Listen up everyone, subscribe to the freepacifica listserv so you too can follow what is happening on the Left Coast -- Steffie
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-------------------------------------- Joe Wanzala wrote:
Apparently there was an imperative need to fall in line with the rest of the LABs to keep our seat at the bargaining table.
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Well then after tonight's non-performance by the KPFT LAB I suppose that leaves Garland and his hand picked LAB without a seat at the table considering that after calling a meeting at the Doubletree with NO public notice of any kind or any shape, the KPFT LAB was without direction and took no action of any kind due to the absence of Garland Ganter, an "emergency" they said it was. But since 'Garland was the one bringing the agenda' the KPFT LAB could do nothing but open with public comments followed by a motion to adjourn.

After Stan Merriman presented a petition signed by 110 KPFT listeners requesting that the LAB appoint Teresa Allen to the PNB a KPFT volunteer(Rick Gardner) delivered a diatibe against her opposing any such appointment endorsing her arrest claming that he was a witness and that he would be the first to testify that she was there to "disrupt the fund drive", obviously not realizing that he was being video taped and that his slanderous words would indeed be a form of testemony against him and Pacifica after the charges against Teresa are dropped, just as they were against Edwin Johnston. Considering the on air position and longtime volunteer status of Mr Gardner it can be reasonably construed that he was acting as an agent of Pacifica under the direction of Garland Ganter who rather obviously seemed to be at the root of this blatant reconstruction of history in an attempt to defeat our political momentum to get her on the board.

Immediately following Mr Gardner, Edwin Johnston introduced the New Pacifica pair 'o dimes, and explained the whole new trip. He and Gardner exchanged words and Edwin explained that in the New Pacifica since everyone is equal that it was indeed OK for Gardner to heckel and respond out of turn since Dan Jones had quite fairly heckeled him as he slandered Teresa furthur and in the New Pacifica since we're all equal that's OK cause everyone is equal.

He then made it VERY clear that he fully intends to sue. KPFT, Garland and the whole lot of the libelous slanderous Pacifica crew responsible for the false and unsubstantiated allegations that have thus far landed two people in Jail.

There is a sense in the air that Garland is on his very last legs and it is quite clear that the current LAB is incapable of conducting any buisiness without him present.

They hardly even pretend. It is quite a bizzare sight and experience

And you know the 501(c)3 violations were brought up again tonight by Greg Geiselman as I understand they were at the board meeting much to the chagrin of an unamed lawyer. I think that Pacifica really needs to act VERY quickly to rectify the issues at KPFT and Pacifica before more Federal lawsuits start getting filed. Lawsuits that they cannot win and WILL lose unlike the two thay seem to have nulified(not gary) in the LAB and directors suits(as if). Of course the plaintiffs in those suits never did intend to do anything but settle. Something tells me that Edwin will not be so willing to settle once he files suit.

Houston's finger is on the pulse of Pacifica(the jugular??) and I believe that we may be able to successfully remove the cancer with the guidance of Dr. Dan Jones. I REALLY hate to imagine the alternative but I beleive that there is the possibility that the prognosis is good overall. But Cancer is Cancer and it aint gone till it's gone(all of it!)

I had presented the the KPFA election guidelines to the KPFT LAB in May and told them they were looking at the future of Pacifica. Not a prophecy but I love to say 'I told you so', so I did this very evening.

Finally I told the KPFT LAB;'I told you so' and they being puppets without a master could not even blink. It's the Deer in the headlights syndrome.

