Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick have created a documentary film series called The Untold History of the United States.
Against the Grain
12:00 PM Pacific Time: Mondays - Wednesdays
Acclaimed 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 produced and hosted by Sasha Lilley.
Kevin Martin discusses the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and applies those ideas to society and politics today.
How do the crises of our time — of climate, of food, of the financial system — fit together? Jason W. Moore, one of the smartest young thinkers on the Marxist left, discusses why capitalism has been driven by the exploitation of new frontiers — and why those frontiers are running out, potentially heralding the … Continued
Capitalism: The Six-Part Fim Series
Highlights from a five-hour documentary film series called Capitalism, in which thinkers like Noam Chomsky, David Graeber, and Thomas Piketty examine and critique the ideas of Adam Smith, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, and many others.
It was arguably the greatest and most enduring social movement of the last half-century: the women’s movement was bold, creative, and massive, and it transformed American society. We’ll feature highlights from an award-winning documentary about the origins of the women’s liberation movement in the late 1960s and early 70s.
Noam Chomsky discusses the impact of the increasing concentration of wealth and power on our politics in the new film Requiem for the American Dream.
Are Today’s Children Spoiled?
Today’s children are overindulged, coddled, and spoiled — lavished with praised and unearned ‘A’s at school, given trophies when they don’t win. They get everything too easily. It’s bad for parents, bad for children, and bad for society at large. But are any of these claims factually accurate? Leading education critic Alfie Kohn reflects on … Continued
Extinction, “De-Extinction,” and Capitalism
What should we do in the face of the ongoing extinction crisis? What is rewilding, and how does it work? Is de-extinction, which involves the resurrection of extinct species, advisable? Ashley Dawson puts mass extinction and the various efforts to address it in a broader political-economic context. Dawson’s new book is Extinction: A Radical History.
The Political Uses of Disaster Aid
What can the history of Reagan-era US foreign disaster aid in Ethiopia, El Salvador, and Armenia teach us about US policy today? Historian Alexander Poster discusses the political uses of foreign disaster relief. Resources: Alexander O. Poster, A Hierarchy of Survival: The United States and the Negotiation of International Disaster Relief, 1981-1989 Alexander Poster, Obama … Continued
Work, Life, and Class Difference
Is it true what many theorists are saying, that the line between work and the rest of life is blurring? Barbara Ellen Smith and Jamie Winders suggest that there’s a class bias to that claim; they contend, in the volume Precarious Worlds, that for millions of low-wage workers, the line is in fact getting more … Continued