Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Sunday, March 10, 2024

Son of late Flint Councilman Eric Mays sues city over father’s life insurance policy

Son of late Flint Councilman Eric Mays sues city over father’s life insurance policy Updated: Mar. 09, 2024, 4:07 a.m.|Published: Mar. 08, 2024, 6:29 p.m. Eric Mays candelight vigil Eric HaKeem Deontaye Mays speaks during his father’s candlelight vigil honoring former councilman Eric Mays at the city hall in Flint on Saturday, March 2, 2024. Rebecca Villagracia | MLive.com Subscribers can gift articles to anyone By Ron Fonger | rfonger1@mlive.com FLINT, MI -- Eric HaKeem Deontaye Mays, identified in court filings as the only child of the late Flint Councilman Eric Mays, has sued the city, alleging Flint officials are refusing to provide him with a copy of a $75,000 life insurance policy that names him as the beneficiary. The younger Mays filed the lawsuit on Friday, March 8, in Genesee Circuit Court, asking Judge Chris Christenson for an affirmative injunction, requiring the city to produce a copy of the policy within 48 hours. The lawsuit claims the life insurance policy was active and in force when the late councilman died intestate on Feb. 24. An attorney representing Eric HaKeem Deontaye Mays said in a news release Friday that his client is “the named beneficiary on the policy.” In addition to the city, the lawsuit filed by the Lento Law Group names Flint Human Resources Director Eddie Smith, City Attorney William Kim and Mayor Sheldon Neeley as defendants. In a statement released by the city, Smith said the city provides a life insurance policy for its officials and employees as part of their benefit packages and that Mays never designated a beneficiary. Flint’s benefit policies say when no beneficiary is designated, the policy is payable to the employee’s estate, Smith’s statement says. “A personal representative of the late councilman’s estate must be designated by the probate court in order for the city to effectuate payment, and to date, the city has not received any documentation showing that this has occurred,” the statement says. The lawsuit says life insurance benefits do not pass through an estate, are not subject to probate, and therefore the requirement of the appointment of an administrator is “arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable.” Friday’s lawsuit marks the second time this week Eric HaKeem Deontaye Mays has filed a lawsuit related to his father’s death. On Monday, March 4, he sued an aunt and three uncles as well as Lawrence E. Moon Funeral Home, seeking the release of his father’s body to the funeral home of his choice and to cancel pending funeral arrangements being handled by Moon. A funeral service planned for Saturday, March 9, was put on hold by Circuit Judge Brian Pickell, who recessed a hearing on the lawsuit until Monday, March 11. Neeley said in a statement Friday that he was “disappointed that misleading allegations are creating undue strife in our community.” “We continue to lift the entire family of Eric Mays in prayer as mourners wait to pay their final respects to the 1st Ward councilman, and we pray for comfort and peace for our community in this time of sorrow,” Neeley said. Lento Law represented the late Eric Mays in several lawsuits against the city and Neeley, and the filing by his son Friday says the mayor and his political allies attempted to silence his father and to remove him from his elected seat. Lento Law attorney John A. Fernandez said in a news release Friday that the lawsuit against the city is needed to remedy a “terrible injustice” that city officials are inflicting on his client. The city’s actions appear “to be nothing more than a cruel act of retaliation against a grieving son as a result of animus the defendants in this action felt for his father,” Fernandez’s statement says. “We hope to right this wrong swiftly so that both the late councilman and his son may have peace.” Kim said in a statement that the city has not been served with the life insurance lawsuit. “Based on the prior lawsuits that have been filed by the Lento Law Group against the city of Flint and its officials, we expect to seek, at minimum, dismissal of this action as frivolous at the earliest possible opportunity,” Kim said.

Sunday, February 4, 2024

Transcript: Bessie Wash Statement - Interruption on 3/26/2000 Democracy Now! Broadcast

