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Indybay Feature
The Crisis at Pacifica and KPFA
At KPFA, the union and local management have come up with an alternative menu of cuts, so that the station can balance its budget while preserving the ability to produce high quality programming. The Pacifica National Board refuses to reduce the number of its famously expensive—and dysfunctional, as a search of YouTube can attest—quarterly board meetings. KPFA's union has asked Pacifica's executive director, Arlene Engelhardt, to disclose her own salary (which should be a matter of public record) but she has refused. Austerity is just for the workers, after all.
Capital’s most severe crisis in seventy years ought to be a moment of significant opportunity for the left. But as the right mobilizes disgruntled Americans via its vast radio, television, web, and print empires, the one mass medium available to the left—Pacifica Radio—is driving out its best and brightest. A network that has the potential to reach a quarter of the US public is opting for irrelevant and unlistenable programming at a time when competent and genuinely radical journalism is urgently needed, and justifying its warped choice with the Thatcherite mantra: there is no alternative.
In two previous dispatches to CounterPunch here and here I described the pathological state of Pacifica's byzantine governance structure - a national board containing 122 members, baroque bylaws, and vastly expensive and corrupt local board elections. The chief result has been the ascendancy of a kind of Tea Party of the left, featuring ex-Scientologists, miracle cure hucksters, and conspiracists who believe that Amy Goodman's Democracy Now!, Pacifica's premier program, is taking CIA money to suppress "the truth about 9/11". Add to that an austerity plan to stick it to the workers, right out of the Thatcher/Sarkozy playbook, and you have Pacifica Radio in 2010.
Under cover of budget cuts, the Mad Hats who control the Pacifica National Board are seeking to dispense with those who oppose their conspiracy-driven agenda—or simply strive for well-produced, quality radio. The axe has fallen first on WBAI's acclaimed 'Behind the News', an island of lucid analysis in the mass media swamp, hosted by the economic journalist Doug Henwood, author of Wall Street and publisher of Left Business Observer. In the midst of a gathering emergency, the brains trust at WBAI decided that Henwood's program, which provides some of the best economic analysis anywhere, should be cut to twice a month. Henwood tendered his resignation, blasting the swerve towards “chem-trails and footpads and 9/11 nuttery”. A day later the vitamin supplements mogul Gary Null, notorious for his claim that HIV does not cause AIDS, announced that he would be returning to the airwaves of WBAI on November 15th. (ACT UP wrote to Pacifica that “returning Gary Null to the air for financial reasons would be unethical profiteering, because he gives out information that can cause people to become infected with HIV or fail to treat the infection properly.”)
The Mad Hats are now focusing on the flagship station of the Pacifica network, KPFA in the San Francisco Bay Area, which thus far has been mainly free of such conspiracism and snake oil. Three members of the Pacifica National Board have drawn up a list of their staff enemies to be fired, which includes the majority of the workers at some of the most successful programs, in terms of listenership and fundraising, on KPFA's air: the Morning Show, the noon program of radical ideas Against the Grain, and the Evening News. Against the Grain host Sasha Lilley's fate was apparently sealed when she interviewed me about my CounterPunch article on why the Pacifica board system had cost more than $2.4 million dollars since 2002 and why it needed to be replaced. Those at the top of Pacifica were incensed and demanded her firing.
Laying off these workers would not only violate KPFA's contract with the Communications Workers of America. It would seriously compromise the solvency of what has been the most financially successful station in the network. KPFA has historically subsidized the other four Pacifica stations, and has financed and executed some of the most groundbreaking reportage, from the McCarthy era to the Free Speech Movement to the Iran-Contra investigations to, recently, the latter-day Winter Soldier hearings.
At KPFA, the union and local management have come up with an alternative menu of cuts, so that the station can balance its budget while preserving the ability to produce high quality programming. The cuts focus on KPFA's parent organization Pacifica itself, whose bureaucracy has become an enormous financial drain on the five stations. In spite of the tough economic times, KPFA raises enough money to pay for itself—it just doesn't raise enough money to pay for Pacifica as well. Pacifica is demanding the station hand over $800,000 of KPFA listeners' money in the coming fiscal year and has flatly refused to make any of the recommended cuts. The Pacifica National Board refuses to reduce the number of its famously expensive—and dysfunctional, as a search of YouTube can attest—quarterly board meetings. KPFA's union has asked Pacifica's executive director, Arlene Engelhardt, to disclose her own salary (which should be a matter of public record) but she has refused. Austerity is just for the workers, after all.
In the place of programs of journalistic integrity and serious intellectual inquiry, KPFA listeners only have to look to WBAI to imagine what the sound of their radio station will soon be: programs about the Illuminati, microchips used for mind-control, and neo-populist goldbuggery. And all because “there is no alternative” but to cut experienced journalists and union jobs.
If I've invoked Lewis Carroll more than Lewis Hill (the syndicalist founder and guiding spirit of Pacifica) in this dispatch - it's because there is truly a Mad Hatter's Tea Party feel about some of the current proceedings. But it is at the same time terribly serious, and not simply for the station workers whose livelihoods are threatened. Let's remind ourselves of what is at stake. The network has the signal power to reach one fourth of the population of the United States - that's an extraordinary earprint. Don't believe those who glibly assert that terrestrial radio is old school and a dying medium. The money men don't believe it - that's why the WBAI license, in the wake of the great privatizing grab of Clinton's 1996 Telecommunications Act, was being appraised at a staggering $250 million. And the same goes for KPFA, which pumps out more than 50,000 watts over Northern California.
Make no mistake, Pacifica remains a vital space for dissenting and antinomian voices in the United States. If this network is lost, it is inconceivable that the Left could ever get such a chance again. It was, after all, only an accident that the conscientious objectors and poets who instigated the network were given a license to broadcast at all. Following the catastrophe of a global war, the founding Pacificans in 1946 recognized that the hand letter-press and the Gestetner duplicating machine were not adequate to the task of communicating beyond the confines of a small coterie of war resisters, anarcho-pacifists and bohemians in Berkeley and San Francisco. They dreamed of what Dwight Macdonald called “big effects”. They hoped to broadcast, for example, to the communities around the naval base of Oakland and the dockyards of Richmond, using AM radio. The state refused them access to the powerful and dominant medium of AM, but they were granted an FM license, mainly because frequency modulation was a novel technology then in its infancy. Virtually nobody had a receiver in those pioneering post-war years; Lewis Hill even gave away sets to the first subscribers. Few foresaw how extraordinarily valuable public access to the FM spectrum would eventually become. This precious resource, held in trust by the foundation, is not only being squandered, but is now mortally endangered.
To those who would say there is no alternative to cuts or to the dominance of the mainstream media, I would answer, yes, there is indeed an alternative. Radio must be put first over a delusional, power-hungry bureaucracy and a governance system run amok. Crackpot electoralism has allowed the will of ten of thousands of listeners and subscribers to be thwarted by candidates whose mandate rests upon as few as two hundred votes. A plurality of 2 per cent! How did this absurd situation come to pass? Abstractly committed to democracy but too bored to vote in a relentless train of mind-numbing elections, thousands of dedicated supporters of Pacifica will wake up this month to find their favorite programs inexplicably decimated, while their putative representatives, parading the mantle of “community”, continue to spend millions of dollars of listener pledges on yet more board meetings and ballotry.
The only hope for the long term health of Pacifica is to scrap as soon as possible the fatally flawed governance structure and start over. This means collecting approximately 800 signatures of current subscribers, that is, one percent of the membership, to begin the process of revising the bylaws. A national "Salvage Pacifica" campaign must be initiated as the immediate priority. So once again I invite concerned readers and the silent majority of actual listeners to contact salvagepacifica [at] gmail.com, and the business of reconstitution can begin.
"The crisis", Antonio Gramsci wrote from Mussolini's prisons, "consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear." We've seen the morbid symptoms on display. It's time to move ahead to rescue—and revitalize—this invaluable resource for the left.
Iain Boal is a social historian of science and technics, and co-author of Retort's Afflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War (Verso). He can be reached at boal [at] sonic.net.
In two previous dispatches to CounterPunch here and here I described the pathological state of Pacifica's byzantine governance structure - a national board containing 122 members, baroque bylaws, and vastly expensive and corrupt local board elections. The chief result has been the ascendancy of a kind of Tea Party of the left, featuring ex-Scientologists, miracle cure hucksters, and conspiracists who believe that Amy Goodman's Democracy Now!, Pacifica's premier program, is taking CIA money to suppress "the truth about 9/11". Add to that an austerity plan to stick it to the workers, right out of the Thatcher/Sarkozy playbook, and you have Pacifica Radio in 2010.
