The Laura Flanders Show

Laura speaks with Aaron Tanaka, founder and director of the Center for Economic Democracy (CED) about his longtime advocacy and visionary work for the next system of solidarity economics. To change the circumstances of injustice, we have to build our communities’ governance power to take control of their economic resources -- so says Tanaka. Tanaka and the CED are one of the many organizations behind Boston’s Ujima program, which is funneling the discourse of democratic economics into the practice we need and helping communities of color direct their resources into the ideas they believe in, through a cooperative model of community budgeting. Music featured comes by way of Tenderflex ft. Dynasty Electric, Ayler Young, Jay Rodriguez  and by George Martinez & The Global Block Collective released on Occupy This Album.

This week Laura and Viggo Mortensen​ discuss heroes, outlaws, empires and justice in the Middle East. Academy Award-nominated actor Viggo Mortensen has appeared in scores of movies, including The Lord of the Rings Trilogy​, one of the highest grossing film series of all time. What you may not know is he's also a poet, photographer, musician and painter. He speaks four languages, and he is the founder and publisher of an independent publishing house, Perceval Press​. The twelfth anniversary edition of Perceval's collection of essays in response to the Iraq occupation: Twilight of Empire -- was released this winter with essays by Mike Davis, Amy Goodman​, Jodie Evans and Dennis Kucinich​ among others - and a forward by Howard Zinn​. This episode also features a few words from Laura on Hillary Clinton​ - her warmth and her wars.

Capitalism looks different to those who were once commodities, and that has implications for how we build a future not based in domination.

Today on The Laura Flanders Show: Naomi Murakawa indicts liberals for growing the system of mass incarceration, and we take a look back at our coverage of the Black Lives Matter movement. All that and a few words from me on mandatory minimums in 1790 and since.

India in the throes of a fascism that echoes what we have in America. The country is undergoing a political upheaval with PM Modi at its front, and fueled by increased violence towards Muslims, queers, Dalits, women, and more. Our guest, Arundhati Roy, covers this vast breadth of ground in her second novel in 20 years, ‘The Ministry of Utmost Happiness', is now out in paperback.  Music selection: “Into the Sun” by Grupal featuring  Thenmozhi Soundararajan, from Grupal’s album Migration Music.  Support theLFShow

10 years since the financial crash we've learned that there exists in the US not just one economy, but many, as well as many kinds of economic actors. From platform cooperatives to cryptocurrency, people are continuously building economic alternatives. So says Nathan Schneider, crusader for collective ownership and author of "Everything for Everyone: the Radical Tradition That Is Shaping The Next Economy." Plus, professor and author Virginia Eubanks on how government and corporations are erasing social services through unequal digital practices.  Music: “You Are the One the World Becomes” by Morley, from her new album ‘1000 Miles’. Support theLFShow

Regulation, degradation, shaming, blaming - enough! Is it time for sexual liberation yet? We talk a lot about sex but not often enough about pleasure, On today's show we try to make up for that and hear from some bloggers, activists and educators who are practicing very positive consent.  Music Featured:  Allies And Enemies by Zara McFarlane on Brownswood Music;  Free by Ultra Naté.  Support theLFShow! Featured Guests and their Podcasts: Jaclyn Friedman Unscrewed; Tina Horn Why Are People Into That ;  Ericka Hart Hoodrat to Headwrap: A Decolonized Podcast

Is the economy recovering, or is the system itself the problem? Economist and philosopher David Harvey on money; which he calls "the great corrupter". Professor David Harvey is one of the world’s leading Marxist thinkers and most prolific writers on class warfare, capitalism, crisis and how we find our way out. Harvey has also coined key social movement concepts, such as the idea of "the right to the city". His latest book is Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism. Also on the show: a look at a meeting of movements as activists from Black Lives Matter travel to Palestine.

In celebration of International Women's Day, GRITtv featuring leaders of the global women's movement, Agnes Pareyio and Monique Wilson plus a look at women of color's fight for rights with Standing on My Sister's Shoulders and Hillary Clinton's White Feminism with Laura's F-Word.  

400 years since the first enslaved Africans arrived in Jamestown, many people agree reparations are due, but what would they look like? How about affordable property put into Black hands, in perpetuity? Could community land trusts be one way of making repairs? A lawyer, a policy advocate and an organizer with homeless New Yorkers explain what’s possible, and what’s being done. For research materials pertaining to the show including links to related articles goto Patreon.com/theLFShow

Enjoy our 'Year End Review'. Than, Equality Lab's Thenmorzi Soundararajan. Basic digital security measures can limit the impact of up to 85-90% of mass surveillance. Worried about your email getting hacked? Or annoyed by ads that know where you shop? Or an activist who wants to learn to encrypt their communications? Teach yourself how to secure your iphone or Android, network, identity, and communications against potential leaks, hacks, and more. Part of our digital security tutorial series. Support theLFShow!

