Jacobin Radio

Dan interviews Sophie Lewis about her new book Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family. Something is deeply wrong with commercial surrogacy—but it's just not what you might think. What's wrong is the brute labor exploitation taking place at the reproductive crossroads of a racialized global capitalist order.Thanks to Verso Books. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at versobooks.comSupport this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

The New York Times recently attacked Bernie Sanders’s record on solidarity with Nicaragua in the 1980s. It probably won’t be the last time we see red-baiting attacks against Sanders in the election season, so it’s important to establish what exactly happened in Central America in the 1980s, how brutal US intervention in the region was, what the Central American solidarity movement of that era looked like, and what side of history was the right one to be on. Hilary Goodfriend discusses all of this in her recent article ”Why Bernie Sanders Was Right to Oppose US Intervention in Central America.” Hilary is a doctoral student in Latin American Studies at the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico in Mexico City. You can read her article here: https://www.jacobinmag.com/<wbr />2019/07/bernie-sanders-<wbr />central-america-sandinista.

Suzi does three stories on this episode of Jacobin Radio, beginning with Katie Halper's expose in Jacobinof <wbr />the New York Times'sproblem with Bernie Sanders, evident in their coverage.The problem is their correspondent Sydney Ember, who has a long record of unfairly attacking Sanders — while neglecting to mention that the sources she quotes as objective authorities are corporate lobbyists and austerity ideologues. Suzi then looks at two articles in the new journal Commune, first withM. E. O’Brien. Her article, “Junkie Communism” questions how the socialist project emphasizes the dignity of work as its basis, but leaves out those who are unable to maintain stable employment — and posits a politics that includes those whose lives have been broken by the cruel conditions imposed on us all. Suzi then talks to Chloe Watlington about her powerful piece “Who Owns Tomorrow,” a devastating and revealing look at deaths of despair — from opioids, alcohol, and unemployment in crumbling neoliberal America, an all-too-familiar story that has hit Watlington personally.

For much of the twentieth century, Cold War politics defined socialism as the antithesis of democracy. Today, an insurgent democratic-socialist movement is transforming US politics. It is socialism that is at the forefront of a fight for a radical deepening of democracy, one in which ordinary people exercise control over our political, economic, and social lives — and one in which the people is expansively defined to include those excluded by racist immigration law and mass incarceration. Dan discusses this, and more, with filmmaker and writer Astra Taylor.Read Astra's article on socialism here: newrepublic.com/article/153804/reclaiming-future-growing-appeal-socialism-age-inequalityCheck out her film, What is Democracy? on your preferred streaming service.And her book, Democracy May Not Exist, But We'll Miss It When It's Gone, here: us.macmillan.com/books/9781250179845.Support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig.

Elizabeth Warren is, by American political standards, a very strong presidential candidate. She has taken up a robust domestic social-democratic agenda — one that, while not as strong as Bernie Sanders’s, is pretty damn good.Foreign policy, however, is a different story. Here, Elizabeth Warren is far from the most hawkish in her party. But she still leaves much to be desired, as Sarah Lazare recently wrote in a piece titled “Elizabeth Warren Can and Should Do Better on Foreign Policy.”Sarah Lazare is a web editor at In These Times. You can read her piece on Elizabeth Warren’s foreign policy here.

<style type="text/css"></style> <style></style> What is a socialist society going to look like? Like, actually look like? We have to have some answers to this question. Luckily, Sam Gindin has some. He talks to Micah about his article in Catalyst, “Socialism for Realists,” which you can read here.<o:p></o:p>

Dan's lengthy interview with Nick Estes on his remarkable book Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance. The problem that settler colonialism was repeatedly trying to solve by unleashing such terrific violence — through massacres, by nearly eliminating the buffalo, in reservation confinement, in dominating the Missouri River — was not just indigenous people being in the way but also the existence of a larger relationship between indigenous people and the land, water, and animals. The history of resisting this capitalist and colonialist dispossession has endured through the Water Protectors' struggle at Standing Rock — which will, in retrospect, be remembered as a pivotal moment in the global struggle against climate catastrophe.Thanks to Verso Books. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.com.Please support this podcast with money at Patreon.com/TheDig.

Bernie Sanders has been talking a lot about the New Deal lately, mentioning it in his recent speech on democratic socialism. Ironically, the response from many liberals has been to argue that the New Deal wasn’t really socialism. Jacobin’s Seth Ackerman has a few quibbles. Plus, we talk about why the idea that the New Deal was racist doesn’t fully capture its relationship to white supremacy. Read Seth’s article on Bernie’s New Deal rhetoric here: https://www.jacobinmag.com/&lt;wbr /&gt;2019/06/new-deal-socialism-&lt;wbr /&gt;bernie-sanders-democratic-&lt;wbr /&gt;primary Read an interview with New Deal historian Richard Walker, who discusses the charge that the New Deal was racist, plus many other aspects of the New Deal’s wide-ranging policies, here: https://jacobinmag.com/2019/&lt;wbr /&gt;03/green-new-deal-roosevelt-&lt;wbr /&gt;public-works

On this episode of Jacobin Radio, Suzi focuses on the intensifying US-Iranian crisis and war brinkmanship that saw us about ten minutes away from military strikes, before Trump pulled back. We get MIT historian Pouya Alimaghum’s analysis of the crisis, the implications and goals of the increasing bluster and ever more draconian sanctions, and what they mean for domestic dissent in Iran. Then Suzi talks to UCI professor of Chinese history Jeff Wasserstrom, who has just returned from Hong Kong and has written in the Atlanticabout the gigantic protest movement that was met with extreme violence, only bringing more people into the streets. The protestors were fighting against a bill that would allow the extradition of suspects to mainland China, a further threat to Hong Kong’s partial autonomy, and for the right to assemble without persecution, to speak freely, and enjoy freedom of information. For the moment the bill has been shelved, thanks to the massive protests in the streets, but not the efforts to erode the city’s freedoms. We get Wasserstrom’s analysis.

Russia intervened and Trump is a criminal who committed obstruction of justice and is surrounded by constant criminality. But it's no doubt also true that this situation and the hawkish liberal response to it have dangerously damaged US-Russia relations. At the core of Western misunderstanding is the way we think about Vladimir Putin, which is what Dan is discussing today with Tony Wood, the author of Russia Without Putin: Money, Power and the Myths of the New Cold War.Thanks to Verso. Check out their massive left-wing book selection at versobooks.comGo to the Socialism 2019 conference in Chicago July 4-7! Register now at socialismconference.orgSupport this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig