Immanuel Ness defines “workers’ control as something that is innate to the working-class. It is part of the aspirations of working people to control their own labour and labour power, which has been traditionally controlled under capitalism by business, and that workers themselves want to have a democratic ability to determine what to produce, how to produce it, and how that wealth is shared in equal fashion.”

As Immanuel Ness defines workers' control, one is struck by the irony of Sasha Lilley's (and her "SaveKPFA"/"Concerned Listeners" clique’s) own opposition to unpaid workers (KPFA Unpaid Staff Organization or UPSO) at KPFA having a democratic say in decision-making and opposition to collective, democratic due process in programming with regard to the KPFA Program Council (as evidenced by her years of autocratic decision-making as interim Program Director) as well as Lilley’s and her SK/CL clique's general top-down style of internal KPFA decision-making.

As Nora Barrows-Friedman (former KPFA Flashpoints Producer), who was squeezed out by Lilley’s ally and former KPFA interim General Manager Lemlem Rijio (with the personal approval of former Pacifica interim Executive Director Grace Aaron), has noted at a rally in front of KPFA December 17, 2009, there exist

“dozens of documents proving that [Lilley] has launched attack after attack, over her three-year tenure as [interim Program Director], on Flashpoints. And we have filed union grievances that have never been picked up or followed through with. Sasha then told me the petition that we have gotten wonderful people across this world, activists, scholars, thinkers, Michael Parenti [standing nearby] was one of the signatories, saying that they will boycott KPFA, they will not be interviewed, they will not allow their work, their books, their DVDs, their speeches, to be played or offered during KPFA’s fund drives if Flashpoints is not restored, including Michael Parenti, Noam Chomsky, Ali Abunimah, Howard Zinn, Anthony Arnold, Dahr Jamail, Boots Riley, Chris Hedges, Dr. Richard Falk, the U.N. Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Palestinian Occupied Territories, Peter Phillips, and Mickey Huff, and Catherine Austin-Fitts have all signed on to this. What it basically told me is that they [the patronage clique at KPFA] are all cowards (http://blip.tv/laborvideo/kpfa-flashpoints-producers-speak-out-on-attack... ).”

Oh, the irony one senses listening to Lilley interview guests about workers’ control and rights to self-governance.

And, of course, we can't forget Lilley's clique’s support for the CWA Local 9415 union, which opposed representing KPFA's unpaid workers, whereas the previous United Electrical, Machine and Radio Workers union had represented all KPFA workers, paid and unpaid, prior to the SK/CL clique’s manoeuvring to install the CWA Local 9415 union, favourable to the senior staff patronage clique’s top-down concentration-of-power style of KPFA governance.

This patronage clique at KPFA, to which Lilley belongs, goes back for decades within KPFA, currently using the moniker of “SaveKPFA” and promoting itself through two anonymous websites (SaveKPFA and KPFAWorker), although it previously used the monikers of “Concerned Listeners” and “KPFA Forward.” It seems, each time the KPFA patronage clique’s moniker becomes publicly associated with its faux-progressive, anti-democratic practices the patronage clique, beholden to a faction of the Democratic Party (WDRC), must change its name to renew any sense of progressive credibility among KPFA listeners.

At first glance, one may think, but aren’t Against the Grain, Sasha Lilley, and her KPFA patronage clique progressive?

To an extent, but the true political agenda of KPFA’s patronage clique reveals itself when one attempts to find meaningful critique on SK/CL programmes, such as Against the Grain, regarding things like the Democratic Party, Israel, Zionism, and so forth. The same applies when one attempts to find meaningful discussion of third-parties, current radical grass-roots activism, political prisoners, and so forth. The new programming by The Morning Mix is a welcome exception to the rule of the patronage clique’s former predominance of editorial direction at KPFA. And, of course, programmes like “Flashpoints” have long been targeted by the KPFA senior paid staff patronage clique and former SK/CL management at KPFA, as evidenced above.

Another case in point, on the recent issue of the Verizon Workers strike, the Gomperist union bosses essentially betrayed striking Verizon workers by suddenly ending the strike, just as it was picking up steam and broader appeal among the labour community and general public. Although, Lilley interviewed Steve Early on Against the Grain (8/24/11), Lilley skirted over the issue of the role of the Democratic Party in undermining rank-and-file driven union solidarity in the face of ongoing efforts by capitalist elites to erode union power. And, yet, Lilley makes sure to plug her allies: “And I should add that the Communication Workers of America happens to be the union of KPFA’s paid workers as well.” Lilley should have mentioned CWA’s opposition to representing unpaid workers, which constitute the bulk of KPFA’s workers.

Tellingly, Lilley never questioned what’s to become of the suspended striking Verizon workers abandoned by their Gomperist union bosses now that the strike has been ended or how they’re “being singled out by the company [and] are being chosen not because they had anything to do with vandalism or sabotage, but because they were militant and outspoken workers or actively seeking to block strike-breakers from entering Verizon buildings.” (http://romanticpoet.wordpress.com/tag/unions-verizon-strike-workers-aban... )

“The unions have called off the strike without securing the reinstatement of workers suspended by the company for alleged strike-related activities or the dropping of charges against workers arrested on the picket line. (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/aug2011/pers-a22.shtml )”

Lilley may talk a good game on the air about radical politics from a historical perspective, but when it comes to making the crucial connections to current events on the ground with any immediacy, in keeping with the finest traditions of Pacifica’s Mission or freedom fighters like Martin Luther King, Jr. or Malcolm X, the patronage clique at KPFA and its talking heads are counter-productive.

See "How KPFA's Unpaid Staff Got Screwed, Blued and Tattoed - The Sad Story" (http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/09/02/18657489.php)

Other useful sources include

http://sfbayview.com/2010/stealing-save-kpfa/

http://www.mefeedia.com/watch/33058170

http://supportkpfa.org/

http://sites.google.com/site/therealsavekpfa/

http://kpfa.blogspot.com/

http://www.voteindyradio.org/

http://danielborgstrom.blogspot.com/

http://www.voicesforjusticeradio.org/

http://peoplesradio.net/

http://www.freestone.com/kpfa/

http://www.examiner.com/cultural-trends-in-sacramento/stealing-save-kpfa