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KPFA - Against the Grain

Progressive Talk

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.

Location:

Berkeley, CA

Description:

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.

Language:

English


Episodes

Lessons in Self-Managed Abortion

3/27/2024
While the Supreme Court considers restricting abortion pills, feminists in the Global South have shown the way forward for safe abortions outside of the law. Sociologist Naomi Braine has documented the efforts of networks and collectives of activists, some formed in the struggles against dictatorship in Latin America, who provide information, pills, and support in ending unwanted pregnancies without the need for medical personnel. Resources: Naomi Braine, Abortion Beyond the Law: Building a Global Feminist Movement for Self-Managed Abortion Verso, 2023 If/When/How Digital Defense Fund The post Lessons in Self-Managed Abortion appeared first on KPFA.

Angry Planet

3/26/2024
What if Earth were furious with humanity? What if revolutionaries took their cues from an unruly planet? Anne Stewart examines depictions of terrestrial upheaval and grassroots rebellion in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead, and other works. Anne Stewart, Angry Planet: Decolonial Fiction and the American Third World University of Minnesota Press, 2022 The post Angry Planet appeared first on KPFA.

Contemporary Capitalism’s Road Through the U.S. South

3/25/2024
Hostility to unions, lax environmental regulations, and –- perhaps less obviously –- far flung rural communities: all of these helped give birth to our express-delivery, buy-on-credit economy. Environmental historian Bart Elmore considers the importance of the American South to the genesis, reach, and ecological damage of five outsized corporations: Walmart, Coca-Cola, FedEx, Bank of America, and Delta Airlines. Resources: Bart Elmore, Country Capitalism: How Corporations from the American South Remade Our Economy and the Planet University of North Carolina Press, 2023 The post Contemporary Capitalism’s Road Through the U.S. South appeared first on KPFA.

Fossil Fuel Fights

3/20/2024
Are countries like India and South Africa still committed to coal extraction? What plans are afoot to make a just transition to renewable power? Ashley Dawson describes and evaluates struggles against extractivism and for publicly owned and democratically managed renewable energy. Ashley Dawson, Environmentalism from Below: How Global People’s Movements Are Leading the Fight for Our Planet Haymarket Books, 2024 The post Fossil Fuel Fights appeared first on KPFA.

DARE: Promoting the Police

3/19/2024
The program DARE — in which police officers stepped into the role of teacher to warn 5th and 6th graders away from drugs — is an object of humor today. But historian Max Felker-Kantor argues that we should take DARE seriously. He posits that the program, which at its height brought police into 75% of U.S. school districts, was ultimately about burnishing the reputation of law enforcement in the midst of the abuses of the war on drugs, and it served to normalize having cops in schools. Resources: Max Felker-Kantor, DARE to Say No: Policing and the War on Drugs in Schools University of North Carolina Press, 2024 The post DARE: Promoting the Police appeared first on KPFA.

A History of Sanctuary

3/18/2024
What was the modern Sanctuary Movement formed to do? What sorts of challenges has it faced, and how has the movement changed and evolved? Carl Lindskoog considers the history of the Sanctuary Movement, including its expansion into a far-reaching campaign for human rights, economic justice, and peace. Maria Cristina Garcia & Maddalena Marinari, Whose America? U.S. Immigration Policy since 1980 University of Illinois Press, 2023 (Image on main page by Church World Service/New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia.) The post A History of Sanctuary appeared first on KPFA.

In Search of Lost Foods

3/13/2024
Our food system, as well as our ecosystems, is clearly in crisis. Should we look to technological fixes and lab-grown meat to provide food for our future? Or, as writer Taras Grescoe suggests, should we look backwards instead to the lost foods of our past? Grescoe argues that a sustainable future necessitates cultivating food and plant diversity, while reclaiming collective practices, including those drawn from contemporary indigenous peoples. (Full-length interview.) Resources: Taras Grescoe, The Lost Supper: Searching for the Future of Food in the Flavors of the Past Greystone Books, 2023 Taras Grescoe’s Blog: lostsupper.blog The post In Search of Lost Foods appeared first on KPFA.

Portraying Black Loss

3/12/2024
How can people be moved from sympathy to solidarity with an oppressed group? Juliet Hooker considers how the legendary writer and activist Ida B. Wells and Harriet Jacobs, whose slave narrative was the first authored by a woman in the U.S., balanced grief and grievance in an effort to mobilize white people to act to end Black suffering. (Encore presentation.) Juliet Hooker, Black Grief/White Grievance: The Politics of Loss Princeton University Press, 2023 (Image on main page by kkfea.) The post Portraying Black Loss appeared first on KPFA.

The Price of Big Pharma

3/11/2024
Medicines – we’re told by the pharmaceuticals industry – are expensive by necessity owing to the high costs of research and development. Yet, as with the vaccines for Covid, much research is publicly-funded, and much comes out of universities. And, as Nick Dearden argues, only 3% of new drugs even represent actual breakthroughs. Instead most are “evergreened” drugs that Big Pharma tweaks in order to prolong its intellectual property rights. He discusses why the business of pharmaceuticals companies is not public health, but private profit. Resources: Nick Dearden, Pharmanomics: How Big Pharma Destroys Global Health Verso, 2023 The post The Price of Big Pharma appeared first on KPFA.

Fund Drive Special: Allen Ginsberg

3/6/2024
In “The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg,” Jerry Aronson paints a compelling portrait of the legendary writer, visionary, activist, and spiritual seeker. The post Fund Drive Special: Allen Ginsberg appeared first on KPFA.

Fund Drive Special: Rebuilding Habitats in Our Yards

3/5/2024
We are living through the 6th great extinction of species — and governments are doing almost nothing to curb it. Scientist Douglas Tallamy, however, proposes a blueprint for a grassroots effort to restore habitat in a meaningful way, seeing nature not as something to be preserved in parks and reserves far from us, but all around us in our cities and suburbs, farmlands and ranches. The post Fund Drive Special: Rebuilding Habitats in Our Yards appeared first on KPFA.

Fund Drive Special: Allen Ginsberg

3/4/2024
In “The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg,” Jerry Aronson paints a compelling portrait of the legendary writer, visionary, activist, and spiritual seeker. The post Fund Drive Special: Allen Ginsberg appeared first on KPFA.

Duration:00:59:58

Fund Drive Special: Gabor Mate and Steven Porges

2/28/2024
It is hard to measure the impact of social stress and political turmoil on our bodies and minds, but we know they does damage. The physician Gabor Maté has made it his life’s work to examine how stress and trauma make us sick, alienated, and often prone to harmful behaviors. He draws on the ideas of Stephen Porges, originator of Poly-Vagal Theory, and we feature the work of both men today. The post Fund Drive Special: Gabor Mate and Steven Porges appeared first on KPFA.

Duration:00:59:57

Fund Drive Special: Meditation Pioneer Sharon Salzberg

2/27/2024
World-renowned teacher Sharon Salzberg talks about her book “Real Happiness: A 28-Day Program to Realize the Power of Meditation.” The post Fund Drive Special: Meditation Pioneer Sharon Salzberg appeared first on KPFA.

Fund Drive Special: Ilan Pappé

2/26/2024
The death toll from Israel’s assault on Gaza continues to climb. Nearly 30,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli airstrikes since October, two-thirds of them women and children, and almost 70,000 people have been injured. Yet this unspeakable crime has been rationalized by much of the U.S. media. Israeli scholar Ilan Pappé says that such justifications rest partly on a distorted view of the history of Palestine/Israel, including of the multiethnic society that existed in Palestine before the establishment of the state of Israel. The post Fund Drive Special: Ilan Pappé appeared first on KPFA.

Fund Drive Special: Embodied Intelligence

2/21/2024
Philip Shepherd on the importance of recovering “radical wholeness” and experiencing a new way of being. The post Fund Drive Special: Embodied Intelligence appeared first on KPFA.

Fund Drive Special: Recovering Ancient Foods

2/20/2024
Our food system, as well as our ecosystems, are clearly in crisis. Should we look to technological fixes and lab-grown meat to provide food for our future? Or, as writer Taras Grescoe argues, should we look backwards instead to the lost foods of our past? Grescoe argues that a sustainable future necessitates cultivating food and plant diversity, while reclaiming collective practices, including those drawn from contemporary indigenous peoples. The post Fund Drive Special: Recovering Ancient Foods appeared first on KPFA.

Oil & Capital

2/19/2024
What accounts for worker injuries and fatalities in the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota? Should they be viewed as localized phenomena, or are larger socioeconomic processes at work? In his effort to explain oil-boom representations and calamities, Bruce Braun considers and extends Lauren Berlant’s analysis of worker precarity, “crisis ordinariness,” and “slow death.” Braun and Thomas, eds., Settling the Boom: The Sites and Subjects of Bakken Oil University of Minnesota Press, 2023 The post Oil & Capital appeared first on KPFA.

Israeli Universities and the State

2/14/2024
Israeli universities are heralded in the West for their liberalism and diversity, but critics assert that they are a crucial part of Israel’s war making machine. Israeli Jewish academic Maya Wind argues that even before the formation of the state of Israel, universities played a key role in the project of Zionist state-building. She makes the case for an academic boycott and discusses the demonization of Boycott Divestment Sanctions against Israel as it gathers strength. Resources: Maya Wind, Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom Verso, 2024 The post Israeli Universities and the State appeared first on KPFA.

Israeli Universities and the State

2/13/2024
Israeli universities are heralded in the West for their liberalism and diversity, but critics assert that they are a crucial part of Israel’s war making machine. Israeli Jewish academic Maya Wind argues that even before the formation of the state of Israel, universities played a key role in the project of Zionist state-building. She makes the case for an academic boycott and discusses the demonization of Boycott Divestment Sanctions against Israel as it gathers strength. Resources: Maya Wind, Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom Verso, 2024 The post Israeli Universities and the State appeared first on KPFA.