This is a special episode of Long Reads that we’ve recorded because of the war in Gaza. Dan speaks with Palestinian academic Bashir Abu-Manneh about the situation that’s developed over the last week and what’s likely to happen next. Bashir is a Reader in Postcolonial Literature at the University of Kent and the author of The Palestinian Novel: From 1948 to the Present . Bashir is also a contributing editor at Jacobin who’s written many articles about Palestinian politics, including, most recentl...
Oct 18, 2023•51 min
Featuring Vincent Bevins on If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution . The second of a two-part interview on this important new book. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out our excellent newsletters—sent to you by email if you support us on Patreon thedigradio.com/newsletter Check out The Dig's vast archives on Palestine thedigradio.com/category/palestine Donate now to support Gaza relief pcrf1.app.neoncrm.com/forms/gaza-relief Subscribe to Jacobin bit.ly/digjacobi...
Oct 17, 2023•1 hr 27 min
Vincent Bevins, author of If We Burn , discusses a decade of protest movements that began with high hopes and ended up with things little changed or worse. Haggai Matar , executive director of +972 Magazine , debriefs the latest horror in Israel–Palestine. This episode originally aired October 12. 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 ....
Oct 16, 2023•53 min
Two views of Haiti in light of the UN’s approval of the deployment of a Kenyan-led mission to control gang violence there: Jake Johnston of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, and Robert Fatton of the University of Virginia. These interviews were recorded before a Kenyan court temporarily blocked the move to send police. 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 onl...
Oct 10, 2023•53 min
Featuring Vincent Bevins on If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution . The first of a two-part interview on this important new book. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig and ask Vincent a follow-up question. Buy Reform, Revolution, and Opportunism: Debates in the Second International, 1900-1910 haymarketbooks.org/books/2109-reform-revolution-and-opportunism Buy War Made Invisible thenewpress.com/books/war-made-invisible...
Oct 09, 2023•1 hr 41 min
In DEATH WISH 4: THE CRACKDOWN (1987), Charles Bronson wages a one-man war against the Los Angeles drug trade, despite being as old-looking as anyone has ever looked. We discuss how the ridiculous fourth entry in the iconic action franchise takes its reactionary politics a step beyond "law and order." PLUS: We discuss two milestones in cinematic surrealism (1989's THINGS and 1994's TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME) and bid farewell to former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Preorder Luke's new book Se...
Oct 08, 2023•52 min
For most of the twentieth century, Trinidad and Tobago had a population of fewer than a million people. But this Caribbean nation made an outsized contribution to radical theory and political activism. C. L. R. James and Eric Williams published two of the most important works about slavery and its role in the development of capitalism. Williams went on to become the country’s first leader after independence. Their fellow Trinidadian George Padmore took on a pivotal role in the struggle against r...
Oct 06, 2023•1 hr 5 min
Late in his career, Akira Kurosawa plumbed his subconscious and came up with DREAMS (1990), one of his most underrated films. We discuss the ways that this film captures the mood and style of a dream, and its unifying theme of humankind's relationship with nature. PLUS: We attempt to define the ambient politics (and anti-politics) of the post-Trump years. "Martin Scorsese: 'I Have To Find Out Who The Hell I Am'" by Zach Baron - https://www.gq.com/story/martin-scorsese-profile Preorder Luke's new...
Oct 05, 2023•55 min
Barry Eidlin guest hosts today, talking to WGA leader-activists Alex O’Keefe , organizer and award-winning writer for The Bear, and Howard Rodman , writer and former president of the WGA. On September 24, after 146 days on strike, the WGA and the AMPTP announced a tentative agreement for the contract covering 11,500 film and TV screenwriters across the country. The WGA Negotiating Committee West and East voted unanimously to recommend the agreement, and on September 27, the strike was suspended....
Oct 04, 2023•1 hr 49 min
Samar Al-Bulushi examines the coup in Niger, political unrest in France’s former colonies in Africa, and the US-led “war on terror” on that continent. Joanna Wuest , author of Born This Way , talks about the biology of sexuality. 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 ....
