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PODCAST

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.

news politics

All Episodes

59:58

Fund Drive Special: The Power of Protest

KPFA - Against the Grain ·

2026/10/07

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 suits, and diktats from the Trump administration.Donate in support of Against the Grain and KPFA The post Fund Drive Special: The Power of Protest appeared first on KPFA.

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59:58

Fund Drive Special: Building the Repressive Machinery...

KPFA - Against the Grain ·

2026/10/06

Historian Kelly Lytle Hernandez argues that our immigration laws were put in place first to protect enslavers, and later elites more broadly, from the insurgent radicalism of migrants, starting with the Haitian Revolution. She looks at the modern construction of immigration control both as a type of counterinsurgency and labor control.Donate in support of Against the Grain and KPFA The post Fund Drive Special: Building the Repressive Machinery of Immigration Control appeared first on KPFA.

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59:58

Fund Drive Special: The Black Anti-Fascist Tradition

KPFA - Against the Grain ·

2026/10/05

The history of African American antifascism is often overlooked, from Ida B Wells-Barnett’s struggle against lynchings to activism against police violence and the carceral state today. In our increasingly authoritarian times, scholar Jeanelle Hope discusses what we can learn from the black antifascist tradition.The post Fund Drive Special: The Black Anti-Fascist Tradition appeared first on KPFA.

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59:58

Fund Drive Special: Erasing the History of Racism

KPFA - Against the Grain ·

2026/09/30

American education has long been a battleground, but struggles over what students learn has become particularly intense right now, when teaching about racism has been prohibited in multiple states. Sociologist Nikki Khanna reflects on what’s missing, including key episodes from US history – from the United States attempts to starve native people, to the massacre of African Americans in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to the mass deportations of Mexican Americans in the Depression, to the Tuskegee syphilis study,

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0:00

Fund Drive Special: Gabor Mate on Capitalism and Health

KPFA - Against the Grain ·

2026/09/29

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, and race, damage our lives and bodies.Donate in support of Against the Grain and KPFA The post Fund Drive Special: Gabor Mate on Capitalism and Health appeared first on KPFA.

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59:58

Fund Drive Special: Howard Zinn on His Life and Times

KPFA - Against the Grain ·

2026/09/28

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 those on top.Donate in support of Against the Grain and KPFA The post Fund Drive Special: Howard Zinn on His Life and Times appeared first on KPFA.

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59:58

Fund Drive Special: Sex and Strength

KPFA - Against the Grain ·

2026/09/23

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 several decades shows that culture shapes strength as much as hormones — and that much of what we presume about sex differences, strength, and athleticism harms all of us.Donate in support of Against the Grain and KPFA Photo by Peter Zhan on Unsplash The post Fund Drive Special: Sex and Strength appeared first on KPFA.

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59:58

Fund Drive Special: The Long Struggle Against Equality

KPFA - Against the Grain ·

2026/09/22

Elites, especially in tech, over at least the last decade have espoused repugnant ideas arguing that extreme social inequality is not only inevitable, but desirable. Acclaimed historian Kim Phillips-Fein argues that there is a long US tradition promoting wealth inequality that has once again moved from the shadows into the mainstream. Please donate in support of KPFA and Against the Grain. The post Fund Drive Special: The Long Struggle Against Equality appeared first on KPFA.

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59:58

When 911 Calls Go Wrong

KPFA - Against the Grain ·

2026/09/21

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 the origins of the emergency response system as a means of quashing social unrest, out of the urban uprisings of the 1960s. Rebecca Neusteter, 911, What’s Your Emergency? The Promise and Peril of Crisis Response The New Press, 2026 Photo by Yassine Khalfalli on Unsplash The post When 911 Calls Go Wrong appeared first on KPFA.

