Little Pink Houses…

I recall in 2000 seeing one Buchannan/ Foster sign, on the edge of PSU campus, the day before election. It looked out of place. Plenty of Gore/Lieberman signs, Nader / LaDuke signs, and the occasional Bush/Cheney sign… but this was the only Buchannan sign that I had seen all election season.

Skip to this year.
The LaRouche posters are splattered all over North Portland telephone polls. To nobody’s particular notice. The LaRouchites put them there, and they’ll fall by the wayside sooner or later.

But I did see a LaRouche sign in the window of a mid-sized pink house. And a large picture of the man… Lyndon LaRouche.

It’s overtaken, around the city, by the Kerrys, the Bushes, the Kuciniches, and the faded Deans (occasionally with Kucinich or Kerry stuck over them)… but there it is: I know where a Lyndon LaRouche supporter lives.

Feel free to knock.

The second Lyndon LaRouche ad strikes me as disjointed.

Analyzing the two ads: the first one had a rhyme and reason to it. “I proposed the LaRouche Doctrine. If we have a commitment toward a world war, which is what Iraq represents, we won’t have the resources to solve the upcoming world economic collapse. Which is why we should build a ‘Zone of Security’… which would mean negotiating with Jordan and Egypt. And ending our policy in Israel. Prominent leaders in Europe and the Arab World are endorsing this plan.”

It’s nuts — (who are these prominent leaders? And what exactly is a “zone of security” in that land?), but it is at least a storyline.

The second ad is scattershot, and breaks off into rambling sentence fragments.

“80% of citizens are not in the process. We need to engage them. Tax policy and like that. Not working. Health concerns healed. Like that.”

Why am I discussing Lyndon LaRouche advertisements?

Because John Kerry isn’t making much news right now… Not that he should. Election processes in these states are long enough to disaffect everyone… maybe we should reinvent the process so that politicos aren’t allowed to campaign directly until August…

………….
One last note: I want to thank my brother for hosting this. If he wants to pull the plug on this, I would oblige him.

I heard a Lyndon LaRouche commercial on Portland’s “Air America” station at, oh… about 4 am or thereabouts.

Apparently he wants to get us out of Iraq (through negotiations with Egypt and Iran and… other middle eastern countries), form a security zone of some sort (I suppose it’d be an exclusionary zone by default), and…

That way we can move our resources back to solving the real pressing problems: the looming global economic collapse.

This is the gist of the 30 seconds.

Regarding the global economic collapse: the Art Bells and Jeff Renses are always insisting that it’d be wise to buy your way into gold. (After the Y2K scare petered out… the sentiment continues unabetted.)

I assume that that is the sentiment of the LaRouchites as well… (consider that Jeff Rense is quite sympathetic toward LaRouche.)

The George Soroses of the world are currently betting against the dollar. (Europe would end American hegenomy through trade… and with a unified Euro.)

That, too, feeds into the Gold commonities market fervor.

It’s worth noting that Osama Bin Laden has endorsed Gold.

I told them that I cast my ballot. And I told them that I cast my ballot for… Kucinich. “I knew it”, he uttered under his breath…

… and then he directed me to the back page of the latest issue of their newspaper…

“Unbeknownst to the Synarchists, Dem Presidential pre-candidate Lyndon”…

Stop right there. What is a “pre-candidate”?

Skip forward… “To dispense with Dennis Kucinich, who has popped in and out of Oregon a few times, recognize what his campaign lunge is […] the “Kooch” is helping the DNC block LaRouche delegates by telling the Oregonians to use their “irrelevant” votes as a protest, and vote Kooch. […] Along with several interventions on the “Kooch of peace” himself, the LYM has been …”

Stop right there. “interventions on the Kooch of peace himself” (or, as I would phrase it “hisownself”.) This, I assume refers to the act of accosting a candidate… “getting in their face”, so to speak.

“We are experimenting with literally taking over the campuses. Last week, we combined early morning saturation-leafletting of the classrooms of several major Portland-area campuses with intense Socratic dialouges”

Stop right there. That’s what they call it. How intellectually upscale!

