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CounterPunch
October
4, 2002
Was This Network
Worth Saving?
Pacifica Caves
In To Smear Campaign
by ROBERT BUZZANCO
On April 17, a program titled "Jewish Voices"
[JV] aired on KPFT, a Pacifica radio station in Houston, Texas.
Just a few months into Pacifica's "renaissance" after
a California court victory had apparently returned the network
into progressive, and thus safe, hands, KPFT had aired many shows
that were absent in previous years. I myself had been on several
times in the first months of 2002, interviewing Noam Chomsky,
Howard Zinn, Phyllis Bennis, Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzalez, Ed Herman,
and Dan Coughlin (the Executive Director of Pacifica), to name
a few. Before that, for two years I had been the co-host of "Progressive
Forum," a weekly show hosted by Wally James and dedicated
to covering world affairs and local politics.
But the JV show was something quite different.
Just moments after it began, it became apparent that this show
was pressing an aggressive Zionist message. The guests included
an official from the local Israeli consulate, a Rabbi, and the
executive director of the local chapter of the American Jewish
Committee, Donna de la Paz. The show was being produced by Stan
Merriman, an operator in KPFT politics and a local activist in
the Democratic Party. In the course of this program, it became
clear  that the hosts were strident
apologists for the Sharon government [an MP3 recording of the
show is available at http://www.acksisofevil.org,
at section C, 2]. The worst part, however, was their treatment
of callers. They cut off people trying to disagree with them
and would not allow opposing viewpoints to be heard. I can't
think of anything more antithetical to the Pacifica mission than
censoring callers who challenged the type of Zionist propaganda
that was being aired on that show.
I had my own program scheduled to air
afterwards, beginning at noon. I would be interviewing Vartkes
Saatdjian, an official from the Venezuelan consulate, who would
be talking about the recently-failed coup against Hugo Chavez.
At around 11:50 or so, I went into the studio to prepare for
my program. With me were Mr. Saatdjian and Jay Galik, who would
be running the board that day. Also present were Steve Brightwell,
the KPFT engineer, Janice Blue and Jac Battise, both of whom
have shows on KPFT, Scott Parkin, a local activist who just happened
to stop by to pick up camera from me, and Jeff Wittig, a local
attorney who was with Scott. In addition to those seven was Greg
Geiselman, a member of the KPFT Local Advisory Board [LAB] and
someone with whom I have had several conflicts regarding the
mission of KPFT. While I, and many many others in Houston, believe
that KPFT should be a "voice for the voiceless," Geiselman
and Merriman and a few others accuse KPFT of being "pro-Palestinian,"
they attack the Middle East coverage of Dennis Bernstein and
others, and they want equal credence given to the Zionist position.
With my show slated to begin at noon,
I became concerned that the JV show was running over. It was
about 11:55 or so and they were still taking calls, and cutting
off the callers. I began to express my concern about the time
of the show and Geiselman confronted me, telling me I was being
rude to KPFT's "guests." The JV hosts were still in
the studio at this time, now almost noon, and Geiselman and I
began to shout at each other, with me telling him that apologists
for the terror regime of Ariel Sharon were hardly "guests."
Finally, Brightwell intervened, and from a microphone in the
engineering room cut in and said that the show was over. It was
past noon by now. I was in a hurry to get on the air, so I grabbed
Mr. Saatdjian and gave him instructions [sit to my right and
put on the headphones . . .] and then talked to Jay Galik about
our introductory music [The Clash's "Washington Bullets"]
and I instructed him to play a station identification to buy
a few more seconds. Saatdjian and I went into the studio and
after the song ended I said "Welcome to KPFT. This is Bob
Buzzanco on 'Open Journal.' That was the Clash singing 'Washington
Bullets' which is an appropriate song because today Washington's
bullets are helping to kill women and children, doctors and ministers,
clergy in Palestine. You're listening to KPFT?the voice of the
dispossessed and voiceless. The past hour you may have thought
you were listening to Fox as we had on apologists for the terrorist
state of Israel. We're reverting to regular Pacifica programming
right now."
And then the firestorm hit!
