The Dig

The protests have subsided but coronavirus has only created a deeper crisis for government legitimacy. Dan interviews long-time Hong Kong activist and writer Au Loong Yu. Please support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig

Dan interviews philosopher Martin Hägglund on how the way we conceive of our finite lives here on earth shapes our critique of capitalism and construction of socialism. Please support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Daniel Denvir shamelessly interviewed on his own podcast by Astra Taylor about All-American Nativism. Upcoming events: 1/24 All-American Nativism Brooklyn book launch with Aziz Rana facebook.com/events/606979320053356/ 1/27 Race for Profit: A Conversation with Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor [Live Dig interview in Providence] facebook.com/events/1416403061860397/ 1/28 Rhode Island Students for Bernie Kickoff Rally with Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor and Linda Sarsour facebook.com/events/618607768707911/ Book tour (more to be announced soon!): 1/31 Providence facebook.com/events/2432419893664520/ 2/24 Philly facebook.com/events/462775997752533/ 2/26 DC at solidstatebooksdc.com 2/28 Baltimore facebook.com/events/509390186368309/ 3/4 Boston at tridentbookscafe.com 3/11 New Orleans: All-American Nativism and A Planet to Win double book event with Thea Riofrancos at octaviabooks.com 3/17 Austin at monkeywrenchbooks.org 3/18 Dallas at deepvellum.org

The wars at home and abroad have always been connected. Dan interviews Nikhil Pal Singh on US attacks on Iran and the politics, history, and culture of American warmaking. Upcoming events: 1/24 All-American Nativism Brooklyn book launch with Aziz Rana facebook.com/events/606979320053356/ 1/27 Race for Profit: A Conversation with Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor [Live Dig interview in Providence] facebook.com/events/1416403061860397/ 1/28 Rhode Island Students for Bernie Kickoff Rally with Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor and Linda Sarsour facebook.com/events/618607768707911/ Book tour (more to be announced soon!): 1/31 Providence facebook.com/events/2432419893664520/ 2/24 Philly facebook.com/events/462775997752533/ 2/26 DC at solidstatebooksdc.com 2/28 Baltimore facebook.com/events/509390186368309/ 3/4 Boston at tridentbookscafe.com 3/11 New Orleans: All-American Nativism and A Planet to Win double book event with Thea Riofrancos at octaviabooks.com 3/17 Austin at monkeywrenchbooks.org 3/18 Dallas at deepvellum.org

Confronting the intertwined ecological, social, economic, and political crises. Dan interviews Thea Riofrancos and Daniel Aldana Cohen, co-authors with Kate Aronoff and Alyssa Battistoni of A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal. Thanks to Verso. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.com Please support this podcast with money at Patreon.com/TheDig

We need Bernie but a lot more too. Dan does three interviews with down-ballot left insurgent candidates: Jessica Cisneros, a Justice Democrat running against incumbent conservative Democrat Henry Cuellar in Texas’s 28th congressional district; Stephen Smith, who is running a populist campaign for West Virginia governor; and Heidi Sloan, a DSA candidate in the Democratic primary for Texas’s 25th Republican-held 25th congressional district. Thanks to University of California Press. Check out their huge selection of titles at ucpress.edu Please support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Why we need single-payer healthcare, why Medicare for All is suddenly at the center of debate, and why this is all part of a broader struggle for health justice. Dan interviews Tim Faust. Thanks to Verso. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at Patreon.com/TheDig Please support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

An interview on how the transformation of capitalism has changed the possibilities for anti-capitalist struggle with Michael Hardt, co-author with Antonio Negri of Assembly. Read Dan’s essay on the 20th anniversary of the WTO protests in Seattle jacobinmag.com/2019/11/seattle-world-trade-organization-protests-socialism Read Hardt and Negri reflect on the 20th anniversary of Empire newleftreview.org/issues/II120/articles/empire-twenty-years-on Thanks to Verso. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.com Please support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

