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Watching TV News of the Tet Offensive

This particular firefight here is alive and well! Tet only lives in the psyche ... but I'll leave off there.

On 2nd try the following text stuck for more than 45 seconds [but not a lot longer; he who is fascinated by canals and hydrotherapy took it upon himself to correct my contribution ... to his credit he let stand my addition of "long" to the NPOV]:

The dispute concerning the neutrality of this article has given rise to an exchange; whether it is discourse or mere polemic depends on the dialectical process engaged by the participants.

This article is a biographical article about LaRouche. For an article concerning LaRouche's political views, see Political views of Lyndon LaRouche.

For a discussion of involving LaRouche's political views, see Talk:Lyndon_LaRouche.

This interface is clumsy. Everything else I touch in the course of a day spits out a FF password, but not here; I won't reregister. Poetic that just today someone said my dramatically reduced involvement in Indymedia was proof of ?what? ...

Discourse your socks off, if you can: you don't have the tech ... it's a lame interface, and C2-Ward has known it forever ... but it suits those who would choose polemic over discourse. /shrug/

formerly hfx_ben ... formerly IS (Canada)

-added 02:42, 8 Feb 2005 by 68.148.5.84

False information about Berlet corrected

Hi,

My first article about LaRouche was for the Chicago Sun Times (1979), not High Times (1981). --Cberlet 22:46, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Let's not have another revert struggle: NPOV

Contrary to the claims of Weed Harper, I did not make the edits that he deleted. However, the wording about Dennis King that he has restored is highly biased and reflects the pro-LaRouche perspective in a way that violates Wicki norms through a personal attack on King. Dennis King is a well-known investigative journalist with a highly-regarded book from a commercial publisher on how to conduct investigations. LaRouche is a convicted criminal with a history of making idiosyncratic conspiracist statements that often reflect bigotry. I am placing a NPOV flag on this page and calling for another discussion about the manners and editing tactics of the LaRouche supporters. I further propose that the wording on King be restored to a non-biased text--Cberlet 14:38, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I reverted to a version by CBerlet, not from it. I realize you didn't write to passage I reverted to; you were just the last person to edit the article before that passage was changed.
Regarding your claims about LaRouche and King, you are simply spouting your opinions. If King is a "well-known investigative journalist with a highly-regarded book," it is certainly not reflected by a substantial number of references on Google. Having read his book, I would have to say that King has "a history of making idiosyncratic conspiracist statements" about LaRouche. Weed Harper 15:02, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I think the tag is misleading. I am proposing to go back to the version that is not biased against Dennis King. Counting Google search totals is not a proper way to conduct any type of serious research. The King book is in its third edition and listed as a resource in The Reporter's Handbook published by the trade group Investigative Reporters and Editors.--Cberlet

Chip Berlet

Chip Berlet is now editing this article and complaining about bias, which is ironic, considering that in his day job, he is one of the most prolific slanderers of Lyndon LaRouche (see Chip Berlet: Journalist and conspiracy researcher Mark Evans wrote, "Chip Berlet and his sidekick Dennis King, author of Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism, have made careers out of their postgraduate preoccupation of being 'LaRouche watchers.' To them, Lyndon LaRouche, recently released from prison, is the Great Beast. Berlet and King's own political trajectory, in shades of The Big Chill, [followed] a path parallel in its revisionism and no less bizarre than that of the despised object of their fixated animosity, LaRouche himself."[1].)

The number of public personalities who consider LaRouche to have been a political prisoner is pretty impressive.[2][3] How curious it is, therefore, that Berlet, who proclaims himself to be a researcher and tracker of "government intelligence abuse," should turn out to be one of the most enthusiastic cheerleaders of the government frameup. Moreover, Berlet, who does a lot of finger pointing at other leftists whom he considers to be guilty of fraternizing with rightists (such as Ralph Nader, Alexander Cockburn, and Ramsey Clark), jumped lustily into bed with the John Birch Society and Richard Mellon Scaife in the course of pursuing his anti-LaRouche campaign. Some people might regard this as a particularly odoriferous kind of hypocrisy. --HK 21:33, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

HK: this sort of comment is precisely what the talk pages are not for. If you think CBerlet's additions are not NPOV, say why, for each edit. Merely calling him hypocritical--whether or not it is true--without discussing the merits of his edits, is totally inappropriate and doesn't help us construct an NPOV article DanKeshet 00:58, Dec 23, 2004 (UTC)

Move Criminal Case Info?

The material on several pages relating to LaRouche is often redundant. I propose moving the section on this page on the LaRouche criminal cases to the US v. LaRouche page. I also propose moving the discussion of the John Train meetings to that page, at the same time moving the same discussion from the Chip Berlet pages. There is no point in having this same material in several places. It takes up space and makes a serious debate over the merits of the text cumbersome. --Cberlet 14:05, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The Train meeting info is not merely of interest to the LaRouche legal case. It underscores something that is essential to an understanding of Lyndon LaRouche's role in politics, that being that he has been the target of one of the most massive propaganda campaigns in post-WWII history. The fact that you, Chip, played a role in that propaganda campaign, is essential to an understanding of your own role in politics, and your desire to expunge it from your own Wikipedia article is understandable, while also self-serving and unacceptable. --HK 16:00, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Herschel, the problem is that your role here is also self-serving, though not quite so directly, because you're a member of the LaRouche organization.
Chip, the reason for repeating material is that the causal reader can't be expected to read every article in the LaRouche series, so any material that is relevant to an understanding of the person or group belongs in the article, even though it may be dealt with more fully in another article. But if you feel there's too much material on the trial, a lot of it could be moved to U.S. v. LaRouche, and similarly if you feel there's too much about the trial in your article (especially in yours, because you were not the subject of it), you could similarly move most of it to the U.S. v. LaRouche article. Slim 20:13, Dec 23, 2004 (UTC)

