Maurice Mitchell & the Working Families Party: Voting is a Chess Move

Laura Flanders and Friends: Next Economy, Labor, Intersectional, Climate, LGBTQ, Abortion

JUNE 17th 7pm ET - MEMBER SUPPORTERS ARE INVITED TO A VIRTUAL EVENT WITH LAURA FLANDERS AND GUEST JOSH PAUL, FORMER STATE DEPT OFFICIAL. Learn what we can do to end the genocide!

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: Are you planning to vote in the presidential election? It’s quite possibly the most important election in our lifetimes — and yet some Americans may forgo voting this November. Both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have serious problems. How do we square the contradictions when casting our vote, and how should we think about elections altogether? As National Director of the Working Families Party (WFP), Maurice “Moe” Mitchell is interacting with voters on the ground and supporting candidates who’ve come out for a ceasefire in Gaza. The WFP’s bottom-up, third party approach is winning. What is he seeing and what is his advice in this critical election year? For starters, he says “supporting a candidate is a chess move. It's not a valentine”. He joins Laura Flanders and returning co-host Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis, Senior Minister at Middle Church in New York City, to break it all down. All that, plus a commentary from Laura.

“The Working Families Party is a political party that is building power for working class people of all races. We believe in a country for the many, not the few. We believe that in a democracy the people should govern, not corporations and the wealthy. And the way that we do it is we're building a bottom-up, third-party approach.” - Maurice “Moe” Mitchell

“Some of us are not listening . . . [Trump] intends to join a fascist campaign . . . If we're thinking of the long game, we have to ask ourselves which of these candidates has the most propensity to help us build a movement for the 20 years that we need to, or for seven generations.” - Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis

Guests:

•. Maurice Mitchell: National Director, Working Families Party

•. Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis (Co-host): Senior Minister of Public Theology & Transformation, Middle Church, NYC

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

Music In the Middle: Joaquin’s Sacred Dance remix of “Soul of the People” by Nicola Conte from the Umoja Remixed Album also commemorating Far Out Recordings 30th anniversary. And additional music included- "In and Out" and "Steppin" by Podington Bear

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