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.