It Must Be June, Because the Silly Season Has Begun (or: “Lyndon LaRouche Still Has a Following?”)

While running out from the b5 office to get a little fresh air and caffeine, I noticed some young twentysomething kids handing out pamphlets amidst posters that declared “Stop AL OGRE [sic] from eating African babies!”

My curiosity was piqued, so I decided to go in for a closer look.

Seen around 12:30 this afternoon at the corner of Queen and Spadina.

A very young, very earnest-looking guy approached me and greeted me with a slogan: “Stop the British Empire!” I was instantly reminded of that episode Gilligan’s Island featuring a Japanese soldier who had not yet been informed that World War II had ended.

Now that I was closer to the posters, I saw “larouchepac.com” at the bottom. That’s when it became clear to me: Crazed babbling about the British Empire? Bizarro statements about globalization? larouchepac.com?

“You guys are with LaRouche as in Lyndon LaRouche?” I asked Earnest Guy.

“Yes! You’ve heard of him?” he replied, looking at me as if he’d met someone else who could draw the other half of the “Jesus Fish”.

“Yeah, he’s my favourite conspiracy nut!”

Earnest Guy deflated quickly. He thrust a copy of Save the American Republic from the British Empire! into my hands, said “Read it and learn,” and turned off to try and win converts elsewhere. I’ll give it read later on and let you know how it goes.

Here’s what Earnest Guy handed to me.

I’m half-tempted to print out LaRouche’s Wikipedia entry and hand it to Earnest Guy to see what he makes of it. Maybe I will, in the unlikely event that things slow down at the office today.

Fun Lyndon LaRouche Facts

Lyndon LaRouche’s Wikipedia entry. Considerably more entertaining than a lot of political figures’ bios.

Be sure to look up these fun terms in LaRouche’s Wikipedia entry:

• Ego-stripping
• Operation Mop-Up
• The “Brianwashing” Scare
• LaRouche’s position on “Star Wars” (as in the Strategic Defense Initiative, not the movies)

During his 1988-1994 imprisonment, he shared a cell with disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker for a while. Bakker wrote in his memoir, I Was Wrong, that he was impressed with LaRouche’s knowledge of the Bible.

Well I’ll be damned, there’s some kind of LaRouche youth movement! The existence of such a thing is a minor miracle considering that pop culture has pretty much cast him as a paranoid conspiracy nut since the 1980s. Back then, The comics Bloom County and the somewhat more underground-ish Zippy the Pinhead frequently used him as punchlines and Saturday Night Live ran parodies of his presidential campaign ads. Both The Simpsons and Futurama have also name-dropped him at his expense.

Special Bonus Fun Fact for the Ginger Ninja: Guess where LaRouche grew up!