Talk:Helga Zepp-LaRouche

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[edit] Biography assessment rating comment

The article may be improved by following the WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article. -- Edofedinburgh 03:25, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Attn. Thue, or To Whom it May Concern: I have written a new page, which I hope will be entirely satisfactory. I am new at this, so please forgive my transgression. Any additional advice you can give me will be carefully read and taken to heart.

I've put up a POV notice - this looks to be pro-LaRouche garbage... john k 03:16, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Jeremiah Duggan

For user:Herschelkrustofsky I see that you deleted the information about Jeremiah Duggan from this page. I think it should be restored. No allegations regarding Duggan have been directed at Helga Zepp-LaRouche personally, but she is the president of the organization that has been accused of involvement in Duggan's death. Therefore, she is linked to the situation, whether fairly or not. Her husband, Lyndon LaRouche, has also issued a statement about it. He seems to feel it is a major issue intended by Tony Blair and Dick Cheney to embarrass the Schiller Institute and LaRouche generally. It seems odd to delete it from Zepp-LaRouche's page. user:SlimVirgin

Originally, there was only one LaRouche article. The present group of a dozen or so articles relating to LaRouche are an outgrowth of extensive edit wars, which culminated in mediation and a compromise one month ago. Part of the compromise was that the numerous attacks on LaRouche, and equally numerous counterattacks from LaRouche, would not be repeated in every article (based on your argument, it would seem more appropriate to put the Duggan material on the Lyndon LaRouche than the Helga Zepp-LaRouche page; she has neither been mentioned in the controversy, nor issued a statement to my knowledge.) These articles are all linked and listed in a template, since it became impossible to contain all the information in one giant article, and I think the Duggan case should be confined to the article which is most appropriate, which in this case, would seem to be the Schiller Institute article. However, I won't edit this article further until I get a response from you. --Herschelkrustofsky 15:37, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Thank you for your response and for not editing the piece again until I'd had a chance to respond. I didn't know about the agreement not to repeat issues on all the LaRouche-related pages. The reason I feel this should be on the Zepp-LaRouche page is that she is the stated president and founder of the Schiller Institute, and the Schiller Institute has been accused by a British inquest of being an anti-Semitic cult that may have had direct involvement in the death of a Jewish student. This is a serious matter, not just more of the usual criticism. According to a German press, a manager for the Schiller Institute was found with the student's passport in her possession, which (if true) lends weight to the accusation that the Institute was restricting his movements prior to his death. He would have been unable to return home to France without his passport. As the German police are currently considering whether to re-open their investigation, and a German lawyer is trying to overturn the original suicide verdict, it would seem obtuse to make no reference to it in an article that discusses Zepp-LaRouche's status as a decision-maker within the Schiller Institute. That would be like writing a profile of a chief executive without mentioning that police were thinking about making his company the subject of a serious criminal investigation.
Can you refer me to where the mediators agreed that LaRouche-related criticism should not be included on all the LaRouche-related pages? I would like to read what was agreed so that I can judge the extent to which the Duggan information is bound by that agreement. user:SlimVirgin
You can start with Talk:Lyndon LaRouche and work your way back through the archives, which is quite an undertaking. The fact of the matter is, LaRouche and his movement have been accused of everything under the sun, from assassinating Olof Palme to being a front for Saddam Hussein. Every charge would be very serious if it were true. I would encourage you to follow the template and read the whole series of articles, as well as the Talk archives, and we can continue this discussion. --Herschelkrustofsky 22:01, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll take a look through the archives. I take your point about accusations like the murder of Olaf Palme, fronting for Saddam Hussein etc. But the death of Jeremiah Duggan is an issue the Schiller Institute has been accused of in a British coroner's inquest, which rejected a verdict of suicide because of the accusation. It is therefore an official allegation, and will become more so if the German police re-open their investigation. That, together with Zepp-LaRouche's role as a senior decision-maker within the Schiller Institute, is the reason I feel it should be mentioned on the Zepp-LaRouche page. I will write here again when I've read through the archives. User:SlimVirgin 23.10, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Hello again. I've looked through the archives but can't find any reference to an arbitration decision that LaRouche-related criticism should not be added to multiple LaRouche-related pages. If I've missed it, I'd appreciate it if you'd send me the link. However, I did find a series of decisions here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Lyndon_LaRouche/Proposed_decision that say LaRouche supporters should not engage in advocacy for the organization. I would say that deleting an accurate reference from Zepp-LaRouche's page that her Schiller Institute may become the subject of a criminal investigation might count as advocacy, and you are the user who was identified during the arbitration process as a LaRouche advocate. Therefore, I feel the reference should remain in the Zepp-LaRouche article, because it is factually correct; it is only briefly referenced; and if the German police do re-open the investigation, it may prove to have a significant impact on the work and future of the Schiller Institute and Zepp-LaRouche. User:SlimVirgin, 01:09, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I didn't say arbitration -- I said mediation, which is an informal process. There were extended negotiations between myself, Weed Harper, Adam Carr, AndyL, Snowspinner (who volunteered to mediate), and others. The resulting spate of articles resulted from the problem caused by everyone wanting to put their special issues into the article, so that it became unmanageably long. I hope this is not terribly difficult to understand -- if you have edited a relatively long article, you may have noticed that a warning comes up that the article has exceeded x number of kilobytes, and asks that you break the article up into two or more articles.

In the case of Jeremiah Duggan, I am now aware that you have written an extensive article specifically on that case. My suggestion is that both the Zepp-LaRouche and Schiller Institute articles have a 2 or 3 sentence reference to the case, and a link to your article. I won't implement this suggestion until I hear your assent, or your objections. I don't want to engage in a debate about the merits of the charges, but I assume that you are aware that the parties who apparently persuaded Erica Duggan to cry foul, are all persons who have a strong disagreement with LaRouche on the question of the Iraq war; this is a pattern with which I am quite familiar. Consequently, I don't think that this controversy merits nearly as much attention in the LaRouche articles as, say, the criminal charges against LaRouche back in the 1980s. I agree, however, that it is appropriate to have an article specifically on the case, linked to the LaRouche articles. --Herschelkrustofsky 03:10, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Regarding Erica Duggan crying foul, as you put it, I doubt that anyone needed to persuade her to do this. Her son died after telephoning her in an apparently terrified state. She therefore wants to know what caused him to be so frightened. My view is that she got a positive reception from the British government because the people she approached have been on the receiving end of criticism from the LaRouche organization, and therefore know how aggressive it can be. I feel you may be seeing an active conspiracy where there is only a passive meeting of minds. Still, neither of us can know any of this for sure, so we can only stick to what the main players actually say, and what is published in reputable newspapers or otherwise shown to be true. I have no problem with the Duggan material remaining at a few sentences on the Zepp-LaRouche page, but I feel it should be a few paragraphs on the Schiller Institute page. Perhaps we could revisit this if the German police decide not to re-open their investigation: in that event, we could reduce it on the Schiller page to a few sentences. user:SlimVirgin 04:40, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Please update the latest accusations on this page, because I want to add a report from the Wiebadener Curier, pointing out what a load of rubbish the accusations are. I don't want to update the slander job myself, since it is boring and tedious and I would much rather someone else who enjoys adding the slanders do it. The link on the main page to the washington post article does not work (the one in the article), and the one down the bottom is so full of lies, I would call for it to be removed. It is very funny though that Henry Kissinger's wife flipped at the accusation that he likes little boys. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ibykus prometheus (talk • contribs) 02:29, 22 April 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Sources

This page has been left in an unreferenced state for too long, so it's time to get some references up. As this is a "closely related" page within the terms of the ArbCom decision, LaRouche publications may be used, but published references do have to be given for the various claims, particularly things like her being the world's foremost scholar on Schiller. I'm removing some of the more extreme claims in the meantime. SlimVirgin 05:59, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)

These need references. They've been removed in the meantime:

  • That she is/was a journalist, and who she wrote for.
  • In 1971 she became one of the first European journalists to visit China during the Cultural Revolution, travelling extensively throughout the country.
  • She met with world leaders such as Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and Mexican President JosŽ L—pez Portillo.
  • It is claimed by her supporters that it was her address to a conference in China in May 1996, promoting the concept of the Eurasian Land Bridge in a debate format with British member of the European Commission, Sir Leon Brittan (who opposed it), which led to the adoption of the Landbridge proposal by the Chinese government.
  • Zepp-LaRouche is also considered by her supporters to be one of the world's leading authorities on Friedrich Schiller and Cardinal Nicolaus of Cusa.

I also removed the pic as the Schiller website says photos may not be reproduced without permission. [1] If someone has obtained that permission, could it be posted here please? If the LaRouche publications do give permission, I'd say there are better pics of her than this one on the Schiller site. I also wondered what was meant by the "Eurasian Land Bridge" in the pic, as I thought it was just a LaRouche idea? The bridge that has been started is not, I believe, the bridge that LaRouche proposed; or am I wrong about that? SlimVirgin 06:21, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)

Have reinserted some of the claims using the Schiller website as a source, attributing the info to them. I couldn't find the Leon Brittan claim. SlimVirgin 07:15, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Holocaust denial quote?

I found this:

Whereas nobody in the USA has the slightest illusions concerning the power which the Zionist lobby exerts especially upon the current administration, in Germany only very few political personalities in the know are aware of the influence of a more secretly operating undercover zionist lobby, yet not the German public in general. And therefore we must take the hypocritical bogus Holocaust-spoof as an occasion to get rid of these foreign agents." Helga Zepp-LaRouche, "Der zionistische Holocaust heute" (The Zionist Holocaust today), Neue Solidarität, January 25, 1979.
In German: Während in den USA niemand auch nur die geringsten Illusionen über die Macht der zionistischen Lobby über vor allem die gegenwärtige Administration hegt, ist der Einfluß einer verdeckter operierenden zionistischen Lobby in der Bundesrepublik bisher nur wenigen eingeweihten politischen Persönlichkeiten bekannt, nicht aber der breiten Bevölkerung. Und deshalb müssen wir den scheinheiligen Holocaust-Schwindel zum Anlaß nehmen, um diese ausländischen Agenten auffliegen zu lassen.
This should probably go into the article, unless anyone objects. I'll leave it on the page for a day or so in case there are other opinions. SlimVirgin 07:15, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)
yes, this definitely belongs into the article. There seem to have been some law suits about the accusation of holocaust denial ([2]). --Elian 20:57, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This is hilarious. What is meant by the hoax? That it was the German people? That in all truth the 10 million or so (UN estimate, which I do not dispute) were just raptured up to heaven? What is meant by this please? Say I know nothing about the organisation. Im trying to find out.

(Also, its kinda funny about Andre Meyer, right? He let the Nazis into France. This is never mentioned in the press and I bet not on Wikipedia.) --Ibykus prometheus 19:01, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Photo

Also, I have a question about the photo of Zepp-LaRouche that was on this page, where she is standing next to the eastern terminal of the Eurasian Land Bridge. Could Herschel or Weed explain this to me, as I thought the Eurasian Land Bridge didn't exist? SlimVirgin 20:21, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)

Both of these issues have come up before. The "Holocaust spoof" quote refers to some of the "docudramas" that came out in that period, and Zepp-LaRouche is objecting to them on the grounds that they misuse the Holocaust to promote other, more contemporary agendas. Slim, I would suggest you that try reading her writings, or those of her husband, in the original context, instead of cruising all the anti-LaRouche websites looking for material. It is the latter practice which makes you appear to be an anti-LaRouche activist.
Regarding the Land-Bridge, it is a vast project which is partially realized, and subsumes other, smaller projects. The Chinese government invited Zepp-LaRouche to come and speak on the subject several times, and I suspect that the English inscription on the monument is a gesture of respect for her. They also refer to her as the "Silk Road Lady" in the Chinese press. However, due to the vehement objections of AndyL, none of this appears in Wikipedia, because there are no English-language web citations outside of LaRouche publications. --HK 20:59, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

If you have any Chinese citations, especially in relation to that photograph and the Eastern Terminal thing, we could almost certainly find someone in Wikipedia to translate it. Regarding the Holocaust quote, there was a television movie at that time showing in Germany about the Holocaust, but that doesn't weaken the force of the quote. She is saying that there is a secret, undercover Zionist lobby in Germany, which the public is unaware of, and most politicians are also unaware of. "We must use this Holocaust spoof" (possibly the movie, as you say) to "get rid of these foreign agents." What worries me about this, is that this is precisely the kind of thing Hilter said before the war; the quote from her about the need for the Schiller Institute also worried me for the same reason (Germany has to finally rid itself of the forces of Versailles and Yalta, which have made us stagger from one disaster to another for a whole century). We are not being honest if we leave this material out of the articles about her and the Schiller Institute. SlimVirgin 21:13, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)

As you probably know, the Schiller Institute published a book in both German and English (Das Hitler-Buch/The Hitler Book) which described Hitler as a catastrophic disaster for Germany, and named the Versaille treaty as one of the elements which brought him to power. It appears to me, Slim, that you have no real interest in Zepp-LaRouche's actual opinions or ideas, other than to find scraps of quotes which you can adapt to argue the theories that you brought with you to Wikipedia. --HK 22:13, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
So was is your interpretation of "we must use this [movie] to get rid of these foreign agents? SlimVirgin 22:34, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)
For reference, the text of The Hitler Book: http://www.wlym.com/pdf/iclc/hitlerbook.pdf (warning - 19 mb file) -Willmcw 06:25, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for posting this, Will. SlimVirgin 22:34, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)

