----- Original Message ----- From: "clare spark" <cspark at ix.netcom.com> To: "Michael Pugliese" <debsian at pacbell.net> Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2001 9:31 AM Subject: Re: Fw: Decline of KPFK
Michael, I pulled this item (quoted below) out from the other protests because it is a fine example of the explicit or implicit antisemitism that has characterized Pacifica. In Los Angeles, "westside" is shorthand for rich Jews who control the media and destroy the minds of little black children. It is typical of the populist-progressivism that I have written about in my book.
I just finished reading a blast at Hayek by one Herman Finer (1945), defender of the administered state. In The Road to Reaction, he writes in defense of the Soviet Union and of course, planning, as if America had a perfectly functioning democracy with citizens able and willing to hold bureaucrats to account and to fire them when they were incompetent and unresponsive to their needs. This is hilarious, especially in light of the activities of the social psychologists and their perceived need for wily propaganda to achieve "civilian morale." [described at length in my book]
One thing Pacifica has never done is to put the debate between libertarian free market advocates and social democrats on the table, and really go at both of them, and without adjectives that either caress or slam one side or the other.
Finer was right about one thing though: Hayek adhered to the notion of mass politics (a bad thing that aided the rise of fascism), but if one reads The Road to Serfdom carefully, he is pretty much a social democrat himself insofar as he sees the need to provide a safety net (a guaranteed minimum income that insures the necessities for everyone, regardless) and even the state ownership of utilities and some other industries. He also warns against monopolies and worries about inherited wealth as an obstacle to a free market. But Finer blasts away at the "economic individualist" who is always a corrupt robber baron, and never once evaluates markets as fostering innovation and lower prices. If I were teaching right now, I would give students both books and ask about that old label "social fascists." Finer also loves David Hume but does not explain that he was a Tory and antidemocrat. (Lots of Hume in my book too).
Finally, to close this little note, it is interesting to me that none of the signatories on the protest letter supported me in either of my two purges. But I did get in a few licks when I did my series "How Do We Know When We Are Not Fascists?" which pretty much attempted to analyze antisemitism and changing definitions of "fascism" as I have done in both my book and article.
I have the little essays from my series on a file if you ever want to read them. Best, Clare ps thanks for keeping me posted pps Ron Wilkins was another dreadful nationalist
>>Ken 'Dedon" Carr
>>1983-1994 programmer and executive producer, "Freedom Now".
>>Held positions as chair and vice-chair to the Local Advisory Board
>>and served on the National Board. Purged so Pacifica could make
>>way for the more affluent westside European-American listener at
>>the expense of the Africian Self Determination Community
>