Page 2 - out of step

Deb and I are in the process of “purging,” which means digging through boxes and boxes of books and assorted binders and odd bits of paper. As expected, this exercise hasn’t failed to uncover, well, a lot of crap. But it's also revealed a few genuine diamonds. One of those diamonds is The John Randolph Club Songbook. Deb and I picked this item up in late October 1994 at the fifth annual meeting of the John Randolph Club, a then-coalition of paleo-conservatives and paleo-libertarians that two decades ago brought together such luminaries as the late Murray Rothbard (whose birthday we...

By Wally Conger Vote12 2

What if rocket scientist Wernher von Braun hadn’t worked for the Nazis before and during World War II but instead had made aerial weapons for the anarchists in Spain? What if, while fleeing Europe and her arms manufacturer husband Fritz Mandl, on her way to Hollywood, actress Hedy Lamarr had met, inspired, and become the lover of von Braun? What if, instead of being crushed between the Republicans (Communists) and Nationalists (fascists) during the Spanish Civil War, disparate anarchist factions had successfully linked arms and won out (with the help of von Braun’s rockets)? Those are a few what if’s...

By Wally Conger Vote18 13

This week, 73 years ago, Executive Order 9066... "...by virtue of the authority vested in me as President of the United States, and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of War, and the Military Commanders whom he may from time to time designate, whenever he or any designated Commander deems such action to be necessary or desirable, to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded, and with respect to which,...

By Wally Conger Vote8 5

This coming weekend -- specifically, February 15 -- marks the 128th anniversary of the birth of radical individualist, essayist, and newsletter publisher Frank Chodorov, born in 1887. One of my favorite Chodorov essays is titled "Washington, the American Mecca." It was first published in Human Events in June 1954. Here's how it begins: "It's June in Washington. It's June all over the country, of course, but to the capital city the month has special significance. It inaugurates the annual trek of gaping sightseers from all over the country to this American mecca. "Soon the vacationing schoolteachers will be ah-ing and...

By Wally Conger Vote16 4

Our government masters would have us believe that day-to-day life is a non-stop series of crises. After all, there are few better or easier ways to keep servants cowed and grateful than by rescuing them constantly from such perceived horrors as flu bugs and deflated footballs. Granted, some “disasters” are real. But too often they're manufactured by the State and its big media lapdogs. So I think it's vital for each of us to hone the skill of “taking it all in stride.” As an illustration, here's a wonderful apocalyptic moment somewhere outside London between Professor Challenger and his chauffeur...

By Wally Conger Vote9 0

It's no secret that I'm a very big fan of the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950). I was raised on Tarzan and John Carter of Mars paperbacks when I was a kid, attracted first by Frank Frazetta's awesome covers, then drawn directly into the fantastic worlds that Burroughs created in his stories. I was present at the centenary celebration of Tarzan and John Carter in Tarzana, California, in 2012. I have personally met three movie-TV Tarzans -- Ron Ely, Casper Van Dien, and the late Denny Miller. I'm even the founder of an Edgar Rice Burroughs fan page on...

By Wally Conger Vote9 1

I’ve been reading and enjoying Bill Kauffman for two decades. I once heard someone call Kauffman a “category-busting radical crank.” Not bad. Kauffman has described himself as an American patriot, Jeffersonian decentralist, fanatical localist, and anarchist. What I love about him is that he’s so adaptable in finding allies -- he frolics with both Right and Left -- as long as they love America and despise Empire. Bill’s a master of the beautifully crafted sentence and the subtly clever turn-of-phrase. I think he’s one of the best political essayists -- strike that -- best essayists period of the last 35...

By Wally Conger Vote15 3

A lot of crap gets digitally enhanced and released on Blu-ray. Just look in a Walmart bargain bin brimming with $5 junk. So it's a shame that the 1942 movie version of Ayn Rand's autobiographical novel We the Living is still only available for viewing in a slightly-better-than-OK 2009 DVD version. (You can also stream the slightly-better-than-OK version for free via Amazon Prime.) It deserves the high-resolution treatment. Oh well. We're really blessed to have this epic movie available at all. It barely survived a tortuous, half-century-long journey. Here's the deal... Without Rand's permission, We the Living was produced in...

By Wally Conger Vote21 8

[This was cross-posted in slightly different form at wallyconger.com] Copywriting wizard Ben Settle said something so brilliant on his podcast this past weekend that I just had to share it. He said it’s better to read 10 great books 10 times than read 100 great books one time. I’m reminded of a success seminar I attended a few years ago. One of the speakers urged all of us to read and re-read Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People cover to cover, once a month. For a year. No kidding. Every damn month, for a full year. He...

By Wally Conger Vote16 9

[This article was originally written and published as “Libertarian Revisionist History,” a Movement of the Libertarian Left pamphlet by the late Samuel Edward Konkin III (1947-2004) in the early 1980s. In 2005, I minimally updated and edited the pamphlet, then reissued it for political outreach to both collectivist Leftists and disgruntled Libertarian Party members. It is that version which appears here.] Basics History is an account of past events by a necessarily subjective recorder. Interpretation is inextricably bound up with the recording and presentation of events if only by the selection of which finite few moments to exalt by recording...

By Wally Conger Vote11 5

Talked with a guy named Jerry one day last week. He used to do a lotta door-to-door canvassing for political candidates. Certainly not my cup of tea. But who am I to judge -- especially when I’m about to use one of his stories? Anyway, as you can imagine, Jerry and his cronies used to get a lot of doors slammed in their faces. And when they’d re-group at day’s end, all glum and depressed, one of ’em would invariably do this... They’d hold a hand up near their ear and make a little twisting motion with their fingers, like...

