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Gilardin's response to KPFA staff letter #1
repost of Maria Gilardin's response to staff letter, including a summary of staff collaboration during 10-year attempted takeover
> Subject: Why did staff inside KPFA not prevent the 10-year corporate raid?
>
> Dear All,
> This is my response to the letter from KPFA staff (July 22, 2004),
> attacking members of the current KPFA Local Station Board. I had hoped
> that I would never have had to write such a letter.
> Feel free to re-post. I'm not on any of the Pacifica lists, just on
> alliance and grc
> Maria Gilardin
> __________________________
>
> During the slow motion take over of KPFA that began in 1992 and reached
> its climax in the attempted sale of KPFA and the lock-out of station
> staff in 1999 we, community members and members of Take Back KPFA and
> the Coalition for a democratic Pacifica (CdP) waited, first patiently
> and then with more and more anxiety for a letter or statement from
> staff, alerting the community to the hijacking of KPFA and Pacifica.
>
> That letter was never written. Had not three courageous programmers
> finally gone public KPFA listeners might never have known and the logo
> of another network might be disgracing the building on MLK Jr. Way
> today.
>
> As somebody who picketed the Pacifica National office in Berkeley dozens
> of times in those seven years, who attended protest rallies when staff
> was kicked out, who was present at countless KPFA Local Board meetings
> where the restructuring of Pacifica became apparent to anybody taking
> the trouble to go and listen, I was amazed - as were many other Pacifica
> activists - at the passive, fearful silence, not to mention instances of
> outright support for those changes, coming especially from the long -
> time paid KPFA staff.
>
> Since 1992, and for seven long years we put flyers into staff mail
> boxes, issued press releases to the media and copied them to staff; even
> setting up a micro power radio station outside of KPFA and tuning the
> receivers inside KPFA to the pirate frequency. We wrote messages in
> chalk on the sidewalk for you to see when you came out - and saw you
> leave through the back door. We called you personally on the phone,
> asked friends of yours to intervene and help rescue KPFA and Pacifica
> before it was too late. But save for the one exceptional action by three
> staff members, none of you who were there did anything for almost seven
> years - until the summer of 1999.
>
> When Dennis Bernstein and two others called attention to the 1997 union
> contract that was signed as a sweetheart deal with KPFA mamagement, they
> were denounced by staff. Much later, when Nicole Sawaya was fired and
> her firing protested by Larry Bensky, Robbie Osman, and Dennis
> Bernstein, no unified support for Nicole came from staff who returned to
> the station without her.
>
> >From 1992 to early 1999, respected programmers went on the air,
> supported the purges of 1995, when 165 community programmers were
> dismissed all at once, and maligned Take Back KPFA and the CdP.
>
> The New Pacifica is just 6 months old. When the National and Local
> Boards were seated in February of this year the time of hijacks and
> take-overs finally ended. This should have been a time to celebrate.
>
> NOW, all of a sudden, in July 2004, you are writing a letter claiming
> that the newly elected board -or at least some of the members ? are your
> enemy: http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2004/08/1700779.php
> Others have dealt with some of the complaints:
> http://indybay.org/news/2004/08/1692265.php
> I am addressing those of you who signed the letter.
>
> I am troubled by the signatures of unpaid staff whom I know, respect,
> and like. Why would you have signed a document that is largely based on
> incidents you did not take part in or witness? I asked some of the
> parties accused and their recollections differ considerably from the
> statements in the staff letter.
>
> I am addressing the question of the presence of "saboteurs from former
> Pacifica Executive Director Pat Scott’s regime" on KPFA staff because I
> think these parts of the letter are addressed at me.
>
> It is easy to blame Pat Scott for everything. Bertolt Brecht wrote in
> his poem on history: (Julius) "Caesar conquered Gaul. Did he not at
> least have a cook with him?" Pat Scott could not have done what she and
> those who followed her did, if she had not had a lot of help. And having
> knowledge and not acting on it is a serious matter. There are issues of
> integrity, ethics, and responsibility involved. I am, of course,
> excluding all those who signed this letter who played no part in this. I
> am addressing those among paid staff of the period of 1992 to 1999, many
> of whom are still there, who were the supporters of the take-over.
>
> The time line below gives the most important events in that slow motion
> take-over of KPFA and Pacifica, during which anyone present should have
> been aware of fundamental change taking place in the structure of the
> station, the bylaws, the governance, and the national office. It was a
> very serious matter, involving the plunder of millions of dollars of
> listener money over those many years. The time line shows how benefits
> accrued to those who collaborated, and lists the many missed
> opportunities to protect KPFA and Pacifica from the takeover. For the
> most part names have been withheld by me to still protect the guilty.
>
> We, who worked for years in the Save KPFA and Pacifica movement, have
> never addressed that most important question:
>
> Why did staff inside KPFA not prevent the 10-year corporate raid?
>
> Many of current paid staff were inside the station between 1992 and
> 2002. You saw what was going on from day to day. Some of you held
> positions directly assisting the hijackers. And if you did not see it
> you saw us picketing the station, pleading with you to act. However,
> instead of ringing the alarm you ignored us and persecuted the lone
> whistle blowers inside the station.
>
> You could have prevented the take over. We did not want to blame you.
> We were sure that ultimately even the collaborators would welcome
> change. Even those who helped Pat Scott and those who followed her could
> not have been happy in that role. We understand that he amount of
> intimidation was immense. Not everybody has the guts to stand up. We
> thought you would be relieved to live and work without fear and
> compromise.
>
> However, now, just five months into the new era of Pacifica, many of the
> names of those who collaborated with the old regime appear on the staff
> letter of July 22, 2004. I know that the mainstream media feels
> empowered to re-write history, but when it happens at KPFA it must
> become a cause of wider community concern.
>
> I am writing this because there are now two stories, two parallel
> narratives. The inside and the outside story of KPFA and Pacifica and
> they are totally different. Collaborators have become heroes, victims
> made perpetrators; actions and in-actions reverse their order. Michael
> Moore is right. We are living in fictional times. But we cannot allow
> fiction to invade KPFA.
>
> Here is a list of some of your missed opportunities to save KPFA and
> Pacifica:
>
> In June, 1993, KPFA was picketed by African-American programmers from
> KPFK in L.A. They were protesting Pacifica Executive Director Pat
> Scott’s purges at our sister station. They had hoped for help from you ?
> none was forthcoming.
>
> 1994: Pat Scott changed the face of community radio by voting as a
> member of the CPB task force to peg CPB funding to Arbitron ratings, a
> decision that almost defunded KPFK and several other community stations.
> There was not a word from staff.
>
> February 1995: Pacifica program directors were told to mainstream
> programming. The staff of KPFA voiced no opposition. Instead management
> at KPFA began to prepare the purges of August 1995.
>
> March/April, 1995: Pat Scott hired the American Consulting Group, listed
> by the AFL-CIO as a notorious union-buster, to break the KPFA union
> (United Electrical Workers). Did nobody notice that they were there?
>
> May 1995: Bill Mandel was fired for deviating from his subject matter
> and breaking the "Gag Rule". More than 60 people picketed the station ?
> no paid staff among them. Some of you went on the air and said it was a
> good thing to fire people who had been there so long and were "old".
> Now, that some of you have been there for almost as many years, "term
> limit"s is no longer talked about.
>
> June 1995: The National Board began to hold secret meeting in violation
> of CPB funding guidelines. For the next two years, Take Back KPFA
> activists picketed at National Board meeting sites, often struggling to
> raise enough money to send representatives to other cities. There was
> never, in all these years any participation from paid staff until it was
> almost too late in 1999, until your own sinecures were threatened.
>
> August 1995: All 7 to 8 pm weekday public affairs slots were replaced
> with music and 165 programmers, many of them community activists, were
> removed from the air. Some were informed, as they went on the air, that
> this was their final program. (The large number of 165 was due to the
> fact that these evening slots were programmed by collectives: Native
> Americans, Gay community, the Women's Department, Pacific Islanders
> etc.) This mass removal changed the demographics at the station in a
> dramatic way, since a substantial number of the evening programmers were
> people of color.
>
> In the context of the 1995 purge four KPFA departments were eliminated
> without resistance from paid staff.
>
> The Women's Department had as department heads, over time, an
> African-American, a Native American woman and a Latina. The Third World
> Department had an African-American woman as the long-time department
> head and the Public Affairs Department had an African-American
> department head and later two Latino directors. KPFA paid staff also
> agreed to the firing of the last FOLIO editor, and the termination of
> the FOLIO department, ending publication of, not only a literary
> supplement, and reference guide and resource, but an essential form of
> monthly outreach to KPFA's listeners, continuous since the station's
> founding in 1949.
>
> All three programming departments (Third World, Women, and Public
> Affairs) had a degree of diversity. They also allowed for community
> participation in the programming of KPFA that no longer exists in the
> tightly controlled "air-strips" and remnants of PA programs that have
> become the private property of a host. Several paid staffers voiced
> approval of the demise of these departments on the air.
>
> November, 1995: Brian McConville, investigator from the Inspector
> General’s office of the CPB (Corp. for Public Broadcasting) launched an
> investigation into the violation of open meeting rules of the Pacifica
> National Board. Following Pat Scott's intervention with his boss, he was
> fired 17 days later and the investigation is suspended. At the time,
> both management and staff never bothered announcing that the meetings
> were even taking place.
