Top Stories: Maverick Media Reader Favorites

Here are the most-read articles published on this site from 2008 to 2019, based on pageview statistics from blogspot.com. Most of them were also published on other websites, including Center for Global Research, Toward Freedom, VTDigger, ZNet, Truthout, AlterNet, and Common Dreams. However, this list doesn’t consider statistics from other sites. Maverick Media posts have more than 300,000 views. 

Two of the most popular stories have had staying power for several years - on psychopaths and Lockheed Martin in Vermont. Until recently "Remembering MLK" was also near the top; it’s an unusual take on the Civil Rights leader's death and a woman from his "secret" life. "Do Psychopaths..." is a wide-ranging "rant" originally developed for radio.
     The new #2 article looks at Jane Sanders' impact on Burlington College, which closed in 2016 after a disastrous land deal. Several posts on this site have focused on Bernie Sanders, but the one on his relationship with Sandia Labs, a Lockheed Martin subsidiary, went viral as he launched his presidential campaign. Also widely viewed is an article focusing on Bernie's first victory and accomplishments as Burlington mayor, expanded from my book, The People's Republic: Vermont and the Sanders Revolution

   

Companion website

Perennially popular are chapters from Prisoners of the Real like "Fear Factors," on counter-terrorism and disinformation in the late 1970s. It's especially satisfying to continue seeing key chapters from Prisoners of the Real on the list, along with its table of contents. Recent additions to the Top Ten include a look at the potential of a Progressive-Libertarian movement and “It Can Happen Here,” on the threat of a modern form of "friendly fascism." On companion site Preservation & Change, a study of Burlington College, Campus Paradise Lost, tops the list.

Why Jane Sanders Left Burlington College
Campus Paradise Lost
Remembering MLK: Death, Life & Secrets

Do Psychopaths Misrule Our World?

How Lockheed and Sandia Came to Vermont
Progressive Eclipse
Prisoners of the Real (Cover/Content Page)
Deconstructing Archetypes (from Prisoners of the Real)

Fear Factors: Staging Terrorism for the Cameras 
Is a Progressive-Libertarian Movement Possible? 
Tipping Point: Burlington's Progressive Revolution 
It CAN Happen Here: Meet Friendly Fascism
Lost Horizons: Pacifica Radio
Post-Modern Uncertainty
Imperial Ways: Smedley Butler

VERMONT FOCUS

Burlington Mayor James Burke’s allies considered him honest and fearless, driven by civic pride and a sense of duty. His political enemies questioned his motives and called him a demagogue. He sometimes called them “corporate interests” or “foreign capitalists.” This series of essays about the Queen City's early progressive era is excerpted from The Vermont Way, a multi-platform history of Vermont. 

Fake News Is Focus of UVM Talk and New Book

BURLINGTON —  On March 15, Vermont-based author and activist Greg Guma will discuss “Journalism In the Era of Fake News” at the UVM Alumni House, presented by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. The presentation will cover many of the themes in his new book, which was released in February. 

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This is Guma’s tenth book. Fake News: Journalism in the Age of Deceptions is brief, but takes on a large and timely topic — the challenges confronting journalism in a post-modern era characterized by fraud and scandal, questionable elections, corrupt leaders, and phony news. It argues that sophisticated tools have been used for years by governments and private interests to promote false or misleading stories, messages and narratives. But when people repeatedly exposed to lies are confronted with the truth, too many double down and believe the lies even more. 

Topics in the book and upcoming talk include the recent weaponizing of the term “fake news”; hoaxes, fabricated stories and false flag operations throughout history; the use of perception management strategies by governments and private interests; election manipulation and post-truth problems; the dangers of polarization and how people can avoid living in a bubble. One of the incidents revisited in the book is a 1978 disinformation campaign in Vermont.

A previous book by Guma, The People’s Republic: Vermont and the Sanders Revolution, was cited in coverage of Bernie Sanders during the 2016 election. The author was a frequently quoted source, learning first-hand how national journalists develop and shape narratives. In 2015 he was a candidate for Burlington mayor. Guma’s background in journalism dates back to work as a daily newspaper reporter and photographer in the late 1960s, and ranges from editing periodicals like the Vermont Vanguard Press, Toward Freedom and Vermont Guardian to managing the national Pacifica radio network.  

In 2003, the University of Vermont received initial funding from the Bernard Osher foundation to establish lifelong learning institutes that provide courses and programs for Vermonters age 50 and over. Three years later, the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute was permanently established at UVM. Other Institutes offer non-credit courses and programs at affordable prices in nine Vermont communities.

To attend “Journalism in the Era of Fake News,” visit OLLI’s website at http://learn.uvm.edu/olli,  or contact Lora Phillips at 802-656-2085 or uvmolli@uvm.edu. Guma will speak at 5:30 p.m. in the Pavilion of the university’s Alumni House at 61 Summit Street. Enrollment and seating are limited.

Fake News: Journalism in the Age of Deceptons can be sampled or purchased for any electronic device. An illustrated paperback edition was released on Feb. 27. 

GO TO QUOTES 

Enemy of the State: A Dons of Time Excerpt

"Well-constructed, action-flooded sci-fi set in a realistic historical world." - Kirkus Reviews

This is an excerpt from Greg Guma's novel, Dons of Time, available from Fomite Press, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble. To read the conclusion, Enemy 2

Emerging from the airport baggage claim late the following afternoon he crossed to the taxi stand for a lift into town. It would be only minutes to the Hilton and a comfortable room with a commanding view of the waterfront and Lake Champlain. But then he heard his last name being called and noticed a wiry-haired kid holding a cardboard sign with the word “Wolf” on it.

“I’m Wolfe,” he said, “Tonio, or T. You here for me?”

“I guess so,” the kid shrugged, “this way.” He grabbed Tonio’s bag without asking and led him into the parking garage, boarding the elevator for the top. When they emerged and Tonio saw the vehicle, a faded blue cargo van more than two decades old, he began to suspect he’d made a mistake. Before he could do anything, the side door slid open and three more young guys with scarves over their faces invited him inside.

