Laura Flanders and Friends: New Economy, Democracy, Labor, Solutions Journalism

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As the Israel/Hamas conflict continues, what is media’s role? You may know Sonali Kolhatkar from her drive-time show ‘Uprising with Sonali” and then “Rising Up With Sonali” on KPFK/Pacifica Radio and Free Speech TV, but it was her narrative storytelling with the women of RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, that Kolhatkar first made her national mark. Across the globe, reporting shapes political and cultural landscapes — and Kolhatkar believes that done right, storytelling can affect policy and advance social justice. She lays out examples in her new book from City Lights, “Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice”. An award winning independent journalist, Kolhatkar has joined forces with YES! Magazine as Racial Justice Editor and host of a new weekly, “YES! Presents: Rising Up With Sonali” which she calls an “anecdote to the doom and gloom of mainstream news.” In this unique conversation Kolhatkar and Flanders exchange notes, and share experiences covering the stories that others don’t. What’s changed, what’s changing in the media coverage of Palestinians and Israelis? All that, plus a commentary from Laura on intimacy and reporting.

“. . . Solutions journalism can fuel a hope and a promise that if there are people here doing this about their problems, I can do the same.” - Sonali Kolhatkar

“. . . The world's attention is on the Palestinian people and Israelis . . . How do we center the complex humanity of people that we are told are totally different from one another?” - Sonali Kolhatkar

Guest: Sonali Kolhatkar: Racial Justice Editor, YES! Magazine; Author, Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice

Full Episode Notes are located HERE. They include related episodes, articles, and more.

Music In the Middle: “The Shadow Thief” by Nickodemus featuring Alsarah from the album Soul and Science courtesy of Wonderwheel Recordings. And additional music included- "In and Out" and "Steppin" by Podington Bear

🎧 LOOKING FOR UNCUT INTERVIEWS? check our podcast feed the following week. Thanks to our sustaining members and their monthly support.

The Laura Flanders Show Crew: Laura Flanders, Sabrina Artel, David Neuman, Nat Needham, Rory O'Conner, Janet Hernandez, Sarah Miller and Jeannie Hopper

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Laura Flanders and Friends Crew: Laura Flanders, along with Sabrina Artel, Jeremiah Cothren, Veronica Delgado, Janet Hernandez, Jeannie Hopper, Sarah Miller, Nat Needham, David Neuman, and Rory O’Conner.

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ACCESSIBILITY - The broadcast edition of this episode is available with closed captioned by clicking here for our YouTube Channel

At The Laura Flanders Show, we're dedicated to providing a platform for diverse voices in the field of social justice. This report, produced through The Laura Flanders Show fellowship program, reflects our commitment. The opinions presented are solely those of the guest contributor and do not necessarily reflect or represent The Laura Flanders

• Antisemitism is the hostility to or prejudice against Jewish people, and it did not end with the Holocaust or other forms of institutionalized discrimination. Instead, antisemitic incidents in America have hit the highest level ever recorded by the Anti-Defamation League, and this age-old form of hatred is wreaking havoc on college campuses.
• The University of Wisconsin - Madison is usually a welcoming home to its 4,000 Jewish students. But on the first day of classes in September 2022, antisemitic chalkings marred the sidewalks of campus, targeting Jewish organizations and its members as “racist,” “genocidal,” and “having blood on their hands”. The university released an ineffective statement, sided with free speech, and left many Jewsh students feeling as though their own institution didn't support them.
• Abigail Handel, a student at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, was a first year student when this antisemitic event occurred. Now she has set out to answer the pressing question: Are American universities doing enough to combat antisemitism on campus? In this audio exclusive, Abigail takes us on a journey through understanding what antisemitism is, the damaging environment it has created for Jewish students, and what can be done to eradicate all forms of hate. Handel talks to Savannah Lipinksi, a rabbinite student at the The Jewish Theological Seminary, and Samuel Cross, the President of Rhodes College Hillel, to uncover the complex issue of modern antisemitism and the urgent need for proactive measures on campuses.
• “People are having a harder time recognizing antisemitism the further we get from the Holocaust and the more obvious manifestations of antisemitism that happened throughout the 19th and 20th centuries...This is why it is becoming increasingly important to call out the subtle attacks happening on university campuses.” - Abigail Handel
• Guests
• ● Savannah Lipinski, Former Student, UW Madison; Student, Jewish Theological Seminary
• ● Samuel Cross, Student, Rhodes College; President, Rhodes College Hillel

Laura Flanders and Friends Crew: Laura Flanders, along with Sabrina Artel, Jeremiah Cothren, Veronica Delgado, Janet Hernandez, Jeannie Hopper, Sarah Miller, Nat Needham, David Neuman, and Rory O’Conner.

