12:00 PM Pacific Time: Mondays to Wednesdays
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.
The term socialism has, amazingly, gone from one consigned to Cold War obscurity to the self-description of a number of prominent US politicians. But what does socialism mean and how could we ever manage to get there? Jacobin magazine founder Bhaskar Sunkara argues that socialism is achievable and maps out a path to emancipation, first … 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.
The film “Vita Activa” examines the life and ideas of Hannah Arendt, who wrote about totalitarianism, the plight of refugees, and the nature of evil.
Epidemiologist Richard Wilkinson, along with his co-author Karen Pickett, caused a sensation with their work The Spirit Level, which amassed vast amounts of data to illustrate that whether you are poor or well off, social inequality makes us ill, unhappy, and stressed. In the documentary film “Dysfunctional Societies” Wilkinson makes the case that equality is … Continued
Marshall Rosenberg lays out some of the basics of Nonviolent Communication, the method he developed for connecting compassionately with others.
As movements highlight the perils of global warming and the inaction of governments in the face of it, what types of mechanisms could and should be considered to slow down the ravages of climate change? Geographer Holly Jean Buck argues that, as fraught as it is, the left needs to recognize the need for the … Continued
In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels laid out their understanding of how a socialist revolution would unfold. Emanuele Saccarelli shows how that notion changed and evolved, in the minds of Marx, Engels, and a number of subsequent socialist thinkers who took part in debates over the value of reformism versus revolution. (May Day encore … Continued
The US-Mexico border is often in the news. But what’s usually missing is the cost of the border, both in human terms, and in terms of the political economy of the region itself — the deep entanglement of the livelihoods of people who live in places like Douglas, Arizona with the border industrial complex. Scholar … Continued
Adam Hochschild talks about two chapters in his latest book, one about surveillance and spying in the U.S. and the other about mining and people’s livelihoods in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Namwali Serpell describes her new novel set in her native Zambia, and Max Haiven discusses the book he’s written about art and … Continued
The failed German Revolution, in which he was a participant, marked the Marxist philosopher Herbert Marcuse for life. But unlike some of his more pessimistic colleagues in the Frankfurt School, particularly after the rise of fascism, Marcuse did not give up on liberatory possibilities. In the 1960s, Marcuse became one of the key philosophers of … Continued
