________________________________________
From: pdgg-request@lists.stevebrownonboard.org [pdgg-request@lists.stevebrownonboard.org

On Behalf Of Steve Brown [steve@stevebrownonboard.org]

Sent: Friday, June 13, 2014 9:44 PM


[PDGG@SteveBrownOnBoard] Please sign the court petition to halt the dismantling of Pacifica

Is the legendary Pacifica Radio Network about to be dismantled?

Here’s why you should sign the court petition at

http://www.jotformpro.com/PDGG/petition

to stop the shameful attempt to break up Pacifica
(Please forward this letter to your own email lists)

The threat to the Pacifica Network

[cid:image003.jpg@01CF8769.DCFFA110]Dear Friend of Pacifica –

A “rogue” board faction has narrowly seized control of the Pacifica Radio Network after a hotly disputed (and possibly illegal) vote, which is now being challenged in court.

The faction’s stated intention is to dismantle the legendary progressive radio network – in a large part, it appears to me, to satisfy the grudge of a politically connected San Francisco Bay Area attorney.

The faction members want to sell what they call Pacifica’s “weak” East Coast stations, and use the proceeds to “endow” their own stations in California. First station on the chopping block will be WBAI (in New York), then probably WPFW (in Washington, DC), followed by KPFT (in Houston).


[cid:image008.jpg@01CF8769.DCFFA110]The faction trying to break up Pacifica is directed by a California attorney named Dan Siegel (whose employee now sits on the Pacifica board, and appears to be intentionally destabilizing foundation operations).

But Siegel and his board faction are being challenged in court by 8 other board members, the Pacifica Directors for Good Governance (PDGG), who oppose the plan to dismantle Pacifica.

These are the 8 Pacifica board members now in court to remove
Siegel and his destructive faction from Pacifica affairs.

Please sign their court petition at http://www.jotformpro.com/PDGG/petition

[cid:image009.jpg@01CF8769.DCFFA110]

A recent article in Los Angeles Indymedia News, by attorney Eric C Jacobson, explains Siegel’s destructive war against Pacifica better than I can.

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2014/04/263659_comment.php#263660

Why does Siegel want to dismantle Pacifica?

Siegel is a former Pacifica National Board member who it appears was forced to resign as Pacifica’s legal counsel for (a) incompetence and (b) improper and possibly unlawful behavior. Humiliated and resentful, he revenged himself on Pacifica soon after by maliciously (and falsely) testifying under oath, during a court deposition, that in his opinion the foundation had fired its Chief Financial Officer because he was Black.

This resulted in an unjustified $440,000 judgment against the network. Currently, because of his political activities, Siegel is legally barred from serving on the Pacifica board.

But the recent board takeover by Siegel’s faction permits him to revenge himself still further against Pacifica. He can now leverage his wealth, his law firm, and his political connections to take over the network – and then destroy it. Apparently, he plans to force Pacifica into insolvency, so that it will have no choice but to sell one or more of its stations.

And Siegel isn’t hiding his plans:

In a July 7, 2012, speech to his local KPFA radio board, Siegel said, “There were actual people who would buy WBAI for enormous amounts of money... [so] making that change [selling WBAI] does not seem as radical as it might be otherwise.”

And, in a June 7, 2014, article in The Villager, he is quoted as saying he would “sell WBAI to save KPFA.” < http://thevillager.com/2014/03/20/after-directors-firing-wbai-sale-is-now-rumored/ >

Alarmingly, Siegel’s faction on the board has moved quickly, and has taken steps (see below) that seem designed to force Pacifica into insolvency (something you can help prevent by signing the PDGG court petition at http://www.jotformpro.com/PDGG/petition)

Here is what the Siegel faction has been up to:

■ Within days of illegally seizing the board, the Siegel faction abruptly fired Pacifica Executive Director Summer Reese, in violation of her contract – deliberately putting cash-strapped Pacifica on the hook for at least $315,000 in compensatory payments for wrongful termination (and pushing the network closer to insolvency).

■ They then removed some of the network’s most popular and progressive programs from the air, which may make enough listeners angry enough to refuse to donate during the next fund drive (squeezing the network still further).

■ The faction is also currently maneuvering to change Pacifica’s bylaws (by fiat) to make itself self-perpetuating.

