Against the Grain – September 22, 2014
Gretchen Purser describes how and why the formal day labor industry exploits poor, formerly incarcerated men. For more details and higher-quality audio, visit againstthegrain.org.

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.
Gretchen Purser describes how and why the formal day labor industry exploits poor, formerly incarcerated men. For more details and higher-quality audio, visit againstthegrain.org.
Alex Barnard and Marie Mourad on the waste produced by capitalism and efforts by “freegans” and others to reclaim it. For more details and higher-quality audio, visit againstthegrain.org.
Arun Gupta discusses social movements after Occupy Wall Street, including the fight for a $15 an hour minimum wage, protests against police brutality in Ferguson, the antiwar movement, and the upcoming climate march and actions in New York City.
In her forthcoming book UC Hastings law professor Hadar Aviram describes how recession-era discourses of austerity and frugality are changing incarceration and penality in the US. For more details and higher-quality audio, visit againstthegrain.org.
Medical error is, by some estimates, the third leading cause of death in the US. So does the medical malpractice system work to compensate patients (or their heirs)? According to Lochlann Jain, that system has been gutted by physicians, by insurance companies, and by lawmakers influenced by industry propaganda. For more details and higher-quality audio, … Continued
Richard Swift considers alternatives to capitalism, from state socialism to anarchism, social democracy to degrowth.
Adam Kotsko on the Italian theorist Giorgio Agamben’s ideas about sovereign power vis-à-vis the individual. For more details and higher-quality audio, visit againstthegrain.org.
A landmark federal law bans human trafficking. So why does Grace Chang assert that the US sponsors human trafficking? And why doesn’t Chang like the federal antitrafficking regime’s emphasis on sex trafficking and prostitution? (Encore presentation.) For more details and higher-quality audio, visit againstthegrain.org.