[PAA-Discuss] FW: Worker's World Endorses JUC

[robert]

Group et al,

 

This is what other Pacificans are doing in other cities and just how
important ourKPFT is to the political path of our community.

 

If we let this one get away, we only have ourselves to blame.

 

I am endorsing:  Ken Freeland,  Emmett Abati Doe, Don Cook, James Allen,
Joseph Kaye, Bill Crosier, Rick Potthoff, Wesley Bethune, Wendy Schroell.

 

Robert graham,

 

Current delegate KPFT LSB

 

  _____  

 

 


Pacifica-WBAI election to determine political path


By John Catalinotto 
New York 

Published Oct 28, 2006 12:19 AM 

While most eyes are focused on the national midterm elections, a local
election to the board of New York's premier progressive radio station may
have a greater impact on New York's political activity than most of the
region's Senate and House races.

WBAI, the local Pacifica station, has mailed out ballots for an election
that will end Nov. 15 to seat nine listener delegates to three-year terms on
the 24-member Local Station Board. The outcome of the election will help
determine whether WBAI takes a direction of active anti-racism and anti-war
broadcasting, or retreats. Three staff delegates are chosen separately.

WBAI broadcasts both political discussion and cultural shows representing a
broad spectrum of New York ethnic and other communities, especially those
most oppressed. The station is the only broadcast medium that provides an
opening for anti-imperialist analyses of important world events on a regular
basis.

The station reaches out 50 miles from Manhattan. Its broadcast range
potentially reaches 20 million people. It also reaches almost the entire
progressive community of political activists, including 1960s leftists and
immigrant taxi drivers who always have their radio dials on 99.5 FM. The
station is thus vital to publicizing meetings and protests.

Since the station is estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars
on the private market, wealthy entrepreneurs in radio see it as a beckoning
pot of gold.

At the end of the year 2000, a business-oriented group seized WBAI in a
virtual coup, displacing most of the progressive shows and moving WBAI
toward sale for privatization. Once this was reversed by listener and legal
action, the struggle over the station's future moved to the listener boards
and the elections.

In this year's election, as in the 2004 balloting, two groupings have each
gathered 10 to 11 of the 24 candidates campaigning for the nine listener
seats. Each group again has a similar political thrust. Reading the listener
candidate statements in the brochure WBAI mailed out to its members, it's
easy to judge each slate's political direction.

Justice and Unity

In the candidates' promotional literature, those from the Justice and Unity
slate emphasize their commitment to political activism and to representing
the diverse working-class communities in the New York region, especially
communities of color. The other, the Alliance for Community Elections,
essentially the group formerly known as "List-Prog," emphasizes its members'
business, administrative and fund-raising experience.

Ray Laforest, an incumbent board member, is a labor and Haitian community
organizer and a member of Pacifica's national board. He is running on the
Justice and Unity slate. Laforest told Workers World that "the core members
of our slate represent a progressive vision and have extensive contacts with
communities in the city that are struggling against political reaction.

"These are dangerous times," Laforest continued. "We are living under a
government whose priority is to oppose any gains made by working people and
communities of color in the past 30 years. This makes Pacifica and WBAI more
relevant than ever. It is WBAI's role to educate people about their
political surroundings, to discuss strategies for survival and for the
struggle of working people, and to be a contact point between the different
struggles."

Imani Henry, an organizer for the International Action Center and program
coordinator for TransJustice, is running for the first time. Henry said his
fellow Justice and Unity candidates are all "bona fide activists. Through
their connections in the various communities, including the
lesbian/gay/bi/trans struggles and all the anti-racist struggles, they will
build listenership and membership in the station."

While the ACE people claim their business and promotional experience is
needed for fundraising. Laforest points out that there are different paths
to financial stability. "It is more important to expand the involvement of
listeners in the station. Some of the ACE people have obstructed this
effort. But doing outreach and bringing in new people also puts the station
on a sound financial basis."

How to vote

All of the approximately 18,000 WBAI members are eligible to vote. Due to a
complicated voting process aimed at guaranteeing proportional representation
and some representation for minority opinions, the order in which members
make their selections makes a difference.

The Justice and Unity slate asks members to vote for the slate's
"multiracial, anti-racist, majority-women election slate of listeners,"
listed below with a small part of their activities, and to mark their
ballots in the following order: (1) Father Lawrence Lucas, Black liberation
theologian; (2) Nia Bediako, chair, Local Board Programming Committee; (3).
Berta Silva, labor organizer with 1199/SEIU; (4) Ray Laforest; (5) Marianela
Tricoche, Bolivarian Circle.

Also, (6) Bernadette Ellorin, regional coordinator, BAYAN USA-progressive
Filipino alliance; (7) Samia Halaby, member of Al-Awda, the Palestine Right
of Return Coalition; (8) Sam Spady, president, NAACP/New Rochelle branch;
(9) Imani Henry (10) Tibby Brooks, organizer, New York Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
Coalition.

The Justice and Unity release also suggests not marking the ballot for any
other candidates.

For more information on the Justice and Unity slate and its program, see
www.justiceunity.org, and for the descriptions of all the candidates and an
explanation of voting details, see www.wbai.org/elections. 

  _____  




  _____  

Get <http://g.msn.com/8HMBENUS/2734??PS=47575>  FREE company branded e-mail
accounts and business Web site from Microsoft Office Live 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://paa-tx.org/pipermail/discuss_paa-tx.org/attachments/20061029/06a9708c/attachment.htm>