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

Full episode notes are at https://Patreon.com/theLFShow BIPOC journalists reflect on what it is to be veterans of two of the most devastating wars in recent history: the coronavirus pandemic and the centuries-long war on Black bodies through systemic racism and police brutality. In this media roundtable—a collaboration between The Laura Flanders Show and URL Media—we take a different approach to M...

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 threa...

"Besides, if an extra $300 a week enables some to make ends meet without that stinking $7/hr job at the Dollar Store. Is that so bad? " The F-Word is released bi-weekly featuring timely commentaries by Laura Flanders and guests. Support theLFShow with your media muscles by becoming a monthly sustaining member for $3, $5, $12 or more, goto https://Patreon.com/theLFShow   TRANSCRIPT: United Action T...

“The opportunities for labor right now are virtually limitless,” says Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, the country’s largest labor federation. With Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama igniting the fight to unionize and the introduction of the PRO Act in Congress, widespread discontent with the economy has rendered this moment pregnant with new possibilities for workers. New Republic contr...

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, hierar...

For episode notes go to Patreon.com/theLFShow where you’ll find more information on Sylvia Bugg along with a suggested reading list and additional related episodes to explore. For the podcast fans of full uncut interviews, dive into Laura Flanders' interview with Sylvia Bugg Chief Programming Executive and General Manager of General Audience Programming. It’s a new day, and the nation’s most trust...

"While every other wealthy nation spends around $100 per citizen for public media of different kinds, the  US government spends just over $1.00 on  public broadcasting."  The F-Word is released bi-weekly featuring timely commentaries by Laura Flanders and guests. Support theLFShow with your media muscles by becoming a monthly sustaining member for $3, $5, $12 or more, goto https://Patreon.com/theL...

It’s a new day, and the nation’s most trusted media institution has some new direction. Sylvia Bugg was named the Chief Programming Executive and General Manager of General Audience Programming in winter 2020. She will take on PBS’s programming strategy for broadcast to focus on PBS’ role as a provider in service of the people. PBS is currently facing criticism for a lack of diversity in content w...

"IndependentMedia bring issues to the boil, mainstream media inhale the steam." Listen / Download the podcast "Black Pain White Media: Introducing URL Media, a new, BIPOC network" to hear about URL Media, Scalawag Magazine and more.  Or watch it on your local PBS TV station, or on our YouTube channel . The F-Word is released bi-weekly featuring timely commentaries by Laura Flanders and guests. Sup...

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 e...

 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 than...

How do we deal with our differences differently? From our polarizing election cycle to cancel culture strategies ousting abusive and destructive institutions, society is moving through a broken capitalist system that is fracturing our relationships. One solution is generative conflict and is the only way to grow authentic relationships, says author and activist adrienne maree brown. So what can we...

“It's time to disrupt this wall of whiteness,” says interdisciplinary artist Favianna Rodriguez this week on the LF Show. From BLM and MeToo to colonial violence at the border and on indigenous lands, activist artists are at the heart of our social justice movements. Laura talks with Hip Hop artist and former Earth Guardians youth director Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, interdisciplinary artist and social...

"American #police are armed to the teeth with #military grade weapons and the results are in. The more combat gear, the more combat. So how about we armed our cities with military grade #healthcare instead?"   The F-Word is released bi-weekly featuring timely commentaries by Laura Flanders and guests. Support theLFShow with your media muscles by becoming a monthly sustaining member for $3, $5, $12...

You'll find a link to watch this special, “ US Healthcare After Covid: What’s Next & How Could It Be Better? ,” and episode notes posted at Patreon.com/theLFShow  along with an invitation to join guests and Laura for a live premiere and chat event to view this week’s episode .  The Medicare for All Act was reintroduced into the U.S. House in March with a record number of cosponsors and public supp...

The Biden administration has promised to make Covid-19 vaccines available to all US adults by May 1st, but getting a vaccine to those who need them most is still an uphill battle. Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and Pacific Islander Americans are more than twice as likely to die from Covid-19, but they’re not the ones getting the vaccine.. In this episode, Laura interviews three public health experts a...

"Culture of violence, culture of violence. If I hear that phrase wheeled out one more time to excuse a mass shooter, I’ll scream. That doesn’t mean I’ll head to the gun shop." The F-Word is released bi-weekly featuring timely commentaries by Laura Flanders and guests. Support theLFShow with your media muscles by becoming a monthly sustaining member for $3, $5, $12 or more, goto https://Patreon.com...

In a recent episode called Unforget, Dream, Build, we featured two Latinx Americans whose work flies in the face of the idea that immigrants are a problem or immigration a threat. We spoke with Roberto Lovato, about his memoir “Unforgetting” and with MacArthur genius award-winner, Cristina Jiménez, co-founder of United We Dream who talked powerfully about how her generation experiences the good as...

The economic collapse unfolding before our eyes is much bigger than it appears and the solution isn’t simply to “build back better.” COVID-19 didn’t create the challenges we face. It laid bare flaws that have long existed at the foundation of our system. That is particularly true for Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color. What kind of reconstruction effort would truly reflect the scale of t...

"In the context of the Divine Right of Kings, the who-said-what-to-Harry and Meghan question. is most certainly missing the white supremacist forest for the trees."   The F-Word is released bi-weekly featuring timely commentaries by Laura Flanders and guests. Support theLFShow with your media muscles by becoming a monthly sustaining member for $3, $5, $12 or more, goto https://Patreon.com/theLFSho...

Achieving social justice is going to take much more than reforming our criminal justice system. Valuing all lives equally is going to require a profound reckoning with every system of “othering” that lies at the heart of our economy. “You can't deal, for example, with capitalism unless you deal with patriarchy, “ says political historian Vijay Prashad. The question of women’s unrecognized labor, c...

Life gives us plenty of reasons for cynicism but best-selling author Rutger Bregman (Utopia for Realists) summons a wealth of evidence that humankind can do better. Bregman’s the guy who took down Tucker Carlson and whose suggestion they pay taxes made the tax dodgers uncomfortable at Davos. Could a new understanding of our species—based on psychology, evolutionary biology, and political economic...

"How do we live with the decades-long reality that tens of thousands of families in #IndianCountry have had no electricity and limited cell and broadband access - not for a day or a week - but for years already."   The F-Word is released bi-weekly featuring timely commentaries by Laura Flanders and guests. Support theLFShow with your media muscles by becoming a monthly sustaining member for $3, $5...

You'll find a link to watch this special, “Indigenous People's Power,” and episode notes posted at Patreon.com/theLFShow  along with an invitation to join guests and Laura for a live premiere and chat event to view this week’s episode .  “Standing Rock was our Ferguson,” indigenous activist and author Edgar Villanueva tells Laura Flanders in this week’s timely episode. 2020 was a watershed year fo...

Princeton Professor and author Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. You can find more information on her new book, "Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Home Ownership" and a link to watch this special,  “Housing is a Human Right”, at Patreon.com/theLFShow .  That’s also where you’ll find a list of suggested readings and related episodes   Laura Flanders and Friends Cr...