THE PACIFICA BYLAWS PROPOSAL–IT’S ABOUT  PROGRAMMING

Like the bylaws proposal that was defeated last year, the “New Day” version would basically end democracy at Pacifica and hand the network over to a group of gatekeepers.  This is a fight which has been going on since the 1980s, a fight which did not begin with the hijacking attempt of 1999 and certainly did not end with the current bylaws of 2003.

Issues in this struggle include: declining listenership, programming, democracy at Pacifica and the debt.

The debt gets the most attention.  It was caused by multiple bad decisions made during the last three decades. One of those was an atrociously bad deal made with the Empire State Building for WBAI’s antenna.  That was negotiated nearly two decades ago by a former Executive Director who has passed away, but the results live on and continue to haunt us.  However, if Pacifica finances had otherwise been healthy, that debt would not be such a death threat.  The New Day people are the protégés of the people who made many of the unwise decisions which led to the financial problems we’re seeing today.  It has been suggested that putting the network in a risky financial situation is a customary and deliberate tactic in trying to gain total, undisputed control of our station.

Money is the hay that feeds the horse that pulls the wagon.  We sometimes get so distracted by the look of the horse and so worried about feeding it enough good hay that we forget what’s in the wagon — the programming.  Programming is what radio is all about.  Programmers in the “New Day” camp have been echoing an increasing amount of security state propaganda from the corporate media, or feature guests who tell us the FBI and the CIA are there to protect us, and that the U.S. intervenes in elections of foreign countries to promote democracy.  That is the direction in which KPFA programming has been sliding, and if “New Day” gains full control, the Pacifica network will slide a lot faster, till the last vestiges of independent, non-corporate news analysis are gone.

The eternal “infighting” at Pacifica is not about personalities who can’t get along.  It’s about very differing visions for Pacifica.  Although it often looks like a fight over finances, it’s really about programming.

This referendum is coming up soon, and April 7 is the very last day to subscribe in order to be eligible to vote.  Here’s the KPFA link https://secure.kpfa.org/support/

Daniel Borgström, member of Rescue Pacifica

Sure the Bylaws need revision, but not now and not with this alleged “NewDay” model for restructuring. We absolutely cannot at this time afford elections and surrounding legal expenses now, while we can not pay our bills and all of our buildings are in danger of being foreclosed on. Furthermore, this overly complicated and dangerously biased model will cause more grief – not more help.

The main thing we need is what we have always needed; better management, concise accounting and across the network training. Closing thought: the old Bylaws are 45 pages long, the proposed “NewDay” Bylaws are 58 pages long – How in the world could our Bylaws be simplified by making them 13 pages longer ???

Please don’t go down the “NewDay” rabbit hole.

Richard Uzzell, currently KPFT LSB and past PNB Director and past PNB Secretary.

Tom Voorhees Pacifica national board director from the KPFA local station board in support of building democratic solutions through the world. I also have a history of putting many new community radio stations on the air as a transmitter site project engineer, most have joined the over 220 existing pacifica affiliate stations. Also working hard to rebuild Pacifica as a anti-war network.

Toxic self-appointed boards may be fine for Grocery Chains and Global Pharmaceutical Enterprises but they won’t do for grassroots media endeavors, like the Pacifica Radio Foundation. You need a bit of anarchy, a good measure of fanatic activism, a lot of fresh perspectives, and as close a connection to the membership as possible. Democracy can be time consumming and blistery, but it far exceeds Corporatocracy and Cronyism.

I endorse a NO vote on the proposed new by-laws that would allow the people who took over WBAI for a month in October 2019 to take over Pacifica and sell it off piecemeal.

I would vote to keep Pacfica just the way it was in the 60's-70's with democratic bylaws for all. In my view Pacifica Network has been the greatest of the great news sources since the cows went home. Thanks to all who want to preserve the hayday years of which I was a contributing member. Oh & the KPFK MERRY CHRISTMAS fair, bring it back.

Simple (but draconian) solutions to complex problems are very seductive. But with rare exceptions, always create major problems. The drug war is a good example. I'm proud to be associated here with people who have spent their lives expanding democratic participation in our institutions. New Day Pacifica's attempt to shut listener-supporters out of responsibility for the radio they pay for (and force thousands of listener dollars to be spent on their empty conceit) is nothing but one more attempt to impose on Pacifica the same kind of autocratic control so popular today in many state legislatures. It is nothing but a vain and shoddy attempt to make sure they can do it 'their way'.

The new undemocratic bylaws proponents are phony progressives who have taken over the management of KPFA and are tilting it toward the corporate, neocon Democratic Party leadership. These bylaws represent their attempt to seize control of the whole Pacifica network and convert it into another NPR. Please vote "NO" to stop them.

I endorse the "NO" vote in opposition to the "New Day Pacifica" referendum because of (a) the overwhelming 66 to 33 defeat of the first "New Day Pacifica" referendum in a free and fair election in March 2020; (b) the public explicit "New Day Pacifica" agenda would (1) abolish all five Pacifica Radio Local Station Boards across this country, (2) would cancel the local control over daily programming, and (3) would consolidate the leadership of the Pacifica Radio network to fall under the control of "New Day Pacifica" supporters of a cabal of the West Coast KPFK and KPFA supporters and would eliminate the role and the work of the 44 years of WPFW's 24/7 on-air existence in the 'Belly of the Monster' and the 60 years of WBAI's 24/7 on-air existence and work in the 'Finance Capital of the World'. Furthermore, the "New Day Pacifica" agenda is utterly and completely anti-democratic to its core. Louis Wolf 202-362-1718 louw7@live.com

I published an essay explaining my endorsement in Counterpunch, San Francisco Bay View Newspaper, Black Star News, and Black Agenda Report.

Black Star News and Milton Allimadi, editor of Black Star News and host of “The Black Star News Show” on WBAI, endorse a “no” vote.

The San Francisco Bay View National Black newspaper endorses a NO vote in the New Day Pacifica by-laws.
What a shame to see where Pacifica has come to after 70 years –
Peace, Nube
—
Abolition now!

THE Lists and addresses and emails of members used to be sacrosanct to the stations; now, not only Pacifica National but New Day proponents are using them to propagandize you for their agenda. There is a law providing for this in California, but they choose to use it against the existing workers/fighters.

THE New Day breakers all told us their plan to eliminate the station boards, and now they’re not telling us any differently. Their new by-laws only allow LSB members to just Fundraise, with no power. Their plan to have LSBs in the near term, doesn’t preclude their elimination in the future.

WE members and workers for Pacifica have 2 main problems: local and national board members and the ED did not come up through the ranks of the stations, and candidates for both boards and ED can’t reveal all about themselves on the air and on line.  And we are not in the Computer Age. Villains reveal their prejudices and weaknesses in their own declarations, ‘hoist on their own petard’.

THE New Day breakers want to hire an ED from outside Pacifica, That’s the opposite of what we should do. Up through the ranks.

THE reason Pacifica can never complete an audit is because KPFA always refuses to turn over their books to anyone including the auditors, under the same folks who are in New Day Pacifica.

THE last time Pacifica had a National Development Director they wanted to directly fundraise from the stations listener-sponsors, and keep the money at National instead of the stations. With the money lies the power. They even wanted to have the local fund drive money go directly to them!

WHEN Pacifica had that Dev. Dir. We also had a National Program Director. All hiring and programming decisions at the National not the stations.’

THE ED works free so she won’t have to be under scrutiny like an employee would.

THERE ARE MANY ELITISTS, Imperialists, among the endorsers and prospective National board members.

THE perennial treasurer of KPFA, its LSB and the Pacifica National Board, has even said, ‘When the Network vitally needs some money, ‘we’ have to take the money from somewhere in the network to pay that required money to protect the organization’. If KPFA or national want money, they just pass it back and forth without any process or due process.