“I hope you’re with Harry.”        

Rather than answer they handed him a scarf and asked him to blindfold himself. “Just for now,” one of them apologized. These definitely weren’t Shelley’s people; their greeting would not have been so civil. The government was also out. It didn’t use rusty vans or operatives who dressed like hippie Zapatistas. This had to be Harry. Still, why the drama? Despite his explanation over the phone it didn’t compute.

The ride took two hours, at first on paved streets and the Interstate, then on local roads, and several minutes at the end over rough gravel and dirt. When the van finally rolled to a stop and it was time to remove the blindfold, he could have been anywhere from the Canadian border to New Hampshire.

Harry was waiting at the cabin door. He had always enjoyed costumes and preferred facial hair. This day he looked like a cross between a pirate and a panda. “You have questions, I know,” he announced. “Thanks for coming.”

“It better be good.” Tonio shook his hand and followed.

The cabin was larger and more functional than it looked from the driveway, part tech center, part mountain retreat. Computer terminals covered one wall, screens running data, charts, and video streams. Three college-age hackers monitored them. The rest of the main room was taken up by a large oak table, several couches and thrift shop chairs, a hard-working woodstove, all facing several unmarked doorways and an archway that opened onto the communal kitchen. 

Harry flopped down in a ratty lounge chair, and said, “It was necessary, believe me. Not on my end, in this case. We have good reasons to play it safe with you, my friend. You may already be a person of interest.”

“That’s extreme,” Tonio objected, “but I do believe Shelley had a tail on me.”

“That’s not what worries me.” He pointed up with a finger, as far as Tonio knew meaning either God or spy satellites.

“What does worry you? More to the point, what’s happened to you, man? Last I knew you were a radio personality.”

“A personality, right, I remember when I had one of those,” Harry mused. “Last time I saw you we were about to take over Seattle, right? Blocking the WTO, now that was a demo. Things looked promising in ‘99, didn’t they?  Even after the coup – that’s what I call W’s first term – we totally derailed that FTAA deal in Quebec. But they were already starting the crackdown. After the attacks…well, you know that story, Patriot Act, wiretapping, secret searches, the whole deal. Plus, for the first time the CIA gets a direct role in deciding who gets rounded up or hit. It was the first stages of drone justice.”

That still didn’t explain why he was hiding in the woods, and Harry knew it.

“I was operating above ground then,” he reminisced. “But things were changing. It was an eavesdropping bonanza. The intelligence budget hit $60 billion after 9/11 and thousands of new private contractors got into the game. It was a very lucrative club in a very growing industry. And Fort Meade, that was the Gold Rush zone for masters of the data stream.

“I still had the show then. But instead of the usual stuff I started talking about the surveillance state, what the government was really up to. Big mistake as it turns out. In 2007 I tried to board a flight to DC and found out I was on a no-fly list.” After more than an hour of interrogation Harry was released. But not his laptop, cell phone, camera and USB drive. 

As Harry outlined the rest of his path from radio host to underground man Tonio heard more than he wanted about Crystal City and the Wiretappers’s Ball, a secret annual gathering where experts shared their latest toys and competed to create the ultimate bugging device. Harry had managed to infiltrate it and bring out pictures. He also talked on the air about Verint Systems and Narus, major private eavesdropping operations that reached most of the planet. They made it easier to block websites considered politically or culturally threatening to those in power.

The next flashpoint for Harry came after the Democrats capitulated on amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. He explained that the changes gave the telecoms legal immunity while providing a go-ahead for the NSA to target almost anyone classified as a terrorist. Obama, who was running for President at the time, opted to support the amendments. Once he was in office, the move toward mass surveillance launched almost a decade earlier continued to escalate. Obama’s Justice Department invoked “state secrets” to stop citizens from suing the government for spying on them. In fact, it argued that the feds had immunity from litigation for any surveillance that violated the law.

“You thought I was being ridiculous about emails, right?” Harry reminded him. “There’s a reason, Sherlock, the CIA. They’ve invested heavily in Visible Technologies, which analyzes social media. It can look into half a million websites a day. But the biggest reason we’re here, instead of enjoying room service on your tab, is because in 2010 they demanded all the visitor information from Truthsquad. I mean everything, and we weren’t supposed to tell anyone about it under penalty of prosecution for impeding a federal investigation.

“The IFC – that’s the Internet Freedom Center – challenged the subpoena.” He was winding down. “But it was obvious where this was heading. They’d already jailed Bradley Manning for the Wikileaks cables and Julian was under house arrest. The handwriting was on the wall. It was only a matter of time ‘til that knock on the door and I’m a suspected cyber-terrorist. That was two years ago, shortly before we set up here. Just in time it turns out, since now I’m on the terrorist screening database. Drone bait -- if they ever find me outside the country.”

“But we’re safe and secure?”

“Like a frog’s ass, baby. Acoustic dampening, the latest in encryption. We just added self-destructing e-mails and encrypted cell phone calls, anything you send digitally. By next year there will be a commercial self-destruct app on the market, but ours is better. My rule of thumb is either that the message is destroyed after it’s read, or else no more than an hour or two after sending it goes poof, like Mission Impossible. But your current security, not so great.”

Considering what he had just heard Tonio wasn’t surprised Harry felt that way.

Stay in touch for the conclusion of this chapter. Like Dons of Time on Facebook.

Battling Bernie Has Never Been Easy

Thirty years ago Sanders also challenged a woman  

"Win Some, Lose Some," Chapter 20 
The People's Republic: Vermont and the Sanders Revolution 

By Greg Guma

Madeleine Kunin was offended. She was being judged unfairly, she told the reporter from the Village Voice. Along with dozens of other writers, James Ridgeway was looking for insights into the race between Bernie Sanders, the Vermont "neosocialist," and Kunin, the "neoliberal."

