Pacifica
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Some may feel the subject of the Pacifica Radio Network has been beaten to death in these pages, but the latest round of smug, self-congratulation at LA KPFK during its spring fund-drive
necessitates a response.

What, exactly, do these people have to boast of? Moving the station sharply to the right in its general orientation? Redefining the left as the Democratic Party and its hangers-on? Conducting a 1950's style purge of leftist programmers? Once again, the fund drive features speeches by Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and other leftists whose voices are rarely heard on KPFK when the station isn't asking for money. The implicit but unmistakeably clear message this practice sends to people
on the left is give us your money at pledge time so we can use it to replace you with the kind of listeners we really want -- affluent yuppies.

During the past year I heard a regular KPFK programmer call for war with Iraq and ask his listeners, "do you want the price of gasoline to go up if Saddam isn't stopped?" When the Monica Lewinsky scandal erupted last winter, professional apologists for the Democratic Party
like Robert Scheer of the Los Angeles Times and David Corn of The Nation were given virtually unlimited airtime to defend Clinton as a victim; some of the schmaltz they delivered rivalled Nixon's
"Checker's Speech" in banality.

A few years ago, one could turn to KPFK to hear alternative analysis of events from a marxist leninist, left social democratic, anarchist, socialist feminist, of left Catholic liberation theology point of
view. Today one is more likely to hear mind-numbingly dull meditations by "commentators" and "experts" upon such topics as the relations between the Mayor of Los Angeles and the city council or the microscopic policy differences among the Democratic candidates for governor. It is hard to believe that this drivel interests anyone but the KPFK management, who probably plan to list it on their resumes when they apply for cushy jobs at NPR.

While there seems to be little time for anti-capitalist points of view at KPFK, considerable time is found for pop psychology frauds, dubious lecturers on spirituality, and other hucksters. In some respects, public affairs programming at KPFK is actually to the right of some of the liberal talk shows that aired on corporate sponsored AM stations during the 1960s and 1970s.

Organizations, like individuals, rarely stop half-way once they start moving decisively to the right. If current trends at KPFK continue, I wouldn't be surprised if the next few years brought regular air time for Republicans, right-wing libertarians, zionist propaganda groups, and perhaps even military recruiters. As the pop psychologists like to say, "The sky's the limit."

----William Freiburger