Against the Grain – April 8, 2008
Co-editor William Minter and contributor Lisa Brock discuss the new book “No Easy Victories: African Liberation and American Activists over a Half Century, 1950-2000.”
12:00 PM Pacific Time: Mondays to 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.
Co-editor William Minter and contributor Lisa Brock discuss the new book “No Easy Victories: African Liberation and American Activists over a Half Century, 1950-2000.”
Jen Angel, author of Becoming the Media: A Critical History of Clamor Magazine, talks about the lessons that can be gleaned for media and left institutions from the experience of the radical publication Clamor. With host Sasha Lilley.
There is no stable working class under capitalism, contends Yale scholar Michael Denning. He looks at how global labor has been represented, and emphasizes the importance of wageless people to the project of resisting neoliberal globalization.
In his new book "Chechnya: The Case for Independence," Tony Wood, an assistant editor at New Left Review, examines the historical relationship between Russia and Chechnya and makes an argument for Chechen self-determination.
Environmental lawyer and journalist Claire Hope Cummings has written a new book entitled "Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds." Wes Jackson of The Land Institute is working to transform the major grain crops into hardy perennials.
Philosopher and author George Caffentzis critiques Peak Oil and describes how Enclosures continue to devastate workers around the globe.
Stiglitz on the Iraq Occupation Nobel laureate and former chief economist for the World Bank, Joseph Stiglitz, talks about the costs of the invasion of Iraq and the gloomy prospects for the US economy with journalist Doug Henwood.
Sabu Kohso of the group No! G8 Action describes Left movements and workers’ struggles in Japan over the years. And Robert Weil talks about worker resistance in the sprawling factories of Shenzhen, China.
Sociologist Michael Schwartz describes the current catastrophic situation in Iraq and offers an historical and strategic analysis of the US-led war and occupation. And journalist Arun Gupta discusses the specific ways in which the war has been about oil.
Russell Banks’s new novel “The Reserve,” about class relations, love, and deception, is set in the Adirondack mountains. And Lenny Kohm describes the impact of mountaintop removal mining on Appalachian ecologies and communities.