■ Recently, the faction lowered morale and upset Pacifica staff members (two of whom, I am told, have resigned in protest) by re-hiring one of the faction’s members as Chief Financial Officer – even though that person had been previously fired for incompetence and cited for workplace abuse of female staff personnel.

But by re-hiring him, the faction is now able to prevent auditors from monitoring suspected embezzling and audit deficiencies by firing – or threatening to fire – any accounting or executive staff who try to implement corrective procedures. For example, in a recent audit, the sum of $7 million – more than half of Pacifica’s entire yearly income! – had to be placed in suspense accounts because of improper documentation.

In addition, $80,000 in cash seems to have mysteriously gone missing altogether on the books of KPFA (Siegel’s station). But the faction won’t release the documentation for an audit.

■ At least one – possibly two – of the faction’s board members have long rap sheets (i.e., multiple felony convictions). Under the Federal Communications Act of 1934, these convictions could block or even invalidate Pacifica’s re-licensing. Yet not only did those board members cover up their felony convictions before taking their board seats, they have also refused to voluntarily step down, even though two of our five radio stations are up for re-licensing this year.

But that is not all.

■ In a 2012 preliminary ruling by the California Court of Appeals, the Chair of the Pacifica National Board -- appointed by the Siegel faction -- was found (along with Siegel himself) likely to have committed a breach of fiduciary duty against Pacifica by diverting money away from the foundation to a private fund.

< http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/nonpub/A132296.PDF >

■ Another appointment of the faction – this one as Secretary of the Pacifica National Board – is currently banned from the premises of the New York Pacifica station (WBAI) for acts of physical violence.

■ Moreover, less than 60 days after the Siegel faction seized control of the board, Pacifica’s corporate attorney quit in disgust because the faction persisted in deliberately violating the bylaws. Guess who got Pacifica’s legal work after Pacifica’s law firm quit?

None other than Siegel’s own law firm, thanks to a secret phone meeting of the board -- for which (are you paying attention?) only members of the Siegel faction were given the phone number and allowed to participate. Does this even pass the laugh test for legality?

■ Now that he is once again in control of Pacifica’s legal affairs, Siegel admits that he has already billed Pacifica $25,000 in just the past few weeks alone – which is ironic, since that billing is for a lawsuit precipitated by the actions of Siegel’s own board factio

In previous years, when Siegel was Pacifica’s legal counsel (as well as National Board Member and Executive Director), he may have billed the network for as much as half a million dollars in what many, including myself, regard as questionable legal fees – fees which, in large part, seem to have been a result of his own poor decisions and/or improper actions in those jobs. In fact, according to former Pacifica National Board member Shawn Casey O’Brien,

“Dan Siegel was Pacifica’s legal counsel for years and during his reign [he] cost Pacifica hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, by practicing what appears to be a very self-serving and sloppy form of lawyering.”

Here is a particularly bizarre “Siegel incident,” which demonstrates his willingness to violate the law in pursuit of controlling Pacifica. In
the “Final Report on the Pacifica 2007 Elections”

< http://www.pacificaelections.ne /2007-8%20pacifica%20elections%20final%20report.pdf >

Casey Peters, Pacifica’s National Election Supervisor, wrote the following:

“Regardless of my desire to maintain absolute integrity in each of the local elections throughout the cycle, I was forced to capitulate [to Siegel’s demands] ....

I realize now that this was an unforgivable error on my part and that I should have publicized the fact that the Interim Executive Director [Siegel] was using extortion to intimidate the National Elections Supervisor and wrongly influence the outcome of the elections to the detriment of members of the Pacifica Foundation.

“Essentially, Dan Siegel in his dual roles as corporate counsel and Interim Executive Director engaged in threats and manipulation to unlawfully control the outcome of Pacifica elections. This constitutes the highjacking of the vote count....

A few days later, Dan Siegel entered my home illegally without any prior notice, and without ringing the bell, knocking on the door or announcing himself. Siegel startled my wife Marilyn, who was home alone, in our living room and she yelled at him to get out. His intent was to confiscate election equipment and materials ....

