Jacobin Radio

Recent cases of horrific child abuse have elicited widespread media attention. What the media coverage often misses is what these incidents reveal about a two-tiered child protection system that systemically surveils, punishes, and destroys poor black families while ignoring abuses perpetrated in affluent white homes. Dan's guest is Dorothy Roberts, who has closely studied the racism and poverty policing that pervades the child-protection system.

Thanks to Verso Books. Check out Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che by Max Elbaum versobooks.com/books/2707-revolution-in-the-air.

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Today's Dig is a very good and somewhat unusual Dig: Dan’s got two interviews with two different people. First, journalist Eric Blanc on the teacher strike wave that he's been covering for Jacobin. Then comes the Center for Popular Democracy's Xiomara Caro Diaz on last week's May Day demonstrations against austerity in Puerto Rico.

Thanks to Verso Books. Check Duty Free Art: Art in the Age of Planetary Civil War by Hito Steyerl versobooks.com/books/2553-duty-free-art. Also, check out the Socialism 2018 Conference at SocialismConference.org. And please make a contribution to support the long-run viability of this show at Patreon.com/TheDig!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dan just moderated a discussion in Philadelphia with Senator Sanders, along with Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, scholar and frequent Dig guest Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, and veteran defense lawyer and advocate Premal Dharia. Bernie came to Philly because what's happening here is extraordinarily important: it's a city where for years cops have committed abuses and engaged in corruption with near impunity, and where prosecutors long looked the other way while feeding poor young black and brown men into the present-day peculiar institution of mass incarceration. Last year, Philadelphia elected Krasner, a long-time civil rights champion who pledged to fight the to end mass incarceration, as its district attorney. And that happened for the same reason that Bernie came out of nowhere and nearly ran away with the Democratic nomination in 2016: their message tapped into and was lifted up by massive grassroots movements, representing and speaking to an emerging majority that wants transformative change.

And so this is why Bernie Sanders came to Philly: to learn about what has gone so horribly wrong with the criminal justice system and how we can all organize and do the hard work to make it right.

Thanks to Verso Books. Check out Crashing the Party: From the Bernie Sanders Campaign to a Progressive Movement by Heather Gautney versobooks.com/books/2549-crashing-the-party. And please make a contribution to support the long-run viability of this show at Patreon.com/TheDig!

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This is part two of Dan's interview on Hannah Arendt's notion of "the right to have rights." This episode covers a lot, including why we must fight not only to expand the democratic political community but also to deepen its power—all at a time when the nativist right is exploiting the many crises unleashed by neoliberalism and empire to erect walls and punish scapegoats. One upshot is that zombie liberalism can't be the answer, because it is precisely the liberal order that is a key source of the problem.

Dan’s guests today, Stephanie DeGooyer and Astra Taylor, just wrote a book about this for Verso, called the The Right to Have Rights. This is part 2. It’s strongly suggested that you listen to part 1 first.

Also: check out and support the soon-to-be-made documentary Socialism: An American Story https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/socialismmovie/socialism-an-american-story

Thanks to Verso Books. Check out Police: A Field Guide by David Correia and Tyler Wall versobooks.com/books/2530-police. And Work: The Last 1,000 Years by Andrea Komlosy versobooks.com/books/2608-work. And please make a contribution to support the long-run viability of this show at Patreon.com/TheDig

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