In case you missed this item as it whizzed past us, and you have to suspect it is going nowhere and serves to prick up his book moreso than anything else, a book which contemplates some sort of wacky “Pro-Wrestling Ticket” stampeding into the White House.  (The recent glory days of professional wrestling popularity subsided in — I don’t know — 2002 or thereabouts.  It was an interval of time which included the year 1998, which helped serve his lark of a campaign into the governor’s chair against two political hacks.  The book’s spot in a national cultural zietgist is probably about two election cycles too late.)

…………………………………………………………………… 

BLITZER:  Let’s talk about Minnesota, your home state. You were the governor of Minnesota.  There’s a very important Senate contest that’s going to happen this year, Al Franken, the comedian, now a serious Democratic politician, vs. the incumbent, Norm Coleman. Who do you support?

VENTURA: Well, neither. You have got Norm Coleman, who is a chicken hawk. He wouldn’t serve in Vietnam. He protested against it.  Now he’s rubber-stamped George Bush every vote he wanted for the war in Iraq.

Then you have got Al Franken, a carpetbagger. He hasn’t lived in Minnesota for 30 years. I would be surprised if he even had a Minnesota driver’s license. And, if he does, he just recently got it.

Well, Wolf, look at it this way. What would happen to this race if I jumped in?

BLITZER: Well…

VENTURA: Because, you know — you know, I have until July to file, don’t I?

BLITZER: What are you going to do?

VENTURA: Oh, I don’t know yet. I have got until July to decide.

BLITZER: You want to be a United States senator?

VENTURA: I don’t know. I might look into it a little bit. I would sure cause a lot of hate and discontent in Washington if they sent me there.

[…]  BLITZER: It’s interesting you say all this, because you came almost out of nowhere and got elected in a three-man race for — for governor of Minnesota.  So, what you’re hinting at right now, you’re thinking about doing the same thing in the Senate contest?

VENTURA: I don’t know. I’m — I’m thinking about it. I don’t know how serious yet. But, let’s remember, I already beat Norm Coleman once.

BLITZER: When he was running for governor, and you beat him.

VENTURA: That’s right.

……………….

I was listening to Marc Maron guest hosting for Mike Malloy having a call in from Randi Rhodes.  This was a little bizarre, because what this represented was three refugees from Air America to NovaM.  (Least so Maron, who has no radio program.)  Marc Maron’s “Morning Sedition” was canned with one of any number of new managements came in with the seeming idea of ridding the network of anything interesting or novel.  Mike Malloy was canned sort of officially unofficially due to his interview of one Webster Tarpley, of 9/11 Truth fame and formerly of the LaDouche cult, but if that was really the reason the new management was going to get rid of him and his conspiracy-friendly act sooner or later anyways.  Ringing as similarly false was the reason behind the controversy that canned Randi Rhodes.

Understand, I think rather poorly of Randi Rhodes and her talk radio show.  To the extent that I hear her it is in small snippets while roaming around the am dial during the dearth-programming hours that her slot represents on the AM dial — which, realistically, is enough to know what she is saying a time or two over, repetitive she be.  That aside, I recognize her as being, from a business stand-point, one of the few real assets the struggling Air America network actually has, and I recognize her so-called “stand up act” (and the bar for the definition of “stand-up act” apparently has rolled rather low) as being a contrived controversy.  Simply put, nobody would have noticed had the network drawn attention to it by putting her off the air for these last two weeks.  The controvery’s contrivancy is such that it lends credibility to Rhodes’s self-serving explanation of a contractual power-play at work.

The up-shot is a sort of worst of both worlds.  620 KPOJ, and any radio station that has been airing her, will pick her back up shortly and hardly miss a beat, so nobody is spared her disappearance.  “Air America”‘s tortured history continues, as it devolves into the syndicate it would probably always eventually have to become — and one with an uncomfortably bland-ish line-up choice.  I suppose Air America leaves the legacy where something called a “Progressive Talk” format can exist, to the extent that that it does, but at this point someone programming such a thing just as well may select programming out of the Jones Radio Network and “Nova M” (pull Sam Sedar in and they can become the network of displaced Air America hosts) as from the perpetually bankrupting fiscally insolvent Air America network…

… which, I hasten to say, does carry Rachel Maddow, so you can give them that.

