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 co-produced and co-hosted by Sasha Lilley and C. S. Soong.

Episodes

Technocreep

August 19, 2025 • 11 mins
Many new and emerging smart technologies are characterized as creepy. What’s the basis for these claims, and how should we respond to them? Neda Atanasoski and Nassim Parvin consider creepy technologies and their impact with an eye toward collective ethics, politics, and futures. They contest the notion that asserting privacy rights is the only way to address concerns associated with the proliferation of surveillance technologies. ...
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The Making of an Antiracist and Anticapitalist

August 18, 2025 • 59 mins
White working class people are frequently dismissed by liberals as intractably racist — the purported bedrock of reaction in this country. While the support of working class whites has never been sufficient to explain the rise of Donald Trump, it’s still worth asking what does it take to shift the politics of white workers brought up conservative and racist. Historian David Roediger’s life has been spent grappling with such questio...
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Making Services Public

August 13, 2025 • 23 mins
The Left has decried the privatization of services like water and electricity. Is it enough to return them to public ownership and control? According to David A. McDonald, the goal should be more equitable, democratic, and non-marketized forms of public services. He considers the role that so-called remunicipalization can play in environmental and social justice efforts. Gregory Albo and Stephen Maher, eds. Socialist Register 2025:...
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Manipulating Alzheimer’s Research

August 12, 2025 • 45 secs
Billions of dollars have been spent on Alzheimer’s research over many decades, yet no effective treatment exists. Investigative journalist Charles Piller has revealed one reason for the impasse: pivotal scientific research into Alzheimer’s disease — affirming the hypothesis that it’s caused by sticky amyloid plaques in the brain — was based on manipulated images. (Encore presentation.) Resources: Charles Piller, Doctored: Fraud, ...
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Preparing for Climate Emergencies

August 11, 2025 • 32 secs
The climate crisis no longer looms in the future, but has arrived in the form of deadly heat waves, enormous floods and wildfires, hurricanes, and droughts. It’s clear that, along with fighting to slow climate change, we also need to protect ourselves and the most vulnerable around us from the devastating effects of global warming — especially as the Trump administration slashes existing safeguards. Science writer and broadcaster D...
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Phosphorus: Reaping the Harvest

August 6, 2025 • 53 mins
It’s both a precious resource and a dangerous pollutant, exponentially increasing crop yields, while fouling our waterways with blue-green algae. The element phosphorus has played a crucial role in agriculture and war, while its reserves are unevenly distributed, with much of the world’s supply located in the occupied territories of Western Sahara. Writer Dan Egan discusses the double-edged nature of an element that is increasingly...
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Radical Satisfaction

August 5, 2025 • 8 mins
When the system is stacked against you, when mainstream society sidelines you (or worse), where do you look for liberatory possibilities? Eve Dunbar describes how Ann Petry, author of the 1946 novel “The Street” as well as YA novels about Harriet Tubman and Tituba, insisted on satisfaction and not merely survival. Dunbar also talks about the value of what she calls monstrous work. Eve Dunbar, Monstrous Work and Radical Satisfaction...
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Getting Homelessness Wrong

August 4, 2025 • 2 mins
Many assume the majority of people living on the streets struggle with mental illness or just need jobs — and that homelessness is unfortunate, but intractable. Longtime advocate for the unhoused, Mary Brosnahan, argues that these are myths, and that much of what we assume about homelessness is wrong. She posits that at its root is the capitalist commodification of housing, illustrated in the past by Bronx landlords getting rid of ...
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Fund Drive Special: What It Takes to Heal

July 30, 2025 • 7 mins
Prentis Hemphill discusses their book “What It Takes to Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World.” The post Fund Drive Special: What It Takes to Heal appeared first on KPFA.
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Fund Drive Special: Preparing Oneself for Climate Emergencies

July 29, 2025 • 19 secs
The climate crisis no longer looms in the future, but has arrived in the form of deadly heat waves, enormous floods and wildfires, hurricanes, and droughts. It’s clear that, along with fighting to slow climate change, we also need to protect ourselves and the most vulnerable around us from the devastating effects of global warming — especially as the Trump administration slashes existing safeguards. Science writer and broadcaster D...
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Fund Drive Special: Emerson and the Stoics