>
> May, 1996: The presence of the American Consulting Group at KPFA, and
> Pacifica, was exposed by Take Back KPFA. The producer of the labor
> program on KPFA did not have the courage to mention its presence in
> KPFA’s union negotiations while interviewing a union activist on the
> role of the ACG in preventing union organizing at the Lafayette Park
> Hotel The rest of the staff also maintained radio silence concerning
> ACG's role at the station.
>
> December, 1996: CPB’s Deputy Inspector Mike Donovan was fired after
> attempting to continue the investigation into the violation of open
> meeting rules of the Pacifica National Board. No word from staff.
> Unconcerned with anything outside of the station’s front door, paid
> staff probably didn’t know about it.
>
> 1996-1997: The union at WBAI, the United Electrical Workers (UE),
> refused to submit to Scott’s order to kick the unpaid staff from the
> union. While the WBAI/UE fought all the way up to the NLRB for inclusion
> of the unpaid staff in the bargaining unit - and even initially were
> victorious at the New York level (Feb. 1997) - KPFA paid staff knuckled
> under to Scott and left the UE and joined the CWA (Communication Workers
> of America), breaking solidarity with their sister union members in New
> York, and as well as with KPFA's unpaid staff who they unceremoniously
> booted out.
>
> There was, however, a pay-off. In return for two-tier pay raises, job
> protection and a pension plan, staff agreed to NOT go on strike, NOT do
> sit down actions, and NOT employ work stoppages, slow downs or boycotts,
> sympathy strikes or corporate campaigns against management.
>
> A courageous letter signed by three dissident staff members and former
> union stewards appeared in the S.F. Bay Guardian in October 1997,
> pointing out that: "CWA members granted management the absolute right to
> fire at will all on-air personnel hired after Sept. 1 1997. "
>
> And "The new agreement, which both CWA and Pacifica have called
> "win-win," creates the same kind of unfair two-tier pay system that BART
> and UPS workers successfully opposed in their recent strikes. It
> specifically states that management can hire temporary workers for as
> low as $7.50 an hour for work for which other employees receive a
> substantially higher wage. "
>
> Paid staff gave up all these rights at a crucial time where any such
> action as a work stoppage, slow down or boycott, sympathy strike or
> corporate campaign would have exposed the hijacking of Pacifica and the
> enormous financial fraud committed by the leadership.
>
> March, 1997: Community members hired a lawyer to fight to retain the
> rights of local board members to sit on the National Board while
> Pacifica began to change the bylaws to make the National Board self
> perpetuating and exclude station board members and staff from the
> National Board.
>
> 1997: National Board meeting in Oakland: Take Back KPFA had a sizable
> picket outside the Oakland hotel where the board was meeting. Inside
> Mary Frances Berry was voted in as the new chair of Pacifica. KPFA
> representative and Board Secretary Roberta Brooks attempted to have a
> motion entered into the minutes as passed that had not been approved at
> the last meeting. A Take Back KPFA member held up a tape recording of
> that meeting to prove it. At that moment KPFA paid staff entered in
> their new CWA T-shirts. They read a prepared statement regarding their
> personal pay issues and left. We ran after them, pleading with them to
> stay and listen or to join the picket line outside. One and all, they
> refused.
>
> With the exception of KPFA, the media were beginning to take interest in
> the story, and articles were posted and disseminated via the internet.
> While the urgency of the KPFA/Pacifica issue became increasingly
> apparent, paid staff kept completely silent.
>
> The last chance for KPFA staff to write a letter came and went in
> February, 1999 when Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and Ed Herman wrote a
> moving appeal, alerting the public to the imminent danger. We ? the
> activists on the outside - hoped that, finally, staff would have the
> courage to put their names to that letter. They did not sign on - not
> even under the wings of luminaries such as Chomsky, Zinn and Herman.
>
> That was the last chance to rescue KPFA and Pacifica before the lockout
> and occupation of the station by security guards. In retrospect it is
> evident that paid staff only began to act when their personal jobs were
> at stake. It is sad to say that a large number of paid KPFA staff seem
> to be people who see this not as a station that belongs to the
> community, accountable and inclusive, but as a place to pick up a
> pay-check.
>
> When on July 14, 1999 armed guards, hired by Pacifica, tried to arrest
> Dennis Bernstein after he disclosed the attempt to sell KPFA on Flash
> Points, Dennis tried to find a way to warn listeners of the take-over by
> running upstairs to the news department. Mark Mericle was just reading
> the headlines and was getting ready to lead with a story on health care.
> As Dennis tried to get his attention and removed the feed reel with the
> story from the tape deck, Mark refused twice to deviate from his
> schedule. Only when the board operator opened the microphone and the
> sounds of the struggle went on the air did Mark report on what was going
> on.
>
> The battle for Pacifica was not over when staff returned to the station
> after the 1999 lockout. Paid staff returned without Nicole Sawaya and
> accepted the appointment of Jim Bennett by the Pacifica National office
> in her stead.
>
> Silence among the paid staff fell again on the station at the end of
> 1999 as the fight over
> the dissolution of the national hi-jack board of Pacifica continued.
> Most of staff did not participate in the law suits, in the pickets of
> National Board members, or in the boycott of Pacifica National News.
> Staff was very late in supporting Free Speech Radio News - started in a
> garage in Berkeley - and even late in supporting Democracy Now!
>
> While members from community organizations, most notably from the CdP,
> were arrested at picket lines, and organized and financed the first two
> rounds of elections for a KPFA Local Station Board, staff retained their
> silence. Staff as a whole did not allow the Local Station Board to
> report on the developments of the bylaws via regular Local Station Board
> reports. Listeners who depend on the station to keep them informed about
> such things had to wait for sympathetic programmers to offer time.
>
> KPFA staff as a group refused to participate in the boycott of Pacifica
> National. From 1999 until removal of the last hijackers from Pacifica’s
> national staff in 2002, KPFA transferred to that office hundreds of
> thousands of dollars of listener donations used to fight the community
> and the lawsuits.
>
> The crucial period from early 2002 until very recently saw KPFA and
> Pacifica under judge’s orders to develop a new set of bylaws. The Local
> Station Boards and committees, several dozen people at each station
> worked, very hard at consensus. At KPFA the board held meetings at the
> station to make it easy for staff to participate in the writing of the
> bylaws. One staff member participated.
>
> Listeners wrote into the bylaws unprecedented rights and representation
> for staff on the local and national boards, giving them 25% membership
> on all boards. Under the old bylaws staff representation was zero.
>
> Community stations across the country interviewed members on the bylaws
> committees, and even participated in the process. But staff at KPFA for
> which the bylaws were written maintained an almost uniform silence.
>
> The story repeated itself in changes concerning Program Councils. Many
> community stations have such councils: Madison, Wisconsin; Portland,
> Oregon; and the GRC (Grassroots Radio Coalition) contributed from their
> experience. KPFA staff almost entirely ignored the debates over
> responsibility and rights of Program Councils and then sabotaged the
> outcome by not attending meetings or overturning decisions taken in
> them.
>
> In the years from 1999 to today, KPFA staff had unprecedented freedom to
> run the affairs of the station as they pleased. Pacifica's national
> office no longer interfered. There was an in-house General Manager who
> was willing to cooperate fully with paid staff. There was no Program
> Director for most of that time. KPFA paid staff was in charge -- and is
> now.
>
> If there have been no significant changes in all these years, is it
> because KPFA is already perfect? Even the paid staff majority would not
> say that. Even friends of staff, such as Doug Henwood, say - terrible to
> hear - that "KPFA is irrelevant". KPFA is known as Pat Scott Radio
> because it still operates under the same system of NPR - derived
> structures, in violation of the founders intent, and with a paid staff
> lacking in diversity as it was in 1995.
>
> KPFA, as a station, in spite of its freedom from interference by the
> National Board, has not participated in the media democracy movement, in
> the resurgence of community radio via the GRC, the micropower movement,
> Indy media or other efforts to free the air and open access. As a
> station with a huge staff and unprecedented resources KPFA has been
> unable even to conceive of what Amy Goodman has actually done,
> initiating a national media collaboration involving] radio (ranging from
> community to NPR stations) with television and the internet.
>
> Democracy has a hard time coming to KPFA in spite (or some would say,
> because of) the leanings of so many paid staff members towards the
> Democratic Party. There can hardly be a clearer indication of entrenched
> and reactionary power, than more than a year's adamant resistance to
> shifting the station's most popular and respected program, Democracy
> Now! to a time when most working people can hear it. Ownership of
> airtime, turf and power have also prevented an open, honest discussion
> over strategies to produce the best possible programming for the station
> as a whole.
>
> To those of you who read through this long and critical letter, please
> consider what is truly most to your advantage, and that of the community
> you have obligated yourselves to serve. Please support a free and
> democratic KPFA.
>
> Maria Gilardin
>
> Dear All,
> This is my response to the letter from KPFA staff (July 22, 2004),
> attacking members of the current KPFA Local Station Board. I had hoped
> that I would never have had to write such a letter.
