RESPONSE TO ED HERMAN
By Saul Landau
Ed Hermann has rejected my call for a cease fire in the bashing of Pacifica,
and instead attacks me, without proposing a solution to the Pacifica
conflict. Should I conclude, from the absence of proposed solutions, that Ed
would rather see our only alternative radio network destroyed than
participate in a reconciliation process? If that's his idea of
revolutionary, then I am, as he charges, counterrevolutionary. But Ed's
radicalism s based on a series of dubious assumptions.
What Ed calls a mainstream audience is, in my opinion, the vast the majority
of Americans who hold progressive views. This is one of our differences. Ed
apparently has no problem addressing a small and -- from the numbers on KPFA
and WBAI -- diminishing audience. The "many," whom Ed refers to as part of
his left solidarity, has come up with no convincing strategy to resolve the
dispute. I would like to know, by the way, what numbers Ed would call
"many." Indeed, it appears that there is a small sector of the left that is
delighting in this web and email war. But what outcome does Ed, a mature and
intelligent radical, desire? That the FCC remove Pacifica's license on the
grounds that the Board has no control over at least one of its stations? Or
hadn't that occurred to Ed and those who want to keep the "struggle" going
through verbal assault on anyone who differs with them on this tactical
issue?
Ed refers to disparagingly about worrying about upsetting the Washington
power brokers. It should be the left's job to upset the power brokers. Ed's
position, if the would notice him, would make them chuckle. This continued
bashing without a clear goal makes it easier for the establishment to get
rid of Pacifica. Sadly, in our time, the left has not caused as much concern
to the power establishment as it should, nor will it in the near future if
it holds on to narrow sectarian guidelines.
Ed's language bespeaks the existence of some left party that has dictated a
line on the Pacifica conflict and, by issuing an appeal to stop the attack,
have disobeyed that party line. Indeed, Ed writes as if he had been somehow
chosen as ideological commissar of this invisible Party, capable of labeling
other people counterrevolutionary. No such authority exists, unless I some
secret left, Masonic-type lodge exists. Ed can label me, but labels don't
replace the vacuum in this thinking: the absence of any strategic plan as to
maintain the network. Indignation is a poor substitute for a plan.
On factual grounds, Ed's arguments also appear dubious. By positing real
Pacifica versus a fake one, he again bows to the honorific deference he
grants to himself as ideological commissar in charge of purity of left
thought. He represents the real Pacifica. I've been doing shows over a
period of forty years for Pacifica. During that period, I've heard countless
viewpoints and watched Pacifica listeners and programmers wrench in agony
over the structural and governance questions that still plague it today. The
real Pacifica is and should be a vast and diverse left opposition, not one
that Commissars define. It's time to face those questions, not pretend that
"democracy" will solve them. Does Ed plan to have a vote taken by every
Pacifica subscriber? How about listeners who don't subscribe, especially
those who can't afford it?
Or should only activists who agree with Ed's line have a vote? If serious
reconciliation efforts proceed, however, under a truce, there's no reason
why a Larry Bensky shouldn't be brought back - unless he doesn't want to.
Indeed, I would love to listen to Bensky's commentaries on the current
election campaign, but Ed's plan wont bring back Bensky or Verna Avery
Brown, or restore Dan Coughlin to a programming place on the network. I
personally, would like to see all of them back and will continue working
toward that end.
Shouting solidarity or worse, continuing to write that word on the web and
embellish it with righteousness does not help, It allows a vent for anger,
which the Board brought on itself by its actions. But anger in the absence
of strategy leads nowhere. Our appeal to stop the bashing was meant to stop
weakening an already battered network, not to defend the Board. Ed's
response is to increase the battering -- until Pacifica implodes?
Our appeal doesn't accept that a management plan exists to take politics out
of Pacifica. Yes, Pacifica's Board is concerned, and rightly so, by its long
history of having small audiences when it could be reaching larger ones - of
people who share basic values. I think Democracy Now is a step toward that
better programming. Every time I compliment the show, however, I am accused
of tokenism. Pacifica makes Democracy Now its leading show (one of only two
that it has). Is this to pacify the critics? Come on! Democracy Now, I'm
told, has as big or a bigger budget than the Pacifica National Office.
That's good. It's hardly proof of Pacifica's supposedly marginalizing the
program. Democracy Now is not threatened as far as I can discern. If it is
then Amy Goodman would surely come out and be specific about the accusations
and I would be in the forefront of the defense of that program.
