I.  I am scanning the news articles on James Bevel through google. If I had a smidgen more motivation, I would actually sample them a little closer to poll the percentage of the articles that mention Bevel’s 1992 run as vice president — “received less than one percent of the vote” as the copy states — with Lyndon Larouche. It is less than a quarter. Maybe even less than that. This is partially because it is the last line of the Associated Press story, a high percentage of the news sources aggregated on google news are simply newspapers running that story — and that line is the first to be cut off. So it is that Bevel worked with Martin Luther King, Jr and was instrumental in organizing the Million Man March.

Women from across the country have stepped forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against a prominent civil rights leader and Martin Luther King Jr. confidant who is charged with incest, a prosecutor said Thursday.

The Rev. James L. Bevel, 70, was charged last week with having sexual relations with a teenage relative in the 1990s.

Since his arrest, Loudoun County prosecutors “are getting calls from people all over the country saying the defendant engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct,” prosecutor Gigi Lawless said at a bond hearing Thursday.

So THAT’s what a Larouche vice presidential candidate does.

And there’s this punchline: Bevel was – allegedly – just trying to have his own youth movement.

II. When a company places on its website something that proports to be its “Secret”, you know it can not possibly be that company’s secret. Hence, on the ghostly website for “PMR Printing”, you get a link for “Secret” to this ad copy. (And speaking of ghostly…)
But it is not as though PMR’s real secret was ever a terribly secretive secret. That secret has been in the public domain. In the age of google nobody who would have wanted to contract with PMR would have had any reason to be ignorant of the secret. They could do with that information what they must — I suppose in many ways it is no worse than dealing with, say, China — but the dangers inherent in the setup (Larouche decides that he needs to move funds to a different department of his org; Larouche decides to screw some baby-boomers) could only really dawn on the client a little later in the game.
WorldComp’s website is even more cob-webbed, for a company of graphic design it is just sort of nonsensical.

It was in this period that w ran into a whole group of cultural anarchists, the extreme wing of what became the yippies, a radical prefigurement of the punks.  The group was succiently known as the Mother Fuckers, and they spent most of their time, when they were not high on something and lying around on a tenement floor, painting appropriately obscene slogans on the walls of the East Village.

The Mother Fuckers liked us.  They would come to our weekly class series in our small office on 10th Street and stand in the back (even if there were empty seats) as we went on and on about imperialism and revisionism and internationalism and several other isms, combined with a very heavy dose of contradictions and opposites within opposites and transitions and leaps.  Then came the discussion period, and up went the hand of the leading Mother Fucker.  We would recognize him and he would shout out in his loudest, proudest voice:  “Up against the wall, Mother Fucker!”  The group shouted their agreement and then they left.  They never said anything more or anything less.

 Tim Wohlforth, The Prophet’s Children: Travels on the American Left, page 147.

A while ago, a trend was noticed about Time Magazine covers.  Time had apparently found a formula to get the magazine to stick out from the cluttered magazine racks: white background, the human subject figures in foreground in sharp relief.

The Oregonian has evidently found a similar formula.  I don’t quite know how to describe it, but it tends to involve feature articles that have no business being on the first page, non headline headlines, and a large image.  The other day the Oregonian presented us with an image of a deer, with the headline “Oh Deer”, because apparently “Doe, A Dear!” was too glib.  The article concerned that whimsical story about the deer that ran was somehow misplaced into downtown Portland.

Today the front page of the Oregonian has a similar design lay-out, though the headline is more sedate, even as it is not properly front page headline material.  It concerns NRA approved Gun Control, or some such — Page 3 material, perhaps.  Actually it seems to be an excuse to use that image of the Virginia Tech killer pointing two guns at the camera — an obnoxiously exploitive image, an act of yellow journalistic tendencies on the Oregonian’s part.  I would think the Oregonian should know better or have more integrity, but then I have to knock my head and realize they featured a front page story about a Deer the other day.

The Willamette Week just prefaced the story of the raid on illegal immigrants (undocumented workers, if you demand political correctness from me) at the Del Monte plant with an undercover stint in their employment a few weeks’ ago, reporting that about 90 percent were pretty clearly underpaid illegal immigrants.  The Portland Mercury ran a raid during the Rose Festival where they removed sidewalk reservation taping on the parade route.

