KPFA has a fleetin' meetin'...

Once again, we have a meeting of the mindless and the hapless, but this time it comes from what once was Pacifica's wellspring, KPFA. Needless to say, it has run dry. In terms of accomplishments, there is no difference between this LSB and the ones in the hinterlands (including NYC), but where we have cronies pacing with sledgehammers and pulling chairs from under fellow members, these West Coasters do their coasting with a song. That's right, this faction show yearns for a runway, bursts into song, listens to a politically oriented motion, hates it, and adjourns with whoops and hollers. These people are minimalists who sing, dance, and get off the pot (porcelain, that is).

Indigopirate submitted this and, as always, he takes aim and hits his mark:

KPFA Local Station Board December 12, 2015

Summary of Points of General Interest

In a world in love with bullets… look – bullets!

[Exciting, isn’t it? – Bullets as substitutes for thought, prioritization, strategy – just like conducting a war in Iraq or Afghanistan or the South China Sea with Powerpoint presentations!]

Let there be bullets…

The network showed a ‘miniscule’ surplus for the year ending 30 September, but that’s largely the result of the nearly $1,000,000 bequest.

Pretty much everywhere but at KPFA, fund-raising totals are dropping – steepest in New York [WBAI], and to a lesser degree at all other stations.

That drop is a long-term trend ‘That I don’t think anyone has a special plan for reversing.’

‘There might be some money… we haven’t been aware… I can’t go into detail…’ and further vague references are made to mortgages and hope is expressed that with a CFO in place he/she may help.

There has been no forward movement as yet with respect to an Executive Director hire.

The other four stations [other than KPFA] are declining… conversely, we have a manager here [KPFA] who has clearly shown a turnaround is possible. Other stations should learn from those lessons – ‘how they can learn from KPFA how to run a radio station, and a network’.

There is a statement with respect to factionalism and the accompanying assertion that ‘working behind the scenes to help bankrupt other stations’ isn’t helpful.

Some people express doubts as to whether or not KPFA’s finances and overall condition are as positive as claimed.

~ ‘indigopirate’

It's all here

PNB Affiliates Task Force: Points of disorder..

Sometimes "Democracy" just doesn't work. To prove that assertion, I point to Pacifica... no, not Lew Hill's Pacifica but the so-called "New Pacifica". You know the one I'm talking about—the one that puts stupidity over substance and seamlessly obliterates the line separating insight and idiocy. 

Last night, the Pacifica National Board's Affiliates Task Force gave a dramatic performance as it assembled via telephonic hookup to, presumably, fine-tune its role in the melodrama called "Pacifica". Our keen observer, 'Indigopirate', lent his ears to the stream and, when it became a babbling brook, gave it a dash of Monty Python, but only a dash—you will have difficulty distinguishing between the two ingredients.  —CA

As the fine minds and talents that are Pacifica face their greatest and their final challenges absent super-hero or angelic-foundation-contribution intervention, they’ve begun to work in harmony in valiant defense of their embattered and endangered ideals.

– Okay, so I’m fucking with you.

They, however, are as is their custom busily fucking with one another to no discernible or credible ends – but, hey, that’s them. It’s their identity. It’s all, in the end, that they have. So... this particular clip seems to have been beset by playful if not malicious spirits, which seems a suitable commentary. It speaks, in plain words, for itself, and for them.

~'indigopirate'

December Financial Report: Is WBAI the talking dead...

As years of Berthold Reimers' lies and fabricated optimism continue to unravel, it may well be reaching a point where even the likeminded majority on the Pacifica Board no longer can look the other way. Hiding behind "executive sessions," they have kept much important information from the paying public and minions in the field. Accountability has long since gone the way of honesty and integrity at Pacifica, a severely disfigured, morally bankrupt foundation that neither founder Lewis Hill nor any early members of the governing body would recognize or, for that matter, wish to be a part of.

Here is a downloadable PDF file of R. Paul Martin's December financial report for WBAI. It is informative and, predictably devastating. Pay good attention to what he says about the ever secretive, ever shifting and mis-reported Empire State Building deal.

Also pay attention to Gary Null's complaint regarding the station's (i.e. Reimers') mishandling of a recent fundraising event. One has to wonder why Null, poised to fire a fatal shot at Pacifica and WBAI, is getting ready to produce another event in connection with the present two-week marathon. 

Boom boom boom and it rhymes with doom...

Tuesday's Gary Null Show came on at its appointed hour, high noon, and opened with John Lee Hooker singing "Boom, Boom, Boom" followed by the usual self-indulgence and marketing, but as the hour drew to a close, there came a twist: Mr. Null went from selling to seething quicker than you can say "Berthold is a bozo."

