KPFA - Against the Grain

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 surveillance and privacy, including establishing encryption as protected speech. She discusses the battles over government spying from the rise of the internet to the present. Cindy Cohn, Privacy’s Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance MIT Press, 2026 Electronic Frontier Foundation: Surveillance Self-Defense Section 702 Spying Photo by Chris Yang on Unsplash The post Fighting Surveillance appeared first on KPFA.

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 — or crucial cogs in the machine. Dylan Gottlieb, Yuppies: The Bankers, Lawyers, Joggers, and Gourmands Who Conquered New York Harvard University Press, 2026 Photo: Charles Hutchins The post Triumph of the Yuppie appeared first on KPFA.

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 the Female Body Seal Press, 2025 Photo by Peter Zhan on Unsplash The post Sex and Strength appeared first on KPFA.

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’ panopticon to Frederick Winslow Taylor’s ideas of labor optimization to General Electric’s propaganda campaign featuring actor Ronald Reagan — have perennially reinforced the notion that there is no alternative to capitalism. Henry Snow, Control Science: How Management Made the Modern World Verso, 2026 The post Controlling Workers appeared first on KPFA.

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 matched by an equivalent leftward turn of the Democrat Party. Paul Heideman, Rogue Elephant: How Republicans Went from the Party of Business to the Party of Chaos Verso, 2025 Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash The post How the GOP Lurched Further to the Right appeared first on KPFA.

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 Treasure, Sound Affects: How Sound Shapes Our Lives, Our Wellbeing, and Our Planet Grand Central Publishing, 2025 Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash The post Changing Sound appeared first on KPFA.

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 gutting of health care. (Encore presentation.) Brent Z. Kaup and Kelly F. Austin, The Pathogens of Finance: How Capitalism Breeds Vector-Borne Disease UC Press, 2025 The post Capitalism and Insect-Borne Diseases appeared first on KPFA.

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 in the U.S. Please donate in support of KPFA and Against the Grain. The post Fund Drive Special: Artificial Intelligence, the Media, and the Billionaire Class appeared first on KPFA.

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 Special: Against the Attention Economy 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: Fossil Capitalism and Trees appeared first on KPFA.

What has the far right learned from the Frankfurt School? And what can we learn from Frankfurt School thinkers like Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse to understand the appeal of the right? Paul Fleming sheds light on the fixation of conservatives like Christopher Rufo — who has set about remaking higher education — with cultural Marxism. He also discusses Adorno’s insights into the attraction of authoritarian leaders. The post Fund Drive Special: What the Frankfurt School Teaches Us About the Right appeared first on KPFA.

It’s no mystery that the fortunes of the very rich have soared under this administration, but the concentration of wealth in the hands of the very few is a hallmark of capitalism itself. Economist Rob Larson returns to discuss the state of capitalism today, with massive subsidies for the wealthy and a war that’s starting to send shock waves across the world. Please donate in support of KPFA and Against the Grain. The post Fund Drive Special: Back to the Gilded Age appeared first on KPFA.

Please donate in support of KPFA and Against the Grain. The post Fund Drive Special: Unmasking the Far Right 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: Against the Attention Economy appeared first on KPFA.

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. Scott Kurashige, American Peril: The Violent History of Anti-Asian Racism UC Press, 2026 Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash The post U.S. Capitalism, Empire, and Anti-Asian Violence appeared first on KPFA.

Sugar may seem like a natural, almost eternal substance, cultivated over thousands of years. But it was remade by capitalism and turned into a homogenized commodity. Enslaved labor was central to sugar production on vast plantations, which would then be discarded as sugar laid waste to both the lands and human bodies. And, as historian of science David Singerman illustrates, scientific techniques were utilized to standardize sugar, while attempting to replace the knowledge of the workers who labored in its refineries. David Singerman, Unrefined: How Capitalism Reinvented Sugar University of Chicago Press, 2025 Photo by Immo Wegmann on Unsplash The post Sugar and Capitalism appeared first on KPFA.

Fiction that imagines alternate futures is often associated with the left — with writers like Octavia Butler and Ursula LeGuin. But the tropes of science fiction are well-suited to the right and, as Jordan Carroll illustrates, far right authors and aficionados have populated the ranks of speculative fiction since its inception, like ardent science fiction fan and neo-Nazi party founder James Madole. Carroll discusses the right’s ongoing fight to claim the future. Jordan S. Carroll, Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right University of Minnesota Press, 2024 Photo by Robynne O on Unsplash The post Science Fiction and the Far Right appeared first on KPFA.

The power the police wield on the streets of this country is plain to see. Less visible, but no less formidable, is the immense political power and influence that the police exercise. Historian Stuart Schrader describes how police unions amassed enormous power over the last fifty years. Stuart Schrader, Blue Power: How Police Organized to Protect and Serve Themselves Basic Books, 2026 The post The Political Power of the Police appeared first on KPFA.

The left has a long history of predicting the decline of US capitalism and empire. Some argue that Trump is a symptom of that decline — a strongman chosen by capital to set things right — and that the ill health of U.S. capitalism is paralleled by the decline of the dollar. Political economist Stephen Maher counters that U.S. capitalism is robust — to the detriment of most of us. Gregory Albo and Stephen Maher, eds. Socialist Register 2026: Late-Stage Capitalism? Accumulation in the Ruins Monthly Review Press, 2025 The post The Decline of U.S. Capitalism? appeared first on KPFA.

Jews and the left have been closely associated with each other for well over a century, both in Europe where the Nazis genocidally linked one with the other, and in the United States. Scholar Benjamin Balthaser considers the history of American Jews and the left, including in opposition to Jewish nationalism, arguing that the recent florescence of Jewish anti-Zionism is a return to a much longer tradition. (Encore presentation.) Benjamin Balthaser, Citizens of the Whole World: Anti-Zionism and the Cultures of the American Jewish Left Verso, 2025 Photo credit: Bruce Emmerling The post American Jews and the Left appeared first on KPFA.

We often are told there is no other way to organize society — that by our very nature, we’re destined to try to dominate each other. But are such assumptions merited? Primatologist Agustín Fuentes pulls apart the supposedly evolutionary case that humans are hardwired for war. And the late anthropologist David Graeber discusses the active cultivation of pessimism about our ability to organize society in a more egalitarian way. To celebrate KPFA Radio’s 77th birthday, please donate to Against the Grain and KPFA!  Photo by Egor Myznik on Unsplash The post Fuentes on Aggression; Graeber on Egalitarianism appeared first on KPFA.

It’s widely recognized that vast amounts of wealth are now concentrated in the hands of the very few. But less well understood, scholar Ray Madoff argues, is how the U.S. tax code played a key role in that process. She delineates how progressive taxation and the estate tax — designed to tax the inherited wealth of the rich — have been eviscerated. And she also argues that philanthropy, perversely, has increased the wealth of the 1%. Ray D. Madoff, The Second Estate: How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy University of Chicago Press, 2025 Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash The post (Not) Taxing the Rich appeared first on KPFA.

Trump has not only threatened Iran’s civilian infrastructure, but the U.S. and Israel have systematically targeted it since the start of their attack. Historian Golnar Nikpour reflects on the human costs of the war.  And she discusses the Iranian state and prison system since the early 20th century and places recent mass protests — the largest in Iranian history — in the context of cycles of protest and repression in modern Iran. Golnar Nikpour, The Incarcerated Modern: Prisons and Public Life in Iran Stanford University Press, 2024 Photo credit: Saeed Karimi The post Infrastructures of War and Repression in Iran appeared first on KPFA.