Unpledged Delegates will give LaRouche voice at Convention

[Robb]

Unpledged Delegates will give LaRouche voice at Democratic Convention

HARRISBURG, Pa. - Three so-called "unpledged delegates" have agreed to support Democratic economist and lecturer Lyndon H. LaRouche at the upcoming Democratic National Convention, set for July 26-29, 2004, in Boston, Massachusetts.

The eight-time presidential candidate appeared with supporters in the state Capitol building Monday, saying that he is running to emphasize issues important to him.

While elected officials, party leaders and dignitaries will converge on the Fleet Center, the real power rests with the convention delegates. A Democratic hopeful's many months pressing the flesh on the campaign trail aside, it is these delegates who actually choose the party's nominee.

(snip)

Unpledged delegates make up about 20 percent of all convention delegates (ranging from 12 percent in Ohio and Florida, to 35 percent in Delaware, to a whopping 59 percent in Washington, D.C.).

They typically include local members of the Democratic National Committee and elected officials (like Democratic governors and representatives), who automatically earn a vote on the convention floor. In addition, the state Democratic committee (or existing delegates) chooses one or more "add-on" delegates a few months or weeks before the national convention.

(more)

[katieforeman]

1. How did these La Rouche people get chosen as delegates?

[AntiCoup2K4]

4. same as anyone else, by being involved in the process.

Whatever else you can say about the LaRouchie's, you can't deny they are committed.

Or that their leader should be ;)

[mobuto]

2. Who cares?

A whopping 3 votes out of 3,520 for the deranged septugenarian convicted felon and cult leader. I'm not exactly worried he'll steal the nomination.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[mobuto]

12. Believe the propaganda?

Perhaps the problem is you haven't read his propaganda. If you did, you'd realize that La Rouche is a racist kook - or you'd agree with him and believe that the Queen of England is the anti-Christ and is actively conspiring with the Jews, the Masons and Henry Kissinger to control the world. Most of his views are actually far-right, not liberal or leftist.

Could a reasonable person follow the teachings of Lyndon La Rouche? In my opinion, no. That doesn't mean they're not nice people, but they've been indoctrinated into a cult.

[genius]

18. He is not a racist. But he is the boogie man. He has people scared.

I'm waiting for people to say that he has weapons of mass destruction or that he gassed the Kurds. Perhaps we'll hear that he is sending his people into places to put people into death camps and commit mass genocide.

Wake up. He was a strong backer of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and of Bill Clinton. If you read any of those papers his people hand out or talk to any of them (and believe it or not, talking to them won't give you rabies), you'll learn that most of his ideas are pretty much the same as what I'm reading about in Moore's book, "Dude, Where's My Country." Next, we'll start hearing wild stories about Moore. Basically, LaRouche is a liberal Democrat - except for the nuclear power nonsense. His people are certainly wise to Bush and I'd much rather have a conversation with one of them than with a Bush stooge. They like Kucinich and Clark and they seem glad Kerry won instead of Dean.

Most of your allegations look like paranoid nonsense made up of twisted information. As for the Butcher of Cambodia (Henry Kissinger), I wouldn't put anything past him. I don't know about what sort of things the Queen is into. I've heard from other sources that the royal family may be into drugs. I don't know if it's true. But most people think Democrats are crazy for mentioning the Bush-Hitler connection and that connection is fact. As for Israel, I think that Sharon should be locked up for mass murder. So if LaRouche doesn't like some of the stuff Israel is involved in, perhaps he's on the right track. I know a lot of Jews who don't like Sharon and so objecting to Israel's actions doesn't make a person racist.

Rather than attacking the LaRouche people over untrue nonsense, why isn't the relevant question: "Why are they following someone who will never win?" Perhaps they know he'll lose but are just trying to get out a message. Because of the stigma attached to the name, I don't think they are getting their message out. People, even people here, ignore what they are saying and come up with the most ridiculous stories imaginable. I think they would be more effective if they found a leader who was free of the propaganda and tried a different approach.

[mobuto]

39. Um

According to CBS News: "Some of his (LaRouche's) past proposals have included a quarantine of AIDS victims and the colonization of Mars. He has charged that Queen Elizabeth II is a drug dealer, and that Henry Kissinger and Walter Mondale are Soviet agents."

