Personal comment: Bill Crosier

When Kevin White asked, "Why is Terry Goodman work so hard to support the stupid faction?", Mr. Goodman asked a sadly appropriate question:

"Is there a non-stupid faction?"

That prompted Bill Crosier, a KPFT Pacifican of rare sanity, to post the following commentary, which I thought to be a worthy of repeating:

Here in Pacifica-land, we believe everyone has the right to be as stupid as they want or are, whether it's by nature or nuture. We don't discriminate against stupidity, or ignorance, or failure of fiduciary duty, or even malfeasance. Equal rights for all!

Sorry - I could not resist that.

Actually, for years, I've looked at the major difference between Pacifica factions as whether they support financial responsibility or not.  For example, do the factions support wacky budgets with bloated revenue estimates in an attempt to keep as many people on the payroll as possible even if it guarantees deficits?  Or do they ignore lack of action by management to ensure we get our audits done on time?  There seems to be a clear difference between the factions about that, but from listening to the rhetoric you'd think it was all about which faction is more politically radical than the other.

I've been very disappointed with board members (on LSBs and the PNB) who don't do their homework, who don't actively help with outreach (to get more listeners and members) or fundraising, who don't review budgets and other proposals, and who don't insist that management do what's needed to ensure Pacifica survives (much less thrives) and hold them responsible. Instead, we have board members who just follow the leader, even if it's off the cliff.  So much for the value of large, STV-elected boards that were supposedly to ensure we'd have a bunch of diverse people bringing a variety of useful skills and experience to our boards.  Clearly that has not happened, and the follow-the-leader approach makes a mockery of our supposed democratic governance.

—Bill