-Caveat Lector-
[radtimes] # 156
An informally produced compendium of vital irregularities.
"We're living in rad times!"
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Contents:
--Prominent Progressives Support Pacifica Dissenters
--Are anarchists just a bunch of hopeless dreamers?
--Cyber security agency unveiled [Canada]
--Corruption Leads to Freeze on Trust Funds at World Bank
--France Remains Third Largest Arms Exporter in the World
===================================================================
Prominent Progressives Support Pacifica Dissenters
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FEBRUARY 6, 2001
CONTACT: Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)
212-633-6700
NEW YORK - February 6 - Amid a crisis that threatens the future of the
Pacifica Radio Network, more than 80 prominent progressives have rallied
in support of the six dissidents on the Pacifica Foundation's board.
These board members want Pacifica's national leadership to reverse
course on its takeover of WBAI, and to "build democratic decision-making
structures throughout Pacifica."
A statement supporting the dissenting board members (below) was signed
by the Local Advisory Board chairs of four of Pacifica's five stations
and by former Pacifica staffers and board members, as well as by
political figures, community leaders, journalists, artists and
academics. These include Dennis Brutus, Noam Chomsky, Martín Espada,
Frances Farenthold, June Jordan, Tom Morello, Tim Robbins, Edward Said,
Studs Terkel, Urvashi Vaid and many more.
----
WE PROTEST PACIFICA'S NATIONAL LEADERSHIP ACTIONS AND SUPPORT THE
DISSENTING BOARD MEMBERS
In an action reminiscent of its closing of Berkeley's KPFA in 1999, the
Pacifica Foundation's national leadership is now moving against New
York's WBAI. The station's managers have been fired, door locks changed
in the middle of the night, staffers banned from the station and
protesters arrested. Security guards have been brought in to enforce
the changes imposed without warning or explanation by Pacifica's
Washington, D.C.-based executive director, backed by its board
leadership.
Another target of the action, Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman, hangs on
to her job amid harassment on air and off by Pacifica's national leaders
and recently installed station management in New York. Meanwhile,
WBAI's newly appointed morning show host has spoken on-air in support
of the Pacifica board selling off WBAI.
For most of its 50-year history, Pacifica has been a public resource for
the progressive community. Recently, a self-selected, unaccountable and
secretive board majority has acted as if it owns Pacifica and has ruled
by fiat. In the wake of this latest crisis, six courageous members of
Pacifica's national board issued the following public dissent on
January 18 in hopes of getting the Pacifica network back on path.
"We are deeply troubled by the recent developments at WBAI radio in New
York City, one of the five stations of the Pacifica Foundation. It is
not too late to remedy the situation, and we are working toward that
end….
"—The National Board must take steps to ensure the immediate
reinstatement of the three people fired at WBAI: Station Manager Valerie
Van Isler, Program Director Bernard White, and Producer Sharan Louise
Harper. According to the information we have, the Pacifica Foundation's
internal procedures were not followed, there was not compliance with
union contracts, and none were informed of the cause of their firings.
All three of these people should be reinstated as full time employees
without further delay. Existing internal
processes which address job performance, or any other concerns, must be
followed.
" —The continuing 'banning' of long time volunteers and freelance
reporters, the decision to not allow the Local Advisory Board to meet at
the station, and the use of security personnel are all having a chilling
effect at the station. Action must be taken now to lift the bans, to
ensure that the LAB can meet at the station and to remove security
people from the station….
" —As members of the National Board, we believe it is critically
important to review the internal processes within the Pacifica
Foundation. We must build democratic decision making structures
throughout Pacifica and re-commit ourselves to work for the principles
of free-speech, community-based, corporate-free radio, as first
articulated by Pacifica Foundation's founder, Lewis Hill.
Pete Bramson [S.F. Bay area]
Leslie Cagan [New York]
Rabbi Aaron Kriegel [Los Angeles]
Beth Lyons [New York]
Tomas Moran [S.F. Bay area]
Rob Robinson [Washington D.C]"
We support the efforts of the dissenting Pacifica board members,
especially their call to "build democratic decision making structures
throughout Pacifica and re-commit ourselves to work for the principles
of free-speech, community-based, corporate-free radio, as first
articulated by Pacifica Foundation's founder, Lewis Hill."