The governor protested this classification. "You can't have the strategies that were true in the 60s or even 70s: simply spending money," she explained. "You've got to be accountable for every cent. You have to leverage the private sector and get them involved... I consider myself to be in the mold of governors like Dukakis, Cuomo, and to some extent Robb who is more conservative."

It was vintage Kunin -- cautious and firmly in the middle of the road. For years already she had lived with the nickname Straddlin' Madeleine and had learned to make the best of it. Elected a state representative, she proved herself as a strong chairperson of the House Appropriations Committee and defeated Peter Smith, Vermont's preppy Republican version of Robert Redford, to become lieutenant governor. After four years in Governor Richard Snelling's shadow, she challenged him in 1982 in her first gubernatorial run and lost. 

But Kunin didn't straddle when it came to setting goals or building a personal organization. In the 1984 election, with Snelling temporarily retired, she squeaked into office over Attorney General John Easton, becoming Vermont's first female chief executive, and began to set her own agenda.

In many ways, Kunin was an archetypal moderate: she favored social programs but fiscal conservatism. To progressives, her support of feminist and labor issues seemed weak and equivocal, yet she used her first term to bring women into state government and to prove, just as Sanders had done in Burlington, that being different -- in her case, female -- didn't mean she was incompetent. When it came to keeping the state in sound financial shape or protecting water quality, she could be as strong as Sanders and Snelling.

But Kunin was no world-shaker. She shied away from raising the minimum wage or demanding that corporations give notice before closing down plants. She wanted nuclear plants to be safe, but she didn't think they should be shut down "overnight." In the estimation of Sanders and his Rainbow backers, Kunin was just another "lesser evil"; supporting her would not be worth losing the chance to expand the Progressive base. If a Sanders run meant that Smith would be elected, so be it -- he would be only marginally different from her.

"If you ask her where she stands," said Sanders of Kunin, "she'd say, in the middle of the Democratic party. She's never said she'd do anything. The confusion lies in the fact that many people are excited because she's the first woman governor. But after that there ain't much."

Kunin was not much kinder to her socialist opponent. "I think he has messianic tendencies," she told Ridgeway. "That's not uncommon in politicians. But it does mean he dismisses everyone else's alternative solutions... His approach is always to tear down. But I think you can make progress and change for the better by working within the structure... A lot of what he says is rhetoric and undoable... He has to create a distinction between us, and to do that he has to push me more to the right, where I really don't think I am. I don't think it's fair. He's not running against evil, you know."

The third player, Smith, had some kind words for Kunin. "She's a good person," he said, "she's got some commitment." But he also felt that she was a case of "vision without substance." In Sanders, Smith saw passion, confusion, and noise. "If Bernie were as gutsy and honest as he says he is, he'd run as a Socialist," charged the Republican. "He is a socialist! That's why he went to Nicaragua.That's why he goes to Berkeley."

But if Sanders was a noisy neosocialist and Kunin was an empty vessel, what did that make Smith? He had begun his career as an educational reformer, launching Community College of Vermont. But his liberal leanings didn't prevent him from joining the Republicans; he supported first Bush, then Reagan, in 1980. He was intelligent and a creative thinker, and yet willing to play the compliant foot-soldier in Reagan's conservative revolution.

Kunin didn't view either of her opponents as devils, but she was concerned about how to survive the campaign, particularly the series of public debates that would give Sanders his best opportunity to win more votes. On the podium, she realized, nobody in Vermont did it better than the mayor.

Her press secretary, Bob Sherman, contacted me early in the summer. He knew I wasn't in Sanders' camp this time, and he wondered whether I would be available to help Kunin prepare for her debate ordeal with a rehearsal. The idea was to stage a mock debate between the governor and stand-ins for her two challengers. Would I be able to "play" Bernie? The offer was irresistible.

We met in a Montpelier "safe house," accompanied by key staff members. Democratic legislator Peter Youngbaer had prepared himself to be Smith; I had reviewed recent Sanders speeches and tried to unravel the magic of his style. With a video camera recording our face-off, we tackled environmental, tax, and development issues. Kunin's problem, I discovered, was her preoccupation with details. She often answered questions by trying to explain the thinking that led to her policy choice rather than by simply taking a strong stand. Bernie's strength, in contrast, was his ability to turn any question to his own advantage -- even if that meant ignoring it -- in order to get his point across.

In the end I summed up with some classic Sanderisms. "In my view, the Reagan administration has been a disaster for Americans," I barked. "We are planning to spend a trillion dollars on Star Wars and hundreds of millions to overthrow the government of Nicaragua while, in Vermont, we don't have enough money to adequately fund education or social services. That has to change.

"The other candidates think we can just say a lot of nice things and tinker here and there to make everything okay. I don't. I believe we need fundamental change, and that the governor of Vermont should be leading the fight. We can be the conscience of the nation. We don't have to settle for Reagan's insanity or the indecision of the Democrats."

Afterward, when Kunin saw her image on the screen, she was a bit shaken. "Sanders" and "Smith" had won some points, while she had been tedious and indecisive. Yet she balked at the suggestion that she challenge Sanders if he went on the attack, arguing, "He's not the enemy."

To support Kunin over Sanders was, of course, progressive heresy. Even  those who felt he was authoritarian could see no reason to support his Democratic opponent. As labor organizer Ellen David-Friedman put it, "Challenging the system is considered a better goal than maintaining the status quo." 

Queen Madeleine, Preppie Peter, and Lord Bernie -- the nicknames created by columnist Peter Freyne were apt descriptions of Vermont's new political royalty. Each was an established star with a proven popular base. But Sanders' early boast that he was "running to win" was soon revised by his campaign organizers. A July poll put the Lord of Burlington at a mere 11 percent statewide, while the Queen, also a Burlingtonian, had 53, well outdistancing Preppie.

