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Saturday morning in early 2001, before I started on WBAI's Morning Show
with Santiago Nieves, I tuned in to WBAI to hear a program hosted by Al
"Grandpa" Lewis. As I was listening Lewis' co-host, a failed Vegas
comic and drug war opponent named Randy Credico began an outrageous on
air personal attack on me that proved the depths to which Van Isler's
supporters would go to get her job as general Manager back. He began by
claiming, with no facts to back it up, that "Paul DeRienzo is a
snitch," continuing to suggest that he had been told by his so-called
prison contacts that if I were to be imprisoned I would be treated in
jail as a "snitch." This was a thinly veiled threat of violence that
Credico backed up with a press release on the letterhead of his
personal organization known as the "William Moses Kunstler Fund for
Racial Justice." The organization had nothing to do with famed civil
rights lawyer William Kunstler who had died years before the group was
formed, but his widow Margaret Ratner supported it. I immediately
called the studio inside phone line and asked Lewis if he would retract
Credico's statement, but Lewis said no and so I hung up.
Randy Credico is a close friend of Robert Knight.
Credico spends a lot of time; some say he lives at Kunstler's home,
which is now inhabited, by Ratner and their daughters. Knight hangs out
at Kunstler's and enjoys kitchen privileges and basically he has the
run of the place along with Credico. It wasn't always that way. When
Bill Kunstler was alive his law partner and surrogate son was Ron Kuby,
who now hosts a drive time radio talk show with Guardian Angel's
founder Curtis Sliwa on WABC. Shortly after Kunstler died of heart
disease Kuby was told by Ratner immediately vacate the office he shared
with famed barrister, without taking any files. Kuby was also banned
from identifying himself as Kunstler's former partner. During
Kunstler's final years Randy Credico had moved in to the house where he
slept on a cot in the basement and ran household errands. Earning
Credico the derogatory nickname of Bill Kunstler's "Kato Kaelin," after
O.J. Simpson's infamous houseguest. Kunstler was often advised to dump
Credico, but he would wave off the critics claiming he needed an errand
boy.
Over the ensuing weeks I continued to assist Nieves.
During the various fundraising drives I often fielded calls in tally
from contributors. While we enjoyed a steady stream of income and a
positive response from new listeners and even some veteran listeners I
also got a good sense of the attitudes held by many of the group who
generally characterize themselves as the "dissidents." In all my years
at WBAI I had never heard a group of people who were so quick to use
racial slurs, which they targeted against Utrice and other
African-American staffers. The Public Affairs director began every day
for nearly year listening to a caller who left a message calling him
the "n" word. Whatever the official position of the so-called "Pacifica
Campaign," or "Concerned Friends," their supporters obviously saw,
incorrectly, the Pacifica civil war as a battle between the Black
Utrice Leid and the white, Jewish Amy Goodman. Fortunately these
divisive and tribal tactics were shrugged off at WBAI, but
unfortunately they were effective against the Black middle class
Pacifica National Board members.
As time passed and it became obvious that simple
name-calling and other gutter tactics might fail to dislodge WBAI's
management the tactics started getting ugly and physical. In June 2001
a small group attempted to forcibly seize WBAI's control room during a
morning program. First some back ground. Amy Goodman had continued her
personal campaign against Utrice by tagging Democracy Now each day with
the signature "from the studios of the fired and banned." There were
constant problems each morning as Goodman and her producers who begin
noisily setting up before the previous program was over. After a number
of complaints Leid ordered Democracy Now to broadcast from another
studio in a separate wing of WBAI's office suite. Goodman's new studio
was opposite a side door leading from the elevator banks in common are
of the floor. That door, as with the main door and another side door
were kept locked and could only be opened with a key or from the
inside. Who let the protesters into WBAI will probably always be a
mystery, but Goodman and her associates were right there when it
happened and made no attempt to prevent the invasion.
At the head of the group of station invaders was Miguel
Maldonado, a member of the WBAI LAB. Maldonado had been arrested for
trespassing earlier in the year when the LAB attempted to have a public
meeting at WBAI after the removal of Van Isler and White. Leid had
given permission for a meeting of he LAB at the station but had denied
them permission to have a public session, which Leid considered a
security threat. When the LAB attempted to have their meeting with a
public session anyway cops were called and several
trespassing/disorderly conduct arrests were made. Although Leid was
bitterly criticized she stood by her action as necessary to demonstrate
her control of the station. In fact loss of control is a violation of
federal communication law and could result in the loss of a
broadcasting license.
Leaflets had been found at the station in December
calling for seizing the station, which along with similar statements
made on air by White had been the precipitating act that caused White's
dismissal. Besides, the LAB had historically been a powerless group
that was basically ignored by a succession of WBAI managers, including
White, Marksman and Van Isler. The sudden interest in the LAB was seen
as an attempt to create a power base to attack Pacifica's rightful and
legal managers.
I had been scanning the headlines for the hourly
newsbreak while Marjorie Moore was on air when the invasion occurred.
