Paid for by Richard Mellon Scaife
A ground report in the Ongoing War Against Newton:
Speaking of physics-related skeptical topics, have any of you seen the LaRouchians (aka the LaRouchebags) on campus? They’re a very politically oriented personality cult surrounding Lyndon LaRouche, and I think they prey on college dropouts. Among other things, they believe Newton, who may or may not have even existed, stole all his ideas from Kepler. Newton’s laws are plagiarized from Kepler’s laws. Joe tried showing them a physics problem involving friction, and asked them to solve it using only Kepler’s laws (which only deal with orbital motion). Their reaction was to question his credentials, and then promptly ignore him. They literally turned their back towards him, even while trying to talk to someone next to him.
They better send out reinforcements writing out more placards with the slogan “Newton Was A Fraud and We Can Prove It”. There is even more evidence that this war is being lost.
……………………………………
A blog post called “La Rouche and God” (Strange title, even for this) runs into what itches the cult seems to provide scratches toward. This is an interesting summation of perception:
Their theory is to go back in time and review the great discoveries, then we could use that now to improve the lives of people on this planet. I agree that it needs improvement. We all hope for a better world.
For the life of me I cannot figure out whether that makes a sense “in theory” as one tool amongst many in Historic Inquiry, but as practiced by the LYM and its predecessor, the NCLC, it devolves into placing great discoveries into one or the other pile of fighters of the Dark Age or perpetrators of the Dark Age — seen in the long list here, and in skipping down to Part III of this blog entry, also in putting Larouche and his disciples as doing the work of Jesus and his Disciples. xlcer, skimming these things, pops in with his rote response — a suggestion to xlcer: feel free sprinkle in a bit of targetted material such as that historical gem in that standard template — it might prove somewhat more effective. BUT… good luck to this young Christian woman in offering up the Larouche recruiters your faith in God, I suppose
They invited me to a meeting to discuss these issues and hear more research and speeches on these ideas. I’m going to go. Maybe I can influence some to hope and pray to God for those things. The idea that we can change the world, its great, really. But more than the things that we could achieve, is the idea that all we truly need is faith, hope, and love, mostly love.
— but remember: they don’t believe in love… they believe in agape. A distinction that would allow for (from evidence put forth in the recently historically reimagined Alexandria Trial, first box here):
The trouble with you people at the national center is you are too soft. You identify too much with people’s concerns and their problems. You have to have only one thing on your mind. That is getting the money. No matter what the person you are talking to says, get the money. If you are talking to a little old lady and she says she is going to lose her house, ignore it. Get the money.
Which reminds me — we can see the imprints of the Historical Revisionism regarding that trial here:
AND, more curiously, see where the most recent “Molly Kronberg Defeated Larouche HBPA in South Dakota” story found its way to. This is a forum to a 9/11 Truth page, and while it is not terribly surprising to see a Larouche story provided by a Larouchian strolling around the “9/11 Truth”space, it is a bit puzzling for him to pluck out the story about Molly Kronberg. A story I frankly don’t believe would register much for this spectrum of the political fringe, concerned more with measuring dust mites in frames of the footage of the second tower collapse than in assessing the persecution of this “movement”. But maybe Jerry Pyenson is working off of auto-pilot. (When I say it’s not surprising to see Larouche in 9/11 Truth space I point to this from a forum off of an Alex Jones site):
A Larouche Fan Says:
March 10th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
I see people saying alex jones is a shill, cia. etc. But compaired to the corporate media, he atleast tells the truth. Or if he dont tell the truth. its godamn close. and btw jessie did say fudge. He is a little respectable. basically saying they been f’n up. We are adults. You can say the f-word as much as you like. Lyndon Larouche told the truth during the 9-11 attacks LIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You can keep being fooled, or you can just see the truth. I didnt sleep for a month. but such is life. Yes alex is a salesman, BUY GOLD NOW! etc godda make a dollah to hollah.. looken at the history of gold.. I would have to assume him.. correct.. The fed.res needs to go. Viva Revolutiona!
Lyndon Larouche , Ron Paul. = Real Change!!
