Jacobin Radio

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 (2018).Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage.

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.com/radio.html

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, later that year, Eisenhower landing US Marines in Lebanon, the first American combat operation in the region. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig  Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com Buy Burnout: The Emotional Experience of Political Defeat at versobooks.com Subscribe to Jacobin bit.ly/digjacobin

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.youtube.com/watch?v=E2Py_vNt4fcSee Will introduce Gamera: Super Monster at the Fox Theatre in Toronto on April 16 - https://www.foxtheatre.ca/movies/important-cinema-club-gamera-super-monster/"Joe Lieberman? Really?" by Branko Marcetic - https://jacobin.com/2018/07/joe-lieberman-democratic-party-conservative-left"Sam Bankman-Fried will grow old in jail. But don’t forget those who basked in his orbit" by Aditya Chakrabortty - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/28/sam-bankman-fried-jail-ftx-moneyMichael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage.

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, from the local to the global. Find the archive online: https://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/radio.html

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 Subramanian joins Long Reads to discuss the life of Haldane. Samanth, a journalist from India who’s now based in London, is the author of several books, including the 2019 biography A Dominant Character: The Radical Science and Restless Politics of J. B. S. Haldane.Long Reads is a Jacobin podcast looking in-depth at political topics and thinkers, both contemporary and historical, with the magazine’s longform writers. Hosted by features editor Daniel Finn. Produced by Conor Gillies with music by Knxwledge.

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 interactions, from the local to the global. Find the archive online: https://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/radio.html

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 anti-imperialist icon. In 1956, Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal. In response, the British, French, and Israelis attacked Egypt. But Nasser and Arab anti-imperialism won the day. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com Buy What Was Neoliberalism at haymarketbooks.org  Buy Abolition: Politics, Practices, Promises, Vol. 1 at haymarketbooks.org

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 public displays of opposition, and detaining critics with large prison sentences. While the economy hasn’t tanked—the war has provided a source for military Keynesianism—Matveev insists that Putin's ability to order an exact electoral result is a sign of weakness, not stability. The horrific terror attack of March 22 underscores that Putin is not managing everything well, even though he has cynically used the attack to blame Ukraine.Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, and protest movements.

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 questions and more as we discuss the documentary OFF THE CHARTS: THE SONG-POEM STORY (2003).Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage.

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 the global. Find the archive online: https://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/radio.html

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 Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com Buy The Price is Wrong: Why Capitalism Wont Save the Planet at versobooks.com  Buy Care: The Highest Stage of Capitalism at haymarketbooks.org 

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/radio.html

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_UNaWpsMichael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage.

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: https://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/radio.html

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 the millennium and our current moment. PLUS: The Democratic Party primary, the fascist Italian Prime Minister in Canada, and a fond farewell to David Bordwell.Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage.

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 Warren's personal testimony, his view on the history of Jewish opposition to Zionism, and his understanding of how the very discussion of anti-Semitism has become weaponized to discredit and silence critics of Israeli policy. What does this campaign of intimidation and retaliation mean for freedom of expression and inquiry, especially in an atmosphere of book-banning, harassment of librarians, teachers, professors and critics? Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, and protest movements.

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 democracy, overcoming divisions in the working class, mass organizing, raising expectations, and seizing the moment. This is the series finale. Find episode one, and all the other episodes, on the web or by searching for "Organize the Unorganized" on your podcast app. Organize the Unorganized: The Rise of the CIO is a limited-run history podcast telling the story of the CIO through the voices of labor historians. Hosted by Benjamin Y. Fong and produced by the Center for Work & Democracy at Arizona State University with Jacobin. Find the full show notes for this episode here: https://soundcloud.com/organizetheunor

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 set the tone for two decades of revolutionary nationalism across the region. Also: the Soviet camp’s support for the colonial partition of Palestine and its calamitous impact on powerful Arab communist parties.  Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com Subscribe to a year of Jacobin for only $15— a special offer for Dig listeners! bit.ly/digjacobin   Buy Abolition: Politics, Practices, Promises, Vol. 1 at haymarketbooks.org/books/2096-abolition

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 medicine to poor countries.Read another interview with Nick on the Jacobin website, "Big Pharma Reaps Massive Profits by Ripping Off Public Research and Weaponizing Patents": https://jacobin.com/2024/01/big-pharma-profit-public-research-patents-intellectual-propertyLong Reads is a Jacobin podcast looking in-depth at political topics and thinkers, both contemporary and historical, with the magazine’s longform writers. Hosted by features editor Daniel Finn. Produced by Conor Gillies, music by Knxwledge.