> Feel free to re-post. I'm not on any of the Pacifica lists, just on
> alliance and grc
> Maria Gilardin
> __________________________
>
> During the slow motion take over of KPFA that began in 1992 and reached
> its climax in the attempted sale of KPFA and the lock-out of station
> staff in 1999 we, community members and members of Take Back KPFA and
> the Coalition for a democratic Pacifica (CdP) waited, first patiently
> and then with more and more anxiety for a letter or statement from
> staff, alerting the community to the hijacking of KPFA and Pacifica.
>
> That letter was never written. Had not three courageous programmers
> finally gone public KPFA listeners might never have known and the logo
> of another network might be disgracing the building on MLK Jr. Way
> today.
>
> As somebody who picketed the Pacifica National office in Berkeley dozens
> of times in those seven years, who attended protest rallies when staff
> was kicked out, who was present at countless KPFA Local Board meetings
> where the restructuring of Pacifica became apparent to anybody taking
> the trouble to go and listen, I was amazed - as were many other Pacifica
> activists - at the passive, fearful silence, not to mention instances of
> outright support for those changes, coming especially from the long -
> time paid KPFA staff.
>
> Since 1992, and for seven long years we put flyers into staff mail
> boxes, issued press releases to the media and copied them to staff; even
> setting up a micro power radio station outside of KPFA and tuning the
> receivers inside KPFA to the pirate frequency. We wrote messages in
> chalk on the sidewalk for you to see when you came out - and saw you
> leave through the back door. We called you personally on the phone,
> asked friends of yours to intervene and help rescue KPFA and Pacifica
> before it was too late. But save for the one exceptional action by three
> staff members, none of you who were there did anything for almost seven
> years - until the summer of 1999.
>
> When Dennis Bernstein and two others called attention to the 1997 union
> contract that was signed as a sweetheart deal with KPFA mamagement, they
> were denounced by staff. Much later, when Nicole Sawaya was fired and
> her firing protested by Larry Bensky, Robbie Osman, and Dennis
> Bernstein, no unified support for Nicole came from staff who returned to
> the station without her.
>
> >From 1992 to early 1999, respected programmers went on the air,
> supported the purges of 1995, when 165 community programmers were
> dismissed all at once, and maligned Take Back KPFA and the CdP.
>
> The New Pacifica is just 6 months old. When the National and Local
> Boards were seated in February of this year the time of hijacks and
> take-overs finally ended. This should have been a time to celebrate.
>
> NOW, all of a sudden, in July 2004, you are writing a letter claiming
> that the newly elected board -or at least some of the members ? are your
> enemy: http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2004/08/1700779.php
> Others have dealt with some of the complaints:
> http://indybay.org/news/2004/08/1692265.php
> I am addressing those of you who signed the letter.
>
> I am troubled by the signatures of unpaid staff whom I know, respect,
> and like. Why would you have signed a document that is largely based on
> incidents you did not take part in or witness? I asked some of the
> parties accused and their recollections differ considerably from the
> statements in the staff letter.
>
> I am addressing the question of the presence of "saboteurs from former
> Pacifica Executive Director Pat Scott’s regime" on KPFA staff because I
> think these parts of the letter are addressed at me.
>
> It is easy to blame Pat Scott for everything. Bertolt Brecht wrote in
> his poem on history: (Julius) "Caesar conquered Gaul. Did he not at
> least have a cook with him?" Pat Scott could not have done what she and
> those who followed her did, if she had not had a lot of help. And having
> knowledge and not acting on it is a serious matter. There are issues of
> integrity, ethics, and responsibility involved. I am, of course,
> excluding all those who signed this letter who played no part in this. I
> am addressing those among paid staff of the period of 1992 to 1999, many
> of whom are still there, who were the supporters of the take-over.
>
> The time line below gives the most important events in that slow motion
> take-over of KPFA and Pacifica, during which anyone present should have
> been aware of fundamental change taking place in the structure of the
> station, the bylaws, the governance, and the national office. It was a
> very serious matter, involving the plunder of millions of dollars of
> listener money over those many years. The time line shows how benefits
> accrued to those who collaborated, and lists the many missed
> opportunities to protect KPFA and Pacifica from the takeover. For the
> most part names have been withheld by me to still protect the guilty.
>
> We, who worked for years in the Save KPFA and Pacifica movement, have
> never addressed that most important question:
>
> Why did staff inside KPFA not prevent the 10-year corporate raid?
>
> Many of current paid staff were inside the station between 1992 and
> 2002. You saw what was going on from day to day. Some of you held
> positions directly assisting the hijackers. And if you did not see it
> you saw us picketing the station, pleading with you to act. However,
> instead of ringing the alarm you ignored us and persecuted the lone
> whistle blowers inside the station.
>
> You could have prevented the take over. We did not want to blame you.
> We were sure that ultimately even the collaborators would welcome
> change. Even those who helped Pat Scott and those who followed her could
> not have been happy in that role. We understand that he amount of
> intimidation was immense. Not everybody has the guts to stand up. We
> thought you would be relieved to live and work without fear and
> compromise.
>
> However, now, just five months into the new era of Pacifica, many of the
> names of those who collaborated with the old regime appear on the staff
> letter of July 22, 2004. I know that the mainstream media feels
> empowered to re-write history, but when it happens at KPFA it must
> become a cause of wider community concern.
>
> I am writing this because there are now two stories, two parallel
> narratives. The inside and the outside story of KPFA and Pacifica and
> they are totally different. Collaborators have become heroes, victims
> made perpetrators; actions and in-actions reverse their order. Michael
> Moore is right. We are living in fictional times. But we cannot allow
> fiction to invade KPFA.
>
> Here is a list of some of your missed opportunities to save KPFA and
> Pacifica:
>
> In June, 1993, KPFA was picketed by African-American programmers from
> KPFK in L.A. They were protesting Pacifica Executive Director Pat
> Scott’s purges at our sister station. They had hoped for help from you ?
> none was forthcoming.
>
> 1994: Pat Scott changed the face of community radio by voting as a
> member of the CPB task force to peg CPB funding to Arbitron ratings, a
> decision that almost defunded KPFK and several other community stations.
> There was not a word from staff.
>
> February 1995: Pacifica program directors were told to mainstream
> programming. The staff of KPFA voiced no opposition. Instead management
> at KPFA began to prepare the purges of August 1995.
>
> March/April, 1995: Pat Scott hired the American Consulting Group, listed
> by the AFL-CIO as a notorious union-buster, to break the KPFA union
> (United Electrical Workers). Did nobody notice that they were there?
>
> May 1995: Bill Mandel was fired for deviating from his subject matter
> and breaking the "Gag Rule". More than 60 people picketed the station ?
> no paid staff among them. Some of you went on the air and said it was a
> good thing to fire people who had been there so long and were "old".
> Now, that some of you have been there for almost as many years, "term
> limit"s is no longer talked about.
>
> June 1995: The National Board began to hold secret meeting in violation
> of CPB funding guidelines. For the next two years, Take Back KPFA
> activists picketed at National Board meeting sites, often struggling to
> raise enough money to send representatives to other cities. There was
> never, in all these years any participation from paid staff until it was
> almost too late in 1999, until your own sinecures were threatened.
>
> August 1995: All 7 to 8 pm weekday public affairs slots were replaced
> with music and 165 programmers, many of them community activists, were
> removed from the air. Some were informed, as they went on the air, that
> this was their final program. (The large number of 165 was due to the
> fact that these evening slots were programmed by collectives: Native
> Americans, Gay community, the Women's Department, Pacific Islanders
> etc.) This mass removal changed the demographics at the station in a
> dramatic way, since a substantial number of the evening programmers were
> people of color.
>
> In the context of the 1995 purge four KPFA departments were eliminated
> without resistance from paid staff.
>
> The Women's Department had as department heads, over time, an
> African-American, a Native American woman and a Latina. The Third World
> Department had an African-American woman as the long-time department
> head and the Public Affairs Department had an African-American
> department head and later two Latino directors. KPFA paid staff also
> agreed to the firing of the last FOLIO editor, and the termination of
> the FOLIO department, ending publication of, not only a literary
> supplement, and reference guide and resource, but an essential form of
> monthly outreach to KPFA's listeners, continuous since the station's
> founding in 1949.
>
> All three programming departments (Third World, Women, and Public
> Affairs) had a degree of diversity. They also allowed for community
> participation in the programming of KPFA that no longer exists in the
> tightly controlled "air-strips" and remnants of PA programs that have
> become the private property of a host. Several paid staffers voiced
> approval of the demise of these departments on the air.
>
> November, 1995: Brian McConville, investigator from the Inspector
> General’s office of the CPB (Corp. for Public Broadcasting) launched an
> investigation into the violation of open meeting rules of the Pacifica
> National Board. Following Pat Scott's intervention with his boss, he was
> fired 17 days later and the investigation is suspended. At the time,
> both management and staff never bothered announcing that the meetings
> were even taking place.
>
> May, 1996: The presence of the American Consulting Group at KPFA, and
> Pacifica, was exposed by Take Back KPFA. The producer of the labor
> program on KPFA did not have the courage to mention its presence in
> KPFA’s union negotiations while interviewing a union activist on the
> role of the ACG in preventing union organizing at the Lafayette Park
> Hotel The rest of the staff also maintained radio silence concerning
> ACG's role at the station.
