AN OPEN LETTER FROM LAB MEMBER MIMI ROSENBERG

(Note: The following was posted to the NewPacifica egroup by jim Dingeman.)

AN OPEN LETTER FROM LAB MEMBER MIMI ROSENBERG

Brothers & Sisters,

As a result of the controversy that now swirls around the Local Advisory Board's initiative to seat four candidates to shore up its declining ranks of active participants, I feel it is imperative to address the issue.

First, the LAB's motivation in seeking four new listeners to join it from heretofore under-represented constituencies was motivated by its desire to engage in a more pronounced and aggressive involvement in the movement to Take Back Pacifica. Essentially the LAB is a body without any substantive power. We are also without resources and lack regular, effective methods of internal and external communication. We have too few members in general, and specifically too few members who can devote the time they would like to in aiding the resistance to the Pacifica National Board's renegade majority and the complicit PNB managerial staff and station managers.

The transition period since the December coup has been quite difficult for the LAB. While it wishes to contribute more fully to the movement of reclamation, it has yet to define its role. It is often stymied by both its changing identity, the enormity of the tasks that confront it, and its lack of active members to engage those tasks. Nevertheless, the fact remains that for years the LAB has been vocal in its opposition to the machinations of the PNB and those who capitulated to its dominance.

We have surveilled and argued with the PNB and addressed its transgressions in treatises. Members of the LAB are plaintiffs in the first lawsuit commenced more than two years ago against the PNB's depredations. We have also demonstrated our support for WBAI staff members who resisted the abuses of the PNB, and of course we registered our support for the locked-out staff and communities of KPFA. Our written analysis, protests and other actions are well-documented. We have called on the majority members of the PNB to step down and for Utrice Leid to resign. We engaged in civil disobedience leading to the arrest of some of the LAB's members and have incurred threats from Leid of additional legal action. We have been subjected to surveillance by the intelligence division of the NYC Police Department.

In fact, resistance to the PNB and WBAI station management even caused consternation within our own ranks and triggered the resignation of several LAB members. Nevertheless, we will continue to be a complement to the broader movements to reclaim Pacifica regardless of our scanty numbers and other limitations. And it should be noted that our most active members are participants in a number of the resistance groups that have been formed.

Our objective in seeking to engage new LAB members was to become even more deeply immersed in the resistance. We wished to contribute more fully to the removal of the PNB majority, PNB Executive Director Bessie Wash and Utrice Leid, and of course to the restructuring and democratization of the governance bodies of the Pacifica network. WBAI's LAB, now in existence for over 20 years, was constituted to involve listeners in advising the station. The LAB will soon be restructured and enhanced as a vehicle for listener involvement in the station.

Those of us on the LAB welcome and applaud the concept of a more representative LAB. And those of us presently on the LAB – including Erroll Maitland and myself, who were elected to represent the paid and unpaid staff, respectively – will gladly yield to those who are brought on to replace us. My own tenure as a LAB member expires in December and I hope that circumstances will offer me the opportunity to leave the board before then. The LAB will eagerly facilitate the transition that will accompany a settlement of the lawsuits, a victory in the political arena, and the will of representative communities of interest. While the representations I make herein are solely my own, I believe there is no one currently on the LAB who has any intention of holding over, and all of the board's members welcome a broader involvement by the listener community.

As we reshape the LAB to become a more effective tool for the listenership, as one who witnessed the transformation of the PNB, I am cognizant that there are several fundamental realties that permitted the usurpation of the PNB by neo-liberal forces. Forces who measure the success of our stations by commercial standards rather than by the station's ability to service human needs, propel people to action, change the power equation and alter the status quo. Therefore I'd like to recount the factors that created the malevolent metamorphosis of the PNB in order to inform our efforts to restructure both the LAB and the PNB.

The creation of at-large seats permitted membership on the PNB by individuals who were often outside the signal area and who were not subject to any advise and consent from the staff and listeners. Very often, and despite sometimes having seemingly good political credentials, they did not have even a rudimentary understanding of the history, character and functioning of any of the five stations in the Pacifica Network. Name recognition and prestige, regardless of where an individual appears to be situated on the political spectrum, is not a sufficient basis for membership in Pacifica's transition or newly constructed governance bodies.

In my opinion, the Pacifica Foundation was initially correct in demanding its share of public tax dollars from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) to help finance its operations. I do believe in representative government and certainly in efforts to harness government in its present incarnation to service We the People. However, it came to pass that the Foundation betrayed its independence and integrity. As a condition precedent to receipt of CPB funds, it permitted that body's intervention in the Foundation's affairs. Indeed, after then-Executive Director Pat Scott encouraged the involvement of the CPB in Pacifica to further her precepts, it was incumbent on the PNB to either reject the terms for CPB funding or else reject the encumbered funds. The solicited interference from the CPB and the acquiescence of all the PNB members to CPB's mandate for funding precipitated the by-law change of February 1999. That by-law change severed the LABs' involvement in electing representatives to populate the PNB.

But most importantly we must recall that the majority of the PNB members whose resignations we now seek were placed on the board by the LABs. So even if the by-law changes are reversed, any present or future LAB member without a genuinely progressive ideology and a demonstrated history of real-world practice to back it up could become the next PNB member to precipitate another conceptual and structural coup. The present PNB members were not picked pursuant to any defined political criteria. Their placement on the PNB was arbitrary. I believe class-consciousness and the struggle for human rights and egalitarianism must serve as a precursor to membership on both the LAB and the PNB. General rhetoric regarding receptivity to the mission and principles of founder Lew Hill are entirely too superficial and too vague to suffice as a basis for governance responsibilities. Of course the recall of a PNB member can be effected in a new structure, but we must seek out our representatives premised on their adherence to the maintenance and implementation of engaged journalism that is geared toward changing existing power relationships – socially politically and economically.

