Is the American Dream dead? When Abigail Disney, the granddaughter of one of the founders of Disney, received a message from a worker at Disney’s flagship theme park, she discovered that some employees were earning one two-thousandth of the earnings of CEO Bob Iger. She wrote to Iger, testified in Congress and ultimately made a film, “The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales.” In one scene she asks a group of workers, “How many of you know someone that works at Disney that sleeps in their car?” ...
Jan 15, 2023•30 min•Ep. 422
Our Patreon supporters receive early access to listen and download the full uncut conversation from our weekly episodes. Description: In 2020, the authorities at the Louisiana State Penitentiary (better known as Angola, for the former plantation on which it stands) shut down a play in the middle of a performance. What happened in that audience of incarcerated men that got guards so concerned? That’s the subject of “Angola Do You Hear Us? Voices From a Plantation Prison," a new MTV documentary di...
Jan 12, 2023•41 min
“At the core of my work and life is the belief that disabled wisdom is the key to our survival and expansion,” shares Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, a writer, disability, and transformative justice movement worker. Laura speaks with Leah about her newly-released book of essays, The Future is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes, and Mourning Songs. The book, published by Arsenal Pulp Press, an independent queer of color-led press, was written during the pandemic and documents two years of “disabl...
Jan 08, 2023•30 min•Ep. 421
Become a member! We are forward thinking, ad free, independent media thanks to you, our members! Become a member at Patreon.com/theLFShow Description: What if there was a way to trade time and share skills with your neighbors in a way that met a range of needs without involving cash? Since 2017, the Kola Nut Collaborative has operated Chicago’s only open platform, time and skills exchange, otherwise known as a timebank. Part mutual aid and community organizing, members come together to hear each...
Jan 01, 2023•29 min•Ep. 419
Enjoy the full uncut conversation from our episode "Survival Guide for Humans Learned from Marine Mammals" featuring Alexis Pauline Gumbs , Poet, Independent Scholar & Activist and author of “Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals” published by AK Press as part of adrienne maree brown’s Emergent Strategy Series. Episode Description: Are you drowning? The start of the school year can be stressful for parents, teachers and students. And this summer hasn’t been smooth sailing for...
Jan 01, 2023•36 min•Ep. 420
Enjoy the full uncut conversation from our episode 'Meet the BIPOC Press Roundtable: Abbott Elementary Teaches Us All ' featuring co-hosts from URL Media S. Mitra Kalita & Sara Lomax-Reese ; and guests Joyce M. Abbott , Educator & Climate Manager Philadelphia School District ducator & Abbott Elementary Namesake; Sheryl Lee Ralph , Leading Actor for ABC Comedy Series ‘ Abbott Elementary’ & Activist Description: Can you remember the last time when the challenges that inner city pub...
Dec 25, 2022•36 min
Become a member this week and your donation will be matched up to $5,000 for our year end fundraiser! We are forward thinking, lad free, independent media, thanks to you, our members! Become a member by donating at LauraFlanders.org Show Description : Historian Howard Zinn would have turned 100 in 2022. His monumental work, A People’s History of the United States, published in 1980, continues to have an impact today. For Zinn’s’ centennial we explore what made his model of history different with...
Dec 20, 2022•30 min•Ep. 418
Many questions remain about the recent attack on North Carolina’s electrical grid, which left tens of thousands of citizens unsettled, frightened and without power or heat for days. Officials say it was a “malicious” and “intentional” attack, but who is responsible for this destruction of vital infrastructure, and what was their motive? In a growing climate of fear and political intimidation, many residents in North Carolina — the most militarized state in the union, where law enforcement offici...
Dec 12, 2022•30 min•Ep. 417
In 2020, the authorities at the Louisiana State Penitentiary (better known as Angola, for the former plantation on which it stands) shut down a play in the middle of a performance. What happened in that audience of incarcerated men that got guards so concerned? That’s the subject of “Angola Do You Hear Us? Voices From a Plantation Prison," a new MTV documentary directed and edited by Cinque Northern (My Name is Pauli Murray) and produced by Catherine Gund. Award-winning actress and writer, Liza ...
Dec 04, 2022•30 min•Ep. 415
"What makes the obsession with polling so problematic is that it ignores the way that polls, even when they're right, are bad for our politics. Polls shrink our options, over-determine policy, and distract us from real life." The F-Word is released bi-weekly featuring timely commentaries by Laura Flanders and guests. Flex your media muscles, become a monthly sustaining member for $3, $5, $12 at https://Patreon.com/theLFShow Independent Media! Advertising free! Laura Flanders and Friends Crew: La...
