Jacobin Radio

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

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

Daniel Aldana Cohen, author of this article, on the role of housing in a Green New Deal. Then, Joel Whitney, author of this article, on the CIA's history as a purveyor of fake news. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Noah Kulwin, staff writer with Jewish Currents, on why Ilhan Omar’s AIPAC tweets weren't antisemitic. Then, Thea Riofrancos, one of editors of Jacobin's Green New Deal series, on the agenda's scope and politics. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, a leader of Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel, is on trial in New York. After twice making his way out of Mexican prisons, he was extradited to the United States. This is what counts as a major victory in the never-ending US war on drugs, which the US has in recent decades exported to Mexico. Yet El Chapo's arrest, like that of so many others, has done nothing to stop Mexican drug cartels from continuing to export massive quantities of cocaine and heroin and other drugs. Neither has it caused cartels to pause the murderous bloodbath that they have visited upon the Mexican people. The Mexican state continues to be a corrupt one, and the domestic deployment of a Mexican military deeply implicated in human rights violations is set to continue. And there is still no justice for the disappeared students from Ayotzinapa. Dan interviews legendary Mexican investigative journalist Anabel Hernández.Thanks to Verso. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.comPlease support t

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

Alex Caputo-Pearl, president of the Los Angeles teachers’ union and Jane McAlevey, author and organizer, on the union’s great victory in their LA strike, protecting public education against the plutocrats’ attacks See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Historian Andrew Bacevich tries to make sense of Trump’s foreign policy. Then, Steven Maher (author of this article) on the rise and fall of GE. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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

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

The teacher strike wave continues as more than 30,000 members of United Teachers Los Angeles walk picket lines not only for the higher wages that they deserve but also for the well-funded and great schools that the city's working-class students of color have long been systematically denied—a situation that has been exacerbated by a corporate reform-led school board and superintendent dead-set on privatizing the district. UTLA has in recent years been led by a militant, rank-and-file caucus that has shunted aside the old guard's narrow vision of service unionism in favor of a big-picture movement unionism that makes the struggles of teachers, parents and students one on and the same. Sarah Jaffe is Dan's guest for a discussion of the strike, social reproduction and lessons from Rosa Luxemburg (interview was recorded on Wednesday).Thanks to Verso Books. Check out their huge collection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.comSupport this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig See acast.com/privacy for pr

Jacobin editor Alyssa Battistoni interviews Astra Taylor on her new film What is Democracy?, in which Astra asks ordinary people and political philosophers alike just that. The answers are often extraordinary and far more incisive than the mindless pablum emanating from Washington and its official interpreters. The film opens in New York on Wednesday January 16 at the IFC Center before traveling to theaters and campuses. Special guests on hand during opening week for live Q&As with Astra include Silvia Federici, Cornel West, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. For details, go to ifccenter.com/films/what-is-democracy. Those of us who don't live in New York can find other dates through the distributor at zeitgeistfilms.com. And if you want to bring this film to your school or town, and you really should, contact Zeitgeist Films!Thanks to Verso Books. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.comPlease support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig See acast.com/privacy for pr

Suzi speaks to energy specialist and author Simon Pirani about his new book, Burning Up: A Global History of Fossil Fuel Consumption that traces the relentless rise in oil, gas, and coal use since the mid-twentieth century — and shows how consumption has grown fastest since the discovery of global warming in the 1980s. Simon argues that fuels are mainly consumed through technological systems, which are in turn embedded in social, economic, and political systems — and that the transition away from fossil fuels will mean the transformation of all of these. Then: the LA teachers strike is on! Suzi talks to Arlene Inouye, secretary of United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) and co-chair of the negotiations team about what happened in bargaining, and how important this strike is for public education, indeed, for the public. UTLA is demanding a fair agreement that addresses class size, funding for nurses, counselors, and librarians, a halt to further privatization through charterization, and teacher pay. The LAUSD’s

Typically, people think about migration as immigration: people crossing international borders from one nation-state to another. And for the past half century in the United States, people have tended to think about that immigration in a binary way: legal immigration versus illegal immigration. But to understand the origins of the immigration politics in general and the criminalization of Mexican immigrants in particular that have become the core of the Trump presidency, we must explode these categories, identify their origins, and analyze the history that preceded them. Dan interviews Aziz Rana.Thanks to Verso. Check out their huge collection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.comPlease support this podcast with your money at patreon.com/TheDig See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.