Just a note to of clarification on the previous article "The Last Straw." I believe that Kamau Khalfani's speech was based on a serious lack of knowledge, not just of Jewish history, but of the potential impact of carelessly chosen words when spoken on a large and powerful radio station. But I do not think that he is an anti-semitic person. Despite the powerful reasons that exists for mutual acrimony whether between Blacks and Jews or among any other groups at odds amongthemselves for whatever reason, communication remains the best way to achive understanding. Hopefully the struggle around today's disputes and misunderstandings will be the basis for tomorrows advances. But that given, many are still waiting for Bernard White and Dan Coughlin to exhibit leadership on this matter, their silence is deafening.

The Last Straw
The “Dissidents” and Anti-Semitism at Pacifica
By Paul DeRienzo

Background:

During the early morning hours of December 26th, 2002 listeners to a weekly radio show on Pacifica radio station WBAI in New York City were shocked to hear the host descend into an anti-Semitic rant that included some dangerous and slanderous comments. It would take more space than I have here to list the transcriptions of just the worst of the statements heard on that awful night. But one horrible lie stands out above the rest, at about one hour and 12 minutes into the program the host stated, “If I am not mistaken the term Jewry came out of jewelry.” Earlier, at about 16 minutes into the program, which is called “Under the Learning Tree” the same host had stated “In many quarters the Jewish community is the spoiled brat of America. They have been allowed for whatever reason to walk with free reign. The amount of money that Israel receives is criminal, not negative, not bad, it’s criminal.” Just moments before a caller to the same program had said to the agreement of the host that, “Most countries had sanctions against South Africa. The Jews were getting diamonds and gold out of there hand over fist.” The program continued for nearly three hours in the same vein. Numerous callers dialed in with shock to contest the racist statements they were hearing only to be met with the host’s absolute conviction in the righteousness of his statements.

This incident is of particular interest and concern for me because until February 20th, 2002 I had been the host of a program in the same timeslot called Let Them Talk, which I’d been hosting since 1991. However, soon after the Pacifica settlement agreement brought the former managers back into WBAI, the General Manager, Valerie Van Isler personally removed me from the air without reason. At the same time I was also fired without due process from my job as full time reporter for the WBAI Evening News. The American Federation of Television and Radios Employees (AFTRA) union currently is persuing a complaint on behalf of myself and other employees fired from WBAI. To learn more about the mission of Let Them Talk you can visit the website at http://pdr.autono.net.

Immediately after being removed from my program of more than a decade Let Them Talk was replaced by Under the Learning Tree, which is hosted by Kamau Khalfani (aka David Lawrence), who formerly hosted a program under the same name at William Paterson College. He’s an organizer with the Service Employees International Union. Khalfani was also an original signatory to the January 2001 document titled “Statement Opposing the Illegitimate Take Over at WBAI.” Numerous left leaning organizations and a list of folks identifying themselves as “banned and fired” former WBAI programmers signed this document. In fact few of the signatories had ever been heard on WBAI and mostly represented friends of former managers who had turned down job transfers with pay increases to other departments of the Pacifica organization and were then fired from their positions at WBAI. This led to a 13 month long power struggle that ended in a settlement brokered by a California court. With the return of the former managers there has been a widely noticed steep decline in the quality of WBAIs programming and growing incidents of anti-Semitism leading to public warnings by Jewish organizations.

More on Kamau Khalfani

Last year Khalfani was praised on a website associated with an organization called the New Black Panther Party for a eulogy he delivered to the memory of the late NBPP leader and former Nation of Islam member Khallid Abdul Muhammad. In his address Khalfani stated that Muhammad was “a warrior supreme who has the love of his people.” Khallid Muhammad, the organizer of the Million Youth March was known for his violent, intemperate and anti-Semitic public statements. He was succeeded in leadership of the NBPP by the group’s current head Malik Zulu Shabazz, who said in October 2001 at the National Press Club that “We have to make it plain that Zionists control Americas, lock, stock and barrel, the European Jews have America under control, lock, stock and barrel, the media, foreign policy.” He has also made many similar vitriolic and racist public statements. The ADL considers the NBPP an “extreme anti-Semitic” group that has “blamed Jews and Israel for the September 11 terrorist attacks...”

