Shows / KPFA - Against the Grain
KPFA - Against the Grain
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.
Episodes
KPFA - Against the GrainRethinking Capitalism
The rise and fall of unemployment, our dependence on the market for our livelihoods — such things are taken as a given. But economist Clara Mattei suggests we…
KPFA - Against the GrainGaza, Yemen, and the Profits of War
A vast circuit of tax payer dollars has flowed to the weapons industry, or directly to Israel, to pay for the bombs that have rained down on Gaza, ultimately…
KPFA - Against the GrainReining in Trump’s Repressive NSPM-7
The Trump administration has built a vast infrastructure of surveillance and prosecution against critics and protestors, justified and enabled by National…
KPFA - Against the GrainJared Kushner and the Reshaping of the Middle East
The allegations are explosive: that the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia set up a secret fund for Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, to finance proxy wars…
KPFA - Against the GrainWealth, Power, and the Trump Administration
It’s no mystery that the fortunes of the very rich have soared under this administration, but the concentration of wealth in the hands of the very few is a…
KPFA - Against the GrainAnti-Fascism and Southern Marxism
This month marks the 100th anniversary of the arrest of the Italian Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci and his incarceration in a fascist prison. Jordan Camp…
KPFA - Against the GrainImmigration Control as Counterinsurgency
The terrorizing and mass deportations of immigrants under the Trump administration may seem an unprecedented descent into an racist order where Constitutional…
KPFA - Against the GrainJustifying Authoritarianism
While Trump’s brand of reactionary politics is crude and often incoherent, a group of intellectuals have sought to legitimize his authoritarianism in the…
KPFA - Against the GrainTech Worker Militancy
Over the last decade, employees in the tech industry defied stereotypes — opposing contracts with ICE and the US military, even organizing to bargain…
KPFA - Against the GrainExposing Forever Chemicals
There’s not a person on earth who does not have PFAS, or Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, in their blood. Mariah Blake reflects on the how these chemicals…
KPFA - Against the GrainCriminalizing Protest
Our era is marked both by mass protest and the increasing criminalization of protest — driven by private interests, as well as states and the federal…
KPFA - Against the GrainBrazil and the Global Far Right
We live in a time, says Brazilian political philosopher Rodrigo Nunes, where it feels like things cannot go on as they are — while at the same time, we can’t…
KPFA - Against the GrainThe Long Struggle Against Equality
Elites, especially in tech, in recent years have overtly espoused the repugnant idea that extreme social inequality is not only inevitable but desirable…
KPFA - Against the GrainOrganizing in a Time of Emergency
How should we organize while the planet is burning and authoritarianism is intensifying? Chris Dixon reflects on lessons for the present, drawn from decades of…
- KPFA - Against the Grain
The Yellow School Bus
What was the most powerful technology introduced into schools in the past century? You might answer the computer, or something like Zoom, or even the slide…
- KPFA - Against the Grain
Fund Drive Special: The Power of Protest
Longtime activist Annie Leonard discusses the rich tradition of protest in this country and why we need to defend it, in the face of anti-protest laws, SLAPP…
- KPFA - Against the Grain
Fund Drive Special: Building the Repressive Machinery of Immigration Control
Historian Kelly Lytle Hernandez argues that our immigration laws were put in place first to protect enslavers, and later elites more broadly, from the…
- KPFA - Against the Grain
Fund Drive Special: The Black Anti-Fascist Tradition
The history of African American antifascism is often overlooked, from Ida B Wells-Barnett’s struggle against lynchings to activism against police violence and…
KPFA - Against the GrainFund Drive Special: Erasing the History of Racism
American education has long been a battleground, but struggles over what students learn has become particularly intense right now, when teaching about racism…
KPFA - Against the GrainFund Drive Special: Gabor Mate on Capitalism and Health
Canadian physician Gabor Mate discusses the maladies that are the norm in our society — how stress and trauma, accentuated by the divisions of class, gender…
KPFA - Against the GrainFund Drive Special: Howard Zinn on His Life and Times
Historian and activist, teacher and playwright — Howard Zinn told a different history of the United States, one of struggle between those on the bottom against…
KPFA - Against the GrainFund Drive Special: Sex and Strength
Are women as strong as men? According to science writer Starre Vartan, in some cases, they are stronger. She argues that scientific research over the last…
- KPFA - Against the Grain
Fund Drive Special: The Long Struggle Against Equality
Elites, especially in tech, over at least the last decade have espoused repugnant ideas arguing that extreme social inequality is not only inevitable, but…
KPFA - Against the GrainWhen 911 Calls Go Wrong
Calling 911 can save lives. But all too often phoning the emergency hotline leads to maiming or death at the hands of the police. Rebecca Neusteter describes…
KPFA - Against the GrainNew York City and Health Justice
Some of the most important struggles for health justice have taken place in New York City — from the Young Lords to ACT UP, from battles to make school lunches…
KPFA - Against the GrainAll Consuming
We live our lives often through the things we buy — presuming the more we have, the happier we’ll be. Have we always thought this way? Economist Mark Joseph…
KPFA - Against the GrainWhen the State Kills by Lethal Injection
Almost 98% of all state executions in the U.S. are conducted by lethal injection, purportedly a quick and painless death. Corinna Barrett Lain states nothing…
KPFA - Against the GrainWhy Do Rural Poor People Support the GOP?
