. . . 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.
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.)
~
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 spatialrevolution 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.
~
[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.)]
~
[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.
[. . . UPDATE: September turned into December, but the two-day military trial went relatively well for Kagarlitsky: instead of the five-years jail wanted by the prosecutor, he got a fine & a two-year editorial ban. This obviously upset the state managers, so they went to the Military Court of Appeal, & after a hearing on 13Feb2024 the judges came up with the right sentence, five years, plus the two-year ban. (Three days later, Navalny died in jail.) Now it was Boris’ turn to appeal, but 5June saw the Russia Supreme Court’s Military Chamber unmoved. His lawyers plan to appeal to the Praesidium of the Supreme Court & even to the Constitutional Court. He’s 65.
The spokesperson of the Boris Kagarlitsky International Solidarity Campaign is Suzi Weissman. A longstanding broadcaster at KPFK, ‘Beneath the Surface’, she’s also a breaker, & has transplanted her weekly show as ‘Jacobin Radio’, on Apple, etc., with the same music & continuity phrases (sic), but with no mention of either KPFK or Pacifica (sic). Yet again, Pacifica management, intellectual property, & the absence of control.
. . . Jim Dingeman Dolores Umbridge, of Harry Potter fame . . .
. . . “Argh, some people have said we have no strategy. Argh, I have to differ with that because the strategy at all times, at every station, is t-to increase audience and increase the ability of the programming to, urgh, engage with the, urgh, the station [sic], and hence create more listener members. Argh, that’s to me always the stra-strategy of a broadcast institution – which we are. Um, so, one, I take umbrage with these comments that there is no strategy” – Dolores UmbridgeJim Dingeman . . .
~
[UPDATE: Via Zoom, i attended the Sa18Mar2023 PNB Technology Task Force – for less than 5mins before being expelled, without warning, for no good reason by the Chair, Director Jim Dingeman. A presentation was being made by two bods from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, so i made a comment in the chatbox, explaining, with the linked evidence, that any CPB Radio Community Service Grant application, by a Pacifica station for the monies to be disbursed in FY2024, will necessarily fail, not least because two kinds of submissions, with deadlines of 15Feb & 28Feb, haven’t been made. Please see, as i said in my chatbox comment, Section 15(C) of the 2023 Radio Community Service Grant General Provisions and Eligibility Criteria, October 2022, page 18, https://www.cpb.org/sites/default/files/radio_community_service_grant_-csg-_general_provisions_and_eligibility_criteria_fy_2023.pdf.
[Having given the evidence, a few seconds later Chair Jim retorted, “Not true Jara[,] and if you want to simply state constant [sic] negativity about all this[,] time to go”. Within seconds i asked, “@JimDingeman, what’s not true?” Within 5secs i was expelled from the Pacifica public meeting! Simple as. And automatically refused when trying to re-attend. Oh dear.
[On this a post will be made, along with four on non-petulant matters: the directors violating § 312(a), California Corporations Code by not hiring a Chief Financial Officer; the directors violating § 12586(e)(2), California Government Code by electing four members of staff to the PNB Audit Cttee; the PNB majority violating Pacifica by-law Art. 4, Sec. 8 by extending delegate terms; & ED Steph ‘The Breeze’ violating by-law Art. 4, Sec. 4 by not hiring a National Elections Supervisor on either 1Mar or 2Mar (in the context of the timeline, per Art. 4, Sec. 5), given that the PNB hadn’t invoked that section’s “exigent circumstances” provision & set by 30Nov2022 a new timeline. Quadruple oh.
[But on the subject in hand, that post will include three screenshots showing Chair Jim’s appalling autocratic, authoritarian action on Saturday. (I hesitate to call it un-Pacifican given the history of peeps who get into positions of Pacifica decision-making. Jim, a hypocrite? No, that’s another universe, its own honour by desert.) The content of the post will be used in an open letter to his 20 fellow Pacifica directors. They need to have their attention drawn to three things: (1) they need to know that in the next 4wks, Pacifica can spend its time more productively by not trying to make CPB applications (it’s 4wks coz, although no-one has mentioned it in a public Pacifica meeting, other than PacificaWatch minions, the Radio CSG money is allocated on a first-come, first-served basis – https://cpb.org/sites/default/files/rfp/9ae3dc90/Grant%20Guidelines%20Radio%20CSG%20for%20FY%202023%20-%20New%20Applicant%20Guidelines.pdf); (2) they need to know that Director D has brought his office into disrepute by his action, an expression of both his inability to accept the evidence staring him in the face, as well as his inability to accept that in a forum open to the public that he can’t legitimately expel from the meeting those who present evidence he doesn’t like (moreover, that linked to the prospective grantor’s website); & (3), if these 20 fellows respect their office then they will censure Director D for being a dick, for being disreputable. An apology is irrelevant: the remedy is for Ungentlemanly Jim to publicly commit to stop being an autocrat, to stop acting as an authoritarian. But does he have the character to do this?
