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.
Just who is President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, and why are leftists around the world looking to him for hope and inspiration? Michael McCaughan, a veteran Latin American correspondent, discusses Chavez, the subject of his book The Battle of Venezuela.
A new film by Robert Greenwald, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, tells the real story of the corrosive effects that Wal-Mart wreaks upon workers and communities.
Geographer Jared Diamond talks about why societies collapse.
Radical scholar Mike Davis talks about the ecological and economic factors that could lead to a bird flu pandemic.
Louise Erdrich spins lyrical, moving stories that interlock and interweave and focus mostly on Native Americans, mostly on the North Plains. In her new novel The Painted Drum, which explores themes of loss, connection and heroism, Erdrich inserts pointed references to racial and political concerns. (Encore presentation.)
Women in Afghanistan have suffered unimaginable abuses. Has anything changed since the US invasion in late 2001? Sonali Kolhatkar, boardmember of the Afghan Women’s Mission, gave a recent talk about the current status of women’s rights in Afghanistan and the history of U.S. policy toward that nation.
Nonviolence according to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi was not, of course, simply an absence of violence. The two men developed, in different locales and contexts, theories and practices of nonviolence explained by Clayborne Carson and Dennis Dalton.
A look at the election as president of Bolivia of indigenous leftist leader Evo Morales and the obstacles that he may face, with Larry Birns of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs and journalist Daphne Eviatar.
Has the US become a fascist state? Henry Giroux is author of a new book entitled Against the New Authoritarianism.
Deeply engaged with issues of race, culture and identity, the award-winning writer Charles Johnson is a philosopher by training. His latest book, a collection of short stories, touches upon more than a few questions about life’s meaning, social justice, and navigating difference. (Encore presentation.)
