Laura Flanders and Friends: Solutions-Focused Progressive Perspectives on Politics, News, and Culture - podcast cover

Laura Flanders and Friends: Solutions-Focused Progressive Perspectives on Politics, News, and Culture

Laura Flanders, Curious Communicationswww.lauraflanders.org
Uncensored history meets bold voices with Laura Flanders, award winning journalist and author. The show explores actionable models for creating a better world by reporting on the people and movements driving systemic change. We spotlight the solutions of tomorrow, today. The show airs on PBS stations in over 300 US markets, and airs on 60+ community radio stations via PRX Exchange and Pacifica, and is available on YouTube and here as a podcast. Subscribers receive lots of video and audio web exclusives in addition to the weekly episode. Recent field reports and specials include: Jimmy Carter; 60th Anniversary of Selma Bloody Sunday March; Bernie Sanders' Fighting Oligarchy; Labor Movement vs. Fascism: Worker Organizers & Teachers Under Attack; And interviewee highlights include Award Winning Actor, Director, Writer, Liev Schreiber on his documentary "Meeting Zelensky"; Award winning journalists Maria Hinojosa (Award Winning Suave Podcast and host of Latino USA) & Chenjerai Kumanyika (Award Winning Podcast Series Empire City) on Forced Removals, Foreign Detention, the War on Education & Free Speech; Democracy & Capitalism: A Failed Experiment? with Bloomberg Economist & host of Truponomics, Stephanie Flanders; Masha Gessen & Jason Stanley on fascism then and now; Naomi Klein & Astra Taylor on the arc of history and “End Times Fascism”; Congressman Jamie Raskin on Donald Trump, Elon Musk, DOGE, and congressional oversight of the executive branch."
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Episodes

Red Road to the Future: Native Sovereignty is Key to Climate Justice

Support the show by becoming a member as a monthly supporter at Patreon.com/theLFShow We do not accept corporate or government funding. We rely on you! Full Episode Notes are posted at Patreon.com/theLFShow for members and non-members. In the midst of a national reckoning with white supremacy and colonial history, Indigenous people are demanding a new relationship with DC — honoring the traditional, legal, and moral rights of native nations. Earlier this year, a group of Native organizers travel...

Nov 19, 202129 minEp. 360

Climate Change Journalism: Moving Frontline Communities from the Sideline to the Center

Support the show by becoming a member as a monthly supporter at Patreon.com/theLFShow We do not accept corporate or government funding. We rely on you! Full Episode Notes are posted at Patreon.com/theLFShow for members and non-members. Could a city reduce violent crime by planting more trees? How will the culture of work adapt to the climate crisis? What will increased flooding in the Global South do to U.S. immigration patterns? In this month’s edition of Meet the BIPOC Press, guest hosts Sara ...

Nov 12, 202129 minEp. 359

F-Word: What Does It Take to Imagine the Future? Ask a Nic Unit Nurse

The F-Word is released bi-weekly featuring timely commentaries by Laura Flanders and guests. "Changing the Future with India Walton... Buffalo drew attention this election season after first-time candidate, long-time activist, India Walton won the Democratic primary, positioning her to become this Democratic city’s first African American woman and first Democratic Socialist mayor." Flex your media muscles, become a monthly sustaining member for $3, $5, $12 Laura Flanders and Friends Crew: Laura ...

Nov 09, 20214 minEp. 358

In Buffalo with India Walton: An Insurgent Candidate Runs for Mayor

Support the show by becoming a member as a monthly supporter for $3 $5 or more at https://Patreon.com/theLFShow We do not accept corporate or government funding. We rely on you! Full Episode Notes are posted at Patreon.com/theLFShow for members and non-members. Eyes across the nation are on the mayoral election in Buffalo, New York, where insurgent candidate India Walton could become the first Black woman—and first Democratic Socialist—to lead the city. Laura Flanders first interviewed Walton in...

Nov 05, 202130 minEp. 357

Uncut Full Conversation: AOC & Noam Chomsky Full 1hour Uncut Interview

Portions of this historic interview are featured in this week's radio show & podcast , and Public TV & YouTube In this historic, inter-generational meeting of minds, Laura Flanders brings together New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY Representative 14th District) and MIT professor emeritus Noam Chomsky—for the first time ever—to discuss the way forward for people, politics, and the planet. From labor strikes to racial uprisings to climate action to the Great Resignation,...

