From members of the Rethinking Pacifica collective:
As people across the country are sharing and contributing to the Rethinking Pacifica bylaws survey, a small group of people are have attempted to stop the communication. A motion was approved at the Aug. KPFT LSB meeting to shut down the website. Strong objections were made that the motion is censorship of the membership and an attempt to intimidate a KPFT LSB member who played a key role in initiating this effort. Former Pacifica interim Executive Director (and still a KPFT LSB member and PNB Director) Bill Crosier is actively working to fix the problems with Pacifica's governance and to do a survey to find out what Pacifica members and listeners want (as opposed to just what current board members want).
KPFT has a history of chaotic and dysfunctional meetings. It seems that the KPFT LSB majority don't want open transparent exploration of our current governance problems – perhaps because the responses may indicate the membership is unhappy with our LSBs and may want changes.
The intimidation part of the motion calls for a committee to investigate Bill Crosier, followed (probably) by a "trial" to decide what sanctions they want to levy on him for organizing to bring people together fix our broken governance. In the face of this intense opposition, Bill has said that he does not, and will not, yield tothe intimidation tactics.
Observers of the situation have noted similarities to McCarthy's "House Unamerican Activities Committee" of the 1950's.
The censorship part of the motion called for Bill Crosier to take down the Rethinking Pacifica web site (rethinkingpacifica.org) and the associated survey (goo.gl/forms/IHnH68MT5I0H8igG3), to which that web site links. Of course, the Rethinking Pacifica group (including Bill) have no intention of taking down the web site nor the survey. There is no legitimate reasons for doing so. We don't need permission from the LSB or PNB to do what we're doing. Anyone can – and many have – done similar things with websites, petitions, etc., with no repercussions, including punishment for any email addresses they might have collected in those endeavors. We MUST reform our failing governance (our boards) if Pacifica is to survive, as so many Pacifica members have been saying. Instead of bowing to the KPFT LSB’s attempted censorship, We encourage everyone reading this to check out the Rethinking Pacifica web site and also fill out the survey.
One of the comments about the survey is that so far Bill has been the only person who's identified himself as being part of the group. Intimidation, harassment, and censorship tactics, as the KPFT LSB is doing, seem to be directed at anyone on our boards willing to push for change, and are one of the reasons why people have been reluctant to step forward publicly. If you are willing to let your name be made public as supporting Rethinking Pacifica's push to reform our governance, then please reply to Bill at kpft@crosierbiomed.com and let him know.
Thanks to those of you who have provided so many positive comments about the need to reform Pacifica's governance so that we can not only survive, but grown and enhance the Pacifica mission, and to provide more news, music, public affairs, and culture that the other stations won't let you hear. To see some of the many comments and suggestions we've received so far, go to
rethinkingpacifica.org/2018/06/19/thanks-for-filling-out-survey or scroll down to the bottom of the Rethinking Pacifica web site and check out the post "Thanks for filling out our survey -and survey updates".
Please share this with other Pacifica supporters. It's posted at:
— Bill Crosier
To: KPFT LSB members voting to silence people
ReplyDeleteYou are meatheads. Dead from the neck up. Stop telling people what to do on their own time and mind your own business like finding a competent GM and getting some decent programming. Don't tell me you have decent programming because the two people who listen to you say you don't. You're arguably worse than WBAI and that is really saying something.
No free speech.
ReplyDeleteListening to BAI's coverage of the Kavanaugh hearings, the commentator is talking over the proceedings, disrespectful of the process and the listeners. Radio 101, don't talk over!
Totally agree with you. We don't need and shouldn't have that woman's biased voiceover.
DeleteWBAI's so-called "coverage" is typically absurd. Fortunately, there are live streams elsewhere, so none of us need to accept this distortion. The facts speak for themselves. so I urge that we allow them to do so.
Live event coverage can be a good cheap way to help improve the station. Take the feed and add context and analysis before and after and during any lulls in the proceedings. Get some talking heads to help out. Add in some promos for the station and its programs and you got something. If they're just going to take the feed and talk over it, what's the point?
DeleteAnother page from Pacifica's Public Dis-service Playbook. Who is in charge? Who is producing the broadcast? Waste of airwaves!
ReplyDeleteSomeone tries to encourage discussion & they're assaulted. Who are these people? What's wrong with them?
ReplyDeleteBob Gartner’s successful motion at the KPFT LSB makes these criticisms:
first the 'whereas'es' ...
