By Tom Robbins
The Village Voice, June 21, 2005
Mayor Mike's independence party friends can put him on the couch
There was a post-stadium dip in the polls for Michael Bloomberg last week. But the Republican mayor still has a potential job-saving ace in the hole, the same one he had in 2001: a jowly, white-bearded fellow named Fred Newman.
Fred who? That would be Dr. Fred Newman, of course, renowned founder of Social Therapy, the psychological practice dedicated to "a new science of human development," as he modestly proclaims it. Still lost? Well, you must have heard of Fred Newman, author of half a dozen books, and considered by many (OK, by many of his followers) to be the philosophical heir to Ludwig Wittgenstein and Lev Vygotsky (you know, Vygotsky, the great Soviet constructivist psychologist).
Utterly lost? What about Fred Newman the well-known playwright, whose works include Lenin's Breakdown, Risky Revolutionary, and the hilarious All My Cadre, not to mention The Therapy Plays: Newman's Postmodern Follies? That one just finished a successful month-long run at the Castillo Theatre (founded by Newman), which is partners with the All Stars Project (co-founded by Newman), which is the nonprofit youth performance organization housed in a glittering new West 42nd Street headquarters purchased and built with $8.35 million in tax-free bonds provided by the administration of, yes, Michael Bloomberg.
Which brings us to that other important hat worn by Dr. Newman, that of state committee member of the Independence Party, the political group that holds Row C on the ballot and which provided Bloomberg 59,000 votes and his 2001 margin of victory. This month, the party announced it would once again be proud to carry the mayor's name for re-election.
Lenora Fulani, whose past anti-Semitic comments got her in hot water this spring, gets most of the ink and the airtime where the Independence Party is concerned. But she is a longtime and loyal disciple of Fred Newman.
"She is one of my life's proudest accomplishments," Newman told an interviewer a few years ago. "This man is someone I love dearly," Fulani said in turn of her mentor.
After years spent on the political fringes, the two orchestrated a takeover of the Independence Party in the mid 1990s. They promptly found themselves courted by people like Bloomberg, George Pataki, and Charles Schumer in search of a second ballot line.
The party announced its latest Bloomberg endorsement at a reception held on June 5 at City Hall restaurant on Duane Street, attended by some 150 party faithful and a throng of media. Newman, 69, briefly addressed the troops, but his logic and sentence structure are sometimes hard to follow, and the press kept its focus on Fulani, asking her one more time if she regretted saying a few years back that Jews "function as mass murderers of people of color."
Fulani's comments were actually a slightly softer echo of Newman's own words, uttered in 1985, according to the Anti-Defamation League, which has long watchdogged his efforts: "The Jew, the dirty Jew . . . ," Newman said then, "a self-righteous dehumanizer and murderer of people of color."
Bloomberg has denounced Fulani's words as "despicable." But he's otherwise stuck by Fulani and Newman, appearing at their fundraising events and donating $250,000 of his own money last year to the Independence Party. The mayor has also had an open-door policy for Fulani et al. at City Hall, and the All Stars Project is now seeking a city contract to provide after-school care ("Fulani's City Hall Push," Voice, June 8).
The Anti-Defamation League thinks that's a bad idea, as do many others who have witnessed Newman's theories at work. They say that while his neo-Marxist philosophizing and zany plays appear comical from the outside, there's very little amusing about his rigid orthodoxy when viewed up close, with the occasional anti-Semitic outburst being only part of the problem.
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One of those who has recently made her complaints public is a Los Angeles-based theatrical producer named Molly Hardy, who was hired last year by a neighborhood clinic in L.A. run by a longtime Newman associate. Hardy thought she was being hired to produce neighborhood theater but soon discovered that her job was to produce youth talent shows on the West Coast like those currently promoted by Newman and Fulani's city-subsidized All Stars Project.
The talent shows date back to the early 1980s, when Newman's political organization, then called the International Workers Party, decided that providing venues for kids to sing and dance could aid its other organizing. The shows are not aimed at developing talent so much as getting kids to "perform"—an all-important buzzword in Newman's theories.
Last June, Hardy was flown to New York to receive training at the All Stars Project about how to put together a talent show. "It was more like controlling me than training me," said Hardy.
She received a 12-page "Licensing and Policy Manual." It spells out, in minute detail, how All Stars talent shows must be conducted. Each licensee must undergo two to three years of training by national All Stars staff, including trips to the New York headquarters. It also lists the minimum number of seats for each show (500), number of volunteers (45-50), clipboards (75), rubber gloves (two boxes), and tubes of Super Glue (two), along with a couple dozen other must-have items.
More troubling to Hardy were the provisions listed under "All Stars Talent Show Network Tenets" that said all participants and audience members were required to pay admission fees. That was Newman's Social Therapy peeping through—you gotta pay for what you want. Hardy was sent to observe a talent show on June 26, 2004, at Walton High School in the Bronx, where she saw the rules put into practice. There, a mother with three young girls in tow arrived at the school after taking the subway from their home in Queens, eager to participate. The All Stars organizers told the mother that she had to pay $22—a $5 fee for each of her daughters, and $7 for her to sit in the audience. "The mother didn't have the money, and they wouldn't let her in," Hardy told the Voice. She said she watched as an All Stars representative approached the woman and said, "What did you hear the person on the phone tell you to do?"
The mother answered that she heard the figure $5, but that she thought that was the price for the whole family. According to Hardy, the All Stars representative, a white woman with a lengthy association with Newman, responded, "You need to listen so you don't perform like a poor, uneducated black woman."
"The woman got real mad," Hardy said. "She said, 'I am going to report you.' The kids were crying. I turned to two of the volunteers with me and said, 'I could never do that.' One of the volunteers said, 'I know. It is really hard at first. You get used to it.' "
What made the scene more unreal, Hardy said, was that only 11 kids showed up for the show. "They had 50 volunteers, all with these red vests on, and only 11 kids in a theater that holds 500."
Back in Los Angeles, Hardy filed complaints with state officials and the FBI, charging that the clinic that employed her had improperly funneled money it received from the government to All Stars. She also relayed her criticisms to the office of New York State attorney general Eliot Spitzer. The office, which said it had reviewed past complaints about All Stars without finding violations, said it had yet to receive Hardy's information.
All Stars officials refused to discuss Hardy's allegations or any other matters. "We'll have no comment for your story," a spokesman for the group said late Friday. He gave his name as Bill O'Reilly. Wait a minute, he was asked, is that your real name? "Honest. We just don't talk to The Village Voice," he said.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Unsafe On Any Ballot (2004)
By Christopher Hitchens
Vanity Fair, May 2004
Democrats are furious that Ralph Nader, whose last presidential bid helped put George W. Bush in office, is running again. Equally dismaying, the author finds, is Nader’s backing from a crackpot group with ties to Pat Buchanan, Lyndon LaRouche, and Louis Farrakhan
For me, it was all over as soon as it began. The day after he announced himself as a candidate for president on Meet the Press, Ralph Nader held a press conference at which he said, “I think this may be the only candidacy in our memory that is opposed overwhelmingly by people who agree with us on the issues.”
Hold it right there, Ralph. First, don’t you realize that politicians who start to refer to themselves in the plural, as in the royal “we,” are often manifesting an alarming symptom? (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher started to employ this distressing locution shortly before the members of her own Cabinet began to stir nervously and finally decided to call for the men in white coats.) Second, if by “we” and “us” you really meant to say yourself and your allies in this enterprise, then you should not complain if it’s pointed out who those allies actually turn out to be. Third, by stating that your campaign is “opposed overwhelmingly by people who agree with us on the issues,” do you mean to imply the corollary, which is that you will appeal to those who don’t agree with you on the issues?
Nader’s answer to that third question, astonishingly enough, does appear to be in the affirmative, since he had told Tim Russert just the day before that he expected to reap votes from “conservatives who are furious with Bush over the deficit,” as well as “liberal Republicans who see their party taken away from them.” The job of reconciling these opposed factions of the G.O.P will be hard enough for Bush himself. But the idea that either group would rally to a Nader banner, this year or any other, is a non sequitur of hallucinatory proportions.
The psychedelic effect is only intensified when one examines the forces that might allow Nader to speak in the plural. A short while before announcing his candidacy, he had been the featured attraction at a conference of third-party “independents” in Bedford, New Hampshire. The word “independent” can conceal more than it reveals, as anyone with any savvy in American “alternative” politics can tell you, but in this case it only barely masked the influence of Fred Newman, Lenora Fulani, and the former New Alliance Party (NAP), whose latest front organized the New Hampshire hootenanny.
Not to mince words, the Newman-Fulani group is a fascistic zombie cult outfit, based on the eternal principle that it is a finer and nobler thing for the members to transfer their liquid assets to the leadership. It’s where you would turn when you had exhausted all the possibilities of a better life with Lyndon LaRouche, or Jim Jones, or any of the other alliterative crackpot or quasi-redemptive formations (K.K.K., A.A.…).
The Newman-Fulani faction is protean and sinister in one way, and pathetically obvious and transparent in another. In New York City, for example, it sometimes calls itself the Independence Party, which also controlled the rump and letterhead of the Reform Party—Ross Perot’s gift to American pluralism. Indeed, Lenora Fulani, a black woman who, like her mentor Fred Newman, professes to be a shrink of some sort, was a prominent co-chair of Pat Buchanan’s Reform Party candidacy in 2000. That must have made a soothing change from being a Louis Farrakhan fan in her two presidential election bids.
“Try anything once” would seem to be the motto here. And now she’s endorsing Ralph Nader. “I think it’s pretty cool,” she breathes. “I think Nader is a distinguished independent and he needs to be supported.” A fabulous detail about Fulani, incidentally, is the hold that she seems to exert on the cast of The Sopranos. Dominic Chianese, who plays Uncle Junior, is a regular at the All Stars Project, co-founded by Fulani and Newman, which puts on Newman’s unwatchable dramas, and has taken along other members of the team, including James Gandolfini, for photo ops. Analyze that, if you dare.
Am I asserting guilt by association here? After all, a candidate needn’t necessarily be judged by his disciples. And at “third party” events in previous campaigns there was certainly a fair sprinkling of people with propeller beanies, the fillings in their teeth wired for instant Martian dial up access. (You get these people at mainstream gatherings, also; be in no doubt of it.) No, the difference in this case is that the Newman-Fulani cult more or less is the Nader campaign. Through its network of shell organizations and front groups, and given its batteries of living dead petition drive robot artists, it has arrived at the point where it can at least guarantee ballot access in many, many states. All you have to do is agree to run on its ballot line.
Even Michael Bloomberg, princeling of opportunists, was willing to take out this Newman-Fulani insurance in his campaign for mayor. This, you may say, is partly the fault of restrictive ballot access laws, riveted into place by the Democratic-Republican duopoly in many jurisdictions—an offense to the spirit and letter of the United States Constitution.
But Nader kept people guessing, in a rather irritating way, about whether he would run at all or whether he might deign again to accept the Green Party nomination (which he has suddenly decided he won’t anymore). So, having come down from his Sinai, he finds it’s the loonies or nothing. Is this politics? And if it is, is it clean politics? Does it “empower” the average voter, who is so often taken for a ride by the party machines, or does it empower clusters of well financed, marginal nut bags with whom, behind closed doors, the party machines can and do frequently make deals?
Nothing is more difficult to write than a “more in sorrow than in anger” letter. Sentimentality swirls around your feet like a swamp, tempting you to become even more moist and runny yourself. But if this were an open letter to Ralph Nader, it would begin by being genuinely soft.
We don’t have enough heroes. (We have replaced them with “role models” and don’t even know what we have lost.) We do not have many candidates of whom it could be said that, if they were caught on video seeming to accept a bribe or kickback, we would automatically assume that the video had been faked. Washington, as a community, and Washington, as a federal city, would be a very much worse place without Ralph Nader.
He stood up against the rotten bureaucracy and mayoralty of the town itself, while unsettling the folks who live on Capitol Hill. Some of the story is known by everyone, including people who have never heard Nader’s name, the exploding car that the manufacturers lied about; the lead in the water; the non-regulation of the meat and mining industries.
It really wouldn’t be too much to say that there are many people now living who would be dead without Ralph. It certainly wouldn’t be too much to say that successive generations of reforming lawyers and legislators got their start and their continuing encouragement from him.
In writing, about him, therefore, one need not declare an interest. “Sea-green incorruptible” was. Carlyle’s sardonic description of Robespierre, but it recurs to my mind as an almost frighteningly apt phrase, in this case.
Why frightening? Well, I first met Nader 22 years ago, when he took me to lunch on my arrival as a columnist in Washington. We had what I thought was a great time, and he later telephoned to say that he was worried, about my smoking. He would, he said with perfect gravity, pay me the oddly exact figure of four and a half thousand dollars, and cover any therapy bills I might incur, if I would quit the habit and thus save myself for the nation (or The Nation, as he may possibly have thought of it).
On every occasion that we have met since, he has renewed this offer, adjusted for inflation and other variables. I once really needed the money, and considered calling him up and claiming to have sworn off, before realizing that the very idea of exploiting his innocence and concern was profane. Of course, there is something paternalistic in such a gesture (if he could be the father I never had, I could be among the many, many children that he never had). Indeed, his whole crusade for greater “safety” and regulation could be described as paternal in character.
And a slight secret about Ralph Nader is the extent of his conservatism. The last time I saw him up close, he was the guest at Grover Norquist’s now famous “Wednesday Morning” gathering, where Washington’s disparate conservative groups meet—by invitation only, and off the record—under one ceiling. He gave them a sincere talking-to, pointing out that their favorite system—free market capitalism—was undermining their professedly favorite values. I remember particularly how he listed the businessmen who make money by piping cable porn into hotel rooms. (He rolled this out again on Meet the Press.)
Nader was the only serious candidate in the last presidential election who had favored the impeachment, on moral and ethical grounds, of Bill Clinton. When asked about his stand on gay and transgender rights and all that, he responds gruffly that he isn’t much interested in “gonadal politics.”
He has often made a united front with conservatives like Norquist, and even more right-wing individuals like Paul Weyrich, on matters such as term limits and congressional pay raises. When I asked Grover about Ralph’s prospects of attracting Republicans, incidentally, he told me that he thought a Nader campaign just might appeal to some of the former Buchanan wing—anti-trade and anti-interventionist (not to forget anti-immigrant). So Nader and Buchanan might as well run for each other’s votes, or skip all that and just take in each other’s washing.
Nader’s puritanism and austerity—he lives in a rooming house with a shared pay phone in the hall and doesn’t own a car—have been his shield since 1966, when the clever people at General Motors admitted to putting private dicks on their most scathing critic.
Nader was followed, and his friends were questioned, on the assumption that an unmarried guy of Lebanese parentage must be up to something. But no: no drinks and no drugs and no carnality and no terrorism. Nader testified, a congressional subcommittee saw Bobby Kennedy trashing G.M.’s president, and an all-American star was born, one who rejected the affluent part of the American Dream.
Ralph could have gone on being an uneasy conscience for Washington, as he was all through the Nixon and Carter and Reagan years (after all, you don’t need to campaign for office to do that), but he seems finally to have found a temptation he cannot resist.
By running for president in 2000 and accidentally changing history, he has at last imbibed a draft of something addictive. Someone should tell him that the next bender will bring diminishing returns. In 2000, no matter how much he claimed to be above such distinctions, Nader clearly ran from the left. He also repudiated one of the center left’s favorite mantras, concerning the “lesser evil,” scornfully pointing out that this meant giving in to evil without a fight.
In most of his speeches he maintained that he didn’t care which of the two main candidates won, because it made no difference. But when pressed, he would sometimes try to have this both ways, saying that his candidacy energized liberal Democrats and even helped get out their vote. His less conspicuously intellectual supporters, such as Michael Moore, assured the faithful crowds that Bush couldn’t get elected anyway, so there was no need to worry.
At that point, a certain intellectual corruption crept in. You must accept the logical and probable consequences of what you propose. Nader could not quite be honest and admit that, given the national arithmetic, he was very much more likely to help Bush than Gore. There are 10 toss-up states, with 106 electoral votes among them (and everybody now knows about the electoral college). They are Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, New Mexico, and Wisconsin.
Once you understand the arithmetic, you cannot really claim that any consequences are unintended. For example, we have it on Gore’s own word that if he had been elected, Saddam Hussein would still be in power.
Nader is currently the only recognizable candidate who wants the United States to withdraw from Iraq. This discrepancy is not exactly a detail. It is, in fact, too big a contradiction to be explained away. But could it explain why Nader this time seems to be running from the right? He is spouting the rhetoric of social and fiscal conservatism, and pitching for allegedly disillusioned Republicans who would have nothing to be disillusioned about if he hadn’t helped squeak their man past the post in the first place.
The NAP could also probably be described as a right-wing force even if, as befitted a party run by a couple of shrinks, it suffered from chronic schizophrenia. It began as a Maoist splinter group and mutated through LaRoucheism to Buchananism. Guru Fred Newman characterizes Jews as “storm troopers,” and Fulani calls them “mass murderers of people of color,” positions which have a nice, demented ring to them.
Nader seems, to his credit, a touch sensitive on the point. When Doug Ireland, one of the country’s toughest and brightest radical columnists (and a two-time Nader endorser), called attention to the unholy alliance he got a call from Ralph, who shouted at him for being “a McCarthyite bully” and repeatedly asked, about Newman, “Has he committed any crime?”
I had better luck when Ralph called me back late one night and nearly persuaded me to argue against myself. It’s a pleasure to debate with him. But he told me, when I asked about the NAP, that “I never saw Fulani at the meeting,” which I suppose could be technically true as long as he was looking away. (She was a prominent member of the platform committee.)
He maintained that the Newmanites were no different, in principle, than, say, the Mountain Party in West Virginia: “They’re recognized as ‘on the ballot’ by the Federal Election Commission, so you can ‘jump on.’” He said that the Green Party wasn’t going to decide until its June convention, and that it still might vote not to campaign in swing states, so there was no purpose in delaying.
In the very rational and seductive tone of voice that he can bring to bear, Ralph insisted that there is no bad time at which to challenge the gerrymandering of one party districts, the fixing and front loading of primaries, the rigging of party conventions, and the exclusion of third-party candidates from the “presidential debates.” The liberal intellectuals who take these deformities for granted and then turn on him are, as he put it, “incarnate autocrats.”
And whose fault is Gore’s defeat? “He slipped on 18 banana peels, of which I was only one. Anyway, he won the election, didn’t he?” This is quite funny and also quite shrewd, as regards Democratic self pity, but it shows again that tendency to have everything both ways. “I’m going to take more votes from Bush this time—no doubt about it.” (By the way, at least one exit poll suggests that this was true in 2000, if only in New Hampshire.)
But on the other hand, and only moments later, he says, “I’ll show Kerry how to take Bush down; we’ll be a free consulting firm for the Democrats; be our guest—take our issues.”
Since one of the main “issues” is the pressing need to demolish the Democratic Party, my head began to swim a little, and I told him as much.
He made a friendly inquiry, renewing his smoke-ending offer. We chatted about a heroic Israeli dissident we had both known. He recommended a good comrade of his who was deeply involved in the rebuilding of Afghanistan. There are not enough people like Nader running for office, even at the local level, let alone the national one. I hung up with a truly bad case of the blues.
When Nader says “corporate” he really means corporate, and not just Halliburton. When he says that politics should not be a “zero-sum” game, he articulates a truth. When he says that Americans ought to be able to vote “No,” rather than being compelled to say “Yes,” he asserts something morally important.
But when he proposes to help elect a corporate Democrat by outbidding a conservative Republican, he is building a bridge from the middle of the river, and ends up not by combating the many absurdities of our electoral system but rather by illustrating them.
Vanity Fair, May 2004
Democrats are furious that Ralph Nader, whose last presidential bid helped put George W. Bush in office, is running again. Equally dismaying, the author finds, is Nader’s backing from a crackpot group with ties to Pat Buchanan, Lyndon LaRouche, and Louis Farrakhan
For me, it was all over as soon as it began. The day after he announced himself as a candidate for president on Meet the Press, Ralph Nader held a press conference at which he said, “I think this may be the only candidacy in our memory that is opposed overwhelmingly by people who agree with us on the issues.”
Hold it right there, Ralph. First, don’t you realize that politicians who start to refer to themselves in the plural, as in the royal “we,” are often manifesting an alarming symptom? (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher started to employ this distressing locution shortly before the members of her own Cabinet began to stir nervously and finally decided to call for the men in white coats.) Second, if by “we” and “us” you really meant to say yourself and your allies in this enterprise, then you should not complain if it’s pointed out who those allies actually turn out to be. Third, by stating that your campaign is “opposed overwhelmingly by people who agree with us on the issues,” do you mean to imply the corollary, which is that you will appeal to those who don’t agree with you on the issues?
Nader’s answer to that third question, astonishingly enough, does appear to be in the affirmative, since he had told Tim Russert just the day before that he expected to reap votes from “conservatives who are furious with Bush over the deficit,” as well as “liberal Republicans who see their party taken away from them.” The job of reconciling these opposed factions of the G.O.P will be hard enough for Bush himself. But the idea that either group would rally to a Nader banner, this year or any other, is a non sequitur of hallucinatory proportions.