Even before my program ended, Geiselman,
Merriman and other local Zionists were beginning a campaign of
slander and smears that continues to this day. While I was doing
my interviews they went to the station manager, Duane Bradley,
and complained about my on-air comments, claiming that I was
trying to speak for KPFT with my final comment about "regular
Pacifica programming." But, according to eyewitness Janice
Blue, that was their only complaint. Later, however, they came
back and related another charge to Bradley, one they had not
mentioned at any point earlier. I had, they claimed, used an
racial epithet against the JV hosts as they left the studio.
According to Donna de la Paz, I "hissed" at her the
slur "You Jews" as she walked out. In over two decades
as an activist and scholar, with an extensive record of publishing
and public speaking, I have not used racial or ethnic slurs,
and anyone who knows me is aware of that. Moreover, as an American
radical, it would be ignorant to attacks Jews given their historical
role in radical politics, from Emma Goldman through Sidney Hillman,
Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and up to Amy Goodman today. The allegations
were preposterous.
The clear truth is that I was focused
on my guest and my board operator and was paying no attention
whatsoever to the JV hosts as they left the studio. I said nothing
to de la Paz, and I could not pick her out of a lineup. No one
else on the JV show heard anything. And there were the seven
witnesses mentioned above besides myself who have testified that
I said nothing. However, after the fact, Geiselman, with whom
I'd been arguing, claimed that he heard me say this. Geiselman,
 however, claims that I followed
the JV hosts into the lobby and yelled it at de la Paz, whereas
de la Paz herself claims I said it as I passed the JV group going
into the studio. So, one would think, having seven eyewitnesses
testifying that I said nothing, while there were two people,
with different agendas and conflicting stories, charging that
I used a slur would be overwhelming proof that this allegation
was false, and the whole episode should have ended there.
But, because of the persistence of the
Zionist slanderers and the craven approach of KPFT and Pacifica's
national leadership, a long-term smear campaign had just begun.
Within hours, Merriman, Geiselman, and
other Zionists, particularly Edwin Johnston and Dan Jones, political
rivals and well-known disruptive elements in the KPFT community,
had placed messages on every internet message board relating
to Pacifica [and some that weren't even directly Pacifica-oriented]
from New York to Los Angeles claiming that I had used a racial
slur and that I was anti-semitic [a good chronicle of the whole
episode and supporting documents can be found at http://www.acksisofevil.org].
As a professor and radical activist,
I take my reputation very seriously, and I believe that anti-semitism
is a serious offense. But using contrived allegations of anti-semitism
to attack a political enemy is just as wrong, and it is slanderous.
I expected, naively in retrospect, that Pacifica would never
allow this to continue. How wrong I was. In addition to the participation
of KPFT producers and LAB members, the KPFT management did nothing.
Bradley, the GM, took the position that "the best thing
to do is to do nothing." When I talked to him just days
after the show and controversy erupted [ironically I had left
town on Thursday to go to Washington D.C., where I was a co-anchor
of Pacifica's national coverage of the late April peace demonstrations,
and didn't return until the following Monday] he said he was
not inclined to deal with this matter. "If I issue a public
statement clearing your name," he told me, "I'll get
a ton of complaints from the Jewish community and I don't want
to deal with that." The day after the JV show aired, Jac
Battise went to Bradley and told him that she was a witness to
the event and confirmed that I said nothing and she said she
would be glad to publicly state what she knew. Bradley, however,
never asked her to contribute her story nor told anyone about
her exculpatory evidence.
All Bradley had to do at that point was
issue a simple statement saying that these allegations were clearly
not true, and that Pacifica would never condone nor be party
to a smear campaign against its programmers. Bradley, once again,
did nothing, and the smears continued.
And so the controversy deepened. That
next Wednesday, April 24th, there was a scheduled LAB meeting.
I did not attend. At that meeting, a member of the Pacifica National
Board [PNB] from Houston, George Barnstone, who had been appointed
by the previous GM Garland Gantner, requested that the LAB vote
to remove me from the air because of my alleged anti-semitism.
After consultation with others there, he changed his proposal
to have me investigated. Barnstone, an ACLU attorney and Pacifica
officer, got the LAB to agree with him and they, in my absence,
voted to hold a McCarthyite inquisition of me.
And, once more, Bradley did nothing.
