A man in a cigarette costume was standing across the street from Pioneer Square this afternoon. Clearly a part of a contingent waving signs urging a “Yes” vote on Measure 50, ie — fighting the influx of Tobacco Company Advertising for the “NO On 50” campaign.

The image that popped into my mind, however, was the Cigarette character that appeared in Doonesbury over the years when Gary Tradeau wanted to portray the Tobacco industry. I also had half a mind to go up to him with the assumption that he was a Tobacco Industry mascot and was dispensing free cigarettes. Which would work well, I suppose, and may be something they should do tomorrow — Measure 50 has gone down to defeat.

Oh, jeez louise. Plucked from FACTNet, for the benefit of … whoever the hell reads this following of the Larouchian world of mine that doesn’t also read FACTNet… Commentary within provided by Eaglebreak, because I may as well not delete it and let her particular insight stay.  My comments provided with footnotes.

1. Sunday briefing, Nov. 4

LYN’S IDEAS ARE THE DRIVER FOR EVERY POLITICAL INITIATIVE IN THE COUNTRY AND THE WORLD–GET THE RESOURCES TO CARRY THEM OUT!

JEFF: Let me first of all start out by making sure that everybody’s attention has already been flagged to the LaRouchePAC website and the new animation which leads the website.[Everybody’s attention flagged years ago.]  And Lyn basically intervened against a certain flatness and went to the crew out here in the Basement and said, “Let’s apply the animations technology that we’re working with to really add some spice to the website,” (*1) and I think you’ll agree that the opening shot, the Nancy Pelosi Mask really is exactly what the doctor ordered. [Dr. Kevorkian.]
The other big challenge that we’re going to have to take up and solve this week, is a certain disconnect[They’re not making any money], between the LPAC income being generated versus the actual tremendous breakthroughs that are being made operationally, through the LPAC work in a number of different ways: Obviously, we’ve turned the country upside down already [Oh, swell], around the Homeowners and Bank Protection Act, and we know, without going into a lot of name, rank, and serial number detail [Because it sounds way better if it’s secret knowledge], that the issue of Lyn’s firewall proposal is being intensively studied and debated in Washington, D.C. on Capitol Hill,  against an enormous counterorganizing effort….[Wow! What else is new?]  (*2)

*In Illinois, we got … two initial sponsors on the HBPA, as the Illinois legislature is also in emergency session, over the fact that they can’t get a budget together. And those two sponsors–in the context of the Mark Fairchild’s highly successful statewide tour, and then his direct intervention in Springfield with the press conference at the State Capitol, delivering a 20-year-long “I told you so” from Lyn…(*3).[Can you imagine anything more impotent?]

2. Monday briefing, Nov. 5

LPAC IS THE LAROUCHE CAMPAIGN FOR THE 2008 PRESIDENCY

It is time to end the insanity of the persistent downward trend in LPAC income at the very moment that Lyn’s political impact is on an upward trend (*4), as never before.[The money’s getting worse and worse.]

Look at what we have already done with the Homeowners and Bank Protection Act (HBPA). This is the only reality being debated, albeit behind closed doors, on Capitol Hill. (*5) [Claptrap.]

If we successfully prevent a bombing of Iran, it will have been solely the result of Lyn’s persistent intervention (*6) against the Children of Satan….(*7) [Balderdash.]

Despite all this, many of our own people have not seized upon this reality, to drive LPAC. Face it: From 1976-2004, Lyn ran for President in every election cycle, and it was the impact
of his Presidential campaigns, despite some internal sabotaging [Boy, Nancy, he’ll never let you forget that—even though you didn’t do a thing], that drove whatever outreach was achieved, and whatever successive boosts in income followed from it…. We almost pulled off
a Kerry victory, through our efforts, in league with Bill Clinton and the Clinton team. [And the Pope, the Dalai Lama, and Amelia Earhart.]

Ostensibly [What does Jeff think ostensibly MEANS?], Lyn is not running for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2008, for obvious reasons of age. But that does not mean that we are not {running a massive intervention into the Presidential elections.}

3. Tuesday briefing, Nov. 6

OUR MISSION: CREATE A PRESIDENTIAL CULTURE WORTHY OF LINCOLN AND FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT (*8)

The following is a paraphrase of Lyn’s message to the organization, delivered on Monday night in dialogue with the NEC, the LYM and a group of Chicago organizers who have been tearing
up Ground Zero in Loudoun County for the past weeks.

