The LNC is broke, and circling the drain at dizzying speed.
It recently sent the following (illiterate) letter to its membership:
Printed on yellow paper, with sentence fragments, poor punctuation and general illiteracy, the letter begs for cash:
What a surprise.
Perhaps Wayne Allyn Root could dip into his "millions" to fund an LNC "resurgence."
Or perhaps Bob Barr could still deliver on his $40 million to $50 million in new campaign funds promise from the Denver convention.
Failing that, of course, perhaps Daniel Imperato could hit up his friends at the Knights Templar for a couple million.
Worst of all, Mr. Redpath's letter asks for $150, $100 or $75 -- truly "povertarian" amounts! They must be hurtin'.
There's rent to the Watergate to pay... newsletters to cancel... Republican campaigns to fund... be sure to send in your cash to Bill today!
Or not.
It recently sent the following (illiterate) letter to its membership:
Printed on yellow paper, with sentence fragments, poor punctuation and general illiteracy, the letter begs for cash:
WE'RE IN TROUBLE! Contribution drop-off happens after every election. BUT NOT LIKE THIS.
Post-election letdown plus economic crisis has brought contributions to a screeching halt.
What a surprise.
Perhaps Wayne Allyn Root could dip into his "millions" to fund an LNC "resurgence."
Or perhaps Bob Barr could still deliver on his $40 million to $50 million in new campaign funds promise from the Denver convention.
Failing that, of course, perhaps Daniel Imperato could hit up his friends at the Knights Templar for a couple million.
Worst of all, Mr. Redpath's letter asks for $150, $100 or $75 -- truly "povertarian" amounts! They must be hurtin'.
There's rent to the Watergate to pay... newsletters to cancel... Republican campaigns to fund... be sure to send in your cash to Bill today!
Or not.
Comments
You could look it up.
It's almost as though all the neoconservative bullshit has chased off all the real libertarians, who stopped donating or caring about the LNC in the wake of all the neocon nonsense or something...
Perhaps Brian Holtz could come through with a few hundred grand?
Anyway, maybe you're right, and we need to just ignore the LNC since it is not getting much accomplished, focus on doing those things ourselves outside of the LNC, and then maybe - if we think it's worth it - bring some people to St. Louis; and if we don't, we can continue to function independently. What do you say?
p] Right on. Any info that you want to pass along for what has worked in that regard in Tennessee or other surrounding states would be appreciated by the Alabama party. And thank you for you work!
B] At this point, I am chronicling the end of the Libertarian National Committee as we know it.
B] A large number of people are being "quiet," and/or "nice" in order to preserve their status in an institution that's hit an iceberg and taking on water.
p] Not me. I have extremely low status, if any at all (just ask Sean Haugh). I'm more interested in moving the cause of liberty forward than whether the LNC survives, dies, or changes from a lizard to a butterfly. I don't care which party does it, or if we do it in some way that does not involve a political party.
p] If the LNC is failing to get that job done, let's organize other committees to fulfill specific tasks that they are failing to do. Here is one:
http://freedomballotaccess.org/
We have both petitioners and telephone fundraisers ready to go, and one state we have already contracted with. We need lists of people for our fundraisers to call, and any help in that regard would be appreciated - as, of course, would actual contributions by anyone reading. If anyone reading has a personal beef with the folks at Freedom Ballot Access, you can donate to the Alabama Libertarian Party instead, or to the West Virginia Libertarian Party. Hopefully more states soon.
Here is another one:
College Libertarian Organizing Committee
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2421661756
http://pauliecannoli.wordpress.com/2007/08/03/college-libertarian-organizing-committee-2/
p] Most recently I have talked to WV LP chair Matt Harris. He has experience filing 501c3 paperwork and is willing to do so if anyone here (or anywhere else) is willing to kick in $300 to cover the filing fees.
B] The Libertarian Party no longer has credibility with a large swathe of the freedom movement. It no longer has credibility with audiences that once respected it. To the degree that it has preserved SOME credibility, it has done so at the cost of the integrity of individual Libertarians, who have danced fast and loose to spin the Barr/Root ticket as a "boon for freedom" to a very skeptical media.
B] Speaking of media, how many media releases from LNC headquarters get published in major media? Or even niche non-libertarian media? None. Outright, which is smaller and less well-funded, got 47 media sources to cover the Barr campaign. Funnily enough, we did it by using the proper appellations for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people (the latter two groups aren't even covered by the term "homosexual.")
p] OK. Please share as much knowledge as possible about what has worked for you in terms of getting media coverage. I've told you - I think it was several months ago - that I am available to help in these media efforts, which can also be a separate committee which is organized separately from the LNC by self-selected volunteers. If you don't want my help, that's OK. But I haven't seen any public call for other interested people to help, so for all you know you may have all sorts of would be volunteers that just have not been asked.
B] Finally, yes, Paulie, if you had orchestrated the nomination of Cindy Sheehan as LNC nominee for president, participated in an effort to remove the economic freedom planks from our platform AND were sitting on our platform committee while prominently displaying a "Workers' World Weekly" banner on your web site, I'd be equally critical.
p] OK, Comrade Miller, I'll keep that in mind for when I do exactly that in 2012. LOL. In the meantime, can we please devote 10% of the time we are currently spending discussing what the LNC is NOT doing, and ...um...just do it ourselves, maybe? Even though some people think I'm a communist, and some people think my friend Steve Gordon is a homophobic Republican, maybe all of us can find a few issues we can agree on and actually do something to move the ball down the field on those issues?
B] Let's revisit the situation in 12 months and see just where the LNC is. It's an organization dependent on donations of discretionary income, running short of cash at the start of a brutal recession, chasing away longtime members, seeing its budget shrink to a tiny fraction of where it was in the Browne campaign days, engaged in meaningless internal debates without a single major policy idea or statement to deal with ANY of the nation's challenges. It ran a neocon ticket with a neocon platform that a majority of American small-l libertarians couldn't get behind. And it's still focused inwardly, even as it implodes. Calling out the problems in a public forum represents the last opportunity many of us have to try and arrest the death spiral -- certainly, none of "our" LNC reps or staff take our calls or emails, since they're busy courting the GOP or plotting against other members of their body.
Cheers,
Brian
p] Yeah, we could do that. Or we could just do what we think the LNC should be doing, without all the bureaucracy, and maybe even have half a chance of derailing the cattle cars before they arrive to take us to the FEMA camps.
One love,
Convicted criminal comrade paulie (CCCP)