By October, the Sanders campaign, if not the candidate himself, had lowered its sights to seeking a respectable 20 percent. Within his organization, feelings were frayed and hopes disappointed. Writing in the Guardian, a radical newsweekly, Kevin Kelley explained that even David-Friedman, who had managed the campaign for several months, felt it hadn't become a grassroots movement. "Bernie had trouble," she said, "recruiting activists and contributors who had been involved in his previous campaigns. Some of them felt it was the wrong race to be running, and others thought it was more important that he stay in Burlington to consolidate the gains we had made there."

She also noted that "middle-class progressives" weren't enthusiastic since Sanders wasn't organizing but simply running. "Bernie acts in a way that's similar to [Jesse] Jackson in terms of focusing more on a candidacy and less on an organization," she felt. She was still committed to his campaign, but she acknowledged his limitations. In a public letter to the left two weeks before the election, she praised Sanders' leadership but scored his resistance to accountability or organization.

Murray Bookchin, a libertarian socialist thinker and leader of the emerging Green movement, was more blunt. "Bernie's running a one-man show," he said. "The only justification for a socialist campaign at this point is to try to educate people, and Sanders isn't doing that at all. Instead, he's running on the preposterous notion that he can get elected as governor this year."

In truth, however, Sanders was running on issues as well: reducing reliance on the property tax, a more progressive income and corporate tax system, lowering utility bills, raising the minimum wage, and phasing out Vermont Yankee, among others. It was basically the same thrust he had always pushed -- redistribution of income and wealth. But neither his reform program nor his powerful speaking style were enough to overcome the barriers in his way. His opponents could still outspend him, and his own ranks were split.

Working with Patrick Leahy, who was fighting Snelling to keep his US Senate seat, Kunin staged an impressive get-out-the-vote effort. It was the most sophisticated voter-identification program in state history. With unemployment at a record low and no state deficit, she had economics on her side. On Election Day, Kunin failed to win 50 percent of the vote, but she left both her opponents well behind and was dutifully confirmed by the legislature.

Sanders came away with 15 percent -- far less than he had been hoping for, but nevertheless remarkable. Running as an Independent, he had established a solid base, and his percentage was far too big to be simply a protest vote. But it wasn't just the total that was significant, noted Chris Graff, Vermont's Associated Press bureau chief. "It is the fact that it came from the conservative hilltowns, the Republican strongholds, the farm communities." Sanders had, in fact, won his highest percentage in the conservative Northeast Kingdom. Once again he had touched a chord and transcended traditional lines.

(Originally published in 1989)

TV Time: Nixon and the Early Magic of the Tube

Although television had been around for decades, sets weren’t widely available until after World War II. At that point at least 70 new stations immediately went on the air. But the Federal Communications Commission quickly realized that the 11 available TV channels on the VHF band wouldn’t meet the expected demand and therefore put a four year freeze on new station licenses until it could sort things out. As a result, TV remained an infant medium until the FCC authorized dozens of ultra-high frequency (UHF) channels and lifted the freeze in 1952. 

By then, 15 million TV sets were in use and manufacturers were rushing to get more inexpensive models into as many private homes as possible.

The impacts were rapid, widespread and profound, breaking down social barriers, giving children an early glimpse of the adult world, demystifying relations between the sexes, and changing entertainment habits. But TV also posed a serious economic threat to radio and put hundreds of movie theaters out of business.

Combining visuals and sound, it was a highly effective way to shape public opinion with persuasive messages, misleading images, and outright propaganda. One person who exploited this potential early was Richard Nixon, by 1952 an ambitious and opportunistic anti-communist Senator embroiled in a fund-raising scandal after receiving the Republican nomination for Vice-President.

The GOP’s standard bearer, General Dwight Eisenhower, demanded that the political striver later known as Tricky Dick offer a public explanation over TV. He had been assured by his advisors that Nixon wouldn’t garner much support through such an appeal. But Nixon’s September 23 chat with the American people instead worked to his advantage, giving him an opportunity to reshape his persona and communicate his values.

Taking a page from radio evangelist Father Coughlin (see “When Radio Mattered”), Nixon was one of the first people to make political use of television to appeal directly to the public. Accused of accepting $18,000 in illegal campaign contributions, he gave a live address to the nation in which he revealed the results of an independent audit, provided a financial rundown of his assets and debts, openly solicited support, and cleverly protested that his wife wore a "respectable Republican cloth coat" rather than a fur. The one contribution he did acknowledge came from a Texas traveling salesman who gave his family a Cocker Spaniel. His daughter named the dog Checkers.

"The kids, like all kids, love the dog,” Nixon announced defiantly, “and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we're gonna keep it." Simulcast on radio, the speech was a huge success, and Nixon, whom many expected to be dropped from the ticket, gained enough sympathy to remain Eisenhower’s running mate and ride the war hero’s coattails into the White House.

Under harsh TV lights, in black and white, his wife sitting uncomfortably in the background, Nixon projected the image of a hard-working, responsible and efficient realist, unafraid of opposition -- in fact, reconciled to it -- aggressive and clear-headed. At the very least he came across as committed, though the exact nature of the commitment was unclear. The style was self-important, even awkward. But it worked. He looked and sounded like a “man of the people,” an average guy, a believer in hard work and homespun values. 

Nixon instinctively understood that television is a showcase for values, which are even more important than the content itself. He knew that more than ideas or facts, how things appeared determined the support one could generate through mass media, especially television. It was basic advertising logic; making the sale depended on the product’s attractiveness, enhanced by the seller’s ability to sustain attention, build rapport and promote interest.

As a sales pitch, Nixon’s “Checkers” speech offered viewers a sincere and slightly offended candidate, an average middle class family man valiantly holding up under the stress of attacks by mean-spirited forces, someone the viewers could trust or perhaps even admire. Nixon made the sale that night and became one of the first public figures to reinvent himself through the new medium.

