LIBERTY magazine now online format only

[Jerry Biggers]

This is probably "old news," (since the conversion apparently happened last November), but I did not find it mentioned elsewhere on OL. Liberty magazine, a very interesting libertarian journal of opinion, founded by the late Richard Bradford, has dropped print publication and is now available in an online-only, format. Additionally, it is now accessible free - there is no longer a aubscription fee.

Bradford was also the co-founder, with Chris Sciabarra, of the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies which is still a print publication. The new Editor, Sthephan Cox, has had fewer articles dealing with Rand and Objectivism than Bradford did. However, it is a journal that Objectivists would find interesting with its libertarian political and cultural slant.

Their address: http://www.libertyunbound.com/

[Brant Gaede]

The ironical effect is the readership will fall off the cliff. I was a subscriber since it started. I was aware of the cancellation of the print version, then simply forgot about it until now. I don't think R.W. Bradford's first name was Richard. How about Robert? He died just over five years ago of kidney cancer. The magazine never quite got its mojo back.

--Brant

[Robert Campbell]

Brant,

I believe it was Robert W. Bradford. [Nope, it was Raymond—see Chris Baker's post downthread.]

These are not the best times for print publications.

New Ideas in Psychology is still available in print, but only a few long-time subscribers are likely to see it in that format. For the rest of the world, each issue is just a collection of PDFs.

Robert Campbell

[Jerry Biggers]

There I go again. Robert Bradford was the editor/publisher of Liberty. Richard Bradford was the actor who played in the British TV series, Man In A Suitcase, in the 1960s and which now has a "cult" following. For the uninitiated, the title character was a disaffected former U.S. intelligence agent who was cut loose by the Agency after being framed. If the plot line sounds remarkably like the current Burn Notice TV series, you are right.

[kiaer.ts]

Good riddance. Their gloating America-deserved-it response to 9/11 was abhorrent. It was obvious that their libertarianism was all about sticking a thumb in the eye of perceived authority, not about protecting the actual rights of real people.

[jriggenbach]

Good riddance. Their gloating America-deserved-it response to 9/11 was abhorrent. It was obvious that their libertarianism was all about sticking a thumb in the eye of perceived authority, not about protecting the actual rights of real people.

As is customary, Ted Keer's ignorance is the main thing on display here. Though Bill Bradford (Robert William Bradford) was Rothbardian in his basic sympathies, which meant he was against the Afghan and Iraqi wars, he deliberately pursued the policy of opening his magazine to all varieties of identifiably libertarian opinion. Stephen Cox, who had been his friend since his college days in Michigan, was in favor of both wars and urged libertarians, in the pages of Liberty, not only to look with favor on those wars, but also to support GW Bush for president in the 2004 election. Today, Stephen Cox is Bill's handpicked successor as editor of Liberty.

JR

[kiaer.ts]

Good riddance. Their gloating America-deserved-it response to 9/11 was abhorrent. It was obvious that their libertarianism was all about sticking a thumb in the eye of perceived authority, not about protecting the actual rights of real people.

As is customary, Ted Keer's ignorance is the main thing on display here. Though Bill Bradford (Robert William Bradford) was Rothbardian in his basic sympathies, which meant he was against the Afghan and Iraqi wars, he deliberately pursued the policy of opening his magazine to all varieties of identifiably libertarian opinion. Stephen Cox, who had been his friend since his college days in Michigan, was in favor of both wars and urged libertarians, in the pages of Liberty, not only to look with favor on those wars, but also to support GW Bush for president in the 2004 election. Today, Stephen Cox is Bill's handpicked successor as editor of Liberty.

JR

Talk about ignorance, the wars began after the attacks and were not mentioned in the first issue (think it was January 2002, but maybe later) which responded to 9/11 itself. I said nothing of opposition to any war. The issue was full of gloating from practically the entire staff about how America deserved it, for all sorts of reasons, each pacifist unhappy in his own way. It was repulsive. And it has nothing to do with opposition to either war.

If what you say about Stephen Cox is true, I have as much sympathy for him as I do a Catholic who goes to work for Planned Parenthood.

[jriggenbach]

Good riddance. Their gloating America-deserved-it response to 9/11 was abhorrent. It was obvious that their libertarianism was all about sticking a thumb in the eye of perceived authority, not about protecting the actual rights of real people.

As is customary, Ted Keer's ignorance is the main thing on display here. Though Bill Bradford (Robert William Bradford) was Rothbardian in his basic sympathies, which meant he was against the Afghan and Iraqi wars, he deliberately pursued the policy of opening his magazine to all varieties of identifiably libertarian opinion. Stephen Cox, who had been his friend since his college days in Michigan, was in favor of both wars and urged libertarians, in the pages of Liberty, not only to look with favor on those wars, but also to support GW Bush for president in the 2004 election. Today, Stephen Cox is Bill's handpicked successor as editor of Liberty.

JR

Talk about ignorance, the wars began after the attacks and were not mentioned in the first issue (think it was January 2002, but maybe later) which responded to 9/11 itself. I said nothing of opposition to any war. The issue was full of gloating from practically the entire staff about how America deserved it, for all sorts of reasons, each pacifist unhappy in his own way. It was repulsive. And it has nothing to do with opposition to either war.

If what you say about Stephen Cox is true, I have as much sympathy for him as I do a Catholic who goes to work for Planned Parenthood.

More ignorance. The first issue of Liberty was not in 2002, but back in the 1980s. I was at the Liberty Conference in Port Townsend, WA in 2001, very shortly after the attacks (some scheduled speakers were unable to attend because of airline restrictions imposed in direct response to the attacks), and my approach to the whole subject (pretty much like Ron Paul's - payback for decades of inexcusable intervention in the region) was not met with enthusiasm.

JR

[william.scherk]

Good riddance. Their gloating America-deserved-it response to 9/11 was abhorrent

As is customary, Ted Keer's ignorance is the main thing on display here.

A Rashomon moment. Memory can be most faulty at times, even with especially emotional events and their aftermath, as Elizabeth Loftus has shown with her groundbreaking research. Here are links to the first and second Liberty issues that followed the terror attacks of 2001. What does the evidence show? Did any writer gloat? Was the majority of commentary gloating and blaming? Which writers suggested that America deserved it?

[Robert Campbell]

WSS,

Thanks for posting the links.

I was a subscriber in those days. There was indeed a wide spectrum of reactions to 9/11 in the pages of Liberty. It wasn't all comic-book Rothbardianism. Uh, well, you could look it up...

When I became frustrated with the magazine, as I've been a number of times over the years, it was because Liberty seemed to be focused, laser-like, on those who identify themselves, overridingly and consumingly, as libertarians.

I've spent only a small portion of my adult life in or around libertarian movement circles, so that particular focus would tire me out after a while.

Robert Campbell

[Brant Gaede]

Good riddance. Their gloating America-deserved-it response to 9/11 was abhorrent

As is customary, Ted Keer's ignorance is the main thing on display here.

A Rashomon moment. Memory can be most faulty at times, even with especially emotional events and their aftermath, as Elizabeth Loftus has shown with her groundbreaking research. Here are links to the first and second Liberty issues that followed the terror attacks of 2001. What does the evidence show? Did any writer gloat? Was the majority of commentary gloating and blaming? Which writers suggested that America deserved it?

For me at the time the only thing of particular note was Bradford's rather jejune response to the whole thing, in contrast to just about everyone else, including his wife.

Way back in the day I used to fly my flying club airplane up and down the Hudson River in the VFR (Visual Flight Rules) corridor. Because of altitude restrictions I had to fly well below the top of the towers and had to crane my neck to see them looking up. The buildings were awesome in their sheer size and were beautiful to me.

The Towers would likely not have collapsed if the asbestos insulation on the steel girders had been installed as specified by the people who designed them. In 1971, about, NYC forbade the use of asbestos in buildings so they used a grossly inferior substitute half-way through construction. The Empire State Building was built off a central core, the steel slathered in concrete insulation. In 1943 a B-25 twin-engined bomber hit the side of the building around the 76th floor. There was a fire. A few lives were lost.

When the Towers were proposed in the early 1960s and pictures were published in the Daily News, I being aware of that B-25 crash, wondered what provisions had been taken to protect those (ugly) Towers if a large airplane was accidentally flown into one. I imagined large swimming pools at the top that could discharge water down the inside of the buildings to designated floors to put out a fire. I had no idea if that'd be practical, but still wonder why that was a seeming concern of me, an 18-yo, and no one in the public media.

I read that when they switched the insulation a qualified engineer remarked in a letter to The New York Times, that any serious fire in one of the Towers would result in the building collapsing.

