This meeting of the Pacifica National Board was called for 8:30 PM and went straight into Executive Session (i.e. not streamed). We do not know what went on between 8:30 and 10 PM, but at that time the green curtain was raised and this became a Special Meeting.
Here is the latter part of this amazing Pacifica session. Don't ask me what came out of it, but ask yourself if there could be a better demonstration of why the Pacifica Foundation has hit the rocks. Listen to as much as you can stand as Cerene Roberts—her balloon deflated—does her worst and posts over a dozen infantine e-mails in as many minutes; the Uhuru guy grunts, and Adriana screams that she cannot be heard. Who needs Barnum & Bailey?
Part I should suffice and make you thoroughly disgusted, but, for completeness... be forewarned, this is very long, totally unproductive, and all too real!!!
Okay, do the Independents have enough votes to remove Cerene and Adriana from the PNB?
ReplyDeleteKevin White
I take that back. It escalated to the TOP OF THEIR LUNGS.
DeletePlease remove Cerene and Adriana for their constant wastes of everyone's time.
They need to be muted after the second warning. Then after this happens at three meetings, they need to be silenced permanently and only participate on line.
DeleteNo sane person could fail to realize our actions were just. All that is needed is to listen to the recorded proceedings of any past meetings--or all of them except February 5 when they left the meeting and business was accomplished.
We are being far too tolerant.
Mar
Point of Integrity? That's a new one. I can almost see the JUC and their friends cheering every disruption but there is a new wrinkle. The majority has had it.
ReplyDeleteThey're just firing away with both barrels and bulldozing stuff through at this point.
I can't say I blame them but it just guarantees more of the same. They really need to
do more planning. They sound tired, irritable and unfocused.
I liked that Point of Integrity, it came from the Uhuru rep and I'm not so sure the term is familiar to some of the assembled. Kathy Davis, for example has—if anything—avoided it.
DeleteOne wonders what was discussed (shouted) at the first meeting.
JUC Guidelines for PNB Meetings:
ReplyDelete1. Keep raising the same issues at every meeting.
2. Make multiple points of order and quickly respond to each ruling in order to keep the chair off balance.
3. Ask questions right before its time to vote.
4. Ask what are we voting on again.
5. Slip in a quick gibe as you're voting or loudly proclaim the vote is illegal.
6. Lecture the chair on the poor job he is doing because he can't handle 50 points of
order and 100 questions in a timely manner.
7. Promptly issue notice to rescind the motion the board had just passed after an hour of
deliberations.
If I didn't know better, I'd think this is a satirical radio play.
ReplyDeleteI propose that all PNB meetings must be broadcast live and in full on the five Pacifica owned stations, interrupting any programming without exceptions. The listeners should hear this crap.
Point of Dexter! Is Felix the Cat permitted to use his bag of tricks without any regulations as to what items may be brought into play?
SDL
@SDL I very much like your 'Point of Dexter' :)
Delete~ 'indigopirate'
Berthold cancelled the Health Styles program
ReplyDeleteCR and AC are provocateurs. Maybe more. But definitely provocateurs.
ReplyDeleteCerene and Adriana decidedly do Pacifica a disservice with their obstreperous behavior; I have yet to figure out what they get of of it, but I'm sure that they miscalculate whatever personal benefits they see up ahead..
DeleteRoberts and Casanave share with Trump an extreme lack of self-control which, like Trump, they delude themselves into thinking is a form of shrewd calculation and maneuver.
DeleteTheir qualities, while extreme, are clearly shared by many, many Pacificans, and have been for many, many years – hence, in part, WBAI/Pacifica’s present predicament.
I would note, too, that iED Crosier has failed to keep the listeners and the public in any meaningful way informed other than as to his good intentions.
~ ‘indigo’
It's difficult to argue with that view indigo.'
DeleteAs for Bill, I admit to having expected more corrective measures by now, but the enormity of the task and the absence of vital resources (human and otherwise) may have me rationalizing beyond reason.
In the meantime, very serious deadlines appear to be taken all too lightly.
I'm not trying to pass judgement on Crosier. We simply have very little actual information. Very nearly none, actually. Everything that matters continues to be secret. I find it impossible to have any meaningful sense of the situation other than the simple observation that there’s a lot of stuff goin’ on and a lot of people tryin’ to make stuff happen and a good number of people tryin’ to make their stuff not happen, and there are secret suits and secret bills and secret negotiations, and… oh, yeah… and it’s all in secret, and, also, it’s in secret….
DeleteOpenness and transparency, and ‘trust us’ or ‘trust me’, or whatever.
In any event, even if they were to scrape out some minimal form of survival, does anyone imagine, given their character and composition, they’ll ever actually matter?
Other than in the most obscure academic sense?
The earlier history, the long ago, sure, it will be to at least some small degree noteworthy.
Since then, yet another bunch of dysfunctional leftists slowly consuming their de facto inheritance?
Not exactly noteworthy, in my ever-unhumble opinion.
~ ‘indigo’
You look ahead and wonder if there is a what if that can make Pacifica/WBAI matter again.
DeleteI think that is a very important point to consider—is there even a possibility that positive action could succeed in any significant measure?
My take is this:
DeleteWBAI/Pacifica mattered because of the original foundational principles. I say that not because they were secular-sacred and presented by the Great Spaghetti-God Monster on stone tablets, but because they represented a dedication and a commitment, however human and imperfect, to a rich mix of programming in a variety of areas, presented by some intelligent, insightful, thoughtful, creative, and skillful talent with a commitment to that bundle of ideals.
There were conflicts, clashes, and shortcomings, and the occasional just-plain fuckup, failure, and betrayal, but the ideals were worthy, and they held the center, however imperfectly.
In time that center failed to hold, for a variety of reasons, and by my estimation in the late 1970s they were completely abandoned and in many ways simply betrayed.
The ‘commitment’ since then, has been to leftist political advocacy. In my judgement it would have been every bit as bad if it were to right-wing political advocacy, or whatever.
To further compound the problem, with that shift in culture, the greater part of talent left – many very quickly, all within a relatively brief period.
That shattered the culture of dedication to producing ‘good radio’.
The residuum, in long extension, is what remains.
There is no meaningful ‘market’ for these people, and they are fundamentally incapable of grasping that for the simple reason that their belief system makes it impossible to grasp that possibility.
They’re simply secular true-believers, just as are their opposite-numbers on the conservative side.
Though for some reason, and I have no idea what it is, some of their opponents do in fact have talent.
So, to end this little ramble, I see no hope as to their mattering again in any meaningful or significant sense, without a total or very-nearly total replacement of existing staff and management.
I don’t see that as at all probable, though as the Great Magical Flying Spaghetti Monster Kami teaches, all things are possible.
I, however, as a skeptic, tend not to believe her.
~ ‘indigopirate’
In other words, Samori Marksman is responsible for this shit. He is, by the way DIRECTLY responsible this current mess. Hope there is a court in Hell where he can be found guilty!
DeleteSimply put, there are too many self-serving people with their pet political peeves involved in Pacifica. There's no way you're going to clear them out and replace them with better talent, who can get more attention with a simple web page or podcast. Even on the PNB meeting you have Cerene and Adriana allowed to waste so much time with nothing more to stop them than threats of muting. If anyone came to power and really tried to clear out the scum from Pacifica, you'd see tons of lawsuits flying every which way.
ReplyDeleteUntil Reimers is fired, I have little faith anything will change.
Pacifica won't have any meaning again because the left wing has bypassed them already. The left doesn't care about some radio station when it has the world wide web to play with, post on, get into flame wars on, etc. Also, the left has surpassed Pacifica in its sheer lunacy. You really think younger people want to sit there listening to a boring radio station that they can't scroll through?
I think Pacifica will float on for a while, like a piece of driftwood, but nothing more.
SDL
When she briefly stepped into the light, I caught a glimpse of the fat lady who has been standing in the wings for such a long time.
DeleteIt was Madame Tussaud!
Good. She can keep Pacifica alive in a wax museum.
DeleteSDL