The "engineer" on duty was Michael Haskins, Null's trusty echo and supporter during many a pitch, but I would love to have seen the face of brother Haskins when the voice that came down from the pedestal pushed the miracle powders aside to deliver an ominous message—in essence, Pacifica and WBAI have been issued an ultimatum: Change as he tells you to or he will reveal everything and shock the "audience" beyond belief! The consequences he predicts are the stuff crime novels are made of.

Poor little Haskins, here he bares his ignorance every weekday morning as he publicly tries to convince himself that he is a "community" leader, an apple from the Garvey tree, the glue that keeps WBAI from falling apart. Then Saint Null blows it all away as he threatens to hasten and give a dramatic finale to the scam that pays his salary.

At first, I attributed the exceptionally bad quality of this particular show's archive version to Haskins' richly demonstrated technical ineptitude, but now I am not so certain that the over modulation isn't an infantile protest. After all that has been said and done, WBAI—repeatedly touted as New York's only free speech station—can ill afford to engage in overt censorship.

Is your curiosity aroused? If so, you can satisfy it by hearing the tirade in toto. Granted, this is not the first time Gary Null has threatened to sic his legal team on Pacifica and its chief culprits, but he now claims to have given them a definitive deadline that—if not met—will start the ball rolling on the very next day. What you think? 

When agendas are the agenda, there is no enda.....

Pacifica and its stations were never flush with money, but they managed rather well. That is, until someone had the bright idea to introduce elections, committees, and rules.. no, not principles, for they were an important part of the Foundation, so to speak... until the rules all but wiped them out.

No, the rules didn't call for the elimination of principles, but they opened the door for a veritable invasion of incompetent opportunists, drama queens, predators and parasites who saw in Pacifica a path to self-satisfaction and eminence. In most cases, they came in with nothing but were allowed to stagnate, because the infestation soon also reached the front office. 

The result began to show in the Eighties and Nineties, but the deterioration was subtle, for Pacifica still rode slowly on the coattails of its illustrious past. Thus there continued to be traces of the intellectual content and cultural awareness that once had raised Pacifica stations above what FCC Chairman Newton Minow described as a "vast wasteland." 

Today, with station managements and the Pacifica National Board itself mired in a tangle of clashing egos and personal agendas, the decay has accelerated to a point where the overwhelming majority of listeners have jumped ship and there is little hope for the Foundation's survival. Should it make it through this crisis, it will do so as something very different from what it is today, and that—in turn—is a dishonest, unprincipled shadow of what founder Lew Hill and his associates managed to get off the ground in 1949.

To get an idea of how rudderless Pacifica has become, our trusty observer, 'indigopirate', has submitted an audio clip of the PNB's December 3 meeting, a veritable orgy of amendments, points of order and extraneous sounds that are open for interpretation. No one has ruled out toilet flushes, but theories range from the hunger pangs of a pacing pet gorilla to disruptive grumblings from attorney Siegel's office.

The long version of this torturous telephone jam is yours for clicking on the link at the bottom, but 'indigopirate' is all merciful, so he has also supplied this brief excerpt. 

And, of course, an enticing summary:

As Pacifica sinks slowly in the West… also in the East, South… – well, everywhere, more or less at once, actually….

Let’s Just Vote On It…

‘We have two amendments on the floor… we should be talking about the first one first… the second one is not an amendment to the first one… it was a substitute… a separate motion… call it whatever you want to call it… I was on the stack… I’d like to be on the stack… are we also moving all the relevant motions… yes… I can’t hear you… I have a point of order… I don’t have to wait for the stack… per our standing rules… what are we debating, exactly… fifty minutes is not going to be enough… no, I did not… the deadline is tomorrow… there are all kinds of issues… we could extend the meeting… can I move… we have a number of bylaws deadlines… we have some pressing issues… the bylaws don’t stipulate… have you spoken to… gosh… where are we… point of order… have you ruled… no it wasn’t… there are now like three motions… nobody made a motion… we have to decide what to do… so we’re back to… can you hear me… there’s a stack… I have a point of information… i’m so confused… the point I want to make… that’s unrelated to this motion… let me say this… if I may motivate… the point is… we all have priorities here… I totally support… how many motions do we have on the floor… I’ve lost track… can I amend… if the motion… I object to that… point of information… the closed session… hello, can anyone hear me… point of order… it totally negates my motion… there are three motions under that item… point of information… point of order… point of order… point of order…. oh my god… ‘  ~'indigopirate'

And here, for the super curious, is the full meeting.