The North Korean Option
This post received a comment directing us to these comments from Nick Benton, a confirmation of internal events within the cult.
Friendly or not, an average of 80-plus new sets of anonymous eyes have visited my blog entries here every day since last summer. That was until this past week, when the number dropped dramatically and has not rebounded beyond its pre-summer average. Then I learned from a reliable source that the sudden downturn corresponded with a new edict by Lyndon LaRouche banning his minions from the Internet, North Korea style.
Unfortunately, I have not been able to keep tabs on anything stat-wise from the point that this blog was converted to wordpress. I do not know if the same 80-plus Larouchites have been dutifully reading this thing on a daily basis, and I do not know if those 80-plus Larouchites have departed such that … well, I’d be back to the half a dozen readers I had previously!
It may be all moot. I am nobody; Nick Benton is The Enemy — former member with some knowledge, liable to tell all.
I have previously commented on the similarities between Larouche’s organizaiton and North Korea, though the comparisons aren’t terribly remarkable. Looking through the website, all I really see is a comparison of news outlets, both with messages designed for the purpose of injecting Dear Leader into prominence in the world community bowed down before by World Dignataries and the like. But recently at Factnet, the question arose: If the membership isn’t reading this stuff, and the people to whom it is handed aren’t reading it, is *anyone* reading it?
The same might well be asked for North Korea’s propaganda outlet.
But, looking over my previous comparisons of Larouche with North Korea I see that One Great Question, the one that you ask when you look at this page.
December 10th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
From the “I swear I am not making this up” department [if it wasn’t so evil it would be funny]:
A press release from LaRouche PAC released yesterday:
Syria Blocks Facebook in Damascus; LaRouche says Great!
December 9, 2007 (LPAC)–Access to Facebook, the 1984-styled Big Brother social profiling company exposed in LPAC’s pamphlet, “Is the Devil in your Laptop?,” has been blocked by the Syrian government. According to the International Herald Tribune, residents of Damascus said that they have not been able to enter Facebook for more than two weeks. An AP reporter got a blank page when he tried to open Facebook’s home page Friday from the Syrian capital. Lebanon’s daily As-Safir reported that Facebook was blocked on Nov.
18.
Upon hearing this news, Lyndon LaRouche said: “Great! Good idea! Get those pigs out of there. And if someone comes up with Deface Book, don’t allow that either.”
December 10th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Even though it’s evil, it’s still funny.
That’s the secret to LaRouche–wretched, evil, base man, yes, but so ridiculous as to be infinitely risible.
December 11th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
Wow! Check out LaRouche’s totally incoherent claptrap on Wikipedia, which he conflates with Spacebook and My Face (ha ha) as targets of his anti-Internet hysteria.
Unfortunately, the LaRouche page in Wikipedia seems to be protected from editing, or this would make a wonderful coda to it.
Here it is:
Are You a Wikipediaphile?
December 11, 2007 (LPAC)–“What I want to emphasize,” Lyndon LaRouche said this morning, “is that I am very serious about Wikipediaphiles.” What you are dealing with, is a drastic shortening of attention-span among victims of MySpace, Facebook, and the like. “Which is again, the same thing that you are getting with the shooters, on the killer games. What you are getting here, especially in the 14-18 age group, but also some older people,– you are getting an extremely abbreviated attention span, which has crippling effects now. I think they have trouble getting from one end of a short sentence to the other.
“You get scrambled, not just fragmented sentences. Wikipedia, with Jimmy Wales and company, and all the people who are behind this,–” LaRouche continued, “Wikipedia is the H.G. Wells program. You have something which everybody cites, essentially. It’s on the internet, and it’s the dictionary. You Google. And when you Google, you go to Wikipedia. This becomes truth. And you find that Wikipedia changes its definitions of references as it evolves. It eliminates what it said before, and it says something different. The opposite thing, or something different.”