***

I was five at the time of Nixon’s first rehabilitation – remarkably, he managed the feat several more times during his tumultuous public life, plus once after his death -- and watched “Checkers” with my parents. They were loyal Republicans who collected “I like Ike” buttons, volunteered for local candidates, and warmly embraced the American Dream. Words like pacifism weren’t in their vocabulary, and the notion that something might be amiss with capitalism and the prevailing political system never came up. Despite any setbacks – the wartime draft that delayed dad’s legal career by five years, for instance, or the gangster-dominated textile unions that made things tough for my grandfather, who was part-owner of a clothing factory – as far as my folks were concerned the system worked well enough.

At that point I wasn’t paying much attention to politics. Nixon was just some guy on the tube, marginally interesting simply because he was there, somewhat sympathetic because he sounded so earnest, and yet, in the end, considerably less riveting than the average animal act on Ed Sullivan’s weekly revue. As a child of the emerging electronic age, what really grabbed me was TV’s seemingly endless supply of fantasies and personalities – Ernie Kovaks’ weird visual tricks and Jackie Gleason’s oversized hamming, Milton Berle’s egotistical swagger, the overdressed cowboy virtue of Hopalong Cassidy and outlandish mishaps of Lucy and Desi, Jack Webb’s “just the facts” deadpan, and Howdy Doody’s freckle-faced puppet enthusiasm. When the Lone Ranger and Tonto brought simple justice to TV’s squeaky clean Old West, I’d strap on my miniature gun belt and ride along.

One of the first shows that made an impression was called Winky Dink and You, a combination of animation and live action that may have been the first attempt at interactive video. To get involved, your parents had to buy a "Magic Screen" – AKA sheet of sticky acetate -- and a set of crayons from the producers. At several points in each episode, narrator Jack Barry would explain that Winky, a cartoon hero with a star-shaped head, needed help to get out of some fix. If you had the equipment, you could solve his problem by drawing a few lines. 

The show was a clever innovation by Barry and Dan Enright, who had been partners on radio and made an early jump to TV. Later, the duo would produce quiz shows classics like Tic Tac Dough, Concentration and Twenty One, the latter leading to a media scandal when it was discovered that some contestants got the questions in advance.

Years earlier, Barry and Enright had come up with a hit kids radio show called Juvenile Jury, originally aired on WOR radio in New York. Once Mutual Broadcasting took it national in 1946, Juvenile Jury became the first commercially sponsored network series and later, on NBC, one of the first programs to make the transition to TV. 

The premise was disarmingly simple: Barry, a quick-witted bachelor with an easy smile, would question and spar with a panel of five kids on topics submitted by the studio audience, selected viewers, or, on the TV version, other kids who described their “problems” in person. In that innocent time, questions like “should an eleven-year-old girl wear lipstick” or “who should administer a spanking, mom or dad” made for perfect family viewing. Putting the youngsters at ease before the broadcast, Barry could provoke spontaneous, often funny reactions.

In 1953, around the time that philosopher Alan Watts was beginning a sophisticated, philosophical talk show on KPFA in Berkeley, recruiters for the unabashedly lowbrow Juvenile Jury came to my elementary school in New York City looking for kids who were comfortable in public and had practical, easy-to-solve “problems.” A few weeks later I made my television debut.

As Barry introduced the five young jurists, each sitting behind a microphone-equipped tape dispenser (CIA take note), I waited nervously in the wings. It was one thing to talk about myself in private, and quite another to do it in front of an audience and cameras on live TV. But my desire for attention trumped my fears. I was six years old and ready for my close up.

After introducing the jury, five “adorable” children between four and ten years old, and a brief pitch by the Scotch girl, a perky blonde holding a tape dispenser and wearing a plaid kilt, Barry got down to business. First, he fielded a question from a member of the home audience. The answers were less important than the comic possibilities provided by kids trying to sound like adults. 

Barry had hosted the show for more than six years by this time and knew how to maintain the right tone, letting each kid have a say, conducting relaxed discussions, accepting their suggestions with mock seriousness, and summing up with a wholesome lesson. Most of the time, the jury’s verdict was some variation on themes like “be yourself” or “wait a while.”

Next, he explained that a regular feature of the show was to “let our younger listeners present their problems in person.” This was my cue. As Barry announced my name, I stepped out through the huge tape dispenser into glaring studio light and took my place on the witness stand. It was like Alice going through the looking glass. I was no longer just passively watching what happened on the other side but actually becoming part of an alternative, electronic world.

During the audition, I’d presented a simple problem. I am an excellent golfer, I complained, but my father won’t let me play with him on the adult course. At six, of course, my expertise was limited to the putt-putt variety, but that’s what made it funny. To enhance the comic possibilities, the producers decided to have me appear with a pint-sized golf bag and clubs slung across my shoulder. The plan was that Barry would ask me to demonstrate my swing.

So, there I was on live TV, talking with someone famous whom I’d been watching and hearing for years, amusing the studio audience and magically connecting with thousands of people in their homes across the country. It was like a drug that made you instantly high and incredibly self-confident. At that moment, an obsession with mass communication took hold.

When the cue came, I pulled out a club and took my stance, oblivious to the lights and cameras, completely into the experience. Up to that point it felt like a public audition to enter dad’s adult world. But the show was really about comedy, kids saying and doing amusing things, a primitive form of reality TV, and it was my turn to do the amusing.

I took a swing and almost whacked Jack Barry.

The audience roared. Seeing the dapper MC almost get his head used as a golf ball by a kid was apparently even funnier than the usual “mouths of babes” platitudes. Once again, live TV had delivered something spontaneous – and borderline dangerous. For an instant I was worried. After all, I’d almost beaned the master of ceremonies. But it quickly became obvious that the audience reaction was positive, and Jack wasn’t too upset, so I relaxed and enjoyed the attention. Completely by accident I’d turned my simple demonstration into a moment of physical comedy. 

