[Lnc-business] David Nolan on the LP – Re: LNC blogging / LP News columns

[Caryn Ann Harlos]

Ahaha!  I knew it:)

Those methodological issues he viewed as getting away from ideology -
imho.  But I am certainly not a Nolan expert.

-Caryn Ann

On Tue, Feb 21, 2017 at 5:24 AM Starchild <sfdreamer at earthlink.net> wrote:

>
> Caryn Ann,
>
> Well, then we obviously disagree, because I believe in treating sources
> *unfairly*!  No, I'm just kidding...   :-)   Of course I believe in
> treating people fairly, living or otherwise. If I don't think somebody
> meant something, I'm not going to say they meant it (unless I'm just joking
> and doing it to needle them or something).
>
> If you think you have the evidence that David Nolan was only really
> concerned about ideology, not methodology, I'm open to being convinced. But
> it seems to me that some of his remarks in this interview indicate that he
> had concerns about the party's methodology being insufficiently radical.
>
> Concerns over too much attention being paid to internal relative to
> external matters, getting absorbed in minutiae, taking an administrative
> tone rather than an evangelical one, etc., are methodological concerns, not
> ideological ones. Recognizing the danger inherent in people liking to sit
> at the table and have a title and feel important is a methodological
> insight, not an ideological one.
>
> I realize the Radical Caucus has been agnostic on that stuff, which is why
> I started the Grassroots Libertarians Caucus instead of just being
> satisfied that the Radicals were already covering all the bases, although I
> like the Radical Caucus's agenda fine as far as it goes.
>
> Love & Liberty,
>                                     ((( starchild )))
> At-Large Representative, Libertarian National Committee
>                                  (415) 625-FREE
>                                     @StarchildSF
>
>
>
> On Feb 20, 2017, at 6:57 PM, Caryn Ann Harlos wrote:
>
> I love a great deal of these comments Starchild but I strongly believe in
> treating sources fairly.  In his statement on re-radicalizing I don't think
> he meant it in the way you are suggesting.  In fact I am pretty certain he
> did not.
>
> Nolan was a participant in the Radical Caucus yahoo group and I've gotten
> a sense of what he meant and it was ideological and only methodological to
> the point that it affected ideological messaging - such as not hiding the
> ball And not being half embarsssed about what our Statement of Principles
> *actualky says* and fiddling around the edges of change rather than be the
> vanguard we were formed to be.  In that he is spot on that we have gone way
> astray.  But I don't think it is handling him fairly to apply that to
> certain methodological preferences you have.
>
> That doesn't make any judgment on those preferences- just that I don't
> think using Nolan for that point is contextual.
>
> His re-radicalization idea - to bring the Party back to what we were
> founded on - was ideological to its core and very much in the tradition of
> the present Radical Caucus - which is agnostic on those other
> methodological issues (like form of conventions and table seating etc)
>
>
>
> -Caryn Ann
>
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 20, 2017 at 7:24 PM Starchild <sfdreamer at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>
> I recently stumbled across an audio clip of Libertarian Party co-founder
> David Nolan appearing on the Lew Rockwell* show in December 2008, a couple
> years before he died. Although it's a relatively brief conversation, he had
> something to say on the topic of blogging on LP.org, as well as some
> other well-placed criticism of the party's operations.
>
> *https://secure.lewrockwell.com/assets/podcast/2008-12-16_085_david_nolan_what_happened_to_the_libertarian_party.mp3
> <https://secure.lewrockwell.com/assets/podcast/2008-12-16_085_david_nolan_what_happened_to_the_libertarian_party.mp3>*
>
> 'Nolan didn't pull any punches, and I've transcribed some of the more
> trenchant remarks here, underlining the words on which it sounds like extra
> stress or emphasis was being placed, and highlighting in bold what seem to
> me particularly salient points:
>
> *"What's been happening is what happens I think with an awful lot of human
> endeavors, which is that enterprises that were created to serve a
> particular purpose or achieve a particular mission gradually assume a life
> of their own and become more and more involved with internal concerns,
> internal disputes, struggles for power, position, etc., and I think that's
> happened to the Libertarian Party. We have unfortunately created, or the
> party has created, a little class of mini-bureaucrats who are more
> concerned with keeping their job and perpetuating the institution as an
> institution, raising money, then they are with spreading the message.*
>
> "A little class of mini-bureaucrats" is rather harsh, but if we just react
> angrily to that characterization, we might miss what I think Nolan may have
> been seeing, which is that compared with the prevailing culture he
> witnessed in the party's early years, the LP's leadership had come to
> *feel* like that by comparison. He continued as follows:
>
> *"When we started out, our goal was to spread the word, that was sort of
> evangelical I guess you'd say, to spread the word about liberty, out into
> the world at large, and we had people like Murray Rothbard and John Hospers
> and many other distinguished thinkers of that era involved in the party.
> Now we're down to the level of people who are, I think for the most part
> well-intended, but compared to those men are, you know, several orders down
> the intellectual scale, and they're absorbed with minutiae, they're
> concerned with budgets, and fundraising, and they're afraid to say anything
> that might scare people, because that might keep people from voting for
> them, so it's become a very timid organization in the last six or eight
> years."*
>
> He goes on to talk some about the party's membership being roughly half,
> in the wake of the Bob Barr campaign, what it had been after Harry Browne
> in 2000, and then Lew Rockwell responds with the following:
>
> *"Although I was involved in the LP for a time, and had the honor of being
> on the Platform Committee with you, it's been a long time since I've been a
> member, and I guess I've sort of become what Gerald Celeti(?) calls a
> political atheist, I don't see too much use in politics, but as a
> libertarian, I think if there's going to be a Libertarian Party it ought to
> be libertarian. If I were a member of the Vegetarian Party, I'd be upset if
> they started eating chicken."*
