A-Infos (en) `Dead Presidents Week' - Support Community Radio!

[Tom Burghardt <tburghardt@igc.apc.org>]

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     A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
           http://www.ainfos.ca/
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          * SAN FRANCISCO LIBERATION RADIO - 93.7 FM *
                       750 La Playa #852
                    San Francisco, CA 94121
                      Tel: (415) 750-1714
                     E-mail: sflr@slip.net
                Web: http://www.slip.net/~dove
                 - Friday, 13 February 1998 -
 
                              ----- 
 
          `February 16-20 -- SFLR Will Hold its 2nd...'
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       DEAD PRESIDENTS WEEK!!! ANNUAL FUND RAISING DRIVE!!
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                              * * *
 
     Dead presidents -- more and more of them! That's what we'll
be needing as we launch into our 2nd Annual "Dead Presidents
Week" fund raising drive Feb. 16-20 here at San Francisco
Liberation Radio.
     
     Pause a moment and consider what community radio means to
you. Over the past year on SFLR we have aired a number of
significant community events -- events which received scant or no
attention from the corporate owned media, but which we were able
to bring to our listeners in total and unedited.
     
     These include the Dec. 6 mobilization for Mumia Abu Jamal;
the Oct. 22 protest against police brutality; the Presidio
housing takeovers -- carried out by Homes Not Jails on July 26,
and by Religious Witness with Homeless People on April 19; and
the series of police commission meetings, from January to June,
which ultimately culminated in the firing of Officer Marc Andaya.
     
     Already in 1998, we have covered important demonstrations in
support of the EZLN. On Sunday, January 11, our microphones were
at 24th and Mission where, in a pouring down rain, we recorded
speech after speech denouncing the horrifying massacre in
Chiapas.
     
     In addition, we air regular weekly programs devoted to
animal rights, homeless issues, as well as a children's program
-- featuring stories designed to teach young ones an appreciation
and love for the planet.
     
     While we, ourselves, love bringing you this type of
programming -- and while we know the community is crying out for
more of it -- there are those who are busily at work, right at
this very moment, in an effort to shut down community stations
like ours. We'd like to draw your attention to the speech (see:
http://www.slip.net/~dove) made by Lee Ballinger, of Rock & Rap
Confidential, to the micro radio convention held a year and a
half ago in Oakland. Many of Ballinger's words -- regarding the
forces arrayed against micro radio and the measures we should
anticipate to be taken by those forces -- have proven prophetic.
That speech was given on November 9, 1996.
     
     In April of 1997 the National Association of Broadcasters
(NAB) held its annual convention in Las Vegas. The NAB is the
Washington lobbying arm of corporate-owned broadcast
conglomerates. At this convention speaker after speaker got up to
denounce micro radio and those of us who work in the medium. We
were referred to as "pirates" and even "crooks." Two Bay Area
stations were even singled out in particular: ourselves and our
sister station, Free Radio Berkeley.
     
     In attendance at this convention was a high-ranking official
from the Federal Communications Commission, Beverly Baker, chief
of the FCC's Compliance and Information Bureau.
     
     The micro radio movement was quite fortunate to have
obtained a tape of this nefarious convention. On the tape, NAB
officials can be heard pledging to work with Baker and her
friends at the FCC in their efforts to "nip this current spate of
pirate radio in the bud." Baker's words could only have been
pleasing to the ears of the NAB conventioneers: "We want them all
off the air," she told them.
     
THE PLOT THICKENS
     
     Later in 1997 the NAB issued an appeal to its member
stations all across the country to "seek out" unlicensed
broadcasters. According to Radio World magazine, "The NAB Radio
Board has adopted a resolution urging the FCC to take whatever
enforcement or judicial steps are necessary to terminate these
broadcasts."
     
     On Nov. 19, 1997, the FCC, apparently doing the NAB's
bidding, carried out armed raids against three micro radio
stations in the Tampa, Florida area. Doug Brewer, operator of one
of the raided stations, was held, along with his wife, at
gunpoint for 12 hours while federal agents ransacked their home
and confiscated their equipment. The task force thugs even
brought in a crane and dismantled the antenna tower on top of the
Brewers' house, tearing up part of the roof.
     
     Clearly the FCC is just itching to do the same thing here in
the Bay Area, however they have been temporarily stayed by a
federal court ruling by Judge Claudia Wilken, of the U.S.
District Court in Oakland. That ruling came down on Nov. 12 last
year -- ironically just one week prior to the Florida raids.
Shortly after the raids NAB president and CEO Edward Fritts made
the following statement: "We are delighted that federal
authorities have stepped up enforcement against pirate radio
stations. The NAB Radio Board in June asked for the FCC to focus
more attention on the growing number of unlicensed stations. We
commend the Commission for sending a strong message to broadcast
bandits that their illegal activities will not be tolerated."
     
     At the NAB's winter board meeting in Laguna Niguel, CA, the
organization's radio board passed a resolution urging the
Department of Justice to create a task force looking into the
problem of micropower broadcasting. "We stand ready to support
the government's effort to eliminate unlicensed radio broadcast
stations in the United States." The Florida raids have had a
predictably chilling effect on the micro radio movement.
     
     As a result stations have voluntarily shut down their
transmitters in New York, Boston and elsewhere. Here in the Bay
Area, we are fortunate to live a charmed life due to the federal
court ruling, which has given us some breathing room. Much of the
credit for our success in the courts so far goes to our attorney,
Louis Hiken, and the National Lawyers Guild's Committee on
Democratic Communications, who have undertaken this battle pro
bono. However, we are under no illusions about what the future
holds. The FCC is expected to appeal Judge Wilken's decision.
     
COUNTER CONVENTION PLANNED
     
     On April 6, 7, and 8 the NAB will once again hold its annual
convention in Las Vegas. This year, however, things will be
different. The micro radio movement will be holding a counter
convention there simultaneously. An illegal transmitter will be
set up, over which broadcasts will be made from a clandestine
location.
     
     Micro broadcasters from as far away as Florida and the East
Coast are expected to attend. At this year's convention, the NAB,
incredibly enough, plans to induct Rush Limbaugh into its Hall of
Fame. It has been suggested, perhaps only partly in jest, that
one endeavor of the counter convention may be to float, over
Vegas, a hot air balloon painted up like Rush Limbaugh, with a
transmitter underneath.
     
     We are indebted to the Shundahai Network, who will be
providing housing support in Vegas. Shortly after the micro radio
convention, Shundahai will be coordinating "Healing Global
Wounds," the spring gathering at the Nevada Test Site, April
10-13.
     
     San Francisco Liberation Radio would like to say thank you
to all of our listeners and supporters and we would like, also,
to ask for your help once again. To those of you who subscribed
during our Dead Presidents Week fund raising drive last year: we
encourage you to renew your subscriptions. If you have never
subscribed or made a donation to SFLR, we ask you to please
consider doing so now.
     
     A $50 donation will get you a San Francisco Liberation Radio
T-shirt, plus your choice of our broadcast tapes from either the
Dec. 6 mobilization in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal or the Jan. 11
protest in support of the Zapatistas.
     
     Please support community radio!!!!!
 
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        to subscribe e-mail Tom Burghardt <tburghardt@igc.org>
 
          ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
   ++++ if you agree copy these 3 sentences in your own sig ++++
  ++++ see: http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++


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