The Squandering of Pacifica Radio [Updated]
***Please see the two crucial UPDATES at the bottom of this post***
Everything in me screams to NOT write this posting. It’s just not worth the pain such endeavors normally evoke. When I’ve done it before, I’ve been slandered, muddied, slashed, booed down, accused of everything short of being Jack Abramoff’s secret lover. I've even been accused of having a hand in the death of Chilean President Salvador Allende, who I had the privilege of working for before the 1973 coup. But here goes, anyway. I can’t help myself:
The potentially biggest media resource – and really one of the largest institutions of any sort—on the American Left has taken one more giant and voluntary step toward oblivion.
The five-station, listener-sponsored, half-billion dollar Pacifica Radio network has just named a new executive director. Predictable enough that the new guy, Greg Guma, comes straight out of the pwogwessive bubble of Burlington. But what catches the eye is how Guma – who will now oversee the five stations—has written with enthusiasm about truly off-kilter conspiracy theorists like David Ray Griffin who argue that 9/11 was NOT caused by the four Al Qaeda—commandeered planes. Instead, Guma asks us to take seriously the proposition that the attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were the product of a Reichstag-like plot engineered by the Bush Administration.
That proposition was described as “monstrous” by former CIA agent Bob Baer writing in The Nation magazine a couple of years ago (Baer's story was the basis of the movie Syriana). Baer’s reaction to the same loon praised by Guma is the proper one: The Bushies may be liars but that is no reason to lie to ourselves and swoon over preposterous conspiracy theories.Unless, of course you are the new Executive Director of the Pacifica network. To be frank, for those of us who actually pay some attention to this matter, the selection of a non-credible fringie like Guma is hardly a surprise. Pacifica has been in accelerating decline for two decades – especially in the last five years (disclaimer: I did a daily drive-time show on Pacifica’s KPFK in Los Angeles from 1998-2001. I quit when an extreme know-nothing faction who believed that I and others were engaged in a dark "corporatist" conspiracy to -gasp!- "mainstream" the programming took over the entire organization. My Radio Nation show, which was made available for free to hundreds of public radio stations and therefore to Pacifica, was also carried on KPFK until last month when the program moved –without me—to Air America).
Five years ago, also writing in The Nation, veteran journalist and former NPR news manager John Dinges came the closest to best explaining the downward spiral of Pacifica. Since then, things have only gotten worse. Much worse.
I don’t think anyone would or should care very much about any of this, if it were not for the gross squandering of an historic opportunity. Started by Bay Area pacifists, anarchists and liberals in 1949, Pacifica eventually opened stations in L.A., New York, Washington D.C. and Houston.
Are you ready for this? The estimated value of those frequencies today – that is to say the market value of the five Pacifica stations operating today—is conservatively estimated to be $300-$500 million. You read that right. A half-billion dollars? Do you know of any other institution on the American Left that can compare in value?
Yet, the network’s growth – its real listenership-- stunted and atrophied a long time ago. So just when media is more important than ever in the political fight, just when cheap digital technology makes radio production immediately doable and accessible, Pacifica has marooned itself on the margin. The network is so shoddily managed that it’s nigh impossible to secure any reliable numbers. But industry experts estimate the total weekly cumulative audience of the five Pacifica radio stations to be less than a million. Maybe a lot less. That’s in five signal areas that envelope as many as 50-60 million people.
Instead of producing, as it should and could, a satellite or web-fed daily schedule of 12, 18 or even 24 hrs of solid, listenable national programming, the “network” remains, instead, a rag-tag hodgepodge of stations with tiny listenerships and all held hostage to self-serving programmers more interested in hearing themselves talk than in building a real audience. It’s a half-billion dollars rotting away.
The “flagship” New York station, WBAI, which in the 70’s was a hothouse that produced a generation of able journalists who later took their skills and their liberal or lefty politics into the mainstream media, is today an irrelevancy that teeters on bankruptcy. The programming is dominated by a toxic brew of crude race-politics.
The Pacifica outlet in Washington D.C., WPFW, which, in the age of Bush, ought to be a mighty bastion of on-air political pushback, continues to be – as has been the case for two decades—primarily a black jazz station. White guilt, and a veritable PC-cult that permeates the internal Pacifica culture, has constrained the network from turning that station into what it ought to be -- a powerful and massively listened-to alternative in the heart of the nation’s capital.
The Houston outlet, KPFT, remains a peanut-whistle station. KPFA in Berkeley, whose core paid staff has been the same for 25 years, is but an echo-chamber of its pony-tailed, core community. Listening to the station for more than five minutes is like tuning into a clandestine ethnic radio narrow-casting in an obscure tongue to some tiny Balkan enclave.
The Los Angeles station, KPFK, whose drive-time is dominated by an combination of screamers and, believe it or not, a couple of followers of the maoist Revolutionary Communist Party, finds itself in a similar sorry state. With a signal area that encompasses 25 million people, its average listenership during any given quarter hour is under 10,000. Over a seven day period, the 110,000 watt station collects a cumulative audience of barely 175,000. That’s less than the number of unique visitors that a big blog – like Daily Kos—gets in one single day.
This is a long, long, long way from the origins of the network. In its heyday – from the late 60’s and into the early 80’s—the bigger Pacifica stations were exciting and refreshing meeting points for artists, poets, musicians and free-thinkers. The air would be filled with live drama performances, poetry happenings, literary readings, world-class public affairs interviews, and quality music that ranged from the avant-garde to classical. While the programming always leaned decidedly left, you’d nevertheless find libertarians and Buddhists mixed in back to back with Communists, radicals, and liberals and even some odd conservatives (Caspar Weinberger was once a Pacifica commentator. Pauline Kael got her start reviewing movies for KPFA).
When Pacifica was once a magical place that taught you how to think it is now a dreary drumbeat telling you what to think. Its air is filled with shrill, clumsy and dogmatic denunciations of “fascism.” Any trace of high culture, meanwhile, has been ruthlessly rooted out and expunged. The program schedule is divvied up among self-appointed “community leaders” and paid staff who – for the most part—could never dream of earning a paycheck from any other media entity in the world. What paid and volunteer programmers have in common is a death-grip on their personal slice of air time. Try to take it away and you became the target of a virulent campaign accusing you of being a sexist, racist, and corporatist nazi.
For more than a decade now the rickety internal structure of Pacifica has been wholly dominated by a small ultra-activist crust that knows little to nothing about journalism, radio programming or non-profit management. After they took over the network in 2001 and proceeded to fire three of the five sitting General Managers, they did so in such a blatantly abusive and improper manner that, in any other circumstance, it would have elicited cries of anti-labor policies from its own constituencies. Resulting successful lawsuits cost the network literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in financial settlements – a dirty little detail that has never been fully disclosed to an audience that is regularly milked for donations. And that would be shocked if it ever learned the truth.
