Month: September 2024

“At a labor conference on Fascism, Democracy, and a workers party, CUNY AFT PSC professor Johanna Fernandez gave a presentation on the roots of fascism and the US working class. This presentation was made on September 7, 2024 in Los Angeles at the conference initiated by Roofers Local 36.

“Production of Labor Video Project www.labormedia.net” —quotation from video description.

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“A workers meeting of labor and the community is being organized in Los Angeles on the issue of fascism, democracy and a workers party. Cliff Smith who is the business manager of Roofers Local 36 in Los Angeles has initiated a day long meeting in Los Angeles on September 7 on the issue of fascism, democracy and the formation of a workers party.

“Cliff Smith who is the Business Manager of Roofers Local 36 in Los Angeles with the support of his local has called for a labor community conference on Fascism, Democracy and a Workers Party.

“He spoke with Steve Zeltzer of WorkWeek about this meeting in Los Angeles on September 7, 2024 and why labor and working people need to get educated and organized to prepare for a fascist movement and another possible insurrection and coup attempt.

“He also discussed the bi-partisan support for trillions of dollars for wars abroad and the continuing US supported Israeli genocide in Gaza and the recent Zionist Fascist attacks on a UCLA peaceful encampment for Palestine. […]”

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“920 S. Alvarado St., Los Angeles, CA 90006-3008

“Event by Roofers Union Local 36, Elect Cliff Smith to L.A. City Council District 8, and five others. […]”

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The presentation on fascism by Prof. Johanna Fernandez in the video above from the 2024 Los Angeles Roofers Local 36 Conference is the type of excellent presentation, which would have been featured on the original KPFA. The KPFA I knew in the 1980s and ’90s has been increasingly morphed into an NPR-ized version of itself by those, who disagree with keeping KPFA true to its antiwar and social justice activism mission. This NPR-ized version of KPFA—manifested by Democrat-Party-apologist liberals on KPFA (e.g., Mitch Jeserich, Philip Maldari, Brian Edwards-Tiekert, et al.) and supported by their proxies (i.e., “KPFA Protectors”, et al.) on the KPFA Local Station Board—filters compelling perspectives out of KPFA’s airwaves, such as those of Prof. Johanna Fernandez, as much as they can, whilst maintaining a façade of authentic, honest, grassroots, radical (i.e., going to the root causes of social ills), community radio.

KPFA listeners used to regularly hear compelling, radical, provocative, inspiring, and politically mobilizing speeches and talks from people like Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti, Ralph Nader, Arundhati Roy, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Pam Africa, Utah Phillips, Howard Zinn, John Trudell, and others. With radical voices like those regularly on the air, KPFA listeners could not be so easily fooled or seduced by the “lesser of two evils“. KPFA listeners had a more sophisticated grasp of just how rigged our political system has been, how important political alternatives are, and how important political reform is to realizing the will of the people. As KPFA’s editorial direction increasingly drifted towards the political center, becoming duller, many of those listeners turned away from KPFA.

So, KPFA has lost tens of thousands of listener-members, as it has largely lost its edge whilst pandering to the political center, a center which perpetually shifts rightward in the absence of any meaningful leftist counterbalance to rightist extremism. Granted, many of the above luminaries, like Michael Parenti or Utah Phillips, are retired from the public eye or are no longer with us. But there are many new radical and cogent voices, such as Prof. Johanna Fernandez, Max Blumenthal, Aaron Maté, Omali Yeshitela, Scott Ritter, Chris Hedges, Ben Norton, Esther Iverem, et al. who deserve to populate the KPFA airwaves. Instead, we mostly get a lot of Democrat Party apologism and establishment punditry/sophistry from KPFA programmers, like Mitch Jeserich, Brian Edwards-Tiekert, Philip Maldari, Kris Welch, et al.