I’d missed the host but hit the target and my life would never be the same.

NEXT: Managing Pacifica - How the Journey Began

To table of contents: Planet Pacifica 

Managing Pacifica: How It Began

(Originally posted on March 20, 2008)

Shortly after I landed a post-college media job – reporter for a daily newspaper in southern Vermont – an angry reader complained about my bias in a letter to the editor. “I strongly doubt that he could cover the proceedings of a dog show without incorporating a message,” the critic charged. Clearly, I wasn’t amusing this member of my audience.

But by then I didn’t care. In fact, the attack was encouraging. I wasn’t going for laughs or trying to satisfy expectations. Between age six and twenty-two my goals had shifted – from pleasing people to challenging their assumptions, and from merely entertaining to also informing.

Reporting should convey more than just facts, I thought. Current events ought to add up to something, and journalists are kidding themselves if they believe that they can divorce their personal viewpoints and conclusions from what appears on the page or goes out over the airwaves. As I told the headhunters who thought I might have the right stuff to handle Pacifica Radio, what I'd tried to do over the years was “mass market some radical ideas” and provide a counter-narrative to the diet of misleading infotainment people were being force fed every day. They thought it might be a good fit.

The chance to work at Pacifica came my way by accident. More than a decade earlier I’d met an activist librarian on a plane by striking up a conversation about Z, a left-wing magazine she was reading. Even before 9/11, you rarely saw people on airplanes engrossed in “alternative” publications. At the time I was editing Toward Freedom, a smaller but respected magazine that had covered international affairs from a “progressive perspective” since the early 1950s. We hit it off, and she provided an invaluable stream of news, ideas and leads for articles over the next decade. But she was also a loyal yet disgruntled listener to a Pacifica station, and when the top job became available, she let me know.

At first it didn’t feel right. The ideal candidate for Executive Director, said the job announcement, should have at least 10 years of relevant job experience, including non-profit management, and preferably two years as General Manager of a noncommercial broadcasting station. I’d run non-profits and had experience editing and publishing newspapers and magazines. In the late 1970s I’d been a stringer for Pacifica and Vermont Public Radio. But my only recent radio work was a two-year stint co-hosting a university radio morning show – before being cancelled and banned from the premises. As it turned out, being banned was a plus.

Dan Coughlin, the previous Executive Director, had resigned months earlier after three years on the job. After growing up in England, he had covered crime for Interpress Service in New York before moving over to Pacifica in 1996 by way of Democracy Now!, an election series that became a network hit and made Amy Goodman a household name in progressive circles. After producing DN! for two years, he took over Pacifica Network News – just in time to become embroiled in a fight for the organization’s future.

Even before Pacifica evolved into a national network with five owned stations and dozens of affiliates, there were internal battles. But until the 1990s the fact that each station handled its own programming kept most of the fighting local. At that point, rumors began to circulate that “central” management and the national board wanted to seize control of content to increase listenership and shift the funding model from reliance on listener donations toward foundations.

In 1999, when the board amended the bylaws to make itself self-appointing, ostensibly to comply with a CPB requirement, Pacifica’s community-based culture began to actively resist what was soon labeled an attempt to “hijack” and “mainstream” the organization. For Coughlin, the question became: Should PNN, a daily newscast aired on more than 60 stations, cover the deepening crisis?

Early that year, after KPFA Station Manager Nicole Sawaya and popular correspondent Larry Bensky were abruptly fired, staff began to defy a long-standing policy of not airing internal grievances. Going on the air, some charged that Pacifica was a top-heavy bureaucracy hungry for mainstream legitimacy, preoccupied with ratings, and unaccountable to the community. There was even evidence that the board might consider selling stations. Listeners could read about major developments -- arrests inside KPFA, a staff lockout, street protests -- in the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and other corporate outlets. But Pacifica’s news operations were under orders to keep the struggle off the air. For a while Coughlin went along.

In late October, however, when 16 affiliate stations declared “A Day without Pacifica” and boycotted its programs, he decided to break PNN’s silence, airing a report on the protest and what was called, in a monument of understatement, a labor-management dispute. “This summer, more than 100 persons were arrested, and thousands took to the streets at the oldest listener-sponsored station in the country to protest Pacifica staffing decisions,” the item announced. “The 16 Pacifica stations from 11 states called for the network to adopt new open, accountable governance and to continue to support community-based journalism, which they said had made Pacifica great.”

The report lasted only 37 seconds. Yet, when Coughlin returned to work after a long weekend, a terse e-mail from ED Lynne Chadwick was waiting. “You’re no longer news director,” she announced. A day later, he was reassigned without notice to a murky “Task Force on Programming and Governance.” Although he remained on staff for another year, his removal from PNN confirmed the suspicions of dissidents that censorship had replaced free speech and editorial independence at Pacifica.

Two years later, in 2002, after a titanic struggle and multiple lawsuits produced a new board and a decidedly decentralist structure, he returned – this time as Pacifica’s first “post-revolution” chief executive.

Unfortunately, he inherited a mess – millions in debt, missing records, an aging audience, and a legacy of distrust. Yet he somehow managed, with the help of loyal listeners and a strong financial team, to bring the organization back to relative stability. What remained unclear was why and how, despite a major save, he had gone from Golden Boy in 2002 to object of scorn three years later. The accusations included shady payouts, lax oversight, and “contempt” for the new bylaws and democratic structure. A protest was staged outside the main office in Berkeley during his last day on the job. Just how did all that happen?

The deeper I looked the more convoluted and intractable the problems appeared: Charges and counter-charges of secrecy, waste, racism, sexism, harassment and violence, turf battles over local fiefdoms, manipulation, and alleged fraud. It seemed like a fratricidal war with no end in sight. A friend who worked in community radio, hearing that I was up for the top job, mildly defined the main issue as an “actual and perceived lack of transparency.” But he also mentioned poor fundraising and development, ineffective mediation of personnel problems, and legendary racial battles over the control and “color” of programming.