The organization has been in a crisis for months that must be solved right now. Up through March-April of this year, the organization was based on field deployments with mass-circulation
pamphlets. [What happened in March-April? Anyone remember? It’s on the tip of my tongue—it was—it was—I got it! Ken Kronberg committed suicide and PMR closed down!] That perspective was abandoned and now must be revived. [And strangely enough, from that day forth, the perspective of having literature was abandoned. Shoulda thought of that before, Lyn.]

From the mid-1970s to the present day, the organization’s survival was based on Lyn’s Presidential campaigns. [Just as you always suspected—all those FEC dollars were keeping the darned thing going.] Now, the country is going to hell [unlike all those other times, when we just SAID it was going to hell] and what is needed is a spokesman to articulate what must be done to change course and restore the American System and our tradition. Just because Lyn, for age reasons alone, is not running for President does not change that basic fact. (*9)

Lyn saw that a Bush reelection would mean the destruction of the legacy of the Clinton Presidency, and so we intervened. We succeeded, despite resistance from within the organization [He’s at it again, Nancy], with the deployment of 100 youth to Boston, singing. This changed the course of history and saved the organization. [I can’t top that one….] (*10)

We are going to redo a competent production of the Prologomena(sic). We are going to revive what we were doing through the early Spring of this year [EARLY Spring—that would be before April 11]–mass organizing through an array of mass pamphlets, which give people an idea of what we are doing. [We want our literature back.] Then the Prologomena (sic), which gives the serious people an in-depth idea of our broad strategy for saving the nation and mankind. (*11)

You need a young adult movement to create a maelstrom. Define the wave of the future. That is what gets people of every age bracket truly excited. We must not have a Romantic notion of the youth, or of the tweeners. We know the weaknesses and the neurotic problems. [The youth have neurotic problems? When did that happen? Last I looked, they were marvelous in our eyes.] (*12)

Recognize what we are doing that is right. We have total authority, Lyn has total authority on the economy and the financial collapse. Look at what we are accomplishing around the HBPA, and now, around a renewed interest in capital budgeting. The HBPA firewall is the only thing that can avert total disaster. [If we could only figure out what we meant by “firewall.”]

We have a package of issues. We have nuclear energy, and we are going to politically destroy Al Gore, as part of this drive. [By the way.]

So we are going to shift to a deployment policy that is a shocker. [I’m shocked. I’ve been shocked for years.]

[And another thing….] We must, in this context, destroy Nancy Pelosi. She is the market (sic), the test of politics. She is keeping Dick Cheney in place, and if Cheney, by virtue of Pelosi’s sabotage, gets his Iran war, then more people will die than were killed by Hitler, and she will have that blood on her hands. [Plus she’s a woman….]

…………..

(*1) Larouche has discovered animated gifs? Wow! This innovative use of innovative technological innovation makes me want to get up and dance!

(*2) Hm.  I think the literature has it that the bills that winding through Congress (example) are strung from Felix R.

(*3) (Shrug) http://www.sj-r.com/News/stories/19305.asp

(*4) Yeah, good luck with that one.  I think the idea is to jiggle money out the “Impeach Cheney” tact?

(*5) I think footnote #2 offers the refutation.

(*6) I think this is a reprisal of the old “Labor Committees Avert Nuclear War” tact (following the “One Week to Nuclear War”, etc.)

(*7)  OHMYGOD!  The Children of Satan!  Back again!

(*8) The premise has come into the literature.  On one page you see news that a college professor said the Democrats should emulate FDR — what a concept! — but, for the Larouchian world, starting whenever it was he discovered the genius of FDR, that means emulating Larouche…

(*9) … Likewise, similar lines appear on electing the idea, not the person.  Seeming acknowledgement of the hard sell Larouche would have to fit his round pegs into that campaign of Hillary Clinton.

(*10) Sit back and marvel.

(*11)  Does this end the “Winds of Change” arc?  Really, I never understood how Larouche, Inc. was supposed to pass out their propaganda without those booklets.

(*12) … what with their myspace and facebook and Tron and all that.

Over in Kentucky, the Republican Party has brought out the big guns to get their men elected.

Pat Boone!

You know Pat Boone.  Of Stairway to Heaven fame.  Or did he have any other hits?

A gay person who lives in a Idaho (or other conservative thinking states) would have to appear straight to be elected. Once elected the person he has to vote for his constituents preference. I don’t think it’s being a hypocrite, rather its being a pragmatist which all politicians are. The best commentary I’ve seen is located at (you may have to copy this address and paste it into your browser.)

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/doc/clt/459032955.html

Well worth the effort. The publicized reality right now is in Idaho though.

