Public Comment by Janice Blue before the Houston-LAB - June 12, 2002 If you believe nothing else I'm going to say today, I hope you will at least believe these two things: 1) I took the investigation of Bob Buzzanco by this LAB and my role as an eyewitness very seriously, and 2) It is an absolutely horrible feeling not to be believed when you tell the truth. And I don't believe The Truth is subjective...I believe there is just The Truth and The Lie. I think Garland Ganter started the custom of putting Public Comment at the end of the LAB meetings. It is unfortunate for The Truth that all the eyewitnesses and character witnesses in the smear campaign against Bob came at the tail end of last month's meeting...after you as a board basically closed discussion without benefit of hearing our stories. But we waited until the end and with passion I heard brave voices speak The Truth...from Wally James who lost his programmer in this unjust attack to all the seven eyewitnesses that were in a room the size of a play pen to Richard Leuchtag who brought this room to its knees when he told us how his father was picked up in a little town in Germany during WWII and taken to a concentration camp at Buchenwald where he spent the next two weeks. His father and family held passports to Panama and that was the only way they were all able to leave the country. And he compared the "murderous acts of the Sharon military in the Jenin refugee camp" to the reports his dad told him about those two weeks in a Nazi concentration camp." He was not an eyewitness but a character witness for Bob and spoke eloquently about Bob's passion as a programmer for reporting the Truth and discredited the cheap tactics to smear and silence him. Thinking you would be appreciative of our testimonies, I stayed after the meeting...but only two LAB members thanked me for coming. Hep, who I knew from the station, and Margaret, whom I had never met. All the rest of you walked by me. I went up to Leslie Kagan to see what her reaction would be and all she said was, "Well, Donna could have heard 'ACHOO' and thought it was 'a Jew.'" No, Leslie...no one sneezed. I walked away in disbelief. I saw Greg and asked him why he lied. All he said was, "You weren't even in the room." Yes, Greg, I was very much in that room. I was arm's length,,,directly in front of you and Bob and heard every word of the exchange between the two of you. You were both arguing when the guest, Donna de la Paz, walked past me and out the room. And when all the guests left the recording studio, Bob went by me and went on the air...yet in the Barnstone Report you and Donna don't even give the same account. She says she heard it in the control room. You say, "Bob followed the guests out of the studio and into the conference room." It's here that you say you heard Bob say to her, "You Jew." FACT: Bob was on the air interviewing the consul of Venezuela...not out in the lobby. You two cannot even get your stories straight. There is zero tolerance for bigotry at KPFT. There were almost 10 people packed in the control room and none of us heard anything but an argument over bringing Sharon apologists on our airwaves, mixed with several colorful curse words yet, Greg, you say in your deposition that "there was no profanity." I was really shocked to read the long-awaited Barnstone Report last week and see how short on facts and devoid of emotion Donna de la Paz' deposition was ...and why I kept asking myself, if she heard what she thinks she heard, why didn't she defend herself? And if she didn't voice her shock or anger, as a feminist and the only woman in the room, trust me, I would have come to her defense in a split second. It seems very strange to me that she would just walk on by and tell Stan Merriman and Greg Geiselman and not say a word to Bob! And, most shameful of all in spreading this smear campaign is Stan Merriman who took it upon himself, that same day, April 17, at 5:17pm to post an inflammatory message on the web (in response to Edwin Johnston's post moments before referring to Bob as Prof Berzerko)* ... I won't dignify it by reading it...I just wonder, Stan, what gave you the right and authority to speak for the rest of us...the eyewitnesses? Spreading this hearsay was very damaging not only to Bob but to all of us in the KPFT community. Yet, today, at 1:06 pm you say to Ken Freeland on the Friends of KPFT list, "I am interested in deescalating conflict, including not dredging up old wounds and disagreements...and I strongly urge we all put aside past deeds and disagreements and move forward with positive energy." How hypocritical of you, Stan! You have lost all credibility taking hearsay and spreading damaging falsehoods in an attempt to ruin someone's reputation. All I know right now is this...Bob is not on the air...and Greg is still on the LAB. It is a great loss for the KPFT community to be deprived of Bob's passion for The Truth. We had in our midst someone with the intellect of a Howard Zinn, the convictions of a Benjamin Spock, and the humor of a Michael Moore. And it was taken from us in a very cruel and insidious way... So, today, I would like you to think Judi Bari. I want you to bring this matter back on the table. I want you to respect the testimonies of the eyewitnesses. I want you to recognize the smear campaign for what it was...and ask yourself why Bob was targeted? and silenced? ..and who next? I want you to remove Greg Geiselman from the board because he lied in his deposition and is a disgrace to this LAB and everything Pacifica stands for. And, finally, I want you to issue a PUBLIC APOLOGY to Bob Buzzanco and a PRIVATE APOLOGY to Wally James because if there is one unsung hero in all the Pacifica politics over the past 10 years it is Wally James. This mild-mannered man is the most courageous person at KPFT. He and Susie stayed on while most of us jumped ship...just so that we would have one local progressive public affairs program on the Garland Ganter Jukebox. Wally wants Bob back on the air and I believe Wally deserves to be heard. Please do the right thing. Thank you "Run, Spectate or Commit" --a line from the City of Joy