“Virtually nobody is ignorant of the existence of Lyndon LaRouche, and several are comintg to Seattle’s impending cadre school.”

(Reminiscent of comments made by a Daniel Lee, but never mind…) Stop right there. “Cadre School”. Try this… google the terms “LaRouche” and “cadre school” and you’ll get a photograph of them cadre schools. Scan the faces, and describe the emotional tinge you get in the gut…

Read also A Piece of Blue Sky for a similar effect. (But then read Alan Mendelsohn.)

“Our lunge was that we need, not only delegates, but 10,000 classically trained, young jungle fighters at the DNC Convention in July, so we can take over the party.”

Neat-o.

Okay. There’s more, but it’s more of the same.

Now I’m done with them.

I think.

I eventually creeped out the LaRouchites a bit…

… as is my want.

Anyway, following an unrelated conversation in the vicintity, where I tried to ascertain whether or not I could get a quick job and some quick money — aside from the rich rewards offered by — nay, I won’t say it — (or if said job has the tattered ear-marks of an Amway / Cutco Pyramidial Scheme), interjected momentarily to get the gist of the Painting offer.

Anyway, eventually I ask the LaRouchite when he discovered LaRouche. I’m annoyingly sympathetic toward these types of things…

… His story doesn’t fully mesh… he became aware that the country was heading into the wrong direction, could see the beginnings of perpetual warfare back in ’99, saw the coming Economic Depression…

… and discovered that Lyndon LaRouche had all of the answers.

Common concerns. Heightened to paranoia. Young, uncertain mind grasps for answers. Dreads the future. Grabs onto whatever they can find.

What’s upcoming? Well… in a few weeks, there will be a major Democratic event here in Oregon… which the LaRouchites will try to infiltrate.

I guess they know their places.

Though, sometimes they don’t know their places… they maintain, after 7 elections, that there is a major rift in the Democratic Party, and the bigwigs of the Democratic Party are seriously fretting over the LaRouche Factor.

Probably, LaRouche Incorporated will incorporate the latest in-the-millworks faint “Dump Kerry” noise into their own noise… (Ain’t a’happening…) … as part of their “Call to Arms”.

They sing Signor Abbate, evidentally.

I wonder, though: does this guy ever get a C-SPAN appearance?

“Hey! Come here a minute! We need to straighten out this guy’s mind.”

“Yes… I understand the sentiment of Kerry and Bush being this good cop / bad cop routine, but that doesn’t mean that…”

“See, you get it. At least, part of it.”

“LaRouche’s not a out of wack. Go back to the title ‘Children of Satan’. It’s an old anti-semitic slur.”

“Oh. I get it now. Wall Street Journal editorialist (name didn’t register).”

“…so why name your pamphlet that?”

“But none of these guys are Jewish… Cheney, Rumsfeld… well, Perle and Wolfowitz are, but…”

“It came out March of last year. Everyone was confused at the start of the war, and we needed to … loosen things up a bit.”

“Reaction is (face aglow with mock-shock) ‘Children of Satan’… Really?”

“But… ‘Children of Satan’… you know it’s an old anti-semitic slur.”

“When? Look… it doesn’t matter, because… it’s not what we’re talking about… these guys here… They are the Children of Satan.”

“Do you know the difference between Man and Animal?”

I was vaguely aware of where this was going… I’ve heard Clyde Lewis interview some LaRouche organizar named Ron Wolfe… the effect in hearing those interviews is… dinsultorary (coin a new term.) We move toward a half-baked, half parasitically land-grabbed excuse to use the term “Beast-Man”.

I wasn’t terribly interested and I needed to leave shortly anyway, so I answered every “probing” question with “I give up. You tell me,” until a long-haired bearded, mildly stoned by disposition guy I used to know slightly better than I do now came up and said “Hey! Have any new conspiracies for me?”… and initiated a somewhat more interesting conversation — the LaRouchites arguing that the “Children of Satan” are inherently evil (remember: they are Beast-Men), and him arguing that they’re misguided, but not evil.