Recent anonymous edits

Given the unusually controversial nature of this article, I think that anonymous editors who intend major revisions should either get themselves a user name, or use the one that they already have. Regarding the most recent edits by one 205.188.117.11, it is unacceptable to insert that "Dennis King, however, cites statements from 'The Case of Walter Lippmann" and other LaRouche writings on the political state that King interprets as amounting to right-wing totalitarianism.". LaRouche has been mischaracterized so many times by King and Berlet, that only direct quotes should be used to back up claims by these putative sources.--HK 16:04, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Mark Evans

Weed, you keep inserting the same Mark Evans quote into this and several other Wikipedia articles. Could you please find out who he is, whether he's a journalist, and who he writes for? The website you're quoting doesn't seem to be a legitimate publication. Perhaps they picked up an article by Evans that was published elsewhere, but there's no citation. Many thanks, Slim 01:07, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)

Propose Remove Duplicate material on Criminal Conviction

Other than a short paragraph mentioning the criminal conviction, the details belong on the United States v. LaRouche page. What is here in this section is not just duplicate material, it is largely pro-LaRouche propaganda solely from LaRouche publications. This is just another ruse to post pro-LaRouche propaganda. I will wait for other comments, but given that even HK agrees this material is duplicate, I propose it be deleted here.--Cberlet 22:39, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I feel the material should stay here. We say that the conviction was a defining moment, so it makes sense to say more about it. We need published references, however, that the named supporters did, indeed, offer support; and those who are involved with the LaRouche movement should either be removed, or their connection should be made clear. The names are Arturo Frondizi, former President of Argentina; figures from the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement such as Amelia Boynton Robinson, James Bevel, and Rosa Parks; former Minnesota Senator and Democratic Presidential Candidate Eugene McCarthy; Mervyn Dymally, who chaired the Congressional Black Caucus; and artists such as classical vocalist William Warfield, violinist Norbert Brainin, former 1st Violin of the Amadeus Quartet, and classical violinist Norbert Brainin. I would also like to see a published reference for Brainin's quote. With references, I feel the list can stay in this article (although if the consensus is to move it, I have no problem with that). Without references, it should be in neither article. Slim 05:56, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)

Cites do not support new sentence on criminal convictions

Here is the current sentence inserted by Weed who deleted my text:

"Beginning in the late 1970s, calls for an investigation of LaRouche were issued by the Heritage Foundation and the Anti-Defamation League, followed by articles in the New York Times [[4]]."

The cited article makes no such claim, it merely refers to the reports as slanders.

Here are the underlying cites to the sentence in the LaRouche article:

"20. The June 1978 Heritage Foundation “Institution Analysis” Report authored by Francis Watson entitled “U.S. Labor Party,” utilizing a bizarre set of formulations gathered from such “sources” as the hard-line Maoist October League newspaper, and the Socialist Workers Party newspaper, The Militant. Branding LaRouche a violent extremist, it was distributed to hundreds of U.S. corporate heads and institutional leaders. In March 1978, the ADL began a systematic harassment and defamation campaign, working through the Jewish Community Relations Council to demand that LaRouche’s views be banned from public locations, and publishing the lie in various press outlets that LaRouche was the most dangerous and violent right-wing extremist around. See, e.g., the Berkeley Barb, August 1978, “Who Are the Terrorists,” where ADL Western Coordinator David Lehrer spread this defamation against LaRouche. Finally, in 1979, the ADL put these defamations out in its own name in an ADL Fact-Finding report.
22. On October 7 and 8, 1979, the New York Times published the Blum and Montgomery slander piece under the titles, “U.S. Labor Party: Cult Surrounded by Controversy,” and “One Man Leads U.S. Labor Party on Its Erratic Path.” Then, an editorial titled “The Cult of LaRouche,” is published on October 10, 1979.

Unless someone can cite a call for an investigation into illegal fundraising in these underlying documents, I propose that my original text, or some edited variation of it, be restored. --Cberlet 19:08, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)


Weed, your citation doesn't back up your claim. Chip, as far as I'm concerned you can add any relevant material so long as it's carefully referenced, and doesn't make any claims beyond the citations. In other words, you can't interpret what the citations say. You can only describe what they say, and no connections should be drawn between incidents unless those connections are clear from the citations.
Also, we need citations for all the names above of people who expressed their support for LaRouche while he was in jail, otherwise I'm removing them from the article. One other thing: we should probably concentrate on Political views of Lyndon LaRouche because the page is protected, and it's not good to leave it protected if we're not discussing it.
On the bright side, we're all going to be excellent encylopedists after all this practise! SlimVirgin 20:25, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)

The citations appeared in a full page ad which was run in the New Federalist, Roll call (circulated in the U.S. Congress) and the Washington Post. I have the hard copy of the New Federalist. --HK 16:14, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

We need a citation e.g. Washington Post, January 19, 2005, and page number if you know it; and we also need to know which of them are members of, or otherwise associated with, the LaRouche organization, so we can make that clear. Many thanks, SlimVirgin 18:43, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)
HK, thanks for adding the citation. I looked at it and couldn't find the list of newspapers that it ran in, so I've removed the reference to the others and identified that the New Federalist is a LaRouche publication. If you find solid references for other publicaitons then we can add them by name. Cheers, -Willmcw 20:02, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

"Supporters claim"

