An Urgent Message on the Pacifica Radio Settlement

Juan Gonzalez

Dear Pacifica Campaign Supporter:

Late yesterday we received news that there has finally been a legal
settlement in the long and bitter battle against the corporate clique
which hijacked the Pacifica network. (For the settlement text
go to pacificacampaign.org

We in the Pacifica Campaign have not had a chance in such a short time
to convene an official meeting and decide our position on the
settlement. We have, however, publicly stated for many months that such
a negotiated settlement was not only possible but was in the best
interests of preserving a viable network for the listeners.

We never deluded ourselves, however, about such a settlement, knowing
that in this, as in any bargaining process, the "devil is often in the
details." What I offer below is my preliminary analysis of the
settlement and what it means for our movement. I want to stress that
this is my individual view, not the official position of the Campaign,
which can only come later. But given the controversy this settlement is
sure to generate, I believe it is urgent to initiate reasoned debate
over its terms as soon as possible. So here it is:

The movement for democracy in the American mass media won a historic
victory yesterday, one that is sure to inspire new struggles for media
accountability.

For perhaps the first time in U.S. history, a people's movement of
listeners, employees and political activists succeeded in wresting
majority control of a radio network away from a small corporate clique
that had illegally seized the reins of power several years earlier.

That movement accomplished this extraordinary victory by a persistent
and creative combination of an amazing array of tactics -- including
peaceful direct action, civil disobedience, massive public meetings and
protests, a well-organized listener boycott, skillful use of direct
mail and internet electronic picketing campaigns, as well as numerous
court challenges.

Thanks to the combination of those tactics, which aroused tens of
thousands of people around the country to unprecedented action and
garnered nationwide press attention, the clique in control of the
network and their few active supporters in the management and staff of
the five stations were soon overwhelmed and forced to retreat.

The agreement reached yesterday is merely the legal reflection of our
movement's enormous strength and a recognition of its victory.

There are those who will ask, how can we call this a victory when our
movement has not totally ousted all the members of the former board
majority? Under the agreement, the reform movement will most likely
have a 9-to-6 majority on an Interim Board during a 15-month
"transition period," at the end of which new bylaws will be written and
a new permanent board elected. During that interim period, however,
voting rules will be such that our "majority" will be unable to reach
major decisions without, in effect, at least one member of the new
minority voting with us. Any board decision by a simple majority vote
that does not meet such criteria will automatically be referred to the
California judge who is overseeing the agreement, and the judge will
then decide the matter.

So how can that be considered a victory if the old raiders can still
throw obstacles in the way of our new majority?

The answer is simple. A few weeks ago, our dissident board members were
in the minority. Under this agreement, they will be in the majority. A
few weeks ago, our dissident board members were powerless to block all
but a few major actions by the corporate raiders. Now the raiders have
no power to initiate any major actions. All they can do is throw
roadblocks, but even then, at least during the transition period, the
judge has the final decision, not the raiders.

Most importantly, the one area where a simple majority can rule is in
the election of the Foundation's officers. That means that our
dissident board members will have the power to elect the new chair,
treasurer and secretary of the Foundation. That means the power to
determine when the national board meets, what the agenda will be, who
will chair committees and how votes will be conducted, will be on our
side. That alone is an enormous change compared to the current
situation where listeners and board members were given as little
information about board meetings as possible. And this was all
accomplished without spending millions of dollars more on a trial that
may have ended up giving us less than what the settlement did.

In addition, the new settlement gives a majority of three of the five
Local Advisory Boards (LABs) virtual veto power over the amending of
any bylaws concerning the election of board members. If the LABs reject
the bylaws, the Spooner listeners' suit and the Adelson LAB law suits
can proceed to trial.

Moreover, the settlement forbids any sale of a station during the
interim period and mandates consultation with listener groups and local
communities over bylaw amendments.

There are some who are already lining up to criticize the agreement.
They seem most outraged by the fact that the clique of raiders will
retain a powerful minority position on the board. My response to that
is two-fold:

1) The clique who remain are far different and far less potent than
those who were on the board last Dec. 22, the night of the Christmas
Coup at WBAI.

Former Chairman David Acosta is gone. Former Vice-Chair Ken Ford is
gone. Former treasurer Micheal Palmer is gone. Former secretary Andrea
Cisco is gone. So is Karolyn Van Putten and Frank Millspaugh. Even the
infamous John Murdock, the defiant, belligerent Murdock of the
anti-union firm, Epstein, Becker & Green, is reportedly gone, since he
will apparently not be part of the new board. Neither will Houston's
Valrie Chambers. In other words, eight members of the one-time raiders
will be gone, including the ringleaders of the coup.

But that's not all. Former director Bessie Wash was forced out. So was
national program director Steven Yasko and his successor, former WBAI
interim station manager Utrice Leid.

When you think about it, our movement has accomplished an incredible
sea-change. In less than one year we have forced out from all the top
positions of the network those who most sought to move Pacifica away
from its original radical mission. No, we have not yet succeeded in
ridding the network of all the bad apples. But that brings me to my
second point.

