KPFA - Against the Grain Podcast
1) The Mass Revolts of the 2010s
In the decade of the 2010s, more people took to the streets than in any other time in history. And yet those horizontal protests, often spread through social media, were frequently co-opted by the rig...Show More
2) Venezuela, U.S. Power, and the Latin American Left
As Congress considers a war powers vote, economist Mark Weisbrot places the Trump administration’s attack on Venezuela in the context of a longstanding bipartisan campaign to undermine left-leaning go...Show More
3) MoMa and Cultural Imperialism in Latin America
Modern art has always been a battleground — and the highly influential Museum of Modern Art has been partisan since its inception. Architectural historian Patricio Del Real discusses two differing pol...Show More
4) The Rule of the Billionaires
Extreme inequality defines our age. The world’s wealthiest 0.001%, a mere 60,000 people, own three times more wealth that half of the world’s population combined. And such inequality is increasing wit...Show More
5) The Afterlives of Viral Infection
As influenza cases reach a twenty-five year high, a look at the complicated history of long lasting post-viral conditions. Medical anthropologist Emily Mendenhall considers how the medical establishme...Show More
6) Protesting Endless Wars
As the United States seizes control of Venezuela, what lessons can be drawn from the movement against the US occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq? Historian Jeremy Varon reflects on how the anti-war mo...Show More
7) The Trillion Dollar War Machine
The United States spends over a $100 billion dollars more a year on the military than it did at the height of the Cold War. What does it get year upon year for that money? Since 2001, America’s overse...Show More
8) War and Film
Film brings to us — with unparalleled rawness — what feels like the intimate experience of war. But how true is that visceral feeling? And how do the tension and excitement of war on screen ultimately...Show More
9) The Right on Campus
At the height of leftwing activism in the Sixties, conservatives funded tax-deducible rightwing groups on campuses to counter Black Power, demands for ethnic studies, and the New Left. As historian La...Show More
10) Cats and Marxism
Should Marxism be rooted in inter-species liberation? Or is it already, unbeknownst to most of us? Leigh Claire La Berge has delved into what she considers an unrecognized trove of evidence for Marxis...Show More