Politics Is Seductive

This post will conclude my thoughts about Issue 3.

EDITORIAL

In this Voluntaryist editorial “Climbing Off The Bandwagon,” Wendy McElroy explains why there has been somewhat of a focus on the Libertarian Party so far. She tells us that until political anarchists understand that engaging in the political process is counter-productive, there is little use in discussing alternative strategies. Once they have said all they can say to make the case for political anarchists, then they will begin to write more about alternatives.

She tells us that

“Politics is seductive. It offers the illusion of quick, easy victory within a respectable vehicle…In contrast, many Voluntaryist strategies, such as education and non-violent resistance, are long-term and demand courage and patience without always offering an objective measure of short-term success [such as vote totals].”

Later in the editorial she adds,

“I do not enjoy tearing people or institutions apart. It is because I understand the necessity of breaking the anarchist fascination with politics that The Voluntaryist editorials will repeat so often the same theme – government cannot bring freedom.”

SIDEBAR: Paul Jacob

In this issue, there is a boxed insert soliciting funds for the Paul Jacob fund. At the time, Mr. Jacob was refusing to register for the draft. He ended up spending 5 ½ months in prison for violating the Selective Services Act. Since then, he’s been very active in the political realm, even serving as the Libertarian Party National Director in 1987-88. Lately, he’s been involved in controversy surrounding ballot initiatives. I guess he decided not to move away from politics.

BOOKS OF INTEREST
Carl Watner writes another book review in this issue, part 2 of 3 on Gene Sharp’s books. This review is on the Gene Sharp book titled Gandhi As A Political Strategist: With Esssays on Ethics and Politics.

According to Carl, this book goes into detail about Gandhi’s political strategies. This is even more intriguing since Gandhi never held political office. Gandhi understood that it is the cooperation of the people that makes it possible for governments to have power. If the people withdraw cooperation, the entire system collapses.

He also makes the point that for Gandhi, it’s not about seizing power; it’s about denying power through non-violent non-cooperation. This is apparently where the voluntaryists get the idea that “if one takes care of the means, the end will take care of itself.”

Whenever I read or hear about Gandhi, in my mind, I have images of the movie that Ben Kingsley starred in. As far as I know, this movie was a decent history of his life (as far as any movie can be), so if you like to watch movies over reading, this movie might be a good way to learn a bit more about the man and his life.

VOLUNTARYIST EVENT

Finally, I noticed at the end of this issue that the Voluntaryists co-sponsored a one-day conference that featured Gene Sharp, Carl Watner and several other speakers on the topic of non-violence.

The conference included all of these speakers, reading material and even lunch for a mere $10! You can’t even get a large Papa John’s pizza these days for that price without a special coupon. Which reminds me, what do you think about cutting off a slice of Papa John’s slogan and turning it into a Voluntaryist slogan focusing on the importance of the means to the end:

Voluntaryism: Better ingredients, better societal change

If Only People Would Listen to The Voluntaryists

More on Issue 1 of The Voluntaryist

Editorial: Neither Bullets Nor Ballots

I noticed that in this first issue Wendy McElroy is the editor. I’m not sure how long that lasts but we’ll see as I move through the issues.

In this editorial Wendy lays out the purpose and intent of the publication which is to reject the political process (electoral voting) and focus on non-political strategies. She states:

No one has the right to a position of power over others and that any man who seeks such an office, however honorable his intentions, is seeking to join a criminal band.

I bet when this issue first came out that this must have irritated a lot of folks who were trying to grow the Libertarian Party. Over the years, I’ve heard clever ways to describe the contradiction of using politics to get rid of the State. Someone just did this when commenting on my previous post by saying it’s kind of like drinking to cure alcoholism. Have you heard others? What’s your favorite?

Wendy makes the point that they are getting back to the original ideas of libertarianism, which she says was strongly linked to individualist-anarchism in the 1800s. Read her editorial yourself for more background and information.

One item I found particularly interesting when I read it is when she says:

Political offices ARE the state.

I have that exact line in a letter I wrote to my state’s LP leadership when I decided to leave the party and wanted to explain why. I now wonder if I came up with that on my own or if I somehow absorbed it. I don’t remember how much Voluntaryist information I had actually read before writing this letter.

I’m going to take the stand that I came up with it on my own, mostly because it makes me feel like I might just be a teeny-tiny bit closer to the intellectual ability of Wendy.

Books of Interest

In Issue 1, Carl Watner reviews three books by Gene Sharp, who writes about non-violent action. I am mad at Carl for writing these reviews because now I have even more stuff I want to read and I don't know if I'll ever have time to get back on my bike.

I was very encouraged to read these reviews because Carl describes how Mr. Sharp gives lots of details and examples of how non-violent action helped create major changes in the world. Many of us know about the bigger examples, such as the work of Ghandi, but in these books Mr. Sharp apparently goes into much more historical detail of other examples.

A method mentioned in Carl’s review that I found particularly intriguing was Lysistratic nonaction, which comes from a play where the women stopped war by refusing to have sex with their war-mongering husbands. And apparently there are two historical cases where this actually happened.

I’m glad my husband’s not a war-monger.

I also learned about a World War II resister named Corbett Bishop. I had never heard of him and as a matter of fact it made me realize that I never hear anything about World War II war resistance. As a matter of fact, in the past 10 years or so, there’s been so much glorification of it, especially after the term “greatest generation” started moving through our culture. The greatest generation idea always confused me somewhat because they always make it sound like there was not a draft and everyone just gladly went to fight.

Miscellaneous

I have one more item to discuss about this issue that hit me.

There is a little box at the bottom of page 5 that says this:

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
As Voluntaryists we unequivocally condemn the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the criminal acts which resulted. We look to other libertarian organizations, including the Libertarian Party, for similar condemnation of this brutal aggression.

After reading this, I looked it up and found out something very, very interesting in this article about Osama bin Laden’s 2004 videotape. Here’s an excerpt:

He said he was first inspired to attack the United States by the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon in which towers and buildings in Beirut were destroyed in the siege of the capital.

"While I was looking at these destroyed towers in Lebanon, it sparked in my mind that the tyrant should be punished with the same and that we should destroy towers in America, so that it tastes what we taste and would be deterred from killing our children and women," he said.

"God knows that it had not occurred to our mind to attack the towers, but after our patience ran out and we saw the injustice and inflexibility of the American-Israeli alliance toward our people in Palestine and Lebanon, this came to my mind," he said.

Who knows if the guy is BSing or not. All I can think of is wow, and it makes me wonder how history would be different if people listened to the Voluntaryists, not to mention the individualist anarchists that were saying this stuff in the 1800s.