Since Bernie Sanders's success in the 2016 Democratic primary, much of the Left, from progressive Democrats to socialists, has had its sights set on something we had long at least implicitly assumed was impossible: state power and governing. The question now is how to take power, and the Left is consumed by debates over how and whether to engage with the Democratic Party or, in a more limited fashion, with the Democratic Party's ballot line. Joe Dinkin of the Working Families Party talks to Dan ...
Oct 20, 2017•1 hr 4 min
In his new book The End of Policing Brooklyn College sociologist @avitale makes the case that technocratic reforms won't fix American policing. In reality, we can only fix policing by ending the carceral state and defeating neoliberalism. Thanks to Verso Books for their support. Check out Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump by David Neiwert versobooks.com/<wbr />books/2535-alt-america Support us with your $$ at patreon.com/thedig...
Oct 18, 2017•1 hr 4 min
An extended interview with former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis on his new book, Adults in the Room , the story of his surreal negotiations with Greece’s creditors
Oct 13, 2017•52 min
Chapo went on The Dig. Dan talks to@cushbombabout optimism, pessimism, Manitowoc, reptilians, why the internet might be mostly bad, and Dan’s personal connection to the PizzaGate coverup. Toss us some cash love at Patreon.com/thedig and check out The End of Policing by Alex Vitale, from our sponsors at Verso Books.
Oct 11, 2017•1 hr 9 min
<font size="4">Suzi Weissman talks to</font><font size="4"> Einde O’Callaghan, a teacher and member of Die Linke, about Germany’s recent election, in which the far-right AfD gained 94 seats in Parliament, making it larger and more influential than the left-wing Die Linke. Then, Richard Lichtman joins us to discuss the notion (and failures) of democracy in the current period. How do we characterize a system that has the form of democracy but not the substance? Has this always be...
Oct 10, 2017•44 min
Former Ohio State Senator Nina Turner talks about being horrified by Trump, why single-payer is suddenly hot among likely 2020 Democratic contenders, and the work that Our Revolution is doing nationwide to fight the Democratic Party's neoliberal leadership. Thanks to our supporters at Verso Books, who just published Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis by George Monbiot. Also, catch me in Atlanta at the International Drug Policy Reform conference on October 14....
Oct 06, 2017•34 min
Prevailing debate obscures the fact that we already have a form of gun control in the United States. As legal scholar Ben Levin explains, the problem is that it’s a form of gun control that is mostly about locking up poor black men in huge numbers. The Left should demand a society without readily available weapons of war on the streets and a society without mass incarceration. Thanks to our supporters at University of California Press. Check out their new title Race and America's Long War from N...
Oct 06, 2017•55 min
First, author Joel Schalit explores the rise of the right in Germany. Then, Professor Marisol LeBrón talks about the role of debt and austerity in impairing Puerto Rico's hurricane recovery. And finally, Shawna Potter of the band War on Women, on being a feminist punk rocker.
Oct 06, 2017•52 min
Here's Dan's full interview with civil rights attorney and Democratic nominee for Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner. You heard some of it yesterday on the first in a four-part series on mass incarceration that we are co-producing with Cited, a podcast out of the University of British Columbia. Sponsorship from Harvard Law's Fair Punishment Project (sign up for their newsletter: http://eepurl.com/&lt;wbr /&gt;cZMccH ) and The University of Washington Center for Human Rights....
Oct 05, 2017•58 min
In the late 1960s, criminologists like Todd Clear predicted America would soon start closing its prisons. They couldn't have been more wrong. Interviews with Clear, formerly incarcerated poet and legal scholar Dwayne Betts, and civil rights attorney and Democratic nominee for Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner.Today's show is the first in a four-part series on mass incarceration that we are co-producing with @citedpodcast, which is out of the University of British Columbia. Special gue...
