Marc Cooper, who was purged a while back from KPFK, explains how now it really does appear that Pacifica Radio is about done for. There are snarling (and endless) internecine feuds, cratering numbers of listeners, and even a 26 day long pledge drive.
Do you know what 26 straight days of fundraising does to your audience? It obliterates it. A decade ago, KPFK had gotten its annual on air fund raising down to about 30 days a year… three drives of about 10 days each. Now it’s up to four, or is it five, drives per year of 20 days or more! Unreal. And the real moneymakers continue to be truther-like conspiracy premiums and quack cancer and medical “cures.” Disgusting.
This is symptomatic of the far left in general. In too many ways, it is rudderless, adrift, paralyzed by dogma, unable to act in any coherent way that resonates with the public at large. So it fights itself.
Contrast that with the Tea Partiers. Love ’em or hate ’em, they grab media and mass attention, something the hard left is having little success with lately.
So you’d prefer that we spit on blacks and shout slurs at people than disagree with each other over things? Be careful what you wish for!
Have you ever been to a KPFK board meeting?
When I was active in L.A. Green Party, after a 4 hour County Council meeting where nothing got done except more massive dysfunction and looniness, I asked a fellow council member who was also on KPFK boards, so are KPFK meetings as bad as this?
He smiled and said, no, KPFK meetings are much much worse.
That was several years ago. KPFK meetings have gotten way more dysfunctional since then. The lunatics have taken over the asylum.
Hi Bob – Can you update with a link to the original Cooper piece? I totally agree with your point that the far left turns on itself since nobody pays attention to them, but The Tea Party didn’t “grab” media attention, they were created by the Fox News. They get more extensive news coverage than the grassroots 100K+ person protests against the war during the Bush years because corporate power would rather showcase idiots advocating for corporate power than pacifists rallying against it.
Link added! My error.
KPFK and Pacifica, promote all sorts of HATE and no broadcasters at KPFK ever comment on the swill and tide of sewage they regularly vomit out on the public. The leaders of this vomit hurling process are Amy Goodman, Sonali Kolhatkar, Aussie Ian Masters, Don “Intifada” Bustani, and worst and most hypocritical, Jim Lafferty.
Some of what you say is true about KPFK. On the other hand, I find it has much much needed information. Also, I think it is a stretch to say “they” (the Tea Party) grab media and mass attention: it is the millions they get from the Koch Bros. et. al. that gets done what grabs attention!
The problem is, the current management is deliberately killing that good content. More on this in a post tomorrow.
It seems kpfk has compromised in the quality of the creative process in most all genres,but most obviously music.Who are the people that prefer a lesser version of what is possible. It is almost as if the same entity as what has destroyed the commercial music industry has taken root at this place. The uncreative. Labor issues focus almost entirely on how immigrants are affected to the ignoring of the master of his/her craft. I guess the last sentence explains the opening of this letter.
Well put