Slim and Will put the smackdown on LaRouche, was: SlimVirgin, back with a vengeance Options

[Herschelkrustofsky]

The "old" SlimVirgin is back. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/popcorn.gif)

Gone is the chastened, relatively civil, law-abiding SV. Over the past days, she has unleashed a torrential flood of edits on a subject dear to her heart, Lyndon LaRouche (T-H-L-K-D). Her rich palette of POV editing tactics, including intimidation and confusing and misleading edit summaries, is in play (for example, when adding some guy to the lead that says LaRouche is a fascist, her edit summary is "some tidying.") And, she has renewed her tag-team vows with Will Beback. They are so sweet when proclaiming that the two of them have together found "consensus." Was it good for you?

[Herschelkrustofsky]

All kinds of interesting people are showing up now at the LaRouche articles, including LaRouche planet (T-C-L-K-R-D) , whom I believe to be a sock of Dennis King. I notice that next to his edits in article history, a little notice shows up that says "(Tag: possible conflict of interest)". I've never seen that one before. Is it because he is linking to a website called "LaRouche planet"?

[Cla68]

All kinds of interesting people are showing up now at the LaRouche articles, including LaRouche planet (T-C-L-K-R-D) , whom I believe to be a sock of Dennis King. I notice that next to his edits in article history, a little notice shows up that says "(Tag: possible conflict of interest)". I've never seen that one before. Is it because he is linking to a website called "LaRouche planet"?

I reported it to GWH. By the way, Jayen and SV appear to be collaborating effectively on the Duggan article. If could be that SV is trying to adjust the Duggan article to justify including mention of it in the LaRouche BLP. Is so, she has a ways to go.

This post has been edited by Cla68:

[Herschelkrustofsky]

By the way, Jayen and SV appear to be collaborating effectively on the Duggan article.

SV is biding her time. When the moment is right, the stiletto will come out.

[Milton Roe]

By the way, Jayen and SV appear to be collaborating effectively on the Duggan article.

SV is biding her time. When the moment is right, the stiletto will come out.

What a mess this article is:

The British inquest heard from a psychiatrist that Duggan had no history of mental illness. His mother told the court she believed he had been the victim of a recruiting technique used within the LaRouche movement known as "ego stripping," in which recruits are made to doubt all their basic beliefs. A psychiatrist testified that a severe stress reaction can be caused by a rapid change in a person's belief system.[5][20]

Ref 20 (Mintz) is a to an article in a newspaper from 1985, and it's used as cite for testimony by a psychologist in the Duggan case about "ego stripping." Duggan was 5 years old in 1985, and the article doesn't mention ego stripping. While it may be read to suggest something about stress reactions in response to belief changes, it's relevant to the sentence it's used as a cite for, only if the psychologist mentioned THIS article in his testimony. Otherwise, it's WP:SYN by the WP article's author, trying to provide a 1985 news article reference which is vaguely about the same thing.

Sigh. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/sad.gif)

[It's the blimp, Frank]

What a mess this article is:

The British inquest heard from a psychiatrist that Duggan had no history of mental illness. His mother told the court she believed he had been the victim of a recruiting technique used within the LaRouche movement known as "ego stripping," in which recruits are made to doubt all their basic beliefs. A psychiatrist testified that a severe stress reaction can be caused by a rapid change in a person's belief system.[5][20]

Ref 20 (Mintz) is a to an article in a newspaper from 1985, and it's used as cite for testimony by a psychologist in the Duggan case about "ego stripping." Duggan was 5 years old in 1985, and the article doesn't mention ego stripping. While it may be read to suggest something about stress reactions in response to belief changes, it's relevant to the sentence it's used as a cite for, only if the psychologist mentioned THIS article in his testimony. Otherwise, it's WP:SYN by the WP article's author, trying to provide a 1985 news article reference which is vaguely about the same thing.

Sigh. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/sad.gif)

They are arguing about that point on the talk page. Slim is using the argument that "the Times bone's connected to the... Post bone," etc.

[Milton Roe]

They are arguing about that point on the talk page. Slim is using the argument that "the Times bone's connected to the... Post bone," etc.

Yeah, in her own mind. And it's an interesting connection, too, if Slim were writing an original essay on the subject. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hrmph.gif)

The model for the death of Jeremiah Duggan is getting to be more and more like the Moon Landing Conspiracy Theories article, except without the moon landing article. Why not just call it the Jeremiah Duggan conspiracy theories article and be done with it? Like the JFK assassination, you know there IS an official view of this matter. Should it not have its own article?

The real problem is that there are any number of conspiracy theories about how Duggan died, and they don't even agree with each other, much less the forensic evidence. There are people who think the LaRouchies beat the crap out of Duggan, despite his mother getting a phone call 45 mintutes before he was dead on the highway, in which he fails to mention anybody doing anything to HIM. Nor does depositing Duggan on the highway fit with the drivers of the cars who hit him, saying he ran in front of them. Are they all in on the conspiracy also?

As with conspiracy theories everywhere (including the moon landing and the JFK crowd of other gunman), the conspiracy people, if not required to put down their own theories, are accorded the privileged position of sitting on the sidelines and simply sniping, piecemeal, at the "official" theory. Without having to lay out any complete alternative hypotheses. An article like this one is the perfect venue which allows that. It's the "official version" plus a bunch of people taking potshots at it, without having to play the game fairly.

Look, Neil Armstrong's suit doesn't cast the right shadow! Okay, put that fact in the Apollo Space Program Wiki.

[Hell Freezes Over]

Look, Neil Armstrong's suit doesn't cast the right shadow! Okay, put that fact in the Apollo Space Program Wiki.

There is no conspiracy theory, except in the sense that the family's fears about what happened to their son are based (in part) on having read LaRouche's conspiracy theories about Brits, Jews, and the Tavistock Institute. The issue is simple. An apparently stable, happy, young British Jew, who was in love, had lots of friends, enjoyed his studies, had plans for the future, and had no history of mental illness, suddenly appears to have committed suicide after making bizarre early-morning phone calls to his mother and girlfriend, during which he sounded incoherent and frightened. This took place while he was attending a training school for members of a political cult that is widely regarded as antisemitic and dangerous. The German police conducted no autopsy, took no signed witness statements, and burned his clothes without an investigation. They declared it a suicide according to their legal definition of that term, which the prosecutor explains in the article.

One of the things this cult is known for is its so-called "psycho sessions" with members, during which they try to destroy the member's personality structure. The theory is that it's easier to insert new ideas into minds that are undergoing some kind of psychotic breakdown. See the Washington Post article about Duggan's death that mentions these sessions and an earlier New York Times article written by a reporter who heard a tape recording of one of them (payment required). Another thing the cult is known for is its distrust of three things Duggan represented: Brits (regarded as the epitome of evil), Jews, and people who've been involved with the Tavistock Institute in London. Duggan had received family therapy at the related Tavistock Clinic when he was seven and his parents were divorcing. He didn't realize the implications of sharing this information with the activists. LaRouche believes the Tavistock is a brainwashing center, and that Brits have been brainwashed to kill him.

It was a British man accused of having been brainwashed to kill LaRouche who was put through the "psycho session" the New York Times writes about above. In 1999, LaRouche said the British royal family or MI6 was planning to assassinate him. One of the LaRouche recruiters in Wiesbaden where Duggan died (this recruiter is based in one of the California LaRouche offices were HK works) told LaRouche activists after Duggan's death that Duggan had been brainwashed and was a danger to the movement.

I experienced the LaRouche focus on Brits and Jews myself when I started editing those articles. They believed I was British and Jewish, and Herschelkrustofksy's socks started posting on WP that I was editing to protect the British royal family. He continued this on the early Wikipedia Review forum, where he became part of an unholy alliance with Poetlister, BlissyU2 and Daniel Brandt in accusing me of being a British agent provocateur or intelligence agent, with many months of discussion about whether I was Jewish and what it all meant. This is what the LaRouche activists do. They blacken people who criticize LaRouche, invariably deciding they're "agents" of some evil higher power. Now HK, a LaRouche employee for 30 years, is a staff member of this site, and is allowed to continue doing it with impunity.

Don't believe a word he says about any of this. Jeremiah Duggan died in odd circumstances during a LaRouche training course, and his British/Jewish/Tavistock profile may or may not have been relevant to his death. His family, and at least 96 British MPs from all the major parties, want to know what happened to him during the six days he was with the LaRouche activists before he died. It's a perfectly reasonable enquiry.

This post has been edited by Hell Freezes Over:

[Milton Roe]

Look, Neil Armstrong's suit doesn't cast the right shadow! Okay, put that fact in the Apollo Space Program Wiki.

There is no conspiracy theory, except in the sense that the family's fears about what happened to their son are based (in part) on having read LaRouche's conspiracy theories about Brits, Jews, and the Tavistock Institute.

That’s a conspiracy theory. The family is fully into the idea that their son was beaten to death after undergoing at attempt at brainwashing by LaRouchites. This, in the face of all evidence. The fact that the LaRouchites have their own nutty conspiracy theories excuses none of it. It’s perfectly possible, and I think most probably, that the Duggans AND the LaRouchites are out of contact with reality.

The issue is simple. An apparently stable, happy, young British Jew, who was in love, had lots of friends, enjoyed his studies, had plans for the future, and had no history of mental illness, suddenly appears to have committed suicide after making bizarre early-morning phone calls to his mother and girlfriend, during which he sounded incoherent and frightened. This took place while he was attending a training school for members of a political cult that is widely regarded as antisemitic and dangerous. The German police conducted no autopsy, took no signed witness statements, and burned his clothes without an investigation. They declared it a suicide according to their legal definition of that term, which the prosecutor explains in the article.

Yes, but do go on. The officials on both sides of the channel were rather lazy about the matter. The Brits did conduct an autopsy, but not a careful one, and according to the family, they (the Duggans) had no way to contact the autopsy pathologist, who later (supposedly) claimed he had no idea of the circumstances of the death. Which seems odd, as the family does say they were told by the coroner the next Monday that the death was a result of Duggan’s being hit by a car (a more than strange conclusion if the autopsy report did not come to this conclusion or anything like it, and in fact found evidence consistent with criminal homicide). However, we have none of these documents, but only second-hand accounts of them. Perhaps the coroner knew the circumstances but the autopsy pathologist didn’t. If so, not a very good system. Perhaps nobody talked to anybody else, even on the UK side, until much later. We are left with the impression from the family that the pathologist found evidence of violent homicide (death by blunt instrument blows) and the coroner ignored this report. However, again, we do not have the report, so cannot judge even this. The idea that some hired-expert decided on the basis of photos that the damage to the German autos could not have been caused by a pedestrian is especially bizarre. What then is the theory of what damaged these cars? After 6 years, nobody has contacted the drivers??

If Duggan had been American, a concerned family would have paid for second private autopsy, and would have had Duggan exhumed for it, if concern with the first one didn’t come to light until after he’d been buried. And they’d have spent their detective money running down the drivers of the cars involved (one of which is actually named in on one article I read) instead of the 20 LaRouchites they actually focused on interviewing. It’s as though the family was looking for the story they wanted to hear. One cannot look at photos and decide that there’s an absence of fiber, hair and tissue evidence! At one point they decide that since Duggan had been clipped by a BMW, knocking off the side mirror, he should have been killed. It’s a coverup if he wasn’t! They decide that he’d been run over so he should have tire marks on him. Why says? They decide since Duggan is still wearing his shoes that he probably wasn’t hit by cars. Who says? (TV’s Mythbusters actually did a whole segment on how hard it is to knock somebody out of their shoes, and the results are rather astonishing). So, again, all we have is theorizing with no good evidence. A new autopsy is needed if the only evidence we now have left, is the body. Witnesses and drivers need to be primarily interviewed.

Is the idea of a second inquest, a good one? Sure. I’m glad to see there will be one. The situation is really rather reminiscent of the JFK murder, where there is an inadequate and quick autopsy without communication, and many questions after-the-fact. Except in this case, no Warren Commission. Yet. Instead, we have official conclusions based on evidence we haven’t seen, and family detective work. Almost none of this is suitable for an encyclopedia, except perhaps to note the claims in different articles, and reference where the claims are made (some newspaper says the family says some LaRouchie told THEM that the cult gave Duggan a hard time psychologically. No smoking gun, nothing physical, no connection to LaRouche himself , and basically it’s all worthless.)

If a panicked Duggan ran 3 miles and then into a highway, that would be an accidental homicide. If he’d been abused physically before that, it might be murder, but the facts we have don’t support it clearly. What we have doesn’t fit any scenario. If the pathologist thought he was autopsying a murder victim it would have/should have been a much different autopsy (X-rays, bagged hands, the works). If he found evidence for murder in a body which wasn’t tagged as such, he had a duty to raise holy hell and see that it was transferred to forensics. He didn’t. Either the family is crazy or this man is an idiot. How am I to judge which? How are YOU? With nothing but hearsay evidence, how is Wikipedia going to weigh in? What we have, sounds like a divorce trial.

One of the things this cult is known for is its so-called "psycho sessions" with members, during which they try to destroy the member's personality structure. The theory is that it's easier to insert new ideas into minds that are undergoing some kind of psychotic breakdown. See the Washington Post article about Duggan's death that mentions these sessions and an earlier New York Times article written by a reporter who heard a tape recording of one of them (payment required). Another thing the cult is known for is its distrust of three things Duggan represented: Brits (regarded as the epitome of evil), Jews, and people who've been involved with the Tavistock Institute in London. Duggan had received family therapy at the related Tavistock Clinic when he was seven and his parents were divorcing. He didn't realize the implications of sharing this information with the activists. LaRouche believes the Tavistock is a brainwashing center, and that Brits have been brainwashed to kill him.

It was a British man accused of having been brainwashed to kill LaRouche who was put through the "psycho session" the New York Times writes about above. In 1999, LaRouche said the British royal family or MI6 was planning to assassinate him. One of the LaRouche recruiters in Wiesbaden where Duggan died (this recruiter is based in one of the California LaRouche offices were HK works) told LaRouche activists after Duggan's death that Duggan had been brainwashed and was a danger to the movement.

Ah, yes, the old “destroy the ego and personality structure” routine. I hear it can be done in less than 6 days, with Canadians, who are unusually weakminded and believe whatever you tell them. But can you really count on this time for Brits? And if you’re going to brainwash in the classic Korean way, why pick an ordinary youth hostel? Wouldn’t you want a dungeon, some bamboo splinters, and perhaps something to produce electric shocks? And what WERE the horrific methods which were used on the mind of Duggan? Apparently, his personality structure was broken down by making him listen to a LaRouche public speech and take notes. Then, the day before his death, he had to hand out LaRouche pamphlets in “nearby Frankfurt” (according to the Washington Post it’s “nearby,” though it’s actually 500 km away from Wiesbaden). Then, that afternoon, perhaps 12 hours before his death, THEY TOOK HIM TO AN ART MUSEUM. One can only imagine it was the museum of modern art in Frankfurt, and they exposed him to Andy Warhol paintings in order to melt his brain. He was terrified.

Rule #1 of breaking down somebody’s ego and personality structure, however, especially on the economy 1-week plan in Der Youth Hostel along with 50 other people from a larger conference, is not to let them have a telephone on which to call their mum, their girlfriend, the newspapers, the police, etc. Duggan repeatedly did this (subtract one point for LaRouche), talking to his girlfriend a day and a half before his death, then again an hour or two before he died, and finally his mum 35-45 minutes before his death. He had every opportunity to call police. He had every opportunity to tell mother or girlfriend if he was being abused. He didn’t do any of this. He says nonsense things. He says infantile things (he wants his mommy; he wants to go back to Paris but has no money; now there’s a problem). He’s out of cigarettes but he has a lighter! His “limbs” hurt. He thinks he has a device implanted in him. He thinks the “government” is experimenting on people with computers and magnets (not that LaRouche is experimenting on HIM with electricity, though the WP article tries very hard to imply this).

His mother makes much of his last two calls cutting out after a short time. If sometime was pulling the plug on them, why were there TWO? Can’t the plug-puller get it right? Perhaps he was using a public phone and not putting in any money? Perhaps he was using a cell phone and it was nearly dead? These things have happened to me, but it wasn’t LaRouche (I don’t think). Why they happened to Duggan is not clear. But WP doesn’t hesitate to leave us with a feeling of dread, anyway.