I was looking for some good radio to listen to this morning (11 SEP 2024) during the 4am timeslot, as I got myself ready for the work day. But KPFA disappointed me with hours of electronic music, which I find uninteresting. Don’t get me wrong. I love electronic music, along with many other genres, from classic jazz to metal to classical to hip hop to Americana to mariachi, and many other genres in between. But this was a waste of KPFA airtime, in my opinion, especially when the state of the world (locally, regionally, nationally, globally) continues to worsen. And good, honest, compelling, critical news and information is so scarce these days, even on free speech radio KPFA, which increasingly sounds as mealy-mouthed and middle-of-the-road as NPR or PBS.

So, I turned to YouTube and found this excellent presentation on fascism today in the USA by Prof. Johanna Fernandez, which reminded me of the KPFA I grew up with in the 1980s and 1990s, even in the early 2000s. The issue of burgeoning fascism and totalitarianism is an important issue, which is underreported. Recall the important book by Prof. Sheldon S. Wolin, Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism, with an Introduction by Chris Hedges. These types of descriptions and analyses communicate a more honest portrait of our nation and the world, which listeners used to be educated about on KPFA. These are the types of voices listeners deserve to hear on KPFA’s airwaves, voices not commonly heard elsewhere, yet which challenge conventional thinking.

Prof. Johanna Fernandez, speaking in the video above from the 2024 Roofers Local 36 Conference (c. 27min 29sec): “In the 1930s, there was a [Great Economic] Depression. And, ironically, fascism emerges in Europe. But it doesn’t emerge in the United States. Why doesn’t it emerge in the United States? It doesn’t emerge in the United States because there was an organized, coordinated, revolutionary union movement, that explained to the workers: The problem is not the Mexicans and the blacks and the immigrants. The problem is our rulers and the captains of industry, who will do anything to take home profits, even if it costs us our lives.

“And the most epic union movement was built, that averted fascism in this country. The only thing, that will avert the re-emergence of fascism or its threat is a working-class movement, that teaches the working class—the white working class—the root causes of their betrayal. And that cannot happen within the Democratic Party.

“If you think about what has happened in this country over the last 50 years, union halls are empty in the middle of fucking-nowhere-America, where they’re most needed. Before the 1980s and ’90s, white people probably had backward ideas. But they went to the union meeting; they talked to their guys; and they got a different understanding of the world. That doesn’t exist anymore. So, it is our responsibility to actually rebuild the movement of workers, a union movement, and a workers party, that will explain the deep crisis and despair that white Americans are experiencing, but that we are experiencing, too, and that the entire world is living through.”

Prof. Johanna Fernandez said, “The only thing, that will avert the re-emergence of fascism or its threat is a working-class movement, that teaches the working class—the white working class—the root causes of their betrayal.” She was speaking about the working class, particularly the white working class, having been betrayed by neoliberalism, by the two-party dictatorship of collusion between the Democrat and Republican parties both facilitating corporate capitalism, shipping jobs overseas, and the deindustrialization of the nation. However, an important institution for peace and for averting fascism in the USA has been the Pacifica Radio Network, which has a duty and responsibility enshrined within its Mission Statement to educate the working class and all people about the root causes of conflicts and wars, such as the military-industrial-congressional complex. Unfortunately, the dominant editorial direction of KPFA manifested by the likes of Brian Edwards-Tiekert, Mitch Jeserich, Ian Masters, Philip Maldari, Thom Hartmann, and KPFA News Anchors Max Pringle, Scott Baba, et al. refuses to discuss root causes. Instead, they perpetuate the false left-right paradigm, which redirects listeners’ attention away from the militarism and anti-working-class agendas of the Democrat Party and focuses listeners’ attention mainly on the militarism and anti-working-class agendas of the Republican Party. This is another kind of betrayal; this is establishment apologism. This is a lack of journalistic integrity. This is a betrayal of the Pacifica Radio Network mission.

Prof. Johanna Fernandez (c. 29min 47sec): “There was deindustrialization in the United States. But there’s also deindustrialization happening now in the third world. Right? And, so, the reason why there are immigrants flooding into our cities is because capitalism has created wars and de-industrial displacement everywhere. And where else are they gonna go, but where they think they can survive?