The group of about 20 people was almost entirely white and from their
business attire seemed middle class. At least one was a lawyer wearing
an armband that signified he was part of the leftist National Lawyer's
Guild, probably as a legal observer. The group made a mad dash for the
on air control room, deeply frightening an unsuspecting Moore who did
an hour show each weekday morning called "Sunrise," that focused on
religion and spirituality. A couple of the volunteers who came to help
out in the morning, and Brother Shine, who was a WBAI producer, cut
them off and slammed the control room door shut and locked it. But the
group banged at the door trying unsuccessfully to break it down. All
this was broadcast live on the air for a moment until the engineer
could spin a music disc and the invaders were quickly chased out.
Meanwhile I looked up to see a tall, longhaired man
staring at me through an inside window leading from the lobby to the
newsroom. I walked out to ask him to leave at which point he began to
assault me. He hit me on the face, upper arm and chest before the
Operations Director could intervene and chase the man out. As he left
he said in a nervous voice, "let's be peaceful man." The attack was
seen through the control room window by Moore and Public Affairs
director Djabel Faye and reported live as it happened. The look in the
eyes of the man who carried out this violent attack was that of a
glassy-eyed fanatic and in my own mind I blamed the apocalyptic and
self-serving propaganda of Amy Goodman as the real cause of the attack.
Understand that radio is a mass communications medium and lefty
politics in general attracts a wide range of folks, some not to stable,
with a wide variety of complaints against the status quo.
One example of how crazy the situation at WBAI had
become under the non-leadership of Van Isler were incidents of knife
and in one case a sword wielding intruder who claimed to be at the
station to "protect" various programmers, while they were on the air.
The chronic lack of security and door locks at WBAI put many workers in
fear of their own safety and contributed to the feeling that Van Isler
was incapable of running the station. Suggestions to install security
cameras were actually rejected by Leid early on, but after I was
assaulted in my workplace internal opposition to the cameras evaporated
and they were soon installed. The cameras are there to this day.
Soon after I was assaulted Amy Goodman attended a
meeting of the so-called Grassroots Radio conference where she gave a
long keynote speech about Pacifica. In that speech she singled me out
for condemnation, but without making any specific charges. I received a
call from a Pacifica employee who attended the meeting informing me of
Goodman's comments. Goodman picked me, although basically I was just a
part time newsreader, because of a brief comment I made on the air in
April 2001. The "Concerned Friends" and "Pacifica Campaign" folks were
holding a fundraiser at the Theater for A New City, a government funded
institution run by Crystal Field, an associate of Miguel Maldonado and
other WBAI LAB members.
The Theater is near my home and I walk by it every day
so I knew that the air rights above the Theater had been transferred to
a luxury condo developer. A very unpopular move in a neighborhood known
throughout the world as a bastion against gentrification. I also was
aware that there had been a horrible industrial accident at the site,
which has sparked a strike by one of the construction unions at work on
the building that soared 17 stories above the Theater. I mentioned the
strike in one of my radio newscasts and briefly added that it was the
same site as the Concerned Friends fundraiser. Shortly after that
report Goodman cornered me in the lobby of WBAI and raged at me for
making that comment. She questioned my motives for saying it, which
made me laugh because to me it was Goodman's motives for launching her
private little war against Pacifica that should have been questioned.
Since Goodman had been trying to couch her demands against Pacifica in
union terminology I knew from that moment on that Goodman would try and
get back at me in a personal and ugly manner and I prepared for the
worst.
Part of that preparation was to move WBAI towards more
effective union representation. Although WBAI had been represented for
years by the UE, I knew that they were a small and under financed union
that could not wage the battles necessary for change at WBAI. Among the
problems at WBAI was the lack of health insurance for all but a few
so-called "senior" producers, as well as the lack of pension,
retirement and other benefits that are offered by many businesses with
less progressive pretensions than WBAI. In fact the biggest struggle
waged by UE at WBAI was to include "unpaid" or volunteer staff in the
bargaining unit. A fight that was lost when the NLRB ruled that all
bargaining unit members must be paid. It didn't take long for me to get
the majority of WBAI's paid staffers to sign a petition inviting AFTRA
to represent us. I then called a staff meeting attended by AFTRA and UE
representatives. The AFTRA rep explained that they provided health
insurance to all workers in a unit, not just a few, while the UE rep
admitted his union had no plans to battle Pacifica in court over the
issue of including volunteers in the union.
Attending the meeting that I called was Amy Goodman, who
claimed UE membership as a former WBAI morning show host. Goodman was
the only person in the room to oppose switching to AFTRA. She claimed
that all the NLRB decision meant was that they wouldn't recognize our
bargaining agreement but that we could still make out own,
unenforceable, contract with Pacifica. This argument was quickly
rejected and the entire room, except for Goodman voted to go to AFTRA.
