The Dig

Featuring Chris Brooks on labor’s crisis and the strategic, militant class struggle that can turn it all around. Brooks, former chief of staff to UAW President Shawn Fain, urges organizers to be flexible in their methodology, explains the federal monitor’s anti-left lawfare against the UAW over Gaza—and why labor must build for 2028.

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Read more:

“Is Labor at the Point of No Return?” by Chris Brooks in New Labor Forum newlaborforum.cuny.edu/2026/01/15/is-labor-at-the-point-of-no-return

“Is Labor at the Point of No Return?” by Chris Brooks in New Labor Forum newlaborforum.cuny.edu/2026/01/15/is-labor-at-the-point-of-no-return

“Shawn Fain’s UAW Is Facing Strong Headwinds” by Nelson Lichtenstein in New Labor Forum newlaborforum.cuny.edu/2026/05/15/shawn-fains-uaw-is-facing-strong-headwinds

“The War on the UAW” by Ella Fanger in The Nation  thenation.com/article/economy/uaw-elections-monitor-gaza

Find Bad Energy and Songs My Mother Taught Me at Haymarketbooks.org

Featuring Ben Tarnoff and Quinn Slobodian on their book Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed. What the world’s bizarre richest man reveals about our financially fabulist, hard tech, far-right political-economic era.

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Find Against Tech Oligarchy at Haymarketbooks.org 

Learn more about Hate Speech at UCPress.edu

 

Featuring Ben Shanahan, the architect of socialist David Morales’ victorious campaign to be the Democratic nominee for mayor of Providence, Rhode Island. The Providence left ran a slate of left-wing candidates that not only elected Morales but also swept every single contested city council seat on a platform of capping the rent and building social housing.

Read Dennis Hogan’s essays on the Providence win in n+1 and Dissent:

nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/the-hi-neighbor-mayor/

dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/david-morales-providence-municipal-socialism/

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Listen to Death in Westminster on any podcast platform.  

Get 20% off an annual print subscription to The Break—Down at break-down.org/dig/

Featuring Daniel Denvir and Ben Mabie answering questions posed by you, our listeners.

Submit a question for our next mailbag: speakpipe.com/ListenerMailbag

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Read the piece Ben mentioned “From the Camp to the Picket: Reflections from the UC Strike for Palestine” longhaulmag.com/uc-strike-for-palestine

Learn more about The Shadow Court and Disability Revolution at UCPress.edu

Featuring David Wallace-Wells, Madison Condon, and Moira Birss on how insurance companies profit off climate catastrophe—and, in doing so, ensure that people and the planet suffer the consequences. Guest hosted by Astra Taylor.

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Read “National Disaster Insurance for All: Single-Payer Disaster Insurance and Community Resilience Investments for Safer and More Affordable Housing” climateandcommunity.org/research/national-disaster-insurance-for-all-single-payer-disaster-insurance-and-community-resilience-investments-for-safer-and-more-affordable-housing/

Sign up! Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World reading group equator.org/events/late-victorian-holocausts

Buy When We Are Kin and The Veiled Prophet at Haymarketbooks.org