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.
Peter Linebaugh, best known for tracing the history of the commons and of commoning practices, calls Thomas Paine “a planetary revolutionary.” He has found in Paine’s lesser-known works radical critiques of inequality and authoritarianism and even the system of money wages. Many lessons for our time, Linebaugh argues, can be drawn from Paine’s writings and … Continued
Kathi Weeks, author of The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries, criticizes the centrality of work and wage labor for the left, and argues that we need to envision life beyond work. For more details and higher-quality audio, visit againstthegrain.org.
Focusing squarely on the Black and Vietnamese American communities in New Orleans, Marguerite Nguyen tells a story of interracial tension and panethnic solidarity in the context of US imperialism, natural and human-made disasters, model-minority rhetoric, and government neglect and abandonment. For more details and higher-quality audio, visit againstthegrain.org.
Womens’ liberation, immigrants’ and prisoners’ rights, gay liberation and queer studies — they’re some of the most enduring legacies of the 1960s and ’70s. And as Richard Wolin argues, they’re partially the inheritance of Maoism in France. He explores the rise of Maoism in that country following the upheavals of 1968 and its impact on … Continued
Compared to objective truth, truth of the subjective kind may appear shaky, unreliable, even arbitrary. But Jay Gupta, drawing from Kierkegaard, contends that subjective truth is key to ethical understanding and action. To illustrate the point, Gupta examines how war and the horrific toll it takes are reported in the media. For more details and … Continued
Michael Storper on urbanization and why the fortunes of the SF Bay Area have risen, while those of Southern California have fallen. For more details and higher-quality audio, visit againstthegrain.org.
Has the game of baseball developed independently of social and political forces and movements in this country? Certainly not, says Mitchell Nathanson. He traces the impact of class-based concerns, racial dynamics, labor struggles, and 1960s protest mobilizations on baseball’s origins and development. Nathanson also considers the oft-propagated story of baseball as America. For more details … Continued
Criminal defense attorney Sherry Gendelman discusses how cuts to the court system have been accompanied by punitive fines — a regressive tax of sorts. She also talks about how people should deal with the police when they are pulled over.
We usually associate nonviolent protest with Gandhi and Dr. King; some might go back further, to Tolstoy and Thoreau. According to Micah Alpaugh, the Parisian masses who propelled the French Revolution are also part of that grand and influential tradition. Alpaugh describes as well what popular sovereignty and democracy meant to the French protesters. For … Continued
Social movement scholar Frances Fox Piven on the “movement cycle” that, she argues, we are currently witnessing — from the Zapatistas and Occupy Wall Street, to service worker struggles today.