>
> December, 1996: CPB’s Deputy Inspector Mike Donovan was fired after
> attempting to continue the investigation into the violation of open
> meeting rules of the Pacifica National Board. No word from staff.
> Unconcerned with anything outside of the station’s front door, paid
> staff probably didn’t know about it.
>
> 1996-1997: The union at WBAI, the United Electrical Workers (UE),
> refused to submit to Scott’s order to kick the unpaid staff from the
> union. While the WBAI/UE fought all the way up to the NLRB for inclusion
> of the unpaid staff in the bargaining unit - and even initially were
> victorious at the New York level (Feb. 1997) - KPFA paid staff knuckled
> under to Scott and left the UE and joined the CWA (Communication Workers
> of America), breaking solidarity with their sister union members in New
> York, and as well as with KPFA's unpaid staff who they unceremoniously
> booted out.
>
> There was, however, a pay-off. In return for two-tier pay raises, job
> protection and a pension plan, staff agreed to NOT go on strike, NOT do
> sit down actions, and NOT employ work stoppages, slow downs or boycotts,
> sympathy strikes or corporate campaigns against management.
>
> A courageous letter signed by three dissident staff members and former
> union stewards appeared in the S.F. Bay Guardian in October 1997,
> pointing out that: "CWA members granted management the absolute right to
> fire at will all on-air personnel hired after Sept. 1 1997. "
>
> And "The new agreement, which both CWA and Pacifica have called
> "win-win," creates the same kind of unfair two-tier pay system that BART
> and UPS workers successfully opposed in their recent strikes. It
> specifically states that management can hire temporary workers for as
> low as $7.50 an hour for work for which other employees receive a
> substantially higher wage. "
>
> Paid staff gave up all these rights at a crucial time where any such
> action as a work stoppage, slow down or boycott, sympathy strike or
> corporate campaign would have exposed the hijacking of Pacifica and the
> enormous financial fraud committed by the leadership.
>
> March, 1997: Community members hired a lawyer to fight to retain the
> rights of local board members to sit on the National Board while
> Pacifica began to change the bylaws to make the National Board self
> perpetuating and exclude station board members and staff from the
> National Board.
>
> 1997: National Board meeting in Oakland: Take Back KPFA had a sizable
> picket outside the Oakland hotel where the board was meeting. Inside
> Mary Frances Berry was voted in as the new chair of Pacifica. KPFA
> representative and Board Secretary Roberta Brooks attempted to have a
> motion entered into the minutes as passed that had not been approved at
> the last meeting. A Take Back KPFA member held up a tape recording of
> that meeting to prove it. At that moment KPFA paid staff entered in
> their new CWA T-shirts. They read a prepared statement regarding their
> personal pay issues and left. We ran after them, pleading with them to
> stay and listen or to join the picket line outside. One and all, they
> refused.
>
> With the exception of KPFA, the media were beginning to take interest in
> the story, and articles were posted and disseminated via the internet.
> While the urgency of the KPFA/Pacifica issue became increasingly
> apparent, paid staff kept completely silent.
>
> The last chance for KPFA staff to write a letter came and went in
> February, 1999 when Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and Ed Herman wrote a
> moving appeal, alerting the public to the imminent danger. We ? the
> activists on the outside - hoped that, finally, staff would have the
> courage to put their names to that letter. They did not sign on - not
> even under the wings of luminaries such as Chomsky, Zinn and Herman.
>
> That was the last chance to rescue KPFA and Pacifica before the lockout
> and occupation of the station by security guards. In retrospect it is
> evident that paid staff only began to act when their personal jobs were
> at stake. It is sad to say that a large number of paid KPFA staff seem
> to be people who see this not as a station that belongs to the
> community, accountable and inclusive, but as a place to pick up a
> pay-check.
>
> When on July 14, 1999 armed guards, hired by Pacifica, tried to arrest
> Dennis Bernstein after he disclosed the attempt to sell KPFA on Flash
> Points, Dennis tried to find a way to warn listeners of the take-over by
> running upstairs to the news department. Mark Mericle was just reading
> the headlines and was getting ready to lead with a story on health care.
> As Dennis tried to get his attention and removed the feed reel with the
> story from the tape deck, Mark refused twice to deviate from his
> schedule. Only when the board operator opened the microphone and the
> sounds of the struggle went on the air did Mark report on what was going
> on.
>
> The battle for Pacifica was not over when staff returned to the station
> after the 1999 lockout. Paid staff returned without Nicole Sawaya and
> accepted the appointment of Jim Bennett by the Pacifica National office
> in her stead.
>
> Silence among the paid staff fell again on the station at the end of
> 1999 as the fight over
> the dissolution of the national hi-jack board of Pacifica continued.
> Most of staff did not participate in the law suits, in the pickets of
> National Board members, or in the boycott of Pacifica National News.
> Staff was very late in supporting Free Speech Radio News - started in a
> garage in Berkeley - and even late in supporting Democracy Now!
>
> While members from community organizations, most notably from the CdP,
> were arrested at picket lines, and organized and financed the first two
> rounds of elections for a KPFA Local Station Board, staff retained their
> silence. Staff as a whole did not allow the Local Station Board to
> report on the developments of the bylaws via regular Local Station Board
> reports. Listeners who depend on the station to keep them informed about
> such things had to wait for sympathetic programmers to offer time.
>
> KPFA staff as a group refused to participate in the boycott of Pacifica
> National. From 1999 until removal of the last hijackers from Pacifica’s
> national staff in 2002, KPFA transferred to that office hundreds of
> thousands of dollars of listener donations used to fight the community
> and the lawsuits.
>
> The crucial period from early 2002 until very recently saw KPFA and
> Pacifica under judge’s orders to develop a new set of bylaws. The Local
> Station Boards and committees, several dozen people at each station
> worked, very hard at consensus. At KPFA the board held meetings at the
> station to make it easy for staff to participate in the writing of the
> bylaws. One staff member participated.
>
> Listeners wrote into the bylaws unprecedented rights and representation
> for staff on the local and national boards, giving them 25% membership
> on all boards. Under the old bylaws staff representation was zero.
>
> Community stations across the country interviewed members on the bylaws
> committees, and even participated in the process. But staff at KPFA for
> which the bylaws were written maintained an almost uniform silence.
>
> The story repeated itself in changes concerning Program Councils. Many
> community stations have such councils: Madison, Wisconsin; Portland,
> Oregon; and the GRC (Grassroots Radio Coalition) contributed from their
> experience. KPFA staff almost entirely ignored the debates over
> responsibility and rights of Program Councils and then sabotaged the
> outcome by not attending meetings or overturning decisions taken in
> them.
>
> In the years from 1999 to today, KPFA staff had unprecedented freedom to
> run the affairs of the station as they pleased. Pacifica's national
> office no longer interfered. There was an in-house General Manager who
> was willing to cooperate fully with paid staff. There was no Program
> Director for most of that time. KPFA paid staff was in charge -- and is
> now.
>
> If there have been no significant changes in all these years, is it
> because KPFA is already perfect? Even the paid staff majority would not
> say that. Even friends of staff, such as Doug Henwood, say - terrible to
> hear - that "KPFA is irrelevant". KPFA is known as Pat Scott Radio
> because it still operates under the same system of NPR - derived
> structures, in violation of the founders intent, and with a paid staff
> lacking in diversity as it was in 1995.
>
> KPFA, as a station, in spite of its freedom from interference by the
> National Board, has not participated in the media democracy movement, in
> the resurgence of community radio via the GRC, the micropower movement,
> Indy media or other efforts to free the air and open access. As a
> station with a huge staff and unprecedented resources KPFA has been
> unable even to conceive of what Amy Goodman has actually done,
> initiating a national media collaboration involving] radio (ranging from
> community to NPR stations) with television and the internet.
>
> Democracy has a hard time coming to KPFA in spite (or some would say,
> because of) the leanings of so many paid staff members towards the
> Democratic Party. There can hardly be a clearer indication of entrenched
> and reactionary power, than more than a year's adamant resistance to
> shifting the station's most popular and respected program, Democracy
> Now! to a time when most working people can hear it. Ownership of
> airtime, turf and power have also prevented an open, honest discussion
> over strategies to produce the best possible programming for the station
> as a whole.
>
> To those of you who read through this long and critical letter, please
> consider what is truly most to your advantage, and that of the community
> you have obligated yourselves to serve. Please support a free and
> democratic KPFA.
>
> Maria Gilardin
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This article should not be a surprise to anyone. KPFA is clearly a Democratic Party campaign station. They refuse to interview socialists, but have no problem whatsoever broadcasting live the conventions of the twin parties of capitalism, the Democrats and Republicans. The socialist Peace & Freedom Party candidate for US Senate, Marsha Feinland, lives in Berkeley but I have yet to hear her interviewed. When the Morning Show last week discussed the San Francisco District 9 race for supervisor, the good Democratic host, Andrea Lewis, defended the Democratic incumbent Tom Ammiano, and it took a call-in to get the word out that a member of KPFA's labor collective and a socialist, Steve Zeltzer, is running against Tom Ammiano.
For the record, the good Democrat Tom Ammiano, who has sat on the Board of Supervisors for 10 years, proudly supports Israel, supports both stadium swindles, supports the entire Democratic Party ticket (Kerry, Boxer,Feinstein, ad nauseum), and supports the illegal cross on Mt. Davidson, which was allowed to remain with a proposition that privatized public park land. Obviously, if one is for giving $4 billion a year to Israel to protect US oil profits, one is not serious about helping the workingclass at home, and the same is true for all his other positions.
We need to move Guns & Butter, with its expose of the 9/11 Hoax and other related topics, to prime time, instead of the 2 p.m. on Wednesday slot, either on weeknights or on the weekends from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. It is no accident that it sits in a non-prime time slot as the leading guests on this show, Ralph Shoenman and Mya Shone are socialists.
Until KPFA adopts a labor, socialist perspective, and actively exposes the 9/11 hoax, the problems described above will continue. I strongly urge recruitment of new employees who are opposed to the Democratic Party and support socialism, to replace the Democrats when they retire, and the sooner they retire, the better.
For the record, the good Democrat Tom Ammiano, who has sat on the Board of Supervisors for 10 years, proudly supports Israel, supports both stadium swindles, supports the entire Democratic Party ticket (Kerry, Boxer,Feinstein, ad nauseum), and supports the illegal cross on Mt. Davidson, which was allowed to remain with a proposition that privatized public park land. Obviously, if one is for giving $4 billion a year to Israel to protect US oil profits, one is not serious about helping the workingclass at home, and the same is true for all his other positions.
We need to move Guns & Butter, with its expose of the 9/11 Hoax and other related topics, to prime time, instead of the 2 p.m. on Wednesday slot, either on weeknights or on the weekends from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. It is no accident that it sits in a non-prime time slot as the leading guests on this show, Ralph Shoenman and Mya Shone are socialists.
Until KPFA adopts a labor, socialist perspective, and actively exposes the 9/11 hoax, the problems described above will continue. I strongly urge recruitment of new employees who are opposed to the Democratic Party and support socialism, to replace the Democrats when they retire, and the sooner they retire, the better.
I hear that I managed to stir up some controversy. Or should I more aptly say, stirred up more entrenched (i.e., anti-democratic) paid senior staffers' rampant ('we don't want any changes at all') paranoia - with a comment of mine in a SF-IMC comment post about KPFA staffer Vini Beacham (black). My comment post contained a humorous allusion to (among others) Vini Beacham's "hangman's noose" speech. This was where he hypermelodramatically threw down an actual noose rope on the floor in front of the Local Station Board members during his public comments at an LSB meeting! This was his version of, I guess, then Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas' infamous "high-tech lynching" rebuttal ploy.
I hear that I'm now being accused of being a white supremacist posing as black! That is completely ridiculous. Yet, the entrenched senior paid staffers' witch hunt is _ON_!...: to root out the culprit and banish them forever and ever and ever from KPFA and any and all KPFA activities! _And Larry Bensky has the nerve to call listener-activists "Stalinists"._ This latest in-station, entrenched staffers' whirlwind has even surpassed the democratically arrived-at (and violated by the entrenched staff-maleable acting general manager) decision merely to move Democracy Now from 9:00am to 7:00am - with no KPFA shows cut!
I am, indeed, an African American who happens to be utterly offended at the disgusting ruse of this Vini Beacham, going around claiming he was "lynched" because people dared to criticize him after he, thug-like, physically threatened another staffer (also in front of his son) in the back parking lot, and otherwise not getting his way. The staffer - and his son - also happened to be a person of color: Latino! So, "Thug Life!," Beacham is even going around physically threatening other people of color. Why Beacham's actions - at KPFA, no less - were no grounds for immediate suspension, no known subsequent official employment penalties, or even, perhaps, at least consideration of employment termination is a mystery to me and others. I bet that if Beacham or any other black man had threatened some white woman (if not some white guy) at KPFA, he'd be _HISTORY_!
Like Clarence Thomas with his self-serving claim of a "high-tech lynching," Beacham trashes the memory of those untold numbers of Black people who really were lynched and tortured to death by white supremacist thugs. Exploiting and plundering the misery and suffering of 'his own people' for his cynically self-serving, personal gain. Not even Supreme Court 'Justice' Clarence Thomas went around brandishing an actual _NOOSE_ at public meetings, nor even at his nomination hearing during his huffing and gruffing! It sickens me when someone - even someone Black - exploits the historical suffering of Black people for their own personal agenda. Beacham should be ashamed, except that he clearly has no sense of shame.
_____________________________________________________________________
If you (re)read my post, it's still acutely to the point. And it's still sadly _funny_, under:
STATEMENT FROM FLASHPOINTS STAFF REGARDING "OPEN LETTER TO LSB"
by Radio Dude Tuesday August 03, 2004 at 01:49 AM
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2004/08/1700793.php
" The Coalition of 'the Willing' "
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2004/08/1700793.php
"the coalition of 'the willing'"
by another KPFA activist & doner Saturday August 07, 2004 at 11:27 AM
Isn't it interesting that some of the _FEW_ , very same, people who gave early warning about the external threat to KPFA and Pacifica long before Pat Scott and Mary Berry got their slash axes really sharpened are some of the _FEW_ very same people (especially early s/heroes like Maria Gilardin and Jeffrey Blankfort) who had been giving early warning about the _MANY_ entrenched _internal_ threat to KPFA, after the then-immediate external/national crisis had been vanquished. Then it was also the _FEW_ against the _MANY_. This warning, now against some of the very same
entrenched station people (who didn't give a damn about what was going on with other people then until the axe fell on them, like Larry 'Media Martyr' Bensky, Mark 'Rip-&-Read' Mericle, etc., ), their head Acting (oh, he's 'acting' all right) GM puppet, and their "COALITION OF THE COERCED" -- err, 'WILLING' -- who signed the entrenched (read, anti-democratic) senior paid staffers station letter.
Did the entrenched senior cabal send Vini "Here's My Noose" Beacham (he's HUGE!), Interim Program Coordinator, out to the parking lot again? This time, to scream another string of profanities and threats at their staff juniors, assistants and even clerks, and newbies (prominently like the rather young, animated and Robert's Rules-ignorant, always-obstructionist local board newbie William Walker: you can set the minute hand on your watch by how often his arm is pointlessly flung up in the air at LSB meetings; what he's trying to prove, I don't know), as 'the willing' were respectively leaving, to 'ask' them to sign -- "or else"!:
..."Mu'fucka I said _how_ are ya ever goin' walk out here again if I bust yo' kneecaps...!? Bitch-ass ponk!: how you gonna ever write anything again if I twist your fuckin' goddam arm off...!? How ya gonna be working while we ice you out of your job...? Ya got any kids...!?: gee, it'd be an awful shame to see the little one(s) traumatized over what might 'happen' after I jack up dad/mom..., right in front of the l'il bastards...!"
Note: In addition to the Hard Knock Radio on-air crew, Nick Alexander - longtime African-Jewish American KPFA staffer - apparently _didn't_ sign the entrenched staffers' "Coalition of the Coerced" letter too. _None_ of the Mideast program's on-air crew apparently got 'roped in' by Vini's noose (borrowed from Supreme Court INjustice Clarence Thomas?) and they didn't sign either. But, sadly, I see that "the Coalition Forces" leader even leaned on Lewis Sawyer, station _receptionist_ to sign!
LONG LIVE FLASHPOINTS!:
YOU ALL LIVE UP TO THE HISTORY OF FLASHPOINTS _BEST_ TRADITION AND MAKE US LISTENER-ACTIVISTS PROUD!
[Hey, "Brainiac" (Linda above), Jeffrey Blankfort is currently doing his journalism and writing thing in _Palestine_: championing for the human rights of the Palestinians! I very much doubt he has time to respond to some backward, prognathic, knuckle-dragging neanderthal like Miller (this is
only the second week he's been walking upright) and his "Miller time" barroom blather. And I don't know who "Spartacus" is, but I doubt that he is the KPFA listener-activist writing above. Care to tell us the 'significance' of your 'name' "Spart"?]
I hear that I'm now being accused of being a white supremacist posing as black! That is completely ridiculous. Yet, the entrenched senior paid staffers' witch hunt is _ON_!...: to root out the culprit and banish them forever and ever and ever from KPFA and any and all KPFA activities! _And Larry Bensky has the nerve to call listener-activists "Stalinists"._ This latest in-station, entrenched staffers' whirlwind has even surpassed the democratically arrived-at (and violated by the entrenched staff-maleable acting general manager) decision merely to move Democracy Now from 9:00am to 7:00am - with no KPFA shows cut!
I am, indeed, an African American who happens to be utterly offended at the disgusting ruse of this Vini Beacham, going around claiming he was "lynched" because people dared to criticize him after he, thug-like, physically threatened another staffer (also in front of his son) in the back parking lot, and otherwise not getting his way. The staffer - and his son - also happened to be a person of color: Latino! So, "Thug Life!," Beacham is even going around physically threatening other people of color. Why Beacham's actions - at KPFA, no less - were no grounds for immediate suspension, no known subsequent official employment penalties, or even, perhaps, at least consideration of employment termination is a mystery to me and others. I bet that if Beacham or any other black man had threatened some white woman (if not some white guy) at KPFA, he'd be _HISTORY_!
