[Imc] FWD: [Fwd: HEARD ON BAI: Mumia Abu-Jamal on the WBAI Coup]

[jacobs]

>===== Original Message From dmarger at pratt.edu =====
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Bob Lederer <ledererbob at usa.net>
To: "Free Mumia:;" <Free Mumia:;>
Subject: HEARD ON BAI: Mumia Abu-Jamal on the WBAI Coup

PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY

Very exciting news--Mumia weighs in on the Pacifica crisis! The
following statement was read on WBAI by Elombe Brath (of the Patrice
Lumumba Coalition) on his Afrikaleidoscope program tonight around 10
pm, and again by John Riley of the CD Committee of the Free Mumia
Coalition, who called in and read it on Bob Fass's show at around
12:30 a.m. And the statement has already been posted on several
list-servs and websites, including at
http://savewbai.tao.ca/savewbai00157.html


>Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 15:49:40 -0800
>Subject: {FP} Mumia Abu-Jamal on the WBAI Coup
>Sender: owner-freepac at recordist.com
>
>WBAI: THE COUP ON WALL ST.
>By Mumia Abu-Jamal, M.A.
>#492 Column Written 1/29/2001
>All Rights Reserved
>
>Information is the raw material for new ideas; if you get
>misinformation, you get some pretty fu---d-up ideas.
>-- Eldridge Cleaver, former Minister of Information,
>Black Panther Party
>
>With late-night lock changes, and a phalanx of security guards
>prowling the halls, the coup of WBAI-FM, the flagship station of the
>Pacifica Network,has begun.
>
>Popular veterans of the listener-supported station, like program
>manager Bernard White and WBAI union shop steward Sharan Harper,
>(both producers of the morning "Wake Up Call" show) received letters
>of termination at their homes several hours before their shifts were
>to begin.  WBAI general manager, Valerie Van Isler, who, like White,
>was a 20-year vet of the station, was similarly fired by Pacifica,
>ostensibly for failing to accept a position at network headquarters
>in Washington, D.C.
>
>While these firings were attempts to remove, and thereby install,
>management personnel, it was also an opening salvo in a pitched
>battle designed to silence radical dissent, and open the airwaves
>to the corporatization of WBAI.
>
>If you want WBAI to become a nice, sweet, safe alternative, like NPR,
>then do nothing.  It will happen.  If, however, you want to continue
>to hear about the struggles of the peoples of the world for liberty,
>for life, for dignity, as in East Timor; or of the noble life and death
>struggle of the zapatistas in the mountains of Mexico; or of cases like
>the slaughter of African immigrant Amadou Diallo; or of the continuing
>human rights violations occurring every day in the nation's burgeoning
>prison-industrial complex, then you must fight for it, as you would fight
>for your very life, or anything dear to you.
>
>The great Frederick Douglass perhaps put it best when he said,
>"Without struggle there is no progress."  If the various communities
>of New York and northern New Jersey don't struggle for their vision
>of WBAI-FM, it will be gone.  It's as simple as that.
>
>What's happening at 'BAI was attempted a year ago at KPFA-FM in
>San Francisco.  The people of the Bay Area rallied in unprecedented
>strength--over 10,000 folks at one protest -- and backed the Pacifica
>board down. Listeners to 'BAI must do no less!
>
>In theory at least, the airwaves belong to the people. For the last
>40 years, the staff and local management of WBAI have tried to make
>that theory in America a reality.
>
>If you are thrilled by the no-holds-barred radio reporting of
>"Democracy Now's"
>Amy Goodman, who is constantly threatened and harassed by the
>Pacifica board for her radical reporting, then fight for her.
>
>For in fighting for her, you fight for the finest traditions of
>WBAI, and against
>the corporationists who want to turn a national resource into just another
>commodity.
>
>To keep it raw; to keep it real, you've got to fight for it.  (c)MAJ 2001
>
> ****************************************************************
> This column may be reprinted and/or distributed by
> electronic means, but only for non-commercial use, and
> only with the inclusion of the following copyright information:
>
> Text (c) copyright 2001 by Mumia Abu-Jamal. All rights
> reserved. Reprinted by permission of the author.
>
> Get Mumia's columns by email: http://www.MumiaBook.com
> *********************************************************************
> Mumia Abu-Jamal is the author of three books:
> 'Live from Death Row', 'Death Blossoms', and 'All Things
> Censored'. A new biography, 'On A Move: The Story of
> Mumia Abu-Jamal', is available at www.MumiaBook.com
>=========================================>
>
>
>
>-
>/*This message comes via the freepac list. */

Bob Lederer
Freelance journalist
ledererbob at usa.net

James R. Jacobs 
Graduate Reference Assistant 
Education/Social Science Library
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign                        
Home: 303B1 Paddock Drive  
Savoy, IL 61874           
(217)359-9283
jacobs at uiuc.edu
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