So therefore, this is the synthetic history idea, which is H.G. Wells. Wells called it the “Permanent World Encyclopedia.” Now you call it, “Wikipediaphiles!”
Remember George Orwell’s 1984. The job of Winston Smith, the protagonist, was to change history, by changing old newspaper records to match the new truth as decided by the Party.
“Remember that George Orwell was the guy, who, together with the two crazy brothers–Aldous and Julian Huxley–the three of them were the guys who took the Kool-Aid, in this case, LSD. They took the natural Kool-Aid, LSD, and they were all conditioned under the direction of the patronage of Wells, who was their patron, but under the direction of Alistair Crowley. So it’s a Satanic cult.”
“The problem we have, to combat that, is, how do you combat an absolute idiot on the question of an argument?”, LaRouche asked. “So therefore, you have to make the idiocy of this thing, the issue. And thus, you say, `Oh, you poor idiot. You’re a Wikipediaphile.’ Hoo Hoo. Don’t you Google! Don’t you Google at me! Who are you, Barney Google?”
http://www.larouchepac.com/news/2007/12/11/are-you-wikipediaphile.html
Great Balls of Fire! Someone should tell LaRouche that very few people remember Barney Google and Snuffy Smith–and certainly not the generation of the LYM.
Once again, LaRouche’s uncontrollable free association and more or less psychedelic thought content mystifies the masses.
December 12th, 2007 at 10:22 am
Hm. Yes, I know Barney Google, but I’m weird. At any rate:
BY: WILLIAM WERTZ/LYNDON LAROUCHE/HELGA LAROUCHE/KRN
MORNING BRIEFING
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
LaRouche: In a Revolutionary Period–
We Need To Provide a Calm and Steady Hand
In discussions yesterday, Lyndon LaRouche emphasized that given the fact that we are in a revolutionary situation, what is required is a calm and steady hand.
The world is not particularly sane at this time. There are a lot of things running around. People are desperate. Those who thought Lyn was wrong are going to become unstable. Now they have
to reckon with the fact that they were wrong. But they won’t admit it. Therefore, look out for hysteria from our own ranks.
And outside of our ranks, expect rancorous behavior.
The situation is going to be wild. People will go wild. What we need is a calm and steady hand. No panic, no screaming.
In this context, Lyn stressed that we have to take a non-inflammatory approach, because if our enemies catch us trying to be inflammatory, they will try to pick up on it and take advantage of it.
On the financial crisis, we have to be coldblooded. Rather than report the predicates of the ongoing collapse, as if they were scandals, we have to say that if you want to go on suffering, if you want to go to Hell, then continue doing what you are doing. If not, then you have to follow LaRouche’s lead and force the Congress to implement the HBPA.
Lyn continued to make the point that we must represent the people in the lower 80% income brackets against the corrupt bastards who have betrayed them by not acting to promote the
General Welfare. In this context, Lyn emphasized that Nancy Pelosi is not stupid. That is not her problem. Her problem is that she corrupt (sic). There is no excuse for her behavior. Pelosi and those who go along with her are going to go down. They are laying a trap for themselves. Don’t be opportunist by attempting to
ameliorate their hatred for us. The people who hate us are going down. Public opinion will turn against them. A lynch mob will form against them. You wouldn’t want to be one of the politicians getting that treatment. They are going down. Everything is working against them. People popular at the top now will be at the bottom soon.
As Lyn has said before, we have two pamphlets, “Is the Devil in Your Laptop?” and Lyn’s “Let There Be a Time of Thanksgiving” pamphlet. These are two satellite creating products.
The first takes on the problem and the second develops the solution. Other things are subordinate to these two pamphlets. In the case of the HBPA organizing, as of now, it is associated with the Thanksgiving statement.
On the killings in Colorado on Sunday, Lyn stated that the whole thing is becoming epidemic. There will be a lot of copy-cat
killings. If someone wants to kill somebody, the tendency will be to use the epidemic to try to cover up for malicious murder.
He said that he is suspicious of people with hard facts.
