Gary Null, aargh, still there. Mike Levine, is a former DEA agent who I
think is not all that progressive. These folks, besides Doug, are solid,
Michio Kaku, Bill Weinberg, the anarchist chronicler of the EZLN. The show
on weaponry sounds interesting from Tom Wisker,
http://www.wbai.org/programs/weaponry/index.php
http://libraryautomation.com/nymas/ . Elombe Brath, an Old School Black
Nationalist?
http://www.savewbai.tao.ca/archive/savewbai00028.html
> ...[an error occurred while processing this directive] HEH!!!
Elombe Brath on WBAI
> From Eileen Sutton <efsutton at earthlink.net>
> Date Tue, 16 Jan 2001 12:39:28 -0500
> Brath is a veteran producer at WBAI...
===========================================
THE STRUGGLE FOR THE SOUL OF LISTENER SPONSORED RADIO
Resistance Grows Against Pacifica Board Coup at WBAI
by Elombe Brath
As the controversy over the changes at radio station WBAI, 99.5 FM,
deepens,
it has caused division among its listenership as well as among WBAI
staffers,
paid and unpaid workers, volunteers who have accepted the recent coup
d’etat
as a fait accompli and prefer to keep their feelings to themselves. Who is
right and who was wrong, who was responsible for what many feel is possibly
one of the most divisive situations in the the station’s over 40-year
history.
WBAI was founded on January 10, 1960 [yesterday marked its 41st anniversary
as a radio station], the third of what now is a network of five FM
stations:
KPFA, the founding station, located in San Francisco (1946), KPFK in Los
Angeles, both in California; KPFT in Houston, Texas; WPFW in Washington,
D.C.; and, of course, WBAI in New York. Its founding father, Lewis Hill,
was
a pacifist who served time as a political prisoner for his beliefs, so deep
was his commitment.
Hill founded KPFA in the immediate post-World War II period, seeking to
develop a non-commercial broadcasting outlet for the expression of voices
promoting prospects for peace, global justice, anti-nazism and anti-
fascism,
and to discourage the ravages of exploitive war against colonized peoples.
Those voices were mostly represented by other pacifists, many engaged in
the
antiwar movement, and other activists on the left of the political
spectrum.
The current crisis at WBAI is not a new phenomena but has evolved out of
the
ongoing struggle of producers trying to continue Lew Hill’s mission in the
context of developing contemporary political realities. It represents the
struggle of those who continue to uphold the mandate of listener-sponsored
radio which is directly in conflict with the profit motivated concepts of
mainstream media (i.e., commercial or corporate-financed media.)
This present conflict between listener-sponsored, coporate-free radio and
that of the interests of corporate financed, pro-capitalist media, is in
reality part of a continuum of a historic struggle for the soul of
revolutionary radio versus the prevailing order of preserving the
capitalist
status quo and the neoliberal agenda for the furtherance of multinational
globalization.
Throughout its 40-year history, WBAI, the New York affiliate of the
Pacifica
Foundation’s five station network, there has been episodic eruptions among
the different broadcasting outlets over the political character and content
of radio programming.
The latest developments at WBAI are part of this legacy of a continuing
struggle to maintain the content and character of
listener-sponsored/commercial-free radio and elements like those who have
hijacked the Pacifica board.
The re-writing of the Pacifica bylaws a few years ago allowed board
members
to escape term limits and almost become lifers in the governance of the
overall operation of its affiliates. They subsequently expanded their
membership by including recruits from corporate institutions that has now
pitted the station’s local management aligned with the board against its
paid
and non-paid staff members over the dismissal of three employees: Valerie
Van
Isler, a 20-year WBAI veteran and general manager of the station for the
last
10 years; Bernard White, another 20-year veteran, WBAI’s program director
and
former co-host of Wake Up Call, the station’s morning show; and Sharan
Harper, Wake Up Call producer [not a production as the Associate Press has
erroneously reported] and WBAI union (UE) shop steward.
Just as the incoming administration has revealed its agenda by
President-select George W. Bush announcement of his cabinet choices and
some
folks appearing shocked by individuals whose raison d’etre is in direct
conflict with the department they were chosen to preside over, the
additions
to the Pacifica National Board are equally revelatory. The following
listing
of those currently are on the board and individuals expected to join them,
and their links to contradictory occupational histories are in direct
conflict to WBAI’s advocacy of “speaking truth to power”, especially
regardlng how issues pertain to established programs that expose
governmental
and corporate abuse, is the result of an ongoing investigation by those
WBAI
journalists - particularly Attorney Mimi Rosenberg, co-host of WBAI’s labor
program Building Bridges - who continue to struggle to return the station
back its mission and its listeners. To wit:
David Acosta, KPFT, Chairman, whose term expired during March 1999, is a
certified public accountant in Houston, Texas. His name is listed basically
as the board’s chairman, not because he is a CPA from Texas.
