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.
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
Opioid drugs were widely and readily prescribed, and hundreds of thousands of people became addicted and died. What explains the opioid epidemic in the U.S.? What kind of pain were these drugs taken to alleviate – and what is the root of such suffering? Max Haiven draws connections between the opioid crisis and racial politics, corporate … Continued
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
If a loved one of yours were murdered, the grief might be overwhelming – but what if you also found the police biased and disrespectful, the detectives dismissive, the investigation ineffective, and support services inadequate? Roxanna Altholz has produced a report detailing the lived experiences of mostly African American family members of unsolved homicide victims in … Continued
