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 Lauren Shepherd illustrates, such groups like Young Americans for Freedom groomed future Republican leaders and influential conservatives, like Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich. There they learned to spin unpopular politics as popular. (Encore presentation.) Lauren Lassabe Shepherd, Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars in Modern America University of North Carolina Press, 2023 American Campus Podcast The post The Right on Campus appeared first on KPFA.

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 Marxism’s deep engagement with the feline as a way of making sense of class society — and what would be necessary to leap beyond it. She argues that the history of inter-species solidarity between radicals and cats (among other animals) is only now starting to be recuperated. (Encore presentation.) Leigh Claire La Berge, Marx for Cats: A Radical Bestiary Duke University Press, 2023 The post Cats and Marxism appeared first on KPFA.

When we think of potentially dangerous and addictive drugs, most of us think about illegal substances like heroine or cocaine. And yet widely-prescribed drugs like Xanax, Ritalin, Adderall, and Vicodin are also addictive, but legal in the United States. Historian David Herzberg discusses the artificial distinction that has been created between addictive drugs and medicines — with the key difference being the class and race of the consumers who use them and the partial protections that one group receives and the other does not. (Encore presentation.) David Herzberg, White Market Drugs: Big Pharma and the Hidden History of Addiction in America University of Chicago Press, 2020 The post Good Patients, Bad Addicts appeared first on KPFA.

“The bosses have two parties,” they said. “We need one of our own.” In 1996, representatives and activists from hundreds of local and international unions came together to launch a workers’ party — long missing from U.S. politics. Labor Party participant and economist Howard Botwinick discusses the organization’s challenges and promise, and the lessons from its rise and fall — including how the failure to build leftwing politics rooted in the working class created a vacuum that was ultimately filled by the right. (Encore presentation.) Labor Party Archive The post Lessons from the U.S. Labor Party 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. The post Fund Drive Special: Saving and Restoring Nature in Our Gardens appeared first on KPFA.

Historian Joshua Clark Davis disputes the idea that the Civil Rights movement did not organize against police repression. He discusses the extensive involvement of local police departments in disrupting and repressing the movement. The post Fund Drive Special: Local Police and the Civil Rights Movement appeared first on KPFA.

Economist Rob Larson discusses the cloistered world of the very rich, their power and wealth, and their influence over all our lives. The post Fund Drive Special: The Rule of the Wealthy appeared first on KPFA.

When we go to the supermarket, we’re confronted with a vast array of foods — packaged, unpackaged, natural, organic, nonorganic, foods with claims of being nutritious or sustainably farmed or endorsed by the American Heart Association. In the face of such an onslaught, how should we make sense of it all? Nutritionist and molecular biologist Marion Nestle sheds light on the choices we all must navigate when we enter the grocery store. Photo credit: Bill Hayes The post Fund Drive Special: Marion Nestle on Navigating the Supermarket appeared first on KPFA.

In a world in perpetual crisis, how do we live our lives in a way that is both ethical and fulfilling? How do we keep from being buffeted by fear and other negative emotions? William Irvine and Mark Vernon discuss what ancient philosophy can offer us today. The post Fund Drive Special: Wisdom from Antiquity appeared first on KPFA.

Israel and its boosters argue that it’s an exceptional state in the Middle East and a necessary ally for the West. Its technical prowess is purportedly part of what makes Israel so indispensable, on full display during its assault on Gaza. But security scholar Rhys Machold contends that the idea of Israel as a innovative pioneer obscures it dependency on the West since its inception. And he suggests that such mythologies serve to deflect attention from genocide. Rhys Machold, “The Myth of Israeli Innovation” Jewish Currents Rhys Machold, Fabricating Homeland Security: Police Entanglements across India and Palestine/Israel Stanford University Press, 2024 Photo credit: Mohammed Ibrahim on Unsplash The post Israel and the Mythologies of Innovation appeared first on KPFA.

Nothing sounds more wholesome than kids and sports. But as legal scholar Dionne Koller illustrates youth sports have become increasingly commercial, unregulated, and competitive with companies, including private equity firms, replacing publicly-subsidized recreational programs. This highly lucrative industry profits from, among other things, clubs, camps, equipment, mega facilities, and youth sports tourism — exacting a high cost from families and even greater physical and mental cost from children. Dionne Koller, More Than Play: How Law, Policy, and Politics Shape American Youth Sport UC Press, 2025 Photo by Ben Hershey on Unsplash The post The Commercialization of Youth Sports appeared first on KPFA.