--Brant

[algernonsidney]

His name was Raymond William Bradford. I interned there for six months. He was private about a lot of things, and this was one of them. To most people, he was just "Bill."<br><br>I figured its days were numbered when RWB passed on back in December 2005. He gave 20-30 hours per week to it and got nothing back for it. And for about the first ten years, he gave up part of his house for the magazine.<br><br>I also wonder what happened to the excellent Bradford Library. It was a goldmine for anything related to the movement as long as RWB had been involved. He had just about anything that was related to Rand, too. This included first edition copies of all her novels and obscure things like Sid Greenberg's excellent work <i>Ayn Rand and Alienation</i>. I know I would have happily bought some of that stuff at more than its face value. My hope is that it all ended up at some other great organization like FEE.<br><br>I don't think the magazine ever recovered from the departure of Tim Virkkala in 1999 or 2000. He's the smartest guy I've known and was able to speak intelligently on almost any subject which would come up in any conversation about any article that crossed his desk. Tim had been there since Day One. Just as David Kelley had Don Heath, RWB had Tim. I don't know how many hours Tim spent there, but it was more than 40 per week.<br><br>I will add that Bill's wife Kathy also contributed a great deal to the magazine free of charge. Her contributions were largely in accounting and in administrative functions. She would make a daily trip to the post office. She did all the overhead-type work and actually had only a little input on the publishing side of the magazine. Her only editorial contribution would be serving as a proofreader for the finished product--a task which everyone did.<br><br>No doubt in my mind, the decision to go monthly was also a mistake. I don't know how RWB expected the magazine to do that with the same staff and the same pool of volunteers. Unfortunately, RWB just wanted to do something for his own reasons and didn't think much about how it might effect others. I saw two ugly departures there--Jesse Walker and Mina Greb.<br><br>RWB did care very much about journalistic integrity and would research things thoroughly if necessary. For that reason, I am very confident that the magazine's accusations against Harry Browne were true. And knowing about some of his relationships, I imagine it was quite a heartbreak for him.<br><br>Now that the printed zine is no more, I really don't have any qualms about talking about the good and the bad that went on there. There is no longer a magazine that needs to be protected. And, for all the trials and tribulations, it was the best six months of my life.<br><br>Tim's memoir is probably the best thing out there:<br><br><a href="http://www.insteadofablog.com/2005.12.16.shtml" class="bbc_url" title="" rel="nofollow">http://www.insteadof...005.12.16.shtml</a>

Edited February 8, 2011 by Chris Baker

[kiaer.ts]

Good riddance. Their gloating America-deserved-it response to 9/11 was abhorrent

As is customary, Ted Keer's ignorance is the main thing on display here.

A Rashomon moment. Memory can be most faulty at times, even with especially emotional events and their aftermath, as Elizabeth Loftus has shown with her groundbreaking research. Here are links to the first and second Liberty issues that followed the terror attacks of 2001. What does the evidence show? Did any writer gloat? Was the majority of commentary gloating and blaming? Which writers suggested that America deserved it?

Those issues don't mention 9/11 because they went to print before the attacks. I said January 2002 above, did I not? This isn't rocket science, although your ignorance of the technicalities of old-style publishing make it look that way. Post the links for the following months. I remember commenting to myself at the time that a four-month turnaround was long even for a crappy outfit like theirs. Let's see the early 2002 editions.

Edited February 9, 2011 by Ted Keer

[Robert Campbell]

Those issues don't mention 9/11 because they went to print before the attacks. I said January 2002 above, did I not? This isn't rocket science, although your ignorance of the technicalities of old-style publishing make it look that way. Post the links for the following months. I remember commenting to myself at the time that a four-month turnaround was long even for a crappy outfit like theirs. Let's see the early 2002 editions.

Ted,

You could look it up.

The November 2001 issue includes commentary about 9/11 starting on page 7 and continuing to page 20. Across the top of page 7 is the header "Breaking News." In the table of contents, the items from pp. 7-20 are enclosed in a box headed "Terror!"

Maybe RWB didn't run quite so crappy an outfit as you've alleged.

Robert Campbell

[william.scherk]

Good riddance. Their gloating America-deserved-it response to 9/11 was abhorrent

Talk about ignorance, the wars began after the attacks and were not mentioned in the first issue . . . which responded to 9/11 itself. [ . . . ] The issue was full of gloating from practically the entire staff about how America deserved it

Here is a link to the first Liberty issue that followed the terror attacks of 2001.

November 2001 "Terror" Issue

-- Coming to Grips with Terror

-- The Logic of Horror

-- The World and Us

-- America vs the Middle East

-- Time to Fight

-- Invading Afghanistan

-- Hitting Home

Here is a link to the second Liberty issue that followed the terror attacks of 2001.

December 2001 "Terror" Issue

-- A Constitutional Response

-- Feeding the Hand that Feeds You

-- No Time for Fantasy

-- Rage Now!

-- At Home with Terror

Those issues don't mention 9/11 because they went to print before the attacks. I said January 2002 above, did I not?

Yes, you did say January 2002. And I went to look at the 2002 issue you sort of cited (I added the emphasis above).

This isn't rocket science, although your ignorance of the technicalities of old-style publishing make it look that way.

Right. Clicking the link at the top of the thread is not rocket science; looking for the kind of awful gloating articles you claim appeared is not rocket science. My ignorance of Liberty publishing schedules led me straight to the January 2002 issue -- which you directed us to -- and I didn't find what you claimed to have found, so I looked carefully through preceding and succeeding editions to see what articles had appeared that fit the bill you fixed on Liberty.

Post the links for the following months.

I don't think I will post the links for next few months. If you want to demonstrate the kind of gloating, blaming, 'America deserved it' reports you claim to remember, I will leave that to you.

I remember commenting to myself at the time that a four-month turnaround was long even for a crappy outfit like theirs. Let's see the early 2002 editions.

I expect, if your memory is correct, finding evidence to support all your claims should be a snap. It's not rocket science, after all.

Edited February 9, 2011 by william.scherk

[kiaer.ts]

Ted,

You could look it up.

Well, yes, I could.

But I was a regular purchaser of that magazine up until then, and my shock at the "I told you so" "chickens coming home to roost" "America (characterized as "them" - not "we") deserves it" reaction from just about every writer and column was strong enough for me to make the conscious decision not to buy the magazine ever again. I did pick it up once in 2009 to look at an article about the post-Obama Atlas Shrugged resurgence, and found I did not miss it.

The decision was deliberate enough that I cannot doubt my memory for its reasons. Not being a denunciationist, I am not interested in convincing people that the magazine is evul or not to read it if they find value in it. Nor am I about to engage in what would be the thoroughly unpleasant chore of wallowing through the relevant issue in order merely to satisfy the curiosity of our resident Canadian Roy Cohn revenant. He can post the links if he wishes. Anyone who cares to do so can read the magazine, which, eloquently or ineloquently, speaks for itself.

[Philip Coates]

> Just as David Kelley had Don Heath, RWB had Tim. [Chris]

Don Heath seems to have been the guy who kept things organized, made the summer seminars work, probably would have prevented the decline in numbers of those sumsems.

The way I heard it, for him to stay (he was a Canadian) the organization had to do something for him legal-wise or paperwork-wise so that his visa wouldn't expire, so he could stay in the U.S. Apparently they didn't. They thought he was just a practical, nuts and bolts guy not an intellectual which is what they thought they needed.

Again, I got this all second hand so I may have garbled it.

Edited February 9, 2011 by Philip Coates

[Philip Coates]

> The Towers would likely not have collapsed if the asbestos insulation on the steel girders had been installed as specified by the people who designed them. In 1971, about, NYC forbade the use of asbestos in buildings so they used a grossly inferior substitute half-way through construction.

Brant, do you have any documentation on this? I'd like to use it if it can be sourced.

[Brant Gaede]

> The Towers would likely not have collapsed if the asbestos insulation on the steel girders had been installed as specified by the people who designed them. In 1971, about, NYC forbade the use of asbestos in buildings so they used a grossly inferior substitute half-way through construction.

Brant, do you have any documentation on this? I'd like to use it if it can be sourced.

It was years ago. The sources were pretty good but secondary. I cannot take this further for you as I've not the time. It should not be difficult to research NYC asbestos ban.

--Brant

[william.scherk]

> The Towers would likely not have collapsed if the asbestos insulation on the steel girders had been installed as specified by the people who designed them. In 1971, about, NYC forbade the use of asbestos in buildings so they used a grossly inferior substitute half-way through construction.

Brant, do you have any documentation on this? I'd like to use it if it can be sourced.

It was years ago. The sources were pretty good but secondary. I cannot take this further for you as I've not the time. It should not be difficult to research NYC asbestos ban.

You can start here. Remember Rashomon.

