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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

The Laura Flanders Show

Full Conversation- Johann Hari: Get Your Mind Back / Save Democracy?

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We’re based in beautiful downtown Oakland, CA which is a port city in the San Francisco Bay. Massive container ships travel across the Pacific and end up here. From miles away you can see the enormous white cranes that pull giant, uniformly-sized metal boxes off the ships. People say the cranes are the inspiration for the AT-AT walkers in The Empire Strikes Back, but that’s not true; it’s just a good story to tell as you pass by on the bridge. The port was the driving economic force in Oakland for many decades. Not so much anymore. Those big containers have something to do with it. When people started shipping things in standardized containers all kinds of inefficiencies in global shipping that had existed for hundreds of years were eliminated and the world changed forever. This the backdrop for the story that Alexis Madrigal is telling in his new eight-part documentary podcast series on global capitalism, trade, and big-ass ships. It’s called “Containers.” We're featuring episode #3 in the series.

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In this special May Day segment of Rustbelt Abolition Radio, we speak with acclaimed scholar Robin D.G. Kelley to explore the critique of racial capitalism, the history of class struggle across the color line, and the abolitionist horizon.

We release this episode on May Day, or International Workers Day, celebrated annually by millions across the world in commemoration of the 1886 Haymarket Square massacre and the ongoing global struggle for a world without capitalist exploitation and racial domination. 

Robin D.G. Kelley is a professor and Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History at UCLA. Kelley’s intellectual work spans the far reaching histories of the black freedom movement, African American history, culture, music, and aesthetics, and the politics of the black radical imagination. His books include Africa Speaks, America Answers!: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times and Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination, among many others.

To Make Our World Anew: May Day special ft. Robin D.G. Kelley

You've gotta wonder, protests, congress, hunger strike, deaths? What's it gonna take before Americans notice what's happening?

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Laura Flanders is a best-selling author and the host of Laura Flanders and Friends (formerly The Laura Flanders Show), a syndicated weekly program airing on Public TV in which she talks to creative thinkers and change-makers from the worlds of politics, arts and the new economy. In her weekly commentary, The "F" Word,  she tells you what she thinks. The "F" Word is heard on the Progressive Voices Channel on Tune-In and is made available free to radio stations who appreciate an upbeat, radical perspective.  lauraflanders.org

Full Conversation- Johann Hari: Get Your Mind Back / Save Democracy?

F-Word + Audio Extras: Laura Flanders & Friends