MARC COOPER REPLIES TO JUAN GONZALEZ
To Juan Gonzalez:
I was dismayed and, frankly, I was sad to see that you are circulating a letter personally attacking me. I understand that you are struggling to hold together the Los Angeles Anti-Pacifica rally that you are scheduled to keynote on March 23rd. The moderator of the event, Ramona Riptson, as well as on of the listed panelists have now pulled out. So have a number of sponsors of the pre-rally reception who have said they mistakenly thought they were helping out an event that *supported* KPFK-- not attacked its funding. And the AFL-CIO unions that represent the workers and employees of KPFK and Pacifica's national programming unit have also issued statements refusing to support the economic boycott of Pacifica stations that you have launched without ever consulting those unions. But that these setbacks should lead you to circulate a mass letter attacking my integrity is truly disappointing.
The only contact I have ever had with you, Juan, was when you came out to Los Angeles about a year ago to promote your latest book. I invited you on to my KPFK show and dedicated about 40 minutes promoting you, your book and your reading. I then took that interview and re-cut it to play on more than 125 stations served by Radio Nation. At that time, I knew that you and I held sharply different views regarding Pacifica. But I saw that as no impediment to treating you with the utmost respect and professional courtesy. I considered our areas of political agreement to be infinitely more important than our differences over Pacifica Radio.
Apparently, I was wrong. Pacifica's internal factional fight has become an obsession for you -- or at least, in your words, a "campaign."
You have now returned my gesture of respect by circulating a letter to thousands of members of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists ( a group I have had absolutely no contact with) in which you attempt to besmirch my reputation and integrity. And you do so without the minimum personal courtesy nor professional ethic of ever speaking with me on the topic of Pacifica so that you might hear directly what I think.
So for the record, let's be clear what this is about. You have appointed yourself leader of a public political campaign to defund one of the radio stations I work for. You are organizing a rally in Los Angeles to promote that campaign. That is to say, you are using all your efforts to cut off funding to the only listener-sponsored station in Southern California (Only 8% of every dollar raised goes to pay for national Pacifica administrative costs).
Because of your boycott campaign, many of our listeners and others I know in Los Angeles have asked me my opinion of your campaign. And I have told them directly what I would have told you if you had asked i.e. that no matter what one's view of Pacifica's unpaid and volunteer National Board, an economic boycott will have no effect on them and will only hurt the paid and unionized staff of the stations and will also undermine the ability of stations like KPFK to continue their programming mission. Given that you live in New York and have no opportunity to listen to KPFK, I am confident that you can have no substantial opinion on its programming and thus I would assume you are not actually protesting that programming. So much more the unfortunate, then, that you would now want to starve that programming of its current financial resources.
What escapes me is why you think it is fine and dandy that you should be able to devote your efforts to cutting off our funding, but you find it somehow sinister that I and others should work to oppose that. That makes no sense. So let me be direct: I have actively lobbied and will continue to lobby against any boycott campaign, whether it comes from the Republican Congress or from Juan Gonzalez, that tries to choke off funding to KPFK and that puts at risk our mission.
If you think that position is wrong, then argue against the policy. But don't try to sully my personal integrity merely because I disagree with you or politically oppose you.
I have no problem defending the programming of KPFK which includes 2 hours a day of Democracy Now, five hours a week of Alternative Radio (more than any other outlet in North America), an hour a week of FAIR's program and countless other progressive and politically radical programs. I go on the air 3 times a year to raise money for ALL that programming. And I will continue to oppose all efforts to reduce the income we need to produce and distribute those programs.
But I cannot quite figure out the logic of your position. It would seem that until last February 1, the day you resigned on the air, it was OK for me to raise money from KPFK in order to help pay your salary and those of others at Democracy Now. But, now, what? Now that you, Juan Gonzalez, have resigned( and continue to draw you salary from the very corporate New York Daily News), all the rest of us at Pacifica are supposed to STOP raising money for KPFK because you have so decreed? All of the rest of the programs at KPFK and throughout the network, as well as the unionized jobs of all those who produce them, are now to be put in peril overnight because you now think this is the best strategy to employ against the Pacifica Board? I know that the overwhelming majority of our listeners adamantly disagree and will repudiate your ill-conceived campaign. In the meantime, I would ask you to stick to the political issues and to refrain from any more personal attacks. Marc Cooper