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ACCESSIBILITY - The broadcast edition of this episode is available with closed captioned by clicking here for our YouTube Channel

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

Movement lawyer and organizer Andrea J. Ritchie’s forthcoming book is unlike anything she’s written before. In “Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies”, published by AK Press and out at the end of October 2023 as part of their Emergent Strategies Series, Ritchie has written a toolkit for organizers. Both visionary and practical, Ritchie believes we can live the “future” world we want, and offers actionable steps we can take to get there. A self-described “Black lesbian immigrant survivor,” Ritchie has been engaged since the 1980s in anti-violence, labor, and LGBTQ organizing, and in movements against state violence and for racial, reproductive, economic, environmental, and gender justice. In this wide-ranging conversation, Andrea J. Ritchie and Laura Flanders discuss what’s changed and what hasn’t after the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, and the emergent strategies for abolition that we should all pay attention to. The Right has strategies too — and so far, they’re working. How do we create the necessary conditions that foster collectivity and liberation leading to increased public safety and well-being? All that, plus a commentary from Laura on the power we recognize, and the other sort too.

“Change happens by acting as though the future that you are dreaming of is present now. And then practicing that with people who share your vision and values and then bringing more and more people into the conversation.” - Andrea J. Ritchie

“[Emergent strategies are] a way of approaching a world that interrupts violence in all its forms and creates new possibilities that we can't imagine yet.” - Andrea J. Ritchie

Guest: Andrea J. Ritchie: Author, Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies; Co-Founder, Interrupting Criminalization

Full Episode Notes are located HERE. They include related episodes, articles, and more.

Music In the Middle: “I Keeps It Moving” by David Anthony and Dani Vassar courtesy of Planet Hum Records and Pitch Control. And additional music included- "In and Out" and "Steppin" by Podington Bear

🎧 LOOKING FOR UNCUT INTERVIEWS? check our podcast feed the following week. Thanks to our sustaining members and their monthly support.

The Laura Flanders Show Crew: Laura Flanders, Sabrina Artel, David Neuman, Nat Needham, Rory O'Conner, Janet Hernandez, Sarah Miller and Jeannie Hopper

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ACCESSIBILITY - This episode is available with closed captioned by clicking here for our YouTube Channel

Laura Flanders and Friends Crew: Laura Flanders, along with Sabrina Artel, Jeremiah Cothren, Veronica Delgado, Janet Hernandez, Jeannie Hopper, Sarah Miller, Nat Needham, David Neuman, and Rory O’Conner.

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ACCESSIBILITY - The broadcast edition of this episode is available with closed captioned by clicking here for our YouTube Channel

The following full uncut conversation is from our recent episode featuring Rep. Ro Khanna & Lisa Graves calling out ALEC / The American Legislative Exchange Council . It is made available here as a podcast thanks to the generous contributions from listeners like you. Thank you. Become a member support at LauraFlanders.org/donate

Full Episode Description: Many people have never heard of the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC – but for 50 years, the group has been the driving force behind some of the most extreme policies in this country. Behind closed doors, ALEC brings corporate lobbyists and state politicians together to draft and vote on model bills that aim to free corporations from regulations, regardless of the impacts on people and the planet. Labor law, environmental law, health and safety, voting — no cause is off-limits. Our guests say ALEC and its wealthy pool of funders are a real threat, but there are ways to take action and progress has already been made. In 2023, a diverse coalition of groups, including Greenpeace, Color of Change, the Center for Media and Democracy and more, is calling out the anti-democratic impact of ALEC by using the hashtag #50YearsOfHarm. Congressman Ro Khanna of California's 17th Congressional District, a leading progressive in the House, and Lisa Graves, Executive Director of True North Research and President of the Center for Media and Democracy, two of the preeminent national watchdog groups investigating dark money, join Laura Flanders to unpack it all. And in her closing commentary Laura fills us in on the other side of the story in state houses: the Democrats' have their own project in place these days. But is it any match for ALEC?

