Another public radio Pledge Week.

Save your money.  You're going to need it when Baucus-Obama cut your Social Security


KUFM's "pledge week" has become a Montana institution, or at least one which needs serious psychiatric (as well as journalistic) help.  I listen to the professional liars and bullies like William Marcus, telling us what a great thing KUFM and "Montana Public Radio" is for us (of course, it's great for Missoula), and how they need all this money to pay for the vital NPR propaganda, without which  the corrupt Baucus Machine and AIPAC Zionism couldn't exist. 

I've been following KUFM and its "evolution" since 1979, when I was a volunteer participant at a station which was little better than what we have, now, at KGPR - the Great Falls station.  But it did get enough to pay several salaries from UM, as well as all the other bills.  Basically, fund-raising (the goal of which, in 1979, was about $40,000 - say, $100-150,000 in today's money) was just to buy and produce local, independent programming, upgrade equipment, and to pay for the NPR programming which KUFM then used sparsely, and at little cost.  
Terry Conrad imagined himself a much better programmer of jazz than the NPR staff, although they did use Piano Jazz (Marian McPartland), and some classical programming from NPR like the late Fred Calland's, St Paul Sunday Morning, the LA Philharmonic (produced by KUSC), Chicago Symphony and Lyric Opera, (from the venerable WFMT), etc.  Terry had a degree in music education, and extensive commercial jazz station experience, and had worked in both Chicago and Detroit.  KUFM didn't even carry the Metropolitan Opera in those days, which was commercially syndicated to private FM stations, and thus unavailable in that market. 

That was also the time-frame when KUFM started paying its announcers, who were previously only volunteers, or work-study students, etc.  It was still mostly a university station, not "community radio" which we hear so much about (negatively) here in Great Falls.  And as such, it was intellectually elitist, somewhat "New Age" or counter-culture, and otherwise socially concerned and a major cultural hub and resource.  As soon as I saw how it worked, I returned to Great Falls with the goal of starting one, here, or even a commercial "fine arts" station like KFAC, Los Angeles, which I had learned to rely on, there.  (KUSC was just a student station, but at a very good music school, so they had programming I listened to in the late 1960's).  

This was the time when Minnesota Public Radio, KUSC, and some other major stations quit NPR and started American Public Radio (now American Public Media), but it was mostly about music and cultural programming, not hard news.  NPR has managed to maintain rigid control over news programming at least since the Bush Administration, when several of the more "liberal" or independent voices were summarily dismissed. 

KUFM does well on two counts - the BBC (which was itself gutted during the Thatcher years, and made worse by New Labor, which was even more "connected" to the imperialist enterprise), and a few local news and public affairs programs, or independent ones like Alternative Radio from Boulder, CO (KGNU, which I  participated in starting, but didn't stay long enough in Boulder to see it completed).  Where they don't do well is in broadcasting any Pacifica content, which they have tried from time to time (the Pacific News Service). There are hundreds of people who yearly ask them to carry Democracy Now!, and Mr. Marcus and Sally Mauk, the News Director, unilaterally refuse to do. Why is this permitted - for them to veto the most valuable program they could possibly carry?

Locally controlled and programmed public radio is like a public library or history museum.  It's at the very center of a community's cultural and intellectual life.  And I've spent the  last 30 years trying to get local people to understand and support that.  Those who did were immediately captured by the charm of KUFM's programming, while ignoring  Missoula's monoply control over our local finances, programming, and "market share". 

Some of them were UM alums, and thus thought it was a matter of keeping the Bobcats (and KUSM TV, which originated there) out of the Great Falls market.  If we "went independent", and broke away from KUFM, they would lose money, as well as political influence.  That's what it's about, and why I haven't sent a dime to KUFM for more than 20 years.  

As  for the Bobcat-Grizzly rivalry, that has been resolved with MT-PBS studios in Missoula, and much closer cooperation between the two "official" stations.  However, MSU still has a campus volunteer station, and their main NPR station is KEMC from MSU-Billings.  (Originally, of course, EMC was not part of MSU, which is another big part of the problem of monopoly centralization of our intellectual and cultural lives and resources).  

Great Falls is the one city  in the country which needs a local, honest, truthful source of public information and analysis.  We're a world-power - something like the 5th largest nuclear arsenal in the world, and the most easily deliverable.  We can literally destroy 150 or more cities in less than an hour - anywhere in the world.  And there are still people here  - lots of them - who think that's a good idea!  See what I mean about crazy?  

We haven't had a local newspaper since the 1960's.  The Tribune continues to mock and ridicule the few remaining progressives and independent thinkers who are trying to save our local economy, dismantle the nuclear doomsday machines, and preserve the environment which sustains us all.  We need a local, full-time public radio station, financed by mill levies like the Library and County museums.  We can raise all the rest of the money through our own "Pledge week" which we started in 2000, but thanks to Dan Rice and Frank Clinch, was illegally shanghaied and diverted back to Missoula or somewhere.  

Now is the time to do it.  Don't send any money from the 594 zip codes to Missoula.  Just hold on to it, and maybe we can find a few Great Falls people who want to take back the station which the paranoid  Republican nut-jobs and Griz fans stole from us.