Episode 5 - Labor and Anti-Imperialist Politics
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About this episode:
In this episode, I’m joined by Alex Press, a staff writer and labor reporter for Jacobin Magazine, to examine the complex relationship between the U.S. labor movement and anti-imperialist politics—its history, the current situation, and where we go from here. We discuss the historical entanglement of American labor with imperialism during the Cold War, the complexities and contradictions of anti-imperialist labor organizing in the imperial core, and the role that labor unions have played in the ongoing Palestine solidarity movement over the last year.
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About the show:
Return to Bandung is hosted by Pranay Somayajula, an Indian-American writer, researcher, and organizer based in Washington, D.C. His work explores themes of diaspora, (inter)nationalism, anticolonial politics, and the many lives and afterlives of empire. You can learn more about Pranay and read his writing on his website, as well as on his Substack blog, culture shock.
Sources and helpful links:
Alex Press — Internationalism is in Labor’s Interest (Jacobin, January 2024)
Jeff Schuhrke — The Labor Movement's History of Backing Israel—and the Changing Climate Amid the War on Gaza (In These Times, November 2023)
Jeff Schuhrke — Blue-Collar Empire: The Untold Story of US Labor's Global Anticommunist Crusade (2024)
Bill Fletcher, Jr. — Can U.S. Workers Embrace Anti-Imperialism? (Monthly Review, July 2003)
Vladimir Lenin — Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917)
Vladimir Lenin — Letter to the Workers and Peasants of the Ukraine (Pravda, 1920)
Social links:
Return to Bandung:
Twitter: twitter.com/returntobandung
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/returntobandung/
Pranay Somayajula:
Twitter: https://x.com/p_somayajula
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pranay.somayajula/
Website: https://www.pranaysomayajula.com/
Substack: https://www.culture-shock.xyz/
Alex Press:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/alexnpress
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexnpress