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

The F-Word, Laura Flanders' weekly commentary. Our goal is to thrive, not just survive. By becoming a member, you sustain our independent, and grassroots-driven content!   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 Dir...

For many, mass movements have made them aware of media's failure to inform and represent them. Activists are now working to make their own media, and to rebuild traditional empowering media infrastructures. This week, we re-visit Radio Kingston , a station connecting communities and lifting up voices. Than joining Laura in studio, activist DeRay Mckesson, Pod Save the People host and author of ‘On...

As family and friends celebrate and give thanks, for indigenous peoples around the world perhaps apologies, even recompense, would be more in order. We’ll hear from Native American activists Michelle Cook and Hartman Deetz about the ongoing struggle for autonomy and environmental protection. Then our report on the thousand people in attendance at the American Museum of Natural History on Indigenou...

Building a new economy for and by Native Americans requires election level attention beyond election week.  That new book out from the Democracy Collective, "An Indigenous Approach to Community Wealth Building: A Lakota Translation". Our goal is to thrive, not just survive. By becoming a member, you sustain our independent, and grassroots-driven content! www. LauraFlanders.org/donate &nb...

Six years ago Superstorm Sandy hit, Lorena Giron and Brendan Martin of The Working World, an organization focused on starting and sustaining cooperatives in low-income communities, reports on the WORC's that emerged out of the devastation. And noted Marxist geographer and anthropologist, David Harvey . Music Spotlight: “New Laughter Mode (The Way In)” by Laraaji and Audio Active. November 27th joi...

"The particular patriarchs whom white women have put in office this November are on the record, anti-female. They’re even anti-white-female, if you happen to be pregnant or foreign-born, or poor or in imperfect health." Our goal is to thrive, not just survive. By becoming a member, you sustain our independent, and grassroots-driven content! www. LauraFlanders.org   Laura Flanders an...

From no, I won't to yes, we will. It’s official a record breaking number of women have won seats in Congress. Over a hundred women, more women than ever, were voted in including New Mexico’s Deb Halland and Sharice Davids, the Congress’ first 2 Native American women, and Davids is the first out lesbian Native American too. As anticipated, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a socialist Democrat, is now Cong...

Someone scrawled KILL N@%gers on the African Burial Ground National Monument in New York this week, not thirty five feet from the headquarters of the Department of Homeland Security, ICE and the FBI. Our goal is to thrive, not just survive. By becoming a member , you sustain our independent, and grassroots-driven content!   Laura Flanders and Friends Crew:  Laura Flanders-Executive Produ...

Anthony Flaccavento is running for the US House seat in Virginia's 9th district, a large, sparsely populated region in the southwestern corner of the state. We'll meet the people working on his grassroots campaign, a coalition of farmers, miners, students, seniors and activists that may serve as a practical blueprint for many Democrats competing in so-called "Red States". Music featured,...

Is Donald Trump responsible for unhinged violence against innocent people? Absolutely. You only have to look at Yemen to see that. Our goal is to thrive, not just survive. By becoming a member , you sustain our independent, and grassroots-driven content!   Laura Flanders and Friends Crew:  Laura Flanders-Executive Producer, Writer;  Sabrina Artel-Supervising Producer; Jeremiah Cothr...

For many, mass movements have made them aware of media's failure to inform and represent them. Activists are now working to make their own media, and to rebuild the empowering media infrastructures that have existed previously. This week, we visit a local, innovative radio station in Kingston, NY and talk to Pod Save the People's DeRay Mckesson, activist and author, about how he's turned social me...

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...

"For a while last week, I thought I was in the wrong place. While the nation’s eyes were on the Kavanaugh hearings, I was in southwest Virginia, with a congressional campaign in rural America that big donors and DC Democrats don’t seem to care that much about."   _Our goal is to thrive, not just survive. By  becoming a member , you sustain our independent, and grassroots-driven content! ...

