a life digested

I.  1932.  A nine year old Quaker boy from Rochester, New Hampshire stands with his parents in a cluster of fellow tourists at Buckingham Palace.  To everyone’s surprise and delight, the Royal Family — The Queen Mum, King George, and young Elizabeth II — stride across… an error in coordination and scheduling.  They stop and smile and wave at the cheering crowd.  All except for Elizabeth, who instead focuses a glare off at the puzzled looking Quaker boy.  She then lobs him a rhaspberry and mouths those immortal words “Neener Neener.”  The British Royals walk on, the crowd of tourists buzzing with excitement at the unexpected meeting.  While, meantime, the young Quaker boy from Rochester begins to nurse the sting from his royal snubbing.
1968:  While teaching a course of Marxist economics at the radical Free University of New York, Lyndon Larouche wanders in and off the campus of Columbia University — then in the midst of a student led shut down and revolt.  He poaches a group of leftist students turned off by the Weather Underground and various Maoist sects and enthused by his call to bring Marxism to Mars.  But it is all a ruse and subterfuge — for at the first opportunity, Larouche will drop the pretense of Marxist Martian relations and lead his young cadre to its real mission: a 50 year struggle to avenge the personal snubbing he experienced at the age of 9 by the Diabolical Queen of England.

II.  1938.  Lyndon Larouche tries out for high school choir.  The teachers advising give their listen, and then a prompt set of thumbs down.  “We’re afraid your pitch is just too flat.”
Stung by the rejection, Larouche rejects their recommendation for voice lessons and settles on the real reason for his rejection: the teachers have bought into the idea that C = 261.1, up from the proper designation of the 19th century concert hall of C=256.
2004:  Lyndon Larouche sends his latest groupings of youth onto college campuses — ostensibly with the selling point of offering information exposing Dick Cheney through the latest expose Children of Satan 3: The Sexual Congress of Cultural Fascism.  But this set up masks the real purpose: to expose the college aged contingent to Beethoven sang at the proper pitch of 256, and damned those high school music teachers.

III.  1965.  A neglectful Lyndon Larouche falls asleep while watching The Man From Uncle and leaving the stove on in the kitchen.  His walks in to see a small electrical fire.  Lyndon Larouche walks into the kitchen.  “What we have here,” he says as his wife douses the flames with baking soda and suggests Lyndon Larouche be more careful in the future, “is another one of those Reichstag Fires.”

IV.  1974.  Lyndon Larouche assembles his NCLC to alert them to revelations that he is the target of an assassination plot by a gaggle of Cuban Frogmen.  The Labor Committees get to work, to stem the atack — unaware of one small piece of misunderstanding.  For when they hear “Cuban Frogmen”, they think in terms of military seals — when what Larouche was referring to was an unfortunate encounter in Little Havana with three belligerent street performers dressed in cheap knock off Kermit the Frog costumes.

V.  1976.  Lyndon Larouche looks down at a stack of a couple hundred copies of his latest handbill — “Stop Nelson Rockefeller’s Drive to World War 3”.  One of his members of the NCLC walks in and says “Big News.  Ford is dropping Rockefeller from the ticket.”
“Good riddance to the Second Most Evil Man of the Planet, and another victory for the Labor Committees!”
“So.  Should we pulp all those handbills now?”
“Hm,” Lyndon Larouche muses.  “Give me an hour and I’ll figure this one out.”
An hour later, Lyndon Larouche walks into the room with a stash of papers he’d just printed off that read “Jimmy Carter” over and over again.
“All right,” Lyndon Larouche tells his aid.  “Here’s a pair of scissors.  Here’s some paste.  Get to work cutting and pasting ‘Jimmy Carter’ over ‘Nelson Rockefeller’ on all these handbills.”
“But.  That’s take forever.”
“Do you or do you not want to stop Jimmy Carter’s drive to World War 3? … And understand, the world war 3 Jimmy Carter is launching won’t just be a world war, it won’t just be a nuclear war, it will be a thermonuclear war.”

