Talk:Political views of Lyndon LaRouche/Evidence of "cooked quotes"

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The following is a discussion of quotes and characterization of quotes which appear in an article on this page from Chip Berlet's web site, AKA Political Research Associates. This material was inserted verbatim by User:Cberlet (same guy) into "Political views of Lyndon LaRouche" in his edit of January 7, 2005. Editors should examine the following evidence of manipulation of these quotes, to see whether Berlet's web site should not be considered a site that engages in dishonest practices, and therefore not a reputable site to be quoted in Wikipedia.

In the quotes below, the italicized portions were omitted by Berlet, and the bold portions left to stand alone, so that there is a distinct change in the apparent meaning:

  • "But the issue, the deeper issue, is that the government and the people, the general electorate, in terms of the political machines of this country, have no morality. Here is a question, which was settled in the middle of the 14th century and afterward -- the question of public sanitation on issues of epidemic and pandemic disease. Every government in the world is well-informed of that and the penalties of not invoking that policy. We have statutes on the books of the federal government, on the state and local level throughout the country, on this matter. The decision to be made on AIDS should have been automatic. Anybody who did not make that decision acted in defiance of the law, and should be accountable for any person infected! That is, if you're infected, if a member of your family dies of AIDS or is infected with AIDS, you should be able to sue members of the federal government, personally, for millions of dollars in each case -- damages! Because it was their negligence, willful negligence, in defiance of statutes, which caused this; not the law -- the law was fine! If they had followed the law, your friend wouldn't have been infected with AIDS.
"What was the problem? The problem was the cultural paradigm shift. If someone comes up and says, "Yeah, but you can't interfere with the civil rights of an AIDS victim" -- what the devil is this? You can't interfere with an AIDS victim killing hundreds of people, by spreading the disease to hundreds of people, which will kill them, during the period before he himself dies? So therefore, should we allow people with guns to go out and shoot people as they choose? Isn't that a matter of the civil rights of gun carriers? Or, if you've got an ax -- if you can't aim too well, and just have an ax or a broad sword -- shouldn't we allow people with broad swords and axes to go out and kill people indiscrimately as they choose, as a matter of their civil rights?
"Where did this nonsense come from? Oh, we don’t want to offend the gays! Gays are sensitive to their civil rights; this will lead to discrimination against gays!
"They’re already beating up gays with baseball bats around the country! Children are going to playgrounds, they go in with baseball bats, and they find one of these gays there, pederasts, trying to recruit children, and they take their baseball bats and they beat them up pretty bad. They’ll kill one sooner or later. In Chicago, they’re beating up gays that are hanging around certain schools, pederasts; children go out with baseball bats and beat them up -- which is perfectly moral; they have the civil right to do that! It’s a matter of children’s civil rights!"
Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., "The End of the Age of Aquarius?" Speech quoted in EIR (Executive Intelligence Review), January 10, 1986, p. 40.

[LaRouche is making the point that if public health officials cannot intervene to prevent someone from transmitting AIDS through sexual contact, because transmitting AIDS through sexual contact is considered a "civil right," then the same illogic could be used to justify all sorts of violent crimes, even those perpetrated by homophobes. However, Berlet quoted only the last two paragraphs, in order to suggest that LaRouche was in fact endorsing violent crimes perpetrated by homophobes. To to make certain that the Wikipedia reader would arrive at that mistaken conclusion, Berlet added his own explanation: "He has called for draconian measures against persons with AIDS, and scoffed at civil liberties and civil rights concerns, writing that people who physically attack gay people are merely exercising their civil rights." This is, as I hope other editors can see by looking at the context, a deliberate misrepresentation.]


  • "The impact of this pattern of developments on Britain's youth gangs of violence-prone football fans is predictable. One can read their general line of thinking in advance. Since the idea of touching the person of the carrier is abhorrent, stones and the nearest approximation of a collection of baseball bats, come to mind. Certain individuals, of known haunts, first suggest themselves as easy targets...."
Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., "Teenage Gangs’ Lynchings of Gays is Foreseen Soon," New Solidarity, February 9, 1987, p. 8.

