KPFA - Against the Grain

Supporting members of the military to resist deployment has taken on a new urgency as Trump sends troops into American cities. Journalist Steve Early discusses the history of soldier organizing — including as workers — from Vietnam to the present. And Suzanne Gordon reflects on why the broad public should care about the administration’s attack on the 1,400 hospitals and clinics that serve veterans, the largest socialized medical system in the country. Common Defense Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute Suzanne Gordon, Steve Early, and Jasper Craven, Our Veterans: Winners, Losers, Friends, and Enemies on the New Terrain of Veterans Affairs Duke University Press, 2022 Photo by Ian Hutchinson on Unsplash The post Troops in Cities; Veterans Under Siege appeared first on KPFA.

This autumn Italian workers shut down their country in opposition to the Gaza genocide. In the United States, in contrast, labor activists wanting to take a stand in solidarity with Palestinian workers are frequently chastised for trying to involve their unions in the affairs of other countries. Yet labor historian Jeff Schuhrke illustrates that U.S. unions have long been involved in Palestine — for almost a century supporting Zionism and then the state Israel. National Labor Network for Ceasefire Jeff Schuhrke, No Neutrals There: US Labor, Zionism, and the Struggle for Palestine Haymarket Books, 2025 Photo by Nikolas Gannon on Unsplash The post Zionism and U.S. Unions appeared first on KPFA.

The global rise of the authoritarian right has confounded classification and led to contentious debates on the left. Do politicians like Modi, Bolsonaro, Orban, and Trump represent an extreme form of right-wing populism? Or are they fascists, as some claim? Historian and scholar of populism and fascism Federico Finchelstein argues that we’re seeing something new — a phenomenon that blurs the lines between the two. Federico Finchelstein, The Wannabe Fascists: A Guide to Understanding the Greatest Threat to Democracy UC Press, 2024 The post The Populist-Fascist Hybrid appeared first on KPFA.

What did the trafficking and labor of enslaved Africans do to and for the British empire? What role did slavery in the Caribbean play in capitalism’s expansion in Britain? Steve Cushion weighs in on these and other matters, including key dimensions of British abolitionism and stances taken by British elites and workers toward the U.S. Civil War. Steve Cushion, Slavery in the British Empire and its Legacy in the Modern World Monthly Review Press, 2025     The post Slavery, Capitalism, and the Brits appeared first on KPFA.

Capitalism by its nature produces crises and, for the last century, states have responded by imposing austerity measures on the public. Governments claim it’s a bitter but necessary medicine to set economies back on track. But economist Clara Mattei argues that austerity is actually a bludgeon to entrench elite power and repress workers’ aspirations for a more egalitarian society. She looks at its origins — and that of modern economics — during the greatest existential threat to the Western capitalist order. Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism University of Chicago Press, 2022 Forum for Real Economic Emancipation Photo credit of Athens protest: Kotsolis The post Austerity: Guardian of Capitalism appeared first on KPFA.