An odd occurence happened with Mr. Pyenson… he popped into this Ground Report on the Lobbying for the HBPA Resolution, which I guess makes sense as he is a front-line soldier in the Cause:
“You were lied to by the economists,†Pyenson told the council as he warned that, without action, the U.S. would be up against something darker than the wrath of Hitler and Mussolini. He noted that Newark, Paterson, East Orange, Edison and Orange had all passed similar resolutions.
Five speakers down the line, fellow LaRouche supporter Adam Rodriguez addressed the council, railing against the “London-centered banking system†and warning that we were “heading for a new Dark Age.†As Rodriguez began his remarks, Jersey Journal columnist Earl Morgan sighed loudly and ambled across the room to chat with business administrator Brian O’Reilly.
Nary a council member responded in any way to Pyenson’s or Rodriguez’s remarks.
In consideration for Jerry Pyenson, it’s worth pointing to this – a demonstration of the type of history gymnastics that he’s forced to pull here.
Can we plaster away these past prognoses on a dime? Yes We Can!
……………………………………….
As well “yes we can” post this Malarky to a long dated American Prospect blog post:
I can’t take anything that Molly/Marielle/Ms. Kronberg says at face value, now that I know she has taken to fraternizing with Dennis King and Chip Berlet. Nothing that LaRouche has said or done, publicly or privately, could be so bad as to justify collaborating with those two soulless ladies of the night.
Posted by: Anonymous | March 4, 2009 5:09 PM
Presumably this latest item spurred by Molly Kronberg writing article to Dennis King’s website, but it’s in the blood — as seen by Leatherstocking at wikipedia here:
Dude, I know that you and Dennis are buds, but …
BUT… it don’t stop there, as “Howie G” asks this new blogger, of interest to those interested in this (which, if you’ve read this far down is probably you):
In other news, Robert Dreyfuss is being kicked around a bit again (look it up). Larouche expressed outrage that Teriq Aziz was sentenced to prison time, and he expressed approval of a rail-line’s completion. Also, Webster Tarpley, called out in the org for lying about the future, has his “Obama Deception” film with Alex Jones as the most viewed video at yahoo. I see no posting at LPAC on Seymour Hersh’s comment about Dick Cheney yet, which leads me to question what kind of ramshackle outfit these guys are running these days — that should have been plastered up with a supposed comment from “American Statesman” PRONTO — I mean, at least with no longer a lag time than they got up the “Dennis King Suicide” piece… What, are the Internal buttressing matters more important than the External Show?
March 14th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Hi, Skull/Bones–
Lyn has a very defective attention span, and Dick Cheney has no doubt slipped totally off his radar, especially now that he (Lyn) is advising Obama and all.
By the way, I think revenire has popped up (again) over at Factnet under the nom de guerre of retour….
March 15th, 2009 at 10:24 am
But Dick Cheney was Evil Incarnate. You can’t just brush off Evil Incarnate so completely with nary a thought? Besides which, in the “Teriq Aziz” commentary we see Larouche saying (rather randomly and inchoately) “Let’s get out of the the Bushes. The prosecution of Tariq Aziz sounds like a Bush-League operation.”
Yep. I was waiting for retour to show himself after the series of posts of basic inquirying questions (mind you, just as easily forseeing a curious by-stander as revenire). So Revenire has trotted over to factnet? “Bigger Game”, I guess — I “Don’t Have Game”. I imagine he won’t stay too long — does he really want to chip in 5 dollars to do Richard Mellon Scaife’s dirty work?
He really wants the ex-members to quit discussing the org, veiled behind a supposed concern with a “bitterness”. I have no real idea of how much time anyone on the board spends with what is important to get out there. I have no doubt that to go over other boards you’ll get similar postings from
For all the disertation of “gossip” he’s pestered me with, it is remarkable how little I care about some things — the whereabouts of such and such — some matters which I think largely rolls past any person reading who was never a member. The phrase “Seeing the Forest for the Tree” comes to mind for that one. Also, as always, he cares not that he’s contradicted his earliest base of awareness in the cult — I mean, organization.
But that’s neither here nor there.
March 16th, 2009 at 7:50 am
Actually dear Revenire is providing fascinating material after all. Case in point:
http://www.factnet.org/vbforum/showpost.php?p=377190&postcount=1154
borismeglev: Today’s cult is not the ICLC. This forum at FACTNET is more ICLC than the pathetic LYM remnant will ever be.
revenire So you’re ICLC members to this day? I don’t undertand that one, enlighten me.