Under cover of budget cuts, the Mad Hats who control the Pacifica National Board are seeking to dispense with those who oppose their conspiracy-driven agenda—or simply strive for well-produced, quality radio. The axe has fallen first on WBAI's acclaimed 'Behind the News', an island of lucid analysis in the mass media swamp, hosted by the economic journalist Doug Henwood, author of Wall Street and publisher of Left Business Observer. In the midst of a gathering emergency, the brains trust at WBAI decided that Henwood's program, which provides some of the best economic analysis anywhere, should be cut to twice a month. Henwood tendered his resignation, blasting the swerve towards “chem-trails and footpads and 9/11 nuttery”. A day later the vitamin supplements mogul Gary Null, notorious for his claim that HIV does not cause AIDS, announced that he would be returning to the airwaves of WBAI on November 15th. (ACT UP wrote to Pacifica that “returning Gary Null to the air for financial reasons would be unethical profiteering, because he gives out information that can cause people to become infected with HIV or fail to treat the infection properly.”)
The Mad Hats are now focusing on the flagship station of the Pacifica network, KPFA in the San Francisco Bay Area, which thus far has been mainly free of such conspiracism and snake oil. Three members of the Pacifica National Board have drawn up a list of their staff enemies to be fired, which includes the majority of the workers at some of the most successful programs, in terms of listenership and fundraising, on KPFA's air: the Morning Show, the noon program of radical ideas Against the Grain, and the Evening News. Against the Grain host Sasha Lilley's fate was apparently sealed when she interviewed me about my CounterPunch article on why the Pacifica board system had cost more than $2.4 million dollars since 2002 and why it needed to be replaced. Those at the top of Pacifica were incensed and demanded her firing.
Laying off these workers would not only violate KPFA's contract with the Communications Workers of America. It would seriously compromise the solvency of what has been the most financially successful station in the network. KPFA has historically subsidized the other four Pacifica stations, and has financed and executed some of the most groundbreaking reportage, from the McCarthy era to the Free Speech Movement to the Iran-Contra investigations to, recently, the latter-day Winter Soldier hearings.
At KPFA, the union and local management have come up with an alternative menu of cuts, so that the station can balance its budget while preserving the ability to produce high quality programming. The cuts focus on KPFA's parent organization Pacifica itself, whose bureaucracy has become an enormous financial drain on the five stations. In spite of the tough economic times, KPFA raises enough money to pay for itself—it just doesn't raise enough money to pay for Pacifica as well. Pacifica is demanding the station hand over $800,000 of KPFA listeners' money in the coming fiscal year and has flatly refused to make any of the recommended cuts. The Pacifica National Board refuses to reduce the number of its famously expensive—and dysfunctional, as a search of YouTube can attest—quarterly board meetings. KPFA's union has asked Pacifica's executive director, Arlene Engelhardt, to disclose her own salary (which should be a matter of public record) but she has refused. Austerity is just for the workers, after all.
In the place of programs of journalistic integrity and serious intellectual inquiry, KPFA listeners only have to look to WBAI to imagine what the sound of their radio station will soon be: programs about the Illuminati, microchips used for mind-control, and neo-populist goldbuggery. And all because “there is no alternative” but to cut experienced journalists and union jobs.
If I've invoked Lewis Carroll more than Lewis Hill (the syndicalist founder and guiding spirit of Pacifica) in this dispatch - it's because there is truly a Mad Hatter's Tea Party feel about some of the current proceedings. But it is at the same time terribly serious, and not simply for the station workers whose livelihoods are threatened. Let's remind ourselves of what is at stake. The network has the signal power to reach one fourth of the population of the United States - that's an extraordinary earprint. Don't believe those who glibly assert that terrestrial radio is old school and a dying medium. The money men don't believe it - that's why the WBAI license, in the wake of the great privatizing grab of Clinton's 1996 Telecommunications Act, was being appraised at a staggering $250 million. And the same goes for KPFA, which pumps out more than 50,000 watts over Northern California.
Make no mistake, Pacifica remains a vital space for dissenting and antinomian voices in the United States. If this network is lost, it is inconceivable that the Left could ever get such a chance again. It was, after all, only an accident that the conscientious objectors and poets who instigated the network were given a license to broadcast at all. Following the catastrophe of a global war, the founding Pacificans in 1946 recognized that the hand letter-press and the Gestetner duplicating machine were not adequate to the task of communicating beyond the confines of a small coterie of war resisters, anarcho-pacifists and bohemians in Berkeley and San Francisco. They dreamed of what Dwight Macdonald called “big effects”. They hoped to broadcast, for example, to the communities around the naval base of Oakland and the dockyards of Richmond, using AM radio. The state refused them access to the powerful and dominant medium of AM, but they were granted an FM license, mainly because frequency modulation was a novel technology then in its infancy. Virtually nobody had a receiver in those pioneering post-war years; Lewis Hill even gave away sets to the first subscribers. Few foresaw how extraordinarily valuable public access to the FM spectrum would eventually become. This precious resource, held in trust by the foundation, is not only being squandered, but is now mortally endangered.
To those who would say there is no alternative to cuts or to the dominance of the mainstream media, I would answer, yes, there is indeed an alternative. Radio must be put first over a delusional, power-hungry bureaucracy and a governance system run amok. Crackpot electoralism has allowed the will of ten of thousands of listeners and subscribers to be thwarted by candidates whose mandate rests upon as few as two hundred votes. A plurality of 2 per cent! How did this absurd situation come to pass? Abstractly committed to democracy but too bored to vote in a relentless train of mind-numbing elections, thousands of dedicated supporters of Pacifica will wake up this month to find their favorite programs inexplicably decimated, while their putative representatives, parading the mantle of “community”, continue to spend millions of dollars of listener pledges on yet more board meetings and ballotry.
The only hope for the long term health of Pacifica is to scrap as soon as possible the fatally flawed governance structure and start over. This means collecting approximately 800 signatures of current subscribers, that is, one percent of the membership, to begin the process of revising the bylaws. A national "Salvage Pacifica" campaign must be initiated as the immediate priority. So once again I invite concerned readers and the silent majority of actual listeners to contact salvagepacifica [at] gmail.com, and the business of reconstitution can begin.
"The crisis", Antonio Gramsci wrote from Mussolini's prisons, "consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear." We've seen the morbid symptoms on display. It's time to move ahead to rescue—and revitalize—this invaluable resource for the left.
Iain Boal is a social historian of science and technics, and co-author of Retort's Afflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War (Verso). He can be reached at boal [at] sonic.net.
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Dr. Boal, are you getting your talking points from the usual suspects?
THE PACIFICA FINANCIAL CRISIS!
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?
Former WBAI management did not pay their rent for four months and received a Three Day Notice to pay or be subject to eviction in March of 2009. This was not promptly communicated to the financial or executive management of Pacifica. WBAI has been losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for several years and currently owes Pacifica over $1,100,000.00 in back central services contributions. Each station contributes 20% of its listener-generated revenue to run the Foundation. When one station isn’t making its contribution the results are that the Foundation is short on money or the other stations have to pay more. This several year problem at WBAI and the current economic downturn has caused serious financial problems for Pacifica. The current Pacifica National Board (PNB), elected in January, gives hope for the survival of Pacifica.
Why didn’t Pacifica correct this problem early on? There was collusion among some PNB members from various stations to allow WBAI to do what they wanted to do with no oversight or accountability to the Bylaws or the listener/subscribers. The major players in this collusion were from KPFA, WBAI and WPFW, with a vote or two from KPFK and KPFT and the affiliate Reps on the PNB of past years.
The Local Station Board (LSB) majorities at KPFA and WBAI generally elected three PNB members that supported this collusion and WPFW, until recently, often sent four. There are 22 members of the PNB, four from each station and two Affiliate Representatives. An LSB majority can elect three of the four PNB members for their station. With ten votes from KPFA, WBAI and WPFW it only takes three votes from the ten from the other two stations and affiliate reps to have a majority to control the PNB and continue this collusion. Until this last January the Colluders had the majority for several years.
Who are the Colluders and why did they do this? Local tyrannical majorities wanted to run their stations without regard to the Bylaws and with no oversight from the Foundation. At KPFA the “KPFAForward” (2004) and “Concerned Listener” (CL) (2006 & 2007) slates represented the same management/staff faction and generally endorsed majorities that sent three PNB members who consistently voted to protect and continue the collusion. This group included William Walker, Sarv Randhawa, Rosalinda Palacios, Mary Berg, Sherry Gendelman, Bonnie Simmons and Andrea Turner. They consistently vote/voted with the Justice & Unity majority from WBAI and the WPFW majority. They generally sit together at the PNB meetings and are regularly seen privately caucusing together at lunch and before and after meetings, sometimes with GM Lemlem Rijio when in Berkeley.
