When I first received The Children of Satan, I didn't appreciate their attitude that it was of so much importance that I read it in the first place. It wasn't even my usual trouble with focusing that made it difficult for me to get through this pamphlet. It was being surrounded by this, "this is the only thing in the world that's important" attitude, and knowing I had to maintain some sort of balance in my life. They didn't understand this. And it showed. I could tell you just from being around them that a big part of a lot of these people's problem is none of them sleep enough, they're malnurished, and they don't take time for the things in life that matter. They don't exercise, their humor is sick, and they won't talk to anyone unless it's about LaRouche.

Pre-existing condition
It's important to say here that I have bipolar disorder, knew about it when I went in, and told them about it. This is because of the way they handled it. They responded by telling me bipolar disorder didn't exist. And they would not shut up about it.

This is an irresponsible statement made by someone who is merely ignorant. All I thought when I was hearing this again and again from members was that they just didn't know any better. I am formally disabled because of it. They would just say, "You're not disabled." It would start out as a seeming casual conversation, just the one or two people I was working with that day were asking me about something they'd heard. I'd explan to them that I have bipolar disorder, and collect Social Security because of it.

It did no good to explain to them why it's classified as a disability in my case. Or the difference between how my condition actually affects me, and all the legality of the "disability". They would just say, "You're not disabled." These weren't well-meaning people who didn't know what they were doing. They intended to convince me that I didn't have a mental illness and that it was ok to stop treatment.

They cared even less about what had happened in my life involving the bipolar disorder to make it extremely inappropriate for them to attempt to diagnose me, not even knowing anything about me, than they did about the facts.

One member in particular, Vicki told me that she has a brother with a mental illness. Even she tried to tell me it was "just a label". Yes, yes, people who have conditions like this are labeled by society and by the system and that does not help them. No, she insisted it was "just a label" and was not real at all. "Who cares? It's just a label." Vicki was one of the dumber ones if I may make a personal commentary. She was one of the ones who, when I complained of not having had enough sleep the night before, or a shower, would say, "Who cares? It's the revolution!"

Who cares? it's the revolution! Be a revolutionary and go off your meds!

I have a feeling if I had gone off my meds and joined this organization permanently, I would not be the first.

After I was expelled, I sent LaRouche an email. In it, I asked him if his supporters would try to convince someone who had diabetes that diabetes didn't exist based on something he wrote. I received no answer to this question. For a while after I was expelled I was so confused I actually thought I could change their minds about some of the things they were doing.

It is extremely dangerous to tell someone with a condition such as mine that they don't really have it. I knew this. I tried to tell them that it was wrong.

The LYM ignores medial emergencies and health problems. The only medical procedure LaRouche isn't too cheap to spring for for one of his young supporters is a forced abortion.

At Cadre School, I got stung by a bee. I just had to suffer through it because everyone I said something about it to just stared at me. When I yelled "Ow!" The all just looked blankly at me. They sort of asked what happened. I told them a bee was stinging me. It's not that none of them knows what to do for a bee sting. They don't care. And there was absolutely no procedure for any kind of injury at this Cadre School. No insurance. No nurse's station. You had to be there. Their reaction wasn't normal.

I don't even think they can legally do that. Bring 300 people out into the woods. Have an event. 2 nights. They fed us. That's all. There are laws about having to make sure everyone is safe at a thing like this. There are also labor laws, but they don't care.
Because it's a revolution and they don't have time to be concerned with labor laws, child labor laws, or health codes, or common decency; they're saving humanity.

Slavery
"We are living slavery." Those are the last words of the class on Frederick Douglass. Writing about it today, I want to say, "Who would fall for that?"

This is where it becomes difficult, because this is where I became really, really confused.

Just listening to this class, I started to get the feeling that I was here for a reason. I felt like I could relate to Douglass's story in a way most people couldn't.

Ok, sure, sure, there were some people here who were pretty strange. I thought most of the people in this group didn't know how to present themselves. I thought if I decided I wanted to be here, I could help people with their speeches. I could say, "That was a really good class, but you're really losing a lot of people by always wrapping it by saying there's no reason to do anything other than the campaign." I was that blind about what was going on. There was a lot that I saw that didn't seem right, but I missed enough.

I didn't realize that the constant reiteration that "there's no point in doing anything else", was a tactic used by cults to just reinforce this belief. All I knew was that I didn't believe it, and it bugged me. A lot. I argued with them about it. I just thought it was stupid, it didn't really occur to me when I was in how much danger I was in.

From the first day they come right out and ask you if you're going to join. The pressure starts right away. Even at the table. They don't care whether you feel you are making an educated decision about joining their campaign, or making a donation to it. They are convinced that they know what's best for you.

This whole class on Fredrick Douglass compares the working class lifestyle to slavery. The kind of slavery Frederick Douglass endured. Working, collecting a paycheck, supporting yourself, and whoever else you need to support. That's the same thing as slavery, according to the LaRouche campaign.

The campaign pays its members $40 a week--maybe. The campaign pays their rent. This is all on the condition that everybody think the same way. If you start to have doubts, they can stop paying your rent. Having cut off all ties with family and friends, anyone who's been in who has had their rent cut off has no where to go.

They claim that they're helping people who work in sweatshops for 7 cents an hour in third world countries. But none of the money they collect goes to any of these people they're always congratulating themselves for working so hard to help. It goes to LaRouche's neverending campaign. LaRouche and his wife use the campaign money to take luxurious trips around the world, where he makes speeches, does the same thing he's doing in the United States, and lives very well for doing it.

How does $40 a week in Los Angeles compare to 7 cents an hour in a third world country when you consider the cost of living?

Members of the LYM have to campaign at a book table 6 days a week, then in the evening, they have to be at meetings. At each class meeting, they're told they have to read 5 to 10 books to really understand what was just said at the class meeting.

Even if I read something they told me I should read, it was never enough for me to have read it. I was told countless times that I had to "reeeeaaaly read it." Then they would imitate someone reading something and concentrating really hard. What an ingenius way to cure my bipolar disorder.

I realize now of course that being homeless for a year in Los Angeles as difficult as it was, is not anything like slavery. I don't mean any offense by saying that I made a comparison of the two when I heard the class. It's the reaction they were going for, and discovered later that the same story worked on other homeless people.

Introduction
In 2003 for several months I was part of the Lyndon LaRouche Youth Movement (LYM).
This is something I feel a need to write, but it's difficult.
I didn't have to leave. I was expelled.

The dates on these posts are the dates that I wrote them. I will try to include any relevant dates of things when they happened within the posts.

Before I met the LaRouchies, I had been homeless for a little over a year, and had barely moved into my apartment. I had been living here for only a few months. The only friends I really had were other people who used to live at the shelter and I really wanted to get away from that.

I also was very opposed to the war in Iraq, and that's their main hook that draws new members into the LaRouche Campaign these last couple of years.

I came accross this book table at the Santa Monica College campus. Normally, I figure I can talk to someone who sounds crazy, what harm can there possibly be in that? I'm serious. Maybe not consciously, but I'd been homeless for over a year. I have bipolar disorder. Practically everyone I knew had something at least a little wrong with them. At the time, there was no way for me to judge whether it was ok to go to one of their meetings.

People who are recruited to cults are typically vulnerable or at transitional times in their lives.

Cults want people who are really intelligent, but also vulnerable or in a transitional period in their lives.

When you meet the LaRouchies at a campaign table, they ask for your number and a donation. I gave them my number, but I didn't have any money I could give them if I wanted to. Maybe I did, but I needed it. I was living on $200 a month at the time. "Come on, not even a dollar?" Already they reminded me of panhandlers who either had no idea how humiliating it was what they were doing, or just didn't mind, who had no idea that I was nearly as broke as they were, or didn't care.