As the world outside our movement grew increasingly hostile, we huddled more closely together.  Crowds at street corner meetings were becoming less friendly.  In some places our supporters were so few we had to give up holding meetings altogether.

Then, in August of 1939, came a political thunderclap — the Nazi – Soviet Nonaggression Pact.  It felt like the end of our cause.  Maybe it was.  How could we explain this treaty between a socialist country and the most hated fascist regime?

As the headlines were screaming out the news of the pact to divide up Europe, I made my way in a state of total confusion to the YCL headquarters.  Everyone was there, looking for explanations.  Seymour told us that the Politburo of the Central Committee was in session at that very moment to consider the Party’s position.  He was sure they would come up with a clear explanation of why the Soviets had signed the pact.

On our way to a meeting at Webster Hall that evening we were beseiged by a group of Trotskyites waving copies of their paper, The Militant.  Its headline read “Socialism Betrayed — Stalin Signs Pact With Hitler.”  An argument with the Trotskyites invariably ended in a screaming match.  Even to me, my arguments sounded limp, and I was glad when someone pulled me away:  “C’mon Schrank.  It’s a waste of time.  Nobody is going to convince anyone of anything.”

In the packed, hushed hall, hundreds of party members leaned forward in their seats as Earl Browder, the general secretary of the party and our very own midwestern college professor, quietly began to explain.  Ever since the rise of Hitler in Germany, he said, the central objective of the imperialist powers had been, directly and indirectly, to supprt and build German fascism in order to prepare for an assault on the Soviet Union.  It was no accident that the West had stood back as Hitler marched across Europe.  The Munich agreement, Hitler’s invasion of Czechoslovakia, the failure of the West to act — all convinced Stalin that Russia should not, as he put it, “pull their [the capitalists’] chestnuts out of the fire.”  Browder explained that at times socialism had to take many steps backwards in order to move forward.  This was such a time.  Stalin’s agreement with Germany would defeat the capitalists’ scheme of letting these two powers destroy each other while Britain, France, and the United States looked on, licking their chops in anticipation of spoils.

The hall broke out in wild applause.  Of course!  That was it!  It was a brilliant manuever!

But did we believe it?  At the cafeteria after the meeting, we were not so sure.  Henry pointed out that intellectuals like Browder could explain anything.  It was a Faustian gamble.  Could we sign a pact with the devil and not be destroyed by him?  Hitler was now ready to move east against Poland, and Churchill was saying that World War II was about to begin.

To those of us in the American Communist Party, Moscow was something like the Vatican to Catholics.  It was a far-off place that periodically issued directives — papal bulls or the party line — about subjects followers in distant lands may have known or cared little about.  With the exception of high party officials, most of us in the movement had never been outside the United States.  To me, Europe was a place Papa had characterized as cursed by an incurable and deadly nationalism.  Looking back, I think the outlook I learned from him didn’t give me much hope for Europe, and even less for Russia.  I suppose I was a provincal American.  I was humbled by the intellectuals in the party leadership.  I simply assumed they knew things I couldn’t possibly understand and continued to think of myself as a dumb worker.  Whatever doubts I had about the wisdom of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, I continued to believe in what we were doing in the United States.

