Against the Grain – February 24, 2025

Against the Grain

A radio and web media project whose aim is to provide in-depth analysis and commentary on a variety of matters — political, economic, social and cultural — important to progressive and radical thinking and activism.

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Against the Grain

Fund Drive Special: Organizing for Federal Workers & Public Services

History is being made right now, both by the Trump administration, attempting to slash the federal workforce and the public services it provides, and by federal workers and their supporters resisting those efforts in the offices and the streets. Federal worker Mark Smith discusses a day of action called by the newly formed Federal Unionists … Continued


The prominent sociologist, writer, and U.C. Berkeley professor emeritus Michael Burawoy passed away on February 3. We present excerpts from three interviews with Burawoy, about marketization and commodification (from 2016), Pierre Bourdieu and Karl Marx (2019), and W. E. B. Du Bois’s understanding of the period of Reconstruction (2023). In Memoriam: Michael Burawoy Michael Burawoy, … Continued


U.S. imperialism has produced migration, sometimes to places you wouldn’t expect. According to Emily Mitchell-Eaton, the Marshall Islands and Arkansas are both central to the workings of empire. The perceptions of longtime residents of demographically transformed cities like Springdale, Arkansas reflect geographical imaginaries that occlude the fact of U.S. empire. Emily Mitchell-Eaton, New Destinations of … Continued


Billions of dollars have been spent on Alzheimer’s research over many decades, yet no effective treatment exists. Investigative journalist Charles Piller has revealed one reason for the impasse: pivotal scientific research into Alzheimer’s disease — affirming the hypothesis that it’s caused by sticky amyloid plaques in the brain — was based on manipulated images. Resources: … Continued