Vol. 16.9, November–December 1982

THE Libertarian Forum

Murray N. Rothbard, Editor

A MONTHLY NEWSLETTER

Volume XVI Number 9 November-December 1982

Box 341, Madison Square Station, New York, New York 10010

Special Double Issue!

THE ELECTION

1. Reaganism Repudiated

Come, leave us face it: the election was a resounding repudiation of Reaganomics and the Reagan Administration. The Establishment media, ever looking for impulses toward “compromise” and “consensus” within our current statist framework, are interpreting the election as a call for moderation. And the Republicans are finding “victory” because their losses were not even greater.

But consider: the Democrats swept a net total of seven governorships, with one more almost eked out in Illinois; and a substantial shift in the House of 26 seats. The governor-conquests will put the Democratic state machines in a favorable position for the 1984 presidential race; and the House victories, coming on top of a comfortable existing margin for the Democrats, should enable them to break the Reagan-boll weevil coalition in the House. It is true that there were no net Senate changes, but consider again that far more Democrat than Republican seats were up this year, and that many of the Republican victories were by wafer-thin margins (Danforth in Missouri, Stafford in Vermont, Chafee in Rhode Island, and Trible in Virginia). A shift of only 1.1% of the voters in these four states would have given us a tied Senate.

The fact that the Democrats have nothing new or startling to offer to get us out of our economic mess is irrelevant. The important point is that the voter has no power to insure that anything good will ever come from a new ruler; the only power he has is to punish, to repudiate, to “throw the rascals out,” in the grand old phrase. And that is what the voters are now proposing to do. So Carter messes up, and they throw him out, and the same will be done by the aroused electorate to the Great Prevaricator in 1984. Or, it will be done if Reality is going to triumph in any sense over Personality. In reality, Ronnie has led us into a quagmire of seemingly permanent stagnation and of depression (yes, “depression,” as Nobel Laureate economist George Stigler delightfully and cantankerously told the world from the White House the week before the election) unprecedented since the 1930s. Coming into office on the promise of getting government off our backs, balancing the budget, and slashing the swollen budget and crippling taxation, Ronnie has instead brought us catastrophic deficits, far higher taxes, and the biggest budgets in American history. If reality impinges at all upon the American electorate, Ronnie will receive a landslide repudiation; the only thing to stop it will be the personal admiration which the booboisie unaccountably still have for the dimwit actor in the White House.

2. The Right-wing Repudiated

Suffering particularly in this election were a raft of right-wing Republicans, who went down to often unexpected and ignominious defeat. Particularly heartening was the surprising loss by fascistic Texas governor William Clements, who lost to conservative Democrat Attorney-General Mark White by 8%, despite pouring in $14 million into the campaign (much of it his own), in contrast to White’s $5 million. Lewis A. (“Skip”) Bafalis, a veteran right-wing agitator, lost to Governor Robert Graham of Florida by a whopping 65 to 35 per cent. Exastronaut Harrison Schmitt of New Mexico was thrown out of the Senate by eight percentage points by Attorney-General Jeff Bingaman. Representative Jim Collins, an ultra-conservative from Texas, was creamed by centrist Senator Lloyd Bentsen, by 59 to 41 per cent. Two leading Moral Majoritarians and NCPAC endorses, were also clobbered for the Senate: Robin Beard was annihilated (by 62 to 38 per cent) in his bid to oust Jim Sasser of Tennessee; and Cleve Benedict was eradicated (69 to 31 percent) in his attempt to throw out the veteran Democrat incumbent Robert Byrd in West Virginia.

Two of the repudiated right-wingers proclaimed themselves as “free market” men. Their defeat is particularly welcome, since the last thing we need these days is to elect people who will help provide a phony “free-market” cover for the disastrous statism of the Reagan Administration. One of these losers is Richard Headlee, who lost the Michigan Gubernatorial race to left-liberal James Blanchard by a hefty 7%; the other is Larry Williams, who was generally expected to unseat the dumb and lacklustre left-liberal John Melcher of Montana, but lost by a substantial margin of 12 per cent. The Montana race was distinguished by a particularly charming TV commercial, in which old “Doc” Melcher, a veterinarian in civilian life, hugged some cows, who in turn mooed in basso voices about how “I hear certain Eastern city slickers have come into Montana to smear good old Doc Melcher.” This influential commercial resonated with culture conflict: in particular, the resentment of many Montanans against Williams, with his buttoned-down, blow-dried, Eastern preppie image.

3. Cuomo vs. Lehrman

But by far the most important and visible repudiation of a right-winger was the defeat of Lew Lehrman for governor of New York. Because liberal Democrat Mario Cuomo won by 3%, the Lehrmanite press is claiming some kind of “moral” victory since the polls had forecast a wider margin. But polls are only polls, and the fact is that the 3% margin is no slouch, especially considering the $14.5 million ($8.5 million from Lehrman personally) which Lehrman spent against Cuomo’s $5 million. Since the election, Lehrman has already arrogantly proclaimed himself a kind of governor-in-exile, with a permanent staff to monitor Cuomo and to run again in 1986.

Despite his support for the gold standard, there is no reason for libertarians or free-marketeers to shed any tears for Lew Lehrman. The gold standard, after all, is not a gubernatorial issue. But more than that: Lehrman in no sense ran a free-market or libertarian campaign. He had just two issues. One was crime, which he demagogically promised to stamp out by “taking the handcuffs off the police.” Lehrman’s omnipresent anti-crime commercials were unusually repellent: “There are savages out there, they’re raping nuns and killing rabbis [thus working the two dominant religious groups]. Vote for Lehrman!” Will any candidate in favor of raping nuns and killing rabbis please stand up?

Lehrman’s second big issue was his much vaunted “40% income tax cut.” But the issue was a phony. In the first place, the cut was to stretch out over a period of ten years, making for a piddling 4% decrease per annum. Secondly, the cut was a phantom, because New York State is constitutionally mandated to have a balanced budget, and the budget is already in $1 billion deficit. And Lehrman failed to talk about any spending cuts. In short, with the budget remaining at its current swollen level, and taxes to be cut, the budget could only be balanced if the Laffer Curve would work, and state revenues rose enough to balance the budget. Lehrman pledged that if this Laffer Effect did not work in any given year, then that year’s tax cut would be scrapped. And since the Laffer Curve has already been thoroughly discredited on the national scene, the Lehrman tax cut plan is precisely a phony.

Apart from these two major thrusts, Lehrman abandoned any free-market proclivities he may have had right down the line. The lure of power. He waffled on rent control; he called for keeping out rapacious Japanese and West German imports to save jobs in New York. It is only unfortunate that the Lehrman defeat was not resounding enough to send him back for good to where he richly deserves to be: the private sector.

Mario Cuomo, in contrast, proved to be a delightful candidate, a quintessential New Yorker: warm, fast, bright, and very funny. Even the fanatically pro-Lehrman New York Post admitted that Cuomo crushed Lehrman in their first and major TV debate—a victory so blatant that the Cuomo forces actually worried about a sympathy backlash for Lehrman. In contrast, Lehrman came across as cold, serioso, monomaniacal.

Some examples of the Cuomo wit:

On the debate, Lehrman, asked why he carries a gun, started to ramble on embarrassingly about how “you can’t take the country out of the boy,” and how as a young lad growing up in rural Pennsylvania, he had to carry a gun in order to shoot gophers, because gophers made holes that horses fell in and broke their legs. (A dumb statement on its face, since it played into Cuomo’s charges of carpetbagging—Lehrman having moved from Pennsylvania only a few years ago). To which Cuomo shot back: “In my 54 years in Queens [a borough of New York City], I never saw a horse fall into a gopher hole.” Zing!

As Cuomo talked on in the debate, Lehrman ostentatiously looked at his watch and flashed it in front of Cuomo’s face. Cuomo: “That’s an expensive watch, Lew.” Zing!

Lehrman: “You’ve just spoken for ten minutes and I only spoke for one.”

Cuomo: “It only seemed like ten minutes, Lew.” Zap!

Another time Lehrman complained about Cuomo’s talking, and Cuomo shot back: “This is my only chance to get my views across, Lew. I haven’t got nine million dollars.” Zing!

At another point, Lehrman talked about one of his favorite themes—advocacy of the death penalty—and cited the Bible for support. At which Cuomo magnificently shot back: “The Old Testament also calls for the death penalty for adultery and sabbath-breaking.” Zap!

And when Lehrman argued that businesses are fleeing New York because of its taxes and regulations, Cuomo riposted: “Rite-Aid [Lehrman’s drug chain] came to New York, and did very well, Lew.” Zing!

And finally, when, after the debate, Lehrman whined that Cuomo is a “fast-talking lawyer,” Cuomo shot back: “From now on I’ll speak v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y so he can understand everything I say.” Zing!

The keen political columnist Ken Auletta (“Lehrman’s Sunday-school Politics,” N.Y. Daily News, Oct. 24) caught the essence of Lehrman’s style. It was clear, Auletta noted, that Lehrman doesn’t enjoy politics. He pointed out that if a politico enjoys politics, he doesn’t simply sit at the dais of a big $1000-a-plate fund-raising luncheon (such as Lehrman had at the Waldorf.) He jumps off the dais and, in show biz parlance, “works the room,” chatting with and back-slapping everyone there. Instead, Lehrman talked to no one, not even his neighbors on the dais. He “ground his teeth, buried his head scribbling speech notes. . .” As one worried Republican supporter said of Lehrman, “I would be hitting those tables.” Vice-President Bush, in his speech at the Lehrman luncheon, paid him an ambivalent compliment: “I’ve never seen such energy as this guy has. You know, I got an ulcer just sitting here next to him eating my dessert and waiting for him to chum on out of the place.” Not good.

A particularly chilling aspect of Lehrman was noted by Geoffrey Stokes in the Village Voice (“If Lehrman Is So Smart, Why Is He So Dumb?”, November 2). When Lehrman was asked how he, as governor, proposed to get his tax plan through a Democratic Assembly and an unsympathetic Republican Senate, he replied: “That is my responsibility. I shall be the chief executive, and I shall have been elected to be the chief executive.” I see. But what office did Lehrman think he was running for, governor or Führer? There is a strong whiff of would-be dictator about Lew Lehrman, which makes us even happier that he is still a private citizen.

Finally, no one can understand the Cuomo victory without grasping the ethnic politics that dominates New York. The fact that Lehrman made no inroads into the big Jewish Democratic vote even though Jewish himself was no surprise; Jews only vote for Jewish Republicans who are authentically left-liberal, such as ex-Senator Javits. Cuomo was elected by a massive defection of Italian Republican voters from New York City and the suburbs, who at long last voted for one of their own for governor. Italians, the largest single voting in New York, register about 60% Republican and 40% Democratic, and their defection was enough to carry Cuomo. (Why the Italian Republicans of Buffalo, Syracuse, and Rochester did not defect remains a mystery.) It has been the particular cross of Italians in New York that their confreres who have made it politically have either been Episcopalians(!) like LaGuardia or Corsi, or from northern Italy (Marchi). To your true Italian-American, who is Catholic and whose family hales from southern Italy, these were scarcely authentic soulmates. Cuomo, at last, is one of their own. (As was the Nassau Republican Al D’Amato, who won the New York Senate seat in 1980. But D’Amato is a nitwit, which took some of the edge off ethnic pride.)

4. Ethnic Lives!

Which brings me to the ethnic factor, still very much a key in this election. In my experience, orthodox liberals, Randians, and Californians have never understood ethnic. They are all baffled and slightly embarrassed by it, as if the fascinating and multi-varied ethnic mosaic which constitutes America shouldn’t exist, and everyone should be an abstract “rational” machine (Randian) or an abstract spouter of liberal cliches. Californians have managed to homogenize ethnics, and except for blacks and Asians, everyone else seems to have blended neatly into a standardized California culture. I remember attending a St. Patrick’s Day celebration in Palo Alto several years ago, and it was pathetic. After a feeble try at “Irish Eyes Are Smiling,” the band played rock for the rest of the night.

At any rate, in the Northeast, ethnic is often the key to politics. Thus, only ethnic explains why Pat Moynihan crushed his Republican opponent for the New York Senate by 2:1 this year, and why he will keep being re-elected by such whopping majorities for the rest of his life. It is not just that he is personally popular and charismatic, although of course that helps. The point is that once he gets past the Democratic primary, a centrist Irish Democrat will crush his Republican opponent in a state-wide election. His first primary is the toughest; once he is elected, winning the primary again should become easy. The reason is that Democratic primaries are dominated by left-liberal Jewish voters, who tend to elect left-wing Jews who are in turn slaughtered in the general election by Republicans + Irish and Italian swing voters. In 1976, Pat Moynihan squeaked past left-wing Jew Bella Abzug by a tiny majority, and then sailed into office. For, after the primary victory, a centrist Irishman can keep the Jewish Democratic votes, and then add the Irish and Italian swing voters for a big majority. And so on into the future.

In the New Jersey Senate race, only ethnic can really explain the surprise victory of the left-liberal Jewish millionaire industrialist Frank Lautenberg over the widely known and widely beloved left-liberal WASP Congresswoman Millicent Fenwick. It is true that Lautenberg spent several million of his own money to achieve name recognition, but money as Lehrman and Clements found—was no guarantee of victory in this election. No, the real point is that no Catholic ethnic—of which there are very many in northern New Jersey—can relate in any way whatsoever to an elegant, elderly upper-class WASP lady with an ultra-Groton accent who smokes a pipe. No way. Never. Millicent Fenwick got the WASP votes in her horsey, upper class district of South Jersey; she got, as “Lacey Davenport,” the votes of the hip younger generation who read “Doonsbury,” and she got the votes and/or the cheers of the quiche-and-white wine-set everywhere. But that was not enough to win. Not in a million years could she get the votes of your average Irish, Italian, or Polish Catholic ethnic. The key to this race was not ideology but culture. The “cross of culture,” as historian Paul Kleppner put it, still lives.

5. The Nuclear Freeze and Other Initiatives

There were several positive indications for libertarians (with a small “1”) in this election. Most important was the nuclear freeze initiative, which won across the country, in nine states plus the District of Columbia, and in numerous cities and counties. All in all, the nuclear freeze won in areas covering one-third the population of the country, and the victories ranged from California and Oregon to Michigan, Montana, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. Only in Arizona was the nuclear freeze defeated. And the California victory came despite the Reagan Administration’s vigorous campaign against it, and despite the Republican victory in that state. And so the voters of America sent a firm message to Washington that they don’t want nuclear war, and that they want to begin rolling back the monstrous arms race.

Other victories for liberty were the defeat of two despotic initiatives in California. One was a gun-control measure, the latest in a long series of left-liberal maneuvers to deprive every citizen of his right of self-defense: whether against “private” criminals or against the State apparatus. The other losing initiative is not, I know, as important in the cosmic scheme of things, but it is a cause personally close to my heart: stopping the tyrannical bottle-deposit laws. I hold non-refundable bottles to be, like Kleenex, one of the great advances of Western civilization, and I will be hanged if I will let them take it away. I am not going to shlep bottles back to the supermarket, and I don’t see why I should pay a tax for not doing so. If environmentalists don’t like cans or bottles littering the woods, let them organize squads of devotees to go around picking them up. At least it will keep them out of mischief. Besides, to outlaw bottles or cans because some people might litter them in the woods is equivalent to prohibiting the distribution of political leaflets because someone might litter them in the street, or outlawing knives because someone might be stabbed. And what is more, from my own urban point of view, it is far worse to have dirty bottles and cans sitting around the supermarket attracting roaches than it is to have them scattered around distant and deserted woods.

At any rate, the California masses stopped bottle-law tyranny in its tracks, and let us hope they will set an example for other states.

6. Losing Republican Governors in the Midwest

Another positive item for the free-market was the way in which the voters punished outgoing Republican governors in four big states of the Midwest. In each case—Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan—the state had had very popular, largely moderate, Republican governors. In each case, they had been elected on a cut-taxes, balance-the-budget program. And in each case, they had betrayed their pledges, raised taxes, and incurred big deficits. So much did they sense their disgrace that each of the governors—Quie in Minnesota, Dreyfus in Wisconsin, Rhodes in Ohio, and Milliken in Michigan—decided to quit before they were defeated. The result was that their hapless successors were left holding the bag, and all the Republican candidates went down to defeat. In Minnesota, ex-Governor Rudy Perpich was fondly remembered as someone who had left his post with a surplus, whereas the state now has a $1 billion deficit.

7. Don’t Trust Polls a Lot

The public opinion polls have proved highly unreliable this year. The day before the election, Mario Cuomo was named as points ahead in the Daily News poll, and other respected polls had his lead at 11 per cent. Hence, his actual 3 per cent victory was made to look like a “moral” triumph for Lehrman. The New York Times had an article after the election on how the polls differed from the actual results across the country (e.g. Bradley was supposed to be leading in California, Thompson was supposed to be way ahead in Illinois, etc.) But so much are we trapped in the “scientific” mystique of the polls that the Times blamed the problem on an alleged enormous volatility of the electorate, which apparently fluctuates wildly from day to day. (Whatever happened to the theory that everyone makes up their mind a month before an election?) Apparently, it never occurred to the Times that perhaps the explanation is that the polls themselves are wildly inaccurate, rather than that the public is always changing its mind.

8. The Low Turnout

Despite many hot races, once again the turnout rate of voters was low, at 40% of eligible voters. Why? Are they all closet Smith/Konkinites, not-voting with their feet in protest against the electoral process? Who knows? Certainly, it doesn’t show a great deal of devotion to the political system.

The LP and The Elections

How did the Libertarian Party fare in the elections? To be blunt: not very well. The time has come for plain speaking; the Great Craniac Swindle, the hype, the con, of Quick Victory, the quick fix, the Instant Third Major Party, is dead, finished, kaput. Throughout the country, and with a few local exceptions, we have plateaued out, and in most cases declined, to about 1 to 2 per cent of the vote. We must face reality: For the foreseeable future, we are not going to be the Third Major Party. Some of us should write 100 times on the blackboard: We are a minor party. We may be a large minor party with potential for eventual mass membership, but right now we are pretty damn small compared to the majors.

Mostly, it’s the same dismal story across the country. Dick Jacobs, who has a great deal of name recognition in Michigan as a veteran of anti-tax initiatives, and who ran a very active campaign, lost existing ballot status by obtaining only 0.5% in the race for Governor. (He needed 0.66% for the LP to remain on the ballot.) The Oregon LP also lost ballot status. David Hutzelman, who had piled up a large vote in the last election for the state-wide race for Texas Railroad Commissioner, got only 0.56% for Governor. Jim Lewis, who ran an active campaign and got on major-party TV debates, got only 0.8% for Senator of Connecticut. Bea Armstrong got only 0.8% for Governor of Illinois. In Colorado, Paul Grant, who ran a very active campaign and was on TV debates, got only 2% of the vote.

The California races were quite instructive. The California LP narrowly managed to retain ballot status when two of their minor state-wide candidates got a little over 2% of the total (2% by one candidate was needed.) But Ed Clark’s campaign for Governor is now only a long-faded memory; in 1978, Clark got a remarkable 5.5% of the vote. When will we see its like again?

Nevertheless, the story of the major state-wide California races this year (Senator and Governor) is enlightening. Compare: Joe Fuhrig, who ran for Senator in an uncompromisingly radical campaign, managed by one of the leaders of the Radical Caucus, Eric Garris; and Dan Dougherty, who ran a non-radical campaign for Governor, managed by a top Craniac operative, Tom Palmer. Typically, Fuhrig collected and spent only $25,000, while Dougherty managed to amass almost twice as much, $45,000. Both the Senate and Governor races among the Democrats and Republicans were tight, and both were perceived to be so. (If anything, the Senate race was supposed to be closer, which should have given Dougherty a comparative edge.) And yet, the result was that Fuhrig amassed 106,000 votes, the largest LP vote in absolute numbers for a major statewide race in the country, while Dougherty gained only 79,000 votes. Fuhrig’s percentage of the total vote was 1.4%, as against Dougherty’s 1.0%. But, more significantly, what was the crucial dollar/vote ratio, that critical figure which gauges the monetary effectiveness (or “productivity,” if you will) of each campaign? Fuhrig’s campaign cost only 24 cents a vote, whereas Dougherty’s cost almost two and a half times as much, at 57 cents a vote.

Two of the relatively bright spots in this somber picture were Montana and, Arizona. In Montana, the intelligent and affable Larry Dodge received 4% of the vote for U.S. Senate, while in Arizona the charismatic, former five-term Republican Congressman Sam Steiger got 5.0% in his race for Governor, narrowly winning ballot status for the LP. Steiger’s race was certainly a bright spot in the nation, but when we consider that he had great built-in name recognition, that he was acknowledged by the press to have won his TV debate with his Democrat and Republican rivals, and that he was endorsed for the first time in his career by the newspaper in his home city of Prescott, Steiger’s performance scarcely bodes Quick Victory in Arizona. The really bright spot of the Steiger race is that he accomplished his total of 36.5 thousand votes by spending only about $3000, for a marvelously effective performance at 8 cents a vote.

Another highlight was Florida, where Radical Caucus leader Dianne Pilcher, spending only $2000, or $1.30 a vote, garnered an excellent 9.5% of the vote for State Rep in a threeway race.

For a grisly and sickening contrast, let us now turn to the two top Craniac campaigns in the nation. The most important, of course, was Dick Randolph’s race for Governor of Alaska. In early summer, Randolph, for some curious reason, turned his entire campaign over to the Crane Machine, lock, stock, and barrel—and to Eastern preppie carpetbaggers at that. After offering the job to several others and having it turned down, the Crane Machine sent Kent Guida—fresh from his only political experience as third-place loser in a three-person race for national chair in 1981—to Alaska as campaign manager (?!) for Randolph. Other Craniacs poured up there, including Anita Anderson and Paul Beckner, and Ed Crane himself and the Riches were much in evidence. Crane and his hireling Chris Hocker were made co-finance directors of the Randolph campaign in the lower 48. And when Craniac Eric O’Keefe was kicked out of his job as National Director of the LP in August, he was immediately trundled up to Alaska to help run the show.

For a year, the Craniacs had been trumpeting Randolph as a “winnable” candidate, and O’Keefe managed to direct a great deal of headquarters resources into the fight. Randolph put out a campaign book, Freedom for Alaskans, which was witheringly reviewed by a former VP candidate and National Chairman Dave Bergland in the October frontlines as gravely downplaying libertarian principle.

In short, a typical Craniac campaign: lots of hype, lots of splash, lots of money, opportunistically burying principle, and run by the much vaunted tough young neo-Haldeman “professionals” of the Crane Machine itself.

And what was the result? Absolute unmitigated disaster. Remember that Ed Clark got 12% of the Alaskan vote for President in 1980, and that a popular minor party candidate should do much better for Governor or Senator than some out-of-stater running for the top political jab of President. Remember also that Dick Randolph was a two-term State Representative as a Libertarian, and had been a Republican State Rep in the past; he had name recognition throughout the state. And how much did Randolph get, after all the “professionalism,” and tons of money? Only 15 per cent! Unbelievable.

Furthermore, the amount of money collected and spent by the Randolph campaign was enormous. At this writing, we don’t know the precise figures, but various reports from Crane Machine sources range from the enormous $550,000 to a staggering $1 million. This means, that to gain his 25,000 votes, Randolph spent somewhere between a whopping $22 and $40 per vote. (Contrast this to Steiger’s 8 cents a vote in a similar absolute vote range!) This is surely one of the highest dollar/vote ratios in American political history. It is true that Jay Rockefeller spent in this range in his race for governor of West Virginia, and that Tom Hayden spent something like it this year for State Rep in California. But the difference is that they won, whereas all Randolph got was a measly 15 percent.

Or look at it this way. Since Clark got 12% in Alaska with very little expenditure of money (Clark spent over $3 million for the whole nation), this means that we can say it took Randolph from $550,000 to $1 million to get a lousy extra 3% of the Alaskan vote. Since the total Alaskan vote this year was approximately 175,000, we can make the rough calculation that the marginal dollar/vote ratio of the Randolph campaign was an incredible $105 to $190 per vote.

But this does not complete the Alaskan disaster. By the hubris of giving up his State Rep post to run for governor, Randolph lost the Alaska LP his own seat, while Ken Fanning lost his as well, and neither of the other two LPers who were supposed to win did anything at all. So that the only thing that Randolph and the Crane Machine and its bombastic hype Accomplished was to spend from half-a-million to a million dollars and to lose us the Alaskan seats we already had. After spending lots of money and hope and energy in Alaska, we are back to square zero.

In sum, the Crane and the Randolph myths have both been shattered beyond repair by this campaign. Randolph, our “big-time” candidate, blew it unbelievably, while the Craniacs and Randolph managed to pour perhaps a million dollars down a tundra rathole. As a perceptive LP politico said as early as a year ago: “who have these so-called ‘professionals’ [the Craniacs] ever elected?” Who indeed?

The Crane Machine are not only lowdown opportunists and betrayers of libertarian principle, they are incredibly inept and bumbling opportunists to boot. They sell their souls only to win a mess of nothing. But, if you look at their record, they have been successful so far in two and only two important ways: (a) in continuing to con the Koch brothers and other contributors into pouring millions into their shabby operations; and (b) in continuing to con activists into doing the foot-soldier work of getting signatures, stuffing envelopes, etc.

But the Craniac Con is a cruel one, because hundreds of activists have become disillusioned when the hype has turned to ashes, when the “many million” votes become 900,000, or the “winnable” race becomes a piddling 15 per cent. There is no better way to waste and burn out activists than deliberately hyping their expectations, and having them work and contribute feverishly to campaigns, only to have their hopes cruelly dashed on Election Day. As for the Koch brothers and the other deluded contributors, surely some day they will wake up and stop pouring out their substance for the sake of Crane and his repellent Machine.

Even before the November disaster, long-time LP activist, Barbara B. Kamm, formerly head of the Clark campaign in California, set forth a position which should be heartily seconded by every libertarian. In a letter to frontlines (October), Ms. Kamm wrote: “I will not contribute a cent of my hard-earned money or a minute of my precious time to any campaign that is managed by the ‘Crane Machine’. . .” Brava!

A grim footnote to the Crane/Randolph; Alaska disaster was the equivalent Craniac catastrophe in New York. In a race where Eric O’Keefe claimed the chances to be “excellent” for FLP gubernatorial candidate John Northrup to get the 50,000 votes needed for ballot status, Northrup got a miserable 18,000 votes for 0.36% of the total. But, in contrast to Alaska, this calamity was scarcely a surprise, since it simply continues the grisly and unbroken record of disasters committed by the tiny, inept, and Craniac-ridden New York Party. The New York Party is run like a feudal fiefdom by Craniacs Gary Greenberg and Howie and Andrea Rich, and Northrup’s campaign manager was the well-known Craniac operative, Bruce Majors.

But, once again, in a manner echoing the much more grandiose Alaska caper, the New York Party managed to raise the hefty sum of approximately $100,000 for the doomed Northrup, weighing in with a big dollar/vote ratio of about $5.50 a vote. Yet the Northrup defeat should easily have been foreseen by anyone familiar with the New York Party or the state’s political situation.

So, what are the lessons of the 1982 election for the Libertarian Party? Where do we go from here? What lessons, that is, aside from the obvious one of never, ever again contributing to or devoting time and energy to, a Crane Machine candidate for any political office?

The first lesson, as I have indicated, is to face reality, and accept the fact that we are a minor party, and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. The quick fix is over. But that means we must act like the minor party-with-an-ideological message that we really are, while preparing for future greater effectiveness and higher vote totals. We must give up all dreams of victory in two years, or thinking that everyone will rush to vote for us once they hear a brief TV spot for some candidate. We must give up any thought of selling out for nonexistent votes. For, even though statism has failed dismally, the public sees this as a failure of a particular political party, and we can therefore expect them to grope from one major party to another and back again for many years to come.

So do we have a continuing role to play? Yes indeed, but not the one pushed by the Crane Machine. Our current role as a political party is to use the electoral process to (a) educate the public in libertarian principles and how they apply to political issues; and (b) use campaigns — and all our other activities — to recruit “cadre”, that is, to add to our membership dedicated and consistent libertarians. Education and recruitment are our twin tasks, and the two reinforce each other. For we cannot educate anyone in libertarian principle by softening our message, selling out, and sounding like everyone else. We can only educate in libertarianism by being pure and radical and consistent libertarians and always doing so. And we want most importantly to recruit not people who vaguely want a 4 per cent tax reduction or looser rent control, but cadre — people who are knowledgeable and consistent libertarians all the way, and are not afraid to say so. True education and genuine recruitment go hand in hand.

And we must all realize that we are in this thing for good, and for ever. We are libertarians not because we expect a Quick Victory (although of course we would love to have one!) but because we are in a life-long commitment to the cause of liberty. We must buckle down and realize that the struggle against the State is going to be a long and protracted one. To use an apt military analogy, we libertarians are a “guerrilla band”; we are a minority, trying to win the hearts and minds of the public. We are, as “guerrillas,” engaged in a protracted struggle; tactically, we must therefore concentrate on small advances and pursuing those short-term goals that are realistic and realizable with our highly limited resources. The Crane Machine, on the contrary, has been trying to beat the massive “conventional armies” of the two statist major parties by aping them in every way. By flash and hype and mirrors, the Machine has been trying for Quick Victory over the majors at their own game. The Crane Machine has been trying to pretend to us and to everyone else that we are already a “real,” “major” party. Hence, the enormous waste of resources poured into “glamor” campaigns for president or governor, along with the grievous neglect of principle and of grass-roots party building.

The 1983 Presidential convention in New York is Armageddon time. It will be the great turning-point, the watershed event which will determine the fate of the Libertarian Party for years and perhaps for ever. If we follow the Pied Piper and pick a Craniac candidate, we will be choosing hype and dishonesty and burnout and sellout, and possibly permanent death and destruction for the Libertarian Party. But if, on the contrary, we repudiate the corrupt and degraded Crane Machine, if we face reality and are honest with ourselves and with the public, if we emphasize long-term commitment, radical principle, and grassroots recruitment, we can save the Party and build soundly and solidly toward a glorious future of mass support and effectiveness in making libertarian ideals a reality. It is ours to choose.

THE WAR IN THE BRITISH MOVEMENT

The English libertarian movement has been around, and growing, for many years. It is far smaller than the U.S. counterpart, but intelligent and lively. For a while it ran some independent races for Parliament, but gave that up as premature. Its social and intellectual center is the Alternative Bookshop in London, probably the world’s finest libertarian bookstore, run by dynamic young Chris Tame. For years, Tame and Mark Brady have been close friends, an intelligent duo who virtually founded the modern libertarian movement in Great Britain. All of us have usually coupled “Tame-and-Brady” or “Brady-and-Tame” in conversation, like Damon-and-Pythias; they have been models of both erudite scholars and committed activists, anarcho-capitalists who have been able to work with a wide spectrum of libertarians in Great Britain.

Several years ago, Brady and Tame founded the Libertarian Alliance as the umbrella organization for libertarian activists. About a dozen good friends formed themselves into the Executive Board, and they and twenty-odd others have formed the body of British activism. Since they were close friends, agreeing largely on ends and means, they did not feel it important to form anything but a loose organization. After all, why be formal among friends and allies? And so the Alliance was formed with virtually no by-laws or any legal way of resolving disputes among the Board, or indeed of choosing Board members. Why do so if no real disputes will arise?

Unfortunately, the Libertarian Alliance failed to perceive the cruel world out there, or even in here, and a realistic assessment of the nature of Man would have led them to stop, arrange for some formal mechanisms, and been safe instead of sorry. Not that that would have resolved all problems by any means, but it surely would have helped.

For the Libertarian Alliance has lamentably fallen on evil days, and has plunged into a wracking Civil War that has so far proven unresolved and unresolvable. The Tame-Brady team has split apart. Beginning with an important ideological point, the internecine warfare within the Alliance has escalated into power struggles and personal faction-fighting, replete with all the paraphernalia that we have come to know all too well: lengthy phone calls, constant meetings, and a besetting preoccupation with the technical minutiae of the dispute.

We American well-wishers can do little to aid the wracking travail of our English compatriots. Deploring “petty factionalism,” or asking shrewish questions like: “Why aren’t you spending your time fighting the State?” are both insensitive and pointless. In a sense, they are like a healthy outsider impatiently asking someone: “Why do you keep bellyaching about your toothache?” Such questions hardly ease the pain. Both sides in the fray, as well as those in-between, understand their situation full well; they don’t need to be hectored. Offers to mediate are pointless also; each side is firm-in-the-faith, and they don’t need officious suggestions by relatively ignorant bystanders uninvolved in the fray.

So what is the fight all about? Briefly, it began because of two fundamental strategic errors by what is now the Tame group apparently felt that not enough people in the West understand the evil nature of the Soviet regime. If this were 1945, they would have a point; but for forty years now, we have heard ad nauseam about the horrors of the Soviet Union. The second, allied strategic error, was in concluding that the Libertarian Alliance, with its thirty or so members, could play a major role in overthrowing the Soviet government. It seems to us that our little movement has enough problems with our own governments of the U.S. or Great Britain without taking on the task of overthrowing the government of the Soviets.

But these errors led the Tame group, first, to set up a front organization called The Anti-Soviet Society, and, second, to engage in fraternal symbiosis with a long-standing Russian fascist outfit known as NTS. By no stretch of the imagination is NTS libertarian or even classical liberal; they are fascists and Great Russian chauvinists. But to the Tame group, the lure of smuggling libertarian pamphlets into the Soviet Union, of working with a “real” underground outfit, seemed irresistible. The Anti-Soviet Society apparently soon became an NTS front, instead of a libertarian one.

When alerted to the nature of NTS by the English media, seconded by its own critics, by Libertarian Vanguard, and by LA Executive Board members Mark Brady and David Ramsay Steele, now both graduate students in the United States, the Tame group seems to have largely agreed that they erred in playing footsie with this shabby Russian outfit. But the warfare within LA then began to escalate over to what extent the Tame group should admit their errors, over whether the thorough and hard-hitting critique of the NTS Connection by Brady and Steele should be published in LA’s magazine Free Life, and by many ancillary disputes. The war was on.

All we can do in the American movement is to sympathize with the grief of our English comrades, hope that the English movement eventually resolves its conflict, and note for our own purposes (pace Sam Konkin) that you don’t have to be involved in a political party to have a barrel-full of turmoil.

NEW GRASS-ROOTS HARD-MONEY GROUP!

There are many investment newsletters which analyze the market from an Austrian hard-money, free-market perspective. They will cost you anywhere from $100 to $200 a year, and some of them are worth it. But there has been no educational, activist organization devoted to an “outreach” effort to educate the public on money, inflation, and business cycles.

Now at last such an organization has been formed: the Alliance for Monetary Education, Inc. The Alliance plans to educate the public on monetary matters from a hard-core Austrian, hard-money, free-market libertarian perspective. Founder and President of the Alliance is Dr. Murray Sabrin, the country’s leading “Austrian” economic-geographer, who wrote an important Ph.D. dissertation on the geographical spread of inflation in the United States. Vice-President of the Alliance, and head of its public policy division is Dr. Joseph T. Salerno, professor of economics at Rutgers University, and one of the outstanding young Austrian and monetary economists in the country. Salerno’s doctoral dissertation was a notable contribution to the history of international monetary thought.

The Alliance for Monetary Education is a non-political, nonprofit, tax-exempt organization, founded last year in Lenox, Massachusetts and now located in Leonia, New Jersey.

The Alliance’s major objective is to place advertisements on money, inflation, and economic activity in our most widely read and influential newspapers and magazines. It intends to inform millions of Americans about “inflationism,” as Ludwig von Mises described the monetary policy of this century’s guiding monetary policies.

The Alliance seeks tens of thousands of contributors who are eager to educate themselves and others on money and on the way in which government manipulation has caused our chronic problem of inflation. It seeks the support of libertarians, free-market advocates, hard-money people, or indeed anyone who would like to help themselves and others understand our grave economic mess.

The Alliance’s first newspaper ad is ready to go but advertising money is needed. For the absurdly low tax-deductible sum of $18 a year you can help pay for the ad. What is more, you will also receive “The Monetary Outlook,” the Alliance’s quarterly newsletter, as well as “Special Bulletins” which will be issued at least four times a year analyzing the latest monetary developments.

Hurry! Send your contribution of $18 or more to the Alliance for Monetary Education, P.O. Box 476, Leonia, NJ 07605.

HURRY! READ THE BANNED ISSUE!

The Laissez-Faire Bookstore has always tried to serve impartially all sectors of the libertarian movement, and it has carried the Libertarian Forum since its inception. For several years, the Bookstore computerized our mailing list and shipped out each issue to our subscribers. Now, Andrea Millen Rich, the new proprietor of the Laissez-Faire Bookstore and a top operative of the Crane Machine, has banned the Lib. Forum from its sacred portals. Mrs. Rich’s reason: because the lead article in the September issue (“Blockbuster at Billings”), which told the story of the firing of Eric O’Keefe as National Director of LP, consisted of “vile and demented lies.”

Those of you who would like to be able to make up your own mind are invited to check for yourself by purchasing the issue from us for $1.50 while they remain in stock, or by subscribing to the Lib. Forum, stating that you wish to begin your subscription with this “banned” September issue. Don’t let them suppress the truth! (And if you want to check some more, you can purchase a copy of the tape of the NatCom meeting from National LP Headquarters.)

And renew your subscription when the time comes. How many more banned issues do you want to miss?

THE NEW LIBERTARIAN VANGUARD

The newly revamped bi-monthly, Libertarian Vanguard, is a joy and a delight, and is absolutely indispensable for anyone interested in keeping up with the real events of the Libertarian Party and movement. Under the new editorship of Scott Olmsted, Vanguard is now a sober, professional-looking, 16-page newsletter. While still analyzing events foreign and domestic, Vanguard has shifted its focus toward news and critiques of the movement, a shift made necessary by the continuing crisis in the Party. That crisis is expected to reach a climax at the Presidential nominating convention in New York next August. (The organ of the LP Radical Caucus, Lib. Vanguard can be obtained for a measly $12 for six issues, 1800 Market St., San Francisco, CA 94102).

The current issue of Lib. Vanguard (October 1982) is a cornucopia of goodies, a veritable blockbuster. There is a thoroughly researched article by Justin Raimondo, “Ron Paul for President?”, which exposes the manifold anti-libertarian aspects of Congressman Ron Paul’s voting record in the current Congress. The point of the article is that while Congressman Paul’s voting record may be fine as a Republican, Libertarian candidates, particularly new converts aspiring to run for President, must be held to a far higher standard. And the odious Crane machine has been making loud noises about Mr. Paul for the LP Presidential nomination. While everyone has free will and can change his mind, Mr. Paul as a candidate for the LP nomination would have to face up to and repudiate his long list of anti-libertarian votes and stands before anyone except the goose-stepping devotees of the Crane Machine could even consider him for such a high post. Also available from the Radical Caucus is an even longer list of Mr. Paul’s anti-libertarian votes before the current Congress. (Send $3.00 to LPRC, 3790 El Camino Real, Box 172, Palo Alto, CA 94306, specifying that you want the packet of “Ron Paul Congressional Votes.”)

Also in Lib. Vanguard is an article by Dan Fiduccia attacking Ed Crane’s repeated use of threats of libel suits against books and newspapers, which, as Fiduccia notes, “seems even more curious in light of Crane’s published views on libel suits,” i.e. his article in Inquiry correctly denouncing them as contributing to “the perilous state of the press in America.” Fiduccia also links such threats with Crane’s attempted use of the FCC to force the NBC-TV network to sell prime time to the 1980 Clark campaign. Fiduccia’s article quotes a number of prominent libertarian theorists and spokesman, all denouncing libel laws and threats to invoke them. The neatest attack on Crane’s FCC access suit against NBC is that of former Inquiry editor Glenn Garvin. Noting the lamebrain Jule Herbert/Ed Crane excuse for the suit, that radio-TV channels are limited by government control, Garvin commented: “innumerable things are limited by government regulation of the auto industry. Does this mean someone has a right to use Crane’s Mercedes?”

One of the most important and certainly the most fascinating contribution of Lib. Vanguard has been to uncover what it has dubbed “Herbertgate,” the financial “imbroglio” (to put it very charitably) at the National Taxpayers Legal Fund Military Procurement Project (PMP). The firing of PMP head Dina Rasor has been covered extensively in the press, but only its ideological aspects, which Vanguard (in its August 1982 issue) has essentially shown to be phony. The press had not picked up on the financial mess, which has now been exposed both in Vanguard and in the current, October issue of frontlines (In its story, “Vanguard Accuses Herbert.” The monthly frontlines is available for $18 a year from the Reason Foundation, 1018 Garden St., Santa Barbara, CA 93101).

One of the most esthetically pleasing aspects of the Vanguard expose comes in the current issue. In its August issue, the Editor had replied to Herbert’s denial of a financial imbroglio with a raft of specifics. This editorial reply moved Craniac Frank Horn to write a letter to Vanguard (October) saying angrily, “Regarding Jule Herbert’s home plumbing bills being paid out of the NTLF Procurement Project account, you had better accompany such serious charges with more specific and solid evidence, e.g. photographs of checks. . . .etc.” In the course of a classic reply, which should go down in the annals of our Movement, Vanguard’s Editor not only supplies a lot more specifics, but also the photographs of three checks made out by Herbert on the NTLF Procurement Project account: one to Fry Plumbing, for a home plumbing bill, one to Holland’s, a liquor store for a party, and one for $3200 to Herbert himself. Also itemized are 16 sets of checks totalling over $27,000 which are either personal to Herbert or made out to employees of the disastrous 1981 NTLF tuition-tax credit campaign in the District of Columbia. Furthermore, for $5.00, anyone can send away to LPRC, 3790 El Camino Real, Box 172, Palo Alto, CA 94306, ask for the “Procurement Project Packet,” and receive: (a) photographs of 67 such checks; (b) a copy of Howie Rich’s new financial “controls” over NTLF (Rich is a top Craniac operative who was made an NTLF Board member in June 1982, and given power to control NTLF finances to avoid a similar imbroglio in the future); and (c) a copy of dissident NTLF Board member Anne Zill’s memo on Procurement Project finances, in which she talks of the appearance of “personal inurement amounting to thousands of dollars,” and wonders whether the Project account had become “a secret slush fund” for outside political activities or for “the personal enrichment of its president (Jule Herbert).”

