Dear KPFK members,

It is regretable that some Greens have attempted to bring internal Green Party conflicts into the KPFK election. It is unfortunate enough that our party has such problems, without having Green Party members bringing our internal disputes into an election as important as the election to the KPFK board.

The charges made in this letter are, of course, completely without foundation.

You may be unaware, but the Green Party of Los Angeles County has been involved in a years-long struggle over internal democracy, democratic accountability, political and financial ethics, and the future of Green Politics.

Donna Warren and John Wenger have been in the forefront of the struggle by the majority of Los Angeles County Greens to preserve and protect grassroots democracy, and high standards of ethical behavior and democratic process in the Green Party both locally and statewide.

Because of the stands they have taken to protect, preserve and promote all that is decent and honorable in the Green Party today, they have angered those Green Party members who feel threatened by any semblance of rank and file democracy or political morality in our party.

The struggle Donna Warren and John Wenger and others have waged in our party to preserve, enhance and protect the values of our party has been nothing short of heroic, and demonstrates precisely the strength of character KPFK needs on its board.

Please vote for Donna and John with an open heart and a clear conscience. You will be voting for the best the Green Party has, and you will never regret it.

Signed,

-Peter Camejo - Green Party Candidate for Governor.

-Nativo. V. Lopez – National President, Mexican-American Political Association (MAPA) and Hermanidad Mexicana Latinoamericana;

-Ceil Sorenson - Female Co-Coordinator (with John Wenger, Male Co-Coordinator) of the County Council of the Green Party of Los Angeles County;

-Ellen Maisen – At-Large Representative to the Coordinating Committee of the Green Party of California; Member, County Council of the Green Party of Los Angeles County

-Jim Odling - County Councilor of the Green Party of Los Angeles County and Green Party of California Regional Representative, Los Angeles County;

-Will Yeager – Green Party of California Regional Representative, Los Angeles County; Green Party Nominee 38th Congressional District, 1996; Treasurer, Southern California Green Assembly, 1988-1989; Corresponding Secretary, Green Party of Los Angeles County County Council, 1992-1994;

-Matt Leslie – County Council of the Green Party of Orange County, Former Regional Representative for Orange County, San Bernardino County, and Riverside County, Green Party of California State Coordinating Committee;

-Lynda A. Hernandez - Chair, Green Party of Orange County 2002 Council member and Treasurer 2003-2004;

-Todd Van Etten - County Council of the Green Party of Orange County;

-Mike Wyman - Former Treasurer, Green Party of California; Candidate for Attorney General of California; Second Alternate for North Bay Region, Green Party of California State Coordinating Committee;

-Shane Que Hee - LA County Green and Co-Coordinator, Green Party of California Platform Committee

- Carole and Andre LaFlamme – Member and Supporter of Women in Black

###

What has the Green Party done?

What has the Green Party accomplished?

Has the Green Party shown any concern with the interests of ordinary working Americans?

Has the Green Party presented any challenge whatsoever to the ruling class of America and its one party two wing system?

Has it done anything to oppose the war?

As far as I know, the answer to all these questions is nothing and no. If it has done anything, it has done a good job of keeping quiet.

I won't get started on the record of the Green Party in government in Germany, especially in the Berlin state government. I fear that little difference exists between the parties here and there.

The association of Donna Warren and John Wenger with such an ineffective group that has gone nowhere and done little but fight among themselves makes a case to look elsewhere for effective leadership.

First of all, let me acknowledge the error in the letter from independents and grassroots Greens. Donna and John did reveal their government ties in their candidate statements, and I regret that this letter says they were less than forthcoming in that regard. I received an email indicating that sentence would be corrected in the final version, but it was not.

Let me assure all of those who signed Mr. Camejo’s and Mr. Nativo’s letter that my signature on the original letter is not a personal assessment of Donna, John, Mr. Feinstein, Mr. Camejo, Mr. Nativo, or even much of a commentary on Green factionalism. It is my assessment of what is right for KPFK.

