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 San Francisco Bay Area is known equally for Silicon Valley, and the vast wealth generated by tech, and the history of protest and struggle. Yet popular understandings of social movements in the region are often limited to the cities of San Francisco and Berkeley. A new guide shows that dissent and struggle have marked … Continued
Can our fear of aging and dying be overcome? What can we look forward to as we get older? The influential spiritual seeker and author Ram Dass shares insights drawn from Eastern and Western traditions.
Cultural and media workers have a disproportionate impact on how other workers see themselves and the world they live in, whether it’s by selling them something or presenting them with dissenting views. As historian Shannan Clark argues, there was a time when a great many cultural workers saw consumption itself as a political act. Such … Continued
The spiritual pioneer, writer, and teacher Ram Dass on how to embrace aging and changing.
Harriet Tubman and Andrew Jackson are seminal figures in U.S. history. But how accurate a picture have we been given of them, and what would it mean if Tubman were depicted on U.S. currency? Catherine Squires sees a controversy over a “pocket monument” as an opportunity to rethink conventional narratives and reframe U.S. history. (Encore presentation.) … Continued
Do genetics determine the kind of people we turn out to be? Or is it society and our upbringing? Those may be universal questions, but they are much more starkly posed in the case of adoptive parents and children. Sociologist Kay Trimberger reflects on her experience as an adoptive parent and her journey to make … Continued
What are the prospects that a mass movement against capitalism will emerge and develop in the U.S.? Robert Latham considers the power and potential of what he calls the contending masses. And David Ravensbergen evaluates two prominent currents within ecosocialism: ecomodernism and degrowth. Latham, Kingsmith, von Bargen, and Block, Challenging the Right, Augmenting the Left: … Continued
The world around us is increasingly toxic, with 90,000 registered chemicals in the US, most of which have never been tested for their effects on human health. While regulating and banning chemicals and other hazards is ultimately a key political question, physician Aly Cohen argues that there is a fair amount we can do to … Continued
To what extent did Frederick Engels engage with environmental and ecological issues? When Engels wrote about the dialectics of nature, what did he mean by “dialectics”? According to John Bellamy Foster, Engels’s insights into ecology, dialectics, and the environmental conditions of the working class were, and remain, critically important. John Bellamy Foster, The Return of … Continued
The coronavirus has laid bare the divisions and inequalities of our society. It’s also exposed the stark differences in possible approaches to the pandemic. Radical scholar Alexis Shotwell argues that we need to frame our fight as one for collective care, rather than containment and control. She discusses solidarity and the lessons of the HIV/AIDS … Continued