OK, we’re all convinced about the facts on what might be called the lower rungs of Herbertgate. Now, how about escalating the inquiry and looking to higher levels of possible responsibility? Because the $27,000 Question (or as some would put, the $52,000 Question) now becomes: What did Crane know, and when did he know it?

THE REAL WORLD

by The Old Curmudgeon

(An occasional column dedicated to the proposition that not only the libertarian movement is slightly wack-a-ding-hoy.)

The Joy of Pain?

Jeremy Bentham is not one of my favorite philosophers, but even he does not deserve the pummelling the poor guy has been getting these days. In his nineteenth century naivete, Bentham held that man at all times tries to attain pleasure and avoid pain. But pain these days is In. The Joy of Sex, in all of its positions and varieties seems to be Out these days, and the Joy of Pain is In.

I was reminded of this stark fact the other day when my optic nerves were twice assaulted by the latest example of the Pain fad: the Workout. First, there was the latest Village Voice, much of which seems to have been designed over the years as commando raids upon my blood pressure. The article exalted the latest example of Jane Fonda’s robotic trendy crusades: the Workout, which apparently combines vague leftism with “burn it out,” “burn it through” pain. That night, who should come bounding onto the tube but Kim Novak redivivus, leading a bunch of followers through a fast round of what used to be called calisthenics.

So now your average upper-middle class booby, as long as he/she has money to burn (and the supply seems to be inexhaustible, even in a recession), can spend several days a week enjoying wracking physical pain in the Workout, and then spend the rest of his evenings enjoying emotional pain through group Workshops at the command of his favorite shrink/guru. And finally, considering the flowering of S-M these days, if he or she has any energy or dough left, they can hop into the sack and enjoy some whipping or other forms of torture. Hell, in my day, I used to think that the Flagellant and Hair-shirt movements of old were a bit looney. It turns out that they were just ahead of their time.

Before the Workout, the big example of what Mencken called the “striated muscle fetish” — and it’s still going strong! — was Running, a frenzy that began as mere “jogging.” There were books on the Joy of Running, the Mystique of Running, the Philosophy of Running, and even (the saints preserve us!) on the Theology of Running. Even in New York, ordinarily a sophisticated and skeptical city, two million boobs recently turned out to watch tens of thousands of far more advanced boobs chugging through the marathon.

My own exposure to running was short but far from sweet. When I went to Columbia during World War II, physical fitness was all the rage, in order to toughen us all up for the War Effort. Phys. Ed. was — and for all I know still is — compulsory, and one of the legends permeating the Columbia of my day was what had happened some years before to the now distinguished philosopher, Mortimer Adler. Young Adler had sailed through Columbia’s undergraduate program with flying colors, but had been prevented from graduating because he couldn’t pass the idiotic compulsory swimming test. In those days, the Great Guru of Columbia was Professor John Dewey, and the compulsory phys. ed. — swimming program was one of the more repellent products of Prof. Dr. Dewey’s looney theories of “progressive” education, in which the Whole Man and not just the mind would be uplifted. Mortimer Adler, the story went, left Columbia without a degree (he was apparently too ethical to suborn a friendly physician and get himself exempted), possessed of an eternal and undying hatred for Professor Dr. Dewey and all of his works.

At any rate, I was pressed into compulsory running, and I still remember the non-joy of chugging along half a lap behind my confreres, to the bewilderment of our beloved coach. Then — thank the Lord! — winter came, and running moved to our indoor track. It so happened that that oddly constructed track was about one-third visible, the other two-thirds winding around various exercise and other rooms. It so happened that our locker room bisected the hidden section of the track, and so us more enterprising types soon found out the way to Beat the System. We would hang out in the locker room for about ten minutes, kibitzing and arguing philosophy, and then someone would say, “well time to put in an appearance,” and then we would race out onto the visible portion of the track, and the assorted coaches would be impressed by our vim and vigor after so many laps around the track. Then we would collapse into the locker room for another extended rest. Once in a while, one of the less dumb coaching aides would say, in puzzlement, “Hey, I haven’t seen you guys in quite a while.” The coaches would scratch their heads, but they never caught on.

I had never had occasion to run before entering Columbia. (In the spirit of the true New Yorker, my attitude was, “why run if you can always hop a cab?”) From my short-lived experience of compulsory running, I conceived a hatred for this form of leisure activity that has remained undimmed in its fervor to the present day.

Now let me make my attitude perfectly clear. I am not opposed to running, or other forms of athletics, for those few who are best at it. Athletics takes its honorable place alongside other occupations in the Great Division of Labor. If Renaldo Nehemiah wants to try to break 12.9 seconds for the 110-meter hurdles, God bless him, and I will be there, beer can in hand in front of the tube, to cheer him on. Athletics, in my view, is for the pros or the Olympic amateurs, or for football players who weep at getting a mere 100 thou a year. Like coal mining or lion taming or brain surgery, it is not an occupation for everyone. I have, all my life, been a sports fan, with emphasis on fan rather than participant. But the problem is that no one has ever written a book virtually ordering you and me and the guy next door to rush out there and become a coal miner or brain surgeon or lion tamer on our off hours. No one has ever written a book on the joys, the philosophy, or the religion, of garbage hauling.

One crucial difference between professional athletes and all our joy-of-workshop-workout folks is the old economic conundrum: who pays whom? Professional athletes (and top amateurs, too, of course) get paid; the current crop of pain fetishists do the paying. Many murky social problems get rapidly cleared up if we heed the immortal words of “Deep Throat” of Watergate fame: “Keep your eye on the money.” It is the flow of money that tells you who is fleecing whom.

A common argument for putting oneself through all the pain is “eventually, you’ll like it.” I do not call that a compelling reason. Mankind has shown a remarkable capacity to adapt to almost any hardship, including the concentration camp. But that does not mean that the concentration camp is something one seeks out, or rushes to embrace. No, sorry, people, thanks but no thanks, or, in the words of Samuel Goldwyn, “kindly include me out.” Call me a crusty old reactionary if you will, but I remain as I always have, solidly anti-pain. Nowadays, poor old Bentham needs all the friends he can get.

ARTS AND MOVIES

by Mr. First Nighter

The Golden Age of Comedy

My Favorite Year, dir. by Richard Benjamin. With Peter O’Toole and Joseph Bologna.