Ken Ford, PNB Vice-Chairman, Executive Committe term is supposed to expire
this month and his board term actually was supposed to expire last June, is
a
lobbyist for the National Association of Home Builders, “the third largest
trade association political action committee in the U.S. [which] raises
more
than $2 million each election cycle”, according to Josie Byzek in an
article
entitled “Living in the Past”which appeared in the May/June 1998 edition of
the Ragged Edge. Based in Washington, D.C., the NAHB boasts that it is
expanding its headquarters, projecting the doubling of the building to nine
stories, while covertly, as attorney Rosenberg points out, “is spending big
bucks to prevent any legislation on the state level that might mandate any
access features for the disabled.”
Indeed, as Byzek has written, the “NAHB has used its sources to fight the
Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Housing Act and its access
guidelines - and fair housing compliance in general...successfully
[defeating
in 1998] access legislation sought by disability organizations, including
Independent Living Centers, in Virginia, Georgia and Illinois.”
Ford and his friends at the NAHB have persistently fought against such
“basic
access standards, universal design, or a ‘visitable’ single family home
provides for at least one no-step entrance, wider doorways and passageways
through ground floor rooms so as to accommodate a wheelchair user, an
accessible bathroom at ground level with bathroom walls that would support
grab bars. Universal design permits all people, including people with
disabilities, to enter and function. It permits people to age in place,
live
independently and avoid institutionalization.”
Having a sense of Mr. Ford and his associate’s work-related past practice,
it
is both understandable and tremendously important to remember that the
question of NAHB’s disregard for the rights of the disabled having access
to
his or her domain, or the rights of all tenants to decent and affordable
housing, would indeed be a target of a noncommercial radio station like
WBAI
- and vice versa.
More directly to our concern about Ford’s relation to WBAI is the fact that
he was reported in the New York Times to having complained that WBAI
loyalists are “mired in the 1960s”, adding whose opinions are currently
“not
only insignificant but irrelevant” in today’s media market. Not so
insignificant but extremely relevant to us is that Ford’s opinion seems to
be
based more on wishful thinking than on historical fact.
For instance, most of the struggles in developing nations occuring today
over
demands of indigenous peoples to reclaim their stolen land and economic
control of their respective countries are grounded [not “mired”] in the
historic post-World War II anti-colonial struggles. These conflicts
developed
after some of those who had been conscripted by their colonial rulers and
taken to fight in Europe to free Europeans from nazism and fascism,
returned
home after the war and found themselves once again subjected to subservient
status in their own countries. Thus, they soon found themselves being
forced
to organize national liberation movements and resort to initiating armed
struggles against racist and fascistic white settler colonialists backed by
the U.S. and its western allies which denied Africans the same rights that
they had fought for Europeans to have in Europe.
Michael Palmer, Treasurer, was initially nominated by KPFT, is employed as
a
“salesperson/and real estate broker in commercial real estate”, engaging in
the selling of property at CB Richard Ellis, considered “to be the
dominant,
most highly regarded investment properties sales and acquisitions advisor
in
every market and sector in which we choose to serve our clients.” In this
regard, we are concerned that Mr. Palmer was the author of a 1999 internal
e-mail posted to then-PNB chair Dr. Mary Francis Berry which discussed the
merits of whether the sale of KPFA was more viable than that of WBAI. This
disclosure reaffirmed the suspicions by many who had previously surmised
that
WBAI, at 99.5 FM, being right in the middle of the FM dial, was possibly
worth anywhere from $100 million to $200 million and was being considered
for sale by those who now control Pacifica.
Karolyn Van Putten, a member-at-large, from Westernrn Public Radio, in Fort
Mason, San Francisco, is said to have been “handpicked” by Dr. Berry,
former
PNB chair and a leading member of outgoing President Bill Clinton’s Civil
Rights Commission. Dr. Berry is one of the prominent leaders being
spotlighted the investigation of the disenfranchisement fiasco in Florida
during the Election 2000 fraud. However, she apparently has no problem in
disenfranchising employees at WBAI who had constantly appealed to her for a
number of years about assistance in alleviating deplorable conditions which
eventually led to the present crisis at the station. In any event, her
choice
of Ms. Van Putten has led to even more intransigence by the board in its
relations with WBAI as she has taken a rigid position of refusing to meet
with community groups, boasting that she speaks for the Board.
Even more frightening are two newly appointed board members.
Bertram Lee, Sr., from Pacifica’s WPFW affiliate, also serves on the Board
of
Directors of Reebok, the multimillion dollar sneaker firm which WBAI has
broadcasted hours exposing their exploitive sweatshop operations in
Indonesia. Mr. Lee is what his industry calls a “big buck boom and bust”
businessman, meaning that he “buys and sells radio and television stations
(e.g., CBS affiliate in Boston and WKYS in Washington.)” He is also co-
owner
of the Denver Nuggets basketball team.