Herschel, I feel there are two problems with the photo. First, the Schiller website is very clear that permission must be given expressly, so if you have obtained that, for example in the form of an e-mail, could you please post it here or on the image page? Second, she's standing in front of something that has been made to look as though it's a terminal of the Eurasian Land Bridge, which doesn't exist, so it's misleading. Therefore, I feel another photograph of her would be more appropriate. SlimVirgin 03:45, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

Slim, I posted the fact that I had obtained permission from the copyright holder, Stuart Lewis, and I wasn't lying. If I posted an e-mail, you could claim that I had forged it. The monument has not been "made to look like it's a terminal of the Eurasian Land Bridge," it is a monument denoting the terminusof the Eurasian Land Bridge, in the opinion of the Chinese government which put it there. Please cease the petty harassment. Any pretense you may put forward that you are not an "anti-LaRouche" activist has lost all credibility. --HK 15:36, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I won't accuse you of forging the e-mail, but I would like to see it to check that permission has been granted, and what the conditions are, if any. SlimVirgin 21:44, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)
It'd be nice to get a photo in which Zepp-LaRouche is visible. I notice that the Schiller webstie has a perfectly clear photo of her speaking at a conference. That'd be a better photo, IMO, than the current one (which is a better photo of the container ship in the background than it is of Zepp-LaRouche). That said, SV is right to wonder what terms and conditions apply to the photo - most Wiki photos seem to have licenses which allow unlimited reproduction. -Willmcw 08:11, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
PS - I cropped the photo to focus on the subject. I think the new version looks better. The best recent picture of HZL that I've seen around is here. Does the authorization cover any other photos? -Willmcw 08:11, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
That looks much better, Will; thanks for doing it. SlimVirgin 08:19, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Schiller scholar

I can't find any confirmation that Zepp LaRouche is one of the world's leading authorities on Schiller, or even an authority at all, so I have added a sentence that the information about that has not been independently verified. I'm also going to add the quote about the Holocaust and "foreign agents." Also, I've noticed that some letters are being distorted due to an editing glitch. I will try to fix them but they may return to glitchhood. SlimVirgin 07:21, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

I've added the "foreign agents" sentence. I can't find evidence that the Holocaust-spoof comment was made in relation to a movie, as Herschel said, so I've just quoted her without analysis, giving the citation and date. I also added a sentence from the Informationsdienst that said there have been accusations that her party has engaged in late-night threatening phone calls to opponents and has issued death threats, and I've added a link to that article as the reference. There is also mention in that article of blood-soaked clothing being thrown at Petry Kelly of the Green Party, but I want to make sure I'm translating that properly (in case it was Petra Kelly who did the throwing, though it doesn't sound like her), so I'll wait for a day or so before adding it. I also deleted from the photograph cutline that Zepp-LaRouche is standing next to the Eurasian Landbridge eastern terminus, as the Eurasian Landbridge doesn't exist. Finally, I edited out all the glitches, and some stayed away, but some returned. SlimVirgin 08:01, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

What are the criteria for independent verification? How does one independently varify if one does not know that the people verifying or denying are capable? --Nemesis1981 16:48, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Petra Kelly

Will, could you tell me whether it's (a) fair to add the following information, and if so, (b) whether I've expressed it fairly.

I have written:

Regarded as a controversial figure by some groups in Germany, Zepp-LaRouche has been accused of being responsible for threatening telephone calls and even death threats received by one of her opponents. An article in the German Informationsdienst gegen Rechtsextremismus (Information Service against Rightwing Extremism) states that, during the German parliamentary elections of 1983, while Zepp-LaRouche was president of an earlier party she founded, the European Workers' Party (EAP), Petra Kelly of the German Green Party received nightly phone calls with threats, after being disparaged on EAP election posters as leader of the "West German fascist Green Party." Death threats after public appearances followed. After one speech Kelly made, a woman presented her with a blood-soaked garment, and the photograph of the shocked politician later appeared in Neue Solidaritaet, a LaRouche-publication. However, there is no indication that Zepp-LaRouche was personally directing these activities. [3]

This is based on a section from the Informationdienst, which says (I asked a German editor to translate this, by the way, to make sure I had it right):

As president of the (since then dissolved) European Workers party, Zepp-LaRouche was responsible for threats and the persecution of opponents, especially Green Party politician Petra Kelly. During the parliament elections in 1983, she [Kelly] was disparaged on election posters of the EAP and libeled as leader of the "Western German fascist Green Party". Nightly phone calls with threats and death threats after public appearances followed. After a speech, a woman presented a parcel with a bloody garment to Petra Kelly. The picture of the shocked politician was later published in "New Solidarity".

My concern is that the article doesn't make clear whether it's saying Zepp-LaRouche and the EAP were actually responsible for these phone calls and threats, or whether the fact that they libeled Petra Kelly on their posters led to others making threats, so that Zepp-LaRouche might be regarded as morally responsible but otherwise not. I get the sense the article is saying the former, but they're not explicit. Is it enough that I have added the sentence about there being no evidence she was personally directing the attacks? By the way, the umlaut glitches returned by the mere act of saving. I'll let one of the developers know this is happening. SlimVirgin 20:40, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

Since these acts are not directly connected to Helga LaRouche (the expression "musste verantworten" is really touchy, it assumes responsability, but the article doesn't say how), I would rather not include it in a personal bio until more can be found about her responsability. --Elian 20:57, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I'm no authority, but I think that if it is from a legitimate source, and is properly framed, then it is fair to include somewhere. Potentially this would be better in an article about the "European Workers party", but since it is defunct and not worth creating an article for, the article about the head of that party is the next best place. Maybe it would be worthwhile to create a section - "European Workers party" or something like that, to hold it. All in all, this is the "thomas becket" problem, when followers do something that can't be directly blamed on their leader but which was the result of the leader's comments. PS, I'll restore the umlauts and other accents as best I can. Have you tried using a different browser? Cheers, -Willmcw 21:17, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Elian, thanks for the input. Will, it was Elian who was kind enough to do the translation. Does "musste verantworten (sein)" mean "must be regarded as reponsible" or "must have been responsible"? Perhaps we should make the section invisible until we firm it up. Will, I've tried Netscape and Safari and they're both doing it; as IE isn't recommended for either Wikipedia or Mac, I haven't tried that. This only started happening a day or so ago. I've never had any problems with my umlauts before, I'll have you know. :-) SlimVirgin 21:22, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)
Re: Umlauts- SV - do you have any more immediately pending edits of this page? If so, I'll let you make them before fixing the accents.-Willmcw 22:42, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Done for now. I made the Petra Kelly section invisible until we find out more. Many thanks for fixing things. SlimVirgin 23:00, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

Here's another piece with more information about the Petra Kelly incident. It says that the threatening phone calls followed her even when she was traveling in America, which doesn't sound as though it was just local hoodlums responding to the EAP posters. Don't know how credible this website is though. [4] SlimVirgin 21:38, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Photo2

The Image:MrsLaroucheinChina.jpg has been added with a "permission" tag. Those are not allowed on Wikipedia anymore, and it should be deleted. -Willmcw 19:12, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Cognition, please don't keep adding the image. Two problems with it (1) you said it was being used with permission, which isn't allowed, and (2) it shows the non-existent eastern terminal of the Eurasian landbridge, trying to cause confusion by implying that LaRouche is connected to the project that figured heavily in the first LaRouche case. This has already been discussed ad nauseam. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:41, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Actually, this latest, different copy of the image was labeled "fair use", but no rationale was given for the exception. Aside from the objections that SV has posted the objection that I have is that the subject is almost anonymous. The article should have a picture that isn't taken from fifty feet away. More importantly, it should only have pictures which are properly licensed. -Willmcw 06:56, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] RAG

The disputed section is not sourced to the WLYM site, it is sourced to something called RAG. Could someone who is well versed in German take a look at it and determine whether it meets Wikipedia reliable source standards? We should leave it off the article until that is settled. --Marvin Diode 22:14, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Do you have any reason for doubting its reliability? Here's a link discussing the magazine.[5] It appears to be a printed magazine, and so would qualify as reliable. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 22:28, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
If having a printed magazine were sufficient to qualify a source as reliable, then LaRouche publications would be used as a source. My understanding is that they are not because they are highly partisan. Having read the link you provided, it appears to me that RAG is at least as partisan as EIR. --Marvin Diode 06:26, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
LaRouche publications are not allowed as sources for articles beyond the movement because they are viewed as self published and unreliable to a unique degree. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 18:10, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
I suppose that was what I was thinking when I wrote "partisan." It looks like RAG is also self-published. But here's a question: why are the LaRouche publications "unique"? --Marvin Diode 03:10, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
I dunno. You tell me. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 04:29, 1 October 2007 (UTC)