Jacobin Radio

Featuring Michael Denning on Antonio Gramsci. Part one of an expansive two-part interview.Read the passages of Selections from the Prison Notebooks that Dan read to prepare: thedigradio.com/gramscinotebooksSupport The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig and get our weekly newsletter by emailCheck out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com

The Dutch Revolt of the sixteenth century defeated the Spanish monarchy, the great European superpower of its day. It may not be as well remembered as the English Civil War or the French Revolution. But it was a watershed moment in the development of modern Europe. Pepijn Brandon joins Long Reads to discuss this revolt. He’s an historian at VU University in Amsterdam and the author of War, Capital, and the Dutch State. This is the second part of a two-part interview.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.Join the Left Book Club at a discount by using the code WINFREE at leftbookclub.comGet an audiobook from Pluto Press at this link: tiny.one/jacobin

Today Meleiza Figueroa hosts the podcast. She talks to three guests about the historic series of winter storms that have been lashing the entire state of California since New Year’s Eve, causing widespread flooding, landslides, wind damage, and levee failures. With rain forecasted to continue all the way until Martin Luther King Day, the worst may be yet to come. While California is far better known for droughts, earthquakes, and wildfires, atmospheric rivers from the Pacific also bring regular flooding, sometimes on a biblical scale; an inherent feature of California’s extreme weather regime that is expected to increase in frequency and intensity as a result of climate change. Meleiza’s guests bring various perspectives to the flood that touch on its historical, scientific, and socio-political significance.Indigenous traditional ecological practitioner Ali Meders-Knight looks at the deep history of California’s 200-year flood cycle, bringing the long view to us relative newcomers in a place that has only been called “California” for 180 years.Climate scientist Daniel Swain discusses the complex dynamics of atmospheric river events, and how climate change and wildfires contribute to intensifying the extremes of California’s drought-and-flood cycles.Myla Ablog, a wetland ecologist and former regulatory official, discusses the state of California’s infrastructure, the impact of these floods on workers and houseless people in the Central Valley and elsewhere, and what we can and must do to prepare our communities for the “Other Big One.”Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, protest movements.

Filmed in the aftermath of the 1970 "October Crisis" that brought martial law to Canada, Gilles Groulx's radical documentary 24 HOURS OR MORE (1973) takes a disapproving look at life in Quebec under capitalism during a moment when the postwar economic boom was receding. It's the kind of movie that isn't made anymore: a movie that questions the very premises on which society is built.Watch the movie for free: https://www.nfb.ca/film/24_hours_or_more/Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage.

Today Suzi brings part two of our tribute to Mike Davis, who died on October 25. Mike was a prolific writer, historian, political activist, urban theorist, and author of dozens of books, many featured here on this podcast.We begin with an interview from July 1986 just after Mike completed his first book, Prisoners of the American Dream, published on the centenary of May Day 1886. Mike discusses the political economy of Reaganism, or Reaganomics, which began with a frontal attack on organized labor. He also explains what makes the American working class different. The second interview, from February 1988, coincided with the Justice for Janitors campaign. David Diaz joins Mike in the discussion on Los Angeles politics, looking at what redevelopment in the city had wrought. LA, like the rest of the country, was switching from a manufacturing to a service economy, though manufacturing continued using very low-wage immigrant labor. Non-union workers could not afford the cost of housing, and the lack of affordable rents fed the growing homeless crisis. We get a preview of Mike’s lifelong concerns about LA and workers fighting for a life with dignity and livable wages. We follow with a newer interview with Mike Davis and co-author Jon Wiener discussing their compelling 2020 history of LA in the 1960s, a hotbed of political, social and cultural upheaval and rebellion, Set the Night on Fire.Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, protest movements.

As we enter 2023, it's time for our annual look back on the movies that defined our podcast over the past 12 months. In our third Year-in-Review Extravaganza, we're handing out awards for Best Movie, Worst Movie, Best End-of-History Movie, Thing We Liked Growing Up That Holds Up Relatively Well, Best Tubi Movie, and more. Will Alexandra Pelosi win an award? Will Dinesh D'Souza go home empty-handed? What about Trump vs. the Illuminati? Tune in to find out!Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage.

Featuring historian Tim Barker on monetary politics, inflation, and the general capitalist conjuncture. The second of a two-part interview.Check out my July 2021 interview with Barker if you want a more expansive primer on inflation thedigradio.com/podcast/inflation-politics-with-tim-barkerSupport The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDigCheck out our brilliant newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.comGet After Life: A Collective History of Loss and Redemption in Pandemic America haymarketbooks.org/books/1927-after-life

We pay tribute to Mike Davis, who died on October 25. Mike was a prolific writer, historian, political activist, urban theorist, and author of dozens of books. There has been an avalanche of tributes and obituaries, a testament to Mike’s powerful and distinctive influence, his generosity, his tireless life as a fighter against everything that diminishes human dignity and ravages the planet. He was also a dear friend and a friend of this podcast: I counted at least 30 interviews with him over the years.We'll hear from those conversations: first, a 2005 interview just a week after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast; and then, two interviews, a decade apart, on the intensifying California wildfires and his famous argument for “letting Malibu burn.” Finally, we round out this podcast episode with an interview with Mike from March 22, 2020, just at the beginning of the COVID lockdown. Fifteen years earlier, his book The Monster at Our Door warned of a coming global threat of viral catastrophe. In this interview, Mike considered the coronavirus pandemic as the familiar monster now at our door, a biological crisis that poses huge challenges for neoliberal global capitalism. Mike called it a "medical Katrina," one that exposes the woeful unpreparedness of our disinvested public health system as well as the stark class divide of health care in the US.Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, protest movements.

Kathryn Joyce discusses the far right and its internal battles. Doug then interviews Edward Ongweso Jr about tech, AI, and Luddism.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 historian Tim Barker on the state of monetary politics amid the current fight over inflation.  Check out my July 2021 interview with Barker if you want a more expansive primer on inflation thedigradio.com/podcast/inflation-politics-with-tim-barker Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out our brilliant newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com