Prior to this year’s PNB, Bob Lederer was the Justice & Unity leader on the PNB. I have attended many PNB meetings and listened to most of the others on line. During those meetings if KPFA Colluder PNB members were not sure how to vote they often passed if Bob Lederer hadn’t voted or passed. When he voted they would follow. If you don’t believe me go to the archives of the meetings and listen.
Whenever there was a move to correct the problems at WBAI the KPFA Colluders always voted with the others to protect the LSB majority at WBAI. Patty Heffley, the minority PNB Rep from WBAI, made a motion to have the PNB order the WBAI LSB to do a performance review of the general manager (GM) and the program director. The Bylaws require these to be done annually. At WBAI they had never been done, despite complaints from the LSB minority. The PNB Colluder majority refused to order the WBAI LSB to follow the Bylaws. Many others complained about WBAI being out of control and losing money and the Colluder PNB majority did NOTHING as the red ink continued to flow.
At KPFA the CL slate and the Rijio/Lilley management work together to make sure they maintain a majority on the LSB to elect three PNB members from their group. One of their methods was to have no election information on the air when the ballots went out and at the same time the CL sent a slate mailer. After the first time this happened I wrote a motion on the PNB Election Committee requiring election information to be on the air during the election. It passed out of the election committee by a 10-2 vote. The Colluder majority on the PNB voted it down. When KPFA finally ran some candidate information they ran 22 candidate statements in a row, always with Sherry Gendelman first! At the April 2009 PNB meeting in Berkeley the new non-Colluder PNB majority passed a motion requiring broad election coverage on the air. Bonnie Simmons, CL endorser, made a motion to rescind the required election coverage. It didn’t pass. And we will have a more inclusive election this year, no thanks to CL and its allies.
The Colluder majority was consistently against transparency. The Bylaws and California law allow Directors the “absolute right” to inspect all documents and facilities at any reasonable time. For years the Colluders fought to stop or hinder Directors’ Inspections. When inspections were finally allowed due to potential lawsuits it was discovered that $65,000 worth of equipment had been sent to a WBAI former GM’s father’s house and was not accounted for. As recently as 2008 a Director was ordered out of WBAI in the middle of a lawful inspection without any justification. Who gave the order? Dan Siegel, interim Executive Director, hired by the Colluder majority and a recent CL candidate.
So when you hear Brian Edwards-Tiekert, Sherry Gendelman, Bonnie Simmons, Conn or Matthew Hallinan, Warren Mar or any of the CL allies complain about KPFA money going to shore up WBAI, they and their allies are responsible for this crisis for trading fiscal responsibility for their power to ignore the Bylaws, transparency and accountability.
KPFA/Pacifica is a Commons that belongs to all of us, and it must be protected and preserved above the CL/Rijio group’s desire for unrestrained and unaccountable power.
Richard Phelps, former Chair, KPFA LSB (Labor donated.)
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?
Former WBAI management did not pay their rent for four months and received a Three Day Notice to pay or be subject to eviction in March of 2009. This was not promptly communicated to the financial or executive management of Pacifica. WBAI has been losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for several years and currently owes Pacifica over $1,100,000.00 in back central services contributions. Each station contributes 20% of its listener-generated revenue to run the Foundation. When one station isn’t making its contribution the results are that the Foundation is short on money or the other stations have to pay more. This several year problem at WBAI and the current economic downturn has caused serious financial problems for Pacifica. The current Pacifica National Board (PNB), elected in January, gives hope for the survival of Pacifica.
Why didn’t Pacifica correct this problem early on? There was collusion among some PNB members from various stations to allow WBAI to do what they wanted to do with no oversight or accountability to the Bylaws or the listener/subscribers. The major players in this collusion were from KPFA, WBAI and WPFW, with a vote or two from KPFK and KPFT and the affiliate Reps on the PNB of past years.
The Local Station Board (LSB) majorities at KPFA and WBAI generally elected three PNB members that supported this collusion and WPFW, until recently, often sent four. There are 22 members of the PNB, four from each station and two Affiliate Representatives. An LSB majority can elect three of the four PNB members for their station. With ten votes from KPFA, WBAI and WPFW it only takes three votes from the ten from the other two stations and affiliate reps to have a majority to control the PNB and continue this collusion. Until this last January the Colluders had the majority for several years.
Who are the Colluders and why did they do this? Local tyrannical majorities wanted to run their stations without regard to the Bylaws and with no oversight from the Foundation. At KPFA the “KPFAForward” (2004) and “Concerned Listener” (CL) (2006 & 2007) slates represented the same management/staff faction and generally endorsed majorities that sent three PNB members who consistently voted to protect and continue the collusion. This group included William Walker, Sarv Randhawa, Rosalinda Palacios, Mary Berg, Sherry Gendelman, Bonnie Simmons and Andrea Turner. They consistently vote/voted with the Justice & Unity majority from WBAI and the WPFW majority. They generally sit together at the PNB meetings and are regularly seen privately caucusing together at lunch and before and after meetings, sometimes with GM Lemlem Rijio when in Berkeley.
Prior to this year’s PNB, Bob Lederer was the Justice & Unity leader on the PNB. I have attended many PNB meetings and listened to most of the others on line. During those meetings if KPFA Colluder PNB members were not sure how to vote they often passed if Bob Lederer hadn’t voted or passed. When he voted they would follow. If you don’t believe me go to the archives of the meetings and listen.
Whenever there was a move to correct the problems at WBAI the KPFA Colluders always voted with the others to protect the LSB majority at WBAI. Patty Heffley, the minority PNB Rep from WBAI, made a motion to have the PNB order the WBAI LSB to do a performance review of the general manager (GM) and the program director. The Bylaws require these to be done annually. At WBAI they had never been done, despite complaints from the LSB minority. The PNB Colluder majority refused to order the WBAI LSB to follow the Bylaws. Many others complained about WBAI being out of control and losing money and the Colluder PNB majority did NOTHING as the red ink continued to flow.
At KPFA the CL slate and the Rijio/Lilley management work together to make sure they maintain a majority on the LSB to elect three PNB members from their group. One of their methods was to have no election information on the air when the ballots went out and at the same time the CL sent a slate mailer. After the first time this happened I wrote a motion on the PNB Election Committee requiring election information to be on the air during the election. It passed out of the election committee by a 10-2 vote. The Colluder majority on the PNB voted it down. When KPFA finally ran some candidate information they ran 22 candidate statements in a row, always with Sherry Gendelman first! At the April 2009 PNB meeting in Berkeley the new non-Colluder PNB majority passed a motion requiring broad election coverage on the air. Bonnie Simmons, CL endorser, made a motion to rescind the required election coverage. It didn’t pass. And we will have a more inclusive election this year, no thanks to CL and its allies.
The Colluder majority was consistently against transparency. The Bylaws and California law allow Directors the “absolute right” to inspect all documents and facilities at any reasonable time. For years the Colluders fought to stop or hinder Directors’ Inspections. When inspections were finally allowed due to potential lawsuits it was discovered that $65,000 worth of equipment had been sent to a WBAI former GM’s father’s house and was not accounted for. As recently as 2008 a Director was ordered out of WBAI in the middle of a lawful inspection without any justification. Who gave the order? Dan Siegel, interim Executive Director, hired by the Colluder majority and a recent CL candidate.
So when you hear Brian Edwards-Tiekert, Sherry Gendelman, Bonnie Simmons, Conn or Matthew Hallinan, Warren Mar or any of the CL allies complain about KPFA money going to shore up WBAI, they and their allies are responsible for this crisis for trading fiscal responsibility for their power to ignore the Bylaws, transparency and accountability.
KPFA/Pacifica is a Commons that belongs to all of us, and it must be protected and preserved above the CL/Rijio group’s desire for unrestrained and unaccountable power.
Richard Phelps, former Chair, KPFA LSB (Labor donated.)
"The only hope for the long term health of Pacifica is to scrap as soon as possible the fatally flawed governance structure and start over."
Hear, hear, Dr. Boal.
It is telling that the only mention of paid staff on the ICR website is regarding the need to cut them and that "work[ing] cooperatively with the Pacifica Foundation" is listed as a campaign objective.
Hear, hear, Dr. Boal.
It is telling that the only mention of paid staff on the ICR website is regarding the need to cut them and that "work[ing] cooperatively with the Pacifica Foundation" is listed as a campaign objective.
Concerned Listener's-"Save KPFA's" Demagogic Playing of the "Union Card" is Fully Exposed!
by Richard Phelps, former Chair KPFA LSB
Sunday Oct 17th, 2010 9:14 AM
Concerned Listener's-"Save KPFA's" Demagogic Playing of the "Union Card" is Fully Exposed! Their claims that their opponents had a hit list of staff to lay off evaporated into the lie that it always was. Their relentless dishonest attacks of union busting and their made out of "whole cloth" attack that their opponents want an "all volunteer" staff was exposed by a roll call vote at yesterday's LSB meeting.