“So, if we think that our situation in the United States is a hellscape, tell that to the Syrians and to the people from the Ukraine and to the people from Palestine and to the people coming from the Congo, who are dying en route to safe haven in Europe and America. These are people, who are literally taking a path of death out of their countries and walking hundreds and hundreds and thousands of miles to get to safety.

“So, that’s why fascism is on the rise, not just in the United States, but around the world, because capitalism is in a crisis, that it cannot contain.

“And what’s happening in Palestine, the genocide that’s happening in Palestine is a taste of what the world is up against in the future. The Palestinians are being killed because their labor is not important. They are a marginal people, disconnected to industry in the global economy. So, [capitalists] can disappear them.

“But that’s the case with people in the Congo. That’s the case with many people here in the United States. That’s why [President Nayib] Bekele in El Salvador has built a prison of 40,000 people. But that large-scale prison was first built in the United States. And, now, it’s being exported all over the world, [including] in India.

“So, this is what the ruling class has in store for us. And what we need to do is wake up to the magnitude of the crisis that’s going to destroy and devastate humanity on a scale unseen. And we’ve not even talked about the environment. […]

“On this question of internationalism, part of what you’re saying and illustrating is the profound creativity and knowledge and skill of workers around the world, regardless of nation. And that’s, ultimately, what we need to amplify, rather than our nationality.”

It’s truly a shame that KPFA did not inform its listeners about this inspiring event, the 2024 Roofers Local 36 Conference in Los Angeles. An event like this used to be part of the DNA, part of the heart and soul of free speech radio KPFA. At one point, journalist and political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal called in from prison to the event during Prof. Johanna Fernandez’s presentation and spoke in solidarity with the “objectives of this meeting”, referring to the Conference. As Mumia said, the conference was “remarkable” and “timely” “because [of] the choices before us. The choices represented by the two major political parties—the Democrats and the Republicans—are really choices between neoliberalism and neofascism”, “which is really the same thing. And those are not choices for working people because what both parties and the neoconservative and neoliberal movements present [prison telephone message interruption] is the sale of their party to the highest bidder. To suggest that the corporate elites, the wealthy, the super-wealthy are in control of these parties is but to state the obvious. The only thing they don’t control is independent workers, who gather together to defend their class interests and the interests not just of their people but of all people, of the common people of the world. That can be done. But it must be a conscious effort by people who want to see social transformation […]”

This is an example of a living community embodiment of the spirit of the Pacifica Mission Statement, which is filtered out of free speech KPFA by the dominant editorial patronage clique represented by the “KPFA Protectors” proxies on the KPFA Local Station Board.

I did a quick search for Prof. Johanna Fernandez on KPFA.org and there were only a few entries from years ago, circa 2016-2020. Why is Prof. Johanna Fernandez not featured more often on KPFA?

These issues inform my participation as a 2024 KPFA Local Station Board candidate. I am honored to have been nominated as a listener candidate. And I understand that not every one in the Rescue Pacifica organization will agree with everything I have to say. But I trust defenders of free speech will defend my right to exercise my First Amendment-protected right to free speech, whether they agree with me or not. The best antidote to bad speech is more good free speech, rather than censorship.

—Felipe “Phil” Messina, 2024 KPFA Local Station Board (LSB) Candidate

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NB: The views and opinions expressed in the above commentary do not necessarily reflect the views of the Rescue Pacifica organization or other Rescue Pacifica LSB members or candidates.

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This post was last edited/modified on 11 SEP 2024 at 20:15 PDT.

Quotation from the “About This Blog” page for Pacifica In Exile:

“Pacifica in Exile is a documentation archive of the Pacifica Radio Foundation, the nation’s first listener-sponsored noncommercial radio stations and the only national media network that is not in corporate or government hands. Pacifica In Exile relies on multiple sources inside and out of Pacifica governance and staff, as well as the engaged membership community to bring you regular updates about foundation business and shine a light on problems that are putting the survival of the network in doubt.”

The quotations from Pacifica In Exile above and below were accessed on September 1, 2024, https://pacificainexile.org/ .