Soon after I became the first AFTRA Shop Steward at WBAI. However, when
Van Isler and White returned to WBAI in 2002 they fired me, along with
Faye and Moore. AFTRA filed a grievance with the NLRB, which was
eventually rejected. Interestingly the labor lawyer representing WBAI
was the former head of the local NLRB, which had initially supported
UE's contention that unpaid volunteers could be represented by the
union. However, despite these setbacks the staff at I can proudly
report that WBAI workers recently voted overwhelmingly to adopt an
AFTRA contract providing all WBAI employees with health insurance
benefit.
But my proudest achievement at WBAI was the tragic day
of September 11, 2001. It was election day and I had received a call
the night before from Santiago Nieves that he was ill and couldn't be
in that day, asking me to host the show. It so happened I was at a
friends house when we were visited by subway gunman Bernard Goetz who
was campaigning as independent for mayor of New York City. Although I
find Goetz's politics horrendous and the man himself to be of
questionable sanity the radical in me said he would be a perfect guest
to spark debate of the unspoken issues of race that underlay New York
City politics. Combining forces with Marjorie Moore and Dana Beal, who
was another invited guest we probed these sensitive and controversial
issues for more than an hour.
At a few minutes before 9 AM, I prepared to sign off and
bring up Democracy Now, which was at this time a taped program provided
by Pacifica, when the excited gestures of board engineer Eddie Soto
caught my eye. On the TV monitor, set to a local news station was the
burning north tower of the World Trade Center. Within minutes I had
announced the unfolding tragedy and was joined by News Director Jose
Santiago who was just arriving for work. From that point on WBAI, one
of few radio stations broadcasting from the antenna at the Empire State
Building and not the World Trade Center stayed on the air to provide
non-stop reporting on the attack. With the assistance of the WBAI's
staff, including the office workers, we reported as the south tower was
hit and as both towers collapsed. Events happening just a few blocks
away from our studios. At about 5:30 PM the power went out and police
evacuated us from the building. But the heroic efforts of WBAI's
engineers and the assistance of Gary Null and Armand DeMile had us
broadcasting again within 36 hours.
Most of the activity aimed against WBAI by Goodman and
her supporters abated for a while after the World Trade Center attacks.
The army had put the area around WBAI under martial law and the daily
harassments were more difficult to carry out. But, behind the scenes
the campaign against Pacifica continues until the Pacifica National
Board decided to resign. I attended one last meeting of the old Board
in Alexandria, Virginia in November 2001. By then Bessie Wash and
Utrice Leid had resigned and most of the Board members wanted out
themselves. That meeting was disgusting in the ugly, undemocratic
attacks perpetrated by Goodman' supporters, it was a low point in
Pacifica history to be unsurpassed until the first meeting of interim
Pacifica Board in January, 2002.
In Virginia, Goodman's sidekick and unofficial security
officer Denis Moynihan, who had spearheaded some of the worst attacks,
circulated a photograph of the head of AFTRA shaking hands with Juan
Gonzalez, then the co-host of Democracy Now. The apparent purpose of
the unauthorized photo was to demoralize the AFTRA organizing drive at
WBAI. At the meeting Mimi Rosenberg was seen lobbying Board member John
Murdoch trying to block approval of the AFTRA bargaining unit at BAI.
Later I went up to Murdoch and he referred to Mimi as that "crazy
woman," telling us that there was no way she could block approval of
AFTRA because the vote had already been taken, a unanimous vote of the
Board, a vote that included current Board chair Leslie Cagan had
already approved recognition of AFTRA.
Cagan says her goal is to establish a new system at
Pacifica that gives management responsibilities to each LAB, including
final say on all hiring, firing and program decisions. One of the first
motions made by the shadowy WBAI Committee that Cagan chaired prior to
her becoming iPNB chair was to demand the decertification of AFTRA's
WBAI bargaining unit. One point of a motion passed by the iPNB in
January 2002 specifically stated the Boards intent to provide time for
workers to select "a new union." This led AFTRA Assistant Executive
Director Ken Greene to publicly charge that Pacifica was "committing
unfair labor practices." These firings and other actions that seemed to
be targeting Pacifica's unionized employees are in direct conflict with
an order by the California judge, who worked out the settlement
agreement that brought in the iPNB, that there be no "bloodbaths" aimed
at Pacifica employees associated with the former regime.
Standing among the remains of those who were on the
receiving end of Bernard White's own bloodbath and WBAI, it's clear
that Lew Hill's mission has long ago faded away. White sits on top of
an organization that has ceded its role as a leading source of
progressive, intellectual and artistic expression to a group of low
brow malcontents slumming as the poor, dispossessed victims of
capitalism. The on air sound has been transformed to an unlistenable,
whining siren of hate, racism and ignorance that offers few
constructive solution to the world's problems. It's obvious that White
wants it this way and has no plans to program WBAI to serve the 20
million people in the station's listening area. WBAI is happy to hear
its own unchallenged voice, secure in the knowledge that no one else
cares enough to unseat producers who kiss up to White and his
associates because no one is listening. What a way to ensure that
audience-free programming will last for dominate the new century. Maybe
we've approached the time to rethink Pacifica and reestablish the
Foundation or let it die a merciful death.
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