Food --- from where it grows, to where it goes, all of it matters to our bodies and our communities. We begin October with a conversation about how farmers are creating equitable food systems inside cities, from urban agriculture to worker-owned cooperatives. Guests: Susan Chin- Design Trust , Karen Washington- Rise & Root Farm  and Ysanet Batista- Woke Foods . +Excerpts from Peter Coffin's &q...

"Cities accumulate capital, people, aspirations, and power. But, whose power? Whose aspirations? How can we find in the city a place of possibility?" These are the questions from Laura Flanders' opening statements at the Transnational Institute 's convening on Transformative Cities in Amsterdam during July 2018. Music spotlight: disco remake of Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi"...

"September 28, when a woman,  Ana Maria Archila , stuck her foot in the door of an elevator and gave Republican Jeff Flake, a potential swing voter, a talking-to, and kept that foot in that door so that another woman, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, could do the same, as the cameras rolled, live. The video went viral."  _Our goal is to thrive, not just survive. By  becoming a member , you sus...

Despite efforts over the last two years to curtail progress for trans people by the current administration, trans activism has gained momentum and become prominent within the movement for queer justice. Laura speaks with Imara Jones, a trans activist, former policymaker, and host of The Last Sip on Free Speech TV about her work to amplify transgender narratives, on and off the screen.  Music featu...

'Not long after the financial crash of 2008, I heard someone say, “It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” Is it?' Our goal is to thrive, not just survive. By becoming a member , you sustain our independent, and grassroots-driven content!    Laura Flanders and Friends Crew:  Laura Flanders-Executive Producer, Writer;  Sabrina Artel-Supervising Produc...

The Trump administration claims its response to Hurricane Maria was a "tremendous," "unsung" success. Yet, what has been truly tremendous since the hurricane is the will of Puerto Ricans building, organizing, and recovering .  Reporting from CommonBound ,  Laura speaks to Edgar Gomez, a city official of Toa Baja, PR & education activists from the island, Ana Yris Guzman Tor...

"This particular plaque for my father made me think about something else too. If it wasn't for inclusive design, I literally would not exist." Check out our SPECIAL REPORT: Ableism Out, Independent Living Now!    Our goal is to thrive, not just survive. By  becoming a member , you sustain our independent, and grassroots-driven content!     Laura Flanders and Friends Crew:  Laur...

2018 has been a year of upheaval for students, in and out of the classroom. This week educators and education activists talk about educational justice, teaching in Trump times, and taking stock of the current state of education. We're joined by Natasha Capers, of the NYC Coalition for Educational Justice ; Adam Sanchez, of Rethinking Schools  & Zinn Education Project ; and José Luis Vilson, of...

On July 26th, marked the 28th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Thousands of disability activists, including many of those who made this civil rights landmark a reality, convened at the National Council on Independent Living’s (NCIL) 2018 Annual Conference. ​Celebrating ​#ADA28 alongside disability activists​ allows us to revisit the story of how disability came to be a civ...

Laura reports on a transatlantic experiment in cooperative community wealth building.  In Preston, Lancashire, England, a formerly industrial city, the birthplace of the industrial revolution in many ways, they’ve seen ten years of austerity and partly out of need, and partly out of aspiration they’re practicing, experimenting, with a new model, the Preston model, and it’s inspired by a model in a...

Social movements and party politics - inherently at odds or natural allies? This week, in his first in-depth TV appearance, Maurice Mitchell, the new National Director of the  Working Families Party , joins us in studio. Laura and Maurice discuss his activist background, the WFP's national and international vision, and how the organization is tackling this midterm election year. Music: “I Want to...

Seattle Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D-WA-7th) and Baltimore activist Dominique Stevenson discuss activism, political involvement and why leaders should consider running for office. Then Stevenson takes us on to a community farming project in Baltimore's Sandtown (Freddie Gray's neighborhood).  Music featured: “Bruthas” by Paris Cesvette featuring Brutha Basil from her album “Celestial (My Journ...