For half a century, the major comic talents in American culture have been Jews, mainly from New York: the Marx Brothers, the great wit and linguistic virtuoso S.J. Perelman, Milton Berle, Danny Kaye, Henny Youngman, Rodney Dangerfield. The last great generation of New York Jewish humorists were all schooled as writers of the mighty TV revue of the 1950’s: Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows. Their very names tell us that here is the last great comic force in our culture: Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Carl Reiner, Neil Simon, Larry Gelbart (author of most of the MASH series on TV). For two decades we have mainly relied on these men for all that is hilariously funny on stage, film, or TV.

All these humorists emerged from the great shpritz tradition of New York Jewish humor. Young, would-be comics would hone their budding talents by standing on favorite street comers in Brooklyn or Manhattan and shpritz (go on a roll, from Yiddish for “effervesce,” as in “wine shpritzer” for soda pop). Fast, funny, articulate, improvizing on a dime, weaving in their own experience and observations with cultural references, low, middle or high. But above all timing was everything, and when that was missing the entire package was hopeless.

The life of the comic performers can be both highly gratifying and frenetic. Gratifying because the existence and intensity of the laughs are an instant direct measure of success; frenetic because of the misery when the laughs aren’t there.

In recent years, great comedy has almost vanished from our culture. MASH, so funny and heartwarming for years in the Gelbart episodes, has gotten increasingly tedious as Alan Alda’s solemn left-liberal sentimentality has pushed out all the humor and hi-jinks. It deserves its death at the end of the current season. (In a recent episode, Alda goes on at great embarrassing length in eulogizing a nurse recently killed: “She covered up her deep feelings by her shyness, just as I have for years covered up my deep and wonderful feelings by my humor and pranks. . . .” Yecchh!) Neil Simon seems to have gone as far as he can go in his comparisons of New York and L.A. upper-middle class Jewish life. And the last films of the great Woody Allen and Mel Brooks have been absolute and unmitigated floperoos. Allen’s “Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy” is one of the worst movies ever made, a brief (but seems very long) exercise in unrelieved tedium. Allen’s serioso and pretentious flirtations with the Bergmans and the Fellinis have finished him, at least for the time being. As for Brooks, his last “History of the World, Part I,” was almost as bad, an unrelieved and almost totally unfunny exercise in schatology. Brooks has always been schatologically oriented, but this time the balance and timing are gone.

The younger generation of comics seem to be hopeless, too. It is either low-key and druggy, like George Carlin, with “jokes” largely devoted to in-marijuana or cocaine references. Or it is simply witless low-slapstick like “Animal House” or sourly ideological, a la Lily Tomlin. And all current TV comedy seems to be self-referential, about TV rather than about oneself or the world. (A la Saturday Night Live, and all its imitators). For those of us who don’t regard TV itself as the be-all and end-all, this will hardly do.

And so My Favorite Year comes like a delightful bolt-from-the-blue. Undoubtedly the best movie of the year, it is fast, hilarious, tightly paced, evocative of the Golden Age of Comedy. It is the saga of a drunken Errol Flynn-type actor (played marvelously in high-farce style by Peter O’Toole) being prepped to do a stint on Stan “King” Kaiser’s hit TV show, Comedy Cavalcade. Beginning with the voice-over, “1954 was my favorite year,” it captures the spirit and comedy of the times, as well as the frenetic, drunken, wild ambiance of the Your Show of Shows program and of the live-TV of that era.

My Favorite Year, in all of its aspects, also captures the spirit of the movies of that and earlier decades. It is not only funny and richly textured, it is also fast and tightly paced. There is not a single wasted moment, not a lost millimeter of film. It is the antithesis of the modern “art film,” in which one is treated to boring and lengthy closeups of the facial pores of some hang-doggy actor about whom one couldn’t care less.

The acting is excellent, with the exception of the lead Mark Linn-Baker, who plays the young Mel Brooks-type protagonist in an excessively schnooky manner. And his voice sounds like a carbon-copy of director Richard Benjamin’s—Benjamin’s one lapse in an otherwise sterling piece of work.

But there is one question that must be asked of my favorite movie-of-the-year. Will it ever again be possible to make an Old Culture movie, a funny or otherwise movie-type movie, about the current world? Must every good picture be set nostalgically at some time in the past? Will we ever be able to turn the current culture around? But in the meanwhile, there is hope, for the producer listed for My Favorite Year is none other than Mel Brooks Productions. Perhaps this means that Baby will be Coming Home.

FALKLAND FOLLOWUP

We have not for some time turned our attention to the poor kelpers, the 1,800 unfortunate inhabitants of the Falkland Islands. Their “liberation” by the massed might of the British government has been costly for everyone concerned, including the kelpers themselves. The deluded British taxpayers were the major losers in this caper, having had to shell out $1 billion for the war, plus many more billions to come in the glorious postwar world. The Brits could have paid each of the kelpers a small fraction of that loot to simply emigrate to their beloved Britain. Furthermore, the kelpers find quartered among them, apparently forever, a permanent occupying garrison of no less than 4,000 British troops. To gauge the disruptive effect of this occupation, it’s as if the United States were suddenly to be permanently occupied by 450 million foreign soldiers!

Now Lord Shackleton has come up with a report for the Thatcher government that should shiver every rational person’s timbers. The British government is to pour in about $60 million for “development” and “job creation” for the Falklands. But consider that unemployment is zero on the island, and that this enormous sum, according to Shackleton, “might” create another 200 jobs (for whom?) This amounts to over $300,000 per job, which, as John Blundell writes, will be “possibly the most expensive jobs in the world.”

Indeed. Why not just give, say, $50.000 in cash to each kelper? Every kelper would be happier, and the poor bombarded British taxpayer would save about $50 million. But of course, the British bureaucracy would then not get their beloved boodle. Blundell reports that the proposed Falkland Islands Development Agency is slated to have a Chief’ Executive and a Development Officer making $100,000 and $50,000 plus expenses annually. At an average income of $4,000, we can be sure that the kelpers will be duly appreciative.

In the meanwhile, the poor kelpers might be getting “developed,” but they are not going to be very mobile. With Argie mines planted all over the island, the kelpers can’t walk out of town for their favorite strolls, for kelping, or for forage. All a seemingly permanent legacy of their “liberation.”

Again, it looks like the only gainers from the Falklands fray were the Thatcher regime and the British State apparatus. As per usual.

But there were other gainers as well. We have previously mentioned the sinister role in Falklands life of the privileged monopoly Falkland Islands Company, granted by the government 75% of the land, a monopoly of the wool exports, and owner of the sole shipping line. But who owns this Company? In 1973, the owners, the Slater-Walker consortium, were in financial trouble and put its subsidiary Company up for sale. A generous Argentine bid to buy the Falklands Company was vetoed by the British government, which decreed that no Argentinians may be permitted to buy land in the Falklands. That took care of that. But there was still the problem of bailing out Slater-Walker, which was accomplished by Charrington Industrial Holdings, English conglomerate and current owner of the Falkland Islands Company.

But the interesting point for conspiracy buffs is that Charrington’s purchase was made possible by a syndicate of bankers and underwriters, who accepted as part of their payment substantial holdings of Falkland Company stock. And prominent among these financiers was none other than our old friend, the Chase Manhattan Bank, flagship of the Rockefeller world empire. Oho! The plot thickens!