KPFA is in the hippie heaven/haven of the world. It was always lefty and the site of the Free Speech Movement of the 60’s. Those listeners take it for granted that they should support their lefty radio station.

Yes KPFA gives money to the rest of the network sometimes, doesn’t mean they are qualified to be the messiah of Pacifica. They are in a blue bubble and don’t pay enough attention to the rest of the country, ‘in the belly of the beast.’

IT’S easy to balance the budget by laying off staff.

PACIFICA RADIO ARCHIVES, it’s easy to bloom from small numbers when you don’t have digital and internet resources to count with, until you do have those resources. It’s a false comparison, apples and oranges. Although Mark is doing great with P.R.A.

FOR STRATEGIC PLAN, read Brainwashing Session. Staff (sometimes others) are bunched together, separated from their workplaces, environmentally controlled, and the supposed leaders and supposed ‘experts’ have the charge to address and convince the workers.

THE new By-Laws at every point change the rules to eliminate any democracy, and their new process is almost impossible to revoke or make changes to. Please check the sites that narrate the differences between the old and new proposed By-Laws. We will end up with only 7 hand-picked members of the National Board and no local boards.

Existing ByLaws:

https://pacifica.org/documents/bylaws_160721/Pacifica_Bylaws_Jan-1-2016.pdf

New Day proposed By-Laws:

https://newdaypacifica.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Proposed-New-Day-Pacifica-Bylaws-with-contents-on-p1.pdf

“The best phrases create understanding in the listeners’ minds.”

Sue Cohen Johnson, Past KPFK Membership Dir., English as a second language teacher

The Oakland Greens voted at the May monthly public meeting to endorse a no vote on the New Day Pacifica bylaws. While some changes to the current bylaws and more proportional representation of the community is needed, New Day's bylaws are thoroughly problematic. Replacing a flawed system with an even worse system is not the answer.

The San Francisco Green Party is endorsing a “no” vote on the New Day Pacifica by-laws referendum. Democratic media, free of commercial corporate influence, is essential to the struggle for Green values—social justice, environmental sustainability, grassroots democracy, and nonviolence—and the proposed by-laws are fundamentally undemocratic. We are unsettled to see that they have no endorsers from Pacifica’s East Coast stations, WBAI-New York City, and WPFW-Washington D.C., which have the network’s largest Black audiences and staff. We are also disturbed by the bizarre Greenbaiting by proponents of the New Day by-laws, as described by Project Censored producer Anthony Fest in “March Madness: McCarthyism at KPFA?”.  This seems to reflect the dangerous narrowing of permissible speech, opinion, and action in the US at this point in time.

The Editorial Board of CovertAction Magazine has closely studied the ‘New Day Pacifica’ proposal to cancel and overturn the existing bylaws of the Pacifica Foundation, which have protected the Pacifica Radio Network and kept it free and independent of corporate control for nearly 70 years.

We have come to the conclusion that the proposal by ‘New Day’ to cancel the Foundation’s bylaws is an attempt by a small but well-funded group of “corporatists” to break up the Pacifica Radio Network—by disenfranchising, silencing, and then selling off Pacifica Radio WBAI in New York and Pacifica Radio WPFW in Washington, DC. In particular, these two stations have for decades demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to independent broadcasting, and are also the only two stations in the entire network serving cities with a plurality of diverse peoples of color.

Therefore, the Editorial Board of CovertAction Magazine—now in our 43^rd year—supports, without reservation, a NO vote against overturning Pacifica’s existing bylaws in the upcoming Pacifica referendum to be held this June 2021.

