Brian’s Column: Dead Horse, New Horse?

4Q 2015, Michigan. [Excerpt draft from upcoming The Truman Prophecy.]

HeinleinAnd it came to pass in the SLOW (Spartan Land of the Wolverine) and in most other  subrealms of the LOWDOWN—to be uttered in a deep Darth Vader-like voice—(Land of Worship for Deathstar Operations Worldwide No-Exceptions) that a onetime major—albeit never conventionally successful—movement for freedom sputtered to a halt. That ultimately petering-out political enterprise would be the Libertarian Party of Michigan (LPM) and Libertarian Party (LP) in general.

Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. [Good manners, consideration] … and formal politeness provide the lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naive, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as ’empty,’ ‘meaningless,’ or ‘dishonest,’ and scorn to use them. No matter how ‘pure’ their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best.
— Sayings of Lazarus Long, Time Enough for Love, Robert Heinlein

LPM_SymbolNo, the Prophet realized that the nuts of the LPM/LP buggy didn’t fly off solely from lack of social niceties—we’ll come to the fundamental causes shortly. But lack of etiquette did underlie the coup d’ grace delivered by a f***-all subset of the emerging anarchist-Goth-voluntaryist-nihilist (niarchist?) movement, consuming vast reactive energies of ‘untraveled’ young men. They were inspired by fine political visionaries, yet misinterpreted these writers, confusing their ideas with more ego-gratifying delusions that any political action that involves government is contrary to moral principle.

On the social networks, such Wayne-and-Garth dragonslayers posed grandly vs. the efforts of anyone who, well, was content to seek modest victories over state coercion: through participating in local government or political organizations, writing to and effectively agitating elected officials to act wisely, supporting issue petitions or liberty-allied groups to slap down bad laws, and so on—even, heaven forbid, voting. For bizarre reasons and motivation, a large number of these young niarchists, from an historically backwater affiliate had attached themselves to the waning LPM… thus demoralizing it even further.

[Yes, these niarchists were generally disrespectful, power-plotting, and disruptive.]

Consequence to the LPM? Here’s a perfect example: Proposal 1, May 5, 2015. Amendment to the Michigan Constitution placed on a special election ballot by the legislature to enable a $2 billion per year tax increase—the tax increase would have violated a Michigan constitutional provision limiting state revenue (the Headlee Amendment), hence Prop 1 had to be a constitutional amendment.

Prop 1 was packaged deceptively as a measure to provide needed funds for Michigan’s roads, but 3/4 of the funds would go to a grab bag of special interests of the political establishment. [Michigan had a Republican governor and Republican majorities in both houses of the legislature; so much for Republicans being against ‘tax and spend.’] In other words, Prop 1 was pure evil, diabolical—Snidely Whiplash reaching into the fixed-income pocketbooks of little old ladies extracting the last few coins. It was also extremely stupid: in construction, in big concept, in being able to justify to any adult with the IQ of mayonnaise.

All, and I mean ALL, of the major institutions across the state—major media, public school employees, unions, large Michigan corporations, the Chamber of Commerce(!)—climbed aboard the propaganda bandwagon for Proposal 1. Vast sums were spent on ads showing school buses bombarded by shrapnel from decaying roads and bridges, presumably killing or maiming drivers and the screaming children inside.

Opposing the multimillion-dollar Prop 1 blitz? A couple of key groups whose combined funds raised were maybe on the order of $100K. Yet in all the public forums, opposing groups’ spokesmen tore Prop 1 proponents new wazoos. Prop 1 advocates came off as village idiots… every time. Also, No-on-Prop-1 groups organized a grassroots person-to- person phone bank, and door-to-door literature distribution to registered voters at the precinct level.

Result: Proposal 1, the darling of Governor RINO[1] Rick Snyder (who was seriously contemplating a primary run for the 2016 US presidency) and the whole Republican-Democratic establishment in Michigan GOES DOWN IN FLAMES BY A FOUR TO ONE MARGIN! That’s right. Four to one. In some counties, nine to one. Arguably the most revolutionary freedom vote in American history… and reminiscent of the US Tax Revolt movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s—threatening the ruling class pathocracy to its very core. Despite the false face of blithe dismissal from pundits and pols on the morning after, the Defeat of Proposal 1 was potentially a Death Blow to the Death Star.

The people rose up en masse and ‘bitch-slapped’ the establishment for all time.

Question: Where was the LPM leading up to this heroic, epochal May 5th vote on Prop 1?

Answer: Nowhere to be found. Offering no help to the cause… or notice to its members.

Reason? As stated above, some fundamental problems leading to general sickness of the party, then a sucking out of the final glimmers of life force by the niarchist buzzard brigade. The LPM lacked energy or spirit for mixing itself into a great cause that proved incredibly successful. Its grass roots were gone, its leaders isolated, its central governing body an empty shell of going through motions. Okay now to the root causes of demise:

Fundamental Problems

Cover_Leaving_Sandbox_FrontThe handwriting had been on the wall for a while now, very sad to say, for the Libertarian Party of Michigan (LPM)… and for that matter, the Libertarian Party (LP) generally. The Prophet wrote about the need for new strategy many times, culminating in his 2014 book, Leaving the Sandbox: Grownup Grand Strategy for Libertarians in an era of wanton US federal government crimes and terror. [The book subtitle conveys the belief that if the LP fails to deal forthrightly with these ‘federal crimes and terror,’ it will die, to put it bluntly.]

Sandbox fell on deaf ears and unseeing or lookaway eyes, also sad to say, after a fair amount of the Prophet’s socialization within the LPM and out on the social networks where one would still expect to see individuals caring about libertarian ideas and strategy. The one wholly positive review the book received on Amazon came from a new leader in the LPM, Reverend-Brother Cody Alfonse Jefferson (yes, the same, Bro Al: Postman #2): “… it gives a clear plan and strategy for individuals to bring liberty into their actual lives—not simply as an abstraction to kick around at supper clubs.”

Note: This lack of review and interest by Libertarians, in itself, was cause for concern about the health of the organization. Sandbox was a serious, well-thought-out effort by a party activist who traced his history to the founding Michigan LP convention in Taylor, Michigan, 1972. Anyone genuinely concerned about the party should have made time to read it.

The Prophet had lived long enough to realize nothing is an absolute sure thing, but a conventionally unsuccessful political party for 43 years running, whose leading lights did not care to even think about what was wrong, was spinning its wheels, at best. The soul was gone and the body would wither away directly. [The state party showed a similar lack of fire, or energy to achieve fine goals. Leadership became a game of musical chairs: Nobody wanted the top job because no one else would actually help or do jack.]

RockySame basic problem when it came to running for office. Why? For one thing, almost all Libertarians in the past four-and-a-half decades of elections became like Rocky Balboa in the first few rounds of his big fights: he pounds his opponent’s gloves repeatedly with the bloody pulp of his face. Only the LP wasn’t Hollywood. There was no hope, no route to victory, no Sylvester Stallone flurry of punches that lays out Apollo Creed in the final round. All you had as a Libertarian state or national office holder or candidate was one pummeling followed by another. Decidedly ‘antimotivational.’

Finally, as the Prophet stated in Sandbox: The LPM/LP was unresponsive. Simply that. Because of the serious major crimes against humanity—the Threat Matrix in the book—being committed by runaway would-be global government (New World Order), our self-governing country was on life support, a step or two away from complete shutdown and military takeover. To ignore those high-crime assaults while promoting running third party candidates for political office was rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic… embracing a ‘comforting illusion’ that no imminent life-and-liberty-ending crisis existed.

Did steps exist that could salvage the Libertarian Party? Yes. The Prophet identified them in Sandbox. Did realistic prospects exist at the state or national level that the Party would take a stand against priority assaults of the Threat Matrix—e.g. false flag acts of state terror (9/11, staged killings, etc.), poisoning the atmosphere, harmful radiating surveillance meters, genetically modified crops/foods, police state/military empire invasions, wealth extraction via blanket state corruption and subterfuge, iron control of money and credit, etc.? No. It was too late. That ship had sailed. Like Sodom and Gomorrah, there was no looking back. The LP bureaucracy stood impervious and the niarchists were circling.

The LPM/LP was done. The Prophet was sad. It had its time and he, along with many close active ones—including his dear lovely wife at the time, Arianna—was proud to have had a hand in leading many good souls in concert toward effective, passionate action for freedom… thru the party’s most promising and exciting years. For those who hated to let it go, it was best to look at it this way:

“We passed the baton. Liberty and libertarian are household terms. The principle of nonaggression is firmly cemented in the minds of 10s of millions of individuals worldwide, which may not have happened otherwise, without your efforts.” But to win the battle for liberty, to cross the bridge into the New Paradigm of a free world, we need to bury our LPM/LP dead horse (with love and all due ceremony) and climb onto a new one. [For heaven’s sake keep and cherish all the friends you’ve made through the years.] The Prophet is working his own liberating alternatives, many paths exist to the blooming Billion+ Points of Light Society.

