Jacobin Radio

Is Andrei Tarkovsky's STALKER (1979) about the Soviet Russia in which it was made? And if not, then where exactly is "The Zone"? We wade into one of the most forbidding cinematic objects of all time, but realize that the answer is only ever found within. PLUS: Justin Trudeau is historically unpopular - so why hasn't he stepped down?"US Politics Has Reached a Dead End" by Luke Savage - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/19/trump-campaign-leaked-data-voters-elon-musk"Revealed: Trump ground game in key states flagged as potentially fake" by Hugo Lowell - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/19/trump-campaign-leaked-data-voters-elon-muskOur episode on Ivan's Childhood - https://www.patreon.com/posts/263-sculpting-in-55465791Our episode on Solaris - https://www.patreon.com/posts/317-hunters-in-64139407Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Featuring Astra Taylor and Leah Hunt-Hendrix on their book Solidarity: The Past, Present, and Future of a World-Changing Idea. Guest hosted by Micah Uetricht.Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDigGet 40% off The Years of Theory with code "DIG" at Versobooks.comBuy Our History is the Future at Haymarketbooks.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

William Hartung, co-author of a recent paper for Brown University's Watson Institute, outlines how much aid the US has given to Israel over the last year (plus, he shares some wacky stuff on AI weapons). The sociologist Scott Schieman talks about his surprising research showing that people actually like their jobs.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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The German Peasants’ War was the biggest social revolt in a European country during the period before the French Revolution. In the wake of the Reformation, a movement among the popular classes rose up against feudalism and aristocratic power. The revolt was brutally crushed and the challenge to the feudal order was defeated. Marxist writers like Friedrich Engels and Karl Kautsky later made it into a key reference point for their theories of class struggle.Long Reads is joined by the writer and historian Martin Empson to discuss the rebellion. His book on the topic, The Time of the Harvest Has Come, will soon be published.Read his article for Jacobin about the German Peasants' War here: https://jacobin.com/2023/12/german-peasants-war-feudalism-class-conflict-reformationLong 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. Hos

Five years after Joker because an era-defining cultural phenomenon, its sequel, JOKER: FOLIE A DEUX (2024), is the biggest flop of the year. We sifted through the wreckage to find a purposely abrasive object, and are split on its effectiveness.Toronto listeners, see Luke speak at Progressive Publics: A Symposium Connecting Scholarship & Independent Media, November 8 - https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/progressive-publics-a-symposium-connecting-scholarship-independent-media-tickets-1051089455857Plus, on November 5, a screening of Fantasy Mission Force with an introduction from Will - https://www.foxtheatre.ca/movies/important-cinema-club-masterpiece-classics-fantasy-mission-force/Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Anatol Lieven dissects the ambitiously aggressive grand design of the Biden-Harris foreign policy. Lily Lynch, author of a recent article for The Baffler, talks about the emptying out of the Balkans.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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Featuring Naomi Klein on how the pandemic turbocharged a far-right conspiracist politics that’s sweeping into power. This strange new world, however, is a product of an old contradiction: the need to disavow and deny a long history and awful present; the inability to make sense of the extreme violence and oppression that makes everyday Western capitalist society possible. We discuss Klein’s book Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World and her Guardian essay "How Israel has made trauma a weapon of war": theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2024/oct/05/israel-gaza-october-7-memorialsSupport The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDigSubscribe to Dissent magazine at Dissentmagazine.org/subscribe Buy Rosa Luxemburg at Haymarketbooks.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Paul North and Paul Reitter discuss their new translation of Marx’s Capital. Nimrod Flaschenberg and Alma Itzhaky, authors of a recent article for Jacobin, talk about the vicious political culture of Israel after October 7.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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On October 8, the Boris Kagarlitsky International Solidarity Campaign held an online conference on “Boris Kagarlitsky and the Challenges of the Left.” Although Kagarlitsky is serving a five-year sentence in a Russian penal colony, he has just published a book called The Long Retreat: Strategies to Reverse the Decline of the Left. The conference addressed Kagarlitsky’s wide-ranging analysis of the left’s dilemmas in the face of multiple global crises, including the rise of right-wing authoritarianism. We will bring the whole conference to Jacobin Radio with a stellar lineup of international scholars and activists.Today we hear the panel “Imperialism(s) Today,” looking at the nature of imperialism historically and in the present. Robert Brenner begins with the theory of imperialism from before WWI through the post-war period and up to the present, essentially arguing that in the present period of American hegemony, imperialism is the weapon of weaker powers. Ilya Matveev follows by examining three theorists of

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the third and final part of the epilogue to Thawra (Revolution), our epic series on the history of revolutionary Arab politics. This episode takes us from Hamas’s victory in the 2006 legislative elections, through the siege on Gaza, to October 7, the Gaza genocide, the Axis of Resistance, and Israel’s attempt to draw Iran into a massive regional war with the US. Share Thawra with a friend thedigradio.com/ThawraSupport The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDigBuy The Wannabe Fascists at UCPress.edu Buy Visualizing Palestine at haymarketbooks.org Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last October, Long Reads spoke to Rashid Khalidi, one of the leading historians of modern Palestine, about the Israeli attack on Gaza. Few people would have guessed at the time that the mass killing of Palestinian civilians would still be happening twelve months later, and now expanding into Lebanon. The interview was conducted Wednesday, October 9th, when we were still waiting to see whether and in what way Israel would launch its promised attack on Iran. Benjamin Netanyahu had just threatened to inflict the same devastation on Lebanon that his military machine had already inflicted on Gaza.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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The new Netflix documentary WHAT'S NEXT: THE FUTURE WITH BILL GATES (2024) positions the Microsoft founder as "one of the good billionaires." But what are the limits to his brand of philanthropy? And how neutral and objective are these documentaries on the big streaming platforms? Luke welcomes Tim Schwab (author of The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning with the Myth of the Good Billionaire) to discuss why he declined to participate in the documentary, and what he uncovered about its making."Why I refused to participate in the Netflix docu-series on Bill Gates" by Tim Schwab - https://timschwab.substack.com/p/why-i-refused-to-participate-in-theMichael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The rise of the labor movement in the US constitutes one of the brightest spots on the political horizon. Auto workers were joined by academic workers, actors, writers, hotel workers, UPS teamsters won without striking, and union drives have hit Amazon, Starbucks, universities and other sectors. Are these union drives and strikes opening a new period, igniting a newly energized working class?Live from the Progressive Central conference held in Chicago before the Democratic National Convention, Jacobin Radio features an all-women panel of labor leaders and champions celebrating "Organized Labor on the Rise: the 2020s and Beyond." This panel, introduced by Alan Minsky and Hartsell Gray of Progressive Democrats of America, opens with Nina Turner on overcoming racism in the labor movement, followed by Saru Jayaraman from One Fair Wage and UC Berkeley’s Food Labor Research Center, Sara Nelson, President of CWA’s flight attendants union, and Stacey Davis Gates, President of the Chicago Teachers Union.Jacobin Radio

Rashid Khalidi, author of The Hundred Years War on Palestine, talks about Israeli settler-colonialism and its imperial patrons. Aurélie Daher looks at Hezbollah and the challenges it faces after the assassination of its leader.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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Featuring Jake Werner on how the US and China entered into a New Cold War and why the whole world urgently needs an alternative international order that fosters great power cooperation.  Read Jake’s report A Program for Progressive China Policy quincyinst.org/research/a-program-for-progressive-china-policy/#executive-summarySupport The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDigBuy Our History is the Future at Haymarketbooks.com Use code "DIG" for 30% off a subscription to The-Syllabus.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Forrest Hylton, author of a recent piece for the London Review of Books blog, talks about wildfires in Brazil and the political impotence of Lula’s administration. Edwin Ackerman discusses politics in Mexico as AMLO hands over power to Claudia Sheinbaum, having engineered a controversial overhaul of the judiciary.Read Edwin's article, "AMLO’s War on Neoliberal Corruption," originally published in Catalyst, here: https://jacobin.com/2024/09/amlo-morena-neoliberalism-corruption-mexicoBehind 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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Yoav Peled, Professor Emeritus of Tel Aviv University, is able to speak to us again for the first time since 2023. He helps chart the evolution of Israeli politics since the October 7 attack by Hamas, which was quickly followed by Israel's devastating war on Gaza, showing total disregard for the lives of Palestinians. That war is now extending to the North as Israel unleashes terror in Lebanon. And in Israel, the reverberations of October 7 continue to affect domestic politics. It also has created divisions within the Jewish community in the US. We get Yoav's analysis of the mood in Israel, what the massive demonstrations against Netanyahu signal, and the relationship between the expanding war and Israeli party politics. We'll also get Yoav to discuss his research on the rise of ethno- and religio-national populism, especially among the Mizrahim, who form the base of the Likud and the far right.Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor,

Over the last week, Israel has launched a full-scale attack on Lebanon as an extension of its campaign against Gaza. So far the air strikes have killed well over five hundred people. The attack on Lebanon has made the subject of this week’s podcast all the more relevant to the current situation.Mahdi Amel was a member of the Lebanese communist movement and one of the most important political thinkers of the Arab left. Before his assassination in 1987, Amel produced a series of books and essays, some of which have now been translated into English for the collection Arab Marxism and National Liberation.Long Reads is joined by the editor of that collection, Hicham Safieddine. Hicham is a professor of history at the University of British Columbia. The conversation was recorded Friday, September 19th. Please excuse sound quality issues, due to a bad connection, in the last part of the interview.Read Hicham's piece about Amel in Jacobin: https://jacobin.com/2024/05/anti-colonialism-marxism-mahdi-amelSee also Hicham

Featuring Aslı Bâli and Aziz Rana on the history of left-wing internationalism from the Third Worldist currents that powered decolonization and struggles against neocolonialism through today’s renewed politics in solidarity with the Palestinian national liberation movement. Recorded in New York at Jewish Currents Live. Support The Dig now at Patreon.com/TheDigBuy Center of the World at UCPress.edu Buy Abolish Rent at Haymarketbooks.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Niobe Way, author of Rebels with a Cause, talks about the emotional and social lives of boys and what they’re telling us about society. Branko Milanovic, author of Visions of Inequality, reviews what economists have said about the topic over the centuries.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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.