11/10 KPFA Election Forum Highlights; Mail Ballot Before 11/13 for 11/15 Receipt Deadline

This weekend is your last chance to mail your ballot for the KPFA, 94.1 FM Local Station Board election so that it can be received at the PO Box on the return envelope by 11/15/07. Starting 11/13/07, you will have to walk your ballot to the station at 1929 Martin Luther King, Berkeley. Remember, on Monday, 11/12/07, there will be no mail delivery. The second and last 2 hours of the KPFA, 94.1 FM, on air election forum for Local Station Board candidates is highlighted here to illustrate the need for your participation as we must have 10% of the subscribers participating to make this a valid election, a difficult goal to realize.

If you missed any of the candidate forums, you may hear them at:
http://pacificana.org/kpfa-air-candidates-forums

The candidates challenging management's "Concerned Listener" lickspittle slate had much to say at the November 10, 2007 on air forum.

1. Steve Zeltzer clearly demonstrated his outstanding leadership qualities in his understanding of the issues and in his delivery that makes him by far the best candidate of all the people running for Local Station Board. He knows that he knows because he has spent his life working for the needs and interests of the workingclass, which must be the base of KPFA if KPFA is to survive and grow in these fascist times. From his call to have listeners sitting on the program committee instead of an executive director making the programming decisions, to his outstanding suggestions of a computer technology program, a weekly labor hour, and news bureaus in the different listener areas of KPFA, to his emphasis on action based formats such as having KPFA go to the workingclass communities and to all the protests and having the people in those communities and at the protests, including antiwar protests, speak about their issues, thus broadening both the listening base and the subscriber base, Steve Zeltzer demonstrated to all the fact that KPFA must always be a grassroots community radio station. At every opportunity, Steve made sure to give his contact information and his slate's candidates and websites. Not a moment was wasted or lost because Steve Zeltzer has the knowledge and experience which is urgently needed on the Local Station Board in these fascist times. His slate is more fully described at http://voicesforjusticeradio.googlepages.com/ and below.

2. Stan Woods brought his workingclass organizing experiences in West Virginia to this forum to illustrate the necessity of making KPFA a community based voice of the workingclass. His perspective is a good reminder that the workingclass is international. That is, we are black, brown, yellow, red and white, same enemy, same fight, workers of the world, unite! His slate is more fully described at http://www.peoplesradio.net/ and below.

3. Bob English described his years of community organizing in and around San Francisco and strongly opposed the advertising gimmicks of $1 million donations from mythical angels and the accompanying top-down management that is causing KPFA to lose members and become another bourgeois radio station that no one needs. He is also with the People's Radio slate.

The Concerned Listeners have, over the course of the 11/3 and 11/10 forums, bragged about many things including being a voice of the Wellstone Democratic Club. This is the same Democratic Party that had 6 of its members and 1 former member in the US Senate vote for an attorney general who supports torture, in other words, for fascism. They are Senators Dianne Feinstein of California, Charles Schumer of New York, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Evan Bayh of Indiana (a potential vice presidential candidate in 2008), Thomas Carper of Delaware, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. Dianne Feinstein is up for re-election in 2008, unless she retires.

The Concerned Listener slate also called for more support by KPFA for such pleasant but not workingclass political events such as San Francisco's Stern Grove summer music festivals (in the fog, where the sun rarely shines). KPFA cannot grow with such a publicity stunt scheme as its growth must be among the workingclass, giving voice to the needs and interests of the workingclass. The reward for providing such an urgently needed media outlet to the workingclass will be more than sufficient funds to survive and grow.

The Concerned Listener slate, young and not so young, proudly supported their bizarre house parties to raise money to publicize their slate, which included a mailer we received about the same time as we received our ballots. This does not help KPFA broaden its base or build any kind of unity; it promotes monied interests, exactly the opposite of the needs and interests of the workingclass. The publicity came from these on air forums on Saturday, and the previous forums in October which also should have been on the weekend. The October forums also were not well-publicized and should have been announced just before the 6 p.m. evening news, every day during the week before they occurred. The same is true for the November forums. This writer was unaware of the October forums until November and does not recall hearing about the November forums on the air.

The final insult from the Concerned Listener slate was its promotion of the cancellation of our regular programs for which we pay on Friday, November 9, 2007, from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m., including Hard Knock Radio, Flashpoints and the 6 p.m. evening news, so that the reactionary Democrat who supports the government's lies on the 9/11 Inside Job, Larry Bensky, could promote a government hearing, treating KPFA as his plaything for 8 hours, all of which will certainly be summarized on the Saturday, November 10, 2007 evening news, and probably the Sunday, November 11 and Monday, November 12, 2007 evening news as usually happens when events take place after the last broadcast of the 6 p.m. evening news on a weekday, which this week was a Thursday. The news team always does a good job of summarizing all government hearings, most of which consist of procedural garbage, making the actual newsworthy statements very minimal. As a result of this latest outrage by Bensky & Company, this writer did not listen to KPFA on Friday, November 10, 2007 at all, having given up on the Democrats hosting the Morning Show long ago and checking Democracy Now online. Promoting government hearings is a sure way to destroy KPFA's listener support and this outrage must end immediately.

PLEASE COMPLETE YOUR BALLOT TODAY AND MAIL IT TODAY. Two excellent slates are:
1. Voices for Justice at
http://voicesforjusticeradio.googlepages.com/
and their related, very informative website,
http://www.kpfalaborcommunity.net/

Their candidates are:
Steve Zeltzer
Carl Bryant
CC Campbell-Rock
Sureya Sayadi
Their program is at:
http://kpfavoicesforjustice.googlepages.com/program
Their endorsers are at:
http://kpfavoicesforjustice.googlepages.com/endorsers
and are:
Cynthia McKinney, former Georgia congressperson
Dr. Ahimsa Sumchai, medical doctor and 2007 candidate for mayor of San Francisco
Cindy Sheehan, peace activist
Sandra Everette, CTA member and member of San Mateo Greens
Gregory Richardson, Video producer, CTC
Joan Mathis, Video producer, CTC
Jack Heyman, ILWU Local 10 executive board member
Idriss Stelley Foundation
Willie and Mary Ratcliff, publisher of San Francisco Bayview
Ralph Schoenman, producer of Taking Aim and author
Riva Enteen, past chair of KPFA Local Station Board

2. The People's Radio slate is the other good set of candidates, with their program, candidates and issues listed at:
http://www.peoplesradio.net/
Their candidates are at
http://www.peoplesradio.net/election2007.htm
and are:
Richard Phelps
David Heller
Attila Nagy
Bob English
Gerald Sanders
Mara Rivera
Stan Woods
Their endorsers are:
Dr. Peter Phillips – Project Censored director
Michael Parenti – Author & lecturer
William Mandel - 37 year KPFA foreign affairs commentator/talk show host, author
Peter Camejo – 3 time gubernatorial candidate & Green Party member
The Green Party of Alameda County endorses each of our candidates individually
The Peace & Freedom Party of Alameda County
The Peace & Freedom Party of San Francisco County
The Petaluma Progressives
The Northern California 9/11 Truth Alliance
Richard Gage - AIA, Architect, Founder of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth

Jack Heyman – ILWU Local 10 Executive Board member rank & file organizer
Jack Ford – Teamsters Local 921 SF Chronicle Truck Drivers former president
Liana Molina – Woodfin Hotels Boycott coordinator
Eva Royal - Cesar Chavez Holiday Committee Chair, former UFW Bay Area Regional Manager/organizer
Alan Benjamin - Delegate to the SF Labor Council for Office and Professional Employees International Union #3

LaVarn Williams – KPFA Local Station Board, Pacific National Board director & Treasurer
Bonnie Faulkner - Host of Guns & Butter, KPFA
Miguel "Gavilan" Molina - Host of Flashpoints, La Honda Bajita
Francisco Herrera – musician, KPFA Flashpoints contributor
David Janda - KBBF, member of Voces Cruzando Fronteras, photogapher
Ernest Rivera – SomArts Cultural Center board president