EX-LAROUCHIANS SPEAK OUT

(Updated April 29, 2008; most recent postings at top)

  • Life in LaRouche's "Inner Ring." Postings from Factnet (edited by DK) 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 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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