Obstinate to the max. I could enlighten revenire on what he means and I don’t even care all that much about the damned ideals of ICLC, and only buy into it a bit that it was a particularly functional org which was way-laid.
BUT some more self – identification and understanding of what it meant to join the ICLC is put in place here:
So as I see it, there was a real faction fight that began in 1970, was bitterly fought out in the Dec 1970/Jan 1971 NCLC conference and culminated in the final March “expulsion”/”split” even though it wasn’t a total split because both sides continued to support the Philly defense committee even though there were long standing clashes over how the committee should operate as well.
Unfortunately because the pro-LaRouche faction more or less controlled the contents of the national newspaper that first began in mid-May 1970, the viewpoints of the Fraser faction were not adequately reported leading to a real lack of knowledge of the extent of the divisions in the organization which can in part be overcome by work in certain academic archives.
The life of a Trotskyite, or refashioned crypto-Trotskyite (which the Larouche organization can still be classified if you look at it right), organization, I suppose.
I think we’re in a grave economic crisis now. Don’t you?
Sometime in the Spring and early Summer on the board, before the September Unpleasantness, that was the consensus there. I posted my thought, which was “may or may not be the case” (though if you scoot around this blog you’ll find I’d been on the “yes” part of that equation) “will fall far short of a ‘New Dark Ages’ paradigm” and “Larouche won’t have anything relevant to say about it.” So here we are. What does it mean for the Larouche Movement? Theoretically it should be a Great Recruitment Prospect, since Insecurity (in this case Economic) is what the thing thrives off of. Oddly enough, now that we’ve “arrived”, I’m quite a bit more confident and optimistic than I was before even as it is more drastic than I had thought — the Sense of the Known outweighs the Sense of the Unknown. THIS is what the “Greatest Fiscal Crisis Since the Great Depression but Nowhere near as Dire” looks like: http://www.struat.com/justin/depressiongraphnotnow.jpg
You can’t have it both ways and suggest there is this cult leader who brainwashes people and then there are people that just got up and walked away and were never bothered or is that just your opinion?
Uh. Yes we can? But xlcer’s box here covers much of this:
http://www.factnet.org/vbforum/showpost.php?p=377206&postcount=1165
The rest can be summised by suggesting of a number of plastering the most overt “brain-washing sessions” (Peter “earnest one”‘s — a highly valued target was he) and the 1974 NYT article as on the most extreme part of the section than the more standard accounts shadok shows here: http://www.factnet.org/vbforum/showpost.php?p=377208&postcount=1166. But revenire denies the veracity of the “Younger Than That Now” account that doesn’t include such, so why should anyone care to try to convince him of anything?
BUT the most notable quote from revenire…
Larouche’s ideas will live on beyond his death.
Or something to that effect. Yes they will. See larouchetruth’s analysis of the work of Webster Tarpley here : http://www.factnet.org/vbforum/showpost.php?p=377022&postcount=1087
As I always say, if Jeff Steinberg is smart he’d follow a similar course. Though, these things will be pummeled over to the fringe — where it will scatter about in the public discourse, I suppose. What won’t survive is an organization devoted to chanting Larouche’s name, what will survive is various clearinghouses to disseminate this conspiratorial meanderings.
I could probably post this to factnet. Maybe I will; maybe I won’t. But I’m trying to treat it as a separate organism, and feel a bit of place there as a whole.
March 17th, 2009 at 9:39 am
Another day, another “Revenire Conversing” sort through. (And, yes, I do think he brings something necessary to these proceedings, as do the LYMers who had sputtered in once upon a time — “Time For Truth”, for instance .) Revenire, right now washing his hands after getting them dirty from weeding petunias before pulling his copy of “Astonishing Ant-Man #15” out of a mylar bag to read, has this public perception to deal with. From a January / February 2008 issue of “Utne Reader” article on the 9/11 Truth Movement:
It’s true that educating people who are hostile to your cause, rather than smugly marching in lockstep with like-minded activists, is the way to operate a movement. Giancarlo is said to be the best at debating naysayers and sweet-talking reluctant people into taking copies of We Are Change Seattle’s information. Kristian Konrad, probably the closest thing that We Are Change Seattle has to a leader, says that when members hand out literature outside Mariners baseball games, they attract comments like “Get fucked, traitor” and “Oh, look, it’s the freaks.”