The New Black Panther Party for Self Defense traces its roots to Milwaukee in 1990 where a local Alderman had formed a “Black Panther Militia.” The Alderman warned that white America could face “urban guerilla warfare” if the government did not alleviate Black poverty. Soon after chapters were formed in Indianapolis and Dallas and the name was changed to the New Black Panther Party.

The “Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation,” representing the founders of the original Black Panther Party has stated that “The people in the New Black Panthers were never members of the Black Panther Party,” and “[the NBPP] denigrate the Party’s name by promoting concepts absolutely counter to the revolutionary principles on which the Party was founded.” Currently Panther founder Bobby Seale has been suing the NBPP to reclaim the original Party’s name.

Kamau Khalfani has appeared at New Jersey events sponsored by the NBPP including one in March where Khalfani stated he was a candidate for Newark City Council.

Who Put the Jew in Jewelry?

According to numerous dictionaries there is no connection between the words Jew, Jewry or Jewelry. The website bartleby.com hosts a dictionary that supplies the following etymology for Jewel: Middle English juel, from Anglo-Norman, perhaps from Vulgar Latin *iocle, from neuter of *ioclis, of play, from Latin iocus, joke. And for
Jew: Middle English Jeu, from Old French giu, from Latin Idaeus, from Greek Ioudaios, from Aramaic yhudy, from Hebrew yhûdî, inhabitant of Judah, from yhûdâ, Judah.

The librarian at the Jewish Theological Seminary agrees that Khalfani’s “false etymology” is a form of “blood-libel,” the kind of anti-Semitic statements popularized by the “Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion,” a Czarist-era forgery claiming a Jewish “conspiracy” for world domination. The Standard Jewish Encyclopedia traces the origins of the word Jew to the descendants of the Jewish Patriarch Judah, one of the 12 sons of Jacob (of biblical multicolored coat fame) who along with Abraham and Isaac are the three traditional founders of the Jewish religion. According to the Seminary librarian confusing of the words Jew and Jewelry “sounds like a pejorative.” She compares it to slurs using the noun as an adjective such as to “Jew down” someone in a business deal.

What should be done?

Anti-Semitism on WBAI is not a minor problem to be settled by an apology or a brief suspension or a few platitudes by Pacifica’s new powers that be. Since the beginning of December when it was announced by Pacifica that WBAI General Manager Valerie Van Isler would be leaving for a new job in the Pacifica hierarchy WBAI has been rudderless and adrift. The new GM Don Rojas doesn’t take over until New Years and in the meantime Program Director Bernard White is fundamentally in charge of the airwaves at WBAI. Since Khalfani’s rant there has been no public response from WBAI or Pacifica, now it’s too late for an apology. Bernard White has through his inactions shown is inability to lead and he must resign. White’s immediate boss at Pacifica is the Foundation’s Executive Director Dan Coughlin, who must resign too. Pacifica is too important to be left to float, there is too much potential for serious and irreparable damage. Prominent members of the Jewish community have made it clear that there will be repercussions due the hate radio being broadcast under the current regime at Pacifica and WBAI. They fear that potentially thousands of listeners were exposed to dangerous lies about the Jewish people and many may not go to an etymology dictionary to find out the truth about the absolutely unrelated origins of the words Jew and Jewelry leaving a dangerous false impression in the minds of many. There is no room in this situation for waiting and action must be taken today.

For those who would suggest that the First Amendment protects hate speech, how would you like it if the speech had been anti-gay, anti-Black or anti-woman? The liberal left is sending a mixed message and double standard and allowing an example to be broadcast of the worst that radio can be. WBAI will begin its fundraiser soon and a substantial number of listeners are Jewish, will they give money to hear rabid anti-Semitism and a Program Director who supports it?

We demand that the Pacifica National Board denounce this and any program that would demonize an entire race of people. If we are not willing to stand and challenge those who committed the crime then we are complicit in this crime against humanity. Are we providing just another hate radio format? If the Pacifica National Board does not repudiate this hate speech then we should demand a boycott of WBAI programming.