The comment is an example of not addressing the post but instead addressing posts that reference the topic of what the commenter wants to parlay his message regarding, in this case Larry Craig — and the claims of “hypocrisy” — something I did not say there, and for all I know never expressly said.

The comment is a sad one, though it does parallel my sentence about “only electable in a handful of zip codes”.   Saying what? Regarding Larry Craig, though, his situation gets even worse: he is not gay — so he says — and does not believe himself to be gay, and there is a part of himself that believes he never trafficed bathroom stalls like that.

The U.S. “is deeply disturbed by the proclamation of emergency,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. “We cannot support emergency rule or the extreme measures taken during the emergency. Such actions are not in Pakistan’s best interests and damage the progress Pakistan has made on its path to democracy.”

This is one of those statements, and I believe I heard Condelleza Rice made similar statements, which elicits the simple question: “What progress on what path to what democracy are you talking about?”

Well, here is the rationalization of the Pakistani Democracy Project, as put forward by the ruler since that military coup in … 1998? … Musharraf,

Musharraf, however, urged the global community to “understand the ground realities in Pakistan and the decision taken to stabilise the situation in the country”.

He assured the diplomats that efforts were being made in a phased manner to move towards complete democracy since 1999. In the first phase of this process during 1999-2002, he was in full control of the government.

This was followed by the second phase during 2002-07 when an elected parliament functioned along with provincial assemblies and local governments and his role was confined to “advising the government on various issues of national importance”, Musharraf said.

He also referred to the role of the media, saying that in some cases it “seemed to be helping the cause of extremists and terrorists by showing the gory scenes of suicide bombings”, which “encouraged these elements to carry on with their heinous acts”.

Musharraf also said difficult decisions had to be taken in the national interest for “ensuring effective governance, maintaining writ of the government, law and order, security in the country and averting a decline in economic growth”.

I think I have always said that Pakistan was de rigouer necessary in keeping track of or an eye on and understand some political undercurrents out of, for us lay-people, because it was liable to explode.  But after that it becomes a strange example of national impotence.  For instance, I knew how certain rising tensions regarding North Korea would resolve itself; Pakistan just shows up as a black box and some unsolvable riddle.  (Immediate interests in terms of Americans shows up with Jon Stewart’s odd interview question to Musharraf: “Where’s Osama Bin Laden?“, but to expand some things out of our narrow purview — you know the Indian’s interests.)

In August I posted basically this to a message board — the one I’ve posted to in spurts for the last half a dozen years.  And had this response:

I would also make the observation that paranoid controlling groups like this, when confronted with a crisis which threatens their core beliefs, either blow up and go away, or they seek to rewrite their (internal) history – sometimes even to the point of denying that previous core beliefs were ever actually held. Problem with Larouches crew pulling this off (which they’d probably like to do) is that there are *outsiders* monitoring things, including our own Howie. Therefor, in order for their rewrite to work…

I saw a group of LYMers huddled about on a street corner card table shrine yesterday.  It has been a while since I have seen any, thought that may be more me than them — and undoubtedly they’ve popped in at PSU this school year and last at some point or other.  Probably more importantly, it has been a while since I have seen evidence of them, amounting to mass quantities of their propaganda being laid here and there.  They stood with the “Impeach Cheney” written on their cardboard — a good bet for the passerbyers, thought a little moldy a message.  (It still beats out the Mortgage message?)  I was wondering one thing — if they could be polled on Ken Kronberg, they would have what answer?  Their history with him is what?  Well, they’d probably think I had picked up something from the evil Washington Monthly article, or Who Knows?  a suspicion that I’m that Portland area blogger to know exists.

Elliot (Greenspan) hangs around at card tables outside post offices or DMVs occasionally, where he recently had the effrontery and pathetic out-of-it-ness to tell Ken Kronberg’s cousin to join LaRouche “to honor Ken.” You can imagine how that went over.

I suppose there is no contradiction between the crucification that Larouche gave to Kronberg in that daily memo  (you know the one), and reportedly in many other forums, and the “To Honor Ken” model.  But, about that memo… according to the Larouchie denziens working to affect the wikipedia pages, it is …

The statement about suicide is clearly hyperbole in the “briefing,” not intended to be taken literally. Benton is treating it as if it were a literal recommendation. “Malicious” seems to be the right word for this. —NathanDW 16:12, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Taking people at their word can’t be called a malicious interpretation. ·:·Will Beback ·:· 20:31, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Clearly just a coincidence, though even the word “jumped” is apparently at issue with them, who prefer the word “fell”.
I encourage those former cadres who are worried about irrelevence to consider how many people have absorbed important discoveries from he writings but still wanted to keep as far away from the movement as possible because of LaRouche’s (let’s be kind) ideosyncracies in leadership style.

