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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.
1466 Episodes
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In 2024 the world, for a year, exceeded 1.5C – the line in the sand we weren’t supposed to cross or risk runaway global warming. We’re now in an era of overshoot, in which elites are depending upon untested technologies for managing the heating which they refused to halt. Political ecologist Wim Carton contends that there is no substitute for slashing carbon emissions and shutting down the fossil fuel industry. He discusses the perils of continuing to emit carbon dioxide with the plan of capturing it later or eventually harnessing geoengineering to cool the planet by spraying aerosols to block the sun.
Wim Carton and Andreas Malm, The Long Heat: Climate Politics When It’s Too Late Verso, 2025
The post Emit Now, Reverse Global Warming Later? appeared first on KPFA.
Journalist David Graham reflects on Project 2025, the blueprint that the Heritage Foundation drafted for Trump’s second term, and if its goals have been achieved so far – on the environment and economy, attacking trans rights and diversity policies, and projecting military might abroad. He also discusses what may come next.
David A. Graham, The Project: How Project 2025 Is Reshaping America Random House, 2025
The post Project 2025, A Year In appeared first on KPFA.
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 as well as significant damage to public health and the environment. Nutritionist and molecular biologist Marion Nestle sheds light on the choices we all must navigate when we enter the grocery store.
Marion Nestle, What to Eat Now: The Indispensable Guide to Good Food, How to Find It, and Why It Matters North Point Press, 2025
The post Marion Nestle on Food Choices and Food Politics appeared first on KPFA.
Our modern world was born from destruction — and no more so than in North America, which historian Clifton Crais describes as the most violent place on the planet in the 18th and 19th centuries. Crais describes what he calls the Mortecene against humans and the rest of nature.
Clifton Crais, The Killing Age: How Violence Made the Modern World University of Chicago Press, 2025
The post Violence and the Making of Our World appeared first on KPFA.
The global rise of the authoritarian right has confounded classification and led to contentious debates on the left. Do politicians like Modi, Bolsonaro, Orban, and Trump represent an extreme form of right-wing populism? Or are they fascists, as some claim? Historian and scholar of populism and fascism Federico Finchelstein argues that we’re seeing something new — a phenomenon that blurs the lines between the two. (Encore presentation.)
Federico Finchelstein, The Wannabe Fascists: A Guide to Understanding the Greatest Threat to Democracy UC Press, 2024
The post The Populist-Fascist Hybrid appeared first on KPFA.
For as long as we’ve known, humans have revered ancient trees. We have also destroyed them, especially since the advent of colonialism and fossil fuel capitalism. Historian Jared Farmer reflects on what trees illuminate about our past and potential future.
The post Fund Drive Special: Humans and Ancient Trees appeared first on KPFA.
It’s been called a new gold rush, but not of our external environment, which continues to be plundered, but of our internal environment — of our psyches. Historian of science D. Graham Burnett, one of the Friends of Attention, lays out what’s at stake — and how they’re organizing a movement to reclaim our attention.
Please donate in support of KPFA and Against the Grain — which celebrates its 23rd birthday today!
The post Fund Drive Special: Fighting the Fracking of Our Attention appeared first on KPFA.
Capitalism by its nature produces crises and, for the last century, states have responded by imposing austerity measures on the public. Economist Clara Mattei argues that austerity is actually a bludgeon to entrench elite power and repress workers’ aspirations for a more egalitarian society. She discusses its origins—and that of modern economics—during the greatest existential threat to the Western capitalist order.
Please donate in support of KPFA and Against the Grain.
The post Fund Drive Special: Against Austerity appeared first on KPFA.
It’s been called a new gold rush, but not of our external environment, which continues to be plundered, but of our internal environment — of our psyches. Historian of science D. Graham Burnett, one of the Friends of Attention, lays out what’s at stake — and how they’re organizing a movement to reclaim our attention.
The post Fund Drive Special: Fighting the Attention Economy appeared first on KPFA.
Ancient Greece and Rome are venerated throughout our society — including by the far right. Is this a misappropriation and misuse of the ideals of Greco-Roman antiquity? Classical scholar Curtis Dozier argues that when white nationalists appeal to ancient thinkers to justify their reactionary ideas, there is surprisingly much to draw from.
Please donate in support of KPFA and Against the Grain.
The post Fund Drive Special: The Far Right’s Fascination with Ancient Greece and Rome appeared first on KPFA.
Entomologist Douglas Tallamy discusses what we can do to stem the extinction crisis — the loss of habitat and plant and animal species — by transforming the places where we live.
