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 produced and hosted by Sasha Lilley.
The movement of Chinese people – around 300 million of them – from rural areas to China’s cities has been called the largest mass migration in human history. Have the working-class migrants who’ve built China’s megacities been rewarded for their efforts? Eli Friedman describes the obstacles and injustices they’ve encountered, particularly when trying to get schooling … Continued
Pirates are some of the most immediately recognizable figures in popular culture –- and some of the most inaccurately represented. Historian Marcus Rediker argues that the actual pirates who lived during the 17th and 18th centuries created a remarkably egalitarian world for themselves at sea, democratically electing their leaders and sharing their takings equally. Resources: … Continued
A women’s history-themed program featuring Bettina Aptheker on her efforts to assist Angela Davis and her turn toward feminism; Jennifer Guglielmo on Italian American women anarchists in New York City; and Manijeh Moradian on an Iranian women’s uprising amidst the revolutionary ferment of 1979. Bettina Aptheker, Intimate Politics: How I Grew Up Red, Fought for … Continued
What can our fantasies about space tell us about life on earth? Fred Scharman discusses competing visions for long-term space occupancy over the last century and a half, many of them emanating from Russia and the United States even before the Cold War, and now monopolized by billionaires like Elon Musk. (Encore presentation.) Resources: Fred … Continued
What makes one group of people show up and stand up for another group’s interests? Manijeh Moradian describes how what she calls affects of solidarity spurred Iranian student leftists in the U.S. to become active in Black liberation, Palestine liberation, and other radical movements and struggles of the 1960s and ‘70s. Manijeh Moradian, This Flame … Continued
Following the attacks of September 11th, the administration of George W. Bush instituted the widespread use of coercive interrogations of detainees, as well as kidnapping, forced disappearance, and sham commission proceedings. Yet for the first several years of the “war on terror” little was known about what the U.S. state was doing to prisoners, until … Continued
According to Jesse Olsavsky, vigilance committees in Philadelphia, Boston, and other northern cities constituted the militant, highly organized urban wing of the Underground Railroad. According to Olsavsky, the interviews conducted by vigilance committee members with runaways acted as crucial conduits for information, ideas, and strategies for resistance. (Encore presentation.) Jesse Olsavsky, The Most Absolute Abolition: Runaways, Vigilance … Continued
Twenty years ago, Against the Grain came on the air for the first time, in the midst of turmoil, protest, and impending war. In the second half of a two part retrospective, historian Iain Boal discusses the context out of which Against the Grain emerged, from the media reform, global justice, and antiwar movements at … Continued
In the first of a two-show retrospective marking Against the Grain’s twentieth anniversary, C. S. presents excerpts of some of his favorite interviews. Featured are David Hawkes talking about money, magic, and ideology; Laura Kipnis on monogamous coupledom; Theodore Brown on the history of socialism; Juliet Hooker on “democratic loss” and Black activism; and Louise … Continued
The poorest and most vulnerable regularly find themselves at the mercy of the juvenile and criminal justice systems – through policing and detention, of course, but also child removals and child support, property seizure, and probation. Scholar and lawyer Daniel Hatcher illustrates how U.S. courts, prosecutors, sheriffs, and probation departments are generating vast amounts of … Continued