I count at least nine instances in this article where it it says that "supporters claim..." or "supporters allege..." and in none of these cases are the supporters identified or cited. It would help the article if we could reduce these anonymous claims and provide names and citations for claims and allegations. (Obviously, unidentified "critics claim..." references should be kept to a minimum too, but I can only find one similar case). -Willmcw 20:31, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This paragraph may be inaccurate:
LaRouche is characterized by his critics as a conspiracy theorist. He is frequently described as an extremist or a cult leader, and is accused of being a fascist and anti-Semite. He denies these charges, and his followers regard him as a major political figure.
Ignoring the middle sentence, we have the assertion that LaRouche denies that he is a theorist about conspiracies. I find it implausible that he would deny theorizing about conspiracy theories, or that we should give such an assertion any credence if he does. Every single direct thing that I have read of his, either quoted or written, touches on conspiracy theory. Perhaps someone can show me a quotation of LaRouche denying being a conspiracy theorist. In the meantime, I'll edit to remove that from being disputed. (Another problem is that it implies that being a fascist or anti-semite prevents one from being a major political figure- basically it's a non-sequitor.) -Willmcw 00:49, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I will try to put in some time replacing "supporters claim" with actual quotes. If I remember right, in the last round of "LaRouche wars" where the main anti-LaRouche editor was AndyL, he objected to quotes because he felt it gave LaRouche too much of a forum, and preferred generalized characterizations, so Herschel and I did it that way as a compromise.

Now as to conspiracy theory, I found this quote from LaRouche:

"Second, there are populist forms of "conspiracy theories," such as those circulated by ideologues of the John Birch Society, which are identical to, or about as bad, or perhaps sometimes worse hokum, than those which the U.S. Department of Justice dispenses. We shall turn to that matter below.
"Third, there is the truth. The pervasive fraud in Pipes' dogma, is that he evades the fact, that the primary issue is whether a certain type of, or particular report of a conspiracy is truthful, or not. On this account, he perpetrates the widely practiced fraud of petitio principii: asserting that the mere evidence that a conspiracy is implied in an argument of a case, is presumptive proof that that argument is therefore axiomatically false, without further consideration.

Maybe this means that LaRouche does deny that he is a "conspiracy theorist," but does not deny that he is a theorist about conspiracies. ;-) Weed Harper 21:53, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Weed, thanks for any substantiation you can give. I don't mind "supporters claiming" things, I'd just like to the supporters named and the source identified. Regarding the "conspiracy theory" issue, the article that you reference is all about how conspiracies are real. Anyway, I've changed it to your formula, "theorist about conspiraracies." Cheers, -Willmcw 22:26, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Talk archive template

I've created a template containing most of the LaRouche-related Talk pages, and I'm putting it on the Talk pages of Lyndon LaRouche, Political views of Lyndon LaRouche and United States v. LaRouche so that editors involved in discussing edits with Herschelkrustofsky and Weed Harper can more easily refer to previous discussions these editors have had about the same issues. Once the disputes are over, we can take the template down. SlimVirgin 07:22, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)

Wow, thanks for doing that! It is remarkable - how many keys have been tapped to create this archive. I'm sure we're all more than happy to turn the archiving tasks over to you. I'm glad it's not me. Cheers, -Willmcw 09:42, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
You're welcome, Will. That's not even the whole thing. I've only included the Talk pages of articles that are still being worked on, or were until recently. SlimVirgin 10:50, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)

Herschel, I'm having trouble finding material in the archives. You seem to have moved a lot of material and installed it elsewhere out of context. For example, can you tell me what happened to the following, and why you moved it? On August 19, you deleted this discussion [5] about LaRouche's alleged Holocaust denial from Talk:Lyndon LaRouche/Jewish issues and moved it to Talk:Lyndon LaRouche/The Herschelkrustofsky List/archive1 [6]. Then on October 11, you moved the entire Talk:Lyndon LaRouche/Jewish issues to Talk :Lyndon LaRouche/The Herschelkrustofsky List/archive1, [7] which makes me wonder why you extracted the Holocaust denial discussion and moved it separately. You later moved Talk:Lyndon LaRouche/Jewish issues to Talk:Lyndon LaRouche/archive4, where it is out of context and I can't find the Holocaust denial discussion.

There is some discussion about Holocaust denial in Talk:Lyndon LaRouche/archive7 and I've also looked through Talk:Lyndon LaRouche/fullarchive, but I still can't find this material. Could you let me know where you archived it please, and why you removed it from its context? I apologize if it's there and I have simply overlooked it. It's hard to be certain after looking at diffs for a couple of hours. I've restored it to Talk:Lyndon LaRouche/Jewish issues, and I've put Talk :Lyndon LaRouche/The Herschelkrustofsky List/archive1 on the template too. Many thanks, SlimVirgin 10:39, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)

When the edit wars ended in October, I moved my the remainder of my list of objections, those which had not been resolved earlier, to what is now called Talk:Lyndon LaRouche/The Herschelkrustofsky List/archive1 (Closed issues). Issues that were resolved earlier, were moved earlier. --HK 15:50, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Herschel, sorry I must have expressed my questions badly, so I'll make them clearer.

The list was in fact displayed numerous times in the regular talk page. The idea of creating a seperate group of pages for discussion of the list came from User:MyRedDice, and I would suggest that you address your concerns to him. This is beginning to look like a tactic to simply overwhelm me with requests for this and that; I don't have the seemingly unlimited amounts of time to devote to Wikipedia that you do, and my priority is going to be to respond to POV edits from your team. --HK 01:26, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'd be grateful if you'd make it a priority to answer the question about the Holocaust denial material. Regardless of whose idea it was to move it, where did you place it in the Talk:Lyndon LaRouche archives? SlimVirgin 01:34, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)