Just to make things perfectly clear we Houstonians mean business. And remember ; This 'aint no Party, This 'aint no Disco, This 'aint no Foolin Around! The Motley Crew in the Rouge's Gallery that Edwin posted are all within our sight..........IT"S COMIN' RIGHT FOR US!(re South Park)

Kill the Cancer

Free Pacifica

Free Mumia

Free The Weed

God Bless America

Forgive us our sins

We're Not Worthy

Be the Ball

California uber ales

And most of all

PRAISE BOB

Slasher

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----- Original Message -----
From: Joseph Wanzala
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2001 4:22 PM
Subject: about last night

> Well, the Flashpoints issue was pre-emptively kept off last night's agenda,
> which was a fait accompli excercise designed to make sure the LAB had a seat
> at the thieves' bargaining table. I was too mentally weary to raise the
> issue of wider community participation, against the fait accompli situation.
> We did take a straw poll, however. I am not sure that the decision needed to
> be made last night, especially as we were not even sure whether it would
> make any difference in the long run. Apparently there was an imperative need
> to fall in line with the rest of the LABs to keep our seat at the bargaining
> table. I am sure others would have been open to wider community
> participation too, but for whatever reason it was foregone. I abstained from
> the vote as to whether we should (s)elect a representative. I voted in
> support of the sole nominee: Carol - because, in general, I support Carol.
>
> After the meeting we convened a mini-meeting with some community members and
> some LAB members. Among those present: Andrea Duflon, Les Radke, Khalil
> Jacobs-Fantauzzi, Maria Gilardin, myself, Iain Baol, Nan Schweiger, Barbara
> Lubin, Max Blanchet, Mike Donaldson, Mary Berg and some other people whose
> names I do not know. One woman staff person, whose name I do not know, said
> something to the effect that there were issues of 'abuse' by Dennis toward
> Noelle. Andrea also said words this effect but also added that other people
> at the station other than Jim were behind the move to suspend Dennis. All
> agreed that to pursue the issue of the Dennis/Noelle dispute was not only
> hopeless, but a personnel issue and that the critical issue to be addressed
> was the one of managerial misfeasance and that this is what the LAB should
> look into in particular, as well as programming issues in general. >
> It was a good discussion. Too bad many people who attended the actual
> meeting were not interested in discussing this issue. >

--------
Listener Edwin
Thanx, Steffie, here's my report
Thu Nov 29 12:57:37 2001

Good report, Slash!
To fill in some holes. When the KPFT LAB actually does meet (they hadn't since last August), they usually meet on the third Wednesday of the month, which would've been the week before last night. There was a previous rumor that they were going to meet on the 21st of Nov. but it never came about. What happened instead was that Garland Ganter called for a LAB meeting early Tuesday morning, on his own. He used the impersonality of email cc: to alert the six KPFT LAB members of his personal need for such a meeting, which is funny, since he also sent KPFT LAB member, Teresa Allen, that email, a person he recently had arrested and claimed in DC was "terrorizing" him. Then Ganter obviously did some other backroom organizing to bring out some cheerleaders for him at the meeting, including some shills from the singer/songwriter scene and some outright dastardly types like Rick Heysquierdo (the guy who was handing out KPFT premiums to the cops while I was being arrested) and Rick Gartner, a peculiarly noxious fellow who just happened to be doing his show when Teresa was arrested.

Fortunately the listeners movement decided to come out and put on a show of their own. I did my best to play the Bob Lederer type, but to the nth degree. I handed out copies of Carol Spooner's supplied text of the PNB's DC proposal to every single person in the room (save officer friendly.) Many of the board members, Heysquierdo and other KPFT management flaks questioned me on whose version this was, as if I was attempting to spin the PNB's unanimous decision somehow. I also distributed the October issue of Houston Radio Report to all who would take it. All the while I was chatting up the crowd in the room prior to the meeting's start. (That's called working the room and setting the tone for everyone's involvement, something I picked up from Darryl Cherney during the federal suit against Charles Hurwitz and the Maxxam Corp. held in Houston a while back.)

Although the meeting room had 30-40 people in it, all told, less than ten people signed up to speak during public comments. And not only were there listener movement types and KPFT mgmt. flaks in attendance, there were also a number of other KPFT programmers in the audience, who are not allied with the Ganter junta, and who said absolutely nothing, much as they do weekly on their programs. (Must have had laryngitis, or something.) As well, there were a number of new faces at the LAB meeting, including some of Houston's newly elected interim KPFT LAB members, who got their first taste of how to absolutely not run a LAB meeting, and some other fresh recruits, who have been following the struggle outside of direct activist involvement, but who now choose to become involved. Susan Darrow, the KPFT LAB chair, sitting next to her hubby, Doug, a fellow LAB member, opened the meeting by falsely claiming that this particular meeting had been planned by the LAB at the last meeting (in August?) Then she went on to explain that Ganter had the agenda (more correctly an agenda) and since Ganter was MIA that evening, that there was no agenda at all, so they would move directly to public comments and then adjourn. She also said that they would be waiting for official word on what to do about the recent Pacifica Foundation developments (from Ganter?, the PNB?, the Office of der Homeland Security?), even though many activists had been supplying her info about what had exactly been proposed in DC since we got back from the PNB meeting. In a word, she balked on appointing a KPFT LAB member to the iPNB, an inaction on her part that may prove to have some very unintended and surprising consequences for Ms. Darrow and other junta supporters. Dan Jones started off the public comments session by stating the significant changes proposed by the PNB in DC and calling attention to the fact that in DC there were many LAB members from the sister city stations in attendance, but that Teresa Allen was the only KPFT LAB member who cared enough about the future of Pacifica to attend. KPFT iLAB members MaryAnn Martinez and Robin Lewis also addressed the KPFT LAB.

(Reference: iLAB election photos.)
Other listener organizers spoke out including myself, Duane Bradley, Stan Merriman, Rick Potthoff, Greg Gieselman and Mark Wilde. Many spoke about the current KPFT LAB's total lack of action and community involvement. Heck, the only reason they had public comments at all was because since they had actually convened a meeting it was absolutely required that they do so. Programmer Rick Gartner's comments, which were no doubt scripted by Ganter to undermine support for Teresa, were especially repugnant & vulgar and were indicative of the mentality which led to the gas chambers in Bergen-Belsen. Rick falsely claimed that Teresa had forced her way into the station on Oct. 6 to disrupt the fundraising marathon and that he was an evidentiary witness and would be the first to testify for the prosecution in her criminal case to ensure her conviction on the Class B misdemeanor charge of trespassing (but w/o forcible entry, that's a Class A, Rick, you dolt.) As telling as his comments were, which reflect the general junta mindset in terms of absolute total disdain for the most fundamental of democratic rights, Rick had actually helped Teresa's defense by stating these falsehoods publicly and while the video cameras were rolling. So, when and if he takes the witness chair in Teresa's trial, these comments will be entered into evidence and if he changes his story, he will be that much less credible in the eyes of the jury, or if any other witnesses provide a different depiction of the events that led to Teresa's arrest. What I am saying is that now the junta crowd are forced to get behind the public statements of Rick Gartner as the be all and end all of the prosecution's case. Thanx, Rick! And Rick's very angry expression of his comments will no doubt help Teresa's case as well. The sheer naivete concerning the operation of the American judicial process by those who would work to limit our rights is astounding! As well, Rick's comments set himself to be sued into misery by Teresa Allen at a later time. Keep it up!

The other Rick, Rick Heysquierdo, was cheering and applauding when, during my comments, I announced that I had been arrested by Garland Ganter back in March. More gas chamber mentality. But, hey, Hesquierdo, I won, the cases were dismissed. Was he simply applauding the fact that I had been taken away to jail for the night? Having the case dismissed in court was the very opposite of a victory for the junta. And when I sue the Ganters, and begin garnishing their salaries for years on end, which may prevent their children from attending college and assuring them a very bleak future due to the actions of their parents, they'll have Rick Heysquierdo to thank for his generous involvement and participation the night I was arrested. Five years from now the Ganters won't be hosting backyard barbecues and inviting Rick Heysquierdo to drink beer and reminisce about the good old days. No sirree!

Regardless of my longwinded diatribes, the Ganters, Darrows, and other junta types are becoming so irrelevant to the future of KPFT and Pacifica that they can be seen as walking anachronisms. We had fun with them all for an hour at the LAB meeting, then went to the Houston Committee for People's Radio meeting to chat, round robin style, as a wrap up, for a couple of hours afterwards.