The guy leads a cult. I found this article especially disturving:

http://www.ex-iwp.org/docs/1989/larcouche_berlet.htm

He isn't leftist at all - he leads a far-right ascetic cult that worships LaRouche and wallows in paranoia.

[JohnKleeb]

41. didnt he run against Clinton in the 1996 primaries

I dont know much about him honest.

[Doomsayer13]

37. his supporters nice people?

they may take similar policy positions as liberal Dems, but I have no love for LaRouche or his cult of personality. At the California Democratic Convention, not only were they disruptive, they were physically threatening and rude. One LaRouchie came up to a Dean supporter friend of mine and called him a "Deanie-Weanie" and refered to any Democrat who didn't support their benevolent leader as "fascists". One African-american supporter event went to far as to accuse a Kerry supporter of trying to "Lynch" him for not taking his senseless hate propaganda.

My history professor's old Democratic mother was swindled by the LaRouche people when she let them into her home. She's a loyal Democrat and when she heard their anti-Bush rhetoric in some of their door to door solicitation she let them in. Not only did they attempt to rob the poor woman blind, they also physically threatened her when she didn't comply. These guys are more like Nazi brownshirts than liberal Democrats.

The difference between these guys and Democrats is that they believe that the ONLY person who can solve America's problems is Lyndon LaRouche, their cult leader of whom they worship like a deity. I'm sorry, I have trouble accepting a man who accused the Queen of England of running the American drug trade, said that the Beatles were a British psychological hit team used to brainwash America, and has previously written viruently anti-semitic literature.

[sam sarrha]

3. this guy is obviously a victim of political abuse but he wants to build

thousands of nuclear plants to desalinate the Mediterranean to turn the Sahara desert into a giant garden to feed the world... He also wants to build Mega infrastructure systems like canals across the united states to move freight cheaper... this would totally deplete our already fragile and diminishing water supply... which is what's happening right now in India and causing tragic suffering in the poor populations..starvation because their ground watter is disappearing...His stuff isn't thought very well.... and his followers will gleefully follow him straight into hell dragging the rest of us with him. They are RABID anti Environmentalists.. but hide it with a cultish smile.. if you disagree with them. I talked to them a lot :wtf:

[mobuto]

5. Victim of political abuse?

I'd say his perennial campaigns are the greatest example of political self-abuse since, well, Ralph Nader.

[buff2]

6. That's what we need......

Another kook to distract from the nominee. Geez...

[genius]

8. We need people to stand up for universal health care and against NAFTA

We need every liberal we can get to make the party platform reflect the wishes of the average person. What matters is not whom they represent but what they represent. If these guys will back Dennis Kucinich's ideas then, it's good they're there.

[blondeatlast]

11. LaRoach we don't need. Fer chrissakes, HE ISN'T EVEN REGISTERED

TO VOTE...

I'm a DK/JK supporter who frankly wishes LaRoach would just shut the fuck up. There is NO WAY he would support DK's agenda on more than one issue. He's a racist, homophobic nutcase.

[genius]

16. Clearly that's not true. He was on my ballot and it was a requirement

Stop listening to the idiot propaganda. He's a Democrat. He reportedly has problems in some states.

The biggest reason for people to not support him is that he can't win. But I have to wonder why people are so afraid that they keep making up stories about him. Pretty soon, it'll turn out that LaRouche gassed the Kurds.

[Desertrose]

9. the dem nominee should be strong enough

so that any distractions are minor at best.

If we cannot survive distractions within the dem party...what the hell are we gonna do about that big repuke distraction aka dumbya??



hmmmmm.................??

Peace
DR

[blondeatlast]

13. DK is a relevant distraction. LaRoach is a nutcase who isn't even register

to vote.

[genius]

19. Being a registered Democrat is a requirement for being on the ballot here

In some states, he was not on the ballot However, his registration is repected by the powers that be here and he was on the ballot. It is important to make your arguments accurate. Let's make sure we don't discredit Democrats the same way the Republicans do.

Instead of paranoia and lies, it seems best just to say, I'm supporting someone else. Repeating nonsense about a guy who won't win anyway only makes our side look really bad - sort of like Republicans.

[blondeatlast]

33. I'm supporting someone else--but I don't want my fellow DK

progressives to be misled by this whacko.

[genius]

36. It's called open-mindedness and respect for others. DK has it

Perhaps it's time everyone followed DK's example.

