Podcast
Current Affairs
Hosted by Current Affairs · EN
A podcast of politics and culture, from the editors of Current Affairs magazine.
54episodes
Episodes
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Charles Booker Has a Plan to Win Kentucky
Yesterday00:41:53Tap to summarize🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Charles Booker is a former Kentucky state representative and the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Kentucky. His campaign centers on Medicare for All, ending endless war, strengthening labor rights, raising wages, and building a multiracial working-class coalition from “the hood to the holler.” Booker joined Current Affairs associate editor Alex Skopic to discuss why Kentucky should not be written off as a “red state,” how progressive policies can win in places ignored by the national Democratic Party, what the left can learn from Mitch McConnell’s coalition-building, and why working people need leaders willing to fight for health care, peace, and economic justice. ⛰️ Charles Booker's Website: https://charlesbooker.org/ 0:00-9:32 Why Charles Booker Supports Medicare for All 9:32-20:42 Ending Endless War 20:42-23:10 Why Kentucky Isn’t Just a “Red State” 23:10-25:05 Why Progressive Policies Can Win in Red States 25:05-26:43 What “From the Hood to the Holler” Means 26:43-28:19 What the Left Can Learn From Mitch McConnell 28:19-33:34 Building Coalitions With Republicans 33:34-35:56 Andy Barr’s Racist Campaign 35:56-37:16 JD Vance and the Exploitation of Appalachia 37:16-42:02 Labor, Unions, and Working People 🦩Subscribe to Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership 🦩 Merch: https://shop.currentaffairs.org/
Transcribe →The Internet Is Being Erased
2d ago00:49:20Tap to summarize🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Mark Graham is the director of the Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive, and Chris Freeland is the Internet Archive’s director of library services and one of the co-authors of the new report Vanishing Culture: A Report on Our Fragile Cultural Record. Their work focuses on preserving digital materials that might otherwise disappear. Graham and Freeland joined Current Affairs editor-in-chief Nathan J. Robinson to discuss why the internet is not forever, how digital culture vanishes through deletion, paywalls, broken links, platform decay, and corporate control, and what can be done to preserve public access to our collective cultural record. 0:00-4:59 Is the Internet Forever? 4:59-9:52 Intentional Erasure vs. Accidental Loss 9:52-14:14 What Happens When We Lose Access? 14:14-20:41 The Problem With Social Media Archives 20:41-24:39 Ownership vs. Licensing 24:39-29:52 The Truth Is Paywalled But the Lies Are Free 29:52-34:38 The Loss of Historically Significant Media 34:38-38:02 The Vanishing Culture Report 38:02-49:20 What Can We Do? 💻 Vanishing Culture Report: https://archive.org/details/vanishing-culture-2026/mode/2up 💻 Internet Archive: https://archive.org/ 🦩Subscribe to Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership 🦩 Merch: https://shop.currentaffairs.org/
Transcribe →A Trillion Dollars Isn’t Worth It If You Have to Be Elon Musk
6d ago00:45:03Tap to summarize🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Elon Musk is a miserable deadbeat whom no amount of money can make loved, cool, or happy. 🌹 Full article by Nathan J. Robinson & Alex Skopic: https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/a-trillion-dollars-isnt-worth-it-if-you-have-to-be-elon-musk 🦩Subscribe to Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership 🦩 Merch: https://shop.currentaffairs.org/
Transcribe →The Left Is Rising
1w ago00:10:35Tap to summarize🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Electoral victories by socialists around the country show that the Democratic establishment is weak and can be overthrown. 🌹 Read the article: https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/the-left-is-rising 🦩Subscribe to Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership 🦩 Merch: https://shop.currentaffairs.org/
