The Pacifica National Board Programming Committee was scheduled to have a meeting this evening, 29 August.
They literally haven’t bothered to meet in months, and so the meeting was to be a ‘Get to know one another’ session, not planning on attempting any meaningful or substantive discussion.
It never happened, at least a stream of this putative ‘Get to Know One Another’ never appeared. Perhaps, in time, an archived audio will appear. Perhaps it won’t.
Pacifica abandoned and betrayed its original founding principles decades ago, choosing instead to address terribly terribly terribly important social and political issues.
Has it actually done so?
Nope.
The claim is repeated, ad infinitum, as the airwaves are now largely abandoned by previous listeners and no new listeners are drawn to what Pacifica has to offer.
What has it to offer?
Bitterness, resentment, tedium, the hustle of the few scam artists who bring in what little revenue Pacifica actually generates as its listenership fades to nothingness.
There is no interest in anything other than continuing to continue to continue to fail.
It appears that in the face of immediate financial collapse Pacifica managed to turn to iED Tom Livingston, who would appear to have done quite a good job, to the extent possible, of addressing the immediate crises by virtue of securing a bridge loan and putting competent people in charge of accounting, etc.
Note that Livingston has made clear time and time and time again that these steps, while vitally important, will not address the fundamental shortcomings of a profoundly dysfunctional Pacifica and its failure to produce programming of any interest to anyone beyond the immediate ‘listenership’, which is composed on the evidence primarily of aging hippy activists, conspiracy nuts, a few folks looking for miracle health cures, etc.
These shortcomings have been screamingly obvious for decades, as they’ve gathered force – force, that is, if a drifting away of very nearly all listeners may be termed a force.
As of this moment, so far as the public is aware, the search for a shiny, fresh, new Executive Director is in process and should be nearing the point of final decision and announcement.
Livingston is to leave his temporary position by the end of September, at the latest.
There are no signs – none – of financial or organizational reform, in any way.
There are no signs – none – of any plans to improve programming, or even to define what such improvement might mean, or look like, or sound like.
None.
Their financial house saved for the moment by a bridge loan they have no means to repay, they are content to discuss discussing discussing things.
Until, one supposes, the shitstorm once again descends upon them.
Ah… the progressive left which is Pacifica… a wondrous thing, indeed.
~ ‘indigopirate’
Thank you Indigo for your informative and playful comment.
ReplyDeleteA delight--like all your missives.
However, as a member of the "Progressive Left" I object to your applying this label to Pacifica.
To quote Isaac Asimov,
—There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
"Cult of Ignorance"--that would be my choice for a label for WBAI and most of Pacifica, run by a group of cretins who actually believe that their ignorance is as good as anyone's knowledge.
Simply to compare perspectives a bit. I make no claim to insight or authority:
DeleteI share most of the claimed goals of the ‘left’ and ‘progressives’. Perhaps that’s the reason I’m so critical of their failures of personality and organization.
Pacifica is particularly bad in this respect, in my observation and my judgement, and they proclaim themselves at various times to speak for the left (though that term is mostly avoided now, for some time) and to represent ‘progressive’ goals and perspectives.
That’s the rubric, that’s the ‘dedication’, that’s the ‘mission’ for which they long ago abandoned and betrayed the origianl broad-based foundational goals.
Personally, I can’t think of anything much less progressive than Pacifica and Pacificans.
That’s my quick take, anyway, for whatever it’s worth.
~ ‘indigo’