2) Those who believe that all of our movement's goals could be
accomplished in one swoop, like some modern day version of a Bolshevik
or Sandinista uprising, have perhaps underestimated the real world in
which we live. We cannot isolate the Pacifica struggle from the
capitalist environment that surrounds us, nor can we neglect the
reality that we find ourselves in the midst of a new right-upsurge and
weighed down by a horrible new war.

The progressive movement in America needs a strong Pacifica now more
than ever. It needs to have Democracy Now! back on the air at all
Pacifica stations, broadcasting news and information the American
people cannot hear anywhere else on the radio dial. We cannot allow
bitterness and anger to cloud our judgments. As I have told Pacifica
activists repeatedly during the past few months, the great
revolutionaries in history, the Mandela's, the Ho Chi Minh's, knew when
to fight and when to negotiate. They knew when to stand on principle
and when to make difficult compromises. They knew when to choose
reconciliation over revenge. A perfect example of this is former board
member Bob Farrell. In retrospect, the election of Farrell as chairman
several months ago, while certainly a move that many of us opposed,
turned out to be a watershed moment. Farrell announced he wanted to
make peace within Pacifica. Many of us were skeptical, but he went
about doing just that. Yes, he had been part of the raiding clique. But
Farrell chose to change, and he dragged the remaining members of his
group to the table, even as they were kicking and screaming. Farrell
will not be on the new board. His own side chose not to elect him. But
I believe that by abandoning the old bankrupt policies he played a
pivotal role in moving Pacifica toward a new era, so I wish to publicly
thank him for keeping his word.

Most importantly, I believe we owe much gratitude to the litigants in
the three law suits. All of them spent countless hours, so many of them
frustrating and seemingly fruitless, trying to find common ground first
with each other, then with the rest of us in our complicated and
amorphous reform movement, than with the various representatives of the
raiders. They sacrificed so much time away from their families, their
jobs, their own personal lives, all to save Pacifica. Thank you Leslie
Cagan, Tomas Moran, Pete Bramson, Rob Robinson, Rabbi Aaron Kriegel,
Dave Adelson, Miguel Maldonado, Sherry Gendelman, Robbie Osman, Barbara
Lubin, and of course, Carol Spooner.

As for those who are dissatisfied, or who believe that this agreement
sells out our movement's principles, I urge you to reconsider your
views. There will always be some people who are not satisfied with an
agreement. Many of us, myself included, had hoped for more. Many wanted
several other issues to be resolved right away, including the immediate
return of all the banned and the fired from WBAI. But my interpretation
of the provisions of this agreement leads me to believe that the WBAI
situation will be resolved very soon.

Remember, this is only a transition agreement. When North Vietnam and
the United States negotiated an end to the Vietnam War, their Peace
Treaty dealt primarily with the transitional conditions under which the
U.S. army would withdraw from the South. The U.S. did not surrender and
endorse the liberation and reunification of South Vietnam with the
North. That momentous event happened later. Not very much later -- but
still later.

So rather than quibble over what should have been in this transitional
agreement now and what should be decided later, rather than begin
attacking those we fought so hard to save the network, we should first
take a step back, look at the forest instead of the individual trees,
and celebrate the magnificent victory our movement has accomplished.

When I resigned from Democracy Now! on January 31 and we launched the
Pacifica Campaign, few people believed we could drive out the hijackers
and regain control of Pacifica. Some told us we would either destroy
the network or meet a humiliating defeat. Neither of those things
happened, as the terrific staff organizers of the Pacifica Campaign --
Dan Coughlin, Farah Davari, Linda Duggins, Arturo Lemus, John Martinez,
Denis Moynihan, Bok-Keem Nyerere, Karen Pomer, Myla Reson, Ursula
Ruedenberg, Darius Sarrafi, Don Underwood, Valerie Van Isler, Bernard
White, Andrea Buffa, and the many volunteers dug in, criss-crossed the
country and fought on relentlessly.

No, we do not yet have democratic accountability to listeners and
staff. We do not yet have a return of Free Speech. We do not yet have
the return of the banned and fired. But we have taken a giant step
toward each of those goals by removing from power those who promulgated
the dictatorial and retrograde policies at Pacifica

I believe this agreement thrusts our movement into a new stage. During
this transition period we have two important challenges. We must
mobilize maximum support for the new board majority so that it can
fashion a genuinely democratic structure for Pacifica, restore the
banned and the fired, and end the gag rule. And we must end the boycott
and rapidly move toward rebuilding the network's membership and
finances and prepare for elections of new advisory boards so that
Pacifica can emerge from this crisis bigger and stronger than ever. I
welcome the debate and discussion that will ensue over the next few
months as part of the new process of rebuilding the network. Maybe, the
Pacifica Campaign can even join with other reform groups in scheduling
a national conference on the future of the network where the various
viewpoints can be openly aired.

Finally, thanks to all of you for your support to the Campaign and for
your devotion to Pacifica. Despite the terrible crises in this country
the past few months, despite the rapid erosion of democratic rule
throughout our land and the horrible calamity faced by the people of
Afghanistan, I want to wish you and all your loved ones a healthy and
happy holidays and offer my best wishes for the New Year.

Hope to see you soon on another edition of Democracy Now!

Juan Gonzalez