Pacifica and the Internet

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Tuesday night PBS's POV aired a fascinating hour long documentary on the
listener sponsored radio network called Pacifica, focusing on the first
affiliate station, KPFA, founded in 1950 in California's Bay Area.

It was strong on the history of the station but was somewhat weak on the
current crisis at the station. In a nutshell, the current Pacifica board,
run by a high level official in the Clinton administration, is trying to
purge the station of leftwing voices and convert it into something more
like NPR, the bland public radio network that relies mostly on corporate
and government handouts rather than listener subscriptions. NPR has
consistently given propaganda support for imperialist interventions
overseas by systematically excluding voices like Michael Parenti's or Noam
Chomsky's.

KPFA was launched by radio journalist Lew Hill back as an attempt to save
the world from nuclear destruction. Hill was a pacifist and had been
confined to a prison camp in rural California during WWII for refusing to
serve in the military. I should mention, by the way, that the role of the
CP can sometimes be exaggerated. During the 1930s and 40s there were many,
many radicals who identified with earlier radical traditions in the United
States, in Hill's case a kind of transcendentalism associated with figures
like Thoreau.

Appalled by the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the escalating arms
race that shortly ensued, Hill came to the conclusion that a humane voice
committed to peace and social justice had to be heard. In order to make
sure that it be kept free of corporate and warmaking influences, it would
have to rely exclusively on listener contributions. He decided that the Bay
Area (San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley) would be a good locale for the
station since it had a long-standing left, bohemian and working-class
milieu that would be supportive of such an initiative. He was correct.

Even though Hill had big problems with the Communist Party and Marxism in
general, he made a point of including the Stalinist and non-Stalinist left
in the station's programming. One such figure was economist William Mandel,
who although breaking with the CP, presented a fair-minded analysis of the
USSR each week on his program devoted to a discussion of recent articles in
the Soviet media.

Furthermore, even though Hill was critical of the CP, he was totally
committed to free speech and made sure that the station covered the 1955
HUAC hearings in the Bay Area from the point of view of protestors. He also
took a step that was considered very risky back then, even to the point of
arguing down local board members who thought the station might be
jeopardizing its existence. He aired interviews with an ex-FBI agent who
told hair-raising tales about the agency's interference with the right to
political association. It was the first instance of whistle-blowing on
America's political police.

The HUAC coverage and Mandel's show were provocative enough in their own
right, but the interview with the ex-agent was too much for the repressive
forces to tolerate. The government demanded that KPFA sign a loyalty oath
that would purge the station of all CP'ers. After a bitter internal fight,
the station relented and the reds were given the boot.

Failing health (arthritis) and internecine battles at the station revolving
around the purge and how to keep it financially afloat took their toll on
Hill. He committed suicide in 1957.

It was ironic but understandable that one of the first broadcasters to be
purged from the station during the recent NPR-ization of KPFA was William
Mandel, the very first to be hired by Hill in the 1950s to present a
balanced analysis of the USSR. In the current war drive of American
imperialism, it is necessary to demonize every state that operated or
operates on the Soviet model. The Pacifica board would find a voice like
Mandel's an obstacle to their propaganda mission.

The PBS/POV website has a feedback section:

http://www.pbs.org/cgi-bin/pov/postbox1999/discuss.cgi?mode=AREA&area=zz1308

It has been completely sympathetic to the documentary but even tougher on
the question of the Pacifica board. Many of the participants appear to be
involved with the struggle to maintain the listener-sponsored character of
the network. One of the messages that caught my eye was from Bill Adams who
wrote:

<startquote>
Having just watched your program about KPFA, I had to comment. Have you
ever wondered why the internet is thought of as needing to be regulated?
Answer: It is one of the last forums for really independent thought and it
scares the hell out of our government. Any body with a computer has the
ability to broadcast their opinion. Every other type of media has been
taken over by large corporations, and the news that makes it through has
been so sanitized and packaged for their benefit that it would make Pravda
envious. The United States is slowly being turned into a huge deaf, dumb
and blind labor pool that can be "downsized" at any moment. If we, the free
and the brave are in such dire straits, can the rest of the world be any
better.
<endquote>

This point must be underscored. If the NPR-ization of Pacifica continues
unabated, the only alternative to the corporate media will be the Internet.
The issues are the same as they were during the days of KPFA's birth.
Instead of leftwing Jews like the Rosenbergs becoming martyrs to the cause
of nuclear superiority, we see a Chinese-American arms scientist being
threatened with becoming "another Rosenberg".

In a startling development, yesterday's NY Times was forced to admit that
the United States was openly funding electoral opponents of Milosevic in
defiance of Yugoslavia's right to determine its own destiny. It was so
brazen that reporter Steven Erlanger appeared to take the side of the
radical movement which had been arguing something like this all along:

"In his race for re-election, President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia is
running against NATO and the United States, not against his democratic
opposition.

"He is not entirely mistaken to do so. The United States and its European
allies have made it clear that they want Mr. Milosevic ousted, and they
have spent tens of millions of dollars trying to get it done."

Although I missed this reference at first, Jared Israel of the "Emperor's
Clothes" website brought it to my attention:

"Just today, in the state-run newspaper Politika, a long article used
public information from the United States - including Congressional
testimony and Web site material - to show that the United States is
financing the opposition."

Apparently the Web site material Erlanger is referring to includes
"Emperor's Clothes" itself. Imagine that, the NY Times is forced to admit
that the dastardly Yugoslav government might have a case on the strength of
the evidence of outside interference. And that evidence is being pulled
together by the American radical movement and its allies worldwide.

During the Vietnam war and the war against Nicaragua, we did not have such
resources at our disposal. We did have a courageous Pacifica network that
provided reporter Dale Minor's groundbreaking coverage from Vietnam.
Pacifica also broke the news about the secret and illegal funding of the
contras through Dennis Bernstein's "Contragate/Undercurrents" investigative
series. When Bernstein was dragged by security guards from the KPFA studios
last year for mentioning the fight against the Pacifica board, this sparked
protests including the largest demonstration in Berkeley in over 20 years.

The struggle to preserve the listener sponsored character of Pacifica is an
ongoing one. For information about it, check the following:

http://www.savepacifica.net/index.htm

http://www.radio4all.org/freepacifica/



Louis Proyect
The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org