At this point, I began to contact the national leadership. I'd
known Dan Coughlin a bit so I called him up and explained the
situation. While I was used to being attacked for my views [one
has to be thick-skinned being a radical in Texas] I told him
that allegations of racism went over the edge of acceptable political
debate and I expected a different response from Pacifica, which
prided itself on being an independent and alternative voice.
Moreover, I stressed to Coughlin, this was an in-house hit job,
with LAB and PNB members the heart of this smear campaign, and
Bradley was doing nothing about the continued assault on my reputation.
I had been silent thus far, I told Coughlin, because I didn't
want Pacifica to have bad publicity, but I would not fall on
a sword for Bradley or anyone else. My reputation, I made clear
to Bradley and Coughlin, was not to be used as currency for their
own craven approach. Coughlin promised me that he would call
Bradley the next day [we spoke on a Sunday night] and have him
issue an apology and exoneration to me. It never happened.
With the smears thus continuing, Pacifica
caving in, and a hostile environment at KPFT, I saw no reason
to stay on the air, and at that point resigned as a programmer.
As I saw it, this was more of a strike or boycott against a network
that rhetorically claimed to speak for the dispossessed and stand
up to the power structure, but had in fact been terribly complicit
in the ongoing Zionist slanders against me. The issue, as I saw
it then and now, was not so much that I was the object of a slander
campaign, but that Pacifica had a moral and legal obligation
to challenge it, not just for me but for any programmer. I think
we all know that Pacifica would not have been silent had this
happened to Amy Goodman, but apparently a programmer in Houston
is fair game.
Within the Pacifica community, there
was one official willing to stand up for principle and attack
this Zionist smear campaign. Carol Spooner, the PNB National
Secretary and one of the "saviors" of the network through
her suits in the California courts, publicly called on Bradley,
Coughlin and Cagan to end Pacfica's involvement in this sordid
episode. Most importantly, she pointed out that if Pacifica officers
would not even stand up to a poorly-managed and absurd smear
campaign in Houston, it would stand no chance when the Justice
Department or FBI told them to tone it down. Meanwhile, the "investigation"
by Barnstone took place. Barnstone interviewed De la Paz, Geiselman,
Merriman, and two other people from the JV show. He did not interview
any of the seven exculpatory witnesses. Only Janice Blue's testimony
was taken, and that was because she pursued Barnstone and forced
him to include it. He made no attempt to talk to the others who
would have exposed the slander and the smears.
Fortunately for me, a couple of KPFT
activists, Curt "Scooter" Schroell and Hep Ingham,
actually looked into the affair, interviewed all the eyewitnesses,
collected the documents and issued a report which overwhelmingly
proved that I did not utter an racial slur and also revealed
the nature of the smear campaign, available at the <www.acksisofevil.org>
website (the name is a spoof on political rivals who referred
to me as the head of the local "axis of evil"). Once
Barnstone's bogus report was done, I asked Bradley for a copy
of it. He ignored my email messages and phone requests for the
report. Then, on May 24, another LAB meeting was held. At the
outset of the meeting, the LAB's parliamentarian, Ted Weisgal,
proposed that the "investigation" of me be rescinded
because Barnstone, as an ex oficio LAB member only, had no standing
to make the motion for it. The LAB agreed and repealed the investigation.
That did not end this situation or the smears, though. Even though
the LAB conceded it had no standing to investigate me, Geiselman
and an ally of his, George Reiter, a KPFT programmer and Green
Party candidate for office, who considers himself a Jewish peace
activist but supported this Zionist smear campaign, voted against
cancelling the investigation. When I asked for time to speak
and respond to these charges, a PNB member from Houston, Theresa
Allen, voted that I not be allowed to talk. When I finally spoke
I was interrupted by Charles Smith, a new member of the PNB,
and the LAB Chair, Deb Shafto, and others tried to rebut me and
cut me off during my talk.
Duane Bradley also spoke publicly for
the first time, and, as expected, took the easy way out. He could
not determine who was right or wrong he said, despite seven eyewitnesses
and two contradictory stories by the people making the charges,
and he apologized to De la Paz and the Jewish community of Houston.
All this occurred while the Director
of the Pacifica Board, Leslie Cagan, was present. I had spoken
with Cagan the night before and she assured me that Pacifica
was aware that these Zionist smears against me were part of a
larger pattern and had included Dennis Bernstein and Amy Goodman
as targets. Yet, after the meeting, Cagan told Janice Blue, who
had made an impassioned speech on my behalf, that she believed
de la Paz heard someone sneeze "achoo" and thought
it was "You Jew." Blue simply pointed out to her how
offensive and preposterous her statement was. Bradley piled on
then. Though the LAB had rescinded the investigation and he had
rejected previous requests from me for the report, he now placed
the report, which had been declared moot by the LAB but which
perpetuated the smears against me, on the front page of the local
Independent Media Center website.
Throughout all this, the venomous smears
against me continued on every internet site relevant to Pacifica.
Bradley, Coughlin and Cagan continued to sit idly by, caving
in to a Zionist smear campaign and allowing a programmer to be
slandered because they did not want to act. In fact, Coughlin
later told Ingham that he would not intervene in the Houston
situation and offer an apology and exoneration to me because
"the Zionists will jump down my throat."
Meanwhile others began to be smeared.
Local programmers like Janice Blue, Jac Battise, and Ken Freeland
were smeared by the same group that had come after me. Bradley
never once defended any of them. National figures also become
objects of the attack. In early July, Ed Herman, Noam Chomsky
and Howard Zinn sent a letter supporting me to Bradley and another
to Coughlin and Cagan. Bradley not only did not respond to the
letter from these three longtime activists, but passed this email
along to Geiselman, a key member of the smear team, who then
either showed it or described it to Edwin Johnston and Dan Jones,
who began to publicly attack the three authors of the note. Moreover,
they publicly claimed that Chomsky and Zinn had renounced their
letter and apologized for it. This, of course, never happened
but that did not stop the slanderers from continuing to attack
Herman and the others and from making absolutely false claims
about retractions and apologies. Although Herman, Chomsky and
Zinn had all played significant roles in the fight to gain back
Pacifica, Bradley, Coughlin and Cagan never commented or tried
to stop these public attacks against them.
Facing this continued onslaught, I sought
legal help. David Dow, a law professor at the University of Houston,
where I am a history professor, took on my case. We sent a letter
to Bradley demanding an apology and exoneration. Pacifica has
responded with dodges and stalling.
First, a "mediator" from New
York, Janet McEneaney, came to Houston, where she met with my
attorney and me and asked us to submit to arbitration, though
she conceded that the charges against me were lies. But Pacifica
did not even follow through with that offer.
Now, Pacifica wants to send an "investigator"
to Houston to review the case. Given the fact that this event
has been played out publicly for over five months and there is
a complete record available, this investigation is simply another
attempt to cover-up, dodge and stall.
So far, Pacifica has caved in to a Zionist
smear campaign, has spent untold amounts of listeners' money
to defend slanderers and smear artists like Geiselman and Barnstone,
refuses to defend programmers, and even denies due process and
ignores the presumption of innocence.
The lesson in Houston is that false charges
of anti-semitism used against radical voices work! I have no
desire to participate in KPFT, while those individuals at the
heart of the smear campaign continue to program shows, serve
on the LAB and PNB and constitute Bradley's inner circle. Programmers
at KPFT are still under assault, charged falseley with anti-semitism,
and Bradley will not defend them.
Many of us in Houston were active in
the long struggle to win back Pacifica and were thrilled in January
when, it appeared, we had prevailed. But just months later, it
became clear that the "new Pacifica" could be as craven
and conservative as the old network.
When this all began, I believed, naively
as it turns out, that Pacifica would never be a party to this
kind of race-baiting campaign to smear a programmer. I was obviously
wrong. The real tragedy is, as Carol Spooner pointed out, that
Pacifica's acquiescence in this case sets an ominous precedent,
and the network will hardly be able to mount a defense in the
future when John Ashcroft comes after its programming.
Robert Buzzanco
is associate professor of history at the University of Houston
and author of Masters
of War: Military Dissent and Politics in the Vietnam Era
and Vietnam
and the Transformation of American Life. He can be reached
at buzzanco@mail.uh.edu
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