They still don’t seem to understand the connotative nature of the terms “Children of Satan”, or for that matter “Beast-Man”.

But I promise: I’m done with them…

I walked up to a group of LaRouche supporters and it went like this:

Me: The latest pamphlet is entitled “Children of Satan”.
LS: Actually, it’s recent pamphlet. (goes to pull the pamphlet out of his collection)
Me: Yeah, well… divorce the title from anything and…
LS (a different one): Oooooh…
Me: Yeah, I guess you know where I’m going with this.
LS: No. I oohed, because this is an original copy. Full gloss cover!
LS: Why would you want to divorce the title from anything? It’s called that because this cabal are the Children of Satan.
Me: No. I mean…
LS: What, you want endless world war III?
LS: Dick Cheney is a Child of Satan, like the others on this cover… Rumsfeld, Perle. We need to bring the troops home!
Me: I mean… divorce the title from any and all content… what does the title evoke? When carefully choosing a title, why would you go with “Children of Satan”?
LS: Because these guys are the Children of Satan! Their philosophy of endless World War 3… You want endless war? Have you read the pamphlet? $5!

I should have been more explicit… And why would I lay down $5 for a pamphlet that they have had laying around all over the place for free (except without the glossy cover)?

The Lyndon LaRouche supporter asks me “What’s it going to take to open these people’s minds up and see the big picture?”

“Hm.” I stop walking, and turn to him. “You know, I’ve been wondering. What does LaRouche have against the British Royal Family?”

He paused. And provided me with the best details he could drudge up at short notice. They fund the (struggle to come up with the acronym… I offer up WTO for lack of anything better, which is rejected) WWF… no, not the World Wilflife Federation, and no not World Wrestling Entertainment (formerly Federation), but a 3rd world aid program that is purposefully destroying the world.

Or something to that effect.

And it all goes back to the Bankers… at which point, he needs to backpeddle and assure with self-awareness of what “Bankers” often seems to codifyingly signify, “This is where LaRouche detractors try to nail him, and misunderstand him.”

“You can email the man to find out more, you know.”

“Hm. Okay.”

There I bid a farewell… still not sure what Lyndon LaRouche has against the British Royal Family.

“Blame Me. I voted for Nader.”
That was my line, but I don’t think the take-off on the common bumper-sticker line “Don’t Blame Me. I voted for ___” registered with anyone. Besides which, I’m not even circumspect on that vote.

“No, I don’t blame you.”

“Yeah, well… I only voted that way after staring at the electoral map for a while. If I had been in Florida, I would’ve voted Gore.”

A different person came up to me, and said. “Yeah. I waited for Gore to say anything at all to get me to vote for him, but he never did. I’m basically a Socialist.”
“Hm. I can’t really say that, on balance, I like Nader’s positions more than Gore’s. I dunno… if he had any chance, I probably wouldn’t have voted Nader.”
“In fact… I voted for Lyndon LaRouche in the primary. Even though he’s a nutcase.”
“Lyndon LaRouche Is Right!” , an obscure Simpsons reference that no one would catch.

This is the politics of personal aggrandizement. Nobody in their right mind would consider Lyndon LaRouche better than Al Gore, and probably not even George W. Bush. In a 2-person race where the stakes are real, I’m pretty confident that this “basically socialist” would throw Al Gore into office over Lyndon LaRouche.

Likewise, when it comes right down to it, I would probably have, even in 2000, selected Al Gore into office over Ralph Nader, though that’s a bit more chancey than the Lyndon LaRouche choice… (what the hell? Let’s try something a little different for a while and break down a few things…) In the end, Nader comes across as an authoritarian yahoo… like most 3rd party figures tend to come across, actually. (Ross Perot, anyone?)

But… by voting for LaRouche, we can know that we voted for LaRouche. By voting for Nader, we can know that we voted for Nader. And we can say so. To impress, if not other people, ourselves.

Note my joke, “Blame Me… I voted for Nader.”
Note his statement “In fact, I voted for LaRouche, even though he’s a nutcase.”
Two statements that make ourselves inwardly smile.

And to damn the system. And to damn the system. And to damn the system.