Jacobin Radio

To mark a very special milestone, we decided to reach back to early in the podcast's history and revisit MICHAEL MOORE HATES AMERICA (2004). Mimicking Moore's own filmmaking style, this amateurish documentary sees a conservative man go on a cross-country journey to land and interview with Michael himself. We discuss why this piece of right-wing kitsch has remained so firmly lodged in our minds, an...

Suzi talks to Warren Montag about the danger of the organized and armed far right. He argues in "The Necessity of Taking Back the Streets" in the journal Spectre that the left has not recognized the danger of the far right, and has been outflanked by the right’s strategic advance politically, electorally, and militarily. Warren sees the January 6, 2021 action as a big success for the right—and the...

Everyone feels bad right now because conditions are awful and the outlook is bleak. What is going on, and where might things be headed? How might we become unstuck from this interregnum? Dan interviews returning guests Aziz Rana, Nikhil Pal Singh, and Wendy Brown.

This week, we speak with Alex Han, executive editor of Organizing Upgrade about a recent conversation he moderated between an Amazon activist named Howard and Wade Rathke, chief organizer of ACORN in the U.S. from 1970 – 2008. The discussion focuses on the successes and failures of organizing during the era in which Walmart was the ascendant force in commerce, a role Amazon plays today. Organ...

In 1985, a group of plucky renegades banded together to take on the political culture in the Democratic Party—demolishing Jesse Jackson's "Rainbow Coalition" to create a coalition that could win elections. That's the thesis of CRASHING THE PARTY (2016), a hagiographic documentary that chronicles the rise of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council and its star candidate, Bill Clinton. We discuss...

Doug speaks with Antonia Mardones Marshall on the recent presidential election and its winner, Gabriel Boric. Plus: Antonia Atria, in an interview from October 2020, on that country's constitutional referendum. 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 here: https://www.leftbus...

Suzi talks to Pablo Abufom in Chile about Gabriel Boric’s impressive landslide victory in the second round of Chile’s Presidential election held December 19. Boric, a 35 year old former student leader from the Apruebo Dignidad (I Approve Dignity) coalition, decisively defeated the first round winner, Jose Antonio Kast, the ultra-right admirer of Pinochet’s dictatorship whose campaign stoked fear a...

Catherine Liu, professor at University of California, Irvine, joins The Jacobin Show to discuss the rise of elite liberalism and the professional class. The Jacobin Show offers socialist perspectives on class and capitalism in the twenty-first century, the failures of liberalism, and the prospects of rebuilding a left labor movement in the US. This is the podcast version of the show from December...

Episode two of our two-part series on cryptocurrency: political theorist Stefan Eich on how crypto fits into Hayek's old neoliberal dream of private money and why that vision emerged in a new form in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.  Read Stefan's article: static1.squarespace.com/static/5ae8a7b625bf02c0b85aec02/t/5c923c13eef1a1ce843836ff/1553087508427/Stefan+Eich%2C+Old+Utopias%2C+New+T...

For months we've been immersing ourselves in such Intellectual Property soups as Ready Player One, Space Jam: A New Legacy, and The Simpsons in Plusaversary, so we felt it was time to examine the animated hit that helped birth this new phenomenon: THE LEGO MOVIE (2014). PLUS: the return of COVID, a bad week for the Democrats, and the actual, honest-to-goodness phenomenon of official Rifkin's Festi...

Economist Richard Wolff joins Weekends to explain why Congressional partisan battles are like professional wrestling and why global capitalism continues to experience crisis after crisis. Weekends with Ana Kasparian and Nando Vila features free-flowing and humorous commentary on current events and political strategy. This is the podcast version of the (last!) episode, which aired December 17, 2021...

Michael Vann joins Long Reads for a conversation about Indonesia’s turbulent past and present. Michael is a professor of history at Sacramento State University. He specializes in the history of Southeast Asia. This is the second part of a two-part interview. The previous Long Reads episode covers events leading up to Suharto’s coup in the 1960s. Long Reads is a Jacobin podcast looking in-depth at...

