Laura Flanders and Friends: Next Economy, Labor, Culture, Intersectional, Technology, Climate

Six years ago this month, Haiti was hit by a devastating earthquake. Billions of dollars in aid were pledged but little made it to the people in need. Why did that happen? Today on The Laura Flanders Show, Antony Loewenstein talks about Disaster Capitalism and the great Caribbean feminist Jacqui Alexander gives us a rare interview. All that and a few words from Laura on laissez faire capitalism - that isn't.

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

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.

🎧 LOOKING FOR UNCUT INTERVIEWS? check our podcast feed the following week. Thanks to our sustaining members and their monthly support. This show is made possible by you! To become a sustaining member go to https://LauraFlanders.org/donate Thank you for your continued 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 - The broadcast edition of this episode is available with closed captioned by clicking here for our YouTube Channel

VIRTUAL EVENT WITH LAURA FLANDERS AND GUEST JOSH PAUL, FORMER STATE DEPT OFFICIAL

If you’re a member supporter you will have just received an exclusive invitation to a rare insider briefing on US - Israel arms sales from former state department official , Josh Paul. Paul, as you may remember quit the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs after a long career last year over accelerated US arms sales to Israel in violation of us Human Rights law. He continues to call for a change in United States Policy and an end to the bloodshed and on June 17th he’ll be offering us an expert briefing on the concrete requests we can make of our elected officials. We all want to stop the stop the dying and killing and hostage taking., urgently. Paul will help tell us how. You can find our award winning interview with Josh Paul from last year. Listen to the podcast and/or watch the show at our YouTube channel. And if you’re not yet a member, but want to attend the briefing, it’s not too late to make a donation at Lauraflanders.org, and we’ll send you an invitation to register for the event. That briefing’s coming up June 17th — Don’t miss it.

EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Four years after the murder of George Floyd and the mass protests against policing that followed, corporate media claim that voters have turned on “defunding the police" — the movement to shift public resources away from policing and into other approaches to improving public health and safety. But what is fact and what is fiction when it comes to this issue, and where does the 'defund' movement stand? In this episode, three journalists reporting from the frontlines on matters of policing and prisons share what they see on the ground, within police departments, and in the media. Cerise Castle is a Los Angeles-based reporter who created “A Tradition of Violence”, a podcast about gangs inside the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, based on an extensive investigation into more than five decades of terror, murder and abuse; Lewis Raven Wallace, of Durham, NC, is the author and creator of “The View from Somewhere”, a book and podcast about the problematic political history of journalistic objectivity, and the Abolition Journalism Fellow at Interrupting Criminalization, a multi movement resource hub for advocates, and Kelly Hayes is a Menominee author, organizer, educator and photographer from Chicago. She also hosts the Truthout podcast “Movement Memos" and is co-author (with Mariame Kaba) of the book “Let This Radicalize You”. What is the corporate media getting wrong about the defund movement? All that, plus a commentary from Laura.

“I thought about my own vulnerability when doing this reporting. While I was still reporting my initial series on deputy gangs, I received several messages from people inside the department that they were in fear for my life . . . The repercussions have been very real for me, but it is not anything that would ever stop me from doing this work.” - Cerise Castle

“When I look at what's happening in Palestine and I see the AI targeting that's being used to select targets for assassination at an inhuman pace, and when I look at the mass surveillance apparatus that Palestinian people are subjected to and most importantly the normalization of this mass annihilation of people, I see threats to all of us, things that we should all expect to be pervasive.” - Kelly Hayes

“We have to some extent defunded the police here in the city of Durham and . . . moved money out of the police budget and into a whole new city department that is geared toward community safety through non-police responses . . . People can call an alternative number and have trained crisis responders show up . . . and come without police.” - Lewis Raven Wallace

Guests:

•. Cerise Castle: Journalist

•. Kelly Hayes: Host, Movement Memos; Co-Author, Let This Radicalize You

•. Lewis Raven Wallace: Author, The View from Somewhere; Abolition Media Fellow, Interrupting Criminalization

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

Music In the Middle: “We Need Freedom” by Brkn Record aka Jake Ferguson featuring Jermain Jackman from his self released album The Architecture of Oppression Part 2 released on BBE, Barely Breaking Even Records. And additional music included- "In and Out" and "Steppin" by Podington Bear

Laura Flanders and Friends Crew: Laura Flanders,...

Art meets climate action in South Australia! Learn how creativity and community have driven a pioneering green energy transition, with insights from influential voices like Susan Close and Ruth Mackenzie. Climate Week Special Report.

This show is made possible by you! To become a sustaining member go to https://LauraFlanders.org/donate Thank you for your continued support!