Siegel had apparently been drinking, and sat in a rented SUV flashing his headlights into our bedroom. Marilyn called the police to stop the harassment. We seriously considered pressing trespass and assault charges, but felt any publicity about the incident would not look good for the Pacifica Foundation.”

For someone so quick to break the law, Siegel is also surprisingly quick to call in the police.

For example, just weeks ago, Siegel’s faction called the police to KPFA, claiming that Summer Reese (the Executive Director they had just fired in violation of her contract) was packing a gun. The charge – clearly intended as harassment of an opponent -- was as ludicrous as it was false, which the police quickly ascertained and left.

Calling in the police seems to be an old Siegel habit. When he was on the board of the Oakland Unified School District (from 1999 to 2006), Siegel spearheaded bringing armed police into Oakland schools. Later, in January 2011, a young Black man named Raheim Brown was brutally beaten and then gunned down by one of those same armed police.

But though the policeman (Sgt. Barhin Bhatt) may have fired the gun, it was Siegel who concocted the policy that allowed Bhatt to have a gun on a high school campus. (Will Siegel’s next gift to Pacifica be armed security police at every station?)

One last (sobering) fact. It might interest you to know that it was Siegel who negotiated and signed off on the infamous 2007 Democracy Now! contract that many place at the heart of the network’s financial crisis, and which accounts for two thirds of Pacifica’s debts.

The lawsuit of the 8 “Pacifica Directors for Good Governance” = (PDGG)

A lawsuit has been brought against Siegel by 8 Pacifica board members, the Pacifica Directors for Good Governance (PDGG). They intend to stop Siegel and his faction from bankrupting Pacifica and forcing it to sell off WBAI or one of its other East Coast stations in order to survive. (Siegel plans, as he has stated publicly, to divvy up the cash windfall from such a sale, which could be as high as $50 million, between the Los Angeles station (KPFK) and his own station in Berkeley (KPFA).

Full disclosure:
I [author of this article ] am a member of the WBAI local Board of Directors, so I certainly do not want to see WBAI sold, or the Pacifica Foundation dismantled. But neither do the myriad listeners who have already signed the PDGG court petition. That petition – because Pacifica is legally governed by its listeners – is an important part of the PDGG presentation to the court.

Which is why I have already signed the PDGG petition at

http://www.jotformpro.com/PDGG/petition

Please understand that the 8 board members bringing this lawsuit are not wealthy. Most are ordinary working people, some of whom live on small fixed incomes. But they have decided to risk their financial security in what has proved to be a costly lawsuit – simply because they believe that Pacifica is worth saving.

To my mind, they are heroes. For even though massively outmatched by Siegel’s wealth and political connections, they fight on -- supported (thank heavens) by contributions from Pacifica listeners who are shocked by Siegel’s apparent intention to dismantle Pacifica.

But in addition to being shocked, these listeners are also angry – angry at discovering that Siegel may have grown richer, year after year, by (intentionally or foolishly) entangling Pacifica in a web of unnecessary and avoidable lawsuits, then steering the profitable “defense” of Pacifica to his own law firm. The financial cost to Pacifica, as estimated above by former board member Shawn Casey O’Brien, could amount to millions of dollars.

Whether you decide to contribute to the PDGG lawsuit or not, I hope you will at least sign the legal petition of these 8 brave Pacifica directors at

http://www.jotformpro.com/PDGG/petition.<http://www.jotformpro.com/PDGG/petition>

As I said, I have already signed. I have also made my own contribution. Can I count on seeing your name, along with mine, on the petition when it is submitted to the court?

the moment it became establishment media, bankrolled by foundation grants, it started dying, for the exact same reason the corporate news media is dying:


"pacifica is a business, and is dependent on keeping silent on everything that matters in order to get continued funding and a continuing stream of ‘listener donations’."

silence is death

the discussions and issues on the NBL site (just one example) are light-years ahead of anything aired on any of those pollution-intensive blowtorch stations..

the cluster only matters to people like the OP who are directly involved in cultivating silence on things that matter

the cluster's standard fare is big heaping servings of techno-hopium garnished with magical thinking, but it provides meaning and purpose to a handful of career activists and so it's antics keep apearing here, as if the working poor and homeless even care about it - which they don't..