The success the current management group had in taking over the organization derives not at all from talent or intelligence but principally from its immeasurable tenacity – a super-human capacity to outlast everyone else in endless rounds of meetings and to shout down its opponents. That, along with a fervent belief that they, alone and against all odds, are saving the world by making sure air time is given to only fellow true-believers who meet some sort of bizarre political litmus test. I begrudge them nothing. They perform exactly as one would expect. Instead, our recriminations should center on those who know better, or at least, ought to know better. Whether it is in Los Angeles, or New York or Washington, serious, otherwise intelligent liberals and progressives have sat back and quietly watched this half-billion dollar network slowly slip into the sea. In their worst moments, these liberals and lefties have signed onto idiotic crusades aimed at “saving” Pacifica by cleansing it of any trace of nuance, ideological diversity and, for that matter, debate and dialogue. And even in their better moments, these same supposed political grown-ups, even when they can sense that the network is being squandered, and after the umpteenth time that they have heard their local station raise money by pitching crank videos “exposing” 911 as a White House-engineered hoax, they bite their tongues, shrug their shoulders and remain silent lest they be publicly heard criticizing “our own side.” Well, nice work, folks. The nesting chickies have indeed come home to roost. Your network, as you would have it, is now officially run by someone who thinks we ought to seriously consider that something other than those airplanes took down the towers. Look forward, if you can, to more programming and fund-raising that would be better suited for a UFO cult than for a serious or credible political and cultural opposition. And all at the cost of only a cool half-billion. *** UPDATE -- UPDATE *** A public radio insider, whose bona fides I have checked out before entering, the update below has written in to correct me on one crucial point. I actually overstated -- by twice-- my educated estimate of the current size of KPFK's (Los Angeles) audience and therefore understated its relative decline. The average quarter hour of listenership of the state turns out to be about 5,000 people -- not 10,000. The numbers provided below also clearly indicate that the audience decline has been steady since the network was "saved" by the current management. More alarming, while Pacifica's Los Angeles audience has stagnated over the past decade, the listenership of the competing NPR stations has skyrocketed. This is what I mean about squandering an opportunity. Dissatisfaction with the MSM has generated a boom in public radio -- but the new listeners ignore Pacifica. Here's the note I got from "the insider:" Marc, you're far too generous in your guestimate of KPFK’s small audience. Your blog prompted me to find KPFK’s latest numbers at http://www.rrconline.org/arbitron/. I also dug out an old spreadsheet from the 1990's showing LA public radio audience. KPFK’s latest metro listenership – as measured Fall 2005 – shows an Average Quarter Hour (AQH) of 5200 and CUME of 159,300. Roughly half of your imagined 10,000! For non-radio people, imagine you run a store. AQH is how many people, on average, might be inside at any time. The CUME (cumulative) is how many visited for at least five minutes during an average week. So AQH is a measurement of listening, versus a gross head count of who stuck their nose in. Before the KPFK idiots crippled their transmitter in 1994, KPFK’s metro AQH averaged 3825, a small number indeed for a 112,000 watt station. Afterwards it dropped dramatically, dipping as low as 2300 in one period. Then after 1995, when you and others came in and started making changes, the average rose steadily to roughly 7000 AQH. There was even a peak of 8200 before the suicidal "Pacifica Wars" erupted into a daily feature on the national programming. Although still small, these numbers represented a decent growth trend, especially given the compromised transmitter – and programming during a Democratic administration. After 2001, the faction that took over didn’t pay the fees, so Pacifica's audience research was not published for several years. Just as they took control, the transmitter restoration project was completed, Bush was president, and the Patriot Act and Iraq war soon followed. KPFK’s audience numbers should have blown through the roof! We’ll never know exactly, but even if they did, they quickly fell right back down. For comparison, other LA public stations are booming. During the Fall of 1999, the AQH for KPCC was 8300. This past Fall it was 20,600. KCRW’s numbers grew even higher. They've more than doubled, while the "new" KPFK has fallen – or at best stagnated – despite a much, much stronger transmitter and what should be it’s political salad days made possible by a disastrous Bush presidency. Very sad indeed. *** UPDATE #2*** ***UPDATE #2 *** Flash! What timing. Word has just come in that the General Manager of Berkeley's KPFA resigned today. Under duress, of course. His stepping down has nothing to do with my post above i.e. with the naming of the new network director. Instead, Gen Mgr Roy Campanella Jr. (son of the legendary Dodger baseball player) quit after one more months-long drama of internal conflict in which he was accused, apparently, of sexual harrassment. Read deep into the linked piece, however, and you find two nuggets. You get a glimpse of the ultra-activist internal culture I alluded to above. Imagine dozens of people spending their Sunday in a marathon "town hall" meeting to discuss the internal management of a radio station whose core programming really hasn't changed in 25 years (in spite of hundreds or perhaps thousands of oh-so-serious similar meetings during that same period). And, more importantly, you see a suggestion of what might be the real story behind Campanella's departure. The crustacean-like programmers and staff who cling to their air time and their jobs for dear life and at all costs, resist any managment whatsover and don't hesitate to brand anyone with authority over them as some sort of horrible villain. What they fear most is any accountability for their failed and prolonged tenure on the air and are quick to smear those who threaten them as some sort of political criminal. In the pc-Pacifica culture, of course, the capital crimes are the usual allegations of sexism, racism, or, my God, liberalism (as opposed to radicalism). Campanella now joins a long list of former Pacifica managers driven out of the network by similar staff-driven campaigns. Now, back to watching The Crucible...
January 24th, 2006 at 5:09 am
Do we have any insights/information into how and why Guma was hired?
asks a former KPFK reporter and public affairs producer (1978-79).
January 24th, 2006 at 6:08 am
Of course, President Bush is not a liar. Repeating information that you believe is true is not lying. Bush is, in fact, one of the most honest, straight-talking presidents of the modern era. Calling him a liar is not that far removed from believing in crazy conspiracies; it’s simply a matter of degree. The left has truly become unhinged, in my opinion, and that really is a shame.
January 24th, 2006 at 6:22 am
The Bushies may be liars but that is no reason to lie to ourselves and swoon over preposterous conspiracy theories.
The best single sentence on the loony-Left mentality I’ve ever read. I’m sure I’ll be quoting it for years to come. (And that’s even though I think it’s wrong to think of them as “the Bushes” when so much of W’s policies stands as an explicit repudiation of his father’s sleazy realpolitik. But as a sentence that might actually get through a little, perfect.)
The only thing I’d say against the premise of this whole article is, does Pacifica even matter? Does any conventional radio station, let alone one in a leftist ecological park at the far edge of the dial? I guess the organizational structure has some value, but being on a few college radio stations is surely worth a lot less than just fighting for attention on the wild wild web. What’s the last significant story to originate with Pacifica? That Chomsky gave a speech to adoring baristas somewhere?
January 24th, 2006 at 6:45 am
This is hilarious, I love it! As a former leftist who came to my senses, it is a great joy to see how stupid the Left has been for the past many years. One would think that a net of stations in these key cities would be a source of strength to the anti-American, pro-Islamist forces. Instead, Pacifica is totally marginalized! occasionally I listen to Pacifica programs on the NPR station from Yellow Springs, Ohio, home of Antioch College. what a hoot!
January 24th, 2006 at 6:45 am
Revealing and disquieting… and yet, this very day (January 24, ‘06) one sees numerous postings of how “Campaign Finance” regulation, “Fairness” strictures and so on, keep surfacing with the objective of denying any OTHER point of view a right to public dissemination.
Personalities such as Guma et.al. are beside the point. From an institutional –that is, Constitutional– perspective, it seems that our Congress and Courts are no longer bulwarks of fundamental liberties but enablers of exactly those tendencies that Hamilton, Madison, and Jay (not to mention Jefferson) most feared.
In McCain-Feingold, our Wonderland judiciary took hundreds of pages to assert that “Congress shall make no law…” means just the opposite, because Humpty Dumpty says so. Which leads to “judicial review” subverting the legislature’s sole perogative to enact, amend, or rescind statutes… but where integrity is lacking, anything goes.
One wonders: Why does no-one care? Your “Pacifica” types, the Maoists and Stalinists, devotees of Uncle Ho and Saloth Sar, are simply incapable of functioning. Ten thousand listeners out of sixty million, declining over fifty years! In “fairness” to Public Debate, their whole spectrum
might suitably be opened for bids solely by outlets certifiably addressing a minimum 20% of any demographic. Monopolize the airwaves? We think not.
What, you say– does Pacifica not have a right to Kool Conspiracies? Well, if McCain et.al. can define or label any “speech” they choose as “campaign related”, designating individual citizens as “committees of one” with liabilities attached, then Pacifica should be the first to go.
The fact that Revolutionary Communists (sic) constitute a small and vanishing minority does not render them eligible for subsidies by default.
As these anti-speech trends continue. not only “chilling” but actually prohibiting public dialogue, the Deans and Kerrys will rejoice but there will come a time when artificial, inflated, radically foolish attitudes will blow away– unfortunately, after doing permanent damage to bedrock American policies and principles.
“Pacifica”, indeed. Mecca is that way… sharpen your chainsaws, and get busy.
January 24th, 2006 at 6:52 am
It strikes me that Pacifica is a microcosmic example of what the world would look like if the liberals were allowed full reign. It would seem that “progressive thought” in practice is self defeating.
January 24th, 2006 at 7:01 am
I’m not sure if people inside the fray on the left can really see the stark contrast between liberalism and progressivism. The two are inherently incompatible.
January 24th, 2006 at 7:04 am
“sexist, racist, and corporatist nazi.”
In other words, they denounce you as a Republican. Gee, what a shocker. Maybe once the Posties, you sir, and basically anyone who resists in the slightest fashion the oppression fantasies of MoveOn and her diverse satellites have been on the business end of Trotskyite “struggle” you will understand how vapid has been the Leftwing rhetoric since… well, ever. With apologies to Bruce Willis, “Welcome to the party, pal!”
January 24th, 2006 at 7:06 am
Wow! Pacifica Radio has so much in common with Pajamas Media. Loads of money and fuckwits at the top.
January 24th, 2006 at 7:08 am
There are days when your stuff reads just the same way. These are your people. Have another glass of kool aid.