Like Clarence Thomas with his self-serving claim of a "high-tech lynching," Beacham trashes the memory of those untold numbers of Black people who really were lynched and tortured to death by white supremacist thugs. Exploiting and plundering the misery and suffering of 'his own people' for his cynically self-serving, personal gain. Not even Supreme Court 'Justice' Clarence Thomas went around brandishing an actual _NOOSE_ at public meetings, nor even at his nomination hearing during his huffing and gruffing! It sickens me when someone - even someone Black - exploits the historical suffering of Black people for their own personal agenda. Beacham should be ashamed, except that he clearly has no sense of shame.
_____________________________________________________________________
If you (re)read my post, it's still acutely to the point. And it's still sadly _funny_, under:
STATEMENT FROM FLASHPOINTS STAFF REGARDING "OPEN LETTER TO LSB"
by Radio Dude Tuesday August 03, 2004 at 01:49 AM
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2004/08/1700793.php
" The Coalition of 'the Willing' "
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2004/08/1700793.php
"the coalition of 'the willing'"
by another KPFA activist & doner Saturday August 07, 2004 at 11:27 AM
Isn't it interesting that some of the _FEW_ , very same, people who gave early warning about the external threat to KPFA and Pacifica long before Pat Scott and Mary Berry got their slash axes really sharpened are some of the _FEW_ very same people (especially early s/heroes like Maria Gilardin and Jeffrey Blankfort) who had been giving early warning about the _MANY_ entrenched _internal_ threat to KPFA, after the then-immediate external/national crisis had been vanquished. Then it was also the _FEW_ against the _MANY_. This warning, now against some of the very same
entrenched station people (who didn't give a damn about what was going on with other people then until the axe fell on them, like Larry 'Media Martyr' Bensky, Mark 'Rip-&-Read' Mericle, etc., ), their head Acting (oh, he's 'acting' all right) GM puppet, and their "COALITION OF THE COERCED" -- err, 'WILLING' -- who signed the entrenched (read, anti-democratic) senior paid staffers station letter.
Did the entrenched senior cabal send Vini "Here's My Noose" Beacham (he's HUGE!), Interim Program Coordinator, out to the parking lot again? This time, to scream another string of profanities and threats at their staff juniors, assistants and even clerks, and newbies (prominently like the rather young, animated and Robert's Rules-ignorant, always-obstructionist local board newbie William Walker: you can set the minute hand on your watch by how often his arm is pointlessly flung up in the air at LSB meetings; what he's trying to prove, I don't know), as 'the willing' were respectively leaving, to 'ask' them to sign -- "or else"!:
..."Mu'fucka I said _how_ are ya ever goin' walk out here again if I bust yo' kneecaps...!? Bitch-ass ponk!: how you gonna ever write anything again if I twist your fuckin' goddam arm off...!? How ya gonna be working while we ice you out of your job...? Ya got any kids...!?: gee, it'd be an awful shame to see the little one(s) traumatized over what might 'happen' after I jack up dad/mom..., right in front of the l'il bastards...!"
Note: In addition to the Hard Knock Radio on-air crew, Nick Alexander - longtime African-Jewish American KPFA staffer - apparently _didn't_ sign the entrenched staffers' "Coalition of the Coerced" letter too. _None_ of the Mideast program's on-air crew apparently got 'roped in' by Vini's noose (borrowed from Supreme Court INjustice Clarence Thomas?) and they didn't sign either. But, sadly, I see that "the Coalition Forces" leader even leaned on Lewis Sawyer, station _receptionist_ to sign!
LONG LIVE FLASHPOINTS!:
YOU ALL LIVE UP TO THE HISTORY OF FLASHPOINTS _BEST_ TRADITION AND MAKE US LISTENER-ACTIVISTS PROUD!
[Hey, "Brainiac" (Linda above), Jeffrey Blankfort is currently doing his journalism and writing thing in _Palestine_: championing for the human rights of the Palestinians! I very much doubt he has time to respond to some backward, prognathic, knuckle-dragging neanderthal like Miller (this is
only the second week he's been walking upright) and his "Miller time" barroom blather. And I don't know who "Spartacus" is, but I doubt that he is the KPFA listener-activist writing above. Care to tell us the 'significance' of your 'name' "Spart"?]
The original message was not a "report" it was an opiniion piece and as such 100% on target. The writing was crisp and to the point, witty and satirical. The words put into Vinny "The Nooses" mouth were self-evidently obvious satire. Art Buchwald was the grand master of this technique.
Under the circumstances of reviewing the public display of a noose, it was not racism to use that techniqre, and the color of the writer is totally and completely irrelevant in that column. Vinnie "the Noose" has displayed behavior that can only be called thugery. When I heard the story after the KPFA LSB meeting that Vinnie has displayed a noose in his defense my instanteious response was to howl "Clarance Thomas, oh my!" Vinnie must be taking lessons form that other coast's Pacifica Thug Master Bernard White.
The cry of racism as the defence to any criticism is the basic false flag defense tactic of these thugs and the Euro-child liberalism is totally flumoxed and intimidated by it. "Oh please don't call me a racist.... plueeessse." How could a decent lefty walk down the street after having been tarred and feathered with the label racist. Yes the irony stings.
Today the KPFA psuedo progressives and scardy cat leftist wanna bes who control most of the programming are really crypto fascists when it comes to the internal politics of the station. The listeners have no clue about what goes on behind the mics.
Under the circumstances of reviewing the public display of a noose, it was not racism to use that techniqre, and the color of the writer is totally and completely irrelevant in that column. Vinnie "the Noose" has displayed behavior that can only be called thugery. When I heard the story after the KPFA LSB meeting that Vinnie has displayed a noose in his defense my instanteious response was to howl "Clarance Thomas, oh my!" Vinnie must be taking lessons form that other coast's Pacifica Thug Master Bernard White.
The cry of racism as the defence to any criticism is the basic false flag defense tactic of these thugs and the Euro-child liberalism is totally flumoxed and intimidated by it. "Oh please don't call me a racist.... plueeessse." How could a decent lefty walk down the street after having been tarred and feathered with the label racist. Yes the irony stings.
Today the KPFA psuedo progressives and scardy cat leftist wanna bes who control most of the programming are really crypto fascists when it comes to the internal politics of the station. The listeners have no clue about what goes on behind the mics.
KPFA staffers & listeners: please note!
For all those particular entrenched KPFA staffers who really don't care whether the "white supremacist" parodying Vini Beacham was white or not, and REALLY DON'T CARE whether my parody was racist or not, but were just looking for another obstructionist argument against democratic reforms, let me say this: I, as a black man, have the perfect right to parody Vini Beacham and his "thug life!" behavior in 'black/hiphop' gangsta argot all I want! And whites DON'T (nor any non-blacks) have the right to say that I can't. Not to mention his melodramatic 'lynch rope speech', complete with an actual rope _NOOSE_ !
Black writers from before Zora Neale Hurston to after Toni Morrison have employed the language of black vernacular and its various geographical and 'hood/street subcultures - and so can I. If only those anti-democratic KPFA staffers cared as much about Vini threatening VIOLENCE - especially against another oppressed minority - at a network started by a PACIFIST!
In fact, if i want to I can sit here and even say, "nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, all day! - let alone parody Vini in black gangsta vernacular. (Oh, it was funnny!) And you whites who object can't - and socially get away with it. In fact, for whites (or non-blacks) to say that I can't is itself racist!
You know the height of white racist arrogance (at least on fictional tv) was when white script writers wrote a Bernie Mac tv show episode where white social workers were taking Mac to task for saying "nigga" in front of his kids - and the white script writers had Mac actually apologizing for doing do and promising to mend his ways! This was only a little less detestable than when white tv scriptwriters had some diminuitive adopted tv sitcom black kid (back when it was cute to have white tv sitcom families adopt diminuitive black kids and turn them into little black ango-saxons) and turned the kid against his admiration of MALCOLM X - and that's what the episode was about!! In case you don't know, whites often retain ultimate creative control of even black sitcoms. (See the films Hollywood Shuffle, Bamboozled, etc.) That's why white Hollywood has black actors playing vapid modern minstrel and buffoon roles. If blacks had ultimate creative control, then they might use that to make satirical sociopolitical statements that white America might not like.
So, in the language of hiphop, all you whites who don't like it - AND DON'T REALLY CARE whether I'm a white-supremacist or not, or whether my parody was racist or not - but are just, indeed racistly, using my language as another manipulative excuse to further your entrenched, anti-democratic goals - now fronting Vini as blackface - can just get off my jock! And save the drama fo' yo' mama!!
Black writers from before Zora Neale Hurston to after Toni Morrison have employed the language of black vernacular and its various geographical and 'hood/street subcultures - and so can I. If only those anti-democratic KPFA staffers cared as much about Vini threatening VIOLENCE - especially against another oppressed minority - at a network started by a PACIFIST!
In fact, if i want to I can sit here and even say, "nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, all day! - let alone parody Vini in black gangsta vernacular. (Oh, it was funnny!) And you whites who object can't - and socially get away with it. In fact, for whites (or non-blacks) to say that I can't is itself racist!
