Legendary socialist scholar Tariq Ali on the long history of Afghanistan: the 19th and early 20th-century wars against the British Empire; the communist coup, Soviet invasion, and US-backed mujahideen war; the rise of the Taliban; and the 2001 US-led NATO invasion through the recent US defeat and withdrawal. Plus, a lot about Pakistan. Pre-order Ali’s forthcoming book The Forty-Year War in Afghanistan: A Chronicle Foretold versobooks.com/books/3939-the-forty-year-war-in-afghanistan Support this ...
Oct 13, 2021
Kim Stanley Robinson on science fiction, climate crisis, Marxism, geo-engineering, political violence, green Keynesianism, and a lot more. Interviewed by guest host Daniel Aldana Cohen, who read 11 of Robinson’s books during the pandemic quarantine, running from Red Mars through The Ministry for the Future. Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig and receive our new weekly newsletter by email.
Oct 03, 2021
It’s Occupy Wall Street’s tenth anniversary. Dan interviews Astra Taylor. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig and get our new weekly newsletter. Listen to other pods in the retrospective series https://rosalux.nyc/occupy/
Sep 26, 2021
Episode three of The Dig’s War on Terror trilogy with Spencer Ackerman: Decadence, Trump, and Biden. Subscribe to Spencer’s Substack: foreverwars.substack.com/people/2576701-spencer-ackerman Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig and (starting next week) get our weekly newsletter
Sep 20, 2021•1 hr 12 min
Episode two of The Dig’s War on Terror trilogy with Spencer Ackerman: Obama, ISIS, and the Sustainable War. Subscribe to Spencer’s Substack: foreverwars.substack.com/people/2576701-spencer-ackerman Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig and (starting next week) get our weekly newsletter
Sep 15, 2021
Episode one of The Dig’s three-part War on Terror series the with Spencer Ackerman: 9/11, bipartisan war fever, and George W. Bush. Subscribe to Spencer’s Substack: foreverwars.substack.com/people/2576701-spencer-ackerman Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig and (very soon) get our weekly newsletter
Sep 10, 2021•2 hr 19 min
Media critic Adam Johnson and New York Magazine’s Eric Levitz on the media’s warmongering attack on Biden’s withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. Further reading: nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/08/media-bias-biden-polls-approval-afghanistan-withdrawal.html thecolumn.substack.com/p/on-afghanistan-withdrawal-nyts-peter Sign up for Adam’s Substack: thecolumn.substack.com Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig and get our (coming soon) weekly newsletter
Sep 03, 2021•1 hr 42 min
Dan interviews scholars Aldo Madariaga and Camila Vergara about how Chilean politics have been playing out since the massive popular uprisings that began in October 2019. Further reading: jacobinlat.com/2021/06/19/el-neoliberalismo-atenta-contra-la-democracia-2 newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/burying-pinochet jacobinmag.com/2021/06/rene-rojas-interview-democracy-new-constitution-constituent-assembly-plebiscite-left-chile Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig and (soon) receive our weekly newslet...
Aug 26, 2021•2 hr
Dan interviews historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez on her book Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation . “Having replaced the Jesus of the Gospels with the vengeful warrior Christ, it’s no wonder many came to think of Trump in the same way.” Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig We now have a Discord for patrons and, starting in September, a weekly email newsletter too. If you want to join our Discord and cannot afford to contribute, just send us an email...
Aug 12, 2021•2 hr 19 min
Inflation is once again at the center of political debate. Dan interviews Tim Barker to put monetary policy in its historical and class war context. Reading: Preferred Shares by Tim Barker phenomenalworld.org/analysis/wage-share email digradiopod@gmail.com for PDFs of the following two articles: The Vietnam War and the Political Economy of Full Employment by Dean Baker, Robert Pollin and Elizabeth Zahrt Class Conflict and the “Natural Rate of Unemployment” by Robert Pollin Support The Dig at Pat...
Jul 28, 2021•2 hr 7 min
How China rejected neoliberal orthodoxy and became the new workshop of the world. Dan interviews economist Isabella Weber on her book How China Escaped Shock Therapy: The Market Reform Debate. Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig
Jul 13, 2021•2 hr 6 min
Who governs? Upon closer inspection, the composition of the ruling class has undergone huge changes that are driving this political moment. Dan interviews Doug Henwood, the author of “Take Me to Your Leader,” an extensive analysis of the changing composition of the ruling class published in Jacobin : jacobinmag.com/2021/04/take-me-to-your-leader-the-rot-of-the-american-ruling-class Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig The Dig is taking it easy this summer so look for new episodes every two...
Jun 29, 2021•1 hr 19 min
The history of the United States is in no small part the history of US intervention in Latin America. Historian Greg Grandin on his classic book Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Making of an Imperial Republic. Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig Watch our new Dig video shorts on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=LcZb3A986p0
Jun 22, 2021•1 hr 25 min
The Dig is taking a break to play catch up this week and posting a favorite interview from our archives: Nick Estes on his book Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance. First posted on June 29 2019. Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig
Jun 15, 2021•2 hr 44 min
Journalist Kate Aronoff discusses climate policy and politics and her book Overheated: How Capitalism Broke the Planet—And How We Fight Back. Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig
Jun 07, 2021•1 hr 40 min
How ecosocialists formed a powerful coalition with unions to fight for labor law reform and why we need a powerful labor movement to win a Green New Deal. An interview with four members of DSA’s Green New Deal Campaign Committee: Ashik Siddique, Gustavo Gordillo, Sydney Ghazarian, and Thea Riofrancos. This is a collaborative episode with Bloc Party, a podcast from Justice Democrats. Get involved in DSA’s PRO Act fight: pro-act.dsausa.org Ryan Grim’s post on breaking the filibuster: badnews.subst...
May 31, 2021•1 hr 45 min
Dan speaks with Noura Erakat and Tareq Baconi: an in-depth interview on Israeli apartheid and dispossession, the history and future of the Palestinian struggle, Israeli politics, media false equivalences, and shifting US public opinion toward Palestine. DONATE NOW to the Palestinian people: We Are Not Numbers wearenotnumbers.org/home/donate Multiple organizations: muftah.org/organizations-working-in-palestine-that-need-your-support/#.YKQaGZNKhpT Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig...
May 22, 2021•1 hr 33 min
Two voices from Gaza. The first of two episodes on Palestine this week with teacher and BDS activist Aya Alghazzawi and journalist Issam Adwan, project manager for We Are Not Numbers. DONATE NOW to the Palestinian people: We Are Not Numbers wearenotnumbers.org/home/donate Multiple organizations: muftah.org/organizations-working-in-palestine-that-need-your-support/#.YKQaGZNKhpT
May 18, 2021•1 hr 2 min
Dan interviews historian Robin D.G. Kelley on his classic book Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists during the Great Depression . Please support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig
May 15, 2021•2 hr 15 min
What is so-called cancel culture? Why has it suddenly emerged as arguably the issue in right-wing politics? How does today’s cancel culture discourse differ from the anti-PC discourse that first emerged in the early 1990s? How do we distinguish between liberal opponents of PC like Jonathan Chain and right-wing ones like Donald Trump? And then, finally, is there still a there there? Some problems with The Discourse that we should reflect upon? Readings: Some “Politically Incorrect” Pathways Throu...
May 09, 2021•2 hr 6 min
Dan interviews Laleh Khalili on Sinews of War and Trade: Shipping and Capitalism in the Arabian Peninsula . The Suez Canal, the colonial roots of contemporary maritime trade, Aden dock worker radicals, why Dubai is not exceptional, the impacts of steam engines and containerization—and so much more. Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig
Apr 30, 2021•2 hr 6 min
US empire in the Philippines, Filipino migration, labor organizing in the fields, and the nativist campaign for Asian exclusion. Dan interviews Rick Baldoz on his remarkable book The Third Asiatic Invasion: Empire and Migration in Filipino America, 1898-1946. Please support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig
Apr 24, 2021•2 hr 13 min
Three thinkers and organizers on the much debated question of ultra-leftism post-Bernie 2020. Two texts that informed our discussion: The Liberal to Ultra-Left Pipeline: Breaking the Cycle by Brian W. Liberalism, ultraleftism or mass action , a speech delivered by Socialist Workers Party leader Peter Camejo. Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig...
Apr 16, 2021•2 hr
Dan interviews Charisse Burden-Stelly on racial capitalism, the history of the US Black left, and the US government’s Red Scare attacks on Black radicals. Read Burden-Stelly’s work Modern U.S. Racial Capitalism: Some Theoretical Insights Black Cold War Liberalism as an Agency Reduction Formation during the Late 1940s and the Early 1950s Constructing Deportable Subjectivity: Antiforeignness, Antiradicalism, and Antiblackness during the McCarthyist Structure of Feeling Caste Does Not Explain Race ...
Apr 11, 2021•1 hr 24 min
Dan interviews the hosts of Time to Say Goodbye podcast on Asian American politics and identity. Check out Time to Say Goodbye wherever you get podcasts. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig
Apr 01, 2021•2 hr
How the 60s counterculture went on to make the techno-utopian ideology that suffuses our techno-dystopian reality. Dan interviews Fred Turner on his classic From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism . Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig
Mar 26, 2021•2 hr 5 min
Astra Taylor interviews Achal Prabhala on emerging global vaccine apartheid: from the neoliberal turn handing the pharmaceutical industry global patents to today’s government-funded vaccines put under private pharma control. Groups fighting global vaccine apartheid Public Citizen: citizen.org/topic/safe-affordable-drugs-devices/global-access-to-medicines MSF: msfaccess.org Prep4All: prep4all.org People’s Vaccine Alliance: peoplesvaccine.org Recent work by Prabhala: nytimes.com/2020/12/07/opinion...
Mar 20, 2021•1 hr 49 min
Why we need the PRO Act with Jimmy Williams, General Vice President of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades. Sign up to join DSA’s PRO Act phonebank actionnetwork.org/forms/proactphonebank Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig Join The Dig Book Club and discuss The Digital Party: Political Organisation and Online Democracy with Paolo Gerbaudo thedigradio.com/dig-book-club. Same to zoom with Astra Taylor and Erick Stoll on their doc You Are Not a Loan ....
Mar 13, 2021•29 min
Dan interviews Jacobin ‘s Alex Press and organizer Jonah Furman on the state of the labor movement. Sign up to join DSA’s Pro Act phonebank actionnetwork.org/forms/proactphonebank Read Alex Press’s interview with political scientist Michael Goldfield on the Amazon organizing drive in Bessemer jacobinmag.com/2021/02/amazon-unionize-alabama-operation-dixie-organizing-south Subscribe to Jonah Furman’s newsletter whogetsthebird.substack.com Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig Join The Dig Boo...
Mar 13, 2021•2 hr 18 min
We’re taking a week off to play catch up and posting an early Dig episode from the archives that people keep returning to time and again: Barbara and Karen Fields on their book Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life (episode 75 from December 13, 2017). Peruse The Dig’s vast archives at thedigradio.com and we’ll be back with a new ep next week. Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig Join The Dig Book Club and discuss The Digital Party: Political Organisation and Online Democracy w...
Mar 05, 2021•2 hr 9 min