Nov 29, 2022•4 min
(full episode notes are at https://Patreon.com/theLFShow) When it came to the midterms, mainstream white pundits got a lot wrong that local, Black, Brown and BIPOC media got right, and they're still missing many important stories. That's the message from this roundtable of journalists we call Meet the BIPOC Press, a monthly feature of the Laura Flanders Show. What do the money media’s hits and misses tell us about what journalists need to be doing better — or differently — in the weeks and month...
Nov 27, 2022•30 min•Ep. 414
Pilgrims, Indians, the myth of the grateful colonized person — it’s been at the core of a persistent but false Thanksgiving narrative that has distorted the true relationship between Indigenous Peoples and white colonizers dating back to Plymouth Rock. As many of us observe Thanksgiving and Indigenous Peoples’ Day, the new federal holiday, Judith LeBlanc, executive director of the Native Organizers Alliance, reminds us that “people are questioning.” In the midst of a national reckoning with whit...
Nov 20, 2022•29 min•Ep. 413
"Win, lose or draw, the allure of the “white working class voter” never dulls for big D Democrats." The F-Word is released bi-weekly featuring timely commentaries by Laura Flanders and guests. Flex your media muscles, become a monthly sustaining member for $3, $5, $12 at https://Patreon.com/theLFShow Independent Media! Advertising free! Laura Flanders and Friends Crew: Laura Flanders-Executive Producer, Writer; Sabrina Artel-Supervising Producer; Jeremiah Cothren-Senior Producer; Veronica Delgad...
Nov 15, 2022•4 min
Were grassroots activists able to defend democracy in 2022? For this post-election roundtable, Laura convenes organizers to discuss some of the critical takeaways from this year’s election. What have grassroots activists on the frontlines of our democracy learned from this significant midterm election when so many of their issues have been weaponized — from criminal justice, the Native vote, women’s self determination and racism. Laura is joined by Sakira Cook, the Co-Interim Vice President of C...
Nov 13, 2022•28 min•Ep. 412
Episode Description (Full Episode Notes)- Can a predominantly white state legislature overturn the votes of a predominantly Black city? Larry Krasner, Philadelphia’s District Attorney was elected in 2017 on a reform agenda and has been targeted by a GOP backlash ever since. This October, on the last day of business before the 2022 midterms, Republican State Rep. Martina White filed articles for impeachment. If the initiative wins a majority in the GOP-dominated state house, Krasner will have to ...
Nov 06, 2022•29 min•Ep. 411
Full Episode Notes are available HERE Sarah Jones, Tony Award-winning performer and comedian, is making a different kind of documentary. She calls it an ‘unorthodoc’ about sex, power, race, and our economy and how you even talk about such things in today's polarized and commercial media world. "Sell/Buy/Date” expands on Jones' acclaimed 2016 off-Broadway solo production of the same name. She plays herself in the film along with four different characters that she's created, as well as real people...
Oct 30, 2022•30 min•Ep. 410
You can catch my interview with award-winning reporter Soledad OBrien about how she recommends reporting on liars, through subscribing to this free podcast of the Laura Flanders Show, or catch the program on hundreds of PBS stations. Go to LauraFlanders.org for more information. The F-Word is released bi-weekly featuring timely commentaries by Laura Flanders and guests. Flex your media muscles, become a monthly sustaining member for $3, $5, $12 at https://Patreon.com/theLFShow Independent Media!...
Oct 26, 2022•4 min
What happened in Georgia in 2020? The election of two Democrats to the Senate from that state handed the presidency to Joe Biden and control of Congress to the Democrats. This was no flash in the pan, but rather the result of decades of organizing. Ray McClendon and Steven Rosenfeld, the editors of a new book, call it the ‘Georgia Way.’ “The Georgia Way: How to Win Elections” is an oral history intended to both record the strategies used in Georgia to turn out overlooked voters, and how to spark...
Oct 23, 2022•31 min•Ep. 409
Rosa Parks is best known to Americans as a national treasure — the little old lady who sat down on a bus and “ended racism.” What we lose in that depiction is what happened before and afterward, which is to say most of the story of Park’s lifetime of activism. Soledad O'Brien, the award-winning journalist and producer, has just executive produced the first ever full-length documentary on the Civil Rights icon, titled “The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks.” based on the book by Jeanne Theoharis...
Oct 16, 2022•30 min•Ep. 408
Hey Boomers: When it comes to the climate crisis, are you the problem, the solution or both? In this episode Laura sits down with acclaimed author and environmental activist Bill McKibben and author Akaya Windwood to find out what's required from all of us to solve the climate crisis. McKibben was the founder of 350.org . He's the author of “The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at His Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened.” Windwood is co-author...