Why do poor, often sick, rural people vote for Republicans even after they slash funding for Medicaid and close rural hospitals? Michael Shepherd describes how…
KPFA - Against the GrainUnlikely World Makers
When we think of world makers, we’re unlikely to picture a flower. Yet flowers completely transformed our planet, giving us rain forests, altering coastlines…
KPFA - Against the GrainThe Black Labor Movement
The struggle for labor across the color line has often been credited to white activists. However, as sociologist Cedric de Leon argues, the black labor…
KPFA - Against the GrainQueen of the Muckrakers
Jessica Mitford revived muckraking journalism in the United States, shaping generations of investigative writers who followed her. She also lived a committed…
KPFA - Against the GrainBig Tech’s Worldview
Big Tech’s owners see themselves as visionaries — as singularly capable of understanding and shaping the future — in contrast to the rest of us. Adrian Daub…
KPFA - Against the GrainProfiting from Drug Legalization
After a century of drug prohibition, during which the use of many illicit drugs increased, states and countries are moving to decriminalize the usage of…
KPFA - Against the GrainU.S. Capitalism, Empire, and Anti-Asian Violence
Recessions, trade wars, labor unrest — in moments of societal crisis in the United States, Asian-Americans have been perennially targeted, from the destruction…
KPFA - Against the GrainBeckert on Global Capitalism
Capitalism has transformed the world like no other force, which historian Sven Beckert calls a fundamental break in human history. Beckert traces the emergence…
KPFA - Against the GrainImmigrant Detention and the “Worst of the Worst”
The Trump administration has justified the mass incarceration and deportation of immigrants by asserting that it’s going after the most violent offenders…
KPFA - Against the GrainAncient Trees and Fossil Capitalism
For as long as we’ve known, humans have revered ancient trees. We’ve also destroyed them, especially since the advent of colonialism and fossil fuel…
KPFA - Against the GrainWhat’s Money For?
We all know that we need money to survive, but most of us don’t spend much time considering its form and uses. Debt, interest, GDP, and capital just seem to…
KPFA - Against the GrainImages, UFOs, and Artificial Intelligence
What can the weird tell us about our world of computer vision and so-called Artificial Intelligence? Artist and geographer Trevor Paglen discusses the function…
KPFA - Against the GrainCounting Care Work
Many in our society are struggling to provide care for their families or communities. Often they don’t have time to do it and can’t afford to pay for it. The…
KPFA - Against the GrainOrganizing to Win
Workers want and deserve decent, dignified, and democratic workplaces. But better wages and working conditions can be elusive in the face of management inertia…
KPFA - Against the GrainCriminalizing Dissent
The Trump administration has been unabashed in its intention to criminalize dissent, labeling protestors “domestic terrorists.” A recent verdict against…
KPFA - Against the GrainOil and Global Capitalism
The ramifications of the US attack on Iran have been a harsh reminder of the centrality of oil to the global economy – and not just for fuel and transport…
KPFA - Against the GrainMarion Nestle on Food Choices and Food Politics
Food affects all of us — but while it’s a necessity for our survival, it’s also a vast, sprawling industry spanning the globe, which generates enormous profits…
KPFA - Against the GrainTrump and the Powers of the U.S. Presidency
The powers of the president of the United States have grown since the Cold War, expanding under both Republicans and Democrats. And many of these presidential…
KPFA - Against the GrainAgainst Climate Doomism
As mega-fires rage around the world, why have so many people given up on the climate fight? Environmental sociologist Diana Stuart examines how fatalism about…
- KPFA - Against the Grain
Fund Drive Special: Unlikely World Makers
When we think of world makers, we’re unlikely to picture a flower. Yet flowers completely transformed our planet, giving us rain forests, altering coastlines…
- KPFA - Against the Grain
Fund Drive Special: Unmasking the Far Right
The post Fund Drive Special: Unmasking the Far Right appeared first on KPFA.
- KPFA - Against the Grain
Muckraker Extraordinaire
Jessica Mitford revived muckraking journalism in the United States, shaping generations of investigative writers who followed her. She also lived an remarkable…
KPFA - Against the GrainStrength and Sex
Are women as strong as men? According to science writer Starre Vartan, in some cases, they are stronger. She argues that scientific research over the last…
KPFA - Against the GrainAmericans: Unequal and Sick
The United States spends as much on healthcare as almost half the world combined, yet so many Americans are unhealthy. Would universal healthcare be enough…
KPFA - Against the GrainThe Mass Revolts of the 2010s
In the decade of the 2010s, more people took to the streets than in any other time in history. And yet those horizontal protests, often spread through social…
KPFA - Against the GrainRolling Stone and the Limits of the Counterculture
It’s often argued that culture is the gateway to politics — that if you can influence cultural values, it will ultimately change society as whole. In the late…
KPFA - Against the GrainFinancial Censorship
Imagine, as a journalist or activist, trying to access your bank accounts and mysteriously finding them frozen. Debanking — when financial institutions close…
KPFA - Against the GrainAmerica’s Drug Binge
Americans as a population have an unusually large appetite for psychoactive drugs, whether legal or illegal. And American history has been marked by periodic…
KPFA - Against the GrainIn Search of Shade
Fossil fuel combustion has made dangerous heat waves ever more frequent. The short term answer — for those who have one — is to turn on the air conditioner…
KPFA - Against the GrainWhat the Movies Have Wrought
David Thomson, the great film critic, discusses his increasing disquiet with film — and how movies have helped deliver us to authoritarianism. He describes…
KPFA - Against the GrainThinking Beyond Prisons
Prisons won’t be dismantled anytime soon. So what does—or should—prison abolition mean? Anna Terwiel draws from Angela Davis’s writings a host of insights that…
KPFA - Against the GrainU.S. Empire and Sexual Morality
Commercial sex and imperialism — army bases and brothels — have often gone hand in hand. But in the early 20th century an emergent U.S. empire defined itself…
KPFA - Against the GrainThe Fall and Rise of Urban Wildlife
One of conservation’s greatest achievements happened mostly by accident and is still hiding in plain sight from most of us. When settlers established cities in…