I would sure like to know what series of editing attempts brought the following sentence into the wikipedia article on James Bevel:

James Bevel […] in order to get his ideas on education into the limelight, ran as the vice presidential candidate in 1992 on Lyndon LaRouche’s ticket.

Understand the relatively lack of imporatnce of the association with Larouche to James Bevel’s life story is shown in the AP article’s mention of his running mate status as the final paragraph, guaranteed to be cut off in just about every newspaper that picks the story up.  Whatever the back story of this association, the wikipedia sentence about “getting his ideas on education into the limelight” come across as a white-wash.  (Curious items?)

The sick joke comes with what his “ideas on education” apparently were, as evidenced in the Incest Trial.  Here are his “ideas on education”:

The woman said her family’s communal life included “meetings” and “informal classes” in which Bevel taught his philosophy of nonviolence and offered instruction on “overcoming shame and lust and guilt about sexuality.”

As a young girl, she said, “I did see my father have sex with my mom. My only thought was they looked like a cricket.”

Earlier, her mother, Helen Williams, said her former husband espoused a philosophy “that parents need to sexually orient their children.”

But, she said, when Bevel once suggested she have sex with their son, “I was shocked and repulsed by the idea.”

AND

The public defender told the jury to focus on the charge and not on other interactions Bevel had with Machado. Hoffman asked Bevel whether he had ever rubbed Machado’s chest — another allegation she has made but one that is not part of this criminal case.

“Yes, I have engaged in rubbing [her] chest in an educational context,” he said. Bevel testified that as a minister and a teacher, he has educated people, including his children, on the “science” of sex and marriage.

That “educational context” refers to Bevel’s views that sex should only be used to procreate, not in recreational, commercial or military ways. He referred to rape as “military sex.”

If Bevel’s scientific definition of marriage is carried out, each girl born should take on the roles of mother, daughter, sister and wife immediately, while each boy should take on the roles of father, son, brother and husband immediately, he said.

… Well, it is all about creating a Scientific Revolution, I suppose.

The formation of the LYM in 1999 was meant as Larouche’s survivng legacy in his quest for “Immortality”, at the expense of the baby boomers who made up his organization. For this purpose, a purge would have to be implemented sooner or later, moving his chess pieces around. Through the previous decade at least, the published propaganda rattled on — with increaing vehemence — about the problems and failures of the Baby-boomers, and hatred of the baby-boomers was to be the focal point of the ideology implanted on thenew LYM cadre of recruits.  The published hatred of the baby-boomers was a manifestation of much the same meant internally by the organization to its adherents, and specifically related to certain individuals.

Namely Kenneth Kronberg, who ran the printing operation and was loyal to a fault to Lyndon Larouche.  Getting rid of Kronberg would be to successfully dump onto his lap all financial debts incurred with PMR’s function as Larouche’s printing press — if at first at cost of operation than later at PMR’s expense, Kronberg becoming the useful scape-goat for the death of the organization’s ability to disseminate his propaganda through the printed page.  So on that fateful morning of April 11, 2007, the Daily Briefing ran off the problems of the “Baby Boomers” who if not ready to join the “real world”, should consider “virtual suiccide”, before singling out the Printing Press as the source of the organization’s troubles.  Seeing no escape, Ken Kronberg jumped off an overpass.

In the parlance of Larouchian terminology, “the real world” means working with full fervor for Larouche’s causes in conjunction with “Immortality” (his), and “virtual suicide” is the supposed worth of your life outside the organization, the promise from the man in charge that you will suffer a nervous breakdown outside his curiously crafted sense of a “comfort zone”.

Purges have happened before, and are necessary as a means of control and means of reinvention for an organization such as Larouche’s.  In a sense, the lifeblood of this type of organization is the management of the internal crises in purporting the crises outside the world.  But this was going to linger and deepen.  I cannot say how I would imagine Larouche could pull off his feat in moving his “Youth Movement” in taking over the organization from thebaby boomers, but I find it difficult to see him picturing this purge as happening in the manner it did.