Nov 04, 202158 min

AOC & Noam Chomsky: The Way Forward

Check out the full episode notes and become a member at Patreon.com/theLFShow In this historic, inter-generational meeting of minds, Laura Flanders brings together New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and MIT professor emeritus Noam Chomsky—for the first time ever—to discuss the way forward for people, politics, and the planet. From labor strikes to racial uprisings to climate action to the Great Resignation, they reflect on the renewed power of collective organizing and the changing ...

Oct 29, 202132 minEp. 356

Community Safety in a Time of Insurrection

Join us live Sunday October 24th 7pm ET for a online screening & discussion of this week's episode, Register, for more Info and full episode notes goto=> Patreon.com/theLFShow The last US soldier to leave Afghanistan returned home this August, but private security personnel long outnumbered US troops in that war, and the for-profit business of training guns-for-hire is booming -- literally -- in the backyards of many rural Americans. In this special episode, The Laura Flanders Show travel...

Oct 22, 202130 minEp. 355

F-Word: A Paramilitary Industrial Complex is Growing in Americans' Backyards

The F-Word is released bi-weekly featuring timely commentaries by Laura Flanders and guests. How are activists shutting down radicalized militia training facilities in defense of community safety? "Veteran activists organizing across this state [North Carolina], are concerned about a seemingly unmonitored flow of military grade weapons, training, and white warrior ideology out of the state’s privatized military and into civilian lives." Flex your media muscles, become a monthly sustaining member...

Oct 19, 20214 min

Building Concrete Ecological Solutions That Go Beyond Concrete

Check out the full episode notes and become a member at Patreon.com/theLFShow In the midst of yet another year of climate catastrophe, the U.S. Senate is negotiating a $3.5 trillion infrastructure package. President Biden, among others, is calling for extensive investment to lower emissions and combat the effects of climate change. But what sort of investment? In this episode, Laura interviews environmental lawyer Colette Pichon Battle in Louisiana about the strategies organizers there have deve...

Oct 15, 202129 minEp. 354

Uncut Full Conversation: Sunny Red Bear, NDN Collective’s Director of Racial Equity

The following audio exclusive features the entire uncut interview with NDN Collective’s Director of Racial Equity, Sunny Red Bear of the Lakota Nation. Excerpts of this interview were included in our recent special “LANDBACK! A Tipi Town Approach to Healing & Homelessness”. In this special feature, Laura traveled to the sacred Black Hills of South Dakota where NDN Collective is reclaiming ancestral lands to address homelessness, addiction and violence against Native Americans. Laura reported...

Oct 14, 202132 min

LANDBACK! A Tipi Town Approach to Healing & Homelessness

Check out the full episode notes, along with an invitation to join guests from the episode with Laura for a live premiere and chat event to view this week’s episode via our YouTube channel, Sundays 11:30am EDT, at Patreon.com/theLFShow On Indigenous Peoples' Day, Laura reports from “He Sapa‘’, the sacred Black Hills of South Dakota where NDN Collective is reclaiming ancestral lands to address homelessness, addiction and violence against Native Americans. Catalyzed in 2020, by an action in which ...

Oct 08, 202129 minEp. 353

F-Word: Worker Co-ops Coped with Covid. Why Can't Others?

The F-Word is released bi-weekly featuring timely commentaries by Laura Flanders and guests. October is National Co-op Month. "Worker co-ops like New Era demonstrate that it’s certainly possible to run a successful business while prioritizing safety and treating workers like fellow humans." Flex your media muscles, become a monthly sustaining member for $3, $5, $12 at https://Patreon.com/theLFShow Laura Flanders and Friends Crew: Laura Flanders-Executive Producer, Writer; Sabrina Artel-Supervisi...

Oct 05, 20213 minEp. 352

Covid Couldn’t Stop Worker Owned Co-ops

You'll find a link to watch this episode, check out the episode notes posted along with an invitation to join guests and Laura for a live premiere and chat event to view this week’s episode via our YouTube channel, Sunday's 11:30am, at Patreon.com/theLFShow When homecare workers at Cooperative Homecare Associates in the Bronx ran short of masks in the early days of the Covid pandemic, the worker-owners of Opportunity Threads in Morganton, North Carolina stepped up, retooling to make PPE for New ...

