A few weeks ago, I posted a diary on the issues within the Pacifica Foundation and the need to preserve the last free media network in existance.
That call to action seems too timely now, as a cadre of sectarian "progressives" have not only violated Pacifica election rules, but have done so during a major fundraising event, and with the apparent blessings of both the Local and National Pacifica Election Supervisors.
The worst of this is that it is happening at KPFA-FM in Berkeley, the first public radio station in the United States, and in the self-proclaimed "free speech zone" of America.
More after the fold...
The Pacifica elections are held to determine the composition of the five Local Station Boards, and from each, the members are elected to the National Pacifica Board of Directors. These elections are signficant to Pacifica, as they are the result on an evolutionary battle that transformed the Pacifica Network from a "good ol' boys" network to one answerable to members through election.
As pointed out previously, WBAI-FM in New York has been taken over by a cadre of sectarian "progressives", people who claim to be progressive but push forward an agenda that is both exclusive of and detrimental to the community that the license is supposed to serve. This has become so severe that fundraising for WBAI takes nearly 30% of all air time, or 120 days; the network average without WBAI is only 33 days.
It was particularly unusual to see on opening one's ballot for KPFA in Berkeley that seven candidates chose to make slanderous and non-factual statements, quotations taken wholly out of context and without any framing whatsoever, divide it into seven parts and spread it across their 'candidate statements', directing which candidate to next go read.
It was disturbingly unusual to see that these statements had been published with the approval of both the KPFA Local Election Supervisor and the Pacifica National Election Supervisor.
What was off the chart was that these statements are in direct violation of Pacifica's own campaign rules:
5. No candidate may use Foundation or radio station resources to publicly attack another candidate, station staff or management, or the Foundation.
Clearly, the text, tone and content of these seven statements is not a matter of interpretation; in one point, it is clearly stated that an intercepted private e-mail is the source of some of this information, along with other less savoury comments, smears and attacks against any that these seven have perceived as 'enemies' in some form or another.
And given the preamble to the Pacifica campaign rules:
The Pacifica Foundation Bylaws require that every candidate for Delegate sign this statement indicating that they have read and understood these fair campaign provisions for the 2007 Local Station Board elections.
Any candidate who does not sign and abide by these provisions may be sanctioned by the National Elections Supervisor up to and including being removed from the ballot or otherwise having his or her candidacy voided.
The problem would seem to be resolved, then, by having a complaint filed to the Pacifica National Elections Supervisor.
However, no complaint should have had to have been filed; the language and outright violations should have been spotted and acted upon by the Local Election Supervisor, and then by the National Election Supervisor, before any of the ballots and statements went to press.
24,000 ballots and statements were mailed last week, unedited, unverified and unsupervised.
Nearly $70,000 in listener subscriber cash.
Money from people like you and I, sent to keep KPFA and Pacifica operating.
Out of the 24 candidates running, 7 were able to make relentless and non-factual accusations, insults and smears while the remaining 17 candidates obeyed the letter of the campaign rules, speaking to their goals, aims and wishes for accomplishment...and unable to defend themselves.
Furthermore, in recorded "Candidate Forums", these same people have been using the station airwaves to further their violations and promote their campaign of misrepresentation against all other candidates not deemed to be ideologically pure.
And, on top of all this, these actions are being taken during a KPFA Fund Drive, when it is the fiduciary interest of every member, candidate or not, to do whatever they can to help the station reach its fundraising goal.
The last time the sectarian "progressives" acted was only a few months ago, and KPFA failed to meet fundraising goals for the first time since the station was locked down in 1999.
This is not a simple matter of a 'slap on the hand' and 'do not do it again'.
This is what is called a "ratfuck". You may recall Donald Segretti using the term during the Watergate debacle.
This is the level of dirty tricks and swift-boating that these sectarian "progressives" foment, dividing the Left when it should be uniting against common cause.
This is a need to remove these seven candidates who, by their own actions, have shown that they have no interest in protecting either the Pacifica Foundation nor KPFA from liability should the targets of their false accusations choose to sue.
This is an action that will cost KPFA fundraising potential, is designed to divide the audience to their sectarian views, and has already shown to be as effective in countering fundraising as we have already seen at WBAI in New York.
These campaign violators are:
*Richard Phelps
*Mara Rivera
*Bob English
*Dave Heller
*Gerald Sanders
*Atilla Nagy
*Stan Woods
In order for each to run, each candidate had to sign the Pacifica Fair Campaign Provisions, from which Item 5 above was taken, and is signed with this statement:
"I have read and understood the above Pacifica 2007 Fair Campaign Provisions."
Please contact both the Pacifica National Elections Supervisor, Casey Peters [corrected], and the KPFA Local Elections Supervisor, JaNay Jenkins, to demand that action be taken to remove these seven candidates from election.
Please also demand an explanation from the Pacifica National Board as to how these statements, in violation of campaign rules, were allowed to be published without any overview whatsoever.
Help save Pacifica, America's last public radio network!
UPDATE: 3:15PM 10/21/2007:
Pacifica National Elections Supervisor, Casey Peters has begun to respond to several complaints. However, he seems to be inserting new language, demanding that the complainants prove that the attacks are false or fabrication.
This flies in direct violation of the Pacifica Campaign Rules which are an absolute ban on attacks of any kind:
5. No candidate may use Foundation or radio station resources to publicly attack another candidate, station staff or management, or the Foundation.
Peters' defense is that he had no time to review the statements before printing and mailing; however, each of the five stations also has an Election Supervisor that should have also been monitoring this. It is also troubling that the statements of the candidates have not yet been placed on the KPFA or Pacifica web sites, which suggests that this lack may be due to the content of the statements being objectionable to the webmasters.