[Note that i wasn’t given time by Nuker Jim to post the illuminating contextual evidence showing how the CPB has deliberately, & explicitly, shaped the current situation for Pacifica, making plain the obdurate reality. That is, the Section 15(C) i cited needs to be read in conjunction with the CPB informing Pacifica, in no uncertain terms, that “[t]o be considered for re-entry to the CSG program, the Radio CSG program must be open to new applicants[;] Licensee and Stations must demonstrate full compliance with the General Provisions at the time of application[;] and Licensee and Stations must fulfill all requirements outlined in the March 28, 2013 letter” – CPB letter to ED Lydia Brazon & PNB Chair Alex Steinberg, 22May2020, emphases added (& to aid comprehension, semi-colons replace commas), https://mega.nz/file/cY8XCYLb#4IGXyzfasCgfm-GdaYYm6WPn2XaD4UcMJR8ZPTo-Q8c. So the CPB didn’t simply choose ‘comply’ – which is emphatic enough. No. That’s not at all how the CPB feels about Pacifica. Oh, no. So bears repeating: “must demonstrate full compliance” – no ifs, no buts. This isn’t doing a deal in a back alley, doing a deal without paperwork – this isn’t PacificaWorld: this is RealWorld.]
The M13Mar2023 PNB Strategic Planning Cttee meet was chaired, this year as last, by Director Jim ‘I know I talk a lot, but I know I’m the best at knocking it out’a the park, OK’ Dingeman.
Those present (they were all directors last year): Director James McFadden (KPFA listener-delegate), KPFK Listener-Member Beth Gunten, WPFW Listener-Member Donna Grimes, WPFW Listener-Member Julie Hewitt, WBAI Listener-Member James Sagurton, & Director Jim himself (WBAI listener-delegate).
You may ask, why the two radically different kinds of designation? Well, as mentioned above, this is per Pacifica’s by-laws – it’ll be fully explained in a coming post, titled something like ‘On the cuckoos, the LARP’ers, the impostors: illegally extending delegate terms, 20Oct2022 PNB’.
But we need to stay focused on those at the 13Mar2023 PNB Strategic Planning Cttee meeting, those selected by their esteemed colleagues on the PNB as the cream of the cerebral crop. Their distinctive skill sets standing out from the crowd, easily recognised by their peers. The PNB had sent them on a mission to the Cttee, to exercise their cognitive capacities, to deliver the goods of strategic thinking: visions; scenarios; gathering/commissioning necessary evidence; scaled scenarios, temporally & spatially; thoughts; intuitions; sketches; ideas (inchoate, preferably formed); statements; arguments; paragraphs; gathering new evidence; initial working papers; initial document; collective document; getting even more new evidence; revised document; re-revised document; presented document; document recommended by the PNB Strategic Planning Cttee to the PNB; document adopted by the PNB; then monitoring the implementation of the policy by management; & mini-cycles re revisions. The whole production cycle, an exercise in iteration . . . And the deliberations this Monday evening, 13Mar2023, what did their strategic thinking yield, what did they put on display for the world to see? Please consider for yourself the evidence – that is, the presence of absence – not least at 22:17 & 35:31.
The audiofile
The audiofile isn’t at https://kpftx.org/archive.php, the curious, benign visitor being greeted with a defiant “Not Recorded” – this despite Chief Recorder Otis Maclay, who effectively owns Pacifica’s calendar & meetings archive because he owns the copyright to the contents, not just being present during the meeting but actually taking up the invitation of Cttee Chair Jim to contribute his opinions to the discussion (sic).
Chair Jim didn’t have the courtesy to ask his esteemed fellow committee members if it was OK to ask someone who hadn’t been accepted as a guest in the approved agenda, moreover one granted speaking rights. To be honest, in the spirit of inclusion, purportedly a Pacifica value, it was a surprise that the station cat wasn’t asked to comment, along with the termites, busily gorging themselves on the foundations, displaying teamwork unparalleled in PacificaWorld.
