| Author | Message | ||
     JG |
I am wondering what people here think of the LaRouche movement. There are these people with a table set up almost every day on my campus. They are always shouting ridiculous headlines and talking about the "pending worldwide financial crash" (which they have been "predicting" for years). What is generally disturbing about them is that whereas most campus political action is aimed at getting signatures on petitions or candidates on the ballot, or distributing simple literature or their platform, they are always trying to get people to buy their books which appear to be about nothing at all. When I ask about LaRouche's platform or his views all I ever hear is you have to read the book and then they try to make me feel guilty because I don't want to take the time to read his stupid books. His "newspaper" is off the wall, part communist propoganda, part fascist-alarmist poppycock. I get the cult vibe from them mainly because their entire operation seems to be about recruitment and donations without any real coherent political message at all. So my question is, is the LaRouche thing a cult or is it a genuine political movement and why are they so damn aggressive when people question their views, most politically interested people like arguing their points, but they seem to not even understand what it is supposed to be about, and they always resort to attacking people personally if they express disagreement or ask specific questions. | ||
| Saadya |
You can find this report in its entirety at: http://www.anti-fascism.org/cult7a-2.html Defining the Terms The LaRouche cult fits the description of a totalitarian movement as outlined by Hanna Arendt in Totalitariansim is correctly defined by its all-encompasing style, structure and methods, not by its stated or apparent ideological premises or goals. Arendt wrote that not all fascist groups were necessarily totalitarian and not all totalitarian groups were necessariy fascist. Is LaRouche a fascist? The goal of fascism is always raw power, and it will adopt or abandon any principle to obtain power. The chameleon-like nature of fascist theories is one of its hallmarks, and often leads to confusion as to whether it is on the political left or right as it opportunistically gobbles up popular slogans from existing movements. Journalist James Ridgeway notes there are real contradictions in LaRouche's politics: "While it maintains contacts with far-right groups, LaRouche's organization is ideologically at cross-purposes with many which are nativist and anarchist. LaRouche is an internationalist and a totalitarian: he believes the masses are `bestial' and unfit for citizenship." Freelance journalist Nick Gallo takes us a step further. In he acknowledges that much of what LaRouche espouses "appears kooky, if only because his ideas certainly defy conventional political analysis. . . .However go beyond the individual positions on different issues and beneath the surface lurk echoes of sinister themes that have been prevalent in the 20th century: preservation of Western Civilization, purity of culture and youth, elimination of Jewish and homosexual influence, suspicion of international banking conspiracies." The opportunistic exploitation of anxiety-producing issues by LaRouchies is no surprise to Clara Fraser who knew LaRouche when he was in the Socialist Workers Party. Writing in the newspaper, she explains, "The pundits are intrigued and puzzled by his amalgam of right and left politics, a tangled web of KKK, Freudian, encounter therapy, Populist, Ayn Rand-like, and Marxist notions. They needn't be. His is the prototypical face of fascism, which is classically a hodgepodge of pseudo-theories crafted for mass appeal. . . ." Themes generally associated with fascism frequently recur in LaRouche's writings. In the aggregate, LaRouche seems to like the idea of society with an authoritarian governing body, exercising social, political, economic, and cultural control, using force when necessary to maintain order and attain desired goals. Traditional democracy is contemptuously dismissed by LaRouche, who describes himself as a "traditional Democrat," as the "rule of irrationalist episodic majorities." When LaRouche touts his followers as "neo-Platonic" theorists, most people aren't aware that in Plato outlined his view of a political system in which only a handful of enlightened "Golden Souls" would be allowed to participate in societal decision-making. While this was certainly a step forward from imperial dictatorship and rule by fiat, it is hardly a step forward for a participatory democracy. LaRouche, incidently, has said his followers are "Golden Souls." Combining fascism and totalitarianism makes for a potent mixture, but even a totalitarian fascist is not necessarily a Nazi--for that you must include a "Master Race" theory and roots in an ostensibly socialist agenda for empowering the working class. . movement and German Nazi movement. In German the word itself--NAZI--was an acronym for the National German Workers Socialist Party. Most socialists now are painfully aware of that error. LaRouche apparently repeated the error. But can an organization which has Jews and Blacks as members be called Nazi? The LaRouche network's printed materials are full of ethnocentric, racist, and anti-Jewish rhetoric, but that doesn't necessarily make it Nazi. Where is LaRouche's theory of a master race? In fact, LaRouche himself has repeatedly enunciated just such a theory, but in his typically convoluted way. In the mind of Lyndon LaRouche, personal or political opponents are not even human, Jerry Brown and Tom Hayden are "creatures;" the rest of us are merely "beasts" or "sheep." According to Dennis King, it is LaRouche's belief that his enemies are subhuman and his followers superhuman which makes "LaRouche more than a political fascist, but a neo-Nazi." King, whose book on LaRouche is slated for publication in 1989, adds that "people afraid of that characterization should sit down and read his ideological writings. LaRouche talks about the existence of two parasitic species descended from Babylonian culture, the British-Jewish and Russian-Orthodox species, then there are the subhuman masses, then humanity represented by LaRouche and his followers, the Golden Souls, and then a new superhuman race which will evolve from the Golden Souls. It really is pure Nazism," says King. And if that makes no rational sense; and if some of his followers are Jews and Blacks? "So what?" retorts King "LaRouche is a totalitarian, he can define anyone he wants to as being a member of the human race, and anyone he wants to as being a member of an inferior race, and he can change the definitions from week to week--who is going to argue with him?" You can find more links from these Yahoo search results: http://google.yahoo.com/bin/query?p=larouche+cult&hc=0&hs=0 Let me know what you come up with. Feel free to email me. Saadya | ||
| JG |
Thanks for the info, too bad exams ended today for most people, I doubt the Larouche groupies are going to be coming around in the summer session. | ||
| Anonymous |
In response, I think that if anyone wanted to determine whether a group was a 'cult', they should take the time to read the literature. I have run into the LaRouche people, and they are a very intellectually stimulating bunch. Usually those people who write, "LaRouche is a cult", are the ones who have never studied his economics, or attended any of their meetings. For instance, in reference to the "JG" who met them at their campus. Did you ever attend their forums to find out what they discuss? You should go, and you should really read the The New Federalist, the latest has an article talking about how Lieberman and McCain are blackmailing the President, and also an article on the economy. Which, to correct "JG", LaRouche has been correct about. We, the United States, are bankrupt. The article on the economy talks about the roll over of the US debt, which can't be done. Do your research, isn't that what all the so called 'cult alerts' are about? "Do the research!" Well, go to the "horse's mouth", sort of speak, and read. www.larouchepub.com, or www.larouchein2004.com EOM. | ||
| Tefel Hall |
Go to (search for) WashingtonPost.com: The cult controversy for an excellent (1985) article that convinced me that that the LaRouche organization really IS a cult. the exact address is: http:www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/cult/larouche/main.htm | ||
| Anonymous |
Saadya says: "Themes generally associated with fascism frequently recur in LaRouche's writings." As someone who has lived and worked with the LaRouchies, I can tell you that their philosophical stance is both anti-facist and anti-liberal, which is why the movement has made so many enemies among the western media and so-called intelligensia. The movement promotes "dirigist" economics with a "guiding" role for the state. Lincoln is politically correct for the LaRouchies, but Jefferson (more of a liberal in the traditional sense) is not. To call the movement racist or anti-semitic is nonsense. It promotes "ecumenical dialogue" among religions, while adhering to its Christian-Platonic philosophy. There are many Jews in their ranks, including in leading positions. The fact that they are enemies of B'nai B'rith is probably more for political reasons. Liberalism has been a prevailing philosophical force in the West, and LaRouche's anti-liberalism has made him many enemies. But that's politics and the LaRouchites are into politics up to their necks. That is the reason why a number of them have ended up in jail for long terms on minor or trumped up charges. On the negative side, the organisation does sometimes does use methods that can come into the realm of manipulative and cultish. This has been documented by former Australian members of the group. There appears to be a Marxist methodology still there. But there is good and bad in the movement. It has exposed evils and has made enemies of corrupt and powerful people in high places. But, like any political party, the LaRouche movement is also a political beast. Political beasts can be ugly and clumsy creatures. These days, I steer away from politics. It is often the realm of the opinionated and power-hungry. | ||
| drewworkmansucks |
LaRouche is a poltical opportunist and will make alegances with anyone to gain support. In shot, he is a facist. It only takes a few minutes in talking to one of thier members to notice that there are a lot of gaps in their logic. A lot of debate with them tends to boil down to, "just follow LaRouche and everything will be alright." At times they strike me as harmless and they should be treated as such and at other times I think that they should be shouted down at all costs. They are not to be trusted. | ||
| VThornheart |
Damn, I'm glad I ran into this... I too came across LaRouche people on campus, and I'm one of those sorts that is too polite to ignore someone when they address me... so I listened while they threw everything they had at me. I wasn't sure what to think, but some of it really had me questioning what was going on... so I figured I'd do a net search, and I found this. I gave them one of my fake E-Mail addresses and my first name... and now I'm pretty damn glad that I didn't give them more than that. Phew... | ||
| Mr. S K Y |
SHOWDOWN AT DNC WINTER MEETING Will Democrats Be the Party of Lyndon LaRouche or Marc Rich? by Jeffrey Steinberg The Democratic National Committee's Winter 2003 meeting opened on Feb. 20, and the brawl over the DNC's continuing suicidal efforts to exclude Lyndon LaRouche from the party's Presidential selection process immediately dominated events. A widely advertised, but poorly attended town meeting in Washington, hosted by College Democrats, was transformed into a lively debate over LaRouche's leadership, when more than 50 LaRouche Youth Movement activists, fresh from four days of intense dialogue at the Schiller Institute Presidents' Day Weekend conference and cadre school in nearby Virginia, showed up. After all of the College Democrat panelists said they'd support LaRouche's right to participate in all candidates events, a frantic DNC bureaucrat interrupted the session, to clamp down on debate. Some of the LaRouche youth activists were herded into a separate room; moments later five Washington, D.C. police officers were ushered in by DNC officials, with orders to eject all the "LaRouche people." Among the youth ejected from the room were a number of totally baffled College Dems who were not even part of the LaRouche contingent. Pandemonium soon spread to the hotel hallways, as DNC officials Joe Andrew and Joe Sanders threw temper tantrums, screaming that LaRouche was not a "legitimate Democrat," and referring perplexed DNC members to DNC attorney John Keeney, Jr., the son of the notorious career Justice Department prosecutor, whom one young LaRouche organizer equated with "the Ku Klux Klan." Soon, Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe personally got into the act, when he stumbled into the College Democrats session, mistakenly assuming that all of the LaRouche supporters had been dragged out of the room. He launched into a pathetic pitch to the young Democrats, promising to restore college tuition money that had been "robbed by Bush," and also vowing to "reunify the party." At that point, another LaRouche Youth Movement leader stood up and confronted McAuliffe on the LaRouche exclusion, and on the failure of the DNC to provide any leadership, as evidenced in the last two "most embarrassing ever" electoral defeats in 2000 and 2002. The heated debate between the LaRouche activist and McAuliffe continued after the session ended, with a large crowd gathered around them. War and Peace Leading Democratic Party figures have confirmed that the party leadership is in thorough turmoil over what to do about LaRouche. They say that the fight over LaRouche intersects a second controversy, which erupted earlier in February, when former President William Clinton appeared on a national television interview and publicly broke with Marc Rich, the fugitive speculator and accused Russian Mafiya "Godfather," who is the dirty-moneybags behind the war party factions in the Democratic Party and in both the Likud and Labor parties in Israel. President Clinton's January 2001 pardon of Marc Rich, who faced over 230 years in jail, for tax evasion and trading with the enemy (Khomeini's Iran), temporarily wrecked the former President's ability to assume a leadership position in the party after he left office. Friends of Clinton had concluded some time ago, that the Rich pardon had been foisted on the President by his enemies inside the party, including the circles of Vice President Al Gore, who had his own Russian Mafiya links; as well as by neo-con Republican circles led by I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, now Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff and the longtime private attorney for Rich, who orchestrated the pardon campaign. Appearing on Feb. 11 on the NBC "Today Show," the former President was asked by hostess Katie Couric: "In this month's edition of the {Atlantic Monthly,} James Fallows writes, 'Clinton had the worst beginning of an ex-presidency since Richard Nixon flew to San Clemente in 1974.' Certainly you did ignite a firestorm of criticism with your pardon of Marc Rich. Had you the opportunity to do it over again, would you have pardoned him?" President Clinton responded, "No, I would have waited and let President Bush do it, because Vice President Cheney's chief of staff was his main lawyer, and there would have been no media firestorm and he wouldn't be being investigated. That only happens to us. There's a double standard there." The ex-President's brief remarks provoked a hail of protests among leading Democrats who have become addicted to the dirty-money flows from Rich and his partner-in-sin, former hedge-fund manager Michael Steinhardt, a second generation Meyer Lansky syndicate front-man. Steinhardt, who is the founder of the fifth column Democratic Leadership Council (DLC)--a lookalike for the Republican Party right-wing--and who is the sugar-daddy of Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), recently travelled to Israel with Marc Rich, to sabotage the electoral campaign of Labor Party Chairman Amram Mitzna, to secure Ariel Sharon's reelection, and force Labor back into another suicidal national unity government under serial war criminal Sharon's Likud mis-leadership. The issue confronting the Democratic Party, in both the LaRouche matter and the ex-President's break with Rich, is one of war or peace. Both parties are sharply divided over the Bush Administration's war drive against Iraq. But so far, with the exception of LaRouche, and the action of a handful of Senators, like Robert Byrd (D-W.V.) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), the Democratic Party has pathetically sat on the sidelines, as the fate of civilization for decades to come, has been battled out, down Pennsylvania Avenue at the White House. Lyndon LaRouche, on being briefed on the showdown at the College Democrats session, between his youthful campaign activists and the DNC hacks, emphasized that the cowardice of the Democratic Party leadership in the Congress centers on the Marc Rich issue. No longer can the Democratic Party survive with the likes of war party zealots Steinhardt, Rich, and Lieberman in its midst. He further warned that the recent disgusting spectacle of Lieberman and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) standing up, again, at the annual Wehrkunde global security conference in Munich, Germany, earlier this month, to declare that war on Iraq is both necessary and inevitable, and to claim credit for foisting that insane war on President Bush, served as a reminder that McCain and Lieberman are, still, in full flight, to stage a "Bull Moose" third party disruption of the November 2004 elections. Nuclear War, Constitutional Crisis The brawl over LaRouche at the DNC intersects two profound issues on which a viable Democratic Party would be aggressively intervening, but which has been left, in the absence of a functioning party, to a few brave individuals. On Feb. 19, the British daily the {Guardian} published a leak of a confidential Pentagon memo, by Dr. Dale Klein, an aide to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, detailing plans for an Aug. 4, 2003 conference, at the headquarters of the U.S. Strategic Command, where U.S. nuclear war-fighting doctrine will be overhauled. Greg Mello, the head of the Los Alamos Study Group, which received the leaked Klein memo, charged, credibly, that the August meeting will integrate the use of nuclear weapons into the Bush Administration's new pre-emptive war doctrine, and will signal a U.S. breakaway from global arms control treaties and the moratorium on testing nuclear weapons. According to aides to Sens. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), Edward Kennedy and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) are circulating a draft resolution to block the shift in nuclear weapons policy. A week earlier, on Feb. 12, in a powerful speech on the Senate floor, West Virginia's Robert Byrd had chastised the Congress for doing nothing while the Bush Administration wages an unprecedented assault on the Constitution and races into a war, to test a new imperial military doctrine. "This nation," warned the senior Senator, "is about to embark upon the first test of a revolutionary doctrine applied in an extraordinary way at an unfortunate time. The doctrine of pre-emption--the idea that the United States or any other nation can legitimately attack a nation that is not imminently threatening but may be threatening in the future--is a radical new twist on the traditional idea of self-defense ... in contravention of international law and the UN Charter." Turning to the new U.S. nuclear weapons doctrine, Byrd warned, "High-level Administration figures recently refused to take nuclear weapons off the table when discussing a possible attack against Iraq.... Yet this chamber is hauntingly silent. We are truly 'sleepwalking through history.'... Our challenge now is to find a graceful way out of a box of our own making. Perhaps there is still a way if we allow more time." One immediate step that can, and must be taken is for all leading Democrats who oppose the tyranny of the war party, to join together in forcing the Democratic Party leadership to drop their mad schemes to keep LaRouche out of the party and off the ballot. There are now hundreds, and, soon will be thousands of young Americans, between the ages of 18 and 25, who have joined the LaRouche campaign. They represent the future of the Democratic Party and the nation, and, as the events of Feb. 20 signalled, they will not allow themselves to be held back by a corrupt political leadership that is all too willing to write them off as the "no-future generation," while raking in the dirty cash from Rich, Steinhardt, et al. | ||