The Memorial Service for Ken Kronberg proved to be a meeting ground where former and current members renewed connections.  Bridges were built, mainly bridges which could allow some members to walk out of the organization.  Over the next year, the specter of “outside projects” for a staff at the National Level not fully committed to Larouche’s project of (self) Immortality would loom and haunt the organization and his most loyal of loyalists.  Just as important, bridges of information were built that would allow the dissemination of what can be called “The Secrets of the Elites”.

In previous years, the necessary revision of history and tightening of conduits of information could be more successfully completed.  The problem for Larouche came in the form of the Internet, and a loose network of observers with varying levels of awareness of what is going on (IE: This blog and I are quite clearly trailing on that list — I not being a former or current member or long time researcher and professional expert on this topic), but at any rate apt to disseminate the contortions and non sequiturs Larouche’s organization was set to go through in their attempt to weasle around the issues.

When Lyndon Larouche’s organization finally came around to acknowledging the problems attendent with Ken Kronberg’s suicide, two things immediately floated in the air.  First, the urging of continuing the struggle for “Immortality” as Kronberg’s supposed dying legacy.  Second, Kronberg’s suicide was stated as his biggest mistake — in the ideology of the organization’s thought process means as much as anything else, that Kronberg’s suicide was Larouche’s biggest mistake — and biggest source of consternation.

Larouche was confronted with a twin set of problems, the problems specific to the two parts of his organization with the Baby Boomers and the Youth Movement. For the Baby Boomers, particularly in the National org in Leesburg, he had to simply move the baby boomers past Kronberg.  For the Youth, he had to simply innoculate them from the controversy completely, and to the extent that he needed to address it, tell a side of the story that would effectively leave it in the laps of the Baby Boomers and the Kronbergs.

To that latter end, the organization directly addressed the issue of various websites’ focus on Larouche, the “AFA funded” FACTNet board, “John Train’s salon” in Dennis King, and a “new blog by(a) Star Trek groupie and Robert Beltran stalker”. Recharged in earnest was a a full frontal assault on computer related culture — in the form of video games and myspace — as well as a demonization of the Internet tools of wikipedia and google (which had long been bugaloboos for the Larouche organization).  In the end, the measures culminated in the edict that banished the Larouche Youth Movement from visiting the Internet — and while I cannot say I  really know what the terms of this edict are, which in addition to dropping 80 daily hits from Nick Benton’s myspace site (and for all I know, this blog) served to isolate them from the fallout from the national organization, and anything not given to them by the organization.

The problem with the National org, meanwhile, was that it was full of individuals with a clear memory and level of affection toward the recently departed Kronberg.  Necessarily, the berating Ken Kronberg took prior to his suicide would have to be pushed aside.  The best Larouche could push for with Ken Kronberg — while maintained a failure to his cause, at least a loyal foot-soldier in the cause of (his) Immortality, and in that week delayed “open letter” to the widow Molly Kronberg, he threw in a clause meant to put her on warning.  Molly Kronberg was set to be, internally speaking at least, Enemy #1.  The coup de grace came when Larouche issued his “Final Word” on the subject by pointing to her couple of hundreds of dollars in donation to presidential campaign of George W Bush.  In an act of conscience which showed Larouche the uncomfortable level of dissension within the ranks, this factoid would be left off of its designated memo, forcing Larouche to issue the notice again.  The parallel tact was another act of revisionist history: change the subject completely.  So it was that the cause of the consternation and rambling within the organization was newly minted as the history – changing webcast where Larouche exposed the BAE Scandals, the historical mission and issue that the organization was now supposed to throw itself into for the Greater Good.  Anyone overly burdened and by the schism of this history changing event was instructed to a friendly chat with the resident house psychiatrist, Gerry Healy. (sic?)

