When it's time to bring the crazy, Doug Henwood calls on Lazar. In a little stunt that should get both of them banned from the Pacifica airwaves.
Lazar is stating too much money is wasted on the elections and endorsing (yes, that's what he's doing) not voting. What happens if enough people don't vote in this election?
Lazar knows this. He's apparently hoping you don't.
If an election doesn't have enough voters, another election has to take place. So the costs of two elections is his 'answer' to what to do?
Or three?
Or four?
Matthew was last pushing elections with I-Swear-I'm-A-Communist-Again-Now-That-I'm-Just-A-Programmer-Again Sasha Lily. He's not pushing them now.
Why?
Because of the money?
Hell no, he's a damn liar.
Matthew was on with Sasha a few years back pimping elections because he didn't like a certain slate of candidates. Those would be the ones that, yes, won. And now that Matthew can no longer take part in the Big Lie and help his Big Lie candidates win, he's taking his lost marbles home. Doug hates the same crowd Matthew does.
But he loves the Big Lies.
Such as when he insisted to Doug on Behind The News (it stank up WBAI and KPFA last week),
"My estimate -- and this is from audits -- the audits you can see on the finance page, it's actually an incomplete estimate, I think it's close to a million dollars, maybe more"
What he 'forgets' to tell you is that figure is based on two years. From two years, he extrapolates. He only had access to the 2004 and 2005 elections cost. But he wanted to insist that a million was spent. It may have been, it may not have been. But what is known is he's misled and misinformed audiences yet again.
Matthew used to love the elections. But then his people started losing. He told Doug last week that it was time to do away with the elections and just let these positions be appointed.
Appointed is now needed. In 1999, when Matthew's buddies were in danger of losing their jobs, Matthew was for elections. Now that Matthew's buddies have been exposed as gatekeepers and liars and so much worse, he wants to say, "I think that experiment has failed." Joe Stalin couldn't have been prouder if Matthew was his own son.
Freud noted the both the criminal's compulsion to confess and the practice of projection. With those two concepts in mind, read Matthew Lazar writing about 'others' who he feels walked away from Pacifica:
But there were less noble reasons for the abandonment of the cause. Various luminaries in media and the academy (Zinn; Ellsberg; Chomsky) offered rhetorical support to Pacifica democracy on behalf of individual Pacifica programmers and staff who were, in fact, just trying to save their jobs or shows at the stations. Not a few individuals who cheered the process on read the Pacifica fight less as a institution building project, and more as a metaphor for the larger corporatization of media. And the losers in the struggle -- those who supported the old regime -- certainly weren't going to lend a hand to Pacifica's reconstruction.
Wow. People just wanted to save their jobs back then? And their friends' jobs, eh, Matthew?
The elections, Matthew insists, have cost one million dollars! In the last six years! And do you know that Pacifica earned only $12.5 million in 2009, four million less than in 2008. Elections are killing Pacifica, insisted Matthew.
Uh, in a way they are. The 2008 election killed Pacifica. The corpse has yet to be brought back to life. Meaning, look for 2010 to show even more of a loss in donations.
Why?
Who the hell needs this crap?
This awful s**t that comes off like you've stumbled into a Communist cell's meeting. Only instead of Joe Stalin, it's Barack Obama.
Has a bigger stooge ever been whored so much?
Does the world really need Aimee Allison incessant garbage about how 'smart' Barack is and how wonderful and well meaning and blah, blah, bulls**t blah.
And she's only one whore working the corner. Don't forget Kris Welch, don't forget all of them. Pacifica is not Democratic Party radio. It did very well for many years (especially 2003 through 2006) by refusing to cheerlead any political party. Air America Radio appears to have proven that a Democratic Party organ does not make for successful radio. (Right-wing talk shows are not Republican Party organs. They show independence and call out their own party -- usually hectoring them to move more to the right, but the point is that they don't sit there praising and panting the way Rachel Maddow did repeatedly on Air America Radio.)
That's what hurt Pacifica.
People are sick of the s**t. They got sick of Pacifica in 2008. When station managers would endorse Barack Obama on air. They really thought that was the way to go? That people listening to Mya and Ralph each Tuesday open with "Brothers and sisters . . ." were really going to get on board with a mainstream, corporatist War Hawk? They got sick of Pacifica trafficking in sexist language -- first with Hillary Clinton and then with Sarah Palin. They took the lessons CounterSpin taught them about the MSM biases and noticed those same biases in Pacifica. For example, when the race for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination was down to Hillary or Barack, they saw the Pacifica 'national' special bring on one guest after another who endorsed Barack. They noticed that Hillary was savaged and attacked. This despite the fact that Pacifica owns stations in three states: California (two), New York (one) and Texas (one). In terms of Pacifica's actual roots, those areas went for Hillary. California and Texas both went for Hillary. But there was Pacifica attacking her non-stop.
And we weren't supposed to notice.
And we weren't supposed to notice that every damn day the Whitest of public radio networks was forever crying "Racism!" at any criticism of Barack -- be it political satire from The New Yorker or a member of Congress hollering "You lie!" at Barack. It was all and always racism, to hear Pacifica's smug self-stroking hosts yammer away. Funny thing though, they had little to be smug about. They had a huge audience and they ran it off.
They did so by becoming Whores For Barack.
Matthew Lazar won't tackle that reality.
Why should he? It's not going to help his friends. (It might get a few of them fired.) But he'll gladly insist -- in an Orwellian manner -- that the best way for KPFA, et al, to be democratic and fair is to do away with elections.
Matthew Lazar never needs to be brought on Pacifica again to discuss elections. And Doug Henwood has now entered Larry Bensky's Blow Hard status. Not only did he blow off the elections, he whined repeatedly on air after the Lazar segment about how he was forced to give time to the elections. It's time for Doug to leave the airwaves. Larry Bensky ran listeners off with all his whining about Pacifica and Doug's now spinning that tired record as well. Enough.
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*Jim note 7-2-2010, Doug Henwood advises us it's "Lasar." We knew that. Anyone using the link can find him (it goes to his site). We used "z" for a reason. Chances are Matthew knows why and, no, it's not a typo.