Jacobin Radio

Excitement that Democrats had developed a spine in the fight for Dreamers reverted to familiar despondency and fury when they capitulated and voted to reopen the government on Monday. Washington Post reporter Jeff Stein offers his analysis of the role that the media and the Democratic Party’s right flank played in pushing senators to fold. This interview was recorded Tuesday and posted early because things are moving fast.Thanks to Verso Books for their support. Check out Europe’s Fault Lines: Racism and the Rise of the Right by Liz Fekete versobooks.com/books/2555-europe-s-fault-lines. And please support us with $ at patreon.com/TheDig!

Everyone agrees that the 1970s were the beginning of the end of capitalism as we had known it since the New Deal. But historian Lane Windham makes it clear that it wasn’t for a lack of worker struggle in her new book, Knocking on Labor’s Door: Union Organizing in the 1970s and the Roots of a New Economic Divide. In case studies of union fights in department stores, shipyards, offices, and textile mills, Windham explains that women and workers of color seized the civil rights victories of the 1960s to fight for economic rights in the '70s. Thank you to Verso and University of California Press. Check out The Age of Jihad: Islamic State and the Great War for the Middle East by Patrick Cockburn versobooks.com/books/2518-the-age-of-jihad and Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom by Norman Finkelstein ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520295711 Support this podcast with $ at patreon.com/TheDig!

Journalist Sandra Cuffe on Honduras after a stolen election and waves of official violence. Alexander Main, Senior Associate of International Policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, on US policy towards Latin America under Trump. Then, Janet Capron, author of Blue Money, on drugs and sex work in 1970s New York City.

Student workers at Rutgers University are fighting for $15 an hour. Undergraduate history major and dining-hall worker Danny Taylor of @RutgersUSAS talks about their struggle. Thanks to Verso Books for their support. Check out Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump by David Neiwert versobooks.com/books/2535-alt-america, and support this podcast with your $ at patreon.com/TheDig! Also: Jacobin has published a transcription of Dan's interview with the Fields sisters jacobinmag.com/2018/01/racecraft-racism-barbara-karen-fields

Martin Luther King Jr. launched the Poor People’s Campaign alongside other organizers shortly before he was assassinated 50 years ago. Today, organizers nationwide are relaunching that movement as The Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, tackling the evil quadruplet of poverty, systemic racism, militarism, and environmental devastation. Dan’s guest is rock star organizer Nijmie Dzurinko, making her second appearance on the show. Check out Dan’s recent work slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/01/the-opioid-crisis-is-blurring-the-legal-lines-between-victim-and-perpetrator.html & injusticetoday.com/philadelphia-media-slam-newly-elected-da-krasner-for-firings-but-house-cleaning-advances-his-f2da076ffb06 Thanks to Verso Books. Check out Futures of Black Radicalism versobooks.com/books/2438-futures-of-black-radicalism

Suzi talks to UCLA sociologist and Iran expert Kevan Harris about the massive uprising that began in Iran at the end of December and quickly spread to every corner of the country. Persistent poverty and inequality are driving discontent, but Harris says that isn't the whole story. Suzi then talks to economist Dean Baker from the Center for Economic Research, who has some innovative ideas about how California can get around the tax-cut plan passed by the Republicans, which directly targets California and other so-called high tax states that also have relatively decent public services. She also asks Baker about the state of the economy, unemployment and wage growth, whether we’re in a new bubble, and why the media does such a bad job informing the public on economic issues.

Your first Diglet of the new year, and we’re talking about that Trump book. At n+1 Patrick Blanchfield makes the case that Fire and Fury is not, as some might think, a bunch of meaningless palace-intrigue that has distracted us from what Trump is doing to destroy the environment and wage relentless class war against the poor. Rather, the book in one fell swoop exposes the Trump administration for the dangerously hot mess that we all knew it was but were entirely unable to understand clearly because the deluge of drama and weird tweets had rendered it all banal wallpaper. Thanks to our sponsors at Verso Books. Check out How Will Capitalism End versobooks.com/books/2519-how-will-capitalism-end Like our show music? Check out Brodsky’s commercial and artistic work at Jeffreybrodsky.com and painterly.bandcamp.com

Chattel slavery made black women’s reproduction the source of private property — and in doing so, invented race and American racism. Ever since, the denigration and regulation of black women’s childbearing has been central to the construction of white supremacy and the exploitative economic order that it protects, as scholar Dorothy Roberts explained in Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty, a pivotal book first published in 1997. In this episode, Roberts talks about the book and what lessons it holds today as Trump and Republicans seek to destroy yet more of the social safety net and use racism as a smokescreen to distract white Americans from their class war against working people. Thanks to Verso Books for their support. Check out Duty Free Art: Art in the Age of Planetary Civil War by Hito Steyerl versobooks.com/books/2553-duty-free-art. And please support The Dig with $ at patreon.com/TheDig!

Tithi Bhattacharya, a Professor of South Asian history at Purdue University and editor of "Social Reproduction Theory," dives deep into the connections between capitalism, Marxism, and feminism. She discusses how social reproduction theory highlights the vital role of unpaid domestic labor in capitalism. Bhattacharya also critiques current social and economic structures, advocating for reforms in pensions and healthcare. Furthermore, she emphasizes the importance of movements like the International Women's Strike in fostering solidarity and challenging systemic inequalities.

The protest movement against the onset of the Iraq War was countered by a call to “support our troops” from militarists on the Right. But venerating American soldiers is not about supporting actual American soldiers; it's a rhetorical device to preclude questioning or criticism of the wars they are sent to fight. In a face-to-face interview at Brown University’s Watson Institute, anthropologist Catherine Lutz discusses John Kelly’s recent diatribe, Khizr Khan, Trump’s attack on protesting NFL players, and the roots of it all in the Nixon administration’s response to GI rebellion against the Vietnam War. Thanks to our supporters at Verso Books. Check out How Will Capitalism End? Essays on a Failing System by Wolfgang Streeck versobooks.com/books/2519-how-will-capitalism-end And support us with $ at patreon.com/TheDig