I was invited to this meeting after an e-mail exchange with Konrad in which I compared the level of hatred for Truthers to the way most people treat Lyndon LaRouche followers and Jehovah’s Witnesses. This touched a nerve with Konrad, who replied by saying, “Unlike LaRouchers, we have regular jobs and don’t adhere to one man’s ideas.” He added, “I’m just a regular guy, trying to get the word out that buildings don’t fall apart at free-fall speed due to fire.”
Weeks after the meeting in the coffee shop, Konrad is at Seattle Hempfest handing out DVDs to strangers. He has 400 of them, which he paid for himself at an estimated cost of “27 cents apiece, not including time,” he says. He was up all night burning them. A sign that reads “Google 9/11 Truth” is sticking out of his backpack, but otherwise he could easily fit into the Hempfest demographic. A preteen boy who must have been 5, at most, in 2001, says, “Dude, it was six years ago. Get over it!” One man shouts, “Fuck you!” A soft-spoken man in his 50s takes a DVD and then hands it back and walks on.
Combine that with this post from borisbad, confirmation of discussion at hand.:
http://www.factnet.org/vbforum/showpost.php?p=377271&postcount=1207
“Rebutted” by “Revenire” here:
http://www.factnet.org/vbforum/showpost.php?p=377278&postcount=1211
Who needs to get to that 9/11 Truther in the Utne Reader NOW in order to get those facts straight for them.
But this is pretty interesting.
No, you’re wrong. I’ve been in the field and you’re 100% wrong on this one. Maybe that was your personal experience but I’ve organized around this big old country and you’re saying something that isn’t correct. The question is why? I am talking about the cadre too not just the volunteers on the periphery of the LC.
Of course we’ve come a long ways from when he said he was “never full time” or whatever his phrase was for being more casual and on the “on the periphery” versus “talking about the cadre too”. (He was never plausible seeing posts from even elsewhere where he describes a sort of hobby of running for office, and then running straight into Inside Baseball), so he’s not contradicted himself at factnet at least — he’s compartmentalized his Disingenuousness a tad.
I don’t have a “hidden agenda” and speak my mind.
Mind you, he started at factnet asking broad questions without any identifier.
Peter you also sound bitter. Perhaps it would be healthier for you to move on with your life and focus on the positive?
Good god, this guy just doesn’t get it, does he?
Then again, socialistboomer doesn’t quite get it either with http://www.factnet.org/vbforum/showpost.php?p=377294&postcount=1219:
It would be much easier for me to follow your posts if there were fewer of them. Many seem to consist of updates concerning whereabouts and activities of Larouchians. If you saved them all up, and just posted one a day, perhaps I would get something out of them, a sense of some things re recent and current members. You’re posting short biographical snippets. Not of any use to this particular subscriber.
He’s doing that for a reason, partially a throwing up of everything he can come up with at a moment in hopes of sticking and diverting from various issues.
But then revenire gets ever more bizarre:
http://www.factnet.org/vbforum/showpost.php?p=377294&postcount=1219
I don’t know anyone here. I don’t know one poster from another and for all I know several posters could be the same poster. It happens on every message board I’ve ever seen; different IPs are easy to get if you know your way around routers, etc. Heck, all you need to do is go to a library.
Of course, our own machines have what is called a MAC address and that’s like a VIN number on a car so if someone wanted to pose as Marilyn Monroe they’d be best to go to a public library.
This multiple personality web thing just isn’t confined to FACTnet or any forum. It is a problem everywhere.
Good god almighty. Where did that come from and who said anything about the “Multiple Personality Web Thing”? Is this a “I’m not crazy… you’re the one that’s crazy” type of thing?
Well… whatever. I think the bunch of factnet posters have sniffed out the essentials here and can now march on gloriously into the future.
March 17th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
Agreed. Note eaglebeak’s remarks (http://www.factnet.org/vbforum/showthread.php?t=12941&page=62)about the LaRouchean multiple personality phenom over at Wikipedia, in terms of the postings on the Ken Kronberg web page and elsewhere (LaRouche webpage).
