Let me take you back. Its 2000. I'm 19 living in Los Angeles. I attend LA City College. I come across a small group with a table handing out stuff criticizing Al Gore. I make an approach in attempt to corner them on the Democrats being a useless party (long before my lesser of two evil's stage...back in the I hate the Democratic Party stage and anyone who supporters them lacks the integrity to take on the corporate interests that support both of the two parties.... : )
Anyways the have a table set up for this Democrat running for president: Lyndon LaRouch.
I signed up to their email as they said the right things in an over amped way that appeals to 19 year old kids. I had never heard of Lyndon LaRouch before so I had no clue...
Anyways I give them my contact and go about my way. The next day, about 6pm or so. This guy calls up. LaRouch volunteer. Start talking, and he says something that gets us into some conversation--I can't remember what he said but I keyed in on and and started digging. An hour later, I conceed defeat and try for the fifth time to get off the phone. My roommate takes the phone from me, as he's been listening in for the past 45 minutes to my responses, all wide eyed and confused. He takes them around the block for another 20 minutes or so.
This guy was a wing nut--and this was back in the day when I was hanging out with a lot of left-er than thou's who probably wouldn't speak to me for being active in mainstream party politics--having worked as a volunteer for the Democratic establishment.
Basically the LaRouche group, well... you just got to meet 'em.
Seems they've showed up of late as TPM is reporting that have joined in on the "shout down" movement opposed to health care reform.
The Worcester Telegram & Gazette reports another Teabagger/Townhall incident up in the Worcester, Mass. This time it was Reps. McGovern (D) and Neal (D) heckled and shouted down several times by unruly Bay State Teabaggers at a townhall event U Mass Medical School.
Indeed, at one point, one heckler started likening Rep. McGovern to Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele, notorious for performing macabre experiments on concentration camp inmates.
But was it just Teabaggers?
It turns out a long-time TPM Reader (I'll call him RZ to extra-super-double protect his anonymity) was there and he just after leaving the event he wrote in to tell us that at this event the Teabaggers were joined by a squad of LaRouchies.
About the Mengele incident, he writes ...
In response to a question about medical effectiveness research, the gentleman wearing a shirt with President Obama sporting a Hitler mustache called our dean "Dr. Mengele" for suggesting we compare treatments to find those that are effective, safe and better than other medical treatments treatments. The conversation reached a low at that point.Apparently the Mengele outburst came in response to a question about medical effectiveness research came from a non-Teabag, non-LaRouche sane woman in her 60s.
So I asked RZ, was the Mengele outburst from one of the Teabaggers or one of the LaRouchies?
Definitely Larouche... They are calling the Obama Plan a "Nazi health plan." I couldn't bring myself to take their literature. They made the Teabag crowd look civil.Sounds like it was quite a special time.
When you are easy enough to confuse with Lyndon Larouche "activists" and their tactics your movement is officially reaching wingnut level--which many tea party movement people are not and are just philosophically opposed to to government spending outside of a small range of services like court systems and military. The birther wing--the shoutdown wing?--of the tea party movement has dragged the teabaggers down into the gutter of illigitimacy taking the hard work of a small group of activists who have tried to argue their position with, well arguments.
As a third party supporter and long time grassroots activist I hate to see the tea party effort become the "shout down" movement. I had to deal with authoritarian shout down tactics like that on the left for a number of years as I cross paths which a lot of lets say fringe groups who latched on to legitimate activism on the left. Lets just say there was a lot a pathology, fear, and alienation, among those shout down types I came across back in the day; and it looks to be true of some of the flat-earth..er "birthers" might be in the same boat. I honestly have not spoken one to one with a "birther" as most of my conservative friends aren't conspiracy theorists so I can't claim thats true, but from what i've seen its at least likely.
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