| Stanley Adams |
Attn:: The president/ceo Dear, My name is Mr. Stanley Adams, I work in the credit and accounts department of Union Bank of Nigeria Plc,Lagos, Nigeria. I write you in respect of a foreign customer with Domicilliary A/C number 6402356789. His name is Engineer Joseph Schultzman. He was among those who died in a plane crash here in Nigeria during the reign of late General Sani Abacha. Sir,since the demise of this our customer, Engineer Joseph Schultzman, who was an oil merchant/contractor, I have kept close watch of the deposit records and accounts and since then no body has come to claim the money in this a/c as next of kin to the late Engineer. He had only $38.5mllion in his a/c and the a/c is coded. It is only an insider that could produce the code or password of the deposit particulars. As it stands now, there is nobody in that position to produce the needed information other than my very self considering my position in the bank. Based on the reason that nobody has come forward to claim the deposit as next of kin, I hereby ask foryour co operation in using your name as the next of kin to the deceased to send these funds out to a foreign offshore bank a/c for mutual sharing between myself and you. At this point Iam the only one with the information because I have removed the deposit file from the safe. By this doing, what is required of you is to send an applicationlaying claims of the deposit as next of kin to the late Engineer.I will need your full name and address, company or residential, so that i can computerize them to tally with next of kin column in the certificate of deposit. Finally i want you to understand that the request for a foreigneras the next of kin is occassioned by the fact that the customer was a foreigner and for that reason alone a local cannot represent as next of kin. When you contact me, then we shall discuss on how the money will be splitbetween us. Trusting to hear from you, I remain Respectfully yours, Mr Stanley Adams. PLEASE REVERT BACK TO ME VIA THIS MAILBOX  s_adams700@yahoo.com) FOR SECURITY REASONS. | ||
| Anonymous |
Hey - now there's a scam - the Nigerian bank account ploy...it's been going on for years...I can't believe anyone would fall for this crap anymore...Next this jerk will ask for some "earnest money" in advance, and bam, you'll never hear from him again.....Get a life, Adams, or whatever your real name is.. | ||
| Not the Red Baron |
"Ad hominum" - to refute a person's position by attacking the person. I've read enough about LaRouche to see definite signs of cultism. I've talked to a few followers, and while they all had some very intelligent stances, they also (to the one) had logic gaps. These folks, albeit relatively new recruits, were given some excellent lines of reason to use, but they hadn't integrated those ideas to the point where they could intelligently discuss them while "under fire". A good example is that of nuclear vs. solar power. The guy I talked with said that anyone who considered solar a viable alternative was brainwashed. I asked why; he replied that solar power should be conserved, so that trees could photosynthesize more and gain biomass, thereby lowering global temperatures. He also said that being afraid of nuclear plants was inane; that one would gain more radiation from "leaning on a brick" than from being near a power plant. Now, these aren't ideas that I hear every day. They tackle some intense concepts. However, there are also plenty of logical holes: (1) Plants have an upper limit re: the amount of quanta (sunlight) they can handle, an excess actually kills chloroplasts. (2) Even if we utilized 10% of all incident radiation, plants would not be operating at a difficiency. That's just not how solar panels (let alone passive solar techniques) work. (3) Many people are afraid of exploding nuclear reactors, and I agree that this is quite possibly paranoia. HOWEVER, the LaRouchian had no answer for me when I asked about waste disposal and pollution from nuclear plants. All of this leads me to believe that - most likely - we're looking at a cult, in which recruits are told the party line and then go spread it, without having an understanding of many of the basic issues that are tangled up in said party line. So what? I don't care where the ideas come from, as long as they have value to me. An idea should, ideally, be something that we hold lightly to, and let go of effortlessly when faced with a more useful idea. Does superstring theory explain our universe better than special relativity? You bet! That doesn't mean that we need to start believing in M-branes; rather, it gives us a way of looking at the "shadows in the Plato's cave" with more clarity. If we look at a globe and an atlas, both are different ways of representing the world - and neither is the world itself. In some instances, the globe is a better tool; in others, the atlas. Such can be the case with ideas. So, in the end, I'll ignore LaRouche's goons, and happily explore his ideas. Plenty of them are ones I don't have much use for, but there are enough intriguing viewpoints to make it worthwhile to wade through a lot of his crap. At worst, like that LaRouchian I talked with, I'll discover that I don't have a sufficient knowledge in a specific field to understand the ins and outs of an idea...which sets me on a trip to the library. How can that be a bad thing? | ||
| Anonymous |
I know for fact that the La Rouche group is a cult. I went to their meeting, read their stuff, and heard their speeches. It all sounds very scary indeed. There was a lot of sensationalist propaganda and this big talk about how "LaRouche is the only way" and that he was the answer to our problems. It seems like they almost made the guy into a god or something. They pressured me into forking over 40 bucks to buy some dumb book, and they wanted to take me out to a camping retreat, but I refused, cause I could tell things were getting pretty weird. When I got home, my father said "LaRouche is a cult we knew about back in high school." From that moment on I swore never to return. | ||
| Tom |
Wow! I just found this site, and I can't remember the last time I perused such loads of crap. I've known Mr. LaRouche for years, and have studied his thinking intensively. To claim, for example, that LaRouche has no coherent policy is the height of absurdity. To bring in the tired slanders of ex-High Times author Dennis King is like digging in the sewer. And to call LaRouche a fascist defies every standard of reason. Anyone willing to turn off the T.V. and read LaRouche will laugh along with me. Let me just put it in a nutshell: LaRouche is an "American System" economist who consciously lives in the tradition of Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and Abraham Lincoln. (Remember them?) His policy is the creation of a new monetary system, not unlike the now defunct Bretton Woods monetary system created in 1944 under the leadership of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The purpose of this new monetary system is to rapidly, and massively expand credit for large-scale infrastructure projects and technological development projects to rebuild and expand our teetering economy worldwide. It should be obvious to anyone that millions of hungry and disease-threatened people living short, unhappy lives in Africa, for example (remember that place?), would be delighted if they had Mr. LaRouche as the President of the United States. Need anyone be reminded that President Kennedy was loved all over the world because he had similar intentions? The main obstacle to this goal is the rampant pessimism and ignorance of a population conditioned by decades of bogus environmentalism, and counter-cultural decadence that began no later than the assassination of Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, not to mention the more recent, disturbing, and absurd character-assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the United States' greatest President. Hence, the daily activity of LaRouche activists consists of organizing people, primarily young people (many of whom are still open-minded), to quit the cult of popular opinion, and renew the pursuit of truth which is the birthright of every human being on this planet. And this means work! For example, as I write, from here in the Los Angeles headquarters of the LaRouche movement, there is a large group of young people learning to sing! Not that rap or heavy metal crap, but classical lieder, using bel canto methods. A good friend of Mr. LaRouche, Maestro Briano, one of the great voice coaches from Mexico, is here to lead the fun. For me, it is a joy to see the cheerful spark of optimism brightening the eyes of young people in the process of discovering the beauty of their own voice. Only weeks ago--and in some cases only days ago--many of these students had no future. I ask you to imagine seeing even gangbangers (now ex-gangbangers), preparing themselves to competently sing the most beautiful music ever composed. I've been part of this movement for quite some time, and when I read the stuff that people write about LaRouche, and compare it to what I KNOW to be true, I wonder if it is all in vain. Five seconds later, I rememeber that I too was once a victim. | ||
| Anonymous |
Tom - you're an ass! | ||
| Anonymous |
Tom, I'll net you've never read the book "Lyndon Larouche and the New American Fascism". I'll bet almost nobody in the LaRouche movement has. None of the LaRouche kids I spoke to had read it. They were all quick to denounce it, and say the author was a drug addict, etc, and make every possible excuse for not having read it. I finally challenged one of the young woman I met at school to read it in exchange for me reading LaRouch's book. Over the very strong objections of her fellow LaRouchites, she read it. When I first challenged her, her friends actually started to question her character and loyalty for even considering it. She finally got mad enough at their pressure to take my challenge and read the book for herself. She was out of the LaRouche movement by the end of the week. When she started discussing what she had read with other LaRouchites and informing them of the facts in the book, she was labeled "brainwashed" and kicked out. | ||
| Tom |
I read Dennis King's book. It's a ridiculous crock of shit. Dennis King definitely smoked too much dope. Have you ever read LaRouche? Can you even name any of the books he wrote? I KNOW Mr. LaRouche. I've talked to him in his own house on several occasions. I consider that a privilege. I am proud, just as those who struggled with Martin Luther King are proud, even though he was the victim of persistent, viscious slanders throughout the entirety of the Civil Rights Movement. When I was new to LaRouche's movement, I felt I was given a mission to do something noble with my life, and I was grateful. For quite some time, however, I had some reservations, because I did not know LaRouche personally. I feared that if I were to meet him, I would somehow be disappointed. In retrospect, I realize those fears were the consequence of the existential nightmare in which you and I were raised. When I finally met Mr. LaRouche, however, I felt I was talking to a true friend. He was easy-going, kind, cheerful, and indescribeably bright. I have no problem asserting that he is the greatest thinker alive today, and I am sure there are countless people from all over the world who agree. If I were alive in 400 B.C., and I could live my life any way I choose, I would join Plato in the struggle to give man the gift of philosophy. If I were alive in 1776 A.D., I would join Franklin and Washington in the struggle to give man the gift of freedom. But since I am alive today, I choose to join LaRouche in the struggle to finally make these gifts available to everyone. Now, If you are capable of understanding that, and choose to join Dennis King instead, well, I pity you. You are truly irrelevant. | ||
| Anonymous |
""Thursday, August 07, 2003 - 10:33 pm -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I read Dennis King's book. It's a ridiculous crock of shit. Dennis King definitely smoked too much dope. "" Tom, I doubt you read King's book thoroughly if you still follow LaRouche. And I doubt you would be willing or able to try and dispute the facts and assertions in his book in a rational way. It's much easier to try and do a character assasination of the author than it is to debate his asssertions. When in doubt, don't think or debate, just retreat behind the usual slanders of "dope smoker", "brainwashed", "ogliarchy agent", "jew", etc. Typical LaRouchite you are. | ||
| Anonymous |
Want to know about the real Larouche movement ? http://www.publiceye.org/larouche/nclcmain.html | ||
| Anonymous |
Tom's last statement is very telling. Sounds exactly like one of the people that Larouche's group targets, specifially maladjusted, unhappy and confused young people who feel they don't belong, in search of a cause... This article tells how they recruit young people and includes comments by former members who escaped the cult and now wish to speak about their experiences. I'll bet this will sound familiar to Tom: http://www.pcc-courieronline.com/news/111501/larouche.html | ||
| Tom |
I read the links above. You guys are pathetic adversaries. I mean, Matthew Robinson! Give me a break! When Matthew Robinson wrote that article he was a 40ish student at Pasadena City College, and an admitted associate of JDL terrorist Irv Rubin, who recently committed suicide in jail, after having been incarcerated for plotting to bomb a mosque in Los Angeles. A couple of weeks after his article was published in the Pasadena City College rag, Matthew Robinson showed up at one of our book tables, intoxicated, and assaulted one of our organizers. True story. By the way, "Tom" in Matthew Robinson's article is actually Chaim Dauermann, whose father is a rabbi of Jews for Jesus. Now that, my friend, is a cult. I knew Chaim fairly well. I must have been the namesake for his pseudonym. Chaim is a bright kid with a tragic flaw: extrememly maladjusted and confused parents. Then there is this clown who asks, "Want to know about the real LaRouche movement?" If someone wants to know about the real LaRouche movement, why would they read some two-bit slander from Chip Berlet, who got his start as a tool of J. Edgar Hoover's famous catamite, Roy Cohn? Chip Berlet, like Dennis King, wrote for High Times. I've been told he once wrote an article about LaRouche, entitled, "He Wants to Take Away Your Dope!" Finally, I have supreme confidence in my ability to debate any of Dennis King's slanders, or any other slander you can come up with. Fire away. But really, you are going to have to do better than this. | ||
| Anonymous |
To the former Mr Anonymous: thanks for the links, I found these somewhat useful for a project I am loosely affiliated with... There is currently a documentary film in post-production about the LaRouche movement, directed by a well known and respected documentarian. The guerilla-style documentary film, shot and edited entirely in digital video, includes interviews with former Larouch cult members and extensive footage taken at meetings and private Larouchite gatherings, often recorded with hidden cameras and mics. The producers and director are keeping the project under heavy wraps for now until it hits the film festival circuit and is ready for vhs/DVD distribution, largely to keep the LaRouche legal attack dogs at bay. After seeing the rough cut of the film, I can say that their emphasis on secrecy is very well-advised. To call this film explosive would be an understatement. It successfully peels back the layers of the onion that make up the LaRouche movement and agenda, and it is going to put the Larouche movement in a spotlight that they will not enjoy in the least. | ||
| Anonymous |
In the August 6 edition of Seven Days (a weekly newspaper in Vermont) there is a letter to the editor from a LaRouchite..I'll leave it the readers of this board to judge for themselves....but if anyone can decipher what the hell this guy is talking about, please post it... "I RECENTLY READ YOUR SEVEN DAYS...BANDYING THE OLD SLOGAN "POWER TO THE PEOPLE" AS IT'S HEADLINE AND ENDING WITH THAT OTHER POPULIST RANT.."WE WON'T BE FOOLED AGAIN..THE PROBLEM IS THAT SEVEN DAYS HAS BEEN FOOLED, AND ARE FURTHER CONTRIBUTING TO THE SUBJUGATION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND THE WORLD'S FUTURE BY NOT PROPERLY REFLECTING THE TRUE ELECTORAL REALITIES CONCERNING THE DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN. THE ISSUE THAT I AM REFERRING TO IS THAT YOU IGNORED LISTING ONE OF THE LEADING DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES FOR PRESIDENT IN YOUR LIST OF CAMPAIGN WEB SITES. PERHAPS YOU ARE NOT SAVVY TO THE ACT THAT, ACCORDING TO THE FEC, THE CAMPAIGN OF LYNDON H. LAROUCHE JR. IS CURRENTLY SECOND LARGEST AMONGST NUMBER OF INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBUTORS TO HIS CAMPAIGN AND SIXTH IN OVERALL CONTRIBUTIONS. THIS WITH NEARLY NO MEDIA COVERAGE OF HIS CAMPAIGN, INCLUDING SUCH ALTERNATIVE "RAGS" AS SEVEN DAYS", OFFICIAL WEEKLY OF THE DEAN CAMPAIGN. THIS ELECTION IS TOO IMPORTANT TO IGNORE THE ONLY CANDIDATE OTHER THAN (DENNIS) KUCINICH WHO HAS DARED TO ADDRESS AND CONFRONT THE SIGNIFICANT ISSUES IN THE WORLD TODAY, THE WORLD ECONOMIC DEPRESSION AND THE ACTIONS OF THOSE FINANCIAL OLIGARCHIES THAT ARE PUSHING THE NEOCON FASCIST TAKEOVER OF THE UNITED STATES THROUGH THE DESTRUCTION OF OUR CONSTITUTION AND A POLICY OF WORLDWIDE WARFARE. I URGE AND PERHAPS DARE YOU TO INCLUDE LAROUCHE IN YOUR COVERAGE OF THIS CAMPAIGN. IT IS THAT OR MUCH FURTHER IRRELEVANT POSTURING,CULTURAL FARTING AND COMPLICITY WITH A DEMICRATIC PARTY INCREASINGLY TAKEN OVER BY THE WEIRD TROTSKYITE FASCIST MONGREL KNOWN AS THE NEOCONSERVATIVES THAT PREVENTED NADER'S CAMPAIGN IN THE DEBATES IN 2000." | ||