Who knows? Maybe revenire/retour is the same fellow who posted so much on the Ken Kronberg webpate at Wikpedia….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kenneth_Kronberg
March 18th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
You’re referring to the latest incarnation of the banned then re-emerged then banned then re-emerged ad infinitum “Wikipedia contributor” Herschel Kurstofsky, who has a lot of lines stricken on the other larouche related “talk back” pages as well.
March 18th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Yes, exactly–Herschel Krustofsky, who bears such a strong resemblance to revenire/retour.
I have reason to believe that Herschel K is a current LaRouche org member–but he certainly has a lot of time on his hands.
March 19th, 2009 at 8:36 am
Generally wanting to give anyone the benefit of the doubt — initial annoyances with “European” is merely a matter of Fundamental Differences of Opinion, for instance (though one matter keeps nagging up and bothering me because it’s closer to a matter of fact and not interpretation of fact, the Obama Monkey Quote as a mere insult instead of what Lyndon actually said there) — but Xandufur is a rather odd case study. Quickly tossed comments on posts are being picked up and run with — there was a reference to “xlcer” as “our leader” (xlcer immediately disavowed), there was another reference to this board as “to bash Larouche” (in practice where the board ends up frequently, but surely not the end-all of it, and immediately brought to task by various posters.)
Xandufur seems clearly “invested” in Larouche as an entity, and we can chalk him up to that. Or, perhaps, to look at wikipedia and see that that “game” has generally played itself with this basic “tag-team” approach. Also “leatherstocking” is not a member of the org (and can call it a cult) but only concerned with a proper balance between the fringe sources of the Larouche Organization and the Fringe Sources of the King / Berlet / etc. Brigade.
But that connection and supposition is pure Conspiracy talk on my part, isn’t it?
March 19th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Well, speaking as someone who knows all the players and has considerable emotional investment in this, yes–it’s kind of Fringe City, between FactNet and Wikipedia, etc.
Berlet, I think, studies a lot of weird groups. Not sure he’s all that fringe.
King has focused more on LaRouche, though not exclusively–but he’s definitely a recognized expert, like Berlet.
The problem is that their subject (that would be LHL) is so fringy that it’s like being an expert in the Surinamese poison-spitting mud-hopper.
But I’m very grateful to both of them. Lyn used to talk about (get this) mental hygiene all the time–but Berlet and King made it possible it in many instances.
March 20th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
I’m not sure what you’re responding to here, and on first blush think you’ve crossed wires with a different conversation going on with someone else (and have my suspicion just where on factnet). Reading through my last comment here — “thinking out loud” more than anything else — I wish to stick my sentence on “leaterhstocking” in quotes and an eye-roll, and more clearly tie him to “Xandufur”‘s attitude.
It dawned on me a few days ago that at the end of his last run here, when “revenire” was running over Iran Contra he was arguring about some of the real causes of his imprisonment, not simply asserting his “World Historic Importance”. It wasn’t clear to me for fairly obvious reasons of not connecting the two in any meaningful way.
Odd little quote from revenire:
http://www.factnet.org/vbforum/showpost.php?p=377570&postcount=1416
My wife was elected. The LA Democratic Party recognizes LaRouche now. The SDI had an impact and you must remember what Kissinger said?
tap tap tap…
http://www.factnet.org/vbforum/showpost.php?p=377588&postcount=1430
Crossed that bridge months ago. Hm. There’s a reason Fraser is a respected economist and on and on.
March 21st, 2009 at 10:21 am
Reflections in reading factnet. (My biggest problem with factnet right now is that it’s said for the past few weeks that “within the next week” it’ll be implementing up its payment policy, I have not bought in and I can still post. Not a good portent for the future.)
I’ve gingerly suggested my problem with “Justice for Jeremiah”‘s focus on the anti-semetic angle even as I understand why it’s there (and I can go back and forth in rolling whether externally that’s the biggest “threat” from the organization in spreading disinformational propaganda — ie: * Syrian clerc quoting from “American Statesman” Larouche in the same speech as the infamous Benajaim Frankliin “Jews” quote — quite a coincidence there, eh?) , but believe European off base… in a previous exchange we’ve seen it discussed in that old “code word” as “not obvious” (a phrase seized on by revenire) — but … well, it’s obvious to me… just not obvious how central or to what all I can ascribe it to.