>
> Nolan makes the point that the party hasn't abandoned its principles, but
> that it had lost something else:
>
> *"We now have a platform that states all the principles. If you go through
> the 2008 platform, it's not bad in terms of the principles that it
> enunciates, but boy, there are no specifics, as to well, what does this
> actually mean, if you apply this principle in a given area, what are the
> implications. All of that has been stripped out, using the rationale that,
> well, our goal is to get elected, or in the case of the presidential
> campaign, to get the maximum number of votes. We can't say anything too
> scary, let's just talk about a general direction."*
> Then he says something that floored me, because I've often made the same
> point myself, but didn't recall hearing it from Nolan in so many words:
>
> *"My observation is that the grassroots membership of the Libertarian
> Party is far more radical, in the proper sense of the word, than the
> so-called leadership, the people on the National Committee."*
>
> This I think is key to why we need a *bottom-up* Libertarian Party if we
> are going to have a sustainably *libertarian* Libertarian
> Party. Unfortunately, it poses somewhat of a Catch-22 situation, in
> relation to Nolan's previous comments above about the party focusing too
> much on internal concerns:  How do you address a problem like this
> *without* making internal party matters a focus of concern?
>
> *"The people on the National Committee are the kind of people that you
> would find in the student government in high school. They like sitting at
> the table, and having a title, and being important. Now that's not true of
> all of them, but it does seem to me again we're looking at that
> institutionalization of the Libertarian Party where for a lot of people,
> having a title or role in the institution is the most important thing. And
> they spend a great deal of time talking about fundraising and budget, which
> are important things, but..."*
>
> Is comparing us to student government going too far? Part of me thinks it
> is, but then I remember the often fierce resistance to letting non-LNC
> members sit at the table with us during LNC meetings, even when there's
> room for them at the table and everybody knows they aren't members so
> there's no risk of confusion. In practical terms it allows people to hear
> better and feel more a part of the team (which they are), so whence the
> vehement objections? David Nolan goes on to talk about the budget for 2009
> being the smallest since (if I recall correctly) 1992, and then Lew
> Rockwell interjects to ask about solutions.
>
> Rockwell: *What's your prescription?*
> Nolan: *I think we need to re-radicalize.*
>
> Clearly, in the context of his preceding remarks, when Nolan says
> "re-radicalize" he does not mean merely in ideological terms. He then says
> the following:
>
> *"In my mind, there is no point to having a Libertarian Party if it is not
> a radical party, and I use the word radical in its proper sense, from the
> Latin word... for root. We need to strike at the root of the problems in
> society. The idea that we can simply sort of clean things up, and get rid
> of some of the excesses and make things work a little better, the
> traditional reformer position, I think is silly for a third party, because
> if people want to go that route – and tactically it may make sense– they've
> got two existing parties who are far better at getting people elected. If
> you want to be a reformer, and trim away at the edges of the ever-growing
> Goliath in Washington D.C., to some extent state capitols as well, why
> start a new party, or why support a third party, which has far less
> electoral clout, far less chance of electoral success. If you want to
> reform, if you want to trim spending by 7%, you're better off doing it, as
> I see it, within the Republican or Democrat parties."*
>
> He makes some points about how some of the language being used by
> Republicans like Dick Armey and others using more radical, libertarian
> language in some cases than Libertarians, and then says:
>
> *"The Libertarian Party seems to be more and more trying to ape the style
> and rhetoric of the conservative wing of the Republican Party."*
>
> Now I think that was a bit more true in 2008 than it is now, but I don't
> think the threat has gone away. We are still in danger of gradually
> becoming a conservative party if we are not vigilant about balancing not
> just our messaging but our style and culture, and making deliberate efforts
> to reach out to those on the left.
>
> The last Nolan quote I'll leave you with is this, where he mentions the
> blogging issue that initially led me to post this here as relevant to our
> current discussion:
>
> *"The national Libertarian Party has become very timid, very much
> concerned with preserving its own status, the members of the party and the
> national office. The national staffers now basically thumb their nose at
> the membership* *at the membership, they don't allow any comments on the
> blog they have on the national website. It's become a little ingrown group
> of administrators, who think 'we are the party now'. And they can think
> that all they want, but the price they pay is people direct their dollars
> elsewhere."*
>
> Again some harsh language, but I think there's a kernel of truth there. We
> don't want to see that kernel metastasize over time until we are like the
> statist cartel parties, and I think allowing LP members to comment on our
> blog posts will help avoid it. Letting the members speak is even more
> important, imho, than letting LNC members blog.
>
> Love & Liberty,
>                                   ((( starchild )))
> At-Large Representative, Libertarian National Committee
>                                 (415) 625-FREE
>                                    @StarchildSF
>
> P.S. – For those who want to listen for themselves, here's the link again:
>  *https://secure.lewrockwell.com/assets/podcast/2008-12-16_085_david_nolan_what_happened_to_the_libertarian_party.mp3
> <https://secure.lewrockwell.com/assets/podcast/2008-12-16_085_david_nolan_what_happened_to_the_libertarian_party.mp3>*
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> Lnc-business mailing list
>
> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
>
> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lnc-business mailing list
> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> Lnc-business mailing list
>
> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
>
> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business/attachments/20170221/8b322dd8/attachment-0002.html>