I'm not sure what you mean by "internal Pacifica nonsense." Some of us might like to know more.
In any case, while I'll look forward to downloading it, Doug's commentaries in particular, Cooper's feed not being picked up is neither here nor there. The producers at the locals could have recognized the importance of Seattle and chose to cover it, perhaps figuring out a way to make its relevance clear to the constituencies they see themselves speaking to. Instead they ignored it altogether for the most part.
Why this was so is worth considering. In the case of the program I mentioned, the dominant ideology is a pseudo-Garveyite conception of minority "empowerment" which completely writes off the possibility of cross-racial coalition politics. Other producers had other narrow ideological axes to grind, and continued to grind them during the week.
Since BAI's listenership accounts for no more than an insignificant fraction of its 30 million potential listeners, one can only fantasize about what might have happened had it extended beyond the usual collection of health food cranks, demagogues, multi-cultists and turgid lefty policy wonks.
I'm old enough to remember how Nixon's bombing of Cambodia brought several million people around the country into the streets the next day. If the Pacifica locals were doing the job they should be, and which Democracy Now is doing in my opinion, the beatings and gassings in Seattle should have had a chance of having the same effect.
John Halle Assistant Professor of Music Yale University
CSMT: 203-432-4164, 432-2531 Dept of Music: 203-432-2985 Home: 203-785-9258