EX-LAROUCHIANS SPEAK OUT

(Updated Dec. 23, 2008; most recent postings at top)

  • "I Was a Drone for Lyndon LaRouche," by Anonymous. "When I first joined it was the custom to give one night off a week plus Sunday, but for the last few years it was seven days a week with no pretense of providing time to foster the intellectual development of the membership."

  • Ex-LaRouche follower tells how to construct a conspiracy theory about your enemies in one easy lesson. "When the party is over with a person or group, then you can use the six degrees of separation principal to show how they were part of an all-encompassing evil conspiracy since the time the first primitive humans took a baby step."

  • The children of the LaRouche cult. "It had never occurred to me the great paradox that must forever live in a LaRouchie-parented child's mind: If Lyndon LaRouche had not been in prison, they would never have been born."

  • Leaving the LaRouche cult. "I had to 'hit bottom' with LaRouche before I could even begin to steer clear of the wreckage my life had become; unfortunately, this appears to be the only way out of a cult--just to be honest with yourself about the desperation of your own personal situation and to walk into a counseling center or police station and ask for help getting out."

  • How to recruit a slave for LaRouche. A former member reveals the basic techniques: "So the mama's boy who's never done anything in his life is going to come here and say 'Alex made some homosexual kid cry and I want my mommy'...are you homosexual, Frank? Is that it? Is that why you haven't been able to raise any money out there?"

  • "The Little Boy Who Never Was," by Michael Scott Winstead (from Factnet, 2004). An account of one of the hundreds of cases of enforced abortion in the LaRouche cult: "And they pushed her tearfully into the car, and into the clinic, and they signed her consent forms, and they had her child vacuumed out of her."

  • Leaving the LaRouche Youth Movement. Chaim, a young person who quit shortly after 9-11, found that the LaRouchians were totally unable to acknowledge that he had developed real doubts and disagreements. Instead, they insisted he was just "blocking." How could they have done otherwise? To acknowledge that legitimate doubts are possible would have undermined "LaRouche's image and infallibility."

  • "Cultism in the LaRouche movement--and beyond." Former member "xlcr4life" compares his former organizational home to the larger world of religious cults. "Most cult leaders face very little retribution legally or criminally, which is why it is so profitable for them."

  • "Lies, bullying and paranoia in the LaRouche movement." The full sworn testimony (with highlighting by DK) of former Security staffer Charles Tate at the 1987 obstruction of justice trial of former LaRouche security advisor Roy Frankhouser. (Why did Admiral Bobby Ray Inman keep calling LaRouche's headquarters to speak with Jeff Steinberg? And what's with LaRouche's claim that the Aryan race came from the North Pole in 40,000 BC? And did you know about the indoor swimming pool at Lyn and Helga's German villa?) Tate's remarks are brilliant, witty and cover most aspects of life in the LaRouche organization.

  • "The Proxy Wars." Many disciples of LaRouche attempted at various times to open up his closed system of belief. Ex-follower "borismaglev" explains how all such efforts were foiled by LaRouche's intellectual judo.

  • "Drugs, Orgies and 'Species Hatred.'" Ex-LCers comment on a 2005 memo by LaRouche that savagely attacks the movement's old-timers and tries to whip up the LaRouche Youth Movement for a possible boomer purge.

  • "Trapped in LaRouche's Head." Ex-followers discuss why Der Abscheulicher's top aides are so afraid of him. "They can stand there stupefied while he blames the Jews for the Holocaust, the British for Hitler, the Yanomami for existing, the women for everything."

  • "The Unauthorized Biography of Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr." Ex-follower "borismaglev" satirizes Lyn's belief in himself as the "Transcendental Ego." If you ever wondered what the term "malignant narcissist" means, here's a textbook example.

  • A warning to LYM members--don't max out your credit cards for LaRouche's political fantasies. "We were after all saving the world; and the banks were gonna go anyway, right? So what's the harm in defaulting on 5 or 6 thousand dollars, or, say, in not paying back your student loans, under these revolutionary circumstances?"

