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Posts by Laura Flanders
GRITtv With Laura Flanders Live Now: Should We Save Capitalism?
Posted by Laura Flanders, GRITtv on October 29, 2008 at 2:39 AM.
GRITtv With Laura Flanders Live Now:
Streaming on Oct 29: Noon EST, 9 am PST
Today marks the 79th anniversary of Black Tuesday, the stock market crash that precipitated the Great Depression. Today, we face another financial crisis of historic proportions and stand on the threshold, if polls are accurate, of electing an administration which promises to reframe both our democracy and our economy. Barack Obama's no socialist, and he's clearly out to save the system. So is it possible to preserve today's mad money empire, while also making it more democratic, more moral and more fair?
Today on GRITtv ARUN GUPTA of the Indypendent, TERESA GHILARDUCCI, Director of the Schwartz Center of Economic Policy Analysis at the New School and the author of When I’m Sixty-Four: The Plot Against Pensions and the Plan to Save Them, BENJAMIN BARBER, the author most recently of Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole, and CHRISTOPHER MILARDI a former Wall Street trader discuss the future of American capitalism and the possibility of building a more egalitarian market system .
Video below:
GRITtv With Laura Flanders Live Now: Can the Culture Warriors Turn Out the Vote?
Posted by Laura Flanders, AlterNet on October 22, 2008 at 2:30 AM.
Are the culture wars dead and will ballot initiatives on gay marriage and abortion make a difference this year? Did they make the difference in '04? A conversation with journalist and author Michelle Goldberg, Abby Scher, senior editor of the Public Eye, Kristina Wilfore, Executive Director of the Ballot Initiative Project, and Rose Aguilar, the author of Red Highway's: A Liberal's Journey Into the Heartland.
Video below:
GRITtv With Laura Flanders Live Now: Where is the Religious Left?
Posted by Laura Flanders, GRITtv on October 15, 2008 at 2:02 AM.
Streaming live on Oct 15, 2008: Noon EST, 9 am PST
Hailed as the Democrats' answer to the Religious Right after the '04 election -- Where's the religious Left now, in the election of '08? Are right-wing churches just better at politics? Can -- should -- the Left learn from the Right? Here to discuss the role of religion in progressive politics are REV. JACQUI LEWIS, FREDERICK CLARKSON, and REV. OSAGYEFO UHURU SEKOU.
Video below:
Live from Main Street: Protecting the Vote
Posted by Laura Flanders on October 1, 2008 at 2:01 AM.
Editor's note: Part one of 'Live from Main Street's virtual townhall on voting rights in Ohio is posted on the right. Part two can be found at the end of this article.
Voter registration deadlines are just over a week away in many states. Polls open in just over a month. In an election that could well be decided by new voters, voter registration efforts are in overdrive. But signing people up might be the easy part: after that, there's voting. As the last two elections have shown, just showing up at the polls isn't a guarantee of a smooth ride to the ballot box.
In 2000 and 2004, all across the country, thousands of voters were removed from the rolls, without their knowledge, in official purges of voter lists. On Election Day in 2004, boxes of registrations remained unprocessed in at least two cities we know about -- Cleveland and Toledo, Ohio. On the radio that election night, I received calls from Columbus voters who had stood for hours in line because of a shortage of voting machines in the inner city, even as, in nearby wealthy suburbs, voters were able to cast their votes in a matter of minutes. As one caller put it, "Jim Crow isn't dead."
Election protection and voting rights should be central to any conversation about the '08 vote. But a lot of tough questions are getting lost in horse-race coverage. And many voters are wondering -- again -- if their vote will be counted. In contrast to most advanced democracies, the right to vote isn't conveyed automatically with citizenship or coming of age in the United States. Voters have to prove themselves and there are no end to the challenges, from felon disenfranchisement laws to monolingual ballots and a myriad of ever-changing rules which differ from election to election and district to district. Come voting day, voters rely on minimally-trained poll-workers overseeing a myriad of voting systems. Disturbing doubts remain about the security of electronic voting and the privately-owned technology many districts rely on to tally votes.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Watch Live: Laura Flanders Interviews Steven Rosenfeld About Protecting the Vote
Posted by Laura Flanders, GRITtv on October 1, 2008 at 1:48 AM.
Streaming live on Oct 1, 2008: Noon EST, 9 am PST
GRIT TV's Laura Flanders interviews AlterNet Democracy & Elections reporter Steven Rosenfeld about election protection, voter registration efforts and the campaign groundwar at the grassroots.
Video below:
Live from Main Street Ohio: Will Your Vote Count?
Posted by Laura Flanders, GRITtv on September 30, 2008 at 1:55 PM.
Editor's note: This is part one of a two part series. Watch for the second half of this virtual Town Hall, along with an op-ed by Laura Flanders, here tomorrow.
Incredible Documentary Footage of Mass Arrest in St. Paul
Posted by Laura Flanders, Firedoglake on September 19, 2008 at 3:47 AM.
Now that we've had a few weeks to settle, a look back at Labor Day in the Twin Cities. Labor Day was of course also Day One of the Republican National Convention. Video was released today of an apparent mass arrest of utterly peaceful concert goers at the SEIU Labor Day concert.
My personal favorite moment in the tape is an off-camera exchange. Police in riot gear have surrounded loungers in a waterfront park. They announce, "Ladies and Gentlemen, You're Under Arrest" and you hear one young woman say incredulously "Are you serious?"