[By omitting the first lines and cutting to "Since the idea of of touching the person of the carrier is abhorrent," Berlet makes it look like LaRouche is expressing his own views, instead of views that LaRouche is attributing to Britain's youth gangs.

In my opinion, both of these examples are proof positive of deceptive practices that should not be tolerated at Wikipedia. Weed Harper 07:17, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)]

Contents

[edit] LaRouchite Homophobic Bigotry in Larger Context

This claim by Weed Harper is without foundation. Below are several quotes with more context. Most reputable sources -- the majority view -- consider LaRouche and the LaRouche group in the 1970s and 1980s to be homophobic bigots.

LaRouche has a history of making statements that reveal great animosity toward gay people, and generally links AIDS to the gay community in ways that are seen as bigoted. He has called for draconian measures against persons with AIDS, and scoffed at civil liberties and civil rights concerns, writing that people who physically attack gay people are merely exercising their civil rights:

[first full sentence on left column]"... But if you could pass a law, pass a reform and so forth, it would mean nothing, absolutely nothing. If the cultural paradigm which currently prevails in Washington, in the political process, existed, youcould pass any law in name; the implementation will be conducted by the State Department and other agencies, according to the existing cultural paradigm. If you cannot change the cultural paradigm which presently prevails in the United States, if you cannot change the philosophical outlook among the majority of Americans; you can't do anything very good; and everything you accomplish is worthless-your life will be worthless, as the life of all others. Yours will be a little better than worthless because you tried.

"But we must have a change in the cultural paradigms, in the United States. There is a function I have laid out in the case of the AIDS problem: Yes, we must destroy AIDS. It's . going to destroy everybody otherwise; we've got to contain it, we can't find a miracle cure that fast; we're going to have to use methods of public health, which means we're going to have to put away every carrier until they can no longer carry; and if you won't do that, you don't care about your neighbor or your children. If you do that with tuberculosis, how much more must you do it with this, which is a disease which is 100% fatal to all infected? No cure--you die like a poor Iceland sheep. You die in 5 years-maybe earlier-you die in 5 years of pneumonia; or you die in about 10 years or so, as your central nervous system just turns into a pile of garbage. You die because your central nervous system has totally broken down. We have to fight this disease. You have to go to public-health measures, if we have to burn the GayCLU to do it!

"But: What is it worth to fight AIDS, if there are no human beings to survive that victory? What if the human race is turned into a pile of moral garbage, unfit to be saved? What's the advantage of fighting AIDS then? It's sort of God's mercy-killing, or Soviet agents' mercy-killing, who think they're God.

"We have another purpose in fighting AIDS, for our fighting AIDS--for our inducing people to do what they should have done anyway without our speaking a word. Government agencies should have done this. There should be no issue! But government agencies didn't! That's the issue. Why didn't they? Because of a cultural paradigm shift. They did not want, on the one hand, to estrange the votes of a bunch of faggots and cocaine sniffers, the organized gay lobby, as it's called in the United States. (I don't know why they're "gay," they're the most miserable creatures I ever saw! The socalled gay lobby, 8% of the population, the adult electorate; the drug users. There are 20 million cocaine sniffers in the United States, at least. Of course it does affect their mind; it affects the way they vote! It also, I think, affects their employability. They ought to be taxed 100% of their income, on the basis of not having earned it, and on the basis of the fact that we need the money to fight the effects of their habit.

"But the issue, the deeper issue, is that the government and the people, the general electorate, in terms of the political machines of this country, have no morality. Here is a question, which was settled in the middle of the 14th century and afterward -- the question of public sanitation on issues of epidemic and pandemic disease. Every government in the world is well-informed of that and the penalties of not invoking that policy. We have statutes on the books of the federal government, on the state and local level throughout the country, on this matter. The decision to be made on AIDS should have been automatic. Anybody who did not make that decision acted in defiance of the law, and should be accountable for any person infected! That is, if you're infected, if a member of your family dies of AIDS or is infected with AIDS, you should be able to sue members of the federal government, personally, for millions of dollars in each case -- damages! Because it was their negligence, willful negligence, in defiance of statutes, which caused this; not the law -- the law was fine! If they had followed the law, your friend wouldn't have been infected with AIDS.