  • "To the Ice Floes!" (eaglebeak's Letter #2 to LaRouche Youth Movement members). "Lyn's idea...was that we would all sever our emotional ties to Family, and "cathect" to him instead. He would become our father, our polestar, our god..."

  • "LaRouche finally finds a use for young people" (eaglebeak's Letter #1 to LaRouche Youth Movement members). "The children whose birth was previously regarded as tantamount to treason...were now the ones he wanted, and their formerly important parents, the original members, the Baby Boomers, had now become the 'useless eaters' and the saboteurs."

  • Guilt-tripping recruitment tactics circa 2002. "The girl who was my [LaRouche Youth Movement] recruiter called me and started asking me why was it so difficult to make up my mind about saving humanity. I straight out told her I had no intentions of dropping out of school....That's when someone else on the other line told me I was being a 'selfish bitch'."

  • Life in LaRouche's "Inner Ring." Postings from Factnet re the sadomasochistic manipulation and just plain bullying that are the dreary lot of Der Abscheulicher's Leesburg "boomers." Includes the text of a July 6, 2006 memo in which LaRouche heaps humiliation on two of his most loyal disciples--Ed Spannaus and Ken Kronberg.

  • Cobalt bombs with fans? Physicist and former LaRouchian Steve Bardwell reveals (1984) that LaRouche's version of the Strategic Defensive Initiative had evolved into an effort to encourage an offensive, or preemptive, war against the Soviet Union. Cites LaRouche's insane cobalt-bomb idea. In reality, the Soviet Union would collapse on its own a few years later, but if--in some parallel universe--the Reagan administration had listened to the fantasy Hitler's advice, tens of millions of people (at a minimum) would have died in a senseless war. Bardwell's broadside, essentially his farewell to LaRouche Planet, also contains intriguing insights about LaRouche's psychology--including his gullibility re "garbage from down the way" and his desperate drive to gain the approval of people in high places.

  • Lyndon and Helga LaRouche's former "factotum" Dino De Paoli dishes out the secrets of high-level factional strife in the ICLC. Describes the war between the "Helga-Fernando" faction and the "CIA" faction (and the extraordinary tension between Helga and Lyn). Makes clear that LaRouche knew all about--and fully approved--the organization's alliances with murderous fascists in Latin America.

  • "Many of [LaRouche's] dead-enders...have not a whiff of guilt for the tens of millions stolen from the elderly." Unsparing descriptions by ex-LCers of the nasty fanaticism that motivated LaRouchian scam artists in the 1980s--and of LaRouche's own callousness when his followers got caught.

  • "LaRouche's empire, on both sides of the Atlantic, was and is based on slavery." Ex-member who left in the early 1980s adds new insights re the Computron split. Says LaRouche's decision to abandon Computron but reassert control over PMR (the printing business) resulted in "the looting operation which would end in the tragedy of Ken Kronberg's suicide."

  • The LaRouche Youth Movement's "addictive illusions." Former recruit provides rare insights into nightmarish environment of deceit, manipulation, ideological "wolf-packing."

  • Strong medicine from an ex-LaRouche follower. "Let's stop pretending and start getting honest about the hatred and ignorance we contributed to the world."

  • Justinian and Theodora in Leesburg. Former LCer tells of poisonous intrigue between factions and how LaRouche purged a top aide as a way of his striking at his own wife, whom he was afraid to purge.

  • Does LaRouche have any valid ideas? Witty (and often profound) comments by ex-followers, e.g., "whenever Lyn wraps himself around an idea (or his blurry approximation of an idea), he has an uncontrollable need to possess it, dominate it, own it..."

  • "Thinking the unthinkable" about LaRouche and Hitler. Blistering attack by ex-follower who sees through Lyndon's fraudulent reframings.

  • "Rage and violence in the LaRouche movement." Ex-members speak out about past violence--and the potential for even worse violence in the future. Factnet postings (edited) with intro and footnotes by Dennis King.

  • "Mind rape" in the LaRouche cult. Powerful statements by former LaRouche followers (from Factnet, Nov. 2007) on silence, shame, denial and the need for ex-members to acknowledge their complicity in LaRouche's dubious activities.