During the discussion on the new budget Shahram moved to amend the intro language for the budget Resolution to include that it would be implemented according to the union contract. This would mean that layoffs would be done by seniority. Every CL/"Save KPFA" person in attendance voted that amendment down??? Why would they be against that "pro union" sentiment being added to the budget resolution that included the need for some staff reductions? They were trying to protect the jobs of some of their "insider" group. Some would lose their jobs if seniority is followed. So much for union solidarity!
Is this new? No, we have seen it over and over. In the late 1990s this same political strain pushed for a change from a progressive union, UE, to CWA and dumped all the unpaid staff from the union roles. There have been many attacks on union members by CL management allies and the union has consistently done nothing. Ask anyone of the FlashPoints folks how much union support they get. The latest was the pay reduction forced on Nora Barrows Friedman outside of union seniority.
Early on a careful review of Brian Edward-Tiekert's infamous 2005 e-mail meeting agenda to the insiders' strategy group made it quite clear that their group was supreme to the union. What makes this clear. They are discussion the possibility of going on strike and how to deal with union grievances. The recipients of this e-mail, the members of their secret strategy group, included management employee Lemlem Rigio who they later pushed up to GM in their continuing quest for undemocratic power. As a former member of several unions I can say that we never did plan strategy on such issues with members of management. In addition to management there were other people in that group that were not union members, who just happened to be Concerned Listeners leadership: Sherry Gendelman and Bonnie Simmons.
_______________________
The e-mail below was found at the station in September 2005. It has been acknowledged as real by the author. I have contacted in person or by e-mail everyone but one on that strategy group to ask them if they were just recipients of an e-mail that discussed “dismantling the LSB” and other interesting topics or were they active participants and none of them have denied active involvement.
This e-mail was sent shortly after the LSB voted down a staff motion to fire the GM for sexual harassment. It was voted down 15-5. Four of the five votes for it were in this e-mail group. There was NO evidence of sexual harassment found after two separate investigations. It was an attempt to fire an African-American GM who wouldn’t toe their line. Their pushing for this unjust firing caused them to lose the majority on the LSB, thus their need for a strategic retreat. This e-mail gives one a view of what these folks really believe in! Sort of like a Pentagon Paper. Richard Phelps, former Chair KPFA LSB.
From:"Brian Edwards-Tiekert"
Yahoo! DomainKeys has confirmed that this message was sent by gmail.com. Learn more
To:"Lemlem Tekle" , "Bonnie Simmons" ,
LisaRothman [at] kpfa.org
CC:"Sasha Lilley" , "Lemlem Tekle" ,
mawu_mama37 [at] yahoo.com, "Amelia Gonzalez-Garcia" , Rain
Geesler" , "Sherry Gendelman" , "Gary
Niederhoff"
Subject:Re: budget
Date:Thu, 1 Sep 2005 20:58:28 -0700
I'm up for coffee Saturday—Lisa and I can still meet Tuesday afternoon. Also, we need a general strategy session. How about Tuesday night?
Issues include:
How should we be handling the expiration of the union contract—is a strike in order, or is it a really terrible idea?
What's the best way to deal with these layoffs?
Coming up with, and presenting, an alternative budget.
Getting the Roy issue to the national board.
Propping up staff morale.
Strategic retreat on the LSB—how do we make our enemies own the problems that are to come? Alternatively, should we be recalling LSB members/dismantling the LSB?
Dealing with the grievances underway.
Building community support—formation of a labor-community coalition.
Brian Edwards-Tiekert
Staff Representative, Local Station Board
KPFA 94.1FM
1929 Martin Luther King Jr. Way
Berkeley CA 94704
And don't forget BET's demonstration of his Karl Rove mentality at work> "how do we make our enemies own the problems that are to come?"
That philosophy is the basis for all the lies and distortions of truth that we see continuously coming from CL and their allies.
And when they rage on about disrespect for the staff don't forget their agenda item of "Propping up staff morale." This demonstrates such a callous disregard for the staff, their pawns in their continuing drive for absolute power and control of the station.
by Richard Phelps, former Chair KPFA LSB
Sunday Oct 17th, 2010 9:14 AM
Concerned Listener's-"Save KPFA's" Demagogic Playing of the "Union Card" is Fully Exposed! Their claims that their opponents had a hit list of staff to lay off evaporated into the lie that it always was. Their relentless dishonest attacks of union busting and their made out of "whole cloth" attack that their opponents want an "all volunteer" staff was exposed by a roll call vote at yesterday's LSB meeting.
During the discussion on the new budget Shahram moved to amend the intro language for the budget Resolution to include that it would be implemented according to the union contract. This would mean that layoffs would be done by seniority. Every CL/"Save KPFA" person in attendance voted that amendment down??? Why would they be against that "pro union" sentiment being added to the budget resolution that included the need for some staff reductions? They were trying to protect the jobs of some of their "insider" group. Some would lose their jobs if seniority is followed. So much for union solidarity!
Is this new? No, we have seen it over and over. In the late 1990s this same political strain pushed for a change from a progressive union, UE, to CWA and dumped all the unpaid staff from the union roles. There have been many attacks on union members by CL management allies and the union has consistently done nothing. Ask anyone of the FlashPoints folks how much union support they get. The latest was the pay reduction forced on Nora Barrows Friedman outside of union seniority.
Early on a careful review of Brian Edward-Tiekert's infamous 2005 e-mail meeting agenda to the insiders' strategy group made it quite clear that their group was supreme to the union. What makes this clear. They are discussion the possibility of going on strike and how to deal with union grievances. The recipients of this e-mail, the members of their secret strategy group, included management employee Lemlem Rigio who they later pushed up to GM in their continuing quest for undemocratic power. As a former member of several unions I can say that we never did plan strategy on such issues with members of management. In addition to management there were other people in that group that were not union members, who just happened to be Concerned Listeners leadership: Sherry Gendelman and Bonnie Simmons.
_______________________
The e-mail below was found at the station in September 2005. It has been acknowledged as real by the author. I have contacted in person or by e-mail everyone but one on that strategy group to ask them if they were just recipients of an e-mail that discussed “dismantling the LSB” and other interesting topics or were they active participants and none of them have denied active involvement.
This e-mail was sent shortly after the LSB voted down a staff motion to fire the GM for sexual harassment. It was voted down 15-5. Four of the five votes for it were in this e-mail group. There was NO evidence of sexual harassment found after two separate investigations. It was an attempt to fire an African-American GM who wouldn’t toe their line. Their pushing for this unjust firing caused them to lose the majority on the LSB, thus their need for a strategic retreat. This e-mail gives one a view of what these folks really believe in! Sort of like a Pentagon Paper. Richard Phelps, former Chair KPFA LSB.
From:"Brian Edwards-Tiekert"
Yahoo! DomainKeys has confirmed that this message was sent by gmail.com. Learn more
To:"Lemlem Tekle" , "Bonnie Simmons" ,
LisaRothman [at] kpfa.org
CC:"Sasha Lilley" , "Lemlem Tekle" ,
mawu_mama37 [at] yahoo.com, "Amelia Gonzalez-Garcia" , Rain
Geesler" , "Sherry Gendelman" , "Gary
Niederhoff"
Subject:Re: budget
Date:Thu, 1 Sep 2005 20:58:28 -0700
I'm up for coffee Saturday—Lisa and I can still meet Tuesday afternoon. Also, we need a general strategy session. How about Tuesday night?
Issues include:
How should we be handling the expiration of the union contract—is a strike in order, or is it a really terrible idea?
What's the best way to deal with these layoffs?
Coming up with, and presenting, an alternative budget.
Getting the Roy issue to the national board.
Propping up staff morale.
Strategic retreat on the LSB—how do we make our enemies own the problems that are to come? Alternatively, should we be recalling LSB members/dismantling the LSB?
Dealing with the grievances underway.
Building community support—formation of a labor-community coalition.
Brian Edwards-Tiekert
Staff Representative, Local Station Board
KPFA 94.1FM
1929 Martin Luther King Jr. Way
Berkeley CA 94704
And don't forget BET's demonstration of his Karl Rove mentality at work> "how do we make our enemies own the problems that are to come?"
That philosophy is the basis for all the lies and distortions of truth that we see continuously coming from CL and their allies.
And when they rage on about disrespect for the staff don't forget their agenda item of "Propping up staff morale." This demonstrates such a callous disregard for the staff, their pawns in their continuing drive for absolute power and control of the station.
Congratulations Mr. Phelps, you've just reposted something that essentially says 'you ought trust me, I'm Richard Phelps, former LSB Chair.' One doesn't need to be a barrister to recognize reductio ad absurdum on its face.