(Affiliations for ID only)
Joanne Bobb, WBAI Local Advisory Board chair
Sherry Gendelman, KPFA LAB chair
David Adelson, KPFK LAB chair
Sam Husseini, WPFW LAB chair
Michael Albert, Z Magazine
Salaam Al-Marayati, Muslim Public Affairs Council
Aris Anagnos, human rights activist
Dean Baker, Center for Economic and Policy Research
Ben H. Bagdikian, "Media Monopoly"
David Barsamian, Alternative Radio
Frances M. Beal, Black Radical Congress
Joel Beinin, Middle East history, Stanford
Larry Bensky, former Pacifica national correspondent
Elaine Bernard, Harvard Trade Union Program
Patrick Bond, former Pacifica reporter
Lydia Brazon, Humanitarian Law Project
Gray Brechin, author
Michael Bronski, gay activist/scholar
Dennis Brutus, Africana Studies professor
Andrea Buffa, Media Alliance
Linda Burnham, Women of Color Resource Center
Jeff Cohen, FAIR
Noam Chomsky, MIT
Jose B. Cuellar, La Raza Studies professor
Mike Davis, author
Hari Dillon, Vanguard Foundation
Brian Dominick, community organizer
Doug Dowd, economist
Martin Espada, poet
Frances "Sissy" Farenthold, attorney/professor
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, City Lights Books
Laura Flanders, radioforchange.com
Sheryl Flowers, former KPFA host
Ted Glick, Independent Progressive Politics Network
Tami Gold, filmmaker
Dorothy Guellec, health commentator
Robin Hahnel, economics professor
Betsy Hartmann, population and development professor
Don Hazen, AlterNet.org
Edward S. Herman, author
Jim Hightower, commentator
Janine Jackson, FAIR
Diana Johnstone, journalist
Van Jones, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
June Jordan, poet
Robin D.G. Kelley, history/Africana studies professor
Margaret Ratner Kunstler, William Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice
Matthew Lasar, "Pacifica: The Rise of an Alternative Network"
Aurora Levins Morales, historian, Oakland Museum
David T. Lopez, civil rights attorney
Barbara Lubin, Middle East Children's Alliance
Robert McChesney, communications professor
Eric Mann, Labor/Communisty Strategy Center
Elizabeth Martinez, Institute for Multiracial Justice
Mark Crispin Miller, Project On Media Ownership
Gwendolyn Mink, politics professor
Russell Mokhiber, Corporate Crime Reporter
Tom Morello, Rage Against the Machine
Carlos Munoz, Jr., Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley
Robert Naiman, Center for Economic and Policy Research
Gus Newport, former Berkeley mayor
Kwazi Nkrumah, National Green Justice Council
Michael Parenti, author
Cynthia Peters, East Timor Action Network
Peter Phillips, Project Censored
Margaret Randall, author/poet
Tim Robbins, actor/director
Marta Russell, author
Edward Said, Columbia University
Angela Sanbrano, CARECEN
Luis Sanchez, Innercity Struggle
Lydia Sargent, Z Magazine
Carol Sobel, civil liberties attorney
Stephen R. Shalom, professor
Norman Solomon, columnist/media critic
Makani Themba-Nixon, community organizer
Studs Terkel, journalist
Deborah Toler, Africa trade specialist
Urvashi Vaid, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
Mark Weisbrot, Center for Economic and Policy Research
Robert Weissman, Essential Action
Tim Wise, AWARE
Howard Zinn, historian
===================================================================
Anarchist Age Weekly Review No. 436 5th 11th February, 2001
ANARCHIST QUESTION AND ANSWER
Q. Are anarchists just a bunch of hopeless dreamers?
A. The gap between anarchist thought and reality is so wide, people find it
easy to dismiss anarchists as hopeless dreamers. What¹s so hopeless about a
desire to live in a society without rulers? What¹s so hopeless about people
organising their own lives without the need of the State or the corporate
sector? Do human beings still believe in original sin?
The history of humanity has been a history of struggle against authority and
those minorities who want to impose their authority on the majority. The
pages of the human story are littered with examples of people who believed
they could manage themselves. Anarchist ideas seem Utopian because people¹s
experience is one of fear and control. Those in authority will use every
means at their disposal to maintain that authority. It¹s interesting how
people in the same breath dismiss anarchists as both bomb throwers and
Utopians.
We are shackled with so many rules, regulations and laws that any idea that
challenges authority is automatically dismissed as impossible. Capitalism¹s
dilemma in the 21st century is that technological innovations have helped to
create a cult of personal liberty. In many parts of the world human beings
are required to be both intelligent and innovative. There is very little
role for the traditional order taker.
You would think that in such a climate, anarchists would not be described as
Utopian dreamers. The dreamers in our society are those people who believe
we need rulers and that people in authority are there to protect our
interests. Anybody who still believes in such Utopian drivel just needs to
look around them. Every freedom that we take for granted has been achieved
through struggle.
Anarchists are realists, not dreamers because they realise that you can¹t
trust people in authority. Their everyday experiences and historical
records prove that when push comes to shove, leaders look after their
interests, not the interests of the people they control. Next time you hear
people dismiss anarchists as dreamers, tell them who the real dreamers are -
those tens of millions who still put their faith in leaders, the State and
the corporate sector.
===================================================================
Cyber security agency unveiled
by Kathryn May
The Ottawa Citizen
February 6, 2001 Tuesday
The Chretien government is creating a new cyberspace security agency to
protect Canada's electronic infrastructure, from banks to power grids,
against
possible hacker attacks and natural disasters.
The announcement of the new agency -- to be known as the Office of
Critical
Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness -- coincided
yesterday with
Prime Minister Jean Chretien's first meeting and working dinner with newly
elected U.S. President George W. Bush.
Canada and the United States have long acknowledged their mutual
vulnerabilities to cyber-attacks on their electronic infrastructure launched
from either country. Some critics argued cyber-criminals considered Canada a
convenient back door into the U.S.
As a result, the protection of electronic networks would have serious
implications for Canada-U.S. relations, such as for defence, security,
intelligence co-operation and cyber-sovereignty issues such as guarding each
others' systems from possible security breaches or penetration.
"The protection of Canada's critical infrastructure from the risks of
failure
or disruption is essential to ensuring the health, safety, security and
economic
well-being of Canadians," Mr. Chretien said in a statement released
yesterday.
"We will also be able to build strong partnerships to ensure the
protection of
our shared North American infrastructure."
Many argue such an agency becomes critical to public security, especially
with the rapid growth of e-commerce, expanding Internet usage and exploding
computer connectivity. Canada's critical infrastructure, from power grids,
telecommunication networks, banks, transportation, energy and other public
utilities increasingly rely on information technology.
The newly minted office will be housed at National Defence and will
take over
the operations of Emergency Preparedness Canada, which until now
co-ordinated
all national emergencies from the ice storm that crippled Eastern
Ontario and
Quebec several years ago to the Y2K computer crisis. The new office will
report
to Defence Minister Art Eggleton but will also collaborate with the
Solicitor
General's department, the provinces and municipalities, provinces, private
industry and other countries.
===================================================================
Corruption Leads to Freeze on Trust Funds at World Bank
Five European Governments Act after Organisation's Staff Were Found to
Have Received Kickbacks
Financial Times; Feb 7, 2001
by Stephen Fidler
Five European governments have frozen trust funds administered by the World
Bank after the discovery of corruption in the awarding of contracts
financed by the funds.
Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Spain and Switzerland suspended consultant trust
fund activities until further notice. This means that no further payments
or replenishments from the funds will be made. Denmark also stipulated that
no further disbursements would be allowed under allocations already made.
The funds are used to pay consultants involved in development efforts
around the world. The consultants are mostly from the country providing the
finance, though the bank has managed to "untie" an increasing proportion of
the funds, allowing consultants from other countries to be financed by them.
As well as the suspension of the funds, an internal bank memorandum
obtained by the FT said that, as a result of the freeze, Danish, Swedish
and Norwegian consultants could not be hired using funds from any other
consultant trust fund.
The suspended funds total is about Dollars 10m (Pounds 6.8m), half of which
is in the Danish fund, the bank said.
In December the bank's corruption and fraud investigations unit found
corruption in the use of such funds after allegations were made over the
bank's anonymous corruption hotline. The corruption involved funds from six
countries' trust funds - the five that decided to suspend activities and
the Netherlands.
The bank is carrying out separate audits of all six trust funds and was
planning to engage an external audit firm to review controls of the trust
funds. The memo said this was likely to mean the funds would be suspended
for the rest of the current fiscal year, closing at the end of June.
