Jacobin Radio

George Cicariello-Maher is professor of political science at Drexel University and author of several books, including Building the Commune: Radical Democracy in Venezuela, published by Verso as part of the Jacobin Series. He recently drew the ire of white supremacist, "alt-right" trolls after a mocking tweet about "white genocide," including death threats to his family.

Perhaps more concerning was the response from Drexel Administration, which almost immediately released a statement calling his tweets “utterly reprehensible, deeply disturbing,” and stating that they “do not in any way reflect the values of the University.”

Drexel eventually backed off after a public campaign in defense of Cicariello-Maher. He discusses the incident as well as issues of violence and free speech in the United States.

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On a recent episode of the podcast Bad with Money with Gaby Dunn, Gaby explored some basic questions about capitalism with Jacobin managing editor Nicole Aschoff: what is it? Why does it encourage companies like Facebook to monetize our personal lives? Why do young people think it's so bogus? Why is it so bogus?

Thanks to Gaby for letting us use the interview. You can subscribe to Bad with Money here.

Nicole Aschoff is also the author of The New Prophets of Capital, which you can buy here.

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On January 20, 2017, just a few hours after the inauguration of Donald Trump, one thousand people gathered in Washington, DC’s Lincoln Theatre (and 200,000 across the United States and abroad watched at home or at livestreaming parties) for The Anti-Inauguration, an event from Jacobin, Verso Books, and Haymarket Books.

The event featured author and activist Naomi Klein, journalist Anand Gopal, the Intercept‘s Jeremy Scahill, the Guardian‘s Owen Jones, and Princeton African-American Studies professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, with introductions by Jacobin editor and publisher Bhaskar Sunkara.

You can watch the video from the event here and download a free ebook from Jacobin, Verso, and Haymarket here.

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The depravity of Donald Trump’s fear-mongering, xenophobic, anti-Muslim politics are now in full swing.

The new president has barred people from seven Muslim-majority countries — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen — including, to an unclear and ultimately-walked back degree, lawful permanent residents, from entering the United States for ninety days. All refugees are barred for 120 days, and refugees from Syria are barred indefinitely.

What’s gotten less attention, but is also quite serious, is that Trump slashed the overall number of refugees slated to be admitted this year by more than half.

Today, we bring you two interviews. The first is with Nicholas Espíritu from the National Immigration Law Center, one of the groups mounting legal challenges against the ban, who will explain the legal and constitutional challenge to the Muslim and refugee ban.

The second is with Linda Sarsour, the executive director of the Arab American Association of New York, a leading supporter of Bernie Sanders’ primary bid, and co-chair of the Women's March on Washington.

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Donald Trump has nominated Betsy DeVos, a free-market, far-right Christian billionaire dedicated to privatizing public schools, to be his Secretary of Education.

In her confirmation hearing, DeVos made it painfully clear that she has little understanding of public education aside from her dedication to destroying it. She is the heir to an auto parts fortune, and her husband, Dick, is the heir to a fortune derived from the direct sales company Amway, which the FTC at one point decided was not a pyramid scheme.

Interestingly, she is also the brother of Erik Prince, who founded the infamous mercenary army Blackwater has now, according to The Intercept, been quietly advising the Trump Administration. The couple, thanks to their money and relentless ideological drive, are heavy-duty power players in Michigan politics, where they have wreaked havoc on Detroit public schools.

In many ways, this oligarch’s nomination is the extreme and cartoonesque outcome of decades of bipartisan corporate-aligned policy that pushed charters and high stakes testing, and attacked the teachers unions that stood in their way.

Today, we’re joined by historian Diane Ravitch, one of the country’s leading scholars of education policy and a vocal critic of corporate reform efforts that promote privatization and high-stakes testing as the solution to problems largely created by segregation, poverty and funding inequity. Amongst many other books, Ravitch is the author of The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education.

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