Jacobin Radio

Joel Schalit on the return of Bibi Netanyahu in Israel, now in coalition with the religious right. Mohammad Salemy on the tripartite structure of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Megan Kinch on a labor upsurge in Ontario.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.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html

We finally felt lucky enough to discuss the granddaddy of right-wing law-and-order movies, DIRTY HARRY (1971). One thing is for certain: this is one cop who takes no guff from no one. PLUS: fiery hot takes on the U.S. midterms, the labour strike that is rocking Canada, and the future of entertainment. This episode was recorded before election day in the US.Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage.

Political economist Alfredo Saad-Filho discusses the Brazilian elections. Then, Mina Khani and Mohammad Salemy look at the ongoing, women-led uprising in Iran.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.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html

Featuring Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi and Golnar Nikpour on the history of modern Iran. This is the third episode in our four-part series. We pick up in the wake of the US-British 1953 coup against Mossadegh, assess the Shah's repression and attempts to manufacture consent through passive revolution, and then close by laying out the 1979 Islamic Revolution in all of its wild complexity.   If you love The Dig, support the podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out our newsletter and archives at thedigradio.com 

Science fiction has traditionally depicted a robot takeover as a conscious bid for global domination by our mechanical offspring. From The Terminator to The Matrix, we’ve been invited to picture a war to the death between man and machine. More recently however, figures like Elon Musk have spoken about the rise of the robots as a more insidious threat to humanity; the machines may bear us no ill will, but they’ll cast us on the scrap heap of technological unemployment anyway.Aaron Benanav, author of Automation and the Future of Work, joins Long Reads to discuss what this conventional wisdom around technology and jobs gets wrong—and what a realistic path to a post-scarcity world might look like.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, music by Knxwledge.

Adam McKay's VICE (2018) sought to give Dick Cheney the full reckoning for his crimes through art that he will never receive in life. Is the film necessary cinematic intervention in the ongoing Cheney reclamation project, or a condescending failure? Your hosts disagree sharply on this cinematic polemic. PLUS: fiery hot takes on Elon Musk's Twitter takeover."'Damn right,' I said" by Eliot Weinberger - https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v33/n01/eliot-weinberger/damn-right-i-saidMichael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage.

Featuring Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi and Golnar Nikpour on the history of modern Iran. This is the second episode in our four-part series. We begin in 1941 with the British-Soviet occupation of Iran, the ouster of Reza Shah and his replacement by his son, Mohammad Reza Shah. We continue with the rise of the Tudeh communist party, the nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, Mohammad Mosaddegh's National Party coming to power, and the 1953 US-British coup that overthrew Mosaddegh and reinstalled Mohammad Reza Shah as dictator. His brutal reign continued until the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which is where we will pick up in episode three.Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDigCheck out The Sinking Middle Class by David Roediger haymarketbooks.org/books/1879-the-sinking-middle-class

Jamieson Webster, author of a recent opinion piece in the Times, examines what severe psychological distress among adolescents is telling us about American society. Then Raina Lipsitz, author of The Rise of a New Left, looks at the history, personnel, and status of today’s radicalism.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.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html

Suzi talks to Michael Cox, Cold War and International Relations expert, about his forthcoming article in Critique, “In the shadow of the Russian revolution: Putin, Xi, and the long war in Ukraine.” Mick looks at the state of the war and the shock to the world system it has provoked, wreaking havoc with energy prices and the financial system. He examines the relationship between Russia and China within a reconfigured world order. Russia’s war on Ukraine has created strange bedfellows, left and right, north and south. We don’t know how it will turn out, but Mick argues that this war has changed the trajectory of the 21st century. We get his analysis.Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, protest movements.

In a distant future, a privileged ruling class lives in a city fueled by an invisible army of workers who toil in barbaric conditions. Yes, this is the far-fetched scenario of one of the most iconic science-fiction films of all time, Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS (1927). We finally discuss the most famous of all Weimar-era movies, and debate whether or not the mediator between the head and the hand really is the heart.Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage.

