. . . Vasily Vereshchagin, The Apotheosis of War, 1871 . . .
Another scandal is that no-one these days knows of VV. And it’s remarkable that this painting isn’t as pervasive in everyday imagery as the blue & yellow flag – it hasn’t even been recycled by political cartoonists, especially surprising in the case of Steve Bell, a prized victim of his employer, the UK’s Guardian. (The Guardian: the rag that gleefully led the smear that Corbyn et al. were racist towards Jews, rather than opposed to Jewish-Israeli supremacism, the reality of subjugating Palestinians.)
VV made this when he was 29, in the year of the Paris commune. Bigger than a coffin, on its frame he inscribed his dedication: “to all great conquerors, past, present and to come”. Found so shocking, it was banned in Russia, &, when it toured, German & Austrian troops were forbidden from seeing it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apotheosis_of_War
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WBAI ran an emergency fundraiser last Friday, 28July. 9am thru midnight. 15hrs. It was, frankly, astonishing. And we’re not referring to the refrain of a Nina Simone song heard that evening at the start of director Shawn’s own brought-forward programme, Midnight Ravers:
The website simply said this was an emergency fundraiser. It gave no financial information – you know, numbers, those handy things for indicating the scale of it all. Oh no. Just certain bills happen to be unpaid. Best not alarm the natives; appear as in full control; business as usual. Ok, throw in the ‘emergency’ word, stir up some enthusiasm, but play it deadpan, don’t be alarmist, keep the contrived ambivalence well & truly under wraps. WBAI, a bit hard up – what’s new. Simply something to get over. Mustn’t appear as Peter who cried wolf.
So station manager Berthold played mum. Not a word on the website. Not a word. No statement from ‘the leader’, an appeal, trying to rally the listeners, members, & staff. And not a word on-air – not even Berthold speaking to the listeners, making a pitch every hour, on the hour. Zilch. Ostrich on Atlantic Avenue.
No fundraising goal was either stated or mentioned – by anyone.
And no info on how things went. As of Monday evening, nothing on the website. How much was pledged? How much cash has cleared?
What does this all mean? Who hasn’t been paid? Who’s not going to get paid? Whose hours have been cut? Whose hours are going to get cut? Who’s been fired? Who’s going to get fired? What arrangement has been made with the studio/office landlord? The tower landlord? The call-centre?
Let’s be real: it’s beyond all this. There’s only one Q: is there any way to not become a repeater station, fed by KPFA & Moe Thomas?
(And removing the WBAI staff allows the breakers to win a new referendum, giving them the Pacifica constitution they themselves write.)
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Why has it come to this? It’s obvious from the public record that the so-called anti-breakers never effectively challenged the breakers’ mantra of station self-sufficiency, their misrepresentation of what’s in the articles of incorporation (as fully explained, numerous times, on this blog – the latest, https://pacificaradiowatch.home.blog/2023/05/21/10-topics/). And the anti-breakers have proven themselves unable to even think about a vision for Pacifica – let alone present a formulation, or even a sketch. No. They’ve been devoid of ideas. All they’ve managed to come up with this year is being nice to the breakers: Julie Clueless, chair of the Pacifica board, the blob at the top, helping them take over KPFK governance, & she now sits back as they go offense, driving on to oust Michael Novick, the unpaid, temporary station manager. (Enter Ali Lexa, stage left.)
So no surprise the anti-breakers have shown themselves incapable of devising a network development plan, a plan applying the principle of optimising total marginal gain, turning an aggregation of stations into a unitary network – this principle requiring a spatial revolution in the treatment of money, in the relationship between where funds are raised & where they are spent: making some of the allocation rules those of positive discrimination, mitigating the histories of each station, not least their initial endowment, & focusing on the future by allocating funds where it’s decided they’re most needed. But then they’re so incompetent they can’t even get to meetings, can’t even reach quorum at the PNB Strategic Planning Cttee.
In practice, collusion with the breakers.
Reducing Pacifica to what?
A pile of desiccated skulls.
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[AI was not used in the making of this post. And neither were any animals harmed or killed. (Has to be said coz WordPress now gives an AI option, including choosing a tone for the composition.)]
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[Kagarlitsky: “On July 26, the FSB detained Boris Kagarlitsky, a well-known left-wing theorist, activist and commentator. Following his arrest, he was transferred [1 000km, over 600 miles] from his home city of Moscow to a pre-trial detention center in Syktyvkar, the Komi Republic, where he will be held until late September (at least). Kagarlitsky has been charged with ‘justifying terrorism’ and could face up to seven years in prison. His colleagues from the YouTube channel Rabkor [111k subscribers – eat yer heart out, Pacifica!] have also been interrogated in Moscow, Yekaterinburg and Penza, and their apartments searched.” Jailed under Brezhnev, arrested under Yeltsin, now repressed under Putin. https://mailchi.mp/6fdb35231804/poslemedia-weekly-newsletter-13558212?e=d5f3a4dbae ]
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PacificaWatch 