Intruding into the attempt to completely change the subject was the hovering presence of Avi Klein, doing research for a piece for the liberal political magazine The Washington Monthly.  The Larouche organization did its customary act of shutting down any line of communication from them to him, and worked their way to the proper response.  Here they went to the go-to-line, which is to suggest that Avi Klein was a Mossad Agent.  After that, it was a task of placing the article into the larger context: this was a hit job for the “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy” to bring down the candidacy of Hillary Clinton, the “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy” having been a continuation of the “Get Larouche Task Force” of the 1980s that brought Larouche, and various associates, to prison.  It was a convoluted act of rationalization which could only be believable by delievers in Larouche, and increasingly not even to them.  One line did show the mindset of the organization in assessing what they needed to protect most of all.  Jeff Steinberg wrote that what these forces fear most of all was the implication of a growing Larouche Youth Movement that would survive and thrives past Lyndon Larouche’s demise.  Their focus was in incubating the LYM.  As an aside, the word “demise” seems a bit of a Freudian slip, Steinberg seems to be thought of as more or less planning a think tank to survive the death of Larouche, one that has no room for Lyndon Larouche.

Whatever else one can say about the proported “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy” outgrowth from the 1980s plot to bring down Larouche theory, it did dove-tail back to the emerging line against Molly Kronberg.  To get to that point, you had to leave aside that the Washington Monthly’s spot on the political map is roughly that of a sort of “Clintonistas in Exile”, and put aside that Kronberg was next seen lending an interview with Chip Berlet, who wrote some articles for High Times Magazine, a fact the Larouche Organization used in fund-raising from largely conservative Republicans in the 1980s.  Larouche unveiled his next line of attack against Molly Kronberg by revising the history of the court trials and the prison sentence of the 1980s.  Whereas the old storyline focused on the role of George Herbert Walker Bush, President of the United States and former CIA Head, in supposed railroading the crew of political prisoners, the new focus of “newly revealed information” swirled around Molly Kronberg’s acts of criminality and back-stabbing (one large part coming with Molly Kronberg’s attempt to keep Larouche from testifying in her trial).

At this point, Larouche and company were well aware of the shake-out in the org and the hollowing out at the national org, and so ran ahead of the matter as much as they could by issuing internal memos warning the faithful of the back-stabbing enemies in their midst.  This shake-out would reach a crescendo in March, when Larouche let out a bellow against the “stupid manpower shortage” he was seeing amongst his leadership, and the proliferation of “Outside Projects”.  He rolled back into his long standing attack on the baby-boomers, and in a published release on his website explain “one of the things I hate about my associates”.  Reportedly, and I have no way of confirming or denying such a statement, the NEC is now comprised of six people.  Lyndon Larouche has gotten his purge, whatever good that does him.   The prime directive of the NEC at this point has to be to direct and manage the Larouche Youth Movement, getting back to the task of making them feel as though they are World Historic Figures under Larouche’s own belief that hs is the World Historic Figure, in part by creating a sense amongst the “Youth” of feeling superior to an the generation that joined in the late 1960s and early 1970s.  The fight for Larouche’s immortality is one of stringing them along in training them that Conflict is more powerful than Love.

I see the scope and nature of the coverage of General Paetreus’s visit to Capitol Hill exemplified on the cover of USA Today.

A photo of, in order: Paetreus.  McCain.  Clinton.  Obama.  Or, some order with these four figures.

And so it is status quo with a slice of electoral political theater, ultimately pointless.  Good job, whatever it is that is sourcing this job.

The city has tended to puzzle me in certain ways.  It is oft cited as a national Model for how to get a few things done, so any number of people from other cities come down to discover that… it has its good points and its bad, and you can work with that however you may.

The upshoot is that the economy is perpetually soft enough that there are always empty store-fronts around.  I imagine it is a problem which is worse in any number of other cities, and in a sense it may not really be much of a problem at all.  But the thing you can do every year, and particularly every two years, and every four years, is take note of them before the election season comes — because these are the fronts that will be rented out by election campaigns as the temporary offices to be abandoned once the election flies by.

So I pass by the Sho Dozono campaign, a flood of signs with the “For Rent” sign still up.  (Perhaps it should remain so because it will be back for rent by December.)  I know where the two Attorney General candidates are set up.  Also up is Hillary Clinton’s place — signs plastered, but… I have yet to see a single soul linger in there.  Maybe she can just keep it up as a facade for a campaign that is going nowhere (the demographics tip Obama’s way) — who knows?