Even tho i generally agree with a chop from the top sentiment, this piece has disingenuousness written all over. 1. The KPFA morning show and the News department in Berkeley in general are shills for the Democratic Party and Zionism. 2. Some of the money KPFA owes are for Democracy Now and Free Speech Radio News, two great shows that should be paid for. 3. The clique that Bowels is connected to didn't say anything about this when they were in power. 4. The leadership of the union of paid employees (where this is nominally coming from) worked very hard to get rid of the union of unpaid "volunteers" many of whom were the radicals in the station. 5. Saying that KPFA needs to scale back ITS bloated budget is in no way analogous to a Maggie Thatcher slogan. 6. The red-baiting of radical programming as "unprofessional" IS a right-wing David Horowitz type activity. 7. Telling people to scale back on elections and meetings shows contempt for democracy and the gains won out of struggle. 8. There was no secret cabal drawing up a secret "enemies list"; the discussion was in a committee of the board talking about how to follow the union contract with limited lay-offs and still keep the major portions of the station running 9. When others who are not in the clique were "laid-off" outside of the seniority order the union's contract calls for, neither the union nor Mr. Boal and his friends helped them. 10. I know very little about Gary Null, Doug Henwood or other New York personalities. I do believe that Pacifica stations should have a diversity of left and counter-cultural opinions (even some that i don't necessarily agree with). 11. The Morning Show and the Evening News are successful because of their time period, not because of any brilliance of the hosts or news-readers. Almost any show in drive-time would be successful. As a matter of fact a couple of years ago at KPFA, the Program Committee of the Local Station Board and the local board itself voted that Democracy Now should be moved to morning drive time. This never happened because of the internal politics of the station, but, imho, this would have made KPFA's morning line-up much better than the lackluster Morning Show. 12. And a question to anyone who knows: Is there "gold-buggery" on WBAI, or is this a made up red herring? and 13. To talk about a "silent majority" is to insult the people who do vote, volunteer, contribute money etc. to bring the Pacifica 'voice' to those others. And If Mr. Boal can invoke Maggie Thatcher, i can ask, was it Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew or Lyndon Johnson who popularized the term "silent majority"?
You rebut not one fact. An admission by your silence that they are true.
More on Iain Boal:
1. From http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/10/22/18661996.php
Not only was an entrenched faction at KPFA resistant to Pacifica's
democratic governance structure and Elections, certain programmers
were openly hostile to it. For example, Sasha Lilley, hosting
"Against The Grain," interviewed Iain Boal, who attacked the rights of
the Listener-Membership to vote for the Board of Directors and pitched
the idea of a petition to shred Pacifica's Bylaws and dismantle
democratically-elected Boards. Of course, Sasha Lilley, we recall, is
an endorser of the "Save KPFA" grouping.
2. http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/10/22/18661965.php
It's not trivial to note, as we listen to Henwood narrowly attack Pacifica's democratic governance structure, in line with Sasha Lilley's attacks with Iain Boal on "Against The Grain," that Lilley was instrumental in autocratically bringing Henwood's "Behind The News" to KPFA. One isn't surprised, then, to find the two working together to undermine the LSB Elections in 2010.
3. http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/09/26/18659941.php
Supporting this claim that the community has to be kept from any powerful role in station decision-making has necessitated one of the most ugly aspects of this controversy. Those listeners who have worked to realize the promise of a democratized Pacifica have been maligned by caricatures so extreme it’s surprising that they were not self-defeating. Ian Boal, writing in Counterpunch, told his readers that the listeners elected to the station board tended to be "esperantists, propeller heads, world government paranoiacs, and stranded Maoists”. Max Pringle of KPFA’s news department argued that it made no more sense to let listeners participate in making programming decisions than it would to let the passengers take over the cockpit of an airplane. And Concerned Listeners/SaveKPFA's Conn Hallinan warned that if the listeners are allowed to control programming we will end up with “all conspiracy all the time” radio.
It’s a wonder that such hyperbolic claims have been taken as seriously as they seem to have been. Don’t accept them. Those who oppose community participation in KPFA's decision-making ought to address the problems caused by exclusively in-house decision-making rather than just defame those who want change.
4. http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/07/17/18654159.php
"Against The Grain," Against The LSB: Iain A. Boal's Attacks on Pacifica democratisation, dated 7/17/10
5. http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2005/06/12/17470981.php
Retort's Response: Intellectual Dishonesty, June 12, 2005:
The night of May 26th, i went to Black Oak Books in Berkeley to hear the presentation by members of the San Francisco Bay Area group Retort regarding their new book, “Afflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War” . The writers are Iain Boal, TJ Clark, Joseph Matthews and Michael Watts, all associated with UC Berkeley in one form or another, and they claim "situationist" politics. They contend that 9/11 was an effective attack on the empire and the Spectacle, with airliners “detourned” into bombers, as one asserted during the presentation. A close friend of mine asked the first question, brought up the work by situationists Sanguinetti and Debord in exposing Italian state terrorism in the '70s, including “On Terrorism and the State”. He pointed out some evidence re 9/11 being an inside job, such as “suicide hijackers” who are still alive, people standing in the WTC North Tower impact zone, where supposedly fires were melting steel, the relatively low temperatures of these fires as noted by the government’s own reports, and asked why they accept the official story. (A discussion of such evidence can be found in my last article, “Left Denial on 9/11 Turns Irrational”, posted here, here, and here. Joe Matthews simply said "Because it's true", drawing some laughs from the audience, and went on to the next question.
****
To Iain Boal and his Thug Hallinan Gang friends, here is your homework on the 9/11 Inside Job:
DVD that is a Must See at http://loosechange911.com/
and http://lc911finalcut.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n-nT-luFIw
http://www.brasschecktv.com/
http://www.brasschecktv.com/index.php?call=category&id=13 (The 9/11 Files)
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/664.html
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/88.html
http://noliesradio.org/ which has announcement and picture of Building 7 just before controlled demolition although not hit by any plane and a picture of Dr. Steven Jones, a physics expert, who found thermate, a military incendiary substance, in the dust of the demolished World Trade Center):
Every Weekday – 1 hour – at 3pm Pacific * 6pm Eastern * 22:00 GMT
9/11 Teach-in
Don’t Miss our Sunday – 911 Teach-in Marathon – 5 hours every Sunday
9am Pacific * 12 noon Eastern * 17:00 GMT – Sunday
a compilation of all 5 previous weekday shows.
http://www.kpfa.org/guns-and-butter, heard at 94.1 FM, KPFA, Wednesdays at 1 p.m.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=49f_1172526096
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/topic/911investigation/
http://www.globalresearch.ca/
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=theme&themeId=18
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=21436
http://www.communitycurrency.org/9-11.html
http://communitycurrency.org/911TV/
http://norcal-9-11-film-festival.blogspot.com/
http://buildingwhat.org/
http://buildingwhat.org/7-facts-about-building-7/
http://www.examiner.com/x-2912-Seattle-Exopolitics-Examiner~y2010m4d2-Memo-to-US-Congress-prima-facie-evidence-that-Bush-Cheney-and-Rumsfeld-committed-treason-on-911
http://truthandshadows.wordpress.com/
Go to Socialist Viewpoint at
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/
for videos and articles on the 9/11 Truth Movement including, in Volume 9, No. 3, May-June 2009, “Exotic High Tech Explosives Positively Identified in World Trade Center Dust” by Editor, Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, which also has this article at:
http://www.ae911truth.org/info/51 based on a scientific article by Niels H. Harris, Jeffrey Farrer, Steven E. Jones, Kevin R. Ryan, Frank M. Legge, Daniel Farnsworth, Gregg Roberts, James R. Gourley, Bradley R. Larsen.
See also:
http://www.ae911truth.org/ (architects & engineers)
http://buildingwhat.org/7-facts-about-building-7/
http://stj911.org/blog/ (Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice)
http://truthaction.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=39641
http://www.sf911truth.org/
http://sftruthaction.blogspot.com/
http://sf911truth.org/
http://davidraygriffin.com/?v=0
http://firefightersfor911truth.org/
http://www.historycommons.org/project.jsp?project=911_project (911 timeline)
http://911blogger.com/
http://wtc7.net/
http://www.journalof911studies.com/
http://v911t.org/ Veterans
http://mediafor911truth.org/supporters/
http://lawyersfor911truth.blogspot.com/
http://911summary.com/legal.php
http://mp911truth.org/ Medical Professionals
http://pilotsfor911truth.org/core.html
http://911research.wtc7.net/
http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/gold.html
READ ALL OF THE FOLLOWING BOOKS:
1.Crossing the Rubicon by Michael Ruppert
2.9/11 Facing Our Fascist State by Don Paul (Excellent research all done in 2001-2002; obviously an Inside Job from the beginning. The evidence is in this book.)