1) "said website and questionnaire is [sic] derogatory of the KPFT Local Station Board, the Pacifica National Board, and its Bylaws": what possible reasoned argument can generate this conclusion?;
2) "the execution of said questionnaire, will result in the collection, assimilation, and harvest of Pacifica membership information, e.g. e mail addresses and I. P. addresses for private purposes": "harvest"? If people want to give this data to the recipient of their email that's up to them, yes?;
3) "the creation of said web site identifies NOT one individual or any involved with its creation and administration thus violating confidentiality of Pacifica Listenership [sic]" (original emphasis): "violating confidentiality" of listeners? Why would anyone write something so illogical? Any respondent to the website does so willingly, so where’s the violation?;
then the proposals ...
4) "a committee of five [...] be formed to investigate Bill Crosier and others to be found out and named": WOW! FIVE Witchfinders-General – & being Texas, no doubt a Pacifica posse will be sworn in by the LSB Chair, empowered to make those 3.30am raids;
5) most of this part of the motion is "a committee of five [...] be formed to investigate Bill Crosier and others to be found out and named, for malfeasance, for posting, and soliciting the following *(attached web site with questionnaire)* without giving prior notice to, and gaining approval from the KPFT Local Station Board or the Pacifica National Board, before making the (included in attachment) web site, posting a questionnaire derogatory of the Local and National [sic] Station Board and negative questionnaire questions, against the name and integrity of the KPFT Local Station Board, the Pacifica National Board, and the Pacifica By Laws" (original asterisks): "malfeasance" ("evil-doing", according to the dictionary – those Southern Baptists, eh?)? Giving "prior notice to, and gaining approval" of the KPFT LSB & the PNB – according to which by-law? That "derogatory" again – why, what's the evidence? "[N]egative questionnaire questions" – where are we, T'chai-nnahr, Philippines, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Rurshur?;
6) "[f]ollowing the completion of the investigation a vote of the station Board should be taken to consider a trial for those involved": oh, double, double, toil & trouble, fire burn & cauldron bubble: first an investigation (Pacifica CSI), then the trial (Judge Judy), ...; &
7) "[d]uring the interim period for the completion of this investigation, I further move that Crosier or web master should immediately be directed to suspend and remove the subject web site with its survey": vaporise the contamination, purify the net – by order of Mr Punch. ¡Comandante Roberto Gartner: presente! https://rethinkingpacifica.org/censorship-intimidation-motion-by-kpft-lsb/
1.These meatheads did not sign off on this and will not tolerate dissent even it they have to mangle grammar to do so.
Delete2.Its their list and they don't want anyone else to have it period. Right Bob Lederer?
3.That is the point. They want to know who is behind this so they can harass, doxx, torture them into submission.
4.Name and shame and also remove from the LSB.
5. translation: We're getting rid of Bill one way or another.
6. I wonder if Bill can get a Johnny Cochran type lawyer to help him out.
7. Ah. The interim steps where you silence your opponent and harass him for months before finally getting around to hear his side of the story. Classic move. Disregard Gartner. He is a meathead... dead from the neck up.
A few more points:
ReplyDeletea) what arguments, if any, did Roberto & his posse articulate?;
b) what was the vote, a narrow margin? How did the other three directors vote, Point-of-order-madam-chair Adriana, Winding-up-very-slowly-into-pompous-&-righteous-indignation DeWayne, & where-will-Pacifica-get-these-millions Joe?; &
c) oddly there are two KPFT LSB’s in the next few days, according to the Pacifica monthly calendar, neither streamed: this Saturday, & next Wednesday. Saturday’s, according to Adriana’s posting, is a “Town Hall Meeting” – could be fun, just a pity it won’t be streamed. Adriana hasn’t put up the agenda yet. Wednesday’s is a regular meeting, & the last item of ‘old business’ on the agenda (two minutes) is of interest: “BC Investigation (8/8) [Nancy, DeWayne, Rick, Wesley, Alán Alán]: Nancy convene meeting”. So ‘Bill Crosier’, business from August 8, Nancy Saibara-Naritomi, director DeWayne Lark, Rick Pothoff, Wesley Bethune, & Alán Alán Apurim. Ah, the Witchfinders-General! (This being Pacifica they all have the highest rank possible.) This hadn’t been an item on the 8 August agenda, so it must have come up under ‘new business’. Even more oddly this meeting has an “archive soon” for the audio – whereas all of the previous LSB’s this year, *all eight of them*, had audio! Those Pacifica information gatekeepers again, the default secrecy culture? The Wednesday meeting starts with 30 mins. of public comment, so the fun may continue. https://kpftx.org/pacalendar/index.php, & https://kpftx.org/archives/pnb/kpft/180912/kpft180912_5647_agenda.pdf
Thank you, Jara Handala :)
DeleteJust a quick thought, to share and compare perspectives: In a way, it’s not too surprising that fifth-rate self-defined ‘advocates’ are inclined to turn on one another in a small-scale attempt at the sort of thing favored by authoritarian regimes of all sorts, whether secular or religious, whether of the right, the left, or whatever.