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The post Fund Drive Special: Saving and Restoring Nature in Our Gardens appeared first on KPFA.
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.
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The post Fund Drive Special: Global Capitalism appeared first on KPFA.
A year into Trump’s second term, the power and fortunes of the ultra-wealthy have only grown — following half a century of policies boosting the rich. Economist Rob Larson discusses Trump’s economic agenda, the pillars of his support in tech, and the ways the 1% exercises power, including through the media.
The post Fund Drive Special: The Fortunes of the Wealthy appeared first on KPFA.
Last autumn Italian workers shut down their country in opposition to the Gaza genocide. In the United States, in contrast, labor activists wanting to take a stand in solidarity with Palestinian workers are frequently chastised for trying to involve their unions in the affairs of other countries. Yet labor historian Jeff Schuhrke illustrates that U.S. unions have long been involved in Palestine — for almost a century supporting Zionism and then the state Israel. (Encore presentation.)
National Labor Network for Ceasefire
Jeff Schuhrke, No Neutrals There: US Labor, Zionism, and the Struggle for Palestine Haymarket Books, 2025
Photo by Nikolas Gannon on Unsplash
The post Zionism and U.S. Unions appeared first on KPFA.
Employers regularly check the background of potential workers for criminal records, even though claims that such checks predict their diligence or trustworthiness are dubious. Anthropologist Melissa Burch reflects on how criminal background checks became commonplace — and what vested interests maintain their ubiquity.
Afterlives of Conviction Project
Melissa Burch, The Criminal Record Complex: Risk, Race, and the Struggle for Work in America Princeton University Press, 2026
The post The Long Shadow of Criminal Records appeared first on KPFA.
Did Charles Darwin influence Karl Marx? Joel Wainwright argues that Darwin significantly shaped Marx’s understanding of historical change — with implications for how we meet the ecological crisis today. And he reflects on the potential role of strikes and boycotts in moving beyond capitalism.
Joel Wainwright, The End: Marx, Darwin, and the Natural History of the Climate Crisis Verso, 2025
The post Darwin and Marx appeared first on KPFA.
Was the populist far right a reaction to neoliberal free market fundamentalism? Or, as historian Quinn Slobodian argues, did such rightwing currents come out of the ideas of neoliberalism itself? Slobodian reflects on neoliberal thinkers’ preoccupation with racist and misogynistic ideas of human nature and intelligence, borders and gold — all in service to their war on the left. (Encore presentation.)
Quinn Slobodian, Hayek’s Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right Zone Books, 2025
The post The Neoliberal Roots of Rightwing Populism appeared first on KPFA.
The Trump administration uses antifascism as a term of abuse and has branded Antifa domestic terrorists. Yet antifascism has a long but often little known history in the U.S. Journalist Christopher Mathias describes the efforts of radicals to unmask and dismantle the far right.
Christopher Mathias, To Catch a Fascist: The Fight to Expose the Radical Right Atria Books, 2026
The post Exposing the Far Right appeared first on KPFA.
The groundswell of opposition to Trump’s deportation agenda has been astounding. But there has been a long history of immigrants opposing the U.S. state’s efforts to terrorize and deport them. Historian Adam Goodman discusses the struggles mounted by immigrant workers in the 1970s, the 2006 immigrant workers general strike, and the necessity of organizing lasting movements for change.
Adam Goodman, The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Expelling Immigrants Princeton University Press, 2021
Adam Goodman, “Barring the Gates: A History of Political Exclusion and Family Separation in Cold War America,” Labor (2021) 18 (1): 54–66.
The post Immigrants Fighting Back appeared first on KPFA.
At every step of the process in which communities are policed and punished, states, localities and other public entities benefit financially, along with their partners in the private sectors. Scholars Joe Soss and Joshua Page describe the multitude of ways in which the poorest people — not just individuals, but the communities around them — became a cash cow for extracting revenue for the state.
Joshua Page and Joe Soss, Legal Plunder: The Predatory Dimensions of Criminal Justice University of Chicago Press, 2025
The post Siphoning Revenue from the Poor appeared first on KPFA.
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How would caregivers NOT face pressures and moral dilemmas in other forms of social organization? This is less a diatribe against neoliberalism than an outcry against the realities of being human.
This is basically COINTELPRO. They did this shit during the Black Panthers era
In the middle of minute 22 the interview abruptly cuts out. After a couple seconds of silence a completely different one starts!