Slim, the facts are these: the so-called "Herschelkrustofsky list" of objections to the Adam and Andy versions of the Lyndon LaRouche article appeared numerous times on the talk page of that article during the summer of 2004, until MyRedDice, a member of the arbcom committee, intervened to consolidate it and move it to two seperate pages. At his suggestion, as each objection was resolved, it was moved, by me, to a seperate archive of "closed issues." Around October 10, 2004, all remaining disputes were resolved, and I moved what was left on those pages to the "closed issues" page. If you think that I misplaced some material, which I doubt, you can find it by going over the edit histories of those pages. I am unwilling to do it for you, as I am somewhat overtaxed responding to POV edits on the LaRouche pages from the new team of Chip Berlet and yourself. If you continue to post notices on all the talk pages which imply that I was "deleting archive material," I shall consider it a malicious personal attack. --HK 17:41, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I went back and read some of the archived material, and I think the entire discussion on LaRouche's antisemitism and Holocaust Denial should be more clearly identified and placed in the more obvious Talk:Lyndon LaRouche archives. What amazed me was the systematic way in which HK used the process of first claiming a quote did not exist, then claiming it was misquoted, and then claiming the quote did not say what it said. Given this history, it is in no way a "malicious personal attack" when Slim asks HK to answer questions about this matter. --Cberlet 14:38, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

POVness?

What's POV about this article now? I can't see anything that could be considered this. - Ta bu shi da yu 04:54, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I didn't like the deletion of the Brainin quote, which I have restored. Other than that, it looks fine to me. The NPOV flag was put up by CBerlet on Dec. 22. --HK 22:30, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This page is still biased by too much LaRouche claims that are questionable. Quotes and text have been deleted to sanitize the LaRouchite history. HK has been repeatedly asked not to edit this page and instead to focus on discussing the editing of the Political Views of Lyndon LaRouche page. I have agreed to do this, but if HK continues to manipulate the situation, I will start editing this page as well. The next step is a call for mediation on this whole set of pages. Thats why the whole history of the Talk discussions has been added to this page at the top--Cberlet 01:05, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The de facto standard for direct quotations for this series seems to have become a verifiable copy with context. The Brainin quotation is unverifiable and edited. Can you please scan it and make it available to other editors? Cheers, -Willmcw 01:45, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Just kidding. No reason to doubt that Brainin would say nice things about LaRouche. -W.
I would like a citation for the Brainin quote, unless that's been added since I last looked. SlimVirgin 05:29, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)

The International Ecological Society: we need independent evidence of LaRouche's involvement, and we need to say what it does. If there is no independent evidence, then we need to attribute the information to LaRouche. With the EIR, we should say he owns it, to make it clear that this is a position he has given himself. SlimVirgin 05:53, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)

Please explain where you got the idea that LaRouche owns EIR. --HK 15:55, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
"Owns" is a tricky word for the LaRouchites, since part of the accusations of money-laundering documented in the Virgina court case reveal that LaRouche claims to own nothing. EIR is a house organ of the LaRouche network--totally dominated by the views of Lyndon LaRouche and his most loyal followers. --Cberlet 16:45, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The sentence that lists positions in EIR and IES is derived from LaRouche's disclosure form that he submitted for his campaign for President. It's referenced at the bottom of the page. (It also has his income amount and sources, which I don't think are appropriate to include in an article unless required for some larger issue). -Willmcw 20:54, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I saw that, but what does it mean to be a member of the International Ecological Academy i.e. in what sense is being a "member" a "formal position? Also, Herschel has listed LaRouche in the category of journalists. SlimVirgin 19:13, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't waste much time hunting down the IES. They sound like a small organization. What is interesting to me is how few positions LaRouche holds. (It reminds me slightly of Deng Xiaoping who, after his retirement, continued to run China while his only official title at the time was Chairman of the All-China Bridge Club.) Listing something as minor as the IES implies LaRouche doesn't belong to anything more prestigious. And his only official titles within the LaRouche 'apparatus' are the two at the EIR. Speaking of which, he has a title of "contributing editor", which earns him the title "journalist". He has written far more than most authors and journalists. Cheers, -Willmcw 22:49, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Not all writers are journalists. I've done a copy edit, mostly for punctuation, but have also made a couple of things invisible, like his "formal position" of member of the IEA, and a few "supporters claim" sentences. I suggest that all the "supporters claim" sections be replaced by proper sources or else deleted. There are also quite a few claims that aren't sourced at all. Also, I have a question about his publications. The article says "most" of his writing has been self-published. Has any of it been published by anyone else, do we know? SlimVirgin 23:48, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)

International Ecological Academy

Regarding LaRouche's election to the IEA, here is what LaRouche had to say about it 1993 (he was still in prison at that time; a representative of the IEA came to the U.S. and visited LaRouche in jail to notify him of his elections.) These quotes come to you courtesy of the Nizcor project[8], and have not been redacted in any way:

"Q: You were just elected as an Academician to the International Ecological Academy in Moscow. What does this mean? Why are they electing you? How do they know you in Moscow?

MR. LAROUCHE: Well, they know a good deal about me. The election occurred in a meeting in Moscow of the Committee of 100 Academicians which founded the institution. There were reasons for that, but it was actually founded in the Baltic countries about 7-odd years ago.

The award was made for, specifically, a book, the {Science of Christian Economy,} which was published a couple of years ago, which sums up a good deal of my work. But those Academicians who supported the award, referred also to another book, which is more available in a Russian translation from some years earlier. It's a college textbook, {So, You Wish To Learn All About Economics?}

It was given, not as an honorary award like a Nobel Prize, but they specified it was given as a working award, that is, the equivalent of a professorship. In the European system, this is about two steps above professor, with the idea that I would be working with the Academy as a scientist.

The award was given specifically for my original and important discoveries in the field of physical economy; and also for some of the beneficial impact of these discoveries in economics upon the field of physics.

The essential thing is in the discovery, which was originally made in 1952. So like many things of that sort, it goes way back in one's life. I was only about 30 years old when I did that, and most of my scientific work since then, has rested upon enhancing what I discovered when I was 30, and I'm now 71.