The “ideosyncracies in leadership style”, and all that.

Molly, I am sorry for your loss. I don’t know the circumstances of Ken’s death, nor do I know what Lyn is like behind closed doors. Perhaps he is a difficult person. Those of great intellectual insight are such, notoriously. But I know the man as one can know a figure through his public work, and I have been immeasurably enriched thereby. And, in spite of everything, I will be bold enough to recommend that to you, even in your grief.

I have heard, and seen evidence here and there from various briefings, that Jeff Steinberg’s intentions for a post-Larouchian world include the notion of attempting to bring together old members who floated away due to Larouche’s abuses — er “ideosyncracies”, which I suppose means some sort of intellectual parlor game of separating the man’s “ideas” and some vaguely anti-entropy man versus beast ideology and… the man.  Should I expect a Kruschev speech blasting away at Stalin?  Steve and res republica have, either for his benefit or for the attempted benefit of winning in “those ex-members”, already made that intellectual jump.

Helga Zepp, I hear and seen in one or two writings, has worked to smooth relations with the European org.  As with the baby-boomers, the contradiction with Larouche in terms of this:

We cleaned the mess up in Europe by getting rid of the people who wanted to be gotten rid of. They were going anyway. They’d been gone for a long time, they were actually working for enemy agencies, or under the influence of enemy agencies, so we didn’t lose anything in Europe, we just simply acknowledged the fact that they were already long gone and lost. That happens. The enemy had taken them over.

But cross-purposes have to be worked with for multitude of goals.  You have the future to think about.

Back to the wikipedia page, it occurs to me that a simple answer has been provided in terms of the Larouchie charge on the Washington Monthly article.  If you go to the Ken Kronberg page, you will note that Larouche’s published rebuttal and challenge to that article from this past summer has been provided.  You know… Avi Klein = Mossad Agent, the article is a piece to destroy the Hillary Clinton presidential push and part of the “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy”.  So you see, both sides of the story have been provided.  It’s just that one side of the story is completely bonkers.

The thing about Mukasey is I knew he would be approved by the Democratic Senate, and passed through by the Democratic leadership — in this case meaning Charles Schumer and Dianne Feinstein.  The hope that sprung eternal when he provided uncomfortably vague answers about water-boarding was ill-advised, and I never thought worth wandering in and typing some words about.

Just admit it:  you do not belong to the same political party as they do.  Even if you voted for them.  Even if it is advisable that you vote for them, something you must weigh every two years.

In the midst of this whole series of events, George W Bush felt inclined to provide his schtik.  Something about Democrats bowing to the wishes of moveon.org bloggers and Code Pink ladies and if they don’t approve Mukasey, we won’t be giving them anybody new.  I don’t know the structure of moveon.org, so I can’t comment on its blogging functionalities, but my best guess is he’s off a bit there.  The bet of passing on Mukasey and ending up with nobody is worth taking.  But there is an odd functionality with this:

I think we can consider the functions of Code Pink a little beyond the Democratic/Republican party dichtomy, for good and bad, but moveon.org is a functionable Democratic fund-raising site, for good and bad.  Through this sort of McCarthy-esque smear, it is being poisioned in terms of functionality in acceptable political discourse.  This is not a good thing for the Democratic Party, but I think it is what Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein would like.

Anyway, we are likely veering back to the great Democratic stand on the S-CHIPP program, watering down the benefits to get to the filibuster proof margin, which I heard the great Democratic honchos announce “… And then the President will be irrelevant to this debate.”  Don’t make me laugh, Democratic Party honchos.

I had the misfortune of being at the Lloyd Mall on Halloween evening.  It was, as you would imagine, swarming with the kids, which is never a particularly good feeling for me.  I hadn’t experienced anything like it since the night before, when I was on the Max riding past the Rose Garden at the end of the Hannah Montana concert.

Anyway, all the kids were walking with their parent going to store to store trying to get candies, running about noisily.  Some stores were out, others still had candy for this sanitized version of Halloweeen.  And then there was this sight:

A slew of pre-teens wandering a little uneasily and uncertainly, with their parents a bit in the distance outside, into Victoria’s Secret.  I wonder about that one.  Was Victoria’s Secret handing out candy, and if so, did they do a brisk business in terms of handing it out?

I wonder if Kevin Sheppard truly recognizes the significance of the comments beneath his “American Prospect” post. In one manner of speaking, this is a story of utmost significance to a relative handful of people, of interest to a handful more, of curiosity to still more (and, watching the political magazines’ websites note the thing, I note that the Reason blog has finally picked up the Washington Monthly article), and nothing to many more. For a brief spell I was actually a bit panicky about the prospect of attention due to my strange following of this story before it picked up a bit more attention. (Type “Ken Kronberg” into google and see what it gets me.) I never really had to worry about that, in hindsight — the man Larouche is nobody of any real significance.

I note that “Steve” appeared on this blog in February, just after I completed my odd series of posts about Larouche. He provided that “light bulb” analogy for how he feels with his indoctrination into the wonder world of Larouche. I suppose I may just say this is not a terribly original insight into the creative process — um, yes?, and in terms of Lyndon Larouche falls into a dangerous gnostic realm, an incubation into culthood, together with the phrase that he left me with last February “DO YOU KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MAN AND ANIMALS?” — which, ends up with this elitist pose where the decision on who is acting like man and who is acting like animals gets to be determined by … um? (And onto the conspiracies, where you are fighting the powers that be who are not so much guided by human forces of greed and power-lust but… an interest in Bestializing the Public? It is a question that clarifies the cult leader’s proported ideology, so… thanks to Steve, back in February.)

One of those “light bulb” moments. But I then had another, more significant “light bulb” moment in pursuing some of his work, just as Steve did — whilel looking through one of his more slap-dashed pamphlets; ie: a transcript of one of his “World Historic Internet Broadcasts” with a few not terribly coherent articles. I picked it up literally from out of a gutter and had it lying around for a rainy day in March — a month I had declared a Moratorium on the topic of Larouche for this blog because I was sick of him and was sick of entertaining a couple of Larouchie commenters here. My light-bulb insight into the words that I was reading, as I realized the implication of his and his youngest flock’s words of denigration on the Baby Boomers admist the surreal trumpeting of the “Youth Movement”: “Something horrible is about to happen in that organization.” When something did, I found myself somewhat stuck. Hence, making it a point to float something at least once a week, and at particular points in time — an obnoxiously larger number of times. (revinire’s appearance was a bit annoying in that he forced me to jump the gun here, when I knew that I would shortly have this topic dominating this blog for a spell — something which I always am a little bit apprehensive with.) So, with my premonition from reading his words and then seeing that premonition take place, I can look at this Steve comment:

I’ll close with a capsule summary of one of Lyn’s most profound and oft maligned works – “Beyond Psychoanalysis”. It is, unfortunately, written in a dense style, but it is intelligible if one works at it.

and suggest this entire thing is one sick joke, that dear cult leader wrote “Beyond Psychoanalysis” with some influence from Fred Newman — they seemed to exchange ideas during their brief tenure together — and there is not much worth saying.

From the message from Bebe, troubled by her sister’s entry into Larouchism:

And I sometimes wonder, from the way she talks about it, maybe they really ARE doing something. Maybe I’m insane for not seeing what is so obvious to her, that LaRouche has got it right. That maybe, as she says, he really is popular in other countries.

But then, all I have to do is try to wade through one of his essays, and I see straight again.

Seems about right. Try to read straight, without forcing it to make it makse sense, and it all makes perfect sense. Of a type. Our dear revinire asked me a simple question about Kronberg’s death, in scoffing the “baby boomer” angle, only one part of the explanation, sure…: “WHY?” — and after all this time I come to an interesting observation: At bottom, Beats the Hell out of me. Why should I explain the crockery of dearest Lyn? “What?” is another of the question, and “what?” gets you to a plenty horrific answer with many things involved herein.

I had some difficulty recently explaining my involvement with this to somebody in the real world in saying that I was kind of sort but not really in the next issue of the Washington Monthly (though, not much) because Now, this has nothing to do with me at all (a position by-product of the college newspaper reporter trying to find an ex-member and thinking he was me, which forced me to that sidebar statement “I am not nor have ever been involved…”) but… um… I… um… am helping destroy a facist cult (wrong terminology for my purposes) and… I realized I would have to email an explanation to better express myself.) Am I? I don’t know. Something probably will exist for the indeterminable future, I’m guessing. All I know is that they’re telling Dead Larouche jokes in one of the regionals, reshuffling is taking place and the LYM are about to be be required to earn their money, and the Larouche version of the Ken Kronberg saga has been absorbed into the official history — and the wikipedia “talk” page on Ken Kronberg is plenty interesting,