Controlling Consciousness

Wall Street’s vertical integration of controlling consciousness is based on five components: ownership of media, fabrication of news, integration of advertising with state propaganda, financing of foundations and brokerages, and co-option of NGOs and grassroots groups. While many well-meaning people are channeled into the latter by the concerted collaboration of all the former, the corporate agenda that determines the policies, practices and projects of these NGOs is anything but benign.







Fantasies about Political Power



If you want to stop the environmental destruction from mining Tar Sands bitumen, Powder River Basin coal, and Bakken Shale oil, you stop fossil fuel export. You don’t do XL protests at the White House, organize fossil fuel divestment on college campuses, or hold a climate change march in New York.

These ineffective strategies are great for making Wall Street titans like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates even more obscenely wealthy, but they do nothing for improving the environment. Yet, because activism is based on feeling good — as opposed to doing good — Americans are routinely led by Wall Street’s pied pipers into endless (and meaningless) “movements.”

Making Americans feel good about losing strategies is the main objective of Wall Street-funded NGO pooh-bahs. Keeping Americans distracted with pointless projects dissipates the energies of well-intentioned youth, creating cynicism and hopelessness over time. Meanwhile, Wall Street titans make money from fossil fuel consumption and pollution, hand over fist.

The fact they colonize Indigenous territories by capitalizing on this pollution via REDD & carbon “credits” that accelerate the displacement of Indigenous peoples – seizing the planet’s final remaining rich & diverse rainforests in the process – is lost in the mist.

There are many ways to reduce energy dependence, increase energy conservation, and disconnect energy security from militarism. None of them are supported by Wall Street.




Producing fantasy in Hollywood and Washington is by now such a prescribed art, that the psychological warfare conducted 24/7 against the minds of all Americans has become child’s play. Few even question their fantasies as such. NGOs like 350.org tap into these fantasies about political power, perpetuate and capitalize on them. Pooh-Bahs of the non-profit industrial complex, like McKibben, become their Messiahs.

Absent coherent analysis based on research, social networks become part of the spectacle. As political researchers know, little of progressive activism is based on research and analysis, and much is based on preconceptions or what is fundable. As any astute observer can see, dependence limits strategies.





revolutions like the one led by 350.org become exercises in silliness. The fact that media brain-damaged Americans are incapable of withdrawing themselves from the spectacle’s spell, is cause for considerable worry.

Allowing oneself to be herded from panicked horror to panicked horror does nothing to end the cycle of destruction; for that one needs to keep one’s cool, and to devise means of disrupting the seamless spectacle that shadows us through our daily lives. Only then, can the awakening begin.

Subverting Spectacle

Perpetuating systematic fraud on a global scale requires active support by academia, media, and commerce. Indoctrination through education, information and advertising thus bolster official propaganda in a circular reinforcement of the distorted world view required for institutionalized fraud to continue unchallenged.

As a closed loop system designed to prevent penetration of independent ideas, perspectives or analysis, this totalitarian cover-up of crimes against humanity — exercised to sustain the system — remains all-encompassing, until some unmediated event or thought breaks through. And when that happens, all sectors of the loop scramble to attack the intruder, rapidly responding to explain away the cognitive dissonance, introduced by the momentary glimpse of reality.

Wasted Energy

In my comment on the 350.org-led college campus fossil fuel divestment campaign, I noted that divestment won’t change a thing environmentally. It will only change ownership of some shares from public institutions to private ones–like the banks we bailed out with our tax dollars. Given the money to be made on the booming fossil fuel industry, I’m sure the banks will be delighted to acquire these shares, and in turn leave the public with no voice at future shareholder meetings.

Moral theatrics like this divestment campaign might make activists and students feel virtuous, but they do nothing for the environment, human rights or democracy. They bring big bucks into the coffers of NGOs like 350.org, but they do not change public policy. Nor do they influence corporate behavior, other than in public relations and marketing. I guess that’s why corporate foundations fund NGOs that promote such nonsense.

As of last summer, students on 300 campuses across the US were organizing fossil fuel divestment campaigns. That’s a lot of wasted energy, especially when we need that energy to change the political and economic system that awards fraud and punishes honesty.

As Cory Morningstar observed in her article on 350.org’s divestment tour, launched by Bill McKibben, “Such sophisticated public relations campaigns as this one are quite genius in a multitude of ways. Cloaked under the guise of tackling the root causes of the global climate crisis, such campaigns change nothing. Rather, they ensure the populace is participating in what it has been convinced is meaningful action – and nothing more.” As noted in her article, all market investing is about exploiting people and dismantling ecosystems. If students want to save the planet, they should start organizing for political power to change the market system, not rally to switch investments from one exploiting portfolio to another.

Given the influence such high profile campaigns have on the naive, one might return to the simple maxim of follow the money for guidance. In the case of McKibben and 350.org, one has to ask why such capitalist titans as Rockefeller would fund an NGO that might threaten the power of the oligarchy they symbolize. As Morningstar illustrates, the answer is they don’t.





Fording the River



The omnipresent Ford Foundation is an ideological supporter of the World Bank (a mega co-developer of dams, mining and plantations in Indigenous territories), and a UN Millenium Development Goals supporter — along with Bill Gates and Bill Clinton — who do the same. Co-opting Indigenous peoples is a key objective of their neoliberal privatization project. Taking money from Ford Foundation is thus equivalent to taking money from Shell Oil, Rio Tinto or Monsanto.

Ford Foundation is known for funding NGOs promoting civil rights, while simultaneously supporting the state and corporate neglect of Indigenous human rights. Civil rights do not conflict with capitalism, while human rights do.

Anti-Indian organizations in the US believe tribal governments should be abolished, and work toward that end. Their main argument is that civil rights guarantee equality under domestic law, ignoring the fact that international law recognizes the human rights of Indigenous nations to make their own laws.

Protecting their territories and properties requires Indigenous nations to invoke international law and treaties that supersede domestic civil law. By undermining the implementation of Indigenous human rights law, Ford Foundation arguably abets racism and religious bigotry against Indigenous peoples.




As Indigenous nations and modern states prepare for the upcoming UN World Conference on Indigenous Peoples, corporations like Shell Oil and foundations like Ford are spreading money around to co-opt Indigenous activists and NGOs. While this bribery ensures Indigenous NGOs will be in attendance at the UN event, these partnerships and dependencies ensure they will not challenge the capitalist system in anything but moral theatrics.

Indeed, some of the recipients of Ford Foundation money have already demonstrated a willingness to attack Indigenous governing authorities in order to protect their state-approved, foundation-funded privileges at the UN. Ford Foundation funded brokerages include International Funders for Indigenous Peoples, and the Seventh Generation Fund.

Because Ford Foundation funds academic institutions or NGOs or conferences does not mean that anyone working at these institutions or NGOs or attending their conferences supports neoliberal philosophy. What Ford tries to do is shape public opinion in favor of neoliberalism; supporting capitalist-oriented humanitarianism is essential to that psychological warfare.




Dependence Limits Strategies



Assimilation of indigenous peoples by corporations, church and state is facilitated by creating financial and psychological dependence. As Chief Manuel’s partner in forming the Center for World Indigenous Studies in 1984, Rudolph C. Ryser once noted that “Dependence limits strategies.”

Indeed, dependence on corporations and billionaire philanthropies has corrupted Indigenous leaders, and compromised Indigenous activism. Something Public Good Project has exposed in its coverage of the indigenous non-profit industrial complex.

One of the assimilated Indigenous NGOs exposed by IC Magazine is First Peoples Worldwide, a non-profit funded in part by Shell Oil. A non-profit whose role in this theatre of the absurd is to help corporations assimilate Indigenous leaders, by creating dependence that leads to cultural annihilation.




Degrees of Evil


Mind games of the non-profit industrial complex aren’t hard to decipher; the gullible simply have to decide they no longer want to be coddled by bromides, no longer treated as infantile consumers of spectacle. Once they reach the point of being skeptical, the charades of capitalist activism come clearly into view.

Spectacle celebrities like Naomi Klein, while raising valid (albeit hypocritical) criticism of the complex, count on infantile consumers to maintain their activist credentials. Serving as proxies for consumer rage, yet asking nothing serious of them as citizens, makes these capitalist activists popular and profitable PR puppets. (I especially love Ms. No Logo‘s logos.)

When Klein cuddled up to the apparently assimilated Indigenous activist Arthur Manuel on the celebrity panel at the Idle No More conference, she was branding Manuel with the approval of the heavyweight philanthropies behind her. Manuel, already co-opted by Ford Foundation through the Seventh Generation Fund, has wisely chosen not to sell out directly like Rebecca Adamson of First Peoples Worldwide.

Using philanthropic cutouts to maintain plausible deniability of co-optation, while strategically clever, however, is not immune from exposure by those willing to look. Once those masquerading as agents for change are revealed, non-profits like 350 dot org are seen for what they really are—extensions of Wall Street.

While these charades might seem harmless to naive consumers of the non-profit spectacle, they unfortunately interfere with the ability of authentic activists and Indigenous governing authorities to successfully challenge Wall Street and the modern states it has corrupted. When PR puppets — Indigenous or otherwise — dominate social media, the infantile, the skeptical, and the naive albeit well-intentioned youth are all led astray.

Chutzpah personified would be Naomi Klein — board member of 350 dot org — talking about Big Green opportunism. I guess that’s why elites like Rockefeller fund it.

As for scams, it’s hard to imagine a more losing strategy than the 350 dot org fossil fuel divestment campaign. Shifting university shares in oil companies to Wall Street is hardly going to improve corporate behavior.





As I noted in Public Relations Puppets, since the UN General Assembly declaration in 2007, the UN bureaucracy — in order to provide cover for the REDD Ponzi scheme of carbon-market trading by transnational corporations and investment banks — actively excluded Indigenous nations delegates from participating in climate change talks. In Poznan, Copenhagen and Cancun, the UN repeatedly found new ways to silence Indigenous peoples. As I wrote, dispelling the notion of the UN as an honest broker is critical to understanding the need for new institutions that aren’t controlled by states and markets. As Dr. Ryser stated, “The UN promises to permanently lock these nations into a cage of political subjugation.”

With the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples just around the corner, mainstream media will be falling all over itself to help the UN and its member states continue excluding Indigenous nations from meaningful participation in world affairs. Breaking the chains of their subjugation requires ending the silence.


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I did digging on IMC a few ago and saw WIDESPREAD complaints from Indigenous groups all over the world saying exactly this - that these career activists fly in, take over, and dominate conferances & rallies, that they hog all the time and occupy the venues, and thus lock out and marginalize the working poor Indigenous people who have a hard time traveling to there to begin with.. So they end up not getting to speak and insted waste their time listening to overseas career activists, who then leave and NOTHING IS ACCOMPLISHED

Pacifica is EXACTLY the same deal - foundation funded, part of the 'information dominance' operation to drown out & marginalize real activism, ran by career activist shill-ionaires like the OP, who's function is to remain silent on everything that matters.

"The omnipresent Ford Foundation is an ideological supporter of the World Bank (a mega co-developer of dams, mining and plantations in Indigenous territories), and a UN Millenium Development Goals supporter — along with Bill Gates and Bill Clinton — who do the same.

Co-opting Indigenous peoples is a key objective of their neoliberal privatization project.

Taking money from Ford Foundation is thus equivalent to taking money from Shell Oil, Rio Tinto or Monsanto."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

IMC is also a Ford Foundation recipient...

Climate chaos and the never ending mega-drought should be front & center, and placeheld, with constant updates on IMC's landing page.

Foundation funding and career activists are the reason useless 'protests' are all that we see.

Things that matter are marginalized to the backwaters of the little read comment section, deprived of the exposure of syndication, Nearly all the "off-topic" police actions are on those syndicated stories and/or career activist OP'ed stories, I've noticed.

- comment 'off topic' on any of the hidden stories, for example, and no-one gives a damn - they're already thoroughly marginalized..

It's only the syndication and career activist stories that must be protected from even just comments, outside the framing.

I air this all the time :

"news is what people want to keep hidden - everything else is publicity"

My community affairs is too hot for the likes of foundation funded establishment media AND their carrer activist minions.

Too hot for pacifica too. Pacifica wouldn't dare air the stuff I play..

Steve Brown is a master of the big lie technique, too many falsehoods to address succinctly. Briefly, according to Mitchel Cohen in NY, a member of her own faction, Summer sat for a year and a half on an offer to relocate the WBAI transmitter and save as much as $35,000 a month in the process. It was Summer who then laid off most of the staff at WBAI, and Summer who entertained the proposals for a lease agreement for wBAI (and the lease she favored included an 'option to buy'). Summer saw to the removal of the Pacifica Chief Financial Officer and the KPFK interim business manager, with the result that the financial figures have been unavailable for months as the renewed CFO and interim bus. mgr. reconstruct the missing figures. Now her propagandists are blaming all the problems she created and plans she pushed on the people who ended her misrule.

"Free Radio Santa Cruz has been forced to remove our streaming links by SoundExchange, a quasi-governmental group that collects "royalties" for copyright holders. In most cases, this means more money for multi-national music companies. Most composers and artists receive little or nothing from this program because of contracts with the big music companies that steal these royalties. FRSC believes that composers and artists should receive money from those who profit from their creative genius, but Free Radio Santa Cruz does not air commercials or get money from corporate underwriters. We are supported by programmer and listener donations who believe in alternatives to corporate radio. We also like to play material by independent musicians and small labels, as well as music you can't hear on commercial radio.

Sound Exchange doesn't allow us to stream copyrighted music on the internet without paying them, no matter that we are non-profit. They not only want us to pay, but they require us to register with the government. This would give them the name of someone at Free Radio Santa Cruz who could then be subject to prosecution. They also have restrictive rules as to what music we can play and how often we can play it. These restrictions would mean that some shows would have to change their formats and restrict what they play. These restrictions are counter to what Free Radio Santa Cruz is all about.

Free Radio Santa Cruz has decided to remove our streaming links from our web page. We do not want to do this, but we do not want to place any of our programmers in jeopardy or support multi-national music corporations."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When I had more reliable internet connections I did live streaming over Tor hidden services. That way the location of the streaming server can't be determined..

"..White men continue to dominate the highest leadership positions of most green groups and hiring of people of color remains dismally low.."

a new study shows

http://diversegreen.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2014/07/FullReport_Green2.0_FINAL.pdf

"..people of color comprise 38 percent of the U.S. population, but they comprise less than 16 percent of the staff in all types of environmental institutions surveyed. Furthermore, once ethnic minorities make it in the door, they are relegated to lower-ranking positions, holding less than 12 percent of leadership roles. In conservation organizations that have budgets of over $1 million, there is not a single president who is an ethnic minority"



"This is not because people of color don't care about the environment. A new survey by Green for All shows ___communities of color strongly support action on climate change___, and it is well-documented that people currently facing socioeconomic inequalities are harder hit by the destructive effects of human-made climate change."

“People of color care deeply about the environment and the impacts of climate change," Green For All Executive Director Nikki Silvestri said in a recent press statement. "We understand the urgency of these threats because we experience the effects every single day.”

The study identifies numerous other barriers, including "insider" recruiting, failure to reach out to minority-led organizations for hiring, reluctance to employ long-term interns of color, lack of commitment to diversity initiatives, lack of mentoring, and unconscious racism and discrimination. The report finds that the "internal culture" of environmental groups is "alienating" to communities of color, poor and working class people, LGBTQ communities, and others, with many perceiving environmental activism as a "white thing." The study outlines the histories of African Americans and Native American communities pushing environmental movements to incorporate social justice into their frameworks.

"Many people of color want to link social issues with environmental issues," said Taylor. "They link inequality and poor environment with discrimination, racism, and other equity issues and tie that to environmental issues. Some environmental organizations are not comfortable with that linkage."

These concerns are not new. In 1990, the Southwest Organizing Project penned an open letter to prominent environmental groups, criticizing their "lack of accountability" towards "Third World communities in the Southwest, in the United States as a whole, and internationally.

While green groups have made some progress in chipping away the "green ceiling," most of those gains have gone to white women—who comprise 60 percent of new interns and staffers at conservation and preservation groups, the study finds. The "most popular" diversity effort among environmental groups is the promotion of white women already on staff to positions of leadership."

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this ^ is what IMC has done, merely played lip service to environmental issues and re-arranged the deck chairs, putting more white 'career activist' women in charge - who ALSO only pay lip service to environmental issues or worse yet ignore it entirely.

pot brownies anyone?

[insert dox'ed photo here] - nah, why bother