I also resented Ed's resorting to old fashioned polemics to make his
argument. He said he repeatedly asked me questions. He sent me two emails
asking questions. He never informed me he was planning to write a Znet
commentary, using my emails to him. I said I wasn't going into the details
of his questions and accusations because I didn't think, from what he wrote,
that he had any interest in reaching a large audience and therefore I didn't
and don't see the point of responding. I also said, which Ed neglected to
mention, that I thought it was a legitimate position to have small watt
radio stations to help cement communities. But that's not what Pacifica is.
Pacifica is a tool of the left - in the largest, not the narrowest sense.
Ed would make it narrow. By what moral or political authority should Ed or
any organized or semi-organized group of people decide the politics of a
left network? By the number of arrests on their collective record, the
number of revolutions they've participated in? By how many web sites and
emails they can generate on any given issue?
Neither Ed nor anyone else on the left has won the right at this point in
our history to dictate a political line. I have not seen Ed or the others on
the attack squad ask the opinions of the "many" workers who produce programs
at the five Pacifica stations how they feel about the assault. Or do they
not count? Ed's comments are an insult to all those programmers who
currently work at Pacifica and do good and daily radical work. What is
diluted about KPFK whose management backed the organizing of the largest
single anti- Kosovo teach in last year, involving some people, 5 hours
including live broadcast coast to coast. And the the station pitched this
program as a fundraising tool. I would like to know how much time Ed spends
listening to Pacifica, if he thinks he can detect a trace of censorship at
the Berkeley station now. By the way, the Pacifica Board ha stated
repeatedly it does not plan to sell any of the stations. Would Ed like this
sworn to in court, before a bourgeois judge, or is there no way he will
believe anything that the Board says? This is demonization, one of the
charges Ed rightfully brings against the imperialists before they attack
Iraq or Yugoslavia. The Pacifica Board members are not demons. They are real
people with whom you disagree. They are not corporate monsters, or
Clintonites or any of the other silly names that have been flung around.
Ed asserts, following the Save Pacifica web site data that programming is
being diluted. Facts: Pacifica puts out one and a half hours a day,
Democracy Now and the News half hour. I think Democracy Now is as radical
and good a show as one could hope for. Over the past seven years, since I
have been a regular commentator, I have noticed little change in the news
show, no matter how radical or non radical the news producer. Pacifica's
board has no more moral authority than any other board. That's not the
issue. The Board is responsible by law for maintaining the license and
insuring that its stations abide by the rules and procedures set down by
law. I am not alone in fearing that we are dangerously close to losing that
license.
I have not and will not make a case for Pacifica's Board actions over the
last year. They failed to articulate a clear vision and could not even
spread their own narrative on the events that place. Great planners and
plotters! I think they made serious mistakes, which arose as a result of a
history of failing to deal with the structural and governance issues. They
also did so in an atmosphere of crisis, when either one acts heroically or
falls on one's face. As we say in our appeal letter, structure and
governance, these are the issues for discussion. but Ed doesn't want to
discuss. He wants to attack. If a discussion began, I ask Ed and the
bashers, would you attack those who would sit down with Pacifica's board
chair or bash those who did?
Finally, I take issue with Ed's so-called facts on programming. The amount
of public affairs hours on the DC and Houston stations, I am told by staff
at those stations, has barely changed in the last few years. I would like to
know how many hours Ed has actually spent listening to the Washington or
Houston stations? Did shows get taken off the air, yes. But not because of
their politics. Rather, they were taken off because they were poorly
produced and had tiny audiences.
The good news is, that the supposedly sell-out LA station has upped its
audience and not with music or watered down shows. It also recently
conducted its most successful funding drive. And it did especially well
during political shows, offering political books as incentives to
subscribers - good, critical books, not pro-Clinton or corporate books, by
the way.
I wonder if Ed has discussed his position with the thousands of listeners
who sent in money and don't want to carry on this word-war? The Pacifica
challenge is to produce solid alternative, radical radio -- that attracts
audiences in an age where it is harder than ever to keep people's attention
Does Ed have a plan to do this? I challenge him and all others who have
disagreed with my appeal to reconsider -- unless you have a real plan to
resolve the dispute.
I see little but righteousness in the attack - not a glint of a positive
idea. The only solution proposed to me by the attackers, other than slow
erosion of the current Board's make-up, is to have a bourgeois judge decide
the issue in court. Others think they can pressure the outgoing chair into
conceding to points that she has not budged on - because they seem to have
no coherent alternative plan. Our idea is simple: sit down, without hot and
empty rhetoric, and work out a solution.
Hugh O. La Bounty Chair of Applied Interdisciplinary Knowledge, California
State Polytechnic University, Pomona Pomona, CA 91768 tel:909-869-3115
fax:909-869-4751 mailto:[email protected]
http://www.csupomona.edu/~slandau