Against the Grain – December 20, 2010
Joseph Levine grew up in an Orthodox Jewish household and later became an atheist. His essay about that journey appears in the volume “Philosophers Without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life.”

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.
Joseph Levine grew up in an Orthodox Jewish household and later became an atheist. His essay about that journey appears in the volume “Philosophers Without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life.”
In a program highlighting some of the best interviews from Against the Grain, we feature Howard Zinn on building a new world within the shell of the old, Laura Kipnis on the problems with coupledom, and Raj Patel on whether we’re really all rational maximizers.
Michael Pollan’s bestselling book “The Botany of Desire” has been turned into a fascinating two-hour documentary film.
Renowned Marxist geographer David Harvey talks to Sasha Lilley about how capitalism functions–in sickness and in health–and how best to understand the current crisis.
Native American historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz speaks with Sasha Lilley about the Green Corn Rebellion–a short-lived insurrection of white, black, and red workers in Oklahoma in 1917–and the struggles of Native Americans in the 1970s.
Why is it that some places are poor and some are rich? Sasha Lilley talks to pioneering radical geographer Neil Smith about capitalism and uneven development.
Nicky Garratt, self-described skeptic and guitarist for the legendary punk rock band the UK Subs, speaks with guest host Ramsey Kanaan about the rise of punk in the 1970s and whether countercultures like punk have a greater potential for critical and skeptical thinking than the mainstream.
Ruth Wilson Gilmore speaks about the prison industrial complex.
They took over factories in Italy, fought neo-Nazis and the police to a standstill, militantly opposed nuclear proliferation, squatted large urban areas, and attempted to transform gender relations and the politics of everyday life. Radical scholar George Katsiaficas discusses the formidable European autonomist movements of the 1970s and ’80s.
The meltdown of the US housing market is visible to anyone living in northern or central California, where foreclosed houses dot our urban, rural, and suburban landscapes. Journalist Alyssa Katz talks to Sasha Lilley about how the idea of owning one’s own house has been actively fostered by a government wanting to generate private economic … Continued