3.Waking Up From Our Nightmare by Don Paul and Jim Hoffman (Good color photos & research)
4.Cognitive Infiltration by David Griffin (2010) (The title is an insidious phrase promoted by an alleged lawyer appointee of Barack Obama, Cass Sunstein, promoting an illegal activity, joining and disrupting 9/11 Truth Movement organizations instead of open debate, providing evidence for the government’s conspiracy theory, which does not exist. Sunstein-Obama are openly promoting fascism. This book does reiterate all the evidence for the 9/11 Truth Movement in 156 pages plus 477 footnotes.)
5.The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7 by David Griffin (2009)
6.Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive? by David Griffin (2009)
7.New Pearl Harbor Revisited by David Griffin (2008)
8.The Hidden History of 9/11, ed by Paul Zarembka (2008), articles by David Griffin, Jay Kolar, Zarembka, Don Trent Jacobs, Nafez Ahmed, David MacGregor, Bryan Sacks, Diana Ralph, with Appendix by Bertrand Russell: 16 Questions on the JFK Assassination (teaches how to investigate a crime)
9.The 9/11 Conspiracy, edited James Fetzer (2007), articles by John Austin, David Griffin, James Fetzer, Jack White, Judy Wood, Joseph Firmage, Morgan Reynolds, Rick Rajter, Elias Davidsson, Peter Dale Scott, John McMurty plus excellent photos
10. 9/11 Contradictions by David Griffin (2008)
11. The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions & Distortions by David Griffin
12. The New Pearl Harbor by David Griffin
13. Debunking 9/11 Debunking by David Griffin
14.Painful Questions by Eric Hufschmid
15. The Iron Triangle (on the Carlyle Group) by Dan Briody
16. 9/11 Revealed: The Unanswered Questions by Rowland Morgan & Ian Henshall
17. 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA by Webster Tarpley
18. Body of Secrets by James Bamford
19. The War on Truth by Nafeez Mossadeq Ahmed
20. Towers of Deception by Barrie Zwicker (with DVD enclosed)
21. 9/11 and American Empire edited by David Ray Griffin and Peter Dale Scott
22. Flight 93 Revealed by Ian Henshall and Rowland Morgan
23.The Terror Timeline by Paul Thompson
24.Welcome to Terrorland: Mohammed Atta & the 9/11 Coverup in Florida by Daniel Hopsicker
25.The Big Wedding: 9/11, The Whistleblowers and The Coverup by Sander Hicks
26.The Terror Conspiracy by Jim Marrs
27.Inside Job by Jim Marrs
28.Forbidden Truth by Jean-Charles Brisard & Guillaume Dasquie
29.Pentagate by Thierry Meyssan
30.9/11: The Big Lie by Thierry Meyssan
1. From http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/10/22/18661996.php
Not only was an entrenched faction at KPFA resistant to Pacifica's
democratic governance structure and Elections, certain programmers
were openly hostile to it. For example, Sasha Lilley, hosting
"Against The Grain," interviewed Iain Boal, who attacked the rights of
the Listener-Membership to vote for the Board of Directors and pitched
the idea of a petition to shred Pacifica's Bylaws and dismantle
democratically-elected Boards. Of course, Sasha Lilley, we recall, is
an endorser of the "Save KPFA" grouping.
2. http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/10/22/18661965.php
It's not trivial to note, as we listen to Henwood narrowly attack Pacifica's democratic governance structure, in line with Sasha Lilley's attacks with Iain Boal on "Against The Grain," that Lilley was instrumental in autocratically bringing Henwood's "Behind The News" to KPFA. One isn't surprised, then, to find the two working together to undermine the LSB Elections in 2010.
3. http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/09/26/18659941.php
Supporting this claim that the community has to be kept from any powerful role in station decision-making has necessitated one of the most ugly aspects of this controversy. Those listeners who have worked to realize the promise of a democratized Pacifica have been maligned by caricatures so extreme it’s surprising that they were not self-defeating. Ian Boal, writing in Counterpunch, told his readers that the listeners elected to the station board tended to be "esperantists, propeller heads, world government paranoiacs, and stranded Maoists”. Max Pringle of KPFA’s news department argued that it made no more sense to let listeners participate in making programming decisions than it would to let the passengers take over the cockpit of an airplane. And Concerned Listeners/SaveKPFA's Conn Hallinan warned that if the listeners are allowed to control programming we will end up with “all conspiracy all the time” radio.
It’s a wonder that such hyperbolic claims have been taken as seriously as they seem to have been. Don’t accept them. Those who oppose community participation in KPFA's decision-making ought to address the problems caused by exclusively in-house decision-making rather than just defame those who want change.
4. http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/07/17/18654159.php
"Against The Grain," Against The LSB: Iain A. Boal's Attacks on Pacifica democratisation, dated 7/17/10
5. http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2005/06/12/17470981.php
Retort's Response: Intellectual Dishonesty, June 12, 2005:
The night of May 26th, i went to Black Oak Books in Berkeley to hear the presentation by members of the San Francisco Bay Area group Retort regarding their new book, “Afflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War” . The writers are Iain Boal, TJ Clark, Joseph Matthews and Michael Watts, all associated with UC Berkeley in one form or another, and they claim "situationist" politics. They contend that 9/11 was an effective attack on the empire and the Spectacle, with airliners “detourned” into bombers, as one asserted during the presentation. A close friend of mine asked the first question, brought up the work by situationists Sanguinetti and Debord in exposing Italian state terrorism in the '70s, including “On Terrorism and the State”. He pointed out some evidence re 9/11 being an inside job, such as “suicide hijackers” who are still alive, people standing in the WTC North Tower impact zone, where supposedly fires were melting steel, the relatively low temperatures of these fires as noted by the government’s own reports, and asked why they accept the official story. (A discussion of such evidence can be found in my last article, “Left Denial on 9/11 Turns Irrational”, posted here, here, and here. Joe Matthews simply said "Because it's true", drawing some laughs from the audience, and went on to the next question.
****
To Iain Boal and his Thug Hallinan Gang friends, here is your homework on the 9/11 Inside Job:
DVD that is a Must See at http://loosechange911.com/
and http://lc911finalcut.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n-nT-luFIw
http://www.brasschecktv.com/
http://www.brasschecktv.com/index.php?call=category&id=13 (The 9/11 Files)
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/664.html
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/88.html
http://noliesradio.org/ which has announcement and picture of Building 7 just before controlled demolition although not hit by any plane and a picture of Dr. Steven Jones, a physics expert, who found thermate, a military incendiary substance, in the dust of the demolished World Trade Center):
Every Weekday – 1 hour – at 3pm Pacific * 6pm Eastern * 22:00 GMT
9/11 Teach-in
Don’t Miss our Sunday – 911 Teach-in Marathon – 5 hours every Sunday
9am Pacific * 12 noon Eastern * 17:00 GMT – Sunday
a compilation of all 5 previous weekday shows.
http://www.kpfa.org/guns-and-butter, heard at 94.1 FM, KPFA, Wednesdays at 1 p.m.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=49f_1172526096
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/topic/911investigation/
http://www.globalresearch.ca/
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=theme&themeId=18
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=21436
http://www.communitycurrency.org/9-11.html
http://communitycurrency.org/911TV/
http://norcal-9-11-film-festival.blogspot.com/
http://buildingwhat.org/
http://buildingwhat.org/7-facts-about-building-7/
http://www.examiner.com/x-2912-Seattle-Exopolitics-Examiner~y2010m4d2-Memo-to-US-Congress-prima-facie-evidence-that-Bush-Cheney-and-Rumsfeld-committed-treason-on-911
http://truthandshadows.wordpress.com/
Go to Socialist Viewpoint at
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/
for videos and articles on the 9/11 Truth Movement including, in Volume 9, No. 3, May-June 2009, “Exotic High Tech Explosives Positively Identified in World Trade Center Dust” by Editor, Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, which also has this article at:
http://www.ae911truth.org/info/51 based on a scientific article by Niels H. Harris, Jeffrey Farrer, Steven E. Jones, Kevin R. Ryan, Frank M. Legge, Daniel Farnsworth, Gregg Roberts, James R. Gourley, Bradley R. Larsen.
See also:
http://www.ae911truth.org/ (architects & engineers)
http://buildingwhat.org/7-facts-about-building-7/
http://stj911.org/blog/ (Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice)
http://truthaction.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=39641
http://www.sf911truth.org/
http://sftruthaction.blogspot.com/
http://sf911truth.org/
http://davidraygriffin.com/?v=0
http://firefightersfor911truth.org/
http://www.historycommons.org/project.jsp?project=911_project (911 timeline)
http://911blogger.com/
http://wtc7.net/
http://www.journalof911studies.com/
http://v911t.org/ Veterans
http://mediafor911truth.org/supporters/
http://lawyersfor911truth.blogspot.com/
http://911summary.com/legal.php
http://mp911truth.org/ Medical Professionals
http://pilotsfor911truth.org/core.html
http://911research.wtc7.net/
http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/gold.html
READ ALL OF THE FOLLOWING BOOKS:
1.Crossing the Rubicon by Michael Ruppert
2.9/11 Facing Our Fascist State by Don Paul (Excellent research all done in 2001-2002; obviously an Inside Job from the beginning. The evidence is in this book.)