In solidarity,

Editorial Board
CovertAction Magazine

My name is Professor Bill Davis. I have the privilege and responsibility of teaching Africana Studies at Rutgers University. I’m also an activist with the Peoples Organization for Progress among other organizations and I’ve been an associate of WBAI for a very long time. Elombe Brath, one of my mentors, and Samori Marksman those brothers were doing great work at WBAI over 30 years ago. I’m hoping that we will honor their legacy. The need for information that’s accurate–for us to be able to counter the negative forces that are taking place in the world–is absolutely essential. WBAI has been a beacon of information, of light, to make sure that people who are resisting some of the racism and terrorism that is happening; we have an opportunity for that to take place with WBAI. So, we need a local station board that has autonomy. We need a local station board that needs financial support. And so this referendum that’s about to take place, make sure to Vote No! Support WBAI. Peace and power.

Vital irreplaceable media resource that must stay alive and adding diverse voices to the mediascape.

NO on the New Day Bylaws

The KPFA evening news, to which I frequently listen, is quite conservative. I thought that I was the problem because I desired to hear a perspective different than the corporate media. But I realize that KPFA is run by the same people who want to take control of the entire Pacifica network of radio stations. This group will have a wider audience for stories about heroes like Alexei Navalny who demanded that all Georgians be deported from Russia during the Russian-Georgian war.

I totally endorse the current by-laws and system of operation for WBAI and Pacifica.

I signed the Pacifica Democracy Project petition in order to save the station I have been listening to for many years. I don’t want to see the only truly independent public radio stations being taken over & privatized by for profit corporations.

I endorse the Pacifica Democracy Project and will vote "NO" on the "New Day Bylaws". I am an investigative journalist and have been listening to Pacifica for years. I am saddened how far to the right KPFK has drifted in the past years and miss a critical stance on fascist government action, no matter which party is in charge. I don't need another corrupted Public Radio Station to go the sad way of KCRW (who has Citibank ads and tells us why U.S. imperialist war hawks are correct and why Venezuela is a bad player.) Let's save KPFK and it's original spirit!!!

It's very simple, these NDP bylaws would put a handful of people in total charge of Pacifica. That alone would be extremely dangerous. And when I look at the people they want in charge I see that they are not competent to run Pacifica. They didn't bother to show up for a debate on their bylaws proposal because they can't even manage their own, small group. How would they manage Pacifica with its 1,005 officially counted Staff, both Paid and Unpaid? And then there's their fraud of saying that Jane Fonda had endorsed their bylaws hijacking. She didn't, and she complained to Pacifica's General Counsel about the misuse of her name by the NDP people. I'm voting NO and I hope that all of you are too.

PLEASE VOTE "NO".

Not sure what I am being asked to endorse here, other than the “Hell No” petition, but I am also a member of the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) and I love to be on the righteous side of David and Goliath fights. Right on!

I endorse the Pacific Democracy Project and voting NO on the “New Day” corporate takeover.

I have been a Peace and Social Justice Advocate most all of my adult life, nearly 50 years. This has been my vocation, my purpose in life. I have never been paid for my vocation. Recently, I received 7.4% with 15,697 votes as the Green Party candidate when I ran for Congress in CA D11 in 2020 to give voters a progressive choice. I plan to run again in 2022. I fear the new by-laws will forever eliminate listener influence & control over a radio network that listeners totally fund. The new by-laws, I fear will eventually lead to Democratic Party and corporate funding control as has happened with Public Radio and KQED. Interests leading the new by-laws have already been involved in Pacifica management and have been as much a problem as anyone else in any management disfunction. Certainly, we can use professional experts to help Pacifica Radio without turning management control over to these same so-called professionals! Corporate media is full of professionals. After 72 years, let us keep the only nation-wide people's radio voice , Pacifica Radio under community & grassroots control not professionals!

Pacifica radio needs to remain a "voice for the voiceless" with a community based focus. Diversity is its strength as well as transparency, integrity and accountability.

The list of people who have signed is a list that includes people I deeply respect and if they are saying no to the latest assault on the whole idea of changing Pacifica Foundation, I for sure am going to pay close attention to the changes being proposed. I don't agree with these proposed changes

I endorse voting "No" on the New Day Bylaws amendment.