"Where did this nonsense come from? Oh, we don’t want to offend the gays! Gays are sensitive to their civil rights; this will lead to discrimination against gays!

"They’re already beating up gays with baseball bats around the country! Children are going to playgrounds, they go in with baseball bats, and they find one of these gays there, pederasts, trying to recruit children, and they take their baseball bats and they beat them up pretty bad. They’ll kill one sooner or later. In Chicago, they’re beating up gays that are hanging around certain schools, pederasts; children go out with baseball bats and beat them up—which is perfectly moral; they have the civil right to do that! It’s a matter of children’s civil rights!"

Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., “The End of the Age of Aquarius?" EIR (Executive Intelligence Review), January 10, 1986, p. 40.

LaRouche has written that history might not judge harshly those who joined lynch-mobs and beat gay people to death with baseball bats to stop the spread of AIDS:

"The lynchers…are a special variety of political revolutionary, and express, spontaneously, the conspiratorial and other ethical characteristics of political revolutionaries….

"The impact of this pattern of developments on Britain's youth gangs of violence-prone football fans is predictable. One can read their general line of thinking in advance. Since the idea of touching the person of the carrier is abhorrent, stones and the nearest approximation of a collection of baseball bats, come to mind. Certain individuals, of known haunts, first suggest themselves as easy targets….

"The point is fast approaching, that increasing portions of these populations will focus upon the fact, that a dead AIDS carrier ceases to be a carrier. If governments were to proceed with repeated mass-screenings of the population, and isolation of carriers, the likelihood of a teenager lynch-mob phenomenon would be small. If not, then other ways of reducing the number of carriers will become increasingly popular.

"In that case, the lynch-mobs might be seen by later generations’ historians, as the only political force which acted to save the human species from extinction."

Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., “Teenage Gangs’ Lynchings of Gays is Foreseen Soon,” New Solidarity, February 9, 1987, p. 8.

"...as a category, gays and lesbians do not represent a valid voting consituency, and neither do prostitutes, drug pushers, child molesters, warlocks, witches, pornographers, or others who are morally equivalent."

"End Harold Washington's Consistently Disgusting Career," Illinois Tribunal, July 7, 1986, editorial page).

These are just a handful of the many homophobic quotes available from LaRouche publications of this period. This false claim of cooked quotes is the only way pro-LaRouche editors can deal with the cognitive dissonance created when reputable sources call LaRouche an anti-Semitic, racist, sexist, homophobic, neofascist. These are harsh criticisms, but they represent the majority view. --Cberlet 15:13, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Berlet is evading the issue

The above rant, taken again from Berlet's web page, does not address the evidence that Berlet "cooked the quotes." It is an attempt to justify dishonest practices, by suggesting that LaRouche is a very bad guy, so dishonest practices are justified if that's what it takes to do him in. This is reminiscent of George W. Bush, arguing that it was OK to fib about "Weapons of Mass Destruction," since Saddam Hussein was such a bad person.