They are trying to experience an orgasm with a hard object, but not succeeding.
On the situation in Ibero-America surrounding the founding of the Bank of the South on Sunday, Lyn said Argentina is tricky because of the Bolivarista nonsense. There is no longer one Bank
of the South. There are two banks of the south. The Bolivaristas are falling into the trap of Britain. We have unfriends in that
area. It is not so simple. Watch it carefully.
………………………………..
December 12th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
Justin–Yes, I remember Barney Google and Snuffy Smith too, but not only am I weird, I’m no spring chicken.
On the Tuesday briefing lead–yes, masterful writing by Will Wertz channeling LHL. I note that Eaglebeak has posted it over on FactNet too, with a nod to you in the intro….
December 12th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
I’m no spring chicken either (51 years old, albeit feel older), but have no extent memory of Barney Google and/or Snuffy Smith.
Are they Saturday morning cartoon characters and/or members of the NCLC?
BTW, where’s Steve? I thought he had all the answers.
Oh, and Rachel, you might look at FactNet and follow my posted link to Dennis King’s recent contribution — the vast Computron story, including original letters of resignation by various members, circa 1981.
The letters are extremely “interesting”, to put it mildly.
December 12th, 2007 at 9:51 pm
Earnest One–Barney Google and Snuffy Smith are cartoon or pop culture characters from our parents’ generation, not ours….
As to your link to Dennis King’s contribution–I did see it on FactNet today, along with the responses. Eaglebeak’s response echoes my own sentiments….
The Gus/Andy/Computron story is a fascinating one. I will have more to say at a future point, and I imagine others on FactNet will as well.
If this line of country keeps being pursued, and former members start to reminisce on this period, Barbara Boyd will have something to think about. No doubt the LYM will be surprised to hear of her views from those far-off days.
December 14th, 2007 at 5:20 pm
Barney Google is technically still published in some newspapers or other — third generation and a cipher of Billy De Beck’s original creation, existing out of pure inertia as much as anything else. But then again, what you are familiar with is probably a second generation of the strip, which started in the 1920s, and it’s contributions to English language slang come from that decade…
Or, actually, a quick google search and the wikipedia shows it started in 1919. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney_Google ). My mistake!
Larouche’s other, more often referenced, cartoon obsession, Fearless Fosdick, (renamed “Fuzzdick”) — Al Capp’s Dick Tracy parody… used because it’s lodged in his mind and he can make a crude anatomical reference, I suppose. Other than that, it seems kind of pointless — throwing out obscure references likely not identifiable by the LYMers… a counterpoint to his use of higher-culture, I guess.
But revinire identified himself as a Jack Kirby fan. Maybe he can tap Larouche to start making references to Galactus, or whatever.
I am going to need to get around to reading Computron documents, when I have a spare moment this weekend. I notice King has been publishing old documents on a virtual daily basis — evidentally believing they can do some good at this precise moment. (One suggestion to “Laroucheplanet” — a page which shows what the latest updates are, to know what items might have been added.)
December 14th, 2007 at 7:05 pm
Justin (All),
King has been on some sort of manic roll, as he is posting like a hyper-maniac. Not simply posting, but extracting material from old, and organizing it into easily portable html files.
I wish to draw attention to this amazing set of resignation letters — circa 1981 — now available in an easy-to-read format:
http://lyndonlarouchewatch.org/larouche-computron-all.htm
Most of them call for other members to resign too, given the facts at hand. Sadly, the call was not answered; this is when the org became, explicitly, a “cult of personality.”
The letters are both precious and prescient. Well written too, on the whole. I would say they are a “pleasure” to read but the subject matter is simply too bizarre.
December 19th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Some of the items, basically the published items from National Review and In These Times, I have that odd tinge of shrugging “Hell. I could have posted that” — which isn’t much of a detraction, just an odd feeling I have. Some of the items seem a bit of deluge, the American Flagg comic today. But it’s interesting.