KPFA - Against the Grain

The Republican Party is gripped by a hatred of immigrants. But geographer Reece Jones argues it has not always been so. Instead, one man, the late John Tanton, was responsible for making nativism appear a central concern of conservatives, by propagating scores of anti-immigrant organizations, some which eventually helped staff the Trump Administration. And, as Jones points out, Tanton’s nativism originated from an unexpected place: the environmental movements of the Sixties. (Encore presentation.) Resources: Reece Jones, White Borders: The History of Race and Immigration in the United States from Chinese Exclusion to the Border Wall Beacon Press, 2021 The post Nativism, Immigration, and Environmentalism appeared first on KPFA.

Bunkering and doomsday prepping, far from being eccentric or fringe activities, are baked into U.S. politics. So argues Emily Ray, who describes how Americans have been encouraged, by both Cold War administrations and today’s political elites, to think of doomsday preparation as an individual rather than collective endeavor, one that involves looking to the market for solutions. (Encore presentation.) The post Preparing for Disaster appeared first on KPFA.

Following the attacks of September 11th, the administration of George W. Bush instituted the widespread use of coercive interrogations of detainees, as well as kidnapping, forced disappearance, and sham commission proceedings. Yet for the first several years of the “war on terror” little was known about what the U.S. state was doing to prisoners, until hundreds of lawyers—some from the left, but others even from the military itself—challenged the U.S. government in court. Sociologist Lisa Hajjar describes the legal fight against torture and its legacy now. Resources: Lisa Hajjar, The War in Court: Inside the Long Fight against Torture UC Press, 2022 The post Litigating Torture appeared first on KPFA.

Species extinction and loss of biodiversity may seem like twenty-first century concerns, but according to Wai Chee Dimock, nineteenth-century thinkers like Thoreau anticipated irreversible changes to the natural world. Thoreau, she asserts, was deeply concerned about the fate of both wildlife and Native American populations. (Encore presentation.) Wiggins, Fornoff, and Kim, eds. Timescales: Thinking across Ecological Temporalities University of Minnesota Press, 2020 Wai Chee Dimock, Weak Planet: Literature and Assisted Survival University of Chicago Press, 2020 (Image on main page by John Phelan.) The post Thinking With Thoreau appeared first on KPFA.

Modern art has always been a battleground — and the highly influential Museum of Modern Art has been partisan since its inception. Architectural historian Patricio Del Real discusses two differing political visions of modernism and modern architecture: one rooted in the left, and associated with figures such as Communist muralist Diego Rivera, and the other on the right, represented by the architect and fascist sympathizer Philip Johnson. He weighs in on MoMa’s promotion of a view of modernism in Latin America, stripped of its radical politics and racial fusions, and radiating American power and hegemony. Resources: Patricio del Real, Constructing Latin America: Architecture, Politics, and Race at the Museum of Modern Art Yale University Press, 2022 The post MoMa and Cultural Imperialism in Latin America appeared first on KPFA.

According to Jesse Olsavsky, vigilance committees in Philadelphia, Boston, and other northern cities constituted the militant, highly organized urban wing of the Underground Railroad. Olsavsky stresses the importance of the interviews vigilance committee members conducted with runaways, interviews that acted as crucial conduits for information, ideas, and strategies for resistance. Jesse Olsavsky, The Most Absolute Abolition: Runaways, Vigilance Committees, and the Rise of Revolutionary Abolitionism, 1835–1861 LSU Press, 2022 (Image on main page by Melissa Grimes Guy.) The post The Vigilance Committees appeared first on KPFA.

The wines of Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand are widely consumed around the world, especially in the UK, the heart of the former British empire. And that’s no coincidence. The British imperial project was central to the cultivation and distribution of wine from its colonies, for reasons both ideological and economic. Historian Jennifer Regan-Lefebvre discusses three centuries of imperial wine production and consumption, once primarily reserved for the elite, then later consumed by the lower classes. Resources: Jennifer Regan-Lefebvre, Imperial Wine: How the British Empire Made Wine’s New World UC Press, 2022 The post The Wines of Empire appeared first on KPFA.

Palm oil can be found in a staggering variety of food items and other products we consume every day. Max Haiven traces the history of this ubiquitous commodity’s production and use to reveal capitalism’s logics and imperial states’ depredations. (Encore presentation.) Max Haiven, Palm Oil: The Grease of Empire Pluto Press, 2022 Pluto Press’s Vagabonds series (Image on main page by Lian Pin Koh.) The post Oily Business appeared first on KPFA.

Mike Davis was an exceptional thinker and writer: a deeply committed socialist who dazzlingly illuminated the unfolding ecological and social contradictions of late capitalism. Whether writing about his native Southern California, or contemplating the fate of billions in the world’s mega-slums, Davis gave us new ways of seeing — always with a post-capitalist world in his sights. Geographer Richard Walker discusses the many contributions of his fellow urbanist and radical. The post Remembering Mike Davis appeared first on KPFA.

Many U.S. military establishment bigwigs are pushing the development of automated and autonomous weapons systems. Roberto González questions whether this robo-fanaticism, as he calls it, is justified. He also describes efforts to address human warfighters’ distrust of machines. (Encore presentation.) Roberto J. González, War Virtually: The Quest to Automate Conflict, Militarize Data, and Predict the Future University of California Press, 2022 The post Automated Warfare appeared first on KPFA.