July 28, 2025 • 59 mins
Mark Matousek discusses his book “Emerson, the Stoics, and Me: Timeless Wisdom for Living an Authentic Life.” The post Fund Drive Special: Emerson and the Stoics appeared first on KPFA.
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Fund Drive Special: Fighting for the Redwoods

July 23, 2025 • 7 mins
How was it that in less than two centuries the world’s tallest trees, the majestic redwoods, were almost logged off the face of the earth? And this despite the efforts over many generations, starting in the late 19th century, to preserve them. Greg King, writer and forest activist, argues that one of the world’s first greenwashing organizations – the Save the Redwoods League, founded by white supremacists – played a key role. He de...
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Fund Drive Special: Self-Hypnosis & Hypnotherapy

July 22, 2025 • 4 mins
Daniel Fryer talks about his book “How to Cope with Almost Anything with Hypnotherapy: Simple Ideas to Enhance Your Wellbeing and Resilience.” The post Fund Drive Special: Self-Hypnosis & Hypnotherapy appeared first on KPFA.
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Mitigating Flooding

July 21, 2025 • 57 mins
Floods are the most destructive natural disaster and, thanks to a heating climate, the damages caused by floods are expected to worsen significantly. Flood mitigation of the past, such as levies and dams, has proved inadequate and often counterproductive by mis-allocating precious resources. Tim Palmer argues that it’s time to start relocating our built environment out of the places with a high likelihood of flooding. (Encore prese...
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Climate and Suffrage Struggles

July 16, 2025 • 59 mins
They fought to secure the vote for women. They used direct action, civil disobedience, and increasingly militant tactics to pursue their goals. Feyzi Ismail assesses the strategies and tactics of a group of British suffragettes with an eye toward building a more effective climate movement. Gregory Albo and Stephen Maher, eds. Socialist Register 2025: Openings and Closures: Socialist Strategy at a Crossroads The post Climate and Suf...
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Is Freedom a Choice?

July 15, 2025 • 7 mins
Our lives are filled with innumerable choices, such as for the countless array of products for us to buy, assuming we can afford them. Our politics are often framed as a question of individual, not collective, choice such as the freedom to choose to have an abortion or the act of casting one’s vote in secret, away from the eyes other others. Historian Sophia Rosenfeld argues that the notion that freedom means “the freedom to choose...
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Wobbly Extraordinaire

July 14, 2025 • 26 secs
Over the course of two decades, publications of the Industrial Workers of the World featured the influential writings of a hobo, transient worker, columnist, poet, and songwriter named T-Bone Slim. Owen Clayton talks about Slim’s focus on workers’ everyday lives under capitalism, his political stances, his use of humor, and his commitment to worker organizing. Owen Clayton and Iain McIntyre, eds., The Popular Wobbly: Selected Writi...
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Racial Justice Through Raising the Minimum Wage

July 9, 2025 • 4 mins
The federal minimum wage languishes at $7.25 an hour and has not been raised since 2009. Given the disproportionate number of workers of color who receive the minimum wage or less, legal scholar Ruben Garcia argues that the fight for racial justice has to include raising the minimum wage. (Encore presentation.) Ruben J. Garcia, Critical Wage Theory: Why Wage Justice Is Racial Justice UC Press, 2024 Photo credit: Fibonacci Blue The...
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Irish American Dissidents

July 8, 2025 • 1 min
What role did Irish Catholics play within the U.S. left? Were Irish radicals more interested in freedom from British rule or in anticapitalism? And what effect did religious beliefs have on Irish Americans’ inclinations to break with the mainstream? David Emmons highlights Irish Americans’ contributions to dissidence, progressivism, and radicalism in the United States. (Encore presentation.) David Emmons, History’s Erratics: Irish ...
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The Fodder of Eco-Fascism

July 7, 2025 • 11 mins
As the environmental crisis worsens, not everyone is drawing the same lessons. On the far right, xenophobic and racist ideas are increasingly dressed up as means of protecting nature. And, as scholar Alexander Menrisky posits, contemporary American culture furnishes a wealth of material for the right, from the ubiquity of apocalyptic and misanthropic ideas to concerns with Wellness and bodily purity. Alexander Menrisky, Everyday ...
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