Against the Grain, for September 14, 2011 - 12:00pm
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Against the Grain with Sasha LilleyDownload this clip (mp3, 10.28 megabytes)
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Economic anthropologist and anarchist David Graeber speaks with Sasha Lilley about the politics of debt and how it conceals our social relations with each other.
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Apparently when a link does work it brings out folks with ADD, tilting away at one another on topics not aired on the program they heard. And we wonder why KPFA is said to be in trouble.
I've changed my mind. The KPFA News Department's reports on internal issues are one-sided and biased in favor of their own cronies.
KPFA fans: learn from yo mama (KPFA that is:) apparently livelinks work at times. so let's try this: for a fuller viewpoint than you will get by these senior (untouchable) "union" member who think they have the right to use listener/member money to fill "their" air with self-serving lies (not news) and then use trusting listeners' goodwill and favoring of unions to drum up support for fake "actions" that harm the other workers and network, go to www.supportkpfa.org , www.acrossthegreatdivide.org , and www.danielborgstrom.blogspot.com
You can get another take than what you have heard from "Save" KPFA et al at supportKPFA.org
Yes, there is another story than the one which says that the layoffs were politically motivated by bad people, that Pacifica did a hostile takeover of KPFA, and no truth that KPFA was about to go bankrupt. If this comment isn't taken down by the anti-spam program for having a link on it, check it out!
The board member defamed by this fake news headline -- NOT journalism -- is among the most responsive and transparency-advocating members on KPFA's board; she is among the few who can READ even the budgets thrown out by the Mericle Alfendary "team" to obscure and confuse; she spent hours sifting through every budget variation Alfendary's and Mericle's disinformation team could hoke up to waste resources, (hear any audio of a KPFA board meeting treasurer's report and comments by this targeted board member at www [dot]kpftx.org . Here's a good one http://www[dot]kpftx.org/archive.php#kpfa110820 -- where she obviously clarifies things for others, including the business manager whose report is incomplete; or listen instead to an archive of the national Pacifica Finance Committee (NFC). Better yet read the auditor's report for Pacifica for last year, PARTICULARLY the footnote, http://danielborgstrom[dot]blogspot.com/2011/03/links.html making clear that KPFA's financial mess threatened to bring down the entire network. Journalism? These "news" reporters have this targeted board member's contact info, but didn't bother to get another viewpoint aired. WHY ARE WE MEMBERS PAYING FOR THIS "NEWS" - often ripandread just like corporate? AND we are treated to this self-serving internal calculated DISinformation masquerading as "news"?
If you want access to more news about KPFA, Carrie Core was planning a call-in show called Talk It Up. Yes, we need more news about our station's governance! But unlike what we heard this morning such a show could/should present both sides. When the News Department reports on KPFA affairs, it has always been one sided. In this case, why did they not get a comment from Tracy herself? Tracy says she *was* available by cell phone, work phone or internet. There are also online sources for her side of it. Poor journalism.
She also points out that the petition was filed Saturday, and at that point, it was against the bylaws to publicize it on-air, in a one-sided campaign for it.
Wow!!!
Actual news about KPFA politics. My confidence in KPFA was just seriously revived!! Return sanity to the station, please.
An Observation About KPFA and The Use of the Air
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/11/10/18663827.php
Well, “Herb.” If your confidence in KPFA is revived by one-sided partisan attacks from Aileen Alfandary or Marc Mericle (“SaveKPFA”/”Concerned Listeners” partisans working with counterparts on KPFA and Pacifica’s governing boards) against anyone who disagrees, then you must also be a SK/CL partisan.
You must not be interested in genuine debate or journalistic integrity, as neither MM, nor AA, have presented in their “news” reports today both sides of this story engineered to undermine one of SK/CL’s rivals on the boards.
The notion that “Rosenberg was unavailable for comment” is fraudulent. The SK/CL faction has been disinforming its listeners for years now during their SK/CL-biased “news” reports. This was grossly noticeably during November of 2010 when SK/CL partisans abused the airwaves to promote their one-sided narrative about internal KPFA issues.
As one unpaid staffer noted:
“A ten year employee (unpaid staff woman of color) [Nadra Foster] is beaten by the police on the premises after KPFA calls them on her [for apparently photocopying some colouring sheets for her child] and KPFA deems it not worthy of coverage because it is an internal personnel issue (when if it occurred anywhere else they would have been all over it).
When a handful of employees at KPFA are laid off due to the inability to meet the payroll 6 weeks ago and in accordance with seniority rules - it is all over the air.”
My appreciation to both Sasha Lilley and David Graeber.
My Respects.
Thank you both.
Sasha's cogent and informed questions brought out the best in Graeber.
It was a pleasure to listen his Sasha stimulated penetrating and illuminating exposition of his historically sweeping narrative on the dynamics on debt, myth of barter, market creation, military verse organized religion social organization, credit vs coinage epics, and the consequences of the US's own recent switch to fiat currency.
This is all crucial fresh perspective that directly applies to the collective economic and political crisis crashing down upon us, ruining lives as I write and threatening what is left of our political freedoms.
Yet what I find among your other commentators is they bicker away at one another in this reply window, demeaning Graeber's message and diverting us from importance insights of this interview. While I am sure the issues you heatedly discuss are important to the the shape and survival of your station, it would be nice if you also looked up from your squabble on the deck of the Titanic and made note of the uncomfortably close iceberg off the bow.
However and unfortunately, your in-fighting is informative as to a MAJOR shortcoming in Graeber's own theoretical view. His alternative anarchist social order that he envisions replacing the present system assumes that non-hierarchical communalism will bond its members in a community of functioning happy campers. Sorry, but you all don't look that way from the outside, so you are damning evidence that more thought needs to go into that part of Graeber's solutions.
Moving on.
Sasha a friend in your area, Butler C, emailed as to what a stimulating feast it would be if someone could put together a discussion between Graeber and Dr. Michel Hudson of the U of Missouri. I agree.
Could you all do this?
Again, thank you for the fine interview.
Sam
Bangkok