Back in 2000, in a college class alongside an individual (overweight film buff, 10 years older than I, single father) where we were looking at various war propaganda through various wars.  At one point, he looked down at a cartoon and said “Wow.  Gooks.  There’s a term hasn’t been used since Vietnam.”

I looked at him, and said, “Actually John McCain referred to how he hated ‘Gooks.'”

He shook his head.  “No.  There is no way an American politician in the year 2000 could possibly say ‘Gooks’.”

I smiled and shrugged.  “Well, he did.”

“No.  That would pretty much be the end of any politician’s career.”

I sighed, and said, “Well.  Part of his ‘No Nonsense’ ‘Straight Talk express.  He did.”  I knew he did, I knew how he spinned out of it (half understandably, half not), and I knew that there was no real point in arguring when I was right and he was wrong, except if I wanted to just going ahead and printing out the story about the controversy.

I never did get around to that.  And I am not quite sure what the refusal to acknowledge the possibility that he said something he did says about him, explifier of part of the electorate off on the fringes of either voting or not voting.

Looking over the Portland Mayorial race, and as imperfect as it is I will take a look at the wikipedia articles on candidates Sho Dozono and Sam Adams to help guide a decision.

In 1976, Dozono joined his father-in-law’s business Azumano Travel. He became president in 1981, and owner in 1987. Dozono and his wife Loen have five children.^[2] In 2002 Dozona was awarded the ASTA’s 2002 Travel Agent of the Year Award at the Society’s World Travel Congress to honor his work in rebuilding the travel industry following September 11 attacks.^[3]

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Dozono organized the “Flight for Freedom”, a group of Oregonians who flew to New York City in response to Mayor Rudy Giuliani‘s plea to keep the city’s tourist economy afloat.^[4] The trip was led by then-Mayor of Portland Vera Katz, and participants reportedly ranged from 800^[4] to over 1000^[5], far beyond Dozono’s expectation of 200.^[4] Similar “Flight of Friendship” trips were organized to Thailand following the 2004 tsunami^[6] and to New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.^[7]

Dozono has not previously held public office of any kind. As a prominent member of the Portland business community, Dozono is running on a platform of fiscal responsibility.^[8] On social issues, Dozono has professed to hold progressive values,^[8] and has numerous civic awards and achievements.^[2] Current Portland mayor Tom Potter has endorsed Dozono’s candidacy, as well as former mayor, Vera Katz.^[9]

^{Impressive credentials, befitting the task of Portland’s Mayor.  But take a look at Sam Adams’s credentials!}

Samuel Adams (September 27 [O.S. September 16] 1722^[2] – October 2, 1803) was an American statesman, politician, writer and political philosopher, brewer, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.^[3] Adams was instrumental in garnering the support of the colonies for rebellion against Great Britain, eventually resulting in the American Revolution, and was also one of the key architects of the principles of American republicanism that shaped American political culture.

Adams established himself as one of the voices of opposition to British control in the colonies; he argued that the colonies should withdraw from Great Britain and form a new government.^[4] Adams called for the colonists to defend their rights and liberties, and led town meetings in which he drafted written protests against Parliament‘s colonial tax measures such as the Stamp Act of 1765. Adams played a prominent role during protests against the Stamp Act, and in the events of the Boston Tea Party in 1773. He participated in the Continental Congress.^[5] He also advocated the adoption of the Declaration of Independence at the Second Continental Congress.

After the United States declared its independence in 1776, Adams helped write the Massachusetts Constitution with John Adams, his second cousin, and James Bowdoin.^[6] Afterwards, Adams helped draft the Articles of Confederation.^[7] Following the end of the American Revolutionary War, he ran for the House of Representatives in the 1st United States Congressional election, but was unsuccessful in his bid. He was elected Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts in 1789,^[8] and after John Hancock‘s death in 1793, Adams served as the acting governor until he was elected governor in January of the following year.^[9]

Sorry Sho Dozono, nothing wrong with you, but looking at these two candidates, it is crystal clear that Sam Adams — Revolutionary Founding Father of the United States — has the more impressive credentials.  In fact, Portland can look forward to a New Golden Age with Revolutionary Era Founding Father Sam Adams leading our city’s government, and the Norse God of Poetry and War holding down the Middle for our city’s professional basketball team.