The Fundamental Premise of the Pacifica Mission, Does It Matter Anymore?

Pacifica was founded on the need for alternative news, public affairs and culture and is even more needed today given the consolidation of the corporate/pentagon media.

Are there any among us that wouldn't want alternative views given equal time on the corporate media, on the issues of the day, occupations, health care for all, death penalty, private prisons, our criminal and civil injustice, global warming, police killings of poor folks and people of color, tax breaks for the ultra rich, the continued concentration of wealth in the hands of the few, NAFTA, etc so that the people of our country would have other thoughts to consider before they start attaching tea bags to their hats, and knee jerk voting for republicans when 8 years of Bush can't be rectified in two years, etc, etc.

I can't imagine that anyone on our LSB would publicly say no we don't want alternative views on the mass media.

So then why is it that close to half the LSB think that same standard shouldn't apply to internal political issues at KPFA and Pacifica and the use of our air time?

Several Concerned Listener staff allies have used air time to push their views on the budget issues and no equal time has been offered. This is not the first time this has happened. Again it seems like these staff folks believe that they own the air time. Isn't is basically a Commons, for the presentation of differing views to engage the people in civic thought and practice?

Saturday an advisory Motion asking that both sides of the budget issues get equal time on the air was voted down by the slim Concerned Listener majority that was present. Every single CLer voted against this Motion to apply Pacifica Mission principles to internal political debate!!!!

I can't believe that anyone that really believes in the Pacifica Mission is afraid of open and fair use of air time to debate the issues. So the only conclusion that I can come to is that the CL/"Save KPFA" folks don't really believe in the Pacifica Mission. If my logic is wrong, please explain why.

How is CL practice any different than the Dem/Repub folks that set up the Presidential debates and leave out all the progressive candidates? And have them arrested if they try to attend just to watch?

It is no wonder that the progressive movement in our country can't gain any ground. Too many "progressives" practice the same "power before principles" politics as the corporate folks. "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

“Our leadership elite may still want to believe in democratic principles-they certainly profess that they do-but in practice they have shown themselves all too willing to violate those principles in order to gain or retain power”, Cornel West from his book Democracy Matters.

As I ponder the continued rightward shift in US politics I wonder what kind of country we would have if CL/"Save KPFA" folks was running the country?

What in CL practice would lead me or anyone to believe that there would be open, fair, honest debates of the issues, looking for the truth?

What in CL practice would possibly get me to think there would be fair election or even elections?

CL/"Save KPFA" folks, what are you striving for that working people should want to follow and emulate?

Do you ever think about such things? What are you modeling? Or is power the end in itself, more important than creating a culture with a set of fair principles that all should follow to build a just world society and to save our planet?

The meeting Saturday really was a bummer. I constantly try to see the good in what CL is doing and I am constantly disappointed, and sometimes with my own allies. However, CL is qualitatively more troublesome than the other.

It is really hard to have hope for my daughter and my many nieces and nephews and the children of the world when I see such unprincipled behavior as was demonstrated at Saturday's meeting, and all to often at KPFA and Pacifica by people who claim to support the Mission. Evaluate people by what they do/have done not what they say. Which these days for CL and their allies is spin, spin, spin!

(Forward as you please.)


Richard Phelps
Attorney/Mediator