Jacobin Radio

During the 1990s, the government of Slobodan Milošević led Serbia into another Balkan war. His allies in Bosnia were responsible for a litany of war crimes, including the massacre at Srebrenica. The war left Serbia itself isolated and impoverished. A protest movement drove Milošević from power in 2000. Two decades later, Serbia has a president who served under Milošević and supported the wars in C...

Jacobin is celebrating International Workers’ Day once again with solidarity subscriptions! Since our founding in 2010, we’ve aimed to reach millions with democratic socialist perspectives on politics, economics, and culture. Our work online — be it podcasts, video, or daily articles — is sustained first and foremost through magazine subscriptions. On May 1st, and a few days after, you can use the...

Jodi Dean talks about being suspended from teaching at Hobart and William Smith Colleges for writing an article the administration didn’t like . Keri Leigh Merritt , who recently wrote an essay for Aeon, discusses the lingering effects of antebellum Southern society. Finally, we hear excerpts from an interview first broadcast in June 2023 with Samuel Bazzi , co-author of a paper about the postbell...

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the EIGHTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. A compact introduction to the Movement of Arab Nationalists, which in the 1950s built a presence that stretched across the region, from Beirut and Jordan to Cairo and the Gulf—becoming a truly powerful force in Kuwait. Led in significant part by Palesti...

At the end of last year, the French politician Jacques Delors died at the age of 98. Delors is best remembered for his time as president of the European Commission from the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s. During that time, the European Community became the European Union. The Delors Commission also laid the groundwork for the single currency through the Maastricht Treaty. One of the main ideas associa...

Yanis Varoufakis talks about being banned in Germany for supporting the Palestinian cause, and then about the transformation he analyzes in his new book, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism . 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.leftbusinessobserve...

Featuring Noura Erakat, Avi Shlaim, Ussama Makdisi, Ilan Pappé, Ghada Ageel Hamdan, and Abdel Razzaq Takriti on the ongoing Israeli genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Recorded at the World Academic Forum for Palestine in Houston. We’ll be back next week with episode eight of Thawra, our rolling series on 20th century Arab radicalisms. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Donate to Palestine L...

By the third entry of the God's Not Dead franchise, its creative team had clearly started listening to their critics. The result was a kinder, gentler right-wing Evangelical Christian drama that sought to heal divides... and failed at the box office. We welcome back New Republic writer and our resident God's Not Dead correspondent Alex Shephard to discuss GOD'S NOT DEAD: A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS (2...

Heidi Matthews surveys cases against Israel pending at the the World Court. Elijah Wald , author of Jelly Roll Blues , talks about Jelly Roll Morton and the hidden history of early blues music. 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....

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the SEVENTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment lays out the the US’s Eisenhower Doctrine, which in 1957 inaugurated a new era of imperialism in the Middle East; the Ba’ath Party driving Syria and Egypt into the United Arab Republic, a superstate under Nasser’s rule, in 1958; and...

For seven weeks in 1936 and 1937, workers at the General Motors plant in Flint, Michigan held a risky sit-down strike. A true David vs. Goliath story, their strike won recognition for the United Auto Workers and changed labor in the United States forever. With a newer UAW strike fresh in the memory, we discuss the BBC documentary THE GREAT SIT-DOWN (1976). Watch The Great Sit-Down - https://www.yo...

Trita Parsi explains why Israel is trying to expand its war to Iran and Hezbollah. Natasha Lennard analyzes the Zionist appropriation of leftish “safe space” discourse . And Stefan Yong explores the structure of the global shipping industry in light of the Baltimore bridge disaster. Behind the News , hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions...

J. B. S. Haldane was one of the great scientific minds of the twentieth century. He played an important role in the development of genetics and the theory of evolution. Haldane was also a tireless political campaigner who gravitated towards the communist movement in the 1930s and 40s. His public career makes for a fascinating case study on the relationship between politics and science. Samanth Sub...

Pankaj Mishra, author of a recent article for the London Review of Books , "The Shoah after Gaza," talks about the propaganda-induced debasement of the Holocaust. Nancy Folbre , co-author of a recent report on household economic well-being , discusses assigning a monetary value to care work. Behind the News , hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex int...

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the SIXTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment lays out the intensification of the Cold War across the Middle East. Western imperialist powers attempted to recruit Arab countries to the Baghdad Pact, a Middle Eastern NATO. Nasser rallied the Arab masses in opposition, becoming an...

Suzi talks to Ilya Matveev about the recent election in Russia giving Putin a fifth term in power—an election he argues was stage-managed from above. Matveev discusses how the Putin government, with increasing nationalist propaganda, has stepped up repression and persecution of critical voices against the war in Ukraine . He talks about Kremlin policy of silencing independent media, stopping publi...

For decades, a cottage industry flourished in the subterranean depths of the American music industry: send a company your poem, and, for a fee, they'll turn it into a song. Maybe the song will even be your entryway into the industry and the Billboard charts! But most assuredly it will not be. Was this industry exploitative? Did it produce art? What even is "art" anyway? We tackle all these questio...

David Moore outlines how AIPAC is using GOP contributors’ money to go after progressive Democrats. Meron Rapoport discusses how Schumer and the ICJ are being received in Israel. Jamieson Webster speaks about the social aspects of mental disorder among the young. Behind the News , hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to t...

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the FIFTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment lays out the early years of a struggle for Syria that would decisively shape the Arab world: the fight for independence from France, the first (CIA-backed) coup of 1949, and the rise of the Ba’ath and Communist movements. Support The...

Robert Fatton explains Haiti’s further descent into poverty and chaos. Steve Fraser, author of a recent article for Jacobin , analyzes and mourns the death of any sense of a better future. 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/r...

In 1991, over 100 of the the most famous singers, movie stars, an athletes in America got together to record a song for the troops in the first Gulf War. We take a visit to the consent-manufacturing factory and discuss the "apolitical" James Woods-hosted TV special VOICES THAT CARE: STAND TALL, STAND PROUD (1991). Watch the special here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJ1S_UNaWps Michael and Us i...

Vijay Prashad explains how the North American and European bourgeoisies have become a spent force with nothing to offer the world. Volodymyr Ishchenko, author of Toward the Abyss , talks about Ukraine during and after the USSR. 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:...

Against the backdrop of the incredibly boring 2000 election, the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman went on a cross-country journey to see if George W. Bush or Al Gore represented America. The result was THE PARTY'S OVER (2001), aka THE LAST PARTY 2000 — that's right, it's an official sequel to the Robert Downey Jr-hosted documentary. We found many resonances between this fossil from the turn of t...

Suzi talks to Warren Montag , professor at Occidental College, who was recently targeted for his talk at a college forum about Israel’s war on Gaza and issues it has raised in the US. The specific topic was one Warren had spoken on numerous times since the first Intifada: Anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism. In retaliation, the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) campaigned to get him fired. We hear W...

This final episode of Organize the Unorganized offers key lessons from the CIO moment. We asked all of our guests about this basic question, and these are their answers. The negative lessons—points where guests were keen to note the differences between the '30s and the present moment—focused on the changed economic situation and the issue of labor law. The more positive lessons dealt with union de...