I'm not a fan of the state -- any state.

I do agree, however, that there are "better" states and "worse" states, in the same sense that the common cold is "better" than, say Ebolavirus ... and for most of my life I've put the state of Israel closer to the "common cold" end of that scale, even to the point of holding out that state as worthy of defense against more evil states, existing and nascent (see here and here for examples).

I'm beginning to re-think my position. The agonizing reappraisal begins with my latest column at the Center for a Stateless Society, "Awake, O Zion."

The establishment of the state of Israel was Zionism’s downfall. For more than 60 years, that state has drawn on a balance of credit built up by others. It has claimed the accomplishments of the "practical" Zionists and accepted reparations for the murder of six million Jews in the Holocaust by a state the pre-Likud Stern Gang attempted to make common cause with, a state based on tenets the "revisionists" openly admired! It has long since exhausted those accounts. Anything good and righteous remaining in Zionism exists outside the context of the state of Israel, and suffers that state at its existential peril.

... and I'm sorry about that, but it's been a busy week.

I spent last weekend (Friday thru Monday) at the Libertarian National Convention. I mostly mo/micro/phone-blogged (with the occasional assist from an Asus EEE PC netbook) from there as "The National Desk" (Tumblr | Twitter). Should have done more photography, but I tend to get caught up in things and forget that.

On Tuesday, I began my new job as media coordinator at the Center for a Stateless Society.

In theory, this will be a 20 hour per week position, but I'm trying to hit the ground running and have spent closer to 40 (in four days!). I'm building media lists, working old (and trying to develop new) radio and TV contacts, making unreasonable demands on the Center's fine people, etc. The idea is to turn the Center into a media resource that gets noticed -- Center op-eds in newspapers, Center talking heads on talk radio and cable news, etc.

Results so far this week include one radio booking and one newspaper pickup of a Center op-ed. A month from now, I hope to be able to report the same results on a daily basis and then some.

Yeah, you knew this would turn into a bleg, didn't you? The Center is doing a lot of work on a very small budget. That budget just went up some. Since the Center is transparent with its supporters, I'll be equally transparent with my readers.

C4SS put out $275 to get me started -- that went for a "professional" membership in a media contact service, and for purchase of a cell phone which I'll answer professionally on C4SS's behalf 8 hours a day in theory and 24/7 in practice.

They'll also be paying me $640 a month for that 20 (in theory) hours per week. I'm retaining the title of "Senior News Analyst" as well at my request, but I'll be writing at least one column a week (gratis, off the clock) instead of at least two (at $25 each).

I'd appreciate your support for the Center. Not just because I like groceries and beer (although I do, indeed, like groceries and beer), but because we're doing the important stuff and I want us to succeed at it.

There are various ways to support the Center, from a one-time donation to various levels of monthly contribution. And of course there's the monthly goal-meeting fundraiser:



Thanks in advance for your help. I hope to get back on a reasonably frequent blogging schedule here at KN@PPSTER starting next week.

The Lights in the Tunnel by Martin Ford, which I reviewed here, is now available as a free eBook.

The new issue of ALLiance Journal is out. Because I am vain and given to self-promotion, I'm linking directly to page 30, which is where my contribution, "Wobbly, and I won't fall down," begins. Teaser:

Two things I heartily agree with IWW on:

First, the state must go!

Secondly, the most likely way to successfully rid ourselves of it is through non-political, even anti-political, means -- the IWW's tools of preference are "building the new society in the shell of the old," a phrase which adherents of Samuel E. Konkin's agorism/counter-economics/Movement of the Libertarian Left will surely recognize, and the general strike.
Speaking of ALLiance, it was great to get to spend some time (not nearly enough time, but some) with Chris Lempa, James Tuttle, Gary Chartier and other left-libertarian luminaries at the Libertarian National Convention over the weekend.

After putting out the Facebook announcement for the "Radicals Luncheon" on Saturday, I got more and more worried about attendance. I was hoping for 30, but I was afraid it would be ten. Shouldn't have worried -- I stopped counting when I reached 50. It was an entirely social event, no presentations, etc., just fellowship and socializing.

The turnout put a spring in my (backache-plagued) step when I left the luncheon to attend the organizational meeting of the Libertarian Non-Intervention Caucus. Within 24 hours of our formation, we had not only successfully lobbied for the defeat of a mildly hawkish change to the LP's platform, but saw the existing plank replaced with an even stronger non-intervention statement written by Rebecca Sink-Burris (who won my vote for at-large LNC with her proposal -- so far as I know she is not affiliated with the caucus, btw). Thanks to George Phillies for bringing the caucus together.

Tomorrow ... er, today ... I start a new job with the Center For a Stateless Society. See the Center's May Fundraiser pitch for details, and pitch in if you like what we're doing.

Well here it is--the moment I'm sure you've all been waiting for. The Center for a Stateless Society is raising funds for the month of May to pay all us writers for what we've already done.

The good news (great news!) is that there's currently $220 coming in automatically through the true fans system (i.e. the monthly PayPal subscription option). With $220 of the $1455 monthly budget (around 15%) now funded automatically, that leaves $1235 for May. If enough people subscribe for a modest monthly subscription (just a few dozen people choosing the $10 or $25 option would put us over the top), it's quite conceivable you'll never have to read any more of these blegs. Imagine if Jerry Lewis had a Chipin subscription option and promised he'd go away forever if enough people cooperated! The MDA would be funded through the year 3000.

In the meantime, though, we've got $1140 left to raise (I see we're up to $95 in contributions). So if you value the work we're doing at C4SS and have the means to do so, we'd certainly appreciate anything you can throw our way (just go here to contribute or do so with the Chipin widget to the left).

Or (again) you can just go here to select a subscription option for some amount you'll hardly even miss every month, and then just smugly sit back and ignore future begathons.

Left (your left, not mine): Kelly Wall, editor, Voice of Freedom (Libertarian Party of Tennessee newsletter).

Right: Two-term Wilson County (Tennessee) Commissioner and 2010 state legislative candidate Heather Scott.

Not saying I won't blog here at KN@PPSTER this weekend, but my main plan is to concentrate on "raw coverage" -- photography, microblogging, etc. -- and let others (this means you) grab/adapt/use what I originate.

Tumblr is set up nicely for quick posting of photos, video and audio, so look for that kind of thing at The National Desk. Its associated Twitter feed and my personal Facebook profile are the places to find quick microblog updates.

If I do any long form stuff of my own, it will appear here or, more likely, at Independent Political Report (where you should consider yourself pointed for the best coverage by others as well).

Brian Holtz at Independent Political Report:

Sorry, but your ability to generate a light cone does not give you the right to control all cameras within it.
Tangentially related, recently re-posted oldie but goodie from Roderick T. Long:

You cannot own information without owning other people.

Do I give a tinker's damn about the outcome of the GOP's South Carolina gubernatorial primary? I do not. Matter of fact, the only reason it's even on my radar is because I can't resist dropping in on a daily basis to see what The Other McCain is talking about.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Stacy's a Peckerwood Populist who rolls around on the floor of the Augean stable of irredentist Confedero-sentimentalism and neo-Dixecratism instead of getting with the cleanup, but by gum he's never boring.

And what he's talking about a lot right now is a blogger/political consultant's claim to have had an "inappropriate physical relationship" with GOP candidate Nikki Haley.

What's interesting to me about McCain's writing on the topic is that he's looking at it as a case study in how the blogosphere has changed political journalism and the dynamic of campaigns, and he's doing so from the perspective of someone who, as he puts it, has "been on both sides of the Old Media/New Media divide."

I'm a little bit, but not much, younger than Robert Stacy McCain. I've never been an editor at the Washington Times, but I've been doing "real journalism" on and off for more than 30 years, since I was 12 (I started off writing local beekeeper club meeting reports for my town's daily newspaper; sneer if you want, but I knew what a five-point lede was by the time I started on my junior high school newspaper, and had been published in a print magazine with a worldwide subscribership by the time I got my driver's license), and what he says rings true:

[W]hen I worked at The Washington Times, there were people whose job it was to say, "Hey, maybe we shouldn't publish that." ... Wes Pruden’s motto was always, "Get it first and get it right." The Lewinksy scandal was a case where we weren't first because to have published a thinly-source[d] article about such a major scandal would have been short of the "get it right" standard.
Over the course of the decade and change since the Lewinsky scandal broke, the blogosphere has completely pranged the "get it right" standard both on the Internet and, bleeding over, in the "mainstream media." Tabloid TV was already eroding the standard, but the blogosphere was its death.

These days, the "get it first and get it right" standard in the MSM has been replaced by the "get it first and cover it as an 'if these allegations are true' story instead of a 'we have learned and can truthfully tell you' story; that way if it's wrong, most of the mud flies clear of us" standard.

I don't think that's going to last, though.

Why?

Because this kind of journalism has accomplished that which we once believed impossible: It's made sex, marital infidelity, etc. boring.

Every other week, some politician trots out to do the obligatory "I betrayed my family" press conference, after which he/she either exits the political stage or dons an electric chastity belt, hands out remote activators to the assembled press (really -- every MSM reporter carries a keychain full of'em) and limps valiantly forward to face defeat or redemption at the next election.

Yawn.

Hell, the only reason the Nikki Haley story has legs is that she's still denying it. If she'd called a press conference, admitted it, maybe flashed her rack for the cameras, everyone outside of South Carolina (and most people in South Carolina) would have already forgotten her name, not to mention the name of the blogger/consultant who claimed to have got him summathat, by now. Which, as a side note, makes me think that she's probably telling the truth.

At one time, the sex scandal story was a guaranteed way to move papers off newsstands. That's because no journalist would put his name on such a story unless he had the used condom and lab results on the DNA therein. If that particular kind of thing was reported, you could bet money that it was true.

Now that it's "anything goes as long as we can deny we outright lied," it's been overdone. It's the same story over and over, with the names (usually) changed. And face it, nobody really wants to think about Eliot Spitzer or Mark Sanford or John Ensign or John Edwards in bed with anyone or anything. I mean, eeewwwww. It's creepy, and it's unimportant.

At some point, this kind of "news" will stop driving newsstand sales and web site traffic, and then it will become a curious historical artifact. As far as I'm concerned, that moment can't come too soon.

Corresponding with a friend today over the possibility that Wayne Allyn Root and Co. will run the table at the Libertarian National Convention in St. Louis this weekend. His reply:

Could be worse. It could be Rand Paul.
Jesus. He has to know that here in about three hours or so, I'm going to wake up screaming and it's going to be his fault for putting that image in my head.

General Predictions:

- The final ballot will be Wayne Allyn Root vs. ???

- On all ballots prior to that final ballot, Root will place first among all contenders.

- If Root isn't within a short distance of a majority (40-45% minimum) on the first ballot, he won't win. He commands a plurality for first choice, but is hardly anyone's second or even third choice. For the most part, either you're for Root or you're for Anyone But Root (including None of the Above). As candidates are eliminated from the running, his gains will be small. He may even lose some votes as one or more of his remaining opponents start to look like viable choices instead of long shots.

- Of course, there's a chance that he'll manage a majority on the first ballot, which will make it the last ballot, too.

My guess is that either Root will win a surprise first-ballot majority, or that it it will go to four or more ballots, and that Myers will be eliminated on the first ballot and Hancock on the second.

First Ballot

Root: ~40%
Phillies: ~20%
Hancock: ~20%
Hinkle: ~12%
Myers: ~8%

Second Ballot

Root: ~41%
Phillies: ~21%
Hinkle: ~20%
Hancock: ~18%

Third Ballot

Root: ~44%
Phillies and Hinkle: ??%
NOTA: ~5%

What happens next depends on whether Hancock's non-NOTA voters go to Phillies or Hinkle. My guess is Phillies, but it's nothing like a sure thing.

If Hinkle manages to get it down to Hinkle v. Root, Hinkle will ride the "emerging consensus wave" all the way to a fourth-ballot majority.

If Phillies manages to get it down to Phillies v. Root, we may go several ballots with a stubborn NOTA vote keeping either from winning a majority. When that deadlock breaks, I don't think it will break to Root's benefit.

As always, take my predictions with a grain of salt. When I'm on, I'm usually dead on. When I'm not, I'm usually so far off it's silly.