Searching for LaRouche under the bed Options

[Herschelkrustofsky]

The "LaRouche 1" ArbCom case established that "Original work which originates from Lyndon LaRouche and his movement may be removed from any Wikipedia article in which it appears other than the article Lyndon LaRouche and other closely related articles," and that "Wikipedia users who engage in re-insertion of original research which originated with Lyndon LaRouche and his movement or engage in edit wars regarding insertion of such material shall be subject to ban upon demonstration to the Arbitration Committee of the offense."

Ah, but what constitutes "Original work which originates from Lyndon LaRouche and his movement"? This phrase has acquired a remarkably elastic definition. Consider this quote from Pope John Paul II, removed by Will Beback as "LaRouche-sourced material," although there is no source cited. Presumably most pronouncements by the Pope get published by the Vatican, although we don't know in this case.

Increasingly, "Original work which originates from Lyndon LaRouche and his movement" has been taken to mean "opinions with which LaRouche might conceivably agree." Aside from Will Beback/Willmcw/User2004, the other hyper-vigilant defender against creeping LaRouchism is User:172, who waged a mammoth battle at the article "Privatization" to prevent inclusion of material on a conference on the privatization of national security functions ( see the lengthy debate on the talk page.) !72 argued that the material ought to be deleted because it sounded like something LaRouche might consider to be important. My edit, which triggered a revert war by 172, was sourced to the Princeton University transcript of the conference proceedings.

Recently, User:Tsunami Butler made a fruitless appeal to the ArbCom, which included an entertaining sampler of recent complaints on Will Beback's talk page. Predictably, this was ignored by the ArbCom.

In the course of the discussion, however, Will Beback announces his latest exploit, which I tracked down to the ANI archive. Will reverts two edits: one edit, in article "Laissez-faire," mentions George Schultz and Milton Friedman as laissez-fair advocates that went so far as to call for drug legalization. This edit was sourced to the Wikipedia articles on George Schultz and Milton Friedman, and sure enough, they did that. However, Will Beback pounces, calling it a "LaRouchism." Similarly, in the article "Free Trade," Will Beback comes to the rescue against an edit which references Henry Carey and Friedrich List, and includes a quote from William McKinley -- "remove LaRouche concepts," he writes. He also threatened to ban HonourableSchoolboy for that one.

So now, if you are an admin and you want to ban someone, you can accuse them of holding an opinion similar to one of LaRouche.

[guy]

I've just discovered that no less a person than Mohamed Al-Fayed has confidence in LaRouche. For those who don't know, his son Dodi was having an affair with the Princess of Wales and was killed with her. Since then, he has launched a crusade (if that's an appropriate term) to prove that the Queen and the British Government were responsible for their deaths. Apologies to HK, but I couldn't resist this quote from the Evening Standard (Dec 12, 2006; Francis Wheen; p. 12).

It seems harsh to call Fayed halfmad, but how else can one describe a man who boasts on his website that "one of the world's leading magazines, Executive Intelligence Review (EIR), is supporting my campaign to shed light on the truth surrounding the crash"?

EIR is the magazine of Lyndon LaRouche, a fantasist, fraudster and occasional US presidential candidate who believes the Queen runs a global cocaine-smuggling cartel and that the evil mastermind behind international terrorism is Lord Rees-Mogg.

In the 1996 presidential campaign, EIR carried the magnificent headline: "US Election is Also a Referendum on Britain's Lord Rees-Mogg". The Mr Big giving Rees- Mogg his orders is Prince Philip - presumably because the Queen is too busy cokedealing to take charge herself.

The intention, according to LaRouche, is to destabilise the US through drugs and bombs until it agrees to become a British colony once again. The only person in Britain powerful enough to thwart this dastardly plot was Princess Diana, who "declared war" on the royal family. So she had to be silenced.

On re-reading this, I just couldn't believe it so I found another source that confirms much of it (The Independent on Sunday; June 11, 2006; Christopher Silvester; p. 37)

My friend Francis Wheen is writing a book about the wave of paranoia that engulfed the world in the 1970s, from Harold Wilson to Watergate to Mrs Gandhi's emergency clampdown in India - working title, Strange Days Indeed (from a John Lennon song). One of the paranoid conspiracy theorists to emerge then was the American Lyndon LaRouche, who founded the serious-sounding magazine Executive Intelligence Review in 1974 to publish his nonsense. "Larouche once accused me of being in league with Times columnist Wiliam Rees-Mogg and the Queen in running the world cocaine trade and seeking to undermine the independence of the United States," Wheen tells me. According to LaRouche's theory, the Queen planned to flood the US with cocaine and bring it to such depths that it would beg to be a British colony. "Rees-Mogg is apparently her right-hand man, and when I wrote a teasing piece about this in The Guardian, LaRouche decided that I was in league with the Queen and Rees-Mogg." LaRouche's paranoid delusions also include his belief that a critical article about him in Take a Break magazine, in 1999, was "planted by Britain's MI6 ... and/or senior advisers to Queen Elizabeth I at Buckingham Palace".

I should add that Lord Rees-Mogg is not someone whom I personally would ask to run a beer-drinking session in a brewery, much less the world cocaine trade.

[gomi]

... Lord Rees-Mogg is not someone whom I personally would ask to run a beer-drinking session in a brewery ...

The vernacular, "couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery", sounds so much better.

This post has been edited by gomi: