The global crisis of our times — the climate emergency — has been temporary slowed by another worldwide disaster: the coronavirus pandemic. As industrial production, transport, and consumption have plummeted, so has the demand for fossil fuels. Environmental historian Troy Vettese places the fortunes of fossil fuels within a larger context over time, with an … Continued
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.
Kingian Nonviolence
What does it mean to be committed to nonviolence, in one’s activism and everyday life? Kazu Haga reveals that Kingian Nonviolence is a principled way of life, one that actively confronts violence and injustice, restores relationships, and helps create what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called Beloved Community. Kazu Haga, Healing Resistance: A Radically Different … Continued
The coronavirus has laid bare the divisions and inequalities of our society. It’s also exposed the stark differences in possible approaches to the pandemic. Radical scholar Alexis Shotwell argues that we need to frame our fight as one for collective care, rather than containment and control. She discusses solidarity and the lessons of the HIV/AIDS … Continued
William Morris, Designer and Socialist
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. (Encore presentation.) Michael Robertson, The Last Utopians: Four Late Nineteenth-Century Visionaries and … Continued
What do college athletes, prison laborers, welfare recipients, and graduate students in the sciences have in common? According to sociologist Erin Hatton, they’re all workers who face a particular form of coercion. She discusses what these workers’ circumstances tell us about work under contemporary capitalism. She’ll also consider the situation of prisoners pressured into dangerous … Continued
Innovation and its Discontents
Political elites and technocrats in many countries believe we can innovate our way out of poverty. But can problems of development be tackled by profit-driven entrepreneurialism? Lilly Irani’s book looks at what professional design is and isn’t doing for poor people and communities. She reveals who gets ignored and what goes unaddressed when innovation is … Continued
Two historic global economic contractions almost within a decade of each other would have been hard to fathom, if we weren’t living through them. Marxist geographer Richard Walker examines the shape of the United States and world economies during the coronavirus. He also discusses the effects of the crisis on the fossil fuel industry and … Continued
A special presentation to commemorate National Poetry Month, featuring poetry readings and discussions by iconic poets, established ones, and up-and-comers. Archival recordings of Allen Ginsberg, June Jordan, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Jack Kerouac are part of the mix, as are suggestions for how to approach and enjoy poetry. Minal Hajratwala Mira Martin-Parker Craig Santos Perez Matthew … Continued
Now that Bernie Sanders is out of the race, and we’re faced with the choice between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, have the prospects for an electoral road to social democracy been dashed? Jacobin’s Meagan Day and Micah Uetricht discuss how Sanders changed the terrain of U.S. politics. They argue that his defeat — rather … Continued
Fund Drive Special on KPFA’s Birthday
We celebrate KPFA’s seventy-first birthday with special selections from the station’s archives, featuring Fannie Lou Hamer, Edward Said, Carlos Castaneda, and one of the founders of KPFA.