3.Waking Up From Our Nightmare by Don Paul and Jim Hoffman (Good color photos & research)
4.Cognitive Infiltration by David Griffin (2010) (The title is an insidious phrase promoted by an alleged lawyer appointee of Barack Obama, Cass Sunstein, promoting an illegal activity, joining and disrupting 9/11 Truth Movement organizations instead of open debate, providing evidence for the government’s conspiracy theory, which does not exist. Sunstein-Obama are openly promoting fascism. This book does reiterate all the evidence for the 9/11 Truth Movement in 156 pages plus 477 footnotes.)
5.The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7 by David Griffin (2009)
6.Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive? by David Griffin (2009)
7.New Pearl Harbor Revisited by David Griffin (2008)
8.The Hidden History of 9/11, ed by Paul Zarembka (2008), articles by David Griffin, Jay Kolar, Zarembka, Don Trent Jacobs, Nafez Ahmed, David MacGregor, Bryan Sacks, Diana Ralph, with Appendix by Bertrand Russell: 16 Questions on the JFK Assassination (teaches how to investigate a crime)
9.The 9/11 Conspiracy, edited James Fetzer (2007), articles by John Austin, David Griffin, James Fetzer, Jack White, Judy Wood, Joseph Firmage, Morgan Reynolds, Rick Rajter, Elias Davidsson, Peter Dale Scott, John McMurty plus excellent photos
10. 9/11 Contradictions by David Griffin (2008)
11. The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions & Distortions by David Griffin
12. The New Pearl Harbor by David Griffin
13. Debunking 9/11 Debunking by David Griffin
14.Painful Questions by Eric Hufschmid
15. The Iron Triangle (on the Carlyle Group) by Dan Briody
16. 9/11 Revealed: The Unanswered Questions by Rowland Morgan & Ian Henshall
17. 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA by Webster Tarpley
18. Body of Secrets by James Bamford
19. The War on Truth by Nafeez Mossadeq Ahmed
20. Towers of Deception by Barrie Zwicker (with DVD enclosed)
21. 9/11 and American Empire edited by David Ray Griffin and Peter Dale Scott
22. Flight 93 Revealed by Ian Henshall and Rowland Morgan
23.The Terror Timeline by Paul Thompson
24.Welcome to Terrorland: Mohammed Atta & the 9/11 Coverup in Florida by Daniel Hopsicker
25.The Big Wedding: 9/11, The Whistleblowers and The Coverup by Sander Hicks
26.The Terror Conspiracy by Jim Marrs
27.Inside Job by Jim Marrs
28.Forbidden Truth by Jean-Charles Brisard & Guillaume Dasquie
29.Pentagate by Thierry Meyssan
30.9/11: The Big Lie by Thierry Meyssan
For more information:
http://loosechange911.com/
Who is Ukexica? Some time ago an anonymous Cler posted under the mane "Sue Mei." Then someone asked if "Sue Mei" might be Sherry Gendelman. And strangely enough, Sue Mei was never heard from again. Could "Ukexica" another of Sherry's pseudonyms?
Max Pringle of KPFA’s news department argued that it made no more sense to let listeners participate in making programming decisions than it would to let the passengers take over the cockpit of an airplane.
_________________________________________________________________
I was present in 2004 when he said that at the Berkeley Quaker meeting house. That was the same meeting where Bensky accused those wanting democracy of being Stalinists??? And what is so hypocritical about that red baiting by Bensky, Mark Hernandez and Richard Wolinsky, (recently on an indy post) is that so many of the CLers and their allies are former CPUSA members or fellow travelers. But then they don't seem to try to be logical, or honest, or fair as they throw around personal attacks. The irony of the CLers getting an endorsement from Angela Davis in 2006 while at the same time some of their folks were red baiting their opposition? This is not an analysis or criticism of Angela Davis' politics or that some CLers and allies were/are CPUSA members, just pointing out the hypocrisy!
If it was a user supported airline what would be wrong with the supporters having some say in the places they fly to (types of programs, like playing current speeches by movement leaders instead of holding them back for weeks or month and then selling them) and the times they fly (when programs are on, like DN! in Prime Time etc.)
Taking over the cockpit would be the equivalent of the listeners doing the engineering at the station and the transmitter. Both require extensive training and experience. No one has ever suggested that!!!!
Do Max and his allies have no better sense of analogies or was it just being dishonest? I will leave that for you to decide. Either way that doesn't show the character and or intelligence required for Pacifica and its Mission.
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I was present in 2004 when he said that at the Berkeley Quaker meeting house. That was the same meeting where Bensky accused those wanting democracy of being Stalinists??? And what is so hypocritical about that red baiting by Bensky, Mark Hernandez and Richard Wolinsky, (recently on an indy post) is that so many of the CLers and their allies are former CPUSA members or fellow travelers. But then they don't seem to try to be logical, or honest, or fair as they throw around personal attacks. The irony of the CLers getting an endorsement from Angela Davis in 2006 while at the same time some of their folks were red baiting their opposition? This is not an analysis or criticism of Angela Davis' politics or that some CLers and allies were/are CPUSA members, just pointing out the hypocrisy!
If it was a user supported airline what would be wrong with the supporters having some say in the places they fly to (types of programs, like playing current speeches by movement leaders instead of holding them back for weeks or month and then selling them) and the times they fly (when programs are on, like DN! in Prime Time etc.)
Taking over the cockpit would be the equivalent of the listeners doing the engineering at the station and the transmitter. Both require extensive training and experience. No one has ever suggested that!!!!
Do Max and his allies have no better sense of analogies or was it just being dishonest? I will leave that for you to decide. Either way that doesn't show the character and or intelligence required for Pacifica and its Mission.
She may be small, but she makes up for it with nastiness. The Hallinan brothers are merely irritable.
Is it a personal attack to address you in post by name and profession, Mr. Phelps?
I find reposting tacky; the item which you reposted had just been on indy bay 17 October, was thoroughly commented on, and can easily be accessed by people needing to reference it via Google, et al. That goes for you too, postID Stop Thug Hallinan Gang, we all jumped on your 9/11 Truth Book of the Month club list on the repost of Dave Heller's note to the producers of the KPFA Morning Show. I like how a guy doing pro-bono PR work for the Green and P&F Parties recommends books by Webster Tarpley, a critic of human-caused global warming. Those melting ice caps, a bit easier to prove that its an inside job...
If you would like my opinion on your repost, it is thus: my conversations with postID mara did not convince me that the proposed cuts by ICR do not represent a political purge. Your post doesn't convince me either. My profession isn't unionised, but I can tell you that if it were, and my reps weren't going through hell and high water to push back an attempt to cut my position, I'd be livid. Regarding your re-reposted 2005 email, despite you telling observers that this has been well-vetted and all that, there isn't anyway for us to verify that. It comes down to who trusts you, either because they know your work as former chair, or are persuaded because your postID includes that fact.
I can only approach this from the abstract, I have not served on the board, nor have any other information to play with save for what I've learned on indy.
I find reposting tacky; the item which you reposted had just been on indy bay 17 October, was thoroughly commented on, and can easily be accessed by people needing to reference it via Google, et al. That goes for you too, postID Stop Thug Hallinan Gang, we all jumped on your 9/11 Truth Book of the Month club list on the repost of Dave Heller's note to the producers of the KPFA Morning Show. I like how a guy doing pro-bono PR work for the Green and P&F Parties recommends books by Webster Tarpley, a critic of human-caused global warming. Those melting ice caps, a bit easier to prove that its an inside job...
If you would like my opinion on your repost, it is thus: my conversations with postID mara did not convince me that the proposed cuts by ICR do not represent a political purge. Your post doesn't convince me either. My profession isn't unionised, but I can tell you that if it were, and my reps weren't going through hell and high water to push back an attempt to cut my position, I'd be livid. Regarding your re-reposted 2005 email, despite you telling observers that this has been well-vetted and all that, there isn't anyway for us to verify that. It comes down to who trusts you, either because they know your work as former chair, or are persuaded because your postID includes that fact.
I can only approach this from the abstract, I have not served on the board, nor have any other information to play with save for what I've learned on indy.
Is Mr. Boal well, that he doth speak so wide?