Oct 04, 2017•1 hr 4 min
Journalist Lukas Hermsmeier on German politics after the recent election, which saw a breakthrough for the AfD, a far-right party, the first to have seats in the German Bundestag since the Nazi era. Then, the writer Margaret Corvid discusses the recent UK Labour Party conference.
Oct 02, 2017•51 min
Today’s Diglet is not really diminutive at all. Dan has two interviews with two separate guests because too much has happened over the past few weeks and there are too many smart people to analyze it all. First, scholar @marisollebron on how Wall Street-imposed austerity set Puerto Rico up for devastation, and why it will be an obstacle to a just recovery. Then, Twitter expert @BrandyLJensen on recent Republican grotesqueries. Donate to Taller Salud in PR at facebook.com/taller.salud , check out...
Sep 29, 2017•1 hr 10 min
Islamophobia is conventionally regarded as racist and bigoted views about Muslims expressed by ignorant individuals, including the one who somehow became president. But legal and critical race scholar @KhaledBeydoun explains that the reality is more complicated. The War on Terror perpetrated state-backed Islamophobia, which nurtured and bolstered popular anti-Muslim bigotry. Support us at Patreon.com/TheDig . Check out Beydoun's article http://columbialawreview.org/content/islamophobia-toward-a-...
Sep 27, 2017•1 hr 3 min
We look at urban politics from Barcelona to Chicago with Isidro Lopez, Podemos Member of Parliament in Madrid, and Troy LaRaviere , president of the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association. Isidro brings us his analysis of the independence referendum in Catalonia — slated for October 1 but now banned and declared unconstitutional by the Central Government — that has brought tens of thousands to the streets of Barcelona demanding the right to vote. Then, Troy LaRaviere, who is beginning...
Sep 25, 2017•38 min
For this Diglet, Dan and Eve Peyser discuss What Happened , Hillary Clinton's new book. Eve also talks about spending time with Jill Stein recently, and argues that it's wrongheaded to blame Stein for Trump. Thanks to our supporters at University of California Press. Check out their new title How All Politics Became Reproductive Politics: From Welfare Reform to Foreclosure to Trump .
Sep 22, 2017•37 min
Andrew Cockburn, author of this article , on the Saudi involvement in 9/11 • Asad Haider, author of this article , on identity, Mark Lilla, and Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Sep 21, 2017•52 min
September 7, 2017 Christo Sims, author of Disruptive Fixation, on school reform and techno-fetishism • Christian Parenti, author of this article , on climate change and the threat to coastal cities.
Sep 20, 2017•52 min
Trump is normal in more ways than people care to admit, but he is different in that he parts from the bedrock ideology of American exceptionalism that has governed this country from its violent founding. Foreign policy scholar @stephenwertheim makes the case that the Trump Doctrine could reignite extreme nationalism and militarism but also provides the Left with an opening to finally launch a movement against American Empire. Thanks to University of California Press for their support. Check out ...
Sep 20, 2017•1 hr 2 min
The so-called Olympic spirit doesn’t match the reality of a highly-corporatized Games that often leaves taxpayers picking up the tab, engenders abusive policing and justifies the remaking of cities for the rich at the expense of ordinary and poor people. Dan’s guests today are Molly Lambert, a writer and member of Los Angeles DSA, and Jules Boykoff, the author of "Power Games: A Political History of the Olympics" from Verso. Support this pod with your money at patreon.com/thedig...
Sep 15, 2017•37 min
On Jacobin Radio today we talk to Christian Parenti, now teaching in the economics program at John Jay College (CUNY) about the catastrophic effects of climate change already upon us — from Harvey to Irma, from Katrina to Houston, to the fires raging around the globe. Christian has written in the new issue ofJacobin on climate change, "Earth Wind, & Fire," about what the near future will look like "If We Fail" to act, but he says that technological solutions already exist, that the State wil...