Oct 01, 202131 minEp. 351

Do Black Lives Matter to Big Banks?

You'll find a link to watch this episode, check out the episode notes posted along with an invitation to join guests and Laura for a live premiere and chat event to view this week’s episode via our YouTube channel, Sunday's 11:30am, at Patreon.com/theLFShow A national uprising in the wake of the murder of George Floyd pressured corporations and big banks to acknowledge their own roles in systemic racism. Many made sweeping promises to support Black-owned businesses, but now, over one year later,...

Sep 24, 202130 minEp. 350

Uncut Full Conversation: Colette Pichon Battle, Climate Activist and Lawyer

The following is the full uncut conversation with Colette Pichon Battle, Lawyer & Founder and Executive Director, Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy, from our episode "Ecology: The Infrastructure of the Future?" In the midst of yet another year of climate catastrophe, the U.S. Senate is negotiating a $3.5 trillion infrastructure package. President Biden, among others, is calling for extensive investment to lower emissions and combat the effects of climate change. But what sort of investm...

Sep 23, 202123 min

F-Word: After Ida, Build Back Green, Not Gray

The F-Word is released bi-weekly featuring timely commentaries by Laura Flanders and guests. "MacArthur 'genius award'winning landscape designer Kate Orff believes that gray infrastructure, like levees and flood gates and sea walls, can only take us so far." Flex your media muscles, become a monthly sustaining member for $3, $5, $12 at https://Patreon.com/theLFShow Laura Flanders and Friends Crew: Laura Flanders-Executive Producer, Writer; Sabrina Artel-Supervising Producer; Jeremiah Cothren-Sen...

Sep 21, 20214 min

Ecology: The Infrastructure of the Future?

In the midst of yet another year of climate catastrophe, the U.S. Senate is negotiating a $3.5 trillion infrastructure package. President Biden, among others, is calling for extensive investment to lower emissions and combat the effects of climate change. But what sort of investment? In this episode, Laura interviews environmental lawyer Colette Pichon Battle in Louisiana about the strategies organizers there have developed since Hurricane Katrina for equitable green development and climate just...

Sep 17, 202131 minEp. 349

Democracy: A National Temperature Check

You'll find a link to watch this episode, check out the episode notes posted along with an invitation to join guests and Laura for a live premiere and chat event to view this week’s episode via our YouTube channel, Sunday's 11:30am, at Patreon.com/theLFShow Disinformation, polarization, growing economic inequality, attempts to undermine elections and the rights of women and racial minorities—all of these are turning up the heat on American democracy. At the same time, pro-democracy movements are...

Sep 10, 202130 minEp. 348

F-Word: The Complete Picture of Our Work Culture

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 http://Patreon.com/theLFShow Laura Flanders and Friends Crew: Laura Flanders-Executive Producer, Writer; Sabrina Artel-Supervising Producer; Jeremiah Cothren-Senior Producer; Veronica Delgado-Video Editor, Janet Hernandez-Communications Director; Jeannie Hopper-Audio Director, Podcast & Radio Producer, Audio Editor, Sound ...

Sep 07, 20213 min

These Films Keep People Out of Prison

For full episode notes including related episodes from our archives, a research and reading list and more goto: https://Patreon.com/theLFShow What if judges could know a person more completely before sentencing them to prison? An organization called Complete Picture uses the power of film and storytelling to give judges an in-depth, humanizing look at the lives of defendants facing prison for non-violent crimes. All of Complete Picture’s films have resulted in a sentence reduction and half of th...

Sep 03, 202130 minEp. 346

Audio Exclusive: The Fight to Save Our Stages, NIVA Mobilizes

The National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) formed during the pandemic to support independent performance venues and promoters. NIVA now encompasses over 3,000 independent venues in 50 states including Washington D.C. They’ve pressured the Small Business Administration to act. By the end of 2020, the Small Business Association (SBA) signed the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant, the largest arts funding program in history with $16 billion dollars allocated for independent venues. It took mont...

Sep 02, 20214 min

BIPOC Media, Uplifting and Serving Communities From the Grassroots

You'll find a link to watch this episode, check out the episode notes posted along with an invitation to join guests and Laura for a live premiere and chat event to view this week’s episode via our YouTube channel, Sunday's 11:30am, at Patreon.com/theLFShow If Black Lives Matter, how are journalists and media organizations considering Black pain in their coverage? And how are journalists and editors across the full spectrum of our media thinking about this? This week, we're introducing some new ...

