KPFA - Against the Grain

Film brings to us — with unparalleled rawness — what feels like the intimate experience of war. But how true is that visceral feeling? And how do the tension and excitement of war on screen ultimately affect our sympathy toward each other and our humanity? David Thomson, one of the greatest film historians of our time, argues that movies — even those with antiwar intentions — perpetuate war. Resources: David Thomson, The Fatal Alliance: A Century of War on Film Harper, 2023 The post War and Film appeared first on KPFA.

What happened to California’s prisons and jails when the Covid pandemic struck? Why did so many people die behind bars, and why were so many on the outside affected (and afflicted)? Hadar Aviram sheds light on multiple aspects of California’s Covid-19 correctional disaster, including activist efforts to prevent it. Hadar Aviram and Chad Goerzen, Fester: Carceral Permeability and California’s COVID-19 Correctional Disaster University of California Press, 2024 (Image on main page by Annette Teng.)   The post Covid Carceral Calamity appeared first on KPFA.

The pandemic highlighted the vital importance of care work—whether childcare, nursing home care, medical care or schooling – and the struggles many people face to get sufficient care. Would more public investment solve the crisis? Historian Premilla Nadasen argues that the problem lies with contemporary capitalism itself, as care has become an enormous arena for corporate profit, in which the state is often deeply complicit. (Encore presentation.) Resources: Premilla Nadasen, Care: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (Haymarket Books, 2023) The post Profiting from Care appeared first on KPFA.

While the Supreme Court considers restricting abortion pills, feminists in the Global South have shown the way forward for safe abortions outside of the law. Sociologist Naomi Braine has documented the efforts of networks and collectives of activists, some formed in the struggles against dictatorship in Latin America, who provide information, pills, and support in ending unwanted pregnancies without the need for medical personnel. Resources: Naomi Braine, Abortion Beyond the Law: Building a Global Feminist Movement for Self-Managed Abortion Verso, 2023 If/When/How Digital Defense Fund The post Lessons in Self-Managed Abortion appeared first on KPFA.

What if Earth were furious with humanity? What if revolutionaries took their cues from an unruly planet? Anne Stewart examines depictions of terrestrial upheaval and grassroots rebellion in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead, and other works. Anne Stewart, Angry Planet: Decolonial Fiction and the American Third World University of Minnesota Press, 2022   The post Angry Planet appeared first on KPFA.

Hostility to unions, lax environmental regulations, and –- perhaps less obviously –- far flung rural communities: all of these helped give birth to our express-delivery, buy-on-credit economy. Environmental historian Bart Elmore considers the importance of the American South to the genesis, reach, and ecological damage of five outsized corporations: Walmart, Coca-Cola, FedEx, Bank of America, and Delta Airlines. Resources: Bart Elmore, Country Capitalism: How Corporations from the American South Remade Our Economy and the Planet University of North Carolina Press, 2023 The post Contemporary Capitalism’s Road Through the U.S. South appeared first on KPFA.

Are countries like India and South Africa still committed to coal extraction? What plans are afoot to make a just transition to renewable power? Ashley Dawson describes and evaluates struggles against extractivism and for publicly owned and democratically managed renewable energy. Ashley Dawson, Environmentalism from Below: How Global People’s Movements Are Leading the Fight for Our Planet Haymarket Books, 2024 The post Fossil Fuel Fights appeared first on KPFA.

The program DARE — in which police officers stepped into the role of teacher to warn 5th and 6th graders away from drugs — is an object of humor today. But historian Max Felker-Kantor argues that we should take DARE seriously. He posits that the program, which at its height brought police into 75% of U.S. school districts, was ultimately about burnishing the reputation of law enforcement in the midst of the abuses of the war on drugs, and it served to normalize having cops in schools. Resources: Max Felker-Kantor, DARE to Say No: Policing and the War on Drugs in Schools University of North Carolina Press, 2024 The post DARE: Promoting the Police appeared first on KPFA.

What was the modern Sanctuary Movement formed to do? What sorts of challenges has it faced, and how has the movement changed and evolved? Carl Lindskoog considers the history of the Sanctuary Movement, including its expansion into a far-reaching campaign for human rights, economic justice, and peace. Maria Cristina Garcia & Maddalena Marinari, Whose America? U.S. Immigration Policy since 1980 University of Illinois Press, 2023 (Image on main page by Church World Service/New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia.) The post A History of Sanctuary appeared first on KPFA.

Our food system, as well as our ecosystems, is clearly in crisis. Should we look to technological fixes and lab-grown meat to provide food for our future? Or, as writer Taras Grescoe suggests, should we look backwards instead to the lost foods of our past? Grescoe argues that a sustainable future necessitates cultivating food and plant diversity, while reclaiming collective practices, including those drawn from contemporary indigenous peoples. (Full-length interview.) Resources: Taras Grescoe, The Lost Supper: Searching for the Future of Food in the Flavors of the Past Greystone Books, 2023 Taras Grescoe’s Blog: lostsupper.blog The post In Search of Lost Foods appeared first on KPFA.