John M. Murdock, another Washingtonian from WPFW, is an attorney, in fact,
a
senior associate at Epstein, Becker & Green, P.C., “one of the world’s
largest labor and employment practices with management [nearly 300
attorneys
practicing in 10 offices throughout the U.S. - and affiliation worldwide]
on
every aspect of labor and employment law.” This includes “counseling
employers on matters relating to executive compensation; wrongful
discharge;
plant closings; downsizing; and work-force restructuring; job actions; work
stoppages; union campaigns; contract negotiations”, as well as “matters
arising under NAFTA, Gatt and advising management on employee counseling
and
discipline.”
Therefore, Mr. Murdock is a lawyer whose responsibility is to defend
practically everything that WBAI’s investigative journalists and scores of
their guests have provided documentation that clearly reveals a borderline
criminal conspiracy against working people all over the world. This is the
reason he was targeted by protestors who picketed his office at Epstein,
Becker & Green, P.C., not because - as some argue - he’s just a “young,
bright African-American attorney trying to make an honest living.”
The PNB’s new thinking about the selection of its peers is further revealed
with its choice of two proposed additional members slated to become board
members which have caused us even greater concern.
Luis Wilmot heads the Texas Partnership for Competition, “which advocates
further deregulation of the telecommunications industry in Texas” with the
backing of AT & T and believes that regulators and legislators must foster
the proper environment that will encourage high tech companies are to
invest
in media facilities wanting to take advantage of advanced technology. As
Rosenberg points out, “This fits in with the theory that the object is to
target a more affluent audience rather than a less affluent audience for
Pacifica.”
Francisco Rocciolo, a New Yorker, is vice-president of Citicorp’s private
banking unit in charge of international banking for Europe, the Middle East
and Africa. You can rest assured that Mr. Rocciolo would not be
appreciative
of WBAI’s probing journalism Citicorp’s financial operations in these
areas,
particular Africa; it certainly didn’t when we used to lift the lid off its
then Citi-Bank and friendly Chase Manhattan bank’s manipulation of Africa’s
fragile banking infrastructure decades ago.
There is a record of empirical data that spells out clearly the history of
why the current situation at WBA is not merely a debate over whether those
who have taken a strong position against the Pacifica National Board’s
attempt to redirect the station’s programming away from its historical
mission to give voice to the communities and their activists who are
engaged
in struggles for social justice and have been banned from such expression
on
commercial stations and a new infusion into the governing board of people
whose interests more reflect the corporate world that Pacifica had been
founded to fight against and who intend to either mainstream the affiliates
programming into a less confrontational format or else sell a resisting
station outright to the highest bidder.
I might add, that with the proposed naming of Michael Powell, the son of
Secretary of State-designate Colin Powell, by President-select George W.
Bush, to replace William Kennard, the Clinton administration’s appointed
chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), an independent
agency - under the Commerce Department - of the U.S. government, gives us
further caution. Since the FCC has tremendous power over communication
legal
matters, especially pertaining to radio and television issues, the loss of
Kennard, who was a progressive voice for the broader inclusion of so-called
minorities having access to the airwaves, will be replaced by Mr. Powell,
whose politics are more aligned with those of his father and his latest
patron, George Dubya, WBAI radical journalists are particularly sensitive
shifts in potential policy dilemmas that are hardly noticed by the average
person - and could care even less.
These above stated conflicts of interests are the underlining
contradictions
that are at the heart and soul of the current crisis at WBAI. And unless
this
is understood, then there can be no resolution of the problem and, if not
resolved, then the lone voice of radical, progessive radio in New York (if
not the whole U.S.) will become the latest casualty of a move by
conservative
forces within this country during the last 20 years to dominate the
airwaves
with rightwing slanted programs and reactionary personalities as hosts to
promote an anti-affirmative action agenda.
> From the Rush Limbaughs nationally to the local Bob Grants and their ilk,
> the
electronic mass media spew forth volumes of anti-minority immigrants
(unless
criteria for entry is based on Cold War philosophical orientation)
propaganda, along with other racist so-called anti-crime “War on Drugs”
campaigns which railroad certain segments of the population to continue
providing fuel for the expanding incarceration numbers of the U.S. prison
industrial complex, and appeals for the establishment of a nationwide moral
code of conduct based on a theocratic state edict enforced by either the
federal government or regional state or local municipal executive branches
and co-religious Christian “mullahs” in this country’s individual states.
THE STRUGGLE FOR THE SOUL OF LISTENER-SPONSORED RADIO
Resistance Grows Against Pacifica Board Coup at WBAI
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