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.
Since well before Covid, U.S. media has been in dire straits. Hedge funds demanding sky-high profits have gobbled up established newspapers, while local reporting has disappeared. Media conglomerates have laid off journalists in record numbers, gutting coverage of the misdeeds of the powerful. And yet over the last five years, as Jon Schleuss of the …
Did the Freedmen’s Bureau, established in 1865, help the formerly enslaved, or harm them? Priya Kandaswamy traces the Bureau’s activities in relation to vagrancy legislation and the placement of Black domestic workers in white people’s homes. Labor discipline and white surveillance, she argues, took precedence over public assistance and meaningful forms of freedom for African Americans. … Continued
The early 20th century had much in common with our time. It was an epoch of great extremes of wealth and poverty, of globalization and free trade, of war and imperialist occupation. But one crucial difference stands out: it was also a time of great militancy by the radical working class. And nowhere was this … Continued
What do neoliberal policies and institutions do to people’s ability to care well for others? According to Sarah Clark Miller, caregivers experience moral precarity and moral injury, brought on by the fact that they can’t care for loved ones in ways that are consistent with their ethical principles. Maurice Hamington and Michael Flower, eds., Care … Continued
Veterans are a prominent symbol in U.S. politics, evoking patriotism and military might. The right recruits them and they populate the police, private security, and often militia groups. But the struggles of veterans, and those currently working for the military, should be of concern for the left, argues Suzanne Gordon and Steve Early. They discuss … Continued
Trotskyism played a key role in the development of the U.S. revolutionary left. Among American Trotskyists, James Cannon stood out. Bryan D. Palmer talks about Cannon’s beliefs, his engagement with radical left formations in the U.S., and his involvement in militant labor struggles in the early twentieth century. Bryan Palmer, James P. Cannon and the … Continued
The United States is a strikingly unequal country. The Republican Party is rightly credited with aiding the wealthy, but historian Lily Geismer argues that’s just half of the story. She examines the key role played by the Clinton-era Democratic Party in widening inequality through microenterprise schemes and development zones, free trade policies, and charter schools, … Continued
Is a world of nation-states desirable? If ultranationalism is pernicious, are some forms of nationalism beneficial? Should struggles framed in terms of national liberation be lauded and supported? Nandita Sharma emphasizes the exclusions inherent in all nationalist politics, exclusions dictated by considerations of who does and does not belong to the nation. Nandita Sharma, Home … Continued
What can our fantasies about space tell us about life on earth? Fred Scharman discusses competing visions for long-term space occupancy over the last century and a half, many of them emanating from Russia and the United States even before the Cold War, and now monopolized by billionaires like Elon Musk. Resources: Fred Scharmen, Space … Continued
Who gets put into solitary confinement, and why? What roles do race, racism, and mental health diagnoses play? Terry Kupers describes what spending time in solitary does to the human psyche; he also cites recent changes in attitudes toward, and laws regulating, solitary confinement. Bruce Arrigo and Brian Sellers, eds., The Pre-Crime Society: Crime, Culture, … Continued
The Republican Party is gripped by a hatred of immigrants. But geographer Reece Jones argues it has not always been so. Instead, one man, the late John Tanton, was responsible for making nativism appear a central concern of conservatives, by propagating scores of anti-immigrant organizations, some which eventually helped staff the Trump Administration. And, as … Continued
