On a few issues.
I think I know, at least in parts, where Nick Benton is coming from with this, with concerns to “a Dennis King”. I only suggest that it is not necessary for everybody to be singing “Kumbaya”, or on “the same page”. An interesting thing for one to do is to run to the index of King’s book and go to “Benton, Nicholas” — which I have not done, though I have for “Kronberg, Kenneth”. But keying in on this:
a Dennis King, in particular, who in his most recent posting, presents himself as the originator of the materials viz. Kronberg, etc., that he outlines in his typically brutish fashion.
and the source for this (whether or not it is Benton himself does not really concern me) makes a little more sense:
- You need to know that Nick Benton’s Falls Church News Press was first out with the story of Ken’s suicide, the morning briefing that day, and the financial background.Check it out www.fcnp.com
For whatever it is worth, the Washington Post obituary listed all those Larouche items without mentioning the connection to Larouche for any of the activities, which I believe was there before the FCNP. The sourcing of Dennis King is attributable to the bear bones fact that the relevant parts of the morning briefing are at his website in its entirety.
In fact, I blame King’s one-dimensional, profoundly flawed book on LaRouche for the fact that many more former members have been intimidated against going public with their experiences in the organization. Who wants to be branded an anti-semitic fascist, even if now outside the organization? […]
I cannot sit back and watch this Dennis King continue trying to define my life from that era or this. He views ex-members as a meal ticket and his latest offering shows very little remorse or correction to his earlier, destructive work.
Then again, from a different angle the comments on his myspace page consist of:
Well Nick, I have to say that this article would make Chip Berlet proud. Shame it ruins your credibility.
AND
Being a slut has never been easy Nick. Be careful, uncle Rupert (Murdoch) is watching you!
The Murdoch reference a pure and undistilled present-day Larouchism — visa vie the current line of attack on myspace.
From parts known elsewhere:Â Some of us dropped out with vague ideas of carrying out the battle to save the world on our own terms in a better way perhaps than Larouche. The trouble is, without Lyn the battle lines quickly disappear.
Where, for instance is the line dividing those for and against technological progress? Who are the ones calling for genocide in Africa as a form of population control?
How are we to come to terms with the fact that the most technologically advanced nations have the lowest birth rates? Genocide via advancement?
Most of us stayed in the org longer than we should have because we believed the mantra that “no one else is doing what we areâ€. It took me nearly a decade to accept the fact that what we were doing was…. nothing.
 Tony Papert, as SDS member and a spokesman for teh executive committee of the students Strike Coordinating Committee at Columbia, on both the circulation of the Rudd paper and The New Republic article, that “somebody fabricated this to make it look like a Communist Conspiracy.”
May 13, 1968 NY Times “Some Columbia Trustees Urge Study of October Plan for Sit-In”.
Or, if you want, I could say what The Sparticist had to say about “Lynn Marcus”, but I’m stuck at the mid-1980s with a random paragraph reflecting on an anecdote of a debate with Marcus’s group, and concerning firstly the down-fall of Healy and secondly a seemingly more important task of knocking around Tim Wolhforth — such is the pettiness of these Left wing polemics, it seems.
August 26th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Nick Benton says that I am falsely claiming that materials on the Kronberg case originated with me. I’m not sure what he means. For months, whenever someone went to my home page and looked at the growing list of items on the Kronberg case the first item, at the top, was Benton’s own article; even now it is near the top. I followed the link to his site and found that he is accusing me of using LaRouche’s victims as “meal tickets.” Do you have any proof of this, Nick? Why don’t you ask Erika Duggan if I’ve EVER tried to use her family as a meal ticket?
August 27th, 2007 at 4:31 am
Benton’s article preceded the Washington Post obituary, I believe. Benton’s article came out April 18 or 19, and the full WaPo obituary, mentioning the LaRouche connection, came out May 1 or thereabouts.
The earlier WaPo death notice was inserted by the funeral home, and did not mention LaRouche connection, finances, briefing, etc.
March 6th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
I do believe that Mr. Benton is correct in his statements against Dennis King. The materials in question do seem to originate from him and I honestly believe that his meal ticket does not have any more punches left for him to use. Dennis you should be ashamed and I don’t thing you should be bringing Erika Duggan in to this. Own up and deal with it!
March 7th, 2008 at 11:14 am
Actually the “materials in question”, most importantly the phrase “virtual suicide” and the scape-goating and blaming of the Printing Press on the woes of the organization, originate with Lyndon Larouche. My mind imagines a dictation to Jeff Steinberg as he formulates the memo, but that’s just a dramatic flourish in my mind… I don’t even know what Steinberg looks like. I also think I know who you (or if you not “you”, the org in general) think “leaked” the materials in question. (Which, by the way, at the time, a Dianne Bettag in the comments section of this blog ran from the question of “Do you know who Nick Benton is?” to “Stolen Documents”.)
Exactly how these thing end up in the hands of Nick Benton and Dennis King are Trivial. I imagine that they were leaked to both of them at roughly the same time. There seems to be a cottage industry of various “Cult Experts” and former Larouche insiders who collect these things. (See also Scott McLemee’s rebuff toward me on this blog.) At bottom, despite some negative opinions Nick Benton has about Dennis King, my best guess on the answer he and Dennis King have about what they think about the other is, in general, “I don’t.”
As for Erica Duggan, in looking for the name of McLemee I see that she has offered up a comment to a long ago post (just as “Jonathan Wilson” commented to a long ago post here), which is of note:
http://www.artsjournal.com/quickstudy/2007/10/loafing_with_larouche.html
Own up and deal with it!
May 27th, 2013 at 7:34 am
With regard to Tony Papert and the Labor Committee at Columbia, please see my new book How It All Began: The Origins and History of the National Caucus of Labor Committees in New York and Philadelphia (1966-1971) available at http://laroucheplanet.info/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Library.HIABcover. In it, I devote an entire chapter to the 1968 Columbia Strike.
May 28th, 2013 at 6:00 pm
Great. I have not read it as yet, but I will sooner or later.
I may as well note about the odd items from the archives I posted 2007 to 2008– it was something I was curious about — to just pull out a few charcters sans Larouche — and this would simply be a matter of typing their names in news archive.
The more interesting one (for me) was to comment you provided, my quotation from the Spartacist publication — and for that one, I recall how … “interesting”… I found the 2 or 3 decades of their news-screed was. (Left wing sectarian politics, sliding into a lot of its own little world.)