Pacifica In Exile is an important resource for everyone, who cares about free speech, free speech media, free speech radio, and, especially, the Pacifica Radio Network. If you care about Pacifica Radio, then you will appreciate this valuable resource.

There are two basic areas of concern regarding the Pacifica Radio Network.

One area of concern is the on-air programming. If the programming is shifted away from the original spirit of community radio, which champions grassroots peace, freedom, and justice perspectives not heard elsewhere, that is a problem. If the Pacifica Radio Network is transformed into another NPR with a façade of leftism and progressivism, that is a problem. Evaluating programming involves exercising our critical media literacy. Historically, the Pacifica Radio Network has been treasured as a haven for progressivism and perspectives not heard elsewhere on terrestrial radio. The airwaves belong to the people. Yet, corporations have captured almost all of the airwaves, except for the frequencies held by Pacifica. And NPR, PBS, et al. do not provide meaningful war resistance programming nor any meaningful resistance to the establishment status quo, as KPFA and the Pacifica Radio network set out to do in 1949. Whether or not KPFA and the Pacifica Radio Network becomes completely corporatized depends on the magnitude and character of participation from listener-members.

Another area of concern is the behind-the-scenes dynamics. While listeners, such as myself, have a lot to say about the on-air programming. Pacifica In Exile is important for understanding the behind-the-scenes dynamics. One perspective behind the scenes (e.g., KPFA Protectors, New Day Pacifica, Pacifica Safety Net, et al) prefers keeping listeners in the dark, avoiding required Town Hall meetings, avoiding monthly Managers Report to the Listeners broadcasts, making unilateral programming decisions without listener-member input (e.g., removing WorkWeek Radio with Steve Zeltzer, the only labor program on KPFA; airing nine hours per week of Background Briefing with Ian Masters, a program which engages in apologism for the status quo militarism of Democrat Party politics and policies), breaking up the Pacifica Radio Network, and so forth. Another perspective behind the scenes (e.g., Rescue Pacifica, Pacifica Fightback, et al) prefers keeping listeners informed about Pacifica governance matters; prefers democratic governance of Pacifica and shared decision making among station workers and the community; restoring a democratic Program Council to make programming decisions; staying true to the original Pacifica Foundation Mission statement; maintaining the Pacifica Radio Network intact; and so forth.

You don’t have to take my word for it. View or listen to the KPFA Local Station Board (LSB) meetings for yourself, past and future. For example, look at the video for the KPFA LSB meeting from March 16, 2024 and decide for yourself. (The video segment of the meeting begins at 5min 33sec.) The video captures the actual debate and vote during the LSB meeting during which the “KPFA Protectors” voted down an LSB resolution to support a cease fire in Gaza. Similarly, the Berkeley City Council has been opposing a resolution calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. (The public can also access audio archives of LSB meetings at KPFTX.org.) This is the state of the progressive left, the state of what used to be a beacon for peace and progressivism in the United States. Where once there was a spirit of peace and emphatic support for peace, freedom, and justice, there is now staunch defense of the status quo, a status quo of corporatized political parties and support for “humanitarian interventions”, which result in genocide.

The more one observes the dynamics behind the scenes, exemplified by the March 16, 2024 LSB meeting, the more obvious it becomes to the observer that the perspective dominating KPFA and the Pacifica Radio Network (displayed by the likes of KPFA Protectors, New Day Pacifica, Pacifica Safety Net, et al) is one, which is inimical and antithetical to the original vision for KPFA/Pacifica envisioned by its founder Louis “Lew” Hill. As John Whiting wrote in his 1999 review of Matthew Lasar’s book, Pacifica Radio: The Rise of an Alternative Network:

“Because of constant penury, KPFA’s survival depended on a preponderance of volunteer labour, even on the air. Except for staff members, no programme participants or producers were paid, and so the airwaves were effectively open to whatever individuals and special interest groups could summon up the time and energy to occupy them. It was Hill’s intention that these factions would settle their differences and reach an accommodation by engaging in dialogue, thus setting an example for the whole human race; but in practice it gradually resulted in a Balkanisation [how that word has gained a new currency!] which in the 70s would erupt into internecine warfare. Thereafter one’s slot in the broadcast schedule would be ring-fenced and defended with ethnic bellicosity.”

