By Bob Baldock

"...the wash hung over the court, actually the back courtyard of a big 20-family tenement with bay windows, the wash hung out and in the afternoon the great symphony of Italian mothers, children... cats mewing, Mexicans, the music from all the radios whether bolero of Mexican or Italian tenor ...or loud suddenly turned-up KPFA symphonies of Vivaldi harpsichord intellectuals performances boom blam the tremendous sound of it which I then came to hear all the summer wrapt in the arms of my love...."
—Jack Kerouac, The Subterraneans

On April 15th in 1949 in Berkeley when KPFA 94.1 first came crackling into noisy life on the largely unpopulated FM band, the nation's first public radio station was born, the project of a handful of pacifists, anarchists and leftists grouped as the Pacifica Foundation, a name chosen not for the ocean but to reveal their stand against war and their intention to actively explore the causes of strife between individuals and nations.

Has it worked?

Perhaps, one wryly concedes, not fully – although there has certainly been an abundance of strife exploring. That KPFA has even survived these past six decades is an unarguable astonishment. The station is non-commercial (no ads!), uncoddled by government grants, non-profit, entirely supported by listeners scattered throughout northern and central California, and of late by individuals listening on their computers across this country and internationally. KPFA has always been sustained by folks who could easily listen without contributing– not one damn dime, not ever – and certainly some have done exactly that, but others have regularly ponied up the necessary revenue – a true amazement in this "culture of entitlement.'

Why the support? Why bother? Given the bouts of frequently publicized agitation hovering persistently about the place, and those annoyingly protracted on-air fundraising appeals, exactly who Is giving all that necessary money to KPFA? And why?

What exactly is 94.1 FM (88.1 KFCF in the Fresno area) ? To many it is an audible fricassee of disparate enthusiasms broadcast 24 hours a day every day. The DJ's, or programmers, and their technicians are mostly volunteers, and nearly as diverse as the Bay Area itself. The programming is just as varied. The musical component airs every flavor from classical European to Brazilian, Russian, Congolese, Persian, to Hip Hop and Himalayan fusion. World Music host Stephen Kent, a didjeridu maestro, often has live performances on his weekly show by musicians from Africa and Asia. DJ Rickey Vincent, the Professor of Funk at both SF State and U.C. Berkeley, supplies George Clinton, James Brown and talk of warm biscuits on Friday nights with his "History of Funk." Raquel Aguirre's tender "Musical Colors" on Tuesday evenings is a lovely cross-pollination of jazz and Latin influences. Saturday mornings begin with 3 hours of "The Gospel Experience" hosted by Brother Emmitt Powell.

This barely hints at the musical variety, a major portion of the broadcasting, yet many of the station's supporters ignore the music shows. They tune in for the politics, and this is emphatically where the Boom Blam is. While KPFA was born from a potent impulse of political idealism, the range of advocacy was originally expected to emerge from a broad variety of cultural creativity, not primarily from shows comprised exclusively of unadorned political talk, and certainly not political talk confined within the fixed and largely unchallenged premises meant by the phrase "politically correct." So, speaking bluntly, why does this get supported?

It is argued that the economic, environmental, social and other essentially political issues of our time have been rendered so fiercely urgent by the massive Republican ripoff begun by Reagan and fulfilled by Bush that there simply is not enough time to do anything but to focus on solving the various catastrophes afoot. Uncompomising engagement—however short on humor, art, spirituality or other tension reducers—has become the Progressive Left's mandate. Let Netflix relax you. The fact that many believe that public radio and television has surrendered fully to the corporations and the State Department only clarifies the perceived mandate.

Hence KPFA allies show their strongest fiscal support for the drive-time "Morning Show" with Mitch Jesserich, veteran Philip Maldari and the buoyant Aimee Allison; the thrice weekly "Against the Grain" wherein C S Soong presents interviews of scholarly depth; "Sunday Sedition's" conversational analysis of issues hosted by Andrea Lewis; "Voices of the Middle East and North Africa"; Walter Turner's insightful "Africa Today", Bonnie Faulkner's challenging "Guns and Butter", amid various other talk shows. Dennis Bernstein's "Flashpoints" – probably the most radical show on KPFA - has for years reliably delivered many of the very best political correspondents working in English, but has lost many listeners due to the show's repetitive emotional focus on the painful Palestine/Israel struggle. Incontestably KPFA's most strongly supported show is "Democracy Now!" – Amy Goodman's excellent, much awarded hourlong broadcast, usually from NYC, twice every weekday.

The station's predicament is obvious. Our bookstores are disappearing. Newspapers are vanishing. Beyond stumbling around pathetically in the vast disorder of hyperspace, how do we retain an agora, a commons – or anything remotely like a local community network? Not that long ago more than 13,000 orderly protestors marched through the streets of Berkeley with the sole purpose of supporting KPFA. This startling fact suggests that individuals with just such a powerful degree of conviction will continue to keep the station on air. Despite all the collective narcissism, alienation and unsacred religiosity tainting the landscape, there may remain enough of us with progressive ideals to keep this station alive. Many of us have participated in the historic struggles for civil rights, women's rights, gay rights, workers' rights, disability rights, animal rights, cannabis rights, and the rest of the full range of democratic ideals. We are believers. We share Barack Obama's Audacity of Hope. We know the profound value of solidarity, of being honorable participants in the enlivening necessities of an evolutionary social contract. In the darkest hours of night and during solitary evening suppers when we're hearing almost anything coming over 94.1 FM - including the inevitable imperfections - we feel enough of the pulsing connection with others to understand ourselves as drops in the river of vital consciousness flowing through this place and time.

Isn't that worth supporting?

FEEDBACK: CLICK HERE to email comments and feedback. Please note the title of the article or the author's name. Include your own name or type "name withheld" by request. Thoughtful responses will be published in our next edition.