Against the Grain – November 29, 2005
An in-depth look at the politics of capital punishment with Lance Lindsey, executive director of Death Penalty Focus, and Phil Gasper, member of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty.
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.
An in-depth look at the politics of capital punishment with Lance Lindsey, executive director of Death Penalty Focus, and Phil Gasper, member of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty.
Could the pen be mightier than the sword? Was it mightier in the early twentieth century than it is now? Lauren Coodley has a book out about the muckraker and novelist Upton Sinclair in California. Depression-era fiction is the subject of Janet Galligani Casey’s book The Novel and the American Left. (Encore presentation.)
Elections are held in nations that the US bullies or invades, and Bush proclaims a victory for democracy. But what is democracy in its truest sense? Ian Angus, author of Emergent Publics, contends that real democracy both depends on and emerges from movements for social change. (Encore presentation.)
Ha Jin talks about his life, his writing process, and his award-winning novels, including his latest, War Trash.
Mark Schapiro and Daryl Ditz talk about the impact that the REACH chemicals policy, just passed by the European Union, will have on toxics in the United States.
When should women fleeing gender-based violence in their home countries get political asylum in the US? Refugee law expert Karen Musalo discusses specific cases as well as the current treatment of gender-based asylum claims.
Since the ascendancy of George W. Bush five years ago, progressives have been spending a great deal of time thinking about how the conservative movement was able to come to power and how the left might be able to emulate the tactics that the right used. But what if, as Jean Hardisty argues, progressives … Continued
Actor Jason Wong discusses the award-winning play Porcelain, about a gay Asian man’s crime of passion. Octavio Solis talks about his new play The Ballad of Pancho & Lucy, inspired by newspaper accounts of a Latino Bonnie and Clyde. And: an appearance by George W. Bush!
Slavery in the US was not just a Southern phenomenon. Slavery flourished, for example, in New York City for more than two centuries. Slavery in New York co-editor Leslie Harris and contributor Patrick Rael discuss the centrality of slavery to New York’s development.
A discussion of the "Frontier Line Project" — Governor Schwarzenegger’s plan to import dirty energy from coal plants into California from Wyoming. With Don Smith of the California Public Utility Commission and resource economist Eugene Coyle.