Wasn’t That A Time, Robert Schrank, 175-176, 1998

I.  Molly Kronberg on the org’s history of Forced Abortions.
  A.  an aside from old-time ex-members at factnet:  The SWP had a similar policy.  But they’re less hypocritical since they did not take that “pro-life” stance the Larouche org took during the 70s on into the 90s.  But hypocrisy remains, because “pro-choice” indicates the choice of the individual and not a central committee.  Glad to clear that up, that matter of degress of hypocrisy in 60s organizations emitted from out of the 1960s New Left. 
  B.  Two is a trend.  Molly Kronberg has been cited again, publically, in reference to criminal proceedings against a corrupt politician — this time being Ted Stevens.  I now contemplate what item of news that the L-PAC site picks up where Molly Kronberg will be referenced as part of mentioning Larouche’s criminal conviction.  Will it be in defense of another corrupt politician (Blagojevich?  Burris?  Chuck Turner in Boston?) ?  Or will it be a defeat of a HBPA measure in another municipality / state-house?
       1.  An interesting possibility for that one:  Sacramento.  Sure, there’s no mention of Larouche’s criminal conviction, but that shouldn’t be enough to stop the presumption that it was defeated because of scurrious slurs from the hands of Molly Kronberg.
           — Money quote exchange from Sacramento:
The really really freaky thing was a little exchange at the end, after supervisor Roger Dickinson explained that the Board wouldn‘t be taking immediate action on the LaRouche resolution.
LaRouchie: Do you all have cards I can get?
Dickinson: I‘m sure we all have cards you can have.
LaRouchie: You are more than me. But I will surround all of you, with your cards.
Dickinson: Hehe. Ok, thanks.

II.  Wayne Madsen has published an item, which has been picked up some Arab Press, which alleges that the state of Israel is planning on colonizing large portions of Iraq.
   A.  You have never heard of Wayne Madsen, probably, but have quite likely heard of one of his rumor/chestnuts:  President George W Bush is having an affair with Condollezza Rice, an item that saw its first printed publication in a British tabloid.
        1.  This one has held a greater hold in that “You never know / could be” section of public’s imagination that the never-ending calvacade you see in the sub-National Enquirer tabloids of photo-shopped women next to the President with a choice photograph of an expecially miffed First Lady biting her lips.
   B.  Upon seeing the “Israel wants Iraq” story, my thought was “There is a 100 percent chance that Larouche has played up one of Madsen’s more spurious claims.”
       1.  Rolling into  last summer’s Russian Government love-fest, L-PAC played up this Wayne Madsen item disclaiming Russia as the source for the poisoning of Alexandar Litvinvenko, and placing it on the British(and Israel and etc.) in an act of sabotauge against Russia.   It was a release that stood out to me amongst all the other crap I “scanned” (ahem) past, and responded with one giant “Oh!  Come on!”
     2.  I reference, unfortunately one source over because this is what I can find with immediacy, a post which originally was placed onto the website of the conservative / right-wing “Accuracy in Media” website which cites Larouche’s usage of Wayne Madsen as source material.
         a.  AIM was last seen at the CPAC Conference, charging up the “Obama’s fake birth certificate” storyline, which would have put them in league with Larouche in the Spring and Summer of 08, but now aligns them with Webster Tarpley.
            —   Referred to round about here by the Resident Larouchie as perhaps still associated with Larouche (in a weird argument against comments from Larouche) and referenced here as “a nutter”.
       b.  a rather dubious “Guilt by Association” example from AIM happened with the headline “AARP, Larouche Private Social Security Accounts”, a headline reported by me here.  Indicative of both the Larouche Organization’s desire in associating as the primary focal point to opposition to that deservably attacked policy goal, and AIM’s desire of associating the two.
     3.  Wayne Madsen has been banned from user citation at the partisan website “Democratic Underground”.  Probably just like Larouche I am betting, though that one may be more self-correcting in immediate response.  It is evident that dailykos deletes Larouche sources with imediacy — I have seen the ghosts of such postings (indeed, have posted the ghostly remains of such posts), as is the site’s stated policy of ripping away all 9/11 Truth posts.
            b.  That being said, here’s a list of some fairly respectable outlets Madsen appears in, as well not-so-respectable outlets.  Unlike, say, Lyndon Larouche, though like … um… Robert Dreyfuss.
      4.  Herein lies what damaging power the Larouche Organization has externally.  The HBPA Resolutions and handful of members of the Italian Parliament referencing “Larouche” admist a broader handful of Italian Politicos  calling for a “New Bretton Woods” (like calling for a “New New Deal”) really only factor to the org as an internal pressure — giving its membership the eternal illusion that “Things are Snow-balling”.  But the work of, for instance, propping up disinformationational conspiracy — in the case of the source of the poisoning of Litvinvenko in a play to Russia’s burgeoning nationalism– obscures the world picture.
               a.  Or, in this phraseology, “Disinformation Systems Redux or still Uber Alles”?

