KPFA - Against the Grain

Americans as a population have an unusually large appetite for psychoactive drugs, whether legal or illegal. And American history has been marked by periodic moral panics over drug use and normalization or legalization, as we’re experiencing right now. Why is that? What is it about US society that makes drug use simultaneously so appealing and reviled? Writer and scholar Benjamin Fong weighs in. (...

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. But air conditioning makes the the problem even worse. Environmental journalist Sam Bloch discusses the ways that cities used to be designed for shade, and stresses the urgent need for shelter from the sun — especially for the unhoused, farm w...

David Thomson, the great film critic, discusses his increasing disquiet with film — and how movies have helped deliver us to authoritarianism. He describes film’s adulation of power, which has been almost religiously illuminated on the screen. David Thomson, A Sudden Flicker of Light: A Revisionist History of Movies Simon & Schuster, 2026 Book Launch with David Thomson at the Pacific Film Archive...

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 buttress what Terwiel considers a realist political project. Among other things, she examines Davis’s prison abolitionism in light of her democratic socialist commitments and her understanding of Radical Reconstruction. Anna Terwiel, Prison...

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 as rooted in sexual purity. Historian Eva Payne describes how a heavy price for this notion of American exceptionalism was paid by women in the United States, who were policed and punished, along with those in U.S. colonies like the Philippin...

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 the United States, they decimated the existing ecosystems. But in recent decades, as environmental historian Peter Alagona illustrates, there has been a remarkable return of wildlife to urban areas across the country. (Encore presentation.)...

How did conservatives come to dominate so much of the media in the U.S.? Historian A.J. Bauer looks at the formative period between the advent and repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in which the right borrowed from the left to sharpen its criticism of the media — ultimately giving rise to a rightwing media ecosystem with its own commercial imperatives. A. J. Bauer, Making the Liberal Media: How Conse...

For many decades, the idea has held sway that we humans should leave consequential decisions to a higher power: computers. And that assumption has become more deeply entrenched, the more powerful computers have become. How did our world come to be seen as an imaginary casino, with every decision to be stripped down to costs and benefits, risks and rewards? Computer scientist Benjamin Recht traces...

The backlash against trans people, which has swept both the United States and the world in recent years, is not as new as it seems, according to historian Jules Gill-Peterson. She traces the emergence of trans misogynistic violence over the last two centuries, which she links to the establishment of colonialism, capitalism, and more recently neoliberalism. (Encore presentation.) Resources: Jules G...

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 need to recognize them as being fundamentally political phenomena, not the product of natural laws outside of our control. She argues that a reconsideration of our capitalist economy is long overdue. Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism:...

It’s been called a new gold rush, yet not of our external environment, but of our internal environment — of our minds and 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 Strother School of Radical Attention The Friends of Attention, Attensity! A Manifesto of the Attention...

The Texas Republican Party has evolved from a corporate libertarian institution to one in which free market capitalism and evangelical Christianity are united in authoritarianism. Political scientist Clyde Barrow warns that Texan Christofascism serves as the rightwing blueprint for the rest of the United States in the coming years. Gregory Albo and Stephen Maher, eds. Socialist Register 2026: Late...

Scholar Emmaia Gelman reflects on the Anti-Defamation League’s long history of targeting the left in the United States and abroad. She describes the purported civil right group’s involvement in the Red Scare, its surveillance of left organizations, and role in branding as antisemitic those who criticize Israel. Emmaia Gelman, The Anti-Defamation League and the Racial State UC Press, 2026 The post...

The Trump administration has exposed the enormous power, as well as astounding wealth, of the billionaire class. And the power of that class partially emanates from their ownership of much of our media system, with significant political consequences. Economist Rob Larson returns to discuss the 1%, AI and the massive build out of data centers, and the decline of press freedom in the U.S. (Full-leng...

The revelations of widespread surveillance by the National Security Agency after 9/11 brought to light one aspect of how the government has capitalized on digital technology to amass power – and such dangers have only multiplied. Cindy Cohn, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has been involved in numerous groundbreaking legal battles with the U.S. government over surveillanc...

In the 1980s, yuppies were celebrated in the media and reviled by many others. Working in finance or as management consultants or lawyers, they quickly put their stamp on cities around the country, displacing working class people in places like New York, and remaking the Democratic Party. Historian Dylan Gottleib examines whether they were drivers of financialization and growing social inequality...

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. Starre Vartan, The Stronger Sex: What Science Tells Us about the Power of...

Over the past four centuries, owners have sought to wrest control of the labor process away from the workers in plantations, factories, and warehouse. Ideas about labor management, dressed up as a science, have often failed on the shop floor, but they have served a broader purpose. Labor historian Henry Snow interrogates how theories of discipline and management — from the Bentham brothers’ panopt...

The Republican Party has traditionally been the party of the business class. But since the era of Newt Gingrich in the 1990s, the GOP has been marked by internal strife and ideological chaos — and in the last presidential election, the business class overwhelmingly supported Harris over Trump. Historian Paul Heideman considers the makings of a far rightward shift by the GOP, which has not been mat...

We inhabit a world in which what we look at — what we see, read, scroll through — has often supplanted what we hear. The visual has replaced sound. But, of course, sounds are everywhere, both human-made and made by the rest of nature. Julian Treasure reflects on the importance of sound in our lives — between ourselves, other living things, and in the surroundings of our built environment. Julian T...

Over the last half century, diseases carried by insects — such as malaria and dengue, Zika and Lyme disease — have greatly increased. Sociologists Brent Kaup and Kelly Austin argue that the surge in vector-borne disease has been fueled by neoliberal capitalism, at times in unexpected ways, such as through loosened financial regulations governing mortgages and health insurance, as well as the gutti...

If it weren’t obvious before, the Trump administration has exposed the enormous power, as well as astounding wealth, of the billionaire class. And the power of that class partially emanates from their ownership of much of our media system, with significant political consequences. Economist Rob Larson discusses the 1%, AI and the massive build out of data centers, and the decline of press freedom i...

A radio and web media project whose aim is to provide in-depth analysis and commentary on a variety of matters — political, economic, social and cultural — important to progressive and radical thinking and activism. The post Against the Grain – May 19, 2026 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. The post Fund Drive Specia...

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: Fossil Capitalism and Trees appeared first on KPFA.