By Wally Conger Vote15 1

Looking for some unique Christmas tunes to raise eyebrows among family and friends during the holiday? In 1976, New Libertarian Weekly published several alternative holiday tunes written by the late Samuel Edward Konkin III. Just copy, paste, and create your own song sheets to share at your Christmas gatherings! Joy to the World (Tune of “Joy to the World”) Joy to the world, The State is dead, Let earth receive no king. Let every heart, be unrestrained, At last we’ve broken free! At last we’ve broken free! At last, at last, we’ve broken free! Joy to the earth, No...

By Wally Conger Vote19 6

I just received a note via Facebook from a guy who says he's “new to the liberty movement” and wants to get a sense of its history. And I guess since I'm an old-timer in libertarian circles, he thinks I can recommend some reading for him. “Where should I start?” he asks. The first thing that springs to my mind is that he browse through old issues of The Libertarian Forum, the newsletter edited and (in large part) written by Murray Rothbard between 1969 and 1984. I cut my young libertarian teeth on those newsletters a long, long time ago,...

By Wally Conger Vote19 4

I'm hooked on the CW's “Arrow” TV series, based on DC Comics' Green Arrow character. And as I watch each episode, I think how great it would be if someone adapted Vin Suprynowicz's novel The Black Arrow for either the big or little screen. A decade ago, former Las Vegas newspaper columnist Suprynowicz took the Robin Hood legend, Green Arrow, and Marvel's Hawkeye, then stirred them together into an explosive, dizzying, libertarian cocktail of a story. It was a “must read” for a lot of liberty activists in 2005, but it fell out of print and seems largely forgotten now,...

By Wally Conger Vote7 0

[Surmounting Barriers to Freedom, written by the mysterious Rayo, aka El Ray, first appeared in the August 1969 issue of Innovator, one of several mimeographed newsletters published at the dawn of the modern libertarian movement. Before Rayo fully disappeared from the movement and public life in 1974, he wrote his pieces on freedom theory and strategy from his camper and campsites, socked away in the mountains and woods. Many of Rayo’s suggestions for “opting out” may strike some modern libertarians as too fringe and too retreatist. But I think what makes this article important is attitude, and the truth in...

By Wally Conger Vote17 3

From New York City’s The Plaindealer, Dec. 3, 1836, an editorial by William Leggett (1801-1839): “Thursday, the fifteenth of the present month, has been designated by Governor Marcy, in his annual proclamation, as a day of general thanksgiving throughout this state. ... [I]t may seem presumptuous to suggest an objection; yet there is one which we confess seems to us of weight, and we trust we shall not be thought governed by an irreligious spirit, if we take the liberty to urge it. ... “It is to the source of the proclamation, not to its purpose, that we chiefly object....

By Wally Conger Vote17 0

[The mysterious El Ray, whom I introduced in a post last week, was a consistent defender of those who focused on personal freedom rather than the pursuit of libertarian ends by political means. This short piece, “Objections to Self-Liberation,” is pulled from a larger article titled “SELF-LIBERATION WAYS: A Compilation and Evaluation,” which appeared in Innovator, Spring 1969.] Any self-liberation method (like anything else) has potential problems; there can be grounds for honest reservations. But most of the more vehement opposition stems not from real obstacles but from ignorance or psychological blocks of one kind or another. These include: Belief...

By Wally Conger Vote24 0

Back in the early 1970s, when I was still a baby libertarian, El Ray, later Rayo, was a widely published activist who represented what was often called disparagingly the “retreatist fringe” of the movement. While others pursued electoral politics to further liberty, El Ray explored more radical avenues to expand personal freedom and actually live a free life. He was a great theorist and, in a way, a forefather to Samuel Edward Konkin III’s “counter-economic” Movement of the Libertarian Left. For a decade, from his camper and campsites socked away in the mountains and woods, he wrote pieces on freedom...

By Wally Conger Vote16 4

["The War Prayer," written by Mark Twain in 1904, was left unpublished at the time of his death in April 1910. It was finally published in the 1923 anthology Europe and Elsewhere.] It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the...

By Wally Conger Vote23 1

[This article was originally written and published as a Movement of the Libertarian Left pamphlet by the late Samuel Edward Konkin III (1947-2004) in the early 1980s. In 2005, I minimally updated and edited the pamphlet, then reissued it for political outreach to both collectivist Leftists and disgruntled Libertarian Party members. It is that version which appears here.] Whether you oppose the War or still support your country, you have been given a false alternative. For many who struggle against the War, you have been told that only some form of social control will end war and prevent it in...

By Wally Conger Vote10 1

out of step

A memory of Murray Rothbard: “Oh, Liberty!” Mar 3, 2015

An alternative history novel that takes anarchism seriously Feb 23, 2015

The War on Terror, 1942 Feb 17, 2015

No more worshiping at the temples of government Feb 11, 2015

The art of “taking it all in stride” Feb 2, 2015

How to despoil paradise Jan 26, 2015

A rallying cry for insubordinate, smalltown America Jan 20, 2015

WE THE LIVING: a film’s 40-year ordeal Jan 18, 2015

Do this 12 times and shake up your life Jan 13, 2015

What is Libertarian Revisionism? Jan 5, 2015

How a simple Q-tip can cheer you up Dec 28, 2014

Songs for a merry Anarcho-Christmas! Dec 23, 2014

The indispensable “Libertarian Forum” Dec 14, 2014

A well-spun tale of the Resistance Dec 8, 2014

Surmounting barriers to freedom Nov 30, 2014

Rethinking Thanksgiving Day Nov 25, 2014

Exposing the mental blocks against “opting out” Nov 24, 2014

In defense of “opting out” Nov 19, 2014

Mark Twain’s “The War Prayer” Nov 14, 2014

War or Liberty: The Real Choice Nov 11, 2014