KPFA - Against the Grain

What role did Irish Catholics play within the U.S. left? Were Irish radicals more interested in freedom from British rule or in anticapitalism? And what effect did religious beliefs have on Irish Americans’ inclinations to break with the mainstream? David Emmons highlights Irish Americans’ contributions to dissidence, progressivism, and radicalism in the United States. (Encore presentation.) David Emmons, History’s Erratics: Irish Catholic Dissidents and the Transformation of American Capitalism, 1870-1930 University of Illinois Press, 2024 The post Irish American Dissidents 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. 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.

The American diet is awash in junk food. More than half the calories Americans eat come from processed food and drink. Three decades ago, with obesity on the rise, the food industry funded scientists to conclude that exercise was the answer, rather than taxing soda and reining in the marketing of processed food. Anthropologist Susan Greenhalgh weighs in on Big Soda’s influence on science — at universities, through front groups — and the ways that companies like Coca-Cola influenced public health in the U.S. and in China, one of the largest markets for processed food in the world. (Encore presentation.) Susan Greenhalgh, Soda Science: Making the World Safe for Coca-Cola University of Chicago Press, 2024 Photo credit: Mike Mozart The post How Big Soda Shaped the Science of Exercise appeared first on KPFA.

Massive amounts of money are needed to address the multiple social and ecological crises besetting societies around the globe. According to Thomas Marois, the lion’s share of that financing will need to come from public banks. But many public banking institutions, he argues, must be democratized and definancialized. Gregory Albo and Stephen Maher, eds. Socialist Register 2025: Openings and Closures: Socialist Strategy at a Crossroads Monthly Review Press, 2025 The Public Banking Project at McMaster University Thomas Marois, Public Banks: Decarbonisation, Definancialisation, and Democratisation Cambridge University Press, 2021 (Image on main page by Christian A. Schröder.) The post Public Banks appeared first on KPFA.

The authoritarianism of the Trump regime calls out for mass radical organizing, but with some exceptions, much of the left has not mounted a coherent response. Journalist Arun Gupta reflects on lessons from the last quarter century – from the Global Justice Movement to Occupy Wall Street, from the George Floyd protests to the Palestine Solidarity Movement, from the primary victory of Zohran Mamdani to immigrant communities’ militant resistance to ICE deportations. Arun Gupta, “The Contemporary History of the US Palestine Solidarity Movement” Socialist Register 2025 Photo credit: Samantha Hare The post Gupta on Left Organizing appeared first on KPFA.

Why are some victims of terror and injustice deemed deserving of care and repair, and others aren’t? David L. Eng looks to the Transpacific, and particularly the atomic bombings of Japan and their aftermath, for answers; he also argues that literature and psychoanalysis can enrich understandings of reparations and human rights. David Eng, Reparations and the Human Duke University Press, 2025 The post Reparations Reconsidered appeared first on KPFA.

Until the mid-17th century, for the vast majority of Europeans, medical care was administered by women for free in the household and neighborhood, using herbs and other formulas passed down between and among generations. Karen Bloom Gevirtz illustrates how and why only a century later, they were supplanted by men who established the basis of our for-profit medical system. (Full-length presentation.) Karen Bloom Gevirtz, The Apothecary’s Wife: The Hidden History of Medicine and How It Became a Commodity UC Press, 2025 The post How Medicine Became a Commodity appeared first on KPFA.

Will artificial intelligence usher in a world of increasing convenience and productivity, as its boosters claim? Or will AI take away our jobs and risk a robot apocalypse? Scholars Alex Hanna and Emily M. Bender say: neither. They warn us against falling for either version of AI hype and discuss the impact of purported artificial intelligence—chiefly large language models and text-to-image generation–on surveillance and work, education and science. Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna, The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want Harper, 2025 Photo by Igor Omilaev on Unsplash The post Hyping AI appeared first on KPFA.

The journalist and essayist Rafael Barrett (1876-1910) inveighed against the array of injustices suffered by Paraguayans, including those working in the yerba mate forests. He also espoused political views that resonate today. William Costa talks about Barrett’s keen observations, blistering critiques, and anarchist politics. William Costa, ed., Paraguayan Sorrow: Writings of Rafael Barrett, A Radical Voice in a Dispossessed Land Monthly Review Press, 2024 The post Rafael Barrett appeared first on KPFA.

Was the populist far right a reaction to neoliberal free market fundamentalism? Or, as historian Quinn Slobodian argues, did such rightwing currents come out of the ideas of neoliberalism itself? Slobodian reflects on neoliberal thinkers’ preoccupation with racist and misogynistic ideas of human nature and intelligence, borders and gold — all in service to their war on the left. Quinn Slobodian, Hayek’s Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right Zone Books, 2025 The post The Neoliberal Roots of Rightwing Populism appeared first on KPFA.