There seems no other purpose to their existence, really, so far as I can see.
Which is pretty damn sad, but also appears, at least to me, to be of decades’ standing.
They don’t learn, they don’t evolve, they don’t grow, they simply cling to the lifeline of their de facto inherited assets, some very valuable radio frequencies.
This, they seem to imagine, makes them matter, makes them of some consequence, of some importance – though their lack of listenership would seem to quite clearly say otherwise.
Just a few quick thoughts, just my take of the moment, though I’m sure I’ve said it far too many times for far too long :)
~ ‘indigo’
- - - BREAKING NEWS - - - BREAKING NEWS - - - BREAKING NEWS - - - BREAKING NEWS - - -
ReplyDeleteThe Texas 5, KPFT's five Witchfinders-General, were flown by order of the President to DC on Air Force One at 5am CT this morning. They were booked into the Trump International Hotel, then immediately taken to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. The President briefed them, using a combination of some coloured pencil drawings & a scatter-gun selection of buzzwords, before personally giving them their security clearance passes & taking them to their suite of offices in the West Wing. The hunt begins.
By lunchtime (Pacifica Time) the Interim Executive Director had made two interim-executive decisions: the work of the Witchfinders-General is now being covered live by Mitch Jeserich, who fortuitously is in town covering the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, with Gloria Browne-Marshall stepping into Mitch's (sweaty) shoes. The iED is in Baltimore heaven, with Pacifica picking up royalties from the countless re-broadcasts of Mitch's inside stories; & GM Reimers is over the moon, with WBAI receiving National Office payments for as long as Gloria keeps talking over what the listeners are trying to hear. The good times just keep on rolling! Forget the FJC loan worries!
Mitch has just reported that the most eager Witchfinder-General on this exhausting day is W-G Winding-up-very-slowly-into-pompous-&-righteous-indignation DeWayne. W-G DeWayne has always wanted to control something *really* important, & this morning he got the chance to take the controls of Air Force One, even if it was only for a minute or two. Does it get any better than this? You bet: if it's W-G DeWayne who finds the Trumpanzee Traitor he gets to make his deepest wish come true. Well, that's what Agent Orange promised the Texas 5. Tremendous.
Meanwhile, back in Houston, Bill Crosier sighed with relief, shrugged his shoulders, soldiered on with his day job.
Dead on, dude. :)
Delete~ 'indigo'
In a nutshell, Jara!
DeleteOne can but try ... And last nite's marathon PNB railroaded thru a pensions trustee cttee. (Chair Nancy refusing an amendment that would have offered an alternative person to the three put forward by the gatekeepers); Humble DeWayne called iED Major Tom a racist; &, oh yes, Nancy put Point-of-order-madam-chair Adriana in the virtual straight-jacket, a.k.a. zapped by the mute button on the masterboard. Whether Adriana cried no-one could tell, but she seemed somewhat subdued when Nancy let First Secretary Koba ask her how she was voting.
DeleteAnd to add spice to the proceedings, Self-effacing DeWayne seemed to be trying to remind Chair Nancy that the Texas Democrats wanted director Bill Crosier sent into Pacifica exile, barred from the meeting. If only this energy were directed towards constructive goals. But then those like DeWayne would be flying planes all the time.
So long Major Tom. Its been real. Perhaps you can continue in some capacity with your hand-picked successor.
DeleteOmg, there's more breaking news here than at CNN or the NYT, even with the Trumpanzee rattling his cage bigly! They really know how to party down Texas way! Two hours before today’s town hall meeting involving the KPFT LSB, the station laid on not an after-party but a pre-party, to get a select group of LSB members in the municipal mood, namely the Terrifying Texas 5, the Witchfinders-General: Nancy Saibara-Naritomi, director DeWayne Lark, Rick Pothoff, Wesley Bethune, & Alán Alán Apurim.