Edward Ongweso Jr. and Jacob Silverman on cryptocurrency, NFTs, Elon Musk, the metaverse, meme stocks, and techno-utopianism amid the crushing reality of our neoliberal hellscape. The first in a two-episode series on crypto.  Read Dan's new essay on border control politics: nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/border-crises/

Labor organizer and writer Jane McAlevey discusses the strike wave, the Great Resignation, and the union-busting efforts of the past year and looks at where the labor movement might go in 2022 and beyond. The Jacobin Show offers socialist perspectives on class and capitalism in the twenty-first century, the failures of liberalism, and the prospects of rebuilding a left labor movement in the US. Th...

Jacobin columnist Liza Featherstone joins Weekends to discuss how deindustrialization and stagnant wages have affected working-class men, and how right-wing politicians and pundits like Josh Hawley and Tucker Carlson have exploited this group’s downward mobility to sound the alarm over a “crisis of masculinity.” Weekends with Ana Kasparian and Nando Vila features free-flowing and humorous commenta...

For 78 days in 1990, a group of Mohawk protestors withstood a siege from the Canadian armed forces. The root of the conflict? A town in Quebec sought to take over their land to expand a golf course. The Oka Crisis is the subject of Alanis Obomsawin's acclaimed documentary KANEHSATAKE: 270 YEARS OF RESISTANCE (1993), which offers us an opportunity to consider how Canada treats its First Nations. Wa...

Suzi talks with John Logan about the unionization victory at Starbucks in Buffalo, and the continuing Kellogg Co. strike: workers rejected the agreement and Kellogg's said it will permanently replace the workforce. Since that announcement, Kellogg's has been flooded with bogus job applications . John's most recent piece on the Starbucks victory appeared in The Conversation : “Union Battl...

Michael Vann joins Long Reads for a special, two-part conversation about Indonesia’s turbulent past and present. Michael is a professor of history at Sacramento State University who specializes in the history of Southeast Asia. Today’s episode covers the events leading up to the coup in the 1960s, when General Suharto seized power and slaughtered the Indonesian left. Long Reads is a Jacobin podcas...

Touré Reed and Adolph Reed discuss their new article in Socialist Register, how the project of racial justice became unmoored from political economy in the postwar era, and how this disconnect continues to shape our understandings of race and inequality today. The Jacobin Show offers socialist perspectives on class and capitalism in the twenty-first century, the failures of liberalism, and the pro...

How neoliberal conditions create popular constituencies, ideologies, and subjectivities among poor and working-class people for a violent, mean, and repressive neoliberalism—and how those reactionary politics from below converge with those generated from above. Political theorist Rodrigo Nunes analyzes Bolsonarismo (the ideology and politics surrounding far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro...

Adaner Usmani joins Weekends to explain why fighting racial inequality today depends on forging a working-class coalition, and why race-based solutions to inequality are ultimately a dead end. Weekends with Ana Kasparian and Nando Vila features free-flowing and humorous commentary on current events and political strategy. This is the podcast version of the show from December 3, 2021. Verso book cl...

With the Beatles once again in the zeitgeist, we decided to revisit the jukebox musical ACROSS THE UNIVERSE (2007), which positioned the lads' music as a backdrop to the social upheavals of the 1960s. Does it completely misunderstand both the music and the milieu? (Spoiler: yes) Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage. To hear...

Doug speaks with Matt Kierkegard and David Adler of the Progressive International on the Honduran and Chilean elections. Plus: an interview with Sarah Lustbader, author of this article , on why trials are no substitute for 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 her...

Bolsonaro is presiding over mass COVID deaths and the destruction of the Amazon. Lula is free and polling way ahead for next year's presidential election. But the conditions that brought the far-right to power remain in place. Sociologist Sabrina Fernandes and historian Andre Pagliarini on Brazil.  Check out Sabrina's Tese Onze YouTube channel youtube.com/channel/UC0fGGprihDIlQ3ykWvcb9hg Supp...

This week on A World to Win, Adele Walton, filling in for Grace Blakeley, speaks with Asad Rehman, director of War on Want and organizer for climate, racial, economic, and social justice. They discuss how global inequality is reproduced by colonial legacies, the impact of structural adjustment plans, and the need for an anticolonial climate justice movement. You can support our work on the show by...