VI.  1985.  Still smarting from his third straight failed run at the US Presidency, Lyndon Larouche hatches a desperate plan.  Select an up and coming Hollywood talent marked as the “Next Big Thing”, kidnap him and threaten him until he relents to place pro-Larouche material into their next project.  So it is Lyndon Larouche poses as a taxi driver and hovers around an unlikely figure for his projected “Next Big Thing”:  a young alt weekly cartoonist by the name of Matt Groening.  And when Matt Groening finally hails Lyndon Larouche’s taxi, it takes a while to sense something amiss.  And just when Groeing senses things getting a little uncomfortable, Larouche turns back and flashes Groening a creepy Cheshire grin, and says “Don’t you know who I am?”
“Er… no,” Matt Groeing says.
“I’m Lyndon Larouche.  I just ran for president.  Didn’t you see my infomercial where I exposed Walter Mondale as a wholly owned agent of the KGB, Socialist International, and Swedish Grain Cartel?”
“I guess I missed that one?”
“Look.  I am going to swerve this car into that ravine right now unless I get a pledge from you right now — In your next Big Production — whatever that may be — you will place an unmistakable message that I, Lyndon Larouche, was right all along.”
“Uh –”
“Don’t think I’m bluffing!”
Matt Groening quickly capitulates, and without saying a word Lyndon Larouche drives Groening back and drops him off at his requested designation.
1996.  Having long forgotten about his encounter with Lyndon Larouche, Matt Groening receives an ominous reminder in the mail.  Letters cut out ransom style from a magazine, the note reads “We Had an agreement”, followed by a pasted news blurb on Larouche’s release from prison, then the notice “Do your duty or I’ll expose you as I did Bertrand Russell,” and then a headline cut from a Larouchie screed: “Bertrand Russell: The Most Evil Man of the 20th Century”.
Matt Groening calls Dan Castellaneta into the studio to insert one additional line into the year’s “Treehouse of Horrors” Simpsons episode — with Homer Simpson blurting out “Aliens!  Bio-duplication!  Nude Conspiracies!  Oh My God!  Lyndon Larouche was right!”, and he hopes that this is enough to appease the man.

VII.  1985.  “We think we have a real shot in elections in Illinois next year, with Mark and Janice gunning for Lt. Governor and Secretary of State.  But… you’re both going to have to change your last names.  See — the greatest advantage Janice has against her opponent would appear to be that her opponent’s name has an unwieldy 5 to 2 vowel to consonant ratio, and frankly we right now are not in a position to take advantage.”
“What do you think I should change my name to?” asked Janice Poopsherpants.
“We’re thinking… the asses voting will want … a monosyllabic name that speaks to the heart.  So… Hart.  You’ll be Janice Hart.  As for you, Mark…”
“Yes?” said Mark Genghiskan.
“I think ‘Mark Fairchild’ will drive the greatest contrast against the candidate you’re opposing.”
“Who’s that?”
“George Satanchild.”

VIII.  1992.  A prison doctor suggests to Lyndon Larouche the advisability of removing some anal polyps.  “Is that all right?” he asks.
Lyndon Larouche stares at the doctor.  “Sure.  But only if you pass my rigorous screening process.  You understand, I am a man with many enemies.”
“Okay?”
“I’m going to ask a series of questions that will show your intentions.  Question #1: What do you know about Nicholas of Cusa?”
“Uh… nothing?”
“Ah hah!  That’s exactly what the Knights Templar, the enemies of Nicholas of Cusa, currently residing in the halls of the Keplerian faction of the Leesburg Garden Club– are trained to say.  Sorry.  But I cannot and will not allow you to poke your Agent Orange or whatever dynamite you’ve concocted into my anus.  My anal polyps remain.  Not only that, but I’m going to expose your plot to all the world like I did the assassination attempt from Castro’s Kermit Crew!”

IX.  2008.  Lyndon Larouche lectures before his “Larouche Youth Movement” cadre school.  He has written on the chalkboard a long list of names of “Great Leaders” and Statesmen in history, Promethean Souls who Transcended Humanity.
“One of the things a great deal of these Great Immortal Souls has in common,” Lyndon Larouche says to his young cadre, “is that — particularly toward the end of life — they had the companionship of a younger mistress.”
“Um,” one of the Larouche Youth cadres says.  “That’s the third time you’ve offered that observation.  Is there something you’re getting at?”
“Just recording the mutual benefits of a relationship which has historically advanced human history and culture against the sea of dionysian malthusian darkness.”
“Kind of an Anna Nicole Smith deal?”
“Psst.  Ix-nay on the Op-pay ulture-cay.  You don’t want to align with the Aristotlean Beastmen, do you?”
“In the right circumstances, you’ll find I can be an Aristotlean Beastman,” Larouche says.
The whole of the Larouche Youth cadre cringe in unison.
“Anyway, if you need some one on one with me, I’ll be in the office… … I mean, to discuss Beethoven or whatever… … …. Hegel’s cool with it…. … sigh.”
And the door slams.  Robert Beltran walks in from the side, wondering if he should shuttle “Romeo and Juliet” in favor of King Lear.