ReplyDeleteThe Pacifica calendar gives this Ad Hoc Working Group meeting two different statuses: the archive says PNB meeting, whereas the grid calendar doesn’t bother with an affiliation (&, terrifyingly, the “Committee Members” box is empty: even here the Witchfinders-General are invisible yet observing). Nevertheless, the grid effectively says it’s a KPFT meeting because the notice was posted by Nancy S-N (31 August, updated Wednesday), the purpose being an “[i]nvestigation of actions of a member which may be detrimental to the foundation.” The grid & archive also say, “[e]xecutive session for matters concerning a board member [sic] actions which may be detrimental to the foundation. To protect the foundation from being sued.” This possibility of Pacifica being sued (by whom: those who answered the survey?!?) was *not* mentioned in the passed motion, which appears in full on the Rethinking Pacifica website. (The audio of this 8 August LSB still hasn’t been posted – unlike the other *eight* that have taken place this year.)
The grid also shows that the Terrifying Texas 5 are using the latest CSI-style technology: an audio recorder. As every intelligence agency knows – for the Witchfinders-General are Pacifica’s very own NSA, Stasi, Shin Bet, Mukhabarat, all rolled into one – the beauty of recording is not just that it intimidates but it also gives the custodian the opportunity to doctor the files, even to lose them – whoops. It’s win-win-win. https://kpftx.org/archive.php , https://kpftx.org/pacalendar/cal_show1.php?eventdate=20180908 , https://rethinkingpacifica.org/censorship-intimidation-motion-by-kpft-lsb/
Comandante Roberto’s motion has certainly got the pulse racing, engorging the veins of The Protectors of the Faith, The Protectors That Shall Not Be Seen, The Unseen Shield, The Cttee on the Present Danger, The Cttee for the Promotion of Virtue & the Prevention of Vice. The hunt continues! In fact it’s so exciting it should never stop: from permanent revolution to permanent emergency!
"Coz you're a fucking asshole!*!"
ReplyDeleteThus spake a female KPFT delegate *during* Wednesday's vote on whether to dissolve the anti-coven operation currently being conducted by the Witchfinders-General, the Terrifying Texas 5. She wasn't even reprimanded by the Chair, let alone ejected from the meeting. Such is the state of interpersonal relations at KPFT.
But this wasn’t the nadir in recent times. The other month there was a move to throw off the LSB a delegate who'd missed quite a few meetings. Much talk was made about the need for the Board to run properly, & not to deny others a chance to contribute as a delegate. Then, in passing, it was mentioned that her husband is seriously ill, perhaps with a life-threatening cancer. This was already known by all. Obviously another side of the Southern friendliness that Anita-from-NETA mentioned on Tuesday at the PNB Finance Cttee, recounting some of the hostility she has faced from accounting staff at some stations (18:42 of that audio at pacifica.org). Southern ethics are a wonder to behold. A lodestar.
Meanwhile, back at the witch-hunt . . . The voting was on a motion to rescind the decision that set in motion this absurd ‘investigation’, one made at the previous LSB meeting, 8 August. The rescission was brought (55:15) by Rick Pothoff, himself a Witchfinders-General. (Whether the others did him in before dawn is not known.) He met a retort from Ted Weisgal, stressing that to not hear the pros & the cons, before what is “a grand jury”, would be “suppression of freedom of speech”. Nice, TexasTed. Don’t think even McCarthy argued in that vein.
Bill had a minute in support of the motion but he only used a few seconds. This was bad form. He wasn’t taking things seriously at all. I was surprised no-one raised a point of order demanding that the Chair expel him from the meeting for bringing into disrepute the body, KPFT, Pacifica, Apple Pie, & world civilisation. I guess everyone knew how the vote would go, & didn’t want a scene.
The motion failed: 5 yes – 9 no – 5(?) abstain. There was no roll-call. Then the body, trailing slime from a snail, seamlessly moved on to the next item.
The audio of the 8 August meeting still hasn't been posted – the anomaly amongst the 10 held this year. Maybe someone eat it – so, with this being the KPFT LSB, perhaps someone stuck it up their ass.
https://kpftx.org/archives/pnb/kpft/180912/kpft180912c.mp3