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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.
What stands in the way of the urgently needed transition to clean energy? What is energy democracy, and what role can it play in the struggle against fossil capitalism? According to Ashley Dawson, a decisive shift toward renewable energy is impossible without a collective struggle to take control of the grid. He says much can … Continued
Socialist Yugoslavia was born out of resistance to fascist occupation during WW2 and ended in dismemberment and civil war. Today, Yugoslavia’s demise is much better remembered than what came before it. Yet socialist Yugoslavia forged a different path from that of the Soviet Union, which broke with it, and experimented with a form of workers’ … Continued
Why does poetry seem so impenetrable to so many of us? Do poets say something and mean something else? Matthew Zapruder talks about what sets poetry apart from other forms of expression; he also suggests ways to approach, read, and get the most out of poems. Matthew Zapruder, Why Poetry Ecco, 2017 Matthew Zapruder, Father’s Day Copper Canyon Press, 2019
From radium poisoning to lead in gasoline, from cigarettes to global warming, corporations have responded to revelations of grave harm with denial and concealment. As environmental lawyer Barbara Freese notes, a familiar pattern emerges of blaming victims, refuting evidence, alleging witch-hunts, and attacking the motives of their critics. She discusses the long history of corporate … Continued
We hear a lot about immigrant farmworkers toiling in the fields, but some of them go on to start their own farms in the U.S. Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern asserts that although many immigrant farmers of color are committed to alternative food practices, they tend to be overlooked in the story of local and alternative food. The ideals … Continued
Coca-Cola is the most ubiquitous of American brands, the symbol of American capitalism and culture internationally, for better and for worse. It’s been a stand-in for American modernity and a lightening rod for global opposition to US corporate and cultural hegemony. Amanda Ciafone discusses the material and immaterial products of Coca-Cola — and the resistance … Continued
What does it mean to be committed to nonviolence, in one’s activism and everyday life? Kazu Haga reveals that Kingian Nonviolence is a principled way of life, one that actively confronts violence and injustice, restores relationships, and helps create what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called Beloved Community. (Encore presentation.) Kazu Haga, Healing Resistance: A Radically … Continued
Within the left, debates rage over whether we should focus on race, class, or gender as the primary form of oppression today. Josh Fattal points to the writings of CLR James and Raya Dunaevskaya as a way out of the conundrum: they saw the struggles of one oppressed group acting as spores for spreading revolt … Continued
In the eyes of the Marxist thinker Rosa Luxemburg, the mass strike lay at the center of revolutionary strategy. What did Antonio Gramsci, another important radical theorist, think of the mass strike, and of revolution? Daniel Egan argues that Luxemburg’s theory of the mass strike is consistent with Gramsci’s emphasis on protracted struggle. (Encore presentation.) Socialism … Continued
What are the best means we have to affect lasting social change? Historian Kevin Young contends that even when progressive candidates are elected to positions of power, their achievements are constrained by the ability of the business class to disinvest in the economy in protest. He argues that, nonetheless, the Left has a powerful tool … Continued
