Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 14:06:42 -0000 From: pgammill@home.com Subject: [lpaz-discuss] Re: From Keyword: Libertarian on AOL - Where does it all lead? To: lpaz-discuss@yahoogroups.com Reply-To: lpaz-discuss@yahoogroups.com
--- In lpaz-discuss@y..., Steve Trinward <steve@t...> wrote:
That said, the amount of focus on the continued dispute (which from what I can see is pretty minimal these days? I don't see much being posted on this list, or discussed anywhere else, to indicate that Schmerl & Co. are having much of an effect on Arizona freedom-fighting ...) is inversely proportional to the effectiveness of the work being done ...
- Steve
True, they are not having much of an effect anymore, but six years of legal harassment have had there toll, and not much is left for them to take. The Arizona Libertarian Party had a nicely located Spartan but spacious headquarters, in which printshop, reproduction and telecom equipment was available and growing. They had a money making monthly newspaper. They had a healthy bank account. They had a permanent phone number. They had monthly outreach meetings. 40% of the counties were affiliates. They kept a close eye on the legislature when in session. They had growth in both voter rolls and membership. They had some of the highest vote totals for their candidates of libertarians in this country (still nowhere near winning). They had growing respect in political and media circles, even if those circles didn't share ideologies.
But that is gone now. By my understanding, using his attorney letterhead, a letter sent by Mr. Schmerl to all of the advertisers in the ALP newspaper claiming the ALP was violating IRS tax code and threatening to sick the IRS onto these businesses if they continued to advertise in the ALP publication, quickly achieved one of Mr. Schmerl's first and consistent goals. Kill ALL forms of communication to membership or outsiders save that which he controls. With the loss of both the paper's advertising revenue and loss of the community outreach image which brought in increasing donations, income into the ALP quickly waned. The headquarters could no longer be paid for. And a new form of attack, suing any member of the ALP for literally millions of dollars for one supposed breach or another. These are called SLAMS. Intended not to make it very far in court, but rather to financially bleed individuas into acquiescing or quitting. As you can imagine, being an officer in the ALP is now a financially risky affair. Most who agree have a legal background now, so they can ameliorate the costs of defending themselves. Indeed, the only reason we have survived as an organization is that the ALP and its officers have received outstanding legal counsel pro bono, but after six years that too is hard to continue for those who have so generously donated their time from their law practice.
When I look at how easy and inexpensively campaign signs, advertising signs etc. can be made overnight and spread throughout the state. When I see how cheaply technology now allows monitoring the legislature, the media, and town councils. When I realize how cheaply fax banks, e-mailings, phone banks, printing press runs, mass mailings, pamphlet manufacture, t-shirt logos and newspapers can be used. When I see that a viable organization was establishing itself into a credible threat to those who steal our libety was killed off not by the enemies of freedom, but by those who claim allegiance to our principles, I too sometimes want to quit in disgust. But I live with the hope that the ALP will rise from these ashes. That the infrastructure I have described will be reborn and bear fruit to support both County and City/Area affiliates (who are supposed to be the REAL activist power base, not the State organization, and certainly NOT a national one!).
What motivates a group within a group to seize power at any cost? Autocracy and avarice seem to explain it. Control freaks... My way or the Highway. These are often hard working, great organizing and manipulate people, who start out impressing everyone around them with their motivation and work output. It is easy to let someone else do it, and quickly hard workers can insert themselves into an amazing variety of tasks within an organization. In the end they usually decide they deserve a cut of the treasury for their hard work as a paid full time executive manager; usually once control of the direction of the organization has been achieved.
Which brings us to greed. When the ALP had achieved a respectable amount of power, or at least the infrastructure to begin doing serious inroads into the Incumbent power structure, a group of libertarians rises up and destroys the ALP's infrastructure. Why? 1) Because they are part of a vast conspiracy. I doubt it. 2) Because they want genuine political power, just like the Republicrats have? Bingo. These folks want to be just like the Incumbent Parties. Move legislation. Spend tax money. Be looked upon for favors. They saw an organizational structure that could deliver that power, and failing to gain control of it, they quickly set about to destroy it as the threat to their modus operandi that it was.
Since the ALP did not fold up quietly into the night, the end result is that tremendous resources better spent on other things has been diverted by both sides to kill off the other. And boh sides are pathetic shadows of what could have been. There will be no resolution to this conflict as long as there are libertarians who are willing to act in a non-libertarian manner to advance their agenda, and there are libertarians who refuse to turn over the remaining ALP infrastructure to those who will do non-libertarian things with the promise that once in a position of power they will "advance" libertarianism.
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