C4SS News Analyst Ross Kenyon responds in the mainstream media to John Boehner’s smear: Do anarchists at tea parties really want to kill all politicians?
Month: August 2010
PLAN B: Okay, It’s Time to Panic
Dear Supporters of the Center for a Stateless Society,
I blame myself.
When we launched the month-plus long fundraising drive for combined July and August expenses two weeks ago, I tried to convey that because it was for two months worth of expenses (and that those particular months were ones with growing expenses), it was going to be a challenge.
I was right, but I should have been working harder to explain that, again and again, to you over the past two weeks.
Right now, the ChipIn fundraising meter shows only $489 (from only 8 donors) raised out of our goal of $4522. That’s 10% of our total goal raised with the drive almost 50% over with.
Because it’s a double-month fundraiser, all of the donations can’t wait until the last minute. We have July expenses to pay now. It’s the 27th of August. We need roughly $600 more than what we even have on hand right now to meet our July payroll.
In the next two days, over the course of this weekend, can we get that fundraising meter up to $1100 mark to pay our people for July?
Between that point and September 17th, can we get the fundraisjng meter up to our $4522 goal?
I’m not betting on it. I’m panicking. I don’t want to ask to much of you. I know times are tough. I’m slashing expenses.
It’s time for PLAN B.
* I’ve reviewed our finances and found where the expense for Liberty on Tour advertising was already covered by a direct donation. That money could have gone into funding the tiny reserve we’ve been trying to scrape up, which we’re going to need this Autumn, but we’re going to be tapping our existing reserve instead right now. $500 slashed.
* That September Liberty Radio Network advertising campaign? Cancelled. $620 slashed.
* Our brand new News Analyst Stacy Litz? We just brought her onboard at the beginning of August, but I’ve had to make the painful decision to send poor Stacy on an unpaid leave of absence in September to give us some financial breathing room. I might be able to bring her back at the end of the month to do some social media work and start writing again in October, but that depends on the success of this fundraising drive.
* Our heroic Media Coordinator Tom Knapp has pledged to donate $100 of his pay BACK to the Center just as soon as we even CAN pay him in the first place.
* Faithful supporter and friend of the Center Jock C. has pledged to raise his ongoing monthly donation from $25 to $50 each month if ten more new people sign up for ongoing automatic donations of at least $10 each before August 31st.
Link to sign up: http://c4ss.org/support-the-center
There you have it. We need about $600 more dollars in the next couple of days and need to have raised a total of just over $3000 during this fundraising drive by September 17th just to squeak by (and preferably much more, as that will leave us with no reserve).
It’s crunch time, folks. We need your help to keep going and keep moving forward aggressively. Our efforts are paying off. Please see Media Coordinator Tom Knapp’s latest report here:
To donate via Paypal, just click on the ChipIn widget on any page of our web site:
Please support our work. Then get your friends to support our work.
Regards,
Brad Spangler,
Director, Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS)
Knapp on “Liberaltarians” and Cato-ology
On his blog, C4SS Media Coordinator Thomas L. Knapp recently weighed in on the modern day Kremlinology surrounding Brink Lindsey and Will Wilkinson leaving the Cato Institute: “Liberaltarian” is sooooooo two thousand “aughts”
Charles Johnson: Is the Problem Really Too Little Trust in Government?
Charles Johnson, Molinari Institute Board of Directors and C4SS Advisory Panel member, asks “Is the Problem Really Too Little Trust in Government?” in The Freeman, published by the Foundation for Economic Education.
Spooner’s The Constitution of No Authority
As Roderick Long once suggested, the Center has published the perfect response tool for your encounters with all of those conservatives handing out pocket versions of the U.S. Constitution. It’s a handy pocket version of Lysander Spooner’s classic critique (evisceration, really) of the U.S. Constitution — The Constitution of No Authority, available for $6.40 from Lulu.com. This new Pocket Subversion Edition from C4SS also features Roderick Long’s “Libertarian Anarchism: Responses to Ten Objections“.
Print Details: 95 pages, 4.25″ x 6.88″, perfect binding, white interior paper (60# weight), black and white interior ink, white exterior paper (100# weight), full-color exterior ink
C4SS July-August Fundraiser
Dear Supporters of the Center for a Stateless Society,
It’s time to start another fundraising drive to pay our expenses, but first I’ve got some news about changes at the Center and what we have planned.
Alex R. Knight III has, unfortunately, left from his position as one of our News Analysts in order to pursue other projects. He will remain a Contributing Writer for C4SS, though, so he’s not really going away as you’ll still see the occasional piece from him.
Although Darian Worden has been temporarily writing more to cover for the writing shortfall from Tom Knapp’s move to the Media Coordinator job, Darian will be starting grad school in September. As a result of the increased demands on his time, his workload for the Center will be dropping down to four weekly commentaries per month and two monthly occasional pieces.
At the start of August, though, we gained as News Analysts Stacy Litz and Ross Kenyon, two dynamic and committed student activists well known in the liberty movement. We’re expecting great things from them. You should see three Commentary pieces per week from Stacy and one from Ross.