Several years ago, when I was running for the KPFK and still registered Green, the party supported some Green members for the KPFK election and not others. I called some folks here locally, advised them of the candidates who were Green but not endorsed, and a new endorsement went out almost immediately.

As I look at the involvement of political parties in KPFK in this election, I'm not sure that my phone calls were a good thing, as they only encouraged parties' high-profile involvement in Pacifica elections. I have come to see party politicking, from any party, as a real danger to the Pacifica elections. As the response above confirms for me, Donna and John's candidacy has everything to do with internal Green politics. The letter from the independents and grassroots Greens, from my point of view, is an effort to right that balance at least within the party. I really wish the Greens had stayed out of it altogether or, once again, endorsed all the Green candidates, but that didn't happen.

Seeing the very beginning of the infighting in the Green Party and watching it start to play out around the first endorsements--who was sufficiently "in" and who was "out"--I left the Greens. I still vote Green with some regularity (and have voted for Donna for Lieutenant Governor), but I am no longer registered with the party and no longer attend the meetings, which I find destructive in the extreme, even more so than KPFK politics (and that's saying a lot).

I know Donna and John slightly outside of KPFK, and I've enjoyed their company at community events and socially. However, KPFK is under siege, and it doesn't serve the station at this time to have on its board people who are so closely identified with the U.S. government. It casts a pall on a station that actively promotes itself as "fiercely independent" and which may, in the near future, have to actively defend that position.

Donna, unlike John, has been particularly divisive within Pacifica. In 2004, in a broadcast Pacifica National Board meeting, she said, "It is so contentious in Los Angeles, between the people that David mentioned, who are on the Coalition of Justice, who I am now convinced are, just want to destroy the station unless they get a majority." The people she was referring to were me and my allies. The LSB Chair at the time, Don White, made repeated efforts to bring Donna into a dialogue around her comment, and she repeatedly refused to take part.

I recognize the work Donna has done around crack in the inner city and three strikes. Good causes, both. She has told me the story of her son. Nevertheless, I agree with the letter in its broad strokes: the perpetuation of Green factionalism, Donna's alliance with the Democrats in this election, John and Donna's government ties, and Donna's perpetuation of infighting in Pacifica, do not recommend them to serve on the LSB of KPFK.

I recognize the letter allies me with certain forces within the Greens (and, fyi, they are not the same people I was allied with when I was more involved with the Party). But I am out of Green politics, so this appearance of alliance has little import and my opinion on Green infighting should mean very little to those involved in it. My emphasis right now is on KPFK. It is with that concern, and only that, that I added my name to the letter.

--Leslie Radford

"Mr. Nativo" is, of course, "Mr. Lopez."

I'll get off the computer now.

The World and Los Angeles is better off due to the efforts of the Green Party. The author of the posting that I am commenting on seems to fault the Green Party for not solving all the world's problems. The Green Party has been very active in the Anti-War movement, if you have not seen us at the Anti-War Marches, as only one example, then you must be myopic. Many Greens have contributed to a better world, too many to list here.

Personally, I ran for Congress in Long Beach (38th CD) and helped save El Dorado Park, Area III from development, helped qualify and pass Prop. 215 (Medical Marijuana) and obtain Domestic Partnership Registration in Long Beach. Then there was the attempt of Enron to take over Long Beach's Electric Service in 1999. I was the Petition Coordinator for the successful effort that blocked this attempted privatization. While on the Redondo Beach General Plan Committee (1989-1992), I added HDPE plastic and Mixed Paper to the Recycling Plan, which are now in almost every Recycling Plan. Two Bike lanes and one Bike Path were also a result of my service on this committee. Downzoning the over development in Redondo Beach, successfully fighting off Redevelopment in North Redondo (with many others) and a host of other real achievements were also real results of this Green. And this is only a small sample of the efforts that one Green Party member has been involved in.

If you take the efforts of all the Green Party members over the entire United States on issues from ending the Drug War to Clean Energy, the world is a much better place for the Green Party. Does much more work need to be done, absolutely! Our Green Party chapters are open to all and welcome your involvement, please join us in creating a better world and dealing with the many very real challenges that we face as a species.