The psychedelic effect is only intensified when one examines the forces that might allow Nader to speak in the plural. A short while before announcing his candidacy, he had been the featured attraction at a conference of third-party “independents” in Bedford, New Hampshire. The word “independent” can conceal more than it reveals, as anyone with any savvy in American “alternative” politics can tell you, but in this case it only barely masked the influence of Fred Newman, Lenora Fulani, and the former New Alliance Party (NAP), whose latest front organized the New Hampshire hootenanny.
Not to mince words, the Newman-Fulani group is a fascistic zombie cult outfit, based on the eternal principle that it is a finer and nobler thing for the members to transfer their liquid assets to the leadership. It’s where you would turn when you had exhausted all the possibilities of a better life with Lyndon LaRouche, or Jim Jones, or any of the other alliterative crackpot or quasi-redemptive formations (K.K.K., A.A.…).
The Newman-Fulani faction is protean and sinister in one way, and pathetically obvious and transparent in another. In New York City, for example, it sometimes calls itself the Independence Party, which also controlled the rump and letterhead of the Reform Party—Ross Perot’s gift to American pluralism. Indeed, Lenora Fulani, a black woman who, like her mentor Fred Newman, professes to be a shrink of some sort, was a prominent co-chair of Pat Buchanan’s Reform Party candidacy in 2000. That must have made a soothing change from being a Louis Farrakhan fan in her two presidential election bids.
“Try anything once” would seem to be the motto here. And now she’s endorsing Ralph Nader. “I think it’s pretty cool,” she breathes. “I think Nader is a distinguished independent and he needs to be supported.” A fabulous detail about Fulani, incidentally, is the hold that she seems to exert on the cast of The Sopranos. Dominic Chianese, who plays Uncle Junior, is a regular at the All Stars Project, co-founded by Fulani and Newman, which puts on Newman’s unwatchable dramas, and has taken along other members of the team, including James Gandolfini, for photo ops. Analyze that, if you dare.
Am I asserting guilt by association here? After all, a candidate needn’t necessarily be judged by his disciples. And at “third party” events in previous campaigns there was certainly a fair sprinkling of people with propeller beanies, the fillings in their teeth wired for instant Martian dial up access. (You get these people at mainstream gatherings, also; be in no doubt of it.) No, the difference in this case is that the Newman-Fulani cult more or less is the Nader campaign. Through its network of shell organizations and front groups, and given its batteries of living dead petition drive robot artists, it has arrived at the point where it can at least guarantee ballot access in many, many states. All you have to do is agree to run on its ballot line.
Even Michael Bloomberg, princeling of opportunists, was willing to take out this Newman-Fulani insurance in his campaign for mayor. This, you may say, is partly the fault of restrictive ballot access laws, riveted into place by the Democratic-Republican duopoly in many jurisdictions—an offense to the spirit and letter of the United States Constitution.
But Nader kept people guessing, in a rather irritating way, about whether he would run at all or whether he might deign again to accept the Green Party nomination (which he has suddenly decided he won’t anymore). So, having come down from his Sinai, he finds it’s the loonies or nothing. Is this politics? And if it is, is it clean politics? Does it “empower” the average voter, who is so often taken for a ride by the party machines, or does it empower clusters of well financed, marginal nut bags with whom, behind closed doors, the party machines can and do frequently make deals?
Nothing is more difficult to write than a “more in sorrow than in anger” letter. Sentimentality swirls around your feet like a swamp, tempting you to become even more moist and runny yourself. But if this were an open letter to Ralph Nader, it would begin by being genuinely soft.
We don’t have enough heroes. (We have replaced them with “role models” and don’t even know what we have lost.) We do not have many candidates of whom it could be said that, if they were caught on video seeming to accept a bribe or kickback, we would automatically assume that the video had been faked. Washington, as a community, and Washington, as a federal city, would be a very much worse place without Ralph Nader.
He stood up against the rotten bureaucracy and mayoralty of the town itself, while unsettling the folks who live on Capitol Hill. Some of the story is known by everyone, including people who have never heard Nader’s name, the exploding car that the manufacturers lied about; the lead in the water; the non-regulation of the meat and mining industries.
It really wouldn’t be too much to say that there are many people now living who would be dead without Ralph. It certainly wouldn’t be too much to say that successive generations of reforming lawyers and legislators got their start and their continuing encouragement from him.
In writing, about him, therefore, one need not declare an interest. “Sea-green incorruptible” was. Carlyle’s sardonic description of Robespierre, but it recurs to my mind as an almost frighteningly apt phrase, in this case.
Why frightening? Well, I first met Nader 22 years ago, when he took me to lunch on my arrival as a columnist in Washington. We had what I thought was a great time, and he later telephoned to say that he was worried, about my smoking. He would, he said with perfect gravity, pay me the oddly exact figure of four and a half thousand dollars, and cover any therapy bills I might incur, if I would quit the habit and thus save myself for the nation (or The Nation, as he may possibly have thought of it).
On every occasion that we have met since, he has renewed this offer, adjusted for inflation and other variables. I once really needed the money, and considered calling him up and claiming to have sworn off, before realizing that the very idea of exploiting his innocence and concern was profane. Of course, there is something paternalistic in such a gesture (if he could be the father I never had, I could be among the many, many children that he never had). Indeed, his whole crusade for greater “safety” and regulation could be described as paternal in character.
And a slight secret about Ralph Nader is the extent of his conservatism. The last time I saw him up close, he was the guest at Grover Norquist’s now famous “Wednesday Morning” gathering, where Washington’s disparate conservative groups meet—by invitation only, and off the record—under one ceiling. He gave them a sincere talking-to, pointing out that their favorite system—free market capitalism—was undermining their professedly favorite values. I remember particularly how he listed the businessmen who make money by piping cable porn into hotel rooms. (He rolled this out again on Meet the Press.)
Nader was the only serious candidate in the last presidential election who had favored the impeachment, on moral and ethical grounds, of Bill Clinton. When asked about his stand on gay and transgender rights and all that, he responds gruffly that he isn’t much interested in “gonadal politics.”
He has often made a united front with conservatives like Norquist, and even more right-wing individuals like Paul Weyrich, on matters such as term limits and congressional pay raises. When I asked Grover about Ralph’s prospects of attracting Republicans, incidentally, he told me that he thought a Nader campaign just might appeal to some of the former Buchanan wing—anti-trade and anti-interventionist (not to forget anti-immigrant). So Nader and Buchanan might as well run for each other’s votes, or skip all that and just take in each other’s washing.
Nader’s puritanism and austerity—he lives in a rooming house with a shared pay phone in the hall and doesn’t own a car—have been his shield since 1966, when the clever people at General Motors admitted to putting private dicks on their most scathing critic.
Nader was followed, and his friends were questioned, on the assumption that an unmarried guy of Lebanese parentage must be up to something. But no: no drinks and no drugs and no carnality and no terrorism. Nader testified, a congressional subcommittee saw Bobby Kennedy trashing G.M.’s president, and an all-American star was born, one who rejected the affluent part of the American Dream.
Ralph could have gone on being an uneasy conscience for Washington, as he was all through the Nixon and Carter and Reagan years (after all, you don’t need to campaign for office to do that), but he seems finally to have found a temptation he cannot resist.
By running for president in 2000 and accidentally changing history, he has at last imbibed a draft of something addictive. Someone should tell him that the next bender will bring diminishing returns. In 2000, no matter how much he claimed to be above such distinctions, Nader clearly ran from the left. He also repudiated one of the center left’s favorite mantras, concerning the “lesser evil,” scornfully pointing out that this meant giving in to evil without a fight.
In most of his speeches he maintained that he didn’t care which of the two main candidates won, because it made no difference. But when pressed, he would sometimes try to have this both ways, saying that his candidacy energized liberal Democrats and even helped get out their vote. His less conspicuously intellectual supporters, such as Michael Moore, assured the faithful crowds that Bush couldn’t get elected anyway, so there was no need to worry.
At that point, a certain intellectual corruption crept in. You must accept the logical and probable consequences of what you propose. Nader could not quite be honest and admit that, given the national arithmetic, he was very much more likely to help Bush than Gore. There are 10 toss-up states, with 106 electoral votes among them (and everybody now knows about the electoral college). They are Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, New Mexico, and Wisconsin.
Once you understand the arithmetic, you cannot really claim that any consequences are unintended. For example, we have it on Gore’s own word that if he had been elected, Saddam Hussein would still be in power.
Nader is currently the only recognizable candidate who wants the United States to withdraw from Iraq. This discrepancy is not exactly a detail. It is, in fact, too big a contradiction to be explained away. But could it explain why Nader this time seems to be running from the right? He is spouting the rhetoric of social and fiscal conservatism, and pitching for allegedly disillusioned Republicans who would have nothing to be disillusioned about if he hadn’t helped squeak their man past the post in the first place.
The NAP could also probably be described as a right-wing force even if, as befitted a party run by a couple of shrinks, it suffered from chronic schizophrenia. It began as a Maoist splinter group and mutated through LaRoucheism to Buchananism. Guru Fred Newman characterizes Jews as “storm troopers,” and Fulani calls them “mass murderers of people of color,” positions which have a nice, demented ring to them.
Nader seems, to his credit, a touch sensitive on the point. When Doug Ireland, one of the country’s toughest and brightest radical columnists (and a two-time Nader endorser), called attention to the unholy alliance he got a call from Ralph, who shouted at him for being “a McCarthyite bully” and repeatedly asked, about Newman, “Has he committed any crime?”
I had better luck when Ralph called me back late one night and nearly persuaded me to argue against myself. It’s a pleasure to debate with him. But he told me, when I asked about the NAP, that “I never saw Fulani at the meeting,” which I suppose could be technically true as long as he was looking away. (She was a prominent member of the platform committee.)
He maintained that the Newmanites were no different, in principle, than, say, the Mountain Party in West Virginia: “They’re recognized as ‘on the ballot’ by the Federal Election Commission, so you can ‘jump on.’” He said that the Green Party wasn’t going to decide until its June convention, and that it still might vote not to campaign in swing states, so there was no purpose in delaying.
In the very rational and seductive tone of voice that he can bring to bear, Ralph insisted that there is no bad time at which to challenge the gerrymandering of one party districts, the fixing and front loading of primaries, the rigging of party conventions, and the exclusion of third-party candidates from the “presidential debates.” The liberal intellectuals who take these deformities for granted and then turn on him are, as he put it, “incarnate autocrats.”
And whose fault is Gore’s defeat? “He slipped on 18 banana peels, of which I was only one. Anyway, he won the election, didn’t he?” This is quite funny and also quite shrewd, as regards Democratic self pity, but it shows again that tendency to have everything both ways. “I’m going to take more votes from Bush this time—no doubt about it.” (By the way, at least one exit poll suggests that this was true in 2000, if only in New Hampshire.)
But on the other hand, and only moments later, he says, “I’ll show Kerry how to take Bush down; we’ll be a free consulting firm for the Democrats; be our guest—take our issues.”
Since one of the main “issues” is the pressing need to demolish the Democratic Party, my head began to swim a little, and I told him as much.
He made a friendly inquiry, renewing his smoke-ending offer. We chatted about a heroic Israeli dissident we had both known. He recommended a good comrade of his who was deeply involved in the rebuilding of Afghanistan. There are not enough people like Nader running for office, even at the local level, let alone the national one. I hung up with a truly bad case of the blues.
When Nader says “corporate” he really means corporate, and not just Halliburton. When he says that politics should not be a “zero-sum” game, he articulates a truth. When he says that Americans ought to be able to vote “No,” rather than being compelled to say “Yes,” he asserts something morally important.
But when he proposes to help elect a corporate Democrat by outbidding a conservative Republican, he is building a bridge from the middle of the river, and ends up not by combating the many absurdities of our electoral system but rather by illustrating them.
Social Therapy at APA: Not Very Sociable! (2003)
By Cathleen A. Mann, Ph.D., 2003
I attended the APA (American Psychological Association) annual conference recently in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The convention had its share of problems before it even convened the week of August 6, 2003. One item of interest to me was the willingness of the APA Board to allow Dr. Lois Holzman and her various underlings to speak 4 times this year at the convention. Last year in Chicago, the APA only allowed Dr. Holzman and crew to speak once.
a
Dr. Holzman is affiliated with Fred Newman, and inhabits various incarnations, such as Social Therapy, All Stars Project, Inc., East Side Institute for Social Therapy (in New York City), Castillo Cultural Project, New Alliance Party, and sometimes, just plain International Workers Party (IWP). Many past members, including professional counselors/therapists and former patients, report abuses, deceit, and manipulation at the hands of Social Therapy and its various offshoots. There have been allegations of psychotherapeutic manipulation, lack of ethical integrity, boundary violations from professionals to students to staff to clients, financial improprieties, and various other problematic behaviors.
Many ex-members of Social Therapy say they've been subject to a mind control cult operating under the guise of a legitimate psychological movement. Individuals formerly involved with Social Therapy emphatically claim that they were deceived into a pseudo-postmodernistic social influence political movement. One useful model to assist in understanding how a destructive cult operates is Hassan’s BITE model (Hassan, 1988, 1998). Using social psychological principles, a destructive cult deliberately and deceitfully wrestles control of an individual’s behavior (B), information (I), thought (T), and emotions (E) through subtle processes (see http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourcecenter/articles/BITE.htm). Many other psychologists have also discussed the cult phenomena, including Drs. Margaret Singer, Phil Zimbardo, Stephen Kent, Steve Dubrow, and Michael Langone, just to name a few.
When word got around to concerned individuals that the APA had rewarded Social Therapy and Dr. Lois Holzman with four separate presentations this year at the APA conference, a small email campaign was launched with complaints about Social Therapy’s presence at the APA, and their seemingly transparent pretensions to science.
When word reached Dr. L. Michael Honaker, COO/Deputy CEO of the American Psychological Association that all was not bliss with Social Therapy’s presence at the convention, he responded:
“Thank you for your recent email concerning the participation of Drs. Lois Holzman and Fred Newman in our upcoming conference in Toronto. The APA Convention is a large 4-day meeting with over 4,000 presenters. It provides a forum for a wide variety of speakers and presentations. Dr. Holzman will participate in four convention sessions. She was invited to participate in those sessions after a review of her program proposals by peer committees that deemed the presentation appropriate for an APA convention.
Furthermore, Dr. Holzman has participated in APA conventions in the past and we have not received any complaints about the content of those presentations. However, the issues you raise are serious. We will monitor those sessions in which Dr. Holzman participates to hear what is said. We are also confident that if Dr. Holzman or anyone else were to express views that were prejudiced or potentially harmful to psychotherapy patients their APA colleagues would challenge those views. (emphasis added). Dr. Newman will not be participating in the meeting. Thank you again for bringing your concerns to our attention.”
L. Michael Holanker, Ph.D.
Chief Operating Officer/Deputy CEO
American Psychological Association
Executive Office
Email: mhonaker@apa.org
It should be noted that by the time the email campaign was initiated, Social Therapy was already on the APA convention program. It may have been difficult for the APA to completely remove them the program; thus, the presentations were allowed to go forward.
I personally attended Dr. Holzman’s first presentation on Saturday morning, August 9, 2003 (session #3079), entitled “Symposium: Impact of Participatory Youth Programs on Youth and Communities.” In addition to Dr. Holzman, in attendance were Barbara Silverman, who spoke on the broad subject of crises in education; Diann Eley, who spoke on the use of sports to aid “disaffected young people,” and Gloria Strickland, who spoke on the All Stars Project in New Jersey, wherein she uses theatre and the performing arts to “aid hundreds of inner city young people.” There were no APA staff or board members in attendance at this presentation.
The presence of APA board members at this session would have done a great deal to see the subtle nature of Social Therapy in action. Much of the presentation was geared toward mutual admiration of the panel’s “contributions to society,” with little opportunity for scholarly interaction with psychologists and others in the audience. An APA board member should have been there to document the one-sided nature of the presentation, and the impression that Dr. Holzman and company were merely pushing an agenda.
Arriving just as the presentation was to begin was Columbia University professor, Dr. Edmund Gordon, who quickly and adroitly turned the discussion into a left-right political debate complete with comments on the “social causes” of racism and poverty. Dr. Gordon was ostensibly inducted to be the discussant of the presentation.
However, Dr. Holzman spoke first with some interesting opening comments. She acknowledged that she had “been recently informed that complaints have been made about this presentation.” She asked if any “complainers” were in the audience, which may seem an odd question as there were a range of 12 to 16 people in the audience at various times in the presentation. Dr. Holzman nobly stated, “I encourage challenges and debates. I want to create together our psychology. I am from a passionate group of individuals with new approaches to community development.” She also stated that she had been presenting at APA conferences for “over 20 years” and “had heard no complaints before.”
This is not a true statement, or Dr. Holzman and the APA have an exceedingly short memory. At the APA conference in Chicago last year, I also attended one of Dr. Holzman’s presentations on the legacy of Fred Newman, among other topics. When she asked for questions of the audience, I asked her, “There have been newspaper reports and ex-member accounts that you operate a psychotherapeutic cult. Could you please respond to this allegation including your definition of what a cult is and what it is not?” Dr. Holzman refused to answer the question, and either would not or could not tell me what a cult was, but she was certain her group was not one. She refused to address the issue of ex-member complaints, and sat silently as I asked her the same question three times. I did bring this to the attention of then-APA president, Dr. Philip Zimbardo, but I don’t know if any action was ever initiated.
After 70 minutes of a 90-minute presentation, Dr. Holzman acknowledged my raised hand in pursuit of a question. I asked her a simple question; a question that every member of APA, and certainly every presenter at an APA conference, should be able and willing to answer. I asked Dr. Holzman, “As an APA member, do you ascribe to and uphold the APA Ethical Principles for Psychologists at your East Side Institute for Social Therapy?” Dr. Holzman replied, “That is not relevant to this discussion here.” I responded back. “You are speaking at a professional conference. You represent several organizations. You show yourself as the representative of these organizations in order to obtain permission to speak here today. Again, I ask you, do you ascribe to and uphold the APA Ethical Principles for Psychologists at your East Side Institute for Social Therapy?” Dr. Holzman again replied, “The question is not relevant.” I replied, “Do you refuse to answer?” Dr. Holzman replied, “The question is not relevant.”
Then, quick as a flash, Dr. Gordon jumped to Dr. Holzman’s rescue. He stated that the controversy with Social Therapy came from the “old Freudian thinking at APA” and from the “political right.” I responded by informing him that he knew nothing of the extent of the lie and the extent of the controversy. I asked permission from Dr. Gordon to leave a flyer so members of the audience could consider another side of Social Therapy (see http://www.ex-iwp.org ). While Dr. Holzman sat silent, Dr. Gordon provided permission for me to leave the flyer. Presenting alternative views is the essence of critical thinking (at least that’s what they taught us in graduate school). Dr. Holzman’s refusal is not keeping with the best pursuits of science. I and some of my colleagues have been concerned that some destructive cults may use professional and scientific platforms to gain credibility and respectability. I don’t want to see this happen to the APA.
It is appalling that Dr. Holzman cannot identify herself and her organizations as subscribing to the APA Ethical Standards for Psychologists regardless of her designated “agenda” and “topic.” I think the APA should take note of this refusal, and place it in context of the desire of psychology to have open debate, not refusal at an APA annual conference. If the APA is concerned about these questions, perhaps a deeper investigation should be made before Social Therapy and its various offshoots are again allowed to present at another APA conference. It is vital that the premier organization of psychology, the APA, look more closely at this matters in order to assure its membership that convention presenters have committed themselves to the highest standards of science, scholarship, openness, and respectful dialogue with other professionals.
I attended the APA (American Psychological Association) annual conference recently in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The convention had its share of problems before it even convened the week of August 6, 2003. One item of interest to me was the willingness of the APA Board to allow Dr. Lois Holzman and her various underlings to speak 4 times this year at the convention. Last year in Chicago, the APA only allowed Dr. Holzman and crew to speak once.
a
Dr. Holzman is affiliated with Fred Newman, and inhabits various incarnations, such as Social Therapy, All Stars Project, Inc., East Side Institute for Social Therapy (in New York City), Castillo Cultural Project, New Alliance Party, and sometimes, just plain International Workers Party (IWP). Many past members, including professional counselors/therapists and former patients, report abuses, deceit, and manipulation at the hands of Social Therapy and its various offshoots. There have been allegations of psychotherapeutic manipulation, lack of ethical integrity, boundary violations from professionals to students to staff to clients, financial improprieties, and various other problematic behaviors.
Many ex-members of Social Therapy say they've been subject to a mind control cult operating under the guise of a legitimate psychological movement. Individuals formerly involved with Social Therapy emphatically claim that they were deceived into a pseudo-postmodernistic social influence political movement. One useful model to assist in understanding how a destructive cult operates is Hassan’s BITE model (Hassan, 1988, 1998). Using social psychological principles, a destructive cult deliberately and deceitfully wrestles control of an individual’s behavior (B), information (I), thought (T), and emotions (E) through subtle processes (see http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourcecenter/articles/BITE.htm). Many other psychologists have also discussed the cult phenomena, including Drs. Margaret Singer, Phil Zimbardo, Stephen Kent, Steve Dubrow, and Michael Langone, just to name a few.
