From: Harvey Heagy 
Subject: Re: Why The NFB
Hi Jamal.  Thanks for your clarification of what happened.  I
found it most interesting.
Most of the coalitions you mentioned such as the World Blind
Union and the Committee on Joint Action are blindness related.
The one you did not mention, the alternative conference on
handicapped individuals which sprung from the very ineffective
White House Conference on Handicapped Individuals was a spur of
the moment action that needed to be taken at that time and place
because it was clear that the conference was not only unfairly
stacked in favor of the traditional agencies but placed blind
people in workshops on the profoundly retarded and such.
As far as your article, I remember us publishing an article called,
"Is the office for the Blind really for the Blind?"  During the
publishing process its then director Doug McFarland died and we
were unable to kill the story so we printed an apology as we had no
idea it would published posthumously.  So I can understand this and
have no problem with it.  However, I think you should be given a
chance to clarify or refute anything in the October Monitor article
you feel to be inaccurate or unfair.  
As far as personal attacks are concerned, I think there is a
difference between opinion and fact.  What I said about Marc
Maurer's token involvement in my legal case was not my opinion;
that is fact and is a matter of record.  If the attorney of
record in that case is still practicing you could ask her whether
what I am saying is fact or opinion.
It is a fact that the advise Barbara Pierce gave the Public
Relations committee about barraging broadcast stations with
letters asking them to accept our pre-recorded public service
announcements would get nowhere if the station doesn't take
pre-recorded public service material.  The F.C.C. has dropped most
if not all programming requirements so each station can pretty much
set its own policies on what it will and will not accept as public
service commitment.  I can tell you that today, a station has more
of a chance of loosing its broadcast license for not having what
the F.C.C. would call an effective affirmative action program than
for profanity on the air.  Infinity Broadcasting has been fined
numerous times in the neighborhood of millions of dollars for
Howard Stern's comments but the show is still on the air
unaffected.  So obviously this isn't much punishment as they are
simply paying the fines and making a killing on the show.  I've
spent a good part of my life in broadcasting and have worked with
this as a D.J. and a Program Director.  What she was saying was
simply rhetoric to fit the committee and the convention.  
Anyone who has sat through Mr. Capps's M.C.ing of banquets and
such know he loves to get on mike, and all one has to do is
listen to past roll calls of states and compare what South
Carolina has given in comparison to its assets and to what other
affiliates give to know whether or not I am telling the truth.  I
don't know if he ever got the camp for the blind in South Carolina
off the ground or not, but the fact that he tried to form one after
it was clear that the national discouraged such efforts is clear
unless someone has information that I do not have.  The national
leadership may not want the members to know these things, but they
happened whether they wish to admit them or not or whether or not
they know about some of them is a different matter.
Harvey
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