Essentially, what I did, is I reacted against the two central fallacies of the work of Norbert Wiener in information theory, and also against the work of the systems analysts, the operations research people as they were known then, and against the work of Professor John von Neumann in economics and in other fields. So that was what prompted me.

First of all, a term, "negentropy," was used by Wiener to describe human communication, communication of human ideas, which is absolutely absurd.

Now the first business on which my discovery was based, is the fact that Wiener and Company use negentropy, that is, as they define it, from the statistical work of a fellow called Ludwig Boltzmann back at the turn of the century, who described this from the standpoint of gas theory. And they applied this also to describe living processes.

Now there are characteristic features of living processes, as distinct from non-living ones which absolutely cannot be described from this standpoint. That was absurdity number one.

Absurdity number two, is the fact that the human species, unlike any other species of animal, actually has the capability of {willfully changing for the better} its mode of existence, through such forms as what we call today technological progress.

On that basis, if man were an animal, he would have a baboon-like potential as a species for about not more than 10 million members of his species globally. But man today has over 5 billion people, at a much higher level than would be possible in a primitive man; and all of this has been done, through ideas, through particularly ideas which correspond or are equivalent to, or analogous to, scientific and technological progress.

Thus, it is the communication of these revolutionary ideas of practice which distinguishes man and distinguishes human communication from anything which can be approximated by a gas theory, or a non-living process.

So those were the two points from which I started. And on this basis, through seeing the significance of the work of a fellow named Georg Cantor, one of the greatest mathematicians of the past 200 years or so, and the impact of Cantor's work on the work of another nineteenth-century scientific giant, Bernhard Riemann, I was able to develop a new conception of how economic processes work, a conception which has been proven valid as against the Brand X theories which are abounding today.

In Russia and in Eastern Europe, this has a very specific significance.

Remember, in Russian society and Eastern European society, in addition to the military forces and to the other kinds of political forces and so forth, one of the most important parts of the society, is the scientific community. Russia functions only to the extent that its scientific community plays an integral part in shaping the ideas on which the society functions. And sooner or later, the society will tend to turn to its scientists for ideas on how to deal with the great crisis which has arisen, specifically, a crisis which shows that not only was communism a failure economically--at least in the civilian sector--but that the Western version of free trade, or the Adam Smith version, never worked; and there's a recognition, of course, that there was a form of capitalism in the West which {did} work, typified by the ideas of Alexander Hamilton, the Treasury Secretary of the United States, or Abraham Lincoln, or in the German experience, Friedrich List, who was a follower of Hamilton; and in the Russian experience, Count Sergei Witte, who was largely a follower in economic theory of Germany's Friedrich List.

So what is emerging, is the idea of a Third Way in economic, which is related to the forms of capitalism associated with the young United States under the leadership of people like Hamilton and the Careys, and Abraham Lincoln, as an alternative to not only Bolshevism, but as an alternative to this crazy Adam Smith stuff, which poor Mrs. Margaret Thatcher--or Lady Thatcher, as they call her now--propounds. Shock therapy, what [Jeffrey] Sachs propounds.

So the significance of this, is that my ideas, my work, represents the best articulation of what some would call the Third Way, something different than the kind of stuff which Harvard preaches today, and also something radically different than Bolshevism. And this is the alternative to the chaos which the world sees.

There are other people who have similar ideas; but my ideas are the most articulate and the best scientifically grounded, as well as representing a contribution to scientific thought. So that was why the award was made.

The implication of the award, is that this establishes, within the European and other scientific communities, a recognition that my work in economics is the alternative to which the world is going to have to turn to get out of the mess caused by the twin collapse of both Bolshevism and of the free trade model in the West."

--HK 21:30, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

IWP

Herschel, thank you for removing my visible invisible edits, and for supplying some of the answers. You asked elsewhere about my view of the IWP as a source on the LaRouche pages. I don't recall where the IWP is used and what effect it would have on the articles to remove it as a source. The IWP is a problematic source in the same way, and for the same reasons, that the LaRouche publications are problematic.

My view is that, because of the IWP's former connections to the LaRouche movement and its cult-like status, IWP publications should not be used as sources by Wikipedia, except as primary-source material about the IWP itself in articles, or sections of articles, about the IWP, just as LaRouche publications may be used as primary source material about LaRouche and his beliefs on LaRouche pages (though they should always be identified as the source, which has not been done).

I therefore have no objection to the IWP being removed as a source from the LaRouche articles — unless the context is a description of the warfare that broke out after Newman left the LaRouche movement, in which case the material would be relevant primary-source material, because that's the IWP talking about itself, or about something it was closely involved in. But if, for example, a Wikipedia article contains a quote from an IWP member about LaRouche, and that quote is not being used as part of a description of the falling out between the groups, then that would count as the IWP being used as a secondary source, and in that case, the quote or reference should be removed. Hope that's not too convoluted. SlimVirgin 19:07, Jan 16, 2005 (UTC)

Chip Berlet and Original Research

I think that much of the material that Berlet is introducing into the LaRouche articles should be considered Original Research, as in Wikipedia:No original research. He is taking theories which he invented and posted on his own website, and posting them here, even though they have not "become a permanent feature of the public landscape." As an example, at "Political Views", Berlet says that according to critics Matthew Lyons and (surprise!) Chip Berlet, LaRouche should be considered a neofascist according to the definition of palingenesis. The only person who has ever suggested a connection between LaRouche and palingenesis is (surprise!) Chip Berlet. Likewise, Berlet keeps trying to insert material from his website which is misleading, and I don't care if editor CBerlet feels insulted, the website is misleading. In the "Lyndon LaRouche" article, Berlet inserted a passage that I have now removed: In 1975 LaRouche denounced non- Western music (and other cultural forms) in China as "ideological relics," "barbarian", and "hideous muck." But if you follow the links to Berlet's website and scroll to the bottom of the page, you finally find the actual quote from LaRouche, which is a denunciation of the Cultural Revolution, not Chinese music. I agree with Herschel that material from Chip Berlet's website should be corroborated. --Weed Harper 14:11, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