When word got around to concerned individuals that the APA had rewarded Social Therapy and Dr. Lois Holzman with four separate presentations this year at the APA conference, a small email campaign was launched with complaints about Social Therapy’s presence at the APA, and their seemingly transparent pretensions to science.
When word reached Dr. L. Michael Honaker, COO/Deputy CEO of the American Psychological Association that all was not bliss with Social Therapy’s presence at the convention, he responded:
“Thank you for your recent email concerning the participation of Drs. Lois Holzman and Fred Newman in our upcoming conference in Toronto. The APA Convention is a large 4-day meeting with over 4,000 presenters. It provides a forum for a wide variety of speakers and presentations. Dr. Holzman will participate in four convention sessions. She was invited to participate in those sessions after a review of her program proposals by peer committees that deemed the presentation appropriate for an APA convention.
Furthermore, Dr. Holzman has participated in APA conventions in the past and we have not received any complaints about the content of those presentations. However, the issues you raise are serious. We will monitor those sessions in which Dr. Holzman participates to hear what is said. We are also confident that if Dr. Holzman or anyone else were to express views that were prejudiced or potentially harmful to psychotherapy patients their APA colleagues would challenge those views. (emphasis added). Dr. Newman will not be participating in the meeting. Thank you again for bringing your concerns to our attention.”
L. Michael Holanker, Ph.D.
Chief Operating Officer/Deputy CEO
American Psychological Association
Executive Office
Email: mhonaker@apa.org
It should be noted that by the time the email campaign was initiated, Social Therapy was already on the APA convention program. It may have been difficult for the APA to completely remove them the program; thus, the presentations were allowed to go forward.
I personally attended Dr. Holzman’s first presentation on Saturday morning, August 9, 2003 (session #3079), entitled “Symposium: Impact of Participatory Youth Programs on Youth and Communities.” In addition to Dr. Holzman, in attendance were Barbara Silverman, who spoke on the broad subject of crises in education; Diann Eley, who spoke on the use of sports to aid “disaffected young people,” and Gloria Strickland, who spoke on the All Stars Project in New Jersey, wherein she uses theatre and the performing arts to “aid hundreds of inner city young people.” There were no APA staff or board members in attendance at this presentation.
The presence of APA board members at this session would have done a great deal to see the subtle nature of Social Therapy in action. Much of the presentation was geared toward mutual admiration of the panel’s “contributions to society,” with little opportunity for scholarly interaction with psychologists and others in the audience. An APA board member should have been there to document the one-sided nature of the presentation, and the impression that Dr. Holzman and company were merely pushing an agenda.
Arriving just as the presentation was to begin was Columbia University professor, Dr. Edmund Gordon, who quickly and adroitly turned the discussion into a left-right political debate complete with comments on the “social causes” of racism and poverty. Dr. Gordon was ostensibly inducted to be the discussant of the presentation.
However, Dr. Holzman spoke first with some interesting opening comments. She acknowledged that she had “been recently informed that complaints have been made about this presentation.” She asked if any “complainers” were in the audience, which may seem an odd question as there were a range of 12 to 16 people in the audience at various times in the presentation. Dr. Holzman nobly stated, “I encourage challenges and debates. I want to create together our psychology. I am from a passionate group of individuals with new approaches to community development.” She also stated that she had been presenting at APA conferences for “over 20 years” and “had heard no complaints before.”
This is not a true statement, or Dr. Holzman and the APA have an exceedingly short memory. At the APA conference in Chicago last year, I also attended one of Dr. Holzman’s presentations on the legacy of Fred Newman, among other topics. When she asked for questions of the audience, I asked her, “There have been newspaper reports and ex-member accounts that you operate a psychotherapeutic cult. Could you please respond to this allegation including your definition of what a cult is and what it is not?” Dr. Holzman refused to answer the question, and either would not or could not tell me what a cult was, but she was certain her group was not one. She refused to address the issue of ex-member complaints, and sat silently as I asked her the same question three times. I did bring this to the attention of then-APA president, Dr. Philip Zimbardo, but I don’t know if any action was ever initiated.
After 70 minutes of a 90-minute presentation, Dr. Holzman acknowledged my raised hand in pursuit of a question. I asked her a simple question; a question that every member of APA, and certainly every presenter at an APA conference, should be able and willing to answer. I asked Dr. Holzman, “As an APA member, do you ascribe to and uphold the APA Ethical Principles for Psychologists at your East Side Institute for Social Therapy?” Dr. Holzman replied, “That is not relevant to this discussion here.” I responded back. “You are speaking at a professional conference. You represent several organizations. You show yourself as the representative of these organizations in order to obtain permission to speak here today. Again, I ask you, do you ascribe to and uphold the APA Ethical Principles for Psychologists at your East Side Institute for Social Therapy?” Dr. Holzman again replied, “The question is not relevant.” I replied, “Do you refuse to answer?” Dr. Holzman replied, “The question is not relevant.”
Then, quick as a flash, Dr. Gordon jumped to Dr. Holzman’s rescue. He stated that the controversy with Social Therapy came from the “old Freudian thinking at APA” and from the “political right.” I responded by informing him that he knew nothing of the extent of the lie and the extent of the controversy. I asked permission from Dr. Gordon to leave a flyer so members of the audience could consider another side of Social Therapy (see http://www.ex-iwp.org ). While Dr. Holzman sat silent, Dr. Gordon provided permission for me to leave the flyer. Presenting alternative views is the essence of critical thinking (at least that’s what they taught us in graduate school). Dr. Holzman’s refusal is not keeping with the best pursuits of science. I and some of my colleagues have been concerned that some destructive cults may use professional and scientific platforms to gain credibility and respectability. I don’t want to see this happen to the APA.
It is appalling that Dr. Holzman cannot identify herself and her organizations as subscribing to the APA Ethical Standards for Psychologists regardless of her designated “agenda” and “topic.” I think the APA should take note of this refusal, and place it in context of the desire of psychology to have open debate, not refusal at an APA annual conference. If the APA is concerned about these questions, perhaps a deeper investigation should be made before Social Therapy and its various offshoots are again allowed to present at another APA conference. It is vital that the premier organization of psychology, the APA, look more closely at this matters in order to assure its membership that convention presenters have committed themselves to the highest standards of science, scholarship, openness, and respectful dialogue with other professionals.
Letter to Michael Bloomberg (2003)
The Honorable Michael Bloomberg
Mayor of the City of New York
City Hall
New York, NY 10007
Dear Mayor Bloomberg:
The Democratic Party machine and the Working Families Party recently mobilized 63
elected officials to sign on to a letter asking you to abandon your commitment to nonpartisan
elections. Did you note that their letter fails to mention that nonpartisans would not be enacted
by you, but by the voters? Democratic Party leaders love to substitute themselves for the people,
claiming (as always) that they know best.
Your promise on nonpartisans was to give the voters the right to decide the issue. We
presume that your commitment remains intact. The not-so-veiled threat made in the letter signed
by the Comptroller, the Public Advocate, three Borough Presidents, 19 members of the City
Council (with 37 Albany legislators and two members of Congress thrown in for good measure)
should be related to as what it is – a bullying tactic designed to deprive the voters of their right to
decide.
A few comments on their arguments against nonpartisans. They say party labels offset
“information and resource disadvantages” for poor, of-color and immigrant communities.
English translation: the above mentioned people are too stupid to choose a candidate on the
merits. In other words, if they don’t have party labels to guide them, they won’t know what to
think. We have more respect for the voters than that – not to mention the fact that many, many
New Yorkers ignored party labels altogether when they voted for you.
The opponents of nonpartisans argue that this reform will depress turnout. It’s hard to
imagine a more depressed level of participation than the one we currently have under a partisan
system. (A quick note here: in the special elections just conducted in February, the turnout rate in
the nonpartisan city council races was significantly higher than that of the partisan assembly
races.) Does a shift to nonpartisans guarantee a high turnout? No. Communities will have to
mobilize themselves under these changed conditions, but the changes create more incentive to do
so. Do partisan elections guarantee a continuation of low turnout? Yes.
Finally, your antagonists urge that you abandon nonpartisans because of the “rancor that
would inevitably accompany a charter amendment campaign.” At the Charter Revision
Commission hearings in Brooklyn last year the authors of the letter staged a major disruption, forcing their way into a filled-to-capacity room, shouting at the Commissioners and injuring a
security guard. This, apparently, is their idea of democratic public dialogue on the issue. Rancor?
The only rancor in the debate has come from them.
I imagine that what motivates the Working Families Party’s hysterical opposition to
nonpartisans is that it takes away the ballot line they have to wheel and deal within city politics.
As you recall from our discussions on this, the Independence Party supports nonpartisans (which
would similarly affect us) because we place the interests of the voters and the health of the
democratic process ahead of our own narrow interests. That’s what it means to be an independent
party.
I’ve seen the news reports that you’re moving ahead with a Commission. That’s great!
Let’s get the question before the voters and let the people decide.
Sincerely,
Jacqueline Salit
The Independence Party
225 Broadway, Suite 2010 ~ New York, NY 10007
Phone (212) 962-1699 Fax (212) 803-1899
Mayor of the City of New York
City Hall
New York, NY 10007
Dear Mayor Bloomberg:
The Democratic Party machine and the Working Families Party recently mobilized 63
elected officials to sign on to a letter asking you to abandon your commitment to nonpartisan
elections. Did you note that their letter fails to mention that nonpartisans would not be enacted
by you, but by the voters? Democratic Party leaders love to substitute themselves for the people,
claiming (as always) that they know best.
Your promise on nonpartisans was to give the voters the right to decide the issue. We
presume that your commitment remains intact. The not-so-veiled threat made in the letter signed
by the Comptroller, the Public Advocate, three Borough Presidents, 19 members of the City
Council (with 37 Albany legislators and two members of Congress thrown in for good measure)
should be related to as what it is – a bullying tactic designed to deprive the voters of their right to
decide.
A few comments on their arguments against nonpartisans. They say party labels offset
“information and resource disadvantages” for poor, of-color and immigrant communities.
English translation: the above mentioned people are too stupid to choose a candidate on the
merits. In other words, if they don’t have party labels to guide them, they won’t know what to
think. We have more respect for the voters than that – not to mention the fact that many, many
New Yorkers ignored party labels altogether when they voted for you.
The opponents of nonpartisans argue that this reform will depress turnout. It’s hard to
imagine a more depressed level of participation than the one we currently have under a partisan
system. (A quick note here: in the special elections just conducted in February, the turnout rate in
the nonpartisan city council races was significantly higher than that of the partisan assembly
races.) Does a shift to nonpartisans guarantee a high turnout? No. Communities will have to
mobilize themselves under these changed conditions, but the changes create more incentive to do
so. Do partisan elections guarantee a continuation of low turnout? Yes.
Finally, your antagonists urge that you abandon nonpartisans because of the “rancor that
would inevitably accompany a charter amendment campaign.” At the Charter Revision
Commission hearings in Brooklyn last year the authors of the letter staged a major disruption, forcing their way into a filled-to-capacity room, shouting at the Commissioners and injuring a
security guard. This, apparently, is their idea of democratic public dialogue on the issue. Rancor?
The only rancor in the debate has come from them.
I imagine that what motivates the Working Families Party’s hysterical opposition to
nonpartisans is that it takes away the ballot line they have to wheel and deal within city politics.
As you recall from our discussions on this, the Independence Party supports nonpartisans (which
would similarly affect us) because we place the interests of the voters and the health of the
democratic process ahead of our own narrow interests. That’s what it means to be an independent
party.
I’ve seen the news reports that you’re moving ahead with a Commission. That’s great!
Let’s get the question before the voters and let the people decide.
Sincerely,
Jacqueline Salit
The Independence Party
225 Broadway, Suite 2010 ~ New York, NY 10007
Phone (212) 962-1699 Fax (212) 803-1899
Speech to the Reform Party National Convention (2000)
By Dr. Lenora Fulani, August 11, 2000
It's great to be here. Thank you all for that beautiful welcome last night. It's great to have a credential you can count on. As you know, I've been a political independent for a long time. I first ran for office as an independent almost 20 years ago, in the days when, if you told people you were an independent, they looked at you as if you had just come from Mars.
Today, the American independent is the new force in national politics. We're the wild card. And it certainly has been wild. And it looks like that's going to continue. I like that feature of our movement.
Since the very start I've been something of a conatroversial figure myself. Some people have objected to me on the grounds that I am too radical that I am a left winger, a progressive, a revolutionary and that a storm of controversy follows my every move. I want to address that reputation today. I want to address it because I believe it is at the very heart of the issues and the choices that face us, the Reform Party and the entire independent movement.
Let me get right to the point. The issue that we face is whether or not we are a revolutionary movement. What does that mean? What does it mean to be a revolutionary movement in the year 2000? Here's what it means to me. It means being a movement dedicated to completing the first American Revolution by challenging the basic formula that is contemporary America a formula in which corporate interests rule and democracy takes a back seat. I believe we are a revolutionary movement. I believe we must be. American politics is too corrupt for us to be anything but. And let me tell you something more. If our Founding Fathers George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and Benjamin Franklin and Tom Paine, and if you'll grant me historical license, Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony were in this room with us today, they'd be standing up here with me. They'd be saying to all of you Fellow Citizens, aren't you ready to stand up to tyranny? Don't you love freedom and liberty sufficiently to challenge the old order? Do you not understand that to be a patriot is to be a revolutionary?
Fellow Reformers, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson would not be on the side of the nay sayers who counsel us to avoid controversy, to appear moderate and to walk the straight and narrow. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson would be on my side because I am like them. I am cut from the same cloth.
Some people like to call me names and believe me, I've been called plenty. There's nothing I haven't been called: Left wing, Right wing, Nigger, Jew lover, Jew hater, Pervert, Provocateur, Opportunist. I've heard it all. And then some. But General Washington and Mr. Jefferson slave owners though they might have been were also revolutionaries. And I am certain, if they could rise from the dead this morning, they'd join me at this podium and say, Lenora Fulani? We know her. She's with us. She's an American Revolutionary. Aren't you?
But what does it really mean to be a revolutionary in this new and high tech and frightening millennium? It means continuing the revolutionary process not violently but powerfully such that we can engage the fundamental contradiction of the American experience. What is that contradiction? It's that while we believe with all our heart in democracy, we have been willing to compromise it for the good of the economy.
The deepest conflict among the Founding Fathers let us not forget was the issue of slavery. While virtually everyone knew it to be morally wrong, the institution was allowed to exist because it made the economy thrive. And so the democratic rights of a whole race of people were abrogated because slavery enriched the U.S. economy.
It is not altogether different from the circumstances we face today. The globalists argue that NAFTA, the WTO and a general trade policy that unleashes multi-national corporations around the globe are good for the economy. The negative impact on Americans workers, on the environment and on long term economic development is supposed to be considered negligible. We don't believe it is negligible. But there is a far more profound problem at hand. For the globalist special interests have stolen our government so that they can prioritize their economic interests over all else. Some argue that the problem with the two parties is that they are captive to the special interests. I disagree. They are not captive to the special interests. They are the special interests. And they rule unequivocally on behalf of the globalists.
That's why Ross Perot told the American people, when he first ran for President, that we had to take our government back. That we, the people, had to set the terms on which business does business. We're not anti business. We're pro democracy and we believe this is our country and we have the right to run it.
Sometimes people will say to us, "Oh, that political reform stuff very interesting. But what do you stand for?" Here's our answer: We stand for the democratic right of the people of this country all the people of this country to collectively and democratically determine our economic, social, cultural, and policy priorities. The two parties have usurped that right. And we must re assert it.
The Reform Party has been through tremendous turmoil in the last year. I don't have to recapitulate it for all of you, because you lived it we lived it, together. Some people have said to me that they have been beaten down by it. They feel demoralized, angered, and despairing. I can understand those feelings. I have felt them myself. I was, after all, a supporter of Pat Buchanan, before he betrayed his commitment to build this party on a pro democracy, left/center/right foundation. But, I want to thank Pat Buchanan. Yes, I want to thank him. Here's why. I think Pat, by his presence and his neo reactionary takeover attempt of our party, has taught us a very important lesson. A lesson we needed to learn. He taught us that we you and I and millions of liberty loving Americans across the country, built something of extraordinary value, something he wanted so badly that he was willing to commit fraud to try to get.
We belittle ourselves if we think it's just the $13 million. Yes, Pat wants the money. And John Hagelin will hopefully prevent him from getting his hands on it. But this party, if it remains honest and uncorrupted, and this movement this revolutionary movement are things of extraordinary value to ordinary people. But there's another lesson to be learned here, too. It's a harder one to learn. It's a lesson about building building from the bottom up. A lot of people are angry at Pat Buchanan. They're angry because he came in and tried to take over our party. But if we're serious independents, and genuine revolutionaries, we have to ask ourselves how that happened. I think it happened because in many states, the party had simply not been built at the grassroots. When Pat Buchanan came in with 25 followers here and 70 followers.
There, he could make a power grab. How did that happen? How did a movement, which attracted 20 million Americans in 1992 and 8 1/2 million Americans in 1996, find itself with a political party in the year 2000 that was so vulnerable to being overrun by 300 Buchanan Brigadiers?
We find ourselves in this situation, fellow Reformers, because we failed to build the party from the bottom up. We remained too dependent on a top down model for party building, and that simply will not work. We were created by the 8/1/2 million votes cast for Ross Perot in 1996. We honor and respect Mr. Perot for that catalytic contribution. But we will not succeed in our historic mission if we rely on a model of party building that rests solely on big names and big money.
In New York, we have a state party that was created by a millionaire independent Tom Golisano, who spent $8 million on a run for governor in 1994 to poll 217,000 votes which won ballot status for the Independence Party. But in New York, hundreds of party activists believed that we had to take the gift we had been given and make it our own. And so we went out and built that party so that it now has 175,000 members and vibrant broad based democratic structures making it the largest and most significant state party organization in the Reform Party and an increasingly pivotal force in New York State politics.
In my view, we have paid too little attention to the New York model and too much attention to waiting for the next big name or big money to come along. That has hurt the party and hurt the movement. We have paid a price for that error. How big of a price we do not yet know.
But we must move on. And we will. And I must say that one of the things I like best about John Hagelin is that he is not a big name and he has no big money. But he's been out there building and organizing and getting on the ballot and bringing new blood into the Reform Party and into independent politics. That's who I think deserves the nomination of the Reform Party.
If you watched any of the Republican National Convention, as I did, you may have been astounded as I was, by the seeming transformation of that party. I was deeply touched by Colin Powell. I was thrilled to see John McCain. But if you look closely at that party, in spite of its new openness and inclusivity you can see that while Colin Powell and John McCain are permitted to speak, they will not be permitted to lead. It is not a revolutionary party. It's a special interest party. That's why, in my opinion, they both ultimately belong with us in the independent movement.
And we must carry on building our movement. The destructive divisions and unhealthy fractiousness in Reform did not begin on the day Pat Buchanan arrived. They will not be overcome merely by our shared opposition to his effort to transform us into a party of social conservatism. Nor will they be overcome by our trying to recreate ourselves as some bland and non controversial element hoping to survive the election and somehow, magically, get 5% of the vote.
Controversy is our business. We're the people who want to bring down the two party system. We're the people who want to open up the debates, close down the FEC and throw the corrupt politicians and their globalist benefactors out of office. If that ain't controversial, I don't know what is.
I am proud to be with all of you today. I fully expected that our New York delegation would be de credentialed by the Buchanan convention because democracy is out the window over there and so is election law and the constitution. I want to take a moment to acknowledge those delegates, our state chairman Frank MacKay, our most able delegation organizer Cathy Stewart, and our brilliant attorney Harry Kresky. They are some serious party builders and serious fighters. We're fighting hard for the heart and
soul of our movement. And we are proud to be fighting alongside John Hagelin, soon to be our Presidential nominee. John Hagelin is a good and decent and highly intelligent and articulate spokesman for our cause. You all know that.
And you know, of course, that when we turned to him to champion the fight to preserve democracy in our party, he responded with enthusiasm and wit and grace. But let me tell you something else about John Hagelin that you may not have fully grasped. He's got real guts. There were a lot of people out there in the media, in the two parties, on the right and on the left who couldn't wait to attack Pat Buchanan. It was sound bite heaven for every would be, has been, wannabee political type across the spectrum, including some people who like to think of themselves as independents. But you know something? None of them, not one, was willing to come out and get into the Reform Party primary to have the fight the fight for the heart and soul of not just the Reform Party but of our revolutionary independent movement. None, except John Hagelin.
