12:00 PM Pacific Time: Mondays to Wednesdays
Award-winning program of ideas, in-depth analysis, and commentary on a variety of matters — political, economic, social, and cultural — important to progressive and radical thinking and activism. Against the Grain is co-produced and co-hosted by Sasha Lilley and C. S. Soong.
The experience of trans people has burst into the mainstream in the last decade, although the struggles of gender variant people are nothing new. Jack Halberstam talks about the politics of categorization, generational differences, radical vs. single-issue politics, and anti-trans feminism. (Encore presentation.) Resources: Jack Halberstam, Trans* A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variability …
In its early days, the internet appeared to hold the promise of a new form of communication not driven by the profit motive. Yet the sordid state of the internet today was not inevitable, according to scholar Jessa Lingel. Instead, she argues, a process took place — similar to the gentrification of our cities — … Continued
How does political ideology work in Cuba? What is ideology anyway? Katherine Gordy argues that socialist ideology in Cuba, far from constituting a static, abstract canon of beliefs, is practiced and produced by people at all levels of Cuban society. She also comments on Fidel Castro’s espousal of Marxism and on the role of nineteenth-century … Continued
Great powers rise and fall. But when their power wanes, as Britain’s did in the early 20th century and the U.S. is arguably waning now, who shoulders the costs of their decline? Is it elites or those on the bottom? Sociologist Richard Lachmann, who died in September, discusses what the past can tell us about … Continued
A protracted but determined struggle to defeat an airport construction project produced an extraordinary victory. In the face of brutal police repression, Isabelle Fremeaux, Jay Jordan, and others created an autonomous zone and prevented the construction of a massive international airport on 4,000 acres of fields, forest, and wetlands in western France. Fremeaux and Jordan … Continued
Trusted, impartial and independent? Or largely unaccountable and part of the Establishment? Sociologist Tom Mills considers the evidence on the enormously influential British Broadcasting Corporation or BBC, which is much revered by progressives in the United States and elsewhere. (Encore presentation.) Resources: Tom Mills, The BBC: Myth of a Public Service Verso, 2020 photo: Pixabay
What has capitalism done to and with time? How does it regulate and discipline workers from the standpoint of time? And what would a principled struggle to take back time — to reappropriate it — look like? Engaging with the ideas of Marx, E. P. Thompson, and others, Bryan D. Palmer reflects on work, life, … Continued
Program guests’ insights sometimes have to be left out of the final, edited interviews because of time constraints. This potpourri of previously unaired remarks addresses colonial-era policing in New York City (Ben Brucato); the expansive nature of police power (Mark Neocleous); grand juries as a tool of state repression (Michael Staudenmaier); James Baldwin’s criticisms of … Continued
There have been numerous exposés of the conditions in factory farms, where livestock are crammed together by the hundreds of thousands. But anthropologist Alex Blanchette argues that animal agribusiness, rather than being a sordid, exceptional case, has represented the cutting edge of capitalist industry for more than one hundred years. He discusses the exploitation of … Continued
Leo Panitch, the great Marxist political economist, was one of the many losses we have suffered from the coronavirus. His frequent collaborator and lifelong friend Sam Gindin reflects on the enormous contributions that Leo Panitch made to a radical understanding of the state and capitalism on a global scale, as well as the limits of … Continued
Who is standing up to environmental plunder, land grabbing, and crony capitalism? On a southern Philippines island, indigenous people, migrant settlers, and NGOs have combined forces to resist the extractivist activities of commercial interests and political elites. Many environmental defenders, reports Wolfram Dressler, have been murdered by illegal operatives and hired hitmen. Critical Asian Studies Wolfram … Continued