Sep 13, 2017•33 min
This two-hour episode is a look at inequality in Houston from slavery to the present. First, Dan talks to Tyina Steptoe, historian at the University of Arizona and author of "Houston Bound: Culture and Color in a Jim Crow City." Then Robert D. Bullard, professor of urban planning and environmental policy at Texas Southern University in Houston and the “father of environmental justice.” Finally, John Henneberger, an expert in equitable disaster recovery and co-director of Texas Housers. Show your...
Sep 13, 2017•2 hr 4 min
Immigration law scholar César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández breaks down the lies, misdirections, and bigoted absurdities conveyed by Attorney General Jeff Sessions when announced that the Trump Administration would cruelly make some 800,000 young people who came to this country as children deportable. Check out César's blog at crimmigration.com Support us at Patreon.com/TheDig APOLOGIES FOR THE PRIOR TECH PROBLEM
Sep 09, 2017•32 min
The devastation wreaked by Hurricane Harvey has made the denial of climate change all the more dangerous. But writer Kate Aronoff says that mainstream liberals and environmental groups, touting cap-and-trade and business-friendly reforms, have put forward an agenda that can’t address the crisis and won’t mobilize the masses. We need a radical and transformative climate agenda. Thanks to our supporters at UNC Press and check out Knocking on Labor’s Door https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469632070...
Sep 06, 2017•1 hr 6 min
New Republic reporter Emily Atkin talks about why Harvey is already and inherently political thanks to climate change and the potential for petrochemical disaster in Houston. Calls to not “politicize” the disaster are political too: they’re efforts to defend the destructive status quo of fossil-fueled neoliberal capitalism. Support us at patreon.com/thedig and please donate to homelesshouston.org/take-action/donate
Sep 01, 2017•21 min
Is the internet good or bad? The debate is more often than not a proxy for one about politics more generally and populism in particular. But the real issue with the internet is this: unaccountable businesses wield oligopoly power over the digital public sphere. Support us with some cash https://www.patreon.com/thedig And check out Adrian’s article http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/04/the-fake-news-fallacy
Aug 30, 2017•1 hr 7 min
Jodi Dean, a professor of political science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, discusses how to rethink the class vs. identity debate, as well as the tensions between online life and practice. Then, journalist Jason Wilson on Charlottesville and the far right.
Aug 28, 2017•52 min
First, Robert Kuttner, the co-editor of The American Prospect, recorded the day after Kuttner published his conversation with White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, just as Bannon was being ousted, likely for his call to Kuttner. Then, Bruce Cumings, University of Chicago historian and a leading expert on Korea, brings us historical perspective to help understand North Korea’s development of a nuclear deterrent.
Aug 28, 2017•34 min
Dan talks to Splinter Politics Editor Alex Pareene about his recent piece “Charlottesville Was a Preview of the Future of the Republican Party” and about why Phoenix is Trump’s happy place. This second weekly episode costs time and money. We can only keep it up if you contribute at patreon.com/thedig Check out Pareene’s article and podcast http://splinternews.com/charlottesville-was-a-preview-of-the-future-of-the-repu-1797988745 http://tarfureport.libsyn.com/
Aug 25, 2017•32 min
The War on Terror’s permanence should be remarkable, an outrage. But it is precisely because the war has become permanent that it has long since been rendered unremarkable. Dan’s guest is historian Andrew Bacevich, author or coauthor of over a dozen books, including most recently, America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History (Random House, 2016). Note that we spoke before Trump’s recent announcement that the US would double down on the Afghanistan War. And please support the sho...
Aug 23, 2017•57 min
Kristen Ghodsee, author of Red Hangover: Legacies of Twentieth-Century Communism (Duke University Press, 2017), joins Doug to discuss sex and gender in the former socialist world, and her recent essay in the New York Times, available here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/12/opinion/why-women-had-better-sex-under-socialism.html. Plus, Roger Lancaster, who has a new article in Jacobin on the subject, on prison reform and the problems with the abolition movement.
Aug 21, 2017•52 min