Transcribe →The Hidden Surveillance Network Spreading Across America
1w ago01:01:59Tap to summarize🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Jessica Burbank is an investigative journalist, content creator, and host of The Jessica Burbank Show. Her reporting for Drop Site News and The Counterprogramming Club has exposed the rapid spread of Flock Safety, a multi-billion-dollar surveillance company whose license plate readers and camera networks are being adopted by police departments and municipalities across the country. Burbank joined Current Affairs associate editor Emily Topping to discuss how Flock’s technology works, why communities often learn about it only after contracts are approved, how surveillance data can be abused by law enforcement, and what ordinary people should know before their towns embrace a mass surveillance system. 📸 Jessica's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JessicaBurbankShow 📸 Jessica's Substack: https://substack.com/@kaburbank 0:00-9:07 What Is Flock Safety? 9:07-16:19 Why Should We Be Concerned? 16:19-20:26 Efforts to Prevent Surveillance Abuse 20:26-25:00 The Gymnastics Studio Case 25:00-26:41 ICE and Data Sharing 26:41-28:50 Why Local Police Departments Embrace This Tech 28:50-34:24 What About Communities That Want This Tech? 34:24-37:01 The Ideological Fault Lines 37:01-44:03 Lawsuits Against Flock 44:03-50:03 Are You Being Watched? 50:03-59:21 The Broader Implications of Surveillance Cameras 59:21-1:02:08 What to Consider Before Implementing This Tech 🦩Subscribe to Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership 🦩 Merch: https://shop.currentaffairs.org/
Transcribe →Judith Butler Explains the Gender Panic
2w ago00:40:44Tap to summarize🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Judith Butler is one of the world's leading scholars and philosophers on issues of gender, sexuality, and the cultural phenomena that surround them. They are the author of the landmark 1990 book Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, and more recently the 2024 follow-up work Who's Afraid of Gender? Butler joined Current Affairs editor-in-chief Nathan J. Robinson to discuss the way people around the world -- mostly conservatives, but some who consider themselves leftists, too -- have become fearful and angry about what they call "gender ideology," why they're mistaken, and what might be done about it. 🏳️⚧️ Who's Afraid of Gender?: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374608224/whosafraidofgender/ 0:00-4:34 How Gender Became a Right-Wing Panic 4:34-7:59 What “Gender Ideology” Really Means 7:59-13:27 Responding to Kathleen Stock 13:27-16:15 What Performativity Actually Means 16:15-23:28 Matt Walsh and the Demand for Simple Answers 23:28-26:25 Anti-Trans Politics and the Turn Toward Fascism 26:25-31:39 Feminism, TERFs, and Trans Rights 31:39-34:45 How Butler’s Views Have Evolved 34:45-40:53 Anti-Capitalism and Gender as a Distraction 🦩 Subscribe to Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership 🦩 Merch: https://shop.currentaffairs.org/
Transcribe →The Anti-Zionist Jewish Movement Israel Doesn’t Want You to Know About (w/ Molly Crabapple)
2w ago00:43:28Tap to summarize🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Molly Crabapple is an artist, journalist, and author of the new book Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund. She joins Current Affairs editor-in-chief Nathan J. Robinson to discuss the history of the Bund, its fierce anti-Zionism, its vision of Jewish self-determination without an ethnostate, and what this forgotten socialist movement can teach us about solidarity, self-defense, and fighting fascism today. ✊ Here Where We Live Is Our Country: https://www.mollycrabapple.com/here-where-we-live-is-our-country ✊ Drawing Blood: https://www.mollycrabapple.com/drawing-blood ✊ Brothers of the Gun: https://www.mollycrabapple.com/brothers-of-the-gun 0:00-5:52 Why the Bund Matters Now 5:52-9:43 Jewish Self-Determination Without an Ethnostate 9:43-14:51 Why the Bund Rejected Zionism 14:51-20:45 Labor Organizing, Mutual Aid, and Revolution 20:45-23:11 Jewish Self-Defense Against Pogroms 23:11-26:06 The Bund’s Failure to Take Power 26:06-32:16 Were the Zionists Proven Right? 32:16-35:12 Why History Was Not Inevitable 35:12-38:05 Has Israel Made Jews Less Safe? 38:05-43:36 Why the Bund Resonates Today 🦩Subscribe to Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership 🦩 Merch: https://shop.currentaffairs.org/