But that’s actually not where he’s most wrong. It is the two parts of: “That dossier will BEYOND DOUBT help the LaRouchemovement to recruit more members. It will also help the movement to keep the youngsters that were around at the conference in 2003 to stay in the organization.” Maybe. That’s his experience. But as a general rule, it (awarness of Duggan) has — BEYOND DOUBT lead more to not “join” the Larouche org, and more people than it has caused to join. The same thing with King’s book in the late 80s, and beyond that it’s caused more to be aware of just what that sect is (flawed though the vision may be) amongst people who would never join in a million years.
I’ve long come to that conclusion that the Larouche org “can be stopped”, such as that is and whatever that means — is wrong– it’s reached this level of pilfering off the fringe of troubled that can be swayed by this entry despite information being put forthrightly into the open.
The other line is that this aid’s in “Larouche’s Influence in the world” (or something that effect), and again… it’s arrived at its level.
A line from retour:
Saying I helped the planet was a joke, loosen up.
There needs to be a difference between the two items for sarcasm to work. In this case, retour swears by Larouche’s doomsday “save the planet repeatedly”, and wants us to believe that when he references that he’s not engrained in the World Historic Missioning. You can’t have it both ways. I need to see more distance before I can consider that a joke.
I sort of assume Elsie is the “Lady” poster (arguably classified in the category of “troll”) that bothered me a bit, but a bit better refined. But I’m not invested in being right, so if I’m wrong I don’t much care.
Other than that… lots being disclosed… and good.
* Note on sourcing, in this case “Jihad Watch”: a link to a particular page on Jihad Watch does not mean I subscribe to the entirety of the whole organization’s platforms and views.
March 21st, 2009 at 5:18 pm
One of the things happening at Factnet right now that’s a bit worrisome is the venom with which anti-LaRouche posters like oldtime LaRouche member Hylozoic Hedgehog are attacking the Duggans and their attempt to find out what the hell happened to Jeremiah Duggan back in March 2003.
I can’t figure out why someone who obviously loathes LaRouche would have a problem with the Duggans’ efforts–whether or not he (Hylozoic HH) thinks LaRouche is an anti-Semite or not.
I first met LaRouche in 1971 (so not quite as long ago as Hylozoic) and I’ve known and observed the old coot for decades, and I think he is anti-Semitic.
But even if he weren’t, why attack the Duggans so harshly for saying so> Their son went to a LaRouche conf and now, as a result, he’s dead. Seems to me everyone should cut them a little slack–
–particularly when LaRouche and his epigonoi spend so much time trying to smear them.
March 22nd, 2009 at 10:05 am
borismaglev’s kvetch here:
Stop making your career out of our tragedy and stop lecturing us that you know our tormentor better than we do. You surmise. We have the evidence carved on our carcass. LaRouche is not of Hitler. He is of Stalin. Not of the Right. Of your Left. To argue otherwise is to make pretzel from donut. We (including the goyim among us) swallowed and rationalized his anti-Semitism out of Stalinoid obedience, not out of Aryan pride.
Sentence one is a bit of griping I’ve seen repeatedly, and while I can understand it and even figure part of it as being analogious to, say, blacks’ complaints at Al Sharpton of being a “Race Hustler” and perpetuating a sense of victimhood, I always come back to “Someone had to make a career of paying attention to Larouche back in the late 1970s and 1980s.”
But next there’s:
LaRouche is not of Hitler. He is of Stalin. Not of the Right. Of your Left. To argue otherwise is to make pretzel from donut. We (including the goyim among us) swallowed and rationalized his anti-Semitism out of Stalinoid obedience, not out of Aryan pride.
This always stuck me as an academic debate — whether Larouche is more properly aligned to Hitler or Stalin, and while it’s important in explaining what it is the Larouche Organization is (a little from column A and a little from columb B, perhaps? At its core probably more Stalinian — which I guess is borismaglev’s rub, but quite willing to make overtures to neo-nazis and apply neo-nazi ideology to that end?), I don’t see why this is a matter to get worked up about. I suppose borismaglev has an investment in having Dennis King “fess up to” his “Progressive Labor Party” roots and admit his analyses, but unless I had an investment in protecting the legacies of either Stalin or Hitler, why do I care?