"For me, only the pain drove me out. Unfortunately, until these [LaRouche Youth Movement members] can acknowledge their pain in this way of life, there is little hope of setting them free."
Once one is in the fishbowl--and views everything outside the fishbowl as suspect if not evil--it is very difficult to see even the need of escape. Every trial, every late rent payment, every shock-and-awe session to get one to "unblock" is interpreted as one more cross to bear in helping to redeem humanity as a martyr for Lyn. Perhaps the only way to get the fish to get a different angle on their existence is to point out the insanity of their daily manner of living, to ask how selling subscriptions saves humanity, to ask why the cult leader lives in luxury and travels regularly abroad when one has forsaken one's own education and family for $100 per grueling six- to seven-day week. Things of that nature. It is futile to "argue" the specific "ideas" or policy proposals of the cult since (a) they are just the window dressing which hooked the cultist but do not keep him or her in the cult, and (b) many of their ostensible policies (though not their scholarship) are at least rational if not entirely good. I was, and they are, sick people: the root of the problem is personal dysfunction at all levels. But again, for me, only the pain drove me out. Unfortunately, until these people can acknowledge their pain in this way of life, there is little hope of setting them free.
I welcome queries from present Labor Committee members and supporters. I won't condemn you, but just share my experience so that you can make a more informed decision as to whether to stay. I have been where you are and know your sincerity and hard work are unmatched anywhere. It may be time, however, to put those virtues to work in the real world, helping real people by providing real solutions. I am not any kind of therapist or cult expert: just a former member who has been liberated "in freier Luft den Atem leicht zu heben" ("Prisoners' Chorus," Fidelio.)