Jacobin Radio

Suzi does three stories on this episode of Jacobin Radio, beginning with Katie Halper's expose in Jacobin of the New York Times's problem 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 with M. 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.

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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-inequality

Check 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.

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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.

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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.

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