If you’re not already aware, C4SS is one of the major sponsors of the Liberty on Tour project. Pete Eyre and Adam Mueller, both formerly of the similar Motorhome Diaries project, are touring the country in a giant black and gold RV doing libertarian meetups, activism and media work. Check out the Liberty on Tour web site:
In September, we plan to carry out an advertising campaign on the Liberty Radio Network, including the shows Free Talk Live, Antiwar Radio, Thinking Liberty and Voice of Radical Dissent. Our goal for this is to raise our overall profile within the movement, conduct outreach to people newly discovering anarchist ideas via libertarianism and build an even bigger readership and base of support for future growth in our operations. I believe Liberty Radio Network meets that need and allows the money we spend to do double-duty, supporting existing radical libertarian media. Check out the Liberty Radio Network web site:
We had placed Mariana Evica in a volunteer role as both our Development Specialist and Social Media Specialist earlier this year. Unfortunately, her availability has suffered during that time despite a promising start. That difficulty is coming to a close. Starting in September, she will be starting as a paid contractor for the Center at $8 per hour for 20 hours weekly. That expense isn’t coming out of this fundraiser, but the additional cost and additional capability it brings to promote our content show one reason why we want to launch the advertising program now, first.
I’d also like to mention that I will be speaking at the Libertopia conference this October. We plan on making an effort to have a nice presence there and will be needing your support for that as well. Here’s the Libertopia web site:
All of this requires your support. Because of the unique and new expenses these past two months, as well as the timing of some of these developments, I’ve made the decision to combine our July and August fundraiser into one single drive. Our fundraising goal is a challenging $4522 that we’re looking to raise by September 17th at the latest.
Below, I’ll show you our financial information, but if you don’t want to get into that please, right now, go to our web site and click on the ChipIn widget to donate. We need your support.
Here is how the $4522 goal for the July-August fundraiser was arrived at:
——————
July-August Fundraising Drive — Finances
INCOME
July Income
$310 recurring donations
$200 part of 2nd session course fees, Stateless U.
August Income
$310 recurring donations
$200 part of 2nd session course fees, Stateless U.
Total July-August Income: $1020
EXPENSES
July Expenses
Research Associate: Carson — $425
News Analyst: Knight — $160
News Analyst: Worden — $260
Feature Editor: Morgenstern — $100
Web Administrator: Gogulski — $215
Media Coordinator: Knapp — $640
Director (Stipend & Expenses): Spangler — $120
Liberty on Tour (ad package and promotional materials) — $792
Total July: $2712
August Expenses
Research Associate: Carson — $425
News Analyst: Worden — $260
News Analyst: Litz — $300
News Analyst: Kenyon — $150
Feature Editor: Morgenstern — $100
Web Administrator: Gogulski — $215
Media Coordinator: Knapp — $640
Director (Stipend & Expenses): Spangler — $120
September LRN Ad Package — $620
Total August: $2830
Total July-August Expenses: $5542
Fundraising Target (Expenses minus Income): $4522
——————
And there you have it. Those are the numbers. This is what we have been and will be doing — but only with your support. Please donate using the ChipIn widget on any page of our web site.
Please support our work. Then get your friends to support our work.
Regards,
Brad Spangler,
Director, Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS)
Mike Gogulski on Antiwar Radio, 10/08/10
Mike Gogulski will be appearing LIVE in just a few minutes at 2:05pm Eastern today on Antiwar Radio with Scott Horton. We’ll post the download link here when available.
Christian Anarchist Link Roundup
Questions come in to the Center from time to time about whether or not Christianity and anarchism are compatible. A great many anarchists are also atheists and consider that religious viewpoint the natural complement to their political views. However, anarchists can and do have a wide variety of religious views other than atheism.
There is a thriving Christian Anarchist tradition dating back to at least Leo Tolstoy and his work The Kingdom of God is Within You. That tradition continues today with grassroots organizations like Jesus Radicals and learned scholars like Mennonite theologian Tripp York. The Catholic Worker Movement founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in 1933 remains popular.
With regard to market anarchism specifically, perhaps the most oft-cited explanation of a Christian approach to it is James Redford’s Jesus is an Anarchist. Also very popular are Joseph Sobran’s Catholic and culturally conservative pieces The Reluctant Anarchist and The State and Heresy. In the latter piece, in particular, Sobran very ably responds to Catholic critics of anarchism, who typically base their objections on Romans chapter 13, widely interpreted as a Biblical demand for complete submission to taxation. Sobran answers the critics well. Also notable for those responding to Romans 13 based religious critcism is the Romans 13 home page from the Christian anarchist web site Vine and Fig Tree.
Anarchists can be Mormons. We can be Catholics. We can be Quakers. If you’re a Baptist, anarchism runs deep in the history of your faith. Anarchists can be Jewish. We can be Muslim. We can be Buddhist, Taoist or Neo-Pagan.
Anarchists can have any opinion about God. We just agree that the State isn’t God.
Spangler on Liberty Cap Talk Live, 08/07/10
C4SS Director Brad Spangler joins host Todd Andrew Barnett and other guests on Liberty Cap Talk Live – Special Edition @ 11:59 PM Eastern.
spangler pensieve 