David: No harm done. Also my bad. Pacifica Radio has its HQ in California and broadcasts over about 100 stations nationally. I was thinking about Jefferson Radio, which is HQed in Medford and is similar to Pacifica Radio but actually is independent. Yeah, one of the people in our audience also thought we were affiliated with the Pacifica Radio network. Billy ===================================== In a message dated 1/9/2010 4:11:31 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, [email protected] writes:
Oh dear, I engaged in "guilt by geography." Sorry about that. David _ "Free speech is meant to protect unpopular speech. Popular speech, by definition, needs no protection."—Neal Boortz On 1/9/2010 5:15 PM, [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) wrote: David : Pacifica Forum is unrelated to any other group with the name "Pacifica." This includes ( excludes ) Pacifica Radio , which has its HQ elsewhere in the state but is broadcast to much of the NW. It is a stand-alone that exists only in Eugene, Oregon. We are telecast locally on CTV but sometimes also in Portland. Very eclectic membership, some ex-academics, some professionals including one former magazine editor, students who show up once in a while, and miscellaneous who cannot be classified. I'd say that the group tilts Right, but only on certain issues, on other issues it can be almost anything. A mix of ( idiosyncratic ) Democrats, Republicans, and Indies. Sometimes we are at each others throats, but --so far-- we have always found ways to work though our differences. Billy ------------------------------------------------------- In a message dated 1/9/2010 2:50:43 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) writes: Pacifica in Texas is known mostly through Houston based Pacifica Radio KPFT. They were most often touted as being slightly to the left of Chairman Mao. I don't know how accurate that is. David _ "Free speech is meant to protect unpopular speech. Popular speech, by definition, needs no protection."—Neal Boortz On 1/9/2010 3:44 PM, [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) wrote: An evening to remember January 8, 2010 Walnut Room / ERB Memorial Union University of Oregon Posters announcing the presentation were created by Valdas and placed all over campus. Front of room , speakers table. Emeritus professor Orval Etter, in wheelchair, Billy Rojas ( obscured ), and Valdas Analauskas. Professor Etter, as Pacifica regulars know, wrote the Eugene city charter in the 1970s, was a skilled cellist and was a founder of the Eugene Symphony Orchestra. In the past he was active in the Quaker-sponsored FOR / Fellowship Of Reconciliation, which promotes world peace. Etter founded Pacifica Forum not only to promote peace , but especially as a free speech group. PF is the only free speech group in the city of Eugene. Billy Rojas addresses the crowd. Valdas Analauskas , who also had much to say as the evening progressed, looks on. It is worth pointing out that Valdas was a Lithuanian dissident in the 1980s and was a secret employee of the CIA at the time. He was on the staff of Radio Liberty until Soviet agents finally discovered the fact and had him expelled from the country. Although Valdas and myself disagree about several issues we strongly agree about other issues, and we are both vehement anti-Communists. Some of our protestors. They helped make the evening memorable by providing something like comic relief. That is, their occasional chants -- to the effect, Nazis go home, Fascists don't belong here, etc --were virtually scripted by central casting. Utterly predictable, and as Dawn Coslow pointed out, the opinions they expressed were regurgitated almost verbatim from incitements printed in the local press as supplied by Michael Williams of the Anti-Hate Task Force, aka, as Chris calls it, the "I hate you task force." Repeatedly during the evening I pointed out to the protestors, who at times tried to shut down the presentation with their shouting, that Pacifica is a free speech group, most of us are anti-Nazi, there is anything but some sort of pro-Nazi feeling generally in the group, and that Jimmy Marr is the only actual neo-Nazi by his own admission. Jimmy Marr giving a Seig Heil salute. He did this several times during the evening. Unlike December 11, 2009, when several people gave the salute, this night he was the only one. The saluters of December had nothing to do with Pacifica and I had never seen any of them in the year and a half since I started attending. At that meeting, as noted in a feature story in the Eugene Weekly, I loudly objected to the Seig Heils and challenged Marr to a debate-- which is now scheduled for next week. BTW, the reason for Marr's presentation had to do with a demonstration by Trotskyist Communists several weeks previously. Since Valdas has a daughter who is a U of O student he took offense at this. After all, his father spent time in a Soviet gulag , 10 years in fact, and Valdas has no use for Communism in any form. Valdas wanted to raise the issue with the university in a memorable manner and talked with Jimmy Marr about his ( Marr's ) neo-Nazi association. Could Marr give a presentation approximately as far Right in character