Daniel Borgström, candidate for KPFA's LSB
Rescue Pacifica in KPFA's election
for the Local Station Board
Daniel Borgström is one of the candidates of the Rescue Pacifica affinity group elected to KPFA's Local Station Board in March 2019. The others of this group who were elected during that and the following election are:
Marilyn Langlois, Christine Pepin, Karina Stenquist, James Mcfadden, Mantra Plonsey, Tom Voorhees and Frank Sterling
KPFA's Antiwar Voice
by Daniel Borgström
When people ask why I joined the Marine Corps (1959 to 1963), I tell them, "Because where I grew up, there was no KPFA or Pacifica Radio affiliate." There was just the constant corporate drumbeat of anti-Communism taking many forms, often pretending to advocate world peace, but always in one way or another campaigning against China and Russia.
During the McCarthy Era, KPFA bravely exposed Cold War propaganda for what it was. Throughout the war in Vietnam, KPFA had a genuine antiwar voice, loud and clear. But in recent years, except for a few excellent surviving programs, our station has increasingly echoed the corporate media's support for aggressive U.S. neoliberal policies, even offering justification for "humanitarian" interventions. Establishment groupthink is replacing KPFA's antiwar voice.
This turning away from critical, genuinely alternative programming is closely tied to the station's financial crisis.
For over a decade I've been attending KPFA's Local Station Board (LSB) meetings, watching the tragedy unfold from a back row seat. In 2005, I remember several LSB members warning that our station was living beyond its means, hiring more staff than we could afford, burning through financial reserves. Year after year, those warnings went unheeded.
When crisis eventually hit, and KPFA/Pacifica could no longer afford the excessive expenses, those in control of station governance tried to pin the blame on Pacifica. They also stole the name of an earlier group, wrongfully calling themselves "Save KPFA," and set out to tear our station away from the Pacifica Network and eliminate radio democracy at KPFA. Today they're calling themselves "United for Independent Radio," a new name, same old stuff, same goal of splitting the station away. If they succeed, will the last vestiges of Pacifica's national antiwar voice fall silent?
That is what we, RESCUE PACIFICA, are up against. We're a group of activists fighting for financial stability, transparency and responsibility, for preserving the Pacifica Network, and for promoting programming that digs into the roots of societal problems rather than just reporting the symptoms. Recently, KPFA management terminated a popular program, Guns and Butter, along with its seventeen years of archives. This was done without transparent process. Such decisions should be handled by a program council, which KPFA hasn't had for over a decade. For more on our platform please see Rescue Pacifica.
KPFA's antiwar voice is worth fighting for, and that's why I'm running for the LSB. I took part in the Vietnam era antiwar movement, and wrote for the "underground" newspapers of that day; today I write for websites including Dissident Voice, CounterPunch and Global Research. I was an active participant in Occupy Oakland and many other events I've written about, including our struggle at KPFA; please see them at this website.
My endorsers include Veterans for Peace, East Bay Chapter 162, of which I am a member.
Daniel Borgström
ex-Marine against the Wars
danielfortyone@gmail.com
RESCUE PACIFICA rescuepacifica.net
PACIFICA IN EXILE pacificainexile.org
*** *** *** *** *** ***
*** *** *** *** *** ***
Introducing RESCUE PACIFICA
We are members of KPFA, listeners and staff, who oppose the current station board majority's effort to break up the Pacifica Foundation and operate KPFA as a stand alone station without taking a vote of the listener membership as required in the Bylaws.
The current Board Majority which we want to replace in the 2019 station board election has, in the past, operated under a variety of names including Concerned Listeners and Save KPFA. and now they call themselves "United for Independent Radio." Rescue Pacifica opposes United for Independent Radio. If you are a member of KPFA we invite you to vote for our candidate slate of loyal listeners in the KPFA 2019 Local Station Board election to Rescue Pacifica and KPFA.
Recent History
The current board majority plan to break KPFA away from the Pacifica Network has been temporarily blocked by listeners disturbed by the stations rightward drift. Rescue Pacifica seeks to restore listener democracy at KPFA by re-establishing the representative Program Council with fair and transparent procedures for launching and/or canceling popular programs as recently occurred with the sudden yanking of Guns and Butter off the air.
