Jacobin Magazine editorial digest

View in Browser SEP. 28 The last revolutionary filmmaker When the French-Swiss film director Jean-Luc Godard died in 2022 at the age of ninety-one, obituaries celebrated both his boundless cinematic inventiveness and the radical politics that shaped his work. To some, his death marked the end of an era of politically committed filmmaking. But in Japan, another artist as equally radical is still, at age eighty-seven, hard at work. In the last four years alone, Masao Adachi has released two movies, both dealing with political militants — including Shinzo Abe’s assassin — and has also worked with other artists, like French filmmakers Éric Baudelaire and Philippe Grandrieux in the early 2010s. His most recent collaboration is with Palestinian filmmaker Kamal Aljafari, whose new short film, Masao Adachi Takes a Passport Photo — chronicling Adachi’s latest attempt to apply for a passport — screened at the Toronto International Film Festival and will play at the New York Film Festival this autumn. As Adachi told the The New York Times in 2012, he is pleased that these new endeavors do more than just burnish his reputation as an elder statesman of the Japanese New Wave. “Through this way,” he said, “I’ll continue to revolt.” Keep reading Advertisement Here’s the latest… A crop of recent polls shows that socialism’s appeal is surprisingly broad. They also reflect a transformed US political landscape that is ripe for a socialist politician to capitalize on — if they’re willing to step up. It is fashionable to mock Francis Fukuyama as an uncritical celebrant of neoliberal capitalism. But The End of History offered a powerful analysis of the origins of right-wing populism that has proved prescient in the Donald Trump era. From the print issue: John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt blamed Israel for America’s Middle Eastern fiascos. But from Iraq to Iran, Washington has had its own reasons for war in the Gulf. Order The Socialist Manifesto (updated edition) Order a copy for $18.95 What, exactly, is socialism? What was the historical record of past socialist movements? What would a socialist system look like today? Jacobin founder Bhaskar Sunkara’s The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality was written to answer these questions. Now this essential introduction to democratic socialism is available in an updated edition with a new foreword that addresses the challenges facing us in the present. Please note: New editions will ship in October. Order for $18.95 Behind the News: The Backlash to School Vouchers with Jennifer Berkshire Americans across the partisan divide seem increasingly fed up with school voucher schemes, which funnel public funds to unaccountable private entities. Behind the News interviewed Jennifer Berkshire on the anti-school-voucher backlash. Listen Jacobin Roundup is a weekly newsletter you can receive by email. To opt out of emails like this one and other promotions, manage your email preferences. To stop receiving all email communications, unsubscribe.