USA, 2007: Ex. LYM Akka and jmp87 about LYM.

Akka: Posted on Thursday, May 24, 2007 - 6:15 am:

Hi everyone, I used to be a member of the LYM but dropped out. I've been reading your posts and have recognized a lot of the problems I encountered myself; especially the way the boomers are treated, and off course as, jmp8 points out, the horriffic living conditions. I was only member for about 6 months, but still I've used a lot of time afterwards to process all the new impressions and ideas I was exposed to. Like jmp87 I'm still inspired by some of the core ideas, and also the vigor and virtue og some of the youth members. On the other hand I totally recognize the cultish feats that seem to permeate the org. Contrastng the passionated intellectuals, wanting to make a difference, I saw deeply emotionally disturbed kids´who were more or less clinging on to LHL's fatherly figure, and would cite him all the time without actually thinking critically on their own; 'Lyn says this, Lyn says that' therefore its right. The reason I left was that I, first of all, was unsure of the truthfulness of the theories I was presented to - here especially how history was presented, which I found contained a lot of contradictions.

Secondly I kept asking myself: what are the long term effects of this movement on its members? And when I saw these phone teams, composed of middleaged people, calling all day, 6 days a week, I could vividly imagine how these people once were young and full of good pretensions, like the youths, but now were stuck in this obvious miserable condition - a lot of them just looked like they were worn out. This was not the principle of 'the general welfare', promoted in the campaigners.

Although I've left, I still have some contact with the movement, mainly because im trying to figure it out. How it works - and if I should support it or not. You've all been through it, and it obviously has left som deep scars in your souls. I myself am very affected by the experience and I think about it daily; It really was a turning point in my life, and In many ways I felt very connected to what it means being a human being - as opposed to the extremely superficial reality of popular youth culture today, of which I was a part. This sense og humanity is something I still cherish and is grateful for. The most fundamental discovery I made, was that life is not some relativistic soup, were one opinion was as good as any other - there is such a thing as quality, were one way of thinking supersedes another because it's based on truer axioms than the other; implicitly - that truth exists and is attainable by humans; if they seek it rigoriously and open-minded. For me, this was a wonderful idea that actually gave my existentialistic life, some sort of direction and ground for optimism. This is a grand paradox for me: how can something that brought me insights and true joy, also seem like a freakish cult that is destroying lives? XLC4life mentioned an ex-member, Zubrin I believe, who apparently has specialized in Mars or something. Didn't he get something good out of the org? I mean, is the organisation really bad in all respects, and doesn't it also depend on the individual that joins?

Excuse my english - or at least the grammar - its not my main language!

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borisbad: Posted on Thursday, May 24, 2007 - 9:41 am:

Akka, I can see from your post that you went through quite a transformation and fortunately you managed to retain your sanity being in for less than a year. Clearly, people join an organization like the LYM because they are dissatisfied with what they see around them and would like to see changes. And there is certainly much to be said about the banality of much of popular culture both today and in our day (the boomer generation). But then again popular culture was never equated with higher culture even Lyn likes to pretend that in the old days everybody studied Shakespeare, Goethe, Schiller, etc.

The thing about Lyn is how he cloaks himself in the authority of others who actually have made great contributions whether in arts, politics, math, etc. Then he construes vast machinations to show how the bad guys (whether called Aristotelians, Synarchists, Babylonian whore supporters, dionysians or what ever) are trying to stop whatever machination Lyn is perpetuating at the moment. The key thing is that you retained a sense of independent thought that made you look a little bit behind the shadows in the cave. When people give into anything uncritically, then they get trapped into cult thought. For example, Lyn likes to praise Plato, but ask if he really wants anyone in the organization examining the apriori assumptions behind his axioms and negate them which is the method behind Plato's dialogues.

I would agree that getting out of the organization doesn't mean you have to just become apolitical or uninvolved in seeking change. I think there are many activities and groups that may espouse ideals at least partially in line of what you are looking for that don't demand the total sacrifice of your identity.


jmp87Posted on Thursday, May 24, 2007 - 1:20 pm:

Akka, In regards to being political after the movement it's absolutely possible. More than possible. Right now I'm meeting With Henry Waxman, The representative of Los Angeles County to discuss The possibility of constructing a maglev train from San Diego to Seattle. I also wrote a pamphlet up in Humboldt demanding the impeachment of Cheney and citing the violations on why he must leave. I wrote numerous other pamphlets as well talking about different discussions.

It's been a year since I've left the movement and am now friendly with almost all the members. Whether its a cult or not is a tough question because there are things that they do that are legitimate. 2 of their members got elected to the democratic party recently and many of their ideas are quite sound. For example, I've always known that Al gore is a Genocidal beast ever since I've read what he states in his book, Earth in a Balance that "the populations of human beings must be reduced to 2 billion" Now if it was just a mad man stating that then who cares but this guy is trying to enact policies based on this. The most densely populated areas are in Europe yet Gore doesn't want to kill Europeans. He just wants to kill Africans and Latin Americans. the only movement that I can think of that is really preventing gore from winning this fight are the Larouchies. There is no such thing as overpopulation. That is a fascist policy that was constantly preached by Hitler himself with the "Liebenstraum" policies. Meaning living space for the Aryans. AL Gore wants to kill all the Africans and other ethnicities that aren't caucasian because hes a sick •••••••. It's impossible to explain insanity.

Now, even though they do extraordinary political and philosophical work, does not excuse the way they treat the older members and and also the living conditions. They could easily increase the budget no more than just possibly 500 bucks per office and all the members could eat comfortably. I mean after all, they always over spend on pamphlets anyway and we would always get frustrated when we would have January pamphlets still in the office while its October. Thus we overspend on the pamphlets and don't spend enough on the food.

I would say akka is Go back to school but bring the best of Larouche's Ideas with you. For example, I had a lot of fun talking about Riemaninan Geometry with a math Professor at the college I attend ,Humboldt State University. Both me and the professor had a blast discussing the ideas. I think it was because I was making the discoveries on my own rather than just being fed it.

I live in Los Angeles Right now until Most likely late august. What local where you in. I was in the L.A Local

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Akka: posted on Thursday, May 24, 2007 - 4:47 pm:
Hi, Thanks for the advice. I am studying at uni right now, and have been doing it for some time. In the org there is a conscious idea of how university is basically brainwashing. This, though is certainly not true...I mean off course, there are nutty proffessors and ignorant kids and all that, but the great thing is you can study all the stuff you find interesting - at least in universiy I attend. You'll also be getting a degree you can use later, and, like you said jmp, still be political and make a difference for the better.

It is outright silly, in my opinion, not to get an education if you have the chance, even if you sympathize with LYM. You don't know whats gonna happen in the future, and being financially dependent on an organisation is very unwise, as I can understand from this board some of the boomers would probably leave if not they were not dependent financially on the movement, but also the social dependence has a say. Getting an education gives you a firm social network outside the movement AND keeps your family from worrying too much - plus it gives you an ability to se things from more than one perspective. A thing I think Schiller was right on, was when he wrote that one should be a part of society but not a product of it. There is no reason in isolating oneself. Just a little subjective advice.

What you said, Borisbad, is actually what I couldn't swallow; namely, this big hostile overtake of the world by various, and seemingly changing fations. Its not that I don't think conspiracies don't exist, I mean, anyone whose been into politics, knows how agreements and stuff like that gets into place, there is a lot more than meets the eye. But from what I can gather from you guys, meaning the older ex-members, is that LHL has been swithching to and fro all through his career. You say he started out as a trotskyist and was part of this leninist group up until the mid sixties, where he was pushing marxist theories - which at the time probably was popular among the youths - some of you guys joined because of those ideas perhaps. One thing I'd like to know, is whether or not the economic program he was proposing then, is similar to what he thinks now, in terms of more investment in longterm infrastructual prjoects, and a new bretton woods and those kinds o things or was it more like a communistic scheduled economy of sorts?

Another thing I find striking is this idea of antisemitism - which is what freaked my friends and family out. I must admit, I haven't met any racisme what so ever in the movement when I was there, quite the contrary, actually- you know - nobody there talked about race or religions in a judgemental manner - it was the quality of your mind, and spirit which was focused on, which is quite a relief when you come from a materially fixated culture, I might add. It seems to me that there has been a change in that respect, from what you describe with the antisemitism and all that. I couldn't help but notice that you guys were slamming Helga for the 'locust' thing. I don't know anything about the womans background, but I do know that the term 'locust' was actually used by the former SPD finance minister, Müntefering, in his explicit characterisation of the Hedgefunds back in 2005 or so, which he called 'Heuschrecken', meaning 'locusts' in german, and thats when they started using the word in the campaigners; as a reference to Münteferings term.

jmp, I'd rather keep contact on the board for now, and also keep my identity anonymous. No offence ;-)

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JMP87. Posted on Thursday, May 24, 2007 - 7:20 pm:

I have to agree with akka that i didn't experience any antisemitism either. I've posted some posts about a week ago talking about the topic.