Murdock's letter was #1) stolen from his computer, #2) was about a station swap - not sale (considering the absolute inability of WBAI to pays its own bills and the station's ridiculously small audience not an unreasonable idea to broach, an idea that was raised many times in the past by people throughout the political spectrum, including by current WBAI pro-Valerie and Amy staffers to deal with WBAIs continuing financial deficits and in response to requests by Amy and others to he former PNB for more facilities and money for their projects, money Amy eventually got, and others will be paying for, in her new contract with Pacifica.) #3) Murdock’s idea was never taken seriously by the Board. Unsurprisingly attempts to blot out any original thinking are the hallmarks of the current Pacifica regime. #4) considering the career breaking investment that Amy and her supporters have on believing that Murdock wanted to "sell" a station and pocket the money even as the proof is rubbed in their faces by Null they will have to go their graves crying that Murdock wanted to "sell" a station so no one expects too many epiphanies on the subject coming from the "dissident" crowd. #5) Utrice never criticized the "dissidents" for anything more than their real transgressions, accusations to the contrary are a lie spread outside of NYC to the wonderbread crowd and their "fear of a Black planet." Paul Williams, Null, Marjorie Moore, Joanie Moossy and many others who supported Utrice, are to anyone who took 5 minutes to get to know them, the exact opposite of the racial certitudedness of the "dissidents". (Although it was arch dissident Robert Knight who repeatedly played Khalid Mohammed’s anti-Semitic rants on his WBAI show Earthwatch and plugged the NOI race agitator basically as god’s gift to men). The antics of the current WBAI "Unity" caucus are yet another reminder who the race baitors at WBAI truly are.) #6) Since when does having a show or job at Pacifica mean that one has joined the cult of Valerie or the cult of Amy? The closed minded approach of the current regime is a disgrace to Lew Hill's mission, and an attempt by failed organizations to take over a public resource that does not belong to them.

What Is To Be Done?

A) Elections to LABS must happen forthwith based on the most standard and easily audited election process with only Foundation members and actual staffers allowed to vote.
B) No grandfathering of LAB members
C) PNB director and Executive Director should have to resign all political posts, including decision making posts in all anti-war, peace and justice, leftists and environmental groups.
D) The news departments and all news gathering, nationally and locally, must have total editorial independence from PNB and LABs.
E) As long as producers do not violate FCC rules they must have freedom to discuss anything they want on their shows. Gag rules shouldn't be imposed, but training of producers must emphasize a culture of "keeping it in the family" at Pacifica.
F) An independent grievance procedure should be instituted to handle internal disputes with binding arbitration included.
G) An open and public planning procedure including all Pacifica constituencies to determine the future of the Foundation should begin, leading to national conferences and debate over how Pacifica will be managed in the future.

The Problems with Pacifica (part 1)
By Paul DeRienzo

It’s been almost a year since the so-called “dissident” faction took control over the Pacifica network. A deadline is looming when elections for a new Pacifica national board of directors, based on a new set of by-laws, must be held or last year’s settlement with the former board of directors will be thrown back to the courtroom of Alameda County Judge Bonnie Sabraw. On the surface the dissidents have little to worry about since few if any of the former Pacifica National Board members want to have anything to do with Pacifica after their defeat last years Pacifica civil war. One former Board member told me straight out that he would oppose any move to overturn the settlement because his wife ordered him to never have anything to do with Pacifica again after dissidents harassed his employer. But what damage has the dissident’s “victory” done to Pacifica’s mission as laid down by founder Lew Hill and what does the future hold for the nation’s largest organization expressly dedicated towards advocating peace?

In many ways Pacifica’s troubles have left the network much weaker and it’s programming little changed from a year ago despite a politically motivated purge of the unionized Pacifica Network News and lay off of more than 50 employees. The official excuse for the layoffs was the financial crisis brought on by the dissident’s assault on the network, but in the case of the board’s decision to move the Pacifica national office back to Berkley (after last years move from Berkley to Washington, DC) the layoffs have actually cost the network scarce dollars. The return to Berkeley was a nod to Bay Area activists after years of battling Pacifica culminating in a confrontation with police at the Foundation offices sparked by dissident programmers Dennis Bernstein and Larry Bensky. Pacifica not only had to fire national office workers recently hired in Washington DC they also had to spend thousands more for the West Coast move. In the eyes of some observers the move has set back Pacifica and further isolated the network from news making centers on the East Coast. Meanwhile, despite all this expense and activity there have been no serious, new national programs generated by Pacifica for nearly a decade, and almost no new and noteworthy local programming as well.

