For a moment I thought about changing that rather generic “Political Discourse” to “a gutter outlet under the supervision of Wall Street Fascist John Train”. But I thought better of it. What would my other subject matter, for this past week at least, Mitt Romney think about being left out of the picture? I’m only marginally part of the conspiracy, and I suspect only as an after-thought. Really, the conspiracy pretty much centers around Dennis King, he of… um… High Times magazine article fame.

Scary guy, that John Train.

There is more on the conspiracy over here, at the very happening Larouchepac, which together with EIR (but it’s undoubtedly from the same computer terminal) has been kicked into high gear and has been pumping out a whole mass of dreck for the past few days.
There is one quick item from the first paragraph worth considering.

Pro-fascist New York investment banker John Train’s long time hod-carrier, Dennis King, has launched a scurrilous slander campaign against Lyndon LaRouche. King has posted a series of smears on his website and other internet blogs concerning the recent death of long-time leading LaRouche collaborator Kenneth L. Kronberg. These slanders, along with King’s posting of stolen documents, are a distasteful exploitation of a personal tragedy in pursuit of Train’s political vendetta against LaRouche and a disrespectful disregard for the memory of Kronberg.

Now I turn your attention to the comment left by Dianne Bettag:

What does it make YOU if you publish stuff you have no personal knowledge of? How much research did you do before you published Nick Benton’s article and then responded to it as gospel…?

Bettag is referring to this article by Nick Benton, who I suppose is probably bought off by a “synarchist” of some sort with a Jewish name and a biography that takes him back to the Concentration Camps. (Bottom of two Larouche-related posts ago, concerning the charge leveled against Howard Dean, “synarchist” appearing in no fewer three titles in the deluge of Larouche articles being pumped out this week, and undoubtedly in many other articles.)

Which is based mostly on these and these and these and these internal documents from Larouche-land.

Which, according to that paragraph from Larouche-land are King’s posting of stolen documents.

Ergo, I don’t much care who Nick Benton is. A google search makes it appear that he writes editorials from a liberal opinion. I assumed at the time, and still do, that his source was Dennis King, he of High Times article fame, whose source I can only assume is some mole in the organization — actually, probably a baby-boomer. Unless I am to believe that King intercepts Larouche’s garbage at some junction, and can reassemble shredded documents. Or maybe he has hacking capabilities. Who knows? At any rate, our friends in Leesburg do not deny their authenticity, thus I am not terribly annoyed that I took Nick Benton’s article “as gospel”.
I left a message of some interest on the FACTNet board, which received this response:

I have read your blog and find it sharp and funny, and pretty insightful. But again, choosing LaRouche as your subject elevates him into an interesting & important subject, like a rare lilly species being examined by a confab of horticulturists. Isn’t the attention LHL receives out of proportion to his significance? The emergence of Dennis King in the role of coordinator of LHL activities and intelligence might not have the effect of saving young people or freeing people still with LHL, either. Because it could prove to members that one of their old enemies is back and is proof of the vast conspiracy out to destroy them.

I suppose it is a rare poisonous lilly species I am examining. He’s a little dis-ingenous with what makes the ex-Larouchites of the board think he is a plant, they should quit obsessing on the man. Apparently he cares as much as the next guy there, otherwise he would not be reading this blog or commenting on that board.
Yes. The attention I am giving LHL is out of proportion to his significance. But when I finish with him, I will likely gravitate toward something else of relatively little importance. (M i k e G r a v e l?) Beyond which, although I have little interest in “building a blog community” per se, it does fit Tip #3. I stumbled into this topic, and have not yet extricated myself.
Dennis King is the person who most cares about this subject, thus he is the one who cares enough to organize. Anybody who would fill in for his stead would be similarly demonized by Larouche. A different poster at FACTnet brings us this comment:

By the way, could anyone imagine what the world would be like if Lyn actually did succeed)? It might make an interesting visionary play or book to picture a LaRouchian world in which only Beethoven and Bach are played, no popular music, no jazz, no rock or rap or folk. Where no modern art is created but we are stuck only rehashing the classics from the past without any hope of creating new forms of art, music, drama, etc. The personality cult for Lyn would probably dwarf that for Stalin or Mao!!!

