Henry Norr is Misinformed

I find Henry Norr’s letter very disappointing. It violates the spirit progressives should seek when campaigning against one another. It begins by portraying a proper and conventional method of campaigning – sending a mailing - as somehow illegitimate and unfair. Members of the Concerned Listeners slate for the KPFA Listener Station Board sent out a postcard to KPFA members about their candidacy. What could possibly be wrong with that? The only way to disparage such a normal practice is to imply that it was very costly and that it must have been financed by ill-begotten funds. Henry’s letter then goes on to uncover the nefarious culprit – the Democratic Party. "It's surely no coincidence that the slate in question was organized by a branch of the Democratic Party, a party that has tried for decades to play the game that way."

This is a very misleading distortion. The ‘branch of the Democratic Party’ in question must be the Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club – which remains unnamed in Henry’s letter. Members from our club did participate in the organization of the CL slate. They were invited to participate by a number of people associated with the station who felt the current Board had become hopelessly polarized and that the present Board majority was intent on unfairly blaming the staff for all the problems of the station. We, like most progressives in the Bay Area, are concerned about the growing corporate consolidation of the media and would like to see KPFA get itself together and become an effective voice for progressive renewal. We agreed to participate with others in forming a slate that would avoid getting mired down in a blame game, and that would instead present a positive program for change and work to create an atmosphere where staff, board, and management could collaborate to make the changes the station needs. We are a small part of the group supporting the slate. None of our members are running on the slate, and our organization contributed a total of $100 to the campaign. (The money for the mailing came from a single public fundraising event held by supporters of the slate).
What is most disturbing to us, however, is the linguistic sleight of hand in Henry’s letter. By referring to us as a ‘branch of the Democratic Party,’ the letter hopes to assimilate us into the mix with the corporate component of that Party, implying that we are acting as agents of that party, bringing big money and alien motives into the KPFA elections.
Many people in the Bay Area are acquainted with the work of our club. The WDRC is an organization of progressives who decided after the 2000 Presidential elections to form a left pole within the framework of the two-party system. We concluded that was the most effective way to advance progressive ideas while at the same time fighting off a dangerous right-wing threat. We spend half our time working to defeat rightwing Republicans, and the other half working to unite progressive Democrats to challenge the more conservative elements within the party. There are many progressives that don’t agree with this approach. But there are tens of thousands of others around the country who do. We determine our own policies and outlook completely independent of anyone else - and the only money we have is what we raise from our own membership.
I’m not sure whether Henry’s letter was the product of poor information or a poor choice of electoral tactics. I hope that it does not reflect a political attitude that Henry and others from his slate might brings to the Listener Board about progressive working inside the two-party system. In his letter, Henry seems to be appealing to a group that sees anyone who works for change within the two-party system as part of the 'establishment,' and outside the progressive community. If a Listener Board were elected that saw things that way, it could cut KPFA off from some of the most important political developments in this country. KPFA needs a LSB that can move the station in an expansive and inclusive direction, seeking to become more than just an echo chamber of any one section of the left. The new Board must work to create a real mix. It must seek to embrace new movements and give voice to those with new ideas and novel approaches to moving things forward in this country.
Matthew Hallinan, Executive Committee Member, WDRC