“ALEC recognizes that on many of these issues, there's a 70, 80, 90% consensus against them and they're trying to distort the democratic process by the use of big money.” - Ro Khanna

“ I still believe that for many people, not all people, knowledge is power, facts matter, and knowing who the real special interests are behind this [legislation] can help expose and block them.” - Lisa Graves

Guests:

Lisa Graves: President of the Board, Center for Media & Democracy; Executive Director, True North Research

Ro Khanna: Congressman California's 17th District

Full Episode Notes are located HERE. They include related episodes, articles, and more.

Music Included- "In and Out" and "Steppin" by Podington Bear.

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Laura Flanders and Friends Crew: Laura Flanders, along with Sabrina Artel, Jeremiah Cothren, Veronica Delgado, Janet Hernandez, Jeannie Hopper, Sarah Miller, Nat Needham, David Neuman, and Rory O’Conner.

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ACCESSIBILITY - The broadcast edition of this episode is available with closed captioned by clicking here for our YouTube Channel

The following full uncut conversation is from our recent episode featuring Naomi Klein. It is made available here as a podcast thanks to the generous contributions from listeners like you. Thank you. Become a member today and you'll receive an invite to a 'Ask Laura Anything" event, October 4th 8pm Eastern Time, goto https://LauraFlanders.org/donate

Full Episode Description: Politics abhors a vacuum. Without credible explanations for the things that bewilder and exasperate us, people become susceptible to extremist conspiracy theories, hate and lies. So how does truth survive? In her brand new book, "Doppelgänger: A Trip into the Mirror World”, award-winning journalist Naomi Klein, (author of No Logo, The Shock Doctrine, et al), describes being confused with Naomi Wolf, author of The Beauty Myth, as Wolf morphed into a conspiracy-minded anti-vaxxer during the Covid pandemic. In an era of all important "personal brands", Klein became absorbed in the deep fake, double worlds surrounding and sometimes coming to represent her online. Right-wing conspiracies feed off Left-wing silences, she concludes. In this far-ranging interview from her home in British Columbia, Canada, Klein describes listening to hours and hours of conspiracist Steve Bannon's podcasts, and researching doppelgängers in history and literature, in order to uncover why we have shadow selves, and how disinformation and conspiracy theories gain power. Join Laura Flanders for this charming conversation as Naomi Klein challenges us to overcome divide-and-conquer individualism if we are ever to tackle our real-life, systemic crises. And Laura shares a few thoughts on learning from our elders about the pre-digital age.

“[I think that] the pressure we're putting on the self . . . is part of why we're seeing so many people crack. I don't think the self can support the amount that we are putting on it: It's our income. It's our retirement. It's our safety. It's our lifeboat . . . And it's an illusion because we cannot protect ourselves from the forces that we're up against . . . Our only hope of protection is through collective work and collective movement building.” - Naomi Klein

“Very often we think that the solution is deplatforming . . . What I've seen is that it's actually kind of supercharged the movement. People wear it as a badge of honor . . . I am less interested in how we control speech and much more interested in how we drain conspiracy culture of its energy, of its power.” - Naomi Klein

Guest: Naomi Klein Naomi Klein is the award-winning author of international bestsellers including This Changes Everything, The Shock Doctrine, No Logo, No Is Not Enough, and On Fire, which have been published in more than thirty-five languages. She is an associate professor in the department of geography at the University of British Columbia, the founding co-director of UBC’s Centre for Climate Justice, and an honorary professor of Media and Climate at Rutgers University. Her writing has appeared in leading publications around the world, and she is a columnist for The Guardian.

Full Episode Notes are located HERE. They include related episodes, articles, and more.

Music Included- "In and Out" and "Steppin" by Podington Bear. Also included are excerpts taken from the 'Book Trailer' for Naomi Klein's "Doppelgänger: A Trip into the Mirror World”

The Laura Flanders Show Crew: Laura Flanders, Sabrina Artel, David Neuman, Nat Needham, Rory O'Conner, Janet Hernandez, Sarah Miller and Jeannie Hopper

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ACCESSIBILITY - This episode is available with closed captioned by clicking here for our YouTube Channel

Laura Flanders and Friends Crew: Laura Flanders, along with Sabrina Artel, Jeremiah Cothren, Veronica Delgado, Janet Hernandez, Jeannie Hopper, Sarah Miller, Nat Needham, David Neuman, and Rory O’Conner.

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