It reminded me of how easily reality can be blurred by misinformation. That July, Jeff Ruch, the director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, had issued a relevant assessment of a much larger and even more dysfunctional organization. "The federal government,” he concluded, “is suffering from a severe disinformation syndrome." Could this be what was afflicting Pacifica? Theories presented as facts, information massaged to promote a specific spin, cherry-picked evidence. Whether intentional or not, Pacifica’s convoluted politics and history seemed to have created, as Bob Woodward put it his book that summer about Watergate secret source Deep Throat, “an entire world of doubt."

Who could unravel this mess, no less get the larger community to look beyond its debilitating bitterness and distrust? Probably not a middle-aged activist editor from one of the smallest, whitest states in the country. But I wasn’t too concerned, since it didn’t look remotely possible that I would get the job. It was flattering to be interviewed, but I essentially saw the invitation to Houston to meet Pacifica's leaders as little more than an opportunity to offer an informed outsider’s assessment.

NEXT: 9/11 Theories and Pacifica’s Fear Factor

Join the Campaign for Preservation & Change

To find out more,

Visit the Campaign's Blog

 

Here is a list of ten specific proposals offered by our campaign and defended during the recent election. Some were also supported by other candidates, or even adopted as their ideas. Imitation is a form of flattery and, in this case, a sign of how we influenced the debate. For example, Mayor Weinberger has established a group to preserve some BC land, asked for a delay of South End zoning change, and currently claims there will be no "fast-track" projects. We'll see. Meanwhile, here is a recap of the agenda for preservation and change presented by the campaign:

- Establish a public interest partnership to preserve BC/Diocese property

 

- Retain current zoning for the South End Enterprise Zone

- Restore NPA funding at $5,000 each, along with the authority to select staff

- Consider proposals like rent stabilization and a higher minimum wage to address affordability

- Join the federal lawsuit to challenge F-35 basing

- Accelerate marijuana legalization through local research and action

- Begin the process of reforming commission representation to provide more equality and accountability

- Establish standards for public-private partnerships that emphasize responsible growth and protection from gentrification

- Coordinate all stakeholders to assemble capital and retain local ownership of Burlington Telecom

- Tougher negotiations with UVM to house more students on campus, beginning with juniors



Steve Goodkind's Unfortunate Positions

This is a statement by Greg Guma on one of Steve Goodkind’s policy positions. Statements will also be released during the mayoral campaign on the Champlain Parkway, Burlington Telecom, Local Initiatives, and Democratic Reform. This one discusses the F-35 debate and Steve’s troubling, compromised stand.  

Wimping Out on the F-35s

Goodkind's Position: Until weeks ago, he didn’t have an opinion. When asked about the F-35 basing issue at the Progressive Caucus in December, he claimed that he wasn’t familiar with the issue, yet also asserted that he would have found a better way to resolve it. Easy enough to say. A few weeks later, when asked about the jets again, he said the fight was over. Here is something on which he and the mayor apparently agree – they both say the matter is settled and we should just move on.

Is Steve wrong? Absolutely, on the facts and the politics.

Greg Guma's Position: Last July a lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court to ensure that this basing decision really meets environmental and legal standards. The plaintiffs are hundreds of area residents and the Stop F-35 Coalition. It’s just one of several strategies being pursued. Burlington should join that lawsuit, and as Winooski has considered, allocate modest funding to help with the legal defense. If elected, I will recommend $10,000 to start and ask the City Council to reconsider the issue, with a full and balanced public debate. If residents want to place an advisory vote on the local ballot, I can’t control the City Council, but I will actively try to persuade them. And if they decline, I'll support a petition drive for an advisory vote.

This is not just about money – or even about noise and jobs, important as these are in the overall equation. It’s also about the most expensive boondoggle in US military history.  The F-35 is a prime example of how militarism corrupts the entire political process.

Sen. Patrick Leahy supports the jet because it will create some temporary jobs building an engine. He and others also warn that, if we don’t let the federal government have what it wants, they might close the National Guard base. It’s remotely possible, but very remotely, and there is no evidence. But if that is true, the Pentagon’s decision becomes more like an occupation or a public seizure that will turn parts of South Burlington, Burlington and Winooski into sacrifice areas – virtually uninhabitable neighborhoods sacrificed in the name of national security. In any case, this federal overreach should be resisted.

The fight is far from over. After the federal government built the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, Vermonters didn’t just roll over or walk away. We fought on for decades. And we constantly heard objections about jobs, the economy, how we were unreasonable idealists who wanted us all to live in the dark. We were ridiculed and told we couldn’t win. Today the plant is closed!

Let’s not suffer through decades with another federally-imposed mistake.

STATEMENT ENDORSED BY STOP THE F-35 AND SAVE OUR SKIES

Preservation & Change: Finding the Balance

Campaign Announcement: Greg Guma, January 27,

Two months ago, I began to look seriously at the race for mayor – the only public official elected citywide in Burlington -- attending meetings, meeting with community leaders, seeking counsel from friends. Some urged me on, but others wondered why anyone would consider such a thing, or suggested approaching the Progressive Party.

Entering the Race: https://www.mynbc5.com/article/a-independent-voice-jumps-into-burlingtons-mayoral-race/2818855

Once upon a time in Burlington, I was part of the movement that put progressives in power here. I ran twice myself for the City Council, as a Progressive and Democrat. But that was decades ago, and things have changed. In any case, Progressive Party leaders united behind Steve Goodkind, so the question became whether to run anyway. I waited, and listened, for about a month – and basically heard nothing.

What I mean is, nothing of consequence about the fast-tracking of various projects developing across the city – from the threat of another commercial center replacing a North End mobile home neighborhood to the looming, intensive development of 33 acres of irreplaceable open space owned by the financially-strapped Burlington College…

Nothing too about troubling, proposed zoning changes and gentrification plans in the South End that will drive out the innovators and artists who make the city special, and certainly nothing about low-key planning for another major hotel, this one right at the water’s edge. That project, hidden under the label “adaptive reuse and infill,” is reluctantly acknowledged on page 108 of a 113-page pitch known as PlanBTV.