When writing for an encyclopedia, an editor should not introduce original research, and should weight the article based on published materials. If that were true for this page, 90% of the text would be critical of the LaRouche network. Published material includes books, reports, and articles that are not self-published. I have had many articles on LaRouche published by reputable and reliable publications. These are appropriate to cite. Right-Wing Popuilsm in America was published by a respected publisher of scholarly and trade books. The text Matt and I wrote about LaRouche and fascism was published in that book and the publisher gave us permission to put it on the web. This is from the book:
"Though often dismissed as a bizarre political cult, the LaRouche organization and its various front groups are a fascist movement whose pronouncements echo elements of Nazi ideology.[1] Beginning in the 1970s, the LaRouchites combined populist antielitism with attacks on leftists, environmentalists, feminists, gay men and lesbians, and organized labor. They advocated a dictatorship in which a 'humanist' elite would rule on behalf of industrial capitalists. They developed an idiosyncratic, coded variation on the Illuminati Freemason and Jewish banker conspiracy theories. Their views, though exotic, were internally consistent and rooted in right-wing populist traditions."[9]
Chip Berlet & Matthew N. Lyons, Right-Wing Populism in America, p. 273.
The material on the PRA website (not my personal website) that is text from LaRouche publications is there because pro-LaRouche critics have repeatedly claimed that I have invented, cooked, or misrepresented the quotes I use. These false claims are clearly shown as false by reading the quotes in context. If someone want to corroborate these LaRouchian quotes they can becasue the cites are given. If someone finds a typo, I will fix it.
The quote from LaRouche about China is a denunciation of the Chinese cultural revolution for not being agresssively socialist enough and eradicating the "hideous" and "bestial" culture of pre-revolution China and replacing it White European culture. This ethnocentric and racist text by LaRouche is clear if read in context:
"What has happened in China during recent years is efficiently understood from the vantage point of the worst horrors which might have occurred to the imaginations of Soviet leaders during the 1924-1930 period, during which a peasant-based counterrevolution remained a grave internal danger. In effect, the Peking regime has embraced such a peasant counter?revolution. All the cognitive and related cultural achievements of capitalist development in music, philosophy, and so forth, are symptomatically denounced as 'Western' in favor of the philosophical and cultural ideological relics of pre-1949 China�s long barbarian past. Out of this hideous muck comes first a reactionary, actually counterrevolutionary rejection of the working class of both the Soviet sector and the advanced capitalist sector in the guise of the Lin Piao 1965 theses. Then„since 1971„there appears the bestial risus sardonicus of the brutalized oriental rural peasant village-commune, dripping with the ideological slime of old oriental despotism�s recurring manic-depressive cycles of brief dynastic rises follow?ed by awful decline and decay. This oriental despotic infrastructure, of course, was the Old China up through the time of the Chinese Communists themselves gave the unspeakable Kuomintang the boot„the China of Confucianism, Taoism, 'cheap human life,' rural labor-intensive agonies, and hideous chauvinisms. That hideous old crap is now revived and embodied within Peking�s policy..."[10]
Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., "What Happened to Integration?, The Campaigner, (Journal of the National Caucus of Labor Committees), Vol. 8, No. 8, August 1975, pp. 5-40; quote from section "The Maoism Parallel" (pages 26-27).
Note that on that page is an explanation that LaRouche himself, at Middlebury College, denied uttering the words attributed to him that appear on this page. Follow the link to the transcript and read what LaRouche said about the quote and me.[11]
I urge other editors to read the full quote and then we can discuss an appropriate text to describe this and the many other writings of LaRouche that use "Classical Culture" as a way to promote European ethnocentrism and racism.--Cberlet 15:45, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The problem with your point, Weed, is that you use LaRouche publications as sources, which are LaRouche vanity publications producing ideas and theories that LaRouche has invented; and the ArbCom has ruled they count as original research except on pages closely related to LaRouche. On the other hand, Cberlet is an established journalist and researcher who has been published many times and not just by PRA; and in any event, PRA is a company he works for, not his own. Finally, the only reason he's putting all this stuff up on the website is because you and Herschel keep questioning the contexts of the quotes he has offered. We could perhaps agree to stop using, and even delete, Cberlet material if you will stop using, and will delete, all the LaRouche material. SlimVirgin 20:52, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)

Brainwashing allegations

We don't say anything about the nature of the LaRouche movement, and the claims by ex-members that attempts to brainwash them took place. There's no mention of the Christopher White "de-programming" and LaRouche's claim that the CIA had the membership under surveillance and might have brainwashed some of them already. There are two Washington Post stories that touch on this [12] and [13]. There's also a book by an ex-member but unfortunately only in German: Verirrt: Mein Leben in einer radikalen Politorganisation, by Aglaja Beyes-Corleis, Herder/Spektrum, 1994, ISBN 3451042789. Erica Duggan has a summary of it in English on her website [14], for anyone wanting to look at it, though we can't use that as a reference. Perhaps Chip would know of other sources. What do others think about including something about this? I would say it's central to the personality cult that has built up around him.

Also, we say hardly anything about where he worked; just that he was a management consultant. Does anyone know for whom, and for how long? SlimVirgin 03:22, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)

Consensus, compromise, and NPOV

I feel that we are going too far in the direction of seeking compromise with the LaRouche editors. Wikipedia:Neutral point of view is clear on the point of minority views. Articles must be written without bias and should represent different views fairly. "Perhaps the easiest way to make your writing more encyclopedic, is to write about what people believe, rather than what is so," JImbo Wales wrote. Our articles about LaRouche should be representative of what people believe about LaRouche, including himself (though it should always be made clear when we are quoting him or referring to his claims, and that is not done in this article). The popular view should not be represented as though it is the only one, or the correct one. But note:

"Now an important qualification. Articles that compare views need not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views. We should not attempt to represent a dispute as if a view held by only a small minority of people deserved as much attention as a majority view. That may be misleading as to the shape of the dispute. If we are to represent the dispute fairly, we should present competing views in proportion to their representation among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties. None of this, however, is to say that minority views cannot receive as much attention as we can possibly give them on pages specifically devoted to those views. There is no size limit to Wikipedia. But even on such pages, though a view is spelled out possibly in great detail, we still make sure that the view is not represented as the truth."

This is not a page devoted to the views of Lyndon LaRouche. This is a page about the man, his life, the effects he has had on political movements, and on other people. Of course, his views can be included here, but they should not dominate, and at present, they seem to. One example: The article said (and may still say) that he "is credited" with the idea of the Star Wars program. No, he is not. He credits himself with it, and worse, he actually said in an interview that he "designed" it. This kind of comment shows a side to LaRouche that we are massively downplaying because of the presence of the LaRouche editors. I would like to see this page more fairly represent the views of the overwhelming majority of people who have studied the LaRouche movement, and not the views of the movement itself (though, of course, those views must be included). Does anyone agree with me? SlimVirgin 11:51, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)

This is an issue we have tried to address over at Disinfopedia. So many of the claims by LaRouche and his followers turn out to be dubious at best, and a form of outrageous self-aggrandizing. I once interviewd the late Lieutenant General Daniel O. Graham (Ret.) about the LaRouche Star Wars claim and when he stopped laughing he was just angry. Actually, Phyllis Schlafly wrote a book calling for a Star Wars program prior to 1966:
Phyllis Schlafly and Chester Ward, Strike from Space, revised and expanded, (Alton, IL: Pere Marquette Press, 1966).
I think the process--intentional or not--has been for the pro-LaRouche editors to simply wear down more careful editors to the point where the "compromise" text actually is heavily biased toward LaRouche's unverified claims.
One related point. When I write for print encyclopedias, the standard practice is to ensure that the minority view is not the end of a section or article, since that gives more weight to that view in the eyes of the reader. For example, and article on the Holocaust should never end with a claim by a (minority view) Holocaust denier, but the majority view of what happened in the Holocaust.--Cberlet 14:54, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Responses to Berlet

  • Berlet is once again using fallacy of composition to mislead. LaRouche did not promote "star wars." He promoted a specific policy of research and development of technologies based on what the ABM treaty calls "new physical principles": relativistic beam technologies, i.e. energy beams operating at or near the speed of light, lasers and particle beams. Danny Graham (why am I not surprised that Berlet would be palling around with him?) advocated what are called "kinetic energy" defenses, i.e., trying to hit a speeding missile with other missiles or various kinds of objects. This was an incompetent program that was put forward to compete with LaRouche's proposals, not the same program as that of LaRouche. I can't speak to the nature of Phyllis Schafly's proposals, but I know that politically, she was in the same right wing orbit, as it were, as Graham.
  • Berlet's edits to the LaRouche articles are overwhelmingly devoted to promoting his own esoteric theories about LaRouche. They are not reflective of "mainstream" thinking, despite the fact that Berlet has managed to get some of his stuff published in locations other than the PRA site, which despite protestations to the contrary, is effectively a personal site for Berlet and a few of his buddies. The Wikipedia policy that is relevant to the introduction of Berlet's theories, is the following:
Wikipedia is not a soapbox, a chatroom, discussion forum, or vehicle for propaganda and advertising. Therefore, Wikipedia articles are not:
  1. Propaganda or advocacy of any kind. Of course, an article can report objectively about such things, as long as an attempt is made to approach a neutral point of view. Go to Usenet or start a blog if you want to convince people of the merits of your favorite views.[15]

--HK 17:04, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

After the above comment, HK posted on the article page a claim by LaRouchite writer Paul Gallagher that a former head of German Military Intelligence, Gen. Paul-Albert Scherer had said in a speech (undocumented by a cite) that LaRouche developed SDI. Scherer is a long-time LaRouche apologist and supporter. LaRouchite Gallagher quoting LaRouche apologist Scherer quoting LaRouche praising himself is a circle. This is not serious research work, it is rapidly turning into an Orwellian farce where the idiosyncratic views of the LaRouchites are displacing published criticsm in reputable publications. It is time to lock down this page and focus on editing the LaRouche pages one-by-one until this matter ends up back at the arbitration desk where it is clearly destined to arrive. --Cberlet 18:09, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I posted it in response to SlimVirgin's request for documentation in the "biographical issues" section. What is "Orwellian" about this discussion is that as soon as Scherer utters something that offends Chip's POV, he ceases to be the former head of German Military Intelligence, and becomes merely a "long-time LaRouche apologist." If LaRouche's views are idiosyncratic, as they often are, it is appropriate to note that in the LaRouche articles. On the other hand, if Berlet's theories about LaRouche are idiosyncratic, and he inserts them into a Wikipedia article about LaRouche, he is violating the Wikipedia policy cited above. --HK 18:24, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The cite on Scherer is 100% LaRouche material. It is not any sort of independent verification of facts. Find a source that is not 100% LaRouchite. Please post it here for discussion before you plonk it into the article. Why don't we both (and Weed) agree to stop editing this article until the Political Views article is finished? --Cberlet 19:06, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Is this the same Paul Gallagher who is serving a 34-year term in jail? [16] If so, how did he make a speech? -Willmcw 21:18, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
All the LaRouche prisoners were paroled after Bill Clinton came in. --Caroline 21:24, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Thanks. We should include that information on the United States vs. LaRouche article. -Willmcw 21:52, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

We're "working" here for the Wikipedia, not Executive Intelligence Review. From now on, we must try to take a more scholarly approach and stick closely Wikipedia:No original research, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, Wikipedia:Cite sources, Wikipedia:Verifiability. We are not going to edit these pages from the LaRouche perspective. We're allowing these editors to make fool of us. I agree with Chip that we ought to concentrate on one article at a time. I will be deleting every "supporters believe" claim, because I think that means "Herschelkrustofsky believes". SlimVirgin 22:24, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)

Don't get yourself all worked up, Slim. Weed and I have both added references to the contested "supporters believe" sectons, and I will continue do so. If you start deleting like mad, you will only made the work harder. What you have been doing, i.e. making the the contested sections invisible, is more helpful. --HK 02:35, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Minority views and NPOV

From Jimbo Wales, September 2003, on the mailing list:

  • If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;
  • If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;
  • If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it's true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not.

SlimVirgin 11:00, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)

It would seem that most of CBerlet's contributions fall into the third category. --HK 21:06, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

No, it's yours, Weed's and LaRouche's views that are in the minority, and a tiny minority. Almost everyone who knows the name LaRouche thinks he is a nut or dangerous. This is the problem we face. Any reputable source that has written about LaRouche has condemned him, yet our articles on the movement do not reflect that, and they must, or we are being dishonest. We have also left out important material about the brainwashing allegations, and there is no mention in any of the articles regarding how the movement recruits, how the recruits are expected to fund-raise, and (someone told me this, I don't know whether it's true) are also asked or required to live in collective housing. Perhaps you know whether that's true. It would also be helpful if you, Weed and C. Colden would say what your relationship is to the LaRouche movement. You throw out accusations at Chip, but he is very open about his interests. I have told you I have no involvement with or against the movement. But you clearly do, yet have not said what it is. Do any of you work for the LaRouche movement, or have you in the past? SlimVirgin 21:24, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)

Frankly, Slim, your accusations are absurd and irresponsible. Your definition of a "reputable source" is simply one who condemns LaRouche. It's like writing an encyclopedia article about Nelson Mandela, using only white South African press accounts from the '70s and '80s. You say that "any reputable source that has written about LaRouche has condemned him"; yet, as is noted in the article, among those who called for his exoneration are hundreds of elected officials including foreign heads of state and former U.S. Congressmen (all of which have been now transformed by Berlet into "LaRouche apologists.) I only listed the most prominent in the article, omitting any that did not have a Wikipedia article (which means most of the heads of state). I have not, in order to avoid accusations of POVishness, listed any endorsers of LaRouche's presidential campaigns other than Brainin. Would you like to see some? --HK 21:58, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I have difficulty understanding why you don't know what a published source is. It is someone who has written a book, paper, or newspaper article about the LaRouche movement or issues related to it, preferably a professional academic or journalistic researcher, but we would also accept material written by members or ex-members, though those would qualify very much lower on the "reputable" scale, and would not count at all if produced as vanity publications by the LaRouche movement. This article MUST reflect the majority and significant minority view, not the LaRouche view, and no matter how long and hard you try to fight this, you will lose, because Wikipedia will outlast your efforts, and your version will not remain. I'd think long and hard about that in your shoes because you are wasting your time trying to subvert this project. If I get worn down by you, someone else will step forward, and when they get worn down, someone will replace them too. That is the strength of Wikipedia. You are currently exploiting its weakness, which is its liberal due process, but you ignore its strength, which is its endurance and its absolute commitment to neutrality and quality, both. SlimVirgin 22:59, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)


Herschel, you should be embarrassed to post that long quote from LaRouche, above, [17] if you're a supporter. I had already seen it, which is why I removed "formal position" from the page, because he's clearly bonkers. Tell me: what is "two levels or steps above professor in Europe"? Just tell me that one thing, please, without obfuscation. SlimVirgin 21:50, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)

Presumably, he means that the academic standards in the Russian scientific community are substantially higher than among the contemporary European Brotgelehrten. --HK 15:44, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

In the interview, LaRouche seems to say that he was granted a professorship rather than an honorary award. That being the case, what teaching has he done at the Academy? If he has never taught there then it would seem more like an honorary degree. Does the Academy have a website? I can't find any. (While I wonder about this, I agree with CBerlet's comment below - the Political Views article needs to be attended to first) -Willmcw 19:17, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Berlet and King are a minority

Berlet and King represent a tiny clique that got some coverage back in the '80s, because they were acting as cat's paws for more powerful interests. Are the funding sources for PRA public? How would I get access to them? If Berlet wants to turn this article into an essay promoting his theories about LaRouche -- which violates Wikipedia policy -- I am entitled to ask who is paying for it. Weed Harper 21:40, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I also think that if a substantial part of this article is going to be Berlet quoting Berlet, the Berlet quotes should be consolidated in one section, so that it is clear to the reader what is going on. Weed Harper 21:50, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Biased editing by pro-LaRouche editors

democracy issue is disputed

This text has been reinserted by a pro-LaRouche editor:

"There is no published comment from LaRouche in which he calls for a totalitarian state, or for corporations to be placed under his control."

This is impossible to prove. This matter is disputed. An NPOV text would read:

"Whether or not LaRouche has ever called for a political arrangement similar to fascism is disputed."

This is the oldest propaganda trick in the book, the have-you-stopped-beating-your-wife approach. I could just as easily say, "it is a matter of dispute whether Chip Berlet is a serial killer." You could say, "but there is no evidence to support that claim," and then I could say, "but it is still disputed." Propaganda!Weed Harper 21:30, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

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