Transcript: Bessie Wash Statement - Interruption on 3/26/2000 Democracy Now! Broadcast This is Bessie Wash, executive director of the Pacifica Foundation. It is necessary that I interrupt your regularly scheduled program to speak to those that are being misled by a small group of individuals. This past weekend, a female employee of the Pacifica station KPFT in Houston, was physically attacked by a man participating in a anti-Pacifica demonstration. This female employee, and the KPFT General Manager were greeting guests as they arrived at the station property for an evening concert, when she was assaulted by a male demonstrator. The man jumped on her back, taunted her, attempted to throw her to the ground, and while this was happening, three other demonstrators just stood by and watched. They did not even attempt to help her, or to do anything to stop this man. It was a KPFT volunteer who came to her rescue and I want to personally, personally thank this volunteer for his heroic deed. Friday's attack comes just two weeks after, two weeks, after the general manager, also a female, at our New York station WBAI, who was physically attacked in her own studio. In her own studio. As she sat in front of a mike and attempted to interview a congressman. These last incidents occurred after a series of unreported acts of violence and threats. Racial and sex-baiting intimidation tactics employed by the anti-Pacifica facets (?) throughout this network in all five signal areas: KPFA in Berkeley, WBAI in New York, WPFW in Washington, KPFK in LA and KPFT in Houston. The (unintelligible) of the anti-Pacifica group have harassed, and are being encourage to continue this campaign of physical and emotional violence on employees, national board members, volunteers as well as their family members. Relatives including young children. Wives, grandparents. Elderly and sickly parents have been subjected to ugly e-mail messages, death threats, late night phone calls, uninvited visits not only at their places of employment but at their homes. As the originator of listener-supported radio and alternative programming, the Pacifica Foundation remains the only true voice of the voiceless. Pacifica supports free speech and the right to actively assemble. However, we do not, I repeat, do not, condone, nor will we tolerate violence. If you are a participant in the anti-Pacifica group you have the right to be vigilant in your beliefs but it is not your right, in fact it is illegal, to subject violence on others. It is also immoral and irresponsible to use violence as a method of protest in your attempt to steal the five radio stations funded by individuals that are true believers and supporters of the Pacifica Foundation's mission. As the executive director of the Pacifica Foundation I am committed to insuring that Pacifica remains an organization that embraces all views, races, sexes and creeds and that the individuals, Pacifica employees, Board members and volunteers dedicated to this belief are free to support Pacifica in the manner in which they choose, without threats to themselves, or their loved ones. We have thus far tolerated the slander, lies, false accusations, attempts to disrupt daily operations and the strategic effort to create an atmosphere of crisis at Pacifica. But we will not accept violence. All those that are opposed to Pacifica have the right to protest, in a moral and non-violent manner. However, any and all participants that are engaged in violence and threats will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. I thank you for your time. We will now resume our regularly scheduled program. Back to the Free Pacifica home page