Of course bourgeois elections, as we understand them, in practice provide a veneer of democracy. But we at Pacifica must create a conceptual framework that motivates and informs an election process. Structure must flow from and evolve pursuant to political purpose. An election in a progressive radio network is not the same in purpose and intent as, for example, a school board election, which in New York does employ a system of proportional representation. We cannot merely import wholesale a system of elections modeled for other purposes and functions. Even access to the subscriber list, because it is linked to financial means, is by itself insufficient for enabling our community of listeners – and other communities of interest whom we must engage – to become more involved in both WBAI and the larger struggles that confront us.

There are fundamental questions relative to elections that are still to be fully considered and grappled with. It is the political work that we wish to accomplish and ensure at the network and its member stations that should help determine the structure of the governance bodies. Should anyone, merely by virtue of being a "subscriber," be eligible for a position in the local or national governance structures? What, if any, ideological criterion should we implement as a precursor for eligibility for membership in those structures? To what extent are mail balloting processes effective or alienating? Are there cultural patterns in any community of interest or among individuals with special needs that create a disaffection with balloting? How do we assure diversity of race and ethnic groups, of gender, of sexual orientation, of age groups? How do we include the indigent, those behind the walls of the prison industrial plantation, the new immigrants? What is the role of representative organizations of workers, community organizations, social service groupings, and organizations of political activists? What of the skills necessary to make an effective working body? What of geographic representation? And yes, what of the role of the radio staff and of its representatives, hopefully including their unions of paid and unpaid workers?

These are but a few of the questions that we must begin to have discourses around. How we assume leadership and what that leadership looks like is not merely a question of form and process. Rather, it should commence with an imaginative set of political precepts that define "democracy" within the context of our historical evolution and our determination to insure the future purpose and function unique to the precious mode of communication that is Pacifica Radio.

Perhaps the LAB can help set in motion and continue the discourse on the restructuring of Pacifica while we work feverishly to take back the network. How wonderful it is to be in a position where we can dare to contemplate an enhanced, revitalized Pacifica. As to the specific issue that sparked the firestorm of controversy (i.e., the placement of new members on the LAB to shore up its membership and to facilitate urgently needed work), I would recommend that we instead solicit people to participate in working committees. Participation in the LAB at this time should be open to all who wish to work on any LAB projects.

Some of the work of the LAB at this time can be to re-evaluate the governance structures and think about restructuring the LABs. The LAB by-laws require retooling; they do not comport with the realties we now face or the brave new world we may be confronted with. The LAB, along with other comrades, should take a more aggressive role in building mechanisms for inclusion and involvement of the disenfranchised in the character, content and governance of our stations. The LAB is and should be engaged in helping design an exit strategy for Utrice Leid. The LAB is and should be engaged in a political evaluation and documentation of the deleterious programming and editorial changes that have occurred under Leid's dictatorial reign. And while the LAB should continue to demand access to the station for listeners, it should also conduct outreach to different communities and groups to listen and learn about their needs, which hopefully will help determine the character and content of programming. After all, in the final analysis, democracy will best be demonstrated through what we do: produce engaged, high-quality progressive radio.

At our upcoming meeting in Washington Heights, I hope that there are members of the Dominican community present, and that we can provide them with a real forum and listen to what they may want and need from WBAI. And I advocate that we encourage people as "non-elected" voluntary participants to work within existing committees and to create new ones to complement the work of others engaged in the struggle to take back Pacifica. I for one, and I'm sure all on the LAB, welcome your participation. I encourage the involvement of the listenership and broader involvement from my colleagues at the station as well. If a settlement is not reached soon, we can organize a political trial of those PNB members and station managers who stole and perverted our network. We can put together a national summit to begin to look at the restructuring of Pacifica and issues of finance, outreach, base-building, new technologies, etc., which was proposed by Congressman Major Owens. We can continue to systematically reach out to various neighborhoods and learn from them. We can dialogue to devise further strategies to address the "Utriceians" at WBAI. There is so much to do.

So, while it was never our intention to "elect" individuals without consultation and insert them into the LAB, there remains a pressing need to maintain a healthy working board that is a vital part of the battle to reclaim Pacifica. This is a time to prioritize and focus on who the real enemy is. Endless, vituperative, back-and-forth emails that presume the worst about one's colleagues and fellow strugglers and puts them on the defensive is not a productive use of our time at this critical juncture. Only by tempering emotions and finding a way to work together will we be able to ultimately pave a path to true democratization of our beloved network.

Rather than further self-destructive infighting among various elements of the resistance about future elections, what we desperately need now is a united front to deal with the brutal reality we are confronted with in the immediate present. (For example, the firing of Robert Knight and the hiring of an extremely high-powered Washington law firm that was brought in by Pacifica not to negotiate but to litigate.) In the face of these threats, we ask that you join us so together we can work to force a settlement that will oust the PNB hijackers, dislodge Utrice Leid, Bessie Wash and the rest of their wrecking crew, restore the fired and the banned, and ultimately safeguard – and indeed enhance – progressive, community-based activist radio.

And I have no doubt that the LAB members and all who attend our meeting will respond to the issues of the evening with conduct that is both humane and dignified, and which can act as a microcosm for the enhanced and revitalized WBAI that will soon be ours again.

Mimi Rosenberg

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