KPFA - Against the Grain

How does political ideology work in Cuba? What is ideology anyway? Katherine Gordy argues that socialist ideology in Cuba, far from constituting a static, abstract canon of beliefs, is practiced and produced by people at all levels of Cuban society. She also comments on Fidel Castro’s espousal of Marxism and on the role of nineteenth-century intellectuals in Cuban revolutionary history. Katherine Gordy, Living Ideology in Cuba: Socialism in Principle and Practice University of Michigan Press, 2015 Katherine Gordy, “Strategies of Imperialism and Opposition in Cuba: Reflections on the Purity of Anti-Imperialism” Viewpoint Magazine (Image on main page by Emmanuel Huybrechts.) The post Cuban Socialist Ideology appeared first on KPFA.

Great powers rise and fall. But when their power wanes, as Britain’s did in the early 20th century and the U.S. is arguably waning now, who shoulders the costs of their decline? Is it elites or those on the bottom? Sociologist Richard Lachmann, who died in September, discusses what the past can tell us about the future of empires and hegemons. (Encore presentation.) Resources: Richard Lachmann, First-Class Passengers on a Sinking Ship: Elite Politics and the Decline of Great Powers Verso, 2020 photo: Pixabay The post The Decline of Great Powers appeared first on KPFA.

A protracted but determined struggle to defeat an airport construction project produced an extraordinary victory. In the face of brutal police repression, Isabelle Fremeaux, Jay Jordan, and others created an autonomous zone and prevented the construction of a massive international airport on 4,000 acres of fields, forest, and wetlands in western France. Fremeaux and Jordan recount the now iconic struggle at the “zad” and describe how they understand the relationship between art, resistance, and commoning. Isabelle Fremeaux and Jay Jordan, We Are “Nature” Defending Itself: Entangling Art, Activism and Autonomous Zones Pluto Press/Journal of Aesthetics & Protest, 2021 The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination The ReImagining Value Action Lab The Journal of Aesthetics & Protest (Image on main page by Bstroot56.) The post Victory at the Zad appeared first on KPFA.

Trusted, impartial and independent? Or largely unaccountable and part of the Establishment? Sociologist Tom Mills considers the evidence on the enormously influential British Broadcasting Corporation or BBC, which is much revered by progressives in the United States and elsewhere. (Encore presentation.) Resources: Tom Mills, The BBC: Myth of a Public Service Verso, 2020 photo: Pixabay The post The BBC and the Establishment appeared first on KPFA.

What has capitalism done to and with time? How does it regulate and discipline workers from the standpoint of time? And what would a principled struggle to take back time — to reappropriate it — look like? Engaging with the ideas of Marx, E. P. Thompson, and others, Bryan D. Palmer reflects on work, life, and capitalist temporality; he also stresses the importance of abolishing the wage system. (Encore presentation.) Leo Panitch and Greg Albo, eds., Socialist Register 2021: Beyond Digital Capitalism Monthly Review Press, 2020 Bryan Palmer, James P. Cannon and the Emergence of Trotskyism in the United States, 1928-38 Brill, 2021 (Image on main page by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.) The post Time Under Capitalism appeared first on KPFA.

Program guests’ insights sometimes have to be left out of the final, edited interviews because of time constraints. This potpourri of previously unaired remarks addresses colonial-era policing in New York City (Ben Brucato); the expansive nature of police power (Mark Neocleous); grand juries as a tool of state repression (Michael Staudenmaier); James Baldwin’s criticisms of Richard Wright (Joseph Ramsey); the history of Trotskyism in the U.S. (Bryan Palmer); the passing of Leo Panitch (Greg Albo); and efforts to gain access to official documents (Joseph Masco). The post Police, Race, and the Left Project appeared first on KPFA.

There have been numerous exposés of the conditions in factory farms, where livestock are crammed together by the hundreds of thousands. But anthropologist Alex Blanchette argues that animal agribusiness, rather than being a sordid, exceptional case, has represented the cutting edge of capitalist industry for more than one hundred years. He discusses the exploitation of both animals and humans at a massive pork complex in the Midwest, where seven million hogs are raised and slaughtered each year. (Encore presentation.) Resources: Alex Blanchette, Porkopolis: American Animality, Standardized Life, and the Factory Farm Duke University Press, 2020 photo: Jo-Anne McArthur via Unsplash The post Human Labor and Factory Farming appeared first on KPFA.

Leo Panitch, the great Marxist political economist, was one of the many losses we have suffered from the coronavirus. His frequent collaborator and lifelong friend Sam Gindin reflects on the enormous contributions that Leo Panitch made to a radical understanding of the state and capitalism on a global scale, as well as the limits of Social Democracy and the challenges the labor movement faces in going beyond the interests of particular groups of workers. (Encore presentation.) Resources: Sam Gindin, “Leo Panitch Was a Sober Optimist and an Anti-Utopian Utopian” Jacobin, February 27, 2021 photo: Wikipedia, CC-BY-2.0 The post The Ideas of Leo Panitch appeared first on KPFA.

Who is standing up to environmental plunder, land grabbing, and crony capitalism? On a southern Philippines island, indigenous people, migrant settlers, and NGOs have combined forces to resist the extractivist activities of commercial interests and political elites. Many environmental defenders, reports Wolfram Dressler, have been murdered by illegal operatives and hired hitmen. Critical Asian Studies Wolfram Dressler, Old Thoughts in New Ideas: State Conservation Measures, Development and Livelihood on Palawan Island Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2011 (Photo on main page by Vyacheslav Argenberg.) The post Confronting Extractivism appeared first on KPFA.

The Old Left, we’re told, was narrowly focused on issues of class to the detriment of other struggles, such as those of queer people. But Aaron Lecklider argues that there has long been an affinity between political and sexual dissidents. He suggests that McCarthyism and the Cold War obscured history that was an open secret in the 1920s, 30s, 40s, and beyond – of the complex entanglement of homosexuality and communism. (Encore presentation.) Resources: Aaron Lecklider, Love’s Next Meeting: The Forgotten History of Homosexuality and the Left in American Culture UC Press, 2021 The post Sexual Dissidents and the Left appeared first on KPFA.