One fairly recent program at WBAI is the exception, independent observers rank Weekdays Talk Back program-featuring host Hugh Hamilton as the fastest growing show in the history of WBAI. Interesting because Hamilton was handpicked by former interim General Manager Utrice Leid and represents the Leid’s program ideas. Fear of Leid’s talent as a Program Director fueled the dissident faction’s paranoia, as Leid would impose professional technical and journalistic standards that few WBAI producers could hope to meet. In large part the Pacifica civil war was about standards versus programming by entitlement. Former Program Director Samori Marksman liked to quote the story of a Pacifica programmer who attempted to leave is program to another producer in his will after he died. It’s a story that illustrates the problems any Pacifica manager would face in trying to modernize the network’s programming.

In the year since GM Valerie Van Isler was returned to her old job at WBAI by the terms of the settlement Bernard White, who was originally Van Isler’s choice for Program Director (PD), has made programming decision that many observes claim has rendered much of WBAI unlistenable. Although claims of two back-to-back “million dollar” fundraisers have been made by Van Isler since her return 24-year Pacifica producer Gary Null continues on as the station’s biggest fund raiser, earning as much as $600 and more a minute at WBAI. Null has also been raising record-breaking amounts during fundraisers at WPFW and KPFK, while no new programs capable of generating revenue for WBAI have been introduced. The introduction of the Pacifica Network News non-union replacement Free Speech Radio News (FSRN) has actually led to an audience decline for WBAI’s once landmark evening news program.

The structural problems that keep Pacifica perpetually a fiscal basket case remain, especially a system that relies on individual programs to raise money in return for premiums, basically Pacifica has become a mail order business. This is a system that rots any attempt to create a unity of purpose among programmers, staffers and volunteers by feeding a balkanization of Pacifica’s airwaves. Pacifica’s strength, its dedicated and occasionally brilliant programs, has actually become the network’s fatal flaw by creating an elitist and power hungry upper-class of producers constantly fighting each other for resources and airtime. The infighting came to a head in 2000 in a struggle pitting Amy Goodman and her program Democracy Now (DN) against the Pacifica Network News (PNN) in a contest over which program would be Pacifica’s flagship.

In the spring of 2002 Pacifica announced it had signed 5-year contract with Goodman giving her ownership of DN and unprecedented rights to Pacifica’s resources, enshrining DN as the networks premier program. This has caused some consternation within the dissident’s own ranks since the Pacifica civil war was launched over an non-existent threat by the old Board to sell one of the 5 stations. Pacifica’s contract with Goodman, signed by interim Pacifica National Board chair Leslie Cagan as well as Executive Director Dan Coughlin, is the only time in the Foundation’s history that Pacifica leadership has surrendered a significant piece of Foundation property. Some say the DN agreement shows the Foundation’s present leaders are following their own political agenda to the detriment of the Foundation they’re supposed to be managing.

The role of leftists and other organizations in the Pacifica civil war is a source of concern for a network that has been historically controlled by radio professionals. Current interim Pacifica National Board chair Leslie Cagan was one of the original founders of the Committees of Correspondence (CoC), a group that split from the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) over he CoC’s support of the reforms begun by Gorbachev in the late 1980s. After a decade of trying to form a Communist Party “lite” Cagan’s organization grew close to Democratic Socialist and left wing Democratic Party groups and factions of Ralph Nader’s Green party. The lack of transparency in the organizational leanings of Pacifica’s new rulers is a great potential threat to the Foundation potentially alienating listener donors and inviting attack by conservatives.

Meanwhile, in the first weeks after the return of Van Isler and White to WBAI the phones at the WBAI news department were already ringing off the hook. Several leftist groups seemed to feel they were owed privileged access to the airwaves for their special projects because of their support of the dissidents. In more than a few cases the left-wing International Action Center and their various spin-offs have pressured news reporters into covering stories from their point of view as if the news department was just another arm of their organization. To their credit the WBAI news team has shaken off the most onerous pressures but in order to keep the political peace they are often required to cover events of only marginal news worth.