He would. It would. Fascism is like that, I suppose.
Muse also, as I figure out a way of butting in to respond. Give it a shot, anyone!:

I’ve read all the posts thus far; I too spent a few years in the organization and have very mixed feelings about it. First, for anyone to say that Lyn is a non-entity or has negligible political/philosophical effect amounts to pure innocence of fact, or to plain denial. Ideas can resonate. The LYM have been briefing and prodding Kucinich for years now. They obviously moved him to take action/bleat his rant. One might politely ask: how many world parliamentary bodies have YOU addressed; how many world figures have endorsed YOUR candidacies? Lyn’s effect is there, small perhaps but persistent. I got in after becoming inspired to assay a World Historical identity, yeah I know, but really, Lyn amd the org were cranking out a lot of intriguing theory in the 90’s especially, that’s what really brought me in: e.g. reviving Schiller’s Universal History angle and his “species consciousness;” Lyn’s insistence on physical economy/science-driver economy/infrastructure development; the push to comprehend a monster genius like Gauss, and how he determined asteroid orbits; man as capax dei and imago viva dei; the papers on God and metaphor, Substance of Morality, Jesus Christ and Civilization, America’s Manifest Destiny, and such. Sort of an ecumenical theism it seemed, at least on the surface, but with also a lot of depth. It looked like Lyn had modulated up from the early silly stuff, towards a JQ Adams type of American System theorist and figure. Anyway I found the theory intriguing in a provisional way at least and joined up, I had theoretic issues but I put them on hold—at least somebody was trying to do something to address the historical question generally.
I wised up to my future as a pack mule for the LYM, saw other unpleasant aspects, and phased out. But I’ve often thought that for all his faults Lyn is sort of a Least Imperfect Vehicle: clearly there are sillinesses and tawdrinesses, but at least he TRIED, to enunciate and work towards SOME sort of programmatic theory of a future directionality for the human race, with the New Bretton Woods initiative, which has some definite international resonance; his vision of 5,000 next-generation fission plants for the world, fusion-torch technology, &c. There does seem to be a growing discussion, even amongst some mainstream commentators, of a looming financial meltdown; and the US is in any case headed towards fiscal train wreck as the Boomers age, though Lyn doesn’t use this formulation to describe “the crisis”—which admittedly is perpetual in Lyn’s rhetoric, but then again, how ARE we going to move forward out of the mess the world is in? Where are we going; how are we to develop the sort of power needed to e.g, protect the planet from asteroids. The cynically disillusioned herein may say nay thanks, but are you offering up anything, at all, beyond tactical kindnesses? Maybe tactical kindnesses are the most we can do; maybe there is no solution; but people have a right to spend their life’s coin as they wish. History isn’t stagnant and I give Lyn the right to proffer up ideas and programs, and I give people the right to associate as they wish, to have a say and try to change history by action, even if I find silly or disagree vehemently with much of it. Indeed I find it troubling politically: the anti-Israel animus, on display of late especially in the venomous screeds of Dean Andromidas, and in the insinuations Lyn has publicized to the Muslim world that Israel was behind 9-11; the utter ignorance of the fact that the Koran itself is the source of much Islamic radicalism; the bizarre charge that Galileo and Newton were reactionary puppets of the Venetians; the fatuous Bush=Hitler/ “Chief Justice Roberts is a Nazi!” rants, &c.
I.e., Lyn is quite a mixed bag. It’s terribly sad what happened to Ken. Fidelio was a beautiful magazine in every sense; it seemed proof to me that there was something bigger going on with Lyn than mail fraud. Maybe if Lyn had been less of an egomaniac; maybe had the NC’s flown coach instead of first-class; maybe had Lyn and Helga lived more frugally; maybe then the members, and the German leadership, could have had some more comforts and securities; but if you choose to orbit a sun, you may get burned. I couldn’t take the heat, but those who have given their lives for the glorious cause of a New Renaissance, for a new monetary system, for a vision of a future—and for its enunciator—well, they have given their lives for it… And I will say this also: ‘though I certainly didn’t initiate it I helped to get the LYM thing started. Before I got out I was personally involved in organizing some of the cadre schools. The idea that LaRouche’s people beat poor Jeremiah to death appears to me so utterly ludicrous as to lend credence to a “Get LaRouche” hypothesis. The cadre schools focus on Lyn’s obscure musical aesthetics, on analyzing the catenary curve and various arithmetic/geometric means, and on “becoming world historical.” A blame-Israel-first component seems fundamental to Lyn’s system, but the idea of beating up potential recruits, would be a laughable allegation if it weren’t so weighty in implication. Unless there are/were some really, really bad goons on the Euro staff, which would be a huge surprise to me, I say the explanation lies elsewhere. Why does Dennis King call Helga Lyn’s “dog-wife”? Anyone can say Lyn is the merest shyster, charlatan, and con-artist, but isn’t the reality more complex? He may indeed be or have been a con artist, but I think he’s also on to some important dimensions of history in some provisional, adumbrative way. Thus my ambivalence.
Ugh.

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