About the "Inner Party"

There is a small oligarchy that has been in control of KBOO for awhile, years, perhaps decades. The cast of characters appears to rotate, how much is design and how much is drifting away is unknown. However, when a "long time member" who "was involved with the station back in the days" jumps out of the woodwork to offer their services during these "troubled times", it has the marks of an old Inner Party ally being "reactivated". Especially when they haven't used any of that down time to speak out on record. Why would someone with so little interest and not moved to speaking out sooner want to return to a quagmire?

Politicians do this when they need a warm body that isn't tainted by recent scandal. They adopt a "what me worry?" attitude. Refuse or can't answer questions, and as long as they're inoffensive, they get away with being the warm body that keeps the status quo quoed.

Not that it's impossible for someone honest who used to be involved to come back. But the reasoning given by many of these people borders on mythology: "Oh well, I have nothing better to do and now I have more responsibilities than I had before, and the station has worse problems than I ever remember, this is a good time to get involved."

That might be fine if the old salt in question had an energetic platform to reflect his/her understanding of the seriousness of the time. But what do we have instead? Let's look at an old salt popular with readers: Mike Wells.

operationfreespeech.boards.net/thread/72/mike-wells

His platform sounds good, but its missing urgency. Anyone stepping into this situation with the idea anything can be saved needs to stop waffling and present a plan of action. This statement sounds good: "I was Station Manager from 1978-1981, another time when KBOO was in turmoil.". Actually it doesn't say a damn thing. "I was janitor at another time when KBOO was in turmoil" would be no more meaningful.

A meaningful statement: "I was Station Manager from 1978-1981, and helped guide KBOO through that time of turmoil with strategies I believe can work today."

All the first statement shows is that he was in the building.

The second shows he was part of a solution that is needed now.

The point of this exercise: be cautious of returning members trying to trade on their history for cred, but with little to show for it. Maybe Wells just needs a better campaign manager.



Ani Haines, longtime volunteer coordinator is one member of this "Inner Party", as is her spouse Theresa Mitchell. She has a gatekeeper position, in that she can encourage or discourage volunteers at her whims. Useful volunteers swayed by her propaganda and charm are cultivated. Others are given the cold shoulder.

This appears to not be just a theory but a practice reported by many observers:

feedback.pdxradio.com/topic/kboo-nearly-bankrupt-and-about-to-fire-all-staff#post-158567




Some observers claim Ani has always been civil to them. This is probably true. It would be the smart thing for Ani to do, a subtle "gaslighting" of volunteers who might turn to someone to complain. They ask around, here no one else has a problem, and give up. The situation is even more complicated, with"false flag" disgruntled volunteers like Yvette to manage anyone who does complain. In any other situation Ani behavior could be dismissed as typical cronyism from an insecure manager. But the Yvetter story implies deliberate planning involving Ani:

Yvette complains about stuff Ani did.
She's kicked out of the club.
She's on PIMC "whistleblowing".
She's disparaged by Inner Party tools.
She runs off with Ani and Theresa's friend Glen Owen to "break away" with the fake KBOO.info[note that Owen continued to be friends with the Inner Party when he bought the kboo.info domain. Implying Kboo.info was a disruptive project with Inner Party sanction).
Several years later she's supporting Inner Party organizer James Partridge.
No friend of Ani is protesting her involvement/support.

This is pathological manipulation at it's worst. Not just of volunteers, but of Yvette. Events argue she's a willing participant, but also imply she has defects of thinking and judgement Ani Haines and others are exploiting.

Ani Haines appears to be a recruiter for people the Inner Party can use at KBOO. Events argue she knows what she's doing, choosing people who are easily swayed, feel isolated with a need to belong, have low critical thinking skills and aren't likely to ask hard questions. They may also be people at a vulnerable time in their lives, or people with skills KBOO could use. The later will be won over by a mixture of charm and lies.

While Ani is assumed to lead staff, she also appears to be the power behind the current Board throne.

One of the more successful propaganda coup the Inner Party has pulled on everyone, from volunteers, to outside observers, is that the staff is at odds with the Board.

As of Conser's term, this is utter bullshit. It is possible, even likely, that before Conser, staff had to be played off against the board, to get what the Inner party wanted. There was a benefit in that it hid the Inner Party machinations. All the weirdness and drama was hand waved as incompetence and "those wacky radicals". But when Ani and Theresa are close friends with most of the board: President Steve, Lyn Moelich, Lisa Loving, Mark Sherman...in fact Ani has a show with Lyn Moelich, who is Steve's GF... the idea that Staff and the Board are having any real fight is absurd.

This is a "bread and circuses" show for people who don't know how incestuous KBOO has become. And like "bread and circuses" it serves to distract members and donors from the real power: decisions at KBOO are not made democratically by members. Decisions at KBOO are engineered by a small group who wants to keep the democratic facade for as long a possible.

Known Members and supporters of the "Inner party":


Persons below part of first Save Kboo/KKK list meeting at Resnick's, organized by Theresa Mitchell and James Partridge. Need confirmation of current involvement.






The short term strategy of the "Inner party" is to keep control of KBOO at all costs.

Expect tactics to include people with nebulous "doubts" trying to milk critics for information. These people are goons and will report everything you tell them to the usual suspects.

But because it is possible for people to have doubts, it's best not to blow them off. Instead ask them reasonable questions. Remember, they're the ones volunteering their doubts and they obviously don't think you're going to rat them out. So there's no reason they shouldn't get into details.

Be careful of the "doubter" who only seems to want to know what you're thinking and doing.

Another tactic is boosting the coming election as decisive. Mitchell herself says:




This is garbage. Mitchell knows the election is fixed. There is no transparency in the process and the Inner Party is not taking chances of getting another loose cannon like Hadrian. Even if it wasn't fixed, it would be a simple matter of drumming up support for a recount. More bread and circuses.

More risky behavior. You'd think they learned from Tommy "Hollywood" Hood's fail phishing scheme, but people involved in a toxic controlling group do not learn. They are in an agitated irrational state that guarantees more lapses in judgement on a progressively larger scale.

And the perennial tactic of labeling everyone who disagrees with how KBOO is run a corporatist will be trotted out until it's threadbare.


Prediction: when KBOO collapses into insolvency, this will be blamed on a corporatist state sponsored conspiracy.

Remember, we called it first.