The Un-Diplomatic Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Award-winning journalist, author, and lifelong New Yorker Spencer Ackerman joins the show to talk about the world from a New York point of view: The importance of NYC-DSA and the Zohran Mamdani mayoral campaign; how New York's oligarchs used unfounded claims of anti-semitism to protect class privilege; ICE's preparations to do mass extraordinary renditions; how Donald Trump's presidency has become the Global War on Terror that he used to mock George W. Bush for; and why US Central Command's new viceroy inflates the Iran threat (it's for Israel). 

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Van joined David Parsons of The Nostalgia Trap--literally Van’s favorite pod--in a delicious freak out about ICE arresting local college professors, MAGA's Jeffrey Epstein fissures, Andrew Cuomo aiming to spoil Mamdani's victory in NYC, Trump sending weapons to Ukraine, and the overall Third Reich vibes that America is currently giving. As the ever-rising waters of tyranny begin to splash onto our windowsills, what are any of us supposed to be doing?

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Why is the US unlikely to have a manufacturing revival, and who would benefit if it did? What happens to the rest of the world when the US tries to reshore manufacturing? What makes national security and labor power antagonistic to each other? What problems does worker-to-worker organizing solve? Why has organized labor been in decline since 1979? What's the relationship between social movements like Black Lives Matter and labor militancy? And what is the prospect that Shawn Fain's idea of a general strike in 2028 actually happens? Many questions, many answers as labor historian Dr. Eric Blanc joins Dr. Van Jackson to talk about the future of the working class in a MAGA-dominated world. 

Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee: https://workerorganizing.org

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The legendary New Leftist and historian Michael Kazin joins the pod to talk about his recent essay in Dissent, "Reject the Left-Right Alliance in Ukraine." We also talk he ended up on the New Left, socialism in the Democratic Party, why he supported Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, the politics of being anti-war, the role of World War I in leftist historical memory, and his recent book What It Took To Win: A History of the Democratic Party.

Dissent Essay: https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/reject-the-left-right-alliance-against-ukraine

What It Took To Win Book: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374200237/whatittooktowin

War Against War Book: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/War-Against-War/Michael-Kazin/9781476705910

Follow Michael Kazin on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mkazin

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What Fareed Zakaria doesn't get about the dollar supremacy debate. Why American exceptionalists can't see Asian arms-racing clearly. Why AUKUS is controversial, in Australia, New Zealand, and across Asia. A Rorschach test on the corrosive US-Saudi Arabia relationship. And what the battle against LGBTQ persecution in Uganda says about all of us.

Fareed Zakaria's dollar supremacy debate segment: https://twitter.com/FareedZakaria/status/1640058728752840707 

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Ben Zala's Tweet: https://twitter.com/DrBeeZee/status/1640598052254924803

Matthew Sussex in The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/time-to-grow-up-australias-national-security-dilemma-demands-a-mature-debate-202040

F Moudouthe's Tweet: https://twitter.com/F_Moudouthe/status/1638597420035571714?cxt=HHwWhIC88f_qu70tAAAA

Evan Laksmana's Tweet: https://twitter.com/EvanLaksmana/status/1640253266507321344

How do African Americans view America's role in the world?  What does it mean when Black Americans say the US should "keep out" of foreign interventions?  What explains Black Republican hawkishness?  What is the Suge Knight theory of national inclusion?  Does Kanye West have anything to do with Democrats losing Black voters, or it Democratic Party hawkishness?  Van sits down to discuss all this and more with Dr. Christopher Shell. 

Report on How Black Americans Feel About the Possible Use of Military Force in Ukraine and Taiwan: https://carnegieendowment.org/2023/02/21/how-black-americans-feel-about-possible-use-of-military-force-in-ukraine-and-taiwan-pub-89066

Report on How Do Black Americans Feel About the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq: https://carnegieendowment.org/2023/03/02/how-do-black-americans-feel-about-wars-in-afghanistan-and-iraq-pub-89134

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For the pod's first movie night, Van, Colette Shade, and Matt Duss discuss the 1998 cult political comedy, Bulworth. Did Bulworth presage Bernie Sanders? Where are the Bulworth Democrats today? How did the War on Terror set back the progressive movement 20 years? Why do reactionaries sometimes find hip-hop attractive? What does it say that politicians aren't safe among the people they represent? Could a movie like this be made today? 

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Watch Bulworth: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/bulworth 

We're trying to do more to spotlight interesting journal article-based academic research in a non-boring way. So today Van sits down with Dr. Samantha Leigh Payne to talk about her new history on fears of an Atlantic revolution in the Reconstruction Era.  How did the US civil war alter global power politics? What role did the US civil war play in the abolition of slavery elsewhere? What role did slaves themselves play in the revolutionary potential of that post-civil war moment? And what role is their for violence in progressive world making?

Sam's article, "'A General Insurrection in the Countries with Slaves': The U.S. Civil War and the Origins of An Atlantic Revolution, 1861-1866": https://academic.oup.com/past/article/257/1/248/6490596 

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Kate and Hunter are back with Van. What's up with the "Rage Against the War Machine" protests? Is it really antiwar? Working class versus middle class--what's the diff? Cambodia versus economic statecraft. Biden's parochial progressivism. Congressional competency on foreign policy. And the nonsensical, unaccountable, dictator-loving Biden doctrine for the Middle East. Also this episode: a quick primer on racial capitalism!

Ryan Morgan Tweet: https://twitter.com/ryanheadedsouth/status/1624536732182904837?t=uCCF0KcAD7K4xoEzSCmJug&s=19

Andrew Nachemson Tweet: https://twitter.com/ANachemson/status/1624723853363773440

Leonard Bernardo: https://twitter.com/leonardbenardo1/status/1627867024591360001

Olufemi Taiwo on racial capitalism in Hammer & Hope Magazine: https://hammerandhope.org/article/issue-1-article-8

Atlantic Council Speech on the "Biden doctrine for the Middle East": https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/commentary/transcript/brett-mcgurk-sets-out-the-biden-doctrine-for-the-middle-east/

Van does battle with voices ranging from John Mearsheimer and Robert Kagan to Joseph Nye and Hillary Clinton in this book launch at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy for his book, Pacific Power Paradox: American Statecraft and the Fate of the Asian Peace. Must listen! 

Original Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoVm4MrK4aU&t=412s

Buy Pacific Power Paradox: https://www.amazon.com/Pacific-Power-Paradox-American-Statecraft/dp/0300257287/ref=sr_1_1?crid=KE1Q04ZJVROB&keywords=pacific+power+paradox&qid=1676789479&sprefix=%2Caps%2C759&sr=8-1

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