Virtually as one, experts on the development, testing and use of fireproofing materials say no standard treatment of the steel, asbestos or otherwise, could have averted the collapse of the towers in the extraordinarily hot and violent blaze.

But some wonder whether asbestos insulation might have kept the towers intact long enough for more people to have escaped. And more important, they say the disaster at the World Trade Center exposes a gap in their knowledge about many fireproofing materials.

While those materials are routinely tested under conditions typical of ordinary fires, their effectiveness at the much higher temperatures of last week's catastrophe is generally unknown. In the new world of domestic terrorism, some authorities say ignorance is no longer acceptable.

[Brant Gaede]

> The Towers would likely not have collapsed if the asbestos insulation on the steel girders had been installed as specified by the people who designed them. In 1971, about, NYC forbade the use of asbestos in buildings so they used a grossly inferior substitute half-way through construction.

Brant, do you have any documentation on this? I'd like to use it if it can be sourced.

It was years ago. The sources were pretty good but secondary. I cannot take this further for you as I've not the time. It should not be difficult to research NYC asbestos ban.

You can start here. Remember Rashomon.

Virtually as one, experts on the development, testing and use of fireproofing materials say no standard treatment of the steel, asbestos or otherwise, could have averted the collapse of the towers in the extraordinarily hot and violent blaze.

But some wonder whether asbestos insulation might have kept the towers intact long enough for more people to have escaped. And more important, they say the disaster at the World Trade Center exposes a gap in their knowledge about many fireproofing materials.

While those materials are routinely tested under conditions typical of ordinary fires, their effectiveness at the much higher temperatures of last week's catastrophe is generally unknown. In the new world of domestic terrorism, some authorities say ignorance is no longer acceptable.

This of course, is not definitive. "Virtually as one, experts on . . . " yada, yada, yada. Journalistic pap for the public. It may even be true. It's still journalistic pap. Can't stand it any longer. This is not the kind of "research" I was referring to.

--Brant

brave new world--I mean, 1984

[william.scherk]

This is not the kind of "research" I was referring to.

The story that I linked to and excerpted from highlights the concerns you mentioned, and names names of scientists, engineers and others who were concerned at the time.

It's a decent place to start looking for the research you claim to have read, don't you think?

[Philip Coates]

Thanks WSS, I suspected Brant's claim "The Towers would likely not have collapsed" might have been just overreaching beyond hard evidence.

[syrakusos]

I met Bill Bradford in 1972 and we were friends until he left for Port Townsend. We just drifted apart.

Leaving print for online presentation carries special meaning for me in this case. Bill made his money in precious metals in the 1970s. As knowledgeable as he was about numismatics - he taught me obverse and reverse; and told me about Levi Loomis and the Bank of Singapore; I road shotgun for him to an auction and fetched and carried for one of the coin shows he sponsored; I worked the teletype in his office; and much more - Bill's goal was always publishing.

Bill Bradford admired H. L. Mencken. He wanted to create a magazine worthy of American Mercury. He plowed a lot of his own money in to Liberty. How much, no one knows. But if you know anything about the distribution of print, you can do an order of magnitude guess of your own. Ads and subs just could not cut it. His own personality, his social capital, was more valuable than precious metals. I once offered to write an article for him and he refused to pay for it, saying that Murray Rothbard writes for free for him, what could I offer? Fair enough, so I took my business elsewhere, but the fact remains that many Big Name Libertarians wrote for free for Liberty. Ultimately, that was not enough to keep the delivery format on paper.

[Brant Gaede]

It's a point of pride, especially for a new author, that he or she can write an article good enough to be paid for. That makes you a professional writer. If RWB had kept the publication to every other month and used that left over money to pay for content, the quality of the content would have gone up I think. That and slicking up the front cover a little would have done a lot for Liberty. The brutal fact of the matter is even big name libertarian writers could turn out a lot of stuff not really worth reading except for the respect of their names. RWB was pretty good with his own work under his own name. The magazine is effectively defunct and has had its day and the Internet is good for an archive, especially if it ever comes with a search function. The big problem with the Internet is it takes too long to find the good stuff inside an issue. I get a lot of good Internet stuff by subscription and I don't have that problem because all my subscriptions are full of what I want from the first page to the last, written by experts. I can plow through a print newspaper in minutes, even the NY Times--which I haven't read for nearly 20 years--in an Internet format it's just impossible to deal with save as a linked adjunct or headlines.

--Brant

missing it a little