On the occasion of our third anniversary we are taking a break. Here’s a classic on settler colonialism from our archives: Paul Frymer on Building an American Empire: The Era of Territorial and Political Expansion. a.k.a. episode 85 from January 30 2018. Thanks to University of North Carolina Press. Check out their Justice, Power, and Politics series uncpress.org/series/justice-power-politics Please support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Political scientist Jeff Webber discusses the coup against Evo Morales and the recent history of Bolivia. Read “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Macho Camacho” by Jeff Webber and Forrest Hylton www.versobooks.com/blogs/4493-the-eighteenth-brumaire-of-macho-camacho-jeffery-r-webber-with-forrest-hylton-on-the-coup-in-bolivia Thanks to University of California Press. Check out their titles at ucpress.edu Support this podcast with money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Dan interviews Naomi Klein on her new essay collection On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal. Thanks to University of California Press. Check out their huge selection of titles at ucpress.edu Please support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Maria hit Puerto Rico as austerity dismantled its social and material infrastructure. But as Yarimar Bonilla explains, these years also taught Puerto Ricans about their own collective power, fueling the summer’s mass movement that overthrew Governor Ricardo Rosselló. Thanks to Verso Books. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.com Please support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig

Mathew Lawrence, founder and director of the left-wing UK think tank Common Wealth, explains why ownership must be socialized, what that might look like, and how to make it happen. Thanks to UNC Press. Check out Stirrings: How Activist New Yorkers Ignited a Movement for Food Justice By Lana Dee Povitz uncpress.org/book/9781469653013/stirrings Please support this podcast with money at Patreon.com/TheDig

The divide between Latin American and the United States was not always so evident. Across the hemisphere, creoles—the descendants of European settlers, born in the Americas—launched revolutions to cast off European rule and preserve their own elite position over black and indigenous people. Joshua Simon explains how rival settler-colonial projects became today’s status quo of US dominance. Thanks to n+1. Dig listeners can take 25% off a year’s subscription. Go to nplusonemag.com/thedig to subscribe, and enter THEDIG at checkout. Please support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Adom Getachew explains how anticolonial leaders from across the black Atlantic tried to not only cast off European rule but also end empire by constructing an egalitarian global political and economic order in its place. Thanks to University of North Carolina Press. Check out Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor uncpress.org/book/9781469653662/race-for-profit/ Please support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Perhaps nowhere is the far right stronger than in India. There, the Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, continues in power under Prime Minister Narendra Modi after winning a huge victory in this year’s elections. The BJP, however, isn’t just a party. It’s the electoral wing of a Hindu nationalist movement that constitutes the largest and most organized far-right force on earth. A deep dive with Indian scholar Achin Vanaik. Read some of his recent work: newleftreview.org/issues/II112/articles/achin-vanaik-india-s-two-hegemonies jacobinmag.com/author/achin-vanaik Thanks to Princeton University Press. Check out The Fire Is upon Us: James Baldwin, William F. Buckley Jr., and the Debate over Race in America by Nicholas Buccola press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691181547/the-fire-is-upon-usPlease support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig

Dan interviews Alex Gourevitch about how 19th century US labor radicals remade the idea of freedom into a principle of working-class social transformation. If you want more on the debate over Lexit, which they only touched on briefly, check out this June interview with Chris Bickerton and Jerome Roos www.thedigradio.com/podcast/the-european-situation-with-chris-bickerton-and-jerome-roos Thanks to Verso. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.com Please support this podcast with money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Dan interviews Noura Erakat, the author of Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine, a new book that analyzes the history of settler-colonialism in Palestine and the Palestinian struggle for liberation from just before the British mandate to the present through the lens of the law. Thanks to Haymarket Books. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at haymarketbooks.org Please support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig. We need those of you who can support us to do so because we provide every episode free to all.

Lisa Duggan wrote a book that explains everything you need to know about Ayn Rand and why she became so enormously consequential so that you don’t have to read Rand’s work yourself. Mean Girl: Ayn Rand and the Culture of Greed is out now from University of California Press. Thanks to Verso. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.com Please support this podcast with money at Patreon.com/TheDig

The history of suburbanite reactions to school integration in Atlanta and Charlotte reveal the class power underpinning both racism and the demolition of the New Deal order. Dan interviews Matt Lassiter, discussing suburbanite resistance to school busing, why Nixon’s Silent Majority was the the product of a suburban strategy rather than a Southern one, and why the class base of all politics matters. Thanks to Verso. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.com Support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Dan interviewed legendary feminist scholar Silvia Federici on Caliban and the Witch at her Brooklyn apartment. Next year, he’ll make a return trip to discuss Wages for Housework. Here’s the article on the Pawtucket factory strike by Joey La Neve DeFrancesco that Dan mentions jacobinmag.com/2018/06/factory-workers-strike-textile-mill-women Thanks to Verso. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.com Support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Dan discusses the history of black politics in the US—left, nationalist, liberal, and neoliberal—with Michael Dawson. Check out New Dawn, Michael’s podcast on race and capitalism: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/new-dawn/id1213696020 Thanks to Verso Books. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.com Please support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Guest host Astra Taylor interviews Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz about Indigenous people’s history to reexamine all of history, the present, and our possible futures. Thanks to Verso. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.com Please support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Ordinary language is the sound of hegemony; it is also an archive of the struggles to overturn it. Language is an institution and a constantly emergent field of struggle; it is the product of power relations and it is also itself power relations. Dan interviews John Patrick Leary, the author of Keywords: The New Language of Capitalism. Thanks to Verso. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.com Support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Dan talks to Jacobin editor Bhaskar Sunkara about his book The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality. We must study socialism’s history and plan for its future. Thanks to Verso Books. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at versobooks.com Please support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Jobs have in recent years gotten much worse for millions of service workers at Amazon, McDonalds and call centers. Dan interviews Emily Guendelsberger on her book On the Clock: What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane. Thanks to Verso. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.com Please support this podcast with your money at patreon.com/TheDig

Dan interviews Lily Geismer, the author of Don’t Blame Us: Suburban Liberals and the Transformation of the Democratic Party. While Boston whites fought school busing in the streets, suburban liberals along Route 128 maintained and benefited from the larger system of metropolitan residential and school segregation that made the crisis possible. Suburban liberals also played a key role in creating a new Democratic Party that embraced a superficial politics of recognition while advancing a technocratic elite-driven neoliberal agenda that included the demonization and persecution of poor black mothers on welfare and mass incarceration. Thanks to Verso Books. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.com Please support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Dan is taking his first week off ever in Dig history to finish his book. Here’s a classic from deep in the archives: our first interview with Aziz Rana, on his book The Two Faces of American Freedom, aka episode 62. If you’ve already heard this one and are hungry for more content we’ve got everything organized by date, guest and topic at www.thedigradio.com. Support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Dan’s lengthy interview with two brilliant Chilean social movement organizers: Alondra Carrillo and Pablo Abufom. Carrillo organizes in the country’s massive feminist movement. Abufom works in the labor-backed movement for a just pension system. Read Dan’s interview with Daniel Jadue, the Communist mayor of Recoleta, in Jacobin. Thanks to Verso Books. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.com Please support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

View Transcript Dan interviews Sophie Lewis about her new book Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family. Something is deeply wrong with commercial surrogacy—but it’s just not what you might think. What’s wrong is the brute labor exploitation taking place at the reproductive crossroads of a racialized global capitalist order. Thanks to Verso Books. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at versobooks.com Support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

For much of the 20th century, Cold War politics defined socialism as the antithesis of democracy. Today, an insurgent democratic socialist movement is transforming US politics. It is socialism that is at the forefront of a fight for a radical deepening of democracy, one in which ordinary people exercise control over our political, economic and social lives—and one in which the people is expansively defined to include those excluded by racist immigration law and mass incarceration. Dan discusses this, and more, with filmmaker and writer Astra Taylor. Read Astra’s article on socialism here: newrepublic.com/article/153804/reclaiming-future-growing-appeal-socialism-age-inequality Check out her film, What is Democracy? on your preferred streaming service. And her book, Democracy May Not Exist, But We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone, here: us.macmillan.com/books/9781250179845 Support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

View Transcript Dan’s lengthy interview with Nick Estes on his remarkable book Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance. The problem that settler colonialism was repeatedly trying to solve by unleashing such terrific violence—through massacres, by nearly eliminating the buffalo, in reservation confinement, in dominating the Missouri River—was not just indigenous people being in the way but also the existence of a larger relationship between indigenous people and the land, water and animals. The history of resisting this capitalist and colonialist dispossession has endured through the Water Protectors’ struggle at Standing Rock—which will, in retrospect, be remembered as a pivotal moment in the global struggle against climate catastrophe. Thanks to Verso Books. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.com Please support this podcast with money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Russia intervened and Trump is a criminal who committed obstruction of justice and is surrounded by constant criminality. But it’s no doubt also true that this situation and the hawkish liberal response to it have dangerously damaged US-Russia relations. At the core of Western misunderstanding is the way we think about Vladimir Putin, which is what Dan is discussing today with Tony Wood, the author of Russia Without Putin: Money, Power and the Myths of the New Cold War. Thanks to Verso. Check out their massive left-wing book selection at versobooks.com Go to the Socialism 2019 conference in Chicago July 4-7! Register now at socialismconference.org Support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

There is perhaps no more depressing situation in Western Europe than that which prevails in Italy: a coalition government between the far-right Lega party and the now subordinate, bizarre, amorphously anti-corruption, internet-fetishist, pseudo-directly democratic Five Star Movement. In other words, Italian politics is dominated by a viciously racist anti-migrant politics; the left, along with most traditional forces, is in utter disarray. Today, Lega, led by Interior Minister Mateo Salvini, runs Italian politics. But the bad news is maybe also the good news: Salvini has not solved Italy’s deep rooted economic problems, and so it’s quite possible that the very same instability that abetted his rise will ultimately lead to his downfall. Dan interviews David Broder, Lorenzo Zamponi and Marta Fana. Thanks to Verso. Check out their massive left-wing book selection at versobooks.com Support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

In Spanish politics, the center-left Socialist Party has demolished the conservative Popular Party and checked risk of a major far-right surge. But meanwhile, the once very plausible-feeling dream of an insurgent radical left Podemos gaining power has faded. And fast. Dan discusses the Spanish situation with Carlos Delclós and Magda Bandera. Go to the Socialism 2019 conference in Chicago July 4-7! Register now at socialismconference.org Check out Next Left, a new podcast from The Nation magazine: thenation.com/next-left Support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

The radical left has been unable to electorally capitalize on the Yellow Vest movement, a massive revolt against a vicious, unequal and alienating neoliberal order. Instead, French electoral politics has pit an insurgent far-right against a zombie liberal center that presents itself as a bulwark against the nationalist tide. Dan interviews Sebastian Budgen and Danièle Obono, a member of the National Assembly with La France insoumise. Check out War over Peace: One Hundred Years of Israel’s Militaristic Nationalism by Uri Ben-Eliezer ucpress.edu/book/9780520304345/war-over-peace Support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Brexit has so dominated UK politics that it has put the Labour Party in a profoundly difficult and perhaps untenable position of strategic ambiguity toward how to handle the never-ending matter of leaving the EU. Today, in part two of our five-part series on European politics, Dan discusses this all with Grace Blakeley, Maya Goodfellow, and Richard Seymour. Thanks to Verso Books, which has loads of great left-wing titles at versobooks.com Go to the Socialism 2019 conference in Chicago July 4-7! Register now at socialismconference.org Support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

This week and next, we’re bringing you five episodes on European politics. Today, we’re starting things off with Chris Bickerton and Jerome Roos for an overview of the European situation and the debate on the European left over how to approach Europe and the EU. Then, an interview on British politics with Grace Blakeley, Maya Goodfellow, and Richard Seymour. After that, a discussion of French politics with Sebastian Budget and Danièle Obono, a member of France’s National Assembly with the left-wing La France insoumise. Then, an interview on Spanish politics with Carlos Delclós and Magda Bandera. And finally, an interview with David Broder and Marta Fana on Italy. Thanks to n+1. To get 25% off a one-year subscription, go to nplusonemag.com/thedig and enter THEDIG at checkout Check out Next Left, a new podcast from The Nation magazine: thenation.com/next-left Support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

View Transcript US Rep. Rashida Tlaib on the local struggles that guide her work on behalf of the working class in Congress, the urgent need for a politics that puts people over profit, the question of impeachment, and why American people are coming around to supporting a free Palestine. Go to the Socialism 2019 conference in Chicago July 4-7! Register now at socialismconference.org Support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

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-policy Thanks to Verso. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.com Go 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

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 Greed ucpress.edu/book/9780520294776/mean-girl Go 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

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.org Check 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

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 checkout Please support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

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% off a one-year subscription, go to nplusonemag.com/thedig and enter THEDIG at checkout The documentary Donna Haraway: Story Telling For Earthly Survival is now available to stream on Amazon, iTunes, Vimeo, as well as on DVD via Icarus Films. Please support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig Alyssa’s piece on Haraway for n+1: nplusonemag.com/issue-28/reviews/monstrous-duplicated-potent Sophie Lewis’s critique of Haraway and population politics: viewpointmag.com/2017/05/08/cthulhu-plays-no-role-for-me The Leap Manifesto: leapmanifesto.org/en/the-leap-manifesto The Xenofeminist Manifesto: laboriacuboniks.net

View Transcript 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-recoleta Thanks to Verso. Check out their massive left-wing book selection at www.versobooks.com Please support us with your cash at Patreon.com/TheDig

View Transcript *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/

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/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 96 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE

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.com Please 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.com Thanks to Verso Books. Peruse their massive selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.com

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 Catalyst article The Strike as the Ultimate Structure Test. And her Jacobin article Organizing to Win a Green New Deal. Thanks to Verso. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.com Please support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig