Larry Chin (Online Journal) Speech, as read by Tracy Larkins
at iPNB meeting on 6/21/02:

Assuming the issue of 9/11 coverage and Ruppert attacks are not going to be part of official business, I would like to see a monkey wrench tossed into the meeting, as follows:

Ladies and gentlemen, nothing that we have discussed in this meeting is important.

These relatively trivial matters are dwarfed by the only issue there is today, and that is the 9/11 War that continues to take lives and rip apart what little is left of democracy----and the Pacifica network's studious and calculated refusal to properly report the truth about it.

What kind of community service has Pacifica done by failing to allow the REAL voices of resistance and criticism to be heard?

What kind of network is this, that allows its programming to be taken over by elitists and apologists for the US government, such as Norman Solomon, David Corn, Chip Berlet, Marc Cooper, Jon Wiener and Sonali Kholhatkar, and then used as a weapon of character assassination, slander and censorship against investigative journalists such as Michael Ruppert of From The Wilderness who HAVE shown the courage to speak the truth about our government? Who HAVE dared to investigate, report and inform the citizens of this country about September 11th and what it is really about? Who HAVE attempted to save lives?

Can any of you in this room feel anything but shame about how this network has utterly failed to live up to its origins, and its founding purpose?

We live under occupation, under the rule of perhaps the most dangerous American government in history. This is a time of WAR, and this September 11th War is being waged against all of you, and every single person listening to Pacifica.

With rare exception, and despite the big talk of being any kind of "resistance radio", Pacifica has played the progressive fiddle while Rome burns.

Until this network pulls its pathetic head out of the sand and faces the issue of September 11 and end the attacks against Mike Ruppert, there is no reason to support it, or any of its programming. And it will continue to lose the respect and pledge dollars of its listeners.

"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that numbers of people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience... Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running and robbing the country. That's our problem."
Howard Zinn, "Failure to Quit", p. 45