Kevin White wrote: "Babies fighting over the bottle. Boo Hoo. Cry little
babies."
----------------------------------
Kevin is right about his statement that it is: "Babies fighting over the
bottle. Boo Hoo. Cry little babies." that is going on.
However it is actually some of the most frequent posters to the Pacifica
related listservs that are really the: "Babies fighting over the bottle. Boo
Hoo. Cry little babies." . At WBAI instead they are actually fighting over the
future of Pacifica and that is a very important fight..
It is sad that some of the frequent posters to the Pacifica related
listservs continue to Cry and Bo Hoo ad infinitem because they are not in
charge of things in power at Pacifica since the frequent posters have no real
alternative concepts and are doing no organizing to change things. It is just
Boo Hoo, Boo Hoo, Boo Hoo ad intinitem by some of the frequent posters with no
real world change. In the meantime the future of Pacifica is being determined
by others who actually do things in the real world. Cry (frequent poster)
little babies Cry. Cry (mainly White middle class) little babies Cry.
Jim "But the 'bottle still belongs to others." D.
----- Original Message -----
From: Kevin White
To: NewPacifica@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ; pac_elections@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2008 6:30 PM
Subject: Re: [NewPacifica] Open Letter on the Tainted 2007-8 WBAI local
Station Board Election
Babies fighting over the bottle. Boo Hoo. Cry little babies.
K
----- Original Message ----
From: Cerene Roberts <more_cerene@xxxxxxxxx>
To: pac_elections@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2008 8:21:10 PM
Subject: [NewPacifica] Open Letter on the Tainted 2007-8 WBAI local Station
Board Election
From: "Sara Flounders" <sara@action- mail.org>
Subject: Open Letter on the Tainted 2007-8 WBAI Local
Station Board Election
To: "Pacifica National Board" <pnb@pacifica. org>, "PNB
Elections Committee" <ledererbob@usa. net>
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2008 20:45:41 -0400
Open Letter to the WBAI and Pacifica Communities
on the Tainted 2007-8 WBAI Local Station Board
Election
We are the 8 listener candidates for the WBAI Local
Station Board from the Justice & Unity Campaign. We
believe that owing to a devastating combination of
outrageous violations of the fair-campaign rules by
one
group of candidates and serious mismanagement and
errors
by the Local and National Election Supervisors, the
integrity of this election has been fatally
compromised.
The list of inappropriate actions is extremely long,
and
this letter can only mention the most egregious. As
community activists who have actively spoken out
against
election irregularities and corruption in government
elections, we find it even more unacceptable that such
improprieties could occur in the elections of a
community
radio station that is supposed to be progressive.
For the vote count scheduled for this Monday, March
31, we
insist that ALL ballots of eligible voters be counted
--
contrary to the position of the plaintiffs who have
sued
Pacifica. Ultimately, however, the serious violations
and
tainting of the electoral process argue for
reballoting to
occur, at the expense of the group operating under the
name ACE (Alliance for Community Elections), the
candidate-endorsing organization whose adjudged
misconduct
in their private mailing to WBAI members led to the
lion's
share of the problems with the election.
Issues covered below:
1. Severe Violations by ACE of Fair Campaign Rules
2. Serious Errors in Ballot Handling and Processing
3. Voter Disenfranchisement Owing to Mismanaged
Delivery
of Ballots
4. Lawsuit Against Pacifica Is Based on Deception and
Seeks Disenfranchisement
5. Urgently Needed Remedies
************ ********* ********* ********* ****
1. Severe Violations by ACE of Fair Campaign Rules
The single greatest corrupting force in the election
was
the expensive, multi-piece, merchandise- marketing and
candidate-endorsing mailing sent by ACE to the entire
WBAI
membership list -- more than 15,000 voters. (By the
accounts of several ACE-endorsed candidates, ACE is
the
creation of WBAI Local Station Board member and direct
mail marketer Steve Brown, who also participated in a
confidential court conference on the election lawsuit
at
the invitation of plaintiffs.)
