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.
A radio and web media project whose aim is to provide in-depth analysis and commentary on a variety of matters — political, economic, social and cultural — important to progressive and radical thinking and activism.
Many U.S. military establishment bigwigs are pushing the development of automated and autonomous weapons systems. Roberto González questions whether this robo-fanaticism, as he calls it, is justified. He also describes efforts to address human warfighters’ distrust of machines. Roberto J. González, War Virtually: The Quest to Automate Conflict, Militarize Data, and Predict the Future University … Continued
Too many hours, erratic schedules, not enough hours — and, of course, not enough pay: if you’re a worker in the U.S, time feels like the enemy. Yet, as sociologist Jamie McCallum argues, U.S. workers tend not to see their plight as a collective one and, in a particularly American way, often wear overwork as … Continued
Is there such a thing as society? Was the mid-twentieth century an antisocial moment in U.S. history? Theodore Martin describes what happened to the idea of society in the wake of the New Deal and World War II, and argues that sociopolitical changes fueled the emergence of a new kind of antisocial novel, examples of which include … Continued
As Covid tragically illustrated, large numbers of Americans are in poor health and especially vulnerable to viruses and other pathogens. How did we get here? According to physician Robert Lustig, it started with the turn toward processed food, which has led to an ongoing national and global public health crisis, while enriching corporations and the … Continued
A radio and web media project whose aim is to provide in-depth analysis and commentary on a variety of matters — political, economic, social and cultural — important to progressive and radical thinking and activism.
On Christmas Day, 1765, a new era in the history of protest began. So asserts Micah Alpaugh; he describes how the Sons of Liberty, formed in the thirteen colonies to oppose the British government’s Stamp Act, innovated a movement organizing model that was later taken up by rebels and revolutionaries in Britain, France, Haiti, the U.S., … Continued
Open any world history book and you’ll read that the Neolithic Revolution was a turning point for humanity, when hunter gatherers gave up roving in small egalitarian groups and settled down to farm. Out of that, civilization was born, with all the benefits and ills connected to it: the rise of cities, the emergence of … Continued
Howard Zinn, the radical historian, political science professor, and veteran activist, presented an alternative understanding of Christopher Columbus and his legacy.
Over the past half century, the US economy has undergone a profound change: wealth has been concentrated in the hands of a few, inequality has skyrocketed, and insecurity has reigned. And yet it’s a story mainly downplayed by mainstream pundits and the media. Noam Chomsky, arguably the most important public intellectual in the world, says … Continued
Ram Dass, Andrew Weil, and Timothy Leary are among the featured voices on the audio compilation “Let’s Take a Trip: A Social History of LSD.”