Oct 09, 2022•30 min•Ep. 407
In March 2021, a 21-year-old man murdered eight people, including six women of Asian descent, at three spas in Atlanta, Georgia. The act of violence was one of the most dramatic assaults in a wave of anti-Asian hate that surged during COVID. For many, the tragic events became a galvanizing moment, reigniting a sense of collective identity and political engagement within Asian American and Pacific Island (AAPI) communities. A new documentary on PBS, Rising Against Asian Hate: One Day in March, sp...
Oct 02, 2022•31 min•Ep. 406
"How do you spark alarm, inform the public, prod people to act, if the media aren’t covering the news, political fundraisers griped to the press this week....It’s a problem social movements in the US have faced for decades, of course, and met none of the same sympathy from the press." For independent reporting on grassroots change makers around the world and right here in the US, every week, catch the Laura Flanders Show on a public television station near you, or subscribe to the free podcast. ...
Sep 27, 2022•4 min
How do Black and Indigenous communities intersect? This special feature for Indigenous People’s day explores the forces that have both facilitated and thwarted collaboration and movement-making among Black and Indigenous people in the United States. Exploitation of Black and Indigenous people was integral to the founding of this country, but the nature of that exploitation wasn’t exactly the same. Mitra Kalita and Sara Lomax Reese of URL Media return for this month’s “Meet the BIPOC Press”. Thei...
Sep 25, 2022•31 min•Ep. 405
Can a novel become a catalyst to help us address impending climate disaster? That’s one question posed by the legendary Kim Stanley Robinson , in his best-selling novel The Ministry for the Future, which begins with millions of Indians dying from temperatures that send people cramming into lakes to cool off — where they literally poach to death. The book has been praised by everyone from Barack Obama to the Dalai Lama and seems to be turning even bureaucrats and bankers' heads. In his work, Robi...
Sep 18, 2022•31 min•Ep. 404
"Even more than democracy, the language of freedom vs tyranny has characterized this year’s mid-term election campaigns." The F-Word is released bi-weekly featuring timely commentaries by Laura Flanders and guests. Flex your media muscles, become a monthly sustaining member for $3, $5, $12 at https://Patreon.com/theLFShow Independent Media! Advertising free! Laura Flanders and Friends Crew: Laura Flanders-Executive Producer, Writer; Sabrina Artel-Supervising Producer; Jeremiah Cothren-Senior Pro...
Sep 13, 2022•4 min
(Full Episode Notes are at Patreon.com/theLFShow) Salman Rushdie praised A.M. Homes’ latest novel, The Unfolding as, “A terrific black comedy, written almost entirely in pitch-perfect dialogue, that feels terrifyingly close to the unfunny truth.” In this episode, A.M. and Laura discuss political fiction, women writers and the unraveling of American democracy. Homes is an American writer best known for her novel The End of Alice , about a convicted child molester and murderer and Music for Torchi...
Sep 12, 2022•29 min•Ep. 403
Are you drowning? The start of the school year can be stressful for parents, teachers and students. And this summer hasn’t been smooth sailing for many of us either — with extreme temperatures, a global pandemic and other crises. How do we take a breath? Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ UNDROWNED: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals, draws on the practices of marine mammals — they are the experts, after all, in not drowning. (The harbor seal can slow its breath to about four beats per minute!) The b...
Sep 05, 2022•30 min•Ep. 402
(This full conversation is from the episode 'Ibram X. Kendi: How to Make America Antiracist?') The fight over what can and can’t be taught in schools is shaping up to be one of the most controversial issues in a pivotal mid-term election year. White voters are being mobilized to ban books, censor honest discussions of US history and current day racism, and organize against a fake spectre of “critical race theory” being taught in schools. So what is to be done? In this episode, Laura and co-hosts...
Sep 01, 2022•32 min
Crip Camp is a Peabody Award-winning documentary from Netflix and Higher Ground Productions that tells the story of Camp Jened, a summer camp in the 1960s where disabled youth could be themselves. The film follows several former campers who went on to be leaders of the Disability Rights Movement. Laura speaks with the directors and producers of Crip Camp about how they are using the film to advance the next step in the revolution: Disability Justice, a movement that centers the leadership of dis...
Aug 29, 2022•30 min•Ep. 401
(This full conversation is from the episode 'Linda Villarosa- the Dobbs Decision: a Death Sentence for Black Women?' released July 11th, 2022) Is the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health a death sentence for women of color? The overturning of Roe v. Wade not only creates an abortion disaster for millions of Americans, it also exacerbates a maternal healthcare crisis that’s alreadly deadly for women of color. African American women are shockingly likely to die or almost die —...
Aug 25, 2022•40 min