Then-National Election Supervisor Casey Peters ruled
on
November 8, 2007 -- a week before the original
election
deadline and long after thousands of votes had been
cast
-- that "the slate mailer sent to WBAI listener
sponsors
by the faction calling itself ACE (Alliance for
Community
Elections) has violated rules established by the
Pacifica
Foundation's National Elections Supervisor. The same
rules
were followed by other organizations sending slate
mailers."
Specifically, Mr. Peters found the following
violations:
o Referring to their marketing of the so-called
"WBAI Truth Torch" (a flashlight) containing the
station's
logo, which was used without permission: "Not only was
the
specific ban on fundraising ignored, the mailer
actually
marketed merchandise in a very unfortunate fashion,
commercializing the use of the membership list of our
noncommercial radio station and our nonprofit
foundation."
It should be added that ACE's flashlight marketing
also
directly competed with Pacifica's appeal for donations
to
defray the costs of the election, which was enclosed
with
ballots.
o Another finding was that ACE had made "a false
statement
that Amy Goodman's contract expires at the end of the
year
when a new five-year contract had been announced more
than
a month before the mailer was sent. The mailer
suggests
that the Justice and Unity coalition would not keep
Democracy Now on the air when in reality, the
JUC-affiliated Directors on the Pacifica National
Board
had supported the new contract with Amy Goodman to
continue broadcasting Democracy Now. This assertion
may
meet the two requirements of libel law (1) telling a
known
lie and (2) doing so with the intent of diminishing
the
standing of individuals in their business or
community."
Mr. Peters ordered on-air announcements to be played
correcting the falsehoods (including one "refuting any
association between WBAI and the mailer marketing
flashlights" ), but those announcements were not
recorded
and aired until the final few days of the election,
and
they were not replayed during later election
extensions.
In addition, it appears that Mr. Peters's order that
"all
revenue from the ACE mailer must be turned over to
WBAI"
has been ignored by ACE.
However, Mr. Peters failed to rule on several other
equally outrageous rules violations committed in the
same
ACE mailing:
o A false claim that the station was bankrupt;
o A libelous statement that the Program Director and
members of Justice & Unity were responsible for a
physical
attack on the former Premiums Coordinator, when in
fact
the Program Director rescued the Premiums Coordinator
from
his alleged assailant, and no member of Justice &
Unity
has any connection whatsoever with the alleged
assailant;
o A false allegation that Justice & Unity board
members were "purging" programmers at the station --
including one who left to work on satellite radio --
when
the local board does not have the power to add or
remove
radio hosts;
o The marketing of the flashlight (in return for
casting a ballot) and the inclusion of an
official-looking
"WBAI programming survey," which were ploys by ACE to
illegitimately obtain members' confidential names and
addresses to build their mailing list for this and
future
elections and for other purposes. This was intended to
circumvent the safeguards that WBAI properly places on
its
membership list: slates are only allowed to send out
mailers through a mailing house, so as to ensure the
confidentiality of the members' contact information.
Mr.
Peters noted in his ruling that "ACE was expressly
prohibited from repeating the previous year slate
mailer
that featured an official-looking survey with the
members'
names and addresses imprinted," yet he failed to find
that
its 2007 materials simply promoted membership
harvesting
in a different way.
o Illegal staff endorsements of listener candidates
by
four Pacifica staff persons -- WBAI Public Affairs
Director Kathy Davis, WBAI engineer Shawn Rhodes (both
of
whom are WBAI LSB members), KPFK/WPFW program host
Gary
Null, and KPFA paid staff member Robert Knight -- in
violation of the rule forbidding such staff
endorsements
using Pacifica resources (defined specifically to
include
station mailing lists).