[salin]

10. wonder if this will be the first time... he has only been running since

about 1976 (or earlier).

I will never forget having to pass his band of merry protesters that would show up in front of the House office buildings every couple of weeks or so in the mid eighties with signs calling for the quarantine of all AIDS/HIV infected individuals to a dessert island. Guess they even got a ballot initiative in some state moving towards their isolate AIDS/HIV folks agenda.

[blondeatlast]

14. But salin, he supports SOME of DK's agenda...

I'm a DK/JK supporter, and to see some of DK's people praising LaRoach is making me ill--and adding to my ignore list.

Yech--this DK primary voter needs a shower.

[salin]

15. short memories, or a lack of familiarity

with LaRouche's long track record of prejudice, desires for very authoritarian government responses, fraudulent activities, etc. is all I can attribute the blind "support" that periodically gets raised here. There are many, many other public figures that support some of DK's agenda - I would hope that folks would be more likely to embrace those individuals ... and realize that some "friends", however, are honestly destructive.

[no name no slogan]

17. I've encountered them before, as have many of my friends

A good friend of mine from college worked on Adlai Stevenson's gubernatorial campaign in 1986. This was a primary where the "real" Democrats on the primary ballot had very ethnic/Eastern European names, while the LaRouche candidates had very Anglo/WASPy names. This was at the time when LaRouche was espousing that we break up the polar icecaps and melt the ice in Arizona and make more cultivable land.

Unfortunately, the normal Democrats lost the primaries, and the LaRouche-ites won. My friend said one of the "winners" was extremely anti-Semetic, and liked to remind the media whenever he could of this fact.

The "real" Democratic party had to splinter off from the Dem ticket that year in IL, because of the LaRouche-ites. Needless to say, the "third-party" Democrats (the "real" ones) lost the governor's race, and the Repubs won. What a rotten year.

I've also encountered them at Congressional District conventions before, and have read their publications, too. Much of it is typical tinfoil-hat stuff, but some of it is very cruel, racist and anti-semetic.

I don't trust LaRouche as far as I can throw him. And that ain't far.

[genius]

20. Some of Dean's supporters were anti-black racists. But most were not

Proapaganda and generalizations based on inaccurate information really bother me.

In the last few months, I have had to stand up against attacks on Kerry, Edwards, Clark, and Lieberman on this site - even though I was not backing any of them. For those unfamiliar with me, I'm a Kucinich supporter. I have also had to stand up against attacks here on Hugo Chavez.

I have also known some of the boogie man's supporters as many are in the Democratic Party. None of the ones I know are anti-semites any more than most of Dean's supporters were anti-black racists.

Isn't it time, we ended the propaganda and boogie man nonsense and treated these people like other Democrats who want to end the Bush regime.

Every vote is necessary if we are to win in November. I hope that we don't encourage supporters of any candidate to sit out the upcoming election.

[salin]

43. I have said nothing about them

except those who carried the "quarantine" signs on the Hill. My criticism is of the man, and yes, he earns the criticism he receives. If the supporters are not so extreme as to want the authoritarian policies that LaRouche has espoused throughout the years - then I welcome them. Won't even pretend to understand them, though.

[genius]

21. Most Americans support DK's agenda

Although I don't know all that LaRouche stands for, he seems to stand for most of DK's basic programs, ideas.

At one Kucinich event, people were talking when a LaRouche person was trying to ask a question and DK told them to "show respect for the representative from Mr. LaRouche." You see, DK is the kind of person who, by example is leading us in showing respect for all people. DK's example was so impressive because it showed that no one should be dismissed because of preconceptions. It also shows why Dennis is the man who would make the best President because Dennis does respect everyone.

[JohnKleeb]

23. I didnt know about that gesture by DK

I know he wont be pres this year but maybe some time soon or maybe he will become speaker. I hope he's still there when I am older, he sure is a treasure, and would love to have him as a rep. That gesture of DK is well very DK. There's something about LaRouche that I will jokingly admit I agree on, well no I dont really think the British throne is the evilest thing out there, but I am no fan of the British crown.

[genius]

25. Dennis really does walk the walk

That was during a question and answer session after the Santa Ana rally. Even if Dennis isn't going to be President, we need to keep backing Dennis's agenda - even after November. Although I'll vote for Kerry in November and I'll probably contribute money to him after the convention, I still have Kucinich signs on my lawn and I am still trying to encourage my representatives to back his bills.