Let me leave you with this. If George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and Frederick Douglass were here today, do you know what they'd be doing? They'd be standing up with the American Revolutionary, John Hagelin. And do you know who else would be up here? The great Revolutionary War naval commander and hero, John Paul Jones. In a critical naval battle in 1779, under constant fire from the better armed and better equipped British Navy, Jones rallied his forces with words that inspire us today. "We have not yet begun to fight," he cried. Several hours later, the British ship Serapis was forced to surrender to Jones and the revolutionary forces. And so, in the great tradition of our American Revolution which continues to this day I send this message to all who would try to denigrate or derail our independent populist revolution: We have not yet begun to fight!
It's great to be here. Thank you all for that beautiful welcome last night. It's great to have a credential you can count on. As you know, I've been a political independent for a long time. I first ran for office as an independent almost 20 years ago, in the days when, if you told people you were an independent, they looked at you as if you had just come from Mars.
Today, the American independent is the new force in national politics. We're the wild card. And it certainly has been wild. And it looks like that's going to continue. I like that feature of our movement.
Since the very start I've been something of a conatroversial figure myself. Some people have objected to me on the grounds that I am too radical that I am a left winger, a progressive, a revolutionary and that a storm of controversy follows my every move. I want to address that reputation today. I want to address it because I believe it is at the very heart of the issues and the choices that face us, the Reform Party and the entire independent movement.
Let me get right to the point. The issue that we face is whether or not we are a revolutionary movement. What does that mean? What does it mean to be a revolutionary movement in the year 2000? Here's what it means to me. It means being a movement dedicated to completing the first American Revolution by challenging the basic formula that is contemporary America a formula in which corporate interests rule and democracy takes a back seat. I believe we are a revolutionary movement. I believe we must be. American politics is too corrupt for us to be anything but. And let me tell you something more. If our Founding Fathers George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and Benjamin Franklin and Tom Paine, and if you'll grant me historical license, Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony were in this room with us today, they'd be standing up here with me. They'd be saying to all of you Fellow Citizens, aren't you ready to stand up to tyranny? Don't you love freedom and liberty sufficiently to challenge the old order? Do you not understand that to be a patriot is to be a revolutionary?
Fellow Reformers, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson would not be on the side of the nay sayers who counsel us to avoid controversy, to appear moderate and to walk the straight and narrow. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson would be on my side because I am like them. I am cut from the same cloth.
Some people like to call me names and believe me, I've been called plenty. There's nothing I haven't been called: Left wing, Right wing, Nigger, Jew lover, Jew hater, Pervert, Provocateur, Opportunist. I've heard it all. And then some. But General Washington and Mr. Jefferson slave owners though they might have been were also revolutionaries. And I am certain, if they could rise from the dead this morning, they'd join me at this podium and say, Lenora Fulani? We know her. She's with us. She's an American Revolutionary. Aren't you?
But what does it really mean to be a revolutionary in this new and high tech and frightening millennium? It means continuing the revolutionary process not violently but powerfully such that we can engage the fundamental contradiction of the American experience. What is that contradiction? It's that while we believe with all our heart in democracy, we have been willing to compromise it for the good of the economy.
The deepest conflict among the Founding Fathers let us not forget was the issue of slavery. While virtually everyone knew it to be morally wrong, the institution was allowed to exist because it made the economy thrive. And so the democratic rights of a whole race of people were abrogated because slavery enriched the U.S. economy.
It is not altogether different from the circumstances we face today. The globalists argue that NAFTA, the WTO and a general trade policy that unleashes multi-national corporations around the globe are good for the economy. The negative impact on Americans workers, on the environment and on long term economic development is supposed to be considered negligible. We don't believe it is negligible. But there is a far more profound problem at hand. For the globalist special interests have stolen our government so that they can prioritize their economic interests over all else. Some argue that the problem with the two parties is that they are captive to the special interests. I disagree. They are not captive to the special interests. They are the special interests. And they rule unequivocally on behalf of the globalists.
That's why Ross Perot told the American people, when he first ran for President, that we had to take our government back. That we, the people, had to set the terms on which business does business. We're not anti business. We're pro democracy and we believe this is our country and we have the right to run it.
Sometimes people will say to us, "Oh, that political reform stuff very interesting. But what do you stand for?" Here's our answer: We stand for the democratic right of the people of this country all the people of this country to collectively and democratically determine our economic, social, cultural, and policy priorities. The two parties have usurped that right. And we must re assert it.
The Reform Party has been through tremendous turmoil in the last year. I don't have to recapitulate it for all of you, because you lived it we lived it, together. Some people have said to me that they have been beaten down by it. They feel demoralized, angered, and despairing. I can understand those feelings. I have felt them myself. I was, after all, a supporter of Pat Buchanan, before he betrayed his commitment to build this party on a pro democracy, left/center/right foundation. But, I want to thank Pat Buchanan. Yes, I want to thank him. Here's why. I think Pat, by his presence and his neo reactionary takeover attempt of our party, has taught us a very important lesson. A lesson we needed to learn. He taught us that we you and I and millions of liberty loving Americans across the country, built something of extraordinary value, something he wanted so badly that he was willing to commit fraud to try to get.
We belittle ourselves if we think it's just the $13 million. Yes, Pat wants the money. And John Hagelin will hopefully prevent him from getting his hands on it. But this party, if it remains honest and uncorrupted, and this movement this revolutionary movement are things of extraordinary value to ordinary people. But there's another lesson to be learned here, too. It's a harder one to learn. It's a lesson about building building from the bottom up. A lot of people are angry at Pat Buchanan. They're angry because he came in and tried to take over our party. But if we're serious independents, and genuine revolutionaries, we have to ask ourselves how that happened. I think it happened because in many states, the party had simply not been built at the grassroots. When Pat Buchanan came in with 25 followers here and 70 followers.
There, he could make a power grab. How did that happen? How did a movement, which attracted 20 million Americans in 1992 and 8 1/2 million Americans in 1996, find itself with a political party in the year 2000 that was so vulnerable to being overrun by 300 Buchanan Brigadiers?
We find ourselves in this situation, fellow Reformers, because we failed to build the party from the bottom up. We remained too dependent on a top down model for party building, and that simply will not work. We were created by the 8/1/2 million votes cast for Ross Perot in 1996. We honor and respect Mr. Perot for that catalytic contribution. But we will not succeed in our historic mission if we rely on a model of party building that rests solely on big names and big money.
In New York, we have a state party that was created by a millionaire independent Tom Golisano, who spent $8 million on a run for governor in 1994 to poll 217,000 votes which won ballot status for the Independence Party. But in New York, hundreds of party activists believed that we had to take the gift we had been given and make it our own. And so we went out and built that party so that it now has 175,000 members and vibrant broad based democratic structures making it the largest and most significant state party organization in the Reform Party and an increasingly pivotal force in New York State politics.
In my view, we have paid too little attention to the New York model and too much attention to waiting for the next big name or big money to come along. That has hurt the party and hurt the movement. We have paid a price for that error. How big of a price we do not yet know.
But we must move on. And we will. And I must say that one of the things I like best about John Hagelin is that he is not a big name and he has no big money. But he's been out there building and organizing and getting on the ballot and bringing new blood into the Reform Party and into independent politics. That's who I think deserves the nomination of the Reform Party.
If you watched any of the Republican National Convention, as I did, you may have been astounded as I was, by the seeming transformation of that party. I was deeply touched by Colin Powell. I was thrilled to see John McCain. But if you look closely at that party, in spite of its new openness and inclusivity you can see that while Colin Powell and John McCain are permitted to speak, they will not be permitted to lead. It is not a revolutionary party. It's a special interest party. That's why, in my opinion, they both ultimately belong with us in the independent movement.
And we must carry on building our movement. The destructive divisions and unhealthy fractiousness in Reform did not begin on the day Pat Buchanan arrived. They will not be overcome merely by our shared opposition to his effort to transform us into a party of social conservatism. Nor will they be overcome by our trying to recreate ourselves as some bland and non controversial element hoping to survive the election and somehow, magically, get 5% of the vote.
Controversy is our business. We're the people who want to bring down the two party system. We're the people who want to open up the debates, close down the FEC and throw the corrupt politicians and their globalist benefactors out of office. If that ain't controversial, I don't know what is.
I am proud to be with all of you today. I fully expected that our New York delegation would be de credentialed by the Buchanan convention because democracy is out the window over there and so is election law and the constitution. I want to take a moment to acknowledge those delegates, our state chairman Frank MacKay, our most able delegation organizer Cathy Stewart, and our brilliant attorney Harry Kresky. They are some serious party builders and serious fighters. We're fighting hard for the heart and
soul of our movement. And we are proud to be fighting alongside John Hagelin, soon to be our Presidential nominee. John Hagelin is a good and decent and highly intelligent and articulate spokesman for our cause. You all know that.
And you know, of course, that when we turned to him to champion the fight to preserve democracy in our party, he responded with enthusiasm and wit and grace. But let me tell you something else about John Hagelin that you may not have fully grasped. He's got real guts. There were a lot of people out there in the media, in the two parties, on the right and on the left who couldn't wait to attack Pat Buchanan. It was sound bite heaven for every would be, has been, wannabee political type across the spectrum, including some people who like to think of themselves as independents. But you know something? None of them, not one, was willing to come out and get into the Reform Party primary to have the fight the fight for the heart and soul of not just the Reform Party but of our revolutionary independent movement. None, except John Hagelin.
Let me leave you with this. If George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and Frederick Douglass were here today, do you know what they'd be doing? They'd be standing up with the American Revolutionary, John Hagelin. And do you know who else would be up here? The great Revolutionary War naval commander and hero, John Paul Jones. In a critical naval battle in 1779, under constant fire from the better armed and better equipped British Navy, Jones rallied his forces with words that inspire us today. "We have not yet begun to fight," he cried. Several hours later, the British ship Serapis was forced to surrender to Jones and the revolutionary forces. And so, in the great tradition of our American Revolution which continues to this day I send this message to all who would try to denigrate or derail our independent populist revolution: We have not yet begun to fight!
Fred Newman: Lenin as Therapist (2000)
[Chapter 7 of "On the Edge: Political Cults Right and Left"]
By Dennis Tourish & Tim Wohlforth, 2000
Pat Buchanan and That Woman
In the fall of 1999 Pat Buchanan sat down to lunch with Dr. Lenora Fulani. A pretty, light-skinned African American woman, conservatively dressed, with close-cropped hair, Fulani was by no means a novice to politics. She had been the 1992 presidential candidate of the New Alliance Party (NAP). The party qualified for more than $1 million in federal matching funds and was on the ballot in nearly all fifty states. In the past Fulani had supported Jesse Jackson and had been a close confidante of Louis Farrakhan and the Reverend Al Sharpton. She had a reputation as an outspoken lesbian and a defender of abortion rights. Buchanan was on a tour promoting a book in which he expressed the view that the United States should not have interfered with Hitler, his subjugation of Europe, and the Holocaust. Some eyebrows were raised in the mainstream press corps.
During an interview later that day, Buchanan was asked about his relations with the "black-nationalist Marxist." His eyes narrowed and he answered: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Lenora Fulani."1 Political relations, however, were a different matter. Fulani was about to launch her latest grand political maneuver, promoting Buchanan as the presidential candidate of the Reform Party.
Fred Newman runs the cult, which fuses politics seamlessly with psychotherapy. While Newman is little known, Dr. Lenora Fulani is a national media figure. The Newmanites prove that cults can affect mainstream politics in the United States in a dangerous way. At the same time Newman's distinctive method of cadre recruitment gives us an insight into the psychology of cult organization in general.
The Cult's Obscure Origins
Fred Newman, a Korean War veteran, was awarded a Ph.D. in the philosophy of science from Stanford University.2 He has had no formal training in any branch of psychology. He turned to a Maoist version of Marxism in the mid-1960s. In 1970 Newman gathered together a tiny collective, which shared a communal apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side. This was a moment when the left was searching for a road forward after the collapse of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the New Left generally, while a cultural revolution was in full swing. Newman's collective, much like Harvey Jackins' reevaluation counseling (see chapter 6), combined the radical politics of the sixties with the New Age therapy of the seventies. The result was a potent mixture of cultic consequences.
They named their collective "If . Then."3 While Jackins stressed techniques of co-counseling in which therapist and patient exchange places, Newman developed a group version of radical therapy led by a therapist, which he called "social therapy" or "crisis normalization."4 All members underwent therapy while they, at the same time, carried out political activity. By 1973 the group was called Centers for Change (CFC). "CFC is," Newman explained, "a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist organization."4
The origins of the group in a communal setting gave it a cult-like character from the very beginning. This aspect of Newman's operation did not change. Its core members have lived in shared facilities or are closely linked to such communes. Core members are expected to quit their jobs, sell their private possessions, and earn a meager living through such activities as soliciting funds on street corners.
In Bed with Lyndon LaRouche
For approximately one year, from the middle of 1973 until the end of August in 1974, Newman's group was under the influence of Lyndon LaRouche (see chapter 5). The "United Front," was formed, consisting of LaRouche's National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC), Newman's Center for Change, and a third group led by Eugenio Perente-Ramos (this later became another cult, the Communist Party U.S.A. (Provisional) (CPUSA [P])-see chapter 12). Joint forums were held and activities coordinated. On June 1, 1974, Newman wrote, "We have traveled from a community based storefront, to a health-service collective, to a cadre socialist organization. We have traveled from non-existence to existence and finally back to non-existence at a higher level. For CFC is disbanded. We move, not as a collective, but as self- conscious human beings into the National Caucus of Labor Committees."6
Fred Newman's comment about moving into the NCLC "not as a collective" proved to be a bit disingenuous. Then again, a cultist like LaRouche should have been sharp enough to spot another cultist. The group had been formed around the personality of Fred Newman, they all underwent continuous group therapy under his guidance, and they shared common living quarters. The Newman group continued to operate in lockstep while within the NCLC. It should therefore come as no shock that the fusion did not work out. The two gurus inevitably clashed. In late August 1974 Newman and thirty-eight followers walked out of the NCLC to form the International Workers Party (IWP). Newman announced that his tiny group had "now become the vanguard of the working class." Newman declared: "The organization of the vanguard party is, as Marx makes clear, the organization of the class. The formation of the IWP had grown from our attempt to organize the [NCLC] from within that it might move from a position of left hegemony to a position of leadership of the class."7
Newman's period of association with LaRouche was to have a major impact on his thinking and future development. It is significant that he joined up with LaRouche precisely at the moment when the NCLC was moving from left to right and engaging in some rather bizarre conduct. Newman contacted LaRouche within weeks of the conclusion of his "Operation Mop- Up," involving physical attacks on the left.
Newman declared in 1974 that "the former workers of CFC will organize in the spirit outlined by Marcus [Lyndon LaRouche]."8 He wrote a book that contained extensive quotations from LaRouche. He echoed LaRouche's catastrophism, seeing the United States as facing "the grim reality of cannibalization and encroaching fascism."9 He agreed with LaRouche that a "massive fascist brainwashing" was taking place. Like LaRouche, he dismissed most of the left: "Black nationalism, community control, feminism, the petty bourgeois movement, gay pride, worker participation programs, trade union parochialism, and so on, are concepts devised by the fascists to locate a group's identity in something other than the working class." 10
In 1974 Newman declared that "Liberalism is fascism. The liberal do-gooders are the fascists."11 And, "'The Left Movement' or 'The Radical Movement' or 'The Movement' . is the CIA-developed deterrent to the development of a vanguard party... Fortunately there are some around working to destroy the CIA controlled left movement. Lyn Marcus and the NCLC are such a group."12
While Newman never again publicly referred to the left in such terms, he was never really part of the left. His relationship was more that of a predator: from time to time running in Democratic primaries, moving into existing leftist organizations with the aim of taking them over, and utilizing prominent black leaders to advance his own aims.
Just as important, there was a concurrence between LaRouche and Newman on the critical questions of the role of leadership, cadre formation, and the mental manipulation of the membership. LaRouche brought to the "United Front" a far more developed distortion of Marxism than anything Newman had been able to extract from Mao Tse-Tung. Crucial was the linking of an apocalyptic crisis theory with the necessity of creating an elite cadre.
Newman contributed his knowledge of psychotherapy and experience gained in transforming his followers through these techniques into political operators. We suspect that LaRouche's rantings about impotency and his ego-stripping sessions were at least partially inspired by Newman, who claimed that "all psychic problems are correctly diagnosed as impotency." 13
After parting, the political evolution of the two gurus was, on the surface, quite different. LaRouche transformed his hostility toward the left and its constituents into a new rightist ideology with links to fascism. Newman continued to function politically on the left until 1994, when he began to move into the right-centrist Perot movement. Yet both leaders shared a common disdain for ordinary citizens, who were to be manipulated; for their members, who were transformed into robots to be used to do the manipulation; and for the democratic norms of a pluralistic society.
The Theory of Proletarian Psychotherapy
Fred Newman developed, in his 1974 book Power and Authority, a theory of the mind and its relation to society that has served him well as a justification for the existence of his cult and has aided him in controlling his followers. Newman saw revolution as a two-level process: the external overthrow of the bourgeoisie and its state and the internal overthrow of the "Bourgeois ego."
We must learn, he insisted, to see "in both directions-inside and outside."14 "Proletarian or revolutionary psychotherapy is . the overthrow of the rulers of the mind by the workers of the mind."15 "Revolutionary therapy," he stated, "involves an act of insurrection; of overthrow."16 Through this act the "bourgeois ego" is replaced by the "proletarian ego." "The proletarian or revolutionary therapist is . a leader."17 This internal revolution is followed by "a long period of the withering away of the proletarian ego."18
Newman viewed the "bourgeois ego" as the automatic product of the capitalist system. Drawing from Marx via Lenin and LaRouche, he concluded that "the self-interested, rational individual is guided by a ruling class imposed conscience (or super ego) which she or he transforms into a self controlling bourgeois ego." 19
This view could be interpreted as a reasonable distillation of Marx's concept of alienation. Capitalism tends to atomize people. People then relate to each other in the belief that they are acting autonomously in their own self-interest. Actually their relations are being determined by market forces and their thinking is influenced by the dominant capitalist culture and institutions.
Marx, however, noted countervailing effects of capitalist relations upon the worker. The very organization of the production process brought workers together collectively, creating the conditions for their common action, such as trade union organization and the formation of workers' parties. Newman, following upon Lenin and LaRouche, dismissed such processes as expressions of "trade union parochialism" and therefore reactionary. He proposed "therapy" as a substitute.
A difficulty arises out of Newman's efforts to "overthrow" the individual's "bourgeois" ego through a therapeutic act while the capitalist system remains intact and functioning. The discarded ego is actually the only individual identity a person is capable of developing and sustaining within a capitalist society. Its dissolution creates a vacuum that is filled by the ego of the therapist. The therapist's ego is no less shaped by the society within which he functions. The guru therapist's desire to control others, manipulate others, and drive others to carry out his wishes represents a demented form of the worse features of personality in contemporary capitalist society.
Newman developed a critique of Freudian and all other forms of psychotherapy, labeling them "bourgeois." Bourgeois psychology (read "all therapies excluding Newman's") "entails an act of transference (making the therapist into a substitute conscience and, at the same time, into a 'temporary' oppressive ruler) and eventually this transferential act itself must be analyzed and undone.. The bourgeois authoritarian leader allows a temporary and controlled regression to the bourgeois id and then leads the patient back again to her or his bourgeois ego."20
These therapies, in Newman's view, take a patient with a wounded ego; pass her or him through a process of transference; and, ending the transference, rebuild a healthy independent ego in the person. However, Newman believed, this process simply strengthened the "bourgeois ego," that is the mind control of a sick society. He believed the very concept of a "self-interested rational individual" was reactionary.
What then is to be done? As part of a group therapy practice, the "leadership" of the therapist is required to carry through an insurrection against individual egoism. Once the "proletarian ego" is installed, the therapy is by no means at an end. It continues and is coordinated with revolutionary activity. "Revolutionary therapy becomes more and more indistinguishable from revolutionary organizing."21 The victory of the "proletarian ego" over the "bourgeois ego" is thus expressed in the patient's complete devotion to the political causes espoused by Fred Newman.
Normal therapy is designed to be completed during a limited time period. The patient may be emotionally bound through the transference process to his or her therapist for a period of time. However, health comes through the ending of the transference process and the restoration of the patient's own sense of self and emotional independence. Not so in Newman's "social therapy." The process of transference, and therefore dependence upon the therapist, is never ending!
The difficulty is that the "proletarian ego"-read "emotional dependence on Newman"-withers away only when the proletarian state withers away. Since the creation of a proletarian state does not appear to be imminent in the United States or any other advanced country, and further, since all attempts to create such states have so far led to growth rather than withering away, the patient must remain dependent on Newman indefinitely. In the case of Newman's oldest adherents, this dependency has persisted for more than twenty-five years!