Dissidents may scream that criticism of their political affiliations and philosophies may amount to “red baiting,” but the issue is far more complex. Radio stations in the United States operate under volumes of laws and regulations. In fact the broadcast licenses granted to the Pacifica Foundation to operate its five stations could be revoked by the FCC and challenged by outside individuals and groups. Pacifica also receives more than 10 percent of its revenue from the federally financed Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which has many requirements that must be fulfilled by stations that accept their money. CPB requirements usually focus on how well each station serves its community based on a formula that measures the ethnic and racial makeup of the audience versus that of the surrounding community. Several Pacifica stations have fallen short and are struggling to keep their CPB funding.

In this time of political turmoil, war and the threat of bigger wars Pacifica has to be more careful than ever in not broadcasting the appearance of close minded one-sidedness because there are other views that deserve a hearing besides those of the dissident group and their supporters. It’s only a mater of time before Pacifica is criticized on the floor of congress or its license challenged by conservatives, libertarians and other ideologies that may feel maligned by what’s broadcast on Pacifica. Such challenges may launch a legal war the Pacifica Foundation is in no position to wage.

The best way to forestall a right-wing attack on Pacifica is to hew to a path of strict political independence by station news departments. But recent developments show that Pacifica seems to be doing its best to breakdown any wall between the editorial and political position of a station and its news reporting. The firing of PNN and their replacement by FSRN despite a union contract is one of the more troubling issues that have arisen at Pacifica in the past year, but it’s gotten very little discussion at public Board meetings.

In debates that have been raging at Pacifica the issue of eligibility, who can vote in elections for Local Advisory Board (LAB) members has been particularly contentious. Currently two factions have presented two methods of electing LAB members that have split the dissident camp wide open. One proposal has been promoted by KPFA, which has already been electing its LAB and the other by New York’s Bob Lederer and his so-called Unity Caucus (UC). The UC has been promoting a system where racial, ethnic and other criteria would apportion LAB seats, with voters registering on the basis of which approved ”constituency” they belong. Although Lederer and his partner Donna Gould say this would insure WBAI remains true to their idea of Lew Hill’s mission to many others the system smacks of South African apartheid, making WBAI and Pacifica beholden to what many say is a long outdated ideology of narrow identity politics. According to the UC plan Black producers would program for Black audiences, gay programmers to gay audiences, and most unusual for Pacifica white producers would produce for white audiences. To some this policy would be an example of being so extremist left wing that one has become in effect right wing.

Bob Lederer, a producer of a weekly health show on WBAI, has a past as a dogmatic and somewhat bombastic extremist. In 1985 Lederer, then a member of the “New Movement in Solidarity with Puerto Rican Independence and Socialism” was imprisoned for refusing to testify before a grand jury. The panel was investigating two bombings at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, one at Fort McNair and one at the Capitol that occurred between April 1983 and April 1984. In a recent Internet post Lederer acknowledged his contempt of court arrest claiming his refusal to testify was a politically principled stand. Maybe so, but where does the Lew Hill mission for Pacifica make allowances for supporting violence? Leslie Cagan has suggested on air while debating Gary Null that Hill’s mission should be modified for changing times, even if she’s right many dissidents ask where Cagan and Lederer received the mandate to change Hill’s strictly pacifist mission on their own?

Federal law prohibits LAB’s from having managerial powers at Pacifica and the Foundation’s by-laws prohibit the National Board chair from making day-to-day decisions at the network. However, chair Leslie Cagan’s co-signed along with Dan Coughlin Pacifica’s contract with Amy Goodman. Why she signed hasn’t been explained and is still a mystery, but her action isn’t surprising considering how Cagan has often acted as a day-to-day manager in Pacifica affairs since becoming board chair. She began her tenure by ordering interim WBAI GM Bob Daughtry to broadcast DN before publicly firing him at iPNB meeting in New York last January.

Cagan has stated that she sees a future Pacifica run by the LAB’s with little central organization, but she manages the network as if strict centralization of the network was her goal. LAB’s are the one group that besides unions, producers, managers, and volunteers are accountable to no one; maybe that’s why they need early elections to create LAB’s that at least have an appearance of legitimacy as democratic institutions.

Paul DeRienzo