5) Friends of WBAI fight for progressive radio
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6) Justice for Ricky Bodden!
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7) The real thing
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: keskiviikko 18. huhtikuu 2001 11:31
Subject: [WW] Friends of WBAI fight for progressive radio
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the April 19, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
DEMONSTRATE APRIL 28: FRIENDS OF WBAI FIGHT FOR PROGRESSIVE RADIO
By John Catalinotto
New York
Organizers of several groups fighting to keep WBAI-FM and
Pacifica Radio progressive have called for a public
demonstration April 28 to meet in downtown Brooklyn and
march across the Brooklyn Bridge to WBAI's offices on Wall
Street.
The groups--the Concerned Friends of WBAI, the Community for
Progressive Radio and the Campaign to Stop the Corporate
Takeover of Pacifica--are fighting to save a radio network
that has been an important ally of anti-racist, anti-war and
other progressive organizing nationally.
A shift to the right by the Pacifica Board that manages this
listener-sponsored radio has already removed most political
programs from Pacifica stations in Los Angeles, Houston and
Washington, D.C., and replaced them with music. Listeners at
KPFA in Berkeley, Calif., fought back against a Pacifica
Board takeover two summers ago.
WBAI in New York has been under siege since producer Sharann
Parker and morning talk-show host of "Wake-up Call" and
former station manager Bernard White were fired last
December and volunteer Janice Bryant was barred from the
station. All three are people of African descent. The new
management then started slowly purging all producers and
volunteers who didn't fall into line.
By the beginning of April "Democracy Now!" producer Amy
Goodman was fired from her "Wake-up Call" duties. Ken Nash,
Mimi Rosenberg, Robert Knight and Deepa Fernandes were also
fired. Award-winning journalists Juan Gonzalez and Mario
Murillo resigned in protest. It was announced March 31 that
even nonagenarian and prisoner supporter "Grandpa" Al Lewis
of TV's "The Munsters" fame was pushed out.
Last March 1-4 in Houston, hundreds of listeners held teach-
ins and protests at a board meeting that forced some
tactical retreats, according to organizers. But the WBAI
management continued to push people out and to remove much
of the radical politics from the morning show.
IMPORTANCE TO COMMUNITIES OF COLOR
Workers World spoke with Anthony Mackall, an organizer with
the Community for Progressive Radio--a group of people
mostly of African descent who are listeners and activists--
and with the Concerned Friends. Mackall, who lives in
Brooklyn and has been a WBAI listener for over 30 years,
also helps collect books to fill libraries in Ghana,
something he said WBAI was able to help with enormously.
"My group," said Mackall, "the CPR, came together in
response to firings and the Pacifica Board's attempt to
attack democratic process. The struggle seemed to need
particular work in communities of color. WBAI's new
management presented the issues as just involving an
internal squabble or were a series of racist attacks by
opponents. We felt that they were purposely spreading false
information and it had to be corrected by presenting the
specific actions of the Pacifica Board and its history.
"This is not just an internal thing. WBAI really is
important to the Black community. We had no real choice but
to take on these issues," Mackall said.
"Working with several organizations in a Pan-Africa
coalition, we sponsored a teach-in program that drew 700
mostly Black and Latino people to the Dempsey Center on
127th Street in Harlem in February. Some of the people from
that area had supported the interim manager Utrice Leid and
we felt we had to expose them to the truth." Leid, the new
manager of WBAI, is of African descent.
"On March 17, a dozen African American women in CPR and
friends picketed at Utrice Leid's home in Brooklyn, called
for her removal, and stated in no uncertain terms that they
were neither fooled nor hoodwinked by claims of racism. They
made it clear they thought that by using racism charges as a
cover, this trivializes racism and its effects. It allows
critics to ignore racism in other circumstances," he said.
"Many working people and labor groups recognize the value of
WBAI. Labor supports our struggle not just because they miss
Mimi Rosenberg's show but because our struggle is one where
management has stepped on rights of paid and unpaid workers
at the station. The grass roots movement that's opposed to
globalization also supports us. We need to work together,"
Mackall said.
"But those oriented toward the Pacifica Board majority,
toward the corporate approach, now have control of the air
waves. We feel we need to focus our message more. That's
another reason to support the demonstration on April 28. By
having it in Brooklyn we're addressing the interest of rank-
and-file listeners who want the organizers to be in
communities where people can be given the information."
Mackall mentioned how on March 5 Leid interrupted an
interview by Ken Nash with Rep. Major Owens. She fired Nash,
who was the co-host of "Building Bridges," on the spot.
Owens, who represents a Black community in Brooklyn, then
read a critique of WBAI and Pacifica into the Congressional
Record.
Mackall outlined his organization's plans for April.
On April 21 the Local Advisory Board and other local groups
will hold a fund raiser for Free Speech Radio in Exile, in
which the host of "Wake-Up Call," Bernard White, hosts of
"Building Bridges" and Grandpa Al Lewis will join other
banned staff in a live radio program stream ed over the
Internet from the Theater for the New City on the Lower East
Side.
On April 25, the CPR will sponsor a teach-in at The House of
the Lord Church in Brooklyn, 415 Atlantic Ave. It is aimed
especially at giving the Black and Latino communities an
update.
Then comes the public demonstration on April 28. Readers
wanting more information can call Concerned Friends at (800)
825-0055 or go to www.wbaiaction.org.
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
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From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: keskiviikko 18. huhtikuu 2001 11:32
Subject: [WW] Justice for Ricky Bodden!
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the April 19, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
'JUSTICE FOR RICKY BODDEN!'
Friends, neighbors, community leaders and supporters came
out 200 strong on March 27 for a rally and march to Suffolk
County District Attorney Ralph Martin's office to demand
justice for Ricky Bodden.
Bodden was shot in the back of the neck by a Boston
municipal cop on Dec. 27, 2000. The protest came on the
three-month anniversary of the killing. The marchers heard
from Bodden's sister, Carol Bodden, City Councilor Chuck
Turner, and Terry Marshall, organizer for Streets is
Watching, a grassroots community organization in the African
American community.
After the initial rally at Park Street Station in downtown
Boston, the march proceeded through the busy downtown
shopping district to the district attorney's office, where
Carol Bodden brought a letter demanding an inquest and the
release of police reports and the coroner's report in the
case.
The Call for Justice campaign is also demanding a civilian
review board, prosecution of the cop and an apology. A
dynamic young woman from Teen Empowerment chaired the rally
in front of the DA's office and led the crowd in singing Bob
Marley's "Get Up, Stand Up." A dynamic talk on the effects
of police brutality on African American women cited the
cases of Eleanor Bumpurs, Tawana Brawley and Assata Shakur.
The rally also included moving testimony from family members
of other current victims of violence and mistreatment by the
prison system.
--Frank Neisser
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to:
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From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: keskiviikko 18. huhtikuu 2001 11:32
Subject: [WW] The real thing
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the April 19, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
EDITORIAL: THE REAL THING
Up until March, the reported bad news about the U.S. economy
focused on losses in the stock market. The Nasdaq index of
mostly technology stocks declined over 60 percent from the
price a year earlier. Industrial stocks were down by 20 to
25 percent.
The big blow was to those people with some savings who
started investing when the market was already high. For
working people, there was a real risk regarding some
pensions, especially if their pension manager was dabbling
in these stocks. But the economic problems did not yet seem
to be striking at the working people's bread and butter.
Then the figures came out for March. On April 6, the
"Challenger report" noted 162,867 corporate layoffs in the
U.S. in March. That was almost triple the level of a year
before, when 55,783 workers were pushed out. It was also the
fourth consecutive month that the total was greater than
100,000.
This is another indicator that the downturn goes beyond a
market "correction" and that the economy is in a crisis of
overproduction. This means that U.S. industry and services
have been producing much more than could be sold at a
profit. And under the capitalist system, when it's not at a
profit, you don't sell it. Bosses stop making it and
investment to produce more goods slows down.
March 2001 was the month with the highest number of lost
jobs since the international outplacement firm Challenger,
Gray & Christmas started to keep track of this in 1993. It
was up 60 percent from February's total of 101,731. This
report said 406,806 job cuts were announced in the first
quarter of 2001. That's 187 percent higher than in the first
quarter of 2000.
Government data show that the unemployment rate increased to
4.3 percent from 4.2 percent in February. In other words,
another 100,000 or so people are without work. For African
Americans, who so often are the last hired and the first
fired, the rate was over 8 percent.
At the same time, prices are moving up at a faster rate than
before.
We have no crystal ball. We don't give market advice. But we
do give advice to our class, the class of working people, of
poor, of oppressed nationalities who live in this country.
And the advice in this case is to get ready for struggle.
We can be sure that the really rich are not planning to
tighten their own belts to get through a serious recession
or depression, should it come. They're planning instead to
survive, buy what they can cheap, and grow even richer and
more powerful if they can come out on top. They already have
a president who stole the election and who barely hides his
giveaways to the rich. They have a Congress that's the best
that corporate money can buy. Under their plans the working
class does all the suffering.
But it doesn't have to be that way. Working people--
including those who wind up unemployed--have both the
possibility and the need to stick together to fight for
their jobs, to fight for benefits, to struggle to make sure
that the bosses pay the costs of unemployment.
A movement of youths and workers began over a year ago in
Seattle with people fighting what they called
"globalization." By this they mean the horrors of brutal
capitalism without any constraints, as it applies mainly to
people of the Third World.
But capitalism is brutal by nature. How much suffering it
brings down on the working class depends on where things are
at in the capitalist economic cycle and on how strong the
workers' struggle has become.
The new movement can join in the struggle against ruthless
capitalism at home, against the ravages that a serious
economic downturn threatens, and in the course of this
struggle become a movement that fights for the only way out
of capitalist crisis: the establishment of a socialist state
that takes back the great wealth that those who work have
created--the industry, the great agricultural lands, the
infrastructure--and runs it for the good of all, not for the
profits of a few.
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
