As the environmental crisis worsens, not everyone is drawing the same lessons. On the far right, xenophobic and racist ideas are increasingly dressed up as means of protecting nature. And, as scholar Alexander Menrisky posits, contemporary American culture furnishes a wealth of material for the right, from the ubiquity of apocalyptic and misanthropic ideas to concerns with Wellness and bodily purity. (Encore presentation.)

Alexander Menrisky, Everyday Ecofascism: Crisis and Consumption in American Literature University of Minnesota Press, 2025

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On the occasion of C. S. stepping down as regular co-host of Against the Grain after a 22-year run, he presents some reflections, reminiscences, and excerpts from cherished interviews.

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If the problem is religious polarization and inequality, isn’t the solution secular governance? Secularism, after all, promises the equality of citizens regardless of religious affiliation. In a 2016 interview, Saba Mahmood argued that modern secular governance, contrary to its grand claims, has in fact exacerbated religious inequalities. It has also, she said, constrained our political imagination to a significant degree.

Saba Mahmood, Religious Difference in a Secular Age: A Minority Report Princeton University Press

Obituary: Dr. Saba Mahmood, 1962-2018

The post Secularism’s False Promise? appeared first on KPFA.

How did a fringe rightwing movement calling for lower taxes become one of the most successful efforts in U.S politics, leading to a chronically underfunded government? The answer has more than a little to do with racism. Michael Graetz traces the rise and triumph of the anti-tax movement and the ways that politicians and think-tanks harnessed racial resentments for the benefit of the wealthy.

Michael J. Graetz, The Power to Destroy: How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America Princeton University Press, 2024

Photo credit: Mike Meadows, Los Angeles Times

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In the 1950s the CIA took a keen interest in Kerala, a newly formed Indian state led, beginning in 1957, by a Communist ministry. Richard Franke describes the turbulent events that led to the ministry’s dismissal and the evidence he and T. M. Thomas Isaac have unearthed about CIA stances and ambitions vis-a-vis Kerala.

T. M. Thomas Isaac and Richard Franke, Toppling the First Ministry: Kerala, the CIA, and the Struggle for Social Justice Monthly Review Press, 2025

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Are mass protests and elections enough to block the slide toward authoritarianism? Labor scholar and organizer Eric Blanc argues that neither will suffice without exerting leverage on the key pillars of Trump’s support. He discusses how a multi-level campaign against the corporations and other entities that back the administration could be organized, as well as the state of the labor movement and the Supreme Court, the victory of Zohran Mamdani, and what it might take to build to a general strike.

Labor Politics

Eric Blanc, We Are the Union: How Worker-to-Worker Organizing Is Revitalizing Labor and Winning Big UC Press, 2025

Photo credit: By Jessica Bolanos CC BY-SA 4.0

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First-time presentation of the full-length interview with Brandon Keim about his book Meet the Neighbors, in which he considers the explosion of research into animal intelligence, emotion, and sociality; takes research findings out into everyday landscapes; and examines how wild animals are viewed and treated.

Brandon Keim, Meet the Neighbors: Animal Minds and Life in a More-than-Human World W. W. Norton, 2025 (paper)

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Did Lincoln free the slaves? Or did they just as much free themselves? And what were the ramifications of their seemingly impossible achievement — immediate and uncompensated emancipation — for other oppressed groups? Historian David Roediger discusses that revolutionary period in U.S. history — and the consequences of its failure today. (Encore presentation.)

David R. Roediger, Seizing Freedom: Slave Emancipation and Liberty for All Verso, 2015

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Supporting members of the military to resist deployment has taken on a new urgency as Trump sends troops into American cities. Journalist Steve Early discusses the history of soldier organizing — including as workers — from Vietnam to the present. And Suzanne Gordon reflects on why the broad public should care about the administration’s attack on the 1,400 hospitals and clinics that serve veterans, the largest socialized medical system in the country.

Common Defense

Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute

Suzanne Gordon, Steve Early, and Jasper Craven, Our Veterans: Winners, Losers, Friends, and Enemies on the New Terrain of Veterans Affairs Duke University Press, 2022

Photo by Ian Hutchinson on Unsplash

The post Troops in Cities; Veterans Under Siege appeared first on KPFA.

This autumn Italian workers shut down their country in opposition to the Gaza genocide. In the United States, in contrast, labor activists wanting to take a stand in solidarity with Palestinian workers are frequently chastised for trying to involve their unions in the affairs of other countries. Yet labor historian Jeff Schuhrke illustrates that U.S. unions have long been involved in Palestine — for almost a century supporting Zionism and then the state Israel.

National Labor Network for Ceasefire

Jeff Schuhrke, No Neutrals There: US Labor, Zionism, and the Struggle for Palestine Haymarket Books, 2025

Photo by Nikolas Gannon on Unsplash

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