Dialogue is a commonsense solution to disagreement and controversy, especially dialogos, in good faith and good will. This was the spirit in which I basically pleaded with my opponents during the 2024 KPFA Local Station Board Election On-Air Forum I participated in, encouraging the opponents of Rescue Pacifica to organize in-person public candidate forums in which we could engage in dialogue to understand each other and increase listener participation. But the opponents of Rescue Pacifica have refused to engage in meaningful dialogue and, thus, have refused to honor the original spirit of KPFA/Pacifica envisioned by Lewis Hill. They refuse to set “an example for the whole human race”, as the John Whiting quote above suggests, to set an example of civil, transparent, commitment to peace, freedom, and justice. The limited, circumscribed questions, the limited 90-second candidate responses, the limited 90-second questions from listeners, the lack of opportunities for rebuttals, and other issues conspired to render the 2024 KPFA LSB Election On-Air Forums rather useless for achieving any meaningful understanding between the two slates, or two communities, of candidates.

I am in community—in common unity—with the Rescue Pacifica community because we share similar values and principles. I know this is true for most, if not all, members of the Rescue Pacifica community.

I am not in community—in common unity—with the community opposed to Rescue Pacifica (i.e., KPFA Protectors, New Day Pacifica, Pacifica Safety Net, et al) because I do not share their values or principles for programming (i.e., a travesty of the original KPFA/Pacifica radio) nor for top-down governance of Pacifica by self-selecting boards. (A more detailed criticism of the programming imposed and supported by KPFA Protectors, et al. is documented elsewhere and will be expanded continually.)

It’s important for the opposing communities interested in KPFA and the Pacifica Radio Network to understand one another and to do so through public dialogue or dialogos. In this way, listeners can be well-informed about the true nature of the ongoing struggle for the heart and soul of Pacifica. However, it has been my personal experience and the experience of others I know that KPFA Protectors, et al are unwilling to engage in meaningful, public dialogue nor in private, for that matter. The broader Pacifica Radio Network community is only harmed by deceptions and self-deceptions. So, we must shine light in communion with one another to find the common ground and the irreconcilable differences.

I am willing to debate any opponent of Rescue Pacifica publicly in a real debate without the limiting constraints of the On-Air Forums, as I’m sure many other members and supporters of Rescue Pacifica are willing to do. But I know those, who disagree with Rescue Pacifica, have an indefensible position. And the radio programming they support and defend would be opposed by Lewis Hill as a travesty of Pacifica Radio.

John Whiting: “KPFA was founded by conscientious objectors as part of a larger project to promote pacifism. An internal memo written in 1948, whose style and content identify Lewis Hill as the probable author, began as follows:

“This project was begun as an attempt to carry a radical war resistance program into a mass medium. . . . The formula conceived at the outset was that mass education for war resistance would take place in direct proportion to the radio station’s growth in stature as a source of non-ideological entertainment and artistic activity. . . . Our whole project was a war-resistance weapon and nothing else, to be used as long as its usefulness for that purpose was definite, to be sacrificed with maximum notoriety possible when it could no longer be used for that purpose.“

Free speech KPFA and the Pacifica Radio Network, built over decades by grassroots community groups and individuals devoted to pacifism, antiwar activism, peace, freedom, and justice greatly contributed to the evolution of the character of Berkeley and the Bay Area as a mecca for progressivism. Now, KPFA and Pacifica are being turned into tools for the establishment in the absence of transparency and community inclusion. Let’s turn that around. Let’s shine a light on what’s going on.

Please read the important archives at Pacifica In Exile and learn about the important issues affecting our beloved Pacifica Radio Network. Then, take informed and principled action. Join us and help us, at Rescue Pacifica, increase transparency at KPFA and throughout the Pacifica Radio Network. Help us keep the Pacifica Foundation intact. Help us strengthen democratic governance and shared decision making among station workers and the community. Help us restore a democratic Program Council to make programming decisions.

