Jacobin Radio

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the FOURTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment lays out the politics surrounding the Zionist settler colonial destruction of Palestine, the Nakba of 1948, and the ground-shifting event that followed in its wake: the Nasser-led 1952 Egyptian Free Officers Movement coup that would...

From the HIV/AIDS crisis, to the opioid epidemic, to the COVID-19 pandemic, pharmaceutical corporations have been accused of profiteering at the expense of countless lives. Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now and the author of a new book called Pharmanomics: How Big Pharma Destroys Public Health , joins Long Reads to discuss an industry that exploits public research and denies crucial med...

Historian Donna Murch, author of Living for the City , takes on some myths about the Black Panther Party. Saadia Toor and Rabia Mehmood discuss Pakistan. 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

The eighth, penultimate episode of Organize the Unorganized concludes the main story of the CIO. We cover the organization’s communist purge in the late 1940s and Operation Dixie, the failed campaign to organize workers in the south. We end with the merger with the AFL in 1955 and the afterlife of the CIO in the Industrial Union Department, which made important contributions to the civil rights mo...

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the THIRD episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment is a comprehensive overview of the Middle Eastern Arab state system that crystalizes with the end of British and French colonial rule. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com...

Chilean writer and activist Pablo Abufom spoke at UCLA on February 23, 2024 about how the October 2019 social revolt in Chile propelled Gabriel Boric to power, created a Constituent Assembly to write a new Constitution, but was then defeated, with reactionary neo-fascist forces now ascendant. Pablo Abufom was deeply involved in the social protest movement of October 2019, and has been on this podc...

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the second episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment lays out early 20th-century anti-colonialism: from the Iraqi, Syrian, and Palestinian Great Revolts, to the birth of Arab nationalism, Islamic resistance, Ba'athism, and communism. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out our...

The early period of the CIO arguably ended with the Little Steel strike in 1937. The strike's brutal repression and failure dramatically illustrated the limits of the New Deal order. But the CIO continued to grow through the 1940s during the war escalation. Episode seven of Organize the Unorganized is devoted to the CIO's role in and relation to the war effort, and what it meant for this labor ups...

Jeet Heer , author of a recent article for The Nation , discusses Indian Americans in politics and society. Stephen Maher and Scott Aquanno, authors of The Fall and Rise of American Finance , takes on the new finance capital. 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: h...

In 1987, America was ready to look back on the Vietnam War... with laughter. We discuss GOOD MORNING VIETNAM (1987) and why it is one of the quintessential "boomer liberal" texts. PLUS: We check in on the state of Canadian politics (it's not good, folks). Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage.

Over the last four months, the Israeli war on Gaza has spilled over into the rest of the Middle East, from Lebanon to Iraq. But the most dramatic example has been the link between events in Palestine and Yemen. Ansar Allah, the movement known as the Houthis, imposed a blockade on ships going to Israel until there was a ceasefire. In response, the US and the UK have carried out air strikes on Houth...

There are many markers showing February 2024 to be a landmark month of cruelty — not least in Gaza, but also in Russia, where we turn our focus today. The slow murder of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in the Arctic Circle penal colony Kharp on Friday, February 16, signals a turning point for Putin’s Russia and underscores both the Kremlin’s power and weakness. We cover the turmoil in Russia in t...

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the first episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment sets the stage: European imperialism in the Arab Mashriq from the late 18th century through the early 20th. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com Subscribe to a year of Jew...

Gerald Epstein, author of Busting the Bankers’ Club , discusses the finance racket and how to transform it. Anna Kornbluh , author of Immediacy , examines our sped-up, unmediated cultural eternal present. 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.leftbusine...

On episode six of Organize the Unorganized: The Rise of the CIO , we go deeper into some of the key CIO unions: the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), the Textile Workers Organizing Committee (TWOC), and the Packinghouse Workers Organizing Committee (PWOC). There were many other unions that formed the CIO — in oil,...

We discuss THE MENU (2022) and its place in the context of the current wave of "eat the rich" cinema. PLUS: we discuss Walter Isaacson's new hagiography of Elon Musk, and Joe Biden's wildly successful "I'm fit for office" press conference. Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage.

Ajay Singh Chaudhary talks about his new book, The Exhausted of the Earth: Politics in a Burning World . Matt Notowidigdo , co-author of a recent NBER paper , examines how recessions increase life expectancy. 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.leftbu...

If you think about the French revolutionary tradition, you’re most likely to picture the storming of the Bastille and the overthrow of the monarchy. But that wasn’t the first time there was a major uprising against the established order in France. In the second half of the fourteenth century, there was a popular revolt known as the Jacquerie, which terrified the French ruling class. They drowned t...

Featuring Luke Messac on Your Money or Your Life: Debt Collection in American Medicine . An estimated 100 million people in the US are in debt because they sought medical treatment. Medical debt exacerbates poor and working-class people's physical and psychological suffering while undermining their financial well-being and freedom. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Subscribe to a year of Jewis...

Are commercial considerations always doomed to taint art? And are commercial considerations really a taint? We discuss Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman's meta-movie ADAPTATION (2002) and the artist/hack dichotomy. PLUS: We mark the passing of the world's most famous minimalist sculptor and murder suspect. Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloa...

Episode five of Organize the Unorganized: The Rise of the CIO examines the Little Steel strike in the summer of 1937. It was a tragic failure for the Steel Workers Organizing Committee and the CIO, one that illustrates the limits of the New Deal order. The Little Steel strike was in many ways a turning point, a key hinge in our story. To fully understand it, we also delve into the general history...

Ed Broadbent died January 11, 2024. Suzi speaks with the co-authors of Ed's recent book, Seeking Social Democracy: Seven Decades in the Fight for Equality . We also hear clips from Ed during his long political career. Ed was the very popular leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP) in Canada, first elected to the House of Commons in 1968 from Oshawa, Ontario, and always at the forefront of the par...

Sean Jacobs explores why South Africa brought the genocide case against Israel. Eric Blanc , who wrote a recent piece about sprawl and the suburbs, talks about organizing in a scattered and atomized society. Hassan El-Tayyab discusses the widening war in the Middle East. Behind the News , hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the l...

Featuring Emily Dische-Becker on how Germany became attached to a wildly narcissistic anti-antisemitism and Israeli proxy nationalism that have made it one of the most anti-Palestinian governments on earth. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out our newsletters and vast archives at thedigradio.com Subscribe to a year of Jacobin for only $15— a special offer for Dig listeners! bit.ly/digja...

How was it that the CIO was finally able to make good on the decades-old dream of industrial unionism? In the fourth episode of Organize the Unorganized: The Rise of the CIO , we outline two more factors, alongside political opportunities and organizational militancy, that were key to the CIO’s success. First, we look at the great energy and commitment of the left toward the stable end of collecti...