Me, two LaRouchies, and fifteen minutes: do the math.
December 13th, 2008
Okay, so maybe I've been a little harsh lately. Snippy, to say the least. Sarcastic? Maybe. Sinister? I don't know.
So, what would trigger such an admission, especially on a page with a title such as above? After all, Mr. LaRouche isn't exactly lending himself to mutual apology.1
I encountered a handful of LaRouchies and their cardboard prop-up signs in the free speech zone the other day; the very same free speech zone where Michael Venyah had their annual lulz-a-thon last spring. Fascinating signs to say the least, so I snapped a couple pictures.
Okay, I admit it, a lot of pictures; pictures of pretty much any activist-looking sign I find on campus.2 Given my busy schedule of sinister snippiness and sarcasm, I prefer to snap pictures of any new material they have propped up (that's legal in most free speech zones,) and use it for reference later. Once in a blue moon, I photograph the LaRouchies themselves in their natural habitat, obscuring their faces as an extra measure of privacy in the one-in-a-million chance . I may be a jerk, but I'm a polite jerk.
One LaRouchie takes notice, drops his pamphlets and DVDs and whips out his digital camera. He gives me his name, but for the sake of his privacy, I'll name him Bartholemew.3 Bart had visited Fenris Designs before, he reveals. Flattering.
We exchange jovial greetings, he snaps a headshot or two of me (I'll explain later,) then straight down to business, trading character assassinations like civilized men.
No, not really, we learn a lot of fascinating things about each other.
Bartholemew's diagnostic abilities far outstrip those of most reputable psychologists. Three minutes into a fifteen-minute discussion, he concludes that I'm mentally ill. His award-winning assessment comes due to the fact that I bring up the suspicious death of Jeremiah Duggan,4 Operation Mop-Up, and their leader's extensive history of failed economic predictions. Bart further diagnoses the mental condition as cowardice, on account that I refuse to give him my real name. He brings up the point that the Founding Fathers weren't cowardly like me, in which context, I'm still unsure. For comparison purposes, I wouldn't give Robert Heinlein my real name, either.
Okay, so he uses his real name when he's passing out anti-Semitic literature; it takes a big man to admit your parents thought Bartholemew was an acceptable name (I'm not sure if that's him who emailed me a month later, but if true, wouldn't that be tantamount to the cowardice that he so decries?) I briefly brush past the generous secrecy and security detail LaRouche wields around his residence (and stupidly forget how many times LaRouche himself used the pseudonym Lyn Marcus when writing in his early days.) All the more reason I'm a headcase.
But most importantly, what I learn is OMG, they're being attacked! By someone taking pictures of their signs and writing about their leader on his website! The pictures taken of me were in case my attacks get physical. Did I mention he was taller than me, as was the guy who comes in later?
Apart from being cowardly, and squirrely,5 and my website childish, I'm pretty fucking stubborn. Can't really blame him, it's hard to change subjects with me when faced with points that inconvenience him. He also learns with enough prodding that my real name is Samuel.6
He goes on to point out my work for The Daily Cougar, asking me if I was familiar with Lynne Cheney's ACTA, and that most college papers in the United States are owned by it.7 Not sure what his approach was: demonize me as a pawn for the Big Ol' Conspiracy (the...BOC?) or scare me away from my job?
Eventually, he gets to the whole reason he was, well, being a LaRouchie: the economy. The main thesis is that they're warning of a complete economic collapse. Tomorrow. They really really mean it this time.
Conversely, I offer no alternatives to the impending crisis. First off, what do I look like, a designer or an economist? Second, given LaRouche's all-powerful history of failed economic predictions and absense of training in macroeconomics, I'd say let's go with an idea that won't spell doom like a like a frat party being held at NORAD.8 I bring his postdictive failures up and...nevermind, we already went through the mentally ill discussion.
Eventually, I bite and give a mild impromptu two-part remedy: first, put LaRouche back in prison, make him finish his sentence. He obviously didn't learn how not to be a crook, the American justice system needs to show it still has integrity, and it would benefit his followers in that they'll have another foothold to pretend they're being persecuted. The second was to establish citizen watchdog groups, similar to WikiLeaks.
Just so I'm not exclusively on the receiving end of the Chewbacca Defense, and because the big idea was open discussion, I asked Bartholemew to explain the LaRouche solution in his own words. Apparently, it was to freeze all banking so LaRouche (alone) could bring together groups to bring together another solution. His words, not mine.9
About three minutes before I leave, another LaRouchie, let's call him Mordechai, comes in. It's a stretch, but I think they attempted10 to tagteam Bartholemew's way out of an effective argument. It would've been the same discussion again; I'm "attacking them," cowardice, no alternatives, if I didn't realize I was going to be late for a class. Thanks, LaRouchies, you cost me what little time I had for lunch.
Remember, children: criticism equals war.
Both Bartholemew and Mordechai were surprisingly careful with their wording. No matter the context, my website and similar are "attacking" them. There's a direct proportional relationship between the nauseating fringeness of a group and the strength of its collective persecution complex.
Mordy does let it slip that the LaRouchies treat their campaigns like attacks,11 giving shocking insight into the warlike mindset they employ when volunteering. Ironically, the message they're supposed to give their targets for recruitment, primarily naïve or disheartened liberals new to a complex college-sized debate, is that they're anti-war, anti-violence and the like. Remember, every contest of their claims is an "attack."
Which brings us back to the beginning: me and my snippy sinister sarcasm over the past god-knows-how-long. An admission of assholiness, yes. An apology...no.
1 I'm quite sure he's stumbled onto this website by now. Tell me, Lynnie sweetie...you like?
2 Among them, World Can't Wait fliers, fair trade students, newsvans, minority advocates, gas-guzzling green cars with ironic bumper stickers, religious outreach, and the like. Sorry, LaRouchies, but you're not that special.
3 Not necessarily out of his group's hostility towards Brits, but because he definitely looks like a Bartholemew.
4 Three times. Keep in mind that at no point on my website do I claim that LaRouche is responsible for events in question. I simply state that the events need to be investigated more thoroughly, and that the LaRouche PAC's response was evasive.
5 Another word L. Ron Hubbard thought he owned.
6 It's not.
7 A lie. I did a little research, and the American Council of Trustees and Alumni is an advocacy group that is actually hostile toward many of the college newspapers it talks about. Oh, and the Daily Cougar is one of the few independent school papers in Texas; even the college has no control over its content.
8 "Welp, we're screwed. What say we give the Horsemen one last push?"
9 Apologies if I don't remember everything. It was a month back.
10 And succeeded.
11 In context, "We use our real names when attacking our opponents."
Back to Ramblings...
