tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486287910626602438.post7355648963851883399..comments2023-09-08T12:08:39.523-04:00Comments on WBAI: The Null Game?Chris Albertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12056345320709233401noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486287910626602438.post-80130394987132344062017-07-07T22:45:40.424-04:002017-07-07T22:45:40.424-04:00Post, etc. may have diverted WBAI from its origina...Post, etc. may have diverted WBAI from its original purpose. I wasn't listening then as I was just a few years old. Samori, however, was the person who installed the ideological focus that has existed since the 1980s, and wrecked WBAI.<br /><br />I think we also need to ask what Pacifica was doing in the 1980s that they let WBAI get away with this gear shift.<br /><br />SDLAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486287910626602438.post-80592267568318425292017-07-07T16:25:26.716-04:002017-07-07T16:25:26.716-04:00Once I called KPFK when they had a "listener ...Once I called KPFK when they had a "listener call in forum", and complained about Ian Masters constantly trashing Pacifica on-air. The GM and PD both laughed at me. It was kind of like the pain in the ass racist uncle that everyone hates who keeps showing up at family dinners and won't shut up. Oh, well you know how HE is. And so on.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486287910626602438.post-46118125550889202662017-07-07T16:02:22.749-04:002017-07-07T16:02:22.749-04:00The seed was planted by Steve Post, Larry Josephso...The seed was planted by Steve Post, Larry Josephson and Frank Milspaugh back in the very late Sixties. Post and Josephson allowed their egos and mescaline-head Millspaugh's to distance them from the Pacifica principles, laying the groundwork for a variety of paths that led to Marksman, and beyond. So gradual was this shift that few people noticed, but listeners started dropping out. Every step in the wrong direction gave the previous one a good-old-days veneer, but it was a steady one way road to the wasteland FCC Commissioner Newt Minow saw decades earlier when he described commercial broadcasting.<br /><br />Marksman was, I believe, responsible for the move that narrowed multi-cultural community radio to a narrow-casting WBAI that all but ignored 99% of the New York area audience—he made some effort to at least maintain quality, but he left in his wake a stream of misguided opportunists who placed personal benefits above WBAI;s growth and welfare.<br /><br />So, I agree that Samori Marksman probably had an enormous negative influence on WBAI's current path and decline, but the torch he grabbed had been in the wrong hands since the late Sixties-early Seventies.Chris Albertsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12056345320709233401noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486287910626602438.post-4628442757332200682017-07-07T15:54:22.812-04:002017-07-07T15:54:22.812-04:00I agree - I am glad people are realizing what a de...I agree - I am glad people are realizing what a destructive force Samori was - he was an evil force, according to Andrew Phillips.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486287910626602438.post-14550058056028803612017-07-07T12:54:43.762-04:002017-07-07T12:54:43.762-04:00Simple. A few seeds like Bernard White were there ...Simple. A few seeds like Bernard White were there when Samori Marxman became PD. it was he who opened the floodgates for these people to bring in their friends. After that, a snowball effect occurred. Older people would leave or be fired, while the new people brought in were the current scum type of idiots.<br /><br />I still say Samori was the big change in what was to what is.<br /><br />SDLAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486287910626602438.post-68683994489299360602017-07-07T10:05:01.634-04:002017-07-07T10:05:01.634-04:00Its not that difficult to understand. You can go t...Its not that difficult to understand. You can go through the process of getting a FCC license and organizing a station or you can go to an existing radio network with five licenses. Its about gaining and keeping control. KPFA wants to secede because its 'their' station. Why should they support these other stations? KPFK will have programming in Spanish on weeknights whether or not it raises money and has listeners. <br />WBAI signs a bad contract, unilaterally breaks it and is shocked when they're sued. <br />Its politics. The main difference here is that no one will compromise at all. Why should they compromise? 'They' are right and if you disagree, you're racist, sexist elitist corrupt.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486287910626602438.post-56759600520298276162017-07-07T06:27:52.734-04:002017-07-07T06:27:52.734-04:00The operative question, I think, though it’s long ...The operative question, I think, though it’s long academic at this point, is how that came to be the case – how, over time, they came to be such a collection of people, overwhelmingly bitter and talentless, consumed principally with hate, self-loathing, and various forms of madness.<br /><br />It wasn’t, after all, always the case, by any means.<br /><br />All human enterprise is of course flawed, even deeply flawed, yet the original foundational ideals and mangement, however human and imperfect, proved valuable and at times invaluable for some years.<br /><br />Then, by degrees, it went to shit and then, in time, ultimately, to this particular wretchedness.<br /><br />Failure and decay are interesting phenomena. One may hope to learn from them, at least in theory.<br /><br />Perhaps it’s the study of accidents in both principal senses of that word ;)<br /><br />~ ‘indigopirate’Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486287910626602438.post-40268931023160461472017-07-07T04:08:00.441-04:002017-07-07T04:08:00.441-04:00What do you expect from a pack of losers whose liv...What do you expect from a pack of losers whose lives are wrapped up in having a radio show r, at least, some power?<br /><br />SDLAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com