The bank said in December that three staff members "engaged in corrupt
activities" in connection with the funds had been dismissed. It said an
internal investigation showed staff were paid by, or agreed to receive
kickbacks from, two Swedish corporate groups in exchange for directing bank
contracts to them. About Dollars 900,000 in contracts was involved, Dollars
600,000 of which was paid to the companies in exchange for kickbacks and
about Dollars 300,000 in ineligible expenditures. The staff and companies
would not be named until the bank had completed its disbarment process. It
had referred the issue to the US Justice Department and the Swedish
authorities.
The bank has already disbarred 54 companies and individuals over the past
three years for involvement in corruption or misuse of funds. It publishes
the names on its website. <www.worldbank.org/html/opr/procure/debarr.html>
===================================================================
Paris La Tribune - February 5, 2001
[FBIS Translated Text]
France Remains Third Largest Exporter in the World
Report by Christophe Canton
With over 100 clients throughout the world, France is maintaining its
position as the third largest arms exporter, behind the United States and
United Kingdom. France won orders worth 30.5 billion [F] in 1999.
The affair of the Taiwanese frigates, over which hangs the shadow of [former
Elf executive] Alfred Sirven, has just reminded public opinion that France
plays a major role in the world arms trade. According to the report to
Parliament, published last year by the Defense Ministry, France is
maintaining its position as the third largest exporter of weapons in the
world, behind the United States and United Kingdom, with orders worth F30.5
billion in 1999. "However, over the past three years, average total export
orders stood at F35 billion a year, which takes us back to the average in
the years between 1990 and 1995," specified the authors of the report. They
estimate that France has a share of between 12 and 15 percent of a global
market, which for last 10 years has totaled an average of between F250 and
F300 billion.
Concentrated
Despite ever more fierce competition, the arms industry remains concentrated
in the hands of a few countries. The United States, United Kingdom, and
France account for more than three quarters of world arms exports, and the
addition of Russia and Germany takes that figure to more than 90 percent. In
this context, French clients are divided into two categories. On the one
hand, there are those countries, which place orders for small amounts, and
on the other hand a small number of countries, which place large orders.
This second category of partners is easily identified from the deliveries
made by France between 1991 and 1999. During this period, Saudi Arabia was
by far the largest client, with purchases of F41.7 billion, ahead of the
United Arab Emirates (F22 billion), Qatar (F12.5 billion), Pakistan (F11.1
billion), Greece (F9.34 billion), the United Kingdom (F7.8 billion), and
Germany (F5.4 billion).
Alongside these major clients, France also sold its weapons to around 100
countries over the past 10 years. In this regard, 1999 was a rather "modest"
year at the level of major contracts, unlike 1998, a year marked by the very
large contract for Mirage 2000-9s and weaponry with the United Arab
Emirates.
Aeronautical Equipment
On the other hand, the national industry saw a far larger number of
intermediate contracts, i.e. for amounts below F2 billion, in 1999. "This
situation translates lower vulnerability for activities, since large orders,
by their very nature, are an occasional occurrence," the report stressed. It
also noted "diversification" among the clientele, with a particularly high
European share in 1999 (54.6 percent of the total, compared with 18.3
percent in 1998). In 1999, France won the sale of Crotale missiles to
Greece, or Cougar helicopters to Switzerland, for example.
In terms of products, aeronautical equipment was the most prized sector
between 1991 and 1999. This category accounted for 48.2 percent of total
orders, compared with 27.6 percent for maritime equipment, and 24.2 percent
for terrestrial equipment. In each category, France can count on leading
industrial companies capable of winning major contracts. This is
particularly the case in the aerospace industry with EADS, which emerged
from the merger of France's Aerospatiale-Matra with Germany's
Daimler-Chrysler and Spain's Casa. It also applies in the defense
electronics sector with Thales (formerly Thomson-CSF) or the terrestrial
weapons industry with Giat Industrie.
===================================================================
"Anarchy doesn't mean out of control. It means out of 'their' control."
-Jim Dodge
======================================================
"Communications without intelligence is noise;
intelligence without communications is irrelevant."
-Gen. Alfred. M. Gray, USMC
======================================================
"It is not a sign of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society."
-J. Krishnamurti
======================================================
"The world is my country, all mankind my brethren,
and to do good is my religion."
-Thomas Paine
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