January 24th, 2006 at 7:13 am
In the 50’s and the early 60’s my politics were Ripon Society Republican, that is moderate, the party’s left wing. I could always find something interesting or challenging on KPFK or KPFA.
That all ended in the continuing process of the withering away of the left. One could never truly call Pacifica part of the “loyal opposition” but the programming was at least intellectually honest and frequently engaging.
Every so often I happen to hit one of the stations while driving and after listening for a while, for old times sake, I dial away, saddened. Now that the left, apparently worldwide, has become an oral tradition, and the Democratic party has lost its way blinded by the same kind of sectarianism that has killed Pacifica, I worry for our political system.
We need the outsiders, the gadfly’s to keep the power elites honest.
January 24th, 2006 at 7:13 am
We get KPFA simulcast here in the San Joaquin Valley (Bush Country,CA) I love the music shows early in the morning and late at night. And Joe Frank was cool.
It’s also kind of fun to listen to Dennis Bernstein talk to himself. It’s nice to have a few moonbats still around to show the children.
January 24th, 2006 at 7:28 am
Even before my gradual recovery from the sickness of leftist thinking that began after 9/11, I had already ceased to listen to KPFA (which, until the mid-1990’s, I had supported with donations of several hundreds of dollars a year) because it was dawning on me that its animating ideology included a generous dollop of quite hideous anti-Semitism, always under the “repectable” cover of “anti-Zionism.”
Jamie Irons
January 24th, 2006 at 7:45 am
Leave it to the lefties to ignore the market value of an entity and the common sense principles that earn market share. Mao had to slaughter 50 million souls to get his “market share.” Good to hear his ideological progeny haven’t lost his touch.
January 24th, 2006 at 7:51 am
Several generations of leftist leadership will drive any institution into the ground.
It sounds as if you’re just now discovering this.
Can you really blame us “Bushies” for not wanting these clowns anywhere near political power?
Maybe you should consider becoming a conservative, or maybe (horrors!) you already are and just don’t know it.
January 24th, 2006 at 8:11 am
I sometimes listen to WBAI in the morning as I drive my 14-year-old to school. He and I get a big kick out of listening to the commies rant and rave. I don’t usually call leftists “commies” but in the case of WBAI, it’s appropriate - they are all for the dictatorship of the proleteriat, state ownership of the means of production, and equality for everyone at the barrel of a gun, not to mention freeing Mumia and impeaching BushChimpieHitler. What a joy!
January 24th, 2006 at 8:33 am
It is sad to see these left side radio stations not do well. Because if certain people on the left get a chance, they will close those right and moderate radio stations and internet sites down during the election cycle. That way the only news we can get during the cycle will be the Talking points of the Democrat party through the newspapers and mainstream network news, CNN, ABC, CBS, and MSNBC. Only Fox News will be able to give some semblance of balance.
I think the biggest problem of the Left is their absolute belief that their thoughts are the thoughts of Mainstream America. I got news for them, they do not represent the mainstream of America. American’s do not trust the power of the Government, never have never will.
January 24th, 2006 at 8:40 am
Whoa, this post brought some of the loonies out of the woodwork.
It was just this morning, driving to my bustop, when I decided to check out Amy Goodman’s for the first time in a long time. MAYBE she’s got something interesting on, I thought. The last time I regularly listened was the last elections, and she would not stop going on about Haiti. Every day was how America the big bully was stuffing little Haiti’s head in the toilet. She had become a broken record. So today, guess what they were talking about when i turned it on? Haiti still! Then I turned to sports radio.
January 24th, 2006 at 8:48 am
Talk about Kool-Aid…they also seem to be dishing it out over at Open Pajamas Media….some of these comments are as unhinged as Pacifica radio…but less coherent.
January 24th, 2006 at 9:12 am
Maybe I’m imagining it but I seem to remember, as a boy in the late sixties, regularly listening to a program on WBAI put on by the Young Americans for Freedom, believe it or not! It must have had some impact because despite growing up in liberal household, my politics turned conservative. However, I continued listening and enjoying the programs on WBAI well into the seventies, even though I disagreed with most of them. They were almost always intelligent, entertaining and the hosts were open to opposing viewpoints. None of that obtains today, sadly, and that’s too bad: the best way to keep one’s political thoughts sharp is to hear sharp and well-argued opposition.
I still miss the old WBAI.
January 24th, 2006 at 9:12 am
You know, your story about how the loons took over Pacifica by staying late at the meetings, driving away the more moderate voices, shouting down their opponents, forming close-knit echo chambers, etc. reminds me of the many stores I’ve heard about how religious wackos took over the grassroots sector of the Republican party.
Same tactics, same result. Much of the grassroots of the Republican party is now an echo chamber of Bible babble and equally unhinged ideas.
Perhaps liberals and sane conservatives both need to place placards around their think tanks, radio stations, council meetings, etc. that say something snarky like “Notice: anyone caught out of doors past midnight barking at the moon will be tarred and feathered.” Maybe we need a bipartaisan sit-in against the wackos and wingnuts.
January 24th, 2006 at 9:14 am
Small point, but Pauline Kael wasn’t a conservative, but left-liberal to the end. She would occasionally get irritated with her friends and stick pins in some left orthodoxies or complacencies (famously dissed “Salt of the Earth” and “Roger and Me”–treason to some, I guess), but never even considered being in the opposite camp.
January 24th, 2006 at 9:17 am
Marc, when everything in you screamed not to write this article, it sounded like you were waiting (hoping?) for a long string of outraged howls of “pwogwessives.” Instead, you’re getting slathered in conservative gloating. Happy now?
As a “pwogwessive” who only managed to escape vacuous exurban banality by means of the KPFK’s signal strength, let me first of all agree that today’s Pacifica is currently un-listenable. I dearly wish it were better.
Your standard, comfortable tactic in these situations is blaming “otherwise intelligent liberals and progressives.” Let me point out that your circular firing squad strategy resembles nothing so much as the bitter pointless infighting and endless backwashing waves of recrimination that you claim to abhor in irrelevant sub-cultures like Pacifica. Nicely done.
It’s a lot harder to build than to tear down. I’m sure you’re working to build a viable culture on the left… somehow. But for whatever reason, the only things I seem to read by you involve tearing down with increasing vigor and spite.
As one of you many appreciative right-wing commentors noted:
“Maybe you should consider becoming a conservative, or maybe (horrors!) you already are and just don’t know it.”
January 24th, 2006 at 9:33 am
Marc, I have to admit that - other than the Saturday morning gospel and blues shows hosted by Emmet Powell, Johnny Otis and Tom Mazzolini on KPFA and with the possible exception of some of Bensky’s coverage of Iran-Contra - I haven’t listened to Pacifica broadcasts since the early 70s, and then infrequently. Believe it or not, better “alt-news” was available for a brief shining moment on KSAN even then - when it was a “free-form” commercial rock station - thanks to Dave McQueen and Scoop Nisker. But one of my guilty pleasures was every now and then tuning into William Mandel’s broadcasts on his adventures in the Soviet Union. It was one of the most bizarre bits of programming ever to hit the airwaves. Incessent apologia for Soviet Communism and it’s eastern European variants - with byzantine explanations of the wisdom of such as Jaruzelski or some obscure commissars in the Caucusus. Out of curiousity after reading your post, I checked the KPFA website to look at their programming schedule and…there was an undoubtedly ancient William Mandel. While he still seems to be re-running old tapes of his quite rousing anti-HUAC performance over a half-century ago - always a staple of his peculiar megalomania - he mostly now seems to be promoting “people-to-people” programs to teach business skills in Russia, which he gravely notes were outlawed under “Marxist socialism”. You’ve gotta give it to this guy. I always thought he was just some mouthpiece for the dregs of pro-Soviet communism that reside in some small scale in and around Berkeley, but it turns out he was so practiced at Russophile apologia for so long that he’s now perfectly happy hawking some Russian version of capitalism to the KPFA faithful. Maybe he’s the last gasp of that authentic, old-school eccentricity among the Pacifica flock, the loss of which you lament.
January 24th, 2006 at 9:35 am
As one of you many appreciative right-wing commentors noted: “Maybe you should consider becoming a conservative, or maybe (horrors!) you already are and just don’t know it.”
Maybe one of the Left’s problems is that it has ceded certain basic values– common sense, the application of Occam’s Razor, not letting the lunatics run the asylum, being responsive to your market, trying to be open to more points of view rather than ruthlessly enforcing ideological conformity, etc.– to the Right. For me, those are still core values of liberalism, but liberals who espouse them get rarer all the time– and inevitably end up being branded as closeted, conservative traitors.
Another great line in this piece: “When Pacifica was once a magical place that taught you how to think it is now a dreary drumbeat telling you what to think.” Exactly, except that almost nobody is actually listening to what they’re being told. Pacifica is to politics what Dr. Gene Scott was to theology.
January 24th, 2006 at 9:43 am
Conflation of “liberals” and the Democratic Party with the “left” as represented on the extreme margins by Pacifica is to politics what the “War Against Christmas” is to theology.
January 24th, 2006 at 9:45 am
Does this Guma actually blieve that Griffin nonsense? Is this established fact? MIchael Shermer just had a piece on that foolish book, so I have a hard time believing this is the official Pacifica stance. It’s drawn in some new faces her though.
January 24th, 2006 at 9:51 am
On a practical level the demise of Pacifica is revealing. Can anyone think about leftist institutions that actually function properly? Thinking your DNA is good changes nothing.
January 24th, 2006 at 9:59 am
Maybe one of the Left’s problems is that it has ceded certain basic values… to the Right.
The idea of today’s nation-building, secrecy-loving, corruption-riddled “Right” being a bastion of openness and Occam’s Razor style efficiency is of course painfully laughable. But that was my point.
I’m not calling Marc a traitor — he seems to genuinely want a better, more effective resistance to the current ruling-class incompetence. I’m just pointing out that his tactics seem to do little more than provoke further food-fights and set so-called conservatives aglow with the greasy oil of smugness.
Constructive criticism would hopefully end up being “constructive.” So what’s being built here? (Aside from the bold faced proclamations of squandering? )
January 24th, 2006 at 10:00 am
I started listening to Pacifica via KPFK in the sixties when the station considered culture to be part of the political terrain. Anyone else remember RADIO FREE OZ? And there were lots of conspiracy theorists then as well. Remember Mort Sahl? Mark Lane? And all the old lefties like Doroothy Healy and William Mandel. You know what. It was great radio! And the music shows! Well I think it went down a long time ago and only had a rebirth in the ninties when you Marc, and a few others like Jon Weiner and Ian Masters had programs that I set my clock to listen to regularly.
But the real villian here is not the fringe groups. They’ve been around forever. No the problem is the lack of support by the mainstream Left. Those boards were open to all. There were elections. I heard the meetings, ad nauseum, on the radio. But we didn’t show up, didn’t vote, just sent money. So who is to blame? As someone said it is just like the takeover of the GOP by the Religious Right. Anyone for Yeats?
To all those gloaters on the right all I have to say is check out AIR AMERICA. Marc may not like them - why aren’t you doing RADIONATION there? - but they’re growing and now people like Ed Schultz, Randi Rhodes and Al Franken are kicking some butt. As Sean Hannity!
I too wish Pacifica could exploit its resources. I wish the Dems were more left wing. But everyone likes to kvetch - it is so much easier! Meanwhile a bunch of loons with a certifiably unpopular agenda moves us further to the right. Free Mumia indeed!
January 24th, 2006 at 10:11 am
Well he didn’t actually sign on the Griffin thesis as much as report the story of Griffin’s local Vermont appearance and positions, but it did seem ambigious at best. This is indeed the type of thing that can sink Independent media if allowed to proliferate.
January 24th, 2006 at 10:11 am
FTP, in a lament on the decline of liberal thought mentions failure to apply “Occam’s Razor”
Maybe I’m stupid and unschooled, but I had never heard of “Occam’s Razor” until Kevin Drum started repeatedly invoking it on his Washington Monthly lib-blog. (I dare say the “it’s not about oil” crowd - re: U.S. Middle East policy and Iraq - should, perhaps, give this intenet cliche some due consideration.)
January 24th, 2006 at 10:11 am
As far as I’m concerned, Pacifica Radio was always headed this way. Oblivion is way overdue.
January 24th, 2006 at 10:17 am
Yeah, free Mumia! Send him to hell where he can find the freedom he deserves…along with the rest of the moonbat left.
January 24th, 2006 at 10:18 am
In the light of RLC and Adam I’s good posts, the more I think about it, the more it appears that one of the (few) good things about the Democratic Party might be that the ultra-leftists hate it so much. Maybe we should reconsider any attempts to convince the Naderite fringe to come in from the cold. It’s not like they’ve got the numbers that the right-wing crazies who have bitten off large hunks of the GOP control via their crackpot grass-roots fundamentalist networks. Better off without these nuisances…we’ve already got enough problems.
January 24th, 2006 at 10:22 am
Zota, I think you mischaracterize what Marc has accomplished here. Sure, most of his response has been from conservatives. Believe it or not, most of us despair over the sad state of rhetorical argument in general, and the fevered imaginings of many of those on the left, in particular.
Informed and intelligent debate used to form the basis of the greatest strength in American civic life: the working through of issues, policies, finding common ground, and incrementally improving life for the greater good.
Having one side or the other absent without leave in that effort weakens the result. Having large majorities on either side resort to namecalling and conspiracy accusations as their primary means of discussion, destroys the basis for reasoned consensus.
That so few “pwogwessives” even weigh in in response is telling.
And I would dispute your assessment that Marc’s observations are the equivalent to a circular firing squad strategy. He’s highlighting a very real cause and effect relationship between behavior amongst his erstwhile ideological bedfellows, and resulting marginalization and irrelevancy. He’s identified a major failing, which, by objecting to the criticism itself, rather than the substance of the criticism, you reinforce.
Once upon a time, true progressive and liberal thought held as its primary goal open and transparent discussion and debate, with a priority placed on uncovering or revealing fact not in evidence, or otherwise neglected or underreported. As such, Bill Buckley and Firing Line was one of the early triumphs of Public Television. Boring, perhaps, but a balanced debate.
Now? Please. You are more likely to hear liberal dissenting voices amid conservative chatter in conservative media, and FAR LESS LIKELY to hear the opposite on liberal media outlets. No greater intolerance exists today than that found in liberal bastions such as the average liberal arts campus, or major metropolitan editorial boards. Diversity is an orthodoxy, but not when it applies to political theory or thought.
January 24th, 2006 at 10:25 am
I lived in Houston from 2002-2005. After initially confusing Pacifica for NPR (for less than five minutes, of course), I began listening on purpose, usually during my short commutes. As a moderate conservative, I found the Maoist news analysis and the prisoner radio hour, among others, bizarrely entertaining, at least in small doses. But I never found anyone else who listened, despite having friends across the political spectrum (and more on the left than right).
Once, in early 2003, I got into a cab to the airport and the driver had the radio tuned to KPFT, the first time I had heard the station outside my own car. I was somewhat distressed that this recent Haitian immigrant’s early exposure to our country consisted of insinuations that the President let 9-11 happen on purpose (or worse), etc. After the radio host argued that we had invaded Afghanistan over some oil and gas pipeline, the cabbie let out a sound, and turned around to ask, “Do you ever listen to this?†Before I could answer, he continued (paraphrasing), “They are so crazy, it makes me laugh. Of course Bush attacked Afghanistan, what would they had done in his place? I wish I had time to sit and dream up the things they say. But they have their own radio station. I can’t decide if this is good or not. What do you think?†The conversation went on from there, and it underscores how ineffectual Pacifica has become.
January 24th, 2006 at 10:25 am
As one of those war supporting right wing nuts, I’d have to say that there might be some credibility in at least part of the WTC conspiracy theories.
As an engineer I have looked into some of the theories and have found some merit in them.
The thing is if every thing is a conspiracy theory then the stuff with the most merit gets discounted.
And even if you agree with the conspiracy “how”, there is never any evidence presented connecting the how with the who.
January 24th, 2006 at 10:26 am
Note that while the bandwidth Pacifica occupies might be worth half a billion dollars on the open market, that does not mean that it is capable of half a billion dollars worth of communication for Left/Progressive goals.
Something that could be worth 500 million dollars playing popular talk radio or music is a far cry from the “value” of the same thing playing content that isn’t so popular, be it Pacifica’s NPR-on-steroids for the Left, or a 24/7 Zydeco network.
January 24th, 2006 at 10:27 am
Wow. I am a conservative Republican and first started listening to Pacifica in 2002 when I moved to SoCal. Why did I listen? For the PURE HILARITY of it. Talk about left-wing loonies!
Note I sincerely do not mean this as any disrespect for left-leaning folks who hold serious and different opinions to my own…
However, we on the Right cannot understand how your side consistently fails to realize how EASY you make life for us when outrageous media organizations like Pacific become the face of your cause and values… Why do you let Maoists and communists into your tent? It brings down your entire message and party…
January 24th, 2006 at 10:33 am
I graduated from college with a degree in Radio, Video, Film Production, and know a bit about the plastic nature of radio programing. I own my own pool / spa repair business which requires a ton of driving. I get bored listening to the standard radio fare (especially Hannity - what a predictable bore) and, from time to time, start channel hopping to see if any new stations have gone up, or any old ones have changed format. When I first found KFCF on the dial, someone, probably Dennis Bernstein, was talking about how the 9/11 attack was staged so the defense contractors would see an increase in government contracts. At first I thought the show was a comedy or satire, and soon realize, no, this guy is serious. I still tune in from time to time for a good laugh. The one redeeming value the stations still have is that they air Senate and / or Congressional hearings, such as the Alito or 9/11 hearings. Of coarse, during breaks in the hearings, they feature nothing but the farthest left leaning analysis they manage to find, but if that is the price we have to pay for hearing coverage, well, I can live with that. For that reason, it would be a shame if the station went off the air.
PS. We just got an Air America affiliate a few months ago, and I must say that KFCF, for all its nuttiness, is FAR, FAR more entertaining that Air America has ever been. AA is nothing but rehash of the worst of Rush Limbaugh, except with a vicious left POV. Every single show host on that station refers to Limbaugh as “druggie” Limbaugh. As if no one on the left has ever been addicted to drugs. And why does Frankin get billed as a comedian. Don’t you have to be, what’s the term, FUNNY to qualify for that title???
January 24th, 2006 at 10:34 am
As an old AM talk radio head, I am dismayed to hear about the demise of any broadcast radio. I would hope that the Pacifica brand, a strong recognition among many (right or left) would be revived among XM or Sirius. The ability to provide GOOD content to the burgeoning satellite realm would be splendid.
What is more distressing however, is the fall of some into the trap of fantasist rantings. Left and right both indulge in “wish it was” thinking, but those who purport it as truth do the most harm to their side’s credibility.
Wishing things were true does not make them so…
I also suspect that the value of those stations will decline substantially as the radio market is continually usurped by satellite and internet broadcasting.
January 24th, 2006 at 10:37 am
A couple of replies:
I don’t share RLC’s passion for Air America (for my taste it sounds way too much like Pacifica). But his analysis of what went wrong at the former is right on the money.
To Balter: The “process” of selected the Exec Dir is carried out by the volunteer National Board. That Board has been miserably mediocre for 25 yrs that I am aware of. It’s gotten progressively worse. It is now people by the faction took over the network in 2001. It’s a curious and nefarious mechanism they set up. The Brd is more and more composed by “reps” of the local stations. Those reps for the most part are close allies of the actual people on the air. So mgmt of the network rests with a group that has the greatest interest in perpetuating their own tenure as programmers. Sort of like a protection racket.
To Zota: I don’t get you, my friend. I an a writer, not an enginner. My job is to write things and provoke reactions. That is what I have done. I dont understand at all what you mean. Would I be more “constructive: if I left out uncomfortable facts? If I kept this a secret? I am exposing nothing to the Right in this piece. After all, Pacifica stations are radio stations that brdct publicly and whose programs can be monitored nd anlayzed by anyone who cares to. What’s ur point?
January 24th, 2006 at 10:40 am
Let me just say I’m heartened to be joined by people whose presence may remind some of my adversaries here that while I am deluded, insane, dishonest, pathetically willing to facilitate fascism and so on, I also am not alone.
Decent point about Occam’s Razor and oil vis-a-vis Iraq, reg; it does potentially cut both ways, though. (The simplest way to get oil is to buy it, and so on.)
January 24th, 2006 at 10:41 am
PS to Zigivald: You raise an excellent point. The product-programming of the current Pacifica network has little market value. My point is:
1) that if the Left wished to build Pacifica as it is today it would cost literally a half-billion dollars.
Or 2) You could actually sell the 5 pacifica frequencies today for a half billion and in invest it something that works.
January 24th, 2006 at 10:50 am
The board selection process, the way the internal workings were evidently taken over by loonies, reminds me of similar problems in nearly every neighborhood organization I ever worked with when I have been a community organizer.
If a group gets targeted by aggressive maniacs of any sort, it’s very difficult to keep the sane people involved. It’s just not worth their time.
Speculation: is this an inherent flaw in attempted major political organizing efforts like this, but especially on the left for some reason? At least at this point in time?
To deny some version of loonies exists on the right is ridiculous of course; it just seems to me that the moderate right voices have more muscle and more confidence than the left version.
I’d also undoubtedly disagree with most of the regulars here on what constitutes “moderate” in a Republican sense.
January 24th, 2006 at 10:53 am
BTW as a counterfactual to “the WTC was taken down in part by explosive demolition”, no one has come up with any info on how the explosives were installed in a building full of people - some of whom might have noticed.
The deal is: in any theory there are always counterfactuals. An honest report should always at least mention possible objections. No mention of counterfactuals leads to agenda journalism rather than truth journalism.
No striving for truth. No listeners.
Personally I’m a big believer in divided government. Had the Ds run Lieberman (who is now a pariah in his own party) he would have gotten my vote.
Hell, if Kerry had apologized for what his anti-war position in the 70s has done to the Vietnamese people, he would have gotten my vote. A sign of learning from his mistakes (I supported Kerry’s position in the 70s - until the re-ed camps and boat people changed my mind).
The Dems and Pacifica are in trouble because they have forgotten nothing and learned nothing.
So I lean Republican these days. (I did vote Obama over Keyes - I can’t abide theocons).
What the Dems need is a strong injection of Harry Truman (whose hand I once shook on the train to Independence). You know what Harry would say to the Islamic crazies - straighten out or we will drop the Big One on you. So where have you heard talk like that lately? From Chirac in France.
Ah, well. I look forward to a resurgence of the two party system in America. Sadly given current trajectories I will not live to see it.
Oh, yeah. Dump socialism. You need a thriving market economy to support even a bit of it. If it dominates the economy things start sliding - not necessisarily in a good direction. Another thing Lieberman gets. No wonder he is so unpopular with the Ds.
And where is Pacifica when it comes to encouraging the market economy? In the Communist camp. Feh.
January 24th, 2006 at 10:53 am
“The “flagship†New York station, WBAI, which in the 70’s was a hothouse that produced a generation of able journalists who later took their skills and their liberal or lefty politics into the mainstream media…”
Not ’some,’ or ‘a few,’ but a whole generation? And there’s no left/liberal bias in the mainstream media, right?
January 24th, 2006 at 10:54 am
“… a Reichstag-like plot engineered by…”
Offtopic, but I’ve always read this as “the Nazis set fire to the Reichstag in order to consolidate power” - a historical fact; imagine my surprise when I recently read (in “I Will Bear Witness”, which is great) that the Nazis likely weren’t behind it, though they certainly were quick to take advantage of it — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire has a good overview. I wonder at what point it became “known” that the Nazis did it themselves?
Am I the only one who had this bit of history wrong? Treating it as fact seems to overstate the case, at any rate.
January 24th, 2006 at 11:05 am
Is Pacifica’s latest turn really all that different from, say, mainstream Democratic writing, except in degree? Both share a common theme: An unwillingness to debate the other side on facts and policy, preferring instead to create a monstrous, evil straw man. The result is that they can feel good about being morally superior to their foes, while completely ignoring the electorate.
Much of the left is still living in a fantasy world in which the last election was “stolen” from them- despite all the polls that show a distrust of the Democrats that outweighs and doubts they may have about Republicans. And unless they start addressing issues, they’re going to lose again in 2008.
January 24th, 2006 at 11:17 am
What’s ur point?
Marc, my point is that you aren’t a disinterested party — you’re a former Pacifica broadcaster who is presumably interested in making it better or coming up with a better alternative. My point is that surely someone as closely involved and deeply knowledgeable as you could offer something more than yet another outraged/disgusted venting at The Left?
Venting feels good. Sometimes it’s absolutely necessary. But venting — and only venting — that liberals only have themselves to blame seems like something that anyone could do. And it’s a project that already seems abundantly well accomplished by right-wing media.
You seem to suggest here that Pacifica is doomed to utter un-salvagable irrelevance and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Okay. But if you really seriously believe you’re kicking a dead horse, then why bother?
Like you said, you aren’t exactly revealing a secret here. So the primary effect of your non-expose seems to be entertainment for your right-wing readership. Not that there isn’t a fairly lucrative career in doing that (*cough*Mikey Kaus*cough*). But is it what you want?
January 24th, 2006 at 11:18 am
“An unwillingness to debate the other side on facts and policy, preferring instead to create a monstrous, evil straw man.”
Yes. What I refer to as “pretending that their own caricatured version of their opponents’ views is all they need to respond to.”
One result being that all they offer to which their opponents must respond is - shabang, shabing - a self-constructed caricature of an argument.
So: there are careful and reasonable ways to oppose Iraq; and careful and reasonable ways to accusse W of some degree of dishonesty.
But the public Democrats, trapped by the angry, boil it down to “Bush lied people died,” or “Who profits who dies,” ignore the rational arguments for the war that also exist and were also made by W , and so leave the turf for rational debate to the right.
(In fact, in a more rational Democratic Party, Liebermann would undoubtedly have been more aggressive in questioning Bush. But his intellectual honesty compelled him to respond to the insanity in his own party as almost more important.)
The electoral result is that a crucial 10% - 15% of the natural Democratic base retches and either leaves or seriously considers it.
January 24th, 2006 at 11:23 am
Zota: Ur pissing up the wrong rope on this one! That’s right, Im not a disinterested party. As I said ib my disclosure, I had a drive time show on KPFK for four years. While there, I and (more so) some of my friends fought like hell to improve that place. Some of my colleagues put in 60 hour weeks and threw away their lives and careers in the effort. For those efforts at constructively trying modernize Pacifica, they were literally lynched (as was I): calumnied, libeled, smeared, stalked and while I quit, they were fired. They had to go to court to as much as collect their severance and vacation pay that Pacifica’s liberators had failed to pay them. Then they had to go court to win compensation for their illegal firings. That’s what they did constructively. So the question isnt what Ive written or what Ive did… it’s what YOU are willing to do.
January 24th, 2006 at 11:36 am
zota, what people like Marc (and on a far lower level myself) want is not to talk to the right. It’s to talk to the left, and get them to wake up. Pacifica’s evidently a lost cause. The main audience worth addressing these days is the left, about itself.
Too much of the left is in the same position as the entrenched, status-quo-fixated right of 40-50 years ago, unable to even conceive that it might be seriously off track. Only it’s an inverted form: it’s fixated on rebellion, rather than the status quo, and doesn’t see how its ideas of rebellion and “questioning authority” have become the new stupid status quo for their adherents.
Stupidest bumper sticker I’ve seen recently: “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.” No it isn’t. As long as we’re starting from a presumption that something called “patriotism” can be a good thing, I can think of at least one higher form, and I don’t even need to think about it very hard.
There’s an intelligent commenter here named reg who will accuse me of selective bumper-sticker quoting, making a mountain out of a molehill. One does need to watch out for that.
But I’d just say: there are far, far too many liberals in southwest Minneapolis who would nod in sad agreement at that sentiment, and not see the moral vacuity at the heart of it.
Reg is a good example of the audience. He’s smart, he’s passionate, he’s not usually one of the dummies himself. He just insists that the idiocy on the left doesn’t mean all that much, at least not in comparison to the continued idiocy on the right.
To him I say: I don’t care about the idiocy on the right in this context. First of all, to a greater extent than you know you’re buying in to the idiotic left version of it.
But more importantly, the left idiocy and insanity is doing more damage these days precisely because it is so largely unacknowledged by the people it holds in its sway: these intelligent, moral people for whom it is a natural given that they are incapable of unintelligence and questionable morality (and that’s a big part of the problem).
It rides roughshod over their perceptions and activities the way an unacknowledged Shadow can destroy a person’s life, in the Jungian sense.
The left will wake up and dominate when it suddenly realizes how moronic it’s been acting too often, how stupid. That’s the main thing they can’t handle, that self-perception, and eventually they will rebel against themselves.
I would not like to be Michael Moore when that happens.
January 24th, 2006 at 11:37 am
Marc,
I have to confess that I feel a certain amount of malicious glee at the thought of Pacifica going down the tubes. I don’t bear any malice against the organization itself. I’ve never listened (that I know of) to a Pacifica broadcast, and my own politics are libertarian. (I voted for Bush in 2004 only because the Libertarian Party went off the blame-America-first deep-end after 9/11, and the Democrats haven’t been worth the powder to blow them up since 1972.) And I can understand your sorrow at the thought of an organization which commanded so much of your devotion slowly dwindling down to nothing.
This is perhaps cruel, but I hope that EVERYTHING the far-left touches– Pacifica, Air America, you-name-it– goes down in flames. Maybe then (and only then, I fear) will the Democrats “get it”, and dump socialism and the hostility they have to profits, wealth, merit, and America itself.
(If there were someone alive today like Harry Truman, and who absorbed the lessons of how the ’70s didn’t work and how the ’80s did, I’d vote for him in a heartbeat, no matter his party affiliation. Alas, the only person like that in recent times was Ronald Reagan, architect of the ’80s.)
January 24th, 2006 at 11:38 am
So in the end, there is obviously a problem with all left and mainstream (again left) media in that is too far left, even for mainstream Democrats.
When prominent people on the left claim the government “blew up” the levies in N.O., or Bush brought down the WTC, or Belafonte compares Bush to a Nazi and uses Gestapo tactics, everyone on the left including mainstream democrats are made to look like a bunch of nut-jobs…
Bottom line is the Democratic tent is too big — they don’t need to invite EVERYONE and ANYONE (communists, socialists, etc…) in…
January 24th, 2006 at 11:42 am
9/11 Conspiracy Theorist Takes Over Pacifica Radio
Will the lunacy coming out of the Left stop today? First we posted about a Daily Kos writer who plans to march at Ground Zero and place a citizen’s arrest on Rudy Giuliani for ‘his part in the 9/11 coverup….
January 24th, 2006 at 11:47 am
Dude, I think we will all do better without red-baiting and/or smearing the new leadership from the get-go. I’m with a small radio station that just went through a legal proceeding defending ourselves from an attacker who liked to smear and slander the management.
Give the guy a chance.
Dave
January 24th, 2006 at 11:48 am
zota -
I go to your site, and think, not bad, interesting, even funny, but I sense I’m talking not to you but through you.
The attempt to define conservative thought as inherently deficient, as you seem to endorse, is a nice example of what i’m talking about. ‘It’s not an actual viable perspective; it’s a form of mental illness!’
(That’s not what I’m saying about current left-thinking incidentally; I’m saying it’s a fine way of seeing the world that I love that has currently gone off track.)
January 24th, 2006 at 11:54 am
“So in the end, there is obviously a problem with all left and mainstream (again left) media in that is too far left, even for mainstream Democrats.”
Is that your interpretation of Mr. Cooper’s post? If so, I suspect you’re having some reading comprehension problems.
January 24th, 2006 at 11:58 am
“Reg is a good example of the audience. He’s smart, he’s passionate, he’s not usually one of the dummies himself.”
Paul, a little advice: maybe the not-so-subtle insult isn’t the best approach. My eyes start glazing over when I read stuff like that, and I just move on to the next entry.
January 24th, 2006 at 12:24 pm
Rich -
You may be right, although it’s not exactly what I intended; in fact it’s simply the truth as I see it.
It’s also a delicate rejoinder to the abuse he heaps on me when I try in all non-emotional sincerity to make a factual point he considers stupid. (That’s the backstory, is what I’m saying.)
January 24th, 2006 at 12:24 pm
I’m just going to comment that Harry Truman one of my favorite presidents was one of the first to advocate socialized medicine for Americans. That doesn’t mean we bome socialist as implied by wingnuts, which is just rhetorical ad homnem.
As for Mr. Simon and his conspiracies I’m afraid that’s all they are. Clever blurring of the truth of which Occam’s razor can apply. Oswald acted alone as it seems from the evidence, and controlling the oil and stability doesn’t neccessarily mean have to confiscate it directly. Even though it seems to the world that’s what we have done. The treasury is the best evidence against that: they borrowed all the money to get the oil and haven’t raised a penny from it to date.
January 24th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
And for crusader Paul does he see any insanity on the wingnut right? Or are they just well-reasoned? Because what far left radicals believe is of little consequence. It’s what does the middle believe that counts. Dissent is good if what you’re dissenting against is wrong. happens on courts all the time.
January 24th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
I actually listen to Pacifica, though I am a conservative right-wing christian fundamentalist neo-con Imperialist war-monger.
Primarily I have a fascination with the far left, communism, socialism, and the meme it represents.
So Pacifica is sometimes the best entertainment to be had for a conservative political junkie like myself.
January 24th, 2006 at 1:49 pm
But Mark, I think what Paul is saying is that right now, unfortunately, it DOESN’T matter what the middle believes, because the middle left seems to be kowtowing to the lunatic fringe left right now. I think Leiberman would’ve had a decent shot at the Presidency - I would’ve voted for him - but right now, the Dems couldn’t nominate anyone who would appeal to the middle of the country, even tho the middle (hello! nice to meet you!) are the ones they NEED TO WIN.
And really, it doesn’t matter whose middle is currently more enslaved to their lunatic fringe. Crazy is crazy, and it’s problematic, but it’s more problematic for the party out of power.
The biggest problem with the left’s current enslavement to the loonies? Their insistence that anyone who disagrees with them is not just mistaken, but evil. Republicans assume that if you take the Democratic position on an issue, you’re misinformed, or misled, or maybe just dumb. The left - and, increasingly, most Democrats - assume that if you agree with the Republicans on anything, your motives are malign, your intentions bad, your soul all shriveled and rotten. Now, some Democrats DO play the “oh, the poor misguided sheeple” card a lot but for some reason, when a Democrat implies that I’m an idiot, he/she does so in a far more condescending, and therefore infuriating, way than a Republican does.
As in “Dissent is good if what you’re dissenting against is wrong.” Dissenting against what YOU think is wrong is all fine and dandy and in fact all-American, but assuming that you are on the side of the angels is very annoying to others.
January 24th, 2006 at 2:05 pm
Thanks, Stubby. Something like that, yeah. (I have acknowledged the existence of lunatics on the right numerous times here, and talked a bit about why I think of them these days as less dangerous; I think even today.)
Dishonest, stupid bullying dissent is the worst thing a nation can face. Or at least on par with dishonest stupid leadership. But dishonest stupid leadership can be brought to heel. Dishonest, stupid dissent: there is no way to address its issues. Or placate it. It becomes dissent for dissent’s sake.
On-topic for the day, I happened to wander over to the Huffington Post and saw this post and comment string on the NSA stuff:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/heads-up-bush-is-winnin_b_14359.html
It’s a good illustration of the idea that the left tends to argue and rail while having almost no idea what the other side is actualylysaying.
The writer mentions some headlines that, to him, prove W is winning what he calls “the headline war” on the issue. Yet two of the headlines he lists call the NSA activity “domestic spying.”
The idea that this constitutes “domestic spying” is one of the key language things that drives conservatives crazy on this; yet this maroon has no idea of that. He doesnt have the slightest idea that a supporter of W would hit his head against tje wall at those headlines.
Agree or disagree on what it should be called, that doesn’t matter: can’t this guy at least bother to know what the actual arguments on the other side are before he writes? is that so much to ask?
January 24th, 2006 at 2:10 pm
From a commenter on that string (caps in original):
“NO ONE IS MAKING THE CASE THAT PRIVACY IS IMPORTANT”
They aren’t? Really? Huh.
January 24th, 2006 at 2:25 pm
So who listems to James Dobson? Is anyone at Pacifica encouraging assassination? If not, why not? We can’t have the right wing nutjobs get crazier than the left ones.
January 24th, 2006 at 2:26 pm
Marc A. York,
WTC was the first major building of its kind to pancake the way it did. No other accident of any kind in the 100 year history of high rises has ever caused that kind of failure where there are no really big pieces that have to be demolished post failure.
Now it is possible that such a failure (the turning of the concrete into powder) could happen. Trouble is there have been no simulations to date that show such a failure possibe and if such simulations have been done they have not been made public.
And BTW I think Iraq was a good idea and on to Iran.
So I’m just saying that the way the building fell was highly unusual. I would be the first to admit that some times unusual failures happen.
My point in all that is that there are always counterfactuals. The other side has a point. A point of view that might allow it to come to a different conclusion based on a common set of facts.
I like to look at the evidence.
January 24th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
Do you know of any other institution on the American Left that can compare in value?
Sure. George Soros.
January 24th, 2006 at 2:33 pm
Mr. Cooper, why are you trying to put a gag rule on discussion of David Ray Griffin’s view on 9/11? Are you trying to stifle freedom of speech? All thoughts should be debated in a democracy to see if they can remain standing after the rigors of criticism. I suspect that you believe that Griffin’s 100+ 9/11 serious anomilies can not be explained away by discussion, so it is best to censor it. Coast to Coast AM is a much bigger deal than Radio Pacifica, but Griffin’s view of 9/11 was covered a number of times.
January 24th, 2006 at 2:33 pm
Oswald may very well have acted alone.
It also appears the Zapruder film was doctored.
The question is how do you put those two ideas together?
Was the cover up done to prevent a war (the Cuba was behind Oswald theory) or was it done to cover a coup?
I’m an engineer. I have even been called hard headed about evidence and truth. I like to follow it where ever it leads. Which is not to say that my own biases haven’t led me astray a time or two.
Every one is so certain. I have my doubts.
January 24th, 2006 at 2:34 pm
Rich, Rich, Rich, of course I have a reading comprehension problem — like all Republicans I’m stupid and unsophisticated. Otherwise how could one explain my views?
I’m simply saying that MSM, as well as outlets like Pacifica are leaning sooooo far left as to make themselves irrelevant. Got it?
January 24th, 2006 at 2:37 pm
Marc,
I hereby rescind my rope pissing about Pacifica — you’ve done what you could.
I suppose I was reacting to the feeling I get these days as I’m about to read something you wrote: “oh great, what’s the problem with liberals today?” Your recent column about Gore was the first time in a very long time that I can remember reading something by you that was in any way encouraging or constructive regarding the left (and as you pointed out there, you surprised yourself.) It’s an attitude that makes your liberal target audience (?) tune out in despair, but — judging by your comments — it draws conservative admirers like flies. Just something to think about.
What am I going to do about Pacifica? Based on what you write about them, sounds like I should just try to pretend they don’t exist. But maybe someone will come up with a better idea.
Paul from Mpls:
but I sense I’m talking not to you but through you
So, wait… that makes me your puppet?
As far as the “conservative thought” piece you mention, that it was regarding widespread conservative misinterpretation of a Stanford study. Apparently a bunch of right-wing bloggers only got as far as reading a fragment of a press release rather than reading the actual study. They ended up running with their own wild interpretations rather than examining and critiquing the actual thing they were attacking.
Sound familiar?
January 24th, 2006 at 2:38 pm
“The success the current management group had in taking over the organization derives not at all from talent or intelligence but principally from its immeasurable tenacity – a super-human capacity to outlast everyone else in endless rounds of meetings and to shout down its opponents.”
Amusingly, you have just described the people who operate Wikipedia.
January 24th, 2006 at 2:39 pm
M. Simon:
Each WTC tower was basically two concentric square steel tubes. One was the outer wall; the other was the core (plumbing, elevators, etc.). There were 110 floors, each a concrete pancake spanning the whole space between the two tubes. There were no pillars or any other obstructions between the core and the outer wall, which was a revolutionary design.
My point: all it takes is one of those concrete floors to slam into another and the whole thing goes down, floor-by-floor, as we saw. The floors and their attachements to the core and outer wall, are designed to take steady loads, not to be smacked with many tons of concrete while simultaneously having their iron reinforcements softened by a jet-fuel fire.
Take a look at this NOVA episode:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wtc/
January 24th, 2006 at 2:41 pm
When the towel heads blow up your kid’s school and kill your family, you liberals will run into the streets with their protest signs held high, screaming: “Why didn’t George Bush do something”! “What did George Bush know and when did he know it”? “Why didn’t George Bush send a hurricane to stop the rag heads like he did to kill all the blacks in LA”?
Stupid libs, bitching and moaning will do nothing but make you look silly and prostrate. Go watch “hump my back mountain man” and relax, be safe and secured in your Yugo. Let the people with balls do their jobs and you emasculated feminist, touchy feely, homo types can go about your “business”.
(”when a Democrat implies that I’m an idiot, he/she does so in a far more condescending, and therefore infuriating, way than a Republican does.”)
While so many of you bravely endure your myriad encounters with the omnipresent left lunatic fringe, hanging out in the snug cafes of Uptown, Minneapolis, or Silver Lake, or the black tie Huffington parties, most of the rest of us here in the good ol’ U.S. spend time with guys from whom I grabbed that first quote (also from Pauls’ referred-to string). I’m just sayin’. Get out a bit, away from your safe ivory towers so overrun with these crazy lefties, and you’ll find out how few of them there are.
I know it’s entertaining to write and read screeds about the zany fringes, but it strikes me as ultimately fruitless. There will always be fringes–you think calling them out is going to make them go away? I’m sure some of the loonier Pacifica people who read these attacks are actually overjoyed that the attacks serve to remind the world that they exist, and ostensibly hold so much influence over the captive base (which I don’t buy, incidentally). Of course, I understand it’s not Marc’s job to be optimistic, or to drive social change, and I appreciate knowing more about the Pacificia fiasco, but I just find the whole thing disheartening.
January 24th, 2006 at 2:47 pm
I don’t buy the premise the Zapruder film is “doctored.” That evidence is cooked and flimsy in my view as a scientist and journalist, thus there is nothing to square. It smacks of nutballery to me.
January 24th, 2006 at 2:49 pm
Marc, case in point:
When the towel heads blow up your kid’s school and kill your family
Go watch “hump my back mountain man†and relax
you emasculated feminist, touchy feely, homo types
your safe ivory towers so overrun with these crazy lefties
I understand it’s not Marc’s job to be optimistic, or to drive social change, and I appreciate knowing more about the Pacificia fiasco
I’m just sayin’
January 24th, 2006 at 2:49 pm
Ironic, isn’t it, to have a right leaner supporting in part 9/11 conspiracy theories (there are parts of the 9/11 “conspiracy” that are to me fact challenged).
The investigation is incomplete.
So I would not fault Pacifica (I’m not in radio range so I can’t tell about what it sounds like on the air) for going deep into this question.
It would have a lot more credibility if the information came from some one presenting it “against interest”. Or at least a balance.
It is what happens when you lack any tolerance for the other side. All evidence is dismissed as partisan.
January 24th, 2006 at 2:49 pm
“assuming that you are on the side of the angels is very annoying to others.”
Only if so is a false premise. I didn’t vote for far left nutjobs or conservative wingnuts. I voted for Gore and Kerry. Ralph or George W. didn’t get my vote.
January 24th, 2006 at 2:50 pm
zota -
By ‘through you” I meant, I sensed my words would pass through you. or by you. Whatever. Not that i was “using” you. (I was trying to avoid the word “over.”)
The conservative over-reactions to the psychology of conervatism piece were focused on the most extreme out-of-context stuff, as I understand it. But is my basic idea mistaken — that the study essentially does say that conservative thought can be understood in large part as a form of mental disorder? It was certainly presented that way to me at the time by liberal friends who eagerly sent it to me.
Incidentally, there’s a pretty good discussion of the NSA stuff going on at Kevin Drum’s site -
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=8067
I still would maintain that even as essentially as honorable a guy as Drum (and Josh Marshall) often takes liberties with how he presents the other side. But the discussion string is pretty well-informed, and includes people taking him to task when they think he’s doing that.
January 24th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
Sorry if you have already covered this Marc. But what were the circumstances behind you leaving Radio Nation? I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed your daily KPFK show as well.
January 24th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
Ditto on the NOVA epsisode on WTC. It explains everything and as a union carpenter myself who happily never worked on such structures, I couldn’t believe it when I saw the flimsy two-bolt joist fastening system and the sprayed on fire-proofing. I’m saying what happened is exactly as one would predict it would under such physical conditions. Just as with Kennedy who I supported big time.
Griffin’s out to lunch.
January 24th, 2006 at 3:00 pm
Marc,
I guess being an aerospace engineer (electro/mechanics - with Naval Nuclear Power Training on the side) is not as good as being a scientist.
Still I looked at the evidence and came away with doubts.
It would be interesting to debate the question some time.
Same for the WTC collapse. It was quite unusual.
So the thing is (given my interest and orientation) there is an audience out there for at least some of the “craziness” Pacifica is selling. Why aren’t they doing better?
Bad presentation by unbelievable hosts.
So my question is the same as yours. Why don’t they want to be more effective?
January 24th, 2006 at 3:00 pm
Bubble: “Yeah, free Mumia! Send him to hell where he can find the freedom he deserves…along with the rest of the moonbat left.”
You know what would be cool? If there was a fun place lefties could visit… like a… camp. Yeah, that would work. We would just need some… ovens… for the… um…
cooking classes… yeah.
Right Power! :heil:
It’s funny– when I saw that this blog entry had 60+ comments already I figured a flame war was being waged by far left Pacifica defenders and, instead, there’s only one person criticizing Marc and he hasn’t even charged Marc with being a CIA asset. So where the fuck are they? Have the purges stripped Pacifica so bare that it has no one left to defend it? Has it cannibalized itself so completely? Thoughts, Marc?
It’s funny– I was really looking forward to the amusement but instead of idiocy from the left, I’m offered 32 flavors of “ha ha ha, the left are all a bunch of idiots” by people who apparently think that such absurdly poor debate form somehow demonstrates the superiority of conservative thought but that’s amusing too, I suppose.
January 24th, 2006 at 3:00 pm
This might be a little impolite to bring up, but it always seemed to me that KPFK started going to hell during the time Clare Spark was the program director. In particular, I thought that the tone of the news had gone from independent reporting to telling the listeners what to think. The person who was doing the news then as I recall was a fellow named Marc Cooper.
It used to be for a long time that the only people I could listen to on KPFK were the ones who had been there since the 70s (William Malloch, Mario Cassetta, &c.) Just about all gone now. I don’t even have a button on my car radio for KPFK anymore. I never would have imagined that 30 years ago.
January 24th, 2006 at 3:03 pm
The official dress code at Pacifica must include tin foil hats.
January 24th, 2006 at 3:05 pm
Shoddy construction and bad materials is just as big a crime if not bigger than explosive demolition.
Why isn’t anyone being prosecuted?
January 24th, 2006 at 3:06 pm
Paul from Mpls:
By ‘through you†I meant, I sensed my words would pass through you.
Yeah, I got your meaning. I was deliberately twisting your words in an attempt to manipulate the discourse. It’s crafty little tricks like that which explain why liberals control all major media.
the study essentially does say that conservative thought can be understood in large part as a form of mental disorder?
As I understood it, the study suggested a statistical correlation between certain personality traits and a conservative belief system. In some contexts, these “conservative” traits might be considered positive. But when listed out all at once, they did sound rather unpleasant.
Calling the array of correlated personality traits a “mental disorder” was a rather telling reaction on the part of conservatives — I don’t think the study made any such subjective value judgments, And I think “defensive” or “insecure” may have actually been one of the correlated traits….
January 24th, 2006 at 3:06 pm
Rich, it’s just the old argument: how important is the mindset I’m talking about?
It’s not confined to Uptown of Minneapolis. I don’t exist in an Ivory Tower.
The throughline of the Democratic convention in 2004 was about all the evidence I needed for how important it is. They tried for three days to grit their teeth and convey some semblance of understanding of how someone like me thinks about the war; and then in the end, for Kerry’s acceptance speech, he brought it all back home to Bush Lied, People Died.
It was a speech that made absolutely no sense as part of the same convention that featured Liebermann’s forthright praise of the troops having broght freedom to the Iraqs. For Liebermann, tepid applause. For Kerry, the crowd went wild.
Arvonne Fraser is the wife of the former mayor of Minneapolis. She heads something called “The DFL Education Foundation,” affilated loosely with the statewide DFL party. The DFL Education Foudnation sponsored the area premiere of F9-11.
Half or most of the Senate Democrats, as you remember, showed up for the DC premiere.
Moore has been acknowledged on this site as emblematic of the lunatic fringe that doesn’t matter in the big view. I don’t think that idea goes very well with the facts of the DC premiere.
January 24th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
Marc: You could actually sell the 5 pacifica frequencies today for a half billion and in invest it something that works.
This was the plan of Pacifica board members, led by Mary Frances Berry, who were fought off by listeners, supporters, staff, and some managers and board members in 1999-2000.
‘Something that works’ is the tricky part, and unknowable. I had no confidence in the Berry group to maintain the network even as a network, much less a progressive one.
I was glad to see the stations survive. Their survival does mean that more local participation still could enliven the programming, which does need it.
January 24th, 2006 at 3:11 pm
zota -
Interesting place you work, by the way. Terrifyingly intellectual.
January 24th, 2006 at 3:14 pm
Shoddy construction and bad materials is just as big a crime if not bigger than explosive demolition.
I don’t think it was. The spray-on fireproofing was abraded away instantly by a hail of aluminum particles that moments before had been an airplane. The building did stand up well to the initial impact; it was designe