Concerned Friends of WBAI condemns the escalating barrage of false and distorted accusations of violence, mounted by illegitimately installed Pacifica board members and managers, against community organizations, individual activists and radio programmers working nonviolently to return the network to its original mission. Pacifica's current efforts are clearly aimed at discrediting a growing, diverse national movement challenging the increasingly repressive direction and growing censorship by the current board and management.

We further condemn the repeated intrusions by Pacifica management on scheduled programming, sometimes without the permission or even notification of the host, in order to insert one-sided, self-serving propaganda, especially in light of the existing gag rule. We demand that equal time be granted to those individuals and organizations that stand falsely accused of serious misconduct.

We also reject that Pacifica management demonizes the Pacifica Campaign (Campaign to Stop the Corporate Takeover), an organization founded by former "Democracy Now!" co-host Juan Gonzalez to end the misdirection of this progressive, noncommercial network by corporate forces. We object to Pacifica management's attribution of all acts of resistance against their unjust policies to the Pacifica Campaign or any other single group or individual. Contrary to their charge that "a small group of individuals" is behind this effort, the reality is that a broad array of progressive organizations and individuals across the country have united, based on conscience and principle, to express diverse forms of protest —collectively involving thousands of people — against those policies.

We endorse the call by the Pacifica Campaign for a financial boycott of the network until its illegitimate board members are removed and progressive direction restored. We also endorse the Pacifica Campaign's call for organized, peaceful efforts to increase the pressure on those board members to resign. As the Pacifica Campaign has repeatedly stated in public, and as Concerned Friends now reiterates, those efforts should be nonviolent and not involve any racist, sexist, homophobic or other abusive or illegally harassing language or actions.

Adopted by the membership of Concerned Friends of WBAI at a general
meeting on March 28, 2001