Description: South Australia has become a global leader in green energy transition, getting off fossil fuels faster, and to a greater extent than almost any other country. How did they do it, and what can we learn from them? In this report for Climate Week, Laura goes Down Under with her partner, Elizabeth Streb, and her extreme dance company, and discovers how the region’s culture and its many world-class festivals have helped pave the way for transformation. Helping to unpack it all is a range of impressive guests, including Susan Close, deputy premier of South Australia; Anoté Tong, the former President of the Micronesian island, the Republic of Kiribati; Ruth Mackenzie, former Artistic Director of the Adelaide Festival, now Program Director of Arts, Culture and Creative Industries Policy within the South Australia state government; Rob Brookman, the co-founder of WOMADelaide, the capital’s premier outdoor festival; MacArthur “Genius” Award winner, Elizabeth Streb and the action heroes of her company STREB — and a WHALE. As you’ll hear, it’s taken politics, policy, science and culture to shift public practice in this extreme-weather-vulnerable area. Over the last decade, South Australia has faced massive storms, brush fires, and extreme heat that have put people, wildlife, and even the festival at risk. Now South Australia is leading the way and using art to help people envision a green future, but they can’t solve the climate crisis alone. In this Climate Week special, we ask, how can the rest of the world follow suit?

“I'd say that WOMADelaide is creating a tiny version of the planet as you would like it to be . . . If you've listened to music from Iraq or if you've listened to music from Vietnam, or if you've listened to music from Palestine and Israel, it's more difficult to say those people, we don't understand them, so we can't deal with who they are.” - Rob Brookman

“We don't get exempted from climate change because we've got a green electricity grid . . . It is globally caused and has to be globally solved. So part of what we do is not to boast about what we've done, but to hope that our leadership will show others that you too can do this. Come and learn from us.” - Susan Close, Deputy Premier, South Australia

“We've got the arguments, we can tell you the facts, but people don't feel it . . . [Artists] reach into your head, into your heart, they dig in and then they motivate you to action. And of course if you can also motivate the artist in every single child in South Australia, then we really have a force to change the world.” - Ruth Mackenzie

“For the [Adelaide] festival to go to young people and be like, ‘Hey, we want to hear from you. We want you to be a part of this. What works do you want to see? What works do you want to make and what do you want them to be about?’, is something that doesn't happen very often . . . Hopefully it'll mean we can get more people involved.” - Caitlin Moore, Artist, Activist

“The science doesn't seem to be making an impact no matter how precise. Maybe the hard facts of science do not ring a bell as much as the emotional language of the arts . . . Maybe the arts can put it in a way that it touches the hearts of your political leadership.” - President Anoté Tong

Guests:

• Rob Brookman: Co-Founder, WOMADelaide; Director, WOMADelaide Foundation

• Susan Close: Deputy Premier, South Australia

• Cassandre Joseph: Streb Co-Artistic Director & Action Hero

• Ruth Mackenzie: Former Artistic Director, Adelaide Festival; Program Director Arts, Culture & Creative Industries Policy, South Australia Government

• Caitlin Moore: Director of Create4Adelaide, Adelaide Festival

• Elizabeth Streb: STREB Founder, Co-Artistic Director & Choreographer

• Anoté Tong: Former President, Republic of Kiribati

• Bart Van Peel: Chief Navigating Officer, Captain Boomer Collective

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

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

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Could a successful coup happen in the US? The ongoing Congressional hearings into the events of January 6 show that just a handful of election officials in several key states stood between Donald Trump and the overturning of the 2020 elections. While the insurrection unfolded, many Americans watched in shock, believing nothing like this had ever happened in United States history. But it has happened before — more than a century ago in Wilmington, North Carolina when an armed mob removed a democratically-elected government by force, and turned a majority-Black town into a citadel of white supremacy. In this episode, we look at the parallels between that coup and the events in DC and visit the rural county of Columbus in the south west of North Carolina where a self-described former Oath Keeper acquired a massive arsenal of decommissioned military hardware in 2018 soon after taking office after a contested election. Laura also meets the residents and leaders from across the state who are clear that the future of multi-racial democracy in America is being decided in out-of-the way towns like theirs. What do the rest of us need to know about what's happening there?

Featured ‘Music in the Middle’ of the Podcast: David Harness remix of “Roots” by Tedd Patterson presents Blackbone, courtesy of Black Vinyl Records. Read More & Listen Here

Guests:

Sonya Bennetone, Director, National Black Leadership Caucus Southeastern Region

Rosa Bolden, Community Organizer

Carol Caldwell, Community Organizer

Deborah Dicks Maxwell, President, NAACP North Carolina

Cedric Harrison, Founder, Wilmington in Color

Lewis Hatcher, Former Sheriff, Columbus County, NC

Curtis Hill, President, NAACP Columbus County, NC

Marcus Norfleet, Former Commissioner Candidate, Columbus County, NC

Keith Rivers, President, NAACP Pasquotank County, NC

Serena Sebring, Executive Director, Blueprint NC

Mab Segrest, Writer, Organizer & Consultant Blueprint NC

Jeremy Simmons, Community Organizer