III. Perhaps a tap on the shoulders to that New Republic blogger who was doing a series of focuses on Robert Dreyfuss, here’s the first paragraphs of a classic piece Dreyfuss wrote for the Larouche Organization, rolling into a “pro” stance on the matter of Jesus Christ:
    A.  The epic battle, lasting three centuries, that resulted in the defeat of the Roman Empire by the fledgling Judeo-Christian movement was a struggle for the survival of the human race itself. The establishment of the Christian tradition, victorious at the famous Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, was the result of a well-organized and self-conscious conspiracy. The artitects of the Christian movement, led at the start by Philo Judaeus of Alexandria and Jesus of Nazareth, viewed themselves as the founders of a new world order. Amid the collapse and degradataion of Roman immorality, the power of the Christian idea slowly won a widespread following among philosophers, the nobility, merchants and traders, skilled craftsmen, and the elite of the Mediterranean world.

Christianity emerged at a time when the entire known world was perched at the brink of utter barbarism. The masses of the empire were caught up in the spell of ancient eastern cults and mystery religions, whose evil priests and priestesses exercised virtual control over the day-to-day life of the emperor and the peasant alike. The alliance between the emperor, the cults, and the Roman army had created a cannibalistic monster whose insatiable demand for loot by conquest and taxation had plunged the world into a cycle of plague and famine.
           1.  Huh.

IV.  Garlic to Vampires.

   A.  Like so:   The man is NOT the crazy person he has been made out to be by those in power who cannot allow this man to tell the truth about what is happening to this country and the world.

V.  Erica Duggan expressed her frustration to the British and German Legal Process here.
   A.  A rebuttal, such as it is, from this blog’s “Resident Larouchie” is found here. 
       1.  The line of Sympathy was rather belated, and it is necessary to note that what is spoken of in terms of “political manipulators” are the names Dick Cheney and John Train and … and all of Larouche’s Enemies circa 2004.
      2.  I have more than once said that I doubt the legal process will end with any great satisfaction, but the pursuit is important and noble and has resulted in the important connection between the Larouche Organization and the untimely death of Jeremiah Duggan being readily available to this generation of supposed potential recruits.
           a.  Now kind of second only in the public’s mind to the Prison Sentence the Larouche Organization seems incessant on bringing up these days.  Refer to the KPOJ Political Button Guess, and in answer to revenire the “Green Party” label was jumped over because the “Prison Sentence” brought the name “Larouche” to mind.  Next thought in the general public’s mind I can reference the other time Larouche was a guess on this radio call-in-game, the answer of “Harold Stassen” to the clue of “was a frequent presidential candidate”.

