Rich Stone, KPFA listener for 25 years, former Community Advisory Board member (2015-2018), anti-war VFW, active Green Party member, long time American Postal Workers Union activist, delegate to the SF Labor Council since 2007
Candidate Statement: My name is Richard Stone, a twenty-five year long listener, a one time Community Advisory Board member (2015-2018) and longtime subscriber to KPFA. I’m an anti-war VFW (served four years, from 1984-1988 in the United States Navy, culminating in a short battle in the Persian Gulf known as Operation Praying Mantis), which I consider the advent of my activism. And it was first, the event of Operation Desert Storm in 1991, that made me an anti-war activist; and years later, the tragic events of September 11th 2001, that finally made me give up the Two Party War Machine. Moving forward from that point, I became an active member of the Green Party on the local (San Francisco) and the state levels. I’m also a long time union activist with the American Postal Workers Union, both on the local level (am currently on the Executive Board, serving as the Sargent-At-Arms), as well as a delegate to the San Francisco Labor Council (since 2007), serving on the Social Economic and Justice Committee. I also identify and work with with The Zeitgeist Movement, a sustainability advocacy group (whose work has been previously covered on KPFK), which envisions the transformation from a free market system towards what’s known as a Natural Law Resource Based Economy.
But as a longtime labor and Green Party activist, I realize how easy it is for progressive activists to become placated in reliance of forming policies and agendas around the Democratic Party, which never has enabled the labor movement or third parties to flourish, where “play along to get along” distorts and demonizes all progressive third parties, as well as social and economic justice causes within the labor movement. All of this carries over to KPFA, where both labor and progressive third party issues are lacking in programming/discussion (especially during election time for third parties) which is in part, why I’m running for the KPFA LSB.
The current state of the station – especially in light of the second failed attempt in restructuring the governance of the station since 2019 – shows that the struggle for the maintenance of the empowered listener sponsor is something that cannot be taken for granted. The preservation of the Local Station Board (my given ‘nickname’ is the ‘Listener Sponsor’s Bpard’), and the continuation of the Community Advisory Board is essential in the station moving forward and maintaining a strong decentralized structure with optimal power at the local station level for the listener sponsor to have more of an impact on station affairs.
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