You know the height of white racist arrogance (at least on fictional tv) was when white script writers wrote a Bernie Mac tv show episode where white social workers were taking Mac to task for saying "nigga" in front of his kids - and the white script writers had Mac actually apologizing for doing do and promising to mend his ways! This was only a little less detestable than when white tv scriptwriters had some diminuitive adopted tv sitcom black kid (back when it was cute to have white tv sitcom families adopt diminuitive black kids and turn them into little black ango-saxons) and turned the kid against his admiration of MALCOLM X - and that's what the episode was about!! In case you don't know, whites often retain ultimate creative control of even black sitcoms. (See the films Hollywood Shuffle, Bamboozled, etc.) That's why white Hollywood has black actors playing vapid modern minstrel and buffoon roles. If blacks had ultimate creative control, then they might use that to make satirical sociopolitical statements that white America might not like.
So, in the language of hiphop, all you whites who don't like it - AND DON'T REALLY CARE whether I'm a white-supremacist or not, or whether my parody was racist or not - but are just, indeed racistly, using my language as another manipulative excuse to further your entrenched, anti-democratic goals - now fronting Vini as blackface - can just get off my jock! And save the drama fo' yo' mama!!
If you've never done anything with your life that's worth bragging about more than having been born with one color skin, you're a sorry-ass loser, no matter what color it is.
And, since you don't know what I've done, your logical response to the Vinni issue _is_ ... ??? (You know, Vinni, the one who made the big hypermelodramatic issue in the first place of his being black by sporting an actual rope _NOOSE_ in hand?) I mean other than your vapid response above (Sep 9, 9:05am). Or are you jut a glib, empty, one-liner, hit 'n run 'artist' ?
This open letter was written by Dennis Bernstein of Flashpoints:
** PLEASE CIRCULATE WIDELY **
To the KPFA staff and the Pacifica Community
From Executive Producer of Flashpoints, Dennis Bernstein
Re: racist memo to Vini Beachem
I read with horror the vicious and racist memo that purports to be from a member of the KPFA community. First and foremost, Flashpoints disavows all connection to such hurtful and degrading messages. I personally pledge to use my 25 years of investigative skills to find out who wrote it and why. I am requesting that any documentary evidence, i.e. email addresses, place of origin, or if it was handwritten and delivered, any documents or evidence that would help our special investigation. I will enlist the help of
several private investigators and a fingerprint analyst, as well as a syntactical writing expert to analyze the letter and help us get to the bottom of this horrible episode in the history of Pacifica.
If I weren't busy on the ground in New York, keeping track of police attacks particularly on people of color, I would have had an earlier start on this investigation. In conclusion, however, we will do everything in our power to nail the racist or the agent provocateur so that this does not occur again at least from this source.
Sincerely,
Dennis Bernstein
FLASHPOINTS
Your Daily Investigative News Magazine
Monday thru Friday on Pacifica Radio
http://www.flashpoints.net
** PLEASE CIRCULATE WIDELY **
To the KPFA staff and the Pacifica Community
From Executive Producer of Flashpoints, Dennis Bernstein
Re: racist memo to Vini Beachem
I read with horror the vicious and racist memo that purports to be from a member of the KPFA community. First and foremost, Flashpoints disavows all connection to such hurtful and degrading messages. I personally pledge to use my 25 years of investigative skills to find out who wrote it and why. I am requesting that any documentary evidence, i.e. email addresses, place of origin, or if it was handwritten and delivered, any documents or evidence that would help our special investigation. I will enlist the help of
several private investigators and a fingerprint analyst, as well as a syntactical writing expert to analyze the letter and help us get to the bottom of this horrible episode in the history of Pacifica.
If I weren't busy on the ground in New York, keeping track of police attacks particularly on people of color, I would have had an earlier start on this investigation. In conclusion, however, we will do everything in our power to nail the racist or the agent provocateur so that this does not occur again at least from this source.
Sincerely,
Dennis Bernstein
FLASHPOINTS
Your Daily Investigative News Magazine
Monday thru Friday on Pacifica Radio
http://www.flashpoints.net
What is the "racist memo to Vini Beachem" referred to above?
Here it is:
"the coalition of 'the willing'"
by another KPFA activist & doner Saturday August 07, 2004 at 11:27 AM
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2004/08/1700793_comment.php#1701897
Isn't it interesting that some of the _FEW_ , very same, people who gave early warning about the external threat to KPFA and Pacifica long before Pat Scott and Mary Berry got their slash axes really sharpened are some of the _FEW_ very same people (especially early s/heroes like Maria Gilardin and Jeffrey Blankfort) who had been giving early warning about the _MANY_ entrenched _internal_ threat to KPFA, after the then-immediate external/national crisis had been vanquished. Then it was also the _FEW_ against the _MANY_. This warning, now against some of the very same entrenched station people (who didn't give a damn about what was going on with other people then until the axe fell on them, like Larry 'Media Martyr' Bensky, Mark 'Rip-&-Read' Mericle, etc., ), their head GM puppet, and their "COALITION OF THE COERCED" -- err, 'WILLING' -- who signed the entrenched senior paid staffers station letter.
Did the entrenched senior cabal send Vini "Here's My Noose" Beacham (he's HUGE!), Interim Program Coordinator, out to the parking lot again? This time, to scream another string of profanities and threats at their staff juniors, newbies (prominently like the rather young, animated and always-obstructionist local board newbie William Walker: you can set the minute hand on your watch by how often his hand is pointlessly up in the air at LSB meetings; what he's trying to prove, I don't know), assistants and even clerks as 'the willing' were respectively leaving, to 'ask' them to sign -- "or else"!?:
..."Mu'fucka I said _how_ are ya ever goin' walk out here again with no kneecaps!? Bitch-ass ponk!: how you gonna ever write anything again if I twist your fuckin' goddam arm off!? How ya gonna be working while we ice you out of your job? Ya got any kids!?: gee, it'd be an awful shame to see the little one(s) traumatized over what might 'happen' after I jack up dad/mom, right in front of the l'il bastards!"
Note: In addition to the Hard Knock Radio on-air crew, Nick Alexander -- longtime African-Jewish American KPFA staffer -- apparently _didn't_ sign the entrenched staffers' "Coalition of the Coerced" letter too. _None_ of the Mideast program's on-air crew apparently got 'roped in' by Vini's noose (borrowed from Supreme Court INjustice Clarence Thomas?) and they didn't sign either. But, sadly, I see that "the Coalition Forces" leader even leaned on Lewis Sawyer, station _receptionist_ to sign!
LONG LIVE FLASHPOINTS!:
YOU GUYS LIVE UP TO THE HISTORY OF FLASHPOINTS _BEST_ TRADITION AND MAKE US LISTENER-ACTIVISTS PROUD!
[Hey, "Brainiac" (Linda above), Jeffrey Blankfort is currently doing his journalism and writing thing in _Palestine_: championing for the human rights of the Palestinians! I very much doubt he has time to respond to some backward prognathic knuckle-dragging neanderthal like Miller (this is only the second week he's been walking upright) and his "Miller time" barroom blather. And I don't know who "Spartacus" is, but I doubt that he is the KPFA listener-activist writing above. Care to tell us the 'significance' of your 'name' "Spart"?]
"the coalition of 'the willing'"
by another KPFA activist & doner Saturday August 07, 2004 at 11:27 AM
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2004/08/1700793_comment.php#1701897
Isn't it interesting that some of the _FEW_ , very same, people who gave early warning about the external threat to KPFA and Pacifica long before Pat Scott and Mary Berry got their slash axes really sharpened are some of the _FEW_ very same people (especially early s/heroes like Maria Gilardin and Jeffrey Blankfort) who had been giving early warning about the _MANY_ entrenched _internal_ threat to KPFA, after the then-immediate external/national crisis had been vanquished. Then it was also the _FEW_ against the _MANY_. This warning, now against some of the very same entrenched station people (who didn't give a damn about what was going on with other people then until the axe fell on them, like Larry 'Media Martyr' Bensky, Mark 'Rip-&-Read' Mericle, etc., ), their head GM puppet, and their "COALITION OF THE COERCED" -- err, 'WILLING' -- who signed the entrenched senior paid staffers station letter.
Did the entrenched senior cabal send Vini "Here's My Noose" Beacham (he's HUGE!), Interim Program Coordinator, out to the parking lot again? This time, to scream another string of profanities and threats at their staff juniors, newbies (prominently like the rather young, animated and always-obstructionist local board newbie William Walker: you can set the minute hand on your watch by how often his hand is pointlessly up in the air at LSB meetings; what he's trying to prove, I don't know), assistants and even clerks as 'the willing' were respectively leaving, to 'ask' them to sign -- "or else"!?:
..."Mu'fucka I said _how_ are ya ever goin' walk out here again with no kneecaps!? Bitch-ass ponk!: how you gonna ever write anything again if I twist your fuckin' goddam arm off!? How ya gonna be working while we ice you out of your job? Ya got any kids!?: gee, it'd be an awful shame to see the little one(s) traumatized over what might 'happen' after I jack up dad/mom, right in front of the l'il bastards!"