KPFA is your station. The Pacifica Radio Network is your radio network. That is, if we can keep it. As Benjamin Franklin famously responded after the Constitutional Convention on September 17, 1787 to Elizabeth Willing Powell’s question: “Well, doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” “A republic, if you can keep it,” answered Benjamin Franklin.

So, we must all do our part to get involved and shine light on the problems in order to develop solutions and help rescue Pacifica.

If you have given at least $25 to free speech KPFA between July 1, 2023 and June 30, 2024, you are eligible to vote in the 2024 KPFA Local Station Board (LSB) Election, as a voting member of KPFA. Improve KPFA with your voting power and vote for all Rescue Pacifica candidates.

Here is another quotation from the “Welcome to Pacifica In Exile” page for Pacifica In Exile:

“Pacifica in Exile is an independent publication that documents and records the activities of the Pacifica Radio Foundation, the founder of listener-sponsored noncommercial radio in the United States and the current license-holder for five public stations: KPFK in Los Angeles/Santa Barbara, WBAI in New York/New Jersey, WPFW in Washington DC, KPFT in Houston and KPFA in Berkeley/Oakland/San Francisco. Pacifica also distributes programs to 200+ affiliated stations and maintains a historical audio archive.

“Pacifica in Exile tracks the democratic governance experiment that began in Pacifica Radio in 2002, when a three year rebellion by staffers and some listeners in the network’s signal areas resulted in an intervention by the California Attorney General and the replacement of the organization’s structure and board. Pacifica’s democratically elected boards are open to anyone who can convince 15 other members to sign in support of them, donate $25 a year and win a local election that uses an STV proportional voting system.

“Pacifica has been struggling to keep up with massive changes in the media landscape with its boards composed of ordinary folks and has suffered a significant decline in financial support (more than 25% since 2007), managerial and executive instability, and local and national boards that have largely deteriorated into factional turf battles for control of program slots and the hiring/firing of personnel.

“Pacifica in Exile draws upon significant hands-on experience with Pacifica, including paid and volunteer positions as well as governance experience to tell the tale starting from the board coup of March of 2014 to the current day. We include as much back-up documentation and organizational history as possible and verification of any statements included in the blog, if not provided in the text on the website, is available upon request to journalists or engaged listener-members of the radio stations.”

I, for one, do not want “factional turf battles for control of program slots and the hiring/firing of personnel,” as the passage from Pacifica In Exile above describes. I prefer to engage in reasoned dialogue with those, who disagree with Rescue Pacifica. Unfortunately, the 2024 “Protectors” candidates have refused to meet in person for candidate forums, only participating in the bare minimum of a few on-air candidate forums with 90-second responses from candidates. During the KPFA LSB Election On-Air Forum in which I participated, I urged the KPFA Protectors to organize in-person public forums open to the community to broaden our dialogue and include more community participation. Unfortunately, the Protectors have not organized any public forums for LSB Election candidates. Conversely, Rescue Pacifica has organized LSB candidate forums in the South Bay and Central Valley.

I love KPFA and Pacifica Radio. This is not about me against the world. This is about finding common ground with other people, who care about being agents for peace, for freedom, for justice.

These issues inform my participation as a 2024 KPFA Local Station Board candidate. I am honored to have been nominated as a listener candidate. And I understand that not every one in the Rescue Pacifica organization will agree with everything I have to say. But I trust defenders of free speech will defend my right to exercise my First Amendment-protected right to free speech, whether they agree with me or not. The best antidote to bad speech is more good free speech, rather than censorship.

—Felipe “Phil” Messina, 2024 KPFA Local Station Board (LSB) Candidate

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NB: The views and opinions expressed in the above commentary do not necessarily reflect the views of the Rescue Pacifica organization or other Rescue Pacifica LSB members or candidates.

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This post was last edited/modified on 7 SEP 2024 at 09:37 PDT.