All of these violations irreparably tainted the
fairness
of the entire listener candidate election. It is
inconceivable that the endorsed candidates were
unaware of
the content of the ACE mailing, since the materials
included their photos and bios, together with
quotations
from them. In addition, a whistle-blowing,
disillusioned
would-be candidate released details on how Steve
Brown,
LSB member Jamie Ross, and KPFA listener Carol Spooner
attempted to recruit her to run as an ACE-endorsed
candidate and to obtain detailed information about her
for
packaging in the mailing. Yet Mr. Peters acted on only
a
fraction of the complaints against ACE, its staff
endorsers, and its endorsed listener candidates, and
the
few penalties exacted for their extreme misconduct
were
grossly inadequate.
It should be noted that the use of unsubstantiated
charges
of misconduct against WBAI managers and staff -
sometimes
using racist stereotypes -- has been a consistent
tactic
of ACE and its endorsees for years. For example, in
August
2007, ACE leader Steve Brown widely circulated
accusations
-- without any evidence whatsoever -- that Program
Director Bernard White had three years earlier
intercepted
and stolen the membership check of a candidate who was
planning to run on Mr. Brown's slate, and that Mr.
White
had likely caused hundreds of WBAI membership checks
to go
astray. These false accusations were also made in the
service of attempting to take control of the WBAI
membership, as Mr. Brown took the occasion to urge
listeners to send their donations to his Upper West
Side
penthouse, instead of to the Post Office box that
exists
for the purpose of securing WBAI members' donations.
Most fundamentally, the fact that Pacifica's rules
allow
those with access to large sums of money -- just as in
government elections -- to unduly influence elections
through expensive mailings is shameful and must be
changed. The fact that Justice & Unity, with far fewer
resources than ACE, felt forced to do a much more
modest,
one-page mailing was merely a symptom of the grossly
unlevel playing field in which we had to compete.
2. Serious Errors in Ballot Handling and Processing
Local Election Supervisor Dale Ratner made several
serious
errors in ballot handling and processes that further
tainted the integrity of the election:
o On December 7, 2007, Mr. Ratner carried out an
unwitnessed collection of ballots from the Post Office
box
that violated the established Pacifica protocol, which
calls for pre-announcements of any ballot pickups with
an
opportunity for witnesses to be present (as was done
for
the court-ordered November 19 ballot pickup).
On March 15, several further lapses in proper ballot
handling occurred:
o Mr. Ratner directed that all ballots received
by
November 19 (more than 2,500) be opened and separated
from
their envelopes -- despite his total failure to give
candidates notice that this would occur (his
notification
email said only that he planned "to count for quorum
and
separate staff and listener sponsor ballots"). The
result
is that candidates were unfairly denied the right --
always provided in previous Pacifica elections -- to
view
the opening of envelopes containing ballots. In
addition,
plaintiffs in the current suit gained a key advantage
by
being able to view the trend in voter choices before
the
date of the final vote count, for use in their legal
maneuvers.
o Mr. Ratner broke the chain of custody of more
than
2,500 listener ballots by leaving those ballots
unattended
in the station's conference room while he spent more
than
30 minutes at the photocopy machine, far away from the
conference room. Instead of locking the door to assure
that ballots remained secure, Mr. Ratner allowed the
ballots to remain unsupervised, with anyone free to
enter
or leave the room.
o Mr. Ratner turned over to ACE-endorsed
Pacifica
National Board member Carolyn Birden several ACE
"surveys"
and flashlight orders containing WBAI members' names
and
addresses, whichvoters had sent to Pacifica along with
their ballots. This was done despite the strong
objections
of PNB member Bob Lederer, who noted that these
documents
were part of a mailing that had been found to violate
election rules, and that in any case, all documents
sent
by voters to the Pacifica Post Office box were the
property of Pacifica, not to be given to anyone not
officially representing WBAI or Pacifica.
