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.
A discussion about the destabilizing influence and radical potential of pensions, in light of the Bush administration’s plans to privatize Social Security, with New Left Review’s Robin Blackburn and guest host Sasha Lilley.
Newdow’s Pledge. Michael Newdow sued to remove the words "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance. He discusses his years-long campaign to get religion out of government. Sally Mahé describes the efforts of the United Religions Initiative to promote interfaith cooperation.
Robin Kelley; Gloria Anzaldúa. Robin D.G. Kelley asks us to consider the dreams of liberation, the flights of imagination, that animated many progressive struggles. Envisioning a better world, he suggests, is at least as important as critiquing the current one. AnaLouise Keating remembers Gloria Anzaldúa, the groundbreaking theorist and writer who passed away last May. … Continued
What happens when civil war and natural disaster collide? A discussion of the long running conflict between Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese majority government and the separatist Tamil Tigers — and how the tsunami catastrophe may affect its outcome.
Lauren Coodley discusses a new book she’s edited about Upton Sinclair and California, entitled The Land of Orange Groves and Jails. And Janet Galligani Casey talks about left-leaning Depression-era fiction, the subject of a new volume she’s edited called The Novel and the American Left.
Thomas Frank, author of What’s the Matter with Kansas?, returns to Against the Grain to talk about why low income Americans vote against their class interests.
Francis Wheen talks about his new book Idiot Proof: Deluded Celebrities, Irrational Power Brokers, Media Morons, and the Erosion of Common Sense.
Looking Back, and Forward What can the Left learn from 2004? Where might progressives and radicals go from here? Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Cynthia Kaufman and David Ruccio evaluate developments of the past year and discuss the prospects for a more imaginative, coherent and effective coalition on the Left.
Cheating and Competing Cheating in school, doping in sports — everyone, it seems, wants to get a leg up on the competition. Evan Watkins sees cheating as a symptom of something bigger: the nature of competition today. He sees collective and cooperative efforts and impulses within what others consider a monolithic political-economic system. (Encore presentation.)