| Tom |
O.K., Let’s start with Anonymous 1: In the past, Lyndon LaRouche has taken the absolute worst the major media outlets in this nation, and many other nations, had to offer. I don’t think he is shaking in his boots because some clown is making a disparaging “guerrilla-style” documentary, with “hidden camera and mics.” Furthermore, the idea that it “successfully peels back the layers of the onion that make up the LaRouche movement and agenda” is a laughable premise. If the guy wanted to make a documentary, he didn’t have to sneak around like Ho Chi Minh. He could have come to our office. Just yesterday, there were two film students in our office from a local campus, interviewing some of our youth organizers, on camera. The door was open. And hidden mics? We stream our meetings and classes live on the internet! They’re archived for anyone to listen. Every day, legions of LaRouche organizers, in many parts of the world, go organizing in the streets. I’ve heard some people complain that they can’t go anywhere without running into one of our tables. At these tables, the organizers inform the public what our agenda is. The last thing these organizers want is for that agenda to remain a secret. Apparently, keeping LaRouche’s agenda secret is a lost cause of the mass media, which long ago gave up slandering LaRouche, because the slanders had the opposite effect they desired. This brings us to Anonymous 2: You might as well have said, “Help me! I’m illiterate! I can’t understand what this letter is about!” My impression is that the writer is a former Nader supporter who recently discovered that LaRouche is a much more formidable candidate than Nader. He was distressed to discover that there is a campaign to exclude LaRouche. Around here, we’re used to those sorts of exclusionary tactics. For example, immediately before the 2000 primary in California, the Los Angeles Times published a sample ballot--sans LaRouche. His name had been carefully removed. Now you see it, now you don’t. Nonetheless, LaRouche’s name did appear on the actual ballots. The claim that LaRouche is the Democratic candidate with the second most contributors is a simple fact. Those statistics are available from the Federal Election Commission. The fact that the Constitution of the United State is under attack is also a simple fact. Attorney General Ashcroft’s legislation is a case in point. Admittedly, the business about “Trotskyite fascists” would be a bit shrill, if it were not so very true. It seems that a number of key individuals in the Bush administration are self-described “Straussians”. Leo Strauss was a professor at the University of Chicago who gained his entrance into elite academia under the patronage of Carl Schmitt, the “Crown Jurist of the Nazis,” whose philosophy Leo Strauss passionately defended until his death in 1973. The one accused Straussian in question who attempted to publicly distance himself from Leo Strauss was Paul Wolfowitz, who claimed Albert Wohlstetter as his chief mentor. Wohlstetter was a Trotskyite turned neo-conservative. An example of another Trotskyite turned prominent neo-conservative is Irving Kristol. These are simple facts. But really, is this a debate? Guerrilla documentaries and letters to the editor? Stale slanders anyone could have found in two seconds on Google? This is already reminding me of the countless (Anonymous) fools I’ve encountered, who have stormed up to me, sometimes literally foaming at the mouth about LaRouche. Sometime you can ask them, “So what is it you disagree with?” They never can answer. Is there anyone here who can debate me on substantive issues? | ||
| N |
Tom, no this isn't a debate, it's a message board. If you want to debate you should go stand by a book table on campus, as I'm sure you've done many times before, to earn your LaRouch merit badges. As for me, I know all too well that there is no point in debating a cult member. LaRouche is your religion, and to maintain your faith in him as your messiah, you will try to rationalize, divert, and make counter-accusations ad infinitum. As for the documentary film, much of the footage and audio recordings are not from youth meetings or other forums where the Larouche agenda is packaged in a relatively tame, politically palatable recruitment form. What is in this documentary is pretty damning. As for what LaRouch thinks of it, I guess we'll wait and see when it gets released. | ||
| Anonymous |
How dare you call me illiterate Tom, how dare you! I posted this letter to the editor, not to read your imbecility, but to hear back from impartial readers as to their interpretation. My recollection of LaRouche includes a failed attempt to mess with the Democratic National Convention quite a few years back, collaring delegates as they got off buses and trying to trick them into signing their votes away to LaRouchites who would vote for their man and thus steal the nomination. They also used subterfuge to try and get credit card contributions in the amounts of 500 and 1,000 through a nationwide telephone campaign. So, is LaRouche or one of his henchmen going to run for governor of California too? | ||
| Tom |
Our plan is to campaign for Gray Davis. That's right, Gray Davis. This is serious folks. Anyone who ever doubted LaRouche's analysis of the economic crisis we face should just come to grips with the crisis we face in California. The danger here is the kind of softening of the population you get that leads to REAL fascism. There are a handful of key people in and around the California state government who are working with some of LaRouche's "henchmen", even if they find it distasteful. They might not like it any more than you do, but we can put the organizers out on the streets like no one else. The solution has to be something like the kind of thing FDR provided with the New Deal. We're all going look like a bunch idiots if we can't pull together on that one. | ||
| Anonymous |
With you guys as friends of Davis, he doesn't need enemies. But why don't you address the rest of my post Tom - how your leader tried to hijack the Democratic National Convention and con people out of their credit card balances? Or were you kept in ignorance of that? | ||
| Tom |
Let's talk about the Democratic National Convention. LaRouche won several delegates in the Arkansas primary, for example. Gore and the DNC unconstitutionally stole those delegates, and refused to seat any LaRouche delegates at the Democratic National Convention. They were primarily minorities who knew full well for whom they were voting. The Democratic National Convention was closed. No one could even ask a question from the floor. No debate, no nothing. By the way, Gore lost the electoral vote in Arkansas by almost exactly the number that had voted for LaRouche in the primary. If Gore had won Arkansas, he would have won the Presidency regardless of Florida. Furthermore, I was one of the people organizing outside the Democratic National Convention. We met some good people. Some now organize for LaRouche full time. I don't know where you get your stories. This one certainly does not correspond to reality. | ||
| Anonymous |
Where do I get my stories? From reputable sources, like NBC, CBS, and ABC...but you probably think they're part of the "Trotskyite catamite conspiracy", or whatever nonsense verbiage first comes to your mind. | ||
| Tom |
lol | ||
| Tom |
Now that slanders on this site have been essentially refuted, and the slanderers have been apparently confounded, I will address more serious topics. Specifically, I refer to the message posted above by “Not the Red Baron.” I hope that the time has not been so long that the person who posted this message will not return to read my reply. Firstly, I appreciate his obvious honesty, and I apologize for the inexperienced LaRouche organizer to whom he spoke, because it seems that the organizer in question was in some ways mistaken on the topics discussed. On that note, I would also extend my personal apologies to the anonymous critics of LaRouche with whom I have been exchanging messages, especially if I have in any way offended them unwisely. I believe these particular anonymous critics mean well. They might even believe that I, as a member of the LaRouche organization, have been abducted by a nefarious cult, and need to be rescued. So be it. Now, “Not the Red Baron” has written, among other things, “I've read enough about LaRouche to see definite signs of cultism.” I cannot let his pass. In fact, the idea that Lyndon LaRouche runs a cult seems to be the main grievance on this message board. Therefore, let us examine this grievance in more detail. Forgive me if my approach is a bit hackneyed, but I will begin by simply defining the word cult. Doesn’t that seem fair? If we are going to use the word “cult” shouldn’t we all know exactly what we’re writing about? I think so. Here in my room, I have one of those big, thick dictionaries like one would find in a good library. It’s an unabridged, Webster’s New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language, and it’s big! It’s about 6 or 7 inches thick, and it weighs a good 10 lbs. On pages 419 and 420 of this dictionary, there are a total of four definitions for the word cult: 1. Worship, reverential honor; religious devotion. 2. The system of outward forms of and ceremonies used in worship, religious rites and formalities. 3. Deep regard for some person or thing, excessive admiration or attention, veneration, homage; as the Whitman cult. 4. The person or thing receiving extensive and devoted attention and admiration, as the poster is a present cult among a certain class of artists. Instead of wasting time going through each of these definitions individually, I will go directly to definition 3, because it seems to me that critics of LaRouche would find this definition most appropriate for the issue at hand, and so would I. One could assert, quite simply, that members of the LaRouche organization have ‘excessive admiration or attention’ for Lyndon LaRouche, and, therefore, the LaRouche organization is a cult. If this is the case, then it must also be admitted that those who have excessive admiration or attention for Michael Jackson, or Michael Jordan, for example, are members of the Michael cult. But this simply will not do. I, for one, have never had much faith in dictionaries. I certainly would never want to stand accused of being a member of the dictionary cult. Therefore, I would offer another definition of cult: 5. A group of people who share demonstrably irrational beliefs. It seems to me that this definition is pretty damn good. Even LaRouche haters hate LaRouche because they think he is irrational, and that his supporters are irrational: “Their full of it! They go around talking about all this political crap that doesn’t make any sense! I never heard any of the stuff they talk about on TV! My teacher says LaRouche is a quack! My father says LaRouche is a cult we knew about back in high school!” And so on. As an 11 year veteran member of the LaRouche “cult” who has talked to hundreds, perhaps thousands of LaRouche’s critics, I can definitely testify that nearly all of LaRouche’s critics who vocally accuse LaRouche of running a “cult” say these kinds of things, which must mean they, and all the silent critics of LaRouche, think these kinds of things. I leave the intelligent reader to judge the weight of such accusations. I can only reply that if we must accuse anyone of being a member of a cult, we must accuse the poor damn fool who slavishly and irrationally adheres to popular opinion, which has almost always been demonstrably wrong and irrational, particularly when it comes to political or economic issues. The cult of popular opinion, is, in my opinion, by far the most dangerous and destructive cult in all of human history. The Dialogues of Plato, for example, demonstrate that popular opinion held that Socrates was “corrupting the youth.” The Holy Bible clearly shows that popular opinion held that Jesus was blasphemous. Yes, popular opinion even held that the 1969 New York Mets would not win the World Series. Lyndon LaRouche predicted they would! (O.K., that’s a joke, but, according to those who were there, it’s true.) More recently, popular opinion held that information would drive the economy forever upwards. Then the NASDAQ crashed. In the end, our judgment must adhere to a standard of truth, even if we are not quite sure what that truth is. I would submit that anyone who claims to know the absolute truth is cultish. I, for one, have learned from Lyndon LaRouche that the method of knowing what one cannot know is the most fruitful, because it shows one the way to know what one can know, even if that knowledge is imperfect. This is the method of Plato, Socrates, and all of the great thinkers who followed them. So let us proceed. “Not the Red Baron” points out that the LaRouche organizer to whom he spoke said, [paraphrase] “Anyone who considers solar power a viable alternative to nuclear power is brainwashed. Solar power should be conserved, so that trees can photosynthesize more and gain biomass, thereby lowering global temperatures.” I can certainly testify that neither Lyndon LaRouche, nor any of the experienced scientists in his “cult” ever said, or wrote all of that. On the other hand, they might have said, “Anyone who considers solar power a viable alternative to nuclear power is brainwashed.” After all, that’s an easy target for any honest scientist. The energy flux density of solar radiation at the surface of the earth is about 2 tenths of a kilowatt per square meter. The energy flux density of fission is about 70,000 kilowatts per square meter. Fusion energy has a potential of 10 to 15th power of kilowatts per square meter. If one were to power a modern, industrial city like New York, for example, using solar energy, one would need to construct a solar panel the size of New York. This begs the question, where does one acquire the energy and materials to undertake such a massive project? The obvious conclusion is that we need to build nuclear power plants. But then there is the typical member of the cult of environmentalism, who insists we must not build nuclear power plants. His cult has become so popular, that it effectively controls much of the government, and, in fact, no new nuclear power plants have been built in the United States in over 20 years. If environmentalists are really concerned with having a clean environment, they should welcome nuclear energy as a replacement for burning biomass and fossil fuels. “But what do you do with the waste,” you ask? The best answer is to superheat it with a fusion torch, separate each constituent element, and use it for something else. However, due in part to environmentalist sabotage of research and development, a fusion torch does not yet exist. We can also reprocess much of our nuclear waste and reuse it. This technology exists, but is unused in the United States due to environmentalist sabotage. The present plan is to safely place the spent fuel in deep geologic storage. “But not in my backyard!” the environmentalist always demands. Good for him! We can put the waste in deep ocean deserts. The entirety of the radioactivity harnessed in the world by man is an infinitesimal fraction of the radioactivity that naturally occurs in the ocean. It will be literally a “drop in the ocean.” | ||
| Anonymous |
Tom's diatribe recalls Shakespeare..."it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing"... | ||
| Tom |
lol | ||
| Tom |
Thou hold’st a place for which the pained’st fiend of hell would not in reputation change. Thy food is such as hath been belch’d on by infected lungs. | ||
| Anonymous |
Methinks the lady doth protest too much | ||
| Tom |
Upon careful reflection, I realize that is the first thing you are right about. Except it goes, "The lady protests too much, methinks." | ||
| Anonymous |
Whatever Tom - I realized that after I typed it, but either way, if the shoe fits..... | ||
| CK |
Tom, The Webster definition of "cult" is antiquated and laregly irrelevant to the contemporary use of the term, as applied to organizations like Larouche, Moonies, Heavens Gate,Branch Davidians . Here is a more helpful Cult Characterisation Checklist, as defined and accepted by many cult watchdog organisations: Characteristics of a Cult: The group is focused on a living leader to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment. The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members. The group is preoccupied with making money. Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished. Mind-numbing techniques (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, debilitating work routines) are used to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s). The leadership dictates sometimes in great detail how members should think, act, and feel (for example: members must get permission from leaders to date, change jobs, get married; leaders may prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, how to discipline children, and so forth). The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and members (for example: the leader is considered the Messiah or an avatar; the group and/or the leader has a special mission to save humanity). The group has a polarized us- versus-them mentality, which causes conflict with the wider society. The group's leader is not accountable to any authorities (as are, for example, military commanders and ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream denominations). The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify means that members would have considered unethical before joining the group (for example: collecting money for bogus charities). The leadership induces guilt feelings in members in order to control them. Members' subservience to the group causes them to cut ties with family and friends, and to give up personal goals and activities that were of interest before joining the group. Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group. Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members | ||
| Anonymous |
Some other Cult characterisic checklists I've found: ------------------- Authoritarian in their power structure Totalitarian in their control of the behavior of their members Pyramidal structure Uses thought reform techniques Isolation of members (physical and/or psychological isolation) from society Uses deception in recruiting and/or fund raising Promotes dependence of the members on the group Totalitarian in their world view Uses mind altering techniques (chanting, meditation, hypnosis and various forms of repetitive actions) to stop normal critical thinking Appear exclusive and innovative Charismatic or messianic leader who is self-appointed and has a special mission in life Controls the flow of information (Don't watch CNN Larouchites!) Instills a fear of leaving the group. --------------------- 1. Authoritarian pyramid structure with authority at the top 2. Charismatic or messianic leader(s) (Messianic meaning they either say they are God OR that they alone can interpret the scriptures the way God intended.....the leaders are self-appointed.) 3. Deception in recruitment and/or fund raising 4. Isolation from society -- not necessarily physical isolation like on some compound in Waco, but this can be psychological isolation -- the rest of the world is not saved, not Christian, not transformed (whatever) -- the only valid source of feedback and information is the group 5. Use of mind control techniques (we use Dr. Robert Jay Lifton's criteria from chapter 22 of his book "Thought Reform & the Psychology of Totalism" to compare whether the eight psychological and social methods he lists are present in the group at question) Mileu Control: Control of the environment and communication within the environment Mystical Manipulation: Seeks to promote specific patterns of behavior and emotion in such a way that it appears to have arisen spontaneously from within the environment, while it actually has been orchestrated totalist leaders claim to be agents chosen by God, history, or some supernatural force, to carry out the mystical imperative the "principles" (God-centered or otherwise) can be put forcibly and claimed exclusively, so that the cult and its beliefs become the only true path to salvation (or enlightenment) Demand for Purity: The world becomes sharply divided into the pure and the impure, the absolutely good (the group/ideology) and the absolutely evil (everything outside the group) one must continually change or conform to the group "norm"; tendencies towards guilt and shame are used as emotional levers for the group's controlling and manipulative influences Confession: Cultic confession is carried beyond its ordinary religious, legal and therapeutic expressions to the point of becoming a cult in itself sessions in which one confesses to one's sin are accompanied by patterns of criticism and self-criticism, generally transpiring within small groups with an active and dynamic thrust toward personal change Sacred Science: The totalist milieu maintains an aura of sacredness around its basic doctrine or ideology, holding it as an ultimate moral vision for the ordering of human existence questioning or criticizing those basic assumptions is prohibited a reverence is demanded for the ideology/doctrine, the originators of the ideology/doctrine, the present bearers of the ideology/doctrine offers considerable security to young people because it greatly simplifies the world and answers a contemporary need to combine a sacred set of dogmatic principles with a claim to a science embodying the truth about human behavior and human psychology Loading the Language: Words are given new meanings -- the outside world does not use the words or phrases in the same way -- it becomes a "group" word or phrase Doctrine Over Person: If one questions the beliefs of the group or the leaders of the group, one is made to feel that there is something inherently wrong with them to even question -- it is always "turned around" on them and the questioner/criticizer is questioned rather than the questions answered directly the underlying assumption is that doctrine/ideology is ultimately more valid, true and real than any aspect of actual human character or human experience and one must subject one's experience to that "truth" the experience of contradiction can be immediately associated with guilt one is made to feel that doubts are reflections of one's own evil when doubt arises, conflicts become intense Dispensing of Existence: Since the group has an absolute or totalist vision of truth, those who are not in the group are bound up in evil, are not enlightened, are not saved, and do not have the right to exist; impediments to legitimate being must be pushed away or destroyed one outside the group may always receive their right of existence by joining the group; fear manipulation -- if one leaves this group, one leaves God or loses their salvation/transformation, or something bad will happen to them; the group is the "elite", outsiders are "of the world", "evil", "unenlightened", etc --------------------- | ||
| CK |
OK, given the more relevant contemporary understanding of cults, as described above, it's obvious to most outside observers that Larouches group displays most or all of the traits of a cult. So for some questions that can actually be debated... Do they have a RIGHT to be a cult? Is cult membership a valid allowable lifestyle choice, or are cult members really victims of an organisation that violates their right to intellectual freedom?? Are cults employing mind control unconstitutional in nature? | ||
| Anonymous |
Maybe there should be some sort of public awareness of cults and its warning signs, so that innocent people don't walk into the trap of a cult and find themselves unable or with difficulty to leave. That probably would best be taught in a sociology or psychology course in college, but maybe something in high school also, or perhaps public service advisories like they have for alcohol, tobacco, and drugs. | ||
| Anonymous |
Cults would fall in the category of domestic abuse...the abuser in this case would be the cult leader or a senior cult member, who acts as a controller. Victims of domestic abuse can be helped by agencies dealing with battered persons. Battery doesn't necessarily mean physical assault, mental assault is just as or more harmful. | ||
| Tom |
CK, I appreciate your thoroughness, but even if by your own logic, you can prove the LaRouche organization is a cult, where is the reason? I would agree the Moonies, Heaven’s Gate, and the Branch Davidians are cults, but I would debate them on the rationality of their axioms. If they were unwilling or unable to debate their axioms, I would think much worse of them. | ||
| Tom |
Lest the LaRouche organization be thought worse than a cult, I would offer the following, simple axioms of the LaRouche movement. There are only three. I offer these axioms as a challenge for anyone to refute. My only rule is that challengers address the axioms, and not resort, once again, to prejudiced, ad hominum attacks of any sort. Since this is my challenge, and I have taken the liberty to define this rule, I will also take the liberty to declare that whosoever resorts to ad hominum attacks, of any sort, and whosoever posts a message that does not take up this simple challenge, will be declared unable to challenge these axioms: 1) Man is good. 2) The measure of an idea, is its effect on the condition of man. 3) If an idea has the net effect of increasing man’s power in the universe, as measured by a continual increase in the population of man, than it is a good idea. I trust that anyone who has the intelligence and goodwill to read this challenge, will have the intelligence to take up this challenge, as stated. | ||
| Anonymous |
Quoted by: Saadya The LaRouche cult fits the description of a totalitarian movement as outlined by Hanna Arendt in Totalitariansim is correctly defined by its all-encompasing style.../snip It's very funny you use Hannah Ardent in defining a cult. Hannah Ardent was the lover of the Nazi Philosopher Martin Heidegger, but couldn't be with him due to her Jewish heritage. Hannah Ardents defination of a totalarian is ANYONE who claims there is ANY truth!! THerefore your parents, your teachers, and you yourself who says there is truth, are a totalarian. Can you take this person seriously? | ||
| Tom |
Please forgive my ardent friend. Though what has written is apparently in earnest, if not wholly truthful, he has altogether failed to take up my challenge. Therefore, it is clear, for whatever reason, that he has failed to challenge the stated axioms. Not only that, it's an ad hominum attack. Tom 1 Anonymous 0 | ||
| Anonymous |
Tom, don't be arrogant..you dictate that "whosoever" does not answer your challenge has no validity. First...whenever you refer to man, I will assume you mean humans, both male and female Man is good? I think not...man is man, there is no good or bad about it. The term could is relative only to the particular culture or subculture to which you are referring, but it is not a universal truth. Your assumption that man should increase his power and number in the universe is biased....there are those of us that are savvy enough to know we already suffer from an overpopulation problem, and we are using up resources faster than they can be replenished, and once something is made extinct, it is gone forever, and we are doing a marvelous job of wiping out species. | ||
| Anonymous |
To continue the previous post: As to increasing man's power in the universe, I ask, for what reason? We cannot even keep peace within small countries, and look where that has gotten us. We have unleashed nuclear pandoras boxes, we have befouled the very air we breathe, we bomb out of existence those we disagree with, we are destroying our planet... I suggest we work to better things right here on earth, and let the universe be. | ||
| Frankster |
Anonymous: 3 Tom: 0 | ||
| Tom |
O.K., good! Forgive my arrogance. I am rather indignant at some of the garbage posted above. If indignity is inappropriate, I ask your forgiveness for that too. Now, when I say man is good, I am stating an axiom. To challenge that axiom by stating “man is man” is reductio ad absurdum. However, when you say, “…We have unleashed nuclear pandoras boxes, we have befouled the very air we breathe, we bomb out of existence those we disagree with, we are destroying our planet,” etc, I must assume that what you meant to say is that “man is evil.” Am I correct? If so, that would be an axiom. Let me attempt to support MY axiom, that man is good, by using a non-axiomatic approach. Bear with me. First, let me give you an example of what I mean by non-axiomatic: A CIRCLE IS THE MINIMUM CIRCUMFERENCE THAT BOUNDS THE MAXIMUM AREA. This is a demonstrable physical principle, as opposed to, for example, the Euclidean axiom, “a point is that which has no parts.” When one demonstrates a physical principle, one need not assume anything. I trust you understand the difference, though in many respects the difference is very subtle. The great Russian scientist, Vladimir Vernadsky, demonstrated that the universe is a manifold of three multiply-connected states of being: non-living, living, and cognitive. He demonstrated that geologic history, that is, non-living processes, are dominated and subsumed by living processes. The oceans, the atmosphere, even the mountains, are products of living processes acting to change non-living processes. Hence, he referred to the envelope that includes the surface of the earth and the atmosphere, as the “biosphere.” With the emergence of man in the biosphere, a third principle became manifest: cognition. Vernadsky also demonstrated, and man continues to prove, that cognition dominates and subsumes non-living, as well as living processes. In point of fact, when it is stripped to the core, so to speak, this is precisely what the typical “environmentalist” objects to. I don’t. If we go back even further, the pre-Socratic, Greek philosopher Heraclitus demonstrated that the only constant in the universe is change. Based upon that principle, Plato stated his axiom to the effect that constant change is directed toward what he called “The Good.” Plato referred to this process as “The Becoming.” It should be evident that Plato’s axioms are consistent with Vernadsky’s non-axiomatic approach. Hence, I conclude that man is good. On the other hand, I tend to agree with you when you point out the follies of man, but I rather think of these follies as growing pains. I enthusiastically agree with your suggestion that we work to make things better here on earth, but we can never let the universe just be. We may never know why, but if we don’t change things for the better, we might not be here to ask the question. With respect to your diatribe, “Your assumption that man should increase his power and number in the universe is biased....there are those of us that are savvy enough to know we already suffer from an overpopulation problem, and we are using up resources faster than they can be replenished, and once something is made extinct, it is gone forever, and we are doing a marvelous job of wiping out species.” To this, I can only polemically respond, with the danger of using an ad hominum attack, that there are those savvy enough to know that those who think the world is overpopulated are not very savvy. “Resources” are demonstrably infinite. Species have been coming and going since the beginning. I am a man, therefore I am biased for man. Man is something more than a mere species. | ||
| Anonymous |
Tom, I really don't give a rat's ass. Go on and prattle about axioms, and continue with your obfuscating diatribes I have more important things to do with my life. | ||
| Tom |
Anyone else? | ||
| Anonymous |
This is like the abortion issue - there are two distinct sides, and ne'er the twain shall meet...but it seems Tom's arguments fly in the face of fact....he obviously isn't aware of pollution, overcrowding, depletion of the ozone layer, warming of the oceans and rising water levels, and seems to think new birds and animals will replace the one's that go extinct.....don't confuse him with facts, his mind is made up.. | ||
| Tom |
Yes, there are two sides of the issue: One side will formulate any argument, true or false, to support the bad idea that the population of man must be reduced. It is ironic how this side is quick to slander LaRouche as a fascist, racist, cultist, etc. The other side--LaRouche's side and my side--is the minority who defend the primacy of human life. We know what real fascism is, and how it grows. Pollution? Get your mind out of the sewer. Depletion of the ozone layer? Do you still believe the sky is falling? Overcrowding? Let’s do the math. Texas has 267,338 square miles, which equals 7.453 trillion square feet. There are approximately 6 billion people on the planet. 7.453 trillion divided by 6 billion equals 1,242.17. Therefore, every man woman and child on this planet could live in Texas and have over 1242 square feet on which to live. If we all live together in families of four, we would have just under 5,000 square feet. If that’s not enough, some of us could move to California. Warming of the oceans and rising water levels? It wouldn't surprise me. Ocean temperatures and water levels have been changing throughout all of geologic history. Were you protesting? Animals and birds going extinct? Well, if you can name one besides the dodo, I might take you a little bit more seriously. The last time I checked, human beings were intervening in nature ta save a number of species from going naturally extinct. That's fine with me, but it occurs to me that if they can get as emotionally worked up about saving people as they do about saving some damn bird, the world would be a better place. If you, dear environmentalist, are not convinced by these short comments, and prefer to believe the world is overpopulated, or, as environmentalists typically believe, that modern man does not harmonize with nature, there are two things you can definitely do to help. 1) YOU CAN LEAVE! That will make one less person. 2) You can renounce civilization and live in harmony with nature, as you see it. If from your wilderness abode (where you are likely to soon die from exposure, starvation, or worse) you see from afar the lights of civilization, where you once lived, and you still lament the meddling of man, don’t blame man. Blame nature. Nature made man, and nature made man to meddle. By the way, you completely failed to take up my challenge, and you resorted to an ad hominum attack. You lose. | ||
| Anonymous |
There is no win or lose to this argument. I do take issue with the ridiculous concept of squeezing everyone into Texas and giving them 1200 square feet in which to live. What a pleasant environment that would be, especially with all the heat and --hey, what about the cattle, where are they going to go? And I'm sure president Bush isn't going to hand over his million acre property to be populated by us common folk. As far as overpopulation, I suggest LaRouche et al show some altruism and vacate the planet | ||
| Tom |
Anyone else? | ||
| Anonymous |
You said that already Tom | ||
| Tom |
Finally you got something right. | ||
| Tom |
For those of you who are watching this message board, and I am sure there are many of you, let this be a lesson. If you are going to slander Lyndon LaRouche, you should be able to defend your slanders, based upon reason alone. I stand by my belief that Lyndon LaRouche is the greatest living thinker, and that he is a man of goodwill. I have stated the axioms of the LaRouche movement, and I have challenged anyone to refute them. The challenge stands. | ||
| Anonymous |
YOU do not set the ground rules Tom. You are free to believe that Larouche is the greatest thing since sliced bread, or that LaRouche is the Messiah, I don't care. I beg to differ. You have brought forth a lot of scientific gobbledygook in an effort to substantiate your beliefs, calling upon the work of dubious Russian scientists, and going off on all sort of tangents in order to throw a monkeywrench into orderly dialogue. You are obviously in love with LaRouche and his movement, so I can't reach you with common sense. This bs that you spout is typical of those in cults....you have the charismatic leader, you have the answer to everything, the apocalypse is coming and LaRouche and his followers with be the only survivors, yada yada yada.....anyone familiar with cults and how they work understands where you are coming from, and that is not a good place. I hope one of these days you snap out of it Tom. | ||
| Tom |
Please tell me how cults work. I haven’t a clue. | ||
| Chaim |