Oct 03, 2023•53 min
Featuring Jo Guldi on the global history of the long land war—a war over everything from agrarian reform to tenant rights, from India and China to England and Ireland, from the late 19th century through the present—and into the future. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Buy Blood Red Lines at haymarketbooks.org/books/1519-blood-red-lines Buy Abolition for the People at haymarketbooks.org/books/2095-abolition-for-the-people...
Sep 29, 2023•2 hr 19 min
Aaron Benanav , sociologist and frequent contributor to New Left Review , and Seth Ackerman , an editor at Jacobin , discuss the long-term health of capitalism: Is stagnation really the problem? 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 ....
Sep 27, 2023•53 min
In 2019, Clint Eastwood's RICHARD JEWELL took aim at two institutions — the FBI and the media — that were supposed to save America from Trumpism. We discuss one of the veteran auteur's most beautiful films, which is also one of his most loaded and ambiguous political hot potatoes. PLUS: David Brooks' expensive meal, Doug Ford's about-face, and Jean-Luc Godard's film criticism. "David Brooks and the $78 airport meal the internet is talking about" by Timothy Bella - https://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Sep 25, 2023•1 hr 20 min
Featuring Alex Han, Astra Taylor, and Rachel Gilmer on how we build powerful organizations that win both short-term fights and the long-term struggle for socialism. A live Dig recorded at the Socialism 2023 conference in Chicago. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig and ask Dig guests follow-up questions! Buy Our History Has Always Been Contraband at haymarketbooks.org Buy To Build a Black Future princeton.press/blackfuture...
Sep 23, 2023•1 hr 35 min
Suzi talks to historian and labor expert Nelson Lichtenstein about the historic, first-ever simultaneous strike against the Big Three automakers. Thirteen thousand workers, about 10% of UAW members at the Big Three, walked out of assembly plants in Michigan, Ohio, and Missouri on September 14. Instead of striking at all plants at once, the UAW is using a novel tactic they’re calling the “Stand-Up” strike with workers at select locals standing up and walking out on strike. Shawn Fain , the new mi...
Sep 22, 2023•53 min
For its boosters, crypto finance is a modern-day version of the California gold rush, with fortunes to be made. And it seems to have attracted as many crooks and fraudsters as the original Wild West. Ramaa Vasudevan, professor of economics at Colorado State University and the author of Things Fall Apart: From the Crash of 2008 to the Great Slump , discusses the world of crypto from its beginnings as a "libertarian pipe dream" to the volatile situation today. Read her piece for Catalyst , "Silico...
Sep 21, 2023•54 min
Jodi Dean , author of a recent article for the Los Angeles Review of Books , takes on the postliberalism of Ahmari, Vermeule, Deneen, et al. Then Sarang Shidore of the Quincy Institute discusses the G20, the BRICS, and the erosion of US imperial power. 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 ....
Sep 18, 2023•53 min
Suzi talks to journalist Marc Cooper, Salvador Allende's former translator, for part two of our commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the September 11, 1973 coup in Chile. Marc returned to Chile for a month this year to probe what has and has not changed in 50 years, and to understand why the new leftist millennial government of Gabriel Boric is having such a hard time. His multipart series for Truthdig, "Chile's Utopia Has Been Postponed," features articles, photo essays, interviews and disc...
Sep 15, 2023•1 hr 50 min
If you look, you'll see. Most people don't look. Produced by Stephen Cassidy Jones and Liza Yeager. Edited by Mitchell Johnson, with editorial oversight from Daniel Denvir. Featuring Mark Pilkington, Valerie Kuletz, and Trevor Paglen. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Buy Blood Red Lines at haymarketbooks.org Subscribe to Jacobin at bit.ly/digjacobin...