Public Statement on Pacifica

SocietyFeatureOctober 4, 2001 Public Statement on Pacifica Several individuals have attributed to me certain statements on the issue of the situation known as the “Pacifica Crisis.” As I am quite capable of speaking for myself without easy-chai Marc Cooper This article appears in the October 15, 2001 issue. September 10, 2001 Several individuals have attributed to me certain statements on the issue of the situation known as the “Pacifica Crisis.” As I am quite capable of speaking for myself without easy-chair interpretations, I have decided to make this public comment. More than two years ago, when trouble was first brewing at KPFA, I wrote in The Nation that the entirety of the Pacifica network was at risk. I stated at the time that the crisis had been precipitated by Pacifica management’s clumsy and unexplained dismissal of KPFA’s manager, Nicole Sawaya. I also called for the resignation of the Executive Director and the reinstatement of Sawaya and accused the National Board and then Chairwoman Mary Francis Berry of gross negligence. But I also strongly criticized the KPFA staff for abusing their on-air privileges. I wrote that it was a mistake to take to the air to agitate and air internal grievances. One hundred days later, I was proven correct when the station descended into chaos. Just as in 1999, I firmly believe today that both sides in this conflict bear heavy responsibilities for the dire mess in which Pacifica now finds itself. For taking this position, I have been called just about every vile name invented in English and probably one or two other languages as well. But my assertion stands. Today, we see that the zealots and bumblers at the Pacifica National Board, the Pacifica National Staff, the WBAI management, as well as the “dissident” Pacifica Campaign and many of their political allies, including key staff of Democracy Now!, have now recklessly escalated this situation. As a result, it is only a matter of days or weeks, at the most, before the network finally and conclusively implodes. When the smoke clears and the perpetrators can view the wreckage their handiwork has wrought in the glare of daylight, perhaps then they’ll realize with a guilty gulp that no one came out the winner. The unfolding of Pacifica’s cheap trash radio drama is as predictable as Jerry Springer, albeit less entertaining. Just when the scarce remaining observers are convinced that Pacifica could not possibility stage yet another vulgar display of self-abuse, a new outrage erupts from one side or the other. The latest chapter is the dispute over National Program Manager Steve Yasko. For those who idle away their lives wondering about these matters: Yes, on August 31 I wrote Steve Yasko a private e-mail demanding that he resign. This was not a new position. I told him the same thing shortly after he was hired one year ago. I also repeated my long-standing position that his boss, Bessie Wash, has no business running a radio network. I told Yasko that he should quit because he was an inept manager and that the current administration was driving the network into the ground. Now, I learn that Yasko has indeed tendered his resignation effective September 15. Unfortunately, he is resigning for all the wrong reasons. Much to my horror, shared mercifully by some other decent human beings, Yasko was driven out by a smear campaign mounted by Juan Gonzalez, his Pacifica Campaign and Amy Goodman, constructed on the flimsy basis of links Yasko had maintained on his gay-oriented website. Like a claque of Church Ladies, Gonzalez, Goodman and friends have publicly turned Yasko into a tawdry porno king–or was it misogynist? Or was it a dangerous sexual fantasizer? Or maybe it was just a plain old pervert. That’s the nature of innuendo and smear–it’s everything and nothing all at once. Bad enough that this information–the bulk of it wildly incorrect–was trawled and slathered across the Internet. Worse yet, Amy Goodman shed all semblance of decency and went on to Dennis Bernstein’s KPFA show for another leisurely paw through the methane. This is a new low in Pacifica’s already shocking history. This from a woman who is engaged in a gender harassment suit against the same individual. If Goodman were really concerned about Yasko’s activities, she has a wide-open door available to her in the form of a union grievance. But she preferred a public trash job through the unilateral airing of her private opinions, without the bother of any inconvenient rebuttal, all of which constitutes a screeching conflict of interest. The smear against Yasko has stunned some of Pacifica Campaign’s allies. But even this is disingenuous. The “dissidents” have liberally applied the personal smear tactic from the very onset of this fight. Anyone who dared to refuse to toe their line was branded as a “corporatist,” a “hijacker,” a scab–or in some cases a fascist. Or in my case, a Pinochetista. I have on file more than seventy-five e-mails from activists in the Bay Area alleging that when I served as Salvador Allende’s translator, I was in fact a CIA agent. Some added that I had had a hand in Allende’s death. This sort of scabrous libel merits no reply, only a weary shake of the head. Likewise, when Saul Landau–an intellectual with forty years of unbelmished credentials–offered a “truce” in the Pacifica wars last year, he was publicly pilloried and slandered by the same people now in the forefront of the Pacifica Campaign. There was no debate, no engagement, only howling denunciations and wild accusations, too often from spoiled youngsters who know nothing of their own history and ought to be ashamed of themselves. Furthermore, when the Taliban cadre from the Pacifica Campaign targeted the Pacifica National Board, it employed a strategy lifted directly from Operation Rescue. The employers of the unpaid Board members were hounded relentlessly, forcing them to either step down from Pacifica or risk their outside jobs. But the most loathsome tactic, the same one employed by the thug supporters of Megan’s Law, was to leaflet the neighbors of these same board members to alert them that a “criminal” was living next door. The left, for the most part, remained silent as these personal destruction tactics were played out. Regrettably, even my own publication, The Nation, couldn’t find its public voice on this issue and buckled to the moral blackmail exerted by these Gambino-like tactics employed by Pacifica dissidents. The sacrifice of Steve Yasko has, at least, broken that silence. It was about time. Those who feel disgust at the way he was driven out with tactics ripped from Ken Starr’s handbook should start to voice that sentiment. But they should also take a moment to reflect on the previous “victories” scored by the Pacifica Campaign and ask themselves if those were not, in retrospect consistent with the latest repugnant developments. For the record, I would like to restate my opposition to the boycott of Pacifica. I find it absurd that in the age of Bush and conglomerate corporate media, these individuals can find no more formidable enemy and can dedicate their nervous energies to choking the Pacifica Network, whatever its real or imagined sins. I also find it rather disingenuous that this campaign is led by Juan González, a man who has no conflicts about accepting a huge salary as columnist from the corporation of the right-wing Daily News while warring against hapless Pacifica. That contradiction truly tests the imagination. Nevertheless, I am peppered almost daily with impertinent e-mails demanding that I state if I am now or have ever been a supporter of the Pacifica National Board. The question is too absurd to merit a reply. But those who believe that this collection of lost souls are either corporatists or pawns of the Democratic Party give them too much credit. For the twenty-five years that I have been aware of its consistently sad record, Pacifica’s board has been dominated for the most part not by evil conspiracy, corporate greed or bad faith but by simple mediocrity. Those responsible for Pacifica have amply demonstrated their inability to build a mature, stable and progressive network. The current majority emit some strong aromas of arrogance and silliness. But mostly of rank ineptitude, as did most of their predecessors going back into the late 1970s. As to the “dissident minority,” the vaguely more political elements among their bureaucratic colleagues in the majority, they distinguish themselves as ideological zealots lacking a clue about management or quality programming. Neither camp is representative of anyone in particular, having never been elected but rather appointed to their posts by the same majority they now decry as “criminal.” Neither side has a shred of political credibility. The majority is incapable of articulating any vision–let alone a Democratic Party or corporate model, whatever that means. The supposedly big, bad steamrolling, centralizing National Pacifica juggernaut is, in fact, a bottomless black hole. Pacifica’s malady stems not from roughshod management, but from no management at all. The dissidents, meanwhile, can’t get their story straight. Read through their blizzard of websites over the last two years, and the “issue” keeps moving around: First it was Pacifica’s firing of KPFA Manager Sawaya; then it was “governance” and the local boards–no, the national board–then it was the Democrats taking over, or was it the corporatists and the commercializers; then, briefly, it was the FBI; soon after, Pacifica’s supposed plan to move out of California; promptly, it morphed into a “strike,” against PNN; and then recently the dastardly “Christmas Coup,” which lasted only until the issue shifted to the National Association of Homebuilders. As I write, the new flavor of the week is Democracy Now! The latest crisis, indeed, flows directly from the chaotic bowels of WBAI. And again, both sides bear the onus. Last Christmas Valerie Van Isler and Bernard White were removed from station management. Though Van Isler was universally repudiated by the staff and White was an affable but grossly ineffective program director, some sectors of the staff opportunistically rebelled against their removal and began portraying them as martyrs. Since early January Amy Goodman has signed off her Democracy Now! show with a torch song about broadcasting from “the studios of the fired and the banned.” While Goodman has the right to her opinion, she has no place using the public airwaves to broadcast her personal grievances day after day. Such antics would be unthinkable in any serious journalistic organization. At the same time, the new management at WBAI has revealed itself to be as morally bankrupt as its predecessors. The manager has let loose a bevy of on-air bullies and helped forever tarnish what scrap of credibility the station retained. Shame on Utrice Leid and Clayton Reilly. But shame on Amy Goodman and her Democracy Now! staff as well. They have consistently made themselves “the issue.” And that is not what good radio is about. Good radio is focused on the listener, not the programmer. Wearing masks to work, claiming grand political conspiracies, distorting and twisting even ordinary and sometimes necessary criticism directed at them, the Democracy Now! staff has only poured gasoline onto the fire, taking obvious delight in doing so like frenetic vandals. Goodman’s on-air sexual smear of Yasko last week is entirely consistent and merely the most egregious of these displays. Since mid-August when Goodman unilaterally decided to no longer report to her workplace to do her show, she has held the future of the network hostage. That was wrong. Initially, an agreement was reached between her union (of which I am also a member) and Pacifica for her to return to work. But, rather predictably, WBAI’s management allowed its werewolves to go on the air and trash Goodman. The deal was sunk. And now both sides, again, seem intent on pushing the whole mess over the cliff. This could occur as early as next week when the Pacifica National Board attempts to meet by phone. Twenty years ago there was talk about using our five stations and new satellite technology to forge a strong, national, progressive voice. In 1981 Pacifica’s first national show, the Pacifica National News, went on the air. Twenty years later, Pacifica has exactly one additional hour of daily national programming to show for its efforts, a frankly pathetic achievement, reflecting the consistent caving to individual station, or more exactly individual programmer, interests. And that show, Democracy Now!, currently consists of on-air flames, thanks to the infantile self-indulgence of its bosses and staff. I have not made a final decision, but I may soon decide to put an end to the enormous financial sacrifice, which I estimate at approximately $35,000 per year in refused writing assignments, that I incur by continuing to be employed by KPFK in Los Angeles. I have stayed with the daily program because it resonates with a large audience and because I enjoy the interaction with my guests and listeners. I am proud of my work and stand by it 100 percent, including the interviews with Pat Buchanan and Robert McNamara that got so many pairs of knickers in knots. I owe my audience the Greater Los Angeles Press Club’s Radio Journalist of the Year award which I won last year. I have it on the wall. Over the last three years I have raised some $1 million for KPFK and Pacifica. Ironically, a chunk of that funding helped finance the broadcast of programs like Democracy Now! Perhaps I should feel guilty. This war was really touched off five or six years ago when a moderately enlightened and short-lived Pacifica executive director sounded the alarm. She was concerned that the network had ossified and grown insular and was not effectively responding to the challenge of a right-wing dominated media that had grown beyond anyone’s imagination. But no sooner had she rung the bell, than a backlash by entrenched long-time local programmers was unleashed who believed they had some entitlement to the air. It is no accident, that KPFA, the Pacifica station that the so-called dissidents so celebrate as the only “liberated” station, is in fact the most ossified. Is it not strange that at a station which pays endless lip service to “community” involvement, many of its key, paid staff are people who have clung to those jobs literally for decades. Take a look at the heart of the KPFA News and Public Affairs Departments: Aileen Alfandary, Mark Mericle, Wendell Harper, Phillip Maldari, Kris Welch all have held their positions for twenty or even twenty-five years. If that isn’t entrenched stagnation, what is? The crisis of Pacifica has little or nothing to do with either the National Board, or the Local Boards, or the By-Laws, or the CPB, or the Democratic Party or Marc Cooper or Amy Goodman, for that matter. As John Dinges insightfully pointed out in the pages of The Nation, the crisis of Pacifica has been brewing and maturing for more than twenty years. Over those two decades, Pacifica’s growth has been stunted. Its national audience is an anemic 3/4 million. It has failed to produce compelling programming at either the national or local level. At a moment in history in which telecommunications has an explosive role in the lives of Americans, Pacifica Radio emits only a death rattle. The current fight is between two entrenched bureaucracies–one at the national level, and a collection of similar entities at the local level. There’s plenty of hot air being blasted around about democracy, community, representation, etc. But no one is talking about how to produce thoughtful, responsive, agile, intelligent radio and how to bring Pacifica’s mission to a wider audience. I am now convinced that this necessary and primary discussion has been forever lost in a bloody, pointless fight, a classic scramble for deck chairs on a rusted out and severely listing Titanic. Or in Pacifica’s case, more like a Tugboat Annie. For my part, I now have absolutely no interest in the actual denouement of this tiresome remake of yet another Friday the 13th. I don’t think it matters very much to journalism, the so-called left or what’s left of Pacifica’s listenership. The historic project of Pacifica Radio as it was conceived and nurtured over several decades is now dead. Bessie Wash, Amy Goodman, Utrice Leid, Juan Gonzalez, Dennis Bernstein, FAIR, John Murdoch and Leslie Cagan alike will serve as pallbearers.

Crisis at WBAI radio in New York: an attempt to silence alternative views Fred Mazelis 8 February 2001

Crisis at WBAI radio in New York: an attempt to silence alternative views Fred Mazelis 8 February 2001 WBAI-FM, the New York City listener-supported radio station, is embroiled in a bitter dispute involving its staff and the national Pacifica Foundation, the station's parent. In late November 2000, Pacifica executive director Bessie Wash met with Valerie Van Isler, WBAI's general manager. When Van Isler refused to accept a job in the Pacifica national office in Washington, she was dismissed from her post at WBAI, which she had held for the past 10 years. The firing of Van Isler was followed by the dismissal of Bernard White, the station's program director. Van Isler was replaced by Utrice Leid, who was named interim general manager. When Van Isler was locked out of her office on December 22, demonstrations followed, along with petitions demanding that Pacifica reverse its decision and respect the autonomy of the local station. More than 1,000 listeners and supporters attended a rally in late December, which has been followed by other meetings and protests. Pacifica, which also owns licenses for listener-supported stations in Los Angeles and Berkeley, California, Washington DC and Houston, was organized in 1946 by a group of pacifists who had been conscientious objectors during the Second World War. WBAI joined this network in 1960. Over the past 50 years, Pacifica stations have provided a source, rare in broadcast radio, for radical and dissenting views. Pacifica outlets have been the target of investigations by the House Un-American Activities Committee. WBAI's public affairs programming has featured extensive international news coverage, and its programs have been sympathetic to antiwar causes and critical of US foreign policy. WBAI reporters were the first to cover the Vietnam War from North Vietnam. The station has also involved itself in civil rights and civil liberties issues. It has covered the campaign on behalf of imprisoned death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal. WBAI is well-known for “Democracy Now!,” a public-affairs program it produces that is also heard on some non-Pacifica stations around the country, and reaches an audience estimated at 700,000. WBAI's programming, reflecting the outlook of left-liberals and the milieu of radical protest politics, leans heavily towards black nationalism and gay and lesbian identity politics, and its news commentary is generally uncritical of bourgeois nationalist regimes in the Third World. The conflict at WBAI has its source in differences over the format and political direction of the Pacifica stations. It is similar to one that erupted in 1999 at WBAI's sister station in Berkeley California, KPFA. More precisely, it is a continuation and deepening of the dispute that surfaced at that time. Pacifica claims that it is attempting to reach a “more diverse and larger audience.” Kenneth A. Ford, vice-chairman of the Pacifica board, was recently quoted as saying that, while no one was advocating “a milquetoast appearance” for Pacifica, it “had a mission at one time and had a credible voice, but now it has gone from being insignificant to irrelevant.... Do we serve people who are locked in time in the '60s, or do we try to stay current and expand and grow to bring in new people under the Pacifica umbrella?” Opponents of the Pacifica board charge that the foundation has moved sharply to the right in recent years, and, in the name of “relevance,” is seeking to remove politically controversial and challenging material from its stations. They point to Houston as an indication of what the Pacifica board is seeking everywhere. There, Pacifica station KPFT, which had a history of politically oriented programming and was bombed by the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s, has adopted a music format and news programming similar to the bland offerings on National Public Radio stations. In its efforts to change the character of its stations, Pacifica provoked an uproar in Berkeley in 1999. The Berkeley station was closed for about 20 days, after Pacifica carried out a purge of station management and followed with a gag order forbidding station personnel from discussing the conflict on the air. After mass protests, including a march of more than 10,000 and a benefit concert featuring folk singer Joan Baez, the Foundation backed down, at least temporarily. The dispute in California has become a protracted legal and political war. Supporters of the local station are backing three separate lawsuits against the foundation. Pacifica continues to control the finances of the local station, and individuals fired in 1999 have not returned as part of paid staff, although some have produced shows in a voluntary capacity. There can be little doubt about Pacifica's political motives. It recently attacked “Democracy Now!,” the national program produced by Amy Goodman. After Goodman brought Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader onto the floor of the Republican National Convention for an interview, Pacifica pulled her press pass to cover the Democratic Convention. According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, Pacifica's acting program director made this decision because he considered Goodman's interview with Nader “a stunt and not in keeping with Pacifica's standards of journalism.” Management has also imposed a new set of “work rules” on Goodman, including the requirement that she clear all speaking engagements with management and provide Pacifica with “a list of possible shows the following week and a short status report on each.” She was told she could be fired if she did not tell management the topics of at least three of her five shows one week ahead of airing. Goodman has denounced this as political harassment, pointing to previous criticism she had received from Pacifica, including for her story on the 1997 police brutalization of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima in New York. A Pacifica official was reported to have said that he didn't want to hear about the details of this case “before breakfast.” There was another incident, on election day 2000, which many believe may have at least affected the timing of the latest moves against WBAI. Pacifica officials, many with close ties to the Clinton administration, were undoubtedly incensed by an interview Goodman conducted with Clinton when he called the station on election day as part of a “get-out-the-vote” drive. Clinton was calling many stations for this purpose, but Goodman grilled him for about half an hour. After about 20 minutes he said, “You have asked questions in a hostile, combative and even disrespectful tone,” but he remained on the line, as Goodman asked about such topics as sanctions against Iraq and the effort to obtain a pardon for Indian activist Leonard Peltier (a pardon that Clinton eventually refused to grant). The current battle at WBAI reflects the growing crisis and the widening of divisions within the American radical and left-liberal milieu that had its origins in the anti-war, identity politics and counterculture trends of the 1960s. This political milieu, heterogeneous to begin with, has undergone further social and political differentiation in recent years. Many of those who experimented with protest in their youth have become wealthy and have moved to the right. This is the layer whose outlook finds political expression on the board of the Pacifica Foundation. It includes quite a few figures prominent in political and corporate circles. Mary Frances Berry, who recently retired as chairman of the board, held that post at the same time as she presided as chairman of the US Civil Rights Commission. Berry, a longtime ally of Bill Clinton, was one of the main figures in Pacifica's moves against KPFA in Berkeley. An appeal from David North: Donate to the WSWS today Watch the video message from WSWS International Editorial Board Chairman David North. Donate today Among the other Pacifica executives, according to a report in the New York-based newspaper Haiti-Progres, Treasurer Michael Palmer “has boasted of developing ‘maquiladoras' in northern Mexico,” Vice-Chair Kenneth Ford works for the National Association of Home Builders, and John Murdock is a partner in Epstein, Becker and Green, a New York-based law firm with expertise representing employers against unions. WBAI staff member Mimi Rosenberg, speaking about these and other board members, made the rather apt comment that while Pacifica founder Lew Hill “went to the airwaves at the height of the Cold War and said that the FBI was a scurrilous and contemptible organization.... One would be hard pressed to believe that Pacifica's current national board would ever make such a statement.” Not surprisingly, the upper-middle-class elements who deal socially and on a business level with the ruling circles of the US would like to remove any hint of radicalism from the Pacifica stations today. The opponents of Pacifica on the WBAI staff are incapable of advancing a perspective to fight the attack on the station, however. The foundation executives have been able to make use of the confusion and disorientation among the middle-class radicals to advance their own agenda. After years of race-based and “identity politics” programming, backed by people on both sides of the current dispute, WBAI has understandably attracted some dubious political elements. One example is the newly-appointed interim general manager, Utrice Leid. Ms. Leid has ties to the black nationalist demagogue Alton Maddox, and appeared at a meeting of Maddox's United Afrikan Movement last April. Taking their cue from forces like Maddox, Pacifica defenders have tried to use the race issue, pointing to both Pacifica Executive Director Bessie Wash and newly installed WBAI Interim General Manager Leid to claim that their opponents at WBAI are hostile to black women. They have made this charge even though fired WBAI General Manager Van Isler is also black. The Pacifica board has definite economic motives, as well as political ones, in its current campaign to transform its local stations. Radio stations have become increasingly lucrative properties in recent years, and there is talk that the sale of WBAI could bring a windfall of as much as $200 million to its current owners. Beyond the immediate economic and political motives, as important as they are, the developments at WBAI reflect the growing pressures of political conformity and commercialization in the media. Pacifica's actions are bound up with the rightward shift in the ruling establishment and the media as a whole. Public and listener-supported radio is not immune from these pressures. The competition for audience share is used to justify the elimination of controversy or challenging programming. Public radio has long since forfeited its claim to be noncommercial. Its sponsors are called “underwriters,” but their role is increasingly the same as that of commercial sponsors. It is not necessary to agree with the political outlook that dominates WBAI to recognize that Pacifica's actions are a threat to free speech. Whatever the limitations of WBAI's format and programming—and they are considerable—Pacifica's attack is aimed at squelching dissent and censoring oppositional and left-wing views, and must be opposed by all defenders of democratic rights and opponents of the increasingly centralized and pervasive corporate control of the media.

PUBLIC LIVES; A Firm New Boss at an Old Voice of the Left

By Lynda Richardson Jan. 17, 2001 See the article in its original context from January 17, 2001, Section B, Page 2Buy Reprints View on timesmachine TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. WITH the recent firings of staff members and the changing of locks in the night, it has been suggested by dissenting voices that the leftist, noncommercial radio station WBAI is having an Alexander Haig moment. In this case, the general who swooped in to take charge is Utrice Leid, a regal native of Trinidad with a big, booming voice and big earrings of silver and onyx that match the heavy ring on her finger. Ms. Leid, host of the station's popular afternoon show, ''Talkback,'' became interim general manager on Dec. 22, after WBAI's parent group, the Pacifica Foundation of Washington, dismissed the longtime station manager, Valerie Van Isler; the program director, Bernard White; and the union steward, Sharan Harper. Ms. Leid and Bessie Wash, Pacifica's executive director, had the station's locks changed. Then Ms. Leid went on the air in the early morning to announce a change in management, and that she was it. ''The funny thing in my life, it's kind of consistent with my life, is I end up doing things because I am drafted,'' Ms. Leid said with a hearty laugh the other day, poised and relaxed behind a desk cluttered high with papers and books on the 10th floor of a Wall Street high-rise. A few days into her new job, Ms. Leid, 47, proclaimed that she loved it. ''I look forward to being tested,'' she said. ''In every moment that I've been tested, I've found that I've been equal or even superior to the task.'' Sign up for the New York Today Newsletter Each morning, get the latest on New York businesses, arts, sports, dining, style and more. Get it sent to your inbox. To say that there is tension at WBAI is to put it mildly. Turmoil over the firings has divided listeners and staff members at WBAI, one of five affiliates of the tiny nonprofit Pacifica network, which was founded in 1946 by pacifists and conscientious objectors. There have been protests and vigils. Staff members hint darkly about a hit list, and speculate about who may be next. Ms. Leid seems impervious to the unpleasant things said about her, that she is vindictive, for instance, and that her participation in the shake-up is revenge against Ms. Van Isler for not hiring her as program director last year. Ms. Leid says changes are long overdue, because the station needs to broaden its audience and become more relevant. ''It's best to describe what it used to be,'' she said in the teacherly tone she used on her talk show to analyze a speech or quiz her listeners on vocabulary. ''It was depressing. It was suffocating. It was frustrating. It inhibited creativity. It was badly managed and horribly organized. At the same time, it was also rife with great possibility and potential.'' But does it strike Ms. Leid as odd for a station that has prided itself on its democratic functioning to have security guards now? She explains that the security detail is merely a volunteer force, friends of hers and the station's. ''It became clear to many of us that it was planned that the station would be seized and occupied,'' she said. ''That was the plan, and in some cases, there were utterances about destroying equipment and doing harm to the station. We are in a heightened state of awareness because of this crisis, which is a case of manufactured dissent.'' DRESSED in a pinstriped shirt, a dark navy blazer and gray slacks, Ms. Leid is a large woman with milk-chocolate-brown skin and short-cropped hair. She is clearly comfortable with herself at center stage. As a girl in Trinidad, she represented her Roman Catholic school in debates and essay contests. She was also picked to present bouquets to visiting royalty. Ms. Leid was one of nine children, with seven brothers and one sister. She grew up expecting to be involved in business like her parents. Her mother owned a restaurant in Trinidad, and her father owned a variety of businesses, including a movie theater, a grocery store and a bar. Her interest in journalism began in 1973, after her father died of a heart attack. She went to be with her grieving mother in Trinidad, which was shakily recovering from a coup attempt. During her yearlong stay, she researched how people were reacting to the coup attempt, thinking it would make a good book. But one day, machine-gun-toting men appeared at her home and confiscated her 700 pages of notes, saying her project was subversive. ''It was kind of scary to have men surround the home,'' she recalled matter-of-factly, making one wonder if she might have scared them. Returning to New York, Ms. Leid found a job as a receptionist at The Amsterdam News. But after a six-month stint at that black-owned newspaper, she had grander dreams. Along with an Amsterdam News colleague, she began a small news service to provide news media outlets with articles with an African-American focus. The news service lasted about four years. Ms. Leid, who is single and lives in Brooklyn Heights, has always been drawn to nonmainstream news media. She said they offered a chance to do journalism that might otherwise not get done. In 1984, she helped create The City Sun, a black-owned newspaper, and was its managing editor for eight years. She said she left in part because the paper was lying about its circulation figures to get better advertising rates. Since 1993, Ms. Leid has worked at WBAI. She concedes that these are not normal times. But she is convinced that things will settle down soon. Meanwhile, she is unapologetic. ''I've never been concerned about whether people like me or don't like me,'' she said, ''but I will not allow anyone to disrespect me.''