Yep, I'm afraid they are.
Here's the press release that came with the video, from the Glass Bead Collective:
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
GRITtv: Vermont Candidate for Atty General to Prosecute Bush for Murder
Posted by Laura Flanders, GRITtv on September 17, 2008 at 10:53 AM.
Yesterday on GRITtv Vincent Bugliosi announced that a candidate for Attorney General somewhere in the United States would, if elected, take up the prosecution of George W. Bush for murder. Well, that candidate is Charlotte Dennett, a long time investigative journalist and Progressive Party candidate for Attorney General in Vermont. She will appear at an event with Bugliosi on Thursday, September 18 at Burlington City Hall to announce their intention to launch criminal proceedings against Bush if Dennett is elected to office.
According to Dennett, "When I read Mr. Bugliosi’s meticulously-argued case it struck a chord with me as a Vermonter and an American citizen. Tragically, our state has the highest per capita loss of soldiers. 36 towns have voted to impeach President Bush. We Vermonters fiercely cherish our democracy and our country's Constitution. We're up for this fight."
Watch the full interview at GRITtv.org.
Watch Live: Laura Flanders Interviews Liliana Segura about Death Row Inmate Troy Davis
Posted by Laura Flanders, GRITtv on September 17, 2008 at 3:00 AM.
Streaming live on September 17, 2008: Noon EST, 9 am PST
GRIT TV's Laura Flanders interviews AlterNet Rights & Liberties Editor Liliana Segura about the case of Troy Davis, a death row inmate in Georgia who faces execution next week. Go here to learn more about Davis or read Michelle Garcia's article on AlterNet, "Troy Davis to Die Next Week: Will Georgia Execute an Innocent Man?"
Video below:
GRITtv: Who Will be Obama's Pee Wee Reese?
Posted by Laura Flanders, GRITtv on August 12, 2008 at 8:12 AM.
If Barack Obama is the Jackie Robinson of American politics who will be Pee Wee Reese? In this clip, Steve Cobble and Faye Wattleton discuss McCain's recent political attack ads and why white liberals must do more in their defense of Barack Obama.
More at GRITtv with Laura Flanders.
Laura Flanders Presents 'Bomb It: Global Graffiti and the Battle for Public Space'
Posted by Laura Flanders, GRITtv on August 6, 2008 at 9:02 AM.
It is harder and harder to find public space free of advertising or corporate ownership. Go to an art gallery or museum a movie theater or even your public school and you'll find the familiar logos that have come to define so much of who we are. There are ads everywhere. We've been branded.
But public space is always being contested. In the documentary Bomb It, filmmaker Jon Reiss follows artists on five continents as they battle for control over the urban visual landscape. Can corporate space be reclaimed? And who gets to determine what we look at today? See "the making of" Bomb It on the flip side.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Laura Flanders: Vanity Fair's Retort to the New Yorker's Obama Cover Misses the Mark
Posted by Laura Flanders, Firedoglake on July 24, 2008 at 3:02 PM.
Vanity Fair has released a cartoon cover online in response to the New Yorker's swipe at the media coverage of the Obamas. The fake Vanity Fair cover shows John McCain, in a walker with a bandaged head and Cindy with a bundle of pills giving her hubby a fist-jab. A portrait of George W. Bush hangs over the mantle-piece; the Constitution is burning in the grate.
Some are finding it funny. I'd say not so much. Worse, it's all wrong. If Vanity Fair's cartoonist wanted to flip the New Yorker cover on the GOP, they'd have to portray the media's lies about the candidate. Not the true stuff.
Sure, she's no drug addict, but the candidate's wife has been forced to admit that she was once addicted to prescription drugs. She even stole the drugs from her own nonprofit medical relief outfit. And while McCain doesn't use a walker, it's not as if the media misrepresent his age. Those aren't the media's wrongs where the McCains are concerned. It's not her looks, it's her wealth themedia understate, and it's not his physique, it's his politics.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
The Dark Side: Laura Flanders Talks Torture on GRITtv
Posted by Laura Flanders, Firedoglake on July 22, 2008 at 7:48 AM.
On GRITtv, Jane Mayer and Michael Ratner look at John Ashcroft's recent testimony before congress and whether the architects of the war on terror have anything to fear. Will they be held accountable for their policies? The torture debates continue.
More at GRITtv.
Obama Needs to Change His Afghanistan Policy
Posted by Laura Flanders, Firedoglake on July 21, 2008 at 5:10 PM.
Clash, spar, duel, compete … Read the headlines and you’d think the two candidates for President had dueling Afghanistan policies. Sadly not.
Here's the difference: Republican John McCain says that in his view, the troop escalation worked so well in Iraq, that we need another like it in Afghanistan.
Democrat Barack Obama, meanwhile, opposed the so called surge, but says the problem was that military resources that were needed in Afghanistan were misdirected to Iraq.
Beneath the noise and bickering, the sameness is apparent. Both men want to send more troops to Afghanistan. Obama has proposed sending two more combat brigades -- about 7,000 troops -- almost immediately upon gaining office. McCain is also advocating sending more troops.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
GRITtv: Capitalism in Crisis
Posted by Laura Flanders, Firedoglake on July 17, 2008 at 8:36 AM.
There's an economic crisis but is capitalism itself in crisis? A roundtable on global capitalism with Naomi Klein, Jeff Madrick, and Bhairavi Desai. In this clip our guests respond to Bush's comment that it's the US consumer who can save the economy.
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