As a monthly sustaining supporter you are receiving early access to listen and download the full uncut conversation from our episode "Johann Hari: Get Your Mind Back / Save Democracy?"

Description: Are we too distracted to think? The answer is worse than you’d expect. In his latest book, New York Times bestselling author Johann Hari says we’re all the victims of attention theft and the consequences are catastrophic, for our personal lives and our democracy. Adults in the workplace focus on a task for 3 minutes on average, and that number is declining. “We've got so many crises we need to deal with that require sustained focus and attention on the part of the citizenry,” Hari tells Laura, but our focus has been stolen by companies out to make a profit. “Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention and How to Think Deeply Again” was named one of the best books of 2022 by many publications and is out in paperback this month. In this wide-ranging conversation, Johann and Laura discuss how we got here, what structural changes we need, and how we need to stop beating ourselves up. It's not our fault we can't focus, says Hari, but we do need our minds back if we want society to function. All that and a commentary from Laura on Luddites.

Guest: Johann Hari- Bestselling Author, “Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention and How to Think Deeply Again”

Full research and reading list to further delve into the conversation is posted at https://Patreon.com/theLFShow

Description: “THE GREAT ESCAPE: A True Story of Forced Labor and Immigrant Dreams in America” tells the story of one of the largest human trafficking schemes in modern American history and how the traffickers were finally held to account. Saket Soni was the co-founder of The New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice in the post-Katrina years. Today he’s the founder and director of Resilience Force, a project that comes directly out of his experience working with the men in this book. The U.S. is experiencing a labor shortage, and climate catastrophe will increase the need for disaster recovery workers. How can we build the resilient workforce we need, with the rights and equity workers deserve? Join Laura and Saket for this urgent conversation on the future of labor.

Guest: Saket Soni, Author, THE GREAT ESCAPE: A True Story of Forced Labor and Immigrant Dreams in America; Founder & Director, Resilience Force

Full research and reading list to further delve into the conversation is available here on at https://Patreon.com/theLFShow

Synopsis, Laura's Commentary: As billionaires buy up our newsrooms and Congress defunds public media, the stakes for democracy couldn’t be higher. If we don’t reinvent and reinvest in independent media now, it may soon be too late.

For the transcript of this commentary and more articles by Laura subscribe to Substack.

Watch Laura's interview with Documented NY's Labor Reporter Amir Khafagy and Capital B's Rural Issues Reporter Aallyah Wright on Laura Flanders & Friends on YouTube, or PBS stations and hear their take on commercial coverage of the NYC Mayor's race and anti-Black rule changes at USDA, or listen to past commentaries and full uncut interviews through subscribing to this free podcast.

That episode is available on YouTube July 25th 5pm ET; PBS World Channel July 27th, and on over 300 public stations across the country (check your listings, or search here via zipcode). Listen: Episode airs on community radio stations across the country (check here to see if your station airs the show) & available as a podcast July 30th.

Full Episode Notes are located HERE.

This show is made possible by you! To become a sustaining member go to LauraFlanders.org/donate

Pharmaceutical prices in the US are astronomically high and many vulnerable people can’t afford the drugs they need. Public ownership of drug manufacturing can break the private monopolies and save lives, but it’s going to take a lot of public pressure to make change. Today, we look at the progress that’s being made to tackle America’s killer drug price problem at the state, national and global level. The Biden administration’s agreement with manufacturer Eli Lilly to cap insulin prices at $35/dose is a step, but what would really make a difference would be to get private profit and monopoly patents out of the health business altogether. In the US, California is taking the lead. Advocates Dana Brown, Luis Gil Abinader and Kevin Wren join Laura to bring us an update –  and in her closing, Laura shares some news about the impact of our investigative series from North Carolina.

Guests:

•Dana Brown: Director, Health & Economy, The Democracy Collaborative

•Luis Gil Abinader: Legal Scholar; Fellow, Georgetown University Law O'Neill Institute; Board Member, Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM)

•Kevin Wren: Queer Activist & Patient Advocate Chapter Leader, California #insulin4all; T1 International; Queer Activist & Patient Advocate, MA Evans School of Public Policy & Governance, University of Washington

Laura's Extended Commentary aka The F-Word: Melissa Hortman’s murder was more than a tragedy—it was a political assassination aimed at a movement. This commentary honors her legacy as a coalition-builder behind Minnesota’s progressive gains and calls for courage, organizing, and solidarity in her wake.

- The related episode featuring Sarah Schulman premieres on our YouTube channel June 20th 5pm ET where you are invited to join us to Watch the episode live and chat with Laura in real time. It premieres on PBS World Channel June 22nd, and on over 300 public stations across the country (check your listings, or search here via zipcode), and airing on community radio & available in the podcast feed June 25th. The full uncut conversation is available June 20th 5pm in the podcast feed... please hit the subscribe button wherever you get your podcasts.