This episode is the first in a four-part series on the history of modern Iran, from 1906 through the present. This episode covers the period from 1906 until 1941, from the Constitutional Revolution that imposed constitutional limits on the Qajar dynasty through the 1921 coup that brought to power Reza Khan—who then in 1925 deposed the Qajars and became Reza Shah, the first shah of the Pahlavi dynasty. We end just before the 1941 occupation of Iran by longtime imperial powers, Britain and the Soviet Union, which forced Reza Shah out and replaced him with his son, Muhammad Reza Shah—which is where we will pick up in episode two.RIP Mike Davis. Listen to his Dig interviews here: thedigradio.com/tag/mike-davisPlease support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDigRead our newsletters and explore our vast archives at thedigradio.com

Annelle Sheline of the Quincy Institute explains why Saudi Arabia cut its oil production dramatically. James Meadway, former adviser to Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party and now director of the Progressive Economy Forum, analyzes why Britain is in economic and political crisis.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.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html

This is sadly our final episode of the Jacobin Show. We're joined by labor organizer and author Jane McAlevey to discuss the state of the labor movement and where it needs to go to address our mounting crises. Ariella Thornhill and Paul Prescod also join Jen Pan to discuss what a healthy left needs to consist of and why the claims to a "new working class" are dead wrong.The Jacobin Show is a weekly YouTube show offering 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. Music by Zonkey. This is the podcast version of the episode from October 19, 2022.

Suzi talks to Iranian scholar and activist Yassamine Mather about the growing protest movement in Iran, sparked by the brutal murder of Mahsa Amini in police custody for wearing a loose hijab. The demonstrations have spread across the country and world with women chopping off their hair in solidarity and protest. The Islamic regime has violently cracked down on protestors but has failed to quell the movement. This is the biggest challenge the government has faced in more than four decades of theocratic rule – and as Yassamine asserts, the protests are not just about the hijab, but a woman’s right to choose what she does in every aspect of her life.Suzi also talks to political economist Pedro Paulo Zahluth Bastos in Brazil to get his analysis of the October 2nd Presidential election results. Lula won with 48.4% to President Bolsonaro's 43.2% of the votes, but failed to eliminate Bolsonaro outright in the first round. The results reveal the level of polarization in Brazil, despite Bolsonaro's disastrous rule. W

We discuss death, bureaucracy, and postwar Japan in Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece IKIRU (1952). PLUS: Everything you always wanted to know about Toronto's political culture (and upcoming municipal election) but were afraid to ask!Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage.

The question of how to define antisemitism has become a major political controversy. Many leading political figures, including Benjamin Netanyahu, now insist that antisemitism and anti-Zionism are two sides of the same coin. How did we reach a point where this kind of discourse has become entirely routine? Antony Lerman joins Long Reads to discuss the history of this debate, covered in a new book, Whatever Happened To Antisemitism? Redefinition and the Myth of the 'Collective Jew'. The work draws on his long experience of academic research into the different forms of anti-Jewish bigotry.You can read a review of Lerman's book in Jacobin here: https://jacobin.com/2022/09/antisemitism-zionism-israel-palestine-corbynLong 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.

Featuring Laura Mason on her book The Last Revolutionaries: The Conspiracy Trial of Gracchus Babeuf and the Equals. Mason discusses Babeuf's call to abolish property, his radically egalitarian conspiracy against the Directory government, and the end of the French Revolution. How a centrist government turned its back on popular democracy, presided over growing inequality and working-class poverty, and abetted the rise of the reactionary right that would ultimately overthrow it.   Check out the newsletter and our vast archives at thedigradio.com Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig

Doug speaks with Troy Vettese and Drew Pendergrass, authors of Half-Earth Socialism, about their scheme to save the world.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.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html

On the occasion of Jacobin's "Inflation" issue release party, Samir Sonti interviewed historian Adam Tooze at the Mayday Space in Brooklyn. This is audio from that recent live conversation. Samir and Adam discuss the causes, threats, and nuances of inflation, as well as ways to combat the cost-of-living crisis in such a way that puts the needs of people before capital.Get the new "Inflation" issue, and a year-long subscription, for just $20: https://bit.ly/JACOBINRADIO

Grace speaks to historian David Broder about Italian fascism following the recent elections in which the Italian far-right party led by Giorgia Meloni, the Brothers of Italy, came to power.They discuss the longer-term background of the rise of fascism, which David will be covering in his forthcoming book, Mussolini’s Grandchildren. A World to Win is a podcast from Grace Blakeley and Tribune bringing you a weekly dose of socialist news, theory, and action with guests from around the world. Thanks to our producer Conor Gillies and to the Lipman-Miliband Trust for making this episode possible.