The key quote: Mr D not only asserts that Pacifica has a strategy, he describes it
Director Jim Dingeman, to use his words, takes “umbrage” at those who say “we have no strategy”. The passage:
Alright, the next thing I had on the agenda was to talk about short-term strategic policy, argh, and comments on the current situation. Now, um, we all know that argh, there are some difficult decisions in motion right now, argh, that are due to many reasons. Argh, some people have said we have no strategy. Argh, I have to differ with that because the strategy at all times, at every station, is t-to increase audience and increase the ability of the programming to, urgh, engage with the, urgh, the station [sic], and hence create more listener members. Argh, that’s to me always the stra-strategy of a broadcast institution – which we are. Um, so, one, I take umbrage with these comments that there is no strategy. Now the question is whether this particular strategy is working right now, and it clearly has not, as far as I’m concerned. Argh, we wouldn’t be in this situation, fiscally, if we had not got to the point where our audiences had [sic] basically diminished, due to a whole variety of reasons, argh, and be thinking about having to re-boot and take, argh, decisions that are, argh, quite Hobbesian, to say the least [. . . and on he droned]
Chair & Director Jim Dingeman (emphases added, 20:46), M13Mar2023 PNB Strategic Planning Cttee – https://mega.nz/file/xYUk3L7J#FvqWxVioEEpu8GGF2nGwQNOq6eDI8aRlZ575PBcXdx4. (He mixes up Hobson’s choice & Hobbesian trap, when neither applies; & decision-makers are faced by neither a dilemma (there are more than two options) nor zugzwang (inaction is an option) – no, this is a deteriorating situation, fiscally & otherwise, because in the immediate & short term the pecuniary forces at work are so strong that their causal effect overwhelms any action/inaction; the situation is so out of control that it’s experienced as independent of all options, & so independent of volition, even of the will of the 21 directors, as they endlessly decide how to make decisions to direct with directions from their thrones. Whatever, say the millions & millions who don’t even know what a radio is because they never visit a museum.)
Serious, Jim?
The doc, Jim?
Give us a break, baby.
The 5-yr record of the PNB Strategic Planning Cttee, since 12Mar2018
This committee, the PNB Strategic Planning Cttee, has produced one document in its 5yr existence (sic), since meeting on 12Mar2018. This doc is all of 4½ pages (sic). This was an offering on 5Jan2021 by then PNB Chair Alex Steinberg (WBAI listener-delegate). That evening it was passed by the Cttee, without objection; however, without the Cttee’s agreement it was presented in quite a truncated form to the 25Feb2021 PNB, where it was passed unanimously with two slight amendments. (The sordid history of this Cttee is at section 1 of this PacificaWatch post – not least the doc simply never being used, never quoted in a public Pacifica meeting or document, never even cited . . . stillborn . . . https://pacificaradiowatch.home.blog/2021/11/19/today-kpfk-is-losing-money-at-a-rate-of-3500-dollars-a-day-105k-a-month-1-point-26m-a-year-as-per-the-docs-publicly-why-does-no-one-recognise-the-scale-the-urgency-qm/.)
To date, yielding a single document of 4½ pages, how many meetings has the PNB Strategic Planning Cttee had? Eighty: i’ll put it in figures: 80 (66 open, 14 closed). With the doc presented at its 38th meet. The sorry procession: 2018, 15 (14 open, 1 closed; presumably 12 sets of open meeting minutes missing (this is because although 2 sets aren’t denoted ‘draft’, there’s no approved minute of a later meet adopting those minutes; additionally, the kpftx.org webpage also links to 3 docs denoted “draft”); 2019, 11 (11 open, 0 closed; 11 sets of minutes missing); 2020, 11 (11 open, 0 closed; 11 sets of minutes missing); 2021, 12 (12 open, 0 closed; 12 sets of minutes missing); 2022, 25 (15 open, 10 closed; 15 sets of open meeting minutes missing); 2023, 6 (3 open, 3 closed; 3 sets of open meeting minutes missing). In all, 64 sets of open meeting minutes missing (sic) – only 2 alleged sets of minutes are publicly available (the very first two meetings of the Cttee – sic).
[UPDATE (Su11Feb2024) … two points: a subsequent thought re the docs linked at kpftx; & the sorry record getting even worse. (1) The doc re the 9July2018 meet, denoted “Draft minutes”, declares that it adopted, without amendment, the draft minutes of the first 3 Cttee meets. (2) This PacificaWatch post of 14Mar2023 established that 64 sets of open meeting minutes weren’t at kpftx. Bringing this up to date, the 2023 record becomes16 meets (9 open, 7 closed; 9 sets of open meeting minutes missing), & in 2024 there have been 2 meets (1 open, 1 closed; 1 set of open meeting minutes missing). So the Cttee has had 92 meets (73 open, 19 closed), & there are 70 sets of open meeting minutes missing. S E V E N T Y. So effectively no minutes for the 6 years’ existence of the Cttee. But then this is only the record of the one PNB cttee specially created to get Pacifica out of its mess. This is how ‘the leaders’ address themselves to strategic planning, how much they value their own ‘work’.
[(Miniscule point: it’s assumed there was no open meet on 12June2023: the notice was contradictory, headed “Executive Session”, then saying “Reason for Executive Session[:] Personnel Issues”, before ending with “An open and Executive session”; corroboration comes from the monthly calendar grid only giving a closed meet – https://kpftx.org/pacalendar/index.php(tap ‘Prev’).)
