X-Message-Number: 17720
Date: Sun, 07 Oct 2001 13:15:55 -0400
From: Keith Henson <>
Subject: Re: Idiocy and Lyndon LaRouche
In #17711 Mike Perry wrote:
snip
>I was not familiar with Lyndon LaRouche before looking into some postings
>about "Classical Humanism" (including the recent one on this forum linking
>anti-abortion sentiments with preserving cryonic suspendees). I have now
>searched on the web and seen a lot of pro-LaRouche material, plus anti-LR
>material filtered through pro-LR sources such as *Executive Intelligence
>Review*. Looking further, I did find one lengthy anti-LR piece, at
>http://www.anti-fascism.org/cult7a-2.html. Overall, I gather that LR is
>(now) anti-Semitic and homophobic, and leans to the "far right." He has
>been convicted in court of mismanaging funds in his political organization,
>which has a following in the thousands, with some "defectors" who offer an
>alternative viewpoint of his operations. There seems to be a strong element
>of opportunism in his stances on things, which have shifted around over the
>years and seem "adaptive." In all, he strikes me as someone to take
>seriously, that is, not as just a harmless crank--and to be wary of.
>
>Mike Perry
I have not tracked what Lyndon has been up to for some years, but I believe
his supporters number under a thousand. Still, Mike is right, you have to
take cults/cult leaders seriously. His was the first cult I tangled
with--using humor per the attached article to good effect. After it was
published a few L-5 Chapters found they had been infiltrated with LaRouche
cult members--a cause for laughter. Not long after these events in 1984,
Lyndon was convicted of credit card fraud (the way he financed his
"campaign" broadcasts) and spent a few years in jail. His followers,
estimated at about 1200, dropped to about half of that and never
recovered. Fortunately there were not enough people susceptible to this
particular intense political cult meme set to be a large social
problem--though they cause trouble to this day for Henry Kissinger whenever
they can. Lyndon would be 78 or 79 by now. This article caused the L-5
Editor of the time to go into hiding for weeks, fearing reprisal. There
was a great cartoon illustrating the article of marching L-5 Storm Troopers
and their phallic symbol space shuttle. Notes in [] were added in
1997. Keith Henson
The LaRouchians are coming!
or
Know Thy (Self-Appointed) Enemy
by H. T Watcher
[L5 News, Aug. 1984]
Whew, after listening to a nationally-aired
(CBS), half-hour paid political harangue by
Lyndon LaRouche I'm not sure I want to
be associated with this "L-5 Society." For
one thing, "brainwashing" new members
with transcendental meditation sounds like
far too much work to me. For another, I
don't know what to tell members who ask
where they should collect their share of the
"psycho-sexual" gratification we are sup-
posed to be providing.
In case this makes no sense to you,
LaRouche's followers are the folks you see
blocking traffic in airports. They are the ones
with the Fusion magazines, not the shaved
heads and yellow robes. LaRouchians
promote nuclear plants, fusion energy, and
beam weapons--though they don't seem to
know the difference between particle beam
weapons and X-ray lasers.
Besides promoting unpopular or very
difficult technologies, they have a long list
of "devils," both people and organizations.
Jane Fonda, Henry Kissinger and British
Intelligence are near the top of a list. Some
time ago they added the L-5 Society, and
recently General Graham and his High
Frontier organization. Who is this Larouche
character? And what does he have against
all these people and organizations? The
following is from the March 30 [1984?] issue of the
anti-terrorist Information Digest published
by John Rees:
"Lyndon Hermyle LaRouche, 62, is
the self-appointed and unchallenged
leader of the National Democratic
Policy Committee (NDPC), which
calls itself 'one of the largest paid-
membership political action commit-
tees in the United States.' The NDPC
is the successor organization to the
U.S. Labor Party (USLP), that for
many years was the main political arm
of LaRouche's National Caucus of
Labor Committees (NCLC) which
emerged in 1968 under his aegis from
a fraction of the Students for a
Democratic Society (SDS). With th
1980 presidential candidacy of
LaRouche as a Democratic Party
candidate, the USLP evaporated to be
supplanted by the NDPC.
"Now in 1984, the LaRouche organ-
ization's NDPC is part of a web of
related groups and publications,
internationally active and circulated,
that exist to propagate the shrill,
extremist and often anti-Semitic views
of their leader.
"Since 1972, obedience to the
NCLC leader has included carrying
out not only violent verbal and
propaganda attacks on individuals
and members of the groups LaRouche
decided were his enemies, but physical
violence as well. The pattern estab-
lished is as follows: First a series of
vitriolic and obscene attacks were
unleashed in the LaRouche publica-
tions. There followed personal harass-
ment in the form of midnight tele
phone calls, personal and
photographic surveillance of the target
on the streets and at their places of
work and homes, telephone calls to
friends and family members, picket
lines at home and work, vexatious
lawsuits and vandalism, which often
culminated in violence to the victim.
These actions, LaRouche said recentl
in an interview, are not harassment,
but merely "confrontation in the
American tradition."
Larouche, according to Information
Digest, is an old-time communist, though
he got into violent squabbles with the U.S.
Communist Party, and finally declared he
had wiped it out.
In 1974, LaRouche's stated goal was to
gain world power by the year 2000. He ran
for president in 1976 on the U.S. Labor Party
ticket, picking up 40,043 votes out of 80
million. Next time around (1980) he ran as
a Democrat! LaRouche, as you might
suspect, is not affiliated with the Democratic
Party, whose National Chairman, Charle
Manatt, has condemned "the activities of this
fanatical cult, which . . . practices various
forms of intimidation, including character
attacks and harassment of the news media."
This year, he tried again, getting on the
Democratic primary ballot in about a
quarter of the states. After getting nowhere
with the regular political process (not
unexpected), he made an appeal to the
Democratic convention delegates to switch
their votes to him as the "savior" of the
country. "Savior" from what? Why, he is
going to save the US from the L-5 Society
and General Graham's High Frontier.
Understand that he is in favor of ballistic
missile defense (BMD), he just insists that
the only way to do it is with particle beam
weapons, and anyone who might have any
other opinion must be a Nazi or under the
control of the KGB.
Sounds like some kind of bizarre joke?
Maybe so, but they spent $800,000, or more
than twice the entire annual budget of the
L-5 Society, for television time. Most people
couldn't stand the program and turned it
off or complained to the local station, but
there are sure to be a few people out in
television land whose only knowledge of the
L-5 Society is from this source.
Why did the L-5 Society become a target
of this bunch of (perhaps dangerous) nuts?
After all, most L-5 members support fusion
energy research (even if it never gets used
on Earth, it makes a hell of a space drive).
It may have been L-5 support of Solar Power
Satellites, which were condemned in
LaRouche publications around 1976-77, but
it is really hard to tell what goes on in these
peoples' minds. In October 1979 they
attacked L-5 Founders Keith Henson and
Carolyn Meinel in an book review published
in their magazine, Fusion. The review started
with an attack on Mind and Matter by
Gregory Bateson. The late Bateson was
British and LaRouche hates everything
British for some reason. After "linking"
Bateson and Aldous Huxley to "Mk Ultra,"
purported to "test the effects of LSD on
American Youth," the reviewer (correctly)
linked Bateson to Stewart Brand, whose
Point Foundation publishes The CoEvolu-
tion Quarterly and Whole Earth Catalog.
(This wasn't too hard since articles by and
about Bateson were often in the CoEq.)
The tenuous chain of connections led on
to the L-5 Society because the Point
Foundation had funded the first Princeton
conference on Space Colonization!
The L-5 Founders were characterized as
"LSD enthusiasts . . . (with) their dream of
VOAG--Violent Overthrow of All Govern-
ments." Timothy Leary was "another
principal in L-5," and Gerard K. O'Neill wa
a "so-called legitimate scientist from Prin-
ceton University."
The review went on to attack Pulitzer-
prize-winning Godel, Escher, Bach by
Douglas Hofstadter, "a computer expert in
artificial intelligence..nasty discipline as its
use in brainwashing implies." Marvin
Minsky and Noam Chomski got tarred with
the same brush. It finished up by hacking
Gary Zukav for The Dancing Wu Li
Masters, with side swipes at Neils Bohr and
references to M. C. Escher as "the psychotic
Dutch draftsman.
When Henson was asked about this
vituperation, he remarked, "I have never
been so flattered. It isn't every day one gets
run down with some of the principal
intellectual luminaries of the century."
Larouche's organization seems to be made
up of people who get their rocks off by
dreaming up paranoid conspiracy theories
and acting as if they are real. There are
enough of these folks, it seems, to support
a million-dollar political campaign. There
would be more reason to worry about them,
after all, Hitler started with less, but this
kind of craziness (at least in its present form)
is not likely to outlive Larouche, who is 62
and not in particularly good health.
Still, since LaRouche has appointed
himself and his organizations as our enemies,
we should know something about them, and
what they are saying about us. The former
is grim/funny but the latter is worth reading
for the laughs. Imagine the L-5 Society being
able to fool most of the engineers in the
country. They rate us as amazingly danger-
ous, moaning about "L-5's sophisticated
pitch to the science-fiction readership."
LaRouche organizations have a history of
infiltrating and disrupting other organiza-
tions, but we do so much internal disrupting
on our own that it might be hard for
outsiders to be noticed. We should, I
suppose, be alert to these people. This
shouldn't be too hard. Their near total lack
of humor makes them easy to spot. Make
up a screwy ritual like bowing to a Space
Shuttle model, or making the sacred "O"
gesture while facing toward Princeton and
see who takes it seriously. Or tell one you
admire Henry Kissinger and see how they
react. LaRouchians are fanatically against
all types of recreational drugs (except the
legal ones) and believe the Queen of England
is behind most of the dope trade since the
opium wars of the last century. This may
give you some ideas on how to test a
suspected "mole," but I don't want to hear
about them. L-5 members interested in
little cloak-and-dagger work might report
local LaRouche activities directly to John
Rees at 2805 St. Paul St., Baltimore, MD
21216. John has graciously given L5
[I have no idea if this address is good 13
years later in 1997. I could not find anything
related in a web search. HKH]
permission to copy and distribute the 44
page Information Digest report quoted
this article. A transcript of the broadcast and
the report are available from L-5 headquar-
ters for $5.00 to cover copying and first class
postage. I recommend every chapter get one
and pass it around.
The L-5 Lending Library has a tape
the LaRouche broadcast. Some of the stuff
in it, such as linking L-5 to the zero-growth
theses, is incredibly funny. Other parts, such
as likening us to the cults of Apollo and
Dionysos, sound like fun. Some references
are completely mysterious. Does anyone
know what the Lifespring organization does
or where it is located?
[Later found out that Lifespring was one of the
EST knockoffs. HKH (and EST was a spin off of
Scientology--hkh 2001)]
Contact National
Headquarters about borrowing the tape for
L-5 parties. It will be available if we can
obtain permission to loan it out from the
LaRouche organization.
[I don't remember if LaRouche's outfit
gave permission or not. We did play the
tape (to much laughter) for years. HKH]
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