You negate the 11 years I've worked with Families to Amend California's Three Strikes (FACTS) to amend the horrible 3 Strikes Law. You negate the fact that I had the courage to sue the CIA and the Department of Justice for their roles in infesting South Central with crack cocaine. This I did even though I am a DoD retiree. I was the initiative coordinator for Prop 66 and I am earnestly raising funds for an initiative drive for the 2008 Amend Three Strikes Initiative.

John Wenger and others have worked as hard as I have and have brought measures of change to the system. Peter Camejo has made it possible for change to happen in the upper echelons of California Government.

We are greens working for a better world.

Unless you know what you're talking about, John, you should keep your mouth and your words shut. By the way, what have you done for anyone anytime?

The World, California and Los Angeles are better off due to the efforts of the Green Party. The author of the posting that I am commenting on seems to fault the Green Party for not solving all the world's problems. The Green Party has been very active in the Anti-War movement, if you have not seen us at the Anti-War Marches, as only one example, then you must be myopic. Many Greens have contributed to a better world, too many to list here.

Personally, I ran for Congress in Long Beach (38th CD) and helped save El Dorado Park, Area III from development, helped qualify and pass Prop. 215 (Medical Marijuana) and obtain Domestic Partnership Registration in Long Beach. Then there was the attempt of Enron to take over Long Beach's Electric Service in 1999. I was the Petition Coordinator for the successful effort that blocked this attempted privatization. While on the Redondo Beach General Plan Committee (1989-1992), I added HDPE plastic and Mixed Paper to the Recycling Plan, which are now in almost every Recycling Plan. Two Bike lanes and one Bike Path were also a result of my service on this committee. Downzoning the over development in Redondo Beach, successfully fighting off Redevelopment in North Redondo (with many others) and a host of other real achievements were also real results of this Green. And this is only a small sample of the efforts that one Green Party member has been involved in.

If you take the efforts of all the Green Party members over the entire United States on issues from ending the Drug War to Clean Energy, the world is a much better place for the Green Party. Does much more work need to be done, absolutely! Our Green Party chapters are open to all and welcome your involvement, please join us in creating a better world and dealing with the many very real challenges that we face as a species.

Among other confusing and irrelevant details, Leslie Radford wrote:

"Donna, unlike John, has been particularly divisive within Pacifica. In 2004, in a broadcast Pacifica National Board meeting, she said, "It is so contentious in Los Angeles, between the people that David mentioned, who are on the Coalition of Justice, who I am now convinced are, just want to destroy the station unless they get a majority." The people she was referring to were me and my allies. The LSB Chair at the time, Don White, made repeated efforts to bring Donna into a dialogue around her comment, and she repeatedly refused to take part.

...Nevertheless, I agree with the letter in its broad strokes: the perpetuation of Green factionalism, Donna's alliance with the Democrats in this election, John and Donna's government ties, and Donna's perpetuation of infighting in Pacifica, do not recommend them to serve on the LSB of KPFK."

Donna is absolutely right about Radford trying to destroy the station. She, along with Lydia Brazon and David Adelson, were strong supporters of the disatrous hire of Eva Georgia and have never addressed the horrible job she did as general manager.

Georgia was accused by staff at her first station, Radio Atlantis, of physical and verbal abuse stemming from sexual harassment. She drove Atlantis into bankruptcy, and was also accused of embezzlement and told to leave town to avoid prosecution. Georgia also allegedly threatened to sue the next station she worked for after they sacked her.

In the U.S., Georgia first looked up an acquaintance, Lynn Chadwick, attempting to take advantage of the former's takeover of KPFA to get a job there as program director. When the station was shut down by Chadwick, Georgia came to Long Beach and ended up working for the Gay and Lesbian Center, which she was in the process of suing when the morons and opportunists on the KPFK board decided she was the perfect candidate to run our station. Predictably, Georgia sexually and verbally harassed female employees at KPFK, which seems to be the only thing she is good at, if you don't count suing employers who fire her (she got $65,000 of your donations in her latest act of extortion).