Supporters urged me to reconsider, and more than that, they took to the streets and public events to see how others felt and collected enough signatures to place my name on the ballot as an Independent Candidate. In less than two weeks they did it. I am humbled by the support and ready now to give it my all.

During this campaign, I hope to share insights and lessons learned from over 40 years as an organizer, manager, and devoted lover of this place, the Queen City of Vermont. And also what I’m hearing these days – about outrageous housing costs and unmet neighborhood needs, preserving open space and raising local wages, resisting privatization and increasing participation and real accountability.

Why It Matters

One way or the other, this election will be a turning point. In the near future, decisions will be made that change Burlington for generations. I know Mayor Weinberger and appreciate his energy and sincerity. I also know Steve Goodkind and appreciate his service to the city as DPW chief under three progressive mayors. However, at this moment, with a developer in charge, the city is on an express train to gentrification and increased corporate penetration. But that doesn’t mean returning to the past or forgetting the lessons.

There is an alternative: to challenge complacency and question the rush to redevelop, to find sustainable solutions based on community values and balanced priorities, and to open up local debate on the big decisions ahead.

As I’ve been saying, we can’t just build our way out of problems. We need solutions that balance efficiency and growth with democracy and fairness, and create positive outcomes for all of us.

And to find them we need to ask more questions, get more answers and more people involved, to reclaim the right to make informed choices – the essence of democracy. But that means more openness, access, and accountability than we have been seeing.

I’ll also speak plainly about poverty, racism and war. These are also local issues. While I’m as proud as any Burlingtonian that our home is high on numerous best-of lists, that doesn’t mean we are exempt from the problems affecting the rest of the country – things like growing economic inequality, profiling, prejudice and discrimination, climate change, and the impacts of militarism – the latter most evident locally in the expected arrival of F-35s at the airport. Contrary to my opponents, I don’t think it’s too late to stop this boondoggle from making parts of Burlington, South Burlington, and Winooski virtually uninhabitable.

On this and other questions -- whether we can keep Burlington Telecom as a public enterprise comes to mind -- what the mayor says and does can make a huge difference. 

It’s also important to understand that Burlington has seen an increase in greenhouse gas emissions in recent years. Yet current redevelopment plans will make matters worse. Climate change is real, and so is our basic inter-dependence. What we do matters, here and globally. So, before we give the waterfront or other neighborhoods a gentrified makeover that increases traffic -- and further drives up rents, we need to rethink our infrastructure and transportation system – to anticipate and adapt to the resource and climate-related challenges ahead.

Transparency and Diversity

A new local agenda is taking shape, and with it new priorities and a list of needed policy changes. Yes, this election is about the future. But it is also about understanding the past -- coming to terms with missteps, rediscovering what has worked – and doing things differently. No more rosy forecasts that hide uncomfortable realities, no more ambitious boondoggles and secret deals. When it comes to transparency, talk can be cheap -- at first. But it becomes costly when things turn sour.

In that regard, press conferences don’t equal transparency, and taking questions at a coffee shop isn't actually accountability. Those are media events and photo ops; the mayor is good at both. But we are still waiting for open government.

We're also still waiting for affordable housing and livable wages. Thirty years ago we had a 1 percent vacancy rate and people spent half their income on housing. Unfortunately, those figures haven’t changed. It's time to try something new.

Once Burlington was known as a buttoned up, extremely white business town. Today more than 25 percent of public school students come from other cultures, races, and countries. It's time to look at the city and the world differently. That’s why I strongly support the ballot item on non-citizen voting and service of newcomers on boards and commissions. But the commission system needs more improvements, with an emphasis on fair representation and empowerment.

I’m also excited about the proposals coming from the south end -- defending citizen interests from exploitive development, they want to preserve protective zoning and the district’s cultural/industrial designation. I agree, and will oppose any pending zoning changes that threaten residents and businesses in this dynamic, creative economy district. 

That said, the problem isn’t government. But government is only part of the solution. The community, businesses and independent contractors, students, teachers, artists, and all the 21st century knowledge workers - they need to be heard, and both their success and well-being need to be higher priorities. The goal is engagement – how to cultivate and grow it as well as we attend to the tax base.

Targets and Limits

As a candidate, it’s easy to say that you have a better answer for every issue or problem. I know that I don’t. But I am curious and like to listen, and have enough experience to conclude that there are usually more choices than those in charge -- or those with special interests – like to admit. In the 1970s Burlington residents were told that if the Southern Connector and a waterfront hotel, civic center and condos weren’t built very soon, the economy would go “down the tubes.” It obviously didn’t happen. They also wanted kiosks on Church Street and thought mass transit and bike paths were irrelevant fantasies. 

Now we are told that Burlington Telecom’s troubles and the downgrade by Moody’s mean that all bets are off: there is no alternative to leveraging public assets and infrastructure to spur as much growth as possible. But what kind, how much, and at what cost? Do we really want to look like the eastern version of Vale, Colorado in a few years? A Target in downtown Burlington, as a desirable anchor for the latest makeover of our mall?  That says a lot.

To me, it says the mayor is unnecessarily painting a target on the city’s back – a target for speculators, too-good-to-be true corporate schemes and irresponsible, overheated development. I’m running for mayor to say, not so fast! Let’s take the target off Burlington’s back. Let’s slow down and set some reasonable limits. There’s no need for a fire sale. We can do better than that.

How? To begin, by opening up, redefining what is possible and deciding what we want – and don’t want– including whether we need some basic standards for large private partners, and also by talking frankly – about the values and resources we hope to preserve, and the policies and approaches we need to change.

I’m pleased and honored to take part in the upcoming debates and the March 3 election.