[JohnKleeb]

26. lol I know he does, I had the pleasure of seeing him speak in DC

and shook hands and got his autograph. Of course, well Kerry isnt DK, but I honestly think he is the best we could have had after DK, now some may disagree but I think overall thats true. One DUer has suggested Dennis as speaker of the house, maybe that is his calling. I wish he had done better but him just being there makes it a great place.

[genius]

27. I was hoping that, if Dennis didn't win, Kerry would

Next to Dennis, Kerry was the most liberal on the issues. So I agree with you about Kerry. If we could pull off recapture of the House, maybe Dennis could be speaker.

[JohnKleeb]

29. thats where I disagree with some of the others

I do understand their disappointment however, however I think its mega cool we got someone with a Kennedysque record. Yeah Kucinich for speaker, blm has been saying it, I think its a good idea.

[genius]

35. The problem is the platform.

I am hoping that there are enough liberals at the convention to get through the kind of platform Dennis has been calling for. That will give the other Democrats in Congress the courage to stand up for having Dennis as speaker and supporting the kinds of bills that will restore our rights. I think Kerry would like a liberal platform but a lot of his delegates signed on because of electability and not because they even agreed with Kerry. The platform may be more conservative than either Kerry or Kucinich would like.

[JohnKleeb]

38. definely we need a good platform

I agree.

[blondeatlast]

30. If you don't know about LaRoach, I suggest you investigate.

http://www.ourcampaigns.com/cgi-bin/r.cgi/CandidateDetail.html?&CandidateID=4274

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2003/561/561p22c.htm

Here is one from a LaRoach supporter--right up a progressive's alley!
http://www.rense.com/general28/eirdossier.htm

Here's his official site:
http://larouchein2004.net/

Get a grip, people--this guy is (yeah, I'll say it) WORSE THAN CHIMPY.
Really he is.

[salin]

44. Would add this for research:

http://www.publiceye.org/larouche/nclcmain.html

http://www.publiceye.org/larouche/nclc.html
(excerpt from part two)
LaRouchian rhetoric can often offend numerous constituencies simultaneously. The July 7, 1986 issue of the <Illinois Tribunal>, an insert tucked into LaRouche's <New Solidarity> (now <New Federalist>) newspaper, covered the Ku Klux Klan counter rally against Chicago's annual Gay Pride parade by charging: "The idea behind the KKK outburst was--amid heavy media coverage of a mere two dozen Klan demonstrators--to make citizens think anyone who wants to take serious measures against AIDS is a cross-burner and a Nazi. . . .In fact, the Klan does not exist--except as a special dirty-tricks operation of the FBI and the B'nai B'rith's Anti-Defamation League. "

The article went on to say the founders of B'nai B'rith were "about as Jewish as Josef Goebbels."When Illinois Congressman Sidney Yates faced LaRouche-backed challenger Sheila Jones, LaRouche supporters distributed leaflets titled "So, What's A Nice Jewish Boy Doing Supporting Sodomy?" Former Chicago mayor Jane Byrne was targetted in one mayoral race with a LaRouche candidate's campaign slogan of "Byrne the Witch."

In attacking political enemies, LaRouche propoganda often utilizes racist, anti-Jewish, sexist or homophobic stereotypes.

[Pale Blue Dot]

22. Ummm...

People might want to click on the link....
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And remember what day it is....

[mot78]

24. Didn't the DNC refuse to let in LaRouche "delegates" in 2000

Those "delegates" actually came from a Freep of the Arkansas primary, where LaRouche got 22% of the vote.

[mobuto]

40. The DNC, quite rightly, refuses to consider LaRouche a Democrat

He's the leader of a far-right semi-religious cult. The DNC should refuse to seat the delegates.

[Barad Simith]

28. but the thing is, Robb, you SUCK

Not enough people know that about you.

x(

[Pale Blue Dot]

31. On the contrary, I think quite a few know of the suckiness of Robb.

:evilgrin:

[Barad Simith]

32. yes, many do

But not enough!

[blondeatlast]

34. Well, the linked site looks impressive--plenty of classifieds,

"hard" news, etc.

I'll admit, ya got me. Please say you got me with this one--somebody, please?

[rasputin1952]

42. LOL....

TAG.......you're it!....:)