How to dissolve a cult Take 3 or thereabouts, and how to regenerate it.
(At the end of a string defending myself.) I don’t think Larouche is listening.
— LaRouche is not listening, but believe me, some of the folks in the org are listening. Or reading. (Of course, ex-members read this material voraciously too–just as I am convinced that ex-members account for a very high percentage of the hits on the LPAC website that the org is so proud of.)
— But members still locked in the org are also reading and reading and reading–welcome, one and all (pretty much–except for the members who read FactNet as part of the endless “investigative” work that the org does in “monitoring” its “enemies”).
(Shrug). HELLO LEESBURG!
I posted two paragraphs from Dennis King’s latest, and most noteworthy, article, on the power a cult leader holds in suggesting Suicide — over on the sidebar. Then there’s the final few sentences. The ex-members are outraged, the boomers still inside the organization are upset, and the “yutes” (LaRouche Youth Movement members) are confused. LaRouche, it would appear, has finally opened Pandora’s Box. This may be the end game, folks.
Tap tap tap…
I am certainly not in a position to argue, or to agree for that matter. But I am reminded of the number of times an article in the mainstream media reported on Larouche and suggested that, for example when his Illinois followers won those two Democratic nominations in 1986, “but will the spotlight shined on him be the end of him?”
Though, in a sense, these things did destroy him. Imagine you kill a zombie. He returns from the dead — at half strength. You kill him again. And he returns again — once again, at half strength. Posit up any metric you want, and Larouche will fail to measure up to his old standard, except perhaps in terms of his Grandiose Vision of himself which is a constant unchangeable. (Once upon a time he had decent CIA contacts; now he just appears to google.) So comments like this are what we have: Somewhat disappointed that LaRouche is still alive….so conventional of me.
The mindset of the Fantasy Shadow Government, and if I may quibble with this found at the “larouchewatch” blog: If Hillary supports the resolution, and then gets elected, wanna bet LHL will be expecting an invite to sleep in Lincoln’s bedroom? — It’s not so much that Larouche will be expecting anything, as he will claim such a thing. He’s a close adviser to Bill Clinton, you see.
Cut his strengths in half enough times, and eventually it will just Larouche in a strait-jacket, directing world affairs in his own mind.
From an ex-Larouchie at FACTNet:
Things have changed in Leesburg. From what I am picking up, members are challenging, complaining, muttering.
The place leaks like a sieve, because members and non-members fraternize like crazy now–something that never happened in the past to this degree.
The insulation and isolation that was preserved so effectively in the past is eroding beyond repair because so many people in Leesburg, including NEC members, now work. (Everyone who isn’t independently wealthy or running some special scam or VERY IMPORTANT to Lyn is either working or married to someone who’s working.) “Outside” contact–whether ex-member friends, non-member friends, outside jobs–is popping the bubble.
That means that there is potential for constant leaks, uncontrollable, and also for unrest in the ranks.
Again, I can’t argue or agree, and if this spitting out at the wind were a serious enough threat to their own Special Oligarchy I’d receive denials of such. BUT… continuing on with this message, to the other side of the ledger, conflicting with the signs of breakage.
This all pertains to Leesburg. In the regions, the NCs suffer from a 30-year addiction to being absolute dictators, which is reinforced by the communalism imposed on the LYM, and the general attitude associated with the LaRouche Jugend Bewegung.
And back a bit:
The problem however may lie in the fact that it appears that new recruits are subjected to a much more brutal and coercive and isolated existence than even we members from the earlier 70s, 80s and 90s were exposed to.
These things are probably now more necessary than ever to maintain an increasingly credulous claim to “World Historic Figure” in this day and age, where one can theoretically be hermetically secluded in an obscure corner of the globe and with an Internet connection still have connections with the outside world. With that in mind, it appears that Larouche has ripped some pages off his websites. Note that the Dennis King website linked page on “Larouche served notice on his Jewish ‘boomers’ in 2005” is no longer there.
I wonder what else has been cut. I always thought one could use any number of examples of Larouche disparaging his boomers — or the equivalent of disparaging boomers in general while praising his Youth. Since this has been the very basis of the past half a dozen years of cult positioning, surely they can’t all be just tossed to the wind. Maybe that particular page wasn’t subtle enough.
So here’s the dirty little secret. “Leaking like a sieve”, internal memos flowing out like an avalanche — and I return to the comment Bettag left on this blog about “those stolen documents”, a misnomer that she didn’t actually believe (but which allowed the acknowledgment of accuracy against an earlier insinuation of “slander”.). Maybe the Leesburg gang cares one iota about that situation, perhaps they don’t. But these things — these Daily Briefings — aren’t really needed to get an overview of the events of Larouche-land. It always manifests itself in the Larouche literature, which — after all — is produced primarily for the consumption of the cult members — and thus reflects what he means to knock into their head. (Secondarily any off-hand random supporter of whatever cause — Damned ye, Al Gore. Damned ye, Dick Cheney).
The Dirty Laundry of Larouche’s organization, and its means of control and its circled wagon, is aired right there in the open, thinly submerged behind lines about Synarchist Plots and a supposed “BAE Scandal” or three — if something is beaten to the ground beyond any comprehension, there is a good bet that the external crisis is hiding an inflamed internal crisis. Just toss in a few old lines about Jeremy Duggan in unrelated treatsies, and I think we can measure that Rorschach Test pretty easily.
But Larouche can get great mileage from blasting away anyone who bothers to read these things and reports back on what they just read.
July 27th, 2007 at 7:32 am
Actually, the spotlight shined (shone? shun?) upon him WAS the end of him in many ways, after the March 1986 victory by two LaRouchies in the Illinois Democratic primary.
From that day forward, the LaRouche org income began to collapse, the point where for several years it has been running at perhaps 25%, perhaps 10%, of what it was in its heyday.
The collapse of the income led to the unraveling of the whole loan mess, and the appearance of two LaRouche nuts as the apparent Lt. Governor and Secretary of State nominees of the Illinois Democratic Party galvanized people into action. Seven months after the March 1986 primary win, and the spotlight shining, there came the October 1986 Federal raid on LaRouche’s HQ in Leesburg, the arrest of LaRouche aides, indictments, and then trials. By the end of 1988, LaRouche had been convicted of various felonies and was on his way to the Big House.
So you could say that as a potential political force, LaRouche was finished. However–and this is why he still matters–he can still destroy the lives of his followers, of these wide-eyed, downy-cheeked, ignorant “yutes,” and of the gray-faced, hollow-eyed, emotionally exhausted wrecks of the Baby Boomers who are still dragging around various offices raising the $$.
The thing to remember is that nothing has EVER worked in the LaRouche movement. Its whole history is that of people dropping out, individually and in huge bunches (the Bavarians, Detroit, Italian org, Latin American org, European org). LaRouche makes the fact that everything always fails–is the Pike statue still standing in DC, folks?–part of his drawing card; he lives on another plane of reality where all the obvious defeats, failures, collapses of initiatives, are really victories.
The zombie image is about right.
July 27th, 2007 at 10:25 pm
Presented in its entirety, the mocking rubbish.
July 27, 2007 (LPAC)–In response to an article written by London’s Dennis King entitled “Lyndon LaRouche and the Art of Inducing Suicide,” Lyndon LaRouche asked: “Is Dennis King planning suicide?” LaRouche continued: “Dennis would do almost anything, even suicide, just to get attention from those influentials who have become bored by news of his continued existence.
“After all, it is not as if the poor schnook were a member of the human species, but possibly a distant relative of Al Gore by way of a common opossum ancestor.”
LaRouche said that he is not going to pay any attention to his suicide. He is not going to encourage him or stop him. He won’t waste his efforts to stop him. It is a hopeless cause. He is morally already dead. He is an empty carcass without a soul. His soul, if there ever was one, has long since departed. LaRouche also said that he is not going to send flowers to the funeral. The flowers wouldn’t appreciate it. He wouldn’t even think of sending flowers to the funeral of someone whose soul has long since departed.