It doesn't impress me that Don White tried to mediate when Donna Warren told the truth about the Georgia supporters. He has never taken a principled position in his life if it meant pissing someone off.

As for Radford's pathetic attempt to back out of the mess she created by bringing Mike Feinstein into the ring, I can only say that her attempts to portray herself as an opponent of board candidates who are active Democrats is pure hypocrisy. Feinstein is one of the Greens who has been trying to offer up the party to the Democrats, as he and Medea Benjamin and a few others did in 2004 with the "don't vote for me" candidacy of David Cobb, who didn't even win California.

Will said: >We are greens working for a better world.

Donna said: >The World and Los Angeles is better off due to the efforts of the Green Party.

That may be. But that is only part of the purpose of a political party. Nothing said in either post indicated anything done by the party to challenge the power structure ruling this country: the one party two wing structure of organized money.

As I recall, in the last presidential election, the Green Party announced that it didn't want to do anything to take away critical votes from Kerry. Some apologized for taking votes way from Al Gore.

You call that a political party?

Will said: >The author of the posting that I am commenting on seems to fault the Green Party for not solving all the world's problems

No. I am faulting the Green Party for not challenging the party system of organized money in the U.S. and trying to raise political consciousness of voters. You don't do that by telling people in Florida to vote for John Kerry. You don't do that by supporting marginal campaign finance reform that changes nothing essential.

I would also fault the Green Party for using a name, "Green," which facially doesn't include economic issues. The fundamental issue of politics is economic: who gets what. Government and politics in the U.S. and Western Europe going back to the Reagan administration have been about the redistribution of income and wealth from the bottom and middle of society to the very top. Clinton welfare reform, NAFTA, WTO, and Bush Tax Cuts and free trade deals, all have been programs by government implementing the larger focus of income and wealth distribution. Both the Democratic and Republican parties share this goal of their financial patrons. Western Europe has had its own programs, such as the Hartz laws in Germany.

What does a "Green" party have to say about redistribution of income? Nothing. Income redistribution has little per se to do with clean air, clean water, recycling, waste, and protecting the environment generally. The party has a name which excludes from its focus the fundamental issue of politics: economic distribution.

With the exception of the word "labor," I don't know of any political party anywhere that has ever gone anywhere with a name that limits its perspective. Does anyone remember the Anti-Masonic party?

The party strategy of working first at the local level, while well intentioned, will fail because it will not educate members with the understanding and perspective necessary to address national issues.

The Green party should, I think, follow the Whigs and fold up, open up the third party space, and hope that a new party will develop in the vacuum, like the Whigs when the Federalists folded and the Republicans when the Whigs folded.


No one said anything about the Greens in Germany. Are the Greens in the U.S. the same? Do the Greens in the U.S. concur with what the German Green have done? Do the Greens denounce what they have done? Should the U.S. and German Greens be regarded as independent entities? Does anybody know?


Will said:

> Our Green Party chapters are open to all and welcome your involvement

Who would want to get involved in an organization with internal infighting such as we have seen in this post? With such conflict, it is no wonder the party has gone nowhere as a party.


Question to Donna: Do you deny that you told someone that you would vote Hillary before you would vote for Cynthia McKinney?

NewsBank InfoWeb
Orange County Register, The (Santa Ana, CA)

The Orange County Register

October 5, 2000

Neighborhood walk a call for help

Author: Mira Jang
Anaheim Bulletin

Edition: ANAHEIM
Section: COMMUNITY
Page: 4

Index Terms:
ORANGE COUNTY
CITIES
POLICE
CRIME
PREVENTION

Estimated printed pages: 2

Article Text:

It was a call for help and a show of solidarity.



More than 40 residents of the Diamond, Carlton and
Pearl streets area downtown walked around their
neighborhood with an Anaheim police officer and a city
code enforcement officer to call their attention to
what some say are rising crime rates and city neglect
of code violations.

Chuck Anderson, a longtime Anaheim resident, and
Mark Brucks, a community police officer, organized the
neighborhood's largest walkabout, passing out 500
flyers to inform residents about the Sept. 21 event.