The drive to put prices on everything is a basic feature of capitalism. Political theorist Alyssa Battistoni asks then why capitalism has failed at putting a price on so much of nature, which she believes helps illuminate capitalism’s destruction of the natural world. She also argues that the relationship that capitalism forces us to have with the rest of nature makes us less free as human beings. Alyssa Battistoni, Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature University of Princeton Press, 2025 The post Capitalism and the Price of Nature appeared first on KPFA.

Since the global financial crisis, and even more over the last five years, capitalism’s popularity has fallen, while the fortunes of the capitalist class have risen steeply. Polls show that a majority of people under forty, of any political affiliation, view democratic socialism positively and capitalism negatively. Even a majority of Republican voters believe that our economic system favors corporations and the wealthy. Journalist John Cassidy discusses capitalism through the eyes of its critics. (Full-length presentation.) John Cassidy, Capitalism and Its Critics A History: From the Industrial Revolution to AI Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2025 The post Criticizing Capitalism appeared first on KPFA.

As the environmental crisis worsens, not everyone is drawing the same lessons. On the far right, xenophobic and racist ideas are increasingly dressed up as means of protecting nature. And, as scholar Alexander Menrisky posits, contemporary American culture furnishes a wealth of material for the right, from the ubiquity of apocalyptic and misanthropic ideas to concerns with Wellness and bodily purity. (Encore presentation.) Alexander Menrisky, Everyday Ecofascism: Crisis and Consumption in American Literature University of Minnesota Press, 2025 The post The Fodder of Eco-Fascism appeared first on KPFA.

On the occasion of C. S. stepping down as regular co-host of Against the Grain after a 22-year run, he presents some reflections, reminiscences, and excerpts from cherished interviews. The post Stepping Down, Looking Back appeared first on KPFA.

If the problem is religious polarization and inequality, isn’t the solution secular governance? Secularism, after all, promises the equality of citizens regardless of religious affiliation. In a 2016 interview, Saba Mahmood argued that modern secular governance, contrary to its grand claims, has in fact exacerbated religious inequalities. It has also, she said, constrained our political imagination to a significant degree. Saba Mahmood, Religious Difference in a Secular Age: A Minority Report Princeton University Press Obituary: Dr. Saba Mahmood, 1962-2018 The post Secularism’s False Promise? appeared first on KPFA.

How did a fringe rightwing movement calling for lower taxes become one of the most successful efforts in U.S politics, leading to a chronically underfunded government? The answer has more than a little to do with racism. Michael Graetz traces the rise and triumph of the anti-tax movement and the ways that politicians and think-tanks harnessed racial resentments for the benefit of the wealthy. Michael J. Graetz, The Power to Destroy: How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America Princeton University Press, 2024 Photo credit: Mike Meadows, Los Angeles Times The post Racism, the Right, and the Anti-Tax Movement appeared first on KPFA.

In the 1950s the CIA took a keen interest in Kerala, a newly formed Indian state led, beginning in 1957, by a Communist ministry. Richard Franke describes the turbulent events that led to the ministry’s dismissal and the evidence he and T. M. Thomas Isaac have unearthed about CIA stances and ambitions vis-a-vis Kerala. T. M. Thomas Isaac and Richard Franke, Toppling the First Ministry: Kerala, the CIA, and the Struggle for Social Justice Monthly Review Press, 2025 The post Kerala and the CIA appeared first on KPFA.

Are mass protests and elections enough to block the slide toward authoritarianism? Labor scholar and organizer Eric Blanc argues that neither will suffice without exerting leverage on the key pillars of Trump’s support. He discusses how a multi-level campaign against the corporations and other entities that back the administration could be organized, as well as the state of the labor movement and the Supreme Court, the victory of Zohran Mamdani, and what it might take to build to a general strike. Labor Politics Eric Blanc, We Are the Union: How Worker-to-Worker Organizing Is Revitalizing Labor and Winning Big UC Press, 2025 Photo credit: By Jessica Bolanos CC BY-SA 4.0 The post How to Organize Against Authoritarianism appeared first on KPFA.

First-time presentation of the full-length interview with Brandon Keim about his book Meet the Neighbors, in which he considers the explosion of research into animal intelligence, emotion, and sociality; takes research findings out into everyday landscapes; and examines how wild animals are viewed and treated. Brandon Keim, Meet the Neighbors: Animal Minds and Life in a More-than-Human World W. W. Norton, 2025 (paper) The post Animal Minds and Life appeared first on KPFA.