GRITtv » LauraFlanders

How The 1% Exploits America

LauraFlanders — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 04:01:40 +0000

Even in an Occupy world, most Americans don’t know exactly how the 1% does what it does. The money media haven’t explained it, and the 1% likes things that way. That’s how Robert Greenwald explained why he and the Brave New Foundation created a new video series. Each short video—one minute apiece—lays out the truth about a different one-percenter. They let their audience choose the subjects. They solicited suggestions on nominees, narrowed them down to 30, and let their audience vote. The new videos represent five of the top vote-getters, with more videos on the way. The first is above.

SUPPORT YOUR MEDIA DAY

LauraFlanders — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 21:47:06 +0000

February 15th is Support Your Media Day! Laura Flanders and GRITtv are joining with independent media groups from all over the country in a one-day-only collaborative fundraiser. Join the fun by donating here. It's a friendly race to the finish with prizes along the way. Your contribution of $10 or $25 could give GRITtv the extra we need to win a $1,000 prize for "most donors" or "most donated in an hour" and there's a surprise prize too! Lots of other great independent media groups are taking part as well. I'll be interviewing them in this looping stream throughout the day. Share this event on Facebook and Twitter and help build the buzz. You can tweet about this day using #supportyrmedia. Spread the word by forwarding this link to your family and friends along with a personal note as to why you believe in our work, and why they should give at Support Your Media Day. Remember, we have one day. Show the power of all-for-one, one-for-all media - and help bring the Laura Flanders Show one step closer to being on the air on public television by taking part in Support Your Media Day. Thank you.

United Supreme Koch

LauraFlanders — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:17:44 +0000

I'm just checking that everybody saw this. I particularly like the musical selection. Says Josh Bolotsky of The Other 99%: "On the second anniversary of the Citizens United decision, we joined together with the Backbone Campaign to bathe the Supreme Court building with giant dollar signs. The video turned out great, and has received a pretty incredible reception." “The Kochs and their kind are engaged in a hostile corporate takeover of our nation’s political system,” said John Sellers, co-founder of The Other 98%. “We’ve come to the scene of the crime today – the U.S. Supreme Court – to tell the justices exactly what we think of the infamous Citizens United ruling that made that takeover possible.” Enjoy.

This Video is Absurd as Corporate Personhood

LauraFlanders — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 18:36:59 +0000

What will it take to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United? Perhaps a viral video! Here is “It’s Viral,” with The Nation’s own Katrina vanden Heuvel, Jim Hightower and more. Exec produced by the We the People Campaign. Think it’ll work? And while you're thinking, repost! For more on citizens' opposition to Citizen's United, read the full post at TheNation.com.

The F Word: Iron Lady: The Margaret Thatcher Movie We Don’t Need

LauraFlanders — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 14:19:58 +0000

The Iron Lady just opened in London where, let's hope, it generates some serious critique. The critical silence in the US has been astounding only made worse by the praise, not just for the film but for its subject, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, played in the movie by Meryl Streep. Newsweek's holiday double issue slapped Streep as Thatcher on its cover, hailing "The New Thatcher Era." The feature story in summary reads: "Margaret Thatcher was the infamous Iron Lady the Brits love to hate. This month's bio starring Meryl Streep proves she was right all along."

Streep's already winning awards and accolades and Oscars are probably on the way. People are saying the film's no whitewash because it shows the former Prime Minister in her dotage, fighting dementia - three decades after she came to power. Director Phyllida Lloyd has described the treatment as operatic. Streep's called it revealing. The two collaborated before on the musical Mamma Mia! The truth is, in Lloyd's hands Thatcher's iron isn't just rusty, it's melted down and depoliticized, made feminist enough to root for and ultimately sad enough for some to sniffle at. The Iron Lady is Thatcher -- The ABBA Version. It's the last thing we need, ever, and especially at this point. Read the rest of this commentary at TheNation.com.