Aug 27, 202129 minEp. 335

Uncut Full Conversation: V, award winning Playwright and Author formerly known as Eve Ensler

The following is the full uncut conversation from our TV, Radio & Podcast episode: "Gender Justice Requires more than Money say the Feminists Taking on Philanthropy during Covid" Note: Full episode notes are available to members and non-members at Patreon.com/theLFShow MacKenzie Scott, ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, recently made a splash by donating nearly $3 billion to more than 280 nonprofits working in historically underfunded sectors - her third such drop in a year. But while Sco...

Aug 24, 202118 min

The Future of Energy is Indigenous: Water Protectors v.s. Enbridge's Line3 Pipeline

For full episode notes including related episodes, research and reading links goto: https://Patreon.com/theLFShow As Canadian oil giant Enbridge defies orders to shut down their dangerous Line 5 pipeline in Michigan, indigenous environmental activists gain momentum in their fight to end reliance on fossil fuels. In Minnesota, Enbridge plans to build another pipeline, violating treaties and threatening the Mississippi Watershed. The company says its new pipeline is essential to our energy system....

Aug 20, 202128 minEp. 334

Heather McGhee: The Sum of Us, What Racism Costs Everyone and How we can Prosper Together

For full episode notes including more on Heather McGhee, her book, a suggested reading list and additional related episodes to explore go to https://Patreon.com/theLFShow Color of Change board chair Heather McGhee talks with Laura about her New York Times best-selling book, The Sum of Us, What Racism Costs Everyone and How we can Prosper Together . She shows how inequality saps the economy, hierarchies damage public health, and short term greed wreaks havoc on the ecosystem. We also take a close...

Aug 13, 202128 minEp. 345

Guaranteed Income Initiatives, Combatting Structural Inequality

Full episode notes are at https://Patreon.com/theLFShow Thousands of Americans recently received direct payments from their government as part of the Biden Administration’s American Rescue Plan to address unemployment and poverty exacerbated by the Covid Pandemic. But what if direct payments like those came every month as a way to combat structural inequality? For a group of people in two California cities, that’s not just an idea, it’s a reality thanks to an innovative experiment. The Compton P...

Aug 06, 202130 min

Black Candidates, BIPOC Media: Making Coverage Complex—and Better

Full episode notes are at https://Patreon.com/theLFShow New York City will likely elect its second African American mayor in November. Eric Adams, currently the Brooklyn Borough President, was declared the winner of the Democratic primary in July. A former police officer who was himself beaten by the cops as a teenager, Adams campaigned against police brutality while positioning himself as a law and order candidate. Though much of the mainstream media has attempted to simplify Adams’ story, he’s...

Jul 30, 202130 minEp. 344

F-Word: Big Pharma v.s. The People

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 http://Patreon.com/theLFShow Laura Flanders and Friends Crew: Laura Flanders-Executive Producer, Writer; Sabrina Artel-Supervising Producer; Jeremiah Cothren-Senior Producer; Veronica Delgado-Video Editor, Janet Hernandez-Communications Director; Jeannie Hopper-Audio Director, Podcast & Radio Producer, Audio Editor, Sound ...

Jul 26, 20214 min

Big Pharma vs The People: The Fight to Save America’s Largest Generic Drug Manufacturer

Full episode notes are at https://Patreon.com/theLFShow This July, America’s largest remaining generic drug manufacturing plant is set to close its doors forever in Morgantown, West Virginia. Its parent company, Viatris (formerly known as Mylan), plans to relocate operations to India and Australia leaving more than 1,400 workers without jobs in the country’s sixth poorest state. Economist Michael H. Shuman estimates the closure will cost West Virginia hundreds of millions of dollars. “It’s the e...

Jul 23, 202129 minEp. 343

Uncut Full Conversation: Teresa C. Younger, CEO of the Ms. Foundation

The following is the full uncut conversation from our TV, Radio & Podcast episode: "Gender Justice Requires more than Money say the Feminists Taking on Philanthropy during Covid" Note: Full episode notes are available to members and non-members at Patreon.com/theLFShow MacKenzie Scott, ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, recently made a splash by donating nearly $3 billion to more than 280 nonprofits working in historically underfunded sectors - her third such drop in a year. But while Sco...

Jul 20, 202125 min
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