Verso Books

The federal government is essentially trying to kill public housing.

I'm speaking with Sam Stein, author of A Right to Housing from Verso.

Okay, now let's do some of the negatives.

Um [laughs]

Like, I think the fact that, for example, in our little local world that we live in in New York, the 2019 rent law fight was an amazing victory, and I think it inspired people to fight for more after that.

So wins do yield more wins, but we have to have the determination to keep organizing and keep fighting in the absence of hope anyway.

That was Sam Stein, author of A Right to Housing, just out from Verso.

You're listening to Behind the News on Jacobin Radio.

In your book, in Ministry for the Future, it has to be said, you also have a guerrilla force, children of Kali who You know, bomb cargo planes out of the sky and take Davos attendees hostage.

There was a book published not so long ago about how to blow up a pipeline from Verso Press, a sort of meditation on the role of that kind of direct action.

Where do you stand on it, on this question of

violence? It's a good question and a hard question.

You've been listening to The Lead from New Lines Magazine.

The Neck of the Sword: Palestine's Unfinished Struggle is available for pre-order now from Verso Books.

This week's episode was produced by Finbar Anderson and hosted by me, Faisal Jafeez.

For more like this, subscribe to The Lead on your favorite podcast app or visit our website, newlinesmag.com. [outro music]

I think there was...

Was it Inventing the Future? Like one of those, it was like a hot Verso book, like late 2010s.

I can't remember the quote, but it was like one of the, I remember it was like one of the first books I read sort of on the topic and like the heading was like, one of the chapters was like, if we're right, why do we keep losing? And

I

The good news is that ever-increasing numbers of people just aren't buying what elite media are selling, which is the same old top-down, racist, why would you even speak up blather that we've been listening to for decades, and then the narrating of the nightmare that we're living through.

It's not that DSA, Democratic Socialists of America, are the answer, but ask yourself, why won't corporate media engage the questions they pose? We'll hear from Rana Lipsitz, author of The Rise of a New Left: How Young Radicals Are Shaping the Future of American Politics from Verso Books.

She's also author of a range of pieces, including some on socialism, including some for fair.org. That's coming up this week on Counterspin.

[music] Washington State Democratic Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal released a survey indicating that 94% of Democratic voters support a universal public health insurance program, and so do a majority of self-defined moderate and independent voters.

The trouble is you might not learn about it if you only watch corporate news, where the very word socialism is used as a thought stopper rather than an opening to conversation, much less change.

Our guest thinks a lot about this situation.

Rana Lipsitz writes on politics and gender and culture for many outlets, including fair.org, and she's author of The Rise of a New Left: How Young Radicals Are Shaping the Future of American Politics from Verso Books.

She joins us now by phone.

To read over a lot of the, uh, existing books that have been written about, you know, feasible, you know, full socialism.

Uh, and then, you know, we finally got together the proposal and shopped around a little bit and, uh, we signed a contract with Verso Books on May Day twenty twenty-one [laughs].

And, uh, so, uh, about five and a half years ago.

Uh, and, uh, yeah, it was, uh, I mean, it... for partially because just the book is, is, you know, it's a four hundred and thirty-two page book.