And right in the middle of this, augmenting the idea that Duggan is being put through the third degree (though there is no evidence for it) is the account of somebody else being put though a “psycho session” 30 years before in late 1973. The Washington Post uses this, and WP repeats it, both conflating the two scenes. The problem is that there’s not that much to tie one to the other, except possibly Dennis King (whose book has much more one this, and which is used as background by the Post artice—this is all very incestuous, as both King and you are using it for WP, but using only the Post as reference).

Here’s what the Post “No Joke” article (April Witt), referenced above and in WP, says:

For three decades, LaRouche and his followers have accused enemies, including American, Soviet and British intelligence agencies, of sending brainwashed zombies to assassinate him. In December 1973, a 26-year-old British LaRouche associate named Christopher White claimed that he had been brainwashed as part of a plot to kill LaRouche. LaRouche activists announced that they'd been forced to put White through a grueling "de-programming," and offered recordings of the sessions to a New York Times reporter as proof.
"There are sounds of weeping, and vomiting on the tapes, and Mr. White complains of being deprived of sleep, food and cigarettes," the resulting Times story says. "At one point someone says 'raise the voltage,' but (LaRouche) says this was associated with the bright lights used in the questioning rather than an electric shock."

This is all excerpted from King, though Witt and the Post don’t give him credit, except indirectly (we’re to believe that Witt is quoting directly from the Times; no doubt you too, Slim). Apparently we are offered this in Wikipedia because White complains of pain in an arm on the tape, and Duggan complains of pain in his limbs. Aha! And there’s the deprivation of sleep (and cigarettes!), and everything (but the trip to the art museum, and playing Beethoven at high volume). Except Duggan doesn’t ever complain of being deprogrammed, debrainwashed, or deprived. And while White was supposedly “de-brainwashed” in 1973, he doesn’t die or even suffer ill health. He’s was a longtime LaRouchite who, some concluded, faked being brainwashed by the CIA in order to cover up for poor performance in organizing the LaRouche London branch. Hard to say. In a word, he’s sounds as nutty as his de-brainwashers, and may well have been playing along with them. Dennis King, the anti-LaRouche writer who has been asked to step away from all these articles on WP, writes about White in his book Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism. King thinks White doesn’t believe he was ever tortured and brainwashed to be a mole assassin by the CIA, and he concludes that eventually LaRouche doesn’t either.

http://lyndonlarouche.org/fascism4.htm

King says later in chapter 18 that “LaRouche's 1974 Christopher White brainwashing hoax was inspired in large part by Condon's The Manchurian Candidate and the movie version of Len Deighton's The Ipcress File.” So there’s a problem. If Christopher White is a hoax, a LaRouchite helping to fake his own de-brainwashing after a non-existent brainwashing by the CIA, does LaRouche actually believe the brainwashing was real? Or not? In later years LaRouche stops referring to the White affair. But now, who is going to revive it, 30 years later? If LaRouche was to use any deprivation technique on Duggan, where would he get the time to do it? He’s got just 45 minutes maximum to do something to Duggan before his last phone call and the time he steps into traffic. What in the world does the White tape have to do with ANY of this? We never find out.

Jeremiah Duggan died in odd circumstances during a LaRouche training course, and his British/Jewish/Tavistock profile may or may not have been relevant to his death. His family, and at least 96 British MPs from all the major parties, want to know what happened to him during the six days he was with the LaRouche activists before he died. It's a perfectly reasonable enquiry.

I agree it’s a reasonable enquiry. The problem is: nobody seems to be reasonable about it. The authorities haven’t been reasonable, the family is not reasonable, and WP has not been reasonable about reporting the state of it. The LaRouchies aren’t reasonable, HK isn’t reasonable, King isn’t reasonable, and you’re not reasonable. You should all back away from this article and this situation, and let the investigation finish. Come back in 10 years.

[Hell Freezes Over]

Yes, but do go on. The officials on both sides of the channel were rather lazy about the matter. The Brits did conduct an autopsy, but not a careful one, and according to the family, they (the Duggans) had no way to contact the autopsy pathologist, who later (supposedly) claimed he had no idea of the circumstances of the death. Which seems odd, as the family does say they were told by the coroner the next Monday that the death was a result of Duggan’s being hit by a car (a more than strange conclusion if the autopsy report did not come to this conclusion or anything like it, and in fact found evidence consistent with criminal homicide). However, we have none of these documents, but only second-hand accounts of them. Perhaps the coroner knew the circumstances but the autopsy pathologist didn’t. If so, not a very good system. Perhaps nobody talked to anybody else, even on the UK side, until much later. We are left with the impression from the family that the pathologist found evidence of violent homicide (death by blunt instrument blows) and the coroner ignored this report. However, again, we do not have the report, so cannot judge even this. The idea that some hired-expert decided on the basis of photos that the damage to the German autos could not have been caused by a pedestrian is especially bizarre. What then is the theory of what damaged these cars? After 6 years, nobody has contacted the drivers??

My understanding is that the family has been advised by its legal team that none of the documents can be made public in any detail, because to do so might prejudice future, which they are apparently still hoping for, so bits and pieces have dribbled out here and there, allowing the LaRouche movement to dismiss it all as disjointed conspiracism.

If Duggan had been American, a concerned family would have paid for second private autopsy, and would have had Duggan exhumed for it if concerned with the first one didn’t come to light until after he’d been buried.

I think there was a feeling to begin with that the authorities could be trusted to get to the bottom of it. British people tend to be less aggressive on their own behalf. There's more of a sense that the state will step in to take responsibility for things like this. The realization that that wasn't going to happen appears to have dawned slowly. I think there was also a lack of money.

And what WERE the horrific methods which were used on the mind of Duggan?

Members who have left the movement all say they are kept with little money, little sleep, no privacy, very little leisure time, they're expected to read a lot of LaRouche material leaving them no time to read anything else, they're made to doubt all their beliefs, they're expected to sever relationships with family and friends, they're asked to confide very personal issues in group settings, which are then used to ridicule them (young men are publicly accused of wanting to sleep with their mothers, that kind of thing). In Duggan's case, he seems to have believed that they were watching him closely. He wanted to go for cigarettes, for example, but the LaRouche flatmate had to go with him, which is when he ran away. That he left the house was then reported to a Schiller Institute manager. But why would it need to be reported to her that someone had left the house? It was none of her business at that point if he wanted to leave to buy cigarettes, or for any other reason.

Would all this be enough to induce a psychotic reaction in just a week? Who knows. That's one of the questions the family has.

The bottom line is that any decent organization would have done its best to answer the family's questions about what happened during the conference and "cadre school." Instead, the Schiller Institute manager, appearing to have known he had died, told the mother -- who was calling frantically to ask where her son was -- about how they were just a news agency and couldn't take responsibility for individuals, but didn't mention what had happened. And one of the others hung up on her. The movement then told the police the boy was ill because he had had therapy when he was seven, when his mum and dad were splitting up. This is silly and offensive behaviour, which obviously makes the family question what went on even more.

The bottom line is that if this had happened to one of your family members, you'd be asking exactly the same questions. Maybe you'd have gone about it differently, more aggressively, with more success. But the questions would be the same.

And right in the middle of this, augmenting the idea that Duggan is being put through the third degree (though there is no evidence for it) is the account of somebody else being put though a “psycho session” 30 years before in late 1973. The Washing Post uses this, and WP repeats it, both conflating the two scenes. The problem is that there’s not that much to tie one to the other, except possibly Dennis King (whose book has much more one this, and which is used as background by the Post artice—this is all very incestuous, as both King and you are using it for WP, but using only the Post as reference).

I don't know where you're getting this from. It had nothing to do with King. The activists who put Chris White through the "psycho session" sent a tape of it to the New York Times, which reported it (the vomiting, the weeping, the voice saying "raise the voltage," LaRouche barking out instructions). They also reported that another activist was held prisoner in her own home because the movement believed she'd been brainwashed to kill LaRouche. She had to be rescued by the police in the end, after throwing a piece of paper out of her window asking for help, but she refused to press charges. It's a pity the New York Times articles are pay only.

This is all excerpted from King ...

No, it isn't. It's King who took it from the New York Times. You're getting very mixed up. I also wonder why you're so disrespectful toward the family. It's legitimate to disagree with them, but the jokes seem a little inappropriate.

This post has been edited by Hell Freezes Over: