Talk:Lyndon LaRouche/fullarchive

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Archive 1

untitled

I'm not sure this is really relevant to the article but I had the surprise this evening of seeing billboards promoting Larouche's campaign for presidency in my very own street! _R_ 02:47, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Erm... maybe you won't find this so surprising unless I tell you that I live in Paris (yes, the original one, in France) !

I have been removing a lot of the stuff about fascism, because I think the point of this article should be to describe the man, his life, and his ideals, not to classify them. To that end, citations and 'further readings' would be much appreciated. DanKeshet 23:08, Jan 30, 2004 (UTC)

I don't understand a lot of what LaRouche says; he emailed me once, after I asked him to simply and concisely outline his political agenda; but he didn't do that. Lirath Q. Pynnor

Discussion of fascism are actually quite helpful in understanding LaRouche Formeruser-83 01:38, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

--- 172.197.219.19 I think the fact that Larouche's organization is cult-like is the most important fact that anyone should know. Larouche's philosophies are interesting, and should be dealt with, but the only reason they are important is because of his impact on people's lives, both in the present and the past. This is an organization that convinces people to drop out of college and pretty much not visit their friends any more because they believe that disaster is imminent (and they must work every day to change the course of history). Put aside whatever ideals the group espouses; the way it uses people and attempts to completely change their world views is what makes this group evil. Members are of course convinced that they truly believe in these ideals, that Larouche is a genius, that his prophecies are always accurate, etc.; regardless of whether many of Larouche's ideas are accurate or not, the group is a threat to free thought because of the implicit control it has over its members. I speak from some experience

Moved from the "Accusations of fascism" section of the article:

  • "When people judge political movements, some look at proclamations and theory, not at actions, while others pay close attention to actions and not to theory or statements. Many do not take the necessary step of comparing words to actions. The LaRouche organization is primarily recruited out of the personality types associated with political cults; leaders (intellectuals, talkers) and followers (believers, listeners). LaRouche's approach to the intellectuals has been to invent a theory and method which would captivate their minds and set them upon a course of thinking and viewing the world which can only confirm the statements and ideas of LaRouche."

This seems to be irrelevant and pov speculation about people's motives and the personality types of LaRouche's followers.

  • "However, after the rise of Hitler and the alliance with Nazi Germany, the Fascists and Mussolini were compelled to adopt Germany's racial hygiene laws and help with the Holocaust."

I don't think this is relevant.

  • "LaRouche separates himself from classical fascism and totalitarianism on the one hand, but to also create a theory which is consistent with the premise of fascism since function dictates form; LaRouche requires the same function from his theory as classical fascism has, and so this dictates the form."

What does this mean? I don't think this adds anything to the arguments that LaRouche is a fascist. Wmahan 17:38, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Lar's theories are absurdly complicated, but he says over and over again that he's opposed to fascism, so if he's accused of fascism then we have to show how his overall philosophy contradicts his statements. Anything we can put down in this article to make sense of Lar's philosophies is a good thing, in my book, because it's really easy to get lost in them. I don't understand your confusion. This is basically responding to a possible argument that Lar's philosophies aren't based on traditional fascist philosophers and therefore can't be fascist. There was a whole other section below this...IMO this article has too many opinions, too many maybes, too many people editing it in contradictory ways. it's a morass. wiki is a failed concept. Vaketer

Thanks for the clarification. I have no problem with moving the part about fascism back into the article. Perhaps it could be reworded to include the context that you describe above, namely how LaRouche's beliefs allegedly bely his public claims. I prefer to think of this page not as a demonstration of wiki's failures, but that a good article takes time, because it is still be in flux. By editing the page you've helped improve it, so thanks. :-) Wmahan. 18:52, 2004 Apr 9 (UTC)

Jesus christ. some fool with too much time on their hands got rid of the useful link, to the Age article about the CEC trying to psychologically break down its members, and added useless links. Freaking fools. Edit, edit, edit, it doesn't matter if it makes sense. Or if you know what you're doing. Deleting the link is royally stupid. (vak)

I moved the section below out of "cult accusations", because it has no relevance to "cult accusations", and seems to me to be another case of pov speculation. The LaRouche youth on campus also denounce the colleges for wretched academic standards. It is important to keep in mind the distinction between Wikipedia and USENET. --Herschelkrustofsky 19:43, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

  • "Members of the Larouche student movement can sometimes be seen on college campuses, where they badger students to drop out of school and join the movement. Their logic is as follows: the US is about to go through a second Great Depression; if this is true, then you will not have a job when you graduate; if this is true, then there is no point in graduating; therefore, drop out of school and become one of us."

cult, fascist allegations

I am a college student in Seattle, and I have been approached on numerous occasions by campaigners for the LaRouche Movement. I found (and still find) their ideas very intriguing, such as developing a global peace and economic recovery based on building up infrastructure in third-world countries. But whenever I discussed LaRouche with friends or acquaintences, those who had heard of him all told a similar story that he's a fascist demagogue, and his followers are some kind of cult. When I searched the internet I found several references to this in pages such as www.publiceye.org[1], but the allegations in this website were so starkly contrary to Larouche's own recorded statements and the impressions that I picked up in my own experience with the organization, that I remained skeptical of both sides.

I have attended several meetings with the LaRouche Youth Movement, and have found the description given here to be failry accurate. Most of the meetings (that I attended) were spent discussing classical art and philosophy, as well as pre-Euclidian Geometry and the complex domain. I found that most of the members spent the majority of their time on the campaign, and many did indeed live together, and held meetings in their homes. However, I found very little indication of cult-like behavior, and didn't feel at all as though I was being brainwashed. I did encounter numerous conspiracy theories that our current regime is based on British oligarchical banking institutions that had ties with Nazi Germany, but many of their accusations don't seem that farfetched to me. (see The Carlyle Group [2])

The thing that concerned me was the lack of solid, third-party analysis of Larouche and his organization. There is extensive literature available in Larouche's 2004 campaign webite [3], as well as that of the Youth Movement [4], the Executive Intelligence Eeview (LaRouche's own newsletter)[5], and the Schiller Institue (founded by Larouche's wife, Helga Zepp LaRouhe)[6]. But I wanted to find information from other sources that either confirme, or cridible contradicted what he said in his own publications. I found that many of the allegations featured in www.publiceye.org reference his conviction of loan fraud, but as is demonstrated in his own literature as well as here, this was pretty much unfounded. I greatly appreciate the article here, because it gives an accurate and even-handed assessment of the accusations against the organization, as well as their rebuttals.

I still have not dismissed entirely the accusations of "cult-like" behavior in the organization just becaue I don't feel confident that I could identify it myself. But the accusations of being a "fascist demagague" and an anti-semite and homophobe I believe are unfounded. I'm not convinced that he is the sole savior of the United States and the world economy (as he does seem to egotistically claim), but I would support him as a candidate for presidency a lot more than John Kerry... and he may be able to help us recover from Georde W. Bush.

--Phlict 10:01, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Chip Berlet of Public Eye, PRA et al has pretty much served as a poison-pen-for-hire, whoring himself out to very powerful establishment figures like Richard Mellon Scaife. Unfortunately, most English language coverage of LaRouche is not much different; there is little criticism or analysis of LaRouche, only invective --- which ought to pique one's curiosity. People complain that LaRouche is difficult to understand, but if you want to learn about him, there is no subsitute for reading what he says.--Herschelkrustofsky 11:16, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)
That's reassuring to hear, because it felt way to much like a smear campaign. The more I read od LaRouch'es own writings, the more I am convinced his ideas have merit, even if they're a bit hard to grasp at first glance.
I pulled the following from an article found in the Architecture of Modern Political Power website [7] It's a pretty huge archive of past news articles with occastional commentary by the author of the site. The article i'm referencing talks about farious conspiracy theorists in the US, and can be found about 2/3rds down (just search the page for LaRouche and you'll see it)
"For anyone who wants to figure out what LaRouche is talking about, it is necessary to be conversant with esoterica concerning Freemasonry, the Knights of Malta, and British imperialism. The alternative is to see all of the above as code words for Jews, and LaRouche's enemies -- namely Chip Berlet, Dennis King, and the Anti-Defamation League -- tend to take this easy way out. I don't believe that right-wing globalist conspiracy theories in general, or LaRouche's theories in particular, can be dismissed by claiming that they are disguised anti-Semitism -- that is to say, code-word versions of the old international Jewish banking conspiracies."
from April-June 1993, by Daniel Brandt at Public Information Research
I hope I'm not taking too much space here... I'm new to Wiki so I'm not too sure of the conventions yet
--Phlict 23:11, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)--Phlict

Rewrite

This article is almost entirely LaRouche propaganda and needs to be completely rewritten. Adam 04:54, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Not sure what's been going on - last I checked in on it a few months ago it was very anti-LaRouche, all but accusing him of being a lunatic fascist...with all these anons, it's hard to figure out who's doing what - I imagine Herschel Krustofsky's been doing a lot of whitewashing, though. john k 05:38, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I actually don't find that version much better, although I agree it is less LaRouchie in tone. What is needed is a straight biography, with some commentary on his opinions and the charges made against him. Adam 06:46, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of that version, either. Anti-LaRouche POVing is only decent by comparison with pro-LaRouche POVing. john k 03:29, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

That's what I have tried to provide. I left all the charges intact -- it is certainly true that LaR has been accused of everything under the sun, and it is duly noted in my version. But to treat the charges as fact, with no documentation whatsoever, reduces Wikipedia to a propaganda organ. The article as presently reverted provides no information whatsoever as to what LaRouche actually says or does, so the reader is left with the impression that he is some mysterious guy with no policy or activity, whom everybody hates. Consequently, I am reverting to my version, with some modifications, and if John Kenney wants to take it to Wikipedia:Requests for mediation, I am certainly amenable. --Herschelkrustofsky 10:54, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I have no interest in mediation, and only very limited interest in this article. john k 03:29, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

They weren't just "charges," he was convicted of fraud by the courts, and the 15-year sentence shows that his offence was a very serious one. The article should reflect that, and not write it all off as some sort of conspiracy against LaRouche. Adam 11:08, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

By "charges", I meant the characterizations of being left wing, right wing, etc. However, my version of the "Criminal Record" section actually reports what he was convicted of, unlike the other version. And the fact that his case was regarded, around the world, as a human rights scandal, should not be swept under the rug in Wikipedia.--Herschelkrustofsky 11:13, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I'm afraid that last comment gives you away, Herschel. Only LaRouchies regarded it as a scandal. Everyone else regarded it as a richly deserved punishment for a thief and swindler. Adam 01:02, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Yup... john k 03:29, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The list of signators on the exoneration ads (which were run in the NYT and WaPo) is very long, indeed. The excerpted signators in the article are from only those at the level of heads of state and cabinet officials. Maybe I should post a link to the entire list, which includes several hundred American State Representatives, County Commissioners, Mayors, Civil Rights leaders, artists and musicians, and so on. This case is better known than the two of you think.
The fact of the matter is, I have documented everything I have added to the article. I have left untouched many accusations against LaRouche, for which no documentation is offered. The version that John reverted to states, about 8 times, that "many leftist groups call LaRouche a fascist." That may well be true, but in the interests of upholding Wikipedia's standards, don't you think that it would be useful to name at least one? And Chip Berlet hardly qualifies as a leftist group; he is a cottage industry, living off foundation money.--Herschelkrustofsky 06:13, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The NCLC, however, obtained a document through the Freedom of Information Act, which tells a different story: it is a memo from the FBI station head in New York City, written to national headquarters on November 23, 1973. It states that infiltrators had been successfully placed in the leadership of the CPUSA, who had convinced the party heads that their problems could be solved by the "physical elimination of LaRouche."


I was just handed some of LaRouche's materials by his people on the way to lunch today and even his own materials don't support this charge. Nowhere does it say that FBI infiltrators have convinced the leaders of the CPUSA to eliminate Larouche. It does note that there is a lot of talk in the CPUSA, including in their newspaper, of eliminating (doesn't use the term "physical elimination") LaRouche and that the FBI could perhaps place articles in the CPUSA newspaper to help continue to cause problems.

I looked into this, and found that the formulation in the article was indeed inaccurate, so I replaced it with more accurate formulation. --Herschelkrustofsky 20:13, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

No-one who knows anything about the history of American communism could believe such a fantsy for two seconds. The CPUSA, like all orthodox communist parties, opposed assassination and all other forms of individualist violence, which they regarded as an anarchist deviation from the Leninist line. In any case by the 1970s the CPUSA was a dwindling band of aged romantics who could not have physically eliminated a fly. Adam 04:29, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I'm sure that they had an official stand against assassination and violence, but most groups that engage in that sort of thing will officially deny it. As far as them being aged romantics, they probably also had their share of FBI agents provocateurs, just like the right wing groups.--Herschelkrustofsky 20:13, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

That's the problem with trying to debate with conspiracy nuts: there is always another layer to the conspiracy, so that nothing can ever be refuted. That's why arguing with LaRouchies is futile. The essential problem with this article, particularly after Herschel's edits to it, is that it uncritically reflects LaRouche's view of himself. It should rather reflect the generally held view of LaRouche (which is also the truth): that LaRouche is not a politician or an economist, but rather the leader of a nasty cult, a delusional paranoiac, and a convicted swindler. Adam 23:35, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Adam, clearly you will only be satisfied with a Chip Berlet-style smear, and there are a handful of those in the external links. The material I have added is either factual, and documented -- or, in the rare sections where I do reference LHL's view of himself, it is to contrast it to what his opponents say about him (such as in the "Theory of Great Men" section). You are evidently accustomed to reading the output of Berlet -- or perhaps of the John Birch Society, depending on your left-vs-right orientation. If I report that Gene McCarthy likes LaRouche, it is not wishful thinking. I can provide links to interviews with Gene if that would mollify you. But I suspect that you have little interest in the actual LaRouche, preferring a mythological bogeyman. Wikipedia is not the place for mythology.--Herschelkrustofsky 00:19, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

It certainly isn't the place for cultish pro-LaRouche mythology, either. As to Gene McCarthy, he's always been a strange man, and has only gotten stranger over the years...at any rate, Adam, you'll note, has not been advocating a return to the earlier version of the page (nor have I, particularly). He's been advocating a rewrite. I would agree with you that the version here before you started was pretty bad. I would just disagree that your changes made any improvement - they just substituted anti-LaRouche POV for pro-LaRouche POV. At least anti-LaRouche POV has the advantage of being the generally accepted view of LaRouche. john k 02:05, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I actually don't know who Chip Berlet is. My main source on LaRouche is Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism by Dennis King. Adam 02:28, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Archive 2

New article

Since I have written a completely new article, I have archived all the old Talk. The process of researching this article has made me even more aware of what a dishonest crock of lying propaganda the previous one was. Adam 10:36, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Adam, your new article is not only work of fiction, it is a plagiarized work of fiction, having been lifted entirely from Dennis King's Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism. I have reverted to a previous version. See Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, and Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial.--Herschelkrustofsky 14:34, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I am happy to acknowledge that the article is largely based on that book, which seems to me to a well-researched and reliable account. It is not "plagiarised" from it, because plagiarism requires the unacknowledged use of the words of another author. Nowhere have I directly quoted King. All encyclopaedia articles are based on the original research of other authors, and this is not required to be acknowledged in detail unless there is a dispute as to the veracity of the source. The section on LaRouche's trial and conviction is not based on King, but on the account in the Washington Post. I of course expected Herschel to object to the new article, because it abolishes all the LaRouche propaganda he inserted into the old one. If Herschel wants to question the accuracy of any points in the new article, I am happy to debate them. On the other hand if he wants a revert war he will get one. Adam 15:01, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I don't want a childish revert war. I propose we take this to Wikipedia: Requests for mediation.--Herschelkrustofsky 15:07, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Why don't you tell us instead which points in the new article you disagree with? Adam 15:12, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Herschel's hodgepodge beats Adam's diatribe. - 64.30.208.48

While I am definnitely no fan of LaRouche (I consider him a nut so far out on the fringe that to call him a leftist or far rightist is nonsensical), I feel that the section headers in this article are uncomfortably POV: "LaRouche as a leftist", "as a leader", "as a politician", "as a felon". Perhaps better would be "Early Career", "After SDS", "Presidential Bids", and "Criminal Charges".

BTW, Adam's version has a misspelled word: grep for "codeward". -- llywrch 18:11, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I don't have any objections to Llywrch's new section heads. I don't know what either "grep" or "codeward" mean and I don't recall writing either word in my life. Adam 02:22, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Selected objections to Adam Carr's/Dennis King's new article

Some of these moved to Talk:Lyndon LaRouche/The Herschelkrustofsky List, as they were replicated in later lists from Herschel. Martin 20:51, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

1. "As a Quaker, he was at first a conscientious objector during World War II, but in 1944 he joined the United States Army, serving in medical units in India. During this period he read Karl Marx and became a Communist." To my knowledge, LaRouche has never said that he "became a Communist." He became an expert on Marx, but as critic, and he suggested ways in which Marx's theory could be corrected. His involvement with SWP and so on consisted of his trying to raise his own ideas, but he complained that the SWPers were "Philistines", dogmatists who had no interest in theoretical debates. The actually historically interesting aspect of LaRouche's stay in India, was his involvement in the Indian Independence movement, which is omitted from Dennis King's book.

He joined the Socialist Workers' Party. I don't see how that cannot be seen as "becoming a Communist" (or, at least, a Trotskyist). At any rate, what is your source? LaRouche's own self-assessment in retrospect doesn't count. john k 03:35, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)


I seem to recall that Clara Fraser of the Freedom Socialist Party wrote a piece on LaRouche based on her recollections of him when both were in the SWP. It seems disengenuous to claim that LaRouche would join a communist party such as the Socialist Workers Party if he were not a communist but simply to criticise communism and Marx. LaRouche is not a Marxist today and he may be embarassed about his Marxist past but that doesn't give us a licence to engage in revisionism and rewrite his history to suit him. You'd think that if LaRouche was not a communist but was simply in the SWP to criticise Marx other members of the SWP would be the first to say he wasn't a Marxist yet his contemporaries all state that LaRouche was a genuine SWP member and took part in internal debates as a Marxist. Then there are Tim Wohlforth's recollections of LaRouche The Early LaRouche. It's a bit hard to understand why, if Larouche was not a Communist or Trotskyist but simply a "critic" why he would have joined Wohlforth's group or tried to work with the Sparticists (who are some of the most adamanat communists around). AndyL 04:06, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I don't have much experience with being a leftist, but I believe that Communist and Socialist are not synonymous, and that adherents to those respective camps do make the distinction. My objection to Adam's/Dennis King's approach is that they are never satisfied with reporting that which is undisputed, i.e., LaRouche joined the SWP, and are always looking to add that POV.--Herschelkrustofsky 10:11, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Well I do have a lot of experience of being a leftist, and although I am no longer one I also have a lot of experience of reading and writing about them (a doctoral thesis among other things). If Krusty doesn't know enough about the SWP to know that it was a revolutionary communist (ie, Leninist-Trotskyist) party, then he doesn't know very much at all about the matters under discussion here, and he should not take such a high-handed tone with those that do know what they are talking about.

2. "LaRouche remained in the SWP until 1966, making him a veteran member in a group which always had a high turnover of members. He now maintains that he was soon disillusioned with Marxism and stayed in the SWP only as an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation."

4. "The NCLC soon developed the hallmarks of a cult, with a charismatic leader (LaRouche), a catastrophist and conspiratorial ideology, and an esoteric vocabulary known only to initiates." Again, the product of Dennis King's fevered imagination-for-hire. I think Adam should reveal to us exactly what attracts him to King's ravings, when there are many other, relatively objective sources. Adam should also ask himself this question: If King's book is correct, and LaRouche is some sort of demonic figure, how is LaRouche able to fool the various institutions which have invited him to speak, such as the Russian Duma and the Russian Academy of Sciences, to name only a few?

It's pretty rich for a LaRouchite to accuse someone else of having a "fevered imagination." The Russian Duma is hardly a reputable organization, at any rate. john k 03:35, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)
That comment actually represents my own assessment of LaRouche's political character, based on long personal experience with local laRouchies, not King's. As for the Russian Duma, that body was dominated for most of the 90s by xenophobic anti-Semites, ex-communists and conspiracy theorists, so I'm not surprised they found LaRouche attractive. Adam 04:03, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)
The Duma is an elected, representative body of a rather large and strategically important nation. Your assertion that it was "dominated for most of the 90s by xenophobic anti-Semites, ex-communists and conspiracy theorists" is about as irresponsible as your repeated slanders of LaRouche (except for the "ex-communists" part, which is rather unremarkable) -- but the interesting question would be, why do you prefer to withhold from the reader, the fact that LaRouche has had these kinds of contacts? An objective article would let the reader know, and draw his own conclusions, about this and the relationship to heads of state such as Jose Lopez Portillo and Indira Gandhi, as well. It appears that the purpose of your new article is not so much to present the reader with wild fabrications, as it is to suppress any actually factual account of LaRouche's activity.--Herschelkrustofsky 11:46, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I doubt the Russian Duma would be particularly familiar with the actions of the NCLC in the 1970s. AndyL 04:06, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Maybe, maybe not. The question is, is this article intended to inform the reader, or is it an attempt to sell a set of prejudices, by concealing factual information. Hypothetical: if Al Gore, or Newt Gingrich, were invited to address the Duma, or even better, the Russian Academy of Sciences, would it be newsworthy? --Herschelkrustofsky 10:11, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

6. "In 1980 LaRouche said that only 1.5 million Jews had died in World War II, not the generally accepted 6 million."

7. "Finally in a publication called The Secrets Known Only to the Inner Elites LaRouche brought his theories to their logical conclusion. There was no such thing as communism or fascism, left or right: these were all facets of the great overarching conspiracy of the "Synarchy," an oligarchical network of financiers and manipulators who rule the world." There is no mention of "synarchy" in that publication; it is a discussion of Plato's ideas, versus those of Aristotle. LaRouche has never said that "there was no such thing as communism or fascism," and to my recollection, King has never made this particular claim; this may be Adam's only original contribution to anti-LaRouche myth-making.

I have no idea how to adjudicate this dispute as to content. I'll say that, based on Adam's previous work, I have a lot more confidence in his formulations than in yours. But I don't know about this specific question, or whether Adam even wrote it (I think much of this article may be extracted from previous versions of the article, although I'm not sure). john k 03:35, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Don't be coy, John. You know very well that none of this article is extracted from previous versions.--Herschelkrustofsky 11:46, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I agree that this passage is somewhat over-rhetorical and could be deleted. This is what happens when I write articles in the middle of the night. Adam 04:03, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

This is a partial listing of falsehoods and egregious POV problems. I won't take the time to list the rest of them, because I should think that the ones I have already listed should be sufficient to demonstrate that Adam's article is hopelessly flawed, and that Wikipedia would be better served by the continued editing of the previous one -- and by appropriate mediation. Adam and John K. have demonstrated an animus that certainly runs contrary to Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. --Herschelkrustofsky 03:04, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Why do you keep on with the mediation demands? You've now presented various critiques. I've even agreed with some. Why don't you wait and see what Adam says? Mediation should only be needed if we can't come to any agreement on our own. We've hardly begun to discuss specific issues. john k 03:35, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)
If you had any genuine interest in discussion, you would have critiqued the previous article, instead of substituting a wild-eyed slander. Your objection to mediation speaks for itself.--Herschelkrustofsky 11:22, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Now that Herschel has made some specific comments, this article can be improved. That was not possible with the previous article, which was LaRouche propaganda from beginning to end. I will continue to oppose reverting to that article. Adam 04:03, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Please cite an example.--Herschelkrustofsky 10:11, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. I don't think Herschel's involvement in this article is necessarily a bad thing - at the very least, it can force us to steer away from the rhetorical anti-LaRouche excess to which non-LaRouchites who actually look into the fellow seem to be drawn. But that obviously doesn't mean we can let the article be turned into pro-LaRouche gobbledygook. (Speaking of which, have you seen Helga Zepp-LaRouche? I changed a bit, but it's pretty hard core LaRouchite, at the moment.) john k 05:26, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Herschel needs to make up his mind whether he wants to take part in a constructive debate on the article, which John and I have shown we are willing to do, or engage in wild conspiracy accusations and revert wars, which only confirm suspicions that he is himself a LaRouchie. I'm not sure who Richard Mellon Scaife is but I presume he is part of the international bankers' conspiracy. I can certify that I have never been paid by him or any other banker, but I am open to offers. Adam 09:31, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

You haven't been paid, but Dennis King has. And, you should learn more about the U.S. before repeating gossip about U.S. politics; Richard Mellon Scaife is a wealthy funder of neoconservative projects, including the attack on LaRouche, and perhaps more notoriously, the attack on Bill Clinton (he funded Paula Jones et al.
A "constructive debate" would be a discussion of what was wrong with the previous article, which was largely written before I ever heard of Wikipedia. I edited that article by removing material I knew to be false, while acknowledging that there are accusations against LaRouche, even when those accusations come from dubious persons. If I were to do that to Adam's article,there would be no article left, beyond "an obscure individual named Dennis King was hired to slander LaRouche." Dennis King's entire book is a "wild conspiracy accusation." I mean, give me a break -- his central thesis is that all of LaRouche's pronouncements are code messages.--Herschelkrustofsky 11:22, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I have removed the statement that LaRouche claimed that only 1.5 million Jews died in World War II, although this statement is widely quoted, because I have not yet traced it to an actual dated source. If and when I do so I will reinstate it. Adam 09:58, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

This article reads like a Rush Limbaugh tantrum. As long as it is protected from editing, it should also be clearly marked "{{NPOV}"

Yes, because only right wingers like Rush Limbaugh don't worship LaRouche. Gah. But I've added the NPOV label. At any rate, the previous article was awful, in that it was full of nonsense. Herschel, why can't you work on the current version and try to improve it, rather than constantly reverting to a version that several people find unacceptable? john k 19:29, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Queen's English

Since this is an American we are talking about, once the article is unprotected, I think the Queen's English should go. WhisperToMe 21:27, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)


Discussion regarding mediation

(moved from the Requests for mediation page)

User:Herschelkrustofsky, User:Adam Carr and User:John Kenney

Adam has announced his intention to commence an edit war over article Lyndon LaRouche. Previously he had archived the entire talk section and posted a new article, which is not only generally false, but also plagiarized from a book that was commissioned as a character assassination. In this case, I am reluctant to approach him a second time for mediation, and would prefer that a third party do so. --Herschelkrustofsky 14:43, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

You have not expressed your specific problems with the article (which Adam has stated he is perfectly willing to discuss) in the talk page. Until that happens, mediation seems inappropriate. john k 20:00, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

John, the earlier article was the work of myself and probably a dozen or so others, and to my mind did not have the rather glaring POV problems that Adam's new article has. Adam said that the old article was "a dishonest crock of lying propaganda," without specifying any item that he felt was "lying." You, in turn, responded to by proposal for mediation by indicating that you had "only very limited interest in this article." Have you had a change of heart? I don't consider either you or Adam capable of a neutral discussion, which is why I am requesting mediation, and until then, the earlier version of the article, which reflects many different points of view and makes an effort to be objective, should remain. --Herschelkrustofsky 01:47, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I'd say that both versions have POV problems, but Adam's considerably less so. At any rate, I'm still puzzled by your seeming mania for mediation, especially when we've hardly actually tried to discuss through our disagreements to come to some sort of agreement that we can both live with. I've listed the page on Wikipedia:Requests for comment, which is, I think, a better next step than going straight to mediation, which is a fairly extreme step. Perhaps you aren't aware of this, given your relative newness to wikipedia. My opposition to mediation comes out of the fact that I think we really haven't made much of an effort to come to grips with each other, and that mediation is premature. And what on earth is a "neutral discussion"? I've never participated in such a thing myself, so I suppose you're right that I'm incapable of it, but it seems rather dull to discuss things about which one is neutral. The important thing is not a "neutral discussion" (whatever that is), but a "Neutral article", and this can only arise out of spirited, non-neutral discussion. john k 21:02, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I would be more likely to believe that this is not all some sort of ploy on your part, if BOTH versions of the article were available on Wikipedia:Requests for comment. It says in Wikipedia:Conflict_resolution: "When someone makes an edit you consider biased or inaccurate, improve the edit, rather than reverting it." You and Adam didn't improve the edits on the previous article; you suppressed it altogether -- even to the point of freezing edits on the new version, which I assume means that you are a Wikipedia adminstrator, or you know one. If you want to demonstrate Good faith, make both versions of the article available, protect both from editing, and post them on Wikipedia:Requests for comment.--Herschelkrustofsky 23:55, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Both versions of the article are available to anyone looking in the history, which they clearly should do - I can certainly add your version to the listing. As to your quote from Wikipedia:Conflict resolution, it actually condemns your actions (reverting rather than improving an edit you don't really like), rather than Adam's (writing an entirely new article). At any rate, neither Adam nor I protected the article. Mirv did, solely in order to stop the edit war. You also can't protect "both versions" from editing - the older versions are available to anyone looking in the history. john k 00:00, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

This discussion is not appropriate for this page. Once John Kenney and Adam Carr have responded to Herschelkrustofsky's request for mediation and assented or refused (which I have "officially" asked them to do on their respective talk pages), I will move this discussion to Wikipedia:Requests for comment.

Thanks, Bcorr, Co-chair of the Mediation Committee. 00:21, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I don't see formal mediation as necessary at this stage. Nor do I think the article should be protected. What should happen is that more people knowledgeable on the subject should participate in editing it. I don't claim that my article is perfect, and I agree it is based on a narrower source-base than I would like. It is however an honest attempt to write a biographical article on LaRouche, whereas the previous one was just recycled LaRouche propaganda. Adam 01:22, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Archive 3

The previous version of the article on LaRouche, which is referred to in the discussion, is available here.