VI.  I think I promised some item or other on Oskar Peterlini?
    A.  Oh well.  ‘Tis the “Huge in Europe!” syndrome which plagues many an obscure band.
    B.  From L-PAC:  A three-hour debate on the global financial crisis was opened in the Italian Senate yesterday by Sen. Oskar Peterlini, who forcefully reminded those present of the role of Lyndon LaRouche in forecasting the crisis and his New Bretton Woods solution. Peterlini’s arguments were unchallenged in the debate, but in order not to be defeated in the vote, he was forced to weaken decisively the text of his resolution. Thus, the final text–and of four other resolutions, voted up by the Senate on the same subject–is ironically weaker, and even contrary to what Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti says every second day publicly: “That’s parliamentary systems, baby!”
            1.  Really, you gotta love the fractious Italian Parliamentarian System, as mocked in today’s Get Fuzzy, panel #5.
           2.  A note of comparison to the only locality’s news report that I have seen which found the passage of a HBPA act in a manner that happily aligns with the Larouche Organization:  Hazelton, Pennsylvania — that town appears to embody everything conjured up when one hear’s the phrase “Rust Belt.”
                a.  The Org’s Gambit as they’ve forecasted beyond the hilt all 40 of the last two Recessions, but in this Org’s case it has always been a case of mimicry more than moving any Mass Movement, hence the phrase “Small time [fill the blank].”
                b.  Hazelton, Pennsylvania’s mayor received the endorsement of David Duke for her nativist stances on Immigration, for instance.  I suppose this is where Obama plucked up that “bitter, clings to guns and religions” comment, and Jack Murtha referenced “racist district, you can say.” 
                 — Ironically and incidentally, the Perpetual Economic Blight of some areas explains why some numbers of black local legislators will pass these meaningless resolutions.  Eric Fleming former state representative in Mississippi, for instance, endorsed Larouche and ended his political career.  (Unless he ended it by running for US Senate in the most racially polarized state in the nation.)
      C.  Interesting to note Peterlini’s profound disagreement with Larouche on the matter of China and Tibet.

And… I’m out!

A problem with this “New Scientist article“:

After controlling for differences in broadband internet access between states – online porn tends to be a bandwidth hog – and adjusting for population, he found a relatively small difference between states with the most adult purchases and those with the fewest.

The biggest consumer, Utah, averaged 5.47 adult content subscriptions per 1000 home broadband users; Montana bought the least with 1.92 per 1000. “The differences here are not so stark,” Edelman says.

You want to know why Utah is the biggest consumer of Online Porn?
Because Utah is the biggest haven of Blue Laws that greatly reduce offline porn.  There was recently, in Utah, a Porn Czar, whose job it was to watch all the pornography coming into the state and slash away what parts of the porn fall outside their standards of acceptable indecency.

Hence, where else can Utahans go to get their fix of [fill in references to multiples and to penetrations and whatnot] but the Internet?

There’s a great muddle between #10 and #41 — blurring the supposed “Blue State / Red State” focus of this article, and at the bottom lies Montana, which I don’t have any good explanation for.  At any rate, the great cry out I see from the Liberal denziens “Ha!  Those ‘godly’ Conservative Hypocrites!” , as well explanation from the first comments on this article Might it not be the frustrated liberals in their midst who turn to porn to console themselves? and from there… are off base and beside the point.

As with many things for anyone in my generation, the point of reference for Paul Harvey comes from an episode of The Simpsons.

That’s my boy Homer singing.
– Eh, Paul Harvey’s on.
– Ooh!
And that little boy who nobody liked grew up to be…
-Roy Cohn
– [Both] Wow!
And now you know the rest of the story.

Paul Harvey, writer of a thousand Reader’s Digest commentaries positing good ol’ Midwestern Values against- say- taxes, news source for any small-bore mall or store in America which puts the Unruly Youth in their place, and a place-name that can be inserted as the original source for any homely forwarded email, whether or not he really did write about that thing citing statsitics on how everything in America went to Hell after Prayer was taken out of our public schools.

So, my family is driving through the Mountain West, en route to Nebraska probably (relatives) — round about 1994.  My oldest sister and my mom in one car, my brother and father and I in the other car.  We pull over at a rest-stop, where my sister informs us that “Hey.  Paul Harvey’s on!”  (The universe is random.)  “What station?”  “93.7!”

Interesting.  93.7.  Paul Harvey is usually on AM stations.  Well, maybe they do it differently here in Cowboy Country, an adjunct part of the Heartland, than over there in the In-Land of a Coastal State (Which, I guess, strictly speaking, is also “Cowboy Country”).

We turn on the station, prepped for Paul Harvey.  And what we get is… Kiss’s “God Gave Rock and Roll to You.”  My sister just pulled a rather bizarre joke, didn’t she? 

Well, let the disseminating of the most odd or most offending Paul Harvey commentaries commence.