Jacobin Radio

Siddhartha Deb, author of Twilight Prisoners, dives into the Hindu right and its poor showing in India’s elections. Sean Jacobs, professor at the New School and publisher of Africa Is a Country, explains the ANC’s poor showing in South Africa’s elections.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 online: https://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/radio.html

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the TWELFTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment tells the story of Saudi Arabia, a country whose reactionary, US-aligned trajectory was throughout the 1950s and 60s challenged by labor strikes, dissident currents, rebellious princes, and an anticolonial oil minister. But Saudi royal conservatism asserted itself and a friendship with Nasser’s Egypt turned into conflict. Ultimately both countries got drawn into North Yemen’s civil war, which sapped Egypt’s military strength ahead of the 1967 war with Israel. Plus: radical politics against British colonial power in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the Trucial States. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDigCheck out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.comBuy tickets for live Dig with Jeremy Corbyn in London:unionchapel.org.uk/venue/whats-on/versothe-dig-live-podcast-with-jeremy-corbyn-laleh-khaliliBuy Twilight Prisoners at Haymarketbooks.com Buy Automatic Fetish at Versobooks.com

This is another special episode of Long Reads about the Israeli war on Gaza.On Thursday, June 6th, we spoke with Akbar Shahid Ahmed of the Huffington Post. Akbar previously spoke with us in early January about the role of the Biden administration. Five months later, with the Israeli government now on trial for genocide while the attack on Rafah has begun, it’s time for another look at Biden’s tenacious support for Israel.Find Akbar's coverage here: https://www.huffpost.com/author/akbar-shahid-ahmedLong 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.

Suzi talks to Isabel Kain at UC Santa Cruz, Marie Salem at UCLA, and Anna Weiss at USC — all UAW academic workers — about the unprecedented labor action on their campuses and the violent response from police called in by their administrations.We recorded the interview with Isabel at UCSC as the police in riot gear moved into the campus. Santa Cruz was the first to go on strike and unlike the other UC campuses, the administration was passive and did not call in the police. Until 1am on May 31. At the heart of the action is the war in Gaza, which has inflicted unspeakable suffering and carnage, provoking widespread actions in solidarity with Palestine on campuses. New movements organized in encampments have demanded an immediate ceasefire and university divestment from companies tied to Israel’s war and occupation. The response from the administration at UCLA in particular was brutal. They called in police who assaulted the encampment and stood back when a mob of white nationalists and neo-Nazis joined forces with Zionists to attack the camp, whose residents included a large number of Jewish students.Outraged grad students at UC, organized in UAW Local 4811, have launched a strike, turning the right to protest and freedom of speech into a labor issue. The local represents some 48,000 postdocs, teaching assistants, academic and student researchers across the UC system. At USC, academic workers filed an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) after five grad student members were arrested on campus during the crackdown on the protests. We get the story.Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, and protest movements.

Aziz Rana, author of The Constitutional Bind: How Americans Came to Idolize a Document that Fails Them, analyzes how our founding document constrains democracy but we worship it anyway.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 online: https://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/radio.html

Featuring Dylan Saba and Waleed Shahid on how Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the mass solidarity movement opposing it are transforming US politics. This anti-imperialist internationalist moment marks a profound turning point for the American left.Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDigCheck out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.comBuy tickets for live Dig with Jeremy Corbyn in London:unionchapel.org.uk/venue/whats-on/versothe-dig-live-podcast-with-jeremy-corbyn-laleh-khaliliThe Socialism Conference will be held in Chicago from Aug 30 - Sept 2. Learn more and register at socialismconference.org (early bird discount until 6/28!) Buy Unbuild Walls at haymarketbooks.org

The Russian Marxist Boris Kagarlitsky last spoke to us shortly after his release from nearly five months in prison. He was arrested on far-fetched charges of "justifying terrorism" for ironic remarks he made on his social media channel after the explosion on the Crimean Bridge in 2022. Boris was freed after a military court handed him a fine in December 2023, and spoke to Suzi two weeks later in the interview you are about to hear.Barely two months after Boris’s release there was an unexpected appeal trial at a military court in February 2024, and the prosecutors overturned the December verdict that freed him, citing "excessive leniency." He was sentenced to five years in a general regime penal colony and whisked from the courtroom to prison. Now three months later, after several moves, Boris has arrived at his final place of detention, Penal Colony No. 4 in Torzhok, 155 miles northwest of Moscow.Once again, Boris requires our solidarity. His final appeal will be heard on June 5 by Russia’s Supreme Court. An international petition has garnered more than 16,000 signatures calling for his release and all anti-war political prisoners. President Putin’s government is using anti-terror laws to step up its already draconian repression of dissent at home and in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine. More than 20,000 Russians have been detained and more than 1,000 have been put on trial.In an open letter from prison, Boris wrote, "Under today’s conditions, when political action and self-organization in our country have become extremely difficult, helping our co-thinkers who have been imprisoned is not just humanitarian activity, but also an important political gesture, an act of practical solidarity." He has brought his incisive analysis to these airwaves for more than three decades.The petition demanding the immediate and unconditional release of Boris Kagarlitsky and all other anti-war prisoners can be found at freeboris.info. This interview was originally broadcast in January.Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, and protest movements.

Mouin Rabbani discusses Israel's war on Gaza and the broader context of the conflict. Stefanie Stantcheva discusses her recent economic papers about why people hate inflation.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 online: https://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/radio.html

When Immanuel Wallerstein died in 2019, he was one of the most influential thinkers about the crisis-ridden development of global capitalism. People who might never have read one of his books will still find themselves referring to the core and the periphery of the capitalist world-system.Gregory Williams joins Long Reads to take a deeper look today at Wallerstein’s life and work as a radical intellectual. Gregory is a professor of political science and international relations at Simmons University in Boston. He’s also the author of Contesting the Global Order: The Radical Political Economy of Perry Anderson and Immanuel Wallerstein.Read Gregory's piece for Jacobin, "Immanuel Wallerstein’s Work Can Help Us Understand the Deepening Crises of Capitalism" here: https://jacobin.com/2023/12/immanuel-wallerstein-world-systems-theory-development-cycles-capitalism-crisis-historyLong 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.