Note: In addition to the Hard Knock Radio on-air crew, Nick Alexander -- longtime African-Jewish American KPFA staffer -- apparently _didn't_ sign the entrenched staffers' "Coalition of the Coerced" letter too. _None_ of the Mideast program's on-air crew apparently got 'roped in' by Vini's noose (borrowed from Supreme Court INjustice Clarence Thomas?) and they didn't sign either. But, sadly, I see that "the Coalition Forces" leader even leaned on Lewis Sawyer, station _receptionist_ to sign!
LONG LIVE FLASHPOINTS!:
YOU GUYS LIVE UP TO THE HISTORY OF FLASHPOINTS _BEST_ TRADITION AND MAKE US LISTENER-ACTIVISTS PROUD!
[Hey, "Brainiac" (Linda above), Jeffrey Blankfort is currently doing his journalism and writing thing in _Palestine_: championing for the human rights of the Palestinians! I very much doubt he has time to respond to some backward prognathic knuckle-dragging neanderthal like Miller (this is only the second week he's been walking upright) and his "Miller time" barroom blather. And I don't know who "Spartacus" is, but I doubt that he is the KPFA listener-activist writing above. Care to tell us the 'significance' of your 'name' "Spart"?]
I've read the so-called "racist" memo, and have to say I think this is a classic case of diversionary, hysterical overreaction.
Beachem himself is the one who injected race into the issue with his ridiculous noose-waving stunt. The person who wrote the memo simply mocked him for doing this by engaging in sarcasm and parody, in a way that seems fitting for the situation that he, Beachem himself, created. Furthermore, the memo-writer claims to be African American, and I see no reason to doubt that. The style used to mock Beachem is used all the time by black stand-up comedians (including social satirists) -- and directed at black targets, too. But I suppose that many oh so "politically correct," socially insular KPFA staffers and obstructionist board members are not even aware of black popular culture and humor in the first place, so they wouldn't even recognize this.
Finally, if the letter posted above is actually from Dennis Bernstein, whom I otherwise respect, I'm surprised and disappointed to see that he has jumped on this diversionary bandwagon.
Beachem himself is the one who injected race into the issue with his ridiculous noose-waving stunt. The person who wrote the memo simply mocked him for doing this by engaging in sarcasm and parody, in a way that seems fitting for the situation that he, Beachem himself, created. Furthermore, the memo-writer claims to be African American, and I see no reason to doubt that. The style used to mock Beachem is used all the time by black stand-up comedians (including social satirists) -- and directed at black targets, too. But I suppose that many oh so "politically correct," socially insular KPFA staffers and obstructionist board members are not even aware of black popular culture and humor in the first place, so they wouldn't even recognize this.
Finally, if the letter posted above is actually from Dennis Bernstein, whom I otherwise respect, I'm surprised and disappointed to see that he has jumped on this diversionary bandwagon.
This response is disgusting and white supremacist. Oh yeah, I'm sure the author of that crazed, bigoted diatribe is black. Thanks "get a clue" for your postmodern, textual reading of this hate piece, but anyone else to the left of David Horowitz can see exactly what it is.
I think it's an outrage that this shit can be coming out of the KPFA community and I really hope that Dennis does find out who did it.
I think it's an outrage that this shit can be coming out of the KPFA community and I really hope that Dennis does find out who did it.
Oh yeah, I'm sure the author of that crazed, bigoted diatribe is black.
Then you should have no problem posting the memmo here to
be judged on it's own merits, if you truly stand behind KPFA's integrity.
Then you should have no problem posting the memmo here to
be judged on it's own merits, if you truly stand behind KPFA's integrity.
Oh, shhhut up you two morons above! -- so-called "Disgusted" (Sept 12, 11:58pm) and so-called "staffer" (Sept 13, 12:57am): EVERYONE at KPFA knows he's Black (and at least half the people know who he is)! If you two don't, it shows just how UNCONNECTED with KPFA (despite your posing) and just how *STYOOOPID* you two really are (one can even tell from how you write)!
Just checking in to this thread. Upon second thought, your post, "staffer", is ambiguous. Now I can't tell whether your post was supporting or attacking "Get A Clue's" post. Also, upon second look, your post may apparently be *quoting* from "Disgusted" in your post's first sentence (without using quotation marks), and challenging him in your second sentence; whereas I originally thought that you were expressing the same inane remarks as "Disgusted", right above yours. You might clarify the intent of your post, should you wish. Please excuse me if your post was also calling into question or criticizing "Digusted's" post. The "memo" has been posted above, if you would note.
I'm sure Dennis Bernstein appreciates the fact that JA -- Joseph Anderson -- thinks he's a fool for taking the bigoted memo seriously. Obviously Dennis must not be close to KPFA since he doesn't believe that the memo was anything but racist. And Joseph, you must really have some deep-seated identity problems, defending something so racist as that memo.
Dennis Bernstein has been out in New York for quite some time taking care of his sick mother. He hasn't really been around for this latest tempest. Sometimes he does remote interviews from NY.
I thought that you guys insisted that the "memo" writer was white! Now you're accusing a black guy of writing it. Make up your minds! You're going to huff and puff until you blow your head off!
I thought that you guys insisted that the "memo" writer was white! Now you're accusing a black guy of writing it. Make up your minds! You're going to huff and puff until you blow your head off!
disgusted: 'Oh yeah, I'm sure the author of that crazed, bigoted diatribe is black.'
If you're so incensed over the memo's brazen, naked "racism", then why don't you come out and openly condemn it, instead of hiding behind anonymity? Come out, set a shining example of someone who bravely and openly stands up against racism, and tell the world who you are. It's a poor moral example (especially for the kids in the community) to only stand up against racism while you're hiding behind anonymity. It makes you look like you have a hidden purpose. Stand up and be counted for Vini! He sure would appreciate knowing who's in his corner. That is, unless you were only pretending to care? Well? If you're so "Disgusted".
Suddenly you fall *SILENT*!!
Why aren't you stepping up to the challenge????
Why aren't you stepping up to the challenge????
PUBLIC FORUM:
KPFA/Pacifica - Democracy Deferred?
WHEN:
Wednesday, November 10, 7-9:00 pm
WHERE:
La Peña, 3105 Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley
Panelists are:
SOLANGE ECHEVERIA
Flashpoints, moderator
RIVA ENTEEN
Chair, KPFA Local Station Board
MARIA GILARDIN
former KPFA Development Director,
Co-founder, Take Back KPFA
BILL MANDEL
37 year programmer fired for violating KPFA's gag rule
GERALD SANDERS
KPFA Local Station Board and Pacifica National Board
SUSAN STONE
KPFA Director of Arts and Humanities Programming
JAMES E. VANN
community and political activist,
long time listener
(Organizations listed for ID purposes only)
The historic victory achieved by KPFA listeners hangs in the balance.
Once again, listeners must come to the rescue.
A panel of the "banned and fired," current programmers,
board members and community members,
followed by an open-mike session,
will address questions and propose solutions
to protect the nation's only independent radio network.
In 1999, 10,000 people poured into the streets of Berkeley
to defend KPFA, Pacifica Network's flagship radio station,
from a corporate take-over. As a result, a court settlement
was reached, which established elected governing boards.
However, the struggle for democratization, which requires
transparency and accountability, is far from over.
To solidify our victory, we must address these questions:
How do we put the community back into community radio?
Is station management listening to the listeners?
Is our elected board showing the leadership we need?
What went wrong with the General Manager hiring process?
Is KPFA really "free speech radio"?
How does our mission inform our news coverage and public affairs programming?
What about the "banned and fired?"
Is it time to take back KPFA again?
What's happening at other Pacifica stations?
KPFA/Pacifica - Democracy Deferred?
WHEN:
Wednesday, November 10, 7-9:00 pm
WHERE:
La Peña, 3105 Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley
Panelists are:
SOLANGE ECHEVERIA
Flashpoints, moderator
RIVA ENTEEN
Chair, KPFA Local Station Board
MARIA GILARDIN
former KPFA Development Director,
Co-founder, Take Back KPFA
BILL MANDEL
37 year programmer fired for violating KPFA's gag rule
GERALD SANDERS
KPFA Local Station Board and Pacifica National Board
SUSAN STONE
KPFA Director of Arts and Humanities Programming
JAMES E. VANN
community and political activist,
long time listener
(Organizations listed for ID purposes only)
The historic victory achieved by KPFA listeners hangs in the balance.
Once again, listeners must come to the rescue.
A panel of the "banned and fired," current programmers,
board members and community members,
followed by an open-mike session,
will address questions and propose solutions
to protect the nation's only independent radio network.
In 1999, 10,000 people poured into the streets of Berkeley
to defend KPFA, Pacifica Network's flagship radio station,
from a corporate take-over. As a result, a court settlement
was reached, which established elected governing boards.
However, the struggle for democratization, which requires
transparency and accountability, is far from over.
To solidify our victory, we must address these questions:
How do we put the community back into community radio?
Is station management listening to the listeners?
Is our elected board showing the leadership we need?
What went wrong with the General Manager hiring process?
Is KPFA really "free speech radio"?
How does our mission inform our news coverage and public affairs programming?
What about the "banned and fired?"
Is it time to take back KPFA again?
What's happening at other Pacifica stations?
An example of what's wrong at KPFA:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/11/1703564.php
http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/11/1703564.php
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