Good Luck Steven
by Anna Kunkin Monday January 28, 2002 08:39 AM

Steven I want you to know that you have my full support in your new incarnation. My mind threatens to go into overwhelm when I think of the mire that you have jumped into. Not only do you have to deal with the management of a very complicated business and the difficulties in trying to build some sort of confidence and trust with the employees and volunteers who have been working in an environment of mistrust and insecurity for years, but you have also taken on one of the most contentious, albeit inteligent and committed communities on the planet.

You have overnight become the most talked about mysterious unknown in the activist "society". Everywhere I've been the last few days, almost the first words from everybody's lips are, "what do you think about Steven Starr at KPFK"? You are suddenly under a microscope and I don't envy you that position.

That said, I have to say that having worked with you the last few months at the IMC and experiencing your love, endless energy, dedication and enthusiasm for the media movement, I think you actually might be the right person for this potentially thankless job. I overheard you saying once to someone that you had waited your entire life to be part of a movement like this, and then you poured yourself heart and soul into it. I've seen that and I believe it.

People in the local activist community are worried that because they perceive you as an outsider and not as part of the L.A. activist scene, you are not familiar with the key people and situations here; that you may not know what the important issues are here on the local scene, things that are crucial to movement building on a vital progressive community radio station.

That may be true; and yet, I have seen you work with others in the consenses based IMC, and I know that you are smart enough to attract people to you who ARE familiar with those things, and that you will listen and work collectively with the community to bring KPFK back to the people. I also think that your ability to think three steps ahead of yourself and everybody else, and your impulses to act on those insights, the very things that may have rubbed some more intellectually based and slower moving people the wrong way, are exactly what is needed in your new life. So Mazeltov.

Now to my fellow IMCer's .....I see that some previous and granted, unfortunate postings that were here yesterday are gone now, and here are my 2 cts. about that. As sorry as I am about the anger and hurt feelings that were displayed here on our site, and as embarrasing as it was to me and others to see our inner battles being fought out in public, having them removed from the page with no explanation smells like a gag rule in effect to me. Please; let's not resort to the tactics so many people have fought so long to abolish on the airwaves. Let's not, especially now, when we are on the verge of really reaching out to the community, ruin our credibility with that same community. Let's trust that people who come here are intelligent enough to digest and deal with whatever is out here.