| Subject: Re: Incrementalator Editorial |
Author:
Kevin O'Connell
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Date Posted: 15:40:13 12/11/02 Wed
In reply to:
George Phillies
's message, "Incrementalator Editorial" on 14:33:09 12/08/02 Sun
>Absolutely correct!
>As a newsletter for our Party, LP News is a failure. >Instead of delivering activist material to those few >Americans who are willing to Stand Up for Liberty! and >join our party, it delivers feelgood news and serves as a >front piece for one of our party's less fortunate >factions.
>It is also actively engaged in undercutting the reform >faction that took control, not very firmly, of the party >at the July Convention. When Steve Dasbach departed as >National Director, the coverage quoted him explaining his >departure, in terms that a reasonable member would >interpret as implying that the LNC might well be doing >something wrong.
That was my take on that also. As an outsider my view is that the officers and staff disregarded Party by-laws and rules as a matter of routine.
My view of the LNC in such matters is complacensy. Instead of putting their collective feet down they complained and nothing more.
The previous Treasurer Tuniweitz finally resigned but did nothing more. In fack he has been remarkably quite since his resignation. For some time he had been intentionaly denied acceess to the LP records he needed to perform his task. He could have filed suit to have the courts compel the LP National officers restore his access to paqrty records. Instead he complained and did nothing more than resign, he walked away from his duty rather than perform it.
The LNC has had members complain but few have really spoken out. Perhaps worse yet they have approved budgets that when combined with shutting down the recruiting program resulted in the current finacial crises.
>Finally, as a representation of the current state of our >Party, LP News coverage is vacuous. The National Party >teeters at the edge of insolvency, with large debts and >little cash.
This is common to most organizations. The newsletter comes under the direction of people who almost always use it to promote their own self interest. This is not uncommon.
>The Minutes of the September LNC ExComm meeting indicate >that the National Officers no longer trust their own >staff.
From my outsider's observations this has been for about two years.
>I am assured that the National Committee still
>hasn't found out how much we lost on the National >Convention, other than "lots" (this may be changing as I >type). There's not a clue about this real party news in LP >News.
I think this is a misconception common among Libertarians whom I think of as ultra-Capitalists. The purpose of any convnetion is not to raise money or even to pay for itself. It is nice if attendes pay enough to cover the cost of a convention but this must be considered found money. Organizations have conventions for the conduct of needed business and a realistic expectation is to have a negative cash flow.
>As a modest suggestion, perhaps we could rename LP >News. "Pravda" comes to mind.
"Modern Anarchist" comes to my mind.
>As my contribution to solving our National Party's >problems, I have relative to this August doubled the press >run of Let Freedom Ring!, the magazine that you can count >on to cover LP Party news honestly. It's visible on the >web at www.cmlc.org/cmlc/pubs.htm.
If you think about it the LP National newsletter is part of what caused the current financial collapse.
A few years ago the newsletter was publised quarterly. With much fanfare it jumped to monthly. This by itself had a negative impact on cash flow as this at least tripeled the cost of the newsletter. The cost of the newsletter was part of the membership maintance costs taken out of each members membership dues. The real damage came when UMP came along. For each $25.00 National would get $13.00 and $12.00 was to go to the state affilates. The cost of a monthly newsletter plus mailing cut heavely into the roughly $1.08 from each member. Once the recruiting program was halted, Archemedies was only an enhanced version of an existing program, the membership loss began causing a loss of income. Rather than immeadiate and major cutbacks, allocating money to restart recruiting, business continued much as was planed for more money than was now available. When faced with shutting National or spending the affialtes share of the UMP money National spent the affialtes dues money. (An unconfimred rumor, no state is receiving their full share of UMP money)
As a critic of the LP I cannot find any one thing that brought it the it's current situation. But there are a number of things that that have had a degrading effect some of which I write about here.
I have watched these events with interest and am struck by how little the new Cahir Neale had done. One thing that could have been done that would have resulted in imeadiate reduction of overhead is return the newsletter to quarterly, this would have freed up 2/3 of the money needed for this expense.
I was stunned at his insitance of instaling new software for a cost of around $130,000. The problem has never been inadequte software but of getting timely and full reports to officers and LNC members. This has clearly been intentional and is not a software problem. Certainly better software could improve things but this will not eleminate the real problem. The thing that surprised me is the lack of business sense NEale showed. The new softwware is suppsoed to save something like $5,000 a month, I guess it will eleminate some paid postions. But it will take two years to recover the cost of an immeadiate outlay, two years before a return on the investment. The LP faces bankruptcy today, they needed that $130,000 to pay off debts and keep the doors open now, not two years from now. The purcahse of this new software can add to the laod that can actually close LP National.
I must say that the LNC has had the final responsibility for these events. It's their job, thier duty and their responsibility.
Kevin O'Connell
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