Nota bene: I argued in favor of the previous article, on the grounds that it had fewer egregious POV problems than the livid rant that is presently found at the Lyndon LaRouche page. However, I agree with John's assessment that the previous article is a somewhat incoherent patchwork quilt, having been rewritten and edited so many times. I withdraw my support from that article, in favor of the new one that I have written at Lyndon LaRouche/draft, and invite comment on that article. --Herschelkrustofsky 15:20, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Responses to this post appear at the foot of the page. Adam 11:31, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Adam's and John's objections to the previous article

Adam and John have stated that they have objections to the previous article, but they have never named their objections. Instead, they resorted to the dishonest sleight-of-hand of having Adam write an entirely new article which in no way draws upon the previous one; instead, by Adam's own admission, it comes entirely from one source, which is a sleazy character assassination, Dennis King's Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism (Adam says it also comes from an article in the Washington Post, by which he simply means a quote cited in the book.) The two of them then insist that the debate should be restricted to the merits of Adam's new article. They resist the idea of referring the dispute to Wikipedia:Requests for mediation, but then contrive to block editing of their new, ridiculous article.

This last is a lie. You have made no effort to edit the new article - you have simply tried to revert to the old, ridiculous article. I, at least, have repeatedly asked you to edit the new article. john k 20:53, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The typical slander of LaRouche follows this format: "Numerous Left- or Right-Wingers, who shall remain nameless, have said that LaRouche is a so-and-so, and in my heart I believe it." In my editing of the previous article, I wrote some sections which were intended to rebut the propaganda, but more importantly, to introduce some factual material that might demonstrate to the reader what LaRouche actually does in the world, so that it is not so mysterious as to why there is such a fuss about him. I will reproduce these sections here, and I would like Adam and John to specify what, if any, challenge they would make as to the veracity and accuracy of what is said. And, if they cannot challenge it, I would like to know why they desire to suppress it:


Key policy interventions

  • In the mid-1970s, LaRouche began to meet with leaders of Third World nations to discuss a reform of the international monetary system. LaRouche maintained that institutions such as the International Monetary Fund were suppressing the development of these nations, saddling them with a fraudulent debt burden, and re-imposing a disguised version of colonialism, forcing these nations to provide cheap labor and raw materials. Following a trip to Iraq and Israel in 1975, LaRouche proposed an International Development Bank to supercede the I.M.F.; on September 8, 1975, LaRouche's proposal for debt moratoria was presented to the United Nations General Assembly by Dr. Frederick Wills, Foreign Minister of Guyana, and then discussed in August of the following year at the Colombo, Sri Lanka conference of the Non-Aligned Movement.
LaRouche's proposal, later adopted by Reagan? The implication that Reagan took the idea from LaRouche is ridiculous nonsense. john k 20:53, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Here is a first-hand recollection from someone who was directly involved. Both the New Republic and the Washington Post published hysterical articles, attacking the Reagan administration for its contact with LaRouche. And LaRouche circulated a pamphlet in 1977 calling for the U.S. to pursue the development of directed-energy technologies for Ballistic Missile defense, as the Soviets were already doing -- it was entitled "Sputnik of the Seventies."--Herschelkrustofsky 00:43, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
First hand recollections in a LaRouche publication have no credibility. At any rate, while it should certainly be noted that LaRouche was an early proponent of missile defense, and while I would be personally happy to say that the Republicans got the idea from LaRouche, since it would (to most people) make them look quite bad, and I don't like Republicans much, I don't think that's appropriate to an encyclopedia article. I think that most supporters of missile defense would deny that the idea was LaRouche, and such a contention would need to be supported by something other than a LaRouchite argument. john k 01:41, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Just to satisfy my curiosity, why is it that first hand recollections in a LaRouche publication have no credibility, whereas first hand recollections of "Mop-up", reported in the Village Voice, are considered highly credible? I would like to know precisedly what the criteria for credibility are. --Herschelkrustofsky 20:30, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  • In 1989, despite having been imprisoned (see Criminal Record, below), LaRouche proposed major infrastructure plans for the Eurasian land mass, following the demise of the Warsaw Pact. These were entitled the Productive Triangle and Eurasian Land-Bridge plans. In May of 1996, LaRouche's wife Helga Zepp-LaRouche presented the Eurasian Land-Bridge proposal at a conference sponsored by the Government of China, in a debate format with British member of the European Commission, Sir Leon Brittan, who opposed it. The proposal was subsequently adopted, and is presently under construction, by China and neighboring nations.
I have no idea of any of this...but certainly we should say "the government of the People's Republic of China". john k 20:53, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  • In April of 2003, LaRouche presented groundbreaking research on the role of a group of followers of German political philosopher Leo Strauss, who had managed to gain policy control of the administration of President George W. Bush, and used that control to implement radical shifts in policy, including a commitment to a preventive war doctrine which included suspension of the Geneva Accords.
LaRouche has never presented "groundbreaking research" on anything. This implies that said research has rocked the scholarly community, when, in fact, nothing LaRouche has ever done has ever rocked the scholarly community. Furthermore, discussion of the role of Straussians in the Bush administration did not start with LaRouche. What LaRouche brings to the picture is conspiracy theories and crypto-anti-semitism. john k 20:53, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Follow this link to read the op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, in which former Editor-in-Chief Robert Bartley castigates Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker and James Atlas of the New York Times for following LaRouche's lead on the Straussians. While Bartley is clearly unhappy about it, he does truthfully note that "discussion of the role of Straussians in the Bush administration did start with LaRouche." Really, John, I'm surprised that you can feel so strongly about all this, and yet know so little about it.
Bartley has about as much credibility as LaRouche publications, imo. Just as it is in my interest, as a liberal Democrat, to say that Reagan got the idea for missile defense from LaRouche, so it is in Bartley's interested, as a ridiculously conservative Republican, to say that liberals got their ideas about Straussianism from LaRouche. john k 01:41, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Herschell, I'd be prepared to consider LaRouche as a groundbreaking figure in policy and theory if one can cite publications other than LaRouche's which acknowledge that anything he's written or said has been "groundbreaking". Has LaRouche published any articles in peer reviewed academic journals? As for your citations of the WSJ and NYTimes they are, as you point out, hardly laudatory but simply trying to tear down others on the basis of "guilt of association" for making accusations with LaRouche also happens to make. Hardly evidence of LaRouche's academic or intellectual contributions. AndyL 04:37, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
John charged that "discussion of the role of Straussians in the Bush administration did not start with LaRouche." LaRouche's in-depth report on the topic was issued April, 2003. The NYT and New Yorker articles appeared a month later, and all other articles subsequent to that. As far as I am concerned, that proves the point. No one had ever heard of Leo Strauss, outside of his coterie of disciples, up until then. You are welcome to cite evidence that proves the contrary.--Herschelkrustofsky 10:18, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Support from the Civil Rights Movement

Although, since the late 1960s, LaRouche and his movement have been under continual attack from both Rightists and Leftists, LaRouche has enjoyed strong support from the veterans of the American Civil Rights Movement of Martin Luther King, Jr. In the early 1990s, while LaRouche was in prison (see below), full page advertisements, calling for LaRouche to be exonerated, appeared in papers such as the New York Times and Washington Post. Among the signators were Civil Rights leaders such as Amelia Boynton Robinson (the heroine of Bloody Sunday), Rev. Hosea Williams, Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker, James Bevel, Rosa Parks, and Benjamin Chavis. Additionally, Amelia Boynton Robinson became co-founder and Vice-Chairperson of the Schiller Institute, and James Bevel became LaRouche's running mate in the 1992 Presidential campaign, in which LaRouche ran from prison.

Surely this gives a false impression - perhaps these individuals have expressed support for LaRouche, but the basic fact is that LaRouche has no "Support from the Civil Rights Movement" and no mainstream civil rights organization has had any truck with LaRouche. john k 20:53, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)
You want to see the entire list of signators? I can provide a link. but regardless of how many there are, or what organization they belong to, the ones that I put in the article are sufficiently prominent that hiding their names is certainly more apt to provide a false impression, than providing them.--Herschelkrustofsky 00:22, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I'm actually fine with listing people who signed that petition - but you are repeatedly using this same single act (signing a petition about the prosecution of LaRouche) in different places in the article, to give the impression of widespread support for LaRouche. Listing these people once, in the part of the article about LaRouche's trial, would be sufficient. john k 01:41, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
"Additionally, Amelia Boynton Robinson became co-founder and Vice-Chairperson of the Schiller Institute, and James Bevel became LaRouche's running mate in the 1992 Presidential campaign, in which LaRouche ran from prison." That indicates support beyond signing the petition (actually, they were full-page ads in WaPo and NYT), and ought to be included.--Herschelkrustofsky 10:22, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Criminal record

(I did not write this part, but did extensive editing on the previous version)

In December of 1988, LaRouche was convicted of conspiracy and mail fraud in regards to the methods used by his organization to solicit in the alleged amount of $294,000 of unrepaid loans. The alleged conspiracy, was a conspiracy to obtain the loans, with no intention to repay.

You should look up "comma usage" somewhere... john k 20:53, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

To prepare for the trial, the government first filed, on April 20, 1987, an unprecedented involuntary bankruptcy petition against two LaRouche-controlled publications companies on whose behalf the loans had been solicited, ending all possibility of loan repayment. On October 25, 1989, Judge Martin V.B. Bostetter ruled the government's action was illegal. Bostetter said the government acted in "objective bad faith" and the bankruptcy was obtained by a "constructive fraud on the court." However, the appeal on the conspiracy and fraud charges went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court; at each stage of the appeals process, the courts declined to hear the appeal.

Okay, but so what? LaRouche was still found guilty. Putting a whole paragraph about this, and then almost entirely ignoring the actual stuff against him, again gives a false impression. john k 20:53, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Just in case the article is intended to inform the reader, rather than reinforce the prejudices of the author, it were useful to make it known that this case was extremely controversial. For example -- I could have included this in the now-suppressed version of the article -- the amicus curae brief filed with the appeals was the second largest, in number of signators, in U.S. history (after the Chicago 7 trial). This makes the fact that the appeal was never heard all the more remarkable.--Herschelkrustofsky 00:11, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
As I said above, this should be discussed. But the charges against LaRouche should be discussed in more detail, as well. john k 01:41, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

LaRouche was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison in Minnesota, though he was given an early release in 1993 after serving five years. He ran his 1992 electoral campaign from prison. Prominent radical political figure and former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark has helped to try to clear LaRouche's name, arguing that investigators and political opponents had gone overboard in their accusations. Clark wrote in 1995, in a letter to then serving Attorney General Janet Reno: "I bring this matter to you directly, because I believe it involves a broader range of deliberate and systematic misconduct and abuse of power over a longer period of time in an effort to destroy a political movement and leader, than any other federal prosecution in my time or to my knowledge."

Clark is a fringe figure. Why so much attention to him? john k 20:53, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Regardless of whether you like him, he is a former Attorney General of the United States.--Herschelkrustofsky 00:11, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
So what? He's progressively lost whatever credibility he may have once had over the last 35 years. At any rate, a mention of his support for LaRouche in his court case should be sufficient. john k 01:41, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
That's your POV. In my view, and I am not alone, his credentials as an human rights expert are certainly better than, say, Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch, and his open letter to Janet Reno should certainly not be suppressed. I am struck by your apparent willingness to entertain the admission of gossip and innuendo from Dennis King, who has no stature of any sort, while laboring to exclude the views of persons who are internationally prominent, because you evidently have a disagreement with them. Remember, this is Wikipedia, not your USENET post.--Herschelkrustofsky 10:31, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

During the 2004 Presidential campaign, LaRouche has characterized his imprisonment and subsequent release, with one sentence: "Bush put me in, and Clinton got me out." However, there were in fact thousands of political leaders who campaigned for LaRouche's release. In addition to leaders of the American American Civil Rights Movement (see above), there were many elected officials from the U.S. and around the world, including the following officials of various nations:

  • RNDr. Jozef Miklosko, former Vice-Prime Minister of former Czechoslovakia
  • Prof. Dr. Hans R. Klecatsky, former Justice Minister, Austria
  • Gen. (ret.) Edgardo Mercado Jarrin, former Prime Minister and former Foreign Minister of Peru
  • Gen. (ret.) Joao Baptista de Oliveira Figueredo, former President of Brazil
  • Nedzib Sacirbey, M.D., Ambassador at Large, Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina
  • Arturo Frondizi, former President of Argentina (recently deceased)
  • Manuel Solis Palma, former President of Panama
  • Dr. Abdelhamid Brahimi, former Prime Minister of Algeria (1984-1988)

--Herschelkrustofsky 20:09, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

While I'm not fully familiar with everything you're talking about here, I think my primary problem is that it's all explicitly designed to create a false impression of general opinion of LaRouche, by cherry-picking every single instance you can find of theoretically well-respected people treating LaRouche seriously. (Although people like Benjamin Chavis and Ramsay Clark are pretty dubious as far as respectability goes). While probably some of this should be mentioned, it shouldn't be used to obfuscate what's really going on. At any rate, I've listed the article on Wikipedia:Requests for comment. I think this is a more appropriate place to go, at this point, than mediation - it's an invitation to other wikipedians to take a look at the article and weigh in. john k 20:53, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Again, you may not like Ben Chavis, or Ramsay Clark, or Indira Gandhi, or Rosa Parks, but it were certainly more faithful to the spirit of Wikipedia to let the reader know, and judge for himself. Regarding the Requests for comment,I would be more likely to believe that this is not all some sort of ploy on your part, if BOTH versions of the article were available on Wikipedia:Requests for comment. It says in Wikipedia:Conflict_resolution: "When someone makes an edit you consider biased or inaccurate, improve the edit, rather than reverting it." You and Adam didn't improve the edits on the previous article; you suppressed it altogether -- even to the point of freezing edits on the new version, which I assume means that you are a Wikipedia adminstrator, or you know one. If you want to demonstrate Good faith, make both versions of the article available, protect both from editing, and post them on Wikipedia:Requests for comment.--Herschelkrustofsky 00:04, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The spirit of NPOV is certainly not to give all possible information that somebody might possibly be interested. Should we list every person who's ever said that Lyndon LaRouche is a crank, or a dangerous lunatic, or a common criminal, as well? Because a lot of people have said that, and probably some of them are famous. An article can't simply vomit up all information about its subject, and it certainly shouldn't do it selectively to put the person in the best possible light. To take an extreme example, I'm sure we can find numerous well-respected people who, through the years between 1929 and 1953, said nice things about Stalin. If we put all that stuff in, and took out all the information about Stalin's crimes as too uncertain, would you think that was NPOV? I've responded to the latter part of your post at Wikipedia:Requests for mediation. Suffice it to say that neither Adam nor I protected the page. john k 00:15, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I would say, by all means, list every head of state, or cabinet level official, who ever said that Lyndon LaRouche is a crank, or a dangerous lunatic, or a common criminal, as well. And explore their motives for saying so.--Herschelkrustofsky 10:31, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

POV

-> Talk:Lyndon_LaRouche/The_Herschelkrustofsky_List#Zionism_.2F_Zionist

Unprotecting

Herschel, would you be willing to try to improve the current version of the article to make it more NPOV? This would, I assume, be a rather bumpy process, given our current disagreements, but I think it's far more likely to move us towards consensus than constant reversion wars. I'd be willing to sit back, for at least a while, and see what you're doing, and I'd explain any specific reversions/changes to your edits, if you'd be willing to do this. This would let us unprotect the article and get back to editing it, too. john k 01:41, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

See "Straw Man" section, below. I am still trying to figure out how you can say that the decision to protect Adam's article, as opposed to the long-standing one which was only partially written by me, was made by someone other than you and Adam.--Herschelkrustofsky 10:38, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The article was not protected by me or by Adam. It was protected by User:Mirv, as a result of our edit warring. It was protected on Adam's version simply because that was the version it was on when Mirv protected. How hard is this to understand? john k 15:31, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Listing sources

Sorry for prematurely doing a bit of copy editing. Anyway, if the article is largely or partly based on Dennis King's book as a source it should be listed as such eg Source: King, Dennis. Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism. New York: Doubleday, 1989. 415 pages. ISBN 0-385-23880-0 This would deal with Herschell's concern's about plagiarism. AndyL 03:35, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

If it was standard procedure at Wikipedia that sources should be given for articles, then I would of course have done so with this article. But it is not standard procedure, so I didn't. It is false (and defamatory) to accuse me of plagiarism in this respect. Nowhere in my article do I use King's words. For the record, I have alreadty acknowledged that the article is based largely on King, but it also draws on the Washington Post, on various website sources and my own (extensive) knowledge of the history of Trotskyism and of the far right. Adam 04:27, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I'm not accusing you of plagiarism - as has been stated it's an absurd accusation to make in regards to an encyclopedia. I'm just pointing out to Herschell that there's nothing wrong with using source material and that his concerns can be dealt with through a citation rather than by removing anything that is based on King's research. AndyL 04:31, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

When the article is unprotected, I will be making some changes to my comments on LaRouche, anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial, based on this speech. These changes will actually be in favour of LaRouche. Adam 04:52, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

By all means, use that speech. It's a powerful indictment of anti-Semitism. But don't try to pull a slice-and-dice, cut-and-paste job á la Dennis King.--Herschelkrustofsky 10:42, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Sheesh, even when I'm trying to be fair to your guy, I get abused. Krusty, like all LaRouchies, is addicted to personal abuse and slander as a political style, and is his own worst enemy in this discussion. And for the record (again) I did not ask for this article to be protected, and have already asked for it to be unprotected so that I can continue editing it. Adam 10:58, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The "Straw Man" technique

The typical approach to slandering a public figure (and the Adam Carr/Dennis King approach is only a particularly extreme and egregious example) is to attempt to create a "Straw Man", a semi-fictitious accounting of that individual, which the writer then proceeds to attack. Simultaneously, the technique requires that the actual motive for the attack be kept obscure; the attacker piously condemns the attackee, while avoiding any discussion of what the object of the attack has actually done to arouse his hostility. To the perceptive reader, this often leads to a paradox: in the case of LaRouche, whom the attacker paints as an obscure, unimportant figure with no influence or impact upon the world at large, why is it necessary to go to such great lengths to vilify him and ultimately jail him? If the worst that was alleged is true -- that LaRouche conspired with others to fail to repay $294,000 in loans (note: Adam Carr, following Dennis King, omits this figure, and slyly inserts "Assistant U.S. Attorney Kent Robinson presented evidence that LaRouche's organisation had solicited US$34 million in loans since 1983" --failing to inform the reader that only $294,000 was not repaid due to the alleged conspiracy. This is transparent propaganda), LaRouche would hardly be newsworthy, compared to the stupendous scams, of say, Michael Milken, who gets a relatively respectful write-up in Wikipedia.

My point is, an article on LaRouche should:

  • acknowledge that LaRouche has been under attack from all sides, while properly identifying the attackers;
  • acknowledge that LaRouche has in fact played a significant role in politics, having consulted with a dozen or more heads of state, and put forth original ideas that have changed the face of politics and science, thus drawing the ire of other powerful individuals and entities, who initiated the attacks. John and Adam are somewhat hysterical in attempting to deny that LaRouche has done anything beyond spout conspiracy theories; this denial, methinks, is dishonest, because if LaRouche were such a trivial person, why are John and Adam so exercised about him?

If I were to remove the scurrilous and undocumented allegations, and the innuendo, from Adam's article, only about a paragraph would remain. I would like the input from others on the previous version, which was the product of many writers and editors; John and Adam have complained strenuously about it, but only in the most vague of terms.--Herschelkrustofsky 11:27, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Myself I'd like to see a merger of the two. Sam [Spade] 14:54, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I could live with that. I would also be in favor of trimming the previous version of the article. I didn't see the point of dwelling on all the minutiae regarding who was who in the Left during the 1950s -- but I left it intact out of respect for the previous writers. I was under the naive assumption that that was always the way things are done around here.--Herschelkrustofsky 15:36, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Not really, respect for others doesn't seem to be part of the wiki-experience ;) Sam [Spade] 15:39, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

ad hominem

I'm sick of these constant ad hominem attacks. The old version of the page is impossible to work with in large part because it's the product of so many cooks - it's an incoherent mess, and since Adam has been kind enough to start the whole process over again by writing a new article, I think we should take the opportunity to have a cleaner article. As I've repeatedly said, I'd be happy for Herschel to go over the article and help us come to a consensus that everybody can agree to. What I strongly do not want is for us to not base our work from a version of the article with statements such as

  • To his admirers, who are more visible outside the U.S., he is the last remaining American statesman in the anti-colonial tradition of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and particularly in Russia (where LaRouche has often addressed the Duma and the Russian Academy of Sciences in the past decade), he is celebrated as one of the greatest scientific minds that the U.S. has produced.
  • This claim [that the US tried to frame LaRouche for the murder of Olof Palme] was corroborated on Swedish national radio in August of 1992, by a leading former East German Stasi officer, Dr. Herbert Brehmer.
You strongly do not want them, but that doesn't make them untrue. I can provide quotes, if you like, from leading members of the Russian Academy of Sciences (should I expect you to denounce that institution now?). And I cited the month, year and channel of the broadcast where Brehmer spoke -- you want the transcript in Swedish? On the other hand, you would be pleased as punch if someone were to post the article which Brehmer planted in the Danish press, which started the whole hoopla about LaRouche being a suspect in the Palme assassination (the story was a lead item on NBC news within 24 hours). I think that you should just fess up, John, that you are entirely indifferent to the truth here -- you are just maniacally committed, for reasons known only to yourself, to seeing a slander of LaRouche posted on Wikipedia. I find it ironic that you entitled this section "Ad Hominem," because Adam's article is just one prolonged ad hominem attack, lifted from a professional character assassin.--Herschelkrustofsky 20:36, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  • The long section on "Key policy interventions", which seems designed to purposefully mislead and suggest that LaRouche is a well-respected statesman.

And so on and so forth. I'd note that much of the article also consists of pre-Herschel constructions that are almost as inappropriately anti-LaRouche in their POV as Herschel's additions are pro-LaRouche. john k 15:43, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I am deeply unconvinced that articles written by a single editor are necessarilly superior in quality to those produced by many editors. You would seem to be philosophically opposed to the group editing process? Sam [Spade] 15:48, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

No, of course not. This article was particularly bad, because it's about someone controversial. So first someone anti-LaRouche writes a long tirade, then that is edited by someone pro-LaRouche, who takes out some stuff, and adds pro-LaRouche stuff, and leaves much of the older stuff in place. The result is total schizophrenia. Consider the following:

LaRouche maintains that the U.S. has abandoned its historic mission, and become increasingly like the British Empire against which it originally rebelled, because of an organized subversion, involving particularly Wall Street-based financial circles of what he has characterized as a "synarchist" political movement of the oligarchy. He also asserts that this faction has taken rather extraordinary measures to eliminate him and his political movement from the scene: a typical claim is that the government of East Germany-- with the complicity of U.S. government and private organizations! -- attempted to frame him for the murder of Swedish prime minister Olof Palme. This claim was corroborated on Swedish national radio in August of 1992, by a leading former East German Stasi officer, Dr. Herbert Brehmer.

Beyond the fact that the beginning part assumes the existence of "the oligarchy", not the bizarre shift in tone from the second to the third sentence. The first part is basically saying LaRouche is crazy -- to the extent of including an interjection ended by an exclamation point! The next sentence says that this claim, which was brutally mocked as recently as the sentence before, was corroborated - that is, that it is credible. And this kind of schizophrenia is to be found throughout the old article. So this is not based on any kind of opposition to the collective editing process as a whole. And I'm certainly not saying that articles should be written by a single person. I am saying that occasionally, articles on certain topics (particularly ones where people have strong opinions) get so garbled that it is better to recommence from the beginning than it is to try to work with the mess that is present. john k 16:16, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

ah, ok. Sam [Spade] 21:12, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

A proposed solution

I agree with John's assessment that the previous article is not homogeneous, and that that is a problem. However, the problem is not solved by substituting Adam's article, which ought to be offered on the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view page as a textbook case of what to avoid. For example, in his presentation of what is called "Operation Mop-up":

  • "NCLC members engaged in a series of well-documented beatings of members of these groups."

First of all, if the beatings are well-documented, why not cite some documentation? The mere assertion that documentation exists is just propaganda. When I edited this section in the previous article, I left the accusation intact, but noted that it is disputed by the NCLC, which, unlike Adam/Dennis King, offers some documentation for its assertion that the violent clashes were initiated by the CPUSA.

I think that this should be a rule of thumb: for an article about a person whom everyone admits is controversial, each point which is disputed should be acknowledged, and arguments on both sides should receive at least a cursory reference. I attempted to do this in editing the previous article, and -- perhaps because I was too accomodating -- the result was not homogeneous. Perhaps that could be cured by further Good faith editing, and then again, perhaps not.

My alternative proposal, is that I am willing to write yet another, entirely new article. I have no difficulty acknowledging the attacks on LaRouche. I can assure you, John and Adam, that I have read more wild accusations against LaRouche than the two of you put together. I have read things that you probably never heard of, like the little anonymous pamphlet that was circulated on campuses in the 1970s, called NCLC: Brownshirts of the 70s. I read the material in the Mexican press which called LaRouche a "wealthy Zionist businessman." LaRouche was even accused, more recently, of being anti-Irish. But the key quality that I have to offer -- beyond my confidence in my ability to understand LaRouche, which Adam seems to be saying he is unable to do -- is that I am willing to abide by the rule of thumb stated above: I am willing to note both sides of every point of controversy. Adam has made it sufficiently clear that he wouldn't do that if his life depended on it.--Herschelkrustofsky 21:02, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Herschel, sometimes it is not NPOV to acknowledge two sides in an argument equally. Sometimes one side is wrong, or their argument is completely ludicrous, or unsupported. While we should probably, as you say, take moe care to acknowledge controversy, it is not enough to just "report both sides" without any kind of context. As to specific issues, I'd note that some alleged document printed on LaRouche's site is, again, not particularly credible to somebody who isn't a LaRouchite. At any rate, the document certainly does not indicate that "the violent clashes were instigated by the CPUSA." The document was produced well after Operation Mop-Up had already commenced, even. I have found [8], which quotes various mainstream publications at the time blaming "Operation Mop-Up" on LaRouche and NCLC.

I am very suspicious of anything from Berlet-- he and King and their cohorts from the [link removed] meetings have a history of falsification. It looks a bit over the top to me -- all that, and no arrests made? But some of the publications listed are "mainstream," so I wouldn't object to including it. As to the document I referenced, it's a photostat of an FBI memo, produced after an FOIA suit. Are you claiming it's a forgery?--Herschelkrustofsky 00:26, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Do you dispute these LaRouche quotes from King's book?

On the conference's opening day the anti-NCLC coalition sent a sound truck through the black community and staged a picket line with signs comparing the NCLC to the Ku Klux Klan. This failed to stop the event, which was attended by several hundred white middle-class activists and a handful of welfare mothers. The harassment did, however, give LaRouche the pretext he needed. He called an emergency meeting of the East Coast NCLC. "From here on in," he declared, "the CP cannot hold a meeting on the East Coast.. We'll mop them up in two months." The NCLC, he promised, would seize "hegemony" on the left--i.e., replace the CP as the dominant organization.
Many NCLC members were shocked and frightened by LaRouche's announcement, but he anticipated their reluctance: "I know you better than you know yourselves, and for the most part you're full of crap, "he said. "This isn't a debating society anymore."
A front-page New Solidarity editorial, "Operation Mop Up: The Class Struggle Is for Keeps," echoed LaRouche's call. "We must dispose of this stinking corpse [the CP]," the editorial said, "to ensure that it cannot act as a host for maggots and other parasites preparing future scabby Nixonite attacks on the working class.. If we were to vacillate . we would be guilty of betraying the human race. Our job is to pulverize the Communist Party."

Most of this seems to be quotes from a newspaper, and a publicly delivered speech. It would be hard to fake this, I should think. john k 21:25, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

That is to say, no, I don't think Herschel should be allowed to create his own article. His POV is just too strong and dominating for me to be willing to trust that he could write a really balanced article. I would agree with him that Adam's article is not particularly balanced, but all of us are willing to work on making it more balanced. Allowing a LaRouchite to write the article on LaRouche is not the way to secure a good article on the subject. john k 21:31, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Anything from Dennis King, that appears without iron-clad documentation, I would assume to be fraudulent. Have any of you actually taken a look at who Dennis King is? And the Smith Richardson Foundation, which funded his book?--Herschelkrustofsky 00:26, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Similar to an anti-LaRouchite, I would assume? Sam [Spade] 21:37, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
No, in fact. Followers of LaRouche are a tiny sect. Every source of information about LaRouche besides those of LaRouche himself essentially shares a similar view of LaRouche. Now, it should probably noted that few non-LaRouchites seem to have investigated LaRouche without producing work that was deeply anti-LaRouche. But this is ultimately circular. So, the mainstream view, rather than the fringe view, should be the predominant one presented. john k 21:47, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
It's not circular, it's fraudulent. There's a big world out there, outside of the English-speaking press. The honest assessments of LaRouche are not to be found in the publications of Rupert Murdoch, Katherine Graham or Conrad Black.--Herschelkrustofsky 00:26, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Where are the honest assessments of LaRouche to be found, then? Forgive me if I do not find Ramsay Clark and the Russian Duma to be reputable sources. Can you find any non-LaRouchite, non-Russian Duma type sources that paint LaRouche differently from this article? I'd note that the publications of Rupert Murdoch, Katherine Graham, and Conrad Black hardly refer to LaRouche at all. john k 00:38, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I for one strongly prefer that ALL views be presented, not only the view seen to be mainstream. Sam [Spade] 21:49, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I agree. But these views need to be contextualized. You can't just present both views as though they're equal. If this were the requirement of NPOV, we'd have to have half the article about the Holocaust be about Holocaust denial. john k 00:38, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Herschell, why don't you write your new article here: Talk:Lyndon_LaRouche/draft so we can see what you have in mind? AndyL 00:04, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I'm open to doing so, but I fear that it would ultimately be a waste of time, because I am convinced that John and Adam are making an intractable demand that the article conform to their POV. I suggested Wikipedia:Requests for mediation right off the bat, because I saw this coming. They both rejected mediation. My hunch is that this is headed for arbitration, although more experienced Wikipedians (other than John or Adam) are welcome to advise me on how to proceed.--Herschelkrustofsky 00:26, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Andy, I have now posted a draft, admittedly a rough one, at the site you recommend. I'm certain that the tone is not venomous enough to suit John and Adam, but others, perhaps even John, may concede that it is logically organized, mainly in an historical, chronological way.--Herschelkrustofsky 22:41, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I'd be happy to see your version of the article, and I certainly don't demand that the article conform to my POV. I only demand that the article conform to NPOV by not presenting completely decontextualized LaRouchite propaganda as fact. Your "hunch" about arbitration, is, I fear, incorrect - nothing occurring here is beyond the normal give and take of an article content dispute. Arbitration is for serious violations of Wikipedia rules. john k 00:41, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Thats not necessarilly true, take a look at this. Sam [Spade] 01:14, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Archive

I see that my archive has been undone. Is this beneficial to anyone, or would someone mind re-archiving it for me? I suspect if I did it again it would be similarly reverted. Sam [Spade] 21:37, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Why should it be archived? It's discussion from yesterday, and the page isn't especially long. john k 21:42, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

ok, whatever. I happen not to like long talk pages, but I guess thats just me. Sam [Spade] 21:45, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Operation Mop-Up Documentation

-> Talk:Lyndon LaRouche/The Herschelkrustofsky List

Washington Post as source

If one checks this article and looks at the sidebar on the right there are a series of Washington Post articles we can use as source material. AndyL 03:07, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

LaRouche wasn't a harmless old weirdo in the early 70s when this took place, he was an experienced extremist leader in his 50s, having cut his teeth in 20 years of Trotskyist activism. My personal definition of LaRouchism is 50% Trotskyism, 25% fascism and 25% personal psychopathology. Adam 04:08, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I'd say more like 10% Trotskyism, 10% Luxemburgism, 20% New Dealism etc etc.

Anyway, before anyone dismisses the Washington Post as a source because it relies on Rees (in part) consider the fact that the series the Post published on LaRouche in the 1980s and reposted by them on the web had to pass muster with the Post's editorial desk and with the paper's fact checkers as well as with the paper's lawyers (given the incindiary nature of the charges and the wealth of the LaRouche organisation you can be damn sure lawyers vetted the articles and the material used to back it up to make sure it was libel-proof).

Consider also that the Post is not an obscure publication and that LaRouche would have been quite aware of the series and of its impact on the public at a time when his movement was making a serious bid for mainstream acceptance. If there was anything in the series which was factually unsound LaRouche would have sued (and LaRouche wasn't shy about launching lawsuits, as I recall he unsuccesfully sued NBC News at one point). He didn't sue the Post so I think we can safely say the material the Post published in their series is credible. AndyL 04:36, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

In the NBC libel case, which was a very interesting case, the court found that NBC was not responsible for assessing the truth or falsehood of the material they broadcast, that it were sufficient to rely upon sources that need not be disclosed. This set a precedent, certainly in the case of LaRouche, that pursuing a libel case for a political figure in the U.S. is an uphill fight. Ironically, I recall that Henry Kissinger subsequently filed a libel in Britain rather than in the U.S., because Britain was regarded as a more favorable environment to pursue such a case. Needless to say, LaRouche abandoned libel suits as a counter-tactic, and the press, including emphatically the Post, was not constrained by the threat of libel suits. --Herschelkrustofsky 13:48, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Adam's numbers sound approximately correct to me, although I might jigger up the personal psychopathology quotient a bit, and add some other stuff in, as Andy does. At any rate, the Washington Post series cited by Andy looks like a solid source (although Mr. Krustofsky has already denounced the late Mrs. Graham...) to use, especially for all the weird influence LaRouche seems to have had in the early 80s with the Reagan administration, which seems to be pretty well documented. (The craziest thing going on in this discussion, I think, is that HK seems to view the fact that relatively mainstream figures have met with LaRouche as somehow validating LaRouche, while nearly everybody else views this as a pretty sound discrediting of the relatively mainstream figure...) john k 04:42, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Again, John, you put words in my mouth. LaRouche's contact with mainstream figures doesn't "validate" him; it does, however, call into question the repeated assertion that his ideas have had no political impact, and it raises questions about the repeated assertion that he is universally despised in the world of politics. My main point is that these contacts should be reported in the article, so that the reader may draw his own conclusions.--Herschelkrustofsky 13:48, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Either way I think we need to have a mention of them in the article. His friendships w world leaders doesn't get nearly enough attention in the current article. Sam [Spade] 04:49, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Washington Post series on LaRouche

There was an editorial in the Post, in 1971, that I am trying to find to add to this discussion. As I recall, the gist of it was that there should be an agreement among all the American press, never to discuss LaRouche's ideas, because his ideas were dangerous. Discussion of LaRouche ought to be limited to attacks on him which avoid discussion of his ideas. The Post has stuck to this policy ever since. I'll let you know if I can dredge up a hard copy. --Herschelkrustofsky 05:09, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I had the year wrong. Here we go: On September 24, 1976, Stephen Rosenfeld wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post titled "NCLC: A Domestic Political Menace," in which he set out a media policy for dealing with LaRouche: "We of the press should be chary of offering them print or air time. There is no reason to be too delicate about it: Every day we decide whose voices to relay. A duplicitous violence prone group with fascistic proclivities should not be presented to the public unless there is reason to present it in those terms."--Herschelkrustofsky 20:02, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

A LaRouche website states

September 24, 1976, Stephen Rosenfeld writes an op-ed in the Washington Post titled "NCLC: A Domestic Political Menace," in which he sets out a media policy for dealing with LaRouche: "We of the press should be chary of offering them print or air time. There is no reason to be too delicate about it: Every day we decide whose voices to relay. A duplicitous violence prone group with fascistic proclivities should not be presented to the public unless there is reason to present it in those terms. . . . The government should be encouraged to take all legal steps to keep the NCLC from violating the political rights of other Americans."

This was written when LaRouche was running for President in 1976 and seems to be part of a debate on giving fringe parties any coverage, particularly wacky violent fringe parties Perhaps we can pull up the full article in order to get the context but in any case I don't see how this is relevent to articles written about LaRouche a decade later or how it changes the fact that the articles passed muster with Post fact checkers and lawyers and were not challenged by LaRouche in a libel suit. AndyL 06:17, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

If you make the argument that we must accept the word of any publication that has not been successfully sued for libel, then you must extend that courtesy to all of the LaRouche-affiliated publications as well. They have never been sued for libel, despite the fact that their meager financial resources, and LaRouche's pariah status, would make them especially vulnerable to such suits. --Herschelkrustofsky 14:59, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

If anyone has $3 you can buy the article from here Washington Post archives AndyL 06:34, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

*Loudoun Newcomer Lives On Heavily Guarded Estate by John Mintz 1985

AndyL 04:47, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Krusty's comments above show that he is (a) ignorant and (b) as prone to paranoid conspiracy theories as his mentor LaRouche. In 1971 LaRouche was an obscure semi-Trotskyist fringe ranter, no more dangerous than the dozens of other fringe ranters then active in the US, in fact a lot less dangerous than some. The idea that the Post would have even been aware of his existence in 1971, let alone organising a ban on him with all the other (Zionist?) press magnates, is laughable. That Krusty doesn't know this says a lot about his qualifications for taking the arrogant tone he has taken with me and John in relation to this article. Adam 06:42, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Herschell's position is that we can't use the Washington Post or NY Times as a reference (both are owned by the same company) or the Times of London (owned by Murdoch) or it seems any source other than those operated by Lyndon LaRouche. Perhaps Herschell would be better off writing an article on LaRouche for Wikinfo where he could express his POV to his heart's desire?AndyL 21:14, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

That is not my position. Use them to your heart's content, but recognize that they, too, have a POV -- The Post was gung-ho for the recent invasion of Iraq, which LaRouche vociferously opposed, and led the drive to shut down D.C. General Hospital, which LaRouche vociferously defended.--Herschelkrustofsky 22:30, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The Post and the Times are not owned by the same company. Otherwise, yeah, there is no source we can use, as far as I can gather. john k 22:01, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

My mistake. Anyway the problem is that there is no credible source that backs up Herschel's claims about LaRouche while there are a number of credible sources that are highly critical of LaRouche. AndyL 00:26, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Well, depends what you mean about claims. For instance, it does appear to be true that LaRouche met with, say, Indira Gandhi. I think most of the problems with Herschel's version are not so much errors so much as a consistent cherry-picking and misrepresentation of information to create a false impression. At any rate, we'll never get anywhere while the article is protected. Perhaps we should create Lyndon LaRouche/draft to work on Adam's version until we can remove protection? john k 00:47, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Note that as per Andy's suggestion, I have submitted a new article at Talk:Lyndon_LaRouche/draft, and everyone can now commence opining about that one. --Herschelkrustofsky 05:00, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I've moved your article over to Lyndon LaRouche/draft, so that we can discuss the draft on the talk page for it, rather than here, which is more awkward. john k 05:08, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

After reading this article, it seems that I only knew a small fraction of what the real LaRouche was all about. What I did already know matches what I found here in the article precisely. He's a kook, a facist, and a crook. However, Americans might be glad to know that we're at on par with the Russians. Its good to know that our home grown extremist right-wing crypto-fascists are at least as fun as theirs are. ;-) Can't let foreigners have all the fun scandalous figures. (This guy makes Nixon look like a Quaker.) RK 01:31, Jun 24, 2004 (UTC)

(This guy makes Nixon look like a Quaker.)

Oddly enough Nixon and Larouche were both Quakers (or at least raised as Quakers) ;) AndyL 05:11, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Archive 4

Krusty's new draft

Nota bene: I argued in favor of the previous article, on the grounds that it had fewer egregious POV problems than the livid rant that is presently found at the Lyndon LaRouche page. However, I agree with John's assessment that the previous article is a somewhat incoherent patchwork quilt, having been rewritten and edited so many times. I withdraw my support from that article, in favor of the new one that I have written at Lyndon LaRouche/draft, and invite comment on that article. --Herschelkrustofsky 15:20, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Krusty's new draft is indeed more coherent that the old version, mainly because it borrows some of the biographical material from my draft. But it reproduces most of the LaRouchie nonsense from the old article, and is therefore no more acceptable that it was. This draft again presents a "fantasy biography" of LaRouche, in which he is depicted as a statesman and respected commentator, who meets with world leaders and issues grave pronouncements to a waiting world. This is all garbage, as everyone but committed LaRouchies can see at once. It again makes absurd statements about conspiracies with no credibility or evidence, such as the line about "the Establishment and its media" deciding in 1973 to boycott LaRouche, then a complete unknown. The fact is that Krusty, as a LaRouchie, is incapable of writing an encyclopaedia article of any worth about LaRouche. He should give up and go away. Adam 11:31, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Adam complains that, in my article, LaRouche "...is depicted as a statesman and respected commentator, who meets with world leaders and issues grave pronouncements to a waiting world." This is not so; my article merely reports that LaRouche has met with various heads of state, and addressed the Russian Academy of Sciences and Duma. This is factual material, and I do not attempt to cast it in any particular light. In fact, I did not mention that LaRouche also met with Turkish Prime Minister Turgut Özal, Argentine President Raúl Alfonsín, Brazilian President João Figueiredo, Indian President KR Narayanan, and others that I can't recall off the top of my head -- these figures were not especially close to LaRouche, so I don't include them in the article.
The interesting question, to my mind, is why Adam does not believe these matters ought to be mentioned in the article. There is certainly no discussion of these, or in fact, of any of LaRouche's actual policies or activity in Adam's version of the article, beyond mentioning that LaRouche ran for President. Why is that? A cursory glance over some of the articles that Adam has written, suggests that he may be sympathetic to Free trade and globalism, tenets common to both Neoconservatism, and the so-called "Liberal Imperialism" of Tony Blair and Robert Cooper. If true, this would certainly place Adam squarely in disagreement with LaRouche's actual politics. I may be completely off base here, but I am seeking some explanation for why Adam so frantically attempts to cover up what LaRouche actually does and stands for, preferring to retail Dennis King's zany conspiracy theory. I would like to see a bit more candor from Adam. --Herschelkrustofsky 15:30, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

1. Let me tell Krusty, and others interested, a story. In 1987 I attended the International AIDS Conference in Washington, along with 15,000 other people. The opening session was addressed by then Vice President Bush, who gave us ten minutes of platitudes. At a reception later I shook hands with the US Health Secretary and exchanged about ten words with him. This enables me to write the following: "In 1987 Adam Carr attended a Washington conference with former CIA chief George Bush, and conducted talks with members of the Reagan Administration." This statement is strictly true, but of course grossly misleading. I am quite certain that all Krusty's assertions about LaRouche's "meetings with world leaders" fall into this category. Before I believe that LaRouche ever met any of these people, I want to see a conformation from an independent source that these meetings took place and a description of what took place at them.
2. There is no secret about my political views. I state at my User page that I am a member of the Australian Labor Party, and this should make clear that I am a moderate social democrat. I also say that I am a gay rights activist, which should indicate that I am in broad terms a social liberal. Do my political views influence my opinion of LaRouche? Of course they do. I think LaRouche is a crank and a fanatic and a homophobe. This view is shared by just about everyone who is not actually a LaRouchy. Does that mean that no-one who is not a LaRouchy can write a LaRouche article? Of course not.
3. I am a professional writer and a trained historian. I am perfectly capable of writing a fair biography of someone whose political views I dislike. I detest Communism, but I have written biographical articles here about Communists which have been accepted as fair and accurate. I agree that my article has deficiencies, mainly due to the narrowness of its source base. When the article is unprotected, I will improve it further, and I am sure others will do the same. The only person in this debate who is not able to make a useful contribution is Krusty, because he is a LaRouchy whose only interest here is promoting LaRouche. I am happy to argue with him because I enjoy arguing, but I will continue to oppose his efforts to propagandise this article. Adam 02:32, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Actually the political views that Adam has chosen to disclose are not very revealing. But -- On a hunch, I googled "Adam Carr" + "Michael Danby". Bullseye!
Danby is one of the most outspoken fascists on the Australian political scene. He is an ardent supporter of the Anti-Terrorism Act 2004, which legalizes--under Australian law--the institutions and procedures as specified in an Executive Order by President Bush, which set up the torture regimes at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. The act cites the relevant Executive Order by Bush by name, and also cites by name the lawless military detention system at Guantanamo Bay, to which that order gave rise. Danby officially spoke in Parliament for the (nominally) opposition Labor Party on behalf of this bill, which was put forward by the neo-con government of Liberal Party Prime Minister John Howard. Back in the days when he was still with the AIR, Danby's wife was employed at the U.S. consulate in Melbourne, and Danby himself organized receptions for visiting neo-cons, such as Michael Ledeen, the self-professed "universal fascist," who is also reportedly a prime suspect in the scheme to forge Niger government documents, purporting that Iraq was seeking uranium precursor to build nuclear bombs. This ws used as a propaganda ploy to justify the invasion of Iraq. So-- I think we may be getting a bit closer to the meat of the matter.
Incidentally, without exception, the meetings I described were face to face consultations between LaRouche and the cited heads of state -- not "chance meetings." And... I continue to marvel at Adam's clairvoyant powers, which enable him to divine that his "view is shared by just about everyone who is not actually a LaRouchy." Impressive. --Herschelkrustofsky 03:10, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Krusty continues to seek to turn this into a debate about my alleged political agenda, rather than the content of the article. This is a standard LaRouche ploy, which seeks to portray all critics as being agents of the World Bankers Conspiracy. I have already made it clear that I dislike LaRouche and opopose his politics. I ask again: is it Krusty's position that only LaRouchies are allowed to write about LaRouche? My position is that my political views (let alone my employer's political views) are not relevant to the merits or otherwise of my article. As for Michael Danby, I would just point out that his grandparents were murdered at Auschwitz by real fascists, so I suggest that Krusty be a little more careful in his use of language. Adam 03:24, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Incidentally, a Google search for "Michael Danby" + "Adam Carr" does not lead to any of the information that Krusty cites. I conclude from this that he is not only a LaRouchie, but apparently an Australian LaRouchy as well, and also one who has access to the CEC's files on Jewish community leaders. This I find more than a little sinister given the CEC's record of anti-Semitic incitement and violence. Only a few weeks ago a crowd of CEC people led by members of the Isherwood family tried to force their way into Danby's office. Was Krusty among them? Just curious. Adam 03:41, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Nope -- I live in California. And Adam's rhetorical flourishes are becoming downright funny. His position is that his political views (let alone his employer's political views) are not relevant to the merits or otherwise (sic) of his article -- yet he routinely calls me a "LaRouchy", and asserts that "The fact is that Krusty, as a LaRouchie, is incapable of writing an encyclopaedia article of any worth about LaRouche." The material on Michael Danby is available to any one with internet access. I think it's hilarious that Adam wrote that "there is no secret about my political views," and then threw up an irrelevant smokescreen, failing to admit that he is employed by Australia's leading fascist -- and make no mistake, Danby is a fascist; Whether his grandparents were at Auschwitz is irrelevant. Ariel Sharon could probably make the same claim. --Herschelkrustofsky 14:35, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Page protection

I will not debate any futher with a person capable of saying such absurd and disgusting things. I will continue to revert his edits. Adam 03:26, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Could we please have this article unprotected now? There are serious editors (namely me) who want to work on it, and we can deal with LaRouchite vandalism as and when it occurs. Adam 05:05, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I respectful request for the page to remain protected until we can come to some mutual understanding here in talk. The level of communication here is rather abysmal, and we'll require a good deal more wikipedia:civility / wikiquette if we are going to make any progress in editing the page, IMO. Statements like "I will not debate any futher with a person capable of saying such absurd and disgusting things. I will continue to revert his edits" tell me this page continues to need protection. Until and unless krusty is banned, he has a right to be here, and to be communicated with when and if you disagree with his edits. Sam [Spade] 05:16, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

There's no way that we'll ever work out anything on talk. I'd suggest that we at least have a trial unprotection, to see if any kind of editing can relieve HK's objections to Adam's version. Otherwise, it's just going to be locked in this version until he leaves, which isn't helpful to anyone. john k 05:26, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

This is far from being the only article in which editing is hampered by a small number of fanatics whose only interest is inserting propaganda (in this case, one person). The correct way to deal with such people is to revert their edits and keep doing so until they go away. This eventually worked with User:172 at Kim Jong-il, and with User:Hanpuk at Khmer Rouge. There is no prospect of "mutual understanding" with Krusty, because he is (in my humble opinion) a malicious vandal and a lying slanderous piece of filth with whom civilised discourse is not possible. Such people must be fought and defeated. We cannot allow them to hold articles hostage, which is what continued protection amounts to. Adam 06:02, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The page history of Kim Jong-il suggests otherwise. I invite other users to review the page history of that articles and the talk archives. 172 12:00, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)
What's this? A Stalinist-LaRouche alliance? Now I've seen everything. Adam 14:26, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I actually prefer Adam's version of the LaRouche article. I'm just here to make a correction; on Kim Jong-il I stopped Adam from turning the article into a case for starting a war with North Korea (see my comments here)-- a case that even George W. Bush would consider extreme. [9].
Adam evidentially feels confident enough to attack me on pages that I'm not monitoring. If he wants to pick a fight with me on an article that I've been writing, I'll take my response from George W. Bush (who's also a friend of Stalin according to his loony standards): Bring it on. 172 23:38, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)
All of which confirms my long-held view that the palaeo-Stalinoid far left and the neo-Nazi far right feed from the same dungheap and belong in the same psych ward. Adam 08:11, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Well, there are some ex-Stalinists that can be added to that psych ward. BTW, Unlike Adam, I am not nor have I ever been a Stalinist or a member of a communist party of any stripe. 172 08:22, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Ah yes, so I recall. Which made your desire to grovel at the platform-heeled feet of the Dear Leader all the more puzzling. I eventually concluded that you had been abducted to the Great Socialist Motherland in your youth and had something implanted in your brain. Adam 08:37, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Did you forget to take your medication today or something? Or was my chip was malfunctioning when I made repeated statements like this: "Adam and I differ on how we'd like to bring an end to [the North Korean] regime." [10] 172 08:48, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I unprotected the article per the requests here. Hopefully everyone can productively and cooperatively edit now, although I find Adam's most recent comments quite discouraging. Everyking 06:09, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I have done an initial edit on Adam's article, which I urge all third parties to carefully examine; I think that you will agree that my edit brings the article considerably closer, not further from, Wikipedia standards on NPOV. I also ask all third parties to carefully watch Adam's "Robust Tactics", which will doubtless ensue. --Herschelkrustofsky 15:08, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)


Which part of my comments does Everyking find discouraging? My character reference for Krusty? I refer him to Krusty's revolting remarks above about a Jewish MP who I happen to work for. Or my comments about how to deal with politically motivated vandalism? I suggest he read the edit histories for Kim Jong-il and Khmer Rouge and he will see that my robust tactics do in fact work. Adam 06:19, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Did Michael Danby advocate the Anti-Terrorism Law, or is Krusty misrepresenting his record? -- [11]
You don't think "slanderous piece of filth" was maybe a tad harsh? And I wouldn't call anything the user in question has done vandalism. Anyway, hopefully he won't revert anymore and will work towards improving the present article, although on the other hand completely rewriting articles from scratch is an aggressive tactic and you have to expect that sometimes people will get upset. Everyking 06:42, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)
In fact, what Adam refers to as his "robust tactics", comes perilously close to what I would consider vandalism. I also, with my keen sense of irony, cannot help but chuckle when I see Adam accusing anyone of slander.
I appreciate the fact the John has been flexible enough to make some comments on the material that I present in Lyndon LaRouche/draft. Adam has yet to explain why he feels that any discussion of LaRouche's ideas on politics and economics, or LaRouche's actual political activity, should be excluded from an article on LaRouche (although with my keen sense of irony, I do get a chuckle out of this as well.) --Herschelkrustofsky 14:01, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  • My assessment of Krusty's personal character was a considered judgement and I stand by it.
  • The deliberate insertion of propagandistic material which anyone as intelligent as Krusty obviously is knows must be unacceptable to other users, and is being inserted only to start an edit war and antagonise other ediors, seems to me to meet any reasonable definition of vandalism.
  • This article needed to be completely rewritten from scratch, because the previous version was garbage.

Adam 07:18, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

LaRouche and the Jews

-> Talk:Lyndon LaRouche/Jewish issues


Adam's "Robust Tactics"

For those of you just joining us, User:Adam_Carr took it upon himself on June 20, 2004, to delete the long-standing Wikipedia article on Lyndon LaRouche (which may be viewed here), and substitute a new one. I recognized the material in the new article as being entired drawn from one source, an obscure book by poison-pen-for-hire Dennis King entitled Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism. When I called him on it, Adam admitted that his article was drawn entirely from this source. King's book was sponsored by the neoconservative Smith-Richardson Foundation, and relies on the "straw man" technique of carefully avoiding any discussion of LaRouche's actual policies and ideas, while asserting that LaRouche uses a code language to secretly convey a message of anti-Semitism. I think it is entirely relevant to note that Adam's employer is Australian M.P. Michael Danby, who routinely outdoes his neoconservative counterparts in the U.S. with blood-curdling demands for war against the Muslim world, and is an ardent supporter for the methods of interrogation which lead to the torture in Iraq, Guantanamo, and other locations -- Danby aggressively advocated this policy as explicitly embodied in the Australian Anti-Terrorism Act 2004, which cites cites the relevant Executive Order by Bush by name, and also cites by name the lawless military detention system at Guantanamo Bay, to which that order gave rise. I believe that this is relevant, because it suggests that Adam, like Dennis King, is using the "straw man" technique because he is reluctant to discuss the true motives for his attack.

I should also mention that Michael Danby is a renowned slanderer of LaRouche. Adam's behavior at Wikipedia, with respect to LaRouche, closely resembles that of his employer at the Australian parliament. --Herschelkrustofsky 15:50, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Adam has announced his intention to respond to any efforts to edit his article, by embarking on revert wars. He apparently has a history of this (see Talk:Lyndon_LaRouche/archive4#Page_protection, and refers to this approach as his "robust tactics." Adam and his supporter, User:John_Kenney, refused mediation on this article on June 21. When the article was unprotected on June 30, Adam reverted my edit (which I invite 3rd parties to inspect, at the relevant history page), without comment.

I have written a third, alternative article on LaRouche, which is available at Lyndon LaRouche/draft. --Herschelkrustofsky 14:58, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Herschelkrustofsky,

No one is nominating Adam for Miss Congeniality here. I don't like him either, but in the interests of this article, the burden is on you to address the strong argument that Adam has laid out in this edit. 172 22:43, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Adam provides no quotes from LaRouche, only characterizations of LaRouche's opinion by Dennis King. Even if there were actual alleged quotes provided by King, I would be skeptical, because King's longstanding malice is a matter of record, going back to the High Times article. But since we are only debating the quality of King's assertions about what LaRouche was supposedly intending to say, with no quotes provided, I do not esteem Adam's argument as strongly as you, with all due respect. --Herschelkrustofsky 06:54, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)


Clearly the two articles should be merged. Obviously wikiquette, wikipedia:Civility, and wikipedia:No personal attacks should be observed by all parties. This would include the focus apon adams employer. I must also say bringing in the current events of Bush's widely unpopular foriegn policies is a bit of a Red herring (fallacy) itself, perhaps to even things out w adams/King's strawman? ;) Anyways, lets play nice. I see room within this article for both adams anti-semitic allegations and krusties "celebrity encounters" or meetings w world leaders or whatever. Both of these (and probably several other) contentious topics will need to be scrupulously qualified, cited and NPOV'ed. On the other hand, they are both necessary for a reader to recieve a well rounded presentation of the man who is Lyndon LaRouche. Sam [Spade] 15:17, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

That sounds like a workable idea, but based on what I've seen in the past 10 days, it will take some sort of neutral ombudsman, with enforcement powers, to make it succeed. I disagree that the controversy over the Iraq war and its repercussions is a "red herring"; I think that it is likely the case, that the Iraq war is more central to this battle over LaRouche than you may suspect. LaRouche opposed it long before it was unpopular. Perhaps all the other apparent bones of contention are in fact the red herrings.

Jeez, no kidding. Take a look at http://psephos.adam-carr.net/iraq/iraqtextindex.html.

I think that you will find that the fabled anti-Semitic quotes from LaRouche are much like the Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction: you are assured that there are unimpeachable intelligence sources that know where they are, but when the smoke clears, it appears that they have been misplaced.

One additional caveat: the section in Lyndon LaRouche/draft entitled "Basic theory and policies" should be included, or else the reader will be utterly baffled by what you call the celebrity meetings; LaRouche is certainly not getting these invitations on the strength of the great press he has been getting in the English-speaking world. --Herschelkrustofsky 18:44, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Sam's "Robust Tactics"

Thoughts? Sam [Spade] 19:20, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I of course have no objection to other editors making edits to this article or proposing new drafts. I don't own this article, any more than Krusty owned the previous one. All edits will be judged on merit by me and other editors.

Much more importantly, let everyone note that Krusty has failed to even attempt to answer the very specific questions I put to him about his allegations against me and Dennis King. Since he cannot substantiate these allegations, he should now have the decency to retract them. If he does not, he should be banned from further participation in editing this article. Adam 23:01, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Text changes

I separated the following from the intro paragraph (with minor rewording) but left it in the article as this is an accurate and NPOV description of how he is commonly perceived:

As a perennial candidate for President of the United States, he has never gained significant electoral support and is not accepted as a legitimate political figure. He is generally seen as an extremist or a cult leader, frequently accused of being a fascist and anti-Semite. His followers, however, regard him as an important economist and a major political figure. LaRouche's came to wider public attention in 1988 when he was sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment on charges involving illegally soliciting unsecured loans and tax code violations.

Thanks, BCorr|Брайен 23:15, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I thought criticism was traditionally left out of the intro on articles? Sam [Spade] 00:38, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

That is true of genuine public figures. The problem for this article is that LaRouche has never actually done anything. His entire career has consisted of denouncing other people and being denounced by them in turn. If this is left out of the opening paragraph, it creates a very misleading impression. Adam 00:45, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Adam speaks my mind. Also, the material in question was simply deleted before I restored it, and I did move it into a separate paragraph to try to address Sam's concerns. BCorr|Брайен 00:57, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

OK... so the guys a loser, so what? Why does that make criticism in the opening paragraph ok? Sam [Spade] 04:16, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Because there is nothing else to say about him. The only reason we are spending all this time on someone who has never held elective or appointive office, never run a company, never written a book other than political tracts, never built, created or done anything worthwhile in his life, who is nothing but a hate-monger, liar and thief, is because he is a figure of controversy. The whole LaRouche debate is about his attacks on other people, and other people's attacks on him. Personally I think he ought to be politely ignored, like a dogturd on the pavement, but since the article exists we have to engage with it. Adam 04:33, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Sam's "merger"

I acknowledge Sam's good intentions here, but just incorporating slabs of LaRouche fantasy biography from the previous article into this article is not acceptable. This material is full of outright falsehoods and many unsubstantiable claims. For example, LaRouche did not form his current economic and political views in the 1940s and 50s, as claimed, because he was then a Trotskyist. Another example: LaRouche joined the Army in 1944 and left in 1946. He therefore cannot have been in India for more than a year, as a 22-year-old Army medical corpsman. What possible involvement could he have had in the Indian independence movement? What eveidence is there for this? All this material is full of this kind of nonsense. I have no objection to including more material about LaRouche's political and economic views, both as he recounts them and as others describe them. But this garbage cannot stand as part of a serious article. Adam 23:41, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I expected it would be edited, and I didn't expect all the content (his or yours) to stand as is. This is a wiki, eh? Anyhow I prefer his timeline format, and intend to merge [12] into the rest ofthe article. Help if you can, or do what you need to do or sit back or whatever. Cheers, Sam [Spade] 01:23, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Note that in my one attempted edit of Adam's article, which was reverted without comment by Adam, I produced a merger of Adam's material on the LaRouche case, with mine. I think that it is particularly important that this case be discussed in some detail, because it is already one of the most controversial cases in U.S. history, based solely on the number of signers to amicus curae briefs for an appeal that was never heard, and the number of prominent signers to the ads in the NYT and Washington Post for LaRouche's exoneration. It might even be worth an article in itself. It would certainly be unconscionable to present it as a "routine" conspiracy trial, devoid of controversy, which I suspect is what Adam is hoping to do.
Note also that after my initial attempt at editing this article, I have made no further intervention, other than to restore the {{TotallyDisputed}} bug at the top. It is senseless for me to invest the effort as long as Adam is in his auto-revert mode. There are still many insanely original and completely undocumented comments attributed to LaRouche, like the bit about him being an FBI informer, to name only one example. I still suspect that this will end up in arbitration -- which I think were for the best. But I'm glad to see Sam and others making the effort to hash this out. --Herschelkrustofsky 06:36, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Krusty's talk archiving

I reverted an attempt by Krusty to archive a substantial portion of the comments in this talk page. I struck me as an attempt to sweep under the rug these comments addressing his own question of sources, which he ignored. 172 07:07, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

(QUESTION FROM ADAM CARR, ARCHIVED BY HERSCHELKRUSTOFSKY, REPRODUCED BELOW)

The question of sources

Let's be clear what we're talking about here. The quote from King's book is: "A few more NCLC members protested when LaRouche announced that only one and a half million Jews, not six million, were killed in the Holocaust. Contemptuously ignoring his followers' complaints, he issued a press release reaffirming the 1.5 million figure." (Lyndon LaRouche, page 43).

King's referencing for this is: "ONLY ONE A HALF MILLION KILLED IN HOLOVCAUST: LHL [Lyndon H LaRouche], "New Pamphlet to Document Cult Origins of Zionism"; "LaRouche Reaffirms '1.5 millions' Analysis," NSIPS [New Solidarity International Press Service] news release, Jan. 17, 1981." (Lyndon LaRouche, page 382)

So, King provides two specific citations for his statement about what LaRouche said. This was in a book published by a reputable publisher (Doubleday), 15 years ago.

Krusty, however, says the reference is "a complete fabrication" and later that "there is no "1981 statement that only 1.5 million died."" Krusty's contention therefore is not just that King is biased or unfair or unreliable, but that the documents King cites never existed, that King actually forged these citations.

Does Krusty seriously think that if King had forged the citations in such a hotly contested book this would not have become immediately known and widely publicised? It's not as if this is a difficult thing to check. There must be many archives of LaRouche literature in the US. Either the 1981 press release King cites exists, or it doesn't.

A Google search suggests that King has never been accused of forgery, not even at LaRouche websites. Can Krusty provide evidence of such an accusation being made? If not, can he explain why no-one appears to have mentioned this forgery in the 15 years that the book has been circulating and the LaRouche organisation has been working to discredit it? (The existence of an accusation, of course, would not prove the allefation, but it would be a start.)

It is incumbent on Krusty to make a clear statement on this if he wants anything he says in this debate to be taken seriously. The question to be answered is: Does Krusty allege that King forged the citations in his book? If so, what is his evidence for this proposition? Adam 10:07, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I archived it because the edit page said WARNING: This page is 40 kilobytes long. Please consider condensing the page and moving the detail to another article so it is not approaching or in excess of 32KB.. And, I also answered your question -- take a look.--Herschelkrustofsky 07:18, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I see that your reversion eliminated my answer to your question, ironically enough. I'll go back to the early version, find my answer, and re-post it. --Herschelkrustofsky 07:21, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)
And for your added convenience, I'll append my answer here as well:
"Adam provides no quotes from LaRouche, only characterizations of LaRouche's opinion by Dennis King. Even if there were actual alleged quotes provided by King, I would be skeptical, because King's longstanding malice is a matter of record, going back to the High Times article. But since we are only debating the quality of King's assertions about what LaRouche was supposedly intending to say, with no quotes provided, I do not esteem Adam's argument as strongly as you, with all due respect. --Herschelkrustofsky 06:54, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)"
So what? Whether or not "King's longstanding malice is a matter of record" is beyond the point. The issue now is the citations in his book. Do you or do you not have evidence that King forged the citations in his book? 172 08:20, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

He made his point, king is a pundit and should be regarded as such. He's by no means impartial. Thats obvious. Sam [Spade] 08:31, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Huh? He could be a baby eater too, but that wouldn't matter. Do you have evidence that King's sources (not King) are not credible or that King forged his sources? 172 08:36, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Of course they don't, or such evidence would have been aired long ago. Sam should be careful about associating himself in this debate with Krusty, who is clearly a deliberate, calculated liar and slanderer. For the record, I think King's book is a fairly sloppy, polemical and poorly-written hatchet job on LaRouche. It is nevertheless the only attempt at a LaRouche biography and will have to suffice until someone writes a better one. That is a different question to the allegation that he has forged his citations. My grounds for not believing this allegation is not that I think that King is a man of unimpeachable integrity, but that no such allegation seems to have been made in the 15 years since the book was published, and given the keeness of the LaRouche movement to discredit King, this seems conclusive. Adam 08:43, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I'm not aware of a better biography either. I was searching for one earlier today and put together all the public universities in Florida only seem to have King's Lyndon LaRouche and the new American fascism on the shelves. If Sam and Krusty don't like the current version of the article, they're going to have to investigate King's sources themselves. 172 08:53, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)
If the only biography you can find is King's -- and I hope the animus on King's part is not difficult to discern -- then you might usefully compare King's biography with this one prepared by the LaRouche organization. It may be biased in the other direction, but judge for yourself. --Herschelkrustofsky 14:19, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

?I don't like what? Can someone other than 172 put words in my mouth please? He gave me the wrong horrorscope twice already... Sam [Spade] 09:00, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Huh? What does this have to do with searching for alternative LaRouche biographies (which aren't coming up through my searches of every public university library system in the state of Florida), King's book, or King's sources (which you or Krusty have not yet called into question)? I was referring to these matters, not horoscopes. 172 09:04, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

'If Sam and Krusty don't like the current version of the article, they're going to have to investigate King's sources themselves.'

I never said I didn't like the article. Don't put words in my mouth, you're a lousy psychic. Sam [Spade] 09:08, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Okay. That's what you seemed to be doing, at least to me. Where were you going in your point regarding King? 172 09:11, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Basically that King is biased, by anyones view. Thats the best objection to his info which I can think of. Sam [Spade] 19:43, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Herschelkrustofsky, proven liar and slanderer

I presume the above is meant to be Krusty's response to my earlier questions, which were: Does Krusty allege that King forged the citations in his book? If so, what is his evidence for this proposition? And a pretty pathetic answer it is. I think everyone can now see that he has no answer to offer. In other words, he is, as charged (and like all LaRouche activists), a malicious liar and slanderer. These slimes are very free with wild accusations, made from the cover of anonymity. But they soon shrivel up when confronted. Adam 07:53, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Adam, take note of the fact that the tone of your posts has become increasingly shrill, which I don't think is helping your case. Your article contains a grand total of three direct quotes:

In 1979 he wrote: "My principal accomplishment is that of being, by a large margin of advantage, the leading economist of the twentieth century to date." I do not dispute this quote.

"Who is pushing the world toward war?" he asked in 1981. "It is the forces behind the World Wildlife Fund, the Club of Rome, and the heritage of H. G. Wells and the evil Bertrand Russell." I don't dispute this quote, although I think it were useful to provide some context, which you will not find in King's book.

"Jewish culture... is merely the residue left to the Jewish home after everything saleable has been marketed to the Goyim." I dispute this quote because of the gap after "Jewish Culture" -- it suggests a cut-and-paste job. The original article is available as a .pdf file at this site-- I would request that some energetic researcher with a high speed internet connection, perhaps 172, download it and assess whether Dennis King is pulling a fast one here.

The other material drawn from King's book consists of King's own assertions and innuendo, and I am confident in disputing all of it. Since this entire debate over the article has turned into sort of a courtroom trial of LaRouche's character (the actual LaRouche trial was described in 1989 by German specialist in international law, Professor Friedrich A. Freiherr von der Heydte, as comparable to the scandal of the case of France's Captain Alfred Dreyfus), I would suggest that the burden of proof for any assertions about LaRouche's "state of mind," or any secret intentions on his part, etc., is on you and King. --Herschelkrustofsky 13:30, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

All these rather childish diversions and dodges are not distracting anyone's attention from the issue under discussion. Krusty must answer the question put to him. Does he or does he not allege that Dennis King forged the two citations about LaRouche's comments on the Holocaust in 1978 and 1981? If so, what is his evidence? Unless he either substantiates this allegation, or retracts it, he stands exposed as a barefaced liar. I will keep posing these questions until we get an answer. Adam 13:46, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

(Incidentally Krusty is wrong to say there is no direct quote on this matter. "LaRouche Reaffirms '1.5 millions' Analysis" is a direct quote from a LaRouche organisation press release. Krusty must either prove this citation is a Dennis King forgery, or admit that it exists and is therefore evidence that LaRouche was at that time at least a partial Holocaust denier, which was the original matter under dispute.) Adam 13:52, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

"LaRouche Reaffirms '1.5 millions' Analysis" is the alleged title of a press release which I have never seen. You are asking us to accept King's characterization of whatever the "1.5 millions' Analysis" is supposed to mean. Quote something beyond a title, or drop the matter.--Herschelkrustofsky 14:11, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Re: the quote concerning "Jewish culture:" the elipsis marks the removal of the word "otherwise." The quote by King does not substantively change the original meaning and is not an example of King trying to fool anyone. By the way, the article from which the quote is taken includes many more distortions of Jewish history and slanders of Judaism. Slrubenstein

Since you evidently have downloaded the article, would you be so kind as to quote what immediately precedes that sentence, so that we have some idea of what "otherwise" refers to? --Herschelkrustofsky 11:26, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Well, here is the quote I find especially offensive, more than the one in question:

Judaism, which developed as a by-product of the emergence of early Christianity, and was molded in its further evolution as an appendage of Christianity, is also in its general form a truncated reflection of the Christian type of ideology in general. It has also been transformed through specifically feudal, semi-feudal mercantile-capitalist, and capitalist forms. It is not necessary to give special treatment to Judaism here, since it never existed except in myth, but as a by-product of Christianity, and could not exist except as a special predicate of a Christian or Muslim culture, principally Christian. There is no autonomous “Jewish culture,” but only a special variety of (especially) Christian culture.

This is false: Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity both developed out of Hellenic Judaism. To say that Judaism only existed in myth is false (yes, it did exist in myth, but also in history) and to say it is only a variety of Christian culture is both false and anti-Semitic. The quotation you are especially interested in is this:

Judaism is ideological abstraction of the secular life of Christianity's Jew, the Roman merchant-usurer who had not yet evolved to the state of Papal enlightenment, a half-Christian, who had not developed a Christian conscience, etc. Judaism is the religion of a caste of subjects of Christianity, entirely molded by ingenious rabbis to fit into the ideological and secular life of Christianity. In short, a self-subsisting Judaism never existed and never could exist. As for “Jewish culture” otherwise, it is merely the residue left to the Jewish home after everything saleable has been marketed to the Goyim.

The first sentence is simply false (though perhaps a product of a misreading of Marx's essays on the Jewish Question). Rabbinic Judaism formed largely in Babylonia, outside of the borders of the Roman empire and outside of contact with Christianity. It is true that for a long time thereafter many Rabbinic Jews lived as a minority within Christian societies, but to explain Judaism entirely as a response to Christianity is false and patronizing. I am not sure what a "self-subsisting" Jewish culture means -- no culture is "self-subsisting." Christianity, for example, developed as much in reaction and response to Rome and Rabbinic Judaism, as Medieval Judaism responded to Christianity -- and Islam and other forces as well. Slrubenstein

I appreciate your taking the time to download and examine the Feuerbach article. I think that it is likely that LaRouche would no longer agree with these sentiments, and I tend to agree with your comments. I don't, however, agree that these are anti-Semitic statements; they seem to reflect a Marxist antipathy to both religion generally, and to what a Marxist might characterize as "bourgeois" culture, since he refers to a "Christian type of ideology." I recall that during the period where LaRouche abandoned a Marxist view, he developed an interest in Philo of Alexandria, as a representative of the Hellenic current in Judaism who collaborated with Christians in opposition to Roman tyranny, although he seemed most interested in the current of Platonism that ran through both Philo's Judaism and, say, Paul's Christianity. I think that it would be fair to say that he has subsequently become very pro-religion, but anti-fundamentalism. --Herschelkrustofsky 20:29, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Partial List of false and undocumentable assertions in the present version

-> Talk:Lyndon LaRouche/The Herschelkrustofsky List

Krusty must answer the question: Does he or does he not allege that Dennis King forged the two citations about LaRouche's comments on the Holocaust in 1978 and 1981? If so, what is his evidence? Unless he either substantiates this allegation, or retracts it, he stands exposed as a barefaced liar. I will keep posing these questions until we get an answer. Adam 16:05, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

It's checkmate until Krusty attempts to answer this question. Until then, Krusty should be ignored and automatically reverted. 172 01:57, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Maybe he doesn't want to talk to a jerk like you, Carr...Lirath Q. Pynnor

hi lir :). Is this going to be the most verifiable, cited article in wikipedia history? That looks like the plan. Might be a good precedent, who knows... Sam [Spade] 20:27, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Lerner vs LaRouche

I've removed the following:

"During this debate, Lerner stated that "if Germany had accepted Schacht's policies, Hitler would not have been necessary." Afterward, Lerner's closest political associate, Professor Sidney Hook, avowed: Yes, LaRouche had defeated Lerner in the debate, but LaRouche would pay a price for that success."

First of all, I suspect that the Lerner quotation is taken out of context to make it look like Lerner's saying that Hitler coming to power was necessary or even desirable (and perhaps that he was put in power deliberately by unnamed actors). I think the quotation from Lerner itself should be verified before being used and preferably put back in context (ie good to know what was said immediately before and after). Secondly, do we actually have a source for Sidney Hook "avowing" that Larouche either won the debate or would 'pay a price for that success'? The claim that Hook said this sounds just a bit melodramatic - all that's missing is Hook laughing maniacally at the end of the sentence.

And anyway, even if Sidney Hook is an evil genius it's only in Bond films that evil geniuses give away their plans in advance. AndyL 02:17, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Yes, it does make it look like Hitler was put in power deliberately by unnamed sources. Why, you think Hitler was a "lone assassin"? Did you ever hear of the eugenics movement?

A great deal more will be removed when I get time to tackle this article again. And I agree with 172 (let history note), that Krusty should now be reverted on sight. A bit of stalinist rigour is just what this debate needs. Adam 02:33, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

A rare moment of candor from Adam.' --Herschelkrustofsky 20:59, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The article on the Schiller Institute needs to be looked at. AndyL 03:24, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

As does Eurasian Land-Bridge AndyL 03:38, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

All the LaRouche propaganda articles need to be either rewritten or deleted. Adam 03:48, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Unfortunately, we're not going to be able to get these articles deleted. The VFD process is almost always a waste of time; hardly any dumping ground for crap is able to muster the "consensus" on VFD required for deletion. It's a better idea to blank these articles and redirect them to the Lyndon LaRouche article, which can have sections dealing with all of LaRouche's pipe dreams. 172 04:10, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Seconded. - Hephaestos|§ 03:51, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

One of the problems with all these articles is the lack of any genuinely independent and/or scholarly sources. The reason for this is that, as I said above, LaRouche is not actually a particularly important person, and it's unlikely that serious scholars are going to take the necessary time and effort wading through all this vituperation to produce academically respectable history or biography. I agree there are problems with King's book, but since King is all there is, I think we are entitled to use those of his statements which have not been refuted by other writers (as opposed to LaRouchie fools like Krusty), and are properly referenced to primary sources. I disagree, incidentally, with King's central thesis that LaRouche is the spearhead of a "new American fascism." LaRouche is just a venomous old crackpot who has spent his whole life slandering other people. Adam 04:50, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Add Helga Zepp-LaRouche to the list of dubious articles. AndyL 07:59, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

BTW, check out THe Role of the LaRouche Movement in World History AndyL 08:06, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Eurasian land bridge

I'm quite dubious about this whole Eurasian land bridge thing and even more dubious at the claim that LaRouche is at all involved. Virtually all the sources online that mention this are LaRouche related sites. You'd think such a megaproject would be mentioned on say the People's Daily News in China or the Chinese government's website (given that the "eastern terminius" is in China) but I can find nothing.

I have found this report from the UN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMISSION FOR ASIA AND THE PACIFIC which suggests the project is very preliminary and, of course, makes no mention of LaRouche

In 2002 there was a Eurasian Railways Symposium but, remarkably when you look at the programme neither Lyndon nor Helga Zepp-Larouche are listed as participants let alone as speakers. Now it seems that Markku Heiskanen, one of the proponents of the land bridge and a Finnish government official has spoken at LaRouche sponsored conferences as a guest but he never makes any reference to LaRouche in any document I can find, not even in his speech to the Schiller Institute. Maybe others will be more lucky in their search. So here's my preliminary conclusion this "land bridge" is a concept that some government officials have been talking about. LaRouche has latched on to it and his publications write about it incessently while associating LaRouche and frau with the concept at every opportunity. LaRouche has invited a few government bureaucrats involved with the project to speak at the impressively named "Schiller Institute" and doubtless they've been paid handsome speaking fees etc. But that's it. When I was at university a group I was with once invited Maurice Strong to speak Strong is a senior UN name, he was secretary general of the Rio Earth Summit etc. But you know, the fact that my group had him speak at our conference didn't make us responsible for the Rio Earth Summit. AndyL 07:49, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Guess what? The "Eurasian Land-Bridge" is better known as the Asian Highway!AndyL 09:22, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Could someone in the US with access to a public library check the authenticity of this "September 24, 1976 op-ed by Stephen Rosenfeld in the Washington Post, entitled "NCLC: A Domestic Political Menace," in which he set out a media policy for dealing with LaRouche"? Adam 11:10, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The article is downloadable from the Washington Post website for $2.95. Go to the archive page and input the name of the article under headline in the right hand column AndyL 11:44, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

If you have seen the article and vouch for the correctness of the quote in the article I am happy to take your word for it. Adam 12:33, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I haven't seen it. Can't spare the $3 at the moment :) AndyL 13:52, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Oh - so you are not vouching for the authenticity of the quote? Adam 14:36, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I am not vouching for anything. I'm just telling you how you can get the article if you're unable to find someone to look it up in the library. If I had paid for and downloaded the article I would have pasted it here as a referenceAndyL 14:40, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

This article is not disputed?

I note that Adam has now taken to deleting the {{TotallyDisputed}} notice from this article. After all this vituperation, that would seem to be a bit far-fetched. --Herschelkrustofsky 11:52, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Herschell, look at the top of the article at the line that says This article is currently being edited. Edits made while this notice is visible will be overwritten.. I suspect you got overwritten in an edit, that's all. It's best to wait until Adam is finished and removes the warning. AndyL 12:03, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

No, it appears that Adam does intend to delete the {{TotallyDisputed}} bug. I have replaced it. Note, that after my first edit of Adam's article, reverted without comment by Adam, the only intervention I have made is to add the {{TotallyDisputed}}. --Herschelkrustofsky 12:34, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Kuznetzov

There is a non-Larouche publication reference to Kuznetzov in this article. AndyL 13:58, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Yes I saw that. O'Lincoln is an Australian Trotskyist and no more reliable than Krusty. Since he has named Kuznetsov in the context of a Trotskyist polemic about the Soviet Union I thought it better not to open that particular can of worms in an article which already has enough worms to be going on with. I am not disputing that Kuznetsov exists, just that he is or was a well known scientist, or even a scientist at all. Adam 14:31, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Well, I think O'Lincoln is a bit more reliable. Anyway, just glancing over the article the impression I got was that Kuznetzov was something of a shill for the Soviet establishment doing their bidding in hounding dissidents ie his attacked on Yury Afanasyev for "calumny". for suggesting that there was an alternative to the Stalinist method of industrialisation through force. IE it looks like Kuznetzov was a Stalinist apologist. A Soviet historian speaks out Not sure if its at all germane to LaRouche but it's interesting that economist he champions is an apologist for Stalin AndyL 14:37, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

None of that has anything to do with the article, which is why I didn't want to drag it in. Adam 14:44, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Declaring that all edits by a user who is not banned will be reverted is a quite unacceptable thing to do. Holding a political view, whatever it might be, does not in any way disqualify one from contributing usefully to an article. Everyking 16:20, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

But being a proven liar and a malevolent slanderer does disqualify one. Everyking should read back through the Talk history before he makes pronouncements on this issue. Krusty will have no standing in this editing process until he either subststiates or retracts his allegations of deliberate falsification against both Dennis King or me. Until he does one or the other I will revert all his edits (which are in any case worthless because he is a nothing but a LaRouche polemicist). Adam 16:48, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is required to resolve any issues they might have with Adam Carr before being allowed to contribute to an article. You can't just revert out of personal animosity. If his edits are highly POV and contain no actual information, then they can perhaps be rightly reverted on a case by case basis, but that's not the same as promising to revert all his edits because you don't like him. Everyking 17:22, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

As it happens his edits are always "highly POV and contain no actual information," so I can revert him for both reasons at once. Adam 17:29, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Partial List of false and downright bizarre assertions in the present version

-> Talk:Lyndon LaRouche/The Herschelkrustofsky List

This is a partial list. Note that User:John_Kenney has addressed many of these points earlier, but Adam seems to cherish them.

Significant Omissions from the current version

Two of the most revealing, and as well fascinating, aspects of the LaRouche story have been omitted by Adam from this new version. They are:

1. The story of the task force, comprised of an astonishing goulash of leftist counterculture freaks like Dennis King and Chip Berlet, combined with neoconservative billionare funders, intelligence community spooks, and assorted representatives of the "mainstream" press:

2. The details of the LaRouche trial, which Adam seems particular anxious to suppress:

  • The first conspiracy trial, in Boston, ended in a mistrial on May 4, 1988. Judge Robert Keeton had issued subpoenas for the personal files of LaRouche opponent Oliver North, which produced a May 1986 telex from Iran-Contra defendant General Richard Secord to North, discussing the gathering of information to be used against LaRouche. The judge then issued a subpoena for the files of Vice President George Bush, at which point the government shut down the trial. The jurors conducted a poll amongst themselves, and gave a press conference where they unanimously reported that they would have voted to acquit, having heard only the prosecution's case.
On October 14, 1988, LaRouche was re-indicted in a different venue: the so-called "Rocket Docket" in Alexandria, Virginia. The alleged conspiracy, was a conspiracy to obtain loans in the alleged amount of $294,000, with no intention to repay.
To prepare for the trial, the government first filed, on April 20, 1987, an unprecedented involuntary bankruptcy petition against two LaRouche-controlled publications companies on whose behalf the loans had been solicited. Federal trustees were placed in charge of the companies, and they immediately suspended repayment of loans to creditors (who were, for the most part, political supporters of the LaRouche movement). LaRouche and his associates were then indicted for a conspiracy to fail to repay those loans, and the judge in the trial, Albert V. Bryan ruled that the defense would not be permitted to discuss, or even allude to, the involuntary bankruptcy.
In December of 1988, LaRouche was convicted in the conspiracy trial.
On October 25, 1989, Judge Martin V.B. Bostetter ruled that the government's bankruptcy action was illegal. Bostetter said the government acted in "objective bad faith" and the bankruptcy was obtained by a "constructive fraud on the court." However, the appeal on the conspiracy and fraud charges, which were a case completely separate from the involuntary bankruptcy, went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court; at each stage of the appeals process, the courts declined to hear the appeal.
Prominent radical political figure and former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark has tried to clear LaRouche's name, arguing that investigators and political opponents had abused the legal process to eliminate him. Clark wrote in 1995, in a letter to then serving Attorney General Janet Reno: "I bring this matter to you directly, because I believe it involves a broader range of deliberate and systematic misconduct and abuse of power over a longer period of time in an effort to destroy a political movement and leader, than any other federal prosecution in my time or to my knowledge."[13]
In the early 1990s, while LaRouche was in prison, full page advertisements, calling for LaRouche to be exonerated, appeared in papers such as the New York Times and Washington Post. Among the signators were heads of state and cabinet-level officials from around the world, including:
  • RNDr. Jozef Miklosko, former Vice-Prime Minister of former Czechoslovakia
  • Prof. Dr. Hans R. Klecatsky, former Justice Minister, Austria
  • Gen. (ret.) Edgardo Mercado Jarrin, former Prime Minister and former Foreign Minister of Peru
  • Gen. (ret.) Joao Baptista de Oliveira Figueredo, former President of Brazil
  • Nedzib Sacirbey, M.D., Ambassador at Large, Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina
  • Arturo Frondizi, former President of Argentina
  • Manuel Solis Palma, former President of Panama
  • Dr. Abdelhamid Brahimi, former Prime Minister of Algeria (1984-1988)
Veteran leaders of the American Civil Rights Movement, including:
Also adding their names were many elected officials, including former Minnesota Senator and Presidential Candidate Eugene McCarthy; and prominent artists, such as violinist Norbert Brainin, former primarius of the Amadeus Quartet.

This is also a partial list of items that Adam has excluded. I prepared an alternate version of the article which is available at Lyndon LaRouche/draft --Herschelkrustofsky 07:05, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Answer the question!

Some of this is copied to Talk:Lyndon LaRouche/Jewish issues. Martin 21:28, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

No-one can or should believe anything Krusty says on any subject until he answers the questions put to him four or five times now. These are: Does he or does he not allege that Dennis King forged the two citations about LaRouche's comments on the Holocaust in 1978 and 1981? If so, what is his evidence? Unless he either substantiates this allegation, or retracts it, I am entitled to assume that everything Krusty says is untrue. Adam 07:22, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

An ability to answer simple questions suggests that they have something to hide, and thus may not be trustworthy. I agree with Adam Carr. RK 22:13, Jul 4, 2004 (UTC)
I think that might be a bit of a stretch. While IMHO, your article is a vast, vast improvement on the other one, Krusty still highlights some points that need addressing - outside of the Holocaust allegations (where of course, I wait for an answer with bated breath...) Nevertheless, I think these still need addressing, whether or not Krusty chooses to answer the question. Ambivalenthysteria 08:43, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I'm not sure exactly what sort of answer you are waiting for, Ambivalenthysteria. The Holocaust allegations are just that, allegations; Dennis King provides no quotes, and I'm certain that he would if he could. I can only respond to allegations by a counter-assertion that they are false, and that Dennis King's opinion is not credible. Adam considers it to be a legitimate tactic to assert that there are no "academic authorities" in the English-speaking world (I qualify that, because LaRouche is accorded full respect in other parts of the world, such as at the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Zayed Centre. Adam may rail against both institutions, but they are nonetheless institutions) that vouch for LaRouche, so I think that it is fair to add that the same is true for Dennis King. Outside of his sponsors (see above), no one recognizes King as anything other than a piece of sleazy wreckage from the drug culture. --Herschelkrustofsky 12:12, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

My view on this (as I say in the article) is that it is impossible to know the truth about much of this material, because we only have LaRouche propaganda to go on. Given the proved record for dishonesty of both LaRouche and his followers, none of this stuff can be included unless there is independent verification for it. Andy has set a good example by demolishing the LaRouche fantasy about the "Eurasian Land-Bridge." I suspect most of the rest of this stuff would similarly evaporate if subjected to proper scrutiny. Adam 09:11, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Too true, I'm afraid. Krusty does himself no favors by simply attacking King's credibility instead of answering the question about his citations. Ambivalenthysteria 16:52, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)
What citations? All King is doing is asserting that documents exist, and asking us to accept his characterizations of what they say. And I am certainly entitled to raise the issue of King's credibility. Adam has been hyperventilating for 2 weeks about LaRouche's. --Herschelkrustofsky 20:53, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Adam Carr is an incompetent historian. Lirath Q. Pynnor

Possibly, but I do know how to answer a simple question. Which (let me remind the viewers) was: Does Krusty allege that King forged the citations or doesn't he? Adam 22:03, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Lir's ad homenim attacks on Adam Carr do Lir no service, and only suggest that people are using LaRouchian tactics against him. Such attacks got Lir banned before, by the way. RK

On the other hand, Adam's ad hominem attacks on me are a regular feature of this debate:

There is no prospect of "mutual understanding" with Krusty, because he is (in my humble opinion) a malicious vandal and a lying slanderous piece of filth with whom civilised discourse is not possible.

--Talk:Lyndon_LaRouche/archive4#Page_protection

Sam should be careful about associating himself in this debate with Krusty, who is clearly a deliberate, calculated liar and slanderer.

--Talk:Lyndon_LaRouche/archive4#Krusty's_talk_archiving

Herschelkrustofsky, proven liar and slanderer

--heading on Talk:Lyndon LaRouche/archive4

As I recall, Wikipedia has an explicit policy against such attacks, whether coming from Lir, or Adam. --Herschelkrustofsky 01:11, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I am being lectured by a LaRouchie on the wickedness of making personal attacks on people. Now I really have seen everything. It was precisely because of Krusty's disgusting slanders of other people that I called him a malicious vandal and a lying slanderous piece of filth in the first place, an opinion I stand by. "On an occasion of this kind it becomes more than a moral duty to speak one's mind. It becomes a pleasure." (Gwendolyn, in The Importance of Being Earnest). Adam 03:18, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

As I recall, someone asked you whether you wished to dispute the fact that your employer and fellow LaRouche-hater Michael Danby, M.P., was an ardent supporter of the Anti-Terrorism Act 2004, which legalizes--under Australian law--the institutions and procedures as specified in an Executive Order by President Bush, which set up the torture regimes at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. You seemed to have declined the opportunity to clear his name. --Herschelkrustofsky 22:45, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)
And Michael Danby is a rabid neo-conservative, not a "Jewish leader". Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg is a Jewish leader. Adam is no "moderate social democrat", either -- take a look at his website. Neo-con all the way.

More about LaRouche's ideas

There was a time that much of what was on this page had been written by myself, prior to the first re-writes by Krusty. There are things which should be restored like LaRouche's ideas about the complex domain, and Gauss. Also, his declared Platonism as opposed to Strauss's Platonism is missing. Krusty will probably agree that these things should be in here. However, the reason I think they should be in there is because I trust the readers to read through all this and see LaRouche for what he is: an ineffective small time swindler ala the music man. Krusty would not agree. However, Krusty is obviously a LaRouchie - he even tries to write in a style identical to the Steinbergs - a couple analogous historically to Ayn Rand's loyal favorite couple in her own ineffective small time cult-racket. Are things I'm saying right now POV? Damn straight - this is the chat area. Here we can speak truth the way we see it. . . Most notable was Krusty's complete and total ignorance of the Socialist Worker's Party, LaRouche's role in it, LaRouche being a Marxist for many years, and this ignorance is something I see across the whole terrain of LaRouchie's I've met, particularly here in the Los Angeles area where they attempt to recruit the unwitting at LACC and other locations.. The problem is that the LaRouche group IS a cult using any meaningfull or helpful definition of the word. His supporters ARE brainwashed, really anything they say is going to have many problems as it is regurgitated crap from their Duce. Students who are in college ARE TOLD to drop out of college AT college BY LaRouche people AT college. They are TOLD that friends outside the group should be kept at arms length if not forgotten completely. This must be included in the article. It is crucial! Let the readers decide for themselves if LaRouche is a demogic cultist neo-platonic 'new-school' fascist - once they are provided with all the facts. The LaRouchies will admit this if you ask them, though they will have their obvious rationalizations of it - but a fact's a fact - they will admit it. In my opinion, you have let Krusty control way too much of this content. LaRouchies almost invariably had no real history of political activism or education prior to becoming a LaRouchie. This is how the Potemkin Village they live in is effected. LaRouchies will blatantly lie or omit information that is suitable to their needs in one context, in one conversation, and in the very next conversation days or moments later, contradict it all. I know they have been trained in conversational and debate methods - methods which have no place in an honest discourse - methods which are aimed at bending reality around the argument - if you can call it an argument at all. One look at a LaRouche pamphlet reveals an endless stream of disconnected, disjointed, factually inaccurate mumbo-jumbo which preys upon the socially inept or psychologically prone (to join a cult, often the young) people. His anal-fecal fixation and fixation on 'filth' 'decadence' 'satanism' and 'zionist-masonic orders' and other conspiratorial cabals should send the alert bells ringing to any politically seasoned citizen. The very structure of the grammar - intentionally meant to be headache-y, the repeated use of esoteric terms at different times in different contexts, is meant to effect a series of mental images in the mind of the reader which render them most confused but yet forced to gape in awe and wonder at the word-smithing. Feeling that they don't understand what it is they are reading, they are compelled to ask the person who gave them the pamphlet what this or that means. This person has just allowed themselves to be schooled and the LaRouchie has the upper hand. Only the LaRouchie can properly understand what LaRouche is saying, so nothing you say about him can make any sense or be accurate unless you are yourself a LaRouchie. To those looking for a strong-man or leader, to those who are unconciously believers of the fuhrer principle, (that great men make history, often reinforced in our own hierarchical societie's culture),LaRouche can be appealing. LaRouche's self-proclaimations that he and he alone is the sole inheritor, walking in the image of christ on earth, solely capable of bettering the situation of life on earth and saving us all from a satanic cabal of corruption and homosexual drug induced filth - ths appeals only to a certain personality type, the very repressed, and for them his rantings will seem believable. While the field is somewhat limited, when you find the people who fit the mold, you must aggressively pursue them until they join. Similar debates rage at the Adolf Hitler page. Should the Hitlerians be able to keep off wikipedia pertinent information about Adolf Hitler or the war effort since 'making people sound bad' seems to have the effect of seeming 'POV'. Capone 7-9-04

Chaim Dauerman! Why are you calling yourself "Capone"? And is your dad still head of "Jews for Jesus"?

Archive 5


The Unanswered Questions

-> Talk:Lyndon LaRouche/Jewish issues

Adam, I'd like to get your response to the recently posted Partial List of false and downright bizarre assertions in the present version, as well as the Significant Omissions from the current version. --Herschelkrustofsky 23:02, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Googling vs. Research

Adam and Andy continually attempt to rig the debate by insisting that any source they prefer, such as the thoroughly disreputable Dennis King, must be accepted as gospel, whereas any source associated with LaRouche is automatically excluded, in their world. They further insist that press coverage of LaRouche must be available on the internet, or else be barred from discussion. Then, press coverage that acknowledges LaRouche's influence, which in the English-speaking world usually consists of outbursts of rage from his opponents (see the Wall Street Journal article on LaRouche's expose of Leo Strauss, or the National Review's article on LaRouche's expose of the disinformation center in the Pentagon, called the Office of Special Plans) -- must also be discounted, in Adam and Andy's world. Foreign press coverage of LaRouche is often not on the web, or unseachable (unless you know how to spell LaRouche's name in Russian, Chinese or Arabic), and is therefore also ruled out. And ironically enough, Google's News Search regularly includes articles from the LaRouche-founded publication Executive Intelligence Review -- but the last place you would seek a truthful characterization of LaRouche's ideas, is from the horse's mouth. Adam and Andy show a marked preference for the opposite end of the horse. --Herschelkrustofsky 01:11, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Herschell, it's not unreasonable to ask for a second source to back something up. Unfortunately there are no second sources to back up any LaRouche claims. The Eurasian Land-Bridge, which you claim is different from the Asian Highway would presumably be one of the biggest megaprojects the world has seen. Why then do none of the governments involved mention it? Why does it not have a website? Why do the engineering firms involved with it make no reference to it? Why is there no mention of it say in the Economist or BBC News or any engineering journals? You claim it is known as the "New Silk Road" yet, according to BBC News, that is the nickname of the Asian Highway. You claim a case involving LaRouche is an important precedent with regards to the Voting Rights Act. If that's the case cite a law journal that discusses the importance. If these major world historical events and projects you associate with LaRouche truly involve him you should be able to find independent sources but you can't. Does that not tell you anything? But please, on the Eurasian Land Bridge. Give us one source not associated with LaRouche. Just one. AndyL

It is odd that you ask for confirmation from either the BBC news, which speaks for the British government, or the Economist, which speaks for the City (i.e., the London banking establishment.) If you read my article at Lyndon LaRouche/draft, you may recall this passage:
In May of 1996, LaRouche's wife Helga Zepp-LaRouche presented the Eurasian Land-Bridge proposal at a conference sponsored by the Government of the People's Republic of China, in a debate format with British member of the European Commission, Sir Leon Brittan, who opposed it. The proposal was subsequently adopted, and is presently under construction, by the PRC and neighboring nations.
Of course, you may ignore the link to Eurasian Land-Bridge, because you deleted the article. I also note that you are now asserting, in your re-write of the Asian Highway article, that the Asian Highway is also known as the Eurasian Land Bridge, which is untrue, and a rather obvious little propagandistic flourish on your part. My point, however, is this: why would you expect honest coverage, by the British establishment, of a project by which they are, shall we say, not amused? You should read the article at Geopolitics, which is a stub; I could expand it, but until we get some arbitration, you will automatically delete anything I write, outside of this talk page.
There is no "official website" for the Landbridge, because it is not administered by one private corporation (to the chagrin of the Brits), but rather as a cooperative effort by an assortment of soveriegn nations. Otherwise, there are plenty of articles from Xinhua and other press agencies that cite the role of LaRouche and his wife. However, you can't Google them, which is precisely the point of the post to which you are responding. --Herschelkrustofsky 14:51, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)
As an aside, the BBC does not "speak for" the British government. You might care to read up about the Hutton Report, just as an example. Martin 21:01, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Postscript: back in Talk:Lyndon LaRouche/archive3, Andy was insisting that any report from the Washington Post or kindred publication must be regarded as credible, since they have not been successfully sued for libel. If you make this argument, then you must extend that courtesy to all of the LaRouche-affiliated publications as well. They have never been sued for libel, despite the fact that their meager financial resources, and LaRouche's pariah status, would make them especially vulnerable to such suits. --Herschelkrustofsky 15:04, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)
The onus is on you to cite these "many" articles, I'm afraid. Oh, and why can't we view them, as we could any other article on Xinhua's website? Ambivalenthysteria 14:57, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • Sept 19, 2003 -- A lengthy article on Lyndon LaRouche by Ding Yifan was published in the influential Beijing-based Guangming Daily and the Xinhua News Agency.
  • April 3, 2003 -- Richard Dallyn interviewed Lyndon LaRouche on, ironically enough, BBC's Five Live show on Wednesday, April 2nd. It was aired on the international news show which played from 1 am to 5 am.
  • Jan 3, 2003 -- Dubai, UAE: Al-Bayan published an article by Lyndon LaRouche entitled "The Year To Come" together with an article by Hussein Askary on History as Tragedy in its New Year's political supplement. The online version of Askary's article is accompanied with a photo of a starving African family; the hard copy has the map of the Eurasian Land-Bridge.
  • Aug 15, 2002 -- Skopje, Macedonia: A new political magazine, called Manifest has been launched which carries an interview with Lyndon LaRouche as its cover story. Many of the articles cover LaRouche's strategic and economic analysis, as well as his program for a New Bretton Woods monetary system and the Eurasian Landbridge.
  • June 5, 2002 -- Ankara, Turkey: YARIN, the top political magazine in Turkey, interviewed Lyndon LaRouche in its June issue. The issue is so popular that it was sold out and rushed to a second printing. It was also picked up by the Turkish dailies, and posted on their websites.
  • May 7, 2002 -- Seoul, South Korea: Lyndon LaRouche interviewed by Chang Dae-Hwan in the Maeil Business News. The interview covered his program for the New Silk Road and Korea's role in this as the "Asian Hub" for Pacific transport and trade.
  • Apr 5, 2002 -- MKTV, the main Macedonian TV station ran a one hour interview with Lyndon LaRouche. The theme of the interview was 'A mass movement is gathering around LaRouche to rebuild the world.' The interview is scheduled to be rebroadcast on Apr 8th on MKTV and a second TV station, Citel TV.
  • Dec 28, 2001 -- The India Post, which circulates internationally, covered the LaRouche's recent trip to India. The article was short and very accurate, among other things covering the fact that LaRouche was in India to participate in a seminar: "Growing Global Crisis: The World Needs A New Monetary System."
  • Dec 28, 2001 -- Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: The New Straits Times carried a prominent interview with Dr. Kassim Ahmad covering his long history in influencing Malaysian politics and culture. Dr. Ahmad referenced Lyndon LaRouche as one of the writers who has influenced his life and as an example of someone whom he would not judge without first carefully reading his biography and writings.
These are just a few highlights. --Herschelkrustofsky 15:39, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)
And you've read these articles yourself, have you? Or have you only seen references to them in LaRouche publications?20:19, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Is that you, Andy? Boy, you're insatiable. You ask for "one, just one" citation, I give you nine, and now you want to know whether I've read them all. The answer is yes, I have, when there are English language transcripts available. I have not seen the TV interviews. A complete list, with English transcripts, is available here. --Herschelkrustofsky 22:56, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I have already stated my view on this. It is impossible to accept any statement by LaRouche or from any LaRouche source as true unless it is independently verified, given the proved record for dishonesty of both LaRouche and his followers (including Krusty). I agree that King has his deficiencies as a source, but I have yet to see any charge of dishonesty against him proved. Adam 03:35, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

For those of you just joining us

On June 20, 2004, User:Adam_Carr took it upon himself to delete the long-standing Wikipedia article on Lyndon LaRouche (which may be viewed here), and substitute a new one. I recognized the material in the new article as being entired drawn from one source, an obscure book by poison-pen-for-hire Dennis King entitled Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism. When I called him on it, Adam admitted that his article was drawn entirely from this source. King's book was sponsored by the neoconservative Smith-Richardson Foundation, and relies on the "straw man" technique of carefully avoiding any discussion of LaRouche's actual policies and ideas, while asserting that LaRouche uses a code language to secretly convey a message of anti-Semitism.

Adam has announced his intention to respond to any efforts to edit his article, by embarking on revert wars. He apparently has a history of this (see Talk:Lyndon_LaRouche/archive4#Page_protection, and refers to this approach as his "robust tactics." The article was protected by Wikipedia administrators on June 21. When the article was unprotected on June 30, Adam reverted my edit (which I invite 3rd parties to inspect, at the relevant history page), without comment. I have written a third, alternative article on LaRouche, which is available at Lyndon LaRouche/draft. --Herschelkrustofsky 15:49, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Meanwhile, in the non-LaRouchie universe, this is what happened:

  • The first version of the article was pure LaRouche propaganda, full of blatant lies and total inventions (such as the Eurasian Land-Bridge, see above), so I rewrote it.
  • I used as my principal source King's book, which is the only LaRouche biography in existence. While it is not an academic biography, and has the deficiencies of a book written to prove a case (that LaRouche is a fascist), it is nevertheless adequate, and gives standard citations for most (though not all) of its attributions. I am not aware that the factual accuracy of King's citations have been challenged by any non-LaRouche writer. If King's book cannot be used to write a LaRouche biographical article, then so such article can be written, because there is no other account from a non-LaRouche source.
  • I also used various online sources (with due caution) and the Washington Post account of LaRouche's trial and conviction.
  • Who funded King to write the book is completely irrelevant. Most academic books are funded by someone.
  • Krusty did not "call me" on using King, and I did not "admit" it (these are standard LaRouche polemical distortions).
  • King does indeed "assert that LaRouche uses a code language to secretly convey a message of anti-Semitism," and I think he is correct, at least when talking about the 1970s, but my article gives due credit to what appears to be LaRouche's recent shift of position on matters Jewish.
  • I did not "announce my intention to respond to any efforts to edit my article by embarking on revert wars." I said I would revert attempts by Krusty to re-insert LaRouche propaganda in the article, as I have done and will continue to do. This was why I reverted Krusty's edit after the page was unprotected.
  • Readers of this controversy need to understand that Krusty is obviously a LaRouche activist of some seniority: he says himself he remembers things LaRouche said in 1978. Given the nature of the LaRouche cult, everything Krusty says and does here must be seen as LaRouche propaganda. It can no more be taken as true than what a neo-Nazi would say at Adolf Hitler or what User:Hanpuk says at Khmer Rouge. Krusty is not interested in writing an encyclopaedia article, he is interested in protecting the LaRouche cult's view of itself and particularly the fantasy biography that LaRouche has spent 30 years creating around himself.
  • It is of course true that I and others editing here are hostile to LaRouche. But there is no equivalence between that hostility to LaRouche and Krusty's support for LaRouche. I and others are trying to write an encyclopaedia article, as objectively as is humanly possible and using the available, admittedly inadequate, sources. Krusty is merely acting as a mouthpiece for the LaRouche cult.
  • Krusty complains that "Adam and Andy continually attempt to rig the debate by insisting that any source they prefer, such as the thoroughly disreputable Dennis King, must be accepted as gospel, whereas any source associated with LaRouche is automatically excluded, in their world." In a sense this is true, for reasons I have already stated. Material from LaRouche sources is always propaganda, and often untrue. Since truth cannot be separated from myth in LaRouche propaganda, it must all be excluded unless it can be verified from independent sources. The anti-LaRouche material is of varying quality, and must be assessed critically in the way any historian is trained to do, but if it is properly referenced it can be used unless shown from an independent (ie, non-LaRouche) source to be false. This may seem unfair on Krusty, but it is the price he pays for choosing to become an acolyte of a proved liar, slanderer and fabulist like LaRouche. Adam 01:05, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The "land-bridge"

I'm sure I could go to a lot of countries issue a few media releases and convince a few gullible reporters to interview me because I say I'm important but if the megaproject I'm talking about is real there should be some sort of documentation to prove its existence somewhere. AndyL 14:51, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

":* April 3, 2003 -- Richard Dallyn interviewed Lyndon LaRouche on, ironically enough, BBC's Five Live show on Wednesday, April 2nd. It was aired on the international news show which played from 1 am to 5 am."

Herschell, even the LaRouche account of this interview posted here makes NO MENTION WHATSOEVER of this land-bridge yet you post it here as "evidence" of an independent source for the land bridge. This does not bode well for the rest of your "evidence" or for your credibility. Why did you post it here? Were you just trying to bamboozle us into thinking there was more (or even anything) in the mainstream media about this land bridge than there actually was. I'm very disappointed in you Herschell, it seems you've tried to trick us here. AndyL 14:56, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

OK, let's see all of these articles come from this site and accompanying pages.


  • Sept 19, 2003 -- A lengthy article on Lyndon LaRouche by Ding Yifan was published in the influential Beijing-based Guangming Daily and the Xinhua News Agency.

The link to this article is incorrect so I can't check LaRouche's version of it.

  • April 3, 2003 -- Richard Dallyn interviewed Lyndon LaRouche on, ironically enough, BBC's Five Live show on Wednesday, April 2nd. It was aired on the international news show which played from 1 am to 5 am.

no mention of the land bridge (see earlier post above)

  • Jan 3, 2003 -- Dubai, UAE: Al-Bayan published an article by Lyndon LaRouche entitled "The Year To Come" together with an article by Hussein Askary on History as Tragedy in its New Year's political supplement. The online version of Askary's article is accompanied with a photo of a starving African family; the hard copy has the map of the Eurasian Land-Bridge.

Summary of article (full article not provided) states "The rest of the article describes the solution to this situation through the ideas of LaRouche and his dual war-avoidance strategy of the New Bretton Woods system and the Eurasian Land-Bridge." Again, the only evidence of the land bridge is LaRouche's say-so. No independent verfication.

  • Aug 15, 2002 -- Skopje, Macedonia: A new political magazine, called Manifest has been launched which carries an interview with Lyndon LaRouche as its cover story. Many of the articles cover LaRouche's strategic and economic analysis, as well as his program for a New Bretton Woods monetary system and the Eurasian Landbridge.

fleeting mention as follows as part of a question asked to LaRouche "if the "LaRouche recipe" -- the New Bretton Woods and the Land Bridge projects -- were to become US policy and were endorsed by a coalition of countries in the world, how fast and how directly could this change the [Macedonian] situation for the positive. Can you explain how this mechanism would work?" LaRouche's reply doesn't mention the land bridge. I don't see why the mention of a land bridge proposal in an interviewer's question can be seen as evidence of anything.

  • June 5, 2002 -- Ankara, Turkey: YARIN, the top political magazine in Turkey, interviewed Lyndon LaRouche in its June issue. The issue is so popular that it was sold out and rushed to a second printing. It was also picked up by the Turkish dailies, and posted on their websites.

No mention of the land bridge

  • May 7, 2002 -- Seoul, South Korea: Lyndon LaRouche interviewed by Chang Dae-Hwan in the Maeil Business News. The interview covered his program for the New Silk Road and Korea's role in this as the "Asian Hub" for Pacific transport and trade.

No link provided

  • Apr 5, 2002 -- MKTV, the main Macedonian TV station ran a one hour interview with Lyndon LaRouche. The theme of the interview was 'A mass movement is gathering around LaRouche to rebuild the world.' The interview is scheduled to be rebroadcast on Apr 8th on MKTV and a second TV station, Citel TV.

No link provided

  • Dec 28, 2001 -- The India Post, which circulates internationally, covered the LaRouche's recent trip to India. The article was short and very accurate, among other things covering the fact that LaRouche was in India to participate in a seminar: "Growing Global Crisis: The World Needs A New Monetary System."

link is to transcript of speech rather than article - only "evidence" of Land Bridge is LaRouche referring to it

  • Dec 28, 2001 -- Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: The New Straits Times carried a prominent interview with Dr. Kassim Ahmad covering his long history in influencing Malaysian politics and culture. Dr. Ahmad referenced Lyndon LaRouche as one of the writers who has influenced his life and as an example of someone whom he would not judge without first carefully reading his biography and writings.

No link provided

Great Herschell, it looked kind of impressive at first but further investigation shows you've provided us with bupkiss, nada, nothing.

Most of your sources make no mention of the landbridge, the ones who do do so provide no evidence other than LaRouche's say so. Again, can you give us some independent articles from say one of the governments involved or an engineering journal or something which talks about the land bridge as an actual thing and not a mere claim by LaRouche? Are there no engineering surveys of the project? No detailed studies? No references by government departments? AndyL 15:11, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Conspicuously missing . . .

Under the heading 'economic views, towards the end, it is interesting that corporatist economic connection was made regarding Franco and Salazar, but not Hitler and Mussolini. Why?!?! Mussolini pioneered this. And don't get me started about the Italian fascist MSI and LaRouche's MSI!

More about LaRouche's ideas There was a time that much of what was on this page had been written by myself and one other, prior to the first add ins by Krusty that Andy later threw out. Overall, the article that exists is pretty good. His declared Platonism as opposed to Strauss's Platonism is missing though. Krusty will probably agree that these things should be in here. However, the reason I think they should be in there is because I trust the readers to read through all this and see LaRouche for what he is: an ineffective small time swindler ala the music man. Krusty would not agree. However, Krusty is obviously a LaRouchie - he even tries to write in a style identical to the Steinbergs - a couple analogous historically to Ayn Rand's loyal favorite couple in her own ineffective small time cult-racket. Are things I'm saying right now POV? Damn straight - this is the chat area. Here we can speak truth the way we see it. . . Most notable was Krusty's complete and total ignorance of the Socialist Worker's Party, LaRouche's role in it, LaRouche being a Marxist for many years, and this ignorance is something I see across the whole terrain of LaRouchie's I've met, particularly here in the Los Angeles area where they attempt to recruit the unwitting at LACC and other locations.. The problem is that the LaRouche group IS a cult using any meaningfull or helpful definition of the word. His supporters ARE brainwashed, really anything they say is going to have many problems as it is regurgitated crap from their Duce. Students who are in college ARE TOLD to drop out of college AT college BY LaRouche people AT college. They are TOLD that friends outside the group should be kept at arms length if not forgotten completely. This must be included in the article. It is crucial! Let the readers decide for themselves if LaRouche is a demogic cultist neo-platonic 'new-school' fascist - once they are provided with all the facts. The LaRouchies will admit this if you ask them, though they will have their obvious rationalizations of it - but a fact's a fact - they will admit it. In my opinion, you have let Krusty control way too much of this content. LaRouchies almost invariably had no real history of political activism or education prior to becoming a LaRouchie. This is how the Potemkin Village they live in is effected. LaRouchies will blatantly lie or omit information that is suitable to their needs in one context, in one conversation, and in the very next conversation days or moments later, contradict it all. I know they have been trained in conversational and debate methods - methods which have no place in an honest discourse - methods which are aimed at bending reality around the argument - if you can call it an argument at all. One look at a LaRouche pamphlet reveals an endless stream of disconnected, disjointed, factually inaccurate mumbo-jumbo which preys upon the socially inept or psychologically prone (to join a cult, often the young) people. His anal-fecal fixation and fixation on 'filth' 'decadence' 'satanism' and 'zionist-masonic orders' and other conspiratorial cabals should send the alert bells ringing to any politically seasoned citizen. The very structure of the grammar - intentionally meant to be headache-y, the repeated use of esoteric terms at different times in different contexts, is meant to effect a series of mental images in the mind of the reader which render them most confused but yet forced to gape in awe and wonder at the word-smithing. Feeling that they don't understand what it is they are reading, they are compelled to ask the person who gave them the pamphlet what this or that means. This person has just allowed themselves to be schooled and the LaRouchie has the upper hand. Only the LaRouchie can properly understand what LaRouche is saying, so nothing you say about him can make any sense or be accurate unless you are yourself a LaRouchie. To those looking for a strong-man or leader, to those who are unconciously believers of the fuhrer principle, (that great men make history, often reinforced in our own hierarchical societie's culture),LaRouche can be appealing. LaRouche's self-proclaimations that he and he alone is the sole inheritor, walking in the image of christ on earth, solely capable of bettering the situation of life on earth and saving us all from a satanic cabal of corruption and homosexual drug induced filth - ths appeals only to a certain personality type, the very repressed, and for them his rantings will seem believable. While the field is somewhat limited, when you find the people who fit the mold, you must aggressively pursue them until they join. Similar debates rage at the Adolf Hitler page. Should the Hitlerians be able to keep off wikipedia pertinent information about Adolf Hitler or the war effort since 'making people sound bad' seems to have the effect of seeming 'POV'. Capone 7-9-04

Chaim, you did link the article to your goofy shit in the PCC paper. And how's your Dad?

Updated list of wild fabrications and propagandistic slurs in the present version

-> Talk:Lyndon LaRouche/The Herschelkrustofsky List

Each one of these inventions or propagandistic insinuations constitutes a violation of Wikipedia policy; (see Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not). --Herschelkrustofsky 21:01, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

It's not just the propaganda -- even the parts that attempt to be non-propagandistic are sloppy and amateurish, as if the writer(s) had done no research whatsoever. This ought to be re-written from scratch. -- Peter_Abelard@ausi.com

I see that Krusty the Clown is still vandalizing the article. Should I protect the page? 172 03:47, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I don't think the situation here currently warrants protection. Krusty's edits can be dealt with as they occur. Adam 04:06, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Okay. When necessary, I can be called on to protect the page whenever I'm online, as I haven't been an editor of the article. 172 04:12, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Regardless of the outcome of arbitration proceedings, how about dealing with some of the disputed points in Krusty's latest list (the NPOV ones, anyway)? Ambivalenthysteria 04:25, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)


Propaganda

My copy of Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary defines propaganda as "the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person." The deliberations on the Talk:Lyndon LaRouche pages, in conjunction with Adam's admission on the Arbitration Evidence Page ("It is of course true that I and others editing here are hostile to LaRouche."), leave little doubt that what we have here is a lynch mob of sorts, editing at cross-purposes with Wikipedia policy as stated. --Herschelkrustofsky 15:04, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

corparatism?

Actually, as described in the article, LaRouche's economic policies don't strike me as corporatist per se (ie there's no reference in the description of LaRouche's economic ideas to creating administrative economic bodies that are drawn from management and labour). Either the section should be developed to explain how LaRouche's policies are corporatist or the reference to corporatism should be dropped. AndyL 04:34, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

LaRouche is an outspoken opponent of corporatism. It continues to amaze me that you guys can pontificate about his ideas, while remaining entirely unfamiliar with them. --Herschelkrustofsky 05:03, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I agree that the term is not perfect, but it seemed to be the best fit for the combination of authoritarian leadership and state direction of the economy that LaRouche seems to be advocating. He does not as far as I know advocate state ownership, so he can't be called a socialist, and although some of his political ideas can be called fascist, "fascist" does not really describe an economic system. "Mercantilist" has some applicability, given the 18th century roots of the so-called American System stuff, but applies more to trade than to the management of the domestic economy. (All this presupposes that LaRouche does in fact hold coherent economic ideas, which I doubt. I think he just uses bits of economic jargon to dress up his conspiracy theories, which are what really drive him). Feel free to suggest alternative wordings. Adam 04:41, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The American System stuff seems to allude to Henry Clay (19th century). At any rate, Adam hit the nail on the head; a conversation based on an assumption that LaRouche is a serious economic thinker is a bit silly. "Mercantilism," "socialism," "New Deal liberalism," "corporatism," or any single economic school of thought don't fit perfectly. So just referring to his support for "state direction of the economy" is fine. 172 04:56, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I've found websites that describe LaRouchian economics as corporatist - I don't think economists would necessarily describe them as such though - so I've changed the passage accordingly. I don't think we should say economists would describe his policies as corporatist unless either a) we can find any economists who say this (doubtful as I suspect no serious economists have conducted a review of LaRouche) or b) if we find elements in his economic writings that more clearly approximate corporatism to the degree that we could reasonably claim an economist might see them as such.AndyL 10:42, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

If you are hell-bent on defaming someone, the internet is a powerful tool. For example, you can quickly download proof that [http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=14683 former U.S. President Bill Clinton is a rapist], that his presidential campaign was backed by space aliens, and that he may have had sex with space aliens. --Herschelkrustofsky 19:57, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

FWIW, I was taught that state direction of the economy was a command economy. Don't know whether this is accurate, or whether it applies to Lyndon. Martin 17:10, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Statism perhaps?AndyL 17:37, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

LaRouche at the DNC

You've got to listen to this conversation [14] between a LaRouchite and a Democratic delegate in Boston last week. It's from the LaRouche website but it's absolutely hilarious and is a pretty good example of how an ordinary person reacts when confronted with LaRouche propaganda. AndyL 19:58, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I also found this very enjoyable, but just to clarify, the young, witty black guy in the dreadlocks is the LaRouche activist, and the constipated white Baby Boomer is the guy that Andy characterizes as an "ordinary person." --Herschelkrustofsky 21:02, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I didn't find the LaRouchite witty at all. The white dude was giving him way more credit than he deserved, and it is funny because he really calls him on the fact that he has no policy--that he refuses to answer any questions about issues, has literature full of nonsense, and only responds by inviting him to the a study group. The fact that the LaRouchies actually posted this video shows how out of touch they are, and the fact that they were surreptitiously videotaping the conversation shows how weird and creepy they are. --Aug 1 21:08:35 UTC 2004

Archive 6

NPOVishness

I haven't read the archived talk pages, but it strikes me that the story of Jeremiah Duggan is a really notable omission. Duggan's death did quite a bit to expose LaRouche's organization to intense media and police scrutiny.

Yes: the police scrutiny found that the LaRouche organization had nothing to do with it. The media scrutiny followed the usual format (see [15]). --Weed Harper 15:42, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Also, reading through it, I believe that there are many cases of the text being just blatantly POV toward calling the LaRouche organization an anti-Semitic cult. Don't get me wrong: I find them to be a genuinely scary cult, and I have a friend who bears scars from Operation Mop-Up. But still, something like:

"During the 1970s LaRouche steered the NCLC away from the left and towards the extreme right, while retaining some of the slogans and attitudes of the left (as did the founder of fascism, the ex-Socialist Benito Mussolini, and many others since)."

is just blatantly POV. There is no reason to mention Mussolini here if our goal is to provide information on Lyndon LaRouche. LaRouche's writings should be treated on their own, zany, scary, level and not because they are similar to Mussolini's. DanKeshet 06:53, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)


Here's a great quote: "Who is pushing the world toward war is the forces behind the World Wildlife Fund, the Club of Rome, and the heritage of H.G. Wells and the evil Bertrand Russell."

"An Open Letter to President Brezhnev", Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., Executive Intelligence Review, June 2, 1981 AndyL 21:18, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Virtually all of LaRouche pamphlets consist of quotes like that. Here, from the magazine I just took the picture of: "The era of thermonuclear terror launched in the postwar period had been promoted for decades by H.G. Wells, and Bertrand Russell, as the pathway to world Fabian dictatorship." (unsigned caption) in Children of Satan III: The Sexual Congress for Cultural Fascism, June 2004. The central thesis of the magazine is that the Congress for Cultural Freedom is working to conquer Europe and America for fascism by weakening it culturally, and that they are responsible for such things as 1960s counterculture, which has pushed the US toward "an existentialist, irrationalist dark age society, which was precisely the agenda of the Congress for Cultural Freedom". DanKeshet 01:42, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

In response to some of the above points:

I agree that the reference to Mussolini is probably a bit tendentious, but it does serve to show that LaRouche's transition from extreme left to extreme right is not unprecedented.

Or it would, if LaRouche had ever made such a transition. --Herschelkrustofsky 00:18, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
See Talk:Lyndon_LaRouche/The_Herschelkrustofsky_List#Steered_to_the_right for more of this. Martin 18:25, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It is true that a lot of LaRouche rhetoric is just gibberish, and it is a mistake to try to analyse it as though it was capable of logical explanation. I have been doing more LaRouche reading as a prelude to another assault on this article, and after a while it is hard to avoid the conclusion that he is simply mad.

This article does not need protecting. What it needs is for the anonymous LaRouchist who has been vandalising it to be barred from editing it. There is no way this "dispute" can be "resolved," because LaRouchists are not amenable to rational discussion. I have more work I want to do on this article so I would like to see it unprotected as soon as possible. Adam 15:24, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

My attempt to bar the anon user was countermanded. I guess we need to ask the ArbCom to do something. AndyL 17:26, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

For those of you just joining us

This article has a long history, as you can see from the five volumes of Talk archives. It was edited and re-edited by various parties until June of 2004, when it was seized by a gang I'll call the Empire Faction, because the ringleaders are AndyL, a Canadian who writes a lot of admiring articles about British Commonwealth/Imperial functionaries, and Adam Carr, an Australian who writes a lot of similar articles, but more importantly is on the staff of Australia's most outspokenly fascist Member of Parliament, Michael Danby. Adam deleted the Lyndon LaRouche article altogether, and replaced it with a laughable smear job (the presently protected article is a slightly toned down version of same.) Any attempts to edit the smear job were met with revert wars, leading to protection of the article, at which point I asked for arbitration (see evidence). The arbitration accomplished nothing, finding very anticlimactically that the contending factions ought to be more polite to one another. Arbitrator Fred Bauder put it this way: "We don't try to arbitrate the content of articles, for example by doing a lot of research regarding Lyndon LaRouche and trying to figure out what's true and what's not, or even whether this source or that source said what about him." (see Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/Lyndon_LaRouche)

Meanwhile, the page was unprotected. I made two efforts to edit it, and gave up, because the Empire Faction would immediately resume the edit war, and I was hoping that arbitration would do something other than what it ultimately did. The page, with minor modifications, remained a huge manure pile of propaganda, reeking with POV. On August 5, an anonymous user writing from the Philippines (203.215.75.149) attempted to edit out some of the offal, at which point another edit war was launched, leading to another protection.

I have become somewhat fatalistic about the process; I have contributed a list of the most glaring lies, which I will reproduce below. I also refer the reader to Significant Ommissions from the Current Version. --Herschelkrustofsky 21:20, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Well Adam, we've been found out as British Imperialists. Perhaps we should tell Herschel about our secret membership in the Privy Council and our clandestine meeting at the Queen Mother's funeral. The Queen (or ma'am as I call her) has promised me a peerage if I fulfill my mission to root out any hint of LaRouchianism in Wikipedia. What has she promised you?AndyL 01:15, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I call her "Liz" or "Toots" so obviously I have seniority over you in the Imperial Cabal. More seriously, I am getting copies of some of the LaRouche documents we have been debating, from that well-known Zionist front the New York Public Library. This will enable me to verify (or otherwise) some of the citations from King. When I have them I will start work on the article again. Adam 08:41, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Updated list of wild fabrications and propagandistic slurs in the present version

-> Talk:Lyndon LaRouche/The Herschelkrustofsky List

Each one of these inventions or propagandistic insinuations constitutes a violation of Wikipedia policy; (see Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not). --Herschelkrustofsky 21:20, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'm reworking this, because each time you repost the same accusations, shorn of the fact that they've already been discussed, which has the effect of rewinding the discussion to the start again. This does not progress things. Martin 17:24, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
John Kenney acknowledged some points on the original list, but nothing changed on the article. As I have noted, I don't attempt to edit the article, because Adam 'n' Andy immediately go for revert war. Andy, to his credit, did remove three or so of the cited items, and I promptly re-worked the list. Andy's edits were the only significant changes before the recent protection. So, the list will change as the article changes. I'm not sure precisely what your objection is, but I don't mind you structuring the talk pages. --Herschelkrustofsky 00:30, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I've moved some of them to Talk:Lyndon LaRouche/Jewish issues to respect the 32KB limit. Just as a suggestion, try picking just one of your issues, the one you think is most important, and try to get that resolved. Then, go on to the next one. Your list will always be linked at the top, so the reader will easily be able to find out a complete list of your criticisms, but it's impractical to solve them all simultaneously. Martin 21:40, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
My "one" issue is that the entire article is a malicious, propagandistic misrepresentation of its topic, in violation of Wikipedia principles. The points on the list are just evidence to support that thesis. The arbitration committee has made it clear that they have no intention of arbitrating the truth or falsehood of articles, and Adam 'n' Andy seem to have an uncanny knack for getting their version of the article protected, so I am limited to raising my objections on the talk page. --Herschelkrustofsky 00:30, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I see, Martin, that you have put quite a bit of work into this, and I think that it was done fairly and honestly. There are a few problems; I reworded two subject headers that I think missed the point of what was being contested. Also, you use the original list, when some of the points of contention have been re-worded without making them less false or misleading; my more recent lists reflect the new formulations. But I know you want to keep the earlier discussion in context. You undertook a complicated task, and I think that you did a pretty good job. --Herschelkrustofsky 01:14, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Thank you: I try my best. I maintain my suggestion that you focus on one objection at a time. Martin 00:36, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Herschelkrustofsky is not trying to get his "issues" "resolved". He is just regurgitating LaRouche propganda over and over again because that is what he is programmed to do. Adam 23:59, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

A More Honest Assessment

I think that this assessment of LaRouche is far more honest than Dennis King's:

"U.S. economist Lyndon LaRouche ... was among the first personalities to propose a debt moratorium for the developing countries in the middle of the seventies, in polemics against the International Monetary Fund and other supranational institutions, promoters of a neocolonialist system based on usury. LaRouche, one of the most controversial personalities on the international scene, since 1994 has underlined that the present financial system is practically bankrupted and that it must be replaced by a system based on a radically new concept. His economic forecasts, particularly of the financial crashes of 1987 and of 1998, have proven to an ever-larger public his qualities as an economist. LaRouche sees American history as the primary battleground of a clash between those who intend to continue the anticolonial tradition, particularly by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, responsible for the creation of nation-states -- whose roots have to be found in European and Renaissance history -- and those forces behind the Pax Americana which de facto corresponds to the supranational oligarchical interests, historically centered in England."

--from La guerra del petrolio. Strategie, potere, nuovo ordine, by Italian oil expert and historian Benito Li Vigni, Rome, 2004.

--Weed Harper 15:59, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Who made this translation from the Italian? Do you have a source for the publication of this translation? Can you find an assesment of LaRouche's stengths as an economist written by an actual economist? Martin 20:40, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

What a waste of time

This whole effort--the article, the edits, the rewrites, the endless arguments and recriminations--are a colossal waste of time and one that will not benefit the users of Wikipedia at all. LaRouche doesn't deserve this much hand-wringing and source-checking and verifying and evidence. He certainly doesn't deserve a Wiki article that gives detailed treatment to his personal biography and ideas. LaRouche is not a politician; he is not a scientist; he is not a scholar; he is not a philosopher. He is nothing but a crank who repeatedly runs for president and who has apparently managed to fool a few foreign dignitaries, institutions, and newspapers who didn't know any better to give him the time of day. A Wiki article on LaRouche need include little more that this, and perhaps also that so far as American society is concerned, LaRouche signifies nothing except a guy whose followers accost them at train stations with incomprehensible political tracts. Period.

Ah yes, but there's also a detailed article for Alois Hitler, the father of Adolf Hitler. Marcus2 19:39, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I agree that this article now gives LaRouche far more prominence than he deserves, and that we are all spending far too much time on him. Unfortunately, because Wikipedia has no quality control mechanisms, it is necessary to respond over and over again to the same handful of LaRouchite propagandists who insist on contaminating Wikipedia with their lies and slanders. Personally I would much rather be writing articles about Buddhist temples. Adam 01:29, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

And I would much rather be writing laudatory articles on British imperial functionaries and European Communist revolutionaries. Oh, I lead such a conflicted inner life ;). AndyL 03:38, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps Herschelkrustofsky is Lyndon LaRouche himself. Krusty identifies himself as "an old guy, with some knowledge of history, politics and art" on his user page, and LaRouche is in his early-eighties and has some knowledge of history, politics and art. Given that this article is #7 on a google search for Lyndon LaRouche [16], perhaps the old guy wanted to write an article likely somewhat influential in shaping his public image. 172 07:31, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It had occurred to me that Herschelkrustofsky might actually be Lyndon LaRouche, although he did say at one point that he lived in California, but since I am barred from making personal attacks on Herschelkrustofsky, I would never dream of slandering him so grossly. Adam 07:50, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Herschelkrustofsky's slanders

I have placed the following request with User:Fred Bauder:

Lyndon LaRouche: Further to this matter, since I have been censured and penalised for personal attacks, I think it is now appropriate that I ask you to make an additional ruling that User:Herschelkrustofsky be required to refrain from calling named individuals "fascists," particularly those who are not Wikipedians and not present to defend themselves, unless there is evidence that they belong to a fascist organisation or have espoused views generally accepted as fascist. I refer to his repeated description of an Australian Member of Parliament, Michael Danby, as (to quote just the most recent example) "Australia's most outspokenly fascist Member of Parliament, Michael Danby." This is untrue and grossly offensive, and may also expose Wikipedia to action for defamation. I think fairness dictates that if I am to be censured for calling Herschelkrustofsky a slanderer, he should be required to cease being one. Adam 00:21, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Adam, your characterizations of LaRouche are untrue and grossly offensive, and yet you insist that you have every right in the world to put them in a Wikipedia article, and then get it protected. I have limited my comments about your boss to these talk pages, and I have provided ample evidence for my assertions. I must say, that you have more than your share of nerve to complain about it. --Herschelkrustofsky 00:36, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I have not described LaRouche as a fascist or an anti-Semite in the article, only reported that other people have described him as such, which is a fact. LaRouche and you both know that people who bang on about Zionist conspiracies are liable to be called fascists and anti-Semites, because that is the standard rhetoric of fascists and anti-Semites. For the record, I don't think he is a fascist. I do think he is an anti-Semite, or at least was one in the 1970s and 80s: as noted in the article, he seems to have moderated his views in recent years. Danby, on the other hand, is a mainstream social democrat, has never done or said anything which could be reasonably described as fascist, and has never to my knowledge been called a fascist by anyone except you. Your "evidence" for this charge is specious crap as I'm sure even you know perfectly well. This is a deliberate and baseless slander by you, and I think you should be required to desist from it. Adam 01:37, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

To base an entire Wikipedia article on defamation-for-hire produced by Dennis King, amounts to using King as a sock puppet.

  • This tired old whinge has been investigated and rejected by the Arbitration Committee whose judgement you yourself asked for. Adam 07:03, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

And because I am an obliging sort, I will provide further documentation that Danby is a fascist, but I will do it at Talk:Michael Danby, where it may be more appropriate. --Herschelkrustofsky 03:00, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I have created a new article, Australian anti-terrorism legislation, 2004, to provide some background for some of this discussion. Adam 07:03, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Read this quick, it'll probably get deleted: Lyndon LaRouche/parody

Oh, grow the fuck up already!

Archive 7

LaRouche, Holocaust Denial and anti-Semitism

I have now obtained a facsimile copy of Lyndon LaRouche's article "New Pamphlet to Document Cult Origins of Zionism," which appeared in the LaRouche publication New Solidarity on December 8, 1978. This enables me to do several things:

  • 1. To attest that the citation by Dennis King of this article on page 138 of his book is correct, and thus to absolve King of the charge of forgery or misrepresentation which Herschelkrustofsky has repeatedly laid against him.
The quotes are apparently legitimate, and I have revised my list accordingly. It is clearly the case, as stated in your verson of the article, that LaRouche has since repudiated this assessment. I don't think, however, that this absolves King of the charge of misrepresentation -- his entire book is imbued with misrepresentation. --Herschelkrustofsky 22:29, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
That's not what you said when this was first raised. You said that LaRouche had not changed his position because King's account of his 1978 position was all lies and fabrications. Most people would have the courtesy to acknowledge that these slanders were unfounded. Adam 02:15, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I am taking you at your word that the quotes are legitimate. King provided no quote, perhaps because the context weakened his argument. I still maintain that King's work is a fantastic misrepresentation of who LaRouche is, intended to prevent the reader from getting a complete and useful picture of LaRouche's role in the world of ideas and politics -- much like your article. When an article appears on the Wikipedia site that conforms to Wikipedia:NPOV, I will be satisfied, and if you play any role at all in that, I will acknowledge it. --Herschelkrustofsky 06:18, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
More irrelevant bluster. Why not just admit you were wrong? Adam 06:48, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • 2. To demonstrate that LaRouche did indeed assert that "only" 1.5 million Jews died at the hands of the Nazis, and even these incidentally rather than as a result of deliberate policy, something which Herschelkrustofsky has repeatedly denounced as a fabrication.
There was a deliberate policy of working people to death, while starving them. These deaths can hardly be described as "incidental," and it is incorrect to draw the inference that LaRouche regards them as such-- he says, in the quote you present, that those who died in this way were "murdered." The slave-labor policy has been glossed over by revisionist historians who wished to rehabilitate the economics of Albert Speer and Hjalmar Schacht. --Herschelkrustofsky 22:29, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Yes, there was a deliberate policy of working people to death, but it was always secondary to the policy of killing all the Jews in extermination camps, a fact which LaRouche denied in 1978 (see below). Adam 02:15, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Adam Carr, that is inaccurate. There were powerful elements in the SS such as Oswald Pohl who considered economic exploitation of Jews more important than extermination. This should be reflected in the article about Pohl. Source Heinz Hoehne's excellent, well referenced book "Die Geschichte der SS- Der Orden unter dem Totenkopf", also translated into English. Andries 09:59, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
It is completely accurate. Yes there were many people who argued that the policy of killing all the Jews when there was a shortage of skilled labour was irrational, but they did not prevail. All the Jewish labour force, no matter how valuable, was eventually killed.
I do not know who wrote this and whether this is relevant for the article but it is untrue. There were working camps in Auschwitz as well as extermination camps. Big firms had their procuction sites at Auschwitz. By the way, I want to express my sympathy and gratitude to people who work on this article. I know from experience how tedious and difficult it is when the subject is highly polarized. Andries 21:52, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The relevant passage is:

It is argued that the culmination of the persecution of the Jews in the Nazi holocaust proves that Zionism is so eessential to "Jewish survival" that any anti-Zionist is therefore not only an anti-Semite, but that any sort of criminal action is excusable against anti-Zionists in memory of the mythical "six million Jewish victims" of the Nazi "holocaust."
This is worse than sophistry. It is a lie. True, about a million and a half Jews did die as a result of the Nazi policy of labor-intensive "appropriate technology" for the employment of "inferior races," a small fraction of the tens of million of others - especially Slavs - who were murdered in the same way Jewish refugee Felix Rohaytin proposes today. Even on a relative scale, what the Nazis did to Jewish victims was mild compared with the virtual extermination of gypsies and the butchery of Communists.

(On these two matters both Dennis King and I are entitled to an apology from Herschelkrustofsky, but given my opinion of his personal character I don't expect one and I don't particularly care whether I get one.)

  • 3. To convict LaRouche beyond any possibility of argument of Holocaust denial. Not only does he place "holocaust" in inverted commas and refer to the "the mythical six million Jewish victims", his assertion that Jews died only as a result of forced labour (assuming that is what he means by "labor-intensive appropriate technology for the employment of inferior races") can only be read as a denial that the extermination camps existed, a denial of the fact that the Nazis directly and deliberately killed millions of Jews, both in these camps and by means of the einsatzgruppen. He also makes the false statement that the Nazis killed more Gypsies than Jews. (It is not clear whether he means absolutely or as a proportion of the total, but in either case it is untrue. The relevant Wikpedia article Porajmos estimates the Roma deathtoll at between 200,000 and 800,000.)
No comment from Herschelkrustofsky on this. I take therefore that he concedes the point of this paragraph, that LaRouche was a Holocaust-denier in 1978. Again, he should have the decency to admit that he was wrong to slander King and me for saying this. Adam 02:15, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Whether LaRouche can be convicted of anti-Semitism (hatred of Jews as Jews) on the basis of this article is a more complex question. The article does not contain any statements of hostility towards or condemnation of the Jews as a race or of the Jewish religion, or any assertions that the Jews as a people are guilty of any of the crimes that classical anti-Semitism ascribes to them. Since neither Dennis King nor LaRouche's other critics have to my knowledge been able to cite any such statements made by LaRouche it seems reasonable to assume that he has never made any, at least in print or in public. On the basis of this article, therefore, LaRouche should be acquitted of being an anti-Semite of the traditional or classical type.

Agreed-- but now you commence your logical contortionism:

But this does not clear LaRouche of the charge of anti-Semitism in a different sense. Anti-Semitism assumes different guises in different circumstances and at different times: thus the anti-Semitism of Hitler differed in form from that of Torquemada while being equal in intensity. LaRouche's variant is to take the classical anti-Semitic conspiracy theory and substitute the word "Zionist" for the word "Jew", and also to ascribe the classical anti-Semite's caricature of the evil, scheming Jew to particular, named, Jews and groups of Jews, rather than to the Jews as a whole.

LaRouche himself, in this article, acknowledges that he accepts the classical anti-Semite conspiracy theory, with the single caveat that he ascibes it to groups of Jews rather than to all Jews.

The Czarist Okhrana's "Protocols of Zion" include a hard kernel of truth which no mere Swiss court decision could legislate out of existence. The fallacy of the "Protocols of Zion" is that it attributes the alleged conspiracy to Jews generally, to Judaism. A corrected version of the Protocols would stipulate that the evil oaths cited were actually the practices of variously a Paris branch of B'nai B'rith and the evidence the Okhrana turned up in tracing the penetration of the Romanian branch of B'nai B'rith (Zion) into such Russian centres of relevance as Odessa..."

(B'nai B'rith is a Jewish service organisation. LaRouche's animus towards it is presumably connected to the fact that it is the parent organisation of the Anti-Defamation League, which has been assiduous in researching and documenting LaRouche's activities since the early 1970s. "The ADL," says LaRouche, "is literally the Gestapo of the British secret intelligence in the urban centers of the United States.")

LaRouche criticizes B'nai B'rith for the role they played during the American Civil War, as the only Jewish organization that sided with the Confederacy. As far as the ADL is concerned, they have no shortage of critics, especially since they were raided in the state of California back in 1993, for carrying out activities that were indeed "Gestapo"-like. The Wikipedia article, Anti-Defamation League, does touch on these matters.
None of which is remotely relevant. Adam 02:15, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

LaRouche's principal target in this article is "Zionism," to which he attributes almost every conceivable type of evil. In the real world, Zionism is a Jewish political movement supporting the creation and (since 1948) defence of a Jewish state in Palestine. In LaRouche's world it is an underground conspiracy, existing since the 16th century, created originally by the Hospitallier Knights and the Cecil family (or something like that: LaRouche's "history" is a farrago of nonsense and rather hard to follow), and having almost no connection with Israel/Palestine at all. "Modern Zionism was not created by Jews, but was a project developed chiefly by Oxford University," LaRouche says. This would be news to Theodor Herzl, who laboured under the delusion that he founded Zionism in 1896.

The Brits found Herzl useful. He labored under the delusion that it was the other way around.
Not worth commenting on. Adam 02:15, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Today, LaRouche says, Zionism is controlled by the financiers of London: "Zionism is the state of collective psychosis through which London manipulates most of the international Jewry", and "Zionist cultism is among the most important of the levers through which British criminality and miscalculation is plunging the world towards [war]." "The point is," LaRouche says "that the issue is not admissibly a racial matter. The point is that Zionism is precisely the evil, racist doctrine the UN General Assembly resolved it to be."

Despite this reference to the 1975 UN Resolution on Zionism, it is striking that there is not one reference to the Palestinians in this article. The Zionist "crimes" LaRouche is obsessed with have nothing to do with the real-world controversy surrounding Zionism and Israel. They are "crimes" which the classic anti-Semite attributes to Jews: conspiracy, manipulation, treason, subservience to international finance. LaRouche's reference to the manipulative activities of "top Zionist bankers" is a giveaway. Jewish bankers may well be Zionists, but it is in their capacity as Jews that they manipulate.

The above paragraph is a wild, propandistic fantasy which has no bearing whatsoever on Lyndon LaRouche or his ideas. LaRouche is on the record innumerable times as supporting justice for the Palestinians, which would best be achieved by the prompt implementation of the Oslo Accords. And I have no problem with your attacks on the "classic anti-Semite", as long as you don't dishonestly insinuate that LaRouche is one.
So why is there no reference to the Palestinians in the 1978 article? It is because LaRouche is only interested in his fantasy of Zionism-as-world-conspiracy rather than Zionism as it actually is. Adam 02:15, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

"The B'nai B'rith today resurrects the tradition of the Jews who demanded the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the Jews who pleaded with Nero to launch the "holocaust" against the Christians," LaRouche says. This is a classic statement of anti-Semitism, excusable only if LaRouche's assertion that "Jew" and "Zionist" (here in the guise of the B'nai B'rith) are separate, even antithetical, categories. Likewise, LaRouche can be acquitted of the charge of anti-Semtitism only if this premise is accepted. The final sentence of LaRouche's article is: "You cannot be a Zionist and also a Jew." Only if this is accepted can it be argued that LaRouche is not an anti-Semite.

But in the real world "Jew" and "Zionist" are not antithetical categories. They are, in practice, almost synonymous. Although there is a minority of anti-Zionist Jews, the great majority of Jews, and the overwhelming majority of American Jews, since 1948 have identified themselves as Zionists in the sense that they defend the existence of the state of Israel. In the real world the statement that "You cannot be a Zionist and also a Jew" is ridiculous. Thus when LaRouche accuses "Zionists" of treason and conspiracy, he in fact levels those accusations against most Jews, and is understood both by his followers and by Jews to do so, even when he declares that not to be his intention. When he defames Zionism as an ideology, organisations such as B'nai B'rith and the ADL, and individual Jews such as the Rothschilds or Henry Kissinger, he is attacking the great majority of Jews who support Zionism, those organisations and those individuals, particularly since he attributes to them the classic crimes of the sterotypical Jew of the anti-Semitic imagination.

This paragraph is just one fraud after another. Since when is a "Zionist" defined as one who defends the existence of the state of Israel? LaRouche defends the existence of the state of Israel. And if you think LaRouche is a harsh critic of Zionism, you should check out some of the Jewish critics of Zionism, who far surpass LaRouche in ferocity. See if your library contacts can find any of the books of Moshe Menuhin, father of violinist Yehudi Menuhin -- they'll make your hair stand on end. And most of your assertions here might be called "syllogism abuse": LaRouche opposes Henry Kissinger; Henry Kissinger is (supposedly) a Jew; therefore, LaRouche opposes Jews.
Defending the state of Israel has been the main role of the Zionist movement since 1948. What else would it do? Go and look at some Zionist websites. If LaRouche defends the existence of the state of Israel then he is a supporter of Zionism, so he better start being nicer about it. That there are Jewish critics of Zionism is of course true, but quite irrelevant to the points I am making. Adam 02:15, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
What else would it do? Well, for one thing, it redefines what it is to be a Jew. Where it was once a religious question, it became a racial or ethnic question. Any ideology which obscures the universal human identity of the individual, and focusses on some secondary, particularist feature, is bad for humanity. In this sense, Zionism (and to be as precise as possible, I should say the Revisionist variety) has something in common with anti-Semitism.--Herschelkrustofsky 02:21, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I am struggling to make sense of this. Zionism did not redefine Jewish identity from religious to secular - Jews did that for themselves as a consequence of emancipation and the enlightenment. Zionism was a product of that development, not its cause. And if you want to argue that defining Jewishness as an ethnicity rather than a religion is anti-Semitic, that seems to suggest that anyone who defines themselves as a Jew without practising the Jewish religion is an anti-Semite - good luck with that one. Adam 03:30, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

My conclusion, therefore, on the basis of this article, is that when LaRouche wrote it in 1978 he was an anti-Semite, albeit one who disguised his anti-Semitism behind a flimsy veil of "anti-Zionism." He was an anti-Semite in the sense that he had adopted the conspiracy theory of classical anti-Semitism and transferred it from "the Jews" to "the Zionists" - a category which in reality includes the great majority of Jews, a fact of which he must have been aware (unless he was completely delusional, which is a possibility but not a question I am competent to judge).

Adam 12:04, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

There is still alot of nonsense on this page and in the LaRouche article. But this is understandable given the abrupt "Machiavellian" turn in LaRouche's political strategy from 1978 through 1991. During that period, much of what LaRouche said can only be understood through a filter. Why? He was purposely being "tricky": he was trying to ingraciate himself with certain "right-wing" elements around US intelligence services and law enforcement that he thought he could use against the Nelson Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski "liberal imperialists" he saw behind the 1980's Project and Global 2000 Report policies dominating the Carter Administration. By my estimation, LLRs hopes turned out to be a fiction (largely)and he ended up cavorting with some pretty questionable characters (like Roy Frankhauser).

So what was he up to? In his mind, I think LLR thought he could trick right-wingers to believe that his distinctive critical take on the political forces pushing the post 1973 shift in economics and society as somehow coherent with certain John Birch-type conspiracy theories. He twisted his rhetoric to appeal to them and tried to "judo throw" them in the direction of perceiving common cause with Third World demands for a "New World Order." He also always saved for himself and his followers the right to claim that they weren't making a racial or religious argument against Jews-- hence his tortured distinctions between Zionism and Judaism. But I think he was taking his Promethean pretentions a bit too seriously in thinking he could bring enlightenment to this benighted constituency.

LaRouche should come clean on this period and acknowledge to his followers and outsiders that much of what was said during this period was a "strategic lie." Ironically, LaRouche has (rightly) attacked the Straussians for their commitment to the "strategic lie." However, it was LaRouche who talked about the Menixenus Principle -- from Plato's strangest dialogue in which Socrates gives a speech in defense of Athens in the Spartan (Nazi) blood and soil style. From my outside view (I have never been on the inside), this must have been hard for many Labor Committee veterans to take. It also meant that no one could defend him, when he was railroaded off to jail. What goes around comes around.

Now, however, there is reason for hope for this movement. I noticed that at the LaRouche Youth Movement site there is a complete set of early Campaigners, from 1968 ultra-Marxism to the tortured "Machiavelian" material from the late 1970's. The young cadre's are encouraged to read all of it. Good for them. Brave. and intellectually honest (finally). Again, I have no way of knowing, but there have had to be alot of interesting conversations in the cadre schools as to the subtleties I refer to here.

Herschelkrustofsky's surrender? Not likely

Herschelkrustofsky has put forward no real attempt to refute the conclusions I have drawn from the 1978 LaRouche article. He has not disputed that LaRouche was a Holocaust-denier in 1978, and nor can he since it is there in black and white in LaRouche's text. I would be entitled on the basis of that alone to conclude that LaRouche was an anti-Semite, since Holocaust denial is always motivated by anti-Semitism. His responses to my later commentary on LaRouche's anti-Semitism are feeble and irrelevant. He does not contest my central point that LaRouche uses "Zionist" as a synonym for "Jew" and that his fulminations against Zionism are therefore evidence of LaRouche's anti-Semitism.

As you point out, the final sentence of LaRouche's article is: "You cannot be a Zionist and also a Jew." Your central point, that LaRouche uses "Zionist" as a synonym for "Jew", falls under that category which I, rather politely, called "logical contortionism." --Herschelkrustofsky 06:53, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The important point here is that Herschelkrustofsky has spent weeks and weeks calling Dennis King, me, Andy and anyone else within reach liars for saying (among many other things) that LaRouche was a Holocaust-denier and an anti-Semite in the 70s and 80s. All it has taken is the obtaining of one source document to expose all Herschelkrustofsky's slanders as empty bluster. Since he has been a LaRouche activist for 30 years, he must have known the truth of this matter all along. He has been exposed not only as a slanderer but as a deliberate and systematic liar. Adam 02:15, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Adam, you write above that you "...have not described LaRouche as a fascist or an anti-Semite in the article, only reported that other people have described him as such, which is a fact." I, in turn, criticized you for allowing your POV to dominate the article, which meant the inclusion of lies and slanders, and there are still plenty left. If you go back and look again at my statement (originally at User_talk:Fred Bauder, now moved to here), you will note that I said "I have been a supporter of the LaRouche movement for going on 30 years," not an activist (although I became one.) I had never seen the quote that you produced. I am still unconvinced that LaRouche is or was an anti-Semite. --Herschelkrustofsky 06:53, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Herschel, given your past strong words denouncing Adam for saying LaRouche claimed only 1.5 million Holocaust victims you have some explaining to do. Certainly your response to Adam's evidence only states that LaRouche reversed himself a few years later, you fail to explain why LaRouche made the 1.5 million claim in the first place or why this shouldn't be seen as Holocaust denial or anti-Semitic. Also, given your washout on this point, one which you fought quiet resolutely over and on which you staked your credibility, why should we pay any attention whatsoever to your other claims of errata in the article?AndyL 03:09, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

You boys seem to think that this is a game. Meanwhile, the article still reeks of POV, and provides the reader with no explanation at all of why LaRouche is playing a role in the world that would necessitate a Wikipedia article -- your article is a smokescreen only (see Talk:Lyndon LaRouche/Significant Omissions from the current version.) You are so eager to prove a point, that your responsibilities as editors never seem to cross your minds. --Herschelkrustofsky 06:53, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Au contraire, I think the establishment of historical truth is a matter of considerable importance. That is why I went to the trouble of documenting what LaRouche said about the Holocaust, in the process proving that you are a bare-faced liar and slanderer, of Dennis King's reputation and mine. None of your feeble diversionary bluster can change that. I suggest that you cut the crap and answer Andy's very pertinent question. Adam 07:26, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)


You boys seem to think that this is a game. Meanwhile, the article still reeks of POV, and provides the reader with no explanation at all of why LaRouche is playing a role in the world that would necessitate a Wikipedia article

For the same reasons we have wikipedia articles on Sun Myung Moon and L. Ron Hubbard or (for a different reason still germane to LaRouche) John C. Turmel. AndyL 13:43, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

If it was that simple you wouldn't be so obsessive in trying to impose your point of view. Weed Harper 20:04, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Obsessive? A small percentage of my edits are LaRouche related whereas 80-100% of edits by yourself and Herschel have to do with LaRouche (or in the case of edits on Danby are inspired by LaRouche). The obsession is yours, not mine. AndyL 20:22, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I have now rewritten the "LaRouche and the Jews" section in the light of the document cited above. The article is now much longer than the intrinsic importance of LaRouche merits, but at least it now deals with this issue fully and fairly. If LaRouche is condemned it is out of his own mouth and not by second-hand reporting. I am still waiting on facsimiles of some other LaRouche documents which may enable me to rework some other sections of the article. Adam 10:29, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I think this re-written section represents a marginal improvement over the previous version. It is still full of Adam's POV speculation and innuendo (see Talk:Lyndon_LaRouche/Jewish_issues). --Herschelkrustofsky 14:43, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Other potential sources

Just recently started reading about this subject after I was approached by a member of the LaRouche Youth outside of a bookstore about a week ago, and thought I'd add my two cents:

LaRouche has written an autobiography called The Power of Reason, which seems like it would be a useful source. I don't have any particularly strong feelings about the guy one way or the other, so if the principals involved here have anything they'd want me to look for, I'd be happy to read it with these points in mind. For example, wasn't there some argument about whether LaRouche was an FBI informant? LaRouche discusses this in his book.

My library also has a copy of a pamphlet by Dennis King called "Nazis without swastikas: the Lyndon LaRouche cult and its war on American labor." Does anyone know about this? Is it a early version of his book? Is it worth looking into?

Finally, there is no shortage of writing on the LaRouche websites, which has brought up some really strange stuff, including implications that the Beatles are part of a British PsyOp project and that Bertrand Russell and H.G. Wells are Satanists. In the absence of compelling evidence, statements like these make LaRouche look like a bit of a nutter, frankly.

Ramsey Clark

Sorry Weed, but if you want to help LaRouche's case by pointing out that a former US Attorney General has come to his defence you have to also acknowledge the fact that Ramsey Clark is not any former US Attorney General and has a history of taking on controversial causes (to say the least). The list of people Clark has come to the defence of, not out of a legal obligation to provide a defence to a client but out of personal conviction, is factual and not POV. AndyL 17:13, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Don't you think it would be equally appropriate to provide some biographical detail on Dennis king, Christine Berle, and Fred Newman? They are all whack-jobs that you treat as respectable, because they are anti-LaRouche. --Peter_Abelard@ausi.com
I know nothing about Christine Berle's role in the LaRouche organization, but I saw a favorable write-up on her in the New York Times a few years ago. They were praising her for giving up her career as a classical musician (which is presumably what brought her into contact with LaRouche), and embarking on a new career as a belly dancer. I kid you not. --Herschelkrustofsky 21:45, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)
While it needs to be said, giving a lengthy list of people seems excessive, considering that this article is plenty long enough already. Just say he's taken on some other controversial political cases, and people can go to Clark's own article for the details. Lots of this article could do with some summarizing or moving details on some things to the article on the LaRouche organization. Everyking 17:23, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The list in the Ramsey Clark article is longer. AndyL 17:46, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Ramsey Clark has a history of taking all sorts of controversial cases, which is why I admire him: he believes that his opponents deserve the protection of the constitution as much as his friends. However, there is a certain sort of rank dishonesty in the list Andy presented -- he "cherry-picked" all the cases where Clark defended right-wingers, in order to get a sort of "guilt by association" to imply that LaRouche is a right-winger. Over on Talk:Lyndon LaRouche/The Herschelkrustofsky List, Andy was asked to corroborate the assertion that LaRouche became a right winger-- the best he could come up with, is that "he abandoned Marxism for one and moved towards some sort of amalgam of 19th century philosophers."
One more note on Clark-- although I'm not certain, I recall that the letter to Janet Reno was written on his own initiative, and not in his capacity as attorney to LaRouche. --Herschelkrustofsky 20:48, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)


Ramsey Clark has a history of taking all sorts of controversial cases, which is why I admire him: he believes that his opponents deserve the protection of the constitution as much as his friends. However, there is a certain sort of rank dishonesty in the list Andy presented -- he "cherry-picked" all the cases where Clark defended right-wingers, in order to get a sort of "guilt by association" to imply that LaRouche is a right-winger.

Actually no. I took the first part of the list in the Ramsey Clark article. What I left out was:

He also represented PLO leaders in a lawsuit brought by the family of Leon Klinghoffer, the wheelchair bound elderly tourist who was shot and tossed overboard from the hijacked Achille Lauro cruise ship by Palestinian terrorists in 1986. Prior to the start of the second Gulf War, Clark was retained by the state of Iraq, serving as legal counsel for the Hussein regime.

If Herschel wishes it I have no opposition to including the Klinghoffer incident or Saddam Hussein in the list of Ramsay Clark's past causes. As for cherry picking right wingers, is Herschel trying to argue that Slobodan Milosovic is a right winger now? AndyL 22:23, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Sorry Herschel but it's you and your colleague who are trying to cherry pick by giving LaRouche the positive benefit of having a former US Attorney General on his side without the downside of listing other unpopular (and questionable) causes he has supported. Obviously what you are trying to communicate is "look, LaRouche must have been railroaded because even a former US Attorney General says it was the case" without allowing people to know that "Ramsay Clark has spent much of the past twenty years speaking out indiscriminately against any attempt by the US to prosecute any figure, even war criminals. This suggests Clark is not too choosy in whom he supports and may even suggest that his judgement is faulty". You can't get one without the other. Sorry.

Wow -- it's a good thing you aren't trying to "denigrate" Ramsey Clark. Imagine if you were trying to "denigrate" Lyndon LaRouche. What would this article look like then. Weed Harper 12:51, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

You can be damn sure that if Ramsay Clark were a prominent opponent of LaRouche your publications would spare no effort in pointing out who Clark has linked himself to in the past. AndyL 22:38, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Of course, the LaRouche publications are not in the business of writing encyclopedia articles. But neither are you. Weed Harper 12:51, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I protected the page after the request on Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. 172 00:49, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Weed, perhaps you can just tell us whether you're willing to include both the positive and the negative information regarding Clark, after all if we're trying to be balanced and NPOV we can't just focus on one side. AndyL 16:23, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Include Father Berrigan and Leonard Peltier, along with the people that you want to include. Personally, I don't think the list of Ramsey Clark's clients is necessary, if this is really an encyclopedia article.--Weed Harper 16:55, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

If this is an encyclopedia article than it's not really necessary to mention Clark or LaRouche's other supporters either, is it? Anyway, I'm fine with listing Peltier and Branigan as well. AndyL 01:30, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The LaRouche Position on Sex

I think the quote about LLR's sexual attitudes beginning "The classical case is the sexually athletic Macho..." is far too long. This is a peripheral aspect of LLR's biography and a quote of this length is unencyclopaedic. I think someone should create an archive of LLR verbatim quotes as a back-up for this article, but they don't belong here. Adam 01:17, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'm fine with cutting back the quote. I used the full quotation because I thought if I put in too many ellipses Herschel et al would start making noises alleging that the quotation was being distorted etc. Any suggestions on what to cut and what to keep? AndyL 04:57, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

In one of his articles, "The Sexual Impotency of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party", LaRouche wrote:
The classical case is the sexually athletic Macho who regards himself as a successful performer in bed, the Macho who has much to say and think respecting his capacities for various modes of penetration and frequency and cubic centimeters of ejaculations. The ugly secret of the matter is that he is almost totally sexually impotent.
Firstly, his sexual relations are not relations at all, but are essentially sexual performances before an internalized audience. He is admittedly somewhat ambivalent about inviting a large audience to witness his performance with even a prostitute, which does not inhibit his homosexual impulse to recount his fantasy of the performance in the most painstaking detail (somewhat “improved” in the telling) before the first large audience he deems suitable for this purpose. His relationship to the woman is immediately a relationship of himself, as performer in a fantasy, to an audience for this fantasy.
Secondly, the woman with whom he is psychologically mating is seldom (if ever) the woman in bed with him; he is making love to a woman of pure fantasy. The actual woman's relationship to this fantasy is predominantly negative. She must, of course, suggest the woman of his fantasy to him, either by a resemblance to the fantasy-object or by the law of reaction-formation. Her essential duty to the performer is to play her part in such a way that she re-enforces and does not unmask the fantasy.
Hence, among the Macho's favorite prostitutes and mistresses, the art of playing various fantasy-supporting roles is the quality which the poor, impotent Macho finds most endearing. She, too, is merely giving a performance, and participating in the game in terms of her own fantasies.
Sometimes—often enough—her fantasy is not specifically sexual at all, but rather one of pure female sadism. With the (typically) frigid woman, the gratification of sexual performances originates in the sense of power over the male whom she sees as essentially pathetic.[2] (http://www.ex-iwp.org/docs/1973/sexual_impotency.htm)

Hm, actually perhaps we can just do with the first paragraph and the link to the article and delete the rest of the quotation. I think the last paragraph is interesting because it reveals a rather mysogynistic attitude but since this attitude is addressed later on perhaps the quotation is not needed AndyL 05:03, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I agree there is a problem with Herschelkrustofsky's rather pathetic tactic of accusing everybody of forgery and fabrication every time they quote LLR in a way he doesn't like. (Although the irony of this is that LLR's record of anti-Semitism is now documented here in a way it would not have been had not Herschelkrustofsky challenged us to produce evidence). As I suggested above I think the solution is to place the full text of the quoted documents in a Wikisource file. When I get "New Pamphlet to Document Cult Origins of Zionism" scanned, I will establish such a file. Adam 11:37, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Here's an article series from the Washington Post that can be added to the external links once the article's unprotected. [17]. 172 14:27, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It's already listed under "Media Reports" (it's the third one in that section). AndyL 16:18, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This article is now 53KB long. I suggest that some of the many ext. links be trimmed and the extended argumentation about LaRouche's anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial be shortened and summarized; I think the quote more or less speaks for itself in any case. Everyking 11:47, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I agree that the article is long, but I am reluctant to agree to cutting it, because it is now a very valuable resource for people who want to learn the truth about LaRouche. The reason it is long is that the LaRouchites accuse us of forgery and fabrication, so we have to document everything and provide verbatim texts for everything. I am particularly opposed to cutting the "LaRouche and the Jews" section, because anti-Semitism as at the heart of LaRouche's politics, and is also the accusation that the LaRouchites most vehemently deny. I have to say that I think Andy's section on LaRouche's sexual views, interesting though it is, is rather peripheral by comparison and could be cut. Adam 12:14, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Excellent article

Hi, I just wanted to say that even if it's topic is somewhat marginal, this is one of the best researched and written articles I until now have found in the Wikipedia! -- till we ☼☽ | Talk 11:57, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

LaRouche Legal Case

I have made corrections to the "criminal conviction" section, and added the text of the exoneration ad. Whether you are a supporter, opponent, or even (theoretically possible) neutral, I think all will agree that the court case against LaRouche is a very important part of an encyclopedia article about him and should be reported as accurately and completely as possible. --Weed Harper 14:48, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)


So why did you remove the following?

"It also operates more sophisticated telemarketing groups, soliciting donations by phone, usually under the guise of various patriotic front organisations to conceal the real source of the phone calls. More seriously, however, LaRouche was accused of fraudently soliciting "loans" from vulnerable elderly people, sometimes giving completely misleading explanations for the loan ("funding the Strategic Defense Initiative" or "finding a cure for AIDS"). The funds thus raised were then directed into a maze of dummy companies so as to avoid both taxation and attempts to recover the "loans."AndyL 22:26, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Because that section is inaccurate/POV. Political fundraising is not "telemarketting" -- I get fundraising calls from the Democratic Party all the time, and I would not call it telemarketting, even though the callers are obviously using a script, which no self respecting LaRouche fundraiser would do. Also, from what I have experienced, LaRouche fundraisers always say they are with LaRouche right off the bat -- many people might find a LaRouche call more interesting than other pleas for money, or if they don't, they can hang up and the fundraiser doesn't waste his time. Also, I have contributed to different branches of the LaRouche movement -- they have a science branch called "Twenty First Century Science and Technology" and a cultural branch, "Schiller Institute" -- but these are not "dummy companies." No one has ever asked me to contribute to the federal government, (which is the only thing that funds SDI or AIDS research), except the federal government. Also as I pointed out in my corrections, it was the federal government that blocked attempts to recover the "loans." Weed Harper 03:08, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps the LaRouche fundraising pitch has changed after the fraud charges? Raising money for SDI sounds like a 1980s pitch. In any case, I don't see including the full text of the ad as necessary or relevent. A link to the ad should suffice. This is not a promotional service for LaRouche, after all. AndyL 03:20, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC) AndyL 03:18, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Quite the contrary.
It's odd that you don't think the ad belongs in the article, since the article is about LaRouche. You seemed to feel that it was necessary to have a long list of Ramsey Clark's clients, which might be more appropriate to an article about Ramsey Clark. Weed Harper 14:46, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Actually, I thought a short list was fine. You wanted to lengthen the list to include Berrigan and Peltier. AndyL 16:33, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Why should anyone care what Salon magazine says about Ramsey Clark? --Peter_Abelard@ausi.com

Because the LaRouchites use him as evidence that LaRouche's conviction for fraud was somehow irregular. "See," they say, "a former US Attorney-General agrees with us." So the fact the Clark defends everybody against the US, and that he is widely regarded as a crank, becomes relevant. Adam 23:56, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Don't you think it would be equally appropriate to provide some biographical detail on Dennis king, Christine Berle, and Fred Newman? They are all whack-jobs that you treat as respectable, because they are anti-LaRouche. --Peter_Abelard@ausi.com

Archive 8


Irresponsible edit warriors

I am trying to clear up some of the material on the Herschel Krustofsky list. People who revert these edits should have the courtesy of participating in the discussion on the list. Weed Harper 14:18, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

You are trying to smuggle various LaRouchite fantasies back into the article. These will of course be reverted. Adam 14:38, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Your accusation is impolite and wrong. I didn't insert anything; I took out material which is obvious POV, and which you did not defend in the talk pages. Weed Harper 19:57, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Attn. User:John_Kenney and User:Bcorr: this article is listed under category NPOV_disputes. It is poor Wikiquette to revert numerous edits, which have been thoroughly discussed on the talk pages, without participating in the discussion. --Herschelkrustofsky 20:03, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Anonymous Sources

After the big fuss made about quoting Ramsey Clark, I think that the allegations from anonymous sources should be removed. Imagine if Herschel or myself tried to put in a pro-LaRouche quote from an anonymous source! An anonymous source cannot be put under the same sort of scrutiny that Ramsey Clark was. It looks like someone is trying to make sure that Fred Newman doesn't come under that sort of scrutiny.

Also, accusations that come from Dennis King should be identified as coming from him, and not simply presented as fact. As far as no one discreditting Dennis King, what is there to discredit? He was a guy scratching our a living as "Caspar the friendly ghost writer", selling term papers to college students. Then he was paid by a bunch of rich right-wingers to write an attack on LaRouche, which was circulated to a tiny group of die-hard LaRouche-haters, and then it wound up in the discount bins at K-Mart. Then Dennis vanished back into obscurity. Weed Harper 19:57, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It looks like someone is trying to make sure that Fred Newman doesn't come under that sort of scrutiny.

Does it really? What I wrote was:

Ironically, Newman has been accused of similar psychological abuse and of copying LaRouche's methods in his own group, the International Workers Party.

Please explain how this statement "make(s) sure that Fred Newman doesn't come under that sort of scrutiny"?AndyL 20:15, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

That's not what you originally wrote. And anyway, it's wrong. Who on earth has accused Newman of "copying LaRouche's methods"? Weed Harper 20:25, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

That is what I wrote prior to your comment above. As for who would accuse Newman of copying LaRouche - quite a number of people:

Newman often bragged about how much he learned from LaRouche, and, as noted below, the reported organizational operations of LaRouche’s group are frighteningly similar to those of Newman’s group.
Like LaRouche’s National Caucus of Labor Committees, Newman runs a very tightly con-trolled organization. Like LaRouche, Newman has created numerous organizations (most only paper) with divergent names; some to attract particular individuals, some solely to make money, many with names so similar to true left organizations that unknowing individuals are often fooled (e.g., Rainbow Alliance and Rain-bow Lobby, which have no connection to Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition; the Unemployed and Welfare Council, which attacked the Na-tional Welfare Rights Organization, etc.). [18]

(Newman then went on to form the IWP and to apply his own brand of totalitarian psychotherapy to lure and maintain cadre as slave labor, while mimicking LaRouche’s use of transient front groups, as well as his clever habit of accumulating millions of dollars in federal matching funds through pretentious presidential campaigns.)[19]

the fact that the IWP's fascination (and rivalry) with Lyndon LaRouche (aka Lyn Marcus) clearly remained intact a full two years after their brief 1973 alliance is indicative of a lingering obsession. As you will note, the paper even quotes LaRouche with occasional reverence. (For LaRouche's early theories, see LaRouche's Beyond Psychoanalysis, "The Sexual Impotence of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party," and "The Case of Ludwig Feuerbach." See also Washington Post and Political Research Associates.) This article also reveals how the IWP's political tactics eerily shadowed that of the NCLC (in fact, the IWP's venture in to electoral politics may have been motivated by LaRouche's 1975 presidential campaign). Finally, I somehow suspect that Newman has not yet matured beyond the fixation with "power and authority" as outlined herein.

[20]

AndyL 21:36, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)




Dennis King

Attention Weed Harper: We have already been through this argument several times with Herschelkrustofsky. King's book is the only published biography of LaRouche. Until someone writes a better one (and god knows why anyone would bother), he is the best source. His book was published by a reputable publisher. Until such time as he is shown to be an unreliable source, we are entitled to cite him. I remind you that Herschelkrustofsky asserted that King had forged his citation of the article in which LaRouche said that only 1.5 million Jews died during World War II. I located the LaRouche article proving that King was right and Herschelkrustofsky was wrong. So spare us further histrionics on this subject. Adam 23:47, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

What Herschel asserted was that King provided no quote. Don't put words in his mouth. And King could be Mother Theresa as far as I am concerned, his opinions and theories should still be attributed to him. Opinions and theories are not the same as verifiable research. I think this article would be better if some of the opinions and theories were trimmed. Weed Harper 20:22, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The article is now so long that sadly it is necessary to split it in two. I think splitting it along biographical / ideological lines is a good way to do it, but I am open to other suggestions. Adam 00:56, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

By eliminating large segments of your own theories and gratuitous attacks, you could make the article quite manageable. --Herschelkrustofsky 13:39, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

We could have an article called United States v. LaRouche that deals specifically with the legal case. AndyL 01:29, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

POV Sources

Just because someone has their own web page doesn't make them a source worthy of inclusion in a Wikipedia article. I can see why you fellows kept them anonymous for so long. Weed is correct in making the point that if Ramsey Clark's opinion requires a lengthy disclaimer -- after all, he was only Attorney General and a recognized authority on the misuse of the criminal justice system for political purposes -- then there ought to be some discussion of the background, qualifications, and political biases of Dennis King, John Foster Berlet, Tim Wohlforth, Scott McLemee (who the hell is he?), and various disaffected members of Fred Newman's group.

I would suggest that the inclusion of such "sources" is just a disguised form of inserting your own POV. --Herschelkrustofsky 21:31, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Scott McLemee is a journalist who wrote the article "Spotlight on the Liberty Lobby" for the fall 1994 issue of Covert Action Quarterly. My source for the new Wohlforth quote is not his website but his book "On the Edge: Political Cults Right and Left" coauthored with Dennis Tourish of the University of Aberdeen. AndyL 21:38, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Bizarre Article

This article is loaded with trivia from the 1970s, when LaRouche was pretty much an insignificant figure. He didn't develope any real influence until he was released from prison in the 90s, and the article doesn't cover that period. How useful is that? ---


Actually, the limited electoral success of the LaRouche movement was in the 80s and ended with his imprisonment. He had some access as well with the Reagan administration but none to succeeding administrations. Saying that "he didn't develop any real influence until he was released from prison" is an inaccurate statement. As for "trivia" from the 1970s I suppose it might be convenient from LaRouche's standpoint not to mention anything that happened prior to around 1980 (and indeed, his official biography on LaRouche sponsored websites pretty much ignores his days as a "leftist" and the transition to his current views) but this is not an official biography and his history is germane. By the way, in future please log in when you make edits. Making signficiant edits while not logged in is a violation of wikietiquette. AndyL 21:52, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I don't have a log-in, and Wikipedia does not require me to have one -- it just says that it brings "many benefits." If you have a bone to pick with me, e-mail me at peter_abelard@ausi.com. Plus, it wasn't until the 90s that LaRouche was elected to the Universal Ecological Academy of Moscow (BTW, in Russia "ecological" doesn't mean a bunch of greenies), and made an honorary citizen of Sao Paolo.

LaRouche had more influence in the Clinton administration than with Reagan. You won't find it in the media, but it's true. You don't measure LaRouche's influence by electoral results -- you measure it by the spread of his ideas. It's not like professional sports with a scoreboard. And the most important development in the history of the LaRouche movement is the beginning of the LaRouche youth movement about four years ago. LaRouche never gets any real media coverage, he relies on face-to-face discussions and distribution of literature, and that is going on now on a much wider scale than ever before. The real history of the LaRouche movement is just beginning. --C Colden 04:28, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

"LaRouche had more influence in the Clinton administration than with Reagan"? Whose administration introduced the idea of Star Wars missile defense, one of the focal points of LaRouche's platform?--132.162.243.254 22:46, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Free School courses

Herschel, LaRouche's explanation for giving courses in Marxist economics is from his autobiography. AndyL 02:45, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Your point being?--Herschelkrustofsky 13:29, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

A google reveals five references to the "Universal Ecological Academy of Moscow", all at LaRouche websites. Conclusion: like the Eurasian Landbridge, it is a LaRouche fantasy. Adam 04:55, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

You seem to have confused "googling" with "research."--Herschelkrustofsky 13:29, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Fot telling whether an organisation is currently in existence or a figment of your imagination it is actually quite effective, as was shown with the Eurasian Landbridge. Adam 13:41, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Claims made in the article

There are many claims made in the article with no evidence. For example, the claim that LaRouche opposed abortion. See [21] Weed Harper 14:55, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

LaRouche doesn't answer the question. He states he opposes the "pro-life movement" but doesnt' give his views on abortion. Perhaps you can explain the "anti-Mathusian" position of the organization he founded, the "Club of Life". What are its views on abortion?AndyL 15:01, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

He states that he opposes single issue politics. He has no view on abortion per se. Besides, you put it in the article to make it look like LaRouche was part of the pro-life movement. That is untrue.Weed Harper 15:09, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

What does "Club of Life" do? What is their position on abortion? Do they favour restrictions on it or are they against restrictions?AndyL 15:27, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

"Abortion Policy:
He received a 10% score from Planned Parenthood and a 75% from the National Right to Life Committee.[22]
13. ABORTION POLICY:
  • National Right to Life Committee
Pro-life in every way (against euthanasia, capital punishment, etc). [23]

AndyL 15:40, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Coming over from Requests for Comment

Hi. I have come over here from Wikipedia:Requests for Comment after someone posted there links to two old versions of this article and asked for votes of preference between the two. I don't see any reference to this request or to any voting here on this talk page, and the two versions have apparently been superseded by more recent versions. Is there any current interest in garnering outside voters for these two versions, or can the voting request be removed from the Requests for Comment page? --Gary D 08:22, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Protected

Sorry I didn't get the protection notice and stuff done last night, my connection went belly-up just as I clicked "protect". Please try to hash out the arguments here instead of in the article history. silsor 15:37, Sep 1, 2004 (UTC)

May I play the devil's advocate?

I've been looking at these talk pages, and two things jump out at me. First, that the participants are mostly highly polarized pro- or anti-LaRouche, and second, that virtually every participant has encountered LaRouche activists first hand on the street.

LaRouche is a revolutionary, and everything he says is a challenge to the status quo, whether in politics, science, or art. The news media defend the status quo, and Wikipedia is part of the news media (it seems that you can put any opinion you like in a Wikipedia article as long as it has appeared in other media.) I doubt that any person has ever supported LaRouche based on media coverage -- they support LaRouche because they have read his pamphlets first hand.

My suggestion to Herschel and Weed is the following: why not stop making a fuss, and let Adam, Andy, 172 and Bcorr make the article just as outlandish and over-the-top as they like? People will compare it to LaRouche's literature, and see that it is completely fake, and get angry, and be more likely to support LaRouche. Don't you think that will serve your purpose better than if the article is a lukewarmish "consensus" article? --C Colden 04:22, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Oh no, C Colden, It's not. The point of Wikipedia is to take NO STANCE on anything. See: NPOV. WhisperToMe 02:32, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The article in question is light years away from NPOV, and doesn't seem to be getting perceptibly closer. --Herschelkrustofsky 06:08, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

To say that LaRouche's influence is measured by his spread of ideas, and not anything factual like stats or votes, is silly since there are no ideas of LaRouche's which are original which deal directly in politics. Now LaRouche can tie in Gauss' 1799 thesis on algebra to the allegedly Malthusian Club of Rome, and if you are familiar with esoteric knowledge and masonic lodges and Judaism in 15th through 19th century England, and use the David VanIcke and Alester Crowley school of research, then pow, it all makes sense. The SDI was not proposed by LaRouche. It was not his idea. Reforming Bretton-Woods, also not his idea. What we are dealing with here on wiki on the LaRouche page are the protests of his minions. Their complaints have resulted in a better NPOV article, and their input is welcome no doubt. Now, the rest of this is my POV . . . Its clear to people familiar with history-not-as-told-by-LaRouche that LLR was trying to follow a path similar to that of Mussolini. Of course Mussolini had far more respect and influence among the mainstream Italian Left before going on to support WWI and starting the right wing squadre Fascisti. Also, Mussolini was far younger and more charismatic and had a better approximation of the situation on the ground. The begining of the economic downturn which was signified by the Club of Rome's pronouncements and the Oil crises led LaRouche to think that the next great depression was fast on its way and that history would allow for the rise of new corporatist leader. The similarities in all fronts are stunning. The cult mind will filter out any information which the mind's indicators sense my shake the foundations of loyalty to the cult, so herchel and weedy and you guys, I'm not trying to change your minds. Capone 20:43, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Chaim, you got yourself a log-on! And how's your Dad? 172.193.16.95 21:10, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think Herschel is guilty of POVness too. This is why the Arbitrators are trying to determine who is "right". *groan* WhisperToMe 00:26, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Actually, no. The arbitration committee made it clear that they had no intention of determining who is "right." They would only rule on issues of Wikiquette, and not on the content of the article. Also, they appear to be closing the case. --Herschelkrustofsky 00:40, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Either someone should protect this article again or some action should be taken against those who are reverting to a totally POV version. I've already used up my three reverts and now the article is stuck on the LaRouchite version until someone else comes along. Everyking 23:44, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Which version do you consider totally POV? Weed Harper 00:22, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Dispute tags

Removing dispute tags is vandalism. If you remove a dispute tag when a dispute has not been resolved (And if you find your edits being generally reverted, it's a good sign the dispute has not been resolved), you are vandalizing the page, and you will find the entirety of your edit reverted. Furthermore, if you repeatedly remove dispute tags, you will find yourself blocked from editing.

This page has been spending far too much time protected, and the people who are causing its continual protection are either going to stop disrupting the page or stop editing Wikipedia entirely. The choice is theirs. Snowspinner 16:11, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)

Deletion of information

Large scale deletion of information - also vandalism, unless said information is copyvio or disprovable through some objective source. looking at the talk page, I don't see anything indicating either of those things to be true. Snowspinner 18:51, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)

Snowspinner, the Adam and Andy version of the article was so riddled with POV that I think the decision to replace it with a new article is an appropriate one. I provided a substantial list of factual errors in their version, and also enumerated the inappropriate insertions of personal opinions and theories -- the authors of those opinions and theories have consistently refused to discuss them on the talk pages. If you think that writing a new article represents vandalistic "deletion of information", then it is valid to raise that question as well with respect to Adam's "deletion" of the previous article back in June. I approved of Sam Spade's efforts to reconcile the various versions, but his efforts were thwarted when Adam and Andy simply deleted anything that didn't conform to their rather egregious POV. --Herschelkrustofsky 03:03, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Please try to correct the existing article instead of throwing out all of the work. Snowspinner 03:09, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)
Snowspinner, please look at the history of the article during the last two weeks of August. You will see that Herschel and I made numerous attempts to do precisely what you are suggesting. Each time, either Andy, Adam, Bccor or John_Kenney would simply revert without participating on the talk page. This is very frustrating and it seems to me to be poor wikiquette. Weed Harper 14:46, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I would say that poor wikiquette is repeatedly reverting to a much shorter, blatantly POV, and obviously unacceptable version of the article. Everyking 15:06, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Yes, I see the Herschel list of objections. What I don't see is any evidence supporting his claims. Since I tend to think of the more complete article as the default option, how about for any information you want to delete from the article, you provide, on the talk page, a citation. So as not to become overwhelming, let's limit ourselves to, say, five pieces of information at a time, and when we've settled those, we'll move on to the next five? Pick five things that are erroneous about the long version of the article, list them below, and then provide a source from which you are getting your information that it's wrong. Then Adam, Bcorr, et al can respond, and we can move through them calmly and systematically. Snowspinner 15:45, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)
Excuse me, but isn't the person who inserts an allegation into the article supposed to be the one that can provide a citation to back it up? Since this edit conflict has become like a trial, I think "innocent until proven guilty" should be the standard. Besides, many of Herschel's objections are to personal opinions or theories inserted by anti-LaRouche activists. Weed Harper 21:11, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The Current Five Facts

OK, to try to facilitate this process, I'm making this section. It will have, as the name suggests, five subsections, each for specific facts that are disputed in this article. If you desire the removal of a fact from this article because it is inaccurate, please use one of the five sections to list it, along with some citation. If you believe the citation offered is flawed, respond with a reason. We'll try to figure out what needs to be included, what needs to be removed, and what needs to be included with a note that there is disagreement on whether this is true. Snowspinner 21:01, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)

I'd like to note that most of my objections to this article (at this point) are to violations of NPOV, which are massive and pervasive; the writing by Adam in particular has an intensely propagandistic quality, and the article is written, not as an encyclopedia article, but as an essay that attempts to prove various theories supported by Adam and Andy. For example, "Since 1979 LaRouche has concentrated on infiltrating his followers into the Democratic Party." This involves POV speculation on Adam's part, attributing to LaRouche some sort of conspiracy to bring waves of new people into the Democratic Party (I believe this is what used to be called a "voter registration drive.") In fact, what LaRouche was actually doing is promoting his agenda to people who were already Democrats.

Fact One

"From left to right" -- this is a characterization of LaRouche that was agreed upon by LaRouche's opponents, but has no basis in fact. LaRouche was a leftist in the 50s and 60s, and in the 70s he shifted to being an FDR-style Democrat. A few points of evidence: LaRouche actively supported debt moratoria for the Third World. "In August 1976, Fred Wills, then Foreign and Justice Minister of Guyana, and an ally of Lyndon LaRouche, brought up a resolution for a debt moratorium at the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Colombo, Sri Lanka, reiterating his call before the UN General Assembly shortly thereafter."[24] LaRouche made a similar campaign against the harsh austerity demands of New York City's creditor banks, which victimized the poor and minority communities of that city[25], and he advised Mexican President Lopez Portillo in 1982 to declare a debt moratorium (which was done). In the early '80s, LaRouche and his organization opposed the Reagan administration's decision to side with the U.K. in the Malvinas war, and opposed as well the Reagan policy of arming the Nicaraguan Contras. In 1984, LaRouche formed a close friendship and working relationship with Amelia Boynton Robinson, an important leader of the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement, who became Vice Chairman of the LaRouche-affiliated Schiller Institute. Similarly, LaRouche's 1988 candidacy featured, as his running mate, James Bevel.

I'm having no trouble finding sources that accuse LaRouche of fascism, and suggest that he is far-right wing. It looks to me, particularly looking at the political philosophy page (And I'm speaking here of your preferred version, not the Adam/Andy version) that LaRouche's precise classification along the political spectrum is yet another area of debate regarding him. Could the article perhaps be revised to reflect his changing positions in a way that does not use the "left/right" distinction at all, and then include a paragraph somewhere that describes the controversy on labeling him as left or right wing? Snowspinner 22:54, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)
There are several issues involved here. First, there is no question that LaRouche did change in the seventies, from being a quasi-Marxist to embracing the American System (economics). Adam and Andy have attempted to suppress any discussion of the American System angle, either reverting references to it, or disparaging it as a school of thought. An honest article is going to have to address it.
Secondly, and I think that this is central to the controversy, there are essentially two versions of LaRouche's views: the one he espouses (and his writings are very prolific, leaving no doubt as to where he stands) -- and the the other being the characterization that was agreed upon back in the 80s by the John Train Salon, which version Adam and Andy assert is the correct one. This is a peculiar state of affairs, which the article should attempt to clarify for the reader. If your research on LaRouche consists of Googling the English language internet, any reference to LaRouche will tend to fall into one of these two irreconcilable categories. You might come away with the impression that there are actually two quite different political activists, both named Lyndon LaRouche. --Herschelkrustofsky 14:42, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Indeed, I imagine you will get exactly that phenomenon. The article, then, needs to reflect both of these LaRouches, and it needs to do it without value judgment on which portrayal is more accurate. Snowspinner 22:44, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

I propose "Post-Marxist Policies" as a neutral title for this section, which is descriptive rather than trying to advance a dubious POV theory. --Herschelkrustofsky 13:42, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Let's look at more subtle indications of fascism: "Give me 1,000 more youth [leaders like these] and I'll take over the country" EIR. His youth organizers are called LaRouche Youth. His name is contained in nearly every article in every publication he owns. You will not find this kind of charismatic leadership or adhesion to the ideas of one man to be a trait of many leftist organizations.--132.162.243.254 22:57, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
132.162.243.254, do you remember Eugene McCarthy, back in 1968? His youth movement was a very similar phenomenon,in my opinion, and in his: see this interview. Weed Harper 04:09, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Fact Two

"Although the expression "Eurasian Land-Bridge," for example, has been used to refer to the proposed Asian Highway, there is no evidence that LaRouche has ever had anything to do with this project." If the expression "Eurasian Land-bridge" has ever been used to refer to the proposed Asian Highway, it was certainly not by anyone connected to LaRouche. The Asian Highway is, as the name suggests, a highway. LaRouche's proposal involves primarily rail projects, with the emphasis on high-speed (and preferably mag-lev) rail, combined with other forms of infrastructure such as oil and natural gas pipelines, water management, and fiber-optic cables, to form what LaRouche calls "Development Corridors."[26] LaRouche's proposal does not resemble, nor could it be responsibly confused with, any other.

If you look in the talk archives you'll see that the "Eurasian Land-Bridge" question was discussed extensively. To be frank there is no independent evidence that such a project as described by the LaRouchites exists. Herschel produced a number of articles as evidence but they did not stand up to scrutiny. From time to time several LaRouche sources claim that hte "Eurasian Land-Bridge" is also known as the "New Silk Road". In fact, this is the nickname for the Asian Highway.Herschel is yet to respond to my detailed criticisms, I'll dig them up again if he wants to revive this issue.AndyL 20:10, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Are you claiming that LaRouche never made such a proposal? I have a 300 page report on his proposal that is about 12 years old, and I know of two conferences that were held, in Russia and Egypt, to discuss his proposal. I had to re-write the Eurasian Land-Bridge article because you deleted it, and according to Snowspinner, that is vandalism. I linked the article to reports on both conferences. Weed Harper 21:44, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Are you claiming that LaRouche never made such a proposal?

No. I'm saying that other than the Asian Highway (which was proposed in the 1950s) there is no independent evidence that this project exists. There is also a lot of evidence that the "New Silk Road" is the nickname of the Asian Highway. AndyL 22:20, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Fine -- don't call it a project, call it a proposal. But stop trying to confuse "Eurasian Land-Bridge" with the "Asian Highway"-- no one else confuses the two, and your attempt to equate them is deceitful. --Herschelkrustofsky 23:51, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Since you are fond of Googling, you may try "Eurasian Land-Bridge""Asian Highway"". Each reference in the Malaysian, Indian and Chinese press considers them as entirely separate and distinct proposals, with the Land-Bridge being the larger and more ambitious of the two. The only article that equates the two is, of course, your bogus Wikipedia article. --Herschelkrustofsky 00:05, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You are either misreading or misstating your evidence. The articles you refer to, in fact, see the Asian Highway as *part of* the European LandBridge rather than as "entirely seperate and distinct proposals".

Asia Times: "The Asian Highway Project is expected to link Singapore with New Delhi via ... would ultimately form part of the more ambitious Eurasian Land Bridge spanning the ..."

The Hindu: "in particular the East-West corridor project and the Trans-Asian Highway. ... project, once completed, might be linked to the Eurasian ``land bridge ..." AndyL 04:00, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

That is indeed what the articles say. And if the Asian Highway would ultimately form part of the more ambitious Eurasian Land Bridge proposal, then your substituted article was incorrect and misleading by saying that the Eurasian Land Bridge was simply a different name for the Asian Highway. --Herschelkrustofsky 10:32, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Fact Three

"By the 1980s, LaRouche had became a strong advocate of nuclear power and what later became the Strategic Defense Initiative, after Reagan adopted it." This formulation distorts history in order to support Adam's and Andy's theory that LaRouche alters his politics in order to jump on various bandwagons. In fact, LaRouche was a strong supporter of nuclear power no later than 1974 [27], and the policy that became (in 1983) the Strategic Defense Initiative, was advocated by LaRouche in 1977 [28].

Is there somewhere I could get abstracts for the Campaigner articles in that ToC? Also, are those LaRouche penned articles, or merely articles that appeared in a LaRouche-edited journal? As for the SDI, do you have anything that goes back to 1977, instead of LaRouche saying in 2000 that he was a supporter in 1977? Snowspinner 20:52, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)
You may download the entire Campaigner as a .pdf file here. As to whether LaRouche wrote all the articles, I think one area that is not in dispute, is that material published by LaRouche's organization generally does reflect his personal views, although he relies on his associates for a lot of original research, which he then incorporates into his policy overview. The article at this link includes a photostat of the cover of the pamphlet, "Sputnik of the Seventies," that was published in 1977 -- I don't think it's available on the web, but for what it's worth, I read it back when it came out. --Herschelkrustofsky 14:45, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Am I correct, however, that none of the Campaigner articles are by LaRouche in that issue? And, similarly, the Sputnik pamphlet appears to be by the US Labor Party, assited by LaRouche. Which is n ot to say that LaRouche didn't hold those views - just that the evidence doesn't seem a slam-dunk to me. Perhaps we could insert a statement to the effect of "LaRouche and his supporters point to X and Y (The Campaigner article and the pamphlet) as evidence, however, that LaRouche held these views well before Reagan's election." Snowspinner 14:50, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

Fact Four

"LaRouche's supporters do not believe that he was imprisoned because of a criminal wrongdoing. Instead, they maintain that a vast, worldwide conspiracy framed him, and that this conspiracy has attempted to execute him at least three times." LaRouche's supporters do not maintain that a "vast, worldwide conspiracy" framed him; they maintain that it was a small and very specific group of people who framed him, which group includes the primary sources that Adam and Andy used for their version of the article [29]. The frequent attempt to put words in LaRouche's mouth about various "conspiracies" is in fact an effort to support Adam's own "conspiracy theories" about LaRouche.

Your link itself refers to "massive government-private sector effort to "Get LaRouche."", which suggests that it is not a "small and very specific" group. That said, I suspect a more moderate wording could be agreed upon by both parties. As a first stab, I propose "Instead, they argue that a massive effort on the part of the US government and several private institutions existed to discredit and frame LaRouche." Thoughts? Snowspinner 22:49, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)
I think that the article should report that the meetings took place, name the participants, and let the reader draw his own conclusions. --Herschelkrustofsky 14:47, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Though I suspect I know the answer to this, would Adam, Andy, or someone else on the anti-LaRouche side like to tell me if it is universally agreed upon that these meetings took place? Snowspinner 14:51, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

I suspect these "meetings" were actually interviews which the LaRouchites have twisted into some sort of conspiracyAndyL 20:13, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Fact Five

There are 3 unattributed references to "nervous breakdowns", two allegedly suffered by LaRouche, one by Chris White. I had never seen any discussion of these alleged events, and I think documentation is in order.

A quick google found me [30], which suggests that some people who were leaving the LaRouche organization in 1973 claimed LaRouche was suffering a nervous breakdown. The source seems very POV, but that's probably going to be the norm. Can all parties agree to some wording that points out that there are allegations of a breakdown during this period? Snowspinner 20:55, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)
Chip Berlet is possibly the most hysterical anti-LaRouche source, and nothing he says should be simply presented as fact. It should be attributed to him. It seems that the article you found is the source for much of Adam and Andy's "research." Weed Harper 00:17, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I agree with Weed's objection to anonymous sources, and I also think Weed has a point about the Ramsey Clark quote: Andy insisted that Clark could not be quoted in the article without a disclaimer, saying that some people consider Clark a whack-job (I am paraphrasing.) If this standard applies to the former Attorney General of the United States, it must certainly apply as well to Dennis King, Chip Berlet, and the other assorted weirdos who are cited as authorities throughout the article. I think that the appropriate course of action were to create a section called "Critics of LaRouche", where there would be some discussion of just who these critics are, followed by a selection of their opinions about LaRouche. --Herschelkrustofsky 21:15, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Again, though, this can be dealt with without removing the information - the insertion of a sentence along the lines of "Supporters of LaRouche dismiss these accusations as the work of disenfranchised former associates of LaRouche with an axe to grind." Or something of similar tone. My preference, and I think the preference that's more workable for a biographical article, would be for the article to present the claims of both sides in one section together, with the other side's responses being mentioned as relevent, so that the entire article reads in a way that people get both sides of this debate as they go. Looking around a bit, regardless of its accuracy, the claim that LaRouche is a fascist (Which is a label that people tend to use to describe the extreme right) is a common one. Regardless of its accuracy, then, that needs to be addressed, and it should be addressed, I would think, throughout the article.
To put it another way, this claim (I haven't really gone looking at the other three yet - later today, I will) seems to me to be debated. That is, it is not clear-cut, and it's a POV assertion to say that LaRouche did or did not have a nervous breakdown in 1973. It's unknown and disputed. Which means this needs to be reflected in his biography. If the evidence against the breakdown really is that sketchy, then surely, when both pieces of evidence are presented side by side, an intelligent reader will identify that. Snowspinner 22:43, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)
When dealing with anonymous sources that are alleged by Chip Berlet to exist, I think it will be necessary to talk a bit about Chip Berlet. --Herschelkrustofsky 14:50, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
We could readily cast the sentence to make clear that the allegations are made by Berlet, with a link to his article. Snowspinner 14:59, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)
There was also a LaRouche speech made in the early 1970s where he refers to events twenty years earlier which fit the definition of "nervous breakdown"AndyL 20:10, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I'd be interested in knowing whether he used the term, "nervous breakdown." If not, what term did he use? Do you have the text of the speech, and if not, who is alleging that it was made? --Herschelkrustofsky 21:04, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I never said he used the term "nervous breakdown" - I said that the events he describes fit the definition.

In his speech before the NCLC National Committee Plenum mandating Operation Mop-Up (see below) in the spring of 1973, Marcus gave a more detailed account of his 1952 ordeal. According to this account, he went through a harrowing bout of intense introspection, which involved "stripping away all the layers of my persona, like an onion. If you take this far enough, you get to the point where you become terrified that there's nothing inside all the peelings-that you're a nobody. This put me in a suicidal state. It was only my tremendous ego-strength, which my parents had provided me, that saved me from suicide."[31] AndyL 22:24, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Then you are using a bit too much "poetic license," which is a problem all over the article. The same goes for the Chris White episode. I have read an account of that -- he said he was drugged. That is not "an event that fits the description of a nervous breakdown." Weed Harper 00:12, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If Andy wants to coin the phrase, and then attribute it to "some LaRouche observers," he should cite one observer other than himself. ---01:04, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Immediate Reversion

In my continued efforts to bring some sort of resolution to this dispute, the following things, if done by anyone, will result in their edits being reverted. More to come as a need for them is discovered.

  1. Misleading edit summaries. If you say "Added information on X" and happen to fail to mention that you also deleted three sections, you will be reverted.
  2. Deletion of information not justified by specific evidence provided on the talk page.
  3. Removal of the dispute tag (Which, it should be noted, will also be met with a 24 hour vandalism block)

Please try to be civil and to discuss things with one another. As I've said above, I'm willing to provide a mediator in trying to sort out the claims of factual inaccuracy here. I encourage those who are trying to remove information from this article to accompany such removals with specific citations as described in the sections above. Snowspinner 21:12, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)

There are basically two competing versions of the article now. I am editing the one that I consider to be more in keeping with NPOV. Everytime someone reverts to the other one, they are deleting information that I and others have added, so it's a two way street. The precedent for writing a new article was created by Adam in June, and there is no basis for saying that one or the other version takes precedence, except to say, as I do, that the one I am editing is more NPOV. I am certainly in favor of being civil and discussing things-- Herschel went to a lot of trouble to prepare a list of specific objections to the other version, but the authors seem to feel no need to respond. Weed Harper 21:07, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Herschel's list makes an excellent starting point, I agree, but it lacks specific citation - at the moment, it's a "He said she said" situation. If you want information removed, please give some citation that shows why the information is false. So, for instance, in the Club of Life section, the claim is that the Club of Live was created to oppose LaRouche. Please provide a citation of this.
In any case, "two competing versions of the article" is not acceptable. Since the one that you seem not to favor is the one with more information, I am taking that as the starting point here.
Note also that it is not impossible to merge the two "competing" articles. If no consensus is reached on the Club of Life section, with evidence being found by both sides, it can be mentioned in a way that acknowledges this controversy. That is to say, inclusion and exclusion are not the only options - moderated phrasing is possible, and is probably going to be a useful avenue for compromise. Snowspinner 21:12, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)

One other thing. Perhaps, if one of the pro-LaRouche side's major points is that there are things missing from the anti-LaRouche side's accounting, the solution would be to add them into that one? If that were done, leading to one article instead of two that constantly change places, I think it would be a good thing. (And, of course, if the pro-LaRouche side is inserting false information, the anti-LaRouche side would be perfectly justified in listing it here for discussion. Snowspinner 21:16, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)

Herschel's List Again?

Perhaps, Snowspinner, you have found that Herschel's list is in the archives and was answered point by point. Weedharper and Herschel only contend that the challenges went unanswered, but this is a contention that they will make so long as your evaluation differs from their own. I would be less than excited if these were to be revisited again, but its fine by me if it satisfies your own curiousity. On the 5 points . . .

Point 1.) LaRouche is a Rightist (though radical and not conservative). Left and Right have different meanings but primarily refer to the C.A of late 18th Century France. That LaRouche is a rightist can be easily traced to his reading of Plato's Republic and other dialogues, in which LaRouche agrees with Plato's version of Socrates that a leader of men is to men what a horse trainer is to horses, and that a leader of men is just by virtue of the fact that he is the leader of men. As a horse trainer trains, and not mis-trains horses (or he is not acting in his role as a horse-trainer)a leader leads and not mis-leads men. There can be no bad leader of men as when an error is committed, he is not acting in his capacity as a leader. Now, it is a matter of fact, of the agreed upon historical record, that LaRouche, as Lyn Marcus, was a radical left-Communist of the Cannonite-Trotskyist variety. This would have made him a leftist. LaRouche and LaRouche's followers today state clearly that they are NOT leftists or on the left. They claim to be 'above' or 'beyond' mere 'false' categories of left and right. As rightists, monarchists in this historical case, they support the French Crown against the French Revolution, hardly a position of the political left who hold the French revolution as something of a victory (though short lived) of democracy and left forces and ideals. They reject the category of left and right as a synarchist construct of the French Revolution and the British Bankers and money changers (mostly Jews like the Rothschilds, Gugenheims)who conspired against the French Crown for British plunder. So they reject the term 'right' as it is just a syncharcist construct and inversion of 'left' from the French Revolution which they staunchly oppose (from the monarchist perspective). The Argentine British conflict over the Falkans exposes the rightist and Imperial ambitions/justifications of LaRouche on international affairs. They oppose the British on the grounds that Britain has been taken over by wealthy families of International Bankers with direct ties to Satanic cabals and secretive Masonic tyrants. See esoteric. They oppose Britain on this issue on the basis of the Monroe Doctrine, hardly a leftist doctrine, which holds that Latin America is the U.Ss backyard and turf, an extension of Manifest Destiny, and that investment and development opportunities are the sole domain of U.S productive firms. The philosophical underpinnings and structural historical form of the LaRouche movement IMO is more analogous to National Socialism and Fascism, which also claimed to be beyond of outside of the realm of left and right. Like Mussolini, LaRouche left the socialist groupings and ideological framework of the left which he had developed from, and began to advocate a mish-mash of left-right policies, but based upon the right insofar as their being a mass-populist movement which is controlled and lead by a hierarchical structure which is supported by and advocates the so-called salvation of the Industrialist class (capitalists)and landowners as against the alleged social corruption by the International Banking class (userers, financiers)against the interests of the modern Nation State, as explicated in the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, whose interest claims to be the general public weal of a particular nation state. See nationalism. Of course, LaRouche's rightism can also be deduced and reasoned from his opposition to the schools of physical and cultural anthropology and sociology. LaRouche supports teaching that God created everything, and that humans and apes could not have developed from a common ancestor.

Point 2.) There was some confusion on this discussion about the so-called Eurasian Landbridge and the Asian Highway. The Asian Highway is an actual project being undertaken and built by the nations involved. The Eurasian Landbridge is nothing more than a proposal put forward by LaRouche which follows a similar geography. That there is an Asian Highway being built is used by LaRouchians as proof that LaRouche's ideas are "everywhere" being put into practice. Thus LaRouchians in conversational 'dialogues' with people, the Asian Highway can be used through inductive or Platonic reasoning to conclude that the Eurasian Landbridge is an idea that world leaders agree with LaRouche about since they are building the Asian Highway. In fact, there is no evidence that the Asian Highway is being built directly or indirectly on LaRouche's 'advice' that there be a Eurasian Landbridge built.

Point 3.) You will find no references in 1977 by LaRouche, and not until the Reagan administration itself came out with the SDI proposal, of any technology or proposal that specifically called for the use of missiles or lasers or satelites, or generally called for a technology which would minimize or eliminate the destructive capacity of a Soviet first strike. We cannot find proof that LaRouche did 'not' claim or propose something like the SDI prior to the 1981-83 period since we cannot 'find' something which is 'not there'.

Point 4.) This is meaningless nonsense. Of course LaRouche named who 'framed' him in numerous articles and texts, and this sense, it was a small group of people. But in numerous other texts, these same people are included as part of or dupes of a Synarchist International Satanic Banking Cabal.

Point 5.) If there is substantial evidence that LaRouche had a nervous breakdown, then it should be included. If not, then not. I realize that a theory of how LaRouche arrived at his present world view can be developed from possible evidence of his nervous breakdown (since Mussolini had a similar nervous breakdown around WWI and formed the journal 'Utopia' which stripped him down to only his Ego and his power to will), but it is not necessarily telling of anything.

Let me add something else to this discussion. LaRouche's theories, comments, analysis, writings etc., are nowhere held to the same scrutiny within the LaRouche produced propaganda as criticisms of it are on this forum. Therefor, those attempting to compose an accurate account of LaRouche are at a disadvantage when compared to the mass of unsubstantiated LaRouchite claims (like that he invented SDI, for instance)that have to be sifted through. --Capone 23:05, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand my efforts here. I am not interested in coming to some kind of absolute knowledge of truth here. That would be original research. If there are things in the article which are easily proven false, and which no one can provide any evidence in favor of, they should be cut. Largely, though, I expect the middle ground that will be reached on these points is that both sides will compromise on a version that includes both points of view instead of trying to make the move towards some absolute truth on a controversial issue, which is doomed to be a POV endeavor. Snowspinner 23:23, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

I did not even think to assume what your efforts were or weren't here. Common sense could tell you that nothing that I wrote is the product of original research other than when I wrote later the part 'IMO'. All of my comments were intended for the discussion and weren't in any way meant as a proposal for what should be written on the page. Absolute truth isn't the aim of this or any other article, but the hope is that certain truths can be found within it. You proposed a revisiting of Herchel's list which we agree is largely unsourced. I was presenting one of the angles for the view you keep finding on search engines. The five points were responded to by someone who gave five arguments which were easily proven false, so I'd rather bring this here now before those arguments get incorporated into the article, by then which I would have to be in favor of them being cut on the basis they were easily proven false. An NPOV way of writing the article would be simply to include reasonable pro-LaRouche rebutals to those statements that were generally agreed on by independant analysts or biographers on LaRouche. A proviso of these rebutals is that they be easily verifable so as to not engender the necessity of an obvious rebutal to that rebutal ad infinitum. --Capone 01:54, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Images

I think the image that was replaced should be added back, BUT it should be placed in the article with the new pic. WhisperToMe 05:15, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC) Oh, and I found one on Political_views_of_Lyndon_LaRouche! WhisperToMe 05:17, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

File:Lyndon LaRouche.gif
Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.

I think this is a better picture for this article. Weed Harper 00:43, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Really? I hate the lighting. :( Snowspinner 03:38, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

Links

I think the number of links is excessive. Weed Harper 06:38, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I found that they are mostly sub-pages of a few basic sites, and I propose paring it down to this:

LaRouche sponsored sites

Critics of LaRouche

Interesting that you would remove all the "Criticisms by former colleagues" despite the fact that they are not subpages of other sites already listed. AndyL 13:05, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

That was unintentional. Weed Harper 00:08, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Was your removal of newspaper articles not written by Mintz also unintentional? What about your removal of links to Chip Berlet or the Rick Ross Institute's actual articles in favour of biographies of the authors? I've replaced your attempt at obscuring critical links with something more straightforward.I've replaced your attempt to replace Ross and Berlet's criticsms of LaRouche with sites about Ross and Berlet and created these two links:

Weed also removed a lot of LaRouche site links, so I don't think he was being unfair. Note that the Temple of the Screaming Electron (TOTSE) site that you linked is just a reprint from the Chip Berlet sites. --Herschelkrustofsky 21:14, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Reversion

While I suspect I agree with some of your objections to the many changes made by Weed Harper, I'm curious why you reverted everything. Attribution of specific sources instead of "some people," for instance, seems to me a very good change. Similarly, removing two paragraphs that could have easily been NPOVed doesn't really make sense to me.

I think that this page is highly relevant: Wikipedia:Cite_your_sources --Herschelkrustofsky 20:35, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

As loathsome as you find the POV offered by LaRouche and his supporters, it still needs to be included and included fairly. Temper the language, offer responses, whatever, but please stop removing it. Snowspinner 16:46, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

I suggest that a test page be set up for the LaRouche supporters to draft their proposals for reforms and that we then discuss the proposed changes (inviting the rest of the community to respond). These piecemeal changes and reversions are getting us nowhere. AndyL 17:09, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Personally, I suspect that both sides are not going to draft versions remotely acceptable to the other, and that the way out is through a collaborative effort. That is, I think more will get done if both sides work on the other side's additions. It's just that, well, I think instead of reverting the other side's additions, you should NPOV the language and add rebuttal information. Snowspinner 17:20, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

I think the only way to have a collaborative effort is to do it on a draft page. Otherwise we just have a war of attrition. AndyL 18:22, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It would appear to be a rather one-sided war, because as far as I can see, both Weed and myself are cooperating fully with Snowspinner's mediation efforts. I think that most people would see it as a sign of maturity if you and Adam would do the same. --Herschelkrustofsky 20:24, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well, there already is a Lyndon LaRouche/draft, perhaps someone could update that page to make it a current proposal?AndyL 12:46, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think everyone should read this: NPOV#A_consequence:_writing_for_the_enemy. --172.192.142.248 14:11, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

An NPOV caption for this picture

User:Adam Carr has a picture of himself reading some LaRouche-related paper on his talk page.

I was wondering if we could NPOV the caption and place it in a LaRouche-related article. Maybe something like: "A picture of a man reading a paper written by Lyndon LaRouche. LaRouche's political views are widely debated between people." WhisperToMe 20:24, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I don't think that would be a very good idea. I am not "a man", I am a well-known participant in this debate. And I am not reading the material, I am holding it up to the camera so that people can see its authenticity, as part of my ongoing effort to get Herschelkrustofsky to admit that LaRouche is (or was) a Holocaust denier. (And things are debated among people, not between them.) Adam 01:45, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

On Wikipedia, I do not think that Wikipedia users should identify themselves in pictures posted in the main article space.I just don't think in most cases that it is appropriate to identify a Wikipedia user like that in a regular Wikipedia article. For example: User:JoeM (Who is now banned) tried to do that when I found a picture of two teenagers after I used it in an article related to Osama bin Laden; he claimed he was one of the kids in the picture. His edits were reverted, and the boys in the picture are "anonymous".

By the way, if you wanna challenge Herschel's views, please do that on Usenet/e-amil/whatever. WhisperToMe 02:29, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Why should that be necessary? I'd like to have out in the open. --Herschelkrustofsky 03:09, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Wikipedia is NOT a discussion forum (barring talk about Wikipedia) - See: Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not - Wikipedia is not a ground for advocacy groups/people. WhisperToMe 22:58, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Huh? The picture is not in the article. It clearly should not be in the article. john k 02:56, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Draft page

I would be up for protecting this article and moving edits to a draft page if people want to. I think, though, that the draft page should have some ground rules in place. The one I'd like, personally, is an understanding that there will be no reverting. I am sure that this will lead to some difficult situations, when people make edits that other people think are really bad, but I think it's important, in this situation, to handle this through means other than reverts. Snowspinner 02:49, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)

Why not handle the regular article(s) through means other than reverts? They are both considerably closer to some sort of NPOV standard, than they were before you began mediating. Perhaps you and WhisperToMe might elaborate on the benefits of the draft page approach. --Herschelkrustofsky 02:59, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

BTW, WhisperToMe, I note that you have been editing Lyndon LaRouche/draft -- I don't think that page is very relevant anymore, since there are now three articles instead of one (Lyndon LaRouche, Political views of Lyndon LaRouche, and United States v. LaRouche.) --Herschelkrustofsky 03:13, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

POV In First Paragraph

At the end of the first paragraph, it states that LaRouche has never garnered significant electoral support. I think the term 'significant' is POV since people both for and against LaRouche could consider any support as significant of something. Instead, I would like to propose that this word be replaced with an actual figure, and let readers decide for themselves how significant (or even what it signifies) this number is. If there isn't a good number that can be found, then I would recommend that this part of the sentence simply be axed. Thanks for the feedback in advance. -Capone 23:32, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

How about "Lyndon LaRouche has never received more than 1% of the vote"?AndyL 23:59, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It is also true that he has never reveived more than 10% of the vote. We could put that too . . . but given that even 1% is about 1 million votes, and I don't think he's ever reveived that (perhaps in total if you add all his votes for every election he's run in since the middle 80's)perhaps we need an actual figure, or maybe we could put 'never more than .5%' or something? Capone 01:18, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

0.1% of the vote?AndyL 01:02, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well, depends which vote you look at, the actual presidential vote in November or the various primary votes when he's run for the Democratic nomination. I doubt he ever received more than 0.1% of the vote in a November election but he may have done better in individual primaries for instance this list of Super Tuesday 2004 results has him at 1% in a few states. Apparently he won 21% of the vote in the Arkansas primary in 2000. AndyL 01:09, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

So to do justice to this article, it would be good to include that in actual elections he seldom acheived more than .5%, in primaries he can sometimes get 1%, but that in at least one state's primary (arkansas) he garnered 21%. So long as we can back up this 21% claim and it dosen't come from a LaRouche source, or an incompetent journalist's reporting based solely on a LaRouche source. Capone 18:31, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Heads up

For folks that have an appetite for really overheated slanders of LHL, there will be one one week from today in the Washington Post. The rumor has it that it is being run at the personal request of Cheney, and it will be delirious enough to make even Berlet look kinda sedate. --172.194.10.72 13:25, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

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