Jacobin Radio Folgen

Betsy DeVos is now Secretary of Education. A far-right billionaire heiress to a pyramid scheme — sorry, alleged pyramid scheme — who has never spent a day teaching but has devoted much of her career to dismantling public education, her tenure will likely prove disastrous for schools. But DeVos's nomination also drew unprecedented pushback, forcing a tie on her confirmation vote that Vice President Mike Pence had to break in her favor. Activists actually turned her away from a public school in Washington, DC, last week by blocking an entrance. While things look bleak for public education, there is also an opportunity for teachers and parents to fight back, as Megan Erickson, a public school teacher in Brooklyn, explains in this conversation. Erickson is a member of Jacobin's editorial board and the author of Class War: The Privatization of Childhood. You can read her articles for Jacobin here: https://www.jacobinmag.com/author/megan-erickson/ And buy her book here: https://www.versobooks.com/books/1954-class-warThanks to Tanner Howard for producing this segment.

Mark Blyth wasn't surprised by the rise of Donald Trump, nor Brexit, nor the crises spreading across Europe. He actually predicted them all. Blyth, the author of "Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea" and professor of political economy at Brown, explains how economic crisis has led to upheaval in a political establishment that worked obsessively to eliminate inflation and maximize profits at the expense of general wellbeing. This crisis has produced horrific peril, as the Trump administration's first weeks have made clear. But for the Left, it also provides historic opportunities.Blyth recently spoke with Daniel Denvir in a live taping of the Dig in front of a crowd of 150 in Providence, Rhode Island.

Welcome to the first episode of Stockton to Malone, a podcast from Jacobin magazine. For the first episode, ahead of protests and counterprotests at Planned Parenthood clinics around the country and forthcoming attacks on abortion rights under President Donald Trump, hosts RL Stephens and Micah Uetricht interview Judy Wittner. Before Roe v. Wade in 1973, abortion was illegal throughout most of the country. In 1969, Wittner, who was involved in the feminist movement in Chicago, discovered she was pregnant and wanted an abortion. She sought out assistance from doctors around the Chicago area but was turned away. Eventually, she turned to an illegal feminist abortion service, the Jane Collective, and ended up receiving an abortion on her kitchen table in Evanston, Illinois. We sat down with Judy in that same kitchen to talk with her about that experience and the state of reproductive rights today.