 underscores that Putin is not managing everything well, even though he has cynically used the attack to blame Ukraine.Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, and protest movements.

For decades, a cottage industry flourished in the subterranean depths of the American music industry: send a company your poem, and, for a fee, they'll turn it into a song. Maybe the song will even be your entryway into the industry and the Billboard charts! But most assuredly it will not be. Was this industry exploitative? Did it produce art? What even is "art" anyway? We tackle all these questions and more as we discuss the documentary OFF THE CHARTS: THE SONG-POEM STORY (2003).Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage.

David Moore outlines how AIPAC is using GOP contributors’ money to go after progressive Democrats. Meron Rapoport discusses how Schumer and the ICJ are being received in Israel. Jamieson Webster speaks about the social aspects of mental disorder among the young.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

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the FIFTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment lays out the early years of a struggle for Syria that would decisively shape the Arab world: the fight for independence from France, the first (CIA-backed) coup of 1949, and the rise of the Ba’ath and Communist movements. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com Buy The Price is Wrong: Why Capitalism Wont Save the Planet at versobooks.com  Buy Care: The Highest Stage of Capitalism at haymarketbooks.org 

Robert Fatton explains Haiti’s further descent into poverty and chaos. Steve Fraser, author of a recent article for Jacobin, analyzes and mourns the death of any sense of a better future.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

In 1991, over 100 of the the most famous singers, movie stars, an athletes in America got together to record a song for the troops in the first Gulf War. We take a visit to the consent-manufacturing factory and discuss the "apolitical" James Woods-hosted TV special VOICES THAT CARE: STAND TALL, STAND PROUD (1991).Watch the special here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJ1S_UNaWpsMichael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage.

Vijay Prashad explains how the North American and European bourgeoisies have become a spent force with nothing to offer the world. Volodymyr Ishchenko, author of Toward the Abyss, talks about Ukraine during and after the USSR.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

Against the backdrop of the incredibly boring 2000 election, the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman went on a cross-country journey to see if George W. Bush or Al Gore represented America. The result was THE PARTY'S OVER (2001), aka THE LAST PARTY 2000 — that's right, it's an official sequel to the Robert Downey Jr-hosted documentary. We found many resonances between this fossil from the turn of the millennium and our current moment. PLUS: The Democratic Party primary, the fascist Italian Prime Minister in Canada, and a fond farewell to David Bordwell.Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage.

Suzi talks to Warren Montag, professor at Occidental College, who was recently targeted for his talk at a college forum about Israel’s war on Gaza and issues it has raised in the US. The specific topic was one Warren had spoken on numerous times since the first Intifada: Anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism. In retaliation, the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) campaigned to get him fired. We hear Warren's personal testimony, his view on the history of Jewish opposition to Zionism, and his understanding of how the very discussion of anti-Semitism has become weaponized to discredit and silence critics of Israeli policy. What does this campaign of intimidation and retaliation mean for freedom of expression and inquiry, especially in an atmosphere of book-banning, harassment of librarians, teachers, professors and critics? Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, and protest movements.

This final episode of Organize the Unorganized offers key lessons from the CIO moment. We asked all of our guests about this basic question, and these are their answers. The negative lessons—points where guests were keen to note the differences between the '30s and the present moment—focused on the changed economic situation and the issue of labor law. The more positive lessons dealt with union democracy, overcoming divisions in the working class, mass organizing, raising expectations, and seizing the moment. This is the series finale. Find episode one, and all the other episodes, on the web or by searching for "Organize the Unorganized" on your podcast app. Organize the Unorganized: The Rise of the CIO is a limited-run history podcast telling the story of the CIO through the voices of labor historians. Hosted by Benjamin Y. Fong and produced by the Center for Work & Democracy at Arizona State University with Jacobin. Find the full show notes for this episode here: https://soundcloud.com/organizetheunorganized/episode-9-lessons

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the FOURTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment lays out the politics surrounding the Zionist settler colonial destruction of Palestine, the Nakba of 1948, and the ground-shifting event that followed in its wake: the Nasser-led 1952 Egyptian Free Officers Movement coup that would set the tone for two decades of revolutionary nationalism across the region. Also: the Soviet camp’s support for the colonial partition of Palestine and its calamitous impact on powerful Arab communist parties.  Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com Subscribe to a year of Jacobin for only $15— a special offer for Dig listeners! bit.ly/digjacobin   Buy Abolition: Politics, Practices, Promises, Vol. 1 at haymarketbooks.org/books/2096-abolition

From the HIV/AIDS crisis, to the opioid epidemic, to the COVID-19 pandemic, pharmaceutical corporations have been accused of profiteering at the expense of countless lives. Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now and the author of a new book called Pharmanomics: How Big Pharma Destroys Public Health, joins Long Reads to discuss an industry that exploits public research and denies crucial medicine to poor countries.Read another interview with Nick on the Jacobin website, "Big Pharma Reaps Massive Profits by Ripping Off Public Research and Weaponizing Patents": https://jacobin.com/2024/01/big-pharma-profit-public-research-patents-intellectual-propertyLong 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.

Historian Donna Murch, author of Living for the City, takes on some myths about the Black Panther Party. Saadia Toor and Rabia Mehmood discuss Pakistan.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 eighth, penultimate episode of Organize the Unorganized concludes the main story of the CIO. We cover the organization’s communist purge in the late 1940s and Operation Dixie, the failed campaign to organize workers in the south. We end with the merger with the AFL in 1955 and the afterlife of the CIO in the Industrial Union Department, which made important contributions to the civil rights movement. Listen to the final, ninth episode here: https://shows.acast.com/jacobin-radio/episodes/organize-the-unorganized-09-lessons Find all the episodes on the web, or by searching for "Organize the Unorganized" on your podcast app. Organize the Unorganized: The Rise of the CIO is a limited-run history podcast telling the story of the CIO through the voices of labor historians. Hosted by Benjamin Y. Fong and produced by the Center for Work & Democracy at Arizona State University with Jacobin. Find the full show notes for this episode here: https://soundcloud.com/organizetheunorganized/episode-8-is-there-an-ending-to-the-cio

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the THIRD episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment is a comprehensive overview of the Middle Eastern Arab state system that crystalizes with the end of British and French colonial rule. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com Buy Environmentalism from Below: How Global People’s Movements are Leading the Fight for our Planet at haymarketbooks.org/books/2101-environmentalism-from-below 

Chilean writer and activist Pablo Abufom spoke at UCLA on February 23, 2024 about how the October 2019 social revolt in Chile propelled Gabriel Boric to power, created a Constituent Assembly to write a new Constitution, but was then defeated, with reactionary neo-fascist forces now ascendant. Pablo Abufom was deeply involved in the social protest movement of October 2019, and has been on this podcast many times to discuss and analyze the revolt, the failure of the constitutional process, and the demobilizing effects of the pandemic. In this talk, Pablo attempts to explain larger political and social phenomena on a global scale from the Latin American experience. Why did the wave of revolts between 2018 and 2020 fail to go further, and what accounts for the rise of neo-fascism everywhere, most recently in Argentina? Pablo asks what can we learn from the Latin American revolts of the last five years and admits it is a tragic question; we ask it after being defeated or at least after the revolts were paralyzed by the power of ruling elites amid Covid-19. Cesar Bowey Castillo adds to the discussion with his analysis of the 2021 Colombian uprising, looking at how the various fragments of the working class and urban poor mobilized there. Suzi comments on Pablo's understanding of how the struggle for a dignified life moved people into the streets spontaneously, what did or did not emerge in terms of organizational forms, and how he sees that perennial, historical question of leadership and political mediation. Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, and protest movements.