Figure the newspaper hierarchy out yourownself.

Bush’s watch was stolen by Albanians.

That is story number two coming out of Bush’s Blockbuster Trip to Albania, the only place in the world Bush can travel and be greeted as a Liberator.  Oh yes.  The news coverage about Bush’s trip to Albania has been comically hyper-ventilating, and maybe a little condescending to the Albanians.

The reason Bush is Huge in Albania is because they love Woodrow Wilson and Bill Clinton — Wilson for “liberating” them in the process of World War I, Clinton for saving ethnic Albanians from Milosevic’s slaughter.  I understand that George’s father is beloved and highly respected in Turkey — where they call the chickens they eat “Bush-wings” because of a trade deal made during the Bush the Better administration, which I guess legitimizes any crowd chanting toward Bush the Better into Turkey.  But Bush the Lesser’s foray into Albania is a queasy example of afterglow from previous administrations.
I have to wonder something about a comment found in that Washington Monthly blog post, though.

Who, how, and why notices this stuff?

Not to say it isn’t good schadenfreude, if indeed Bush got robbed, but how would Bush’s watch become a focal point from a youtube clip?

No, really.  What world of the Minutiae Loving Internet Media has he been paying attention to?  THIS IS THE STUFF THAT THE INTERNET IS MADE FOR.

Story number three… Bush.  Putin.  Albania as focal point of … er… differences of opinion.  Probably more important than a stolen watch, but far less entertaining.

Now then. Full steam ahead.
What is the deal with Robert Beltran?

Of the half a dozen episodes I think I saw, I remember two episodes of Star Trek: Voyager, that forgettable a series it is for me. One of the episodes I remember basically because it was a rip-off of a Next Generation episode, a premise later used — I think but am not certain on the X-Files and then later on with a wink and a nod on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. All of which is just as well, because Groundhog’s Day had a not dissimilar premise.

It does look like the weakest link in the Star Trek franchise. I know nothing about Deep Space Nine, but I do remember that there was a one or two season story arc that my Star Trek fan siblings found fascinating. Even Enterprise looks as though it had more charm, or potential for charm, than Voyager. The Trek franchise is a bit on the rocks right now, and there isn’t any clear idea of how to jump-start it with new material. In the popular imagination of the casual civilian, Trek begins and ends with Kirk’s crew and Picard’s crew. It actually is enough of a feat that they managed to churn out The Next Generation; you can throw the darts twice and come up with something.

So it is that Patrick Stewart, a classically trained Shakespearean actor, can be pretty damned comfortable with his role, known primarily as Jon Luc Picard.  Robert Beltran has a harder time as Commander Chakotay. From a 2001 New York Times:

“Chakotay has not changed enough for my taste,” the outspoken actor said, referring to the character he’s played for seven years on Star Trek: Voyager. […] “Although they come up with a scene here or there that’s tolerable, I think the character has not progressed since season four,” Beltran said. “In fact, he may even have regressed a little.

“I would have explored his past, his spirituality, the inner conflicts he might have,” the actor said, “and most definitely his relationships, not just with the captain, but with everybody else on the ship. I would have liked more revealing scenes with the other cast members, which were sorely lacking with Chakotay.”

Though his frustration is palpable, Beltran insisted that he never let it seep into his performance or his on-set demeanor. The actor gave his all when called upon, and it wasn’t unusual to find him joking with cast and crew on the stage or tossing a football outside, in front of his trailer on the Paramount lot.

“When you’re given these throwaway scenes with not much thought put into who’s saying it and its importance to the whole story – and I’m talking mostly about seasons five and six here – it just makes me feel like the writers don’t care,” Beltran said.

“I just felt let down, ignored and insulted,” he said. “I think they did a grave disservice to what I thought could have been an interesting character.” […]
“I’m just sorry that it has gotten to the point where I’m feeling so unexcited, that I got to be so disillusioned with it,” he said. “I’m sorry that happened. I’m sorry the writers didn’t see the possibilities. I’m sorry for all the missed chances, not only for my character but for the whole Voyager story.

“I just feel like it’s been a disappointment,” he said.

Beltran, however, is looking forward rather than back. Life after Voyager, he said, will resemble life before Voyager.

“I’m an actor,” he said. “I do television. I do films. I do stage. I’ll do whatever feels right.

“I can only do what’s offered to me,” he said, “and from the list of what’s offered to me I’ll just do what I think is the best thing to do. Ideally I want to do my own films – I’d like to have my own production company and tell the stories I like.”

I imagine Larouche and company getting wind of this disaffected actor, with it piquing their interest. I don’t think a Scientology approach per se could work at all with Larouche — a group of Big Name actors hamper the need to be above this silly pop culture world.  But a single well-regarded actor disillusioned shadows their recruitment base, and besides which he is in a position to wander in and out of Hollywood without much fret.
Note the immediate post-Trek stage performance he took part in, which served as his “in” to the orbit of Larouche:

Robert Beltran, perhaps best known for his work on “Star Trek: Voyager,” stars as Charlie Castle, a much-adored movie star who has sold his soul, metaphorically speaking, to satanic, all-powerful studio head Marcus Hoff (chilling Miguel Sandoval). When Charlie killed a child in a hit-and-run accident some months back, Hoff covered up the incident. Now, Hoff is pressuring Charlie to renew his 14-year contract — a Faustian bargain Charlie’s wife, Marion (effective Rita Rehn), will not tolerate.

Ever mindful of the period, beautifully evoked by Scott Siedman’s tacky-lush set, Melendez calibrates the distance between emotional truth and histrionics, seldom tumbling into the gap between. Reminiscent of John Garfield in his prime, Beltran is righteously passionate as a conscientious artist forced into an unholy compromise — Odets’ prescient nod to escalating McCarthyism.

It doesn’t take too much work to read into his motivations to that role.  It also managed the trick of putting some of Larouche’s words into Beltran’s mouth regarding a post – FDR let-down in society, a bridge into Larouche’s faux idealism.
Interesting to note what Larouche’s attitude toward Star Trek and Star Wars has been — largely negative “moronic space opera drivel”, but with the value of “getting kids interested” in his dreams of moon colonies and missile defense “Beam Weapon Technology”.

Robert Beltran later insisted that he basically hates the genre conventions of science fiction, and insisted that one of his projects not be compared with The Twilight Zone.

That explains why Robert Beltran is now teaching Drama at Larouche’s Academies. Actually, he is not too dissimilar from the Youth Recruits in respect to motivation.

lhl scamed beltran with the truman story, and the generation gap story, and now beltran thinks he finally has modern american history – as well as the cause of all the world’s problems today – figured out…thanks to lhl – the world’s one and only non-solution.
lhl is very good at making up simple explanations to help make complicated things line up neatly…the only problem is that every now and then some new explanation will come along – but this doens’t mean that lhl was wrong – it just means that lhl was hypothezing the higher hypotheses,
the org is using beltran to sucker in more youth…the idea of having a well-known actor give you acting classes is too good a pull.
the org has used this trick before…get to know some well-known singer, musician or actor, get some rapport going with them, by having “intellectual” discussions with them about how bad movies or music or broadway is today…then the target will think that they have found someone who understands them, their problems, share their hopes and dreams, etc.
then comes the ego stroking – you get an invitation to perform at a conference or something like that.
finally, comes the “lyn is the only solution” line, with some explanation on how lyn is so clever that everybody just slanders him as a fascist and everyone who has left him – chris and carol white for example – are agents – real estate or otherwise.
then, the org starts asking for money…which is what it was all about to begin with.
it happened to william warfield…and now that warfield is dead…beltran is next in line.

OR… Robert Beltran speaking before an excited conference of Youth:
The final speaker was Mr. Robert Beltran, a Classical actor who has been working with the LaRouche Youth Movement for about five years.  He connected “the long arc of corruption and immorality from Nietzsche, Wagner, Kant, Liszt, Darwin, Freud, and various others like that.”  Beltran read from 19th and 20th Century poets such as Matthew Arnold, Thomas Hardy, Ezra Pound, and T.S. Eliot, which include such demoralizing, banal, and self-hating lines as, “Do I dare disturb the universe? In a minute there is time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.  For I have known them all already, known them all-Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons. I have measured out my life with coffee spoons”-which was written by T.S. Eliot in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1919).”
Robert then contrasted that by reading two sonnets by Shakespeare, two poems by John Keats, and the great “Ozymandias” by Percy Shelley, which, if you make it simpler for Bush and Cheney, would be nice for them to hear. “Ozymandias” is a political lesson for those who don’t know the consequences of an empire. He also read “On Peace” by Keats, which is a call for Europe to free itself from the chains of Empire, following the model of the just-created United States. (Hear Robert Beltran read the poems)
The dialogue which ended the meeting rallied the audience to establish its responsibility as a social body, and to find self-inspired passion to change their own identity in order to create a renaissance. “How do you lift society up in a world jaded and bereft of beauty?” Beltran was asked. He replied, “All I can do is hope there is a project out there worth putting your time into. You have to do it yourselves, like what the musicians (Duckles and Levin) said, you do it because it’s in you. You will have to create it, you guys will have to create it, we have to create it. The world needs great poetry, a great chorale.”
Too bad he couldn’t be Captain Picard.

I.  James L. Bevel, a civil rights leader who worked closely with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s, faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of charges that had an incestuous affair with a juvenile between October 1992 and 1994 in Leesburg.

[…] Bevel is credited with playing a key role in some of the country’s major civil rights protests, including the 1963 Children’s Crusade in Birmingham, AL. He also was a leader of the Freedom Riders to desegregate public accommodations throughout the southern states in the 1960s and was an architect of the March on Washington in 1963 and the Selma-to-Montgomery march in Alabama in 1965. Bevel also helped organize the Million Man March in Washington in 1995.
And it goes on from there.  Okay.  By now anyone who sees this blog knows what “Leesburg” is, and where this is going:

 In 1992, Bevel was a candidate for Vice President of the United States on the ticket with Lyndon LaRouche, a Loudoun-based political activist and economist, who was convicted for mail and tax fraud as well as illegal fundraising practices. LaRouche and Bevel received less than 1 percent of the popular vote.

Lyndon Larouche’s running mate.  A more pathetic and inconsequential political slot I would be hard-pressed to think of.  Oh well.  At least his name was attached to Larouche’s program of 1992.  That’s worth something… I suppose.  I know there are a few of those civil rights workers drawn into the orbit of Lyndon Larouche – land, which is somewhat bemusing.
II.  A new gutter outlet for Wall Street Fascist John Train.
III.  I was told that Larouche was just about to release a new ground-broken article titled “The Rules of Survival”, looking for all the world like the new “Children of Satan” in terms of at the moment agenda-setting.  And so he has.

The world as a whole is presently caught within the last phases of a general breakdown-crisis, a crisis for which there is no true comparison, until now, within modern European history since the 1618-1648 Thirty Years religious war. In fact, the nearest resemblance to the current threat, is to be found in European history in the so-called “New Dark Age” of Europe’s mid-Fourteenth Century. In that mid-Fourteenth-Century collapse, half of the parishes of Europe were erased from the map, while the level of the population was reduced by about one-third.
There is no reason anyone needs to read anything beyond that first paragraph.

IV.  The panel looking into the Virginia Tech shooting has lost patience with the Larouche- representatives in the attack against video games, politely brushing one of them aside.

V.  And we have this oddity to consider, the current Larouchie pestering the FACTNET boards and breaks down in a fit of psyche-showing paranoia, and seeming guilt related to the death of Ken Kronberg…:

Time for Truth, you just wrote the following:

This forums dialogs would be translated to in the public in the form of:

No one in the LaRouche movement should feel able to say that with impunity–especially after LaRouche’s letter about his death, the EIR package about him–weren’t you paying attention to Lyn? What about Fidelio?

Creepy and telling, methinks.

Berkeley watchdog organization that tracks military spending said it uncovered a strange U.S. military proposal to create a hormone bomb that could purportedly turn enemy soldiers into homosexuals and make them more interested in sex than fighting.

“The truth of the matter is it would have never come to my attention if it was dismissed at the time it was proposed,” he said. “In fact, the Pentagon has used it repeatedly and subsequently in an effort to promote non-lethal weapons, and in fact they submitted it to the highest scientific review body in the country for them to consider.”

Any further comment seems like it would be gilding the lily of one of those absurd items you hear about tucked in the Pentagon Budget at one point through its history or other… but…
I think I already that comic book.

What?  Don’t believe me?