For more articles by Laura subscribe to Substack: https://lauraflanders.substack.com/?utm_campaign=pub&utm_medium=web

Laura's Commentary: With seventeen veterans taking their lives daily in the US, a haunting question arises: can America redefine its values and reclaim its democratic principles before it's too late, or will it continue down a path of militarized politics and shattered ideals?

Subscribe to the Laura Flanders and Friends Podcast for the exclusive uncut conversation between Liev Schreiber and Laura Flanders

For more articles by Laura subscribe to Substack: https://substack.com/home/post/p-165868460

"V (formerly Eve Ensler): Reckoning with Our Past, Transforming the Future."

Original Release Date- February 19, 2023

Description: “Reckoning” is the new best-selling book from V (formerly Eve Ensler), author of “The Vagina Monologues” and founder of V-Day/One Billion Rising, the global movement to end violence against all women, gender-expansive people, girls, and the earth. Reckoning, writes V, is “the antidote to fascism”. In this Women’s History Month special, which includes performances by V and Laurence Olivier Award-winning actress and Tony nominee, Noma Dumezweni, Laura speaks with V about why she changed her name, her long history working for peace, the current pushback against teaching African American history, and the abortion she had at the age of 23 when she was living in a halfway home. What is the reckoning we need, and where can it lead us? What happens if we do NOT reckon?

Guest: 

V (formerly Eve Ensler): Award-winning Playwright, Author & Founder V-Day & One Billion Rising; Best-selling Author, Reckoning, The Apology

Full research and reading list to further delve into the conversation is available at Patreon here => https://tinyurl.com/y7xasnny

In this back to school special, we look at the grassroots movement led by student activists with the support of some faculty to establish Africana Studies Departments and Puerto Rican Studies Departments at The City of New York, or CUNY’s Brooklyn College — one of the first in the country. How does this struggle relate to today’s fight for multicultural education?

Guests:

-Askia Davis: Former Superintendent of Schools, Harlem, NYC; Former Deputy Regional Superintendent, Bronx, NYC

-Sonia Nieto: Professor Emerita, Language, Literacy & Culture, College of Education UMass, Amherst; Member, National Academy of Education

-Antonio Nieves: Director of Pharmacy, Caribbean Health Outreach; Founder, Puerto Rican Institute & the Afro American Institute, Brooklyn College

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed in 1990, a significant milestone in the fight for civil rights, with a vision of inclusion and respect for people with disabilities. But ableism, or discrimination in favor of able-bodied people, persists, affecting the one in four Americans with a disability. What does ableism mean and why is it still a prominent problem? Anita Cameron and Keith Jones, leaders in the disability rights and disability justice movements, have answers.

Cameron, who has been arrested nearly 150 times, participated in the "Capitol Crawl" for the passage of the ADA in 1990 and, later in 2017, she was part of the widely-publicized Rotunda Takeover with the disability advocacy group, ADAPT, to protest proposed Medicaid cuts. Her influential writings shed light on topics like ableism in media and the intersection of ableism and mental health. She currently heads the Minority Outreach at "Not Dead Yet", an organization committed to fighting ableism, or discrimination veiled as physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia of persons with disabilities.

As an African-American activist, entrepreneur, and father living with cerebral palsy, Keith Jones advocates for quality independent living for persons with disabilities. He also strives for equal access to housing, education, and voting rights - for all. In addition to his human rights work, Jones is the founder of SoulTouchin’ Experiences and has earned an Emmy award for his song "Rising Phoenix," a documentary about the Paralympic Games. This far-ranging feature, timed to coincide with the signing of the ADA on July 25, 1990, concludes with a commentary by Flanders.

Thank you for your support!

In “ZODIAC: A Graphic Memoir”, the renowned artist Ai Weiwei writes that artists should “ignite stories”, “fight for freedom” and “help us hope.” Over his long and defiant career, he has used his art in a wide variety of media to do just that. In this wide-ranging conversation with Laura Flanders, they discuss the role of the artist and ask why is “Power so afraid of art and poets?”

“I'm not this kind of very active activist. I'm just being forced to act . . . But I'm proud of doing that because that is the meaning of life, to give dignity to life itself . . .” - Ai Weiwei

“The real fear for me is [if] we lost [the] ability to ask the question. We lost our memory, we lost our sense of caring compassion . . .” - Ai Weiwei

“We [do] not encourage people to have free thinking and judgment and that is the ground to produce Nazis or hypocrites. And that can come to political disaster . . . We have this kind of censorship because people cannot freely express their feelings.” - Ai Weiwei

Guest:

Ai Weiwei: Conceptual Artist, Filmmaker & Human Rights Activist; Author, ZODIAC, A Graphic Memoir