Tom, Why you need to post my full name in a discussion of this type is beyond me. What purpose does it serve you? Well, anyway, it attracted me here, so I guess it served for something... Confused parents? Who came up with that one, Harley or Phil? The tendancy to shift the blame for a disagreement on onto a third party (my parents, in this case), rather then admit that there was an actual reason for disagreement in the first place, is typical of a cult to do. Better to blame some outside force (like parents) than risk showing your leader in a possibly negetive light... The same sort of pattern is modeled in abusive relationships and oppresive regimes. I can expound this if you like, although I am sure if I do you'll just take me through Kepler's eliptical orbits or something  And yes, Jews for Jesus is also very much a cult. Thankfully, my family left behind that organization almost 15 years ago. Anyway, your dedication to this forum is puzzling. Shouldn't you be off raising money? Good evening. -Chaim | ||
| Tom |
Chaim, I had almost given up on this slander board. It’s actually good to read from you. Would that you had become more wise! Forgive me for posting your name, and there is something I cannot understand in your post: You wrote, “there was an actual reason for disagreement in the first place…Better to blame some outside force (like parents) than risk showing your leader in a possibly negetive light.” Please explain. | ||
| Chaim |
Tom, Certainly: When I left, I wrote a note specifying my reason for departure. In it, I outlined why it was I felt I needed to leave. It largely centered around the organization's response to the 9-11 attacks. In the months since, I have come to other reasoons why I needed to leave, but the one I mention above was the first and most immediate one that came up, and the one that eventually caused me to part ways wiith the group. It, in itself, esxposed some things about the group to me that I was not willingg to go along with for much longer, which is why I left. Whhen discussing my departure from the group, would it not make more sense to say "Chaim left because he found that he didn't totally agree with some of the thing that Lyn was doing, and found that he could not work for him anymore"? That would make sense, but it's not what the organization does. Instead they say that someone was "blocked" or "impotent" or had, as you say, "confused parents." I didn't even discuss with them my decision to leave until it was already made. When I mention, below, the "possible negative light," I mean that protecting LaRouche's image and infallibility is one of the top priorities of his movement. It's betteer to use words like "blocked" or "confused" than to simply say "Chaim didn't like the strong focus on fundraising right after 9-11" or "chaim didn't like the way that Lyn and his organization regarded people mourning in the aftermath of 9-11" or "Chaim decided that the organization was a cult, and wanted no more part of it," That highlights a possible problem with the organization or Lyn, instead of highlighting a problem with me (or my parents) solely. I don't think it would be productive for you and I to discuss the attributes of a cult and whether LaRouche fits the bill or not, but I hope that I get across what I meant. Sorry for any typo's. It's damn cold this morning. -Chaim | ||
| Tom |
Chaim, I accept this answer, but even if it is wholly honest, it reeks of a ‘little me’ problem. Nothing you have written goes beyond the expression of mere feeling. On the other hand, Chaim, I have enough confidence in your intelligence to know, that you know, that we in the LaRouche organization are committed to the Good above all else. The claim that “protecting LaRouche's image and infallibility is one of the top priorities of his movement,” is a bit, let us say, ridiculous. The only protection Lyn needs is physical protection from his enemies, all of whom are demonstrably committed to something less than the Good. The fact is, as you know, Lyn has a first-class mind, and he has repeatedly demonstrated that his ability to know things is unequalled. That quality of leadership commands the respect of fellow truth-seekers, particularly those who decide to act for the Good. The real issue here is a question of identity. In my opinion, your identity is diminished. If I am wrong, you must demonstrate the nature of my error. On a personal note, let me give you my opinion of Chaim. Chaim was one of the brightest kids I’ve met. He demonstrated very strong leadership capabilities, but lacked the maturity to temper his enthusiasm. He organized with so much energy and force that he pushed the boundaries of his physical capabilities. That’s when he got that nasty flu, or whatever it was. Instead of sneaking away from the battle and constructing some bogus argument about why he shouldn’t go back and fight, Chaim should have carried himself home with the dignity he deserved. He should have rested and learned from his mistakes. If he had done that, the world would have been a richer place. Tom | ||
| Anonymous |
I live in Aust and I definitly know thru the LaRouche group activities here over the past 10 years they are a cult. Hi Chaim! We were in touch some time ago People maybe interested in this link - a tragic thing that happended to a student in France http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1077860,00.html | ||
| Tom |
You seem to be implying that the Schiller Institute had something to do with the death of the student to whom you are referring. The implication is as preposterous as the article you linked, which, among a number of other baseless and absurd slanders, retails the lie that the Schiller institute is anti-semitic. Why don't you ask our mutual Jewish friend, Chaim, if that ridiculous slander has any foundation whatsoever? We in the Schiller Institute are all aware of the tragedy to which you refer. It is extremely disturbing that anyone, for any reason, would use that tragedy as an opportunity to mount a political attack. | ||
| Anonymous |
It is also disturbing that a member of La Rouches organisation, would fail to understand the terrible tragedy and assume that any questions related to it amount to a ' political attack'. It is even more disturbing that Lyndon himself has claimed that the tragedy nenver happened and was invented by his enemies in order to persecute him. ( that statement remains on the Schiller institute website, if you would like to check it out) That smacks of cultism and delusion. It appears that the leader has no capacity for compassion. I think that anyone who is interested in the 'good' of this planet would agree that a movement who meets the tragic death of one of their members, with slanderous claims that he was ' mentally unstable' are trying to avert any criticisms of their group. No one has blamed the group for this tragedy but why are they not coming foward to piece together the events that led up to it. I count myself very lucky. One of my family was a member of a group with distinct similarities to this; they labelled all outsiders as unworthy (blocked?), they interpreted any questions as criticism or persecution, they alienated their members from their families and they elevated their leader and his tactics. The group demolished their members sense of identity and all autonomous thinking was regarded as fallacious. The only sense of satisfaction members got came from carrying out the leaders orders. We are no longer connected but we are still picking up the pieces and the group were very quick to slander their ex member and our family. Does the 'good' Schiller Institute have any sympathy? If so it is not pervading your last statement Tom. I have no idea if your institute is anti semetic or not but your organisation rings alarm bells with me. My deepest condolences to the family. | ||
| Anonymous |
Th is is the organisation whose treatment of the press makes scientology look angelic .....go to this page http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/cult/larouche/larou4.htm Here is an extract Critics of LaRouche Group Hassled, Ex-Associates Say By John Mintz Washington Post Staff Writer January 14, 1985 onathan Prestage was a reporter with the Manchester Union-Leader in 1980 when his editors asked him to write an article on Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr., the right-wing presidential candidate who was then stumping New Hampshire for votes in the state's Democratic primary. There were allegations by New Hampshire residents that LaRouche workers were harassing voters on the street and making odd late-night telephone calls to political figures. LaRouche showed up at the newspaper's office with a group of about 10 people, Prestage recalled, several of them security men who left their guns downstairs. In a tense interview with the entire group glaring at him, Prestage said, he asked LaRouche about his organization's intelligence-gathering network. "He said, 'You can't use that,' " Prestage recalled. "I said, 'Why not?' . . . He said, 'We have ways of making it very painful for people.' I asked, 'Is that a threat?' They just kind of chuckled." The next day, the paper ran an article by Prestage describing the exchange. Prestage said that the day after the story ran, he awoke in his large old house in rural Barrington to find one of his cats dead on his back doorstep. In all, three cats were left dead on his doorstep over three days. Prestage said he believes that LaRouche's supporters killed his cats. He is not alone in believing himself to be a target of their alleged harassment. Former associates of LaRouche and others familiar with his organization said its supporters routinely use threats and questionable tactics to silence critics and former members and to discourage the media from writing critically about the group. Supporters of the group also routinely use pseudonyms, or impersonate reporters or others, in their intelligence work, said ex-members and people familiar with the group. LaRouche and his associates deny they harass anyone. An associate added that they had nothing to do with Prestage's dead cats. In a deposition in connection with a libel suit against the NBC network last year, LaRouche said that at a 1980 New Hampshire news conference he said he was an executive of a "political intelligence operation" and that "amateurs" who "play games" with him would "get chewed up." He added in the deposition that that meant he would expose them. Jeffrey Steinberg, a top LaRouche aide, said that reporters who complain of harassment have other motives. "A lot of journalists don't like us," Steinberg said. "We have the habit of asking questions that are embarrassing" to powerful people. Paul Goldstein, another LaRouche aide, said in an interview that the organization is sometimes a little sharp in its criticism of people. "Our method is polemical," Goldstein said. "We aim to provoke." One ex-associate put it another way. "To people who are unfavorable to them, they do whatever they can to commit character assassination," the ex-member said. © Copyright 1985 The Washington Post Company | ||
| Anonymous |
cowardly cult leaders often use fear to keep the recruits in. In the children of god Berg basically said 'We are the Children of a God of Love but he will kill you if you leave the group' or something alsong these lines. members were told to beware of the deprogrammers who would kidnap them out of the group and drive them crazy. Such fear was instilled about the deprogrammers and the parents who would employ them that the recruit would forsake their next of kin and avoid them lest they fall into the hands of the terrible deprogrammers!! Well Lyndon LaRouche is not an original thinker in this respect. he too has something to say and some fear to spread , to keep his members IN. the following is an extract from this site http://www.ex-iwp.org/docs/larcouche_berlet.htm According to LaRouche, the methods used by the KGB and British Intelligence to brainwash the membership of NCLC caused fear of impotence and homosexuality to immobilize each member and thus destroy their capability to organize effectively. LaRouche’s pronouncements can easily be dismissed as a deranged conspiracy theory--but the words reveal his emotional and intellectual state at the time of the speech. While perhaps offensive to some readers, only direct quotes can fully convey the incredible nature and content of LaRouche’s demented discourse: “How do you brainwash somebody? Well, first of all, you generally pull a psychological profile or develop one in a preliminary period. You find every vulnerability of that person from a psychoanalytic standpoint. Now the next thing you do is you build them up for fear in males and females of homosexuality, aim them for an anal identification with anal sex, their mouth is identified with fellacio. Their mouth is identified only with the penis--that kind of sex, and with woman. Womanhood is the fellacio of the male mouth in a man who has been brainwashed by the KGB; that is sucking penises. . . .” “First they say your father was nothing, your father was a queer, your father was a woman. They play very strongly on homosexual fears. It doesn’t work on women. . . .Most women are to a large degree homosexual in this society. The relationship between daughter and mother is homosexual, so the thing is not much of a threat.” “But to young men it is generally a grave threat. . fears about masturbation. . . .They say, `See that sheep. Wouldn’t you like to do that to a sheep?’“ “It’s not the pain that brainwashes, it’s forcing the victim to run away from the pain by taking the bait of degrading himself. This persistant pattern of self-degradation, self-humiliation, is what essentially accomplishes the brainwashing.” “Any of you who say this is a hoax--you’re cruds! You’re subhuman! You’re not serious. The human race is at stake. Either we win or there is no humanity. That’s the way she’s cut.” LaRouche was speaking of the brainwashing plot he believed was being initiated against his followers. In fact, according to former members, LaRouche and his closest aides used this belief to justify a an internal campaign which was a”chain of psychological terror” as two members called it in their resignation letter. They charged the LaRouche-mandated sessions to cure their alleged “psychosis” were in fact an attempt to crush the will of “all individuals who have expressed political and intellectual opposition to the tendencies” surfacing inside the LaRouche organization. “What really happened,” says a dismayed former member, “is that LaRouche had gone bonkers and was systematically brainwashing us to accept his total control over the organization.” | ||
| Anonymous |
The Guardian Artikle is actually a good example for a slander. In the first artikle a few months ago they had some really stupid arguments in it. They just said things that didn´t happen! I was at that conference/meeting, and I talked to Jeremiah. I must say I believe the german police came to the right conclusion. Sorry if my english is not that good and greetings from germany | ||
| unclassified mind |
In response to comments earlier realting to Lyn's 'first class mind'; I am unfamiliar with the term 'first class mind'. ' 'How, I wonder, is this fathomed, measured or defined ? If we have a class system based on mind, I would like to update my knowledge and learn about it. What criteria does the writer use to back up this strange comment/opinion? i wonder how the writer classifies his own mind? To say that Lyn demonstrates this by his 'ability to know things' is very funny. We all have the ability to 'know things' and also to believe we know things that turn out to be persuasively related fairytales. What interests me further is why Lyn needs physical protection from his enemies? What has he done to stir up such strong negative reactions? In my humble opinion, this tendency to use vague terms is symptomatic of either a lovestruck teenager or someone who has lost their critical abilities.....I should add that despite my copious qualifications, my mind happily remains unclassified. | ||
| unclassified mind |
Anon You say you think the police came to the right conclusion . What reasons can you give for saying that ? Were you there? Your English is fine. | ||
| Anonymous |
Well, I dont´t really know it, because I wasn´t there as it happened. But the way the Guardian wrote about it in the first article http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4710880-111289,00.html for example the Quote: But as the Duggans pieced together details of the conference, one anecdote disturbed them most of all. "It seems he had no idea about who he was with at all. Someone blamed the Jews for the war in Iraq and for the problems of the world. Jeremiah stood up and said 'But I am a Jew'. Everyone went quiet. Jeremiah would have been very upset by that." This is simply a lie. It never happened. I was there the whole conference and the meetings afterwards. And then this Quote: The Duggans know how he died, but remain determined to find out why. The Foreign Office has accepted the result of the German investigation but says it will help the family raise concerns. ??? So they know? how? Jeremiah was a interested and friendly person. I talked a little bit to him about a philosophical question he raised. I think it is a big tragedy, but I really don´t believe that the Schiller-Institute people killed him. What Sense would that make? | ||
| Anonymous |
I did not read the original article you mention but the press reports here in the last week state that the Coroner in the UK does not agree with the German conclusion and raises questions as to how the Germans reached that conclusion. I have read nothing in the press to suggest that someone killed him and I agree that it would not make sense. But the German report that it was suicide also makes no sense. The comments of Schiller staff reported in the UK press also make no sense. Why would they be so keen to insist some instability, or to avoid any responsibility. surely any responsible organisation who noticed that one of their members showed any sign of instability would seek help or assistance from outside agencies or from friends or relatives. Why, more to the point does the S Institute appear to lack any sympathy, and make statements that suggest they are more concerned with their own clean slate than finding out why this tragedy happened. Does that make sense to you? I think any family in this situation would want answers to these questions, dont you? | ||
| JohnnyCNote |
Anon wrote: " I was there the whole conference and the meetings afterwards." Why were you there? Are you a member of the LaRouche organization? | ||
| Anonymous |
To Johnny: I´m not a member of the Schiller Institute, but I attend meetings sometimes. And the conference was very interesting. To Anon: If it was not a suicide and he didn´t get killed, what was it then? An accident? Where is the point in making 2-3 big artikles about it? These Artikles make no sense to me. Well, if you want to make people think bad about the Schiller Institute they do... Read the artikle. | ||
| Anonymous |
