Buzzanco responds

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Sun Oct 6 15:34:10 PDT 2002


[Bob Buzzanco responds to Brad DeLong, whom he says he has a history with. One off, he says, and no continuing exchange.]

"My response, boycotting KPFT, was not conditioned principally by the slanders from Zionists; in fact, that had little to do with it. This tactic--accusing critics of Israel of anti-semitism--is becoming widespread and afffects many advocates of peace and justice. It must be countered, and I have been doing that.

However, I expected, with great reason, Pacifica to act in a moral and legal way once these smears occurred, and instead the network has been complicit. This is, keep in mind, an in-house hit job, with LAB and National Board members, GMs and the Executive Director involved in the smear campaign and so on.

As the son of a union leader, I was raised with certain values about solidarity and responsibility. To stay on the air, with a GM who caved in to Zionist slanders and smear artists running rampant in that studio, would make me feel like a scab. KPFT is not a community station, and Pacifica has failed its mission, in this case at least [actually Pacifica has a whole boatload of problems worse than mine, to the new regime really has screwed up terribly on many levels.]

As for me, I've continued to speak out in as many venues as possible. I'm interviewed frequently on TV and radio---both locally and national, I write articles, appear at teach-ins, speak at rallies and demonstrations, and so forth. So my absence from KPFT has not tempered my activism in the least.

In the meantime, KPFT has sold out its values due to cowardice and petty self-interest. And, as I said, they won't stand a chance when the FBI or DOJ shows up to keep them quiet."



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