The doctrines explicitly developed in this book continued to guide Newman's practice right up to the current period. Dr. Lenora Fulani, the group's spokesperson, wrote in 1989: "One of the earliest statements on the foundations of Social Therapy is contained in a book written by Newman in 1974 entitled Power and Authority. It states that psychic and emotional life in contemporary society reflects the political and economic degeneration of capitalism."22
The International Workers Party and the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Having founded the IWP, Fred Newman was not quite sure what to do with it. For a brief period he sought unification with various small Trotskyist groups as well as Marlene Dixon's Democratic Workers Party (see chapter 9). In June 1975 the Newmanites were admitted into the Peoples Party, a forerunner of the Citizens Party that ran Barry Commoner for president in 1980. A bitter internal struggle ensued, which almost destroyed the small party. The group was expelled in March 1978.23
It was in this period that Fred Newman developed a curious relationship with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). In April 1974 Jim Retherford left the therapy cult. He had had a child with Ann Green, a devoted member who stayed with Newman. After Newman took his followers into the NCLC, Retherford, not wanting his son to be raised by people he viewed as crazy, took him away without the mother's permission and left town. Green appealed to Newman who enlisted the help of two young lawyers, one named Harry Kresky, who were cult members. Together they developed a strategy that they hoped would enlist the aid of the federal government in finding Retherford and the child.
The lawyers contacted the FBI and arranged a meeting between Green and its agents. Green told them that Retherford was a former member of the Weather Underground and maintained relations with Jane Alpert, at that time a fugitive. Kresky met with representatives of the U.S. attorney in New York, giving them the same information.
The matter was brought out into the open in 1976. A meeting was held at St. Gregory's Church on the Upper West Side to form the New York State Working Peoples Party, a forerunner of the New Alliance Party. A group called the Communist Cadre, which had recently split from Newman's IWP, issued a statement primarily devoted to the Retherford matter.24 They accused Newman of working with the FBI. The IWP, in an answer to the charges, admitted that the events had occurred but held three members, not Newman, responsible.25 King, however, believes that it is "unthinkable" that Kresky and Green, loyal followers, could have acted without Newman's full knowledge and approval.26
This incident raises a question fairly early on in Newman's political evolution about the seriousness of his commitment to the left and its causes. Our study of political cults complements the conclusions reached by those who have studied a broader array of cult types: they operate in the interest of their leaders rather than for the purposes they are purportedly created to promote.
A West Side Story
In 1977 Fred Newman turned his attention to the politics of New York City's Upper West Side. The area was and is among the most sophisticated liberal political strongholds in the nation. His activities caused concern among political activists. Newman's group had resurfaced as the New York City Unemployed and Welfare Council.
He caused a stir when he ran a key follower, Nancy Ross, for local school board and actually won. The startled liberal politicos decided to look a bit deeper at Newman, his past, and his current practices. Dennis King, who was later to write a book about Lyndon LaRouche,27 conducted an investigation of the group, interviewing over thirty people, including many former members. For the first time Fred Newman found himself publicly accused of leading a "therapy cult."
There are about 35 individuals in the inner circle of the cult, most living in semi-communal apartments on the Upper West Side. Through the years, a combination of group pressure and Newman's directive therapy had induced most of them to give up their jobs and to break off all meaningful personal ties outside the group. Likewise they have been induced to turn over all personal property and savings to the cult. They regard themselves as full-time organizers for the cult's front groups, operating under tight discipline and secrecy. They eat and pay their rent through a variety of parasitical activities, such as street corner solicitations, the practice of amateur psychotherapy, the dunning of past and present patients for "political contributions," and the occasional plucking of an inheritance or trust fund from a patient.28
Newman acted as a "benevolent despot," to use his own words. "Fred's veneer of compassion and his deep-set Rasputin-type eyes created strong transference feelings in . [his] patients."29
"His groupies," King explained, "cut off from the outside world and with almost every waking hour spent either in 'busywork' or interminable meetings (so that independent thought could be kept at a minimum), had no feedback from reality."30
When Nancy Ross campaigned for the school board, she insisted that the IWP had been disbanded. Newman's front organization, the New York City Unemployed and Welfare Council, issued a statement that the party had disbanded shortly after the factional struggle in 1976. However, Jack Finn, another reporter for Heights and Valley News, discovered that the IWP continued to exist in a "clandestine" fashion. It issued at least a dozen issues of an internal bulletin, "Party Building." These bulletins referred to the ongoing work of a "central committee" and of "chairman Fred Newman." There were mention of the "Party" and the "work of the Party," while the IWP was called the "apparatus."31
We believe Fred Newman concluded from his brief experience attempting to build the IWP that he had no need for an open vanguard formation. He recruited new members through therapy and gained political influence by working within other groups or creating broad front organizations. However, he did have need for a clandestine vanguard formation, based on the Leninist model and made up of core therapy patients. As we will see, there is considerable evidence that the IWP continues to exist up to the present time.
The 1977 period of activism on the Upper West Side was a learning experience for Newman and his followers. They became skilled at operating within politically ill-defined front organizations and raising funds from guilt-ridden middle-class liberals. Most of all Newman got a taste for electoral activity. This would shape the rest of his political life.
The New Alliance Party
Sometime in the late l970s Newman had the great good fortune of running into Lenora Fulani, an attractive black woman who had been raised in Pennsylvania and was earning a Ph.D. in psychology at the City University of New York. She heard Newman lecture and "was very intrigued by the progressiveness of the politics guiding his thought." She dropped her black lesbian Gestalt therapist and joined a Newmanite social therapy clinic full time.32
In 1979 Newman and Fulani formed the New Alliance Party (NAP). While the politics of the new party were purposely vague, they generally reflected a progressive agenda similar to Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition. Fulani ran as the NAP candidate for lieutenant governor of New York in 1982.
In 1984 the NAP ran Dennis Serrette, a black socialist and NAP member, for president. The party was on the ballot in thirty-three states and received 35,000 votes. A year later Serrette broke from the NAP, accusing it of having an all-white leadership that manipulated him. He took his charges to the Jackson Advocate, the only black newspaper in Mississippi. The NAP sued the paper in 1986 and lost.33
In May 1985 the NAP held its founding convention in Chicago, even though it had been formed six years earlier. Emily Carter, a black woman from Jackson, Mississippi, who called herself a "former organizer, now therapist," was elected chairperson.34 In 1988 Fulani ran for the office of president of the United States. The party qualified for ballot status in all fifty states and received nearly $1 million in federal matching funds and a respectable 217,219 votes.35
Fulani's tactics in 1992 became increasingly complicated. She began the year by entering the New Hampshire primary on the Democratic Party line. Then the Newmanites in California joined the Peace and Freedom Party and battled to capture it. While Newman lost that factional struggle, he nearly destroyed the small leftist party in the process. That spring Newman and Fulani turned their attention to the growing movement around Ross Perot, the right centrist billionaire curmudgeon. When Perot withdrew from the race in July, Fulani commented that "we've been stabbed in the back." Fulani revived her presidential bid under the NAP label. Walter Sheasby has noted:
Fulani offered herself and the Presidential campaign as the vehicle of a Perotism sans Perot.. Fulani claimed to represent "my base-the old 'New Deal' coalition base of African Americans, labor, Latinos, women and gays." And she said to the Perot followers "and there you are. In the radical and independent Perot base lies the potential for a new majority coalition."36
The NAP once again qualified for ballot status in all fifty states, and this time it received $2 million in federal matching funds. Fulani received 73,708 votes, a considerable decline from 1988 and no doubt part of the reason Newman turned toward Perot.
A Washington, D.C., newspaper has exposed the complexity of Newman's financial maneuvers that year. This involved running in the New Hampshire Democratic primary, where Fulani received only 402 votes out of 167,900 cast. She then switched tactics, running in several small party primaries, including California's Peace and Freedom. Finally she ran on the NAP ticket. The total budget for primary activity alone was $4,161,495, which included the matching funds.
Interestingly, some $901,495 of this money "went to organizations that share offices, phones, and leadership with the NAP." This permitted a process of "double-dipping," whereby members of the NAP, working for various front organizations, were paid with campaign funds and in turn made campaign contributions that qualified for federal matching funds. While campaign funds are required by law to be spent on campaigning or returned to donors, the NAP, by spending a large portion of its funds on individuals and organizations associated with Newman, saw to it that the core group prospered. For example, "Fred Newman Productions received $68,925 in retainers for Newman's services as campaign manager."37
Life Among the Newmanites
Loren Redwood, a lesbian who fell in love with a Newmanite, told her story in a letter to a gay newspaper in San Francisco:
My experience with NAP was a nightmare. I am a white, working class lesbian and met NAP in Indiana where I was living at the time. NAP was in Indiana petitioning to put Fulani's name on the ballot there. I was so excited and so moved to find that a black woman was running for president that I immediately began working for the campaign. I also fell in love with a woman working on the campaign. When it came time for NAP to leave Indiana, she asked me to go with them, and I did.. I was given 48 hours to prepare. I quit my job, left my home, my friends, put my belongings in storage, found a home for my pet, and gave the use of my car to NAP in exchange for their taking over the payments..
As a working class lesbian, I thought I had finally found a political movement which included me. What I found instead was an oppressive, disempowering, misogynistic machine. All my decisions were made for me by someone else. I was told where to go, and who to go with. I worked seven days a week-sixteen to twenty hours a day (I had two days off in two and a half months). There was an incredible urgency which overrode any personal needs or considerations, an urgency that meant complete self-sacrifice.. I felt totally powerless over my life, forced into a very submissive role where all control of my life belonged to someone else. I had given up everything for the campaign, my job, my home and my support system, I felt desperate.
Another strange aspect of NAP is what they call social therapy. This is political therapy founded by Fred Newman.. [I]t was expected that I enter social therapy and I did attend a few sessions.. My position on political issues was dictated to me by NAP-independent thought was discouraged. We were all part of something bigger than ourselves and were of one mind. I felt personally threatened, like I was being absorbed into something and was losing myself.. I was completely exhausted, so tired I was unable to work well. Being unable to work I had no income, as I was expected to raise my salary myself in addition to raising money for the campaign.. I was very frightened. I was in a strange city, I knew no one really except my lover, who couldn't help me: I had no job, no home and no money. At this point I was feeling very suicidal.
It's been four months since I left the campaign and I am putting my life back together piece by piece.38
This report is interesting in a number of respects. First, it documents one method of recruitment to the Newmanite cult: a person is attracted to one of the political projects sponsored by Newman, in this case the NAP, and is then urged to take group therapy. Only those who combine political activism with therapy are considered solid core members of the group.
Second, we are given a picture of the intensity and time-consuming nature of the group's political activity. Loren Redwood felt "an incredible sense of urgency which overrode any personal needs." This in turn has a disorienting and numbing effect upon the recruit. Her feelings and experience is identical to that reported to us by members of such groups as the Workers Revolutionary Party, the Militant Group, the Democratic Workers Party, and the LaRoucheites. It helps explain how a politically oriented cult can produce the same degree of total control over members as religious cults.
Third, the Newmanites carry out a practice that is common among religious cults but not used as extensively by political cults. This is having members quit their jobs, move into common quarters with other members, and solicit funds from the public to support the organization as well as themselves. This increases the recruit's isolation from civil society as well as his or her dependence upon the group for survival. We have found this practice among the LaRoucheites (chapter 5), NATLFED (chapter 12), and Synanon (chapter 8).
Not all recruits have joined the cult through political activity and been steered toward social therapy. Many seek out therapy because of emotional disturbances, only to find themselves sucked into Newmanite political groups. Berlet reported this experience of an East Coast Latina activist:
I first came into contact with the Social Therapy Institutes through a friend who said there was a group that offered therapy for people with progressive views so I went to see what they offered..
Before and after the therapy session, they would say "why not sell the newspaper" or "maybe you could do us a favor and hand out those leaflets." The therapy offices were full of their political propaganda. In the group therapy sometimes we discussed politics and their political party.
Some people get involved because they think the political work will help them get better emotionally. They told us societal problems are making people ill and the New Alliance Party is going to change things so people get better.39
M. Ortiz, a single mother living in the Bronx, became involved in social therapy in 1985 in a similar fashion.
The trouble wasn't "in our head," but "in the world," we learned.. Through Social Therapy, I was conditioned to relate to my personal history in exclusively political terms. My family's problems and subsequent poverty-and all my suffering-were all the result of the government's imperialist invasion of Puerto Rico.. But consciousness-raising in itself was not enough. Our individual development and growth, we were told, was dependent upon the group's.
Only by embracing this psycho-therapeutic doctrine could I hope to change what it meant to be a "poor, working-class Puerto-Rican woman.." [T]he "cure" for my depression and anxiety was ultimately conditional upon my becoming a serious political activist.
When I finally left the cult in July of 1990-after finally becoming disgusted with the totalitarian internal structure which, in my opinion, basically relies on slave labor for profit in the name of justice and empowerment-I had to literally rebuild my life.40
Individual distress is manipulated to transform the patient into a political activist under the total control of the therapist or the revolutionary leader. The new "family" of fellow cultists replaces the traditional family and friends. The followers become completely dependent upon Newman for their sense of self-esteem. "When Newman was happy, everyone was happy," commented one former member. "When he was angry, everyone was terrified."41
Organic Leaders: Jackson, Farrakhan, Sharpton
Antonio Gramsci originated the concept of the "organic intellectual." In contrast to "traditional intellectuals," such as clerics, teachers, and other professionals, Gramsci believed each social class created organically out of its own members a stratum capable of generalizing that class's historic mission and projecting its hegemony over society as a whole. Since he believed that the capability of being an intellectual is in all human beings, he was convinced that the working class could and would develop its own organic intellectuals. This aspect of his thinking could be interpreted as more democratic than Lenin's approach.
Lenin-particularly in What Is to Be Done?-advocated building a party composed exclusively of full-time professional revolutionaries drawn from the traditional intellectuals. This vanguard would bring socialism from "outside" the working class into the proletarian milieu. It matters little the degree to which Lenin may or may not have modified this view in a later period. What is critical is that so many on the left, including virtually all cultists, have been influenced by this vanguardist "from the outside" theory. Newman learned his Lenin from LaRouche.42
Fred Newman operated on the basis of both concepts of leadership. He viewed his core group as a vanguard formation, made up overwhelmingly of white, middle-class, traditional intellectuals. His elite members were professionals in two ways: They largely worked full time for Newmanite fronts, and, in many cases, they were professional therapists.
Newman's concept of "organic leaders," borrowed from Gramsci, was given a decidedly undemocratic twist. For Newman the term "organic" became a code word meaning "people of color." Organic leaders were therefore prominent black spokespersons with real bases of support in the black community and wide media recognition. He embraced these "organic leaders" uncritically, but they were just so much window dressing to be used as a way of advancing the interests of the secretive vanguard made up of white traditional intellectuals. The result was a manipulative and undemocratic relationship.
The Newmanites' first major foray into organizing around an "organic leader" involved support of Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition and his 1984 and 1988 Democratic Party presidential bids. Declaring "Two Roads Are Better Than One," Lenora Fulani announced support of Jackson while at the same time fielding her own independent candidacy under the New Alliance Party banner.43 Then, in an interesting and self-serving twist, the Newmanites organized the Rainbow Lobby. The group, headed by Nancy Ross, had almost the same name as Jackson's organization and an identical program. However, it was not authorized by Jackson, was totally controlled by Newman, and raised its own independent funds to the tune of more than $1 million a year.44 In 1992 the Lobby was closed down and the lobbying firm Ross and Green was formed. The "Ross" of Ross and Green is the very same Nancy Ross, former school board member from the Upper West Side and head of the Rainbow Lobby.45 The "Green" was Ann Green, whom we met earlier working with the FBI. [Correction: Deborah Greene co-founded Ross & Green, it was not Ann Green.]
The next "Organic Leader" to catch Newman and Fulani's attention was Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam, noted for his anti-Semitic rantings. This is particularly interesting because, in the LaRouche cohabitation period, Newman shared NCLC's extremely hostile (bordering on racist) attitude toward black nationalists. The NAP moved its national headquarters to Chicago in order to be closer to Farrakhan. In 1995, after Newman's dissolution of the NAP and turn toward Perot, he ran a full page advertisement in the Village Voice entitled "Never Again! A New Pledge for the Jewish Community," saluting the Million Man March. It featured a photo of Newman, Farrakhan, and Fulani, and was signed "Dr. Fred Newman, Convenor, Jews for Farrakhan."46
Soon Newman added the Reverend Al Sharpton to the organic roster. Sharpton developed a particularly close relationship to the Newmanites during the period he was conducting confrontational marches through Howard Beach and promoting Tawana Brawley, whose tale of rape by white assailants has been proved to be a fabrication. Sharpton has developed a reputation as an anti-white demagogue and has clashed with New York City's Jewish community. The Newmanites even rented office space to Sharpton and put him on their payroll as a $12,000 a year consultant.47
Noting the connections with Farrakhan and Sharpton, Dennis King wrote in 1992 that the NAP has "unsevered ties to anti-Semitism." Newman is Jewish but this did not prevent him from saying that "Jews 'as a people' have made a pact with 'the devil' to serve as the 'storm-troopers of decadent capitalism against people of color the world over.'"48
Overall the Newmanites gained a high profile and significant membership growth in the decade between 1982 and 1992. Newman expanded his base beyond the Upper West Side with therapy centers throughout New York City, as well as in Boston; Chicago; Los Angeles; San Francisco; Pennsylvania; New Jersey; Washington, D.C.; Jackson, Mississippi; and elsewhere. During its first ten years of operations Newman's core group numbered between thirty and forty people. By the end of the next decade, Newman had several hundred core followers and significant political influence. In 1992 NAP-related businesses employed fifty-six people and brought in at least $3.5 million a year. The East Side Institute for Social Therapy alone reported sales in excess of $400,000 a year.49
Lenora Fulani was a popular, media-savvy spokesperson who received considerable, and largely favorable, press attention. The potent combination of the NAP election campaigns with high-profile identification with Jackson, Farrakhan, and Sharpton made Lenora Fulani a well-known public figure. However, the political winds were shifting to the right. Discontent in America was finding a new path for expression: Ross Perot. Was this tiny white billionaire with his folksy manners and Texan twang a new "organic leader?" If so, of what class?
A Pact with Ross Perot
Beginning in 1992 Ross Perot developed a movement around his quixotic personality. He drew almost exclusively from whites, was particularly popular with small businessmen and people who lived in smaller cities and towns, and pulled support almost equally from the Democratic and Republican parties. His politics were generally right of center. He was anti-government, strongly against political action committees (PACs), and for electoral reform; he favored a balanced budget and welfare reform. Perhaps his most popular position was his strong stance against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). His economic nationalism gained him some support among workers hurt by job competition from south of the border. Many voted for him because he was very rich and therefore beholden to no special interests (except, of course, himself). The Perot movement definitely represented a radical departure from the traditional two-party system. However, there is no evidence that this departure was in a left direction.
In 1993, immediately after the 1992 elections, Fulani met with Nicholas Sabatine III, a small-town Pennsylvania attorney, and helped form the Patriot Party. In April 1994 the NAP officially dissolved into the Patriot Party. The National Patriot Party was formed with Sabatine as national chair and Fulani as chair for New York State. The apparatus of the Patriot Party was, for all intents and purposes, controlled by the Newmanites.50 The Patriot Party was, to quote Fulani, "based on the principles of democracy, fiscal responsibility, government accountability and a deep commitment to inclusivity and diversity." Many on the left view "fiscal responsibility" as a code meaning cuts in benefits to the poor. According to Sabatine the party supported privatization of Social Security and a flat tax, hardly progressive positions.51
In 1994 Fulani ran in the New York State Democratic primary against Governor Mario Cuomo. She received 142,000 votes, or 21 percent of the vote. She then switched her support to businessman Tom Golisano, helping to create the Independence Party. That party received 217,000 votes.52 The Independence Party, like the Patriot Party, was a forerunner of the Reform Party.
In 1996, Ross Perot, who had resisted forming a third party, preferring to run as an independent, permitted the formation of the Reform Party. The problem facing Perot was how to get his party on the ballot in all fifty states in order to qualify for federal matching funds. His supporters were, by and large, enthusiastic but disorganized and politically untrained. Newman came to the rescue, throwing his cultists once again into a grueling nationwide ballot drive. Russell J. Verney, national coordinator of the Reform Party and a Perot confidante, stated to the New York Times in 1996 that "Mr. Perot was aware and appreciative of the role Ms. Fulani and Dr. Newman have played in helping the Reform Party. 'They are just one voice in a very big group of individuals.'"53
At Newman's and Fulani's urging, the Patriot Party and the New York Independence Party affiliated with the Reform Party. Verney recalled that, faced with the need to get 90,000 voters registered in the Reform Party in California, he called Jim Mangia, the chairman of that state's Patriot Party. Mangia was formerly a member of the New Alliance Party. Having succeeded in registering 120,000 voters, Mangia was made secretary of the state Reform Party.54 In 1999 he assumed the same post in the national party.