ThriveBig Picture Note: Hiram T. Chance, became confident that his Prophecy would come to pass when he recognized: 1) the sophisticated mind control technology developed by the We’s (ref. video: Rule from the Shadows) and 2) the integrated sociophilosophical vision for achieving individual liberty worldwide—by discarding the world domination agenda of the Men of the Power Sickness (ref. the Thrive movement and video: Thrive). These two videos enable anyone to appreciate and embrace The Prophecy, as well as to fairly consider related issues and strategies, e.g. what to do with the LP, how to move on.

For those Libertarians wanting to work effectively for freedom on the political level consider the following:

Republican Liberty Caucus (RLC)

Yes, it’s been tried before. Back in the late 70s as the LP was peaking, a group of young liberty radicals—seem to remember that Justin Raimondo and Eric Garris, current leaders of Antiwar.com, were among them—sought to form a Republican suborganization with that same name. But those were different times, and the LP itself had every look of a bold new political stud prancing onto the political mainstream. The RLC of those days gained no traction with the warfare state crowd, which is what the Republicans were then, and still are today, except for one MAJOR difference:

Ron Paul…

… and everything his career and presidential candidacies, under the Republican establishment’s noses, represents. Especially his anti-imperialism, Constitutional, antiwar ideology and Freedom Philosophy. Defying the seemingly inexorable statist forces leading the American republic to a totalitarian grave, the Ron Paul phenomenon gave hope to all people and restored our confidence that liberty would rise again. Individuals of strategic vision—behind the scenes and out on the street working on his 2008 and 2012 primary race—formed Zen-like, long-term plans and operations to liberate the Republican Party…

… from the ground up.

The party hierarchy had ruthlessly suppressed the Ron Paul forces at conventions and other party functions. As a central salient, the Zen strategists seized on the Achilles Heel of both public parties: precinct delegates. A legacy of the Progressive era of the early 1900s, the ruling political class basically let the reformers create a facade of public control of what previously had been dictated in smoke-filled rooms by ‘the bosses.’ One conceded area of public control was to democratize the selection of voting members of the political parties themselves: hence any registered general election voter may declare as candidate for delegate to his chosen party in his voting precinct in general public elections.

Perhaps in the early days of Progressive reform a large number of precinct delegates were thus elected and became a (probably minor) annoyance to the party bosses. But as the 20th century waxed and waned, fewer and fewer persons chose to run for this ultimate grassroots party control function. Today, chances are well over 50% that if you run for party delegate in your precinct, you will be unopposed.

“Now let’s see, who will take advantage of this legal power? A bunch of indolent, self-satisfied party leaders and their minions… for whom holding office in the party or in government is considered a divine right, guaranteed by their moneyed friends, not something they have to bust their fat butts for? Or the millions of passionate advocates for liberty, who the leaders like to step on? The Ron Paul people who have been sorely disrespected and marginalized for years? Hmmm.”

rlcAnd there you have the secret. It’s been happening to some extent in most states, under auspices of Campaign for Liberty; in Michigan, the Republican Party is on the threshold of being ‘libertarianized’ from pillar to post. Michigan has 14 Congressional districts, and at least a third of them are now in the hands of the liberty contingent. The new RLC that’s forming in Michigan will be independent of the national RLC, and the Prophet received assurances from a respected young leader-founder that the MRLC would be consistent with what most Libertarian Party activists stand for.

[Note: I had a chat with that leader about the key areas of agreement between the RLC and most of the Libertarians I know, and I came away convinced that RLC will do fine on the civil liberties issues, is antiwar, and will stay away from pushing any hot button issues in the social or prohibition areas. In other words, we can expect RLC to cleave to the Ron Paul model… which of course was wildly successful, as would have been Ron—if you take away the unbelievably corrupt establishment assaults on him.]

This leader also claimed that he “would go out of my way to get long time [which I take to mean: proven, hardworking activist] LPers involved and into [effective participation and even prominent] roles in the organization.” That’s enough for me.

So there it is. RLC or C4L, for Libertarian Party activists who came to realize the LP went south, never to return, and wanted to be on the frontlines of effective political activism. It’s definitely worth a look. [Note: the LPM/LP may, indeed, continue, but it will more officially be seen as a collection of supper clubs especially as state ballot status inevitably collapses over the next few years—for lack of money, energy, and participation. Hey, nothing wrong with socializing: sitting around, watching presentations, chatting… or even smoking dope and howling at the moon if you’re of the niarchist persuasion.]

The Prophet did make the transition, but with a wrinkle that he would ever refer to himself, politically, even in the RLC as initial-capital-letter Libertarian. A fitting nod to his journey and his roots.

[1] RINO = Republican in Name Only. A term of derision used by liberty-oriented Republicans to apply to establishment-statist Republicans.

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