Sep 14, 2023•55 min
Sam Gindin, writer and activist on labor issues, outlines the shortcomings of the UPS-Teamster deal (read his article , and a follow-up , on The Bullet website). Then Samuel Moyn , author of Liberalism Against Itself , discusses how the Cold War crushed the tendency’s emancipatory side. 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 ....
Sep 11, 2023•53 min
Featuring Alex Press and Eric Blanc on surging labor militancy and why US unions must seize this historic moment. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig and ask our guests follow-up questions! Learn more about Haymarket’s Book Clubs at haymarketbooks.org . Subscribe to Jacobin bit.ly/digjacobin and Catalyst bit.ly/digcatalyst...
Sep 09, 2023•1 hr 49 min
Widely described as "Hollywood's response to the Lewinsky scandal," THE CONTENDER (2000) imagines a Vice Presidential confirmation process derailed by sexism and moral prudishness. We excavate some Oscar bait from the very tail end of the Clinton Era and find... yes, another Politics Movie™. Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage.
Sep 08, 2023•54 min
Suzi talks to Oscar Mendoza about the Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende that came to an abrupt and bloody end 50 years ago on September 11, 1973. Pinochet's coup inaugurated a wave of violence, death and repression that shocked the world—and sparked an enormous international solidarity movement as many thousands of Chileans were forced to leave their country, their families, and their dreams of a democratic, egalitarian future. Oscar Mendoza's life was upended on that day nearly 50 ye...
Sep 05, 2023•58 min
Featuring Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the Latin American left and the long history of US intervention in the region. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Buy War Made Invisible thenewpress.com/books/war-made-invisible Buy Quick Fixes: Drugs in America from Prohibition to the 21st Century Binge versobooks.com/products/2981-quick-fixes...
Sep 01, 2023•52 min
More than a century after her death in 1919, Rosa Luxemburg is unquestionably one of the most celebrated Marxist thinkers. But until very recently, most of her work had never appeared in English translation. Verso Books and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation have set out to fill the gap by publishing her collected works. Peter Hudis, a professor of philosophy and humanities at Oakton Community College and the author of several books, including Frantz Fanon: Philosopher of the Barricades , is one of t...
Aug 31, 2023•55 min
Lisa Corrigan , author of a recent Nation article , explains what the savage cuts at West Virginia University mean for higher ed. Taylor Lorenz, author of Extremely Online , discusses the social history of the internet. 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 ....
Aug 29, 2023•53 min
Featuring Amna Akbar, Gabriel Winant, and Thea Riofrancos on the emerging terrain of struggle. Is American liberalism exhausted or revitalized? What are the successes and limits of the new US left electoral strategy? Is there a new anti-electoral mood amongst socialists? Why don't we have a powerful climate movement? What forces are making and remaking the American working class today? The second and final part of a very wide-ranging interview. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out our...
Aug 24, 2023•2 hr 15 min
We've been talking about a lot of soulless, big-budget IP movies that represent a rot in our culture... so how about a how about a hand-crafted, achingly personal movie that exists as a wart on the back of that rot? We discuss Kevin Smith's CLERKS III (2022), a harrowing vision of Gen X culture trapped in amber. "Awkward Americans see themselves in Ron DeSantis" by Ben Terris - https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2023/08/17/ron-desantis-awkward/ "Talk is Cheap" by Nick Pinkerton - https://n...
Aug 22, 2023•49 min
Sohrab Ahmari , author of Tyranny, Inc. , talks about the dictatorship of capital. Erin Reed , aka Erin in the Morning , discusses the state of trans politics. 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 ....
Aug 21, 2023•53 min
After years of hearing from censors that violent media images cause harm, David Cronenberg made a movie... in which violent media images cause harm. We discuss VIDEODROME (1983) - its media satire, its sexual/gender politics, and its vision of how technology influences reality. PLUS: the Prime Minister enters the Barbieheimer discourse, and further thoughts on Sound of Freedom . Toronto listeners: see Will introduce Glen or Glenda at the Fox Theatre tonight (August 15) - https://www.foxtheatre.c...
Aug 15, 2023•1 hr