Why We Need to Rescue Pacifica (and KPFA)
1. The Secret KPFA Foundation.
In Sept of 2013 KPFA board chair, Margy Wilkinson and her lawyer Dan Siegel acted in secret to file articles of incorporation with the California Secretary of State, using KPFA's call letters and mission statement to establish a fictitious shell corporation: The KPFA Foundation. There were only two sponsors named on the secret incorporation papers: Margy Wilkinson and Daniel Siegel, neither of whom notified any other member of the KPFA station board or the Pacifica Foundation, (the parent organization which holds the broadcast licenses) of their action until it was discovered in 2015 more than two years after they had expropriated KPFA call letters and mission statement. The KPFA Foundation is still on file in Sacramento.
2. Big Tent Radio.
In April 2017 majority board chair, Carol Travis, devised a plan, also in secret, to replace Pacifica's democratically elected governance system with a self appointed board of celebrities headed by Bill Moyers, which would rubberstamp management decisions.
Travis was forced to admit, at a public meeting of the actual board, that she personally lobbied Moyers to recruit him as executive director of a new KPFA she called Big Tent Radio. Moyers turned her offer down, but Travis has since boasted "I would do it again."
Travis acted beyond her authority representing herself to Moyers as a KPFA officer without notifying the membership or even the KPFA Local Station Board.
As a member of the KPFA Local Station Board (LSB) and the Pacifica National Board, she owes an obligation of "duty and care" to preserve station and Foundation, not to hijack them.
3. Volunteer Bankruptcy
To escape having to win a vote of the membership as required by the Pacifica bylaws, before breaking up the network, the current board majority refused to submit timely audits for several years 2014 - 2016 ensuring the loss of millions of dollars in unrestricted CPB funds that Pacifica used to keep its five station network solvent. Failure to submit audits created stress on the budgets of all five stations and put the network in danger. This was only one of many deliberate acts of financial mismanagement to create the case for voluntary bankruptcy.
But with more than $100 million dollars in valuable station assets and only $10 million in outstanding debt the network could only seek "voluntary" bankruptcy since assets are greater than our debt. However, once in voluntary bankruptcy court a bankruptcy judge has the power to reorganize governance and oversee the rewriting of the Pacific bylaws which is the actual intent of the current board majority United for Independent Radio.
4. Affiliate Station Collapse
According to the director of the Pacifica Affiliates Program of 300 stations dependent on re-broadcasting Pacifica programs, the affiliates network would be severely impacted by a breakup of the Pacifica network, the only progressive radio network in the U.S.
RESCUE PACIFICA Platform
Vote for Rescue Pacifica candidates in the 2019 Local Station Board Election for:
*An anti-war stance, as opposed to support for "humanitarian intervention" and increased air time for diverse grassroots community groups, including during morning drive time.
*Reliable news from a variety of independent sources beyond AP and Reuters.
* Bargaining rights for paid and unpaid staff, who provide over 70% of programming and keep KPFA on the air.
*Addition of new technologies to broaden our reach online and through video.
* Democratic governance, and shared decision making among station workers and the community.
* Keeping listeners informed about our governance.
* Restoring a democratic Program Council to make programming decisions.
NOTE: We protest the summary termination of Guns & Butter from the air and archives without due process.
* Retaining independence from private ownership, and no commercial underwriting
* Responsible budgeting and timely, transparent financial reporting, to listeners as well
* Keeping the Pacifica Foundation intact.
These are not the aims of " United for Independent Radio," whose supporters are trying to separate KPFA from Pacifica, nor are they the present aims of some delegates of United for Community Radio, who have also been promoting bankruptcy under the misguided illusion that the government will step in and reorganize our community radio network for the better. Pacifica elections are coming up very soon; our candidates for Local Station Board election are Daniel Borgström, Joel Schor, James McFadden, Don Macleay, Noni Session and Richard Phelps.
RESCUE PACIFICA rescuepacifica.net
To keep up with what's happening at KPFA and Pacifica, we recommend signing up for updates at PacificaInExile.org
November 2018
KPFA 94.1 FM is one of five stations of the Pacifica radio network which are located in major cities across the country. The other stations are WBAI 99.5 in New York, WPFW 89.3 in Washington DC, KPFT 90.1 in Houston, and KPFK 90.7 in Los Angeles. There are also about 300 affiliate stations.
DISCLAIMER: This is not an official Pacifica Foundation website nor an official website of any of the five Pacifica Radio Stations (KPFA Radio, KPFK Radio, KPFT Radio, WBAI Radio, WPFW Radio). Opinions and facts alleged on this site belong to the author(s) of the website only and should NOT be assumed to be true or to reflect the editorial stance or policy of the Pacifica Foundation, or any of the five Pacifica Radio Stations (KPFA Radio, KPFK Radio, KPFT Radio, WBAI Radio, WPFW Radio), or the opinions of its management, Pacifica National Board, station staff or other listener members.
