Ba De Dum!

My dad got waylaid by a canvasser on the street yesterday morning, drumming up support for Cheney’s impeachment. Dad said he was down with the cause, and asked what he could do to help. “Give money,” she said.

He gave her three bucks.

Behind this anecdote is a question.  Now, the dad is cynical enough to have given to the vendor despite his opinion that he’s a “bit of a wacko” because of both the humor and the “truth told in jest” behind the comment “he’s eighty-four years old” and the fact that he agrees with the sentiment of impeaching Cheney.  But what do we make of the vendor?  Where does her cynicism pop into the picture?  There are two immediate options: either she believes in Larouche and has come up with the line “he’s eighty-four years old” as a manner of parting reluctant people out of their money, or she has glommed onto what was the most immediate manner of addressing the political situation she disapproves of, and cynically is passing through Larouche as an intermediary on the way to that cause.

A third option is the Ruth Williams slow-burn realization that this is crap, and thus she slowly peters out to the end.

………………………..

Rummaging through this book (and I link to the wikipedia article instead of my usual Amazon.com link to books because the links to reviews and criticisms of the book — ie: its possible faults — are instructive), I’m bemusing myself with the question of “How do you dissolve a cult?”  There are no particularly easy answers, the members of a cult have been particularly groomed and tested and retested for loyalty’s sake.  I gravitate toward the end of the chapter concerning Marlene Dixon, which parallels the similar path to a cult’s destruction as Greg Healy.  Reagan / Thatcher made the farthest reaches of left-wing thought propagated by the Masters look irrelevant to the situation at hand.  Political cults, unlike religious ones, are vulnerable to broader movements in politics that can make it harder for leaders to justify to the membership their sacrifices.  Our friend in Virginia has that covered: he moved from the far left to the far right, and has feigned across the more mainstream political spectrum ever since, without really changing any positions.

The third element, critical to the process, is a breakup of the leadership group.  Dixon survived as long as she did because her worst features and corruption were hidden from the membership by a tight circle of leaders.  Most important was her second in command, Sandra.  In 1982 Dixon turned viciously against Sandra.  Sandra at the same time expressed her disdain for the group and began to toy with the idea of leavaing with a small coterie to set up a think tank in Washington.

It was the opening provided by divisions in the leadership that permitted an outpouring of the rage of the members against the guru.  The members of the DWP were worn out from working “seven day weeks and until 1 am most nights for years.”  Many had lived in poverty in collective houses and yearned for a more balanced life with some time for family and career.  It became harder for the members to believe that the very real sacrifices they were making were actually producing results.  Once the full extent of Dixon’s alcoholism, irrationality and privileged life-style was exposed to the members, there was no putting the pieces back together again.

And on and on.  Back to Larouche, I mention that Dennis Kucinich, on the edge of the Democratic Party, has issued letters of impeachment for Dick Cheney.  It is not too hard to imagine that the channels of distribution of the idea came from out of Larouche, by way of cultural osmosis, really.  (Kucinich heard it sometime, maybe received letters from constituents recommending he needs to impeach Cheney First, etc.) Larouche claims to be in working relations with Bill Clinton, so even the sort-of-accidental influence of a less than central figure pushing an DOA bill must be a little off.  Nonetheless, it is enough to write up for the purpose of convincing his followers that he yields influence.  (Hey!  He takes credit for the ideas behind a Chuck Hagel op-ed piece on Iraq, even as I murmur that I remember distinctly the “Larouche Doctrine” included the absolutely insane necessity that it be referred to “the Larouche Doctrine” — by way of his only real political belief of “See that Crisis?  Me For Dictator!”–, meaning whatever else the sensical ideas of convening the neighboring nations in a conference and whatever political divisions Hagel has in mind for Iraq may or may not have in common with Larouche’s ramblings on the topic, it ends up having no relation whatsoever.)
I wish that every person in Larouche’s orbit over the age of 30 would just walk out and quit right now.  This would leave Larouche with what he seems to desire at the moment, what his organization has built its temples of fantasy (paging Robert Beltan) and geared it toward — the “Larouche Youth Movement”.  In a sense taking him back to his beginning of a small group of grad students, albeit a number more, devoid of long-timers who have a moment’s pause if they can recollect a bit of a sense of history.  (Do not personally recall Reagan.)   (That covers the baby-boomers, the tweeners, and Generation X.  I detect that the Tweeners are lumped in with the baby-boomers in the Larouche screeds against baby-boomers, and the odd recommendation of suicide.)

……………

From the factnet board, a bit of comedy by the perhaps over-committed, perhaps not, ex-Larouchite:

Big things are taking place in Windy Hill , the secret location of the man who has successfully predicted the end of the world, economy and Hegla’s shopping trips for over 3 decades.

“Those fiends” snarled Lyn, as barked on the LarouchePhone to make sure that the LPAC quota of 10,000 hits a day is met, or humanity is doomed as we know it.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 4th, 2007 at 10:09 pm and is filed under The LaRouche Challenge, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.