X.  2009.  It was not widely known, but Lyndon Larouche had a minor ownership share in the Boston furniture store ‘Leatherstocking Upholsteries”.   So he checked in to his majority owner partner and asked, “How’s business been?”
“Oh.  Great.  Except for one thing…”
“What’s that?” Lyndon Larouche asked.
“Well.  We have this massive back stock of dining room tables.  We need to get rid of these dining room tables.  If only we could get it into people’s minds, the purchasing of dining room tables… even subliminally.”
“You know,” said Lyndon Larouche.  “I think I have an idea!”
Lyndon Larouche then called up his old friend, Congressman Barney Frank.
“Hey!” said Barney Frank.  “Been a while.  You know, I really owe you one for how you relieved the media spotlight on me during my sordid sex related scandal by running that wacky candidate of yours against me.”
“Yeah, well” Lyndon Larouche said.  “I’ calling in the favor right now.  So, at your next town hall, I will have one of my followerers waving one of my ‘Obama with Hitler mustache’ things at you and denouncing the ACA as Hitler’s Health Care Policy…”
“Still going back to the oldies, huh?”
“I need you to insult her –”
“Sounds easy!”
“– By referring to her as a ‘dining room table’.”
“But.  That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It is imperative that you refer to her as a dining room table.”
“But.  Can’t I think of something more … witty?”
“No.  It must be ‘dining room table’.”
“But –”
“Do this.  Or I’ll expose you like I did Bertrand Russell.”

XI.  2014.  Lyndon Larouche flips through a thousand copies of his latest handbill — “Pass Glass Steagall Now Or Thermonuclear War in March.”
“Yeeowtch!” he yells.
His wife rushes in.  “What’s wrong, dear?”
“Quick.  Get me a band aid.  It seems I have on my hands another one of those… Reichstag Paper cuts.”

XII.  2016.  Lyndon Larouche sits in Moscow with two emissaries of the Russian government.
“So let me see if I understand this,” Lyndon Larouche says.  “You want us — basically a kind of reprise of a conspiracy theory we ran in the early 90s with George Bush and a pedophile ring out of Nebraska — to claim a pedophile ring is based at a Virginia pizza parlor?”
“No.” The Russian agent says.  “We’re asking you to refrain from this story.  Because if you did this story — the paranoid fringe will dismiss it with a ‘Oh, that’s Lyndon Larouche.’  We’ll be passing that sotry on to someone with more credibility — Alex Jones.”
“Huh.  Okay.  And if we do as you suggest — and don’t report on this pizza parlor pedophile ring.  What’s in it for us?”
“Well.  When the times comes.  If and when a President Trump crosses us in NATO policy or the Crimean.  We will give you first dibs on… video footage of Donald Trump getting urinated on.”
“Uh –” Lyndon Larouche says.  It is the last phrase he would ever utter.

2 Responses to “a life digested”

  1. Molly Kronberg Says:

    (Used to post here as Rachel–or something like it–but no need for that now, if ever there was.)

    I think you have hit the nail on the head. Everything LaRouche ever did was 100% personal; the guy knew zero about American politics or any other kind, which helps to explain why, with the expenditure of tremendous money and effort over decades and decades, he managed to die in almost complete obscurity.

    As you know, I hold him responsible for the 2007 suicide of my husband Ken Kronberg, and when I heard that LaRouche had died the first thing I wanted to do was to tell Ken.

    As for those still in the LaRouche org? They’re idiots, but at least they don’t have that malevolent old creep breathing down their necks any more.

  2. Justin Says:

    Reading through youtube comments of a video of conspiratorial larouchiness … we see the internet comments team “getting the truth” out against the “disinformation”…:

    A line seems to have emerged (see “Infantryman NYC”):
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX71oz6wMhQ&lc=Ugwu0KDC_WclxI-pG2R4AaABAg
    One final note: LaRouche lost a lot of support from liberal and moderate Democrats by denouncing Obama from day one. Much of the anti-LaRouche propaganda from the past decade is due to that controversy.

    Larouche was entertaining the notion of backing Obama on Day 2. In the end of 2008, start of 2009… “Tell the British to Quit Assassinating our Presidents”. Surfaced at some indicted (black) politico in the Boston area to charge an “Operation Furl(whatever)” with that line.