Reinventing our cities and re-enchanting the world. Who gets a say in designing where they live? What if more of us did? This week, we visit Mary Miss, a Guggenheim fellow and celebrated artist, whose organization, The City as Living Laboratory, strives to empower people to create not the cliché of the sustainable city, she says, but places of living and breathing, creative sustenance. Then we speak to scholars Silvia Federici and Peter Linebaugh about the promises of "commoning" for our environment – and our social health. Music Featured: "Harvest for the World" rework by Groove Junkies & ReelSoul featuring Nichelle Monroe, released on MoreHouse Records.

Soul Fire Farm’s Leah Penniman talks with Chris Hedges, author of America: The Farewell Tour, about environmental threats, societal breakdown, and how we might come back together as humans. Then, a glimpse of CAGED, a play written and conceived by Hedges’ writing students in a high-security prison in New Jersey. Music featured: “Babylon Falling” by Thievery Corporation from their album Temple of I & I featuring Puma, released on Eighteenth Street Lounge Records. Invest in The Laura Flanders Show and every dollar of yours will be MATCHED by a dollar from Jane Fonda. Support theLFShow, 10 Years of Making Power Through Media!

It’s time to start looking at conflict in a new and different way -- and women are at the forefront. A look into a new PBS film series with an all-female directors that is focusing attention on what we can learn from women who risked their lives for peace --  and changed history in the process.  Guests: Julia Bacha, a Peabody and Guggenheim award-winning filmmaker, and director of “Naila and the Uprising”. Gini Reticker, an Academy Award-nominated and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker who  directed “The Trials of Spring” and is also an executive producer of the Women, War, and Peace series.  Music Spotlight:  Blake Leyh’s film score for Gini Reticker’s “The Trials of Spring". For our Patreon Community, you’ll find more in depth information on this week's show, including research materials and additional links to explore.

As the World Economic Forum takes place in Davos, Switzerland, we talk about the way central banks steer world development and for whom. Former Goldman Sachs managing director Nomi Prins, author of "Collusion: How Central Bankers Rigged the World," and public ownership researcher, Thomas Hanna, author of “Our Common Wealth: The Return of Public Ownership in the United States,” and Research Director at The Democracy Collaborative, believe that banking, and development, could be very different. Music featured: “You & Me” by Danny McGraw. Support theLFShow!

With marijuana legalization passing around the US, are we finally entering the last days of the War on Drugs? Johann Hari had an early start as an op-ed columnist for The Independent at 23. Since then, he has written for the New York Times, the LA Times, the Guardian, Le Monde, Slate, the New Republic and The Nation among others. His new book, Chasing The Scream, is a bracing look inside the War on Drugs. This episode also looks at what resisting the war on drugs looks like at the grassroots, with a profile of Reverend Kenneth Glasgow and his organization T.O.P.S. - The Ordinary People Society. T.O.P.S. is an extraordinary criminal justice reform organization run by former prisoners in Dothan, Alabama.

A pandemic is no place to be a bystander, says Muslim American activist Linda Sarsour. In this episode, Laura interviews Sarsour about her recently published memoir We are Not Here to Be Bystanders, which tells her story of growing up in Brooklyn and Palestine and becoming the Executive Director of the Arab American Association of New York and one of the co-chairs of the 2017 Women’s March on Washington. Sarsour describes how Covid-19 is affecting her work, what contact tracing triggers for people who were forced to register as Muslims after 9-11, and what Muslim Americans have learned about being targets, even as so many serve as front-line healthcare providers.  Music in the Middle:  “Marching the Hate Machines”  by Thievery Corporation featuring Frank Orrall, from their new album Symphonik Version, courtesy of ESL Records. Watch our Forward Thinking on Covid-19  series where guests offer their view point from a forward looking perspective in their area of expertise. Become a Patreon member to unlock the full unedited conversations.  This week Laura's guest is Patricia Mercado Sánchez, Founder/Director Conexion Migrante.

Over 30million Americans are uninsured, and even more are sickened by the sky-high costs. While Congress seems sunk in a partisan fight over the Affordable Care Act, & Bernie Sanders Medicare for All bill nowhere near becoming law- though popular, might Big Business offer a way out?  Guests: Ben Palmquist, National Economic and Social Rights Initiative & Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, Physicians for a National Health Program. Then activists from Brazil, Haiti, and right here in the U.S. on what healthy communities need to thrive. Music by Dawn Drake "Cross Crocodile". Support theLFShow via our new Patreon campaign.

Laura Flanders' weekly commentary the 'F-word'.  Write to Laura, she'd love to hear from you Laura@LauraFlanders.com Please take the time to write a review in iTunes, it helps spread the word. Thank you! Make a one time donation or become a sustaining member for as little as $2 a month http://LauraFlanders.com/donate

theLFShow partnered with Project South covered the 2017 annual gathering of the Southern Movement Assemblies -- a living experiment in popular democracy and local self governance. Plantation politics, monopoly capitalism, incarceration instead of peace: a lot of the worst of the American experience has it roots in the US South, but so does much of the best, from slave revolts, to abolition, to organized labor and civil rights. If the country goes as the South goes, what grassroots progressives do here matters. Featuring music by Deep Seedz Collective.