o During the November 19 ballot pickup, witness
Carolyn Birden stated in Mr. Ratner's presence that a
large Express or Priority Mail envelope contained
about
100 ballots and added, "I know who it's from," but did
not
reveal the sender's name. Despite Mr. Ratner's
awareness
of what should have been a cause for serious concern,
during the March 15 ballot opening he allowed the
unremarked integration of those ballots, minus their
individual envelopes, into the pile of ballots that
had
been mailed individually. Thus those ballots mailed as
a
group, which may well have been sent originally to ACE
along with flashlight orders, giving ACE the
opportunity
to forward only those ballots favorable to itself, are
now
untraceable. (Subsequent to the ACE mailing, ACE
principal
Steve Brown sent a broad public email reminding voters
to
return their ballots to the official voting Post
Office
box, not to ACE -- implicitly acknowledging that some
voters likely had mistakenly returned their ballots to
ACE.)
3. Voter Disenfranchisement Owing to Mismanaged
Delivery
of Ballots
For whatever reason, there were severe problems in
delivering ballots to all properly enrolled voters. In
many cases, even when voters requested replacement
ballots
-- sometimes 2, 3, and 4 times -- they did not receive
them, or received them only just before the
(oft-extended)
deadlines. To exacerbate matters, there were only
sporadic
on-air and website announcements clearly explaining
the
procedures for obtaining and casting replacement
ballots
and notifying voters of new deadlines for voting. Some
of
the announcements made by station staff members were
inaccurate or misleading.
Numerous would-be voters have told us that they became
discouraged and stopped trying to obtain their
ballots. We
know of others who to this day have still not received
their ballots, despite their diligent efforts. In
addition, during the web-streamed conference call of
the
Pacifica National Board Elections Committee Working
Group
on Wednesday, March 12, Mr. Peters announced that 22
WBAI
voters had just that day been sent replacement ballots
(two days before the deadline for ballots to be
RECEIVED).
Thus, while we believe that much of this was owing to
gross administrative inefficiency rather than
deliberate
action, it still had the same effect: disenfranchising
legitimate voters.
4. Lawsuit Against Pacifica Is Based on Deception and
Seeks Disenfranchisement
To be clear, our concerns should not be confused with
the
outrageous lawsuit filed by the largely ACE-supported
plaintiffs, which seeks to disenfranchise entire
sectors
of legitimate voters. The plaintiffs want Pacifica to
reject the ballots of enrolled voters that were
returned
after November 19, unless those voters were lucky
enough
to hear the sporadic announcements about how and when
to
request a replacement ballot -- and unless those
voters
made such requests by November 16.
The plaintiffs also have the audacity to argue for the
disqualification of the fewer than 40 voters who
qualified
for hardship waivers. Under the bylaws, such waivers
are
available to people who cannot afford the $25
membership
fee and are unable to perform three hours of volunteer
work but are sincerely interested in becoming members
of
WBAI. Applications for waivers were authorized to be
postmarked up to August 31, 2007, yet the plaintiffs
argue
that these voters should be disqualified because their
applications, which were sent in a timely fashion,
were
processed after August 31, the record date in the
bylaws
for gaining voting rights.
In addition, in yet another bid to gain unauthorized
access to the WBAI membership, the suit includes a
demand
that the judge order WBAI to give its membership list
to
one of the plaintiffs, ACE-endorsed candidate Jamie
Ross.
One highly deceptive aspect of the plaintiffs'
original
presentation to the judge is that the day before they
filed their suit on November 16 demanding an
injunction
against ballot counting by WBAI based in part on
voters'
not yet having received ballots, Mr. Ratner had
notified
all candidates (including Mr. Ross, one of the
plaintiffs)
that the election was being extended by 8 days to
November
23. This fact was not mentioned in the papers arguing
for
the urgency of intervening to stop the election.
Furthermore, the suit relies on spurious allegations
such
as that "virtually all" of the voters who didn't
receive
ballots were their supporters, when in fact a large
number
of supporters of Justice & Unity also reported that
they
had not received ballots. The suit also maligns the
hard-working administrative staff of WBAI -- without
any
evidence whatsoever -- by claiming that this
falsely-claimed one-sided withholding of ballots was
probably caused by staff who "changed the zip code or
otherwise altered the addresses of qualified voters
whom
they knew to be their political opponents so that
their
ballots could not be delivered." Their court filing
stated
that they opposed extending the relief they sought
(extra
time to obtain and cast a ballot) to any voters who
had
the misfortune to be out of the station's very flawed
information loop about replacement ballots before
November
16.
We want to state unequivocally: We insist that the
votes
of ALL qualified voters cast by the final deadline
(March
23) be counted. Extending the balloting deadline was
absolutely crucial to at least attempting to remedy
the
chronic administrative problems in delivering ballots
on
time and in communicating clearly to the listenership
when
and how they could obtain and cast replacement
ballots. We
agree with the judge's January 24 ruling in this case:
"The defendants [Pacifica election officials] shall
not
count the ballots of the WBAI Delegate election until
all
qualified voters who have not received ballots are
given
ballots and are provided with a reasonable opportunity
to
cast them." That means regardless of when they
requested
those ballots.
5. Urgently Needed Remedies
Justice & Unity has worked diligently and
constructively
within the structures of Pacifica to rectify many of
the
problems that have arisen with this election cycle --
including each and every issue documented in this
letter.
But we must report that while some of our efforts
have
succeeded, others have failed. This long list of acts
of
serious and mostly unaddressed campaign violations,
tainted ballot handling, and administrative
mismanagement
leading to the disenfranchisement of legitimate voters
has
severely undermined the integrity of the entire
election
process.
Therefore we call for the following urgent steps:
1. Before ballots are counted, all PIN numbers
must be
cross-checked with names -- with special scrutiny of
similar-appearing names and a comparison of listener
and
staff lists to ensure that no duplicate ballots are
counted.
2. The National Election Supervisor must count
ALL
ballots of qualified WBAI voters cast by the final
deadline of March 23.
3. Given that by far the greatest harm to the
integrity of the elections process was caused by ACE's
extreme rule violations, the fairest remedy for all of
the
manifold resulting problems would be reballoting --
which
must be financed by ACE. Already, ACE appears to be in
arrears with WBAI for failing to turn over -- as
ordered
by the National Election Supervisor -- the revenues it
illegimately gained from its WBAI membership mailing.
Now
it needs to be held accountable for the damage it has
caused the Pacifica Foundation's election process.
Looking to the future, Pacifica must embark on a
thoroughgoing evaluation of the entire election
process
from top to bottom. In addition to solving the many
administrative problems that have plagued the voter
lists
for years, there must be clear rules, enforcement
standards, and processes, as well as transparency of
decision-making. Most importantly, Pacifica must
remove
the corrupting influence of private financing from its
board elections.
Without the involvement of the Pacifica community,
these
problems will persist. We call upon everyone to speak
out
and become involved to ensure that what happened in
this
election cycle never happens again.
From the Justice & Unity listener candidates,
Marian Borenstein
Tibby Brooks
Omowale Clay
Lisa Davis
Wellington Echegaray
Sara Flounders
Bok-Keem Nyerere
Marianela Tricoche
Note: For more information on many of these issues,
visit
http://www.justiceu nity.org .
First, I cannot be free while my neighbor is wearing chains.
Second, I cannot know happiness while others are forced to live in despair.
Third, I cannot know health if plague and famine thrive outside my door. And
last, but not least, I cannot expect to know peace if war rides forward under
my flag and with my consent.
-- What Next: A Memoir Toward World Peace - Walter Mosley
www.ncadp.org www.wbai.org www.hiphopmusic. com www.afropoets. net
Stars twinkle even as the sun monopolizes your vision... faybiene miranda
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