KPFA - Against the Grain

Every October, the United States officially celebrates Columbus Day. Yet the story of Columbus is shrouded in myth and falsehoods, on display in the textbooks American kids are assigned. Sociologist and educator James Loewen, who died recently, set out to challenge that myth-making in his book Lies My Teacher Told Me, providing a salutary antidote to official history making and teaching. The post Fund Drive Special: The Myths of U.S. History appeared first on KPFA.

The Zen master and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Thich Nhat Hanh, who died on January 22, spoke about how to generate and cultivate happiness, mindfulness, and compassion. photo: Fabrizio Chiagano via Unsplash The post Fund Drive Special: Thich Nhat Hanh appeared first on KPFA.

Retirement is something many of us don’t think much about, hoping we’ll have enough to live on when the time comes. But chances are, unless we’re lucky, we won’t. James Russell argues that the widespread shortfall in retirement income is the result of a bipartisan effort going back decades to move our savings away from traditional pensions to accounts like 401(k)s that enrich the financial services industry at our expense. Resources: James W. Russell, The Labor Guide to Retirement Plans: For Union Organizers and Employees Monthly Review Press, 2021 The post Not Enough to Retire On 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. 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.

Over a decade ago — in response to grassroots organizing against mass incarceration and police violence — a bipartisan coalition took shape. It brought together billionaires, large liberal non-profits, universities, rightwing think tanks, and politicians from both parties. Its stated aim was to reform the bloated criminal justice system on humanitarian grounds. Kay Whitlock argues that it spawned an industry of its own that stood to gain politically and economically from altering and often expanding the carceral system, instead of cutting it back. Resources: Prison Policy Initiative “Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie” Kay Whitlock and Nancy A. Heitzeg, Carceral Con: The Deceptive Terrain of Criminal Justice Reform UC Press, 2021 The post Criminal Justice Reform Inc. appeared first on KPFA.

If emancipation is what we seek, what form should it take? How far can legal reforms and rights decrees take us toward a better world? Peter Burdon mines Marx’s “On the Jewish Question” essay for insights into how to think about emancipation and whether legal initiatives can deliver true freedom and equality. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law Peter Burdon, Earth Jurisprudence: Private Property and the Environment Routledge, 2015 (Image on main page by Eric Haynes/Creative Commons.) The post Forms of Emancipation appeared first on KPFA.

While the Trump Administration’s policy of separating children from their parents at the US-Mexico border drew intense condemnation, the practice has been going on in this country for centuries. Historian Laura Briggs argues that it has been part of strategy of counterinsurgency, as during the anti-communist wars in Latin America, in which rebellious populations are terrorized by having their children taken. (Encore presentation.) Resources: Laura Briggs, Taking Children: A History of American Terror UC Press, 2021 The post Separating Children as Counterinsurgency appeared first on KPFA.

Is policing in the U.S. primarily about catching criminals, maintaining order, or brutalizing African Americans? Ben Brucato locates the origins of U.S. police in the early slave patrols, patrols whose mandate was to uphold white racial domination over Blacks. He argues that the institutions of police and of race were created in tandem. Social Justice (Photo on main page by Matt Popovich on Unsplash.) The post Race, Slavery, and the Origins of Police appeared first on KPFA.

In the aftermath of World War Two, as the United States consolidated its position as a global superpower, it was confronted with significant challenges from below and shifting political terrain — anti-colonial struggles around the world and civil rights struggles domestically. To handle both, the U.S state turned to the police, who were sent overseas to assist in counterinsurgency and brought back to quell domestic unrest. As Stuart Schrader argues, the link between foreign counterinsurgency and domestic repression casts a long shadow on the present. (Full-length interview.) Resources: Stuart Schrader, Badges Without Borders: How Global Counterinsurgency Transformed American Policing UC Press, 2019 The post Policing and Counterinsurgency appeared first on KPFA.

In arguing for the urgency of moving from anthropocentrism toward ecocentrism, Aaron S. Allen distinguishes between environmental crises and ecological change; argues against the “balance of nature” paradigm; differentiates between strong and weak forms of sustainability; and describes the role that expressive culture and the environmental liberal arts can play in driving awareness and activism. McDowell, Borland, Dirksen, and Tuohy, eds., Performing Environmentalisms: Expressive Culture and Ecological Change University of Illinois Press, 2021 Allen and Dawe, eds., Current Directions in Ecomusicology: Music, Culture, Nature Routledge, 2016 (Image on main page by Nelson Pavlosky.) The post Toward Ecocentrism appeared first on KPFA.