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59:59

New York City and Health Justice

KPFA - Against the Grain ·

2026/09/16

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 free to the Fight for $15 for low wage workers. Public health scholar Nicholas Freudenberg discusses the lessons he’s gleaned from fifty years of activism, including the need to start with people’s daily living conditions.Nicholas Freudenberg, Fighting for New York: Activism for Health and Social Justice Since the 1960s Columbia University

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59:58

All Consuming

KPFA - Against the Grain ·

2026/09/15

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 Stelzner examines the need for ever more consumption under capitalism — and reflects on what our lives might be like if we exchanged the quest for goods for more leisure.Mark Joseph Stelzner, Growth Machines: On the Hollow Joys of Consumption in the Desert of Economic Life University of Chicago Press, 2026 Photo by Obi on Unsplash The post All

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59:58

When the State Kills by Lethal Injection

KPFA - Against the Grain ·

2026/09/14

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 could be further from the truth — but that it’s in the interests of the killing state that we imagine it that way.Corinna Barrett Lain, Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal Injection NYU Press, 2025 Photo by Raghavendra V. Konkathi on Unsplash The post When the State Kills by Lethal Injection appeared first on KPFA.

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59:58

Why Do Rural Poor People Support the GOP?

KPFA - Against the Grain ·

2026/09/09

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 conservative politicians and media have successfully built support for those cuts by claiming programs like Medicaid only help city dwellers, people of color, and immigrants.Michael E. Shepherd, Rural Pain, Republican Gain: How the Republican Party Is Killing Rural America and Why Democrats Are Blamed University of Chicago Press, 2026 Photo

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59:58

Unlikely World Makers

KPFA - Against the Grain ·

2026/09/08

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, producing the food we eat, and enticing our pre-human ancestors to climb down from the trees. And they did that partially through reshaping the formerly adversarial relationship between plants and insects into one of mutual aid and cooperation most of the time. Biologist David George Haskell enumerates our debt to flowers. (Full-length

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59:58

The Black Labor Movement

KPFA - Against the Grain ·

2026/09/07

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 movement, independently organized outside of the official union movement, propelled such efforts. He discusses the black labor movement’s divisions, including in the face of the state’s attempt to destroy it. (Encore presentation.)Cedric de Leon, Freedom Train: Black Politics and the Story of Interracial Labor Solidarity UC Press, 2025 The post The

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59:58

Queen of the Muckrakers

KPFA - Against the Grain ·

2026/09/02

Jessica Mitford revived muckraking journalism in the United States, shaping generations of investigative writers who followed her. She also lived a committed life on the left, despite her ultra-reactionary English upper class origins. Carla Kaplan argues that Mitford is woman for our times.Carla Kaplan, Troublemaker: The Fierce, Unruly Life of Jessica Mitford Harper, 2025 The post Queen of the Muckrakers appeared first on KPFA.

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59:59

Big Tech’s Worldview

KPFA - Against the Grain ·

2026/09/01

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 explores the worldview of Silicon Valley’s owners.Adrian Daub, What Tech Calls Governing Stanford University Press, 2026 Photo by Igor Shalyminov on Unsplash The post Big Tech’s Worldview appeared first on KPFA.

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59:57

Profiting from Drug Legalization

KPFA - Against the Grain ·

2026/08/31

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 certain psychoactive substances. As corporations rush to profit, legal scholar Kojo Koram argues for the legalization of drugs without commercial gain. Kojo Koram, The Next Fix: The Winners and Losers in the Future of Drugs Verso, 2026 Photo by Freestocks on Unsplash The post Profiting from Drug Legalization appeared first on KPFA.

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59:58

U.S. Capitalism, Empire, and Anti-Asian Violence

KPFA - Against the Grain ·

2026/08/26

Recessions, trade wars, labor unrest — in moments of societal crisis in the United States, Asian-Americans have been perennially targeted, from the destruction of Chinatowns by white mobs, to the mass internment of Japanese-Americans during WW2, to attacks against Asians during Covid. Historian Scott Kurashige reflects on more than 175 years of anti-Asian violence and its connection to U.S. empire abroad and a divided working class at home. (Encore presentation.)Scott Kurashige, American Peril: The

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59:59

Beckert on Global Capitalism

KPFA - Against the Grain ·

2026/08/25

Capitalism has transformed the world like no other force, which historian Sven Beckert calls a fundamental break in human history. Beckert traces the emergence and expansion of capitalism, arguing that we can best understand the present by coming to terms with its past. (Full-length presentation.) Sven Beckert, Capitalism: A Global History Penguin Press, 2025 The post Beckert on Global Capitalism appeared first on KPFA.

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