In 1997 Richard Lamb, who was defeated by Ross Perot in his effort to become the Reform Party's presidential candidate, split away to form the American Reform Party. "They resented what they said was autocratic management of the party from Dallas," the Chicago Tribune reported. "In Illinois, additional resentment had grown over the presence in the party's governing structure of former supporters of Lenora Fulani and the largely defunct New Alliance Party."55
In 1998 Lenora Fulani organized the Democracy Slate of candidates for the State Committee of the Independence Party. Both Fulani and Newman were on that slate. She took over control of the party and then ran as the party's candidate for Lieutenant Governor.56 The Independence Party's platform calls for "fiscal conservatism." It states, "Wherever possible, we prefer to minimize the role of government, transferring needed activities into the private sector through privatization." It favors an alteration of civil service requirements to make it easier to discharge government workers, a one-year New York residency requirement for welfare benefits, no welfare for illegal aliens, public funding for private schools, and more cops.57
From early on Newman has displayed little interest in the political programs of the parties he participated in, such as the Democratic Party; or set up and controlled, as in the case of the NAP; or supported, like Farrakhan and Sharpton. Still, until 1994, all his political machinations involved figures and parties generally considered to be on the left of American politics. Since there is nothing even faintly liberal or progressive, not to mention socialist, about the politics of the Reform Party and affiliates, what trick of dialectics did Newman employ to justify his moving into the Perot movement?
Bill Lynch, an aide to former New York City Mayor David Dinkins came up with a cynical answer: "We could never figure out what the New Alliance agenda was. The one common thread was that they were always trying to move in and take over someone else's political operation."58
Alliance with Pat Buchanan
Political relations between the Newmanites and Pat Buchanan date back to 1996. In an article entitled "Black Empowerment: What Does the New Populism Mean for African-Americans?" Fulani claimed that Buchanan was being "demonized," comparing him to Louis Farrakhan, Ross Perot, and Jesse Jackson. Buchanan's views were characterized as "anti-government, anti-big business, pro-people." Fulani saw the Reform Party as "populist, not centrist," a populism that "cuts across the traditional labels of right, center and left."59 She and Newman had already prepared the theoretical groundwork (read: rationalization) for embracing Buchanan as a candidate for president on the Reform Party ticket.
Chip Berlet is one of the few political commentators to note Fulani's shift to the right and to begin to develop a theoretical understanding of its broader implications. He notes that the extreme right wing has developed a "producerist narrative" which pits "hard-working productive middle-class and working-class" people against a rich elite and a socially parasitic welfare class. This movement is sometimes called "Middle American Nationalism" or the "Radical Center" or "Middle American Radicals." It is narrowly nationalist and isolationist, opposes free trade, and is against big government and business. However, it also tends to be homophobic, racist, sexist, and anti-Semitic.60 Some leftists have become confused by the "anti-war" and anti-globalist demagogy of these rightists. Fulani and Newman are contributing to that confusion.
Buchanan's interest in Newman and Fulani stems from their power within the Reform Party as well as from the proven ability of their cult followers to put the party on state ballots. At the 1999 Dearborn Convention of the Reform Party, Lenora Fulani received 45 percent of the vote for the position of vice-chair.61 They dominate the New York, Illinois, and California parties, and have extensive influence elsewhere.
Fulani and Newman have thrown their considerable support behind Pat Buchanan's primary campaign. On November 11, 1999, Fulani announced that she would serve as co-chair of Buchanan's campaign. "In traditional political terms, Pat Buchanan stands for all things that black progressives such as myself revile," Fulani stated. "So how can we get to be standing here together with me endorsing his candidacy? Because we have a common interest in overthrowing the traditional political terms."62 We are reminded of the German Communist Party in the early 1930s, which campaigned using the slogan "Hitler First, Then Us." There never was a second.
Fulani has framed Buchanan as "a mighty powerful spokesperson for issues of political reform" whose appeal goes "beyond ideology ... beyond issues of left, center and right."63 When asked on Cable News Network (CNN) about Buchanan's views on gay rights and abortion, she said that she could overlook them because Buchanan "can play a role as a unifier, bring everybody together."64 In another interview Fulani said "We're hoping he gets 10 to 15 percent of the vote." Newman added that such a result "keeps the dollars coming in, and it keeps us as America's major minor party." When asked what would happen if Buchanan actually won the presidency, Newman cynically answered "Then we're all in trouble."65
It seems quite clear from the above that the Newmanite support for Buchanan is rooted more in opportunism than in ideology. This fits with a pattern of political opportunism that goes back for decades. Their past support for Farrakhan despite his anti-Semitism prepared them for their current role in Buchanan's camp. Hard as it is to believe, the core members of this group, believing themselves to be progressives, even Marxists, will carry out Newman's instructions to advance the agenda of a man whose most recent book claims it was a mistake to oppose Hitler.
The Clandestine Party
We have noted that in 1976 Newman claimed to have dissolved the International Workers Party. However, a reporter on the Upper West Side discovered that the party was never actually dissolved. The evidence suggests that the IWP continues to exist today. Cathy Hollandberg-Serrette, who left the NAP in 1985 with Dennis Serrette, reported that, at the time she left, "the IWP was alive and well with about 150 members in NAP." Sheila McCue, who was associated with Serrette, also confirmed the existence of the IWP.66 M. Ortiz reported that in the period between 1985 and 1990: "I was drawn in the group's underground web of pseudo-revolutionary cult activity-The International Workers Party.. Once indoctrinated, most IWP cadre are immediately divested of all assets and assigned mandatory fundraising quotas (ranging from $75-300 per week), and bi-weekly IWP 'dues,' which combined with Social Therapy fees, ranges from 15-30% of their income."67 Wittes referred in 1994 to "a sub-rosa political core made up of the underground remnants of a self-declared Marxist-Leninist revolutionary organization." He stated that "at least five ex-members confirmed the continued existence of the IWP.."68
The New York Times interviewed Newman in 1996, describing him as "a 61-year-old white-bearded man who looks like Santa Claus after a bohemian makeover." The interview took place in a loft in downtown Manhattan "scattered with mementos of Ché Guevara." Newman came up with an interesting explanation for his support of the Reform Party: "It's like the left going into unions controlled by gangsters. You have a chance to make a statement to the rank and file, and then maybe you can do something about the gangsters."69
This indicates that Newman still thinks like the Leninist operator he was in the days of LaRouche. His cadres, his comment suggests, sustain a long- term "left" goal. The route has turned out to be more circuitous than it had originally appeared to be in his "Marxist-Leninist-Maoist" days. Yet they believe that, someday and somehow, world progress is being served. In the meantime his therapeutically enslaved minions operate within the Reform Party and, in some places, control its apparatus. Political influence and power clearly please Newman and Fulani, while activism keeps the client/organizers busy, their minds empty, and their loyalties guaranteed.
The potential danger in this situation is not to be ignored. After all, Jesse Ventura, a wrestler, ran on the Reform Party ticket in Minnesota in 1998 and won, becoming governor. Considering the public's disgust with the two major parties, it is not to be excluded that the Reform Party can win again. That could place parasitic Newmanites into positions of influence. Once in power, their allegiance would not be to the voters but to their guru Fred Newman. The Newmanites' support for Pat Buchanan has already had the negative and dangerous effect of assisting a right-wing demagogue in channeling legitimate dissatisfaction in a fascistic direction.
Today, in addition to his secretive political activities, Fred Newman considers himself a playwright. He is also the artistic director of the Castillo Theater, an "interactive growth theater," which is a form of therapy directed toward people of color. He is the director of training at the East Side Institute for Short Term Psychotherapy and has written several books that are featured at his Castillo Bookstore. He operates the West Coast Center for Social Therapy in San Francisco and similar centers in Los Angeles, Chicago, and other cities. He describes these centers as "a unique 'laboratory'-the 25-year-old development community of thousands of people who are living more developmental and joyous lives and helping thousands more to do so."70
For all the deprivations he has demanded over the years from his followers, he, like other gurus, is not living that badly himself. In the fall of 1993 he purchased, together with long-time member Susan Massad, a large Greenwich Village brownstone at 60 Bank Street for $928,000. Revolution combined with therapy can be profitable.
Conclusion: New Age Leninism
It should come as no surprise that Fred Newman, Lenora Fulani, and other spokespeople for the group do not share our assessment that they run a cult. In fact in 1993 they took legal action against the FBI for characterizing them as a "political/cult organization."71 Lenora Fulani stated that "the word 'cult' is a weapon, a murderously vicious, anti-democratic weapon used to attack people who are different in any way: religiously, politically, culturally or otherwise.. There is no such thing as a cult [emphasis in original]."72 At the time Fulani and Newman's lobbying arm, Ross and Green, was running a campaign in defense of the Branch Davidians after the Waco disaster.
Of course, if cults do not exist, then the Newmanites could not possibly be a cult. The difficulty with this position comes when we confront events like the Jonestown massacre or the more recent Heaven's Gate suicides. Are we dealing in these cases simply with people who are "different," or is there something more sinister involved, which requires serious inquiry?
Fulani and Newman's defense of religious cults like the Branch Davjdians,73 is a recognition of a commonality with them. In other words, if Fulani is wrong and cults do exist, then her statement represents a form of identification with the world of cults. What she is really saying is that these groups are just "different" like us.
A study of the Newmanites deepens our understanding of other political cults as well as the cult phenomenon as a whole. This is because Fred Newman's therapeutic approach exposes the essential mechanisms of mind control utilized, though not necessarily admitted to, by all cults. The Newmanites display another interesting feature. Their preservation, though in clandestine fashion, of a Leninist cadre organization, suggests the usefulness of vanguard ideology to political cults. LaRouche, for example, has sustained this side of his thinking during his travel to the extreme right of the political spectrum (see chapter 5).
This outlook has contributed to the manipulative nature of their political activity. Newman, particularly after his LaRouchian period, has been relatively unconcerned with the content of politics, while becoming extremely adept at its practice. This has permitted him to support anti-Semitic black leaders, build a vaguely defined left party, run in Democratic Party primaries, support the right centrist Reform Party, and finally assist Pat Buchanan in his presidential bid. Politics is conceived as something to be practiced to achieve influence and power as well as to lead to growth of his core group.
Newman has become a New Age Leninist. While his group has been wildly successful when we look at its meager beginnings in a West Side apartment, it does have its limits. The Newmanites have learned better than most political cults how to successfully manipulate the American political arena and the media. Yet they remain a small group. One estimate does not give them more than a hundred core members today.74 However, these members are highly skilled political operatives, hard-working and motivated, and they function with lockstep discipline. Newman has done considerable political damage in the past. Given the state of politics in the United States, he may emerge as a serious threat to democratic processes in the future.
Notes
1. B. Shapiro, "Buchanan-Fulani: New Team?" Nation, November 1, 1999, P. 21.
2. D. King, "West Side 'Therapy Cult' Conceals Its True Aims," Heights and Valley News, November 1977, p. 14.
3. C. Berlet, Clouds Blue the Rainbow: The Other Side of the New Alliance Party (Cambridge, MA: Political Research Associates. December 1987).
4. F. Newman, Power and Authority: The Inside View of Class Struggle (New York: Centers for Change, 1974), p. 1.
5. Berlet, Clouds, p. 3.
6. Newman, Power, p. vi.
7. Berlet, Clouds, p. 3.
8. Newman, Power, p. xvi.
9. Ibid., p. xii.
10. Ibid., p. xii-xii.
11. Right on Time, May II, 1974. This was the publication of Newman's Center for Change.
12. Right on Time, March 7, 1974.
13. Newman, Power, p. 113.
14. Ibid., p. 3.
15. Ibid., before p. 1.
16. Ibid., p. 113
17. Ibid., p. 112.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid., p. 74.
20. Ibid., p. 112.
21. Ibid., p. 123.
22. Z Magazine, May 1989.
23. W.C. Sheasby, A Brief History of Coalition: Third Parties and the Rocky Road to the White House (Sierra Madre, CA, 1996). Sheasby was a Green Party congressional candidate in California's twenty-seventh district.
24. Press release issued by Workers and Oppressed Unite, dated May 2, 1976.
25. "IWP Admits Snitching To FBI!" undated statement issued by the above group sometime shortly after May 5, 1976.
26. King, "West Side 'Therapy Cult,'" p. 16.
27. D. King, Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism (New York: Doubleday, 1989).
28. King, "West Side 'Therapy Cult,'" p. 14.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid., pp. 14-18.
31. J. Finn, "Proof: Therapy Cultists Lied to Community," Heights and Valley News (New York), holiday season, 1977, p. 18.
32. B. Shapiro, "Dr. Fulani's Snake-Oil Show," Nation, May 4, 1992, p. 586.
33. Ibid., 587.
34. Berlet, Clouds, p. 1.
35. L. Fulani, Lenora s Political History, http://www.fulani.org.
36. Sheasby, Brief, p. 4.
37. B. Wittes, "Lenora and the Money-Go-Round," Washington City Paper (Washington, DC), July 8, 1994.
38. Coming Up! (San Francisco), January 1989.
39. Berlet, Clouds, p. 7.
40. "Statement Issued by M. Ortiz" (Cult Awareness Network Meeting, New York, June 16, 1993).
41. Shapiro, "Snake Oil," p. 592.
42. A. Gramsci, The Modern Prince and Other Writings (New York: International, 1957), pp. 118-125; G. Vacca, "Intellectuals and the Marxist State," in Approaches to Gramsci, ed. Anne Showstack Sassoon (London: Writers and Readers, 1982) pp. 63-67.
43. Berlet, Clouds, p. 7.
44. Ibid., p. 9.
45. J. and T. R. Goldman Cohen, "Controversial Lobbyists Stirring Up Waco Fight," Legal Times (Washington, DC), May 2, 1994.
46. "Never Again!" Village Voice (New York): November 5, 1995, p. 5.
47. Shapiro, "Snake Oil," p. 587.
48. D. King, letter to the editor, New York Times, August 13, 1992.
49. Shapiro, "Snake Oil," p. 587.
50. Sheasby, Brief History, p. 2.
51. F. Bruni, "Perot and Populist Group See Benefits in an Alliance," New York Times, August 21, 1996.
52. Fulani, History, p. 2.
53. Bruni, "Perot."
54. Ibid.
55. R. Worthington, "Ex-Perot Stalwarts Establish New Party," Chicago Tribune, October 6, 1997.
56. L. Fulani, The Democracy Slate, http://www.fulani.org.
57. The Platform of the Independence Party of New York, http://www.fulani.org.
58. Bruni, "Perot."
59. Originally posted online circa February 1996 by the Committee for a Unified Independent Party. See http://www.publiceye.org.
60. Buchanan, Fulani, Perot and the Reform Party, http://www.publiceye.org.
61. Shapiro, "Buchanan."
62. S. McCaffrey, "Lenora Fulani Endorses Buchanan," Associated Press, November 12, 1999.
63. Ibid.
64. "Reform Party Warming to Buchanan," Washington Post, September 20, 1999.
65. J. Bennet, "The Cable Guys," New York Times Magazine, October 24, 1999, p. 79.
66. T. Kingston, "The Seedy Side of the Rainbow," in Coming Up! (San Francisco), November 1988.
67. See note 40.
68. Wittes, "Money Go Round."
69. Bruni, "Perot."
70. Posted on the Internet at http://webpsych and at http://www.pond.com.
71. Ross and Green, What Is the Cult Awareness Network and What Role Did It Play in Waco? (Washington, DC: WRS, 1993), p. 10.
72. L. Fulani, We Must Stand Up for Democracy! (New York: Castillo Communications, May 23, 1993).
73. M. Breault, and M. King, Inside the Cult (New York: Signet, 1993); B. Bailey and B. Darden, Mad Man in Waco (Waco, TX: WRS, 1993).
74. Shapiro, "Buchanan," p. 22.
For more information, go to: http://www.timwohlforth.com/edge.html.
By Dennis Tourish & Tim Wohlforth, 2000
Let Hitler take office-he will soon be bankrupt, and then it will be our day.
-H. Remmele, Communist member of the Reichstag, 1933
Pat Buchanan and That Woman
In the fall of 1999 Pat Buchanan sat down to lunch with Dr. Lenora Fulani. A pretty, light-skinned African American woman, conservatively dressed, with close-cropped hair, Fulani was by no means a novice to politics. She had been the 1992 presidential candidate of the New Alliance Party (NAP). The party qualified for more than $1 million in federal matching funds and was on the ballot in nearly all fifty states. In the past Fulani had supported Jesse Jackson and had been a close confidante of Louis Farrakhan and the Reverend Al Sharpton. She had a reputation as an outspoken lesbian and a defender of abortion rights. Buchanan was on a tour promoting a book in which he expressed the view that the United States should not have interfered with Hitler, his subjugation of Europe, and the Holocaust. Some eyebrows were raised in the mainstream press corps.
During an interview later that day, Buchanan was asked about his relations with the "black-nationalist Marxist." His eyes narrowed and he answered: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Lenora Fulani."1 Political relations, however, were a different matter. Fulani was about to launch her latest grand political maneuver, promoting Buchanan as the presidential candidate of the Reform Party.
Fred Newman runs the cult, which fuses politics seamlessly with psychotherapy. While Newman is little known, Dr. Lenora Fulani is a national media figure. The Newmanites prove that cults can affect mainstream politics in the United States in a dangerous way. At the same time Newman's distinctive method of cadre recruitment gives us an insight into the psychology of cult organization in general.
The Cult's Obscure Origins
Fred Newman, a Korean War veteran, was awarded a Ph.D. in the philosophy of science from Stanford University.2 He has had no formal training in any branch of psychology. He turned to a Maoist version of Marxism in the mid-1960s. In 1970 Newman gathered together a tiny collective, which shared a communal apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side. This was a moment when the left was searching for a road forward after the collapse of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the New Left generally, while a cultural revolution was in full swing. Newman's collective, much like Harvey Jackins' reevaluation counseling (see chapter 6), combined the radical politics of the sixties with the New Age therapy of the seventies. The result was a potent mixture of cultic consequences.
They named their collective "If . Then."3 While Jackins stressed techniques of co-counseling in which therapist and patient exchange places, Newman developed a group version of radical therapy led by a therapist, which he called "social therapy" or "crisis normalization."4 All members underwent therapy while they, at the same time, carried out political activity. By 1973 the group was called Centers for Change (CFC). "CFC is," Newman explained, "a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist organization."4
The origins of the group in a communal setting gave it a cult-like character from the very beginning. This aspect of Newman's operation did not change. Its core members have lived in shared facilities or are closely linked to such communes. Core members are expected to quit their jobs, sell their private possessions, and earn a meager living through such activities as soliciting funds on street corners.
In Bed with Lyndon LaRouche
For approximately one year, from the middle of 1973 until the end of August in 1974, Newman's group was under the influence of Lyndon LaRouche (see chapter 5). The "United Front," was formed, consisting of LaRouche's National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC), Newman's Center for Change, and a third group led by Eugenio Perente-Ramos (this later became another cult, the Communist Party U.S.A. (Provisional) (CPUSA [P])-see chapter 12). Joint forums were held and activities coordinated. On June 1, 1974, Newman wrote, "We have traveled from a community based storefront, to a health-service collective, to a cadre socialist organization. We have traveled from non-existence to existence and finally back to non-existence at a higher level. For CFC is disbanded. We move, not as a collective, but as self- conscious human beings into the National Caucus of Labor Committees."6
Fred Newman's comment about moving into the NCLC "not as a collective" proved to be a bit disingenuous. Then again, a cultist like LaRouche should have been sharp enough to spot another cultist. The group had been formed around the personality of Fred Newman, they all underwent continuous group therapy under his guidance, and they shared common living quarters. The Newman group continued to operate in lockstep while within the NCLC. It should therefore come as no shock that the fusion did not work out. The two gurus inevitably clashed. In late August 1974 Newman and thirty-eight followers walked out of the NCLC to form the International Workers Party (IWP). Newman announced that his tiny group had "now become the vanguard of the working class." Newman declared: "The organization of the vanguard party is, as Marx makes clear, the organization of the class. The formation of the IWP had grown from our attempt to organize the [NCLC] from within that it might move from a position of left hegemony to a position of leadership of the class."7
Newman's period of association with LaRouche was to have a major impact on his thinking and future development. It is significant that he joined up with LaRouche precisely at the moment when the NCLC was moving from left to right and engaging in some rather bizarre conduct. Newman contacted LaRouche within weeks of the conclusion of his "Operation Mop- Up," involving physical attacks on the left.
Newman declared in 1974 that "the former workers of CFC will organize in the spirit outlined by Marcus [Lyndon LaRouche]."8 He wrote a book that contained extensive quotations from LaRouche. He echoed LaRouche's catastrophism, seeing the United States as facing "the grim reality of cannibalization and encroaching fascism."9 He agreed with LaRouche that a "massive fascist brainwashing" was taking place. Like LaRouche, he dismissed most of the left: "Black nationalism, community control, feminism, the petty bourgeois movement, gay pride, worker participation programs, trade union parochialism, and so on, are concepts devised by the fascists to locate a group's identity in something other than the working class." 10
In 1974 Newman declared that "Liberalism is fascism. The liberal do-gooders are the fascists."11 And, "'The Left Movement' or 'The Radical Movement' or 'The Movement' . is the CIA-developed deterrent to the development of a vanguard party... Fortunately there are some around working to destroy the CIA controlled left movement. Lyn Marcus and the NCLC are such a group."12
While Newman never again publicly referred to the left in such terms, he was never really part of the left. His relationship was more that of a predator: from time to time running in Democratic primaries, moving into existing leftist organizations with the aim of taking them over, and utilizing prominent black leaders to advance his own aims.
Just as important, there was a concurrence between LaRouche and Newman on the critical questions of the role of leadership, cadre formation, and the mental manipulation of the membership. LaRouche brought to the "United Front" a far more developed distortion of Marxism than anything Newman had been able to extract from Mao Tse-Tung. Crucial was the linking of an apocalyptic crisis theory with the necessity of creating an elite cadre.
Newman contributed his knowledge of psychotherapy and experience gained in transforming his followers through these techniques into political operators. We suspect that LaRouche's rantings about impotency and his ego-stripping sessions were at least partially inspired by Newman, who claimed that "all psychic problems are correctly diagnosed as impotency." 13
After parting, the political evolution of the two gurus was, on the surface, quite different. LaRouche transformed his hostility toward the left and its constituents into a new rightist ideology with links to fascism. Newman continued to function politically on the left until 1994, when he began to move into the right-centrist Perot movement. Yet both leaders shared a common disdain for ordinary citizens, who were to be manipulated; for their members, who were transformed into robots to be used to do the manipulation; and for the democratic norms of a pluralistic society.
The Theory of Proletarian Psychotherapy
Fred Newman developed, in his 1974 book Power and Authority, a theory of the mind and its relation to society that has served him well as a justification for the existence of his cult and has aided him in controlling his followers. Newman saw revolution as a two-level process: the external overthrow of the bourgeoisie and its state and the internal overthrow of the "Bourgeois ego."
We must learn, he insisted, to see "in both directions-inside and outside."14 "Proletarian or revolutionary psychotherapy is . the overthrow of the rulers of the mind by the workers of the mind."15 "Revolutionary therapy," he stated, "involves an act of insurrection; of overthrow."16 Through this act the "bourgeois ego" is replaced by the "proletarian ego." "The proletarian or revolutionary therapist is . a leader."17 This internal revolution is followed by "a long period of the withering away of the proletarian ego."18
Newman viewed the "bourgeois ego" as the automatic product of the capitalist system. Drawing from Marx via Lenin and LaRouche, he concluded that "the self-interested, rational individual is guided by a ruling class imposed conscience (or super ego) which she or he transforms into a self controlling bourgeois ego." 19
This view could be interpreted as a reasonable distillation of Marx's concept of alienation. Capitalism tends to atomize people. People then relate to each other in the belief that they are acting autonomously in their own self-interest. Actually their relations are being determined by market forces and their thinking is influenced by the dominant capitalist culture and institutions.
Marx, however, noted countervailing effects of capitalist relations upon the worker. The very organization of the production process brought workers together collectively, creating the conditions for their common action, such as trade union organization and the formation of workers' parties. Newman, following upon Lenin and LaRouche, dismissed such processes as expressions of "trade union parochialism" and therefore reactionary. He proposed "therapy" as a substitute.
A difficulty arises out of Newman's efforts to "overthrow" the individual's "bourgeois" ego through a therapeutic act while the capitalist system remains intact and functioning. The discarded ego is actually the only individual identity a person is capable of developing and sustaining within a capitalist society. Its dissolution creates a vacuum that is filled by the ego of the therapist. The therapist's ego is no less shaped by the society within which he functions. The guru therapist's desire to control others, manipulate others, and drive others to carry out his wishes represents a demented form of the worse features of personality in contemporary capitalist society.
Newman developed a critique of Freudian and all other forms of psychotherapy, labeling them "bourgeois." Bourgeois psychology (read "all therapies excluding Newman's") "entails an act of transference (making the therapist into a substitute conscience and, at the same time, into a 'temporary' oppressive ruler) and eventually this transferential act itself must be analyzed and undone.. The bourgeois authoritarian leader allows a temporary and controlled regression to the bourgeois id and then leads the patient back again to her or his bourgeois ego."20
These therapies, in Newman's view, take a patient with a wounded ego; pass her or him through a process of transference; and, ending the transference, rebuild a healthy independent ego in the person. However, Newman believed, this process simply strengthened the "bourgeois ego," that is the mind control of a sick society. He believed the very concept of a "self-interested rational individual" was reactionary.
What then is to be done? As part of a group therapy practice, the "leadership" of the therapist is required to carry through an insurrection against individual egoism. Once the "proletarian ego" is installed, the therapy is by no means at an end. It continues and is coordinated with revolutionary activity. "Revolutionary therapy becomes more and more indistinguishable from revolutionary organizing."21 The victory of the "proletarian ego" over the "bourgeois ego" is thus expressed in the patient's complete devotion to the political causes espoused by Fred Newman.
Normal therapy is designed to be completed during a limited time period. The patient may be emotionally bound through the transference process to his or her therapist for a period of time. However, health comes through the ending of the transference process and the restoration of the patient's own sense of self and emotional independence. Not so in Newman's "social therapy." The process of transference, and therefore dependence upon the therapist, is never ending!
The difficulty is that the "proletarian ego"-read "emotional dependence on Newman"-withers away only when the proletarian state withers away. Since the creation of a proletarian state does not appear to be imminent in the United States or any other advanced country, and further, since all attempts to create such states have so far led to growth rather than withering away, the patient must remain dependent on Newman indefinitely. In the case of Newman's oldest adherents, this dependency has persisted for more than twenty-five years!
The doctrines explicitly developed in this book continued to guide Newman's practice right up to the current period. Dr. Lenora Fulani, the group's spokesperson, wrote in 1989: "One of the earliest statements on the foundations of Social Therapy is contained in a book written by Newman in 1974 entitled Power and Authority. It states that psychic and emotional life in contemporary society reflects the political and economic degeneration of capitalism."22
The International Workers Party and the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Having founded the IWP, Fred Newman was not quite sure what to do with it. For a brief period he sought unification with various small Trotskyist groups as well as Marlene Dixon's Democratic Workers Party (see chapter 9). In June 1975 the Newmanites were admitted into the Peoples Party, a forerunner of the Citizens Party that ran Barry Commoner for president in 1980. A bitter internal struggle ensued, which almost destroyed the small party. The group was expelled in March 1978.23
It was in this period that Fred Newman developed a curious relationship with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). In April 1974 Jim Retherford left the therapy cult. He had had a child with Ann Green, a devoted member who stayed with Newman. After Newman took his followers into the NCLC, Retherford, not wanting his son to be raised by people he viewed as crazy, took him away without the mother's permission and left town. Green appealed to Newman who enlisted the help of two young lawyers, one named Harry Kresky, who were cult members. Together they developed a strategy that they hoped would enlist the aid of the federal government in finding Retherford and the child.
The lawyers contacted the FBI and arranged a meeting between Green and its agents. Green told them that Retherford was a former member of the Weather Underground and maintained relations with Jane Alpert, at that time a fugitive. Kresky met with representatives of the U.S. attorney in New York, giving them the same information.
The matter was brought out into the open in 1976. A meeting was held at St. Gregory's Church on the Upper West Side to form the New York State Working Peoples Party, a forerunner of the New Alliance Party. A group called the Communist Cadre, which had recently split from Newman's IWP, issued a statement primarily devoted to the Retherford matter.24 They accused Newman of working with the FBI. The IWP, in an answer to the charges, admitted that the events had occurred but held three members, not Newman, responsible.25 King, however, believes that it is "unthinkable" that Kresky and Green, loyal followers, could have acted without Newman's full knowledge and approval.26
This incident raises a question fairly early on in Newman's political evolution about the seriousness of his commitment to the left and its causes. Our study of political cults complements the conclusions reached by those who have studied a broader array of cult types: they operate in the interest of their leaders rather than for the purposes they are purportedly created to promote.
A West Side Story
In 1977 Fred Newman turned his attention to the politics of New York City's Upper West Side. The area was and is among the most sophisticated liberal political strongholds in the nation. His activities caused concern among political activists. Newman's group had resurfaced as the New York City Unemployed and Welfare Council.
He caused a stir when he ran a key follower, Nancy Ross, for local school board and actually won. The startled liberal politicos decided to look a bit deeper at Newman, his past, and his current practices. Dennis King, who was later to write a book about Lyndon LaRouche,27 conducted an investigation of the group, interviewing over thirty people, including many former members. For the first time Fred Newman found himself publicly accused of leading a "therapy cult."
There are about 35 individuals in the inner circle of the cult, most living in semi-communal apartments on the Upper West Side. Through the years, a combination of group pressure and Newman's directive therapy had induced most of them to give up their jobs and to break off all meaningful personal ties outside the group. Likewise they have been induced to turn over all personal property and savings to the cult. They regard themselves as full-time organizers for the cult's front groups, operating under tight discipline and secrecy. They eat and pay their rent through a variety of parasitical activities, such as street corner solicitations, the practice of amateur psychotherapy, the dunning of past and present patients for "political contributions," and the occasional plucking of an inheritance or trust fund from a patient.28
Newman acted as a "benevolent despot," to use his own words. "Fred's veneer of compassion and his deep-set Rasputin-type eyes created strong transference feelings in . [his] patients."29
"His groupies," King explained, "cut off from the outside world and with almost every waking hour spent either in 'busywork' or interminable meetings (so that independent thought could be kept at a minimum), had no feedback from reality."30
When Nancy Ross campaigned for the school board, she insisted that the IWP had been disbanded. Newman's front organization, the New York City Unemployed and Welfare Council, issued a statement that the party had disbanded shortly after the factional struggle in 1976. However, Jack Finn, another reporter for Heights and Valley News, discovered that the IWP continued to exist in a "clandestine" fashion. It issued at least a dozen issues of an internal bulletin, "Party Building." These bulletins referred to the ongoing work of a "central committee" and of "chairman Fred Newman." There were mention of the "Party" and the "work of the Party," while the IWP was called the "apparatus."31
We believe Fred Newman concluded from his brief experience attempting to build the IWP that he had no need for an open vanguard formation. He recruited new members through therapy and gained political influence by working within other groups or creating broad front organizations. However, he did have need for a clandestine vanguard formation, based on the Leninist model and made up of core therapy patients. As we will see, there is considerable evidence that the IWP continues to exist up to the present time.
The 1977 period of activism on the Upper West Side was a learning experience for Newman and his followers. They became skilled at operating within politically ill-defined front organizations and raising funds from guilt-ridden middle-class liberals. Most of all Newman got a taste for electoral activity. This would shape the rest of his political life.
The New Alliance Party
Sometime in the late l970s Newman had the great good fortune of running into Lenora Fulani, an attractive black woman who had been raised in Pennsylvania and was earning a Ph.D. in psychology at the City University of New York. She heard Newman lecture and "was very intrigued by the progressiveness of the politics guiding his thought." She dropped her black lesbian Gestalt therapist and joined a Newmanite social therapy clinic full time.32
In 1979 Newman and Fulani formed the New Alliance Party (NAP). While the politics of the new party were purposely vague, they generally reflected a progressive agenda similar to Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition. Fulani ran as the NAP candidate for lieutenant governor of New York in 1982.
In 1984 the NAP ran Dennis Serrette, a black socialist and NAP member, for president. The party was on the ballot in thirty-three states and received 35,000 votes. A year later Serrette broke from the NAP, accusing it of having an all-white leadership that manipulated him. He took his charges to the Jackson Advocate, the only black newspaper in Mississippi. The NAP sued the paper in 1986 and lost.33
In May 1985 the NAP held its founding convention in Chicago, even though it had been formed six years earlier. Emily Carter, a black woman from Jackson, Mississippi, who called herself a "former organizer, now therapist," was elected chairperson.34 In 1988 Fulani ran for the office of president of the United States. The party qualified for ballot status in all fifty states and received nearly $1 million in federal matching funds and a respectable 217,219 votes.35
Fulani's tactics in 1992 became increasingly complicated. She began the year by entering the New Hampshire primary on the Democratic Party line. Then the Newmanites in California joined the Peace and Freedom Party and battled to capture it. While Newman lost that factional struggle, he nearly destroyed the small leftist party in the process. That spring Newman and Fulani turned their attention to the growing movement around Ross Perot, the right centrist billionaire curmudgeon. When Perot withdrew from the race in July, Fulani commented that "we've been stabbed in the back." Fulani revived her presidential bid under the NAP label. Walter Sheasby has noted:
Fulani offered herself and the Presidential campaign as the vehicle of a Perotism sans Perot.. Fulani claimed to represent "my base-the old 'New Deal' coalition base of African Americans, labor, Latinos, women and gays." And she said to the Perot followers "and there you are. In the radical and independent Perot base lies the potential for a new majority coalition."36
The NAP once again qualified for ballot status in all fifty states, and this time it received $2 million in federal matching funds. Fulani received 73,708 votes, a considerable decline from 1988 and no doubt part of the reason Newman turned toward Perot.
A Washington, D.C., newspaper has exposed the complexity of Newman's financial maneuvers that year. This involved running in the New Hampshire Democratic primary, where Fulani received only 402 votes out of 167,900 cast. She then switched tactics, running in several small party primaries, including California's Peace and Freedom. Finally she ran on the NAP ticket. The total budget for primary activity alone was $4,161,495, which included the matching funds.
Interestingly, some $901,495 of this money "went to organizations that share offices, phones, and leadership with the NAP." This permitted a process of "double-dipping," whereby members of the NAP, working for various front organizations, were paid with campaign funds and in turn made campaign contributions that qualified for federal matching funds. While campaign funds are required by law to be spent on campaigning or returned to donors, the NAP, by spending a large portion of its funds on individuals and organizations associated with Newman, saw to it that the core group prospered. For example, "Fred Newman Productions received $68,925 in retainers for Newman's services as campaign manager."37
Life Among the Newmanites
Loren Redwood, a lesbian who fell in love with a Newmanite, told her story in a letter to a gay newspaper in San Francisco:
My experience with NAP was a nightmare. I am a white, working class lesbian and met NAP in Indiana where I was living at the time. NAP was in Indiana petitioning to put Fulani's name on the ballot there. I was so excited and so moved to find that a black woman was running for president that I immediately began working for the campaign. I also fell in love with a woman working on the campaign. When it came time for NAP to leave Indiana, she asked me to go with them, and I did.. I was given 48 hours to prepare. I quit my job, left my home, my friends, put my belongings in storage, found a home for my pet, and gave the use of my car to NAP in exchange for their taking over the payments..
As a working class lesbian, I thought I had finally found a political movement which included me. What I found instead was an oppressive, disempowering, misogynistic machine. All my decisions were made for me by someone else. I was told where to go, and who to go with. I worked seven days a week-sixteen to twenty hours a day (I had two days off in two and a half months). There was an incredible urgency which overrode any personal needs or considerations, an urgency that meant complete self-sacrifice.. I felt totally powerless over my life, forced into a very submissive role where all control of my life belonged to someone else. I had given up everything for the campaign, my job, my home and my support system, I felt desperate.
Another strange aspect of NAP is what they call social therapy. This is political therapy founded by Fred Newman.. [I]t was expected that I enter social therapy and I did attend a few sessions.. My position on political issues was dictated to me by NAP-independent thought was discouraged. We were all part of something bigger than ourselves and were of one mind. I felt personally threatened, like I was being absorbed into something and was losing myself.. I was completely exhausted, so tired I was unable to work well. Being unable to work I had no income, as I was expected to raise my salary myself in addition to raising money for the campaign.. I was very frightened. I was in a strange city, I knew no one really except my lover, who couldn't help me: I had no job, no home and no money. At this point I was feeling very suicidal.
It's been four months since I left the campaign and I am putting my life back together piece by piece.38
This report is interesting in a number of respects. First, it documents one method of recruitment to the Newmanite cult: a person is attracted to one of the political projects sponsored by Newman, in this case the NAP, and is then urged to take group therapy. Only those who combine political activism with therapy are considered solid core members of the group.
Second, we are given a picture of the intensity and time-consuming nature of the group's political activity. Loren Redwood felt "an incredible sense of urgency which overrode any personal needs." This in turn has a disorienting and numbing effect upon the recruit. Her feelings and experience is identical to that reported to us by members of such groups as the Workers Revolutionary Party, the Militant Group, the Democratic Workers Party, and the LaRoucheites. It helps explain how a politically oriented cult can produce the same degree of total control over members as religious cults.
Third, the Newmanites carry out a practice that is common among religious cults but not used as extensively by political cults. This is having members quit their jobs, move into common quarters with other members, and solicit funds from the public to support the organization as well as themselves. This increases the recruit's isolation from civil society as well as his or her dependence upon the group for survival. We have found this practice among the LaRoucheites (chapter 5), NATLFED (chapter 12), and Synanon (chapter 8).
Not all recruits have joined the cult through political activity and been steered toward social therapy. Many seek out therapy because of emotional disturbances, only to find themselves sucked into Newmanite political groups. Berlet reported this experience of an East Coast Latina activist:
I first came into contact with the Social Therapy Institutes through a friend who said there was a group that offered therapy for people with progressive views so I went to see what they offered..
Before and after the therapy session, they would say "why not sell the newspaper" or "maybe you could do us a favor and hand out those leaflets." The therapy offices were full of their political propaganda. In the group therapy sometimes we discussed politics and their political party.
Some people get involved because they think the political work will help them get better emotionally. They told us societal problems are making people ill and the New Alliance Party is going to change things so people get better.39
M. Ortiz, a single mother living in the Bronx, became involved in social therapy in 1985 in a similar fashion.
The trouble wasn't "in our head," but "in the world," we learned.. Through Social Therapy, I was conditioned to relate to my personal history in exclusively political terms. My family's problems and subsequent poverty-and all my suffering-were all the result of the government's imperialist invasion of Puerto Rico.. But consciousness-raising in itself was not enough. Our individual development and growth, we were told, was dependent upon the group's.
Only by embracing this psycho-therapeutic doctrine could I hope to change what it meant to be a "poor, working-class Puerto-Rican woman.." [T]he "cure" for my depression and anxiety was ultimately conditional upon my becoming a serious political activist.
When I finally left the cult in July of 1990-after finally becoming disgusted with the totalitarian internal structure which, in my opinion, basically relies on slave labor for profit in the name of justice and empowerment-I had to literally rebuild my life.40
Individual distress is manipulated to transform the patient into a political activist under the total control of the therapist or the revolutionary leader. The new "family" of fellow cultists replaces the traditional family and friends. The followers become completely dependent upon Newman for their sense of self-esteem. "When Newman was happy, everyone was happy," commented one former member. "When he was angry, everyone was terrified."41
Organic Leaders: Jackson, Farrakhan, Sharpton
Antonio Gramsci originated the concept of the "organic intellectual." In contrast to "traditional intellectuals," such as clerics, teachers, and other professionals, Gramsci believed each social class created organically out of its own members a stratum capable of generalizing that class's historic mission and projecting its hegemony over society as a whole. Since he believed that the capability of being an intellectual is in all human beings, he was convinced that the working class could and would develop its own organic intellectuals. This aspect of his thinking could be interpreted as more democratic than Lenin's approach.
Lenin-particularly in What Is to Be Done?-advocated building a party composed exclusively of full-time professional revolutionaries drawn from the traditional intellectuals. This vanguard would bring socialism from "outside" the working class into the proletarian milieu. It matters little the degree to which Lenin may or may not have modified this view in a later period. What is critical is that so many on the left, including virtually all cultists, have been influenced by this vanguardist "from the outside" theory. Newman learned his Lenin from LaRouche.42
Fred Newman operated on the basis of both concepts of leadership. He viewed his core group as a vanguard formation, made up overwhelmingly of white, middle-class, traditional intellectuals. His elite members were professionals in two ways: They largely worked full time for Newmanite fronts, and, in many cases, they were professional therapists.
Newman's concept of "organic leaders," borrowed from Gramsci, was given a decidedly undemocratic twist. For Newman the term "organic" became a code word meaning "people of color." Organic leaders were therefore prominent black spokespersons with real bases of support in the black community and wide media recognition. He embraced these "organic leaders" uncritically, but they were just so much window dressing to be used as a way of advancing the interests of the secretive vanguard made up of white traditional intellectuals. The result was a manipulative and undemocratic relationship.
The Newmanites' first major foray into organizing around an "organic leader" involved support of Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition and his 1984 and 1988 Democratic Party presidential bids. Declaring "Two Roads Are Better Than One," Lenora Fulani announced support of Jackson while at the same time fielding her own independent candidacy under the New Alliance Party banner.43 Then, in an interesting and self-serving twist, the Newmanites organized the Rainbow Lobby. The group, headed by Nancy Ross, had almost the same name as Jackson's organization and an identical program. However, it was not authorized by Jackson, was totally controlled by Newman, and raised its own independent funds to the tune of more than $1 million a year.44 In 1992 the Lobby was closed down and the lobbying firm Ross and Green was formed. The "Ross" of Ross and Green is the very same Nancy Ross, former school board member from the Upper West Side and head of the Rainbow Lobby.45 The "Green" was Ann Green, whom we met earlier working with the FBI. [Correction: Deborah Greene co-founded Ross & Green, it was not Ann Green.]
The next "Organic Leader" to catch Newman and Fulani's attention was Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam, noted for his anti-Semitic rantings. This is particularly interesting because, in the LaRouche cohabitation period, Newman shared NCLC's extremely hostile (bordering on racist) attitude toward black nationalists. The NAP moved its national headquarters to Chicago in order to be closer to Farrakhan. In 1995, after Newman's dissolution of the NAP and turn toward Perot, he ran a full page advertisement in the Village Voice entitled "Never Again! A New Pledge for the Jewish Community," saluting the Million Man March. It featured a photo of Newman, Farrakhan, and Fulani, and was signed "Dr. Fred Newman, Convenor, Jews for Farrakhan."46
Soon Newman added the Reverend Al Sharpton to the organic roster. Sharpton developed a particularly close relationship to the Newmanites during the period he was conducting confrontational marches through Howard Beach and promoting Tawana Brawley, whose tale of rape by white assailants has been proved to be a fabrication. Sharpton has developed a reputation as an anti-white demagogue and has clashed with New York City's Jewish community. The Newmanites even rented office space to Sharpton and put him on their payroll as a $12,000 a year consultant.47
Noting the connections with Farrakhan and Sharpton, Dennis King wrote in 1992 that the NAP has "unsevered ties to anti-Semitism." Newman is Jewish but this did not prevent him from saying that "Jews 'as a people' have made a pact with 'the devil' to serve as the 'storm-troopers of decadent capitalism against people of color the world over.'"48
Overall the Newmanites gained a high profile and significant membership growth in the decade between 1982 and 1992. Newman expanded his base beyond the Upper West Side with therapy centers throughout New York City, as well as in Boston; Chicago; Los Angeles; San Francisco; Pennsylvania; New Jersey; Washington, D.C.; Jackson, Mississippi; and elsewhere. During its first ten years of operations Newman's core group numbered between thirty and forty people. By the end of the next decade, Newman had several hundred core followers and significant political influence. In 1992 NAP-related businesses employed fifty-six people and brought in at least $3.5 million a year. The East Side Institute for Social Therapy alone reported sales in excess of $400,000 a year.49
Lenora Fulani was a popular, media-savvy spokesperson who received considerable, and largely favorable, press attention. The potent combination of the NAP election campaigns with high-profile identification with Jackson, Farrakhan, and Sharpton made Lenora Fulani a well-known public figure. However, the political winds were shifting to the right. Discontent in America was finding a new path for expression: Ross Perot. Was this tiny white billionaire with his folksy manners and Texan twang a new "organic leader?" If so, of what class?
A Pact with Ross Perot
Beginning in 1992 Ross Perot developed a movement around his quixotic personality. He drew almost exclusively from whites, was particularly popular with small businessmen and people who lived in smaller cities and towns, and pulled support almost equally from the Democratic and Republican parties. His politics were generally right of center. He was anti-government, strongly against political action committees (PACs), and for electoral reform; he favored a balanced budget and welfare reform. Perhaps his most popular position was his strong stance against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). His economic nationalism gained him some support among workers hurt by job competition from south of the border. Many voted for him because he was very rich and therefore beholden to no special interests (except, of course, himself). The Perot movement definitely represented a radical departure from the traditional two-party system. However, there is no evidence that this departure was in a left direction.
In 1993, immediately after the 1992 elections, Fulani met with Nicholas Sabatine III, a small-town Pennsylvania attorney, and helped form the Patriot Party. In April 1994 the NAP officially dissolved into the Patriot Party. The National Patriot Party was formed with Sabatine as national chair and Fulani as chair for New York State. The apparatus of the Patriot Party was, for all intents and purposes, controlled by the Newmanites.50 The Patriot Party was, to quote Fulani, "based on the principles of democracy, fiscal responsibility, government accountability and a deep commitment to inclusivity and diversity." Many on the left view "fiscal responsibility" as a code meaning cuts in benefits to the poor. According to Sabatine the party supported privatization of Social Security and a flat tax, hardly progressive positions.51
In 1994 Fulani ran in the New York State Democratic primary against Governor Mario Cuomo. She received 142,000 votes, or 21 percent of the vote. She then switched her support to businessman Tom Golisano, helping to create the Independence Party. That party received 217,000 votes.52 The Independence Party, like the Patriot Party, was a forerunner of the Reform Party.
In 1996, Ross Perot, who had resisted forming a third party, preferring to run as an independent, permitted the formation of the Reform Party. The problem facing Perot was how to get his party on the ballot in all fifty states in order to qualify for federal matching funds. His supporters were, by and large, enthusiastic but disorganized and politically untrained. Newman came to the rescue, throwing his cultists once again into a grueling nationwide ballot drive. Russell J. Verney, national coordinator of the Reform Party and a Perot confidante, stated to the New York Times in 1996 that "Mr. Perot was aware and appreciative of the role Ms. Fulani and Dr. Newman have played in helping the Reform Party. 'They are just one voice in a very big group of individuals.'"53
At Newman's and Fulani's urging, the Patriot Party and the New York Independence Party affiliated with the Reform Party. Verney recalled that, faced with the need to get 90,000 voters registered in the Reform Party in California, he called Jim Mangia, the chairman of that state's Patriot Party. Mangia was formerly a member of the New Alliance Party. Having succeeded in registering 120,000 voters, Mangia was made secretary of the state Reform Party.54 In 1999 he assumed the same post in the national party.
In 1997 Richard Lamb, who was defeated by Ross Perot in his effort to become the Reform Party's presidential candidate, split away to form the American Reform Party. "They resented what they said was autocratic management of the party from Dallas," the Chicago Tribune reported. "In Illinois, additional resentment had grown over the presence in the party's governing structure of former supporters of Lenora Fulani and the largely defunct New Alliance Party."55
In 1998 Lenora Fulani organized the Democracy Slate of candidates for the State Committee of the Independence Party. Both Fulani and Newman were on that slate. She took over control of the party and then ran as the party's candidate for Lieutenant Governor.56 The Independence Party's platform calls for "fiscal conservatism." It states, "Wherever possible, we prefer to minimize the role of government, transferring needed activities into the private sector through privatization." It favors an alteration of civil service requirements to make it easier to discharge government workers, a one-year New York residency requirement for welfare benefits, no welfare for illegal aliens, public funding for private schools, and more cops.57
From early on Newman has displayed little interest in the political programs of the parties he participated in, such as the Democratic Party; or set up and controlled, as in the case of the NAP; or supported, like Farrakhan and Sharpton. Still, until 1994, all his political machinations involved figures and parties generally considered to be on the left of American politics. Since there is nothing even faintly liberal or progressive, not to mention socialist, about the politics of the Reform Party and affiliates, what trick of dialectics did Newman employ to justify his moving into the Perot movement?
Bill Lynch, an aide to former New York City Mayor David Dinkins came up with a cynical answer: "We could never figure out what the New Alliance agenda was. The one common thread was that they were always trying to move in and take over someone else's political operation."58
Alliance with Pat Buchanan
Political relations between the Newmanites and Pat Buchanan date back to 1996. In an article entitled "Black Empowerment: What Does the New Populism Mean for African-Americans?" Fulani claimed that Buchanan was being "demonized," comparing him to Louis Farrakhan, Ross Perot, and Jesse Jackson. Buchanan's views were characterized as "anti-government, anti-big business, pro-people." Fulani saw the Reform Party as "populist, not centrist," a populism that "cuts across the traditional labels of right, center and left."59 She and Newman had already prepared the theoretical groundwork (read: rationalization) for embracing Buchanan as a candidate for president on the Reform Party ticket.
Chip Berlet is one of the few political commentators to note Fulani's shift to the right and to begin to develop a theoretical understanding of its broader implications. He notes that the extreme right wing has developed a "producerist narrative" which pits "hard-working productive middle-class and working-class" people against a rich elite and a socially parasitic welfare class. This movement is sometimes called "Middle American Nationalism" or the "Radical Center" or "Middle American Radicals." It is narrowly nationalist and isolationist, opposes free trade, and is against big government and business. However, it also tends to be homophobic, racist, sexist, and anti-Semitic.60 Some leftists have become confused by the "anti-war" and anti-globalist demagogy of these rightists. Fulani and Newman are contributing to that confusion.
Buchanan's interest in Newman and Fulani stems from their power within the Reform Party as well as from the proven ability of their cult followers to put the party on state ballots. At the 1999 Dearborn Convention of the Reform Party, Lenora Fulani received 45 percent of the vote for the position of vice-chair.61 They dominate the New York, Illinois, and California parties, and have extensive influence elsewhere.
Fulani and Newman have thrown their considerable support behind Pat Buchanan's primary campaign. On November 11, 1999, Fulani announced that she would serve as co-chair of Buchanan's campaign. "In traditional political terms, Pat Buchanan stands for all things that black progressives such as myself revile," Fulani stated. "So how can we get to be standing here together with me endorsing his candidacy? Because we have a common interest in overthrowing the traditional political terms."62 We are reminded of the German Communist Party in the early 1930s, which campaigned using the slogan "Hitler First, Then Us." There never was a second.
Fulani has framed Buchanan as "a mighty powerful spokesperson for issues of political reform" whose appeal goes "beyond ideology ... beyond issues of left, center and right."63 When asked on Cable News Network (CNN) about Buchanan's views on gay rights and abortion, she said that she could overlook them because Buchanan "can play a role as a unifier, bring everybody together."64 In another interview Fulani said "We're hoping he gets 10 to 15 percent of the vote." Newman added that such a result "keeps the dollars coming in, and it keeps us as America's major minor party." When asked what would happen if Buchanan actually won the presidency, Newman cynically answered "Then we're all in trouble."65
It seems quite clear from the above that the Newmanite support for Buchanan is rooted more in opportunism than in ideology. This fits with a pattern of political opportunism that goes back for decades. Their past support for Farrakhan despite his anti-Semitism prepared them for their current role in Buchanan's camp. Hard as it is to believe, the core members of this group, believing themselves to be progressives, even Marxists, will carry out Newman's instructions to advance the agenda of a man whose most recent book claims it was a mistake to oppose Hitler.
The Clandestine Party
We have noted that in 1976 Newman claimed to have dissolved the International Workers Party. However, a reporter on the Upper West Side discovered that the party was never actually dissolved. The evidence suggests that the IWP continues to exist today. Cathy Hollandberg-Serrette, who left the NAP in 1985 with Dennis Serrette, reported that, at the time she left, "the IWP was alive and well with about 150 members in NAP." Sheila McCue, who was associated with Serrette, also confirmed the existence of the IWP.66 M. Ortiz reported that in the period between 1985 and 1990: "I was drawn in the group's underground web of pseudo-revolutionary cult activity-The International Workers Party.. Once indoctrinated, most IWP cadre are immediately divested of all assets and assigned mandatory fundraising quotas (ranging from $75-300 per week), and bi-weekly IWP 'dues,' which combined with Social Therapy fees, ranges from 15-30% of their income."67 Wittes referred in 1994 to "a sub-rosa political core made up of the underground remnants of a self-declared Marxist-Leninist revolutionary organization." He stated that "at least five ex-members confirmed the continued existence of the IWP.."68
The New York Times interviewed Newman in 1996, describing him as "a 61-year-old white-bearded man who looks like Santa Claus after a bohemian makeover." The interview took place in a loft in downtown Manhattan "scattered with mementos of Ché Guevara." Newman came up with an interesting explanation for his support of the Reform Party: "It's like the left going into unions controlled by gangsters. You have a chance to make a statement to the rank and file, and then maybe you can do something about the gangsters."69
This indicates that Newman still thinks like the Leninist operator he was in the days of LaRouche. His cadres, his comment suggests, sustain a long- term "left" goal. The route has turned out to be more circuitous than it had originally appeared to be in his "Marxist-Leninist-Maoist" days. Yet they believe that, someday and somehow, world progress is being served. In the meantime his therapeutically enslaved minions operate within the Reform Party and, in some places, control its apparatus. Political influence and power clearly please Newman and Fulani, while activism keeps the client/organizers busy, their minds empty, and their loyalties guaranteed.
The potential danger in this situation is not to be ignored. After all, Jesse Ventura, a wrestler, ran on the Reform Party ticket in Minnesota in 1998 and won, becoming governor. Considering the public's disgust with the two major parties, it is not to be excluded that the Reform Party can win again. That could place parasitic Newmanites into positions of influence. Once in power, their allegiance would not be to the voters but to their guru Fred Newman. The Newmanites' support for Pat Buchanan has already had the negative and dangerous effect of assisting a right-wing demagogue in channeling legitimate dissatisfaction in a fascistic direction.
Today, in addition to his secretive political activities, Fred Newman considers himself a playwright. He is also the artistic director of the Castillo Theater, an "interactive growth theater," which is a form of therapy directed toward people of color. He is the director of training at the East Side Institute for Short Term Psychotherapy and has written several books that are featured at his Castillo Bookstore. He operates the West Coast Center for Social Therapy in San Francisco and similar centers in Los Angeles, Chicago, and other cities. He describes these centers as "a unique 'laboratory'-the 25-year-old development community of thousands of people who are living more developmental and joyous lives and helping thousands more to do so."70
For all the deprivations he has demanded over the years from his followers, he, like other gurus, is not living that badly himself. In the fall of 1993 he purchased, together with long-time member Susan Massad, a large Greenwich Village brownstone at 60 Bank Street for $928,000. Revolution combined with therapy can be profitable.
Conclusion: New Age Leninism
It should come as no surprise that Fred Newman, Lenora Fulani, and other spokespeople for the group do not share our assessment that they run a cult. In fact in 1993 they took legal action against the FBI for characterizing them as a "political/cult organization."71 Lenora Fulani stated that "the word 'cult' is a weapon, a murderously vicious, anti-democratic weapon used to attack people who are different in any way: religiously, politically, culturally or otherwise.. There is no such thing as a cult [emphasis in original]."72 At the time Fulani and Newman's lobbying arm, Ross and Green, was running a campaign in defense of the Branch Davidians after the Waco disaster.
Of course, if cults do not exist, then the Newmanites could not possibly be a cult. The difficulty with this position comes when we confront events like the Jonestown massacre or the more recent Heaven's Gate suicides. Are we dealing in these cases simply with people who are "different," or is there something more sinister involved, which requires serious inquiry?
Fulani and Newman's defense of religious cults like the Branch Davjdians,73 is a recognition of a commonality with them. In other words, if Fulani is wrong and cults do exist, then her statement represents a form of identification with the world of cults. What she is really saying is that these groups are just "different" like us.
A study of the Newmanites deepens our understanding of other political cults as well as the cult phenomenon as a whole. This is because Fred Newman's therapeutic approach exposes the essential mechanisms of mind control utilized, though not necessarily admitted to, by all cults. The Newmanites display another interesting feature. Their preservation, though in clandestine fashion, of a Leninist cadre organization, suggests the usefulness of vanguard ideology to political cults. LaRouche, for example, has sustained this side of his thinking during his travel to the extreme right of the political spectrum (see chapter 5).
This outlook has contributed to the manipulative nature of their political activity. Newman, particularly after his LaRouchian period, has been relatively unconcerned with the content of politics, while becoming extremely adept at its practice. This has permitted him to support anti-Semitic black leaders, build a vaguely defined left party, run in Democratic Party primaries, support the right centrist Reform Party, and finally assist Pat Buchanan in his presidential bid. Politics is conceived as something to be practiced to achieve influence and power as well as to lead to growth of his core group.
Newman has become a New Age Leninist. While his group has been wildly successful when we look at its meager beginnings in a West Side apartment, it does have its limits. The Newmanites have learned better than most political cults how to successfully manipulate the American political arena and the media. Yet they remain a small group. One estimate does not give them more than a hundred core members today.74 However, these members are highly skilled political operatives, hard-working and motivated, and they function with lockstep discipline. Newman has done considerable political damage in the past. Given the state of politics in the United States, he may emerge as a serious threat to democratic processes in the future.
Notes
1. B. Shapiro, "Buchanan-Fulani: New Team?" Nation, November 1, 1999, P. 21.
2. D. King, "West Side 'Therapy Cult' Conceals Its True Aims," Heights and Valley News, November 1977, p. 14.
3. C. Berlet, Clouds Blue the Rainbow: The Other Side of the New Alliance Party (Cambridge, MA: Political Research Associates. December 1987).
4. F. Newman, Power and Authority: The Inside View of Class Struggle (New York: Centers for Change, 1974), p. 1.
5. Berlet, Clouds, p. 3.
6. Newman, Power, p. vi.
7. Berlet, Clouds, p. 3.
8. Newman, Power, p. xvi.
9. Ibid., p. xii.
10. Ibid., p. xii-xii.
11. Right on Time, May II, 1974. This was the publication of Newman's Center for Change.
12. Right on Time, March 7, 1974.
13. Newman, Power, p. 113.
14. Ibid., p. 3.
15. Ibid., before p. 1.
16. Ibid., p. 113
17. Ibid., p. 112.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid., p. 74.
20. Ibid., p. 112.
21. Ibid., p. 123.
22. Z Magazine, May 1989.
23. W.C. Sheasby, A Brief History of Coalition: Third Parties and the Rocky Road to the White House (Sierra Madre, CA, 1996). Sheasby was a Green Party congressional candidate in California's twenty-seventh district.
24. Press release issued by Workers and Oppressed Unite, dated May 2, 1976.
25. "IWP Admits Snitching To FBI!" undated statement issued by the above group sometime shortly after May 5, 1976.
26. King, "West Side 'Therapy Cult,'" p. 16.
27. D. King, Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism (New York: Doubleday, 1989).
28. King, "West Side 'Therapy Cult,'" p. 14.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid., pp. 14-18.
31. J. Finn, "Proof: Therapy Cultists Lied to Community," Heights and Valley News (New York), holiday season, 1977, p. 18.
32. B. Shapiro, "Dr. Fulani's Snake-Oil Show," Nation, May 4, 1992, p. 586.
33. Ibid., 587.
34. Berlet, Clouds, p. 1.
35. L. Fulani, Lenora s Political History, http://www.fulani.org.
36. Sheasby, Brief, p. 4.
37. B. Wittes, "Lenora and the Money-Go-Round," Washington City Paper (Washington, DC), July 8, 1994.
38. Coming Up! (San Francisco), January 1989.
39. Berlet, Clouds, p. 7.
40. "Statement Issued by M. Ortiz" (Cult Awareness Network Meeting, New York, June 16, 1993).
41. Shapiro, "Snake Oil," p. 592.
42. A. Gramsci, The Modern Prince and Other Writings (New York: International, 1957), pp. 118-125; G. Vacca, "Intellectuals and the Marxist State," in Approaches to Gramsci, ed. Anne Showstack Sassoon (London: Writers and Readers, 1982) pp. 63-67.
43. Berlet, Clouds, p. 7.
44. Ibid., p. 9.
45. J. and T. R. Goldman Cohen, "Controversial Lobbyists Stirring Up Waco Fight," Legal Times (Washington, DC), May 2, 1994.
46. "Never Again!" Village Voice (New York): November 5, 1995, p. 5.
47. Shapiro, "Snake Oil," p. 587.
48. D. King, letter to the editor, New York Times, August 13, 1992.
49. Shapiro, "Snake Oil," p. 587.
50. Sheasby, Brief History, p. 2.
51. F. Bruni, "Perot and Populist Group See Benefits in an Alliance," New York Times, August 21, 1996.
52. Fulani, History, p. 2.
53. Bruni, "Perot."
54. Ibid.
55. R. Worthington, "Ex-Perot Stalwarts Establish New Party," Chicago Tribune, October 6, 1997.
56. L. Fulani, The Democracy Slate, http://www.fulani.org.
57. The Platform of the Independence Party of New York, http://www.fulani.org.
58. Bruni, "Perot."
59. Originally posted online circa February 1996 by the Committee for a Unified Independent Party. See http://www.publiceye.org.
60. Buchanan, Fulani, Perot and the Reform Party, http://www.publiceye.org.
61. Shapiro, "Buchanan."
62. S. McCaffrey, "Lenora Fulani Endorses Buchanan," Associated Press, November 12, 1999.
63. Ibid.
64. "Reform Party Warming to Buchanan," Washington Post, September 20, 1999.
65. J. Bennet, "The Cable Guys," New York Times Magazine, October 24, 1999, p. 79.
66. T. Kingston, "The Seedy Side of the Rainbow," in Coming Up! (San Francisco), November 1988.
67. See note 40.
68. Wittes, "Money Go Round."
69. Bruni, "Perot."
70. Posted on the Internet at http://webpsych and at http://www.pond.com.
71. Ross and Green, What Is the Cult Awareness Network and What Role Did It Play in Waco? (Washington, DC: WRS, 1993), p. 10.
72. L. Fulani, We Must Stand Up for Democracy! (New York: Castillo Communications, May 23, 1993).
73. M. Breault, and M. King, Inside the Cult (New York: Signet, 1993); B. Bailey and B. Darden, Mad Man in Waco (Waco, TX: WRS, 1993).
74. Shapiro, "Buchanan," p. 22.
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