The issue being posed by Weed is whether Berlet's web site is a reputable source. --HK 15:46, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The website of Political Research Associates is not my personal website. I am an employee of PRA. I am not the Executive Director, and never have been. The material HK and Weed keep deleting is from a report published by Political Research Associates. It is also posted on the official PRA website. The LaRouche quotes I posted on the website were posted there because of claims that the quotes were invented. LaRouche himself has claimed one of the quotes from him was invented, although the exact words were his. After showing that the quotes I used were accurate, the next tactic was for HK and Weed to say they were taken out of context. So I posted more context. Then there was a suggestion that I was not being honest in the transcribing of the quotes (despite that fact that I am scanning them using text recognition software. So then I posted actual image files of the pages on which the quotes appeared.
Having failed to prove that the quotes I posted were invented, taken out of context, or "cooked," HK and Weed now simply deny reality and claim that the quotes by LaRouche mean something other than what a reasonable person would read them as meaning. They selectively edit the quotes to try to portray me as dishonest. This, ironically, is what they charge me with doing. Now there is attempt to misdirect attention from their false claims by arguing that I am posting material from my personal web page. It is not my personal web page, and the material I am posting is either LaRouche quotes taken from LaRouche publications, or text from reports and books published in print by reputable organizations or publishers. These text blocks represent the majority view. I realize that HK and Weed and the other LaRouche supporters have a different view of LaRouche than the majority view. Their views will be handled as appropriate for the treatment of tiny minority views on Wikipdia.
I have been forced to set up a web page just to rebut the many false LaRouchite claims appearing on Wikipedia: [1]. I will be expanding it as time permits. These false claims float around the Internet and get picked up and posted all over the world. Some of these false claims are nasty personal attacks on me, or claims that are factually false. Some claims are arguably defamatory by calling into question my journalitic integrity or ablity as a researcher who writes scholalrly articles and encyclopedia entires in print encyclopedias.
But the main issue is removing the bulk of unverified LaRouche claims from the LaRouche-related pages and restoring some balance between the majority view of reputable sources and the minority view of the pro-LaRouche editors. Wikipedia is a serious encyclopedia, not a Blog for LaRouche supporters. We can, and will, link to many pro-LaRouche websites. But responsible, fair, and accurate editing is happening.--Cberlet 16:24, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Chip Berlet's frantic rain dance

The two examples cited at the top of this page are quite clear, and will be available for public inspection as long as Wikipedia exists. They are also on Chip Berlet's web page -- excuse me, the "web page he was forced to set up." If Chip Berlet wants to respond directly to this evidence, instead of throwing up a dense cloud of distraction, all he needs to do is answer the following:

  • In the first example, is it your claim that the section you omitted does not affect the meaning of the remaining (bold) section? In other words, do you continue to claim that LaRouche is in fact calling for violence against gays in that quote?
  • In the second example, is it your claim that the section you omitted does not affect the meaning of the remaining (bold) section? In other words, do you continue to claim that LaRouche is expressing is own views, and not views he is attributing to teenage gangs?

Weed Harper 21:17, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Biased misrepresentation

WH, I think that you are on a misguided mission. However, if you are going to call others to account for "cooking quotes" as you clal it, I would like you to explain why you wrote this:

Berlet's views are frequently featured by columnist Matthew Continetti of the neoconservative Weekly Standard, attacking various figures on the Left who are deemed guilty of "conspiracism", the most recent target being Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney.[2]

when the reference says no such thing. A search of the Weekly Standard showed only the one mention of Berlet, and HK claims he found a second, certainly not "frequent" mentions. And the reference itself does not match your description. This misrepresentaiton was discussed here but you never responded. That misrepresentation was much more severe than simply ommitting some sentences preceding a quote. -Willmcw 22:35, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Weed, to answer your questions: (1) the section omitted (for reasons of space) from the first quote does not affect the meaning of the remaining bold section. LaRouche is saying, as I understand it, that violence against AIDS victims, whom he equates with gays, whom in turn he later equates with pederasts, is justifiable and understandable; and (2) regarding the second, LaRouche is identifying with the views expressed. He is saying they are justifiable and understandable. Had he wanted to condemn these acts, he would have done so clearly. He is very explicit with his condemnations when he wants to be. Cberlet hit the nail on the head when he talked about Herschel and Weed's attempts to stave off cognitive dissonance. This is where the irrationality of these discussions stems from, much of which, over the last seven months, have boiled down to three LaRouche supporters unwilling to face up to what LaRouche himself says and does. SlimVirgin 02:11, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)
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