as the far Left Trotskyist event ? Marr was pleased to oblige. In my opinion his show, replete with a short film of a neo-Nazi demonstration in Arizona that he had attended, was way over the top , but it had the effect of generating the kind of controversy the Forum is all about. Ronna was very much a presence at the meeting. Here she gives out pro-Palestinian pamphlets to one of the protestors. Barry Sommer , who was sitting in the front row, not shown in the photos, takes a very different view of the "nakhba." Barry, who hosts the CTV program, "Islam Today," while a convert to Christian faith, is ethnically Jewish. The point being that , as we tried to make clear throughout the evening, Pacifica Forum is a free speech group, our membership ( informal membership ) consists of anti-Zionists as well as critics of anti-Zionism, it consists of people who take strong exception to Islam and people who support the Palestinian cause. While a few of the students present seemed to get the idea, the hard core protestors listened to just about nothing and continued with their predetermined chanting sporadically throughout the event. In late Fall, when I gave a presentation about Radical Centrism, I made the point that RC takes a similar free speech viewpoint and added that, while Pacifica is not a Radical Centrist group, it nonetheless shares some important common values. Highlight of the evening, feminists walk up to speakers' table following Valdas' comments about rape. Here is my clarification of this matter, important since the Register Guard ran an above-the-fold major news story mostly about this episode. The RG story skewed this mini-demonstration and what it was actually all about , almost beyond recognition. Valdas was quoting Andrea Dworkin. Sometimes Valdas, a native of Lithuania, can tell good jokes, but this one did not register as humor. Michael Williams , our nemesis week in and week out, took it seriously despite Valdas' intention, and made an issue out of it during one of his tirades from the floor. At that, a student feminist found her cue for some theatrical drama , she came up to the speaker's table along with some feminist friends , and , after a little speech about how she felt " threatened " ( I'm not making this up ) she started to cry. I wasn't sure if we were supposed to laugh at this episode but it was so obviously staged that only the Politically Correct -committed could have failed to understand it for what it was : Theater ( and more like Theater of the Absurd ) The rape remark as rabid "lesbian" feminist Andrea Dworkin used it, consisted of words to the effect that she wanted to be too ugly to rape. She utterly despised men and characterized all normal heterosexual males as predators and called ALL sexual intercourse "rape." One of the reasons she had for becoming a fat pig of 300 pounds while she was still alive was to avoid "rape." Valdas saw a funny side of Dworkin's comment and tried to turn it into something light-hearted to make a point. Despite his excellent English, it is his second language and once in a while he isn't able to get jokes across. -------------------------------------------------- Afterward, while there are at least a dozen stories which might be told, Valdas, myself, Barry Sommer and Barbara took part in an interview with a journalist for a local magazine. Later, although Barbara had departed before then, we went outside and talked for maybe 20 minutes. A student who had attended the meeting came up to us and asked polite questions and apologized for the raucous demonstrators, some of whom he knew personally. I cannot speak for anyone else, but it is safe to say that the three of us regarded the evening as very worthwhile, and something to take pride in for both ourselves as individuals and for Pacifica. Billy _______________________________________________ Centroids mailing list: [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) _http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com_ (http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com) Archives at _http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/_ (http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/) _______________________________________________ Centroids mailing list: [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) _http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com_ (http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com) Archives at _http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/_ (http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/) _______________________________________________ Centroids mailing list: [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) _http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com_ (http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com) Archives at _http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/_ (http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/) _______________________________________________ Centroids mailing list: [email protected] http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com Archives at http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/
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