Against the Grain – December 9, 2019
Upcoming Episode
Against the Grain
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.
When we think of the Teamsters union, we often think of the mob and the figure of Jimmy Hoffa, memorialized by countless Hollywood films. Yet Ken Paff reminds us that the International Brotherhood of Teamsters should also conjure up in our minds rank and file militancy and enormous worker power in key sectors of the … Continued
Zombies are almost the mascots of our dark times. Hard to avoid in popular culture, they have become so ubiquitous that even the Centers for Disease Control put out a tongue in cheek guide to surviving the zombie apocalypse. Sarah Juliet Lauro discusses the origins of the zombie, from enslaved worker to liberated rebel in … Continued
Erik Olin Wright (1947-2019) was an influential anticapitalist scholar and a leading proponent of unconditional basic income. He wrote and spoke about capitalism’s defects, anticapitalist visions, and socialism’s priorities and agendas. Erik Olin Wright, How to Be an Anticapitalist in the Twenty-First Century Verso, 2019
A century ago, out of the carnage of World War One and the wave of revolutions that swept Europe, came an artistic movement that put personal and societal liberation at its center: surrealism. Penelope Rosemont, a later member of the movement, discusses the art and politics of surrealism — and her own personal history within … Continued
In her novel The Book of Disappearance, the Palestinian writer and journalist Ibtisam Azem explores themes of memory, loss, and ideology in the context of the 1948 Nakba and of an imagined sudden disappearance of all Palestinians living in Israel. Also: more with Michael Robertson about his book The Last Utopians. Ibtisam Azem, The Book … Continued
A remarkable revolution has been taking place in Northern Syria, based on women’s liberation, ecological sustainability, and democratic confederalism. Yet it’s in danger of being wiped out by the Turkish state, which has long wanted to annihilate the Kurdish population of the region. Scholars Laura Fantone and Andrej Grubacic discuss what’s at stake in Rojava … Continued
First grade, second grade — schooling as we know it divides children and classes into grades according to age and ability. This hasn’t always been the case, says Eli Meyerhoff. He links the advent of grade-divided schools in fourteenth-century Europe to a mindset and imaginary that fueled the emergence and development of capitalism. Eli Meyerhoff, … Continued
Americans are watching more media than ever before, but trusting it less. Why and how is that possible? Journalist Matt Taibbi reflects on those questions in a piercing analysis of the mainstream media system, drawing on the work of Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman, as well as many decades of experience in the trenches of … Continued
William Morris’s designs are still admired and revered, but his radical politics and utopian inclinations are less well known. Michael Robertson discusses the nineteenth-century Englishman’s insistence on craftsmanship, his critiques of industrialism, his turn toward socialism, and his utopian novel News From Nowhere. Michael Robertson, The Last Utopians: Four Late Nineteenth-Century Visionaries and Their Legacy … Continued
We expect to find strawberries in the supermarket all year round. But geographer Julie Guthman argues that for strawberries to be produced throughout the year — which used to be harvested a few weeks in spring — has required an enormous marshaling of chemical fumigants, pesticides, workers’ labor, and land. And that effort is now … Continued