For over half a century, Big Oil and the plastics industry, through their trade associations and front groups, have sold the public the false idea that plastics are recyclable. Recycling became the mantra of good ecological stewardship, promoted by the likes of city governments, school children, and environmental groups. Davis Allen lays out the mass-marketing of a deception. (Encore presentation.)
Resources:
Center for Climate Integrity, The Fraud of Plastic Recycling: How Big Oil and the Plastics Industry Deceived the Public for Decades and Caused the Plastic Waste Crisis February, 2024
The post The Plastics Recycling Deception appeared first on KPFA.
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59:58
Workers’ Stories, Political Games
Max Haiven considers the relationship between board games and politics, and describes a new game he’s designed called Billionaires & Guillotines. He also talks about an initiative that resulted in a book featuring nine speculative-fiction stories written by current and former Amazon workers.
The World After Amazon: Stories from Amazon Workers
Billionaires & Guillotines and the Kickstarter campaign
Max Haiven, “All Games are Political” Jacobin
The post Workers’ Stories, Political Games appeared first on KPFA.
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5:47
Medicines: Expensive, Poorly Tested, and Often Useless
Blockbuster drugs are launched by the pharmaceuticals industry to great fanfare — with promises of treating intractable illness and often with a stratospheric price tag. Yet, despite the hype and cost, many of those drugs turn out to be less than useless. How is it that so many drugs that are vetted by the Food and Drug Administration escape real scrutiny? Jerry Avorn, one of the most cited scientists in medicine, discusses the deeply compromised state of drug production and government regulation, in thrall to a for-profit system.
Jerry Avorn, Rethinking Medications: Truth, Power, and the Drugs You Take Simon & Schuster, 2025
Alosa Health
Center for Science in the Public Interest
Worst Pills, Best Pills
The post Medicines: Expensive, Poorly Tested, and Often Useless appeared first on KPFA.
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59:58
Foucault on Power
How have we been governed, regulated, ruled? What systems of knowledge and power have emerged over time, and with what consequences for individuals and populations? Lawrence Grossberg describes four “diagrams” of governmentality that the French theorist Michel Foucault identified: sovereignty, discipline, biopolitics, and neoliberalism.
Lawrence Grossberg, On the Way to Theory Duke University Press, 2024
(Image on main page by Arturo Espinosa.)
The post Foucault on Power appeared first on KPFA.
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49:28
Mitigating Flooding
Floods are the most destructive natural disaster and, thanks to a heating climate, the damages caused by floods are expected to worsen significantly. Flood mitigation of the past, such as levies and dams, has proved inadequate and often counterproductive by misallocating precious resources. Tim Palmer argues that it’s time to start relocating our built environment out of the places with a high likelihood of flooding.
Tim Palmer, Seek Higher Ground: The Natural Solution to Our Urgent Flooding Crisis UC Press, 2024
Photograph credit: Mark Moran
The post Mitigating Flooding appeared first on KPFA.
Acclaimed program of ideas, in-depth analysis, and commentary on a variety of matters—political, economic, social, and cultural—important to progressive and radical thinking and activism. Against the Grain is co-produced and co-hosted by Sasha Lilley and C. S. Soong.
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