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.
For decades after World War Two, the defense industry polluted the desert near Tucson’s Southside and poisoned the aquifer from which the largely Mexican American neighborhood got its drinking water. Sunaura Taylor, who was born there, reflects on lessons from the residents’ struggle — and asks what a genuine remedy might look like. She discusses … Continued
What are discarded materials from extractive activities like mining doing to life on the planet? According to Gabrielle Hecht, what’s happening in South Africa to and around mountainous piles of mining residues crystallizes a number of thorny environmental and sociopolitical issues faced by communities around the globe. (Encore presentation.) Gabrielle Hecht, Residual Governance: How South Africa Foretells … Continued
It’s both a precious resource and a dangerous pollutant, exponentially increasing crop yields, while fouling our waterways with blue-green algae. The element phosphorus has played a crucial role in agriculture and war, while its reserves are unevenly distributed, with much of the world’s supply located in the occupied territories of Western Sahara. Writer Dan Egan … Continued
More than two million farmworkers do the hard, sometimes backbreaking work of planting, growing, and harvesting crops in the U.S. Focusing on strawberry and grape pickers in California, David Bacon describes what the work involves, where the workers come from, and steps they’re taking to protect their rights and pursue justice. The Reality Check: Stories … Continued
What lessons can we learn from the ways working class people in the U.S., many of them women and people of color, took collective action during the depression of the 1930s? Historian Dana Frank discusses experiments in mutual aid and cooperatives, battles over the expulsion of Mexican and Mexican American workers, small-scale sit down strikes, … Continued
Black parents worry about racism’s impact on their children. Jennifer C. Nash is interested in both the nature of racialized anxiety and the way it’s rendered visible to the general public. Among other things, she looks at how Black mothers have used the epistolary form to convey their concerns, fears, and hopes. Jennifer C. Nash, … Continued
When we think of potentially dangerous and addictive drugs, most of us think about illegal substances like heroine or cocaine. And yet widely-prescribed drugs like Xanax, Ritalin, Adderall, and Vicodin are also addictive, but legal in the United States. Historian David Herzberg discusses the artificial distinction that has been created between addictive drugs and medicines … Continued
In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, the U.S. transported refugees from Vietnam to its colonial possession Guam. In that period, Israel did something similar, offering citizenship to Vietnamese refugees, in the wake of its expanded occupation of Palestine. Evyn Lê Espiritu Gandhi looks at the condition of refugee settlers, as well as solidarity between … Continued
Not one movement but a multiplicity of movements engaging in protest and direct action brought down France’s absolutist regime in 1789. Micah Alpaugh describes popular uprisings and insurrections in Paris and the provinces that operated without central leadership and later inspired anarchists around the globe. Micah Alpaugh, The People’s Revolution of 1789 Cornell University Press, … Continued
Ayn Rand’s novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged have been called gateway drugs to rightwing ideas for so many Americans. And while the works of the writer and philosopher have seen a resurgence since the global economic crisis, her influence has been undeniably huge and sustained since those books were originally published in mid-century. Historian … Continued