[In a way the saddest thing is that successive waves of directors sleepwalkers have proven consistently their twofold inability: their inability to gauge their own competence to deliver on the necessary task, &, as a consequent, their inability to realise that they need help. The basics of child development come to mind.]
Lastly, some 2nd grade math (as Andrew Weiss would say, “Bart, you may now leave your chair, pick up the chalk, and do the calculation for the class, then please put down the chalk, and return to your desk. You have 30 seconds”):
80 meets x 2hrs = 160hrs = 4 whole work-weeks;
4 whole work-weeks x 8 Cttee members = 32 whole work-weeks (assuming a prudent 8, understating a typical complement of 5 station directors plus affiliate director, PNB Chair, Pacifica Secretary, Executive Director, Chief Financial Officer, the Pope, attendants – in 2022 the membership was a magnifico 13); &
32 whole work-weeks = 4½ pages.
As a practitioner of billable time, i must say there’s something not quite right here. (Incidently, & as a public response to queries i have received over the years, i did offer my pro bono services to Pacifica in 2018, just after ‘the bankruptcy’ drama broke. I received no reply – except no reply.)
. . . page 1 of Form B 201, VPFB, voluntary petition for filing for bankruptcy . . . 11 U.S.C., Title 11 United States Code (commonly known as the Bankruptcy Code), & its Chapter 11 is ‘Reorganization’; section-wise, 101-1532 & 1101-1195 – https://www.govinfo.gov/app/collection/uscode/2020/title11 . . .
Chapter 11: protected bankruptcy, for a wannabe phoenix. Forbes puts it succinctly: “[t]he goal is to keep your business afloat and keep creditors at bay while you restructure your debt obligations”. Restructuring to praps slow the speed of repayment, praps even get write-offs. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/debt-relief/chapter-11-bankruptcy/
~
“Chapter 11” was mentioned in passing at the W28Sep WBAI Finance Cttee by Jim ‘I know I talk a lot, but I know I’m the best at knocking it out’a the park, OK’ Dingeman (director semi-woke sleepwalker, & WBAI listener-delegate). Hence this post.
The D-Man:
[…] in situations like this, that is, you know, we, we’re, you know, in a, you know, near Chapter 11 situation throughout the whole network, […]
The essence of Chapter 11, especially the main effects, will be described in another post, along these lines:
• from the KPFA Protectors to the Fed Protectors: but who’s benefiting?
• the automatic stay of creditor action (including by FJC or, if they sell the debt, by the Marty and Dorothy Silverman Foundation – please note, Miss Grace; even though, by Section 9.1 of the FJC loan agreement, the whole debt, $2 258 821, would otherwise immediately become due)
• Pacifica management functions effectively as a trustee of the assets
• debtor in possession – a concept in bankruptcy law, referring (in part) to the conditioned possession of property, its usage being supervised by the judge
• the exclusive period of 120 days for management to file a plan for reorganisation & debt repayment
• and what can the members do during the whole period – will the judge be their champion? . . . wishing on a star
~
A crucial matter is this. Will the current Pacifica fiduciaries – the passive ED Wells & the Fabian directors – survive scrutiny under Chapter 11 bankruptcy? The judge may be presented with evidence that Pacifica lacks competent fiduciaries for protecting its assets. Glaring evidence since 30June is that the directors have chosen not to hire a suitably qualified & experienced chief financial officer to be responsible for the financial management tasks mandated by California law – albeit a responsibility that ultimately remains with the directors. If persuaded, the judge will issue a rare order to the Office of the United States Trustee to provide a ‘case trustee’: new management in the house – 11 U.S.C., § 1104, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2020-title11/pdf/USCODE-2020-title11-chap11-subchapI-sec1104.pdf; & https://www.justice.gov/ust-regions-r16 (re federal law, Pacifica is in the Central District of California, & its US Trustee is Peter C Anderson)
~
Sources on Chapter 11: law, process
In reading the law itself, the fed website encumbers it with annotations. Better flow is achieved by the Cornell University version, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/11.
• Pacifica’s local Office of the United States Trustee, UST (the body administering the process, the US Trustee Program), Central District of California, Region 16, https://www.justice.gov/ust-regions-r16
•the MOR (Monthly Operating Report): strikes terror even into CPA’s on top of their game . . . this UST form is a stark indication of the standardof financial reporting demanded by the bankruptcy court – much higher than NETA ever provided – a report that has to be submitted every calendar mth, within 21days. This is the legal expectation of how a fiduciary has to behave financially. It stands in sharp contrast with the abdication of responsibility exercised by successive sets of directors sleepwalkers.
PacificaWatch 