    ……………………
    I hung out with a chapter/office of young members for a while. They were all good and bright kids and did a lot of good work. The science, historical and musical work was top-notch. I bought into their idea of a new platonic, humanist renaissance in human politics & culture. But the top brass of the organization were just using the lower members for their ideas and labor. The editor and creator of the Fidelio, a magazine the organisation produced which I really loved, was supposedly driven to suicide because of the harrassment/control tactics of some members. Then you read how early on, female members were encouraged to have abortions to avoid leaving the organization. Most of the second generation children/members were born when he and others in leadership roles were in jail. When the guy who recruited me left and a bunch of the youth started defecting, I looked into the history and personal stories of past members and started to realize things. He was a deluded megalomaniac, and his top leadership were obsessed with controlling people and making money. Check out “Why We Left” by a few good young members who left back in 2012. It’s an eye opener. Sure they did great research and a lot of what they were saying I still hear about from other truthers 10-15 years after. But it doesn’t excuse the bad and evil, cult-like, stuff they did to the membership.

    You are incorrect about the LPAC. I also read the “why we left” article and I know the guys who wrote it. It’s a lot of childish bitterness and resentment based on LaRouche being anti-Obama, And alienating his more liberal members. If you leave a organization, you just leave. You don’t need to write an angry diatribe, trashing your old friends, unless you’re overcompensating out of a sense of guilt. (Or if the ADL is paying you.) Think about it… I’ve known the LaRouche people for almost two decades and still have some friends in the organization. The cult stuff is all baseless slander pushed by the ADL. Hope you’ll keep an open mind.

    It’s not just them. Many had left in the past and alleged intimidation, manipulation, bullying, etc. The editor of Fidelio commited suicide and his wife blamed people in the organization. They slander those who leave like a cult would. They turn the existing members/friends against them. When those last members had left they were calling them compromised enemy agents the very next day.
    I remember some of them constantly trying to intimidate or put guilt-trips on me and then turn around and be kind again. It wasn’t them, they learned these cult tactics from the leaders.

    What about the cult stuff in the LaRouche Organization – getting people to work from 7am to 9pm for a small amount of money for food and toothpaste with the promise of becoming a genius or great politician? What about the spying on other members, accusing them as being enemy agents if they don’t do everything that they are ordered to do? What about how they blame everything on the British when the US has the largest military the world has ever known?
    don’t ever let them get your phone number
    For anyone that wants to lose a few hours on the topic
    http://laroucheplanet.info/

    They were never a cult; nor are they disinformation agents.
    The anti-LaRouche websites are run by his political enemies (ADL SPLC, etc.), and aided by some disgruntled ex-members who supported Obama – who LaRouche denounced since day one. Believing those slanders is like listening to an ex-wife who did badly in a divorce. (And yes, I’ve heard all the slanders – almost all lies)
    I’ve known personally, mr. LaRouche
    and his organization, for almost 2 decades.
    They’re really smart, and decent people.
    What’s wrong with studying classical music? Do you actually believe Beethoven wasn’t a genius?
    Try to keep an open mind.
    

    …………………..
    Particularly in the case of the Shields, if they had wanted to script “Why We Left” as an internet link to Larouche’s “monkey” comment — that would have been satisfactory.
    The Larouche org were Clinton backers between 1994 (or thereabouts) on through 2008. I suppose the initial reason is to tell a (false) storyline: Bush imprisoned him, Clinton freed him. After that, there may be some kind of money raising con and use to tilt at a larger storyline (and I believe only a storyline, the politics and policy behind the storyline meaningless) — might be the tendency to affect an embattled politician at his lowest point (Clinton after the 94 midterms) and do battle against a set of enemies — Newt Gingrich and the “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy”. Politically, revenire surfaced on some blogs and railed on immigration — as the Kesha Rogers campaign campaigned against Obama as “Deporter in Chief”, revenire made similar points — hardly arguing for their eventual alignment with the Trump Administration.

    Larouche planet (and I reference it specifically as it is the link the commenter provided) is run by “ADL SPLC, etc.”?
    More comments:

    Notice the Larrouche organisation has been declared a cult in Germany. Unfortunately I can’t reproduce the link I saw, based within a psychology health organisation, arguing for the legislation. The incident for this was a so-called suicide by a Jewish boy after attending a meeting.

    Patrick Habets: yes. No doubt ADL connected – the kid who died.

    And so it goes…

Leave a Reply