Hi Anon, i think it is reasonable to withold judgement until information is available that would support any one of those alternatives. The Schiller Institute have made themselves look bad by their insensitivity and their defensive statements insisting mental instability and jumping to conclusions. You said you thought the police were right....yet you do not give any indication why you think this. So, why do you think this? | ||
| Tom |
As I have indicated above, a fundamental tenet of the LaRouche organization (e.g. The Schiller Institute) is an uncompromised belief in the primacy of human life. Much of our activity is focused on the intensive study of classical art. All of our political work is actually a derivative of these studies, and not the reverse. Friedrich Schiller once wrote, “the greatest work of art is the construction of true political freedom.” In his famous Aesthetical Letters, and in various aesthetical essays, he developed the notion that we must first learn to educate our emotions, and that classical art provides us the necessary tools, because it affords us the most direct access to God’s beauty. Another great man, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once said,“an injustice against one man, is an injustice against us all.” I would assert that Dr. King had gone a long ways towards educating his emotions. Certainly, in his political actions, he demonstrated the classical ideal, that all men are created in the image of God. My question is rhetorical. Are these slanders directed against the Schiller Institute intended to defend the memory of our fallen Jeremiah, and to seek true justice, or are they directed against the work of the Schiller Institute? There are many enemies of the kind of human progress that Friedrich Schiller lived for, and that Dr. King died for, that would rather see Lyndon LaRouche and the Schiller Institute removed from the political scene. Happily, the enemies of human progress will find nothing to strengthen their lost cause in the grandmother’s gossip posted here lately. | ||
| Anonymous |
What I thought is interesting in that case is that one of the French guys who talked to the girlfriend of Jeremiah said the first thing she asked was: "Is the a river near the place you are?". So I´m not sure waht happend, but that and the way the Artikles were written brings me to the conclusion that I have. Maybe its wrong, we don´t know, but those artikels won´t help to find the truth in my opinion. Here I agree more to Tom in his last statement. | ||
| Anonymous |
Tom, the fine sentiments of your first paragraph, where you mention the primacy of human life, are terribly impressive but do not equate with your final statement which, whilst assuming that others on this board are enemies of human progress also betrays a rather hostile view of grandmothers. A few uneducated emotions here or do grandmothers not figure in the primacy you speak of ? Anon, you seem to have no sense of logic. | ||
| emulator |
A great man once said "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts. Anon Another man by the name of Hemingway asserted "In order to be a great writer a person must have a built- in, shockproof crap detector." My cap detector alarm just went off boys. | ||
| Tom |
I'm just wondering if that cap detector wasn't the crap in your cap. | ||
| emulator |
...no that was a typo. Tom, how do you define 'good'? what is an 'enemy of human progress'? what exactly do you mean by 'educating the emotions' ? why is Lyn so critical of parents? | ||
| Tom |
These are good questions only when they are sincere. If you are serious, you will first give your definition to the first three. At some point, we might discuss the fallacy of your fourth question. | ||
| emulator |
Tom, I am seious but will not provide definitions for YOUR terminology. My mistake. I thought you knew what you meant when you used these words. I could share my understanding with you, but you will first give your definition of 'sincere' without including the word 'slander' | ||
| Tom |
It appears to me that you are doing nothing more than picking a childish fight, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, and provide my definitions. Good: The increase of human power in the universe. Human Progress: A sustainable increase in the population of man. Educating the Emotions: Making the duty to do Good the desire to do Good. Sincere: Seeking the Good. | ||
| emulator |
Thank you Tom. | ||
| emulator |
Well Tom I have a great desire for good but no desire for an increase in human power in the universe. I beleive this world needs more love compassion and understanding | ||
| emulator |
i also believe that the power of god and the power of nature should be revered and that the desire for power corrupts our humanity. Now i understand why the Larouche movement lacks compassion. thank you for that. i will pray for you. | ||
| emulator |
Now for that fourth question; why is lyn so critical of parents? Fallacy you cry. I hope you have kept your bulletins or maybe your a new boy who cant remember this?neither is it slander unless Lyn can slander himself. "Your parents are immoral," the group's members were told in an internal bulletin. "The people of the United States are not morally fit to survive... Everything your parents say is evil -- they are like lepers, morally and intellectually insane." | ||
| Tom |
Actually, I’ve been doing this for quite some time. I’m not a “new boy.” I’ve been doing this long enough, and examining the issues long enough, to recognize the signs of utter foolishness in your posts. If you had read some of my earlier posts when I took on environmentalism you might not have written what you did. Let me just say that I don’t share the common beliefs that there are too many people in the world, human beings are evil, and technology is bad. As for the issue of parents, I won’t dignify your characterization with a response. You should have stopped at “Thank you Tom.” | ||
| emulator |
You wont or you cant? | ||
| Tom |
I'm happy to report that my surviving parent, as well as my Grandparents, are pro-LaRouche. Were my father alive today, I'm sure he would also be a supporter. As for your quote, I never heard Mr. LaRouche say all that, but when I think upon the likes of mine enemies, I wish he had said it to some. | ||
| emulator |
We really have not achieved a meeting of the mind here Tom. However i do not consider you to be an enemy and wish you happy days and adios. | ||
| Anonymous |
http://www.agpf.de/LaRouche.htm#Duggan1 | ||
| Anonymous |
http://www.eirna.com/ LaRouche ist #1 | ||
| Nils |
I ran into these LaRouchies recently myself. All they have to offer is an onslaught of negativity, held together by paranoid theories and dubious economics. Their only defense is to attack what they don't agree with and site sources and "facts" of dubious merit. Like Tom, they are impervious to reason- I only hope they can be helped to readjust to society when they realize what a crock of shit it is. Everything is slander and only LaRouche can lead us out of this trouble. I feel sorry for those poor misguided fanatics as well as the people who fall for it. | ||
| Tom |
You should have put an exclamation point on the end of your vomit! What exactly do you mean by "impervious to reason"? | ||
| Anonymous |
I think you have just provided us with an example of it Tom. | ||
| Tom |
I have no answer with that. It appears we're right back to opinions and ad hominum attacks. During several years as a member of LaRouche's organization, I still have never met anyone who can express a disagreement with Lyndon LaRouche, and defend it based upon reason alone. I'm willing to keep looking. | ||
| Anonymous |
Well look here then at Lyndon's words and let us know what reason you find in thses? Defend them if you can with your reason. “How do you brainwash somebody? Well, first of all, you generally pull a psychological profile or develop one in a preliminary period. You find every vulnerability of that person from a psychoanalytic standpoint. Now the next thing you do is you build them up for fear in males and females of homosexuality, aim them for an anal identification with anal sex, their mouth is identified with fellacio. Their mouth is identified only with the penis--that kind of sex, and with woman. Womanhood is the fellacio of the male mouth in a man who has been brainwashed by the KGB; that is sucking penises. . . .” “First they say your father was nothing, your father was a queer, your father was a woman. They play very strongly on homosexual fears. It doesn’t work on women. . . .Most women are to a large degree homosexual in this society. The relationship between daughter and mother is homosexual, so the thing is not much of a threat.” “But to young men it is generally a grave threat. . fears about masturbation. . . .They say, `See that sheep. Wouldn’t you like to do that to a sheep?’“ “It’s not the pain that brainwashes, it’s forcing the victim to run away from the pain by taking the bait of degrading himself. This persistant pattern of self-degradation, self-humiliation, is what essentially accomplishes the brainwashing.” “Any of you who say this is a hoax--you’re cruds! You’re subhuman! You’re not serious. The human race is at stake. Either we win or there is no humanity. That’s the way she’s cut.” LaRouche was speaking of the brainwashing plot he believed was being initiated against his followers. In fact, according to former members, LaRouche and his closest aides used this belief to justify a an internal campaign which was a”chain of psychological terror” as two members called it in their resignation letter. They charged the LaRouche-mandated sessions to cure their alleged “psychosis” were in fact an attempt to crush the will of “all individuals who have expressed political and intellectual opposition to the tendencies” surfacing inside the LaRouche organization. “What really happened,” says a dismayed former member, “is that LaRouche had gone bonkers and was systematically brainwashing us to accept his total control over the organization.” extracted from http://www.ex-iwp.org/docs/larcouche_berlet.htm | ||
| Anonymous |
ad hominum is a heavy metal band. Did you mean ad hominem? | ||
| Tom |
You present a weak argument, but it's an argument nonetheless. I presume your argument can be summarized as follows: LaRouche said these things, therefore LaRouche is a bad person. I am not unfamiliar with these quotes. As the link you provided shows, Chip Berlet, a past writer for High Times magazine, compiled these quotes. I've never read anything resembling these quotes in any LaRouche publications, nor have I heard LaRouche say anything resembling these quotes, with the exception of, "Either we win or there is no humanity." I'll give you that one. As for the alleged "brainwashing plot": I believe it was during the mid-1970's when a group of LaRouche associates set up a local in London and began doing some political organizing. One of our members was subsequently abducted by British government agents, and put through days of heavy psychological torture. We pulled out of London. We'll give the Perfidious Albion that one. So goes the fight... Several days ago, approximately 100 LaRouche youth began to assemble in Washington D.C. to organize for the upcoming Washington D.C. Democratic primary, for which Mr. LaRouche is on the ballot. The intent of these youth is to escalate Mr. LaRouche's campaign, and primarily, to destroy Dick Cheney's political career. Three nights ago, our D.C. office went up in flames during the middle of the night. We will not give the war-party this one. Nonetheless, I am grateful we have corrected the spelling of ad hominem used on this message board. I have learned absolutely nothing else new here. | ||
| Anonymous |
We, on the other hand have learned a lot from you Tom. You have very clearly illustrated how an ideology can blindfold an individual to the extent that they become totally oblivious to any information that challenges it, and cold hearted towards anyone who poses any questions about that ideology . Your reactions on this board have been an education for us, so thank you for that. hopefully one day you will look back and ask 'did I really say that'? Experiment a bit Tom and try to see things from another angle and maybe the scales will fall from your eyes as they did from mine. | ||
| Tom |
I appreciate your apparent concern, but I dispute your claim that I have been presented with any information that effectively challenges my political and philosophical commitments. I have clearly stated the axioms of the LaRouche movement. The response was merely an example of anti-human, unscientific environmentalism, which I refuted. This was followed by the suggestion that the Schiller Institute was somehow responsible for the tragic death of a student who attended a Schiller Institute conference. I demonstrated the absurdity of that suggestion. Our present dialogue sprang from Nil's hostile reaction to an encounter with some of our organizers. This reaction was shown to be purely emotional. Finally, I responded to the alleged LaRouche quotes compiled by High Times' writer Chip Berlet. I learned the correct spelling of ad hominem. I am not unreasonable. I don't propitiate opinions; I seek the truth. I don't surrender to emotions; I seek the truth. In all things, I seek the truth. You, and others involved in this dialogue apparently have some disagreement with Lyndon LaRouche. You have a right to disagree, but the only clear disagreement that has been formally stated was an anonymous disagreement to LaRouche's belief, and my belief, that man is good. Go back and read carefully; you will see that I am not exaggerating. You say that I am blindfolded. If I remove this hypothetical blindfold, will I see that man is evil? Will I see that there is no truth? Will I see that there is only opinion and emotion? I ask again, as I have asked other naysayers many times before: What is it you disagree with? What do you think I am wrong about? What exactly do you think Lyndon LaRouche is wrong about? As you wish! Let us experiment. | ||
| Anonymous |
OK Tom. 1. 'I have clearly stated the axioms of the LaRouche movement. The response was merely an example of anti-human, unscientific environmentalism, which I refuted. ' I was not party to this or indeed most of the thread here and i will read that before I comment further on this. 2. 'This was followed by the suggestion that the Schiller Institute was somehow responsible for the tragic death of a student who attended a Schiller Institute conference. I demonstrated the absurdity of that suggestion.' I did read all of this part of the thread. you are misinterpreting the posts . You automatically assume that the questions posed are accusations and respond to them in a very defensive fashion. They are normal questions that you yourself would ask if that had happened elsewhere. Example If a student, living on university campus, had met the same fate, there would be an internal enquiry. The questions arising would not be brushed aside. Example. If an army recruit met the same fate, people would expect the army to carry out an internal enquiry. I did not read any suggestion in the threads that The Latouche group were responsible. I read facts. Y read criticisms of the Larouche response to the tragic event. You did not demonstrate the absurdidy of anything. You demonstrated an inability to even consider the questions that arose for anyone who read the links posted. 3.I don't propitiate opinions; I seek the truth. I don't surrender to emotions; I seek the truth. In all things, I seek the truth. Tom , what is truth? On a basic level it could be a statement of facts. It is also an attempt to answer questions based on our understanding and interpretation of facts. It is not an attempt to dodge questions that we are uncomfortable with. Our emotions are a fact, they have a function, they are part of our humanity. If man is good as you assert he is , surely our emotions are a part of the sum, and therefore good. You cant have it both ways. Either man is good and his emotions are good... or man is bad and his emotions are bad...or your assertion that man is good is flawed. So what is this about not surrendering to emotions ? If they are good and YOU say they are they should be acknowledged. These questions 'what is good' 'what is evil' are complex. When you begin to accept simple answers to complex questions you begin to have a polarised view of the world. This may explain why you accept that all Larouche stands for is good and all that reject larouche are bad. Your ideas of good and evil seem to be based on the teachings of one man who you claim is good. So what do you think a) could a good person reject Larouche's teachings? b) could a bad person accept Larouche's teachings? Tom , I am sure you accept that we all make mistakes and that Lyndon Larouche also must make mistakes. This is a purely hypothetical question. If you were to discover that all of his teachings were mistakes what difference would it make to your life? to be cont | ||
| Tom |
I see you have done some serious thinking, and I respect that. What you have written about the question of human emotions is insightful. The question you ask, "could a good person reject LaRouche's teachings?", is interesting. There are many things that I could write in response to all of this, but I am satisfied that you have elevated this discussion, and I will await your promised continuation. However, I find your concluding, personal question, very odd. To what teachings do you specifically refer? | ||
| Anonymous |
Here is a statement attributed to Larouche "The Beatles had no genuine musical talent, but were a product shaped according to British Psychological Warfare Division specifications." If this is a mistake then all his teachings could be mistaken. How can he assert the above as a statement or fact. i am interestesd in your justification of this and the questions i posed in my previous post. | ||
| Tom |
