Political scientist Rune Møller Stahl on the Danish elections, which the Left won but partly by going anti-immigrant. Then, Heidi Matthews , author of this article , on Canada’s genocidal treatment of its indigenous people.
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, run...
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...
Part two of our discussion with Eric Blanc on his new book Red State Revolt: The Teachers Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics. We discuss the role of a "militant minority" of rank-and-file radicals in Arizona and West Virginia's teachers strikes — as well as what it means when that militant minority wasn't present, as in Oklahoma. This episode is of particular interest to rank-and-file union members who are interested in making their unions more democratic and militant, as well as members of ...
Two interviews on the results of the May 26 European Parliamentary elections, which did not cleanly match predictions that there would be a further shift to to authoritarian hard-right parties. The biggest losers across the continent were the center-right neoliberal mainstream parties, but the shift to the Right was not as pronounced as feared. First, Sebastian Budgen, contributing editor for Jacobin , analyzes the election across Europe, especially in France, where the failed policies of the ce...
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 Milita...
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! ...
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-w...
The teachers strike wave of the last year and a half is the most important development in US working-class politics in decades. And nobody has covered that strike wave closer than Eric Blanc. Eric has been Jacobin's man on the ground for most of these strikes, and he was there when they kicked off in West Virginia, then spread to Arizona and Oklahoma. (Since then, he's written many articles about strikes in Denver, Oakland, Los Angeles, Baton Rouge, and elsewhere.) He wrote the "red-state" strik...
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...
Tim Shorrock ( Nation page here ) on the US conflict with North Korea. Then, Vijay Prashad , director of the Tricontinental Institute , on Modi’s recent victory in India.
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 separat...
Here, before a live audience at United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) headquarters, Suzi talks to Canadian sociologist and labor activist Barry Eidlin about socialist politics and the many issues facing radicals oriented to the working class. The interview is followed by a lively, well informed discussion from the largely DSA audience. The result is a remarkable “town hall” meeting that could serve as a primer for socialist politics in the present moment. Some of the issues discussed: the Democrati...
What should the Left say about borders? Free flow of people across borders has always been a key topic for leftists, perhaps never more so than right now — especially given the realities of climate change. Some on the Left advance a maximalist demand of completely open borders; others (including, recently, Sen. Bernie Sanders) argue that social-democratic policies like Medicare for All require some restriction on the flow of people who can enter a country and access those goods. Suzy Lee is no f...
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 t...
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 acros...
Socialism: The Movie with Yael Bridge Yael Bridge is one of the filmmakers behind the forthcoming documentary Socialism: An American Story. She talks with Micah about what she's trying to do with the film as well as her own transformation from a liberal into a socialist through the Bernie Sanders campaign. You can read more about Socialism: An American Story and chip in a donation for it here: https://www.kickstarter.<wbr />com/projects/socialismmovie/<wbr />socialism...
Eric Blanc, author of Red State Revolt , on the teachers' strikes. Then, Catherine Kaiman , environmental lawyer, on community-based reparations (paper here ).
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...
Chicago recently made international headlines for the victories of six — six!! — members of the Democratic Socialists of America running for city council. It’s an astonishing victory, the biggest socialist victory in any American city in probably a century. These victories matter both for Chicago, which has seen growing working-class pushback to neoliberalism in recent years, but also for socialist organizers in cities around the country, who can learn from how Chicago won so many elections on a...
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 e...
If we want to transform the United States in a socialist direction, we're going to need to do much more than elect Bernie Sanders as president. Nobody harps on this point more than Bernie himself. You can see it in his "not me, us" campaign slogan, or his emphasis in stump speeches on how massive industries like health insurance companies would mobilize against Medicare for All. President Bernie couldn't do much without a mass working-class movement at his back. But that doesn't mean that such a...
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 Es...
Alan Minsky , producer of Jacobin Radio, is the guest on this episode. He wears multiple hats and one of them is Executive Director of Progressive Democrats of America (PDA). We talk about the Democratic primary field, and Alan reports on conversations he had on his recent trip to the European Parliament as part of a contingent of the American left. Then, a conversation with Mitch Abidor , translator of Victor Serge's just-published Notebooks , about the Belgian-Russian anarcho-Bolshevik and lif...
It's the first episode of The Vast Majority, which will be bringing you conversations on American and international politics from a socialist perspective. So who better to have on than Bhaskar Sunkara, Jacobin's editor, publisher, and founder. Bhaskar is the author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality, which is out today, April 30. Micah talked to Bhaskar about the state of the socialist movement, socialism’s relationship to liberalism and mar...
It's a new podcast from Jacobin : The Vast Majority , hosted by Micah Uetricht. We'll be talking to authors from Jacobin and its sister publications like Catalyst and Tribune in the UK, plus whoever else is thinking and doing important work on the Left. The first episode will be out April 30.
*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 ...
Rossana Rodriguez on her successful campaign as a socialist for the Chicago city council, where she will join five other socialists. Then, Benjamin Fogel, author of this and this , on the lunacy of Bolsonaro's early months as president of Brazil.
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 o...
<font color="#000000">Our guest Yoav Peled argues that Netanyahu i</font>s the only issue in the April 9 election. <font color="#000000">Netanyahu is under indictment for one case of bribery and two cases of fraud, but Yoav says </font><font color="#000000">he is likely to win even though his party and their bloc </font>—<font color="#000000"> with far-right, racist and religious parties </font>—<font color="#000000"> is more or less tied wit...
