Jacobin Radio Folgen

The New York Times recently attacked Bernie Sanders’s record on solidarity with Nicaragua in the 1980s. It probably won’t be the last time we see red-baiting attacks against Sanders in the election season, so it’s important to establish what exactly happened in Central America in the 1980s, how brutal US intervention in the region was, what the Central American solidarity movement of that era looked like, and what side of history was the right one to be on. Hilary Goodfriend discusses all of this in her recent article ”Why Bernie Sanders Was Right to Oppose US Intervention in Central America.” Hilary is a doctoral student in Latin American Studies at the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico in Mexico City. You can read her article here: https://www.jacobinmag.com/<wbr />2019/07/bernie-sanders-<wbr />central-america-sandinista.

Suzi does three stories on this episode of Jacobin Radio, beginning with Katie Halper's expose in Jacobinof <wbr />the New York Times'sproblem 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 withM. 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.

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-inequalityCheck 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.