Positively Upminster

[redbird]

On Monday, rysmiel and I walked out of the Metro and saw a couple of people sitting behind a table with a sign saying "Impeach Cheney First." Underneath that, it said they were followers of Lyndon LaRouche, so I just muttered "them" as we headed for dim sum. Then we passed the table again, on our way to Maple Delight for ice cream, and noticed more of their signage, which advocated defeating the Bush agenda by building a land bridge across Beringia. (They didn't use the word Beringia, or any geographic names, but the illustration was clearly of Alaska, Siberia, and the island arc connecting them.) My only guess for what they were doing in Montreal at all is that the Old Port draws a lot of tourists: the harpist busking opposite the cathedral had a US dollar bill at the bottom of her case under the coins.

Friday morning, exiting Penn Station on my way to work, I passed people with a sign that started by asserting that "9/11 was a smokescreen," then went on to add that "Cabot was here before Columbus" (not implausible, depending on exactly how you define "here"--Columbus never came as far north as New York), and advocate annexing the U.S. to Mexico. They had a URL, but I just walked past muttering the phrase that's in the title of this post, and don't plan on checking out their web site. (One of the local dailies had the front-page headline "barking mad," which I think triggered me to think of these people's lunacy in terms of that London reference.)

Comments

[beginning.livejournal.com]

The ones around here (New England) tend to all but suck the blood of the college-aged population. A friend almost got sucked in at Berklee because they used to hang around outside his dorm room and classes, including at night, once they found out he had an interest in learning what they believed. The group in Hartford was known for a while for their fondness of locking their meeting room doors during all sessions. They've taken to attending meetings of the non-partisan political organization on my campus, even though they're not registered students and therefore not permitted to be there, in order to identify possible candidates for joining them. (They're also big on papering, including one memorable day when they left a copy of their national newsletter on every single student chair on campus – all nine buildings.) And so forth. They are basically political Scientologists.

So, I suppose for the general population, they're annoyances, but when they start trying to recruit you, it gets very different, very quickly.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Huh. I don't hear any stories like that from the campuses around here. They mostly set up in front of post offices.

If they're not allowed at the non-partisan meeting, why don't people check ID cards?

I wonder if they're more careful here since Virginia took most of their money and property away some years back.