Anderson said he has seen an alarming amount of
gang activity in front of his house and around his
neighborhood in recent months.

"People are arming themselves," Anderson said. "I
have a gun on the coffee table."

He said three rival gangs live in the area and
vandalize cars and drink alcohol and take drugs in
public, even in front of his house. The situation has
turned so dangerous that Anderson is considering
moving.

But before he decides to take that final step,
Anderson wants to do something about it.

"We want the gangsters to know that they're not in
charge of the neighborhood," he said. "We hope the
police will back us up."

The neighborhood spans a few blocks north of
Lincoln Avenue.

Since community policing officers began patrolling
the area in early 1998, calls for service
significantly dropped, said Brucks, who patrols the
neighborhood.

From August 1997 to February 1998 there were 124
calls for service, compared to 57 calls for service
during the same months from 1999 to 2000.

Anderson said many immigrant Hispanic residents,
who are not fluent in English, are afraid to report
vandalism and other crimes to the police for fear of
retaliation by gang members.

At the walkabout many Hispanic mothers, fathers,
and children showed up in support of city action
against troublemakers.

Anderson passed out bilingual pink flyers at the
walkabout to encourage Spanish speakers to report
crimes.

"When you see a crime being committed -- when you
see gang or criminal activity -- when you see a drug
activity ... call the police and do your part for our
children and for our neighborhood," the flyer reads.

Anderson said the problems started up again about
three months ago, when the police stopped coming by.
Until then the area had seen improvement due to
regular police presence, he said.

"(The problem) comes and goes," Brucks said. "It's
more drug problems than gang problems."

"Keeping this place clean is a big problem," code
enforcement officer Dan Dominguez said.

Because of limited resources, Dominguez said code
enforcement officers rely on resident complaints to
cite violations rather than their own search for
violations.

Until the neighborhood is cleaned up Anderson will
continue to organize walkabouts, increasing them to
every week.

"I hope we can clean up the neighborhood," he said.

Copyright 2000 The Orange County Register
Record Number: 1210653

This is not a Green Party issue.

The question is whether these people would be good for KPFK.

Both have long standing affiliations with the feds.

WARREN worked for the DEFENSE DEPT auditing US WEAPONS DELIVERIES TO ISRAEL. Although she is Black, she has long aligned herself in KPFK with opponents of the interests of peoples of color, like the "Committee to 'Strengthen' KPFK. This is a woman who has little to no credibility in the LA Black left, and who, as a result, has found her home in the Green Party, where she has served in rather prominent ways as a token

Wenger worked for Northrop Grumman Corporation, a $30 billion global defense and technology company in artificial intelligence.

He calls KPFK Public affairs programming "Misery Radio,"
and he seems to have bought hook, line ans sinker the lies told by the "COmmittee to 'Strengthen KPFK, that, as he put it, the "most pressing obvious problem facing KPFK is financial: declining revenues and increasing costs"

KPFK Interim general manager Jim Lafferty recently refuted these false claims in a statement published on LA Indymedia

Re Radford-backed candidate works with cops.

Leslie Radford speaks very well to KPFK politics and is a tireless, out spoken pillar of justice in our community. She has done the honor of endoresing me for the KPFK LS Board. If no name "truthseeker" posted this old report to dishonor me he failed.

The situation in my neighborhood is quiet, peaceful, comfortable and for the past seven years crime free.
If you wish to learn more about the article above or my political positions, you can go to KPFK.org, click on elections and click on my name Chuck Anderson
or contact me at directly.

QUETZALCOATL38@AOL.COM

Re Radford-backed candidate works with cops.

Leslie Radford speaks very well to KPFK politics and is a tireless, out spoken pillar of justice in our community. She has done the honor of endoresing me for the KPFK LS Board. If no name "truthseeker" posted this old report to dishonor me he failed.

The situation in my neighborhood is quiet, peaceful, comfortable and for the past seven years crime free.
If you wish to learn more about the article above or my political positions, you can go to KPFK.org, click on elections and click on my name Chuck Anderson
or contact me at directly.

QUETZALCOATL38@AOL.COM