Bessie, Resign! by Rick Giombetti Mon, Mar 26, 2001 6:10PM

Bessie, Resign! by Rick Giombetti Mon, Mar 26, 2001 6:10PM My letter to Pacifica Executive Director Bessie Wash in response to her interruption of Democracy Now! this morning. I couldn't imagine a better way to have my first cup of coffee in the morning ruined than to hear your voice rudely interrupt Amy Goodman's reading of the morning's news headlines on Democracy Now! this morning. The experience was similar to the last time I discovered I had accidentally stepped on a pile of dog shit on a living room carpet. Listening to your maternalistic and hypocritical rant about respecting the free speech rights of those opposed to the policies of the Pacifica Foundation Board was bad enough. But your statement was also potentially libelous as it basically pronounced a protester named Edwin Johnston guilty of assaulting a KPFT volunteer in Houston, and accused three other protesters of not aiding the individual allegedly assaulted by Johnston. Johnston made a posting at Houston's Indymedia site stating he had been libeled by your statement, as it was he who had been assaulted by KPFT station staff. Johnston wrote that he would be visiting an attorney tomorrow. It appears that you need a civics refresher course. You may not know this, but at least in theory we don't live in a fascist country (Although in practice that is a different story entirely. One only need look at the bullying tactics of using private security guards and local police by the Pacifica Foundation Board to intimidate Pacifica station staff and listeners across the country to see an example of fascism in action). There is a presumption of innocence when somebody is charged with a crime. If you're going to accuse of somebody criminally charged of being guilty of those charges over the airwaves, then you have to allow that individual a chance to respond to the allegations. Nobody should feel sorry for you and the rest of the board if Johnston sues over your statement on Democracy Now! this morning. Your lecture to Democracy Now! listeners about respecting free speech was disgusting. This is the same Bessie Wash who has overseen the blacking out of Democracy Now! programming over the airwaves at Pacifica station WPFW in DC, like a recent commentary on the Christmas Coup at WBAI by Mumia Abu-Jamal and a debate between foundation boardmember John Murdoch and Pacifica Campaign founder Juan Gonzalez. This is the same Bessie Wash who has overseen the Christmas Coup at WBAI, in which long time station and staff have been fired and banned from the station in the middle of the night and community advisory boardmembers have been prevented from meeting at the station by Pacifica hired security goons. During your interruption of Democracy Now! you also stated that the illegitimately installed WBAI station manager, Ultrice Leid, had been assaulted while attempting to conduct an interview with a congressman over the airwaves. I found this statement interesting because the only report of an assault involving Leid during an interview with a congressman I know of was an assualt on the First Amendment by Leid, when she rudely shut down an interview with U.S. Representative Major Owens during a live interview on WBAI. You and the rest of the cheap gansters on the board can insult the intelligence of Democracy Now! listeners all you want. You can reduce the current campaign to save Pacifica to false accusations of racism and sexism on the part of those who are opposed to the current board's policies all day long. But I suggest you are never going to convince Democracy Now!'s loyal and sophisticated listeners to support the current board when you rudely interrupt the show and spew more lies about the Pacifica Campaign and other groups dedicted to saving the network. Bessie, resign now! And don't ever interrupt Democracy Now! again! Rick Giombetti Seattle For more information: http://www.pacificacampaign.org

“To vice, innocence must always seem only a superior kind of chicanery.” ― Ouida, Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida

“To vice, innocence must always seem only a superior kind of chicanery.” ― Ouida, Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida