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 co-produced and co-hosted by Sasha Lilley and C. S. Soong.
Former farm worker Frank Bardacke, author of “Trampling Out the Vintage: César Chávez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers,” speaks with Sasha Lilley about the rise and fall of the UFW, and the militancy of laborers who had a sense of their own power. The United Farm Workers Was More Than Cesar … Continued
In “River of Shadows,” Rebecca Solnit combines a biography of the groundbreaking photographer Eadweard Muybridge with a larger story about the advent of modern technology and the radical transformations it wrought on human consciousness and whole societies.
Sean Burns talks about the late labor historian and folklorist Archie Green, who was shaped by work and militant struggle on San Francisco’s docks.
Immanuel Wallerstein describes the French Revolution’s enormous impact on the development, to the present day, of both radical and liberal ideology and action.
Political scientist Corey Robin, author of “The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin,” speaks with Sasha Lilley about how the left misunderstands conservatism–to its detriment.
James Russell describes the ideological forces behind the promotion of 401(k) plans, and charts the rise of what he calls a retirement industrial complex.
WIlliam Adler speaks with Sasha Lilley about the life of Joe Hill — troubadour for the Industrial Workers of the World, or Wobblies — and the mystery surrounding the murder for which he was accused and executed in 1915.
Robin D.G. Kelley discusses the ideas and legacy of Aime Cesaire, who took a radical anticolonial stance informed by his engagement with surrealism and Marxism. Cesaire also linked colonialism with fascism.
Indian writer and critic Arundhati Roy speaks with Sasha Lilley about armed struggle by Maoist tribal Naxalites against the Indian government, as well as Occupy Wall Street and anti-capitalism.
Martin Hart-Landsberg points out that free trade agreements, such as the one the US is poised to conclude with South Korea, are about much more than trade — they expand the power of big corporations and strip governments of their ability to regulate them.