Transcribe →Money Is a Measure of Nothing But Itself
3w ago00:38:06Tap to summarize🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership J. W. Mason and Arjun Jayadev are economists and authors of the new book Against Money. They join Current Affairs editor-in-chief Nathan J. Robinson to discuss why money is so widely misunderstood, how it shapes our lives in ways we often fail to see, and how rethinking money can change the way we understand debt, austerity, inequality, foreign investment, housing, and the limits of mainstream economics. 💵 Against Money: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo265118979.html 0:00-6:20 The problem with imagining a world without money 6:20-13:38 Why money is not a neutral measure of value 13:38-20:15 How rethinking money changes our politics 20:15-30:43 What capital really is 30:43-38:14 What mainstream economics gets wrong 🦩Subscribe to Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership 🦩 Merch: https://shop.currentaffairs.org/
Transcribe →The Fight to Unionize Amazon Isn’t Over (w/ Chris Smalls)
Jun 200:31:56Tap to summarize🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Chris Smalls is the co-founder and former president of the Amazon Labor Union and author of the new book When the Revolution Comes. He joins Current Affairs associate editor Alex Skopic in Havana, Cuba, during the Nuestra América aid mission to discuss the U.S. blockade, labor organizing, his fight against Amazon, and why struggles from Cuba to Gaza to Staten Island are connected. Recorded March, 2026 ✊ Buy When the Revolution Comes: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/724036/when-the-revolution-comes-by-chris-smalls/ 0:00-5:21 Why Chris Smalls Came to Cuba 5:21-8:18 Hip-Hop, “Union Drip,” and Labor Organizing 8:18-11:09 Joe Biden’s Empty Pro-Union Promises 11:09-17:32 What Workers Should Know About Unionizing 17:32-24:02 The State of the Amazon Labor Union 24:02-26:36 Lessons From the Amazon Fight 26:36-28:15 Gaza, the Freedom Flotilla, and Israeli Apartheid 28:15-28:50 Medea Benjamin Cameo 28:50-31:56 What Comes Next for Chris Smalls 🦩Subscribe to Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership 🦩 Merch: https://shop.currentaffairs.org/
Transcribe →Norman Finkelstein on the Insane Racism of Israeli Society and the Plan to Erase Gaza
May 3101:55:09Tap to summarize🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Norman Finkelstein is one of the leading scholars of the Israel-Palestine conflict and author of the new book Gaza’s Gravediggers: An Inquiry into Corruption in High Places. He joins Current Affairs editor-in-chief Nathan J. Robinson to discuss Israel’s plan to make Gaza unlivable, the racism of Israeli society, Tony Blair and Trump’s colonial “Board of Peace,” why he refuses to condemn Hamas, and why he argues that governments, human rights organizations, and international legal authorities have helped enable the Gaza genocide. 🇵🇸 Gaza's Gravediggers: https://orbooks.com/catalog/gazas-gravediggers/ 0:00-9:20 Netanyahu’s plan for Gaza 9:20-20:12 Israel’s objectives in Gaza 20:12-41:41 The racism of Israeli society 41:41-45:55 Why oppressors see themselves as victims 45:55-50:18 The Cherokee removal and Palestine 50:18-1:04:21 Why this has always been Israel’s plan 1:04:21-1:25:08 Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and the right 1:25:08-1:32:34 Trump and Tony Blair’s “Board of Peace” 1:32:34-1:47:18 Who are Gaza’s gravediggers? 1:47:18-1:55:18 Refusing to judge anti-imperial atrocities in isolation 🦩Subscribe to Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership 🦩 Merch: https://shop.currentaffairs.org/
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