As a matter of protocol, I would merely suggest that participants give themselves some sort of identification. This would be useful for many reasons. It might be inappropriate, for example, to respond to an one anonymous participant when that response should actually be directed at another. I will assume that the latest anonymous post was written by the same participant who wrote the next preceding anonymous post. However, if I am correct in that assumption, then my disappointment is justified. We've gone all the way from insightful and interesting, to banal, once again. Nonetheless, I will attempt to provide some satisfaction, in spite of the fact that yet another LaRouche critic has failed to clearly state what he or she disgrees with. But first, allow me to make another assumption: I will assume that had 'Anonymous' clearly stated his or her disagreement, it would have read something like this: "Lyndon LaRouche is wrong. The Beatles had genuine musical talent. They were not shaped according to British Psychological Warfare Division specifications." I find this very amusing. This places Anonymous in the unenviable position of having to defend the musical talents of the Beatles. I'm getting bored already. It would be much more exciting to defend Bach, Beethoven, or Mozart, for example. But there is more. Anonymous appears to be disagreeing with LaRouche's assertion that the Beatles were a product shaped according to British Pshychological Warfare Division specifications, and, he or she is suggesting that if LaRouche is wrong about that, then LaRouche might be wrong about everything! I, for one, would rather defend the Beatles' music than a whopper like that one. Forgive me in advance for being overly brief, but I do not think this is the place to give a lengthy lesson on the subject of United States history. I will only remind our readers that the history of the United States has been shaped from its very beginning, first by military warfare, and always by an underlying epistimological warfare against, primarily, the British oligarchy and its appendages. Way down the line, one of the entertaining, rather pathetic outcomes of that warfare, is this message board. I assure you, they will lose. | ||
| Anonymous |
Tom , your condesending attitude would be amusing if you were a five year old. You said you were prepared to experiment. if you choose to opt out of the discussion, i will understand but I suspect it is because you cannot answer my questions adequately. What a shame | ||
| Anonymous |
Tom, Your "reasoning" is fallacious. Your ridicule of the Beatles does not prove that they had no talent, it just proves you are unable to defend your corner. Mocking the subject of Larouche's claim does not prove that he is right, it is an inadequate comment. The statement about the Beatles has a puzzling reference to the 'British Psychological Warfare Division specifications." I wonder if this refers to a branch of the British Psychological Assossiation or the Ministry of Defence or both or is it just Larouche's wild imagination .....whereever it is , I would like to examine the said 'specifications' , if they exist. Lyndon expects YOU to beleive what he says just because he says it... but this type of Petitio Principii does not fool anyone else. Tom, by your refusal to defend him you have recognised that Lyndon Larouche makes some pretty wild statements that only a fool would try to defend. So perhaps I should congratulate you for your move. I believe you have just conceeded that Lyndon Larouche has made at least one 'daft' statement. If he is wrong about that , he might be wrong about other things/ everything. That is a distinct posssibility despite the fact that it appeared to frighten you. Shall I continue? | ||
| teelo |
Yes, if Tom conceeds the absurdity of the Beatles statement, he would effectively fall off the Larouche Bandwagon, so he will go against all logic and accept the statement although it is indefensible. You have just given him a wake up call. | ||
| teelo |
Of course, of course. Tom must be aware that in debate the burden of proof is placed on the affirmative team. Therefore the burden of proof is on Tom to prove Larouche's statement as opposed to Anonymous having to defend the Beatles. | ||
| huw |
Doublethink An interesting passage from this website springs to mind here. http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9501/opinion/wittes.html Political as well as religious cults can be distinguished from legitimate organizations by their use of doublethink. Though political cults espouse extremist ideologies, not extremist theologies, operationally they are virtually identical to religious cults, and they also go to great lengths to control the vocabularies of their members. Dennis King, in his book Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism, describes how LaRouche turned his National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC) from a Trotskyite organization into an anti-Semitic neo-fascist group: LaRouche helped his followers overcome their moral qualms by reframing reality for them through semantic tricks and false syllogisms. The resulting belief system involved four layers: a redefinition of "Jew," a redefinition of "Nazi," a denial of the concept of "left" and "right" in politics (to totally disorient the believer); and, for Jewish LaRouchians, a guilt trip and special fears. According to King, LaRouche distinguished between real and fake Jews, defining the latter as Zionists and practitioners of religious Judaism and calling them "Jews who are not Jews." Real Jews, according to LaRouche, are followers of Philo of Alexandria, a first-century Jewish thinker with no modern following other than the Jews of the LaRouche movement. LaRouche's redefinition of "Nazi" is even more sinister. Writes King, He argued that Hitler was put into power by the Rothschilds and other wealthy Jews-who-are-not-really-Jews. These evil oligarchs invented Nazi racialism and brainwashed the Nazis to accept it. They then urged Hitler and his cronies to persecute the German Jews so the latter would flee to Palestine, where the Rothschilds had decided to set up a zombie state as a tool of their world domination. . . . Thus did LaRouche place the ultimate blame for Hitler's crimes on the Jews-who-are-not-Jews-but-really-are-the-Jews- anyway. In LaRouche literature, the words "Nazi" and "Jew" are both used sometimes pejoratively and sometimes in praise. Moreover, Nazi beliefs and practices are pejoratively called Jewish, and Jewish political practices, both in the U.S. and in Israel, are pejoratively called Nazi. | ||
| Tom |
First of all no one will convince me that the Beatles are great musicians by any stretch. I would never defend the counterculture. I've done considerable amounts of homework on the origins of the counterculture, and I am certain it was intentionally created for a particular political effect. In fact, the LaRouche movement was formed out of the opposition to the Vietnam War, and the concurrent launching of the counterculture. The question is: How do you get a population to reverse its national mission as the "Temple of Liberty and the Beacon of Hope?" How do get them to betray their commitment to a republican form of government based on the idea that all men are created equal, and how do you get them to become the military enforcement arm for a great big nasty empire? Apparently, one of the ways you can do it, is to assassinate one of their most beloved Presidents, lie about it, and a launch it headlong into a brutal, unjustified, neo-colonial war. When the opposition rises up in dissent, you get them to "tune in, turn on, and drop out." I urge you to check the dates for the Kennedy assassination and the launching of Beatle-mania. I Wanna Hold Your Hand. I want you to consider the fact that in 1969 there was a grand jury trial in a New Orleans Courtroom for the conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy. I will spare you most of the details, and point out that there was nearly a conviction of one Clay M. Shaw, who was a 20-year veteran of Britain’s Special Operations Executive (SOE), which was headquartered in Montreal Canada, and run by Louis Mortimer Bloomfield, the highest ranking British government agent in North America. Incidentally, Bloomfield and the SOE ran a number of commercial fronts including one called Permindex, which had been officially expelled from France in 1967 for attempting to assassinate Charles DeGaulle. Now, when one starts digging into the origins of the SOE, and related British intelligence outfits, one soon discovers that the British are masters of various forms of psychological warfare. The British Tavistock Institute, for example, is notorious for originating so-called “brainwashing,” electro-shock “therapy,” and the use of drugs to induce psychosis. Later, during World War II, Tavistock psychiatrists were attached to every major British army unit. Their methods soon became very influential within United States military intelligence circles, ultimately leading to the formation of the Central Intelligence Agency. One of the notorious experiments the CIA conducted during the heady days of the Vietnam War was the so called MK-Ultra project, which included the large-scale distribution of LSD on college campuses. So much for the opposition. Somehow, a generation of Americans was induced to give up their commitment to truth and justice. Paul McCartney was knighted. On the Jewish question: huw, you really should have stayed out of this. I didn’t think anyone still believed the crap you are implying. So far, amongst all the many Jewish members of the LaRouche organization, I haven’t found a single one that does. | ||
| whu |
This is a public forum, why should anyone stay out of it? I think the Beatles might be offended by your claims. They had tremendous musical talent. I read some of the background to Dennis King's book on this link http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/cult/larouche/larou4.htm Will check out what you say about MK -Ultra and the Tavistock Institute. | ||
| uhw |
So..Paul McCartney was knighted....so what ? Mick jagger was also knighted as was David Beckham and a very long list of others. What has that got to do with anything? I do not expect an answer to this question. You have ignored the difficult questions so far and i see no reason for you to change tactic. Now then , you have not said a word about the policies that Larouche wants to implement when he comes to power. Or is that also a secret? What difference will we see in education, in music, in society ? | ||
| haha |
Yeah , I get it now it can all be done here http://www.cjnetworks.com/~cubsfan/conspiracy.html Here is a better version of history. i know it is true because i just invented it. What They Don't Want You to Know In order to understand freedom you need to realize that everything is controlled by a cohort made up of eskimos with help from the beatles. The conspiracy first started during battle of waterloo in new york. They have been responsible for many events throughout history, including renaissance. Today, members of the conspiracy are everywhere. They can be identified by flicking their hair. They want to punch david icke and imprison resisters in outer hebrides using planes. In order to prepare for this, we all must talk. Since the media is controlled by bill clinton we should get our information from lyndon larouce. | ||
| Tom |
huw whu uhw, Yes, Mick Jagger was also knighted. Perhaps I should rest my case. George Bush I. was knighted following Operation Desert Storm. A second term for Bush I. would have been a sticky issue given the fact that it is unconstitutional for a President to have a title of nobility. The framers of the Constitution of the United States certainly would have been abhorred by the whole affair. In any case, I have not ignored the difficult question with respect to the Beatles. I’m amused that it’s really an issue, but I am not surprised. My experience has been tempered by years of political organizing. I have learned that it’s relatively simple to educate someone politically. Most anyone who has an attention-span, and the willingness to do some work on their own, will readily agree with LaRouche’s basic analysis of the world’s political-strategic affairs. However, the culture, particularly with respect to music, is always the sticking-point, because one’s “music” is almost always the key to their identity. For example, generation X-ers, like myself, generally talk, dress, think, choose their friends, recreate, etc., with their favorite “music” as a reference. I’m sure you are aware of the phenomenon, and I don’t think our enemies are unaware of the effect. So, I have often found myself arguing about music. The argument is almost always the same: Rigorously defined classical culture versus a set of opinions. Let me put it this way: I am absolutely certain that my enemies do not give a damn if you’re spinning around, smoking an eight-foot blunt that’s been burning for days, and listening to I Am the Walrus for the 666th time. You ain’t gonna do nuttin’ to change jack! They don’t even know you exist. But when you make it your life’s mission to develop a superior conception of freedom, and you fight for it with truth and beauty, beware. We’ve all seen those documentaries showing anthropologists out in the jungle studying primitive tribes. They get the drums going; maybe they ingest some mind-altering substances; they dance and spin around a lot; they hoot and they holler; they do all this until they get themselves worked up into a “trance.” That’s when the evil spirit, or whatever it is, is supposed to come out. It looks a lot like a rock concert to me. We’ve all seen infants jumping up and down in their crib, hollering nonsense, and putting toys in their mouth. Thankfully, some of them grow up. Unfortunately, many of them are induced to remain forever infantile, and they defend their infantilism to the rotten core, without ever really knowing why. Do want some evidence? Admittedly, the evidence is difficult to find. It’s not like someone with the intent to commit a crime is going to advertise it. The evidence is also difficult to analyze, but it’s not impossible, especially if your analysis is tempered by experience. I leave you with the following quote from a 1951 book by Bertrand Russell, an eighth-generation British oligarch. LaRouche has often described him as the most evil man of the 20th century. He was an avid British race-patriot, an arch-Malthusian, and a promoter of Anglo-American empire. He was the man who convinced Albert Einstein to support the creation of the Manhattan project, and he was the most influential advocate of bombing Japan with nuclear-weapons, in spite of the fact that Japan was already attempting to negotiate an honorable surrender. After World War II, he advocated a pre-emptive nuclear-strike on Soviet Russia in order to establish an Anglo-American world government. When the Russians acquired thermonuclear weapons, he devised the policy of Mutual Assured Destruction to govern the world through an Anglo-American/Soviet, balance-of-power condominium, based on the threat of nuclear war. I have capitalized a key part of the quote for emphasis: “Physiology and psychology afford fields for scientific technique which still await development. Two great men, Pavlov and Freud, have laid the foundation. I do not accept the view that they are in any essential conflict, but what structure will be built on their foundations is still in doubt. I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is mass psychology.... Its importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda. Of these the most influential is what is called `education.' Religion plays a part, though a diminishing one; the press, the cinema, and the radio play an increasing part.... It may be hoped that in time anybody will be able to persuade anybody of anything if he can catch the patient young and is provided by the State with money and equipment. The subject will make great strides when it is taken up by scientists under a scientific dictatorship.... The social psychologists of the future will have a number of classes of school children on whom they will try different methods of producing an unshakable conviction that snow is black. Various results will soon be arrived at. First, that the influence of home is obstructive. Second, that not much can be done unless indoctrination begins before the age of ten. Third, that VERSES SET TO MUSIC AND REPEATEDLY INTONED ARE VERY EFFECTIVE. Fourth, that the opinion that snow is white must be held to show a morbid taste for eccentricity. But I anticipate. It is for future scientists to make these maxims precise and discover exactly how much it costs per head to make children believe that snow is black, and how much less it would cost to make them believe it is dark gray…. Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated.” Finally, in response to your question respecting LaRouche’s policies: I had briefly summarized LaRouche’s main policy in my first entry to this message board: “His policy is the creation of a new monetary system, not unlike the now defunct Bretton Woods monetary system created in 1944 under the leadership of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The purpose of this new monetary system is to rapidly, and massively expand credit for large-scale infrastructure projects and technological development projects to rebuild and expand our teetering economy worldwide.” This can be elaborated, and his policy on education, etc., can be dealt with later, but I think you will agree that this message is long enough. | ||
| Anonymous |
Tom, According to larouche's theory were the beatles aware that they were being shaped by the said sinister zpecifications.....which we have yet to see evidence of | ||
| Anonymous |
Tom, Despite your obvious intelligence, your arrogance equals your ignorance on some topics. However you are educating me . The rituals of the 'primitive tribes' are really rather different in their focus from rock concerts. Are there no pagans in the Larouche group or is religious belief frowned upon? You have an understanding of the power of music and seem to favour classical music, is this because of Larouche or are you naturally so inclined/ What so you think of Wagner's 'Parsifal' or Liszt's 'Les Preludes'. | ||
| Tom |
Actually, I don't think the Beatles knew much. Does George W. Bush know that he is the instrument of a cabal of Straussian fascists? I don't think he has the intelligence. I do know a few historical anecdotes that might provide some more insight. I know that certain British theorists fulminated continually over devising a method to perpetuate their imperial system. For example, Gibbon’s famous work, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was written explicitly for this purpose. Then there was Arnold Toynbee, who taught that all empires, such as the Roman Empire, declined precipitously at precisely the moment they succeeded in imposing their rule over the entire world within their grasp. He argued that this decline could be abated if the ruling oligarchy committed itself to the recruitment and training of an ever-expanding “priesthood” devoted to the principles of imperial rule. One of his students was Aldous Huxley, the famous author of Brave New World, who became even more famous for his role in spreading the counterculture. In 1952, Huxley teamed up with Allen Watts, and Gregory Bateson, who was a British OSS (Office of Strategic Services) agent. They ran an LSD study-project at the Palo Alto Veterans Administration Hospital in California. Somehow, they managed to produce the first “hippies.” Among those hippies was the Grateful Dead, who were probably more witting than the Beatles. Certainly they were more explicit. Bateson also played the leading role in establishing the Pacifica Foundation, which sponsored two radio stations--WKBW in San Francisco and WBAI-FM in New York City, which popularized the British rock “Liverpool Sound” of the Beatles, the Animals, and the Rolling Stones, and later, “acid rock”. That’s how much of the counterculture was born. Unfortunately, the counterculture is now the culture. It’s interesting that Wagner and Liszt have been brought into this discussion. In many ways, they can be thought of as counterculture prototypes for their leading roles in spreading Romanticism against the Weimar Renaissance. Wagner was Adolf Hitler’s anti-semitic favorite. During his youth, he was literally a bomb-throwing radical. He was explicit about his intent to destroy the classical ideal. Performances of his music were banned in Israel until very recently. Liszt set up shop in Weimar in 1848, where he popularized Wagner, as well as his own Romantic schlock. He managed to overthrow much of what Schiller and Goethe had built. A good friend of mine is presently doing the in-depth research on the Romanticism of Wagner, Liszt, et.al. My knowledge is limited. Hence, I will have to be abrupt. Please note that due to campaign circumstances, my internet access is very limited, and I may not be able to respond again for several days. So far, I haven’t found any pagans in the LaRouche campaign! | ||
| Anonymous |
Tom just to remind you that these questions are still open? (pasted from above) So what do you think a) could a good person reject Larouche's teachings? b) could a bad person accept Larouche's teachings? If you were to discover that all of Larouche's teachings were mistakes what difference would it make to your life? or can you not even contemplate this question? | ||
| Anonymous |
the request was for evidence of specifications. Anecdotes are not evidence Tom. You yourself objected to the newspaper articles about the tragic death of a young British student who was staying with La Rouchies, on this basis, and pointed people to official statements by German police. Do you have double standards? | ||
| Tom |
I must declare that I’m rather bored with these questions. The first question was interesting the first time. In order to make it interesting again, I believe you will first have to indicate what your idea of a "good person" is. Otherwise, any answer would be confusing or meaningless. The same goes for the second question, which is merely the opposite of the first. Your third question, “If you were to discover that all of LaRouche's teachings were mistakes what difference would it make to your life?” is, in my opinion, a bad attempt at being clever. It sounds like something a wannabe “deprogrammer” would ask someone who might not have the stomach for the fight. I suspect there is a precise term to describe that brand of sophistry. I will have to ask you to rephrase the question with an honest intent. Better yet, why don’t you just ask an honest question? I believe that the fundamental question here, the question upon which all these questions depends, is a question I asked first: "What is it you disagree with? What do you think I am wrong about? What exactly do you think Lyndon LaRouche is wrong about? I hope the Beatles is not your only answer. | ||
| Anonymous |
Tom, the terminology you use in the Larouche movement sound grand. You have 'axioms' and 'principles' and you talk about positive but very vague concepts such as 'truth' and 'the good'. Those pseudo axioms and principles etc are based on anecdotal evidence rather than facts, then strung together to form a conspiracy theory that is disingenious but sounds urgent enough to demand action. An axiom by definition is one of the following: a maxim widely accepted on its intrinsic merit or an established rule or principle or a self-evident truth. Yet the 'axioms' of the Larouche movement are nothing of the sort. They are merely the unsubstantiated opinions of Lyndon Larouche, a wannabe 'president' whose followers might not have the stomach to defend his opinions in any meaningful sense lest their bubble be burst. At one stage you showed signs of being interested in these questions even of being able to answer them, now you dodge them and question my intent? That might be interpreted as the 'red herring' approach, creating a smoke screen by questioning my intent and proceeding to attack me personally as a 'deprogrammer'. what exactly do you mean by that term? Tom, your unwillingness to even address the simplest questions betrays your lack of conviction. However, lets give you the benefit of the doubt and pose another question. Could an individual who fits the Larouche definition of either being 'good' or seeking 'the good' reject the teachings of LaRouche? | ||
| Tom |
This reminds me of the interview Mr. LaRouche did this week with Radio France International, the most important radio station in France. It was a straight interview in which the interviewer thrice compared Mr. LaRouche with Charles DeGaulle. The fact the interview was conducted, and aired without editing, is an astounding development, considering the fact that the same radio station had previously been a vehicle for viscious attacks against Mr. LaRouche and his allies in France. Clearly, there has been a sea-change in France, perhaps as a reaction to the bellicose policies of the Bush administration, and the world-famous opposition to those policies being organized by Lyndon LaRouche. During the interview, Mr. LaRouche was asked about the negative treatment he has often received in the United States media. He calmly responded that his enemies have decided to use "defamation rather than argument." Clearly, you fit the bill. One thing I've learned in my years in the LaRouche organization, is that anyone who defames LaRouche, always has something to hide. In most cases, it is simply ignorance. If your case is different, you have yet to prove otherwise. With respect to your question, as far as I can tell, anyone who is capable of reason; anyone who is honest, agapic, and trustworthy, will happily embrace the teachings of Lyndon LaRouche, if they are given the opportunity. If I am wrong, I have yet to make that discovery. If you believe I am wrong, then the burden of proof is given to you! Certainly, nothing you, nor anyone else has written on this message board, nor anything that has been linked on this message board constitutes the slightest proof to me. You speak of bubbles to be bursted, but unbeknownst to you, the one big bubble to be bursted, is the one being blown by your boring, bombastic babble. | ||
| Anonymous |
Well then, old chap, lets not bore you further with reasonable honest questions, although it has to be said that the policies of Larouche are still a bit of a mystery to me! Merry Christmas Tom | ||
| Tom |
Merry Christmas to you too! Happy Hanukkah to our Jewish friends, and happy solstice (belated) to our pagan friends! Please forgive me for overusing the word boring. Perhaps that was inappropriate. | ||
| Jerry |
Tom, I have some answers to your questions and some of my own insight: What is it you disagree with? - I disagree with the "How" - not necesserily with the "What". What do you think I am wrong about? - I think you are wrong about the way you defend your beleifs - not necesserily about your beleifs themselves. What exactly do you think Lyndon LaRouche is wrong about? - I think that Lyn. LaRouche is wrong about the way he lets his followers present his ideas and the way he presents his ideas himself. I have a gut feeling (based on his way of presenting his ideas and based on the way his followers present his ideas) that he fails to understand that to be elected president - he will either have to educate the entire country (which I doubt he will be able to do in his lifetime and I doubt he is counting on it - especially considering his bad publicity) - or rely on voters who support him for the wrong reasons - then being obligated to them - or fearing that he might lose power which is necessery for his "better world agenda" - causing him to drop some or all of his idealistic beleifs for an ultimate better cause (which over time gets forgotten when more and more power is gained, more promisses are made and more moral values will be sacrificed to keep the power - which is needed for "a better world"). I will give an example: LaRouche might say something like: I beleive strongly in A,B,C and D - I am DEAD SERIOUS about A,B,C and D - I will make A,B,C and D happen! - If I am not elected, A,B,C and D will not happen and everyone will die. Now - considering A,B,C and D are all ideals that are of great moral values but also considering that the country is divided in such a way that some people support A but do not support B,C or D and different combinations of such (because as you yourself stated, the majority is uneducated)- And considering that the majority of the voters who will support any/all/some of those ideals - might support them for the wrong reasons or for reasons which they beleive are of the REAL good morals - LaRouche would have 2 choices: 1) Educate everyone (especially those who would be his potential voters) as to why A,B,C,D must be done simultaniously and there could not be any compromise and educate everyone of his voters as to the reasons of why A,B,C and D are important and turn everyone into good morals having people - or - a bit more realistic outcome (which your leader and yourself might fail to see - IMHO) 2) Go with the ideals that attract the most amount of voters and abondon the others - at which point, adding more ideals which support the majority and might be far far away from being good moral values. I personally don't know Mr. Larouche and I can not testify to the purity of his intentions - neither do I know you personally - but you expect me to take your word - based on the fact that you know math, science, history and Mr. LaRouche - well - with all due respect - that is not enough for me - at least not without any measures to ensure that if something goes wrong - there won't be a second holocoust. As to you personally - I know you have not asked me my personal opinion about you, but I will state it anyway considering you want me to support your movement (or the movement you are involved in - and apperently have a high position in) - I think that your ego is very inflated - I don't know you personally, but it seems to me that you look at yourself as a know-all person, and one who is capable of proving everyone wrong. Anyone who challange that view of yours (capable or not - just challanges) is perceived by you as a threat to your ego and you rush to personal attacks - trying to show that you are very clever with your nice wording of sentences - this way of pushing your agenda will get you results only with those who are easily manipulated, those who already beleive everything you say, or those who have some common interest with your agenda - is this your target audiance? if so, why post here? This prespective of you I gathered from your responses to messages on this board - I might be wrong - all I can say is - it is my honest opinion. You may ignore me, lough at me, call me ignorant, call me any name you want or argue with me but I doubt it will help you acheive your long term goals. I also think that you should re-read my post several times, and ask yourself the following questions: 1) Why am I so sure of Mr. LaRouche? 2) Is it feasable to convince the entire nation of these reasons? (i.e. if he is your personal friend - do you beleive it is feasable for every voter to be his personal friend?) 3) Is the education you think everyone needs to have - necesserily is the education that all want? 4) What obstacles may pop up once LaRouche is in power if he gets power? 5) What is the POSSIBLE outcome if LaRouche is in power and becomes corrupt - if he is not already? 6) Will we be safe? 7) What supportive evidense can I provide that will assure everyone to their safty under Mr. LaRouche's presidensy? 8) Am I doing people justice for not being more careful as to the way I am leading them to something that MIGHT be another holocoust? 9) Will I be able to sleep well at night - knowing that - MAYBE - just MAYBE, LaRouche does not have the BEST intentions and he MIGHT be fooling me as well? 10) Is there any GOOD alternative to LaRouche, if so, who? if not, what happens after LaRouche? What happens if he gets killed or dies while in power? who will be capable to run this country? You maybe? and saying that Bush sucks as a president - although true - has nothing to do with LaRouche's moral values. The fact that LaRouche is being hunted by the gov - which is a fact that there are plenty of supportive evidence for - STILL does not testify to his true moral values. Unless we - the people - have the technology that obiously the government is hiding - to read people's minds - you will never give me a satisfying answer to this concern. Do you wear your tinfoil hat by any chance? - just to prevent the mind control that the government is experimenting with. His entire agenda is based on us beleiving that he wants to make this a better world - and for that he needs power - forgive me if it scares me, and forgive me more for doubting your judgment for it not making you just a little bit scared - but conspiracy theories brought humatity nothing but trouble - especially when promisses for a better economy, education, etc... were made - just open your eyes for a breif moment and understand that by me posting here, I have though ALOT about what you are saying - I actually agree with most except for one - THE MOST IMPORTANT PART THOUGH - YOU FAIL TO SEE WITH YOUR EYES CLOSED - OPEN THEM BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!!! You think I have a big bubble around me and that I fail to see the government being corrupt? I will tell you otherwise - I agree with you - the gov is corrupt, and there is nothing you, me or mr. LaRouche can do to change that - considering that 50% of the people are good and 50% are bad (am I allowed to make that assumption or do you veto it?) and considering the 50% bad are in constant pursuit for power, the bad with govern the good. | ||
| Tom |
I appreciate your willingness to think about these issues, and express your opinions with precision. If I might summarize your post, it would appear that you are saying, “I agree with LaRouche, but I disagree with the way his ideas are presented. I am not sure what his intentions are, and I fear he might be corrupted if he is given power.” O.K., fine. These are not atypical responses to LaRouche. I believe it is best to respond with a few simple questions and observations: Firstly, if you agree with LaRouche, but you disagree with the way his ideas are presented, then how would you go about presenting them yourself? I ask this question with the experience of someone who has, like every LaRouche organizer, dealt with this issue repeatedly. My favorite example involves a senior member of the LaRouche Youth Movement whom I helped to recruit a few years ago, when the LaRouche Youth Movement began. After several classes and numerous discussions, he claimed to agree with LaRouche's ideas, but he did not want to organize for LaRouche’s campaign, because he didn’t think that our methods were effective. He was a “hip-hop” musician, and he believed that the way to organize was to write “hip-hop” songs about LaRouche that would inspire the masses. I’m sure you can imagine the kinds of arguments the two of us had. (Rigorously defined classical culture versus a set of opinions.) These arguments recurred continually until a new person came to one of our classes and “the shoe was on the other foot,” so to speak. Music, once again, became the topic, and the new person began to defend his favorite rock band, whereupon, much to my surprise, our hip-hopper began to argue for the necessity of classical artistic beauty. At that moment, our hip-hopper was compelled to be honest. He ceased to be a hip-hopper. He had decided to take responsibilty for truth and beauty, and I never had to argue with him again about such things. In truth, he finally agreed with LaRouche. I would suggest that you take a similar responsibility. The next time you hear someone badmouthing LaRouche, or lying about LaRouche, tell them what you have learned. If, in the process, you discover a better way to present LaRouche’s ideas, let me know about it. We’re always looking for a better way. With respect to your qualms about LaRouche’s intentions, I am rather confused. If you agree with LaRouche, how can you disagree with his intentions? My simple belief, carefully examined, is that one’s ideas and one’s intentions are inseparable. Finally, with respect to your fears about what LaRouche will do if he is awarded political power, I believe these fears are unfounded. I know Mr. LaRouche’s intentions, and I know what he is doing. I know what he has done, and I know he does what he says he will do. In fact, that might be the main reason he has so many powerful enemies, like Dick Cheney. The question is, what are you going to do? Again, my question is founded on experience. I often meet people who claim to agree with LaRouche, but do nothing. Just before they turn their back and walk away, they might say something like, “I agree with you - the gov is corrupt, and there is nothing you, me or mr. LaRouche can do to change that.” In fact, they don’t really agree with LaRouche at all. They have decided to take the most common of the many positions which fall under the category “EXCUSE TO DO NOTHING.” Forgive me if I am too bold in saying that your entire post, which I read and carefully reread, as you asked, falls neatly under that category, though it is relatively lengthy. Such excuses are never really acceptable to me. Obviously, they are even less acceptable to Lyndon LaRouche. | ||
| Anonymous |
The mind-numbing level of intellectual discourse here would have tempted me in younger days, to say "These people have a much better plan than I could ever have. It sounds ok as far as I can follow (I'll just let them be my brain from now on)." No one can disagree without a slick comeback. No thanks... you go take over someone else's life. I'll do fine with the modest level of understanding I possess. | ||
| Anonymous |
I get it now. He is a postmodernist. He starts out his argument with words that no one has heard, (thereby losing them) then piles on the inarguable statements until communication becomes impossible. Any attempts at knocking down his arguments are swept away with a torrent of more words. His strategy seems to be that "the one who talks most wins." That's why he never says anything simply and no one can figure out what he is really saying. I can't imagine him functioning in a serious political environment. Don't waste more time on this one. He is practicing a joke: The punchline is how long he can get people to listen before they realize they are listening to nonesense. | ||
| curious |
How did Larouche manage to jump from the extreme left to the extreme right without any of his followers noticing? | ||
| Anonymous |
To: curious Perhaps the "emporer's clothes" principle applies here. | ||
|
