KPFA - Against the Grain

What if humans acted with nature, not on it? What would farming look like if we stopped trying to master and dominate the environment? According to Andrew Pickering, the no-plowing, no-weeding form of farming developed by Masanobu Fukuoka is a shining example of poiesis, an acting-with that attunes human activity to the propensities of natural phenomena. Andrew Pickering, Acting with the World: Agency in the Anthropocene Duke University Press, 2025 (Image on main page by Jim O’Neil.) The post Acting with the World appeared first on KPFA.

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 right — and the decade ended with the rise of authoritarianism. Journalist Vincent Bevins spoke to activists around the world about the lessons they drew from the failed mass revolts, and discusses how democratic movements regained power in Brazil from the despotic Jair Bolsonaro. Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution Public Affairs, 2023 Vincent Bevins, “This Land Is Our Land: How Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement Emerged from Right-wing Rule Stronger Than Ever” The Nation, April 8, 2025 Photo credit: Jonathan Rashad The post The Mass Revolts of the 2010s appeared first on KPFA.

While we’re told by politicians that the ideas of Karl Marx are foreign and have no place in this country, history proves otherwise. Andrew Hartman shows that Marx and Marxism have had an a significant influence on the United States, from Marx’s journalistic writings for the New York Daily Tribune, on the mass politics of the Socialist and Communist Parties and the Wobblies, on the most radical edge of the New Deal and the New Left, and finally with the return to Marx’s ideas since the Global Financial Crisis. Andrew Hartman, Karl Marx in America University of Chicago Press, 2025 The post American Marx appeared first on KPFA.

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. 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.

Lasting contributions to radical political thought were made by Antonio Gramsci, the Italian thinker, writer, and politician who was imprisoned by Mussolini’s fascist regime. Andy Merrifield discusses Gramsci’s insights into political economy, everyday experience, social change, and the role of intellectuals. Andy Merrifield, Roses for Gramsci Monthly Review Press, 2025 (Image on main page by angrodZ.) The post How Gramsci Thought appeared first on KPFA.

The United States has often been celebrated as a nation of immigrants. Yet over the last century, the U.S. government expelled more people than were allowed to stay permanently. Historian Adam Goodman describes the U.S. state’s “deportation machine,” motivated by a shifting combination of bureaucratic self-interest, capitalist gain, and racism, which Trump has now put at the center of his presidency. He also discusses how immigrants and their allies have fought back over this long history of expulsion and terror. Adam Goodman, The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Expelling Immigrants Princeton University Press, 2020 The post Driving Out Immigrants appeared first on KPFA.

Black parents worry about racism’s impact on their children. Jennifer C. Nash is interested in both the nature of racialized anxiety and the way it’s rendered visible to the general public. Among other things, she looks at how Black mothers have used the epistolary form to convey their concerns, fears, and hopes. Jennifer C. Nash, How We Write Now: Living with Black Feminist Theory Duke University Press, 2024 The post Conveying Black Loss appeared first on KPFA.

No one escapes trauma or avoids stress. But what happens to our ability to imagine and pursue justice when individual and collective trauma goes unaddressed? Hala Khouri lays out a framework for understanding trauma; she also points to the important role that embodied practices can play in processes of healing and self-care. (Encore presentation.) Tessa Hicks Peterson and Hala Khouri, eds., Practicing Liberation: Transformative Strategies for Collective Healing and Systems Change, North Atlantic Books, 2024. Hala Khouri, Tessa Hicks Peterson, and Keely Nguyễn, Practicing Liberation Workbook: Radical Tools for Grassroots Activists, Community Leaders, Teachers, and Caretakers Working Toward Social Justice, North Atlantic Books, 2024.   The post Hala Khouri on Trauma, Healing, and Social Change appeared first on KPFA.

While we’re told by politicians that the ideas of Karl Marx are foreign and have no place in this country, history proves otherwise. Andrew Hartman shows that Marx and Marxism have had an a significant influence on the United States, from Marx’s journalistic writings for the New York Daily Tribune, to the mass politics the Socialist and Communist Parties and the Wobblies, on the most radical edge of the New Deal, and the New Left, and finally with the return to Marx’s ideas since the Global Financial Crisis. To support our mission and receive Andrew Hartman’s book Karl Marx in America as a thank-you gift, please donate here or call (800) 439-5732 (800-HEY-KPFA).   The post Spring Fund Drive Special: Marx’s Influence on America appeared first on KPFA.

Mark Matousek discusses his book “Emerson, the Stoics, and Me: Timeless Wisdom for Living an Authentic Life.” The post Fund Drive Special: Emerson and the Stoics appeared first on KPFA.