He says there are 122 members on the Pacifica National Board, when in fact there are 22. Was this a typo? He says the network has a "byzantine governance structure", now that listener-sponsors elect their own local station boards and those boards elect members to the PNB. Not much like the structure of Byzantium, which was an autocratic empire. This institution of an elected governance structure was put in place to make sure the community had a voice in the direction of the station, after the station had been taken over in 1999 by a hostile management who may even have had plans to sell it, all against the wishes of the community. We know how valuable a resource KPFA and Pacifica are, and we came out in force to defend our station, and these elections are part of what we won. Boal has called the local station board elections "vastly expensive and corrupt" without giving any examples or evidence of such corruption, and says they come in a "relentless" and "mindnumbing" series; maybe a subjective judgement from someone with little patience for the democratic process.
Does supporting the democratic process and participating in elections make me a "crackpot electoralist"? Better than having Nixon or anyone else claim me as a member of their "silent majority".
He says there are 122 members on the Pacifica National Board, when in fact there are 22. Was this a typo? He says the network has a "byzantine governance structure", now that listener-sponsors elect their own local station boards and those boards elect members to the PNB. Not much like the structure of Byzantium, which was an autocratic empire. This institution of an elected governance structure was put in place to make sure the community had a voice in the direction of the station, after the station had been taken over in 1999 by a hostile management who may even have had plans to sell it, all against the wishes of the community. We know how valuable a resource KPFA and Pacifica are, and we came out in force to defend our station, and these elections are part of what we won. Boal has called the local station board elections "vastly expensive and corrupt" without giving any examples or evidence of such corruption, and says they come in a "relentless" and "mindnumbing" series; maybe a subjective judgement from someone with little patience for the democratic process.
Does supporting the democratic process and participating in elections make me a "crackpot electoralist"? Better than having Nixon or anyone else claim me as a member of their "silent majority".
"He says the network has a "byzantine governance structure", now that listener-sponsors elect their own local station boards and those boards elect members to the PNB. Not much like the structure of Byzantium, which was an autocratic empire."
byzantine - adj. of a devious, usually stealthy manner, of practice. I believe that was the subtext.
"Crackpot electoralism has allowed the will of ten of thousands of listeners and subscribers to be thwarted by candidates whose mandate rests upon as few as two hundred votes."
I believe the background here is that LSB elections are determined by a small number of votes cast relative to total eligible members, not disparaging the electoral process in todo.
byzantine - adj. of a devious, usually stealthy manner, of practice. I believe that was the subtext.
"Crackpot electoralism has allowed the will of ten of thousands of listeners and subscribers to be thwarted by candidates whose mandate rests upon as few as two hundred votes."
I believe the background here is that LSB elections are determined by a small number of votes cast relative to total eligible members, not disparaging the electoral process in todo.
Unlike people like me and Richard Phelps, who use our names here, posters like this 'ukexica' character are immune to personal attacks. And, when they are exposed as liars or idiots (often both!), they just start posting under another pseudonym.
There is as enormous a variety of beliefs and uncertainties about the famous events of 11 September 2001 among those of us who oppose the Concerned Listeners/'SaveKPFA'/Wellstone Democratic Club/'Thug Hallinan Gang' as there is among the left in general.
In the long comment above -- More on Iain Boal by Stop Thug Hallinan Gang -- the five numbered points are relevant to this discussion. What follows them is not, and just helps people like Boal burden all their opponents with responsibility for the specific views of a few.
To Ukexica:
It did sound to me as if Boal were disparaging the electoral process in todo. Any listener-sponsors are free to vote in the elections. If there is something about the way the votes are counted that thwarts the will of the majority of those who actually voted, he does not say what. If people who don't vote feel their will is being thwarted, then they ought to vote. I had the impression that he thinks the by-laws should be changed to do away with station board elections altogether. I would be interested to hear if that was a wrong impression. I have heard some people take that position, including, if I'm not mistaken, Doug Henwood. Obviously, I don't agree.
I am not a crackpot but am identifying myself as the same person who made the earlier post.
It did sound to me as if Boal were disparaging the electoral process in todo. Any listener-sponsors are free to vote in the elections. If there is something about the way the votes are counted that thwarts the will of the majority of those who actually voted, he does not say what. If people who don't vote feel their will is being thwarted, then they ought to vote. I had the impression that he thinks the by-laws should be changed to do away with station board elections altogether. I would be interested to hear if that was a wrong impression. I have heard some people take that position, including, if I'm not mistaken, Doug Henwood. Obviously, I don't agree.
I am not a crackpot but am identifying myself as the same person who made the earlier post.
"posters like this 'ukexica' character are immune to personal attacks. And, when they are exposed as liars or idiots (often both!), they just start posting under another pseudonym."
Mr. Aarons, thus far I feel I have been rather charitable in my discourse. I have conceded on point, admitted when I got my facts wrong, attempted to maintain decorum, and in my opinion, refrained from ad hominems. Directing posts to Mr. Phelps and using terminology that he understands as a barrister is hardly tantamount to that last item. If you missed my last post, I clarified my reasons for not finding his evidence sufficient to alter my positions. I invite you to dialogue about where you feel I have shown myself to be a liar or idiot.
More to the point, while I have antagonized ICR positions, I haven't come up with some cutsey nick-name like Thug Hallinan Gang, and you can trust that it isn't for lack of ideas. I find it base and immature. I will continue to maintain my anonymity pursuant of my aims here on indybay, which are to move the conversation in a more substance based direction. You have my permission to attach any sobriquets you like if that is the lynch pin of your rhetoric.
Here's a video related to what Dr. Boal was speaking about w/r/t Amy Goodman. It shows someone haranguing Ms. Goodman over not discussing, as you put it Mr. Aarons, the "variety of beliefs and uncertainties about the famous events of 11 September 2001". This was before she allowed the producers of Loose Change on her show to state their case. Note that postID Stop Thug Hallinan Gang includes Loose Change as required viewing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXTlxT7gFGk
Mr. Aarons, thus far I feel I have been rather charitable in my discourse. I have conceded on point, admitted when I got my facts wrong, attempted to maintain decorum, and in my opinion, refrained from ad hominems. Directing posts to Mr. Phelps and using terminology that he understands as a barrister is hardly tantamount to that last item. If you missed my last post, I clarified my reasons for not finding his evidence sufficient to alter my positions. I invite you to dialogue about where you feel I have shown myself to be a liar or idiot.
More to the point, while I have antagonized ICR positions, I haven't come up with some cutsey nick-name like Thug Hallinan Gang, and you can trust that it isn't for lack of ideas. I find it base and immature. I will continue to maintain my anonymity pursuant of my aims here on indybay, which are to move the conversation in a more substance based direction. You have my permission to attach any sobriquets you like if that is the lynch pin of your rhetoric.
Here's a video related to what Dr. Boal was speaking about w/r/t Amy Goodman. It shows someone haranguing Ms. Goodman over not discussing, as you put it Mr. Aarons, the "variety of beliefs and uncertainties about the famous events of 11 September 2001". This was before she allowed the producers of Loose Change on her show to state their case. Note that postID Stop Thug Hallinan Gang includes Loose Change as required viewing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXTlxT7gFGk
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/noam-chomsky-no-evidence-al-qaeda-carried-out-911-attacks Even Noam Choamsky confirmed there are no evidence that el queada behind 911 . THATS MAKE him A CRAZY NUT MAY BE? But wait even the fbi has no evidence that it was el queada or bin laden.---------->http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/topten/usama-bin-laden .EVERYONE HAS DOUBT ABOUT THE OFFICIAL 911 VERSION BUT THE ZIONIST CONCERNED LISTENERS AND THE REST OF THE ZIONIST MAIN STREAM MEDIA.
I interviewed Iain Boal yesterday for Free Radio Santa Cruz.
The show is archived at http://www.radiolibre.org/brb/brb1011207mp3 [about half way through the audio file].
Prior interviews with Steve Zeltzer and Tomas Moran on the current staff controversy at KPFA can be found at http://www.radiolibre.org/brb/brb1010107mp3 [about half way through the audio file].
I'm hoping too do another show on the controversy next Sunday (11-14), probably around 11 AM at http://www.freakradio.org . Call-in's are welcome (831-469-3119).
The show is archived at http://www.radiolibre.org/brb/brb1011207mp3 [about half way through the audio file].
Prior interviews with Steve Zeltzer and Tomas Moran on the current staff controversy at KPFA can be found at http://www.radiolibre.org/brb/brb1010107mp3 [about half way through the audio file].
I'm hoping too do another show on the controversy next Sunday (11-14), probably around 11 AM at http://www.freakradio.org . Call-in's are welcome (831-469-3119).
The correct address for yesterday's Iain Boal interview is http://www.radiolibre.org/brb/brb101107mp3. Sorry for any confusion.
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