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.
Outlasting Suharto: So whatever happened to East Timor, which finally gained independence in 2002 after a brutal and prolonged Indonesian occupation? ETAN’s John Miller provides an update. The Indonesian government targeted internal "enemies" as well, including the legendary writer and political dissident Pramoedya Ananta Toer.
Racism and Common Sense: According to Ian Haney López, a kind of everyday common sense explains why racial prejudice persists today. In a new book, the U.C. Berkeley law professor also chronicles the rise of the Chicano movement in the aftermath of the massive 1968 student walkouts in East Los Angeles.
Were the FBI’s attempts to neutralize dissident targets, under its notorious COINTELPRO program, an aberration from or an integral element of the Bureau’s continuing mission? David Cunningham, who gained access to over 12,000 previously classified documents, focuses on COINTELPRO repression of the New Left and the Klan.
After years of decline, is labor poised for resurgence? Dan Clawson argues just that in his acclaimed new book The Next Upsurge: Labor and the New Social Movements, where he points the way to a revitalized radical left.
A conversation with Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said Chair in Arab Studies at Columbia University, about his history of western intervention in the Middle East, Resurrecting Empire.
Neoliberalism has accomplished a shocking upward redistribution of wealth. Lisa Duggan contends that the right, much more than the left, has successfully connected its economic goals with cultural and identity-based politics. If progressives and radicals don’t respond in kind, she argues, a vibrant and truly expansive left will be impossible to construct.
Migrant nannies, housecleaners, and other domestic workers are largely invisible members of the working class worldwide, but play a key role in the global economy. Rhacel Parreñas, Arlie Hochschild, Michele Gamburd and Joy Zarembka illuminate the many reasons why migrant women workers come to the global North to look after other people’s families, while having … Continued
Who would want to forget the largest worldwide protest mobilization ever? Not the creators of the volume 2/15, which records in photos and words the marches and protests on and around February 15, 2003. Three of the creators spoke with C.S.
Pablo Neruda, the most widely-read political poet of our time, would have turned one hundred this year. Mark Eisner, editor of a new collection of Neruda’s poetry, and Neruda scholar Jaime Concha discuss the legendary Chilean’s poetry, politics, and humanity.
Guardian columnist George Monbiot talks about his manifesto for taking on corporate globalization and institutions like the IMF and World Bank.