Nobel Prize Winner Leymah Gbowee on Sex, War & Invisible Heroes

LauraFlanders — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 13:53:08 +0000

Peace making is a local affair, says activist Leymah Gbowee, co-founder of the Women's Peace Network in Liberia in this interview with Laura Flanders recorded just weeks before Gbowee won the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize. Author of Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War, Gbowee talks here about where the US and foreign NGOS go wrong in post-war countries and what there is to learn from the success of the LIberian women's peace movement. After their success, helping to end to a decades-long civil war in 2003, the women of Liberia became heroes. But no one saw them that way at the start, says Gbowee. When they marched in the rain, camped in the blazing sun, and blockaded the doors of peace-negotiations they were confronting the warlords largely alone. When Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was first elected, she was hailed as her continent's first democratically elected female leader, but outsiders were skeptical about her campaign -- and her chances -- it was grassroots women who supported her at the start, and women who backed her re-election this year. Sirleaf, who demanded a women-only UN peace keeping force in Liberia and attention specifically to women's empowerment as a peace-making strategy, was another winner with Gbowee of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize. The Women's Peace Network has now been celebrated in Abby Disney's documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell. (featured on GRITtv in 2009.) This is part of a longer interview. The full conversation will be featured later this year, in the upcoming Laura Flanders Show.

Singing the Recall Carol in Wisconsin

LauraFlanders — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 19:22:58 +0000

Solidarity singers faced down a new set of state policies intended to regulate and put a price on assembly and free speech at the Wisconsin state capitol, Monday.

Solidarity sing-alongs began at the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison on March 11, 2011, and they’ve continued at noon every week-day since. Last Friday, the Capitol supposedly set up new rules for access to state buildings, the new policy requires permits for gatherings of 100 or more outside the Capitol, while permits are needed for gatherings inside of four or more people. Both need to be applied for 72 hours in advance of the event. Solidarity Sing-Along participants say the policy is directed specifically at their singing, but at noon Monday the singers were there -- in unusually large numbers and high spirits – encouraged by news that in just one month, more than half a million signatures have been gathered to recall Governor Scott Walker. Enjoy the live stream.

You can find the Solidarity Singers here. Want to sing along? Here's the holiday songbook.Definitely check back in at noon -central time (1 pm eastern) tomorrow,

What a Difference an Occupation Makes

LauraFlanders — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 00:56:40 +0000

On December 6, OccupyYourHomes joined with local community organizers to take on the housing crisis. In twenty-five cities, protesters interrupted house auctions, blocked evictions and occupied foreclosed homes. In East New York they moved Alfredo Carrasquillo, Tasha Glasgow and their two children into a foreclosed home that had stood empty for three years. I attended the action Tuesday and couldn’t drag myself away. Even as the rain drizzled and the temperature sank, I watched the numbers of protesters grow and thought of the many, many members of underfunded community groups I’ve spoken to over the years. Among those, Community Voices Heard, New York Communities for Change, Picture the Homeless, Organize for Occupation, VOCAL-NY and Reclaim the Land. They talked on GRITtv about toxic loans and targeted neighborhoods, forced foreclosures, fear and the general lack of national interest. This Tuesday, I saw members of those same groups again, among them, GRITtv regular Rob Robinson. An end-homelessness activist who lived on the streets for a while after losing his job at a data processing company, Robinson has worked for years with Picture the Homeless, and now Reclaim the Land. East New York has one of the city’s greatest concentrations of single-family homes, and one of the country’s highest rates of eviction and foreclosures. “For two years, we’ve been going block to block, knocking on these doors,” said Robinson. This Tuesday, he was walking those blocks again, this time, with 500 people—and a slew of cameras—at his back. Smiled Robinson, “It makes a world of difference.” For the rest of this commentary, go to Laura's column at TheNation.com

The Maldives Face Rising Waters and Despondancy at Durban Climate Conference

LauraFlanders — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 16:57:48 +0000

As the 17th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, popularly known as COP-17, takes place in Durban, South Africa, Nov 28 - Dec 9, I think of this man: Dr. Mohammed Waheed Hassan, with whom I had a chance to speak this September in New York. Waheed, as he prefers to be called, is Vice President of the Republic of the Maldives, the lowest country on the planet. An archipelago of coral atolls in the Indian Ocean, the Maldives have seen the sea waters around their low-level homeland rise almost 8 inches in the last 100 years and accelerating rates of warming threaten their nation's future. Read the full story at TheNation.com.

Up With Chris Hayes Nov 19: Where OWS Goes, Will Cameras Follow?

LauraFlanders — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 01:16:02 +0000

As the Occupy Wall St Movement enters a new phase, will the money media follow? A coordinated effort by conservative politicians, media and mayors is attempting to tar OWS as dirty, dangerous hippies with no coherent message. That's what makes the media so important: will they focus only where the flashing lights and drama are - or follow the movement-building work the OWS is also doing - in court-rooms, foreclosure sites, workplaces and Board of Education meetings? Watch this clip from Up With Chris Hayes Nov. 19 and send us your videos of OWS in action. We'd love to see. Upload to the web and send a link to GRITtv@GRITtv.org.