  • Ex-member "Shadok" speaks out against the violent rhetoric of the LaRouche movement. Warns that LaRouche's Dec. 2007 remark about burning and torching U.S. Congressional leaders might trigger violence by LYM members.

  • Linda Ray's "Breaking the Silence: An Ex-LaRouche Follower Tells Her Story." The classic account from In These Times.

  • Angry members tell LaRouche: We quit! Powerful resignation letters by those who saw the light during the 1980-1981 fight between LaRouche and his chief of staff.

  • Greg Rose (member from 1973-75) speaks out in 1979 National Review cover article

  • An ex-follower offers a virtual tour of LaRouche's former mansions and real estate properties--and reveals how Der Abscheulicher lived in luxury while his followers slaved away for five bucks a day

  • What makes LaRouche tick? Two former LCers tell us.

  • How two LaRouche aides spread hate literature in Japan

  • What are 100 million Chinese lives worth to LaRouche? Not much.

  • Ex-member: We were like rats "trapped in a mental maze...forever"

  • Former LC member: "This is what LaRouche does: steals lives. Steals them altogether, as in the case of Ken Kronberg, or in pieces, as with the people still in the organization...."

  • How the LaRouche Youth Movement "celebrated" the 70th anniversary of the Nazi book bonfires...and how LaRouche makes excuses for the Rushdie fatwa and the Al Qaeda doctors' plot.

  • An ex-member recalls Lyn and Helga LaRouche's cynical decades-long exploitation of a black woman disciple

  • The inside story from ex-LaRouchians on LaRouche's fear and hatred of gays, his addiction to anti-gay pranks and smear campaigns, and his fantasies of homosexual rape

  • The dreary life of a LaRouchian street organizer

  • Enforced abortions were the secret policy in the LaRouche movement while Lyn and Helga publicly aspired to lead the Right to Life movement

  • "Eaglebeak," a longtime LC member (2007): "It's vital to [LaRouche's] self-image that academic degrees be spat on...."

  • Alexandra, a former California LYM recruit (2004): "They might as well put a collar and leash around your neck and call you 'Spot'..."

  • Giselle, a French student (2005): LaRouche cult was a "living prison."

  • Sancho, a former member (2006): "Once one is in the fishbowl...it is very difficult to see even the need of escape."

  • Erin, a student (2006): "I didn't know how to leave when I found out I was trapped."

  • Letter from "Miles C." to Mrs Duggan (2004): "They will not apologize, they have no souls."

  • Kent, a California student briefly recruited to the LYM: "It resembles the Hitler Youth."

  • Maia, a former LYM member: "The new recruits get swallowed and merge with the homogenized groupthink..."

  • Michael Scott Winstead (2003) describes "ego-stripping sessions" where the targeted person was prevented from leaving the room. May shed light on the case of Jeremiah Duggan, who attended high pressure LaRouchian indoctrination sessions in Germany prior to his death.

  • "Nicholas," a student, testifies about the several months he spent in the French LaRouche organization circa 2003: "Their indoctrination brings about in members a contempt of society and of everything that is outside of the organization."

  • Former EIR White House correspondent Nicholas Benton (Feb. 2007) admits he was in a "political group that functioned like a cult." Says "Individual reasoning is banned. Only slavish adherence to pronouncements of the leader, no matter how outlandish, is permitted."

  • Nicholas Benton (June 2007): "As undernourished members 'deployed' for 16 hours a day raising money, and were forced to have, collectively, hundreds of abortions to save their energies for serving him, LaRouche built up his ego, bully-lust, and palatial estate."

  • FactNet's LaRouche message board, where ex-LaRouchians pour out their feelings about the group's cultism and anti-Semitism, and the severe mistreatment of recruits.

  • "The Hostile Fantasy World of Lyndon LaRouche" (ex-LaRouchian researcher offers devastating critique of